Dragon, Salamander

Aura appeared beside Styx who was still standing on the boardwalk above the great shaft excavation, a dark expression marring her beautiful face.

"Go home an immediately get some clothes," Styx demanded sharply at the still naked wolf girl.

Any other time he would take the chance to appreciate her flawless body, even trying to take advantage of her, but they were currently in a very public location and he didn't want any of his women exposing themselves so openly.

Aura had a look of shock and anger on her face as she also realized the direness of her predicament.

She immediately vanished and Styx saw he violently throwing around clothes in his house. He felt the veins in his temple throb however, as the clothes which were launched were also torn into tatters.

"Stop destroying the clothes!" Styx shouted into the wolf eared woman's head, causing her tail to flinch and immediately take more care in sifting through not just her clothes, but those of the other girls too.

She quickly located and wore a brown sweater that clung to her figure and a black skirt. Styx had tried getting her to wear pants before, but she didn't like how it felt on her tail. Beatrice had completed stockings and pants to accommodate her tail, but the same problem prevailed and she wouldn't wear them unless forced to.

Right as she reappeared beside Styx, the space beside them split in a vertical line as if it was the most natural thing in the world. From the paper thin slit in space walked the white haired man who had nearly destroyed the dungeon with a single attack of repelling Aura.

"A pleasure to make your acquaintance," The man noncommittedly bowed to Styx like a butler, one arm across his waist and the other behind him.

Aura growled once again at the man, but Styx grabbed her by the hair and pulled her into his embrace.

"The polite thing to do is introduce yourself first."

"Oh, my apologies," Styx was having trouble reading this man who spoke in a tone that held no sincerity, yet held no sarcasm either. "I was just so impressed on how you managed to tame this wild wolf that had always simply done its own thing. You can call me Dragon."

"I take it that you are actually a dragon?"

Styx narrowed his eyes while inspecting this strange Monster Lord while Aura spoke while growling.

"Salamander."

"What?"

"He is a salamander."

"You arrogant mutt! Are you trying to enrage me!?"

Space immediately solidified as the Monster Lord unleashed his power in wrath. Aura flinched, but managed to withstand it while stating, "Your wings are fake. You don't use them to fly."

The white haired Monster Lord's anger reached all new heights, but he quickly noticed the effect he was causing on the surroundings before letting out a breath of air so hot the air distorted and screamed in protest.

"As you can see, this dog is not very good at getting along with others," He stated while releasing Styx and the other observers whom were watching from the side.

"Let's change locations," Styx commented before leading away the two Monster Lords, Fiore and Elena trailing them from a distance out of concern.

~~~~~

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A small picnic table was set up in a large farm area. Blue tipped mana grass covered the hilly ground while step up layers of mana rice paddies were off to the side. Elves and tiger beastmen worked in conjunction with monsters under Styx's control to tend to the giant area of fields.

There were a couple of large windmills for grinding up grains as well. There was no wind within the dungeon, but Styx had covered the windmill blades with enchantments and arrays to have them catch the passing mana.

As mana was produced by the flowers and naturally flowed from the highest to lowest density area, this intangible draft was not only absorbed by the windmills and fed into its internal mana lines, but also caused them to slowly turn.

Each had a giant mana driven grindstone that fed off the windmill's mana supply. They also had other facilities inside of them such as some living quarters, a lot of stabilized expanded storage space, and mana powered machines for other food processing requirements.

Styx had recently introduced a day and night cycle within the dungeon, imitating the time outside.

A giant array with glyphs of the moon and stars and complex astological formulae drifted across the ceiling and created an artificial sun, while another travelled during night and produced a fake moon.

The artificial sun was currently hanging low over a giant stone bridge which travelled around the dungeon in a maze as the upper layer of the first floor. Styx had tried to emulate a real sun with this project, but it had been unable to support normal plant life underground.

Fiore and Elena had kept their distance until Styx mentally ordered them to produce tea and some biscuits to placate Aura somewhat.

They quickly brought out three delicate teacups and a steaming pot of tea grown locally and extremely rich in mana.

What would have been poisonous to a standard First or even Second Step ranker, the white haired Monster Lord in human form casually picked up and drank a third of the cup in one mouthful.

"Delicious," He said with a deadpan and seemingly disinterested expression. "I will take some back with me."

Aura was about to spark up again so Styx pulled her over so her head was lying in his lap and ran his fingers through her hair while occasionally feeding her a biscuit. Pleased by the intimacy, her tail curled around his waist while her body relaxed.

The dragon, or salamander, Monster Lord finally had a change of impression as his eyebrows rose in surprise.

"Just like Aura, you don't have an actual name?"

"I am just Dragon."

"Very well, Dragon. Why did you come to my dungeon all of a sudden?"

"Out of curiosity and desire."

"Can you explain better than that?"

Dragon finished his tea while Fiore quickly refilled it before moving back to wait off to the side. He paused and blankly stared at Styx, occasionally tilting his head and tasting the air with a forked tongue before nodding his head.

"I am curious about why Wolf liked this place so much to make it her new home. I am also curious why your dungeon is so successful. Watching this dungeon grow and create an internal ecosystem for life, I wanted to make my own."

"And did you?"

"Yes. There are a lot of dungeons within the Abyssal Forest, even in my territory alone. I conquered several and found one of them has what appears to be a B-Rank dungeon core. I started my own dungeon and even dug it out personally."

"Are you a mole now?" A cold voice sounded from Styx's lap as the wolf-eared woman didn't miss the opportunity to make a cheap, sharp comment at the other Monster Lord.

Styx wanted to complain and teach her that when someone is clearly stronger than you, not to antagonize them, but the visiting Monster Lord was only angry for a brief moment before he controlled his emotions.

"I have had monsters and forced some rare exotic races to live in there, but I constantly need to stop fights and provide food for them, both monsters and exotic races. Here, you have built a huge number of odd and grand constructions. I want to learn how to make them and replicate them in my own dungeon. I also want these flowers and other items."

Styx didn't think this Monster Lord was unreasonable, but he felt an intangible pressure on his existence to give him whatever he wanted even though he was retraining his aura as much as possible. Aura's presence managed to offset that enough for him to control himself not to simply give his stuff away.

"Then you need to be able to communicate and or train the monsters. They also need to be able to hunt for food."

"You provide food for yours."

"They aren't your typical monsters, but bred monsters belonging to myself."

"Yes, I have produced some through the dungeon with the exotic races, but none as interesting as yours and… they can only produce so many monsters."

Styx had a difficult expression and explained the issues revolving breeding and how he counteracts that damage done to the womb with controlled or self healing. Dragon nodded his head several times, instantly understanding what Styx meant as he too could see mana, a skill natural to Fifth Step existences.

"I can't just give you my knowledge though, which is extremely valuable. What do you have to trade for items though?"

"What items will you trade?"

Dragon turned his head and looked around with his white reptilian eyes, his gaze penetrating through space and time as he inspected everything within the dungeon.

"I can trade flowers, manufacturing machines and belts, refined ores or finished products. Food grains and seeds when available. Anything I can produce."

Dragon still appeared disinterested while casually asking, "What is the price?"

Styx had an annoyed and slightly afraid Rhea bring over paper and ink. He grabbed a quill and rapidly drew out each item alongside a numeric value. He blew on the paper to dry the ink before handing it over to the Monster Lord.

"We will work on a credit system. These are the values for each item I have, you can produce items of your own and we will negotiate on their value in comparison."

"How much for an individual of an exotic race?"

"It would depend on their strength, gender, and race."

"How much for protection?" Dragon suddenly asked as his forked tongue flickered in the air several times.

"What?"

"If I protect you and your dungeon, how much is that worth?"

"I'm not sure. Do you mean as a permanent guard? Do you wish to sell yourself?"

"No. I mean protect you when other Monster Lords come to make trouble. The threat of the goddess descending appears to have passed, so they will not stand back forever."

Styx seemed to understand what he meant. He was offering to place the dungeon under his sphere of protection, so if another Monster Lord was to attack, he would stand forth to stop them.

"Unnecessary," Aura glared at Dragon while growling, causing the ground to quake as she did so.

Dragon was completely unfazed as he casually said, "What can the weakest possibly protect?"

Styx cleared his throat and went straight to the essence of the offer

"Will the other Monster Lords simply attack?"

"There is one who will."

"The spider…" Styx sighed while thinking of the mentioned Monster Lord who seemed to have a vendetta against Aura.

"Correct."

"How long do I have?"

"Until she attacks? She is already here. Has been for a while."

Whilst Dragon appeared uninterested and was mentioning it in passing, Aura's ears immediately shot up and she vanished from Styx's lap, reappearing in the middle of an open plain whilst glaring all around, her abyssal black eyes taking on a violet hue as she entered full attack mode.

Aura's power washed over the dungeon and caused everyone to be incapable of breathing. There was some panic, but most of the residents were used to sudden shifts in the atmosphere and managed to quickly adapt whilst looking for the nearest shelter.

Dragon casually waved his hand and suppressed that aura around the wolf-eared woman.

"…How much do you want?"

"Five thousand credits."

"Five thousand?"

Styx thought of the list and whilst that was a decent amount of items, it was actually very cheap to have this Monster Lord be a protective shield for his dungeon. He would also have to rely on Styx for producing most of his items, which would only become more apparent as he created more and more advanced items alongside his research.

"Per month."

This was a lot more, but still within Styx's acceptable range as more advanced items would be increasing in cost. He wasn't worried that by assigning a value to items it would force people into a sense of personal ownership that would lead to hording and potential exploitation. This was only a value for trading with external people.

"I agree. I will have a formal agreement immediately drawn up."

Beatrice, who was busy reading through whilst trying to understand some middle grade magic theory books raised her brow as Styx ordered her to write up the agreement. She, along with everyone else, already knew of the visiting Monster Lord, but she hadn't thought there would be an agreement between them and Styx, especially not so soon.