Sharath sat cross-legged in his workshop, pen tapping against the half-charred workbench. Before him, a gleaming, rune-inscribed chest purred quietly. The Chillbox. His Chillbox. The culmination of weeks of fiddling, rune-adjusting, cussing under his breath, and precisely one mishap involving Thermo knocking over a key array stone and almost freezing the cat's own whiskers off.
"Behold," Sharath muttered to himself in the gravity of a high priest. "The box that defies rot."
"Yes, really the height of civilization," 🐧NeuroBoop dryly quipped in his head. "A magical fridge. Centuries of magical theory, refined magic circle work, and genius-level engineering. for the purpose of keeping dead wolves not smelling like dead wolves."
Sharath ignored him. Mostly. "This will cure the problem once and for all. Wolf bodies? Perked up. Ice boar meat? Longer-term storage. Fresh fruit? Weeks of existence. Medical herbs? Stable efficacy. Milk? Not a battlefield danger after two days in the sun. Oh, and—"
"And likely your ego, if you could stuff it in," 🐧NeuroBoop added graciously.
Sharath's moment of victory was shattered by the noise of urgent footsteps. The door burst open, and Lord Basanna — merchant mogul, monopolistic mastermind, and opportunistic grandfather — walked in with the sort of predator grin that indicated he'd caught wind of money three streets away.
"Sharath," Basanna stated, tone dripping with affected carelessness, "I heard. rumors."
Sharath raised an eyebrow. "From where? I only revealed the Chillbox to—"
Basanna waved a dismissive hand. "The walls have ears. The walls have mouths too. And those mouths enjoy telling me things when I wave gold in front of them. Now tell me: what is this box I keep hearing about?
Sharath dived into the complete explanation — the wolf carcasses, the rot issue, the cold rune infusion with an air compression grid to distribute chill uniformly, and the exact mana output balance so the box never began encasing icicles in unexpected locations. Basanna nodded along with the concentrated, calculating stare of a man intellectually translating each word into a business plan.
When Sharath finished, Basanna's smile was keen enough to cut steel. "Mass production," he announced. "We will require rune craftsmen, woodworkers, metalworkers for the hinges, miners for the rune stones, sales personnel—"
Sharath flinched. "It's. intended for my territory first—"
Basanna clapped him on the back hard enough to rattle his ribs. "And your territory will benefit from the profits, my boy! Think bigger. Every noble estate, every major city, every adventurer's guildhall will want one. And guess who will be the only supplier?"
"Congratulations," 🐧NeuroBoop chimed in. "You've just invented the magical equivalent of those overpriced kitchen gadgets that everyone buys, uses once, and then leaves to gather dust."
In a fortnight, the Chillbox Gold Rush was in high gear. Unnatirajya and allied region workshops worked round the clock to produce units. Lord Basanna's merchant fleet delivered them like precious gems, and the money started trickling in like a mana spring in spring.
The figures were ridiculous. Sharath needed to employ additional scribes merely to record orders for one day. His treasury grew more rapidly than his warehouse space. Nobles from beyond his realm sent gilded missives asking for privileged early delivery. Some even attempted to bribe the craftsmen into leaking blueprints — and were promptly shown to the edge of his lands by Darsha estate guards.
But with prosperity came politics.
One very vociferous noble from the capital sent a coded grievance to Lord Darsha, complaining that Unnatirajya was "hoarding technological progress selfishly." Darsha responded with a letter so diplomatically gracious it could have been hung on the wall as a masterpiece of art, while also semi-reasonably hinting that maybe the capital should attempt inventing something useful for a change.
Lord Basanna, however, had the time of his life. Each sale bulked his already significant wallet, and he used the traction to consolidate merchant networks directly associated with Sharath's business. The other merchants were split — half hated the monopoly, half eagerly sought in on it.
Sharath, the multitasker, wasted no time. A third of Chillbox profits were immediately invested in his next ambitious endeavor: dungeon expeditions. Not ordinary expeditions, but full-on, well-stocked, politically unpalatable expeditions.
"You're about as subtle as a fireworks display in a library," 🐧NeuroBoop muttered when Sharath ordered twenty reinforced tricycles, five extra spatial bags, new rune-augmented armor for his guard teams, and enough ammunition for his magic guns to flatten a small kingdom.
"Preparation is key," Sharath replied innocently.
"Preparation is key," 🐧NeuroBoop mimicked. "Translation: 'I'm going to do something that makes half the nobility panic and the other half plot ways to marry into my family.'"
The political waves reached a boil when the Royal Envoy arrived. The King's envoy — a tall, stern-looking woman with the kind of gaze that could peel paint — congratulated Sharath on his "imaginative contributions to national prosperity" while very pointedly inquiring when the kingdom itself would have its share of Chillboxes.
Sharath offered her his best diplomatic smile. "Once the production targets for Unnatirajya and its allies are met. Quality, not quantity, you see."
Behind him, Lord Basanna was also smiling in the same identical way a cat smiles before making off with a whole roast chicken.
Dungeon Prep Phase: Escalation
With the political spin plates whirling, Sharath immersed himself in preparing. Chillbox profits provided him with the freedom to splurge on the type of preparation that even his dedicated guards looked at each other nervously when they caught glimpses of it.
Five brand-new prototype magic guns, each infused with dual-element runes for adaptive damage output.
Slime sludge barrels — not merely for storage this time, but refined into water-resistant cloth and high-viscous battlefield ambushes.
Reinforced tricycles that had been modified with shock-absorption runes, since the previous dungeon expedition had seen some soldiers stumble about like they'd turned fifty in a single night.
A transport Chillbox wagon, so newly acquired elemental beast components wouldn't spoil before escaping the dungeon.
Thermo, of course, had deemed one of the test tricycles his own personal nap surface. No amount of polite shooing — or less polite bribery with dried fish — dissuaded him.
The evening before they left, Sharath stood on the ramparts of Unnatirajya, seeing the sun bleed gold across the far hills. At his feet, his mobilized troops went through final preparations: armor shone, weapons were polished, tricycles were drawn up in straight lines.
It was a formidable array — so formidable, indeed, that Lord Darsha had been obliged to reassure visiting aristocrats that Sharath was not making military preparations.
Sharath didn't refute it. I mean, what was a dungeon dive, after all, but a struggle against monsters, loot accumulation, and terrible dungeon interior decorating?
🐧NeuroBoop's voice was peculiarly subdued, until at last: "You do know that after all this hype, the dungeon's going to send something entirely ridiculous your way, don't you?"
Sharath smiled. "Good. I prefer ridiculous."
The signal horn blared.
The tricycles rolled out.
And as the gates of Unnatirajya shut behind them, the political buzz in the capital reached a crescendo. Sharath was driving full-throttle into chaos, gain, and possibly a very big monster with his name on it.