4 House Welf
Naturally, I'm not the only child of Count Rudolf, eldest son of Duke Robert, but I am the eldest. I have three "siblings" and one on the way they are brother John aged 4, and the twins; sister Isabel, and brother Lukas both aged 3. Nor is the Count the only child of the Duke, I have 5 "aunts" and "uncles" they are Uncle Leon aged 24 who is a non-hereditary viscount, Uncle James aged 23, Aunt Isabel aged 22, and Aunt Flora aged 21. They have kids too, my "cousins" but they are not of note, they didn't even inherit knightly status and are, therefore, just rich peasants.
House Welf has been around for over 2 thousand years, with the first recorded member being Sir Patrick Allen Welf. For the first 3 generations, it was nothing but a mere knighthood, a mere shell of what it is today, this would change with one Baron Richard Marcus Welf who was born a knight but through his service was granted a barony, a stone's throw away from where he was born.
It is said that Lord Richard once defeated an army of 1000 peasants on his own using mana. When the king found out about it, he immediately granted him a barony, it was the least that he could do. He had wanted to make him a count by that would break the laws at the time. As the law stated that if one was granted a barony they couldn't be elevated to a viscount. This was the rule with all titles, elevations happened generation by generation manner to prove that the family had "great blood" or whatever.
The next promotion would come with his son Viscount Edward Richard Welf, who, like his father was a great military man. Unlike his father, however, he was not some super-human, rather, he was a great strategist and tactician. It was said that he once lead 1,000 soldiers to victory against an army of 10,000. While he was outnumbered 1 to 10 it was little wonder that he won in the end as his side had 500 people who were masters in the forces while the other had a mere 100. Such is the power of the forces. He would later serve the kingdom as the Marshel of the Army, a position that commands the army.
This trend of greatness would continue throughout the ages and within 500 years the once knighthood would become a great duchy, well, "great" is debatable as the historic lands of house Welf are noted as being inhospitable and many scholars agree that it is a miracle that the duchy still exists.
So do I feel any pressure? After all, the duchy has a long history, and I, when I succeed my "father" should not mess it up. The answer is, of course, absolutely not. After all, once I'm the duke, I might be hailed as the strongest member of the house to have ever lived.
The city of Welf, the historic seat of the Welf's was not originally named so, but one of the many heads of the house changed the name, as to when it was changed, it must have been at least 1000 years ago. Anyway, the city sits within a forest known as forest Welf. The city is noted as being split in two, the upper district and the lower districts This is because a river runs through the middle of the city.
Normally this positioning would have been superb, but my "ancestors" forgot one crucial detail, forest Welf is dungeon country. Meaning that this forest has an unusually high number of dungeons and labyrinths, colloquially known as dungeons as there is only a slight difference between the two. To understand the difference, one must understand what dungeons are. Dungeons are a naturally occurring phenomenon that occurs when other lesser dimensions intersect with this one. One could say that they are dimensional rifts. Most are microscopic but sometimes they are large enough for one or many people to enter at once. These are colloquially known as portals.
Dungeons are occupied by magic creatures known as monsters that generally attack anyone who enters their domain, there are only a few recorded instances of the natural occupants willingly working within their minds, the invaders of their homeland. These are called peaceful dungeons, one such instance of this is in the faraway land of the Magic Empire home to the Herminites, I should travel there one day, but I digress. That peaceful dungeon is the size of the entire Kingdom of Zona and is a major partner of the Magic Empire. That dungeon would be classified as a great labyrinth.
The interior of these pockets is random, some are deep oceans of lava, others are vast caverns others are the size of a room and have small monsters. It is impossible to know the exact details of the dungeon within, without actually entering, but one can guess its size by the size of the portal. It is because of the different sizes of dungeons that some are classified as labyrinths, they are the monstrous ones in size. Generally, the size of a small city is enough to be classified as a lesser labyrinth. Generally, labyrinth the size of a duchy are "normal" labyrinths while anything the size of a kingdom or greater is classified as a greater labyrinth.
The area around the forest has 1 lesser labyrinth and 3 regular labyrinths and many greater, lesser, and normal dungeons. Naturally, any dungeon the size of a village or greater generally contains an immense wealth. The cores of the monsters alone could make one rich as they are magic material. Good magic material is rare and in high demand, as there are mines that bring up much material graded A and below but it is rare for them to find any AA, AAA, S, SS, or SSS rated material. Those are typically found in dungeons or in some cases, can be synthesized by a master craftsman. They are rare, however, I would estimate that there can't be more than 10 humans who have the potential to synthesize an AA rated magic material. This is because one needs an ampule amount of life force, be a master of the forces, and be experienced in craftsmanship. This, of course, is rare, they would only appear in the human world once in a millennium. Naturally, other races like the Herminites don't have this problem. So S rated magic material could be considered a lesser national treasure of a human kingdom as only the elite of the elites could clear an SS rated dungeon.
Once all the monsters are defeated within any dungeon, a magic item called the core of the dungeon is produced, and of course the larger the dungeon, or rather, the higher the grade of the dungeon (the difficulty of the dungeon, some larger dungeons may be relatively easy as each monster might not have a lot of life-force), the higher the grade of core it produces. Naturally, this core has a great many uses in production and some are even national treasures. Once a dungeon is "cleared", that is the core is removed, the portal disappears after a certain amount of time, in some cases, this takes hours and in other years. This, in many cases, leads to the dungeon not being cleared and instead is used as extra real estate. The Kingdom itself has a law regarding these uncleared pockets, they are treated as an extension of the area the portal appears in and is, therefore, subject to all the laws thereof.
This sounds great and all but there is one crucial detail that was overlooked. That is that some dungeons have SSS class monsters, these guys are so strong that they are colloquially known as "national disaster class". Furthermore, to kill just one of these monsters would require a large army, many elite fighters. Anyone who can't defeat an AAA monster on their own would be considered cannon fodder. The sacrifice to clear it would be too great for any sane person to authorize an expedition. This, in other words, means one needs the resources of an entire nation to clear an SSS-rated dungeon. Now, imagine what would happen if there was a labyrinth with many SSS class monsters? No-one would be able to clear it and anyone who tried without significant preparations would be committing suicide. That assessment might be too optimistic, any human in their right mind should just forget about clearing it, even if they rule an entire empire. The forest has one such labyrinth but luckily for it, it is not an irregular labyrinth, meaning that the monsters inside cannot exit to our side of the rift but we can transverse both ways.
This labyrinth is called "1000 pits of hell" and according to a survey of the area around the portal done hundreds of years ago, there are many fissures and crevasses in the land. There are many underground active volcanoes that spew hot magma. On top of that, the sky is bright red and the grass is the color of blood. The average level of the monsters within a 5-kilometer radius of the portal which generally contains the weakest monsters was AAA to S class. Naturally, they had to exit after only 10 minutes and didn't actually move more than 10 meters from the portal.
Irregular dungeons are dungeons that the monsters inside can actually exit and invade the main world. These dungeons are, of course, the ones that have the most attention of the ruling class and are cleared within a few years. Just this year Duke Robert's personal squad of elite adventurers cleared 2 irregular dungeons. But, this is far from enough as there are currently a few dozen irregular greater dungeons and 2 of them have at least one confirmed SSS grade monster. One might wonder why are there so many? This is because every year 1 or 2 new irregular dungeons are recorded in the forest. Luckily, the only dungeon on record that an SSS grade monster could actually exit is the one in the Magic Empire and that one is peaceful.
This naturally, is a heavy burden on the duchy, and no guard of any city nor the members of the royal military stationed in the duchy can afford to let their guard down. This simple truth combined with the fact the duchy is far away from the center of things in the kingdom are the main reasons why the duchy can be considered rural, despite the earnest efforts of the bureaucracy. This leads to the question, why doesn't the kingdom just send a team to clear them? After all, they wouldn't want loose monsters in the kingdom. This is because the situation is under control, in fact, the duchy has many laws regulating these dungeons. For instance, if one is not a citizen of the duchy they cannot claim a dungeon as their real estate but they can claim up to 70% of all the valuables inside with a few exceptions. This attracts many adventurers but there aren't many that could take on an AA-rated dungeon, that is, for the most part, done by the duke's forces. From the kingdom's point of view, why waste money and stop a profitable enterprise? But for the vast majority of people within the kingdom would avoid this duchy like the plague as there are many safer areas within the kingdom. In fact, people born inside the duchy can't just move out, they need permission (only the peasants). This is generally not granted as the duke can't just have everyone leaving, the only common exception is the draft of peasants into the royal military, the duke can't stop that.
Naturally, the head of house Welf is the baron of the city of Welf but it's not like he actually governs the city. Rather, the city is split into 2 different administrative zones, the upper and the lower zones. Each zone has an Administrator that is in charge of daily operations. This Administrator is naturally someone who is at least a knight and is elected by the local knights and nobles to a 5-year term with the consent of the Baron of Welf, naturally, the Duke doesn't have time to personally handle every matter that may come up, that's why he appoints a city Mayor to be his representative. If the Duke is away, the Mayor may approve of the candidates for Administrative Administrator.
The Administrative zones are further divided into boroughs with the upper zone having a slightly higher population of 800,000 as compared to the lower's 700,000. The upper zone has 5 boroughs while the lower has 4. It may be surprising then that the lower zone is where the seats of the city, county, and duchy are located. In any case, each borough has a borough Administrator, tasked with managing the daily operations of their borough, and of course, they are elected to a 5-year term by the knights and nobles who live in the borough, but unlike the Administrative Administrator, one does not need the Duke's approval to run. They, of course, are subordinate to the Administrative Administrator. Every 6 months, the 2 Administrative Administrators, the borough Administrators, the Mayor, and the Duke (if Available) convene an executive council to pass new laws and discuss the affairs of the city.
The city is home to around 1.5 million people, while this may seem impressive, the royal capital has a population of 10 million people. In truth that is about the same as the population of the entire duchy, which has a mere population of around 9.5 million permanent residents.
