Dungeon? This Tree? Why Don't You Join Me for Lunch? (Dungeon Core) Chapter 17: The con begins!

If I thought that it would be easy to get an audience with the king of the strongest nation in the world, I deserved to be hit with a wet towel on the bum.

But I did not. No one was going to be this naive.

I needed a plan.

No one was going to just buy sothing from so backwater nymph. Heck, if I did not play my cards right, King Alexios might even harvest my organs.

If King Solas did not rush to my burned down forest with his army of organ harvesters first.

Life as a nymph was not just cherry trees and sweet grass.

Darn necromancers...

"Explain it to again," Nara asked, ever the nonbeliever. "You want to start selling enchantnts, which are going to be made by the two spirits in the tree, in this region?"

I nodded. I had to start sowhere!

"This burned down forest, the ruins of the human village, or dare I ask, the gno ruins?" Nara asked, already preparing to club on the side of the head.

I hid behind Mael. Just to be safe.

"No! On the Main Road!"

It was tricky. The Main Road was a toll road. Belonged to a giant who was about as stubborn as a mule when it ca to paying his taxes.

The story of the giant Robert getting the rights to the road had been made into more than one epic.

But to make the long story short: Robert jetted King Solas into the air, caught him, shook him like a wet cloth, and then threatened to eat him.

Elegant and genius in its simplicity.

That was the kind of man I wanted for a boss mob!

What was the worst thing that could happen?

"And who is going to negotiate with the giant?" Nara patted her husband on the arm. He, like the traitor he was, stepped to the side.

I glared his way. He shrugged. Well, it was good to know where his loyalty lay.

"You!" For I did not know of any woman fiercer than our dear Nara! Sure, maybe Almira might have shad the giant into submission, but she was an old girl, and the giant may or may not eat human flesh.

Nara narrowed her eyes; I took out my secret weapon.

"Did the children have their snack yet?" I asked, taking the cloth off the best bribe I could co up with, considering that my food supply line was now in shambles.

Nara looked at the muffins, I saw how her eyes darted to count them. Four, a ager offering, but fair to both children.

A ray of light shone on her, making her black hair shine like an obsidian. I could see what Mael saw in her. Really, I could.

"I will be your champion," she took the muffins, and then, in typical orcish fashion, proved her lungs were the stuff of legend.

As I watched as the good woman bargained the muffins for studying ti, I knew I had made the right call.

Now, the first part of my plan was complete!

0000

We were the lone wolves.

With Nara paving the way, a machete in her hand. It hurt that the forest was so trashed that we needed to cut down fallen branches which had fallen on an angle where they could fall on soone’s head.

The corpses of the hapless animals which had not survived were drawing flies to them.

Nature was going to bury them. It was going to take them back to the soil which birthed them. Repair the damage.

It was going to take its ti.

But that was sothing I needed to think about after I got enough money to fund a war.

Just 2,000 living soldiers. That lted fudge for brains...

"Quit cursing," Nara scolded , her machete cleaving through a branch about as thick as my arm.

"I wasn’t," not out loud, at least.

"You were," she insisted, as she stepped over what was left of a dead boar. Oh, the things I could have done with that much at!

Darn it all! Where did the blasted storm co from?

"It is just... the king is an idiot!" I yelled my frustration at the heavens. It would be easier to just put up the barrier!

"No, he has no other choice," Nara said, as she looked at what was left of a small patch of forget--nots. "That storm was not natural."

I shuddered.

"You think that...?" It was too big of a question to ask. I was a nymph, yes, but nature ant more than roots and leaves. More than the secret and sacred pathways in the soil.

No, the wind and sun were sothing which spoke to the shamans.

And not everyone could be one.

"The wind ca from the Necromantic Union. The mountains tried to suppress it, but... You must know what that ans."

The storm was planned! And I was going to sell a powerful enchantnt to the man who had tried to destroy our country?

But... wait a second? What did she an the mountains tried to contain it?

"The mountains?" I asked. It was clear as day that she knew more about it all than I did.

"Yes. There is a new dungeon in the Mountains of Sorrow," she turned towards , a smile on her lips. "The dungeon core is a Forest Demon. The boss mob is a dragon!"

"Mana sponges!" I yelled, unable to contain my excitent. But then I frowned. "And not even they managed to get all the mana?"

Nara shook her head.

"Then, we have to make the enchantnt count," I was not like that. But my enchantnt was not going to kill that mana reactor who paraded around with a crown.

I had a mana supply problem, King Alexios had so much, he was trying to destroy countries out of boredom.

"Sylvan?" Nara asked, as she pointed at a castle which pierced the skies. "We are here."

I smiled, righted my hat, and then winked at Nara.

"Ti to put our masks on!"

She grumbled, but as she took the ceramic mask with a smiling face, and I took mine, we knew we could not fail.

The King could not fight alone.

Pan could not fight alone.

But together, we had a chance!