Chapter 143: Building Climax On All Sides

In one of the adventurer's guilds within Lagoon Porter City, one of the counter girls temporarily closed her section and quickly begun writing up an emergency quest.

"What are you doing?" One of her colleagues quietly asked.

"There is an emergency quest from Lord Styx for anyone willing to man the walls. It is pretty good pay too."

"That… have you been to breeding and have become one of his… women?"

The two beautiful women had known each other for a long time, so the colleague didn't want to cause a scene.

"Hmm? No, nothing like that. It's not uncommon to want strength, and this method is, well, quite comfortable."

"That's not it. You know our guild is supposed to be neutral and not tied to any kingdoms, right? They specifically warned us not to do that or we could lose our job… You still have a son, Andrea…"

"Shh, I am not tied to Lord Styx in any such way."

"But you can hear his words in your head."

"It is difficult to explain," Andrea stated whilst placing the emergency quest onto the job board for all the adventurer's to see.

⠀

~**~

EMERGENCY QUEST

Our city and our people are under attack. An army of demons are marching towards us as you read this, and they will not stop until either we are dead, or they are.

Lord Styx has released a quest for any adventurer, mercenary, mage, or able bodied, unaffiliated guild member to join the battle. You will be paid handsomly, or your next of kin will.

Locale: City Walls and Outer Perimeter; Core Guard manning the defence will direct you to where to go.

Time: Tomorrow; 2pm Yellowday, 14th of Brightmoon.

Reward: 2 Gold + kill bounty/person

~**~

⠀

With the emergency quest placed upon the quest board, the two girls quietly gossiped.

"You know… I've heard things… about the breeding. Is it really as big as they say?"

"...It's not about the size, it's more like he fills up every part of you with his existence. But, it is very big…"

"And you don't have to serve him?"

"Nothing of the kind, I am in complete control during the process. It's not even him controlling it, it's an automated process… Surely you aren't thinking of trying it!" Andrea hissed under her breath. "You are married, Hilda!"

"Pah, what do you understand of married life. Grant barely pleases me these days, it's inevitable I would think about it. I never said I would do it, though, sometimes it's nice to just fantasise."

"I hope that is-"

"What is this?" A gruff voice interrupted behind the two counter girls whom weren't at their stations.

A man with a thick beard and bald head was glaring down at the two with his shoulders crossed. He had heard the increasing noise from his office upstairs and had come down to inspect it.

"B-branch leader!" Hilda stuttered and straightened her back as she turned around. "It's Lord Styx, boss. He sent a messenger with an emergency quest."

"And did you fill out the correct paperwork first?"

"T-that… No… I'm sorry, it slipped my mind as it was from the local lord. I will fill it out immediately!" Andrea shook her hands in front of her in a panic and hurried off to grab the documentation that Styx, or his messanger, was technically required to fill out.

The branch leader wasn't stupid and could immediately tell something was up. He even secretly released a bit of mana out of his fingers and watched the receptionist track it with her eyes briefly, confirming his suspicions. Despite this, he didn't say anything and pretended he was unaware she had technically broken the adventurer's guild's rules for staff.

These emergency quests found their way into every branch of every guild within Lagoon Porter City. Styx had a huge amount of gold and gold coins, very little of which he actually needed due to being entirely self sufficient. He didn't want to tie himself to the Maple Dragon Kingdom's economy either, but he understood that adventurers and mercenaries were free spirits who needed money.

This was a very rich reward to those who accepted the quest, whilst to Styx it was basically free. He wasn't using the gold anyway.

~~~~~

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Within the demon army, two dozen high rank demons were holding a war meeting in a room nailed onto the back of an abyssal behemoth, the sounds of the storm outside blocked by demonic magic inlaid into the room. Every demon in this room was of the Fourth Step and extremely powerful in their own right.

The Maple Dragon Kingdom had only thought four or five Fourth Step demons were within this army, but that was only what they revealed during battles.

"What is the viewpoint on the army we ran into?" One demon, in crimson plate armor, asked the other commanders and tacticians in the twisted tongue of demons.

"What of it? They are just monsters bred in a dungeon. We have plenty of our own back home. They make great for labor and controlling the lesser species."

Another demon, a beautiful female with a large exposed bosom that jiggled and forked tail swaying behind her rear giggled and chimed in.

"The humans have foolishly forbidden the use of dungeon breeding. It harms women, whilst their virility as a species are their only strong point. They hold too much value on comradery to allow that."

The high succubus licked her lips as she thought about the humans. There were many shrivelled human male corpses in her own living quarters that she would fondly touch whilst remembering their ever so brief affection before she sucked out all of their essence at once as if they were juice boxes.

"So who are we fighting? They are in the middle of the human kingdom, whoever they are."

One demon that was completely black and whose existence seemed to be more shadow than physical shifted in his seat and stated, "It could be jussst a human who issss breaking the human lawsssss. They often fall to greed and ssssin."

"Either way, we will find out. Set up the weather formation and clear this damned storm. It is too inconvenient to storm a castle when our feet are slipping and sliding in mud."

~~~~~

⠀

In the royal capital, King Wallanther XII was reading the lastest report from his undercover intelligence agents. He sat at the head of his war council where the generals were silently waiting on his word.

Within Lagoon Porter City, nigh all his female undercover agents had defected to the enemy side, whilst most of the other agents, both male and female, had been exposed and killed.

"This bastard dungeon is like a parasite, infecting people and manipulating them to do its bidding…" The king cursed while lamenting that he had initially moved too late, whilst detailed information about the dungeon and its capabilities had arrive far too late.

He had always thought it was a demon or some other force that became a dungeon master there and attacked his kingdom from the inside, but it turned out to just be some rogue dungeon. Not to be mistaken though, this rogue dungeon had exhibited cunning foresight and vicious tactics far beyond what any dungeon should be capable of. In misunderstanding this, he was not at fault.

The king's war council and royal scholars were working alongside the Royal Academy of Research and Technology, especially with Earl Housen who resided in the area for a period of time, to better understand the dungeon. All of the main figures of each party were currently here within the war room

The dungeon was a master of manipulating magic, and would infect females in an intrinsic and unknown way. What was noted however, was that those who were infected would start working for the dungeon out of affection and loyalty. It was not an immediate change, but it would inevitably happen.

Some of the spies who were turned had been turned were raised from infants to be loyal to the kingdom until death. They were loyal beyond any doubt, but after the delved deeper in the dungeon's inner circle in order to uncover the hidden secrets, they started sending false reports until they stopped entirely.

"Earl Housen," King Wallanther XII spoke with a profound regality in his voice,"how is the latest research into dungeon monster breeding going?"

Whilst illegal within the kingdom, the king was capable of giving royal pardons for anything within his kingdom.

"Your majesty, our tests are running very slow at the moment. We have collected a number of female volunteers from the slums, even a couple of exotic races, but there are a lot of difficulties to overcome."

One of the generals, a large man covered in powerful muscled furrowed his brow in frustration.

"A single dungeon has managed to create an enormous army out of monsters within a short timeframe. Since taking over Lagoon Porter City, the speed in which that army is growing has tripled."

"Yes, and we are still trying to understand much about that, from how they are being kept fed, to how the women can produce so many monsters without consequence."

"Earl," The king cleared his throat, "It has been displayed that such an army is possible, and we may well need it in order to fight off the demons from the neighbouring kingdom. What is the issue, and how is your progress in solving it."

"Your majesty, the problem with it is the main reason why it was made illegal. Using a human's, or other exotic race's, womb to breed monsters wears out the womb. It makes them infertile, whilst creating powerful monsters will also cost them their vitality. A woman of 30 who has bred dozens of monsters too powerful for her body will look 80, such is the consequence."

"The dungeon is somehow either preventing that damage, healing it, or both. If we can solve just this, we will have crossed the most important hurdle and will be able to use its own techniques against both it and the demons. Demons may breed faster due to short infant periods, but the human race is the most fertile. Creating monsters could become our greatest weapon we have ever held."

"We have already made great progress in this aspect."

Earl Housen nodded his head to his assistants who hurried moved around the war room and handed out documents to everyone in attendance. The eyes of the royal scholars lit up upon looking at the texts, whilst the war generals were mostly unmoved. They still paid attention to it, but they did not understand it to the degree in which the scholars did.

"As you can see by the biometric data, we can attach an artifical drip into the subjects veins to essentially provide a battery of energy to their circulatory system. This is a special energy mixture that is rich in mana, and serves as a food source for the growing monsters in the womb, thus avoiding them sucking out the woman's life force. We also have medication to protect the womb from damage, but its effects are currently still quite small."

"It is at least a step in the right direction," One of the royal scholars adjusted the collar of his robe and spoke in admiration. "What are your thoughts on post birth treatment, to repair the womb. Can we use any form of healing magic?"

"Unfortunately not. We can't simply heal it, just as we can't heal old age. Even whilst supplementing the energy to support the monster's growth, it takes a toll on the body that only gets worse with each repeated birth."

"So how does the dungeon do it?"

"Our current suspicion is something similar to regeneration rather than healing. First, increase the body's strength so it can support stronger monsters more safely, then regenerate the damage immediately after. It works on paper, but we are yet to achieve either. Stronger rankers can give birth to stronger monsters, and there are exotic races who excel more at this than others, but it still isn't enough."

The king nodded his head in approval at the current research and praised the earl. "Earl Housen, We are most pleased with the current speed of research, We will allocate more resources to you. If all goes well, We will personally grant you to title of duke and all its entitled powers and land."

"Your majesty is too generous," Earl Housen humbly saluted with a hand over his chest. "Between this and the pill to rapidly produce higher level soldiers, I believe we will be able to successfully repel the demons and subdue that dungeon."

~~~~~

⠀

Later that night, King Wallanther XII sat in his personal study with his wife, Queen Wallanther by his side. The queen did not take much of a public role in the kingdom and would instead spend most of her time in the royal gardens being attended to by the maids. She would frequently have tea parties with the duchesses and countesses of the kingdom, maintaining the amicable relationship between the royalty and nobles.

"Husband, the Fae Forest Realm pocket dimension is so close to that dungeon, how can we allow our children to go there?"

The king looked at his wife with a loving but stern gaze before letting out a sigh as he seemed to become deflated in his chair.

"That dungeon is apparently about to clash with the demons. So long as it can hold them off, the royal academy excursion will take place one final time before its influence reaches the pocket dimension. This is a valuable place where only the most fortunate of First Step people can enter and get a familiar. Zoerina has the most powerful bloodline within our entire history since the founding emporer and has the potential to reach the Fifth Step. She alone can cause our kingdom to rise once again, so we must give her every opportunity we can and not waste this chance."

"...But…"

"My wife, We already understand. We don't have enough time, so We must somehow create it. No matter what evil faces us, justice will prevail."