Emperor Lucius sat on his throne as the representative of the Southern Court shuffled into the room. Emperor Lucius held his head high as the representative greeted him.

“Well? I trust you are not wasting my time in these chaotic times.”

The representative slumped his shoulders.

“The Council of the Southern Realms…has agreed to your terms. We will bend the knee. So please, heed our call for aid.”

Emperor Lucius hummed and rubbed his chin for a moment, before turning to another man in the room.

“What say you, envoy Vopicus? Will the Queen of the Dobhar release her prisoners for the sake of my subjects.”

Vopicus grinned and shrugged.

“Well, the surrender is all well and good but I fear Her Majesty will require a bit more reassurance. We would not want to return the Sky Legion only to find the South has…forgotten their promises.”

The representative balked.

“What more do you want?!”

Vopicus turned to him, his grin growing wider.

“Plenty, but for now…the Sky Legion will be released once the Southern Realms turn over all intelligence they possess regarding cults of mana, in particular the Heralds of the New Dawn, and instruct the imprisoned Captain Falrauth to do the same before he departs from Turannia. We will accept this as a suitable olive branch for the immediate short term, under the circumstances.”

Vopicus’s grin faded.

“And under the circumstances…you should have an inkling as to why we would want this information. I would suspect anyone with the good of their own realm at heart would be more than enthusiastic to comply with this.”

The representative stared at him for a moment, then gulped.

“I will tell them. Please, just do not delay the Sky Legion any further, the situation is growing desperate! And please send us reinforcements!”

Vopicus turned back to Emperor Lucius and bowed his head. Emperor Lucius nodded at them both.

“The Sky Legion shall be released once envoy Vopicus informs me he has received what he asked for. As for reinforcements, we shall send whoever we can spare, whenever we can spare them. If there is nothing more, then I suggest we all return to our most urgent duties.”

With the news that the Southern Court intended to surrender, Magister Canus, now assisted by a stress-binging Magister Opiter, redrew his plans with the objective to stabilize the South as well. However, he needed to hear from the Southern Realms what their current situation was, and Seero still needed to receive intel on the Heralds of the New Dawn, so for now both Seero’s forces and the Legion continued the plan to protect the North.

Melion’s successful experiment would help. Enchanted railguns were simpler for the metal slime to assemble than explosives since they did not require chemicals or computer components, and easier to resupply as well. Seero’s forces could even use Metal Magic to create new if less effective rounds in a pinch, and all the required materials were being generated by the Primary Home Base. Railgun armed drone-golems could thus be manufactured more quickly than those equipped with firearms, and could be deployed further away from subordinate dungeons before needing a resupply.

And Seero’s attempts to reimplement the Monster Summoning system were starting to bear fruit. At the moment, she had succeeded in summoning slimes, the simplest of all monsters. It was a start, and more. Slimes, when upgraded to CELIU units, were key to Melion’s mass production process due to their ability to directly shape raw materials into finished components, and so at the very least Seero could continue expanding her production lines now.

In any case, slimes were better than nothing, so Seero sent a message to all of her subordinate dungeon masters informing them of the reimplemented system…

At the center of a cave deep beneath the ground was a stone throne room, its master seated upon the throne at its heart. He wore a red cloak and a golden crown upon his head. The hairs on his body were immaculately groomed. His eyes were sharp as daggers.If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

This was His Royal Majesty, Excellion Formantus Rattingtale the Third, Advanced CELIU Unit. The Great-High King over all the land. The Most Humble Servant of the Wise-Mighty-Gracious Great-Ultimate Boss-Empress, the Supreme Arbiter of her will.

And at present…he was curled up into a ball and shivering.

“Why won’t you work-obey?!”

He had tried everything. Shouting, commanding, asking, begging, threatening, promising, lying. And yet…his royal core still refused to do anything! He couldn’t summon any minions to fulfill his will, he couldn’t create any devious traps, he couldn’t expand the realm.

He had once again failed as a Great-High King.

But then…salvation arrived.

“Priority Alert: This unit has re-implemented the Monster Summoning function for all subordinate cores.”

Rattingtale froze, and then slowly rose to his feet.

“As expected-anticipated of the Wise-Mighty-Gracious Great-Ultimate Boss-Empress! And as expected-anticipated of the Great-High King! Even the loss of the Aesdes themselves cannot threaten-harm our realms, yes yes! Truly we are the greatest-mightiest dungeon masters to have ever lived, yes yes!”

With that, he opened the royal records, ready to summon new and power minions…

He froze.

“S-Slimes? T-That’s it? T-This is…um…”

Rattingtale gathered himself and stood up tall.

“O-Obviously this is all as predicted-calculated, yes yes! S-Slimes are all that the Great-High King needs-requires, yes yes! R-Right…”

Meanwhile, the cyber-rats Rattingtale had summoned previously were gathered around the door to the throne room, peeking out at their king. After which, they turned to look at their master with concern.

“Boss-Lady 02S, what-what should we do now? The ‘Great-High King’ is still weeping-crying, yes yes.”

S giggled from the shadows of the doorway.

“Keep scouting the entrance, but otherwise…watch and enjoy.”

The rat monsters glanced at one another and then shrugged.

“Boss-Lady’s orders.”

The master of the Imperial Family Dungeon was sitting in her room, slumped in a chair, and staring into space.

“...of course. You reimplemented monster summoning. Easy right? I should have thought of that, great dungeon master that I am. Guess I’m not so great after all. I mean, I don’t have the faintest clue of how the monster summoning even works. It’s only the work of the Aesdes, after all. Basic stuff to rebuild from scratch. Of course. I guess I should…summon some slimes or something. I mean, I might as well start over from scratch, seeing I don’t know the first thing about being a good dungeon master, apparently.”

Fabian, the dungeon master of the Haunted Mausoleum, was sweating, his brow furrowed in concentration. His mana was just about empty as he completed the magic circle in front of him. Purple mana twisted and flowed from the circle into the skeleton laid out on the ground. Dark mana began to fill the bones, and purple flames lit in the skull’s eye sockets. Black armor formed around it as it rose to its feet. The new death knight then turned around without a word, marching off into the dungeon.

Fabian sighed as his skeletons brought more magic cores and bones into the room. At that moment, Lavinia poked his side, sitting on a box. She had wandered off somewhere, so must have just returned.

“Hehe, you look like, heh, skin and bones.”

Fabian sighed again.

“You could help with this you know?”

Lavinia shrugged.

“I could.”

Fabian stared at her.

“You do know that without monsters or traps or literally any of my dungeon powers, that we are entirely defenseless, right?”

Indeed, Fabian had his minions gathering every resource from his dungeon that they could. Fortunately, the rooms and features that would automatically generate loot and necromantic material were still functioning, so at least he had something to work with, though Fabian couldn’t adjust or expand them. But that meant raising minions manually, with his own mana pool, which was far more limited than that of his dungeon. And since he had spent most of his weaker minions trying to stop the horde, the vast majority of his dungeon was currently empty.

It would be a long time before he was confident in his defenses again.

And Lavinia, unhelpfully, shrugged again, clearly not intending to help.

“And you know we’re not on our own anymore, right? Our new boss will help us out if we get into trouble.”

Fabian clicked his tongue and shook his head.

“It’s naive and foolish of you to trust her. We’re minions to her, and nothing more, as is the way with dungeon masters. She will not help us. And even if she would, where is she now? How would she get here?”

Lavinia pointed back in the direction of the core room.

“The portal.”

Fabian opened his mouth.

“That’s…ahem, that only exists to threaten us with immediate death if we resist.”

Lavinia tilted her head.

“But aren’t we already dead?”

A vein bulged on Fabian’s forehead.

“Would it kill you to take our very survival seriously for even one moment?! No, don’t you dare answer how I know you’re going to! I am AWARE that we’re undead! And if you want to stay that way, then lend me a…”

Lavinia blinked as Fabian suddenly went silent.

“What is it?”

Fabian’s eyes widened.

“She…reimplemented monster summoning? How?”

But he shook his head. The how and why weren’t important. What was important was that he had at least some of his dungeon powers back.

And if he could summon monsters again, then he could make great progress towards repairing his shattered defenses.

He followed the instructions to access the summoning with a smile.

And then froze.

And started to tremble.

“That…That monster! Is this a joke?! A cruel method of taunting those who are already beaten?! To grant us a spark of hope only to trample upon it in a method most foul?!”

Lavinia hummed and crossed her arms as Fabian began to go on a tirade.

“Hm, I was going to show him this neat little toy I picked up from my new metal slime friend, but maybe I should wait a bit? Fabian always did bottle himself up, so he probably needs to let it all out right now…”