Dungeon Maker

Ophelia smiled again. Then she sat down at her eye level, who was crying with a dejected expression and said, "Yuria, look at me."

She faced Ophelia, but she couldn't look at her in the face because of the tears on her face.

"Oh my God! What shall I do?"

Ophelia roughly wiped Yuria's face with a handkerchief. She then let her blow her nose.

Slipping the five pebbles in her hands, Ophelia said, "Let me return them to you, but this time only. I won't next time. Got it?"

She spoke to Yuria sternly. Yuria couldn't even check the pebbles in her hand and kept bowing to her.

"I'm sorry. I won't do it again."

"Is that all you want to say?"

Yuria shook her head and bowed deeply to her. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

Ophelia, patting Yuria's hair happily, stood up.

At that moment, Baduk made a miserable groaning. But Ophelia was stern.

Actually, it was Baduk that held Yuria's hand and ran to the gambling room here.

"I can't forgive you."

Baduk again groaned miserably, but Ophelia wasn't persuaded.

Instead of stroking Baduk's head, she hit it gently.

"Go back quickly."

Looking at the bones and chicken vouchers on the table, Baduk swallowed its tears. Baduk left the table bitterly with Yuria pulling its hand hard.

Yong-ho, who was waiting until the dust settled, let his shoulders droop and said, "What did you do to them?"

"Well, I've taught them some lessons early on because gambling is a shortcut to the ruin of one's family."

"Hey, I don't want to remind you of this, but you remember who asked me to build this gambling house, right?"

"Ah, you know it's me!"

Ophelia smiled refreshingly and went back to her seat. Indeed, she acted professionally like the former hostess of a tavern.

Twenty days had passed since Yong-ho was recognized by Elune.

Yong-ho opened a bar and a gambling house on the first floor of the House of Mammon, as recommended by Ophelia. The space was more than enough because some of the major facilities including the Demon King's room was moved to the first floor of the Labyrinth of Greed.

News of the war between the kings in the northern area was also delivered to the southern area. But the fighting there was too far from the south. As he planned for the first time, Yong-ho took care of things in nearby places one by one.

As Ophelia predicted, refugees from the west began to rush into the southern area.

Yong-ho had no problem in accepting them because there was a sharp decrease in the population of the Free City due to repeated wars. It was also not difficult to establish a new order because the House of Mammon became incredibly stronger than before.

Yong-ho no longer neglected the prey at his mercy. He began to retrieve them one by one.

He sent dungeon spirits to the dungeon of the House of Abigail that Oros had refurbished before his death. He wanted to reactivate the silver mine, which was the source of the Abigail family.

Yong-ho also cracked down on the runaway soldiers hiding in the western area.

He crashed some of them but absorbed others to join them in the unit led by Tigrius, with Skull and Rikum reinforcing them. Now, Yong-ho thought he had a good many troops with half the Skull unit and the newly established Black Orc squadron.

He made the decision when he bought nearly two hundred skeleton workers.

He now aggressively used the power of evolution. By evolving the existing orc troops, he turned them into powerful heavy infantry.

The reason Yong-ho sent Rikum to the west despite his position as the garrison captain was because he wanted to have Rikum gain evolution EXP. Yong-ho had no intention of wasting the resources of the existing dungeon spirits.

'I guess Baduk has become stronger than before by now.'

Come to think of it, Baduk went through a good many evolutions. Maybe it was stronger than he thought.

"What are you thinking about now?"

"Well, the eastern area."

The eastern army was strong enough to occupy the northern area.

Now was the time for them to return to their territory in the east.

Yong-ho had no intention of striking them first. He thought it was better to realign and strengthen his troops instead. Of course, he toyed with that idea, on the assumption that the eastern army would return quietly without making any further trouble. If they showed any sign of attacking the southern area, he would choose to attack rather than defend.

"I think I have to tell our guys who went to the west to come back," said Ophelia.

He nodded. The reason he needed them back wasn't just to prepare for the attack by the eastern army. He needed Skull and Tigrius to attack the fourth floor of the Labyrinth of Greed.

'The arena, too.'

At that moment, he suddenly straightened and took out a purple marble slightly smaller than his fist from his pocket. It was a long-distance communication device he received as a reward for challenging the 15th floor of the arena.

"You're no gentleman!" Ophelia quipped.

Yong-ho smiled at her and activated the device. As if to verify his gift from the arena, the device nicely connected him to his dungeon spirits even though they were far from him.

[Tigrius of the House of Randolt is honored to see the master of the great House of Mammon.] Tigrius's voice, mixed with a bit of noise, came from the marble.

[Strange rumors are circulating in the north and west.]

"Rumor? Are you talking about other rumors than our master's defeat of Embrio?"

Ophelia asked, squinting her eyes.

Tigrius replied immediately over the marble device.

[Well, the rumor itself is about our master and Embrio. But the problem is the substance of the rumor.]

[There are conflicting rumors about the fighting between our master and Embrio. One of them is really true, while the other one has been distorted a lot. In particular, they are divided about the Bone Dragon.]

What Tigrius said was somewhat strange about the Bone Dragon, Yong-ho thought.

[It is not the Bone Dragon that Embrio mobilized. It's just a Wyvern that's a little bit huge.]

What Tirgrius briefed him was fairly accurate.

Tigrius continued.

[The mobilized force or the aspect of the fight they are talking about is also very different from the truth. If we only believe in the distorted rumors, the victory of the House of Mammon this time was not a 'miracle', but 'a battle that can be won sufficiently, depending on the tactics.']

[First of all, the number of our troops was exaggerated. As for the aspect of the fight, they are speculating that our master's forces were inferior to Embrio's forces numerically, but ambushed and defeated them by pure luck.]

Anyway, the fact that Yong-ho won by surprise attack was the same. However, even with the same victory, the potential of Yong-ho and the House of Mammon could be evaluated differently since the way he won was different.

Particularly, the way they mistook the Bone Dragon for a giant Wyvern bothered Yong-ho.

If only dozens of troops penetrated Embrio's forces and won, it meant that Yong-ho's combat power was excellent.

If there was one general who can confront hundreds of soldiers alone and the other one who leads hundreds of troops and defeats one thousand troops, which general was more threatening?

Aside from other factors, definitely, the former was more threatening in the demon world where the superman exists.

"What is the source of the rumors?"

[Those who claimed they're survivors of the battle that day are responsible for the rumors.]

[I'm sorry to say this, but it seems difficult to find the specific source because all kinds of rumors are getting around now.]

It wasn't Tigrius's fault. Rumors were supposed to be spreading like that. Once they began to spread, it was not easy to control them or find out those who spread them initially.

For this reason, Yong-ho thought of something more fundamental than the source of the rumors. Why were these rumors getting around?

Who would benefit from these rumors?

At last, Ophelia opened her mouth, "Which rumors do you think are more true? You put more weight on the latter, right?"

[Exactly. Right now, they are distorting the truth. It seems that Embrio's runaway soldiers are engaged in a disinformation campaign to make excuses for their defeat.]

It was as Yong-ho expected.

Ophelia said, "Well, people come to believe more of what they want to believe. In fact, the fight between our master and Embrio was too big to start in the southern area. As a result, those who haven't seen the fight directly naturally tend to believe false or exaggerated episodes or rumors."

She generalized about the fighting, but this kind of generalization could not explain everything.

She continued, "But even if we take those factors into account, the current situation is strange now. There are too many survivors of the day for this kind of false rumor to be mistaken as true. It's not easy for false rumors to replace the truth like now even if only a couple of survivors spread the rumors."

"Do you think somebody is engaged in organized manipulation?"

"I think it's reasonable to think so."

The mastermind behind the rumors, who could exercise organizational power.

What came to his mind immediately was kings. From a commonsensical point of view, it didn't make sense for them to put lots of effort into the deserted southern land.

However, Yong-ho had no choice but to doubt them because he remembered Embrio's warning.

'But what kind of benefits can they take?'

Which benefit could they take from the distorted rumors about the alleged underestimated power of the House of Mammon?

Both Ophelia and Tigrius were silent. It was clear that they had the same doubts as Yong-ho.

When they kept silent for long, somebody cut in suddenly.

[Master, I've got reports from the Dungeon Meerkats.]

[A group of unidentified wolves is approaching the entrance of the dungeon.]

It was Lucia's report.

Yong-ho said immediately, "Tigrius, get your troops back and come back to the southern area. I'll get back to you in a few hours."

[Yes, master. I'll follow your order.]

His communication with Tigrius was lost. He put the marble device into his pocket and went out of the gambling room with Ophelia. He also summoned Catalina and Eligos through Lucia.

A flock of wolves.

What came to his mind at the moment was just one name.