The Illicitous Dungeon

The forest was eerily silent as Therina and Aura dashed through it. This wasn't just due to the local shortage of monsters, but Aura's presence alone cast an oppressive feeling over the entire area and caused everything to instinctively hold their breath.

In order to reduce their travel time, Therina clung to Aura's back as she flashed passed trees towards their first destination. She could move there almost instantly, but Styx had told her to slow down just in case Therina's body couldn't handle it.

Therina felt their speed to be oddly surreal. Despite how fast they were moving, Therina couldn't feel any wind, nor were the leaves around them stirred as they brushed by them at lightning speeds.

Their first destination was the closest hidden elf village to the dungeon, which would normally be half a day's travel to walk, but Aura covered that distance in a leisurely ten minutes.

"It this is?" Therina asked while blankly looking around, eventually spotting a few tree elf's serving as scouts among the treetops.

The elves in the trees were immediately on full alert upon seeing the two women, whistling among one another to gather attention while they drew their bows. The only reason why they didn't fire immediately was they could see Therina's long elven ears, while Aura clearly wasn't human either

"Halt! What is your purpose here?"

Three elves dropped to the ground and surrounded them with swords drawn while others were pointing the tips of fully drawn arrows at them from above.

Therina could even tell that two of then were at the Second Step, but she held absolute confidence in being able to kill them herself in a direct confrontation. Despite this, she raised her arms to express her peaceful intentions.

"We are travellers, her to spread word of a new, safe place to live in this forest."

One of the male elves looked at the two beautiful women and swallowed a mouthful of saliva.

"Where are you from?"

"We are from a dungeon half a day east from here."

"A dungeon? Isn't that near where a fellow elven village was before it was raided?"

"Yes, that was where I used to live."

All the elves grew tense while the leader of this squadron glared at her with his sword pointing towards the two.

"We already know that all our brothers and sisters from that village were either killed or captured and enslaved. State your purpose, how did you find this place?"

Therina sighed and worried she would have to go through this every time, but Styx had told her to do things peacefully, so until they attacked her, that is what she would do.

"I was lucky enough to be rescued during the initial attack. I have no slavery inscriptions anywhere on me, but you are not allowed to look, or I will cut your eyes out of both your body and soul."

Her threatening words caused Styx to sigh while all of the elves tightened their muscles and circulated their mana, ready to unleash skills and attack at a moment's notice.

"And who are you?" The leading elf asked Aura while pointing his sword at her, who hadn't moved a muscle since the start and just stared with eyes so dark they were like bottomless wells.

Seeing the sword directed at her, she registered this as aggression from the elf and asked, "Can I eat him now?"

Styx immediately responded in her head, "No, you can't eat or kill any of them for now. You can break their weapons if you like, and if they still try attack, hold them down or knock them unconscious."

"Can you what?!" The elf raised his brow while feeling a faint sense of dread towards the unknown woman.

Therina sighed as Aura appeared in front of the elf and grabbed the blade of the steel sword bare handed. She clenched her fist and the sword turned into dust and metal shards with seemingly no effort.

The elf watched in horror as his weapon instantly became a broken mess of shards. He abandoned the weapon which was only left with a hilt while jumping back to open up a distance between them. The elves in the trees also released their arrows at her, but the wolf-eared woman casually caught them and dropped them on the ground.

"Enough, Hubrent!" An older, wizened elf appeared from between the trees and scolded the village guards before turning to the two visitors. "I apologize, we have all been on edge since the destruction of our sister village half a year ago. Tensions are constantly high and it is has been difficult to trust outsiders. We will always welcome an elf from our late sister village though."

Therina nodded her head, not mentioning that she was fully aware he was watching them from near the beginning. None of his hidden intentions mattered to her, so long as she was granted entry into the village.

She turned to Aura, whose new clothes had become partially disarrayed from their travels. She reached for the violet collar of her form fitting sweater which had become twisted around her neck and quickly positioned it straight before informing the wolfgirl of other things to pay attention to with her clothes.

Aura tugged on the hem of her sweater while being careful not to rip it with her claw like nails. She was especially fond of this sweater as it covered her like a coat of fur and was especially comfortable.

She also wore a skirt that stopped around half way to her knees. She didn't understand underwear though and her tail kept pushing them off, so she was completely breezy under her skirt, but she didn't care so long as nobody tried to look, else she turned extremely aggressive. She had allowed Beatrice to examine briefly though, so she could design special underwear that accommodated her tail though.

She was fully aware that Styx could see whatever Beatrice could, but she allowed him far more leeway than anyone else.

Therina was also in a new set of clothing made out of higher quality materials bought by Styx during the festival. She also had a pair and skin tight black stockings Beatrice had been focused on creating recently due to Styx's demands for these products. When she wasn't training, she also joined the other seamstress in creating clothing.

She had been slowly becoming more and more beautiful according to Styx's opinion, a natural result of levelling up and evolving to be closer to mana as a result. This was the main reason why Aura was perceived as a beauty that empires would wage war over.

The older elf leading the two of them opened the path into a village bustling with activity. There were easily five or six hundred tree elves in this village, and was a place where everyone knew everyone.

"You can call me Alderon. I welcome you into our small village, but I must first inform you of our rules here. You are forbidden from disclosing the location of our village, and all acts of violence will result in punishment depending on the severity of your crime. Other than that, we advocate a free and unrestrained life. Please do approach our village from the west in the future though, as it is the general route in connecting with other free villages."

The elderly elf eyes Aura cautiously with a sense of dread hidden behind his calm gaze. He didn't understand who or what she was, but he knew that she was extremely dangerous and he had no means of controlling her actions. He only prayed his goodwill would result in her sparing the village.

"Why don't you tell me more about the dungeon you are from? I assume it's not one of the human kingdom's dungeon cities, but some stray dungeon lord?"

Therina smiled back at the mention of Styx, nodding her head and stating, "Why don't you come to the main trading plaza? I will make my announcement there, advertising the new, safe place to live for anyone who wants to migrate."

"Of course I will, I just have a few tasks for the village chief to finish first."

Alderon motioned for two village guards to escort the two women, whispering to them to make sure nobody angers them. He truly didn't like the idea of someone entering the village to try and essentially poach their citizens, but he was feeling helpless af.

~~~~~

⠀

Houses were scattered everywhere in a relatively organized fashion. They pressed up against the giant trunks of redwood trees and often used them for support. More houses were built up in the trees with circular platforms around them and rope bridges between them and ladders connecting the two layers together.

The top floor was the nicer, and safer, area to live, but the lower floor was where all the trading and main activities happened.

The central square was bustling with activity as elves placed products, meats and fruits for sale, while others would barter with their own items. Elven and beastman traders also visited and sold goods from other hidden nationless villages in the outskirts of the Abyssal Forest.

There was currently a shortage of monsters, in the area, so the price of high class meat had drastically increased.

Therina and Aura were currently on a platform near the center of plaza which was usually used for village announcements, plays, or local auctions of rare goods. They had commandeered this area without asking permission and brought about a large amount of displeasure from the crowd.

"As I said, we are offering only the finest quality of life for all citizens. You will have access to anything you require, and will even be under the protection of our patron Monster Lord."

Therina called out with a broad smile, but the mere mention of a 'Monster Lord' caused everyone to have expressions of horror. There wasn't a single person who lived in the Abyssal Forest that didn't fear the Monster Lords who called this forbidden zone home.

"T-that is just nonsense!" One of the elves called out in both fear and disbelief. "Do you not fear death? If you annoy them with false claims, they will come for you any anyone near you!"

"This is our patron, Aura." Therina nodded her head towards Aura beside her, causing the crowd to feel even more disbelief.

Just before they could call out those thoughts, Aura released a wave of mana upon Styx's request that crushed down upon all the people and forced them onto the ground. It vanished as fast as it appeared, but everyone still couldn't get back up.

"There is no need to be afraid, she is just here to show you the protection she will give you," Therina calmly explained while smiling especially broadly towards the elderly elf, Alderon. "Migrating is entirely voluntary too, and nobody will force you. Next, I want to tell you about our laws."

Therina finally explained the responsibilities of each citizen of the dungeon, especially the women. She outlined the benefits and even described them giving birth to monsters as the grandest of privileges.

The two then departed the town which rumors and whispers rapidly spread throughout the citizens, the traders also carrying this news to other nationless villages they traded amongst.

Aura led the way to several other hidden villages, each either made up of beastman or elves. Therina spread information about immigration to these villages to various degrees. Several were angered at them trying to poach their citizens and tried to throw them out, but Aura promptly disabled these people and they sauntered into their villages regardless.

There was even one tiger beastman village which immediately and uniformly surrendered to them and promised to move the entire village of 200 tiger beastmen to the dungeon.

Styx was also greatly surprised to learn of beastkin with elvish descent. There were tiger beastkin amongst that village who had been born between the two species. They were just like any other beastkin, but also held beautiful feature which were synonymous with elves.

The two of them had visited 27 villages in total by the time dusk arrived yet had only covered a small portion of the Abyssal Forest. Therina had always known it was a huge area, but she held an entire new understanding of just how huge it was.

She held a map and marked down the most recent village they visited, which Styx verified along with her. He also updated his own map of the world he was constantly working on. He had been creating all kinds maps, from standard bird's eye viewpoint, topological, and even mapping air currents and creating charts based off those.

"It's time to return," Aura stated while looking at the setting sun.

She had more fun watching all the villages today than she had thought she would have had. If she had known they were this interesting, she would have started sneaking into them long ago.

"Then we had best hurry,"

Therina smiled broadly at the thought of what she wanted to do with Styx as soon as she got back.