Defiance

Gabralter stood at the head of a foray of adventurers who he had convinced to join his cause, although the greatest driving factor had been the desire to capture a dungeon core and live the rest of their lives lavishly with more money than they could spend.

Ever since the mutual agreement was struck between the dungeon and Duke Ashburn, the bounty on the dungeon at the adventurer's and mercenary's guilds had been taken down. Instead, there had been rumors of a trade route opening to the dungeon, or a town being constructed outside of it, where specialized items could be acquired.

The dungeon was still open to any willing fortune seeker, and rumors of exotic and expensive items being found within only stimulated people's greed.

Duke Ashburn had forbidden Gabralter from going near the dungeon, but he was becoming more obsessed recently. He snuck outside the city through a secret passage in the city walls in the slums and met with his employed team of four adventurers outside.

"Is everyone aware of the goal of today's dungeon raid?"

The adventurers looked at each other uncertainly.

"To kill the dungeon monsters and extract any prisoners, right?"

"Correct."

"…I hear that all of the prisoners are beautiful women."

"And that the weapons made there of a higher quality than anywhere else."

Gabralter sighed and ignored their hidden motives so long as they did what he was paying them a very large amount for.

Once they entered the Abyssal Forest, the sounds of birds chirping and animal sprinting around the undergrowth became more pronounced. Despite the foreboding name of the forbidden area, it was teeming with life.

Everyone remained alert as monsters could jump out at any time despite the thinning out of monsters in this area over the past few months.

The passed by several groups of elves and tiger beastmen, whom barely glanced at them as they passed by the underbrush and treetops overhead.

The eventually came to the giant cliff face where the entrance to the famous dungeon was located. A giant, menacing temple entrance had been built around the entrance of the dungeon on the cliff, a giant stone sculpture of a monster with humongous tentacles perched on top of it.

Buildings and houses and been constructed in the ever growing town, beautiful constructions of stone, wood and colored mortar.

Several merchants had braved the rough terrain and brought heavy duty carts to scout and trade with the residents of this town, who were well known to actually be residents of the dungeon.

Several beautiful elves with their husbands manned the shops, inspecting the coin and gems of the merchants who wished to buy exotic ores, grains and devices, although the amount they could purchase was currently limited due to output restriction.

Just outside of the city, and on each of the buildings, which were written in elvish and human and read:

⠀

Monsters are the guards of this town, attacking them outside of the dungeon is forbidden

⠀

"What is this?!"

The adventurers were wide eyed at the forming town and beautiful elves manning stores. They saw the signs and looked at the exotic monsters which openly walked through the budding town.

Strange monsters they had never seen before pulled carts full of items and refined ores, while others lurked in shadows and looked over the town with piercing gazes. They weren't the only adventurers who had decided to come to the dungeon, and everybody was nervous at the monster presence.

"Young Master Ashburn," A voice filled with ridicule sounded beside them, breaking everyone out of their nervousness and turning to face the speaker.

Gabralter turned and grimaced at the man with shoulder length blonde hair, his fringe cut straight above his brow and piercing blue eyes looking down upon them disdainfully.

"Earl Housen," Gabralter grimaced upon recognition. "What are you doing here?"

"I could ask the same thing. The studious son who lived through multiple lifetimes and just became more stupid with each one."

"You!!" Gabralter was taken aback at the Earl knowing about his ability and highly wary of the man. He was someone from central, who were known to be cold hearted back stabbers. Many had fallen in central in another's bid for authority and power.

"Oh, don't be so surprised, you hardly did a good job of hiding it. Even the dungeon lord probably knows by now too."

The other adventurers were confused, rapidly trying to understand what they were talking about. It sounded like the duke's son was someone who reincarnated several times, but they were missing crucial parts of information.

This wouldn't stop them from gossiping and spreading more rumors though.

"I had thought the duke forbid you from coming to the dungeon, given your proclivity to die. It appears destiny is more powerful though."

The earl pulled out a device with a needle tip and went to jab Gabralter's arm with it. The duke's son tried to evade and make some distance, but the earl's personally trained royal guards used a short distance teleportation skill upon the earl's signal and blinked next to him.

The other adventurers were all Second Step rankers, but the Third Step royal guards gave them a huge amount of pressure as they too were encouraged not to interfere.

"Get your hands off me! The capital will hear of this treatment!"

"The capital is not interested in hearing your whining," The earl arrogantly stated while jabbing his arm with the device and extracting a small amount of blood.

The device spun as complex micro scale arrays lit up and analyzed Gabralter's blood.

"Odd, I had thought there would be some sort of influence on you, but you are completely healthy and without signs of artificial tampering. Perhaps there is something more hidden though, or it done via a different method."

Gabralter shrugged off the royal guards, who released him and stepped back, and glared at the earl.

"What the hell are you doing here? I had thought you tucked your tail and fled back to central."

"As much as you would like that, I have more work to do here."

Just at this moment, one of the other researcher's from the Royal Academy of Research and Technology rushed out of a nearby house with a long printout of energy readings.

"Earl! It has spiked again, this time even more than the last!"

Earl Vermonte bon Housen ignored Gabralter and the other adventurers and immediately grabbed the paper, glancing over the charts and already identified life signals within the chaotic agglomeration of mana.

"It's back… And with others too…"

The Earl's expression hardened before it turned around and watched as a giant metal wagon that could hold several houses knocked down trees as it approached the town. A Third Step behemoth monster pulled the wagon effortlessly, its megalithic build even bigger than what it was pulling.

The wagon was currently empty save a single chest that the women of the dungeon could see contained items incredibly rich in mana.

The monster glared at everything around it, instinctively wanting to kill and destroy anything related to the exotic races, but it held enough intelligence to do its task properly and restrain those instincts.

Walking in front of the monster seemingly effortlessly, yet each stride covering tens of meters, was a white haired man with silver reptilian eyes. He emitted an intangible pressure that made everyone want to bow and submit to him.

Beside the Monster Lord known as Dragon, was a woman with long black hair. She dressed very conservatively and maintained a business like expression. On her back was two pairs of wings covered in pitch black feathers, while floating above her head was a large, circular black crown twice the diameter of her head.

The crown emitted a faint black glow as it slowly spun, rich amounts of mana flowing through it.

For those capable of seeing mana, they were abjectly astonished how for every one part of mana that flowed into it, ten parts flowed out. It was a mysterious phenomenon that defied all logic.

A pair of black ringlets also floated around one of her ankles, which jingled like a bird chirping with each step she took.

The monster and giant wagon waited outside while the Monster Lord and mysterious woman ignored everything around them and vanished directly into the dungeon.

Earl Housen knew more than Gabralter and the other adventurers, so he frowned with a stern expression upon seeing the woman accompanying the Monster Lord.

"How many Monster Lord's of our kingdom are being scouted? I was unaware that those giant empires had set their sights on our land. This is more trouble than it's worth."

The earl muttered to himself under his breath while Gabralter took the adventurers to challenge the dungeon, entering into the dark entrance and vanishing from sight.