Chapter 457

“You want us to help out?” The leader of the squad asked the prince.

The dungeon started spitting out all sorts of aquatic monsters at that moment. “No need, they are prepared for it.” the prince said as he eyed the elite fighters that were all around them.

This was the most dangerous time for them. Being so close to the dungeon they were limited to only one of the three squads that came with them. Not only that but the chaos of a dungeon break of this level was the perfect cover for anything to happen.

“There’s no assassination attempt.” Zilfalon’s words made the prince twitch. 

“Why would you say that?” the prince asked. 

“Oh we discussed it.” Zilfalon admitted with not an ouch of guilt or remorse. “Your dad’s too old for us to try that. Your brother wouldn’t be able to keep the peace. Between Manashaper and Goldmancer a deal would be worked out with other kingdoms to at least cause a change in the ruling family here in the Empire.” 

The prince was about to respond to that when a chilling sound echoed across the courtyard. One so dreaded that a moment of silence descended on the battlefield, every soldier suddenly much more aware of their surroundings as they backed up in fear.

“AAAAWWWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO”

“Werewolf” The word was spoken as one by everyone above level one hundred. One of, if not the most lethal floor bosses. It was a known fact that a werewolf’s venom could kill even people thirty levels higher even through a highly leveled [Poison Resistance]. 

Ajax quickly brought his focus back to the battlefield no further than two hundred feet from him. A hulking creature, eight feet tall with sleek black fur held its head high as it howled with its muzzle raised towards the sky.

Ajax felt a chill run down his spine as he saw the creature move. It’s movements were wild and unpredictable, dashing to the left and right without a discernable pattern as it charged towards the line of soldiers. Despite the constant change of direction the creature was still faster than Ajax’s top speed in a straight line.

Before the beast could clash with the soldiers a massive tower shield smashed straight into it. Ajax hadn’t even seen the man approach until the shield made contact with the werewolf. As the werewolf was ragdolled bag Ajax couldn’t help but be reminded of an American football player. 

Despite its eight foot tall stature the beast's legs were all wiry muscle, from the waist up however the amount of muscle increased so much it almost looked like it was wearing shoulder pads underneath all that fur.

“You bring the worst luck, you know that?” Zilfallon said as he took in the werewolf. “We were hoping to give our more talented soldiers a good work out against a floor boss. One around their level should have been enough to push a few of them to develop some new skills. All this without the dungeon restriction of fifty people and defensive position where the terrain was in their advantage.” 

“But nooooo.” Zilfallon continued to complain. “It just had to be a werewolf, one of the worst possible outcomes, we let that thing loose inside our ranks and we’ll lose a tenth of the soldiers before the rest manage to bring it down.” 

Seeing how injured the werewolf was as it got back up Ajax started to feel more confident in facing the creature. He wouldn’t be stupid to face it alone, but with a team of ten other people around level one hundred and twenty he was confident in bringing it down.

The warrior in full plate with a massive tower shield didn’t need ten more people. It rushed towards the floor boss without a single worry. Despite the heavy plate armor that Ajax was sure weighed a lot based on the footprints that were left in the metal floor that housed the defensive enchantments the warrior was moving even faster than the werewolf. Not only that but the club he swung had no issues crushing the beast's arm to the point white bone could be seen sticking out past the fur.

With the floor boss handled it didn’t take long for the soldiers to regain their composure and finish off the remaining monsters without any casualties. The aquatic creatures weren’t strong enough on dry land to take advantage of the chance granted to them by the appearance of the werewolf.

“So you said no assassination?” the prince returned the conversation to the point they were interrupted. 

“Nope.” Zilfallon confirmed. “There’s too many important people here for that.” 

“That’s not what you’re afraid of.” Xavier said as he looked Zilfallon in the eye. “You know that if you do it dad will make deals with the elves and dwarves about delving Gryndor’s dungeon when he becomes king while freezing out the Empire.” 

Zilfallon and Solderon gave nothing away but the truth of the matter could be clearly read on both Sandor’s and Denisa’s faces. In a way it made sense, the entire political landscape of every kingdom was now in flux thanks to Ajax’s technique doing the rounds as well as the new status quo of nobles potentially delving into multiple nations' dungeons.

“You’ve got a better head on your shoulders than I gave you credit for.” Solderon said with a sigh once he saw there was no point denying anything. “This makes me feel much better about the future talk I will have to have with your father.” 

Xavier's face flushed crimson at that. He knew that Solderon was referring to an arranged marriage that the Empire would try to use to solidify their ties to Gryndor.

“Can we go now?” Anna asked. “I can’t wait to get away from dungeons for a while.” 

“We’ve yet to inspect Ajax’s spacial storage.” Denisa said as she looked towards the rings that adorned Ajax’s fingers.

Ajax fought back a curse, he had been so focused on the werewolf that he had messed up the plan of trying to pass off the ring to the prince.

“You already know how far he got.” the prince said with a disinterested voice, one that was good enough to almost convince Ajax he didn’t care about the matter if he didn’t know better. “At best he picked up a trinket or two from the floors, call it a keepsake of the Empire.”  

“I don’t mind him keeping it, but we should at least know how he’ll remember our Empire.” ZIlfallon said as he latched on any way to be combative.

With that Ajax knew it was over. Any further attempts at not having his rings inspected would only make them more suspicious. One by one Ajax passed the rings over to be inspected. The first three drew a few interested whistles as the corpses of each creature he had killed on each floor were brought out. Ajax was glad Olvier had been warned beforehand to keep his expression guarded as he was sure the man was smart enough to put together that Ajax could somehow remove monsters from the dungeon.

“That’s not a bad haul, notice there seems to be one monster from each floor, any chance you have a skill that helps you find them on the floor?” Solderon asked as he inspected the contents. “We’ll be very generous for any info-” 

“Cough, cough, cough…” the assessor started choking as he looked inside Ajax’s last ring and cut off the imperial prince.

Ajax let out a defeated sigh at that whereas Zilfallon became much more interested. “What is it? Something good?” 

The assessor came to his senses and moved a little away from the group to get some space before taking out one half of the golem. Everything from the waist down was still ten feet tall, the massive amount of gold caused everyone to stare slack jawed for a moment.

“We….. we agreed that there was no taxes.” not even the prince had known what was in Ajax’s ring and he was just as surprised as the imperials to see the massive amount of mana rich gold.

“NO TAXES?! THIS IS ONLY HALF.” The prince’s words had been enough to awaken the inspector from his trance-like state before he realized who he was addressing. “Apologies for my rudeness, Your Highness, I’m not sure what came over me.” 

“That was our deal.” Ajax pressed on, hoping to take advantage of the shock all of them had to be feeling at seeing this much wealth come out of one single delve.

“This is not a normal circumstance.” Sandor argued back his eyes not leaving the mountain of gold.

“Gold is not a national treasure.” Lexi came to Ajax’s support. 

“You can have one leg, everything under the knee.” Ajax’s words surprised everyone. 

“Done!” Solderon was quick to agree, it might not be as much as he wanted but getting that much without creating any waves was a win for him. 

“I wasn’t done.” Ajax said, causing the imperial prince to frown. “In exchange I want to delve your other dungeon.” 

“So you can cause a bigger dungeon break than this one?, that one would be at level one hundred and thirty four!” Solderon balked. 

“I’ll stop one floor before that.” Ajax said, that would be enough to give him two more floor clears, enough for him to get a total +150 to all stats from dungeon floors alone.

“An entire leg.” Solderon countered. 

Ajax could feel his meager merchant skills getting crushed, as much as he wanted to counter the words simply refused to leave his mouth.

“Halfway up the thigh.” Anna chimed in. 

Solderon open his mouth but took out look in Anna’s determined eyes and before he closed his mouth, nodded and offered Ajax a handshake to seal the deal.