Chương 14: Small Victory

"W-wait, don't move my arm. It hurts!"

"I told you earlier that you can tell me if you can't fight anymore," Alicia scoffed as she chastised Vittorio while holding his broken right arm.

"Look at it. It's flapping around like a wet noodle."

"But, Your Grace, I did defeat that ice golem, didn't I? So I was able to fight." Alicia stared blankly at Vittorio. His answer nearly made her twist his arm further—since she would heal him anyway—but she managed to control her intrusive thoughts. So, she simply sighed and released his right arm. Without uttering another word, she used her magic to quickly heal Vittorio.

It was good luck that his only major injury was his broken arm, save for minor burns and scratches, which Alicia also handwaved away within a few seconds. Before Vittorio knew it, he could once again use his right arm.

"Never do that again, especially if I'm not around," Alicia said as Vittorio tested his healed arm.

"That injury could have been a crippling one without my healing magic. I know well that the monsters here aren't the type you're meant to fight against, and I still dragged you here anyway, so I wouldn't blame you if you asked for assistance. You should have asked."

"But I wanted to prove that I can fight well, and I was fully convinced that I can deal with the stragglers attacking us from the rear alone. It's a mistake not to ask for help, but I couldn't. I wanted to finish my job on my own."

"That kind of bullheaded stubbornness can kill you one day." Vittorio had no answer to that. So, Alicia just sighed.

"Forget it. You were right anyway," Alicia reluctantly admitted.

"After all, you did complete the task I gave you. So good job. Just be more careful next time." A good leader must always appreciate effort and results. That, and after seeing how driven he was and how he fought hard against so many opponents, some of them with levels above him, she now knew that she could reliably leave the security of her domain to him whenever she needed to go out in expeditions.

In a way, having a good look at his abilities and limits was going to be advantageous for Alicia, since she now knew where to assign him and where not to assign him. Vittorio remained silent for a few seconds. Then, he placed his right arm on his chest and bowed a bit as he spoke.

"I'll take your advice to heart, Your Grace. Thank you for healing me too."

"Have some rest. I'm just going to loot all of the good stuff around here, then we'll leave." Alicia turned away from Vittorio and refocused herself on controlling her [Blood Strings] spell. It was one of her favorite spells in-game, simply because it was extremely powerful and multi-purpose. Her fine and precise control of them, alongside her ability to harden them, sharpen them, expand them, and many more, meant that they could essentially become either attack tendrils or multiple hands.

Best of all, due to her levels and her mastery of this spell, Alicia could easily summon thousands of [Blood Strings] if she wanted to do so. She hadn't done it much at all, even in-game, simply because it was overkill and unnecessary, but it was possible because she could bypass blood reservoir mechanics by simply using her inordinate mana reserves. And so, with glee, Alicia greedily used her [Blood Strings] to plunder every body she could find inside the dungeon.

No corpse escaped her grasp as her blood strings tore through them like surgical tools and extracted monster core after monster core. In a way, if someone who didn't know Alicia saw such a scene, they would think she was some kind of evil devil that crawled out of the deepest pits of hell. But she was just having the time of her life. Fourteen A-grade cores?! No way. How is my luck this good? At this point, Alicia already recovered nearly a thousand cores of varying grades.

Whenever she absorbed them in her inventory, the cores would reveal their grade, mana content, and special properties. They were ranked from F-grade, the lowest, to SSS-grade, the highest. Most of the cores she had retrieved were at C-grade and D-grade, which came from the normal-level mobs. Meanwhile, elite mobs like that ice golem that Vittorio killed earlier usually dropped a B-grade core and above. Unfortunately for Alicia, though, none of the monsters so far have dropped anything above A-grade.

She supposed it made sense; this dungeon, while high in hazard rank, wasn't at the highest, so expecting S, SS, and especially SSS-grade cores was essentially pushing it too far. Well, I just need enough to start trading with humans anyway, and I guess to power the first magical machines that I'll try to import… Alicia's endgame plan was to revive the failed mines that Moshan said was the reason for Orevogorsk's founding.

Not only would it give her people steady employment if she could open it up, but producing mana ores and refining them to magic crystals was going to be extremely valuable. To start that, though, Alicia needed tools, equipment, and a steady supply of monster cores that would give them power. This place can serve that role for now. Her eyes fell on the dungeon core. It was on the center of floor forty, hovering on top of a bunch of crystals while emitting a bright, reddish light.

Behind Alicia, Vittorio suddenly stood beside her, placing his hand on his chin as he too began appraising the dungeon core.

"That might be an S-grade core. Maybe even higher," Vittorio said.

"Are you not taking it for yourself?"

"I said we're not here to fully neutralize the dungeon, didn't I?"

"Why though? Why shouldn't we just take that, use that core for the village's benefit, and make sure that this dungeon will never be a threat anymore?" Vittorio's question did have its merits. In the eyes of normal people, dungeons were less of a materials source than a hazard that could spew out monsters randomly and cause obscene devastation if they weren't subjugated. It was why, even if monster cores existed as an alternative to magic crystals, the world's magical revolution wasn't powered by it.

Instead, people learned to use something that could be acquired at scale without sending people into hazardous environments. Mana ores could be mined safely, refined, and then turned into a powerful mana and energy source. A stable supply of inputs was the basis of industry, she had learned in economics at school, and only a madman would rely on an unstable source of inputs like a dungeon to fuel industry, magical or otherwise. The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Regardless, it is the only starting option I have, and I imagine the humans started with this too.

"This dungeon core will continue to absorb and accumulate mana for a long time. That means every time I come back here, I can harvest that mana by just killing the monsters here, over and over…" Alicia explained, smiling deviously at Vittorio.

"I'm going to milk this place dry before neutralizing it."

"... Hmm, that does sound like an ingenious plan."

"Indeed." Alicia closed her eyes as she nodded smugly to her idea. Then, she turned her back on the dungeon core, leaving it behind.

"Let's go. Vikar must be getting cold up there." Twenty-eight fallen monsters from the dungeon lay at the entrance when Alicia and Vittorio emerged from it. Sitting in front of a boulder that was nearby was none other than the former champion of the Veligrod Major. The asura turned to look at Alicia, his eyes showing not a hint of surprise, as if he fully expected that they'd return in one piece.

Alicia gave him a smile after she looked around the area, noting that none of the animals they hunted, which were frozen in massive ice cubes, were touched.

"That's a lot," Alicia mumbled, a bit worried.

"Did any one of them leak to the countryside?"

"No," Vikar answered, shaking his head lightly.

"Though…" That was when Alicia noticed it. Vikar sported a few minor cuts and scratches on his arms. She could also see a bandaged wound on his right leg. That made her look at the corpses of the monsters he killed. There was one blizzard revenant with a little bit of blood still on its sword. While Vikar wasn't badly hurt like Vittorio earlier, and he was just sitting calmly, he was still injured, so Alicia cast a single-target healing spell on him.

"Thanks," Vikar said, watching the green glow of Alicia's healing magic with a grateful smile.

"My wounds were starting to hurt."

"We're lucky that a horde didn't come for you," Alicia said, sighing a bit as she finished her healing spell.

"We were attacked by hundreds of monsters down there."

"Only stragglers went up for me. Your strength must have attracted them straight to you. Dungeon cores usually command their monsters to prioritize those that threaten them the most." Vikar then stared at Vittorio, laughing a bit.

"She assigned you to guard her rear, didn't she?"

"It was an honor to fight with Her Grace," Vittorio replied with a nod. Vikar, on the other hand, shook his head.

"I will never get used to being so formal with nobles."

"Are there no nobles where you come from? Don't humans have nobles?"

"They do. We just refer to them with profanities in Polonia. Even common humans do the same thing."

"Of course. Human nobles are unpleasant, vile, irredeemable pigs, only surpassed by the arrogance of elven royal scum. It's no wonder even their kin hates their guts. Her Grace, on the other hand, is a paragon of nobility, strength, virtue, and wisdom, so please respect her."

"Contrary to what you think, I'm not a fan of meaningless praise," Alicia said to Vittorio, crossing her arms, slightly irritated. She liked being praised, but not to that level.

"Anyway, let's fly back. It's getting way too cold for my liking." Vikar looked up at the sky, shivering a bit.

"You're right. I hope that mansion of yours has a nice heating system like human ones…" Vikar said.

"I'm still not used to these conditions."

"We're flying…" Vittorio, on the other hand, also started shivering, but for entirely different reasons. Unfortunately for him, there was no other option. After making sure that Vikar recovered from his wounds, Alicia cast her [Fly] spell again on all of them, alongside the frozen animals.

She half thought about using her [Warp Gates] instead, but the one she placed on the village was more rudimentary than a proper, fully formed [Warp Gate], so it wouldn't be able to easily transport the massive animals she was flying around with. She didn't want to test it out anyway and cause an incident, so she just chose to proceed manually and fly back.

Still, next time, she didn't want to go through all of this again, so she placed another basic [Warp Gate] near the dungeon they found, which she would upgrade later when she had more time. Then, the trio flew back to Orevogorsk at a steady pace so that Vittorio wouldn't be tormented during flight and spill his guts out the moment they landed near the village. Luckily for them, the storm was still quite far away, but they still took a few minutes to reach Orevogorsk.

By then, it was already sundown, the skies dark, and the villagers were already preparing to have supper before bed. So as to not disturb them, Alicia simply went straight to her mansion and dropped everything there, including Vittorio and Vikar. She placed the animals encased in ice cubes on neat rows right in front of her palace's garden and decided she would have them butchered in the village tomorrow. Her ice magic and the cold temperature after all should keep them frozen solid overnight.

For now, she turned to Vikar and Vittorio. Vittorio was standing in attention, as if waiting for orders, while Vikar was staring at her palace way too much, as if having a closer look froze him, perhaps because it was simply too grand. Alicia cleared her throat, and Vikar finally looked back at her.

"Since it's already evening, for now, you two will go to your respective rooms to rest. We'll continue the rest of our work tomorrow," Alicia announced before holding her chin.

"Wait, actually…we do need to eat first, so maybe we should butcher one of those animals…?"

"I'll go fetch meat from the village store instead, Your Grace," Vittorio offered.

"It will be faster. Give me just a few minutes, and I'll be back with the best cuts. Then, we'll replace what we took tomorrow."

"Yeah, that's a better idea. Off you go then."

"As you wish." Vittorio bowed before turning around and leaving.

"He sure is a diligent guy," Vikar commented on the side, shaking his head.

"Come with me," Alicia said.

"I'll show you around. And yes, this palace does have good heating, since you asked about that earlier."

"Truly?"

"Yes, truly." When they entered Wintervale Palace, Alicia had the chance to finally show it off to Vikar a bit until Lyra appeared in the hallway. She was still wearing her baggy clothes and jacket, and she was holding a clipboard filled with papers. Alicia remembered that she gave her a task earlier, so she immediately asked her about it.

"Lyra, have you and Moshan finished the census that I was asking for?" Alicia asked, curious. The succubus nearly dropped her clipboard and pen, as she was clearly a little bit flighty right now.

"U-uhm, sorry, Lady Alicia, but no. We were only able to do a quarter of the census until Moshan called it off. He said we'll continue tomorrow…"

"It's fine," Alicia reassured. The three continued walking briskly through the hallways. Then, Alicia leaned close to Lyra.

"Have you brought your sister here?"

"Yes. She's in her room, asleep. Again, I can't thank you enough for letting us in here."

"Good. I hope that she'll rest well here."

"I hope so too." Lyra hummed happily to herself before suddenly stopping.

"Oh! Actually, I do have something to report to you, Lady Alicia," Lyra said, fumbling with the papers on her clipboard as she tried to find something.

"What is it?"

"You see, while we're only about a quarter of the way through the census, we did find a promising individual that you might find useful." Lyra then pulled one of the papers out of her clipboard, presenting it to Alicia.

"Look, we found a [Metallurgist], and a somewhat renowned one at that. He once worked under one of Vael's dukedoms!"

"Wait, you found a [Metallurgist] from a major noble household?"

"Yes!" She looked at the man's profile, noting his age, name, and skills. No way. If this is true, how is it possible for such talent to find himself in a backwater village? Alicia shook those thoughts away, smiling instead at Lyra.

"I look forward to seeing him then."