“Anyway, I’m just glad everyone made it through.”
The day after the Crawler assault.
The Kobolds who had evacuated into the dungeon came back out safely.
All that remained was cleanup, and the matter would be put to rest.
“We’re prioritizing clearing the village and the road to town first. It should be back to normal in two or three days.”
Makina gave the report while issuing instructions to the golems.
At this rate, the damage wouldn’t amount to much.
To have come through a crisis like that in one piece — honestly remarkable.
“My lord……what would have become of us without you?”
Mumul bowed his head deeply toward me.
As if on cue, every Kobold gathered there dipped their heads in unison.
The way they looked at me was almost like reverence.
“Ha, I only came out to tell everyone to evacuate.”
“Not at all! That you came to us at personal risk — we are truly grateful! The people of this village will remain grateful for eternity!”
First Makina, and now the Kobolds — the depth of feeling directed my way seemed to keep climbing.
My honest preference was for everyone to just go on working normally.
There was nothing wrong with it, of course, but for someone whose ambitions as a lord were fairly modest, it felt a little heavy.
“After all that, it would be wonderful if the magic stone sale goes through.”
“Right — we should head to the Mage Kingdom soon. Though……”
“Though?”
“I haven’t seen it yet, but from what the merchant said it’s an exceptional stone. Coming up with a fair price may be challenging, especially with the mine in the state it’s in.”
The damage had been light, but it hadn’t been nothing.
The area around the mountain in particular had been badly torn up — in no small part because we’d brought the Crawlers there ourselves.
The mine and the quarry were nearly destroyed. Even with the golems mobilized for reconstruction, it would take some time.
“I see. This incident has reminded me quite painfully of my own limitations — I’d wanted a new body sooner rather than later.”
“Your limitations? The replication-types were frightening to watch……”
The sight of the replication-types consuming the Crawler swarm had been almost awe-inspiring.
Having produced something like that, she still felt she lacked power?
Makina shook her head with a slightly apologetic expression.
“At present they can only be used against a very specific type of opponent. Their combat ability is extremely low — they only work against enemies who can’t offer any resistance to having their magic stones taken.”
“So in a way — Crawler-specialized?”
“Yes. With further research there are various directions they could develop, but for now — they wouldn’t work against even a goblin horde.”
So using the replication-types as a deterrent against the Six Kings was off the table for the moment.
Makina herself needed further enhancement.
But how to scrape together that many resources……
The mountain wasn’t particularly large — they might run out of rare ores sooner than expected.
“Isn’t there some way to earn more……”
“On that subject, my lord. While we were sheltering in the dungeon, I took the opportunity to have the Lancelot Mark IIs conduct a survey and……there appears to be a sixth floor.”
“What?”
Mumul’s report made me question my hearing.
The last I’d heard from Alicia and the others, the dungeon had only five floors.
“Is that certain?”
“I would never fabricate such a thing. We verified it multiple times — there are definitely six floors. The floor guardian had also changed in type. The Lancelot Mark IIs defeated it, so I didn’t see it directly, but……”
“But Alicia’s group wouldn’t have made a mistake either……”
I said it, and Mumul looked back at me with steady eyes.
Hmm……what to make of this.
I trusted Alicia’s group — but I couldn’t imagine the Kobolds were lying or mistaken either.
Given their cautious nature, they’d certainly checked more than once.
The odd discrepancy gave me pause.
Then Makina spoke.
“……The dungeon may have grown.”
“In this short a time?”
“Yes. It’s the only rational explanation.”
“Still, for a dungeon to develop that quickly……”
“It’s possible that having so many people enter at once had an effect. Dense traffic might accelerate growth — something along those lines.”
Not impossible as a possibility.
If that was the case, the thing to do was draw more people in and keep the dungeon growing.
A fully developed dungeon would resolve the resource shortage in one go.
Should I report it to the Embance Kingdom and bring people in?
But that risked losing Isvall to the crown.
A kingdom that viewed demi-humans as enemies might not accept the Kobolds’ presence either.
“Another difficult problem to add to the pile……”
“We should ask Lady Alicia and the others for their thoughts later. Adventurer perspectives are important for managing a dungeon.”
“Good point. Let’s hear everyone out.”
We’d just settled on a rough direction when it happened.
Ganz came running down the freshly cleared road from the direction of Isvall.
“Hey — we’ve got a situation!!”
“What happened?”
“People from the kingdom just showed up!!”
W-what!?
The unexpected news nearly knocked me off my feet.
It seemed that with one crisis gone, another had wasted no time arriving……!