Chief Asergia, first of his line, was getting impatient. Without the ability for his clan to run the dungeon, he had no easy way to push his people forward.
While the rabbit-kin of Nightshade were by no means a faction to be ignored, equal in nearly all respects to the orcs, wolf-kin, bear-kin, and most other humanoid factions found in Nightshade, that didn't mean he was satisfied to be equal in power to the other groups.
Asergia wanted one thing at this point in his life: power. While he had much of what the forest could give, safety, and the power of his shining emerald rank, he still wasn't satisfied.
If he was honest, he was also jealous. The child now residing at the edge of his village was not only an outsider who immediately claimed Atu's affection, but also a potential candidate for the only slot reasonably left open in Nightshade, that of the aging dragon turtle.
He was nearly two whole tiers above the child. He could squash the kid like the insect they were. But he didn't, because the promise of a personal dungeon was far too enticing for his clan.
The resources one could gain from dungeons were never underestimated, but only if they knew what they were doing. Finding the nodes and chests was easy enough, but slaying every monster for that 10% bonus experience reward was rough, as were the additional challenges found in each dungeon.
He did not doubt that the dungeon would be a boon to his clan, once it was finished. He ground his teeth, knowing it was barely even started. He could do nothing but wait for it to be finished. Or could he…
He called Viket into the home he had so carefully designed. Each inch showed his luxury and power. The nervous rabbit man could only kneel before the overwhelming power of the emerald rabbit lord.
"Viket," Asergia said, his aura reinforcing his voice. He could see the ears atop the smaller man's head already beginning to drip blood.
"Y- Yes, lord?" The scared rabbit asked, his entire body trembling.
"Reach out to the daemons that came by on their hunt for slimes. I can permit them to harvest another core."
The young rabbit's eyes widened a bit before he nodded and vacated the tent.
Nicholas spent Azotreh's first day back with Atu trying to advance their skills. Specifically, Hatchet Digging and Meditative Mining. The orc champion's body was still not built for marathons, and it tired very easily. But by pushing it to its limit over and over, he found the skill advancing by small amounts each time.
Errazorrus had seen a better solution to their room problem. He was still sure that they had somehow excavated a space for the nexus before all this, but hadn't figured out how yet. Instead, he and Fuzem had been working on summoning ants. A queen only cost 10 mana, which was still ten times the regular monster cost, but they understood why when the small queen emerged.
It had crawled from the eye-mouth fully formed, not requiring any other additional changes before it settled into the corner of the room and began to lay eggs. It only laid 20 eggs over the course of the day, but the real value wasn't in what the eggs were, but rather what they weren't. They weren't normal monsters that cost maximum mana to upkeep or produce. It would still take about two weeks for the ants to hatch, but even in their fast-paced life, two weeks for a monster that cost nothing and might even be able to leave the dungeon was more than worth it. The two had conjured another four of the queens to produce 100 eggs per day.
Combined with the salamander champion finally reappearing at the end of that day, things were really looking up for the crew of dungeon builders.
[You have gained skill: Mining (A-1)]
Two daemons entered Asergia's home and were gestured to sit at the long table Asergia normally used to meet with his fellows. The pair were relaxed even in the overwhelming aura of Asergia. They knew he wouldn't hurt them, and even if he did, they had ways to escape. They'd never challenge someone on Asergia's level, but escaping was easy.
Asergia could almost read their thoughts through the subtle movements of their auras. Even spies like this pair weren't immune to the heightened senses of a high ranker. He sneered internally at their arrogance, but gave it no mind.
The female daemon spoke first, "Why have you called us here, oh so gracious host?" Even as her tone remained flat and utterly controlled, Asergia could still feel the sarcasm in her words.
"I have a task to ask of you." He said.
Both daemons raised their eyebrows at those words. What could they do that he couldn't?
Asergia brought out a map of the village, something enchanted by the Lord Rabbit half a century ago, to keep up to date since Asergia took control of the village.
He pointed to a house at the edges of the village, "There is one of what you call a progenitor slime in that house. You told me that whatever tool you use to detect the bastards brought you here?"
The two daemons nodded in agreement as Asergia continued, "That is the only slime in this village. Do not be fooled, they may look like a child, but they are no such thing. They are a slime."
The daemons glanced at each other. They'd never heard of a slime capable of mimicking the form of a humanoid before. Even so, they knew next-to-nothing about the strange entities. The most they'd managed to gather was their archetype and a couple of behavioral features. Even so, it wasn't anywhere close to unheard of for a non-humanoid lifeform to take on a human form.
They nodded to Asergia before standing. The reports from the capital after they'd captured the Crimson Slime reported that the progenitors were more than a hassle to deal with. They'd have to make preparations to capture such a high-value target.
Asergia was once again left alone in his throne at the end of his relatively massive home, a figure of stoicism and power as he began to circulate his mana again. He'd probably have to venture back to the mana well soon…
A week passed quickly in this moment of peace. Azotreh spent most of their days either playing with the energetic Ruby, meditating on their mana manipulation with the help of the strange coldness, or learning from Atu.
They barely spent a moment not training, even using the time with Ruby to try to train Astral Bolt again. The spell was still oversized, but they had figured out how to push and pull the edges of the mana powering the ability, chipping away a small amount of the nebulous blue light. So far, it was about 2% smaller than the disastrous one that had caused the appearance of the lich.
Azotreh had also been very careful to aim the bolt up instead of into the treeline. While it did make for a large purple firework most of the time, that was still more than manageable because of Atu's presence and the wards set up by the Lord Rabbit.
Azotreh hadn't learned a lot about the apparent father of Atu and Asergia, and either grandfather or great-grandfather of nearly every rabbit-kin across the three villages, but they hadn't really asked. If the powerhouse didn't want to come to see his own daughter, then there was no reason to ask after his presence, or absence.
The wards in question were simple and rather commonly used by both humanoid and non-humanoid sapient entities of the Nightshade Forest to deter roaming beasts. Atu described them as lower-level versions of the privacy wards found on the castle to the north. Azotreh didn't know what that meant.
But while wards were interesting and were greatly helpful to Azotreh as they kept training Astral Bolt, the main thing they asked about was the Technique Nucleus, the system had mentioned to stop them from advancing in their mana manipulation technique. Even as they progressed in the skill, the lack of growth in the technique gnawed on the edge of their mind.
Atu had simply told them to wait for that, as it would be better after she made something. Azotreh trusted her enough not bother her too much about the item she apparently needed to create their nucleus.
The seventh day was interrupted by a pair of visitors. They were the first other than Asergia to visit Atu's home on the edge of the village, putting her on edge as she opened the door.
The two strangers entered and immediately pulled off their hoods to reveal slightly red skin and almost crystalline ruby horns on their foreheads.
At first, they spoke in a language neither Azotreh nor Atu could understand. Ruby barely paid attention as she instead focused on a pair of flickering flames before her.
The pair soon realized that neither denizen could understand them, so the male one pulled a small piece of fabric with the illustration of a mouth sewn into the dark blue fabric and tied it over his mouth and nose.
It cycled through about five languages before finally settling on Ilmabi. They never considered using Scinparic for a moment.
"Excuse me, Miss Rabbit and Young Leige Dragon, we were told that a part of the threat currently invading the Nightshade Forest was located here."
"Threat?" Atu asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Yes, the leader of this village informed us of a slime not spawned by either of the two grand slimes to the east and north."
Atu remained calm even as she sweated inside, but Azotreh flinched. The female stranger noticed and said something to the male.
"Is something wrong?" He asked.
Azotreh shook their head and said that they'd suddenly received a system notification that had startled them. Both strangers nodded at that. They sensed no lie from the aura of the child, and considering both their youthful appearance and low rank, it was likely they'd only gained access to proper system notifications a short time ago.
It wasn't even a lie on Azotreh's end. The moment the male stranger had finished speaking, a blaring gold system window had opened in Azotreh's vision.
[Pact broken with the Emerald Clan of the Nightshade Rabbit-kin.]
[Pact failure was caused by condition: {The Emerald Nightshade Rabbit-kin Clan will protect Azotreh Nightshade to the best of their capabilities} failing to be fulfilled]
[You have been wronged by a more powerful lifeform]
[Title: Oathbroken received]
[System stripping one facet of existence from Asergia…]
[Stripped Asergia's Bloodline: Nightshade Rabbit]
[Due to progression in the bloodline, instead of being removed, progress in the bloodline has been stripped]
[Granted wronged party: Azotreh Nightshade, the Nightshade Rabbit bloodline]
[Gained Titles: Blood Drinker I, Bloodline Thief I, ERR: 781226]
Just as Azotreh felt the sudden changes in their body, that same alien presence appeared on the bridge once more, utterly stilling their aura. A moment after, Errazorrus also made his way over to ensure that no physical changes from the sudden gain of a bloodline would occur. While the female stranger gave them a strange look, she said nothing about the sudden stillness of their aura or body.
Atu and the male stranger had been talking throughout, paying no attention to Azotreh. She was convincing him that no slime existed in this home, only her adopted child and that child's fox familiar. She also communicated that she knew very little about the strange things now appearing in Nightshade.
The male stranger was showing her something about the size of his palm and perfectly round as Azotreh underwent a sudden but rather slight transformation. Small amounts of purple fur appeared on their legs in an odd pattern. At the center of the fur symbols were scales. These changes were hidden by Azotreh's pants.
What wasn't hidden were the very slight changes to their ears. Errazorrus and Nicholas had worked hard to make their ears look like their hair; the mix of black, white, and blue locks was not at all characteristic of any rabbit-kin found in Nightshade. Even so, the real problem was the brown ears not matching their hair, which the duo had worked hard to fix. It wasn't a hard change to envision, and so long as one of the four egos had the vision in mind, the ears' color matched Azotreh's hair.
Now, however, the same purple marks appeared on the backs of their rabbit ears. It didn't match their hair again, though neither stranger seemed to notice.
It didn't take long after the showing of the strange orb and a warning to kill any slime Atu saw for the strangers to leave and the house to return to quiet.
Atu quickly checked on Azotreh, finding the sudden changes to their ears, but wasn't too concerned. She told Azotreh that some of the other rabbit-kin across the three villages had the same mark, and then showed that she had one too, right over her tail. It was most common in first-generation descendants of the Lord Rabbit, but sometimes appeared in second- or third-generation descendants.
The marks apparently carried a small amount of the power of the Nightshade Barrier itself. She said that it would probably do something if they focused mana into it. But Azotreh didn't want to explore that. They wanted to solidify their place here with Atu before continuing to explore magic or Nightshade.
The two alvod set off soon after seeing the rabbit-lady and her draconic child. They weren't sure why a young dragon would have been found with the rabbit-kin, but didn't want to pry into a dragon's secrets.
They felt some powerful emotions coming from the leader of the rabbit-kin as they re-entered the village. The emerald-rank aura of Asergia flooded over the entire village. His aura was almost physical in nature as it pushed down on the alvod and rabbit-kin of the village alike.
They decided that finding out what was wrong wasn't as important as leaving asap. They did not want to face the anger of an emerald-ranker, even if they would survive through items.
So it didn't take the two alvod spies even an hour to find their temporary lodging, pick up their tracker, which they'd left in the room under the assurance that it wouldn't be touched, and left the village in quite a hurry.
Asergia was fuming. The two daemons he'd sent to take care of the child hadn't only failed, according to his scout of Atu's home, but even managed to ruin his deal with the dungeon. Breaking the oath somehow was bad enough, since it meant he didn't have exclusive access, but worse, he had even lost all of his progress in the Nightshade Rabbit bloodline as recompense for breaking his oath.
He had no idea how the morons could have broken an oath so easily and in so little time, but he didn't dwell on that. He could feel their auras, even well masked, as they moved back to their lodging and left for the forest. He didn't bother them in their escape. There was no reason to be that overt.
Instead, he just sat in his massive throne room and stared at the wall. He didn't know if he wanted to kill the kid. He may have been jealous, but was that enough reason to kill a child?
Yes. Yes, it was. He was absolute in this village, and the kid took something from him. Took his opportunities and possibilities. He would soon return underground for a while to visit the world chasm, but when he got back, he'd have that child killed.