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While crossing through the road leading to the duchy, we encountered two small dungeons in the vicinity, they seemed to be popular and were called the "Blue Slime Dungeon" and the other was the "Green Goblin Dungeon", they both had ten floors with five rooms with each floor, and were the "newbie dungeons" where all newbie Adventurers explored to hunt monsters and sell their carcasses off, despite being just Rank 1 monsters, they still produced a nice amount of resources to the duchy passively, the more the Adventurers explored and hunted the monsters in here, the more resources they acquired from their work, such as meat, mana cores, and even the slime from the slime monsters itself was being apparently used for cosmetic products and hygiene products, and was also used for eating, so it seems that I am not the only one that thought about eating slimes like jelly.
Dungeons not only produce a stable income through the monsters they produce, but also bring forth treasures, sometimes, although it is very dangerous to enter dungeons for newbie adventurers and there are always cases of entire parties getting wiped out by these rank 1 monsters, so it is not an easy job, even though it produces passive income, it is at the expense of the lives of those that go there to risk their lives to earn money and make a living… The life of an adventurer is harsh, and I guess that's a realistic way to put it in. Sects also risk their lives to clean their dungeons, but they're often more organized, but even then, newbie disciples end up dying when they get too cocky and enter too deep into the dungeons, so I guess they're the same as newbie adventurers.
Oh well, how did I learned all of this info? Well, I learned it from the merchant guild's guild master, who told me a lot of info I didn't know, he was a pretty useful old man, I have to admit it. these two newbie dungeons… I'll conquer both and fuse them with my dungeons to gain a bit of more dungeon points and some new spawning monsters, we have yet to find slimes in the dungeons I have visited, so this is going to be pretty useful, slimes can be used for a lot of stuff. Of course, I am sealing the areas that will eventually connect these dungeons with my own that eventually emerge when I fuse dungeons, so the people doesn't suspect anything weird… Well, of course, that might change depending in the situation. And aside from this, I have to keep an eye in the Orange Village… Something might happen with the lizardmen gathering around the border of the jungle, they seem pretty suspicious to me.
"And we are here!" Said Benladann. We have just reached the large gates of the Orange Forest Duchy, well known for having a lot of Orange Trees planted all around its walls, making large and extensive plantations where people extracted this fruit and sold it, it seems that this place is ideal for growing them due to the direct sunlight and the fresh environment.
"It has been a long journey, but we finally reached some actual civilization." Said Miranda. "No weird sects that are even smaller than a village, this is what I actually can call a city now!" Miranda seemed happy to finally see a large place such as this city, it was very big and filled with people, there were many streets and it even seemed to have been built over a hill, the top of the hill had the duke's house, which was surrounded by many other buildings, the duke's house was not a castle but a very big manor, and it was surrounded by several other manors, the top of this area resembled a special area for all the rich aristocrats to live away from the commoners.
"Indeed, and this place looks pretty beautiful." Said Rakasha. "I don't remember going through this area, so I have no idea how it is inside, but its going to be fun to explore it around." The old man that had traveled to other continents surprisingly had yet to completely travel through this one and didn't knew about this duchy at all, apparently.
"There's a big line before we can enter, the guards are awfully slow." Said Tisha.
"And there is a deadly heat today, my fur is not adapted for these warm temperatures…" Sighed Pekora.
"We can always cut it down if you want to!" Laughed Yuki. "But yeah, me neither…"
"I suppose we could cut down the hair around your arms and legs, and chest and neck too, yeah?" Wondered Benladann.
"No thanks, I hate it but cutting down our fur is prohibited by our tribe's rules, it is something we see as a taboo." Said Pekora. "The fur we have embraces our beastly origins and also is our connection to our primordial beast totems…"
"What?" Wondered Miranda. "I didn't understand half of what you said, but okay."
"This place seems to be filled with people, it's going to get a bit noisy inside, so Benladra, you have to prepare a little bit." I said, as Benladra seemed confused about what I said and didn't really understood it completely.
"Brebared?" Asked Benladra while feeling confused, she began to lick her finger after bit, like she often does when she's bored.
"We'll have to try then, she doesn't seem as impacted by the people around us, what could possibly go wrong?" Asked Benladann.
"You should never say these words, they always bring misfortune…" I sighed.
"That's some dumb superstition." Said Benladann while shrugging her shoulders. "You should relax some more. Come on, let's go enjoy the trip around the duchy." Benladann seemed to be having the intention of having fun rather than worrying about stupid things like I do, and that's totally fair to be honest, we should really just go have fun, but something tells me that I don't have to get ahead of myself…
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