Everything else went by like a blur.

  The moment Archmund emerged from the Dungeon into the light of late-morning, he was seized by the powerful arms of his father. Though the Lord Granavale scolded him tearfully, he was overjoyed that Archmund was alive and, Archmund suspected, more than a little bit proud.

  He remembered little of the next few hours. Stumbling back to Granavalge Manor, the true Granavale Manor, and undergoing a moment of vertigo as he remembered its false twin deep beneath the earth. He vaguely remembered being bathed by the staff, crawling into bed, and falling asleep.

  When he woke up, three days had passed. His body was still sore, but he had healed. There was a bell on his bedside table, and a lukewarm bowl of porridge. He supposed he was supposed to summon a servant to feed him, but he was far too hungry to wait. The lightly salted grain mush was the best thing he’d eaten in a long time.

  Compulsively, he checked his stats on his Gemstone Tablet.

  Nothing had changed.

  A part of him remembered how on some weekends in his past life, he’d lie in bed for hours just scrolling on his phone, watching random trivia videos, doing nothing productive.

  Surely this was different.

  Surely.

  His thoughts had clarified in his dreams.

  There was a System governing this world.

  All systems (lowercase-s) had loopholes.

  In his past life, that was how people could skip to prestigious Ivy League colleges by taking community college classes in high school and transferring their credits: loopholes. Clever, obvious exploits that you could take in order to get ahead, without ever harming anyone.

  He hadn’t taken many of those loopholes in his past life. He wasn’t sure why, but he vaguely remembered that he’d had a sense of ethics and adherence to the rules — a feeling that was shockingly absent now. He’d had anxiety in his past life, and this body didn’t at all. For a whole life, he’d lived with a permanent weight bearing down on his chest, holding him back, but now he saw only possibilities.

  Possibilities and choices, both small and large.

  He had a small one right now: tinker with the Gemstone Tablet, and see if he could find a representation of the economic state of Granavale County, or get up and look at the world with his own two eyes?

  He chose the latter.

  Mercy had left while he was sleeping. She’d been training for years, and it had been an utter miracle that he’d managed to keep up with her at all. He’d been wiped out for three days as a whole day of accumulated fatigue slammed into him like a truck, while she had barely broken a sweat.

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  Privately he suspected that she’d held on just long enough to get into her private carriage, to maintain her image in front of her men, before falling asleep in there for the long journey back to the Imperial Capital.

  True to her word, her men had built surface infrastructure for the Dungeon. The entrance was now heavily fortified against any Monsters that might breach the surface, and they had also left a number of empty sheds that were suitable for shops or other stores. There was ample room for further development — an adventurer’s town waiting to be filled.

  Task #8: Make Granavale Dungeon attractive to adventurers just weak enough to keep the Upper Tier clear of Monsters, but not strong enough to push down through the Middle Tier and beyond. Tax them enough to profit but not so much they don’t come. Make it sustainable, for however long the Dungeon remains.

  Task #9: Conquer the Middle Tier of the Dungeon before anyone else.

  There was simply just so much to be done. New avenues of power to be explored. Business ventures to create. Governments to navigate. Friends to make.

  But most importantly, his obligations to those nearest to him.

  “We need to talk.”

  Mary batted her eyes like she was trying to get dust out of them. “Anything you command, young master.”

  “Right, so…”

  He ushered her into his room and pulled out chairs for the both of them. He sat, just a little bit off from his desk. She didn’t.

  Archmund wasn’t sure how to best approach this.

  “Hey Mary, it turns out that training exercise I gave you? Yeah, it’s illegal and you could be put to death for it. The easiest way to save you would be to make you my servant for life.”

  “Hey Mary, I found this crystal tablet that gives me stats on everything in the world around me. Turns out that having you use the same Gem I was already Attuned to means we have a spiritual link now! Hope that doesn’t creep you out!”

  “Hey Mary, how do you feel about serving me forever?”

  These sounded like slavery, which he was very uncomfortable with.

  Even the thought of saying that made his skin crawl.

  There was really no way at all to handle this properly. The urgency of their need to talk had pushed him to asking her instead of preparing, which was a mistake.

  “You want advice on how to talk to that Mercy girl, right?”

  She didn’t sit in her own chair. Instead, she perched herself on the armrest of his. If any other servants saw them, she’d be reprimanded harshly, but frankly he couldn’t give a damn about these ridiculous social mores.

  “What?”

  “I know how you nobles think. She’s already a military commander at the same age as you are, she’s distantly from the Omnio, and she doesn’t look half bad especially compared to the folks out here. And she’s not so high up in the family that she’s out of reach. I’m rooting for you here, young master!”

  She performatively flipped her long, straight black hair. He ducked, but some of it still slapped him in the face.

  Mary was wrong about Mercy’s status as a lower-ranking noble, of course. But truthfully, Archmund had no intention of pulling that particular thread. He also didn’t know if her ideas of “courtly love” were true or compatible with reality. On Earth, in the medieval era, “courtly love” was a highly ritualized form of romance between highborn ladies and gentlemen. It was also largely fictional, but perpetuated because of how romantic it was. This was just like that.

  But a question struck him before his thoughts could run away again.

  “Wait. How did you know she was a girl?”

  “You thought she was a boy?”

  He didn’t answer that. He wondered if he was sexist, but he was sure he’d had a good reason at the time.

  Mary’s eyebrows raised. “You thought she was a boy. You went into a Dungeon with a noble lady from the Omnio family and you thought she was a boy.”

  “All of the soldiers called her ‘milord’, and at no point did she ever act like a noble or a lady.”

  This was entirely on him, now that he said it out loud. He’d assumed she was a boy because of how much of a realpolitiking, calculating ass she was when it came to the lives of her men. Now that was definitely sexist. Girls could do realpolitik too.

  “You were like five when people still threw grand balls before the Crylaxan Plague hit, you have no idea what noble ladies act like!”

  “And you only know how they act from the faery tales I read you!”

  “I give, I give. You win,” Mary said, laughing. “So no grand designs from you to raise the station of Granavale House through that route?”

  “I don’t know,” Archmund said.

  “That’s… not a no, young master.”

  “It’s not possible,” he said.

  “You say that now, but the springtime of youth will come for you someday, and you’ll wonder what might have been…”

  “Mary, I actually have the reincarnated soul of a thirty-year-old. I have no intention of doing… any of whatever you just said.”

  He hadn’t meant to say that out loud. He didn’t realized until he had until she burst into laughter.

  “Very funny, Archie. You’re the last person who I’d think is wise beyond his years.”

  “Ouch.”

  There was no helping it now, though. He pulled his Ruby out from his pocket (he’d have to see about getting some custom jewelry made for it — maybe a pendant or a ring? Something that could allow it to float freely), and it floated in between the two of them.

  “Now that’s a new one,” Mary said. “You turn into one of those wizards after one Dungeon run?”

  “I guess you could say that. But you know that exercise I had you try with my Ruby?” he said.

  “Of course I do,” Mary said. “Even if it was hardly one of your odder whims.”

  He tossed it to her. She caught it on reflex, and it sparked to life, casting an orange glow upon the both of them. He could feel her magic intruding into the Gem, and it struck him how different it was to his own. His magic had conquered the Ruby, shaped it to his own sense of self, while hers followed the channels and facets designed to control the power.

  “It feels… different. Sharper? Hotter?”

  And yet his worst fears were confirmed.

  She didn’t have the words for it, but she’d developed a sense for the magic — forbidden for commoners. More practice, and she’d be able to match him. But even her current skill level was more than enough to draw suspicion.

  He willed the Ruby to float back to him.

  “Ooh, that’s an odd touch,” she said. “I think I can feel your magic?”

  He pulled out a pouch of raw Gems. They had been nothing to Mercy Stripstredecim de Omnio. They were a few years’ expenses for him. They were a life-changing amount for Mary.

  “You’re being awfully somber,” she said, her voice finally calming a little.

  “Mary, I made a mistake.”

  “Everyone does.”

  “It’s not any mistake, Mary. It’s a mistake about you. I put you in danger.”

  Mary smiled sadly at him. “It’s the Gems, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah. Peasants using them enough to feel the power in them is super illegal. Now you’ll never be able to live a free and normal life.”

  He’d screwed this up. There wasn’t any other way to put it.

  “I knew that,” she said.

  “…What?”