Chapter 1524: This Crown Is Mine

"No," I grumbled.

"Boss!!! Pleeeeeeaaaase!"

"No."

"Please, Boss!! Pleaseeeee!!"

"I already said no. It’s so... Tacky..."

"But that’s the point, Boss!! That would help with your appearance even more!!"

The other girls nodded their heads as well.

"I agree with that, Aster. This is the whole point of our current plan isn’t it? There’s no reason for us to worry about this! Besides... Mmm... You look so sexy~"

"I... I agree as well, Big Sister... And.. And I think it... It actually looks good on you..."

"It is my humble opinion that it suits you as well, Mistress."

"Ah... Umm... I also think that you look good in it... Aster..."

Ugh... If even Tiara, Katsuki and Delmare were agreeing on this... There’s not really anything else I could say...

Lisa? Well... She thinks I look good in anything and I bet if I took off my clothes, she would have said I looked even better. That’s why I can’t exactly trust her words.

I let out a sigh, "Alright... Fine... I’ll wear it..."

I took out the [Crown of the Lonely King] and placed it on my head, the artefact automatically reshaping itself to fit around my head to settle around my temple.

I should be glad that it wasn’t one of those really gaudy crowns that stretched up above your head but more like a circlet with a large decorative frame where the jewels and gems could rest on.

Honestly... I would call this a tiara instead but well... The full name of this artefact called it a crown so that’s what I’ll call it.

I turned to my girls, only to see that they were all giving me looks of rapture like they just saw something extraordinary for some reason.

I frowned, "I knew it, I look ridiculous, don’t I?"

"No!!!" My girls all shouted out at the exact same time.

They then spent the next few minutes assuring me that I looked beautiful and that the crown was fated to be on my head and such.

I decided to just let them have that satisfaction before I led the way towards the stairs that would lead us out onto the surface.

As we stepped out of the Dungeon, it was already close to evening as we had spent an entire day in that Dungeon.

Ironically, more time was spent testing out the artefacts than actually going through the Dungeon.

Even though it was this late, there were still people that were heading towards the Dungeon, though the crowd that were heading out from the Dungeon towards the teleporter had more people at least.

As I led the way, I noticed numerous gazes all directed towards me.

Before this, I was already getting attention because of the egg I was carrying and now... There’s this gaudy crown on my head which no doubt attracted even more attention to me than before.

Already, I could see the numerous people staring wide eyed at me, their gazes shifting to the egg in my arms to the crown on my head.

I managed to ignore them and made use of my authority projection skill to ensure I appeared as dignified as possible.

Now I wonder how those royals walk around wearing such a thing on their heads without feeling self conscious...

When we teleported back to the Dungeon Nexus, the reactions of the people around were the same as they gawked at the crown I was now wearing on my head.

As we approached the counter to report our return from the Dungeon, the Dungeon staff, a female Mahun, took one look at my head and gaped at the crown I was wearing.

"Is that... Is that what I think it is?"

I managed to maintain my dignified appearance as I tilted my chin at her, "How would I know what you are thinking about?"

She quickly lowered her head slightly in embarrassment, "Ah, forgive me. What I meant to ask is if that is the Crown of the Lonely King?"

"Oh? You know what it is?"

"So it really is? You have managed to find out what the hidden criteria is to access that place? Which Dungeon is it and what are the conditions?"

Feels like it’s one surprise after the other right now... First she recognises the artefact, second she’s over here asking about the details of how to get the artefact...

Thankfully, I didn’t need to answer her as Emilia stepped forward to make her presence known.

"Ahem... I take it that this artefact was in circulation before?" She asked, acting casual.

The staff shifted her attention towards Emilia with an excited nod, "Yes! There once was a Dungeoneer party who managed to obtain it! However, they had refused to share where and how it was obtained aside from the fact that it was from fulfilling a hidden condition within one of the Dungeons! If you are willing to share it, we would be willing to pay the price to obtain that information!"

Huh... So someone else managed to get it?

Actually, I’m more surprised that not a lot of people managed to figure out the hidden condition to obtain this thing. It’s pretty easy to get it, isn’t it?

All you have to do is just fight those floor bosses instead of doing what they asked you to--- Oh...

I just realised... That was a D ranked Dungeon... So only D Ranked Dungeoneers would be hunting in there...

And I assume that for most of them, they would aim to hunt on that one specific floor where there were a lot of monsters for them to farm materials on so they don’t go all the way down to the boss floor.

I’m also willing to bet that the hidden condition required the party to head through the entire Dungeon in a single seating and since most people are there just to farm materials, they would just leave once they are done and only newcomers would start from the first floor while the others would just start on the second last floor.

And on the off chance that some Dungeoneer party actually attacks all these floor bosses and fulfill the hidden condition to get to the hidden boss... They would just be a D ranked Dungeoneer party who stumbled upon a Lich King that was way out of their league.

Most likely, they would then perish and I’m guessing some kind of rumour started spreading around that if you were to go against the floor bosses instead of fulfilling their requests, you might end up dead so everyone just decided to follow the rules and never tried to challenge the floor bosses again.

Then I guess we came along where we were only going through the Dungeon in order to get the new Dungeoneers of our party to a higher Dungeoneer rank so that we could challenge the other higher ranked Dungeons.

In addition to that, I was also trying to act all villainous which made me decide not to queue up and to just go against the convention instead.

All these factors really just ended up lining up perfectly which resulted in us stumbling upon the hidden condition for the Dungeon boss.

"When was the last time someone managed to obtain this artefact?" I asked.

She tapped on her cheek, "Hmm... I believe it was more than a decade ago. I wasn’t here when it happened and only heard about it from my seniors. But having a hidden Dungeon here was a big deal so I remembered it."

"Do you know who has the other one?"

She shook her head, "Unfortunately not. It happened while I was not a Guild staff member here after all. So... Are you willing to sell us this information?"

Emilia turned to me, clearly asking me if I was ok with spreading this information around.

I thought about it for a moment.

These artefacts are certainly powerful... And honestly speaking, the staff is quite overpowered with the fact that it could shift people into another dimensional space and trap them there.

Granted, the wielder will also have to be in that space as well, but one would be able to trap anyone they want inside it.

Imagine the other person who has this staff challenges my party and then just goes ahead to use the staff and trap my girls one by one inside the dimensional space where my girls are outnumbered by them and they get to do whatever they want with the one who was trapped with them.

And now I imagine a whole bunch of other people also obtaining this staff...

Yeah, no thanks... That’s not going to happen if I can help it.

I turned towards Emilia and shook my head.

She gave me a nod of understanding before turning to the staff member, "I’m afraid we will also choose not to sell the information about this as well and ask that you respect our decision."

The staff member seemed disappointed but it looked like she had expected such an answer to begin with as she nodded her head, "I understand. In that case, I shall mark that you and your party have returned safely. Congratulations on your success."

That’s nice.

At least I don’t have to worry about a whole bunch of other people running around with these two artefacts.

Yep... I would have been willing to sell that information away if it wasn’t for the fact that these two artefacts were apparently guaranteed drops for that particular Dungeon.