Stability and Progress

A year and a half passed with Styx working on taking control over the cities he conquered.

The dungeon lord's starvation tactic had been far more effective than the nobles in the cities had suspected, allowing him to take full control over the cities and local citizens with their loyalty fully shifting over to himself.

He had allowed the demons to attack and raid the farms sustaining people's daily food, even secretly controlling battles with them to push them towards farms. This led to the local food crops being ruined by the demons and signalled the beginning of the food shortage.

Seeing a business opportunity, traders who only cared for coin loaded up their caravans and flocked to Styx's territory. What they did not expect were unreasonably high taxes on traders and others. The public reason for this was the area needed funding to continue fighting off the demons, contruction and other problems plaguing the cities.

With the influx of traders, along came equally opportunistic highway bandits and mountain robbers.

Styx could have easily taken care of these illegals, but they worked in his favor by stopping food from reaching the cities.

There wasn't any mass exodus of citizens who wanted to move to lands with more food. It was dangerous to travel the lands without a guard convoy, nearly all of which no longer operated as Styx had declared his territory separate from the Maple Dragon Kingdom's.

It wasn't as if there was a critical shortage of food, which Styx would not allow to happen, and the wealthy could still afford to each, albeit at a much higher price as prices increased due to the shortage. The ones who suffered were the poor and lower-middle class families.

These also made up the bulk of people spreading rumors about Styx and his heinous acts.

The nobles did all that they could to control the situation but were forced to abide by all of Styx's commands. It was at the peak of poverty and starvation that Styx began offering olive branches.

For those who worked for him, men undertaking construction and other jobs around the city, women as breeders while all could work as hunters and ambassadors to rural areas. New farms of greater and improved crops that had been modified by Styx was also a project that begun to proliferate.

They could even start spreading his territory out towards the former border and push back the demons alongside his forces that kept growing.

All these people would receive ample food for themselves and a small amount to support family.

The nobles in the cities were taken aback by how fast the population went from whispering behind the dungeon lord's back and plotting against him, to worshipping him and offering their loyalty.

Those who still tried to spread rumors denouncing Styx were met with fierce reprisal and oftentimes violence from the general populace that had once been on their side.

Another factor that played into the grand evaluation of Styx was the renovations to the city. As a dungeon with 13 cores worth of calculations, he was capable of managing things on a much higher level than a standard city management office.

Houses and other grand buildings were maintained in top condition whilst more and more were built. Portions of the city were built upwards whilst roads became broader and better managed.

Heaven and The Void had also set up several temples within the city upon Styx's agreement, and in turn had provided him with resources and some knowledge that they didn't value too highly.

Magitech devices became more widely available with an increase in production facilities and mana lines extending into nearly every home and building like electrical lines from his previous life. Mana was much less prone to causing fatal accidents if it one accidentally touched it too, making it a safe and clean alternative.

No longer were mana stones required for various functions like lights, heating water or cooking. Instead, neutral mana flowed from these sockets into whatever was plugged into them.

Many of those who hit Max Level at the First Step, and even some above, had turned into hopeful engineers, studying the magic theories Styx taught for free at school before trying to create their own magitech.

Previously, education had been basically mandatory but still came with a price tag, so many lower class individuals only learned the bare essentials and never pursued more advanced education courses. Now that all education was made free by Styx, there was an enormous uptake in passionate students.

Styx also developed a living magic array of similar design to the one that expanded the internal space of buildings but would instead occupy an entire city.

This was a slow process as it fed off natural mana in the earth, but it was slowly generating new space that Styx could allocate into its bounds and expand the overall size of the city. He would let the new space build up within the array before creating new blocks of land or even entirely new streets that didn't exist when looking from the sky, only by looking through the entrance of the folded space would it become visible.

The underground railway system was completed with dozens of stations in each city and alternative intercity railway lines. Whilst airships were fast and generally safe, they were expensive to travel on and only prevalent in the inner kingdom cities.

It was extremely convenient for the citizens who could now catch a train to travel to other parts of the city or even other cities under Styx's rule. The distance between each city was at least a week's journey by carriage, but now one could catch a train leaving in the morning, have lunch with a relative or even lover in the neighbouring city, and be back for dinner.

The Maple Dragon Kingdom had been progressing too in this time. They still had to deal with constant incursions by the forces of the neighbouring Neth'rite Demon Kingdom, but they were at least given a reprieve whilst Styx consolidated his influence in his territory.

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"Daddy!" A young infant girl with fiery red hair leapt onto Styx's lap with a big grin on her face.

Succubi grew up almost as fast as monsters, as they couldn't truly feed until they were adults, but Styx's Succubus Queen daughter, named Thea after her mother, grew considerably slower. It was still faster than than his other two children who were still crying and crawling on all fours.

If she was to be compared to a human infant, Thea appeared to be three years old, but her internal mana network was consolidating much faster than a human's.

Not far away, several succubi whom had already offered their full subservience to Thea knelt on one knee with humble expressions contrary to their seductive bodies.

"What is the matter, Thea?"

"I want to go out, please~~? I want to go play with the other kids."

"No way! How can I allow you to be placed in danger like that. You need to know that there are plenty of people who will kidnap you just to threaten me."

"But… You said last month I could!"

Thea pouted and threw her nose to the side in displeasure, refusing to face her father but not trying to escape his embrace.

Styx was placed in a difficult position as she had managed to trick him into agreeing to her going outside the underground main dungeon area to play in the cities.

His controlling nature had only grown when in consideration off his offspring. He could protect them whilst they were inside the city, but if someone managed to snatch them and flee into the centre of the kingdom's territory, he would truly be helpless.

The main reason for this was they were too young, especially his daughter, and he couldn't place a piece of himself into them.

"Fine, okay. But you can't go along, okay?"

"Yay! Who will come with me? Piri?"

Piri had grown a lot in the last year and had taken a fondness to Styx's kids, making her closer to them than the other dungeon wives apart, from their mothers.

She was no longer childlike and had begun growing into a full-fledged woman, although her breast had barely developed much to her displeasure when comparing herself to the other dungeon wives.

This didn't dissuade her from trying to become a legal dungeon wife though, but Styx had repeatedly rejected her whilst telling her to wait until she turned eighteen.

With his own territory fully under his control now, whilst his people's happiness was at an all time high due to luxuries in life among other benefits that he provided, he begun sending out squads of monsters and even recruited soldiers to target the Maple Dragon Kingdom.

All whilst encroaching on the kingdom's territory in secret with giant tunnels, relay stations, mana shafts, and other unseen underground infrastructure.