“Can’t you at least let me rest a little bit longer? You know getting killed is not exactly pleasant, and the System’s way of reviving is no vacation either. I believe I’ve done some major lifting in the defeat of my King,” Moloch grumbled as he was being ‘cuddled’ by Kraft and did not like it a single bit.
“There will be more than enough time for you to sit on your butt after we resolve the ownership problem of the city.” Kraft rebutted. The rest of the foxed placed their keys on the hidden door, according to Moloch’s previous instruction. The door only had a single keyhole, and according to the grumpy cotton toy, they had to first place the keys in descending order starting from Limbo.
Slowly, the door opened and revealed the next door that was protecting the ‘vault’.
“You know in games they usually give you some sort of chest or some other reward for opening a secret door. Like a treasure room or something before proceeding to the next door.” Kraft said as he blankly stared at the second door.
“Too bad, this is not a game but real life in the Dungeon World,” Moloch argued with his eyes turning lazy, but he had forgotten that he was now in the mercy of the fox handler. Kraft pinched the top of his head and pulled his cotton ‘skin’, causing Moloch to suffer some rather annoying agony.
“Should we just call King Baal to quicken the process?” Kiyu suggested as she was waiting for her turn to open the door.
“He has been defeated by Rex, so the Metropolis Dungeon Core does not recognise him as the ruler anymore.” Moloch briefly explained to Kiyu since she might not know how the Dungeon Core ownership worked.
“Yeah, you could have told me your king was the last boss. Would have saved a lot of time.” Rex sighed, recalling how stupid he was to question each and every monster he fought against in the Circle of Treachery while attempting to find out who was speaking the real truth.
“It has been some time since I walked on the roads of the Demon Metropolis, let alone the roster of these bosses. Though I had my suspicions that King Baal might have decided to be the reigning champion of the last circle since he is technically the defender for the Dungeon Core…”
“Judging by his impatience to get back to the Dungeon Core during our fight, it must have desperately called him back in fear you had a way to just fight your way through without using the keys.”
“I didn’t mind the chance to cause some havoc, but was there any point in us invading here if we ultimately ended up fighting King Baal anyway?” Ixel brought up an interesting point, and all eyes turned to the cotton toy.
“As I said, I didn’t know. Not like this kind of information is openly available. But no your work wasn’t entirely useless. The more havoc you created, the more panicked the Dungeon Core must have gotten leading to it calling King Baal back and him getting distracted. If he refused the summons of his Dungeon Core for too long, it could have selected a different impromptu ruler, so it wouldn’t be wrong to call your work extremely helpful.”
“Still, here I thought we were going in to steal the Dungeon Core under his nose. No fun at all.” Kiyu complained as it finally became her turn to activate the key she had gotten from the Heresy stage. Similar to Pei, she did not have to really fight. Somehow her untimely appearance to a particular unrelated event being held in the Circle of Heresy caused a huge commotion. And with a bit of charm, she literally convinced an entire cult to follow her without any resistance.
When the foxes heard about it, they wondered if Kiyu had used her clan’s secret technique the ‘Butterfly Effect’ to change the outcome of her particular endeavour.
The Butterfly Effect worked as the concept containing time travel terms and chaos theory. The sensitive dependence on the initial conditions in which a small change would bring about a large scale and possibly unpredictable variation in the future.
It was a mystery how the Butterfly Clan, who did not have the mathematical and scientific concept of their secret technique, had been able to create such a technique. However, playing with time was a dangerous concept so much so that Kiyu herself had once claimed she would rather not use the skill if at all possible.
Yet, on the other hand, despite how convenient everything turned out for her, to use the technique literally required Kiyu to sacrifice something very significant in return. Be it physical or emotional, it would put a toll on Kiyu’s overall well-being.
Thus, they doubted she had used the technique. Maybe it was her womanly instinct that led her to kick out most of her male fox counterparts? (Or so they at least chose to believe for her sake.)
“There we go!” Kiyu said as she stepped backwards and allowed Tsu to place his key in. Eventually, it came to Rex’ turn, and the simple concrete room revealed an exposed Dungeon Core, waiting for input before the timer ran out and destroy the Demon Metropolis in an instant.
“As much as I would enjoy having all those Demon Nobles looking up to me, I have my hands rather full with Pandapolis. I suggest we should let King Baal continue running it. That way there’s normalcy in the demon city.” Moloch offered his opinion.
“Meh, that is not fun at all.” This comment coming from Itori surprised everyone, but Moloch shook his head.
“We can do something similar to what Jin did by putting the System and me together. This way, the System has a say, and with King Baal at the helm, it would just be a dent in their city’s combat record.” Moloch argued as he considered that too many changes to the city might bring forth unwanted guests.
Right now, the Demon Metropolis was a city that churned a decent amount of revenue as well as resources which could potentially aid Jin in his future battles and projects. They needed the money if they wished to expand rapidly in Jin’s world, or others for this matter, without outside help.
“Yes, it makes sense.” Rex, who had a diplomatic mind, understood Moloch’s logic. To some extent, the foxes all were familiar with some form of governance as they were initially groomed to be their clan’s leaders. “But unfortunately, what Itori said is true too. This is no fun.” Rex started to grin in a way that made Kraft laugh.
“Oh, you don’t mean… Are you willing to take up such a large responsibility that quickly?”
“Why not? Would you prefer for me to always stay mad at the past? I had enough time to think over everything in there, and I am not looking forward to returning there anytime soon. Besides, I might not have been out for long, but I’m dying to do some work.” Rex argued.
“If it helps to keep Rex calm while working, it would be a definite plus. That way, the System can use its processing capability for better use than trapping him.” Pei reasoned and the System, aka the ultimate eavesdropper, concurred with her.
“It will free 5% of System processing capabilities and taking partial control of the Demon Metropolis only requires 0.5%.”
“However, Moloch is also right. The change cannot be too drastic. Demons live here in this city and having too much law and order as well as knowing a human is controlling them would only breed chaos.” Pei added.
“Oh. You do not have to worry about that.” Kraft announced as he grabbed Rex’s hand and placed it on the Dungeon Core user’s interface along with Moloch’s. “There we go!” Kraft threw his phone which was his connection to the System on the user interface as well. Instead of a two way, the Dungeon Core finally accepted that three entities would be the new rulers of Demon Metropolis by playing the core’s standard welcoming theme.
“It’s a brand new day~!
Brand new day~!
A brand new morning has come~!
Be Happy ~! Be Happy~!
The wind of happiness continues to blow as we start our day~!
One, Two, Three, Let’s Go~!”
“Urgh. No matter how many times I hear that…” Moloch moaned as he grudgingly accepted the added responsibility.
