It was hard.

Holding back from a third round was not easy in the slightest. Especially not when the beautiful goblin was giving him those pleading eyes.

But he held strong.

***

Once night fell and training halted, Ximena was left alone to guard the entrance, as usual, while the rest of the Legion held council. It was mainly a discussion between Vale and Salome, but everyone was made to be present, even the workers.

Just like before, Vale sat on the throne while the rest sat around on the ground, except Salome, who was made a stone chair a little in front of the throne and two warriors who stood by the entrance to the core room as lookouts.

Even if Vale had the system to tell him of invaders and Ximena at the entrance, the last thing he needed to be at the moment was complacent. If he grew complacent in his position and progress, then it would undoubtedly lead to his demise.

The first thing they discussed was what happened at the Council of Vice.

Vale told them about the Seed activity and that it's most prevalent in the far reaches of the world, so they should be safe for now. Then he told them about the Hero of Virtue marching on Envy and the significance of such a thing. Then he spoke about the important countries and nations he learned about, as well as their supposed distance from them.

Finally, to boost their spirits, Vale boasted they'd made impeccable progress and impressed the other Masters of Vice.

When he was done giving his little speech, he and Salome had a small chat piecing together what they knew and surmising what they supposedly didn't know. They made a priority list of knowledge to gather about the world.

Mainly, how far away was Laertes' village, the nearest human capital, military outpost, and Hero of Virtue?

When that topic was done and beaten dead, they began the main point of discussion…

The war to come.

By Vale's estimation, it would begin the moment the sun rose above the edges of the canyon's massive walls and peered into the gorge.

While Vale was confident, maybe not entirely in his own ability, but in Salome's and Ximena's, the sheer number of enemies was catastrophic. By estimation, there were around 100 Chameleon Warriors just outside the entrance, and reportedly a few Chameleon Champions. Even then, that might have been only the advance force. Who knew what else the Chameleon King had up its sleeve?

It was probably the main force, but Vale didn't want to assume anything, no matter what his intuition screamed.

Vale and the members of his dungeon did possess the strength to drive back this foe once they invaded the dungeon. However, due to their weak nature and their stealthy constitution, combined with sheer number, the possibility of one sneaking past them and reaching the core was unnervingly high.

After all, although weak, the bastards were tricky to deal with. So tricky in fact that Ximena had struggled against a relatively small amount because they were constantly dipping into camouflage. It took Ximena releasing all of her limiters and attacking the area rather than the target to finally quell the annoying foes.

While that was always a potential solution, Vale didn't really want Ximena to use her unleashed ability again. He'd almost died to it after all, and as far as he knew, only he and Salome would be able to resist it.

If her ability was unleashed in the presence of Awilix, Toy, any worker or warrior, they'd most certainly perish within seconds.

So, how to overcome a superior numerical force with a smaller, but potentially more powerful force? Strategy, of course. Quality over quantity.

Thankfully, the enemies didn't seem entirely ready to attack, so they had at least the night to prepare.

It was time to draft up a plan to use their homefield advantage fully. The first thing they had to consider was…

"What is their goal?"

Vale had asked a question that was both rhetorical and not. Their goal was obviously the gains they'd get by taking out Vale; however, was that the only motivating factor? Or was there another?

Vale continued:

"Idiots and barbarians have a propensity to think in blood and gold, but the way they behaved when they attacked us the first time… they had a goal beyond our death."

Salome crossed her legs and leaned back in the stone chair, a slight guilty look in her glowing eyes that Vale chose to ignore, and said:

"I agree, if their goal were to eradicate us, they would have sent this force in the beginning. Or at least a Champion with the initial strike force."

Champions…

Something Vale was quite curious about when it came to dungeons that were lower than Vice class. Could a Champion be a higher class than the Dungeon Master? How did they have Champions without the system?...

'Wait… do they have a system?'

They might, they might not…

There was much Vale would have loved to ask the chameleons. Unfortunately, not only did they dislike civil discourse, but they also had a unique way of communicating — an inimitable one. They used their unique constitutions to send ciphered messages to one another by changing color. Because it wasn't spoken, and the foundation was beyond Salome's understanding — she'd been unable to fully comprehend it, even with Vitality Drain.

However, from what she could tell, the chameleons did understand and could use spoken language… but only in a weird way. They can only reproduce the vibrations of those they've experienced; even then, they seem only vaguely to know what the frequencies actually meant.

All of this was only Salome's deduction, so it could be wrong or misleading.

'After all, they had sai—'

"Yah!"

Toy interrupted his thought with a slight yelp. When Vale looked over, he saw Larry, who'd been waddling around not paying attention, had faceplanted into Toy's feet. Toy began hopping around, nearly causing the cloth strip around her bust to slip off.

'Larry…'

Vale sighed, then veered off from his internal tangent back on topic.

"The simplest reason would be to test us, but would they think a mere fifteen warriors is a sufficient test against a Master of Vice?"

Salome smiled:

"Or it's because we're a Dungeon of Vice that they only sent fifteen."

'Hmm…'

Salome's argument had a point…

The first time he met Wrath and listened to the one-sided prattling. Wrath had mentioned that Vice class dungeons spawn weaker than normal ones and grow stronger over time with a much higher potential, which is why the natives try to find and take them out while they are still young.

But, he'd also mentioned that the natural spawning dungeons, while a Vice-class dwarfed their potential, their starting point was much further along.

Wrath had never provided a reason, but a reason wasn't important. What mattered was that no matter how long the Chameleon King had been around, it currently had more overall 'power.'

In essence, what Salome meant was that the Chameleon King wanted to test the Dungeon of Lust, but he didn't want to give the weak dungeon too much free Aether.

That would make sense why they decided to fight Vale instead of charging for the core; rather than reasoning that it would be simpler to kill him than the core.

'But…'

There were two glaring issues with that.

One, how was the Chameleon King going to measure the results of its test? All it would know was that the fifteen died, not how. It did at least witness the power of Salome and Toy...

'Two, what was its goal if we proved too powerful a foe? Was it going to do a desperation attack? Try to hide for as long as possible to extend its life? Try to ally with us?'

Vale had no idea…

Or maybe the answer was already presented to him…

'The eyes never lie…'

"Our enemies… the chameleons. They are not being controlled like Toy and Awilix were, but there is some factor that made them throw this oncoming desperate force…"

Awilix's ears perked up at hearing Vale call her name, and she tried to walk to his side, but a quill came to life and floated around in the air. Awilix began jumping around and chasing the glowing target.

Vale ignored the idiocy and continued:

"While I haven't been in this world long… and its common sense is not so common to me yet. That is not the reserve force of an Aberrant-class Dungeon. Either my intuition is wrong, and they are a higher class… or our foe is taking the biggest gamble of their lives."

The corners of Salome's lips curled as she leaned to the side.

"Gamble? What they're doing looks anything like a gamble to me. I think you're forgetting one important detail…"

Vale questioned:

"That is?"

Salome uncrossed her legs and leaned forward.

"Fifteen were sent to the dungeon, while thirty were sent to assassinate me… We can only assume they'd been watching us for days before the attack and had made it their goal to take me out of the equation before launching a full-scale attack."

Vale tilted his head slightly:

"I already know that. And I believe you already know I knew that…"

Salome chuckled:

"That wasn't the detail you missed."

"Huh?"

"I was right outside the entrance of their dungeon when they attacked me, so they had nothing to fear about leaving their home unprotected. They could have sent more to fight Toy and me…"

Vale's eyes began to sparkle.

Salome continued:

"So, tell me, where was their main force? They number over 100 outside, yet we only faced around sixty total, killing forty-five."

Vale's eyes narrowed, and his brow furrowed.

"Is it not obvious they were trying to lure you into their dungeon?"

Salome laughed again.

"If that were the case, they wouldn't have given me a reason to retreat. They would have either killed Toy or left her untouched. Yet they left her in a state that forced me to flee and save her, or let her bleed out and pursue."

Vale raised his brow.

"Then… what was their goal?"

"Isn't it obvious?"

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