Chapter 97 Ramifications and vacation
Third Person Point of View
Little did they all know how lucky they truly were. The dungeon didn’t send out its army in a single direction; it spewed forth like a wave in all directions. If the dungeon focused on a single direction, and that direction was toward the western continent… The millions of monsters would have easily overwhelmed them, possibly destroying the capital, before the truly strong finally quelled the dungeon and killed the monsters. Millions became hundreds of thousands, who fought against dungeon after dungeon, further diminishing their numbers.
Dozens of dungeons already lay destroyed from the berserk dungeon, and the fallout from the dungeon's destruction wouldn’t be fully seen for centuries as the dungeons slowly expanded into the destroyed dungeon space before resolidifying their boundaries. That slow process would also lead to dungeons fighting over territory.
It would take decades for the dungeons to grow back their numbers before the berserk dungeon ran through them. The collective dungeons were like a balancing act; the person who put them all there no longer lived, and it had been so long, and the dungeons decayed so much that they were all close to the verge of collapsing and going berserk.
A single dungeon going corrupt was a nationwide threat… What would dozens of dungeons all corrupting at the same time be then?
…
An undead man’s point of view
I knelt on the ground, one hand forward as I stared at my master's feet. His minions learned early that if you made eye contact with the lich, you died. Mostly because he would kill you, but also because even just his vision could inflict instantaneous death if your willpower wasn’t high enough. I had told him about the oddities I had seen at the dungeon border.
“So, you believe that the dungeons are close to collapsing? How did you come to believe that?” I gulped. Even if I told him something accurate, there was a real chance he’d still kill me on a whim. “Y-yes. The hordes of skeletons we feed into the dungeon are making it in further than they ever have before. The southern dungeon border fluctuated as if it were under attack before calming down as well.”
He made no indication that he heard me. I sat waiting in that fear, worried that he would kill me(or stop my existence because I wasn’t really alive, but undead) if he didn’t like what I was saying. I waited… And waited until my undead arm and legs were falling asleep(if an undead’s arms could fall asleep) from waiting before he finally answered. “Fine… Go and report back if anything else changes.”
I got up and breathed(a term of phrase, not actually breath, because undead don’t breathe) a sigh of relief only after I was outside the lich’s castle. It was a good thing my heart couldn’t skip a beat(because I’m undead and undead hearts don’t beat), because that would have scared me to death(or even more dead).
…
I grabbed the picnic baskets and headed outside for the family picnic we were having. I couldn’t believe how many things have changed since the dungeon. Soon, we would go to meet the king and be honored for what we did. It was mainly for political reasons, and to prove that the king was still alive, but we’d all be rewarded for the part we took in its destruction.
There they were, my family. It was hard not to smile at the sight of them. All my beautiful wives and children are waiting for me to bring the second set of food for us to eat. Marcus and Berry sat off to the side playing with a few of their grandchildren while Tems played with all the rambunctious little ones. Leaf read a book at the base of a tree, slowly scanning the environment to make sure everything was okay before getting back to her book.
Sophie and Delilah were having a drinking contest, which meant that Sophie was finally going to start weaning our two children off her milk. Milly and Roka were off to the side, pregnant and trying to be careful. Higher endurance meant they could still function almost normally all the way up to their birth dates, but they were both getting close.
Cherry, Silk, and Olivia all sat next to each other with a child in their laps as they talked, and Sarah walked around refilling everyone's drinks with a pitcher of lemonade in one hand and beer in another. Even the new ‘Aunty’ dragon Mara got involved… Mostly eating the food, but at least she was there, giving me an evil smirk as she noticed me coming back.
“We got some dessert now that dinner is over. Blueberry cake, pumpkin pie, lime tarts, and some jars of jam with a fresh loaf of bread.” Tems cheered and ran forward, and so did the children she was playing with as they swarmed me. I picked up two of my kids as I handed over the picnic baskets to Tems. The ten or so other picnic baskets of food were eaten, leaving only the desserts, which the children all clamored for.
I watched as my silly first wife broke out the cake first and sliced it into a dozen pieces, handing each to one of the children near her before she dug into one of the pies all by herself, not even grabbing a plate or silverware, but eating it right from the pie tin. All of us just sat and watched her, even the children, as they looked on in awe at how they wished they could eat food.
The knight who stayed behind, whose name I found out was Randy, came up to talk to us. “Hey, I see that you’re doing a family thing, but I just came to remind you that we’re setting out tomorrow, so you all should prepare to head to the capital.” I handed over one of the hand-sized pot pies as I told him. “Sure, we’ll be ready. I just want to make sure someone is taking care of the plants since I’ll be gone for weeks first.”
Berry chimed in. “I’ll help, but we should convince some of the other townsfolk to also help. I wonder if anyone has any experience with plants.” I just sighed over the hassle. It took them a while to finally get everything set up.
Apparently, the king required several forms of proof and eyewitnesses who had seen that it was indeed a dungeon break, and for the behemoth corpse to get transported for them to see how terrible the break could have been if we didn’t stop it before the ball finally got rolling on us being rewarded.
It would take a week or two of leisure travel with all our children before we made it to the capital, which meant we’d be gone for almost a month before making it back to the farm.
