By the next morning, I had discovered something considerably less exciting than Succubus physiology.
Running a dungeon was fucking expensive.
I sat at the battered wooden table in what passed for Ashfall’s dining hall, staring at thirteen silver coins and forty-two copper pieces arranged in front of me. Lyra sat across the table with a small ledger open beside her, while Seraphina occupied the chair to my right, eating breakfast with the uncomfortable posture of someone trying very hard to pretend last night had never happened.
The dungeon had twenty-five stored mana now, which was a massive improvement over the seven I’d inherited. Unfortunately, mana wasn’t going to fill the pantry, fix broken weapons, buy clothing, or acquire the dozens of mundane supplies people needed to survive.
"So how did Velessa actually make money?" I asked, picking up one of the silver coins before letting it fall back onto the table.
Lyra brushed a strand of dark hair behind her ear as she considered the question. "Most of our coin came from adventurers. Anything useful was kept for Ashfall, while equipment and materials we couldn’t use were traded whenever one of the traveling merchants passed through the region."
"You killed adventurers and sold their shit." Seraphina chuckled.
"When they attacked us, yes."
I glanced at Seraphina. "So, we make our money off killing humans..."
Seraphina calmly continued eating. "You’re the mistress of a demon dungeon. What exactly were you expecting?"
"Passive income."
Her spoon stopped halfway to her mouth as she stared at me.
"Never mind."
Lyra’s confused expression told me I’d just introduced another phrase that had absolutely no reason to exist in this world.
That was becoming a problem.
I leaned back in my chair and considered our options. Waiting for heavily armed strangers to wander into Ashfall so we could murder them and pawn their belongings wasn’t exactly the economic miracle I needed.
Considering an adventuring party had already nearly destroyed Ashfall once, encouraging more people to attack us sounded particularly stupid.
There had to be another way.
The irritating part was that I’d created this world. Somewhere inside 786 Chapters of questionable plotting were treasures, ruins, magical resources and abandoned artifacts worth obscene amounts of money.
Roland had practically tripped over priceless shit every fifty Chapters because giving the protagonist treasure was considerably easier than writing him a believable salary.
I just needed something close enough that retrieving it wouldn’t get me killed.
"We’re going to need to leave Ashfall," I finally said, tapping one finger against the table while trying to remember the early Chapters of my novel.
Lyra’s reaction was startling. Her shoulders stiffened as she looked up from the ledger. "My Lady, you can leave, but traveling far from Ashfall would be dangerous."
"Because of the Core?"
"Partly." Lyra closed the ledger and turned toward me fully. "Your bond is incomplete because you’re still a Lesser Succubus. Mistress Velessa could travel considerable distances without difficulty, but her connection to the Core was fully established. Yours isn’t."
I frowned. "What happens if I go too far?"
"I don’t know."
That was reassuring.
Lyra must have seen something in my expression because she continued before I could respond. "You should feel the bond weakening before anything serious happens. Fatigue, discomfort, perhaps difficulty sensing Ashfall. I simply wouldn’t recommend discovering your limit by ignoring those signs."
"Fine. If I start feeling like I’m dying, I’ll turn around."
Seraphina lowered her spoon and gave me a flat look. "That’s your safety plan?"
"I’ve had worse."
"I believe you."
Lyra hesitated, and the fact that she wasn’t finished immediately caught my attention.
"What else?"
Her eyes briefly traveled toward my horns before flicking down toward the tail curled beside my chair. "You’re also a Succubus, my Lady."
I waited for the rest.
"I noticed."
"The Demon Frontier isn’t safe for someone of your race traveling alone."
That was slightly more concerning.
"What, are things going to try eating me?"
Lyra’s expression became uncomfortable. "Some of them."
I stared at her.
She didn’t continue.
"And the others?"
Her eyes shifted toward Seraphina.
Seraphina stopped eating.
My gaze moved between them until understanding finally arrived.
"Ohhhhhhhhh....."
Lyra cleared her throat. "Succubi are desirable to certain demons and other intelligent races. Lesser Succubi especially can be vulnerable outside protected territory."
Suddenly my horns and tail felt considerably less intimidating.
Seraphina set her spoon down and leaned back in her chair. "You’re Level 3."
"I don’t remember asking for your assessment."
"You nearly fell over the first time you cast that flame."
"That happened once."
"Yesterday."
I opened my mouth, thought better of it, and grabbed a piece of bread instead.
Seraphina’s lips twitched.
"If you’re leaving Ashfall, I’m coming with you," she said,off and there was none of the uncertainty I’d expected in her voice. "My mana channels are restored, and I’m considerably more capable of defending us than you are."
"You’re also still recovering."
"I’m Level 17."
I hated when she had numbers supporting her arguments.
That thought reminded me of something else I’d been meaning to ask.
"Wait. You know you’re Level 17?"
Seraphina’s eyebrows drew together. "Of course I do."
"How?"
She stared at me for several seconds before lifting one hand. A faint shimmer appeared in front of her, and her eyes moved across something I couldn’t see.
"My Status."
I slowly lowered my bread.
"You have a System?"
Seraphina looked even more confused. "Everyone has a System."
I turned toward Lyra.
She nodded.
For several seconds, I simply sat there processing the fact that I’d somehow gone an entire day without learning something I’d considered basic worldbuilding when writing the novel.
The System wasn’t my special advantage.
My System was.
Everyone could access their Status, levels, classes and whatever ordinary functions existed in this world. What they couldn’t do was look at Seraphina and discover that the crippled Holy Acolyte had SSS potential, a dormant Fallen Seraph Bloodline, or an investment opportunity capable of completely changing her future.
That belonged to me.
"Good to know," I muttered.
Seraphina stared at me. "How did you not know that?"
"I got nothing."
"You say that whenever you don’t want to answer something."
"See? You’re learning."
Her glare followed me as I returned my attention to the money problem.
There was another solution.
A remarkably obvious one, actually.
I had absorbed eighteen mana from Seraphina last night and transferred it directly into Ashfall. If I could do that with her, theoretically I could do it with other magically powerful people too.
For approximately five seconds, an incredibly simple business model presented itself.
Find powerful people. Sleep with them. Absorb whatever mana my Spirit allowed me to take. Come back to Ashfall and dump everything into the Core.
’Could I literally fuck my way into an S-rank dungeon?’
I imagined repeating that process with random strangers across the Demon Frontier and immediately grimaced.
’Absolutely fucking not.’
I tore another piece from my bread before reconsidering.
’Maybe once if I get really horny.’
Besides that, absolutely fucking not.
Seraphina was watching me again.
"What?"
"Your face did something strange."
"My face is none of your business."
"I’ve seen considerably more than your face."
I nearly inhaled the bread.
Seraphina calmly returned to her breakfast, but the tiny smile at the corner of her mouth told me she’d done that deliberately.
Fucking Saintess.
I pushed the thought aside and focused on the actual problem. If I wasn’t turning myself into Ashfall’s personal mana pump, then I needed another source of money.
That’s when I remembered the notification from last night.
Author’s Insight had updated.
I looked toward Seraphina and activated it. A familiar collection of windows appeared.
[AUTHOR’S INSIGHT ACTIVATED]
[SERAPHINA VAEL]
[Race: Human]
[Age: 24]
[Class: Holy Acolyte]
[Level: 17]
[Current Potential: A]
[True Potential: SSS]
[Fallen Seraph Bloodline: 5%]
[Investment Bond: Established]
The information shifted.
[NEW INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY DETECTED]
[Recommended Investment: Tear of the First Saint]
[Investment Grade: SSS]
[Investment Compatibility: Exceptional]
[Potential Return: 100×]
[Estimated Bloodline Advancement: Significant]
[Additional Effects: Unknown]
I stopped chewing as I read the words Tear of the First Saint.
There was no fucking way.
Memories surfaced from somewhere inside the mountain of useless information I’d accumulated while writing 786 Chapters.
I’d introduced the Tear ridiculously early in the original novel. Roland discovered it inside an ancient holy burial site while traveling through the Demon Frontier, and I’d written an entire dramatic paragraph describing how the relic contained a fragment of power left behind by the First Saint.
Readers had immediately assumed it would become important.
So had I.
Then I’d changed my mind.
Roland carried the damn thing around for dozens of Chapters before I eventually found something else to do with it, leaving several readers understandably furious that I’d introduced a mysterious ancient relic without ever properly exploring what it could accomplish.
Past Me had been an asshole.
Present Me was suddenly extremely grateful for her terrible planning.
Because I remembered where the Tear was.
More importantly, I remembered the burial site.
Roland had ignored most of what was inside because by the time he discovered the place, ancient coins and ceremonial weapons weren’t particularly valuable to him.
There had been burial chambers, petrified remains, religious artifacts and several pieces of equipment I’d described purely because they made the ruins sound impressive.
To a protagonist swimming in treasure, most of it had been scenery.
To a Dungeon Mistress with thirteen fucking silver? It was capital I couldn’t afford to miss.
My chair scraped against the stone floor as I stood.
Lyra looked up immediately. "My Lady?"
"I know where we can get money."
Seraphina’s expression became suspicious. "Why does that sentence worry me?"
"Because you’ve developed trust issues."
"You met me in a prison cell yesterday."
"Not the point!"
I looked back at the System window floating beside her.
The Tear wasn’t merely treasure.
If the System considered it an SSS-grade investment with a hundred-times return, then giving it to Seraphina should dwarf what the Moonwell had accomplished. Her Fallen Seraph Bloodline was sitting at five percent now.
The tear could push it double or maybe even triple what it is now.
And whatever the System returned to me afterward would be far larger than my first investment: more stats, another significant increase to my Holy Resistance, a much larger Fallen Seraph Bloodline Fragment, Evolution Progress and at least one new ability.
Suddenly the money wasn’t even the most valuable thing waiting there.
"We’re going treasure hunting," I told Seraphina.
She slowly put her spoon down. "Where?"
"An ancient holy burial site."
That wiped the suspicion from her face.
Lyra looked considerably less enthusiastic. "How far?"
"Close enough that we should be able to reach it without testing exactly how far I can get from the Core." At least I hoped so. My geography had never been nearly as detailed as it probably should have been.
Seraphina studied me carefully. "And how exactly does the mistress of an F-rank demon dungeon know where to find an ancient holy relic?"
There it was. I couldn’t exactly tell her that I’d put the fucking thing there.
Not yet.
"Insider information."
Seraphina closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead. "I fucking hate when you do that."
"You’ll hate me less when you see what we’re getting."
"I seriously doubt that."
I looked at the woman who was supposed to become the Fallen Saintess and couldn’t keep the smile from returning.
She could doubt me all she wanted.
If my memory was right, somewhere beyond Ashfall sat enough forgotten treasure to give this dungeon its first real chance at surviving.
And sitting in the middle of it was an ancient relic that could turn my first villainess into something considerably more dangerous.