Richer was a D-rank adventurer operating near Marquis Leo's territory. If there was pay involved, he'd take on any commission regardless of difficulty.

Marriage funds.

Just farming wasn't enough money. Fortunately, Richer learned from his father and could make a living with his sword, and he objectively assessed his skills to pick only appropriately difficult missions.

The receptionist asked.

"Why are you so desperate to earn money?"

Richer answered.

"I'll save up money to buy a pretty ring. And buy a house in a quiet territory, not on some war front."

How many years it would take to get a newlywed home by only taking D-rank commissions was unknown, but the receptionist didn't want to crush Richer's romantic dream.

"How about this commission?"

"What's this? Work to confirm whether a dungeon exists or not?"

"Yes. A request came in from the Barony of Virgo. It's quite far from the barony, so it's awkward to send knights? Plus, the Elven Forest is nearby, so dragging soldiers there could cause problems."

"How much are they paying? Let me see. Hmm.... Alright! I'll take this commission."

Richer readily accepted the commission. The difficulty was assessed appropriately as D-rank. It was just work to confirm whether a dungeon existed or not anyway.

"Did everyone avoid it because it's annoying? Hehe."

Richer arrived at the Barony of Virgo in no time, and without even seeing the baron's supposedly handsome face, he headed straight to the problem location following the butler's directions.

"Nothing much here!"

Or so he thought for a moment.

He arrived at a strange slash-and-burn village in front of a cliff, far from the problem village.

"...An outsider? Adventurer? What brings you here."

A woman with a pretty face but rather tough-looking physique greeted Richer. The woman introduced herself as Lily.

"I came because there's supposedly a dungeon around here...."

Richer surveyed the village's condition. The wooden fence looked pretty decent and the villagers' condition didn't seem particularly strange. The only unsettling thing was that there were too few villagers compared to the village's state.

"What's this village called?"

"Ras Village."

"What?"

"Ras Village. They say if it gets bigger someday it'll change to Ras City or whatever, but right now there aren't many people. So Ras Village."

Richer accepted Lily's explanation.

Fitting for the name "village," there were less than ten people in this small group. And Richer discovered something strange in Lily's words.

"Did someone else name the village? Is there someone like a village chief?"

"Yeah. There is. ...Right now he went to catch chickens though."

"I see. Then where's the chicken coop?"

"..."

Lily and the Ras Village residents showed obvious wariness toward Richer. It was sharper hostility than just the typical slash-and-burn village's caution toward outsiders.

"...Why are you trying to look around?"

"Ah, it's nothing much. There was a report that there's a dungeon around here. Monsters like goblins from dungeons can smell chickens like crazy and come running, right? Haha."

"Hmm, really? ...It's inside. We raise chickens inside the cave."

"What?"

"When we kept them outside, they kept disappearing. Be careful. They're probably laying eggs right now."

The sun was high in the sky though? Richer felt a sense of déjà vu at the continuous situations that defied common sense, and suppressing his unease, he asked for permission and entered the cave.

'Something's here.'

He definitely felt something strange. But judging by adventurer common sense, Richer couldn't imagine at all what the inside of the cave would be like.

"For a natural cave, something's strange—"

Grrrk.

From the darkness, red eyes burst forth. There was a monster wearing woven black feathers—a ghoul.

"A-aaaah!!"

That was Richer's last memory.

***

"Now it's confirmed. Word spread that there might be a dungeon. But it's not confirmed yet apparently. Judging by how they're coming one or two at a time like this."

The unconscious male adventurer Richer's adventurer registration and commission certificate provided lots of information. Today as always, Hases caught the foolish beings entering the dungeon and brought them as prisoners.

"Is there more information to get?"

"Nope. Already got enough info from the female adventurers who came before. Today's cross-verification."

"Notice from Adventurer's Guild of the Leo Marquisate. Possibility that a dungeon has occurred near the Elven Forest in the vicinity of the Barony of Virgo. Investigate with small numbers. This is right, Master?"

"Yeah. Didn't know the Elven Forest would help like this."

A region where there's no problem as long as you don't enter, but awkward to send large-scale reconnaissance. Baroness Virgo set the commission fee quite low for some reason, and accordingly, riffraff started gathering one by one.

"Hases. When you're done working, you guys take this to the barracks. After eating, ask the slimes on the ceiling to handle cleanup. I'm counting on you for the front."

Grrrk.

Hases unlocked the prisoner cell and went inside. Now Richer would be invited to the ghouls' barracks stark naked.

"Lune, how many people have come in so far?"

"Including the guy who came today, 15 total!"

"That's quite a lot in just a few days."

Originally it was the rule that more enemies appeared as the countdown progressed, but enemies that were sparse at first started increasing in number one by one.

"At least they're all getting cut off at the Hases line, so that's good."

"Arthur wants to participate too."

"Tell Arthur, he hasn't even evolved yet."

"It's not just Arthur, everyone's waiting because they can't evolve."

"Ugh. Can't argue with that."

Over the past few days, our dungeon achieved considerable power enhancement. Thanks to this facility right next to the summoning facility, the 'Altar of Sacrifice.'

[Altar of Sacrifice Lv.0: A facility to enhance subordinates and monsters using magic stones or monsters. As the rank increases, the EXP gain increases.]

Excluding high-rank entities, almost all monsters' levels reached maximum. Practically maximum combat power for the current situation was achieved.

"I can keep raising EXP but the max level is the problem. Tsk."

"Then why don't you just use the Monster Enhancement Tickets, dad?"

"No way. I'm saving those to use myself. Anyway, when the kids evolve or synthesize, ★ increases so max level goes up too."

Max level was the problem. Unlike entities with high ranks from birth like Lune or Eila, low-rank guys were stagnant after hitting their rank-specific max levels of 15 or 35.

"Damn, if I'd known evolution would get blocked, I would've postponed synthesis."

"That's why I said let's look into it more before doing it."

"...Well, how was I supposed to know this would happen. I'll go slower next time. But there's not much time left anyway, so can you hang in there?"

"Ugh."

We started synthesis into Andras on day 9 of dungeon life, and now about 48 hours remained until Andras would be born.

Counting attendance, it was already day 14.

There were no major changes to our dungeon besides new facilities increasing but no way to utilize them, or raising existing facilities' ranks but being unable to develop further.

Except for one thing—a 'door' appeared.

"When did they say they're coming?"

"They said they'd arrive soon."

"Then I'm heading out."

All subordinates hiding throughout the cavity to warmly welcome guests coming to the dungeon. Whether they'd be guests or enemies, we'd have to meet them face-to-face to know.

"Phew."

I moved my heavy steps toward the back passage leading to the cliff. The back path of the dungeon I developed, past the currently blocked passage descending to basement 1 and the crossroads with the Andras sub-dungeon, to the right of the path leading to the cliff hole.

Clop, clop.

The sound of hoofbeats that shouldn't be heard in our dungeon echoed. I gripped the cheap iron sword I looted from adventurers who recently entered the dungeon and stood in the passage.

"Stop. I won't tolerate any further."

"What'll you do if you won't tolerate it? Fight me?"

A seductive woman's voice flowed from the opposite end of the passage. The woman riding a green horse had red hair swaying and was looking down at me in a black dress.

"How about getting down to talk while we're talking?"

"Don't wanna. I'm higher rank, so why would I? Ohoho."

"Rank isn't necessarily a measure of a dungeon master's strength though."

"That's just what low-rank guys say to mentally masturbate. Don't you know closer to rank 1 means stronger? Hehe."

The woman dismounted from what I thought was a horse—turned out to be a camel. The black dress, well I'd have to strip it to know for sure, but just from the silhouette I could tell the woman's body had volume.

"To think the one who conquered Andras's dungeon would be such an idiot."

"So wanna throw down with this idiot?"

"Hmph, I don't deal with brutes who fight crudely. So, have you decided?"

The woman lifted her chin with a matter-of-fact expression.

"Whether to become my underling, or fight me head-on and die to remain as slaves. This Lady Gremory is personally coming to make an offer. Choose. Will you surrender, or will you die?"

"..."

Survival of the fittest.

Demon King Solomon operated 72 dungeons and sent rewards to dungeon masters according to rank every certain number of days. The higher stage your dungeon corresponded to, the better the rewards.

[Name Seizure Battle]

Names registered from rank 1 to 72 had danger level—a measure of how much they contributed in battles against the human alliance—play an important role. Not an absolute indicator, but also a yardstick to know how dangerous other dungeons were.

And Solomon built a system allowing lower-rank dungeon masters to challenge higher-rank masters and steal their dungeons. Just like I killed Andras and made it into a Dimension Stone, others could come raid my dungeon too.

But what's this?

It wasn't just uprisings happening. Just as underdogs tried to bite at higher ranks, higher-rank bastards also bared their fangs to raid lower dungeons.

Just like the woman in front of me right now, Gremory.

"How long will you make me stand in a place like this? No manners."

"Wanna sit? Next to my bed is fine. Or I'll let you lie down."

"Hehe, a pig like you isn't my type. Get lost. How'd you handle Andras? I definitely opened a portal to raid Andras's dungeon. Naked birdbrains should've greeted me, not a pig orc like you."

"No reason to tell you. Why? Were you planning to get gangbanged by the birdbrains?"

I deliberately provoked Gremory. At the continued insults, Gremory frowned but shrugged with a relaxed face.

"No? The opposite. I was gonna let my dungeon's males have a taste of dick. Andras's subordinates, lots of males but individually weak, right? Ohoho."

"So that's why you're always riding that horse and getting railed? Your dress reeks of sex from underneath."

"..."

Gremory avoided answering. The horse beside her also turned its head away.

"...For real?"

"Mind your own sex life. You, I'm really not gonna let you off. What are you thinking trying to pick a fight when you're weaker than me?"

"If it bothers you, fight me here. Don't you know you gotta try it directly to know if I'm really weak or not?"

"Hmph, looks like you somehow got a good subordinate and caught Andras, but that won't work on me."

"Is that why you've been getting your ass kicked and running away every time you came over the past three days? Surrender? What bullshit. You guys should be the ones surrendering."

I smoothly raised my iron sword. Gremory panicked for a moment and stepped back.

"I'm really gonna lose my temper. How about we really fight? Huh? If I catch you, I'm gonna fuck you up. I'll throw you on my bed, have my taste first, then pass you around to the stud guys in my dungeon."

"Y-you rude pig! Fine! Negotiations are off! Fight! And I'm gonna slice you up and grill you over charcoal! The goblins will love tearing you apart!!"

Gremory yelled and turned around. Her waddling walk looked like a duck butt.

"Yeah. Let's definitely throw down."

My cheap provocation worked better than expected, and negotiations with Gremory fell through. I had no intention of negotiating from the start, but after seeing Gremory, any thought of negotiating flew away completely.

"As always, new prey is welcome."

What would the flesh under that black dress taste like? I raised my iron sword.

And shortly after.

Kyaaaah!!

Goblins burst out of the portal screaming. The sight of goblins barely waist-high made my anger naturally surge.

'I was wall-slamming Lune when they suddenly burst out from the side.'

So three days ago from now.

While I was secretly pounding Lune's back hole in the dark passage, an attack suddenly started from a portal that opened out of nowhere, and that's how the seizure battle between me and Gremory began.

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