Raised in Dungeon



As Ivaylo's eyes flickered open, he found himself in a dimly lit room. Gradually, his vision adjusted to the surroundings, and he noticed a girl standing beside him. Her hair was long and white as snow, cascading down her back like a waterfall. Her intense gaze was fixed on him, and it appeared as if she had been waiting patiently for him to wake up.

"You're dead again, Master. This is the third time you've died, and all three were pointless deaths," the girl was Mary, one of the Noctem Dolls.

Ivaylo sat up, then picked up his shirt that was hanging on one of the coffins. They were in a rather luxurious room that was dimly lit by moonlight.

"It's a shame; we need Miss Fleur's body, and that other-worlder's too... If we make them become our puppets, we can more easily proceed with the plan," Ivaylo said.

"But you lost... Does this mean that the plan to assassinate the king failed?"

"Not really... Miss Fleur's body is needed for another plan, not this one."

"Well... Whatever it is, please don't do anything rash again. The doll bodies you made are now down to six. Each of them was made with the mana you collected for one year. So running out of three bodies in just one month is detrimental," Mary explained.

A Doll's House was Ivaylo's blessing granting him the ability to control other corpses to become his doll; he could also use this blessing for himself. He created an absolute doll's body from a corpse, possessed a seemingly inanimate form, and was capable of immersing himself within the dolls' bodies. So Ivaylo had been fighting with Fleur with the doll's body he created, and when he died, his soul would move into his real body.

"This time I can't help but die. Miss Fleur's god's blessing is really dangerous. That rose is directly connected to my mana, so if I get hit once more, my original body will definitely die as well,"

"Yeah, I could see that earlier; all your plans fell apart because of that other-worlder. You have to use your real body to defeat the two of them. If you use a doll's body, you won't be able to maximize your abilities."

"I prefer a puppet body; my physique becomes stronger than with my real body. If I use my real body, I'm afraid they'll die instantly from my mana."

-KNOCK

Then someone knocked on the door four times

"Come in," Ivaylo replied.

The door opened, and in front of it stood Clarissa and Norman, carrying Arthur.

From their condition, Clarissa still looked depressed, Norman's wounds had disappeared, but his face still looked tired and in pain.

"Welcome back," said Ivaylo.

"We're sorry, leader, the plan failed."

"I know... I can think of various reasons why you might have failed, but please tell me about them later. Don't worry about the plan... you didn't fail."

Hmm?

"What do you mean Leader? Aren't we going to kill the king by relying on Arthur?"

"Well... If it really works, of course I'm happy, but it's just a plan on top of a plan."

"What does that mean?"

"The plan had already worked when Leofric died. The whole thing was just a decoy to catch the kingdom off guard. Norman returned, Ralph and Adam escaped, and I lost too. Now they'll think it's all over. That's what we're taking advantage of.

All we need to do now is wait for Adam and Ralph to arrive, after which we will continue our plan."

...

Two hours had already passed as the dust settled after the explosion in front of the gate. As Alicia stood among the chaos, one of the soldiers approached her with a grim report

Previously affected by Ivaylo's dolls, the sea of humans had slowly returned to normalcy. However, the haunting reality of the casualties reached an alarming number of thousands. Once-ordinary people became the targets of those under the influence, while soldiers and civilians suffered alike in capturing the infected. The affected individuals were now temporarily locked up, awaiting further investigation.

"What about the host? Did you find the doll that Ivaylo released?"

"No, we didn't find it,"

'Norttish has a lot of mana capacity, enough to control the entire city. But maybe I'm overreacting if I think the puppet host can still spread Ivaylo's doll to the people,'

Then suddenly Alicia realized one thing she hadn't heard before:

"Tobias! What about Sir Tobias?! What happened to him?" Alicia wasn't worried about his body at all. She was worried about something else.

Alicia's heart sank as she realized that her worst fears were confirmed. The tense atmosphere surrounding them only intensified, making it hard for Alicia to find the words that would convey the raging emotions that were bubbling up inside her. She searched for a glimmer of hope, but there was none to be found in the soldier's melancholy features.

"Sir Tobias... is currently confining himself to the prison."

"Oh... I see..."

Alicia touched her sore chest. It hurt a lot that everything was really happening, just as she had feared.

But she still tried to stay strong; the situation in the palace was still chaotic, and she had no time to mourn and no time to be sad.

"Please tell the prison guards to leave him alone and lock the cell. He needs time to recover; I believe he will be recovered soon."

"Yes, your highness..."

Tobias had a very heavy trauma when he was a dungeon explorer. He killed his party members, who became zombies on the seventh floor. It was only one person at first. Tobias tried to save him, even though someone who had become a zombie could not be saved. In the end, all of his party members became zombies because of that, and he was forced to kill them alone.

Learning from that experience, he would no longer hesitate about what he would face. And he once again faced a situation that was more or less the same as back then.

The villagers controlled by Ivaylo were walking like zombies, and Tobias thought they couldn't be saved. Tobias killed many people until he finally heard from Alicia through the soldiers that the controlled villagers could still be saved. This fact slapped Tobias very hard. Because he had just killed many people with his sword, killing the innocent humans he was supposed to protect. The guilt he felt was so great that he put himself in prison. Now Alicia could only hope that Tobias could still return to being the Tobias she knew.

Alicia was in the ballroom. The spacious ballroom was now home to people who had been badly injured. The one working inside was Felicia. She was in charge of saving as many people as possible with her god's blessing. Severed limbs, permanent injuries, shattered knees, all could be healed by Felicia. Felicia repeatedly received mana transfers from other people to continue working.

Felicia's god's blessing was so beautiful that people started nicknaming her "Maiden of Eden Garden," a girl who brought a garden of Eden that gave hope to everyone.

"Next! Hurry up and bring the next one!" Felicia shouted repeatedly while drinking a stamina-boosting potion.

Even though Felicia's makeup had worn off at that time, she was sweating profusely, her face looked very tired, and her eye bags were blackened, but everyone still saw her as a beautiful rescue maiden.

People were already starting to survive; the Noctem Dolls were nowhere to be seen. So many people already thought that it was all over,

The only one who didn't think so was Alicia.

"We can't be rash just yet, uncle. Please have the Milite Captains deploy troops in every corner of the castle," Alicia said to Maximilian and the captains.

'There are a few things that still bother me. I still can't see them accomplishing anything. Is killing Leofric and destabilizing the castle really their goal?'

A short while after that, Harald arrived.

"How is it, brother Harald?! Were you able to find the two of them?"

"No, I lost track of them. Strangely, all traces of their mana seemed to disappear suddenly in the west gate."

'The west gate... Why would they run that way? Most importantly, why did they need to carry Leofric's corpse?

"Umm then..." Harald then acted strangely,

"Yes, what is it?"

"Umm...No... It's probably not important."

"Why? Just tell me! I need all the information!"

"This may sound crazy, but I just saw Leofric in the west window when I returned here."

Harald's words seemed superfluous to Alicia, yet their impact was akin to a locomotive hurtling through her thoughts, shattering the walls of her mind and laying bare a path previously hidden.

"ARE YOU SURE YOU SEE IT?!" Alicia shouted with a shocked, scared, and anxious face at Harald.

"Ugh, this is why I didn't want to say it..."

"ANSWER QUICKLY! IT'S IMPORTANT!"

"I'm not too sure, OK! I only saw a bit of his hair from the side; from the silhouette, it looks similar, but it could be someone else."

"THAT'S ENOUGH! WE HAVE TO GO TO THE KING'S CHAMBERS QUICKLY!"

"But Alicia, you said we shouldn't go there because we might be followed."

"That's useless now!"

'Why didn't I think of this earlier?!' Alicia thought.

'Brother Harald wasn't sure, but I couldn't think of any other possibility. Ivaylo has the ability to control people's corpses into his puppets. If he knows that the only ones who can find the king's chamber are the blood descendants of the king, then he can use Leofric's corpse to do so!'