My Dungeon Daddy System: Raising Monsters and Waifus Underground-Chapter 50 – The Morning After

Chapter 50: Chapter 50 – The Morning After
​"
WAIT!
"
​The scream tore from Kaelen’s throat before the guards could squeeze their triggers.
​Reed didn’t even have time to blink. One second he was asleep, wrapped in a warm cocoon of fur and Paladin-smell; the next, he was staring down the barrel of a heavy repeating crossbow, and Kaelen was scrambling over him like a desperate spider.
​She threw herself between Reed and the Authority kill-squad.
​She didn’t reach for her sword. She didn’t reach for her armor. She simply spread her arms wide, using her own body, clad only in a damp, wrinkled linen tunic as a human shield.
​"Hold fire!" Kaelen commanded, her voice cracking with panic. "That is a direct order! Stand down!"
​The four guards hesitated. Their fingers twitched on the triggers. They were trained to kill monsters, but aiming a loaded weapon at a High Inquisitor, even one who looked like she’d just rolled out of a frat party, was a violation of every protocol in the book.
​Director Vane didn’t flinch. He stood in the cave entrance, his grey suit pristine against the muddy backdrop of the storm-ravaged gorge. He looked at the scene with cold, dead eyes behind his rimless spectacles.
​"Inquisitor," Vane said, his voice flat. "Step aside. The target is compromised. I can smell the Void corruption from here. It is leaking off him like radiation."
​"He is not a target!" Kaelen yelled. She was trembling, the morning chill biting through her thin clothes, but she didn’t lower her arms. "He is a
Sanctioned Asset
under my direct supervision! If you fire, you are firing on a superior officer!"
​Reed struggled to sit up behind her.
​His head was splitting open. The
Void Withdrawal
he had managed to sleep off with Kaelen’s body heat came rushing back the moment she moved away. It felt like his veins were filled with broken glass.
​
[MANA: 3 / 150]
[Status: CRITICAL.]
[Warning: Separation from Holy Battery detected. Hunger increasing.]
​"Kaelen," Reed croaked, his voice sounding like he’d swallowed a handful of gravel. "Maybe don’t... start a civil war... for me."
​"Shut up, Asset," Kaelen hissed over her shoulder, not taking her eyes off Vane.
​Vane adjusted his glasses. He tapped his pen against the leather cover of his ledger.
​"You are protecting a monster, Kaelen," Vane stated calmly. "Look at him. He is out of his zone. He is degenerate. He blew up a forty-thousand-gold-piece bridge. He is a liability."
​"He saved Stonebridge!" Kaelen countered, taking a step forward, forcing the guards to lower their aim slightly or risk flagging her. "We engaged the Skeleton Army alone! We neutralized two Siegebreakers and five hundred hostiles! If you execute him, you aren’t liquidating a liability, Director. You are murdering the Hero of the River War."
​Reed blinked.
Hero? Me? I just greased a bridge and threw a bomb.
​Vane paused. He looked at Reed, who was currently shivering in the dirt, wearing a ruined velvet coat and one boot.
​"Hero," Vane repeated, tasting the word like it was sour milk. "Debatable. However..."
​He sighed, closing his ledger with a sharp
snap
.
​"Shooting through a High Inquisitor to kill a Tier 1 Dungeon Lord involves a tremendous amount of paperwork. Form 99-B alone takes three days to file."
​Vane signaled the guards with a sharp chopping motion.
​"Weapons down."
​The guards lowered their crossbows. Kaelen let out a breath that sounded more like a sob, her shoulders slumping.
​"However," Vane continued, his eyes narrowing. "He is under arrest. We are marching him back to the Dungeon immediately. If he survives the transport, which I doubt, we will conduct his liquidation assessment on-site. At least then we won’t have to carry the body."
​Vane turned on his heel, his shoes crunching on the gravel.
​"Get dressed, Inquisitor. You look ridiculous. We move in five."
​The march back to the mountain was not a victory parade. It was a funeral procession.
​The sun beat down on the damp forest, turning the road into a steam bath. The mud sucked at their boots.
​For Reed, it was torture.
​Every step away from the river drained him further. Without the adrenaline of combat or the direct infusion of Kaelen’s mana, he was running on fumes. The Void Shard in his pocket felt agonizingly heavy, a constant reminder of the power he couldn’t use.
​
[MANA: 2 / 150]
[Physical Integrity: 40% (Failing).]
​He stumbled over a tree root.
​"Move it," a guard barked, shoving him in the back with a spear shaft.
​Reed pitched forward. He didn’t have the strength to catch himself.
​He didn’t hit the mud.
​An armored arm caught him across the chest.
​"I have him," Kaelen snapped at the guard. She hauled Reed upright, glaring at the soldier until he backed off. "Touch him again, soldier, and I will have you scrubbing the latrines in the Citadel for a decade."
​She turned to Reed. She had donned her armor again, her face hidden behind her visor, but her grip on his arm was surprisingly gentle.
​"Can you walk?" she asked quietly.
​"I’m trying," Reed wheezed, sweat dripping into his eyes. "Legs feel like... jelly. Battery is dead."
​Kaelen didn’t let go. Instead, she shifted her stance, pulling his left arm over her shoulder and wrapping her arm around his waist. She took his weight.
​"Lean on me," she ordered.
​"This isn’t... standard protocol," Reed mumbled, stumbling against the cold steel of her breastplate.
​"I am writing a new protocol," Kaelen muttered. "It is called ’Do Not Let The Idiot Die.’"
​They walked like that for a mile. The silence between them was heavy, filled only with the clanking of her armor and his ragged breathing.
​"Why?" Reed asked again, his voice barely a whisper.
​"Why what?"
​"Why stand in front of the crossbows?" Reed looked at the side of her helmet. "You’re a Paladin. I’m a Monster. You could have let Vane end it. You keep your job. You get a medal. I become... mulch."
​Kaelen was silent for a long time. She kept her eyes forward, watching Vane’s back at the front of the column.
​"I have audited forty dungeons," Kaelen said softly. "I have killed twelve Lords. They all begged. They all offered me gold, or power, or lies."
​She tightened her grip on his waist.
​"You didn’t beg," she said. "You threw yourself off a bridge to save me. You froze in a cave because you used all your energy saving a town that hates you."
​She stopped for a second, turning her helmet toward him. She flipped the visor up. Her blue eyes were tired, red-rimmed, and fiercely intense.
​"The Silver Flame teaches us to destroy Evil," Kaelen whispered. "But it also teaches us to recognize Sacrifice. I don’t know what you are, Reed. You are chaos. You are dangerous. But yesterday... you were not Evil."
​Reed managed a weak, crooked smile.
​"High praise," he rasped. "Can I get that in writing? Maybe on a tombstone?"
​"Don’t joke," Kaelen said, dropping the visor back down. "We aren’t out of this yet. Vane still intends to kill you. He just wants to do it by the book."
​"Yeah," Reed sighed, looking up at the mountain looming ahead. "He loves his books."
​They crested the final ridge an hour later.
​The clearing surrounding the dungeon entrance lay before them. It was a desolate sight.
​The ground was scorched black from the earlier siege. The "Under Construction" graffiti Terra had burned into the rock was fading. The entrance itself was sealed tight, a massive slab of grey granite that looked cold and lifeless.
​"Here we are," Vane announced, stopping in the center of the clearing. "The seat of the corruption."
​He gestured to his guards.
​"Secure the perimeter. Set up the table. I want the liquidation order signed and notarized before we breach the seal."
​The guards shoved Reed forward. Kaelen tried to hold onto him, but Vane stepped between them.
​"Inquisitor," Vane warned. "You have delivered the prisoner. Step back. Your personal feelings are noted, and they will be part of your disciplinary review. Do not make it worse."
​Kaelen hesitated. She looked at Reed.
​Reed nodded slightly.
It’s okay.
​She released him.
​Reed collapsed. He hit the dirt hard, coughing as dust filled his lungs. He rolled onto his back, staring up at the sealed entrance of his home.
​He felt... nothing.
​Usually, being this close to the dungeon meant a flood of mana. It meant hearing the hum of the Core. It meant feeling the connection to his monsters.
​But the door was sealed. The link was faint, like a radio signal coming from the moon.
​
[CONNECTION DETECTED.]
[SIGNAL STRENGTH: 5%.]
[STATUS: DORMANT.]
​
They’re hiding,
Reed realized.
They locked down the dungeon to protect the Core.
​"Bring the executioner’s block," Vane ordered, pulling a quill from his pocket. He laid the
[Writ of Condemnation]
on a portable table a guard had set up.
​"By the authority vested in me," Vane began to read, his voice bored and nasally, "I hereby declare the entity known as ’The Teasing Tomb’ to be a hostile rogue state. The Avatar is to be terminated. The Core is to be harvested. The inhabitants are to be... exterminated."
​Reed closed his eyes. He reached out with his mind, pushing the last scrap of his mana, the very last drop toward the stone door.
​
Wake up,
he thought.
I’m home. And I brought company.
​Nothing happened.
​The wind whistled through the trees. Vane signed the paper with a flourish.
​"Guard," Vane said. "The sword."
​A guard drew a heavy executioner’s broadsword and stepped toward Reed.
​"Any last words, Avatar?" Vane asked, cleaning his glasses.
​Reed looked at the door. He looked at Kaelen, whose hand was hovering over her own sword hilt, her knuckles white. She was doing the math. She was calculating if she could take four guards and a Director.
​
She’s going to die for me,
Reed thought.
No. Not happening.
​Reed grinned. It was a bloody, exhausted grin.
​"Yeah," Reed whispered. "Duck."
​Vane frowned. "Duck?"
​
THOOM.
​The ground jumped.
​It wasn’t a tremor. It was an impact.
​The massive granite slab sealing the dungeon entrance didn’t slide open. It
exploded
.
​A fist the size of a beer keg—made of black obsidian and dripping with magma—punched straight through the stone from the inside.
​Debris showered the clearing. The executioner stumbled back, shielding his face.
​"
RUDE MAN DETECTED,
" a voice boomed. It wasn’t just loud; it was seismic. It shook the leaves off the trees.
​
CRASH.
​The rest of the door shattered outward.
​Terra stepped out.
​She was magnificent. She had been repaired and upgraded. Her stone plating was polished to a mirror sheen. Her magma veins were glowing a blinding, angry white. And in her hand, she held
The Peacekeeper
, her rocket-hammer, revving with a low, mechanical growl.
​"
NO TOUCHING THE DAD,
" Terra roared.
​But she wasn’t alone.
​Slithering out from between the Golem’s legs was a nightmare in emerald scales.
​Seraphine.
​The Lamia General looked absolutely feral. Her helmet was gone, her hair a wild halo of black tangles. Her eyes were slits of green fire. She moved with a terrifying, liquid speed, coiling around Terra’s legs before launching herself forward.
​"
Mine!
" Seraphine shrieked.
​She didn’t attack the guards. She attacked the space around Reed.
​She circled him, her massive tail slamming into the ground to create a barricade. She rose up, seven feet of enraged snake-woman, hissing loud enough to shatter glass. She pointed her spear directly at Vane’s throat.
​"You touched him," she hissed, her voice trembling with a mix of relief and murderous rage. "You broke him. You starved him. I will peel the skin from your bones!"
​"Back off!"
​Grika leaped from Terra’s shoulder. The goblin hit the ground rolling and popped up wielding a weapon that looked suspiciously like a chainsaw welded to a flame thrower.
​"I perfected the formula!" Grika cackled, her goggles flashing. "Who wants to test the burn rate of a human in a suit?!"
​Luma bubbled out of the cave, expanding into a ten-foot wall of acidic blue slime.
Riva dove from the sky, dropping a literal bag of bricks near Vane’s feet.
CRASH.
Elara phased through the rock wall, her banshee wail building in the air, lowering the temperature by twenty degrees instantly.
​The entire staff was there. And they were ready to commit war crimes.
​The guards dropped their weapons. They backed away, hands up. Even Vane looked pale, his ledger forgotten in the dirt.
​"This..." Vane stammered, stepping back as Seraphine lunged at him, stopped only by Reed’s hand on her tail. "This is an insurrection!"
​Reed lay in the dirt, surrounded by his monsters.
​The mana connection slammed back into place.
​
[CONNECTION RESTORED.]
[MANA REFILLING: +50/sec.]
​Color returned to his face. The blue faded from his lips. He took a deep breath, smelling the sulfur of Terra’s magma and the perfume of Seraphine’s scales.
​He sat up. He grabbed Seraphine’s hand, squeezing it to stop her from eating the Regional Manager.
​"No, Vane," Reed said, his voice strong again, his eyes flashing with the renewed violet light of the Core. "This isn’t an insurrection."
​He grinned at Kaelen, who was staring at the scene with her jaw slightly unhinged.
​"This is a staff meeting."