My Dungeon Life – Chapter 1704-1706
Chapter 1704
Just as I was preparing to open up a portal to Dioshin and the location where I was supposed to meet up with Lord Duran, another portal appeared. I was a bit surprised to see a portal pop up. This was the designated spot I had created within the mansion for portals. To be safe, it was sectioned off and people weren’t allowed to walk through it. I’d never seen a portal cut anyone in half, but I didn’t want there to be any chance of that. Plus, however spacial magic worked, it seemed to be that the more often it was used in an area, the easier it became to use. Portals made from this space required just a little bit less effort than any other space, although that could just be a placebo for all I knew.
My first thought was that Siti was opening up a portal. She had inadvertently become the guild master of the Chalm traveling guild because of her powerful blue mage abilities. After the grandmaster died by Calypso’s hand, she had mostly functioned aimlessly. I had no deep relationship with her, and she didn’t owe me anything, but her strength with teleportation spells made her valuable, and I convinced her to stay in Chalm.
She was far too busy at the moment dealing with the new traveling guild. Routes were being established constantly, and she needed to be on top of them all. The traveling guild didn’t have it easy. They needed to make agreements with the merchant’s guild, adventuring guilds, other traveling guilds, and more. That’s why I didn’t bother her to make a portal for Dioshin when I could just do it myself with my dungeon skill. She hadn’t even been in Dioshin before, so she wouldn’t have been able to make the portal anyway.
The person who did come out surprised me though. It was a skinny girl with a flat chest and a somewhat fiery temper. She wore fine clothing, except that it belonged to a man. Her pants, coat, and jacket were fine enough for any lord of Aberis. The most notable thing about her though was that she had a belt with two holsters, and in those holsters were guns.
“Bernice?”
“Shh!” She pushed her finger to her lips. “Lord Reign!”
I looked through the portal to see Lord Reign’s throne room and a blue mage. “R-right. Lord Reign, why have you visited us today?”
I had almost forgotten that Bernice was masquerading as Lord Reign. I had no clue who the original Lord Reign happened to be, but his aura and identity had seemingly been attached to the crown. Anyone who wore the crown would appear as Lord Reign to everyone else. She was wearing the crown now, but she hadn’t appeared as Lord Reign to me.
Once the portal closed, Bernice let out a breath and pulled off her crown. It was only then that the other girls let out cries of surprise. I had told them that Bernice was pretending to be Lord Reign, but being told something and seeing it were two different things. I realized that I had seen right through the illusion, unlike the last time she had worn the crown. Was this the product of me growing stronger, or was this one of the things I gained from the heroic marks? In that case, was it the harem heroic mark or the human heroic mark?
It may seem arbitrary, but the illusion spell could break, because of my higher levels, it could have broken because of my high affinity to humans, or it could have been my high affinity to my harem. I’d look into it later, though, as her sudden appearance was already holding up my plans.
Chapter 1705
“What are you doing here, Bernice?”
“A-aren’t you going to Jespain? I barely just heard the word and rushed over.” Bernice responded haughtily.
“Huh? What does Jespain have to do with you?”
She flushed. “Why can you be the only one who gets to play… ahem… I mean have a cultural exchange? I’ve been working so hard to reform Alerith after the Demon King Aberis nearly ran it into the ground, and I could use a break… I mean a cultural exchange too! I’m the count of Alerith! Who wouldn’t be excited to visit an elusive country we’ve only heard about in books?”
I scratched my ear. “This isn’t for fun. We have a lot of things we need to do there. I hear that their golem research is years above our own. We need to know what they know so we can rebuild Terra’s body. They’re also the only country that builds airships.”
“W-well, it’s important to me too!” She touched the guns on her built. “I’ve heard from some traders that Jespain can build artifacts like these. I don’t want to have to depend on you for bullets indefinitely, so I’d like to see if the rumors are true.”
“Jespain has guns too?” I responded in surprise.
Now that I thought about it, the idea of building something that propelled a small object at high speeds wasn’t that original. Guns had been around in one form or another for thousands of years. It had just taken until the 1800s before their effectiveness in killing and ease of distribution exceeded the alternative methods. In a world with magic, why couldn’t some kind of magical explosion exist? Since these guys were advanced in making magical artifacts, a gun didn’t sound particularly more impressive than a golem. Who knew, Bernice might even be able to find magical guns that far outstripped the power of this gun, making her stronger and more effective.
Well, she had shot her guns at me a few too many times, and no matter how strong and fast I got, bullets were still a little scary. I wasn’t sure how I felt about her getting much stronger.
“So, I’m going along.” Bernice nodded.
I thought about it for a few seconds, and that’s when an idea struck me. A small grin appeared on my face. Bernice seemed to notice it and took a step back, grabbing her guns at her sides, but not drawing them.
“I will let you come with us, but only under one condition.”
“C-condition?” Her eyes widened, and then realization passed through them and her face turned red. “O-oh, that…”
I had Bernice as my slave at one point, but I hadn’t re-enslaved her when I reencountered her as Lord Reign. I didn’t see a need to. Whether she was a slave or not wouldn’t make the guns more damaging. Furthermore, when it came to loyalty, as she said, she needed me for more ammo for her weapons. That said, I found my inability to quickly ascertain what was going on in Alerith irritating, and if she was going to find new magical weapons, then I wanted to have a more permanent tie to her.
I nodded. “You understand. I didn’t force you to do it before, even though I’ve done it with all of the other girls.”
She seemed lost in thought for a minute, but finally, she gave a nod. “F-f-fine… if that’s the only way you’ll be happy, then I’ll do it. Can it wait until after the trip?”
“No, I want to get it out of the way now.”
“Out of the way?” Her eyes flashed angrily. “F-fine, you bastard. Do what you will to me.”
She grabbed onto her clothing and started removing them in front of all the girls present.
“H-hey! What are you doing?” I cried out. “Why are you taking off your clothes?”
With her shirt halfway off, exposing her thin midriff and belly button, she blinked in confusion. “Did you not want to do it in front of everyone? I thought that was like an initiation thing?”
“We can start one!” Lydia nodded excitedly.
Feeling like the wrong idea might be going around, I quickly corrected myself. “I was talking about making you a slave.”
Bernice stared at me for a second, and then her face turned completely red. “B-b-b-“
“Be?”
“Bastard!” She dropped her shirt pulled out her guns and started shooting at me again.
Chapter 1706
With some effort, I kept from getting a bullet in me, calmed Bernice down, and got her to accept her enslavement. Considering what she thought I was asking for that she agreed to, enslavement seemed tame by comparison. Besides, Bernice had once been my slave before, so it wasn’t like she didn’t know what she was getting into.
{Name: Bernice Castille
Rank: Viscount
Class: Quick Study
Job: Gunslinger LVL 52, Sniper LVL 8
Unlocked Jobs: Hero LVL 83, Swordsman LVL 92, Magic Swordsman LVL 23, Knight LVL 75, Dungeon Diver LVL 32, Gladiator LVL 15
Race: Human}
For her age, her levels were amazing. The other girls had all been boosted by my experience buffs, but Bernice had reached that state mostly on her own. The reason she managed to do it had to be her strange class. Quick study likely gave her extreme experience boosts and allowed her to learn things quickly. This was why she was able to jump jobs so easily from a swordsman to a gunslinger.
She could probably learn anything she put her mind to. Like me, she could have had twenty-thirty jobs, but she was rather focused on what she had wanted in life. She fought to get stronger. She was a gladiator, a knight, and a dungeon diver. She had picked up all of the relevant jobs. She couldn’t flop the jobs around at will like me, which once again only showed just how impressive she was.
“Wh-what?” Her face turned red as she noticed me staring at her.
“You’re kind of amazing.”
“You’re saying that now!” She scowled at me.
I cleared my throat and quickly started casting a portal. It didn’t take more than a moment to open up, and the group of us left Chalm and walked into Dioshin. We didn’t end up appearing in Dioshin’s capital city. Instead, we came out in the wolfkin city, a short walk away from the palace. That was where Lord Duran us to visit him.
As I gathered the girls and started walking toward the palace, our procession naturally caused a stir in the city. Unlike Chalm, the tribes of Dioshin segregated themselves pretty aggressively, and the majority of those present were all wolfkin. To see such a diverse group of people walking through was a shock. There were fairies, golems, and one couldn’t forget the catgirl women.
They didn’t just draw attention for their uniqueness, but also their beauty. All of the girls were attractive women, and it immediately pulled the eyes of the wolfkin men. One of them even let out a howl before his wife hid him in the back of the head with a rolled-up newspaper. The girls ended up becoming shy under this attention. Chalm was mostly used to them, so they weren’t looked at so aggressively. They responded by moving closer and closer to me until I was surrounded by girls, each one clinging to a piece of my shirt. This only made the scene even more noticeable, and I found myself receiving more than a couple of jealous looks.
One of the girls was particularly nervous. That was none other than Miki. She had worn a cloak and she put her hood up, hiding her face and keeping her head down low. The last time she had been there, she had killed many animalkin during her tide of death. I had resurrected most of them, but there were still those who didn’t make it, and if anyone noticed and remembered her, how wouldn’t they be a little angry over the anguish they faced?
I reached out and patted her head, drawing her close to me protectively as we continued through. With the lionesses forming a circle around us, we reached the castle in short order unimpeded.