Chapter 95 Dungeon Core: “The Eternal Training Ground”

It was four days after the battle when the news came of the Kingdom surrendering. At first, I was quite surprised, but it seemed that everyone was expecting this to happen. It was also a significant day in another way, as the bombardment started once again.

They did not have the strength to try to breach the walls once again, but reinforcements were on the way, almost 100,000 soldiers. It was a significantly larger number, especially if combined with the soldiers still sieging. However, I think the biggest problem will be that the enemy will have more gold-ranking people than Ace will.

The defenders, however, didn't seem that worried. The reason why they weren’t, I thoroughly disliked. They expected me to help them once again. "Ace, my help was just a one-time thing; do not expect it again," I sent through the contract link.

He was in his room, practicing a speech. "Damn it, why can't things be easier?" he said out loud, but those words were not meant for me.

He lacked the strength to talk to me like I reached out right now. He seemed a little defeated. Then he sighed out loud, crumpled up the paper he was writing on, picked a new clean paper, and started to write once again.

I was quite interested to see what he was doing, and every so often, some people would visit him, and he would give out commands. A few hours later, around 4 PM, Ace finally left his office and headed to the central tower.

There were a lot of people gathered around that spot, waiting for him. When he walked onto the balcony so everyone could see him, there was no cheering, but I could see hope in people’s eyes. Then he started his speech.

"We have been abandoned by our Kingdom. They have relinquished the land we are currently standing on to enemy invaders. Those invaders are outside our walls, desperate to get in. I would be lying to you if I said that this situation was good. It is not. Yet, I hope that all of you would agree,  surrendering our city and our dungeon is not acceptable. They have come here to take what is ours and force their rule onto us."

"We have not done anything to them; all we have done is be prosperous. They looked at us like an unguarded jewel and wanted to own us. We crushed their first attempt. For that, we had the help of the dungeon, but it did not come without cost.”

“Forcing a dungeon to do something is terribly difficult, yet I was able to make a deal and give it some knowledge and things it was after. It will still help us with the quest that is still ongoing, but this dungeon does not hold our hands. We must stand for ourselves to be worthy of it."

"Because of this, I have decided to declare ourselves independent. We will become a city-state, and I will be the city-lord. I do not want to change anything from before, and with the trade route connection and what the dungeon can offer us, we can be a proud city-state that will be open to anyone who wants to challenge and gain rewards from the dungeon. We will be strong enough to defend ourselves. We will be the Eternal city-state," Ace yelled the last part, and the crowd answered his yell.

The sound they made was tremendous, but Ace's speech wasn’t just heard by the people around the central tower. All the defenders and even the people still inside the dungeon heard it. They all cheered along, announcing the new nation of this world and its defiance against any invader.

The bombardment ceased for a moment as the enemy army was confused. The general that was still in charge cursed out loud when he was informed that they were now on a different nation's soil. It was the thing he promised he would be able to prevent.

It was a bit funny to see a man that was so composed before the battle be so broken afterwards. It honestly came to me as a surprise when I found out how old he was, but it seems that it was really a long time since anything didn't go as he planned.

I can sort of understand that. Time can be a tricky thing, and I am quite thankful for my playrooms; otherwise, if I just had the dungeon rooms, things might've gotten too repetitive, and I might have developed bad habits.

There was no celebration after Ace's speech. There was simply too much work to be done. They had seen their mistake and it seemed that they were trying to fix it. Before, they really didn’t have the manpower to do it, but now they did.

They dismantled broken houses, and the people still in the dungeon worked on bringing out lumber from the hub stations so they could rebuild their siege equipment. The adventurers who were still in the dungeon did still help the fight in their own ways. They also keep a fresh supply of meat going to the surface.

The industries of the city above were, however, broken. It was one of the first meetings Ace had. The airship port was still working 24/7, but the supply of rations and monster parts had run dry.

Especially rations as they were truly sought after. It was quite fascinating to learn how much the city sold off and how high the demand for these types of rations was.

"I understand your concerns, but we simply can’t make more. We don't have access to the berries anymore, and it would take a lot of workforce that we need elsewhere. I am truly sorry," Ace said to the merchant guild representative.

Their talks continued, and when they left Ace's office, they seemed quite determined. Ace himself smiled. It took me another two days to figure out why. The trade network that the city was connected to, thanks to the large airship port, was important and big.

It was a safe pathway and connected markets of three continents. Without the resupply spot, the journeys the airships needed to take would be a lot longer. That is also why the attacking kingdoms didn't dare interrupt the operation of the port. If they did, the pressure their kingdoms would come under would make them end the war almost immediately.

The Kingdom had, however, underestimated how sought after the rations this city produced were. Ace seemed to be quite happy when he heard the news that a lot of nations were already putting pressure on the kingdoms attacking to make peace. They just needed to hold on for long enough, and they would have their independence and a peace treaty ending this war.

I knew that without me, they would not have any chance. The training and the resources they could get from me were simply too valuable, even if most of the resources they were getting from me were just meat.

It was quite funny; I still remember how most of the adventurers complained that they only got meat drops, yet now I’m pretty sure they would riot if I stopped. I did enjoy the multitude of conversations on how to cook a certain piece of meat and what was the favorite way to cook and eat a certain piece of meat for the adventurers inside my dungeon.

It was at this point that I realized I missed having so many adventurers inside of me. Currently, so few were still actively fighting and living inside my territory. I kind of felt hollow, and I did not enjoy this feeling.

To distract myself, I focused a little bit more on the 19th-floor playroom. There was still a lot of work to be done. I still kept an eye on what was happening above me, but mostly it was a waiting game.

It took two months before more attackers showed up. And another full month before the entire enemy army was besieging the city. They launched their first assault, but now there were new generals in charge, and I was quite honestly disgusted.

Not having their most experienced general in charge was just stupid, and when I tried to look for him, I couldn’t even find him. Did they really get rid of him just because of one mistake? They were even bigger idiots than I expected.

Their plan was quite straightforward: use their superior numbers to overwhelm the defenses. The defenses, however, were bolstered, and it seems that Ace had hired gnome engineers whom he was paying quite a lot of coin to make him siege weapons.

I kind of felt sorry for the attacking force, but when they attacked, they almost broke through after three hours of battle. They were able to secure a section of the wall, but to my surprise, it seems that not every fruit fly container was used up.

They were able to temporarily stop the enemies on the wall, receiving reinforcements, and they were able to recapture the section, although the fighting there was fierce until finally, the attacking army sounded the retreat horns.

They learned from their first mistake and adjusted their plans. It was a step that they didn’t need to take if they hadn’t gotten rid of the first general, but this was good news.

It took them five days to prepare for another assault. This time, they concentrated on three locations and only engaged the other sections just to tie up the defenders. They had more success, but they also didn’t push as hard as before and seemed to be content with achieving a better kill-death ratio than in the earlier battles.

I could see this tactic working if they had the time, but it seemed that the other nations had finally put enough pressure on the attacking force that they could only do one more assault before they needed to engage in peace talks. This didn’t meant that they needed to accept the peace offer that Ace would put on the table, but if they rejected too good of an offer, they might lose it all.