“Good morning,” Claire said with a yawn as she groggily dragged herself into the kitchen. “You’re up early today.”

  Viktor gave a shrug without looking up, eyes still fixed on the pot bubbling atop the stove. “If I don’t, we’ll have nothing to eat for breakfast.”

  The aroma of herbs and meat filled the room as he stirred the stew, and the woman’s stomach rumbled in response.

  “Sorry,” she mumbled as she collapsed into a chair, sprawling over the table. “I should’ve gotten up and made something.”

  That something is bacon, isn’t it?

  “I’m not blaming you,” Viktor replied, glancing over his shoulder. “You’ve been very busy lately, so let me handle the cooking from now on. You need your rest.”

  It had been a week since Cedric’s party returned from the dungeon with the glittering treasure. Since then, the Guild had been working to its limits to prepare for the inevitable influx of adventurers rushing to Daelin. Claire came home late every day, and the moment she hit her room, she collapsed onto the bed like a sack of potatoes and didn’t move at all until the next morning.

  Viktor ladled stew into two bowls, the greasy broth sloshing as he set them on the table. He pushed one across to his “sister,” who looked like she might fall asleep mid-bite.

  “Thanks,” Claire said, cracking a tired smile before shoveling a spoonful into her mouth. “It’s good. What did you put in the stew?”

  “Rabbit. I bought a couple off an adventurer. They’re cheap.”

  Claire raised an eyebrow. “This is the first time you’ve cooked hare, and you’re already this good?”

  “It’s not all that different from other meats, really. Besides, it’s just stew. I’ve made it plenty of times.”

  “But the other meats were already prepared when we bought them. This time, you had to skin and butcher the rabbit yourself.”

  “That adventurer showed me how. Helped out a bit too,” Viktor said, his lips curling into a smug grin. “But next time, I’ll do it all from scratch. By myself.”

  Claire chuckled. “Look at you. Grown up all of a sudden.”

  Hare, chicken, pork, beef. Didn’t matter. There were no types of meat that he couldn’t handle. Nevertheless, from this woman’s perspective, her twelve-year-old brother coming up with a new dish was certainly impressive.

  Even though he had the funds now, he knew he couldn’t just toss out the bacon and start serving fresh pork or beef like it was nothing. Claire would ask questions, and that was a conversation he didn’t want to have. So he needed to throw in some cheaper meats here and there to keep the budget fuzzy.

  After a month of living under the same roof with the woman, he had figured out the reason she always used bacon for almost everything. It wasn’t just because of her tight purse strings, but also because she simply wasn’t much of a cook. But now, with him stepping in to take over all three meals, they were going to have a much more diverse menu. This would make it harder for dear sister to notice that higher-quality ingredients had been slipped into their meals.

  “How’s your work, by the way?” Viktor asked.

  Claire let out the kind of sigh that came from deep in the soul. “Exhausting. The Guild is hiring more people, but for the time being, it’s still the same staff juggling a constantly expanding workload. We’re barely holding the line. It’s only a matter of time before we’re overwhelmed.”

  “Adventurers flooding in, huh?”

  “It has just been one week, so there aren’t too many yet,” Claire said. “But the number is clearly increasing exponentially every day. The town would be overrun at this rate.”

  Obviously, Daelin was facing the greatest challenge it had ever had since its founding. In other regions, even if a new dungeon suddenly popped up, there were already a few big cities nearby with enough room to breathe and infrastructure to handle the influx of adventurers without descending into chaos. However, Daelin was the only town in this place, and it was incredibly small. Viktor wouldn’t be too surprised if some wealthy and ambitious neighbors were already scheming to set up one or two new settlements nearby, seeking to cash in on the gold rush. If that happened, the town was going to have some fierce competitors in this dungeon business.

  Not that he really cared anyway. As long as his dungeon had food, it didn’t matter where it came from. There was always competition, both in and out of the dungeon. The strong stepped on the weak and took whatever they wanted. That was simply the way of the world.

  “There are other things,” Claire said with a heavy voice. “The number of dead adventurers is also climbing every day.”

  That was expected. The last time Celeste reported to him, four had perished in the dungeon. He wondered what the number was now.

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  It was something that worked in his favor, of course, but Claire was clearly not happy about it. She fell silent, lips pressed tight, as if she was struggling with her thoughts. Then, she spoke.

  “Quinn.”

  “What?”

  “Do you want to become an adventurer?” she asked.

  This again. The woman was traumatized by her parents’ deaths, so she didn’t want her younger brother to follow in their footsteps.

  “I haven’t really thought about it yet,” Viktor replied with a shrug. “Still too early to say.”

  “But you’re always hanging around the adventurers. Watching, asking questions...”

  Viktor chuckled, stretching his legs under the table. “You’re doing the same thing. Of all the careers you could’ve picked, why did you decide to work at the Guild?”

  “That’s true,” Claire admitted. She set her spoon down, her fingers lingering on the handle. Then something seemed to dawn on her, and the young woman smiled. “Have you ever considered working at the Guild? You and I, in the same workplace. You’re smart and you learn things fast. You could become the Guildmaster one day.”

  Being a Guildmaster and a Dungeon Master at the same time? A laugh burst out of Viktor. “I’ll think about it.”

  Claire’s shoulders relaxed, and her expression brightened a bit. She finished her stew, then disappeared into her room to get ready for work. By the time she returned, she was dressed in her usual black skirt and white blouse, as polished as ever. There were no traces of earlier exhaustion left on her face.

  “I’ll go now.” She smiled at him. “See you at lunch.”

  “See you!”

  Once Claire was gone, he turned to his daily routine, beginning with the dishes. He cleared the table, he swept the floor, and he hung the laundry. Everything wrapped up in just thirty minutes.

  Then came lunch preparations. Today, he was going to have some roasted meat.

  He took out a slab of pork he bought the day before, which he had coated with salt to preserve it overnight. He gave it a thorough rinse, cut it into thick slices, and marinated the pieces with vinegar, herbs, pepper, and garlic. He was going to leave the meat to soak up the flavors for a couple of hours before roasting it at noon.

  Normally, this would be when he left the house for his dungeon. But today, he just wasn’t in the mood for it.

  Since the Guild had set up guard posts everywhere from the town to the dungeon, it was very difficult to slip in unnoticed, and even if he managed to enter the cave, walking to the Core Room on foot was a bit of a pain since the dungeon had now expanded significantly. Not to mention, he could bump into some adventurers when he was inside. Thus, the only viable option left was teleportation.

  It was simple enough. All he had to do was get within a certain range of the dungeon and call Celeste. In the blink of an eye, he would find himself materializing next to the Dungeon Core. However, while the mana cost wasn’t much considering his current reserves, it still added up if he used the function every day, and he had no intention of wasting resources unnecessarily.

  Or maybe he was just making excuses to skip work today.

  Well, it’s not like I need to go there in person to inspect anyway. His vision worked everywhere, after all. No matter where he was, he could simply close his eyes and see any corner in the dungeon. So he returned to his room and lay on the bed, plunging his consciousness into the dungeon’s shadowed veins.

  First, he checked the third floor, where he saw a great expanse of water stretching out from one end to the other. There was nothing else at the moment, though, other than two entrances, one connected to the Core Room, the other leading to the staircase that ascended back to the second floor.

  This floor was still under construction. He needed to add some islands between the two entrances, along with means of travel, like bridges or boats. The main purpose of a dungeon was to lure the adventurers in, so making it too inaccessible would discourage them. Giving them the impression that they could succeed was as important as using rewards to attract them.

  The second floor was still the same as before. Next to the staircase leading to the third floor was the previous Core Room, then the arena where Lahmia had lost her pretty head, then the maze with narrow corridors, and lastly, the first Core Room with the staircase to the first floor.

  Viktor hadn’t decided what to do with this floor. For now, he would keep it to stall any adventurers who managed to get through the first floor until the third floor was ready. Still, it looked like no one had made it yet. Cedric’s party definitely could have, but they hadn’t returned to the dungeon since that day. Viktor rarely saw them at the Guild, either. He wondered what they were doing now.

  The final place he inspected was the first floor. Following his instructions, Celeste had expanded the labyrinth and changed the layout a bit. Several rooms had been created, each had a small chest with some gold inside to reward the adventurers who managed to find them.

  Viktor spotted a man entering one of those rooms. He shouted in excitement, eyes glinting brighter than the chest’s contents themselves, and darted across the room toward the treasure. When the man passed the midpoint, however, the floor beneath him suddenly gave way, and he fell into the hole that had just opened up. With a scream of terror, he disappeared into the darkness.

  Fool!

  Just because Viktor had the gold ready didn’t mean he would give it away for free. There was still one last challenge in that room, and the man had failed to overcome it. One moment of carelessness, and he had to pay the ultimate price.

  In a different part, Viktor saw two adventurers stumbling through the labyrinth, their torchlight swinging wildly like trapped fireflies, while goblins shrieked in pursuit. Suddenly, a strand of silk shot forth from the dark, ensnaring one of them. The man shouted for help, but his friend kept running, ignoring his pleas. He begged and cried as the horde swarmed over him. His voice faded to wet gurgles.

  The other man, who had just abandoned his own companion, managed to reach the maze’s exit. However, this only happened because Celeste allowed it to happen. The Dungeon Core had deemed chasing after him unnecessary.

  And its judgment proved correct.

  Before the man could escape, he dropped to the ground, his body convulsing uncontrollably. There were two small holes in his arm, from which black blood was oozing out. He had probably been bitten by a Venom Spider, and after all that running, the poison had spread through his entire body.

  The man lay on the ground, groaning in agony, but he still looked forward to the exit. He crawled. Bit by bit, he slowly moved forward. Yet, as his hand was about to touch the threshold, he stopped moving. Permanently.

  It seems everything is working well. Three more intruders had perished, becoming food for his dungeon.

  And speaking of food...

  Opening his eyes, Viktor got out of bed. The pork slices he prepared had been marinated long enough. It was time to roast the meat.