It's Dangerous Outside the Dungeon, Master

* * *

Keeping Leonis alive was to fully obtain his knowledge, but accepting Daniel as my soldier was honestly just a whim.

Even so, it wasn’t a meaningless action.

Just as I didn’t completely erase Gyeonghan and sent him to human living spaces, the more ‘eyes’ the better.

“So your first task is to return to your guild, Daniel.”

“But without Maria, the guild will be suspicious. They know well that I wouldn’t return without her.”

For this, along with the contract that makes him obey my orders, a spell that makes him always tell me the truth was added.

That was enough.

As long as Maria is in my hands, he would erase any thoughts of betrayal from his mind the moment they arise.

After all, isn’t a mercenary guild not even a group that moves with loyalty and righteousness?

Money and influence might be a different story.

Moreover, what I wanted from him wasn’t even to bring his former colleagues and lead them to death.

“Primarily use her sister as a reason, and secondarily mention her retirement and a security job in your hometown city.”

“That won’t convince them.”

“Would this be enough?”

“Where did you get so much money…? No, this amount should certainly be possible.”

So, what I presented to Daniel was quite a large amount of wealth that I had obtained while erasing the bandits.

Although Maria was a promising talent of the guild, conversely speaking, she wasn’t a high-level management target.

So if they eat a lot of money, the mercenary guild wouldn’t particularly care about her withdrawal.

As I said, mercenary guilds are places that move with money.

“What should I do after that?”

“You’ll have to work there, won’t you? If you quit too, they’ll really look at you with suspicion.”

“That’s true.”

“While working there, try to erase Maria and her siblings’ traces as much as possible and mainly gather information related to dungeons. That should be enough for now.”

“Understood.”

Information was always important.

If possible, I’d like to spread ‘Necromancer’s Eyes’ all over the continent to be able to check all information in real-time.

“Then… um.”

“Lady will be enough.”

“Yes. Lady Libertas.”

As I nodded slightly, Daniel bowed his head with some discipline, though not as much as Eve’s, and left the dungeon.

With this, he will become my eyes watching the eastern part of the kingdom, and this could bring me good opportunities.

If the world was united due to the chaos caused by dungeons in ‘MilDun 1’, the current era was a time when many established Dungeon Lords already existed. As spheres of influence have stabilized a lot, humans have also begun to reveal conflicts among themselves.

‘I’m looking forward to it.’

Information about wars among humans will certainly be helpful to me.

For example, a premonition about when a commotion that can cover the expansion of the dungeon might occur.

When that time comes, I can try another attempt.

* * *

“So, are the two doing well?”

-Clack.

-Clack!

Mire answered quietly and Eve cheerfully to my question.

The ‘two’ I mentioned were the observation mage Leonis and the trap specialist Jacob.

[I will make a contract. The conditions are…]

Leonis eventually chose to contract with me and became the third human of the dungeon.

It’s still a preliminary contract, but once I purchase the contract document, he will properly belong to the dungeon and demon realm.

The contract conditions from Leonis were to restore Sonia’s health and life as a mage. And to allow her to choose a human life.

[I see. I permit it.]

I naturally allowed the former as I had no intention of taking it away in the first place, and the latter was no problem as she herself had declared she would stay here.

Instead, I ordered him to perform sincere labor and protect secrets, as well as use mental spells to enforce this and the ‘pain’ that both would experience if the contract weren’t fulfilled.

He agreed to this and was currently steadily fulfilling the conditions of the contract.

[There’s certainly a difference between our guild’s methods and other guilds’, but there’s one commonality. They respond most keenly to ‘crises of oneself or close ones’ above all else.]

[If we design traps that mages can easily overcome but are difficult for ordinary adventurers to avoid, considering this…]

The task of designing the dungeon’s magical traps to prick the unconscious of human mages.

[To make the traps? That Lady…? Wants…]

Jacob’s situation was much worse than Leonis’s.

There was no need to cast hypnosis as delicately as when infiltrating Sonia, and as a result of being confident in the results I had previously created, I cast the curse a bit roughly, and the person had already broken down.

[Sorry? I don’t… understand…]

It was a regrettable mistake.

There was no problem in using ‘knowledge’ even now, but he became unable to use ‘wisdom’.

Moreover, because of this, Jacob’s labor took place in a location that those belonging to my dungeon couldn’t see. There was no reason to chip away at the morale of those who had come under my command.

“When do they say it will be completed?”

-Clack.

-Clatter!

“Three days for Leonis, a week for Jacob… One side is too slow, but it can’t be helped.”

Thus, Mire and Eve were supervising the two people working for my dungeon.

Mire for Leonis, Eve for Jacob.

In Jacob’s case, once all his knowledge is extracted, I’ll have to consider another ‘use’ for him.

“Mire. How are the other two?”

Here, Mire was also in charge of monitoring the condition of Sonia and Maria.

It might seem uneasy to entrust them to her, who has traces of Remia left, but there was no need to worry about things like betrayal.

Contracts with the undead are much stronger than contracts with living humans, as they directly use the necromancer power that is my essence.

Sometimes, it can even create emotions that don’t exist.

In Eve’s case, there wasn’t even such a manipulation process, which makes her special for showing friendliness to me from the beginning, and it was a measure I should take with other subordinates if necessary.

-Clatter.

“I see, nothing unusual.”

Sonia is gradually getting healthier.

Soon, when she becomes healthy enough to withstand ‘Characteristic Removal’, I planned to take ‘Magic Overadaptation’ from her.

The contract with her was an exercise of exclusivity for this. If she had caught the eye of another Dungeon Lord instead of me, that Lord probably wouldn’t have taken such a ‘moderate method’.

They might have tried to take the characteristic immediately, regardless of whether she lost her life or not.

After all, a characteristic that increases magic power without any special training is like a horn of plenty for Dungeon Lords.

There might be some difference in the amount of increase due to the difference between human magic power and demon race magic power, but even if the amount increases from 0 to 0.1, isn’t it much better than nothing?

[I’ll kill you… definitely…]

Maria was still the same after several days.

Although she was eating food, probably due to what Sonia and Daniel had said, other than that, she seemed to focus only on preventing her body from rusting by staying indoors all day without any other activities.

Of course, I didn’t intend to leave her alone either.

My dungeon and I are very young compared to other dungeons, and growth during youth is extremely important.

If there really is no use for her, she might end up being used as a cleaner.

“Mire.”

-Clatter.

I looked at Mire for a moment.

Eve beside me was also looking at her with a slightly dissatisfied feeling, following me, as her eye lights trembled mercilessly.

If it weren’t for the orders I had given in advance, she might have scolded her.

“…”

She who had been Maria’s younger sister.

Keeping Maria alive, even in a half-crippled state, was something I had already decided to do for Mire, separate from accepting Daniel.

Still, I was conflicted until the end, so if Daniel hadn’t quickly decided to make a contract, I might have still been deliberating even now.

If she hadn’t already regained her ‘heart’, it would be one thing, but since she had already regained it, there was no need to further intensify the contradiction in her heart.

She probably hasn’t gained exact memories yet, but she clearly seemed to feel a familiarity with her name or beings she was close to in life.

Some might call this hypocrisy.

And I would probably shake my head. Saying it’s ‘self-satisfaction and curiosity’.

‘It’s not just her.’

This case wasn’t just Mire.

Much stronger ‘aggression’ than ordinary undead was noticeable in subordinates who were bandits or wild greenskins, and other individualities were blooming one by one in subordinates obtained for other purposes.

Considering that in ‘MilDun 1’, such individuality bloomed only after at least a couple of class-ups, my skeletons were gaining ‘individuality’ very quickly.

It’s not to the extent of gaining clear intelligence like Mire or Eve, but clearly at a level that’s not ordinary undead.

And strangely, more individuals began to show goodwill towards me.

‘I don’t know if they’re following Eve, the clearly intelligent First, or if it’s because of that ‘certain benefit’ given to me.’

Although the cause is unknown, this wasn’t necessarily bad.

Various individualities lead to diverse characteristics, and soldiers who gain characteristics this way will become the basis for multifaceted strategies.

Some might view it anxiously, but to me, it was very interesting.

In MilDun 1, undead that gained good individuality always brought excellent specs.

『Characteristics – Specialization: Thrower, Member of Necropolis』

『Specialization: Thrower – Receives bonuses for both throwing and shooting.』

‘I’m looking forward to how they’ll grow from now on.’

So it was natural to look forward to the future of Mire, who seemed to have awakened the most memories from her past life among them.

* * *

Thus, while developing and repairing the dungeon, and at the same time growing the dungeon by devouring adventurers that Talhan successfully lured from outside, one day.

“H-H-Hello…”

The guest I had been waiting for, the dungeon merchant succubus, visited my dungeon again.

“I’m… Mari. Mari Malis Mare…”

Not the cheerful red succubus who came before, but for some reason, an extremely gloomy blue succubus.

It was about a month after dealing with the first wave of novice adventurers and about a week after fending off the second wave of Maria and her group.