Gacha Kingdom Building

We finally set foot on the fourth floor, one of the most unpopular in this dungeon.

Though a bunch of factors influence the popularity of a floor, most of the time you can boil them down to profitability. People can deal with all kinds of inconveniences as long as there's good money to be made, which is why the previous floor was so popular and one of the biggest reasons this one isn't.

The monsters here don't drop anything special, it's mostly bones that blacksmiths can use to add some effects to their weapons, but even then, those effects aren't that great.

Not to mention, being the fourth floor, if you requested for a party to go out of their way to farm drops here, it would be a bit too costly for what it's worth. Since there are quite a lot of dungeons out there, you can always find dungeons with useful drops on even lower floors, making it way cheaper for anyone with profit in mind.

The second factor that contributes to this place being so empty is the boss battle of the third floor. While it wasn't that bad for us, many parties find it to be really troublesome.

And to cap it all off... the monsters on this floor are all undead.

You'll only find skeletons and zombies in here, thankfully, very few of them are actual humans who died in here, and most are undead orcs and hobgoblins.

Still, they all have a high chance of inflicting curses that weaken the body, block magic usage, or straight up put a death counter on you. Not to mention, they pretty frequently poison anyone on the receiving end of their attacks.

It is an absolute pain to deal with since you might have to pay a visit to a shaman or cleric in case of a curse, and a healer or a hospital in case of poisoning. None of which are especially cheap and might cost us an entire week of work to cover.

It's best we don't stay around here for too long, but at the same time we need to be very cautious with every encounter, so it's not good to rush either...

The only bright side this place can offer is the lack of people from Earth... even the "settlement" only has a wall and about a dozen people hanging around for easy kills.

Given the connection to other worlds, it's not as empty as it should be though, and we can see parties who are clearly not from Earth, even if at a lesser frequency than the third floor.

It was hard to leash in some of our members who wanted to rush every battle, but we managed to maintain a good pace, and after fighting for a few hours, we decided to stop to rest before going back.

It's good to familiarize ourselves with this floor before going too deep into it. Even more so considering that the maps we have are a bit outdated due to the removal of Catherine's barrier.

And so, while we didn't go far enough to find the door for the boss room, while I explored the new paths to correct our maps, we did manage to find some other settlements.

At each one we found, I could sense unusual anxiety coming from Mia, so, as soon as we settled down for a bit, I decided to talk with her a bit.

Miwen: "...Do you wanna take a look at the other worlds?"

It's clear that the dungeons connecting to other worlds is the norm, so, there's a high chance that Mia's original world is now connected to Earth.

As such, I don't need to think too hard to notice what is it that's been troubling her.

Mia: "...Why?"

Miwen: "...?"

That's not the response I was expecting... I thought she'd be exhilarated now that there's a chance for her to go back home.

Mia: "Even if I went back now... what would I do? There was nothing I could do back then too... I'm simply too weak to accomplish anything..."

As much as I hate to admit, she's right.

Now that the war is over, there's practically nothing she can do alone, at most she could lead an uprising with whoever remains from her tribe but...

If Melissa with her entire army in a defensive position failed to hold off the enemies, now that the situation is more disadvantageous for her tribe, Mia would stand almost no chance.

Miwen: "...I could enter an agreement with the Merchant for you, I doubt it's gonna be cheap but... he can probably take on a country or two."

Mia: "Hah... That guy? Do you really think he'd do something like that?"

Well... that's hard to say. He's definitely not a bloodthirsty person, and he even seems troubled that he has to kill Gods...

But I know for sure that he has taken an interest in my Gift, if I play my cards right or get myself in enough trouble, I could basically force him to act even if he doesn't feel like it.

The problem would be what happens if he discovers that I played him... while he's friendly, he's not a complete idiot, and due to his power, I can't even hide in the kingdom...

Mia: "But there's... something I want."

It's pretty rare for her to ask something from me, and given our current conversation a million possibilities passed through my mind.

Miwen: "Go on..."

This entire time she had her face down and kept looking at the ground, but for the first time, she raised her head and looked me straight in the eye.

Mia: "I'll do anything you want so... will you please help me?"

Miwen: "... What are you trying to say, Mia?"

Mia: "I want you to help me get stronger. I want to take back my home... and I want to destroy the bastards of Hamperlon... With your power..."

Miwen: "..."

Mia: "With your power, I can take everything back. Not only do you get stronger, but you can raise those around you to higher heights... If it's you... one day an entire country might not even be a concern... "

That's certainly optimistic... we'd have to assume that nothing bad ever happens my citizens, that my Gift doesn't change again and starts doing more shit to get in my way like the Events, and that we can maintain the current pace even on higher levels...

Not to mention, I'd have to exert control over quite a lot of people, which would be pretty difficult to do.

Right now, given that we aren't that many, to begin with, I can form a close relationship with each one, which allows me to create a bond and get their loyalty pretty high.

As the number of people under me increases, this will obviously become harder to do.

And while the [Orders] can help with that, by abusing it, I might end up being the target for an uprising myself, whatever that may mean for the [Citizens] and the [Kingdom].

Given all these circumstances, I'm trying not to expand too fast so that It doesn't end up blowing in my face.

But Mia's proposal doesn't necessarily go against any of this...

I also believe that given enough time, we'll reach an untouchable position, the hardest part might even be this point where we are just starting our journey and the events pose such a big threat...

Miwen: "How about this then... we'll just ask around the settlements for countries of your world that you know. Once we get confirmation, we'll take a look inside... and when we get strong enough... I'll support you with everything I have. Be it the [Citizens], the items from the [Banners], sharing skills...

hell, I'll even fight on the frontline if that's what you want... BUT... at the very least, I want all of our current members to be as strong as Hamperlon's generals."

To be honest... I also want some revenge for everything that happened back there, so Mia's objectives line up perfectly with mine.

But I'm in no rush though... I much rather get strong enough to strike them only once, and make sure that they'll never be able to recover, than keep fighting a prolonged war and risk ourselves.

Mia: "... I wasn't expecting immediate results anyway... I'll be happy as long as I can take revenge on Ihem."

Miwen: "Is that so? I was thinking the same."

Like I once had done, I chose to side with the Snow White Wolves, and this time, we have a proper alliance.

For taking her land. For destroying her tribe and killing her mother.

For being a thorn in my side, for taking away my first ally.

One way or another, we'll make sure to wipe that kingdom off the map.