After a few minutes of careful discussion and thinking, a contract was finally signed between Iris and Censora. It might look like a hasty decision but Iris was not giving the Engineers any chance. She wanted the monopoly!

"Thank you very much, Miss Iris. We shall return to the capital first. We need to report to the Magic Council that we are joining Venetia."

"No problem. Once you return here, we shall immediately start the project. Set up your own team; I am only in charge of the gold," said Iris. She waved at the departing figures of the Engineers and let out a sigh of relief.

Ceres promptly poured some tea for her mistress. "Are trains really that valuable? You are using the gold you allocated to the crafting hall."

"They are. They are an invention from Earth; despite being centuries-old, it was still widely used to the day I was imprisoned. Just trust me. Also... It will be a way to bridge the long distance between me and him."

"Of course, mistress, but if it is so valuable, how would the Magic Council react once they discover that you stole their invention?" answered the Elphame.

"Sit. You don't need to be so stiff with me. Just call me Iris or even Kimmy. We have Lord Brann on our side. Although I don't want to use his influence, I know he would never allow the Magic Council to bully us. Don't worry about it. What is next on our agenda?"

"You have a meeting with an NPC mercenary group called Redaken in five minutes. You want to reinforce the security of the town, especially with the upcoming troubles. About that, Venus just passed me a message via the Fairies of Nature. Your mother and her group, Blue Lagoon have arrived."

Iris frowned. "They really did not give up even after being exterminated by Venus?" Just a few days ago, when she received the quest of the third trial, Iris dispatched the succubi to intercept the Blue Lagoon group making its way to Venetia. She did not want anything to do with her family.

More than five hundred succubi were actually residing in the various brothels and inns of Venetia. And very often, every single one of them would have a busy night. They were all extremely powerful as well such that when led by Venus, they easily wiped out Blue Lagoon's team. Along the way, Vultex's army was also destroyed.

Venus wanted to secretly take revenge for Vultex's actions but in the end, the system reported the incident to Iris as she obtained Destruction Points. Unfortunately, despite destroying two large guilds, Iris only obtained a total of four thousand Destruction Points; it was far from enough to pass the quest.

It was only when she sent Venus to get rid of a bandit group causing trouble in the surroundings of Venetia that her Destruction Points skyrocketed. The bandit group was smaller and weaker than the player guilds but it yielded more Destruction Points. This led Iris to believe that the system wanted her to attack NPCs but there was no real entity she could attack aside from towns and villages.

"Uh, it would seem so. According to Mars, they firmly believed that Venetia belonged to them. Your mother had to directly answer to her superior because they were not given free entry. They are currently residing in two different inns: Citadel and the Badger's Head."

"I did not expect anything less from my mother. She probably told them that I built the town for her or something along this line. I won't discriminate against them. They are allowed to roam around Venetia but no special treatment; after all, they also generate DP and will help the town's economy. However, do not allow my parents near me. I believe they should make requests to meet me soon."

Iris drank her cup of tea and closed her eyes for a minute. Ceres looked at her mistress' tired expression. According to Venus, she had been under a lot of stress daily. With the town developing, the mayor needed to take a lot of decision.

Ceres was only level 20. She was just summoned and although her level cap was high, she would need a lot of time to reach it, especially in this peaceful environment. Only the succubi truly beneficiated from this environment. Nevertheless, Ceres still had a set of useful skill. She activated one of them on Iris.

[Rejuvenate]

It was a simple spell usually use on plants to accelerate their growth and help in their recovery when they lost some foliage or branches. When used on humans, it could alleviate their fatigue!

Iris naturally felt the change. She opened her eyes and looked at Ceres. "Thank you."

"Take your time and rest well. I will inform you when the next meeting will start."

"No, I'm fine. Your spell is really effective." Iris smiled brightly and opened her interface. She was delighted to see that her DP was still increasing at a very fast rate. The recent update was supposed to significantly lower her income. Since all the citizens of Venetia were labeled as passive characters, the DP she would receive from them would have effectively been halved.

However, she found a way around this. She did not want to drastically change her dungeon but a simple change was enough. Iris simply summoned a thousand level 1 mosquitos. The small insects would go around and attack the inhabitants of the town. As they were low leveled and weak, their stings only dealt zero or in worst cases, one damage.

It did not sound like much but as the inhabitants were effectively taking damage or were annoyed and tried to kill the mosquitos, it was enough for the system to label them as active characters again. Naturally, the mosquitos seemed out of place. As winter had already arrived, it was abnormal for insects to still be active. But Iris did not think much of it; it was just a quick fix, she would soon need to find another solution to avoid her DP generation from taking a serious hit.

'Going around the system can be so easy sometimes.'

"Knock Knock."

A knock sounded at the door. Ceres immediately stopped her spell. "Looks like they are a bit early." She stood up and walked up to the door. Without her battle form, Ceres looked exactly like a human; the only odd point about her was her green hair.

"Hello. We saw that the meeting room was occupied."

"Yes. I see that you are from Redaken. Please come in, the mayor is already waiting for you."

Iris stood up when she saw a few men entering the meeting room. A small team of ten mercenaries stepped into the room. They looked quite impressive. Their levels ranged from thirty to fifty. The Redaken Mercenary group was not a large one. However, it was well suited for a task like defending Venetia and was quite cheap.

Iris did not want Venetia to be protected solely by the monsters. She also wanted to build her own force in the open world which is why she aimed for a relatively small mercenary group. She would first hire them to guard the town and help them grow. They would grow in strength together and would build strong ties.

She briefly examined the strong NPCs until her eyes landed on the weakest mercenary of the team. To her surprise, it was a player and to top it off, that person looked strangely familiar. The player's name was Mercy. She was a pretty girl with a valiant aura. Furthermore, she was also looking at Iris with a strange expression.

Iris' eyes never left Mercy since she entered the room and while Ceres was giving a brief introduction, Iris interrupted her. "Are you Silvia?"

Mercy was taken aback. "Are you Kimberley then?"

The two girls looked at each other. They knew they both recognized each other. Iris let out a faint smile and went to grab her friend's hand. Mercy's real name was Silvia. In real life, she was one of Iris' close friends and one of her few real friends.

Iris met her fair share of hypocrites and double-faced people in her life and the worst of them all was her own family. However, Silvia was one of the few people who truly valued her as a friend. She did not care about her connections as she herself was quite wealthy. She simply liked to hang out and although she was a little wild, she used to be Iris' confidante; they told each other everything.

"I finally found you. I heard about what happened with the Penmark Family. Girl I really did not think you would do it. What exactly happened? You suddenly disappeared and your family even removed your name from the family tree," exclaimed Mercy.

"Silvia. You are still the same. How did you end up with a mercenary group?"

The two girls embraced each other but quickly stopped when they noticed the awkward stares of the NPCs.

"Cough Cough. Let's talk again later. We have a lot of catching up to do," said Iris before sitting back at her seat.

"There is no need for negotiations. I want to hire the entire Redaken group to protect Venetia. You will also be in charge of the neighboring areas and will have to answer directly to me. We will go with the price we previously agreed. The only change I want to make with the contract is that Mercy must be the one in charge. If she is bullied in any way, our deal will be voided."

The mercenaries were taken by surprise. They did not expect the mayor to know one of their new recruits, let alone valuing her so much. The leader spoke, "I don't have any issues with that. As long as Mercy does not harm us, we will always treat her as a member of our large family."

"Great! Then, let's sign our contract."

...

"I still have a lot of work to do Silvia. Being a mayor is not easy."

"Haha, I know. Will you be free tonight though? We can have a meal together and tell our own stories."

"Sure. Meet me at the Gourmet Palace. A branch opened recently."

Iris waved at her friend reluctantly. She wanted to chat with her more but she still had a lot of work to do. She got up and left the mayor's office. It was time for a quick inspection. Her first destination was the wall of the town.

It was already 60% complete. With the help of the Iron Golems she summoned with the dungeon core, the wall was being erected at an astonishing rate. She was not planning on sealing herself by building a wall. She wanted Venetia to continue to expand beyond the wall and later, build yet another layer of protection. The current town she then had would become the inner district of the town. It was an ambitious project but if it succeeded, Venetia could become a mega-city.

She decided to head to the Northern part of the wall. This way, she would be able to look at the future location of the train station. In accordance with her plan, the train station would be built outside the town. In the future, it would be easier to expand it and to build the town around it.

When she reached the top of the wall, Iris was surprised to see a hunched back figure looking in the distance. "Mentor. What are you doing here?"

The hunched back figure was leaning on a cane. He looked frailed and was constantly trembling; it looked like a single breeze would blow him away. If one did not know of his identity, they would treat him like a beggar but he was, in fact, one of the most reputable men in the world.

"Can I not come here to look at the sunset? Oh, is that your new monster? Not bad, she is quite pretty. An Elphame?" Lord Brann briefly glanced at Ceres.

The latter was instantly intimidated. She could not see through Lord Brann's level but she knew he could not be underestimated.

"Yes, her name is Ceres. Ceres, this is my mentor, Lord Brann." Iris introduced them to each other.

"Well. Nice to meet you, Ceres. I hope you will look after Iris properly when I am not here," said Lord Brann with a calm voice. He smiled faintly, revealing his bright yellow teeth.

"I will," stiffly answered Ceres. She felt uncomfortable facing the hunched back man.

Lord Brann then turned his attention toward Iris. "I see that you are focusing on gathering a lot of female monsters. Is it because of your dungeon core?"

"Yes. I think there is nothing wrong in trying," answered Iris. She was naturally intrigued by Five's question at the auction. When she came back, she asked Lord Brann about the identity of the demon whose dungeon core she took. She then learned that the monster hiding in her core was the Demon Queen, Heloris. She was a rather special Demon Queen; compared to all the others, she did not think about conquering and dominating other races. Her only goal in life was to create a harem of girls to please herself and as a result, she ended up destroying a few races, capturing their princess and saintesses.

Using Lord Brann's description, Iris decided to focus on summoning female monsters for now. According to Gaia, doing what the owner of the cores would want might be the best solution to gain their favor and prevent them from turning against them once they came out of the cores.

"Then be careful. If she ever shows sign of breaking out of her core, just let me know. For now, I don't see any problem with your monsters. They are quite loyal and they do not have any intentions," commented Lord Brann.

Iris smiled. Whenever she thought about her monsters, she felt blessed. She knew they were only digital characters but they were extremely realistic and they treated her as a real friend. There were not hidden intent behind their actions; Iris could be herself, she did not have to think about maintaining appearances.

No matter what she did, her monsters fully supported her. It was especially true for Venus who became Iris' monster on the very first day. All dungeon core came up with a buff of some sort but hers didn't. Instead, she got a monster for free. It might hurt her in the long term but Iris was delighted to have a friend at her side since day one.

Mars came in later but also proved his loyalty when he fought bravely during the trials. Then, Neptune appeared and although she was more reserved than the others, her actions proved that she was on Iris' side. The only troublesome monster she had was Karyn, the elf. Karyn was more of a wild card; she wanted to be left alone but in the end, she swore allegiance to her new mistress. Since then, she took over the arena but she had yet to prove her loyalty. Nevertheless, Iris did not discriminate against her; she treated her like any of her other monsters.

"What are you up to? Do you need this old man to make a move?" jokingly asked Lord Brann.

"No no. There is no need for you to do anything. Just enjoy yourself here; you are on holiday, not on a business trip," answered Iris. She then proceeded to explain the recent events to her mentor and the upcoming development of the town.

Lord Brann chuckled. He already knew Iris would refuse and he would as per her wishes, he would not interfere. He was already playing with fire by coming to her dungeon. He treated Iris like his own daughter but he would not go as far as to spoil her. Lord Brann lost his granddaughter at an early age and had a lot of regrets. When he saw Iris, he secretly used a Dream Demon and looked at her memories. He took pity on her for receiving such treatment from her parents and decided to take her as his own daughter. He taught her what she needed to know and helped her make her debut as a dungeon master.

"Then, if there is nothing else, I will return to the town. There are still a few things I need to have a look at. I will also meet a friend tonight!" said Iris.

"Sure. Go and have fun," said Lord Brann. He knew that even if she went wild, Venus would be there to help her. The succubus was never really far from her mistress.

Lord Brann resumed looking at the sunset. He remained still as a statue until he made sure Iris had already left the area. He then took out his left hand from his coat. His hand was covered with blood.

He was holding the corpse of a bird. 'Oops, I used too much force and crushed the messenger pigeon. Anyway, let's look at the content of this letter.'

He unceremoniously tossed the crushed body of the bird and opened the letter attached to its leg. The letter was also covered with blood but the content could still be clearly read.

Lord Brann furrowed his brows and crushed the piece of paper. "Hurricane Alliance! You dare threaten my student because you know the location of her dungeon? And you even threatened her to not tell me anything?"

"Looks like I have stayed idle for too long. That old geezer, Fangyan's dungeon should be nearby. Where was it again? Ormskirk town?"

"What a coincidence... Iris told me the Count there was also looking for trouble. I will solve both issues in one go."