To buy pickaxes, he'd have to hit the market in a neutral free city — and the closest free-city market was in the underground city of Frostlake. Walking from the Eternal Kingdom to Frostlake would take ten days, minimum, and time was tight. Sharlock was itching to summon his goblins and get his great dungeon built — so he decided to blow the budget on the most extravagant mode of travel there was: a teleport scroll!
Normally, only an archmage could pop portals to other cities at will. Sharlock was a demon, not an archmage. But as in most worlds: if you're stuck, you simply haven't spent enough money.
Wincing at the pain in his very soul, Sharlock tore the teleport scroll apart — and in a wash of magical glow, he was whisked off to a brand-new place.
"Don't just stand there! Register and clear out — we've got more customers coming through the portals!"
The savage orc working portal reception slapped a form into Sharlock's hands with impressive rudeness. It wasn't that their customer service was bad, Sharlock told himself — it was the crushing workload, plus savage orcs just being savage orcs. That's how Sharlock consoled himself, anyway.
Form in hand, he stepped down from the portal platform, row after row of portals flickering behind him. As he walked toward the reception hall's exit, filling out his form on the move, he passed a short gnome at the door chatting with the gnome beside him:
"...All I did was have a few drinks, and my wife beat the absolute tar out of me yesterday. See my ear? She wrung it clean off! Ah, well — back in my day, I was a legendary gladiator, you know."
While showing off the bandaged, still-bloody left side of his little green head, the gnome stamped Sharlock's form.
Even the dark Underworld had its own kind of order. The neutral free cities were more relaxed about it — cities built by merchants, where you filled out a form, got a stamp, and could move around freely.
Hand the form back on your way out and you're done. Other people's dungeons, though? Not exactly come-and-go-as-you-please. Take Sharlock's dungeon, the Eternal Kingdom: if some other dark-race intruder wandered in, Sharlock would kill them on the spot without a moment's hesitation — assuming he could take them.
Stamped paperwork in hand, Sharlock made a beeline for the Frostlake market. The market sat inside a gigantic hollowed-out cavern, everywhere you looked dotted with gnomes and goblins hawking wares from street stalls. Most of them worked for other Dungeon Lords who'd paid the free city a fat rental fee to send them here to do business. The goods were mostly everyday stuff — junk, in the eyes of a ranked demon like Sharlock!
Tch! Why was that silver-scale breastplate so shiny? Trying to con me into spending money again!
There were also demons like Sharlock, trailed by five-, six-meter giants hauling magic-beast carcasses — those were the ones here for the big business.
Sharlock took a deep breath of the stale air, puffed out his chest, and stood tall. The legend of his dungeon began here, with this first step!
"How many magic stones did you bring?" asked the core, "Bru," right as Sharlock was riding high.
"One thousand! My entire life savings! Every one full-weight!" Sharlock replied, scanning the stalls for an iron goods shop.
The core "Bru" pondered a moment, then said: "You truly are... a man of modest living. My respect."
Sharlock flat-out pretended he hadn't heard. Having a thousand left at all was the result of a bruising haggle with the saleslady. Prices were insane these days — a demon's gotta eat!
Iron goods shops weren't hard to find — the market had plenty. Sharlock picked a suitably ramshackle one and walked in. The sign over the door read "None Pricier."
The shopkeeper was a short, squat stonefolk, hammering away clang-clang-clang. The moment he saw a customer walk in, he set down his hammer, poured Sharlock a cup of bloodfern nectar, and asked eagerly: "Here for a Frostgrief Blade, or an Emberlord Blade? Everything in our shop is a premium replica — guaranteed to pass for the real thing out there!"
Sharlock shook his head. "I'm here to order iron pickaxes. A hundred of them."
This page contains a chapter copied from NovelPhoenix without permission; the author's version is where readers support the writer.
"No problem! One thousand magic stones! Free delivery to your door!"
So said the stonefolk.
Sharlock sucked in a sharp breath. Since when did iron pickaxes get THIS expensive?! He could afford it, sure — but if he blew it all on pickaxes, what were the goblins supposed to eat? Was he supposed to summon them all just to watch them starve?
The stonefolk didn't seem the least bit surprised by the look on Sharlock's face; he beamed and pressed on: "You have the air of a demon lord of considerable standing! Buying pickaxes for your new dungeon, I take it? Ah, everyone's starting up new dungeons these days — pickaxe demand is through the roof, so the recent price bump is only natural. But not to worry! You needn't buy nearly so many pickaxes. We have a special package deal perfectly suited to a distinguished new lord such as yourself — take a look!"
As he spoke, he produced a package brochure and laid it in front of Sharlock.
"Centennial Anniversary Mega Sale: a brand-new smithy for just 800 magic stones! Smelting, forging — it'll even cook your meals and boil your water! If you can dream it, it can do it! What are you waiting for?! Eight hundred magic stones and a brand-new smithy is yours to take home! (Pay in full today and get twenty free pickaxes!)"
Sharlock's heart wavered. If his dungeon had a smithy, couldn't he just make his own pickaxes? No more buying them at all? Eight hundred stones for a smithy, PLUS twenty free pickaxes — that was a steal!
"What do you think, Bru?"
"Works for me! With a smithy, we hire a blacksmith to swing the hammer — we can make pickaxes, sure, but we could even forge weapons and armor to sell to those players! Y'know, the goblins!"
"Wh-what? Isn't that stuff just handed out by the Dungeon Lord? We can SELL it to them?"
"Of course! The ones flush with cash buy outright; the ones short on cash grind out quests, and you pay them per completed quest as a reward. And not just gear — the food isn't free for them either. That's how the other world works."
Listening to Bru, Sharlock did the math: wasn't this saving him another enormous pile of money? He might even turn a profit off it. All he'd ever heard of was Dungeon Lords spending money to feed their monsters — how had it suddenly flipped to the otherworld players supporting HIM? He got a little tingly inside.
Sharlock decided on the spot, plunked down the eight hundred magic stones, and sealed the deal. The shopkeeper said it'd be ready in half a day — construction crew good to go in thirty minutes! He could haul them back with him when he left!
A smithy naturally needed a professional blacksmith to go with it. Sure, later on he could send players off to study blacksmithing, but that was a later-on problem. So Sharlock also hired a blacksmith from the "None Pricier" smithy — one hundred magic stones a month, masterful technique.
Most importantly, the guy could also cook — pulling double duty as chef — and he'd report for duty tomorrow. Simply perfect.
The remaining two hundred magic stones went to stocking up on typical goblin food — chitterlings, assorted bugs, that sort of thing. One lap around the market and the two hundred was gone, down to the last stone.
Sharlock didn't dare linger. He hurried back to the "None Pricier" smithy, rounded up the ready-and-waiting stonefolk construction crew, and headed home with them in tow.
From the portal reception back to the dungeon, Sharlock led the handful of stonefolk workers to the area beside the dungeon core. At his direction they picked out a construction site and quickly set to work raising the smithy.
Sharlock used magic to haul all the goblin food into one corner. With no workers yet to mine out proper rooms, it would just have to sit out in the open for now — it wasn't going to spoil in a day anyway.
Everything ready, Sharlock returned to the core's side. On Bru's advice, he opened the official forums, skimmed past the avalanche of player comments — skeptical, gushing, begging, or furious — and started drafting a fresh announcement: 【Dungeon: The Eternal Kingdom goes live tomorrow! One hundred lucky players have secured beta spots!】
The content mainly announced the identities of the hundred chosen players, then reminded them to keep an eye out for tonight's express delivery and to use their virtual gaming pods correctly, among other things.
Sharlock had no clue what a "delivery" or a "virtual gaming pod" was supposed to be, but the core "Bru" gave its absolute guarantee that the otherworld side was all arranged and needed zero attention from him. Well — if the dungeon core said so, Sharlock wasn't going to sweat it. Small stuff. Why fuss?
Barely any time after the new announcement went up, people started commenting — practically in real time.
【AboveItAll: Signed up this morning, picked and launched by this afternoon? From announcement to beta, this has to be the fastest beta launch in gaming history!】
【OldMacDonald: Happy! \o/ Successfully snagged a beta spot!】
【BondJamesBond: Half a day, and this game is blowing up the entire internet. My whole Discord server's talking about it — somebody even offered fifty grand for a beta spot!】
【OneTwoHill: Fifty grand? I've got a guy offering a hundred K!】
【[WYRM]Galebreak: WYRM Gaming has arrived in force. Buying beta spots at 150K each — as many as you've got! Call 139XXXXX or hit me on Discord at 4506XXXX. WYRM Gaming is recruiting hard!】
Sharlock read through the replies while hammering F5 to refresh. Honestly, watching these people talk was kind of a trip — time just slipped away, even if half of what they said sailed clean over his head.
Beyond the comments on his own thread, other players were posting their own threads all over the forums — guide requests, people buying beta spots at insane prices, people selling beta spots, guild recruitment threads of every flavor, and, more than anything, all kinds of completely unhinged nonsense. Bru had a name for all that — flood threads!
While Sharlock was browsing thread after thread, the stonefolk construction crew outside had already finished building the smithy. Not big, but it had everything a smithy needs, and they'd left the twenty bonus pickaxes behind as promised. Sharlock inspected the work, signed the construction completion form, and the stonefolk all teleported off together with their scrolls.
Sharlock looked around and let out a relieved breath. Next up: waiting for those otherworld goblins to come sweat buckets for him!
"Oh, right — we should probably discuss the newbie quests!"
So said the core, "Bru."
══════════════════════ DUNGEON LORD'S NOTE ═══════════════════════
Sharlock blew his entire life savings on a smithy, a blacksmith-chef, and assorted bugs for dinner — all because the bundle threw in twenty free pickaxes.
Honestly, would you have survived that sales pitch?
If you're enjoying the ride, a 5-star rating plus a two- sentence review keeps the mana flowing — thanks, legends!