Chapter 122 A giant?
I closed the door to our house as I looked at all the women coming with me to head south. It had been a few years since I pushed deep into the depths of the dungeons, mostly because it was hard to time things as my wives kept getting more and more busy with their own things. Now, for the first time in years, many of my wives weren’t busy and could come along with me.
Cynthia stayed behind, and so did Mara, but everyone else was coming with me this time. Cynthia to rule the city, and help take care of the kids(we had plenty of nannies to handle that now), while Mara was quite far along with her pregnancy; she could give birth before we got back, that’s how far along she was. I gave them both a long, passionate kiss before we left.
It was incredible to see how much Cynthia had changed, from the meek, timid, tiny girl to the bold, voluptuous leader of the city. Mara finally cracked and moved back in with us. We all knew she was a softy deep down; she avoided our family because we were growing too close, and she didn’t want anything to happen between us until it wouldn’t kill me.
We made our way through the forest in record time. With all the changes I made to this dungeon, it barely looked the same. I claimed a portion of the dungeon as farmland and made many changes that would benefit both the people and the dungeon itself. In just a single day, we made it to the grassland dungeon where the largest fight between the berserk dungeon took place. I had refurbished the giant tree castle, and it now served as a forward base inside the dungeons.
This was in the middle of a large collection of dungeons, but because the dungeon was shattered, it wasn’t controlled by any dungeon yet. Other dungeons could roam into this one, but the number of monsters would be far fewer than the number within the boundaries of a living dungeon. A village popped up here a while back, but after everyone explored the nearby dungeons, everyone left to search for better rewards.
Most dungeons just weren’t worth exploring; they didn’t give anything super valuable, so only the thrill of exploring new dungeons made the village survive for a few years, but since there were no valuable dungeons nearby, and this was completely surrounded by other dungeons, no one wanted to live here or build anything that would eventually be taken over by another dungeon.
It was a shame; the idea of a city surrounded by dungeons appealed to me for some reason, but with no valuable rewards, it would have to be shelved for now until I made some more valuable landmarks. This landmark supplied a similar resource regeneration buff that my own skill did, which wasn’t great for us, but was absolutely amazing for other teams.
We got a good night's sleep… And by that, I meant we had lots of sex before going to sleep. It was a rare break from all of our children, and everyone was in good enough shape that even if they were pregnant, they weren’t showing yet. Certainly, some of my wives were pregnant again after last night. The way my symbiosis skill worked meant that the stat bonus would be applied to me first before it was applied to my wives.
It meant that every new wife would boost not only my own stats, but the stats of every single one of my wives, because the boost I received would be calculated in what they received. It was one of the reasons I was most likely going to die, because the bonuses were too strong for most people's bodies to handle. If my boost only did a single stat, it would be harder on their bodies than expanding everything evenly, at least from what Mara said, but no matter how high I raised my endurance, eventually, my body would just give out from receiving too many stats through skills.
Thankfully, Mara said that my wives and children wouldn’t die; I was the only one who would explode from too much potential, then they’d all lose the bonuses I gave them, but at that point, we were already one of the strongest forces in our country, and closely tied to the king already. It meant that even after I died, my family would be fine.
I was surprisingly okay with my forewarned death. I wasn’t very old, but I’d rather live this life a thousand times than one where I went the cowardly route and followed the previous king, living into my seventies but never making anything out of myself, always fearful of bandits and never earning what I could in a single year with the way I went with my class.
I could struggle, push the limits, and have my wives carry me through ever increasingly difficult dungeons to stay alive… But I didn’t really want to do that. Reaching another status recalibration might buy me another decade, but the chances are, once my children start coming of age and having their stats boosted by my skill, I’d die shortly after.
It was possible; we had already been through two extremely difficult fights that boosted our levels dramatically, most of my wives were already most of the way through the uncommon rank, some even into rare, while their stats were equal to those of someone with an epic or legendary class. Sure, that might happen, but if it didn’t and I died, I’d die happy, accomplishing far more in my life than if I lived any other way.
We made it through another four dungeons the next day, before creating another landmark with a similar goal: to serve as an outpost for those wanting to explore. Going by the old(most likely inaccurate) map, we were about halfway through the dungeon cluster before we’d reached the southern country. We’d have to turn around before then, maybe one more day of clearing dungeons to make another landmark, before I’d go back and start branching out in other directions, making other landmarks and safe zones for people to rely on.
These dungeons in the middle were higher level; the monster kingdom was an outlier, far stronger than it should have been for where it was located, but every single dungeon had forces equivalent or stronger than it this deep in. Still manageable for us, especially since everyone was strong enough to fight them ten years ago; most of the fighting classes were now visibly much stronger than us non-combat classes.
Tems could know where an enemy is, kill them, and move back to the group before anyone else noticed. Silk fought against an elite golem by herself to test her strength and managed to take it down not only easily, but faster than it took her to ask if it was okay to fight it alone. They were beyond where they should be, bordering on the strongest in the kingdom now, and it didn’t show in how they acted.
People as strong as they would normally have a dedicated group to bring out their entire value and make them shine. A tank to take focus off of them, plenty of support, and assistant damage to make up for their weaknesses. Not a group of mostly non-combat classes, only tied together because of who they slept with, yet our group was one of the strongest in the kingdom.
Tems told us to stop walking as her ears perked up; even Leaf was on edge as she spoke. “I hear fighting… And it sounds like two large groups… In that… Direction.” As we looked, we saw it; there was a giant slamming the ground with a club. Even if Tems didn’t alert us, the ground shaking and the sound of an explosion going off from the giant would have alerted us to him the next moment.