The snow had stopped falling. Not because of weather, but because the Shack told it to.

  Kenji stood on the half-finished scaffolding of what would eventually be a fortified soup gate. One hand on his mug. The other scratching his back with a drone-made ladle. Behind him, the Crimson Core pulsed once, heating the frozen earth in a lazy, defiant thrum.

  Below, the surface world stirred for the first time in over a century.

  Dozens of tents littered the outer boundary. Scavenger clans. Exiled nobles. Elves building strange wooden arches that swayed with the wind. Dwarves with steam-powered drills yelling at each other over who got to tap the mushroom groves first. Lira had tried to assign numbers. Kenji had tried to ignore the noise.

  He sipped. It helped.

  “Master,” Lira’s voice chimed through his wristband. “The wall perimeter has reached 56%. Dwarves are requesting a zoning appeal because the east gate is now technically bisecting their brewery plans.”

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  Kenji grunted. “Tell them to brew west.”

  “They say the mushrooms only grow in the north quadrant.”

  “Tell the mushrooms to grow west.”

  A pause. “Very well. Also, you have thirty-seven requests for audience. Two factions want formal vassalage status. One elf is attempting to marry you via interpretive gardening.”

  Kenji sipped again. It was going to be one of those days.

  A drone zipped past, dragging bricks and rebar toward the south checkpoint. Another flew by with what looked suspiciously like lingerie strapped to its back. Probably one of Lira’s new inventory “additions.”

  He didn't ask.

  Below the Shack, the minion spawner groaned as it produced another batch of recruits—raw volunteers desperate enough to risk death and memory wipe for a chance at strength, a hot meal, and their own collared companion. Three emerged walking. One was dragged out. Two didn’t come back.

  Efficiency was climbing.

  Lira’s voice returned, now slightly smug. “By the way, the decorative slave roster has submitted a formal thank-you letter regarding last night. Several included hand-drawn diagrams of your… upgrades.”

  Kenji didn’t respond. His spine still ached, but in a way that said you won, but at what cost?

  Far to the east, just outside the Shack’s thermal boundary, a scout drone flickered in its feed. It had been patrolling deep ruins. Now its signal stuttered—then locked onto something cold. Massive. Moving.

  Somewhere far beyond the warmth, war drums echoed through the frost.

  Kenji finally set his mug down.