My Dungeon Life: Rise of the Slave Harem - My Dungeon Life – Chapter 1397-1399

Chapter 1397

“Master… I’m panicking!” Sapphire looked in tears.

Lapis had come up to inform her of the importance of this event, but that put even more pressure on her to perform well. It wasn’t just a matter of the national treasures of her entire kingdom, but also her status as a deep dwarf and the acceptance of her people. While Lapis seemed like a gentle mother, she certainly didn’t waste time dumping a lot of pressure on her daughter.

I put my hands on her shoulders, forcing Sapphire to look up at me. “You can do this. We can do this. Remember, you’re not alone. We’re together in this.”

“O-okay…” She responded, still looking down, but her cheeks turning pink.

“Alright, let’s get this over with.” Gabbro spoke up. “Let’s go over the terms. We will each mage a silvthril dagger. Whichever blacksmith whose dagger is deemed the better weapon wins. If I win, then I will take back the accumulated treasury of the deep dwarves. Also, we will consider our debt to you forfeit. We will owe you nothing, and once passing this crisis, we will split ways to forge our own path.”

“What is this?” Sapphire lifted her head in surprise.

“Hmph… I added that last part after thinking about it. Those resources were already ours. I prefer to close debts promptly, and I’d rather my people not remain in some kind of unspecified debt with a foreigner. Do you accept?”

I squeezed Sapphire’s shoulder and gave her a wink. “I will accept your terms, but since you added a condition, I will also add one.”

“That depends on what it is!” Gabbro growled.

“If we win, I will keep control of the resources.” This caused a few of the deep dwarves to grumble, but after a look from Gabbro, they silenced, since they were implying Gabbro would somehow lose. “And for my second term, if we win, then you will personally take on Sapphire as your personal disciple!”

“Ah!” Sapphire cried out.

“That’s preposterous!” Another dwarf couldn’t keep his mouth shut.

“Gabbro hasn’t taken on an apprentice since two hundred years before Twilight.” Someone else added.

“I guess you’re right,” I spoke out, shrugging. “After all, if Sapphire can make a better dagger, is Gabbro even really needed?”

Such words caused all of them to cry out in anger. The only one who wasn’t reacting much was Gabbro himself. He had his arms crossed and was glaring at me suspiciously. When everyone finally quieted enough, he spoke up.

“Fine… I accept your terms.” He declared in a clear voice. “However, what metric will we use to determine victory.”

I nodded and gestured to Terra, who was sitting in the stands near Pait. “Terra will be the judge.”

He frowned, glancing over at Terra. “Her?”

“Don’t let her appearance deceive you. She is a Mineral Appraiser and Metallurgist. Her eye for well-shaped steel may even be better than any of yours.”

While I was leveling my Blacksmith with Sapphire, Terra was earning just as much experience. I had given her Earth Summoner and Mineral Appraiser to power level. After our extra leveling, they were 53 and 47 respectively. When Earth Summoner hit 50, that was when Metallurgist popped up, and then I managed to get that up to level 7. Either way, I was confident in her ability to tell the quality of our blacksmithing.

“As if I would allow that!” Gabbro declared. “If we use your judge, then they’d cheat for sure. That’s why we’ll use mine!”

Chapter 1398

“I’m not going to cheat!” Terra cried out.

“How could you possibly not vote in your Master’s favor!” One of the dwarves shouted out.

“This is unfair.” Another added.

I lifted my hand, quieting them down enough that I could be heard. “As you are all aware, Terra is my slave and I am her Master. You may not be aware, but I had the job Slave Master, and that job, I can give orders to my slave, even setting the severity of punishment should they go against them. In this case, I order Terra to judge honestly and select the superior weapon. If she goes against my order, then she will experience pain. Good?”

“He probably ordered her yesterday to ignore any orders today!”

“What if he’s not a Slave Master, then he could just say anything and it wouldn’t matter!”

These dwarves were stubborn! I was expecting that to be the end of it.

“How about this?” Gabbro spoke up. “Both of our judges will pass, and if they do not agree, then we will depend on a tiebreaker.”

“Who are you picking?” I asked. “I have made my slave swear to be honest. What guarantee do I have that you won’t have someone who would always pick you?”

I was starting to sound like them!

“I had considered this as well.” Gabbro nodded. “That’s why I selected Lapis to be the decider. She is my sister and Sapphire’s mother. If anything, she’d be dispositioned to helping her daughter…”

“I would never throw a contest so dishonorably!” Lapis cried out, shooting Gabbro a glare.

The smile immediately left his face and he gave an awkward laugh. It appeared like there was someone who could still make Gabbro squirm. His younger sister was a weakness of his.

“Fine, I will accept her.” I agreed. “But who will be the tiebreaker?”

“As if it’d get to a tiebreaker.” Gabbro snorted. “Very well, since we’re deciding, we’ll go with that esmere over there.”

“Me?” Pait jerked up. “Why me?”

I had to agree. “He came here with me. He’s my friend. He also knows nothing about weapons. Why would you leave him to be the tiebreaker?”

“It’s because he came here with you that I knew you wouldn’t dispute it.” Gabbro laugh. “However, I know a politician when I see one, and he’s a politician. He may be your friend, but I’ve already had a chance to pump him for information. Now, he’s a lad who can’t hold his alcohol.”

“Is that why you invited me to drink?” Pait cried out. “Dav still won’t look at me after I came home drunk, but I don’t remember anything and she won’t tell me!”

Everyone glanced at Dav, who was distinctly looking the other way, her face glowing red. “It’s nothing…”

“Anyway, I’ve learned that he doesn’t belong to the same country as you, and you kidnapped him from his current post.”

“I might have done something like that,” I muttered.

“Whether he’s your friend or not, it is still Esmore he must look after. Would he rather do you a favor, or would he rather owe me? Half the population of Esmore is dwarves. Some believe deep dwarves went to the surface and became surface dwarves. Others believe they were cousins from the same dungeon world, and I suppose a few believe they aren’t related to us at all. However, no one can deny they’ve been jealous of our blacksmith and mining techniques for untold ages. I wonder what he’ll consider a more advantageous choice, allowing Aberis to gain control of the deep dwarves and their techniques, or freeing them from such an agreement and getting a personal favor with me.”

“When you say it like that, isn’t he going to pick you?”

“Hehe… that depends on how loyal a friend you think Pait really is.” Gabbro laughed. “Of course, if you deny him, aren’t you saying you don’t trust this friend of yours?”

“Geh…” He really had me there. “Fine, I agree!”

“Then, let’s begin!”

Chapter 1399

“Since I wouldn’t want you to claim unfairness, our forges were created the same, using a milder temperature. I also left you the schematics and instructions we will follow, so you can’t claim I used a technique you’d never seen before.” Gabbro responded as we walked up to our forge.

“The temperature should be hotter.” Sapphire immediately said.

“I didn’t want your precious little master getting hurt on the hot stove.” Gabbro didn’t hide the mocking in his voice.

“We can handle ourselves!” Sapphire snarled.

I nodded, walking up and putting my hand directly on the burning stove. I had equipped Heat Immunity now, so this act that even Gabbro wouldn’t do I did with ease. The men all gasped as I casually tested the temperature with my finger, and then began to alter the temperature using magic. As the stove rose, Sapphire also began to prepare, tying on her apron, finding the hammer she wanted, as well as the piece of silvthril.

Seeing me touching the forge, and making it much hotter, he gave a slightly irritated wave, and a dwarf came near the stove and started casting a spell, to increase the heat of their stove to match ours. The material used for these stoves wasn’t quite as fine as the material that would be forged into the weapons, so I brought it to the point where the metal almost turned red before I stabilized the heat.

Gabbro finally stood up at his, and he was quickly joined by another dwarf who looked about the same age as him but moved much more spryly like he had to be much younger. I will still trying to figure out deep dwarf aging. The pair had already seemingly set up everything they wanted and didn’t hesitate to start moving like the Masters that they were, working with a finesse only experience could create.

“Master, do you see the deep dwarf technique?” Sapphire gestured.

“Does it differ from the technique you acquired in Twilight’s Dungeon?” I asked.

“Only slightly. However, I don’t believe we should follow this path anyway.”

“Are you sure about that?”

She made an uncertain face but finally nodded. “If we follow a technique that uncle has mastered, at best we’d only be creating a product as good as if not inferior to his. The only way we can defeat uncle is by forging our path.”

“Then, I will follow your lead.”

She nodded, and then hesitated for a moment “Master, do you still have the lore that my father sent you?”

“It’s mostly been absorbed by the dungeon, but it’s not like I can conjure it up with my Dungeon Master job.”

“Does any of it contain anything about our upcoming enemy?”

I blinked, thought about it for a few moments, and then nodded. “I think it does.”

“Is there any way you can share the knowledge with me… through our bond?”

I had never considered doing something like that before. The closest skill I recalled having was Duplicate Slave skill. In that case, I was able to temporarily pull on my slave’s lore so that I could pull off one of the skills only they should have. Of course, when I first had the skill, I didn’t understand that was what I was doing. I quickly went through my Slave Master skills, and that was when I landed on one called Slave Teaching. I had gotten it at 42, but I had mostly ignored it.

“I think I might be able to do just that,” I smirked.

While Gabbro and his partner were already busy at work, Sapphire and I worked out a design between each other. It had already been about fifteen minutes with them half done when we finally began.