Chapter 1: So I’m a Dungeon Lord Now?
Freya opened her eyes, disoriented, her mind still foggy.
She was a young woman in her mid-twenties, with long silver-white hair falling well past her shoulders and pale violet eyes still clouded with sleep. She was still wearing her office attire, a white blouse and dark suit that hugged a slender figure and curves she’d always taken care to hide at work.
She didn’t even have time to take it in. Several windows blinked into existence before her, suspended in her field of vision.
[ Welcome, future Dungeon Lord. ]
[ A domain is now yours — to build, to grow, and to defend against those wretched heroes who come to plunder it. ]
[ Will you become the greatest Lord this world has ever known? ]
[ Check your Status for your traits, and the Dungeon System to discover what lies within your reach. ]
[ Good luck to you, humble and gracious Dungeon Lord. May the mana favor you. ]
...huh?
Her mind still hazy, Freya sat frozen, more than a little shaken by the avalanche of notifications floating before her eyes. She blinked several times, as if the gesture might make them disappear. It didn’t.
"Okay. Right. Let’s think," she said. Her own voice sounded strange in the silence. "Where exactly am I?"
She dragged a hand down her face, and the questions came tumbling out on their own.
"A game? Is this a game? The kind of virtual reality thing everyone was talking about?" She looked down at her hands, turned them over. They looked real enough. "Or one of those novels... you know, transmigration, another world, a dungeon. I’ve read enough of them to recognize the setup." A shiver ran through her. "But if that’s really what this is... does that mean I’m—"
She didn’t finish. The word stuck somewhere in her throat. Dead. She couldn’t answer any of these questions, and dwelling on them led nowhere. So she did the only thing she could do right now.
"Status."
[ Name: Freya ]
[ Unique Skill: Gacha ]
[ Dungeon Lord Titles: None ]
[ Dungeon Titles: None ]
"That’s... it?" She raised an eyebrow. "Isn’t that a little bare for a status screen?" Her gaze settled on the second line. "And this ’Gacha’ thing... what does it actually do?"
[ Gacha: Allows the host to summon anything existing in this world, from Rank G to Rank SSS, once every twenty-four hours. ]
A luck-based skill, then. She’d suspected as much, just from the name. But this is all or nothing. She weighed the idea for a moment, brows furrowed. It could hand me a useless piece of junk or a genuine gift from the gods. No way to know before I pull.
No point dragging her feet. If the twenty-four-hour timer only started on the first pull, then the sooner she pulled, the sooner she could go again — and stack the odds in her favor.
"System. I’d like to do my first pull, please."
[ Initiating Gacha! ]
At the notification, a kind of wheel materialized in the air before her. It began to spin at a dizzying speed, flashing symbols she didn’t recognize, tangled with letters — G, B, S, and others — in a blur that forced her to squint.
Then it slowed. Stopped.
The shock nailed her in place. The letters on display, right there in front of her.
"SSS..."
And a woman appeared.
Tall, with a full, voluptuous figure, she wore a maid’s outfit designed for the eye far more than for service: a white-and-gold bustier cut so low her heavy breasts threatened to spill out with every breath, long black gloves, a maid’s headpiece. Her mauve hair cascaded down to her hips, and from it curled two dark, recurved horns. Her face was breathtakingly beautiful.
And her eyes — a deep violet — settled on Freya. With a soft, fixed intensity that didn’t waver for a second.
[ Congratulations! You have summoned Aria, Demonic Maid of Knowledge, Rank SSS ]
Freya stared at her far longer than she needed to, stunned by her own luck. She hadn’t believed it for a single second, and yet, on her very first pull, she’d hit the jackpot. She finally understood the rush of dopamine that kept casino players feeding in coin after coin.
Right now, all she wanted was to do it again.
"Are you my mistress?"
"Uh... I suppose I am?"
The maid sank to her knees, the motion solemn, perfectly precise.
"I will serve you body and soul, mistress. Command me and I will act, ask me and I will answer, desire me and I will give myself."
"Huh? Isn’t there one part too many in there?"
"A maid must answer her master’s every desire, whatever it may be."
Freya scratched her cheek, a little uncomfortable. She wasn’t used to anyone being this blunt.
"All right. But tell me, what are your abilities? What justifies your SSS rank?"
Aria raised her hands, palms open, as if presenting an offering.
"See for yourself, mistress."
A window materialized just above her hands.
[ Aria — Status ]
[ Unique Skills: Knowledge | Akashic Memory | Unbreakable Oath ]
[ Skills: Demonic Magic | Arcane Magic | Analysis | Appraisal | Soul Reading | Mana Manipulation | Telepathy | Ancient Languages | Alchemy | Enchantment | Mental Cartography | Lie Detection | Concealed Presence | Close Combat | Healing Magic | Seals and Contracts | Stewardship | Court Etiquette | Cooking | ... ]
[ Titles: First Maid | Maid of the First Demon Empress | Keeper of the Great Forbidden Library | Loyal Beyond Death | ... ]
Seized by a wild excitement, like a kid poring over the profile of the servant she’d just summoned, Freya burst out:
"Aren’t you just way too strong?! This is... this is... completely broken! The system doesn’t even show all your skills and titles? But..."
"I have lived many long years and been through a great deal. I have no doubt you’ll catch up to me in but a short while. After all, I’m only a humble maid."
The worst part was that she meant it. Freya could see it. Not the faintest hint of sarcasm. Aria believed with absolute conviction in her new mistress’s potential, in the certainty that she would grow stronger.
"Don’t set the bar so high, Aria. I’m just an ordinary human."
"Forgive me for contradicting you, mistress, but there is nothing human about you. You are most certainly a being made of mana, bound to this dungeon. A superior being."
"Talk to me more normally, please. Don’t be like that."
She nodded without another word. Freya went on.
"A superior being? What’s that?"
"You are a being without limits, neither physical nor magical. You will grow in tandem with your dungeon: the more powerful it becomes, the more powerful you will be. And if you go about it well, you could even reach the rank of God in this world."
"A God..."
Freya let the word carry her away. The promise of it, the thrill of the summon, the sight of what stood before her. All of it. She wanted more. She was already dreaming of more. So she summoned what those first notifications had hinted at.
[ Dungeon System — Level 1 ]
[ Mana: 50 / 500 ]
[ Dungeon Lord Chat ]
[ Summons — Level 1 ]
[ Buildings — Level 1 ]
[ Upgrades — Level 1 ]
Already excited, Freya grew more so. All of it looked like a management game she’d adored back in her life on Earth. A resource, categories to develop, summons to build an army. The thought of managing this dungeon’s rise as well as she possibly could, of optimizing everything, perfecting everything, put her in a state of pure exhilaration. Playing for real, at last.
But before anything else, one category in particular intrigued her. The Dungeon Lord Chat, which opened before her at a mere thought.
[ Dungeon Lord Chat ]
[ Would you like to keep your name or choose a nickname? ]
Anonymity is freedom. Why give your real name when you could hide it? She was still searching for inspiration for a nickname when her gaze landed on Aria. Wait... she’s already cleaning? Where did she even get that broom?! The maid was dusting a corner of the room with unflappable seriousness, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Freya cracked a smile. That would do nicely.
"Maid."
[ Nickname "Maid" selected. Confirm? ]
"Yes."
And there it was, the chat that had intrigued her so.
[ Dungeon Lord Chat ]
[ LustDemonKing ]: wtf?
[ LucasBraveheart ]: hey everyone. anyone here also from Earth? — 417 likes
Hmm... let’s add a like, too.
418 likes.
[ LucasBraveheart ]: anyone from somewhere other than Earth? — 3 likes
Given how few likes it got, it had to be a handful of people stirring up trouble just for kicks, Freya concluded. So they were all from Earth. Thanks to Lucas for asking the question, fairly useless but still good to know.
[ BlackFlame ]: this is insane! it really feels like a game, I’m totally hooked! the terrain-remodeling unique skill is completely broken, how are you guys using it?
[ MeteorGod ]: dude? are you actually stupid or what, you don’t know the whole point of a unique skill? — +1... +10... +278
Freya watched the likes climb in real time, absorbed in reading the group.
[ FreakyBoy14 ]: how dumb do you have to be to give away your own unique skill when we could all be enemies?
[ BlackFlame ]: and you’re not, jumping to conclusions like that? we’re all Dungeon Lords here, aren’t we? our real enemies are the heroes the notifications told us about. it’s each other we should be allying with.
[ SkyStrategist ]: that does seem like the most sensible take, yeah. by the way, anyone got info on mana generation?
Good question, finally. And well timed, too: he’d waited for someone to float the idea of potential allies before slipping it in.
[ LucasBraveheart ]: personally I’ve gained some over time.
Time? Freya glanced at her system. [ Mana: 50 / 500 ]. Is he lying? But given the temperament he’d shown so far, she doubted it. So she started theorizing: either he’d arrived long before her, or he had a unique skill tied to time itself — maybe an acceleration of time inside his dungeon? The second possibility seemed the most logical to her.
[ PizzaEnjoyer ]: personally I stumbled on a vein of ore wandering around my dungeon. tossed a chunk of it into my dungeon core and bam, converted into mana. — +250 likes
[ SteelCrescent ]: wait, does that work with anything or just ore?
[ DarkVortex ]: gotta test it. throw everything you find in there and you’ll see
Freya felt her fingers itch. Just one more message, and then she’d read the reply, and the next one after that... No. She tore herself away from the screen with the effort of setting down a book right in the middle of a Chapter. At this rate she’d be at it all night, and there were far better things to do than watch other people live.
She’d be back. The chat wasn’t going anywhere, and these strangers would keep spilling their discoveries without even realizing it. Better to take advantage later, once she had something to compare.
Her gaze drifted to the menus still floating in her vision. The buildings. The upgrades. Everything there was to construct, to raise, to shape stone by stone.
It was time. Her dungeon was waiting for her now.
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