A few hours later, Iris finally returned to the mayor's office. It has been a long day. She had to preside over the prize ceremony and attend the celebratory feast consisting mainly of the slaughtered beasts.

'The day is finally over...'

She sat at her desk. Venus and Mars, her two strongest monsters sat in front of her.

"What are you planning to do now that you have the information you wanted about Christopher?" asked Venus.

Iris browsed through her inventory and took out a small document. A projection appeared in front of her, displaying all the information Gaia had about Five: The location of his dungeon, the monsters present on each floor, his level and skills, and even a track record of what he went through since the start of the game.

"Oh! I know that harpy. I saw her about a week ago," exclaimed Venus as Harriet's figure was projected.

"You saw her? Who is she?"

"I believe she is the strongest monster Christopher has. She is a Harpy Queen. She is stronger than me. She was riding a Thunder Eagle and as she was going to fly above our town, I stopped her. At that time, I asked her to join us, but she refused, saying that she already belonged to a dungeon. I did not think her master would actually be Christopher."

Mars' eyes lit up. "Interesting! I would like to spar with her."

"You aren't her match. If even Venus says she cannot beat her, what would you be able to do against her?" commented Iris. She briefly read through the rest of the document.

"I have decided. Let's put up a quest tomorrow and send some adventurers to look for Vampire Teeth and Blood. We can direct them toward his dungeon. That's the only way I can help him. We are just too far away from each other. It should take at least two weeks to get there."

Venus frowned. "What? We just completed the adventurer guild's building and now, you already want to send people away? That is harming ourselves. He does not deserve your help!"

"Venus. I already told you at the beginning. I am doing all of this to help him. His dungeon is so far away from the empire's towns. How is he supposed to get any players to his dungeon? I will just send a few for now. Once we expand our influence, I will find other ways to help him."

Venus crossed her arms. "Hmmp. Just do whatever you want. When it comes to him, you've never listened to me anyway."

"Thank you, Venus. Don't worry, I won't neglect the development of Venetia," said Iris.

She briefly looked at the document one last time before putting it away. "Now that we have this out of the way, let us talk about the other issues that popped up."

"I heard from the other succubi that the arena is almost completed. We will let Karyn take care of it. With the new update, we won't be receiving as much DP from our shopping and entertainment district. But the arena is the perfect solution; there, the adventurers would take enough damage to give us a substantial amount of DP. The best part would be that they would fight each other. Mars, I am counting on you. Look after Karyn and help her become the Queen of the arena. We'll need someone who appears to be a random adventurer."

"As for the matter of Count Desmonds... Venus, you need to send in more succubi to gather information. He has been awfully quiet since I refused to be annexed to his town. I feel like he is preparing something."

...

At the same time, Five finally decided to get out of his bed. When he returned to his dungeon, he locked his room and slept for the rest of the day. His mood was gloomy. He simply could not get Iris out of his head.

Her real name was Kimberley Corey. In real life, they used to be a couple and were even engaged. They met at the University and got entangled together. Kimberley's family owned a small media company which slowly grew after using Five's connections in the business world.

Five did not mind helping his in-laws; sooner or later, they would all be family. However, in a twist of fate, Five discovered that Kimberley had been cheating on him and even divulged confidential information about the company.

It started when she became more distant. Kimberley started staying at her parents' house more often and soon, Five received messages and photos of Kimberley speaking to other men. He did not believe them at first but as there was no end to the photos, Five started to doubt her. Kimberley denied the accusations, but it was too late, the seed of doubt had already been planted.

He hired several private investigators who all came out with the same results. They hacked her phones and pulled out a series of messages and calls. It turned out that Kimberley had been in direct contact with the Penmark Family, the very same family that had been applying pressure onto him to acquire his company.

Even when facing the compelling evidence, Kimberley denied the accusations but Five could not hold it anymore. In the end, when his parents passed away, Five lost contact with her and disappeared from society.

Out of all places, he never expected to see her at the auction. According to her introduction, it did not seem that she was doing too badly. She killed her husband's entire household.

'She should have done so to get that family's entire inheritance... That devious woman.'

After spending an entire day cut off from the world, Five finally stepped out of his room. He could not stay holed up for too long. After recalling the auction, Five was alarmed. Iris had more DP than him at the auction. If he did not spend all his DP on building the army, he would have at most 1.6 million DP but Iris easily took out 2.1 million DP. It was clear who was ahead of who and Five could not allow the gap between them to widen.

He pushed all those negative thoughts at the back of his mind and went to the common room.

"Master. Are you alright?"

"Five. I heard what happened. Do you need someone to talk to?"

To his surprise, Harriet already made it back and was resting in the common room with the two harpies and Lyra.

"I am fine. You already heard from Angela. Iris was my fiancee. I already told you what happened before. Anyway. I don't want to talk about this right now. How did the raids go?"

Harriet nodded. She already knew Five would not want to touch this topic. She took out two Dungeon Cores. "This is the most valuable loot of our raid. We did not eliminate all the monsters we encountered. Some of them agreed to surrender and should be transferred to you as soon as you absorb these dungeon cores."

Five's eyes shone as he stared at the shiny dungeon cores. The Core of Madness also responded vividly. When he saw his core's reaction, Five recalled Gaia's words. The Core of Madness wanted to devour these dungeon core to evolve and release the monster hidden inside it. The problem was Five did not know whether the monster inside was an ally or an enemy.

"Tell me about the dungeons. How were they?" asked Five.

"The first one was the one next to the Prairie Dog Tribe. It was full of insects. Only the last few floors were actually tailored for insects. The strongest monster was a Black Beetle Knight but there was also a societal race there: the Flame Scarabs. I believe the Boss Monster who accompanied the dungeon master should be a Flame Scarab Warrior. There are two Boss Monsters who agreed to surrender: the Giant Ant Queen and the Mother Spider. They should be on their way here but they walk quite slowly."

"The second one was located next to the Rat Snake Tribe. It was slightly strange. There were only three species: Goblins, Gnomes, and Dwarves. The monsters themselves were not that strong. They all had growth potential and were still young but they were all proficient in Engineering. The main defense of the dungeon consisted of Mechanical Robots designed by the monsters. They were quite strong but I was able to force my way through."

Five calmly listened. "Interesting. Did we lose many monsters?"

"Yes but I don't know the exact numbers. I rushed here as soon as the raid was over to bring back the cores and avoid being detected by the tribes."

"You did well." Five smiled and turned his attention back to the dungeon cores. He picked the Core of Madness and brought it to the dungeon core.

The dungeon core shook and a dark feeling rose inside him. It was similar to the time his dungeon core reacted to Kroff's dungeon core. The Core of Madness was hungry. As it came into contact with the other cores, a system prompt rang in Five's ears:

[System prompt: Congratulations Player Five. The Core of Madness has been upgraded to Grade 2]

[System prompt: The Core of Madness can now display an additional effect. Please choose from the following:

Entomology - Increase the breeding rate of all insect type monster by 100% and increase all their stats by 2 Dwarfism - Increase the crafting success rate of all monsters shorter than 1.5m and increase all their stats by 1.

3. ??? - ??? (Currently locked due to low level)]