Leon

Half a month later

From my place standing at the edge of the balcony of my manor looking out over the still-growing city of Wolfdenn, I watch the many residents as they move about their daily lives. Whether they’re mercenaries going to and from the dungeon, merchants moving merchandise to their stores, or just the everyday citizens who have decided that moving to a neutral territory was a lot safe than a war-torn one.

“How have the plans to expand into more locations throughout the mountains been progressing?” I ask Aidan, who I can sense is standing at the balcony entrance behind me.

My assistant – who I’ve noticed has been entering the dungeon a little bit more recently – immediately begins his report, “It’s been going rather well. We have three new towns being built around the mountains right now, each with a Knight from the mercenary’s guild standing guard over the land in case of a Spawn attack. And each of these towns has grown enough to sustain at least a few dozen people and should in the near future be able to hold much more.”

I nod my head while crossing my arms and continuing my survey of the city.

There’ve been a lot more Knights entering the city ever since the dungeon core advanced to Tier 2, both from the Human’s kingdom and the Orcs, and it’s starting to make me want to rush into the next Tier myself.

But it’ll probably take another week or two before I can do that.

“And do we have any news about why the dungeon sealed its doors last night?” I ask with a glance towards the sealed-off dungeon entrance surrounded by small but fortified walls and a gate.

Aidan answers swiftly, “Unfortunately not.”

Hmm.

This dungeon core almost never seals its entrance while it works, so there has to be a pretty big change going on right now.

Either that or the dungeon has a problem that it’s dealing with.

I glance back at Aidan before asking, “What about my preparations for later this week?”

He smiles at my question and says, “You’re schedule is free for the latter half of the week for your dungeon diving.”

Well, that’s some good news.

I turn back to look out at the city again.

If the collector gets here on time, then everything should be good for me to advance to Tier 2 by next week.

Assuming the dungeon opens its doors again by then.

As if on cue, a loud commotion suddenly can be heard from the direction of the dungeon.

“Speak of the devil,” I mutter with a faint smile at the sight of the large singular block that the dungeon doors had become morphing back into two solitary doors.

The first group on the queue immediately begins to walk through the gate towards the dungeon entrance before opening the door, only for another commotion to raise up from the spectators at whatever sight they find on the other side.

Oh? This ought to be interesting.

I jump off of the balcony onto the ground below before making my way towards the dungeon entrance.

Let’s see what’s up.

Fenrir

“And that should do it,” I speak out loud to Dawn as I finally open the doors to my dungeon, revealing the brand new entry room.

Ever since finally figuring out how to connect my portals and have them activate and deactivate when I want them to, I decided to change up my first floor, adding an additional room before the actual floor starts.

So instead of having the intruders immediately enter a room full of wolves, they now enter a room with several inactive portal arcs. Although only two of them actually work at this moment.

The rest are just there for later on, when I get more floors. And for aesthetics, on Dawn’s request.

Aside from that, I also changed up the boss monsters’ loot drops, making them all drop specific keys that dial in to the user’s blood, making them only activate when used by the ones that actually dripped their blood onto the key. And the bosses drop as many keys as there are intruders in the boss room at the time.

These keys are what activate the portal arcs, with each boss dropping a different key, registering for a different portal arc.

As for the new first room itself?

Thanks to Dawn’s nagging, I let her design it before I implemented her designs.

In the end, the room has a large statue of Fang in the center of the room, twelve portal arcs around the room, with two being in each corner and one in front of the center of each wall. The room itself is made of obsidian, with several interesting looking patterns running through it, and even some inscriptions on the walls depicting some of the monsters – which is only fine because the intruders already know that information.

Each arc has a small pedestal next to it, with a keyhole at the top of the pedestal, along with a number depicting which floor the arc goes to on the center of the arc’s crest.

Meanwhile, the portals themselves lead to a new room that I added right at the beginning of every floor directly after the boss floors, each with their own designs – also planned out by Dawn.

The Tier 2 intruder group quickly enters the dungeon and finds themselves staring in what looks like awe at the new first floor. So I guess the design is getting Dawn’s desired purpose, so that’s good.

I glance at Dawn, only to find her flame glowing a bright purple in the pride she’s obviously feeling right now. But that’s not all. Her flame is also much larger than normal right now, and it’s kind of adorable.

“It looks like the new changes will work well,” I state while turning my attention back to the intruders again as they spread out through the room.

Meanwhile, only a few minutes later, the City Lord – Leon – suddenly enters my dungeon with what looks like a few guards who he doesn’t seem too happy to have with him.

Probably some sort of forced security or something.

Right as I’m about to turn my attention away from the City Lord, he begins to call out for me.

Oh?