A luxurious carriage bearing the Diamondhart insignia rolled past the city's tall, weathered walls. Inside, Bastion and Lilia watched a bustling, dangerous city unfold with soot-streaked stone buildings, timbered houses, wide cobblestone streets crowded with merchants and adventurers, and guards patrolling in polished armor. Smoke, bread, and faintly acrid dungeon air mingled in the morning breeze.
The carriage climbed a slight hill toward a grand mansion, its polished stone walls lined with ivy, iron gates glinting, and marble pillars flanking a quiet fountain. At the front, a noble stood at attention, eyes forward, awaiting the duke's party.
"Welcome, my lord, to the Dungeon City of Despair," said the noble, his voice carrying both pride and weariness as he bowed.
Bastion stepped down from the carriage, offering his hand to help Lilia alight. She took it, steadying herself with a small breath of relief, glad to be done with the long ride.
"Count Veymar, it's a pleasure to see you again," Bastion said with a measured smile. "Your son, Casian, took great care of me while I was studying at the academy."
The count's brows lifted, his surprise giving way to relief. "Truly, my lord? I had half given up on the boy, given his lack of ambition."
"Men need not ambition to live a great life. It helps, certainly, but it is not necessary."
"Wise words, my lord."
"So, would you care to fill me in on the operations of the Dungeon City?" Bastion asked, his voice turning direct.
"Of course, my lord. Please, come inside." Count Veymar stepped aside and gestured toward the mansion.
Bastion and Lilia entered, passing through luxurious halls until they reached a meeting room. Bastion immediately sat at the head of the table while Lilia sat to his right as Count Veymar handed over stacks of paperwork, mostly receipts and financial records for the city.
"Your visit was quite abrupt, my lord," the count said as Bastion began reading. "A week of notice is quite short for myself and my clerks to collect all the needed records, so I apologize if any are in disarray."
"Giving you more than a week to prepare would be against the point of an inspection. I much prefer to see what your undoctored paperwork is like."
Sweat started pouring from the count's face at Bastion's reply. He and his clerks had been working nonstop to cover up their 'mistakes' over the past week but had somehow managed to complete it in time.
Hearing the duke's intentions, Count Veymar realized he might have made a mistake. All of his paperwork had been meticulously 'fixed' to appear flawless, a detail that would now almost certainly raise suspicion.
He had assumed the young duke was too inexperienced to notice such things. Veymar himself had taken a century before he truly cared about the workings of the city.
Hopefully, the duke would forgive him if he found out.
"Dungeons, as you know, are usually owned by the Adventurers' Guild, no matter who owns the land," the count explained. "This means we get no real revenue from the dungeon."
The Royal Academy was a unique case because the Demon Lord's power was being used to sustain the dungeons. Since the Goddess of Brilliance claimed official authority over the Demon Lord, she also gained full control of any dungeons dependent on its power.
Now that this is no longer the case, it's likely that the Adventurers' Guild has moved into the academy to establish a presence and finally generate some profit from it. However, it's also possible that the dungeons have closed permanently, since there is no longer enough energy in the area to sustain so many dungeons at once.
"But where there are people, there are profits," Bastion said. "So the income of this particular city would be among the highest in the entire kingdom. Most certainly the highest in the entire territory."
"Yes, even more so since this is one of only four Rank 3 dungeons in the kingdom."
The other dungeons were located in the remaining two duchies, while the last one was at Aurenthal. This ensured that each duke and the royal family had access to a Rank 3 dungeon when needed for ranking up.
As for any Rank 4 dungeons, they were immediately destroyed, since no one could maintain them without endangering the kingdom and violating the Rank 2 restriction. Not to mention that no one wanted to risk their lives in such a dangerous dungeon.
As for the Adventurers' Guild that manages the Rank 3 dungeon, they were granted special permission to assign a Rank 3 guild master to oversee it, albeit under very strict restrictions on their actions.
"The paperwork is very well done, Count Veymar."
"Thank you, my lord."
As Bastion continued reading through the paperwork with a nervous Count Veymar standing by, he found the records to be spotless. Too spotless. For a city this large and prosperous, such flawless accounting bordered on impossibility.
Every receipt was in order, every tax neatly recorded, every expenditure balanced to the coin. There were no late fees, no missing shipments, no merchants disputing tariffs. Not a single mention of bribes, fines, or uncollected debts, the very lifeblood of any city of size. Even the reports of dungeon expeditions by the count's men were pristine, without the usual inconsistencies that came from soldiers underreporting spoils or guild officials shaving off their cut.
It read less like the records of a bustling, imperfect city and more like the ledgers of an academy classroom exercise, numbers arranged for show, not truth.
Corruption always found its way into any system. It was as natural as weeds sprouting in a garden; taxes went missing, tariffs were undercut, soldiers skimmed from spoils, merchants paid bribes to speed paperwork along. The only real question was how much rot a system could bear before it collapsed under its own weight.
As a newly appointed duke, Bastion couldn't afford to ignore it. If he overlooked such obvious signs, others would see him as either complicit or incompetent, and both were equally dangerous for his standing. His authority was not yet cemented, and nobles were always quick to test whether the young and unproven could be bent or deceived. To miss what was plain before anyone's eyes would mark him as someone to be taken advantage of.
"I am a young duke, not yet thirty, and it's fine if others think me a fool. But unfortunately for you, Count Veymar, I have a reputation to build up. So you will begin rooting out the corruption in your court."
"But, my lord. The paperwork—"
"—is impeccable," Bastion cut him off, his voice tightening. "Too impeccable. Do you know how many spies run through my own castle?"
"No, my lord."
"More than half the guards and maids in my service belong to other nobles. If there are that many in my own household, do you expect me to believe your city is perfect?"
"…No, my lord."
"Good. You're beginning to understand. I'll give you a decade to prove you've cleaned the rot from your ranks. I don't care how you do it, so long as those you prosecute are actually guilty. Show me you're making the effort. Are we clear?"
"Yes, my lord."
"I don't despise corruption, Count Veymar. As ugly as it sounds, I see it as part of human nature. What I despise is being treated like a fool, expected to believe that one of the richest cities in the kingdom has no blemish at all. Next time, bring me financials I can actually believe."
"Yes, my lord."
Bastion rose and left the mansion, the count trailing behind him. His expression was unreadable, but there was a faint tension in his jaw as he boarded the carriage with Lilia, and together they set off from the mansion.
"Do you think he was embezzling the taxes?" Lilia asked.
"He would be a fool not to. Even I told my brother to send me the spoils of the stampede directly instead of handing them to the empire first. That alone should tell you that everyone in power is corrupt in one way or another."
"That doesn't prove anything," Lilia argued.
"No, Lilia, I don't have proof. But I don't need it to know when I'm being made a fool of. I'd rather they admit it openly than treat me like some idiot who doesn't understand human nature. We aren't the church, for goddess's sake."
"Okay, I get it. Calm down."
"Sorry. I'm used to being deceived by my employees, but never so blatantly. It's insulting to my intelligence."
"Well, like you said, you're a new duke."
"Right."
"So, where to next?"
"To the Adventurers' Guild."
Since they were already here, it made sense to visit the territory's only Rank 3 dungeon and take a look.
He and the girls would eventually need to reach Rank 3 themselves, so getting a preview of their future staple experience farm seemed ideal.
To do this, they had to be registered with the Adventurers' Guild before entering.
The only potential problem was whether the duke himself would be allowed entry, given the restrictions on guild services due to the debt.
Hopefully, that wouldn't cause any issues.
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