The Castle in the middle of nowhere.

Irene followed me as I tried to use my Dungeon power to repair Victory. The idea was simple—since I could use mana to build or repair anything in Avalon, maybe it could be used to repair other things that belong to me. With that mindset, I entered the shipyard, trying not to draw everyone’s attention—a task I failed miserably.

"Good morning, Your Majesties!" Eri welcomed us with a happy voice that echoed through the vast underground dry dock.

"Good morning, Eri," Irene replied with a similarly wide smile as the Dwarf, while I simply sighed and tried to smile.

"I'm surprised that Idna let you out. Isn't she still afraid that Bjorn would abduct you?" I asked with an innocent smile.

"Oh, and she is absolutely right! Unfortunately for the Adventurers Guild, Eri decided to change her work." Bjorn laughed as he went towards us and bowed with a smile. "Welcome, My Lord. My Lady."

"Oh, stop it, Bjorn!" Eri blushed.

"What brings you here, my Lord?" Bjorn smiled, seeing her blush, but he was already all business.

"I wanted to try something, but I have no clue if it is going to work." I sighed and looked at the ship resting on enormous scaffolding like an oversized model. "I assumed that you had not started working, but..."

My gaze passed over dozens of people busy around and inside the ship. Bjorn, however, looked at me awkwardly and cleared his throat. "I have four crews working around the clock to bring Victory back to action, my King. We are ahead of schedule."

"That's great news! However, can you ask them to take a quick break? I want to check if I can use my powers to repair our flagship." I said, a little bit embarrassed.

However, Bjorn nodded understandingly. "That somehow makes sense... Hmmm... After all, it's your ship, and technically, it's part of the Dungeon. All right... Give me a moment, my King."

"Of course." I smiled, extensively grateful for his reassuring opinion.

"EVERYONE! BREAK TIME! I WANT YOU ALL TO GET OFF VICTORY ASAP!" the Dwarf yelled so loud that Irene and Eri had to cover their ears.

The women exited with amused smiles that quickly turned into giggles. The workers left the ship a few moments later, and I tried to do my thing. At first, I was disappointed since I couldn't even sense Victory. It was as if the ship wasn't even here. In the place where my eyes saw the ship, my Dungeon senses saw only a dark, empty hole, which, admittedly, confused me a lot. While that dark hole wasn't entirely natural, its concept was familiar. It was as if I was watching the good old fog of war in RTS games back home. I reached inside that odd phenomenon, and there she was: HMS Victory... After a fairly long time, filled with seemingly countless trials and errors, I gave up.

"Damn it... I can't repair her." I sighed, but around the materials needed to repair the ship started appearing. "At least I could buy all the materials using my mana..."

"That alone is splendid enough, my Lord!" Bjorn smiled. "With the materials in our grasp, we can rebuild her much quicker. Perhaps even in just a few days, my King!"

"Thank you, Bjorn." I exhaled, slightly disappointed that I could not magically repair the flagship. "How are our other projects?"

"Since the plans are ready and we should get this running anyway, Ragnar and Verni are building the first train. Ian wants to start building the new battleship, but we should slow down. I know how crucial the new ships are for the war effort, but our construction crews are exhausted." Bjorn sighed heavily. "We try to keep eight-hour shifts, but sometimes the eight hours turn out to be ten."

"I don't think that trains are that important right now..." I scratched the back of my head.

"On the contrary, my Lord," Eri interjected hesitantly with a quiet shyness. "We must actually build one to see the control system's flaws. It's the safest way to ensure future battleships won't have critical problems."

"Eri is right, my Lord." Bjorn instantly supported his fiancée.

"All right... You try to avoid overworking yourself and your construction teams while I try to avoid involving Arcadia in more wars for now." I faintly smiled, making Irene snort in amusement, which she tried to cover with a cough.

"Don't raise such obvious red flags, my Darling," Irene said while I took a deep, nervous breath. She was right…

"Bjorn, we try our best to finish the war in Berna. While they still have huge amounts of soldiers and wealth at their disposal, they are right now the weakest. Their rigid structures do not allow them to counterattack effectively. In their desperation, they have reached towards despicable things. They started using slaves to fight the Legions." Irene lowered her head.

"I see..." Bjorn also lowered his head. They both shared that brief moment of once being enslaved and almost killed. "We will do everything in our power to repair Victory as fast as possible..."

"I know, Bjorn." Irene tried to smile, but she was sad. "Just don't push the people beyond their limits."

"That's true. But I would rather lose a few days than anyone," I added. "If you see that the people can't work anymore, just give them a day or two off to rest. I promise that once this is over, you all can take vacations."

Bjorn silently mouthed the magic word I had just said and looked at Eri in surprise. The silence was uncomfortably prolonged, but finally, Bjorn cleared his throat and asked, "What's a vacation, my Lord?"

•••

Olivia adjusted a few more lines in the complicated magic formula and blessed King Theon for bringing advanced math with him to Nilmerthis. The seemingly simple item she tried to build turned out to be an extremely complicated device. She promised over Mike's grave to complete it… Yet the memories were too fresh and painful. She had known Mike her entire life, and now he was gone... The device in her hands could have saved him and many sailors who died back then. She wiped her tears and tried not to distract herself. After a moment, she checked the runes and magic sequence and fine-tuned a few last equations. The doors to the university tower slowly opened, and Shirley entered precisely at the exact moment as Olivia jumped out of the observation balcony.

The young inventor was falling so fast that she really didn't have time to become afraid of falling; after all, the tower was just a few dozen meters tall. However, the device almost worked. When she was about ten metres above the ground, it shot out a rapidly expanding gelatinous substance that formed a slightly translucent cylinder, into which she fell. That part had worked since the first tests, so she wasn't concerned about hitting the ground. Now was the tricky part. She hit the gel sideways, and while the momentum pushed her forward, the substance tried to align her to the ground. She felt a gentle movement and started celebrating as she was pulled face-first towards the ground, her legs moving towards the ground, but the spell failed. The gel of the fall absorber exploded harmlessly around her, leaving her halfway towards the correct position and about two meters above the ground.

"Fuck..." she sighed right before gravity claimed her once again.

Olivia hit the thick mattress she had placed below the tower for that very purpose, bouncing a few times before finally stopping. She lay on that makeshift bedding for a moment, swearing and screaming in frustration into the soft bed beneath her. She had been confident that she had made everything right this time, so the impact on the mattress hurt even more figuratively than it should have.

"What are you trying to do, Olivia?" Olivia froze, hearing the voice of one of the most important people in the entire University.

Scion Stella was standing above her, giving her a quizzical gaze. "I was informed by your concerned colleagues that you have been jumping out of the tower for the better part of this morning. I figured that the repetitive nature of your experiment and the fact that you are still alive most likely meant this didn’t require my immediate attention, but..." Stella sighed and took a look around the small flower garden. "It's already late afternoon, yet you are still jumping out of that window, girl."

"God, damn it..." Olivia followed Stella's gaze and noticed a large group of fellow students watching her with various emotions, from amusement to concern. She screamed one last time into the mattress and slowly stood up. "Lady Stella, I'm working on the fall-stopping device for use by the Royal Navy."

"Why have I never heard about it?" Stella's face changed from concern to almost anger. She scoffed, and after placing her hands on her hips, she turned towards the north as if she were speaking to someone else. "Why didn’t Janet issue an official request, that woman..."

"N-no! It wasn't requested by Lady Admiral Sparrow!" Olivia almost staggered back as she tried to explain herself. "It was entirely my idea."

"Oh... In that case, it's fine." Stella smiled and grabbed the talisman the young Artificer had dangling on her neck. "Hmmm... Interesting. You have created a gel and are forcing it to absorb all the energy of a falling object, then using that energy to explode the gel to release the object..."

Stella looked through the artefact with a soft smile, and Olivia was absolutely sure that the professor already knew why her spell was failing. Unfortunately, Olivia was also sure that the Faé wouldn't tell her the reason since Stella sincerely believed in learning through mistakes. Olivia sighed and nodded. "Yes, Professor Stella. However, I wanted the person forced to use it, or those who use it willingly, to always land on their legs. Right now, the gel successfully stops the falling object about two meters above the ground, but the position the object takes inside it depends on the position you fall into it initially."

"Mhm..." Stella gave her a critical look and a disappointed sigh, after which she let go of the pendant and turned around to walk away. However, before she left, she gave Olivia a last amused look. "So why is there only one overengineered spell?"

Olivia blinked a few times, staring at the back of the Faé that slowly walked away, observing the light dancing on her beautiful wings. Then, without looking, she lifted the pendant in front of her eyes and groaned angrily.

•••

Marques Fagnar Ras-daia was grim and focused. His experience told him that he was in danger, but there was no escape. Hur'zhun himself had ordered him to prepare the most elite soldiers and wait for the time to attack, and the Master of Spies had obeyed. The God promised to use his powers to bring Avalon to ruin. The black bull entered the room where Fagnar waited and gave him a side glance, to which the old assassin instantly replied with a bow.

"My Lord! The army is ready. Fifty-five thousand soldiers, ten thousand Paladins, and fifteen thousand mages are yours to command."

Hur'zhun nodded happily with his large, horned head. "Excellent. I will show that gold parrot where his place is. Do you have anything suitable to breach the walls of that damned city?"

"Of course, my Lord!" Fagnar smiled viciously. "I have obtained ten Siege Golems that once belonged to Josla Cridia. Our best Alchemists worked on them, enchanting the materials we would use to summon them."

"Excellent! Oh... You must know that Dolren wants to arrest you, Fagnar," Hur'zhun warned the old man and sighed. "Whoever is framing you and feeding Dolren misinformation is a master."

"And most probably work for the King of Arcadia." The assassin shrugged. "I can't blame Dolrus for being suspicious."

"Once you return victorious from Arcadia, all the suspicions will fade." The black bull nodded.

"I have committed everything to follow your orders, my God."

"I expected nothing less from you. Lead the way to the army. We embark immediately!" The bull stomped impatiently with his hoof.

"As you wish..."

•••

Hur'zhun was boiling with anger. Jukk'nala had violated the centuries-old agreement while they were so close to achieving their goal. The other Gods of Aderon were weak; in fact, they were so weak that just a few powerful mortals could probably kill their shells. That wouldn't be enough to kill a God, but enough to weaken them even more. It was extremely hard to kill a God, but Hur'zhun could do it. He would destroy Avalon and kill the Gods of Arcadia with his faithful mortals. He entered the balcony and saw a massive crowd of soldiers. They raised their shouts, chanting his name and feeding him with the power of their faith. Thousands of Paladins and trained militia members were ready for the battle. Between them, the ranks of battle mages stood in silence, focusing on their tasks. Behind the army, numerous large wagons carried the metal husks needed to summon powerful Siege Golems. The bull wagged with his tail.

"Truly remarkable work, Fagnar. Once we return victorious, it will be you who will arrest Dolrus."

"My Lord..." The Spymaster gasped in shock.

"There is no place for the servants of traitors in my kingdom, Fagnar." Hur'zhun walked past the stunned man and looked down. "My faithful soldiers! Today, you will bask in my glory! Today, we will capture Avalon!"

"LEAD US TO THE BATTLE, HUR'ZHUN THE GREATEST!" thousands of voices cried in unison as the enormous magic circle, shining with yellow light, opened wide beneath the army.