It's Dangerous Outside the Dungeon, Master

* * *

"My lord. There's news from Lady Hailey Shum Gremit, the Baroness."

This news came on the third day after I started receiving Mur's education.

"Um... Should I come back later?"

"It's fine, come in. Sonia, please take care of the hospitality for a moment."

"Yes, Master."

After gesturing to Mur, who hesitated as she entered the room, and asking Sonia to prepare tea, I turned to Ran and asked about Hailey's news.

"What's the matter?"

"She has arrived in Tribres with her family and is requesting permission to have an audience with you, my lord."

A smile formed on my lips.

It was one of the news I had been waiting for.

I was waiting for Hailey.

As a talent to compensate for the laziness of other subordinates and to make up for my failure.

"Is that so? Earlier than I thought."

"She said her family responded happily."

Hearing those words from Ran, I inwardly smiled bitterly, though I didn't show it outwardly.

I wondered if those family members would have really responded happily if they knew all the circumstances properly.

However, the sense of guilt wasn't great.

Although the 'molding' of Hailey was complete, the Shum baronial family itself was still an 'enemy'.

"Alright. Let them in."

"Yes, my lord."

"I'm sorry, Mur. We'll have to postpone the lesson a bit."

"It's fine. Work is important."

"Yes. Thank you for understanding. Sonia, please attend to the teacher."

"Don't worry, Master."

Although Hailey was just a noblewoman temporarily 'recruited' for operations in Copzerin and Sonyataf, now the meaning was a little different.

[What is your choice?]

[Please let me serve you! You are my true master...!]

When the influence of the hypnosis I had placed on her was about to wear off, she rather chose loyalty to me when given the choice.

She might not have believed my words about erasing only part of her memory and letting her go, but it seems that what I had tied to the two emotions governing her essence, 'pleasure' and 'desire', worked too well.

So, it turned out like this.

[I've known joy in serving you...! Please!]

Sometimes this happens.

Thanks to this, half of the current information about the noble circles and political world was being provided by her.

Even while cutting down her inherent 'desire for money' that she originally possessed.

This made me reflect on one thing.

『Characteristic - ... Rusty Senses, Long-Rested Body』

'Characteristics don't necessarily express everything about a person.'

Hailey's negative characteristics made me look down on her when we first met.

However, she who actually gained 'passion' due to my existence moved more energetically and worked for me beyond my expectations.

At this level, it was enough to consider reestablishing the existing relationship.

'I thought she was just an isolated pawn, but she was actually a passed pawn.'

In chess, a pawn is a piece whose value changes depending on its position.

Especially in special cases where promotion to other pieces is allowed, its value can exceed imagination.

Either way, the current Hailey is not someone to be used and discarded at least once.

Therefore, I was thinking of entrusting her with one of the important roles I had been considering.

* * *

"Look... It's so wide! We could hold a banquet here, couldn't we?"

"Yes. That's right..."

Although young daughter Rosemary spoke innocently as she always made her father smile, her father couldn't return a comfortable smile to his daughter's playfulness.

Gerald, the head of the Shum family, didn't have the leisure for that right now.

This was because the corridor they were walking through was really, too, incredibly large and wide.

Compared to the size of the mansion they had entered.

"Wife. What's going on here? The mansion we entered was certainly..."

"Shh. It's okay."

Hailey's smile and composure remained, but Gerald now found her smile not reassuring but extremely unsettling.

"You shouldn't judge that person by common sense. Because they're incomparable to the black merchants or the forces of the Heisen Kingdom we've been cooperating with so far."

'Why didn't I notice...?'

Those green eyes that were always full of realism and intelligence were now blurred like shadows.

Like a dreaming girl, a bright smile and hazy eyes filled her face.

"Are they really a dragon or something?"

"Of course not. But they're even greater than that."

"What do you mean..."

Gerald took his eyes off Hailey and turned his gaze, tinged with fear, in all directions.

Taking in the sight of the huge, dark, and majestic mansion... no, palace.

'It's an enormous size... too enormous.'

The corridor was large, wide, and long.

They had been walking for 30 minutes already, but the end was still not in sight.

The walls were full of countless sculptures and artworks of unknown origin, and strange lamps that seemed to have been hanging for a long time were hung at regular intervals, without any worn parts or ash dust flying around.

'It's so wide and dark, yet everything is visible without obstruction.'

'It's divine power... divine power!'

Although this vast mansion was quite dark, strangely, everything was visible to their eyes.

As if it was set up to tell them not to be terrified, that transcendent consideration.

However, that was rather pushing them further into fear.

Everyone was trembling with anxiety.

A being who could create an environment as if temporarily granting power to those with little strength.

"Lord, this is definitely strange...!"

"What's strange?"

The most anxious among them was the magician brought from the territory.

Among those except Hailey, he was the only one who understood even a part of this situation.

"Magic, magic doesn't work."

"Our magic power is the same, my lord."

"What does that mean...?"

The face of the magician answering the lord's question was completely pale, and.

Although the dozen or so knights were barely showing composure and coolness, their inner hearts were also tinged with tension and fear.

For them who had only operated inland, the symptoms occurring now were something they had only heard rumors about.

"These symptoms occur inside dungeons of superior rank or higher...!"

"Are you saying this place is a dungeon?"

"I can't be certain of that... but it's clearly a place as dangerous as one...!"

The magician's claim was full of confidence, and the knights also showed anxiety.

In the end, Gerald's face, having properly received their fears, gradually paled.

'If we're not careful, the family could be ruined.'

All the knights and magicians here were among his most important assets.

It was natural. They were the lord's guards.

So even if the whole family managed to escape, if these people were harmed, it would be a great loss to the family and territory.

Then they wouldn't be able to withstand direct attacks or claims of rights from other lords aiming for the castle.

Naturally, the mind of reality denial arose first.

"B-But... why would Hailey bring us to such a place...!"

"I don't know...! But look! The lady is now..."

The gazes of the lord and the magician, and the knights who secretly overheard their small conversation, and finally the gaze of son Stefan, all shifted to Hailey.

"What kind of person is the lord of this place, Mother?"

"Someone nobler, more beautiful, and kinder than anyone, Rosie. And not just a lord. They're the master of everything."

"Master...? Higher than a king?"

"Maybe?"

"Wow...!"

She was smiling brightly, almost as much as her 9-year-old daughter.

Unlike her usual times when she maintained a composed appearance while emphasizing nobility, albeit clumsily.

Taking an attitude like a child returning home.

"It's disrespectful to say this, but... isn't this clearly strange...!"

"Yes. It's strange."

"...Father. We should..."

"Yes, Stevie. We need to get out of here."

Feeling too anxious and scared to continue, the lord and his retainers all agreed on everyone's opinion, but.

"Excuse me... attendant."

That thought was too late, far too late.

In fact, not when they arrived here, but from the moment they entered the mansion.

Everything had already ended.

"Welcome, everyone from the Shum baronial family."

"Welcome!"

Two women appeared before them.

A beautiful 'black fox' with long black hair, wearing red and white foreign clothes.

And a cute 'red bear' in black guard uniform attending such a fox.

"The master is waiting for you."

The fox's full smile soon enveloped the family and their attendants.

The smile filled with the power of seduction momentarily made all of them lose consciousness, except for Hailey and daughter Rosemary.

"...Huh!"

"This is..."

When they regained consciousness, the space had already changed.

"An audience chamber...?"

One of the knights looking around muttered.

The others didn't say it out loud, but agreed with that opinion.

This was an audience chamber.

Not a reception room in an ordinary noble's palace, but a proper space in a royal palace.

"A rough invitation, Ran."

"They were all trying to run away, so I brought them here for now."

At the Dungeon Lord's words looking down at them, the smiling retainer replied nonchalantly.

"I see. Well done. Except for the attitude."

Libertas's rebuke was also gentle.

Although it contained sincerity, she didn't express that sincerity aggressively.

Her retainer, Yuran, was literally a 'narrow-minded' woman who directed the resentment from her master's rebuke not to her master but to those who caused it.

'More precisely, it's probably an expression of affection that doesn't want to allow even a tiny part of the time given to herself to others...'

The difference was only in the narrowness or broadness of the range.

It didn't matter since the results of the two hearts weren't that different.

In other words, Yuran had to accept even rebukes by thinking mainly about her, without sympathizing with the victim.

"I apologize."

"Alright."

When Yuran made a face as if she was sincerely reflecting, she was satisfied with that and took her eyes off.

Thinking that at least now she wouldn't treat the 'juniors' roughly.

-Each...!

Stroking Mary's head, who was enduring without hastily repeating others' words after reading the atmosphere, Libertas looked down at the nobles.

"I, Hailey Shum Gremit, have an audience with the great master."

While everyone was frozen after hearing the conversation between the woman sitting on the huge throne and the black fox standing tensely beside her with her back straight, Baroness Hailey took the lead, walked on the red carpet, and made a deep bow.

"Wife...!"

"Mother?!"

"The Baroness..."

All the nobles were shocked.

What the Baroness was doing now was an action of putting her arms, legs, and head all on the floor.

It was a greeting that normally only slaves would do, and.

By noble standards, it was a greeting that even kings or emperors would find difficult to receive unless surrendering in war.

"Raise your head. I want to see your eyes."

"It's an honor...!"

As Hailey raised her head and silently smiled broadly at her face, Libertas also gave her a gentle smile.

"Welcome, Hailey. I've kept you waiting for a long time."

"Not at all. I believed you would call me like this, so I had no regrets. Even if you had told me to wait ten years or a hundred years, it would have been the same."

Both Libertas receiving the bow and greeting, and Hailey herself seemed natural as if there was no problem.

There was no one here who didn't understand what this meant, and soon, one person rashly blurted out that thought.

"Mother is a traitor - mmph...!"

"Stevie...!"

The baron quickly covered his son Stefan's mouth, but after everything that could leak had already leaked.

"A traitor, you say..."

At that, the purple gaze that had been directed at Hailey turned towards them.