Chapter 2017: The Dungeon Portal -Part 1

The word of the roads being closed was given a few days later once the Mages Guild had given out the order of an extremely high priority order for mages in service to return to Ress as soon as possible. Failure to do so will result in the mage to be disbarred from the mages guild and they can be hunted down as rogue mages.

This was why most of the Mages obliged and under the noses of the neighbouring Kingdoms, the mages swiftly went back to Ress.

Such piece of information was so abrupt that even the neighbouring kingdoms were not able to do anything to prevent this from happening. And with this, they instantly lost all the Mages in Service in a blink of an eye, increasing their local mages workload by at least two to three times.

Reimbursement of the teleport scrolls was given as compensation and the Mages who returned quickly thinking Ress was under attack realised that it was just an order to come home. There was nothing else in the orders other than returning to Ress as soon as possible.

But the fact that they were paying compensation to not just the mages in service and also handling out compensation for breaking contract was nearly unheard of.

The mages had no idea what was happening until they realised that the new King of Ress had announced a complete closure of the roads. And the only people who could get out were those who were not of Ress Origin. That also meant that nobody could come into Ress during this provisional closure until they completely closed it.

It was then, that those mages in service were immediately being bought by the Army of Ress in order to handle the workload at the borders. They were preventing people without proper documentation from going out and those who did were immediately detained. Others who defied the army on the spot were nonetheless being tyrannically oppressed and death happened.

It was a bad image for the new king and lots of rumours were saying that this new king wanted to kill the kingdom from within. Resentment was at the all time high and there was nothing the peasants could do if the soldiers and mages were seriously doing their job.

It was at that point, that they found out that these soldiers and mages were well compensated to act like this and thus the peasants and other folks had to follow it to the letter in order to have their heads intact. But in the coming days, nobles who tried to run were surprisingly allowed to do so, barring the fact that they left whatever belongings and assets they had in Ress.

At the same time, Jin had officially stripped all noble status for those who tried to run or requested to leave the kingdom and thus all the assets were confiscated for the Kingdom.

Some of the nobles laughed, knowing that they had hidden stashes of gold outside of the Ress but they had no idea that when they were caught running or requesting the unconditional strip of their title, Jin had already peeked into their minds and learned of their hidden assets.

Trusted subordinates of Gara were then tasked to confiscate the assets while the nobles were in the process of requesting their leave or had already been caught running. This closure of the trade routes effectively dropped the noble counts in Ress down to 10% of the original bloated figures and Jin could see who was willing to stay in Ress, for Ress.

Ministers who saw the terror that Jin could inflict were also counted as part of the nobles who ran away. Therefore, those who stayed either had no money to run, plotting to betray him, or were loyal to the nation. Now that he did not have the loyal system up and running, this was the risk he had to do.

Still, doing this closure had enabled Jin to create a kingdom desperate for salvation, for most know how Ress was filled with items that all the other kingdoms wanted but could not have.

If not for the mages and stocked crystals, Ress would not have survived until now, and most want to see whether this Discarded King was able to rise up to the challenge or there would be a coup de teat now that the soldiers and mages were running to keep the place afloat.

Meanwhile, all of the neighbouring kingdoms rejoiced, knowing that Ress was digging its own grave, and started rejecting people who were successful in running from Ress. They told them to turn back and asked them to hope that their pathetic kingdom would accept them back.

When hearing such news, Jin was surprised that the neighbouring kingdoms did not want to take them in as prisoners of war when they were officially at war.

In fact, refugees and their camps had also started to be dismantled by Ress' neighbouring kingdoms and they were told to move away from their kingdoms as an act to disrupt Ress instead. They stated that they had taken in more than enough refugees and Ress was not doing their part.

In short, they were not interested in entertaining the refugees because if they were to go to war with Ress, these refugees would be more than an eyesore to them.

The neighbouring kingdoms rather slaughter them with the rest of Ress. This caused an exodus of people waiting at the gates of Ress and knowing that they could not go in, they started setting up camp outside of Ress.

Only when the doors of Ress were officially closed based on the dates declared, Jin went to the Ress' central square where he had asked Gara and his soldiers to tell the peasants to gather. At the same time, a huge holographic screen emerged at the centre of Ress for those who were not able to make it into the central square despite it being capable of holding 5000 over people.

After all, the central square was where national celebrations were held.

And when Jin was there, he had already changed to his System Rider Armour. Thankfully, it still worked even without the System's intervention but the only difference was that there were no minions for him to possess. He did try calling Moloch and there was no change to it all.

The only difference between the armour that Ress had and his System Rider Living Armour was that he could circulate some Maqi into it and it provided a cooling ventilation system that enabled him to walk with armour without any sweat. The only difference was his current outfit was that he was wearing the official king's cape and he set down on a stool on the stage with no other decorations.

"Are you mad?" That was the first question that Jin asked the public and peasants immediately started heckling, demanding for answers.

"Good. Very good. It's great to see that all of you are mad." Jin said as he snapped his fingers and a dungeon portal emerged right beside him. Those with appraisal tools or skills noticed that the portal was a Rank F portal.

"I would need 5 extremely mad volunteers. Preferably Rank E and below. Go in, kill, and come back with the head of a monster for me." Jin said and he dangled a pouch right in front of them, metal clicking onto metal and people instinctively knew the sound of such metal.

"You will be compensated for your efforts in showing off your skills," Jin said and immediately several shots of hands emerged from the crowd. He immediately marked five of them with magic and pointed towards Linus. "Get the weapons and snow coats from the soldier over there and go in as a group. Once you are done, drag out the monster from the portal."

More than a few people laughed as they knew that nothing could be taken from the dungeon portal unless it was from a treasure chest. The only reason why people do dungeon portals is just to make sure the portal does not create a monster flood calamity. Thus, to most of the people in Atopia, Dungeon Portals were a menace, a chore but a necessity that could not be avoided.

Such adventurers or warriors earned their living by closing portals and kingdoms had to pay for their service.

"I don't care. Bring back at the very least the boss monster back." Jin replied firmly. "Failure to comply will result in detainment." The marks on their hand lit up a little, searing their skin.

Seeing the five had no choice but to do the impossible, they nodded their heads hoping to get at least a part of the monster they would encounter. At that point, everyone watching the hologram saw this group of volunteers was rather quick with clearing the dungeon portal.

They had no idea what the King was playing at but since the economy was at a standstill with the strict closure of roads and trades, they decided to watch along.

They were fighting with Snow Wolves and they were known for their succulent meat because they needed the fats to stay warm in extreme winter temperatures. The current group is in a cave setting where they do not know what the outside environment feels like but it is bloody cold in inside of the cave they are in.

That was why these volunteers started to move as fast as possible to ensure that they could get their boss killed before the volunteers developed frostbite despite their snow coats.

And to Jin's surprise, they managed to clear the cave in less than 20 minutes despite the number of Snow Wolves they had encountered. The Boss was an Elder Snow Wolf but it was eradicated with a consistent volley of piercing magic bolts.

One of the volunteers casually said that if they were going to bring back the Elder Snow Wolf and if it was really successful in doing so, they could eat it. Thus, blasting it with fire would just damage the meat and hence the magic bolts.

And soon, the highlight of the day emerged as they managed to drag the Elder Snow Wolf to the entrance where they first came and the portal was there staring at them. They nodded their heads simultaneously despite the many doubts in their minds as they rushed, in hopes that the portal would not reject the monster corpse. Stay tuned for more on

To their surprise, the entire corpse could be taken out and the dungeon portal was still open. Jin at that point, threw the bag of silvers right in front of the five volunteers. And there, he lifted his celestial relic, Mr Hammer, and cast an area of effect spell in the sky.

The spell's magic power suddenly turned into a dome that covered the entire kingdom's borders. "Let the resurrection of Ress begin." Jin smiled to himself.

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