Dungeon Defense (WN)

WARNING: NSFW CONTENT.
Please be advised that the following chapter has 18+ sexual material and should be exclusively reserved for a mature audience.
It’s only a very brief part in the beginning, but I’m putting this warning up anyway.
You have been warned.

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* * *

“Habsburg will still fall into ruin despite their efforts.”

I spoke while stroking Laura’s bare skin.

“It is hard to think that a nation that has lost half of its land would have a future.
The Imperial Princess is not a god, after all.
They will hang on a thread until that thread is eventually cut by either the Demon Lord army or another human army…….”

In the end, my Crescent Alliance expedition was a success.
I managed to sever the limbs of the most dangerous individual within humanity, Imperial Princess Elizabeth.

Adding to this, the division between the Demon Lords had become as clear as day now.
Paimon had plotted to slaughter the Plains Faction and all of the Demon Lords, excluding Barbatos, gave up on pursuing the enemy when the final battle was right before their eyes.
Furthermore, there was also the betrayal from the archdukes of hell.
This had become quite the splendid bedlam.

“Now for the second question, Laura.”

“Uub.”

Laura groaned.
She appeared nervous.
How cute.

“I have managed to buy some time and the continent has become utterly disorganized.
Nonetheless, there is a single group that is still trying to maintain their unity even if by only a pretext.
Which group is this?”

“The human army.”

Laura answered immediately.

“Excluding Habsburg, the other nations are still grouped together under a single flag.
Your Lordship’s speech may have created a divide between nobles and commoners, but that division has yet to spread outside their armies and reach the far corners of the continent.”

“Ooh.”

“This is probably why the human army is wandering around Habsburg.
They are doing this either for the sake of increasing their unity with their soldiers, or perhaps for the sake of preemptively decreasing their numbers in the case of a revolution in the future.”

“Bingo.
You are correct.”

I applauded her.
She was right.
As expected of Laura, she was well-informed when it came to military affairs.

“Revolutions are not things that happen easily.
They were going through both the Black Death and a famine.
I also poisoned the world with my speech.
Despite all this, we are still lacking one last blow.”

We have to completely divide the human nations that were unified on the surface.

What I wanted was a struggle between all people.
Whether it be conquering the continent for the sake of demonkind or uniting for the sake of fighting back against the Demon Lords, all of these justifications had to get wiped out.

People must act for the sake of their own factions…….
They must become completely greedy.

“This is why I intend to execute two grand strategies.
Would you care to take a guess at what those strategies might be?”

“…….”

Laura hesitated.
I waited patiently for her to answer.

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She mulled over it for over a minute before eventually giving up.

“I, I do not know.”

“All right.
Here comes the next bead-.”

I pushed another bead into Laura’s rear.
Laura let out a strange cry.

“Since you were unable to answer both of my questions, I will be adding one more.”

“W-Wait a second.
Lord, your math is a bit wei……haugh!”

Laura’s entire body trembled.
Mhm.
This was a rather satisfying sight.

It gave me great satisfaction to see a naked 17-year-old girl trembling in my arms.
Rather than increase my sexual desire, seeing her face contort and look somewhat fearful as she moaned made it feel like I was looking at a piece of art.
In other words, I’m not a pervert.
I am merely a spectator observing a piece of art…….
That’s right.
I am nothing more than a dandy Parisian walking through an exhibition. 

Come to think of it, was one of the new monsters I could hire now.
Couldn’t I use them in an entertaining way? Hm.
Laura, a beautiful blonde girl being teased by sticky slime…….
That could work.
That could definitely work.
Even the prestigious gentlemen from Paris would probably give a standing ovation to this idea.
Let’s think about this more later.

“Well, I will gradually show my plan to you over time.
You cannot stay uninterested in politics forever.
In the end, military affairs are a part of politics, you know? Please do your best.”

“Uugh……I understand.”

Out of my two plans, the first one was related to how I had visited the many hells of the demon world.
In other words, the task of building my Demon Lord castle.
The donations―also known as the voluntary tax payments―from the archdukes were going to arrive soon.

I was confident of this.

* * *

Half a month later.

Lapis arrived with the money from the archdukes and an architect.

In the demon world, goblins and dwarves had a firm grasp over the building industry.
The building industry was so exclusive that people from other races couldn’t even take a single step into the field.
Dwarves controlled 70 percent of the field while goblins had 30 percent, so I ended up calling for a representative from each industry.

I didn’t plan to do this originally.
At first, I was going to simply leave it to the most well-known group.
This was a big project that was probably going to last at least a decade.
It would only be natural to leave it to the most reputable group.

However, once I submitted an inquiry to which was run by dwarves, they requested a huge amount of gold.
I gulped as I read the estimate.

“Mm.
At the very least, this will cost twenty million gold.”

This was troubling.

If you put together all the money I had taken from the archdukes and will continue to take from them in the future, then I will just barely be able to scrape together twenty million gold.
This was a sum I was gaining through a scam anyway.
It wasn’t really a waste if you consider the fact that I was basically obtaining a dungeon for free…….

I shrugged.

“It cannot be helped.
Let us commission .”

However, Lapis was vehemently against my decision.

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“Are you insane, Sir Dantalian? If you send a request to only a single place, then of course they would try to overcharge you.”

“Hm? Huh? Is that how it is?”

“That is how it is.”

Lapis assured me.
Once I gave her a naive response, Lapis became enraged as if she had witnessed something unforgivable.

“You should never accept the first price given to you by a dealer.
We must first set a budget.
After this has been done, send all of the groups this budget and order them to lay out a plan that could use that budget efficiently.”

“H-Huh?”

“Their goal is to make money anyway.
It is only natural to make them compete with one another in order to lower the price even by a small amount.
Is this not a fundamental technique in business?”

Come to think of it, she was right.

“T-Then I will leave estimating the budget and selecting the companies to you.”

“Naturally.
On another note, Sir Dantalian, you are now an incredibly wealthy person.”

Lapis’ eyes let off a scary glint.

Her eyes would glitter like this whenever she was about to start nagging at me relentlessly.

“You currently possess 14 million gold.
You will soon receive about 1 million gold from Miss Sitri.
Adding to this, the archdukes will later send you 5 million gold.
You will ultimately possess approximately 20 million gold.
You have been managing your money rather clumsily until now, but I will no longer allow you to handle your money in such a crude manner any longer.”

“Calling it crude is a bit…….”

Lapis’ choice of words was sometimes terrifying.

But I have an excuse.
I have never kept and managed a record book before.
I had lived my life without any connections to commerce or financing.

“Even if we were to abruptly change the way my funding is managed.”

“Additionally.”

Lapis cut me off.

“You started to personally govern the villages near the Demon Lord Castle this year.
This means that taxes have been paid.
You must systemize this tax-receiving process.”

“S-Systemize?”

“Order the old villagers to submit their tax records.
Furthermore, make it mandatory for landowners to manage their tenant farmers in villages.
We must also pay attention to the shared warehouse.
These are fundamental tasks.”

“…….”

Yes, I understand that a lot of complicated issues have been dotted around.

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“T-Then I will also leave the task of managing the villages to you.”

“Are you insane?”

– Thud!

Whoa.

It seems my comment just now had struck a nerve.

Lapis, Lapis of all people had slammed her hands down on the table! The woman who has always been the physical embodiment of composure and calmness…….
The person who didn’t even lose her cool when our carriage was assaulted by assassins had slammed her hands down!

“S……Sorry.”

I instinctively shrunk back.
I would already become cautious whenever I was in front of Lapis, so all I could do was lower my head in shame before her wrath.
It was like I was being scolded by a relative during a family reunion.

“You are the lord of the villages, Sir Dantalian.
I may partially be your vassal, but I am still an employee of the Keuncuska Firm.
Giving someone like that the task of a lord is not something that a responsible lord would do.”

“I’m sorry…….”

“Furthermore, territorial management is not a task that is easy enough to be handled alone.
Appoint a manager.
Create a group of vassals.
In the first place, Miss Laura is your one and only proper vassal.”

“Hm?”

Laura, who had been eating wheat bread in the corner of the room, turned to look at us once her name was mentioned.
Her cheeks were full of bread, so she looked like an adorable hamster, but her cuteness didn’t help me one bit in my current situation.

“Yes, Miss Laura.
You should come here, too.”

“T-This young lady?”

Laura looked back and forth between me and Lapis.
Did she notice the heavy atmosphere? Laura responded with a tiny voice.

“As you can see, this young lady is in the middle of eating…….”

“Listen while you are eating.”

“O-Okay.”

Laura scurried to my side.
Laura and I sat side by side at the table with our heads lowered.
We quite literally looked like a pair of siblings that were being scolded by their mother.

Lapis raised her finger before she continued.

“Think about it.
Sir Dantalian, you are the Demon Lord who obtained military prestige on the human continent and established a name for yourself in the demon world.
Despite this, you only have a single vassal.
To make matters worse, that vassal of yours is only able to handle military affairs.
She is no different from a concubine on a normal basis.
This is extremely abnormal.”

“Sorry…….”

“I apologize…….”

Laura and I apologized.
It strangely felt like we had to.

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“What you require now is a clean and distinct management system.
The writing style and forms of tax records, written directives from the lord, statute books, notices on a noticeboard, decrees, and diplomatic papers must be standardized.
No.
Come to think of it, you have not even created commandments yet.”

Lapis let out a sigh.
She felt more annoyed than upset.
That was how her sigh sounded.

“What have you been doing all this time, Miss Laura? You are Sir Dantalian’s first vassal.
The head of all vassals.
It is an aide’s duty to point out their lord’s mistakes and support them.”

“I-I apologize…….”

Laura’s tone sounded sorrowful.
It wasn’t just Laura.
I was also feeling bad.
By reproaching Laura, Lapis was criticizing me at the same time.

“You must establish a foundation with what you believe is right and look into the customs that already exist in the villages and how those customs control their lives before creating the commandments.”

“Uhm.”

I raised my right hand.
I did this for the sake of pulling aggro since I would feel bad if Laura were to take on all the scolding by herself.

“Yes, Sir Dantalian? You may speak.”

“Why must we create commandments? Could we not make them follow common laws? I could intervene whenever there is a problem.”

“This is because you must monopolize all of the jurisdiction as the lord.”

An immediate answer.

“Common laws are quite literally common laws.
When there is a problem, the people will take care of it as they always have.
This would be no different from giving the people a jurisdiction of their own.
This would create two jurisdictions within a single piece of land.
Although they should respect the common law, jurisdictional power should remain solely with the lord.
That is the first step of authority.”

She was right.

Miss Lapis let out another sigh.

“It cannot be helped.
Let us slowly execute one plan at a time.
Sir Dantalian, you cannot stay uninterested in politics forever.
In the end, schemes are a part of politics.
Please do your best.”

“Uugh……I’ll do my best.”

“I will work hard to assist His Lordship…….”

Laura and I could only drop our heads.
What else could we do?

In the end, the unfortunate truth was revealed that our power structure was monsters < Laura < Me < Lapis. More importantly, I have to appoint a new manager, huh? ‘Hm.’ There were obviously tons of capable individuals littered throughout .
Among them, I had only picked out Laura.
I thought that that would be enough all this time.
It really was enough until now.

But, yeah.
Lapis made a good point.
There was a need for me to increase my number of vassals.
Should I start thinking about who to hire from now on……?

***

TL Note: Thanks for reading the chapter.
Dantalian is finally going to recruit more people.
After all this time with practically the same core members in both the LN and WN, we’re finally going to see another character soon.
Well, we’ve seen a lot of new characters in the WN so far, but almost all of them were minor characters and haven’t had much screen time.
Although I’m pretty sure there have been people on reddit and several forums that’ve already spoiled this part, hopefully most of you guys managed to stay spoiler-free.
Welp, I’ll see you guys in the next chapter.