New Earth- The Dungeon of Madness 199 Venetia

The latter chuckled. "Cough cough."

Iris suddenly became aware of the situation. She blushed slightly and closed the player interface. "Sorry about that. What were we talking about just now?"

The monsters laughed and quickly brushed off the little incident.

"First, we need to discuss the incident of the E26. My girls have already caught three customers with that title. According to them, they all looked rather comfortable in coming to the brothels. I believe the dungeon master who bought the original E26 Carrier spread it by sending that man to the whore houses. It is very easy to spread it considering that a talented escort could accompany up to three men in just one night."

"I see. At least, the Title Detectors were useful. It is annoying that I was only warned once by the system... Three of them have already entered Venetia. There might be more, do we need more Title Detectors?" asked Iris.

Mars shook his head. "No. This little gadget is too expensive. One for each gate and one for the succubi to check their customers is already enough. The situation is not too bad right now; there are only a few title holders that come to our town but what we need to start taking measures now. Considering the speed at which it is spreading, the whole population will soon be infected. The alliance who bought that monster is full of madmen; aren't they afraid of sucking DP out of their own members?"

"It's the opposite. According to Lord Brann, the Cyclone Alliance bought the last monster but the Cyclone Alliance has almost no presence in the Sylvester Empire. It is dominated by the Hurricane Alliance. They were quite clever to spread that nasty title in a region ruled by others. The Hurricane Alliance must be looking for that dungeon master like crazy to get rid of him right now. But we can't rely on them to solve this problem. We must also take some measures like you said. How is the recruitment of the craftsmen going? The title's effects are very similar to a virus; it might be possible for Alchemists or Apothecaries to find a way to get rid of it for good," said Iris.

Ceres bitterly smiled. "It's not going so well. Most of the craftsmen are reluctant to leave their already stable job in the safe areas to come here in a fledging town. As for the players, just a few Grade 1 craftsmen agreed to join. We do not anything special to offer right now. I believe we would have to wait for the crafting associations to build a branch here before we can really set up a crafting team."

"And how is it going on that side? The inspectors should have had plenty of time to look around Venetia."
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"I don't know. The associations are in a tough spot too. They can see our growing population and the potential here but they are bound by rules too. They have to wait for us to be officially recognized as being part of the Sylvester Empire. Without the seal of approval of the royals, the associations are not allowed to set up a branch."

"Are we certain we want to join the Sylvester Empire? We are already doing well without them. We will just be giving them our taxes," said Venus with a depressed expression.

"Yes. Venetia needs an umbrella to hide under. I cannot always depend on Lord Brann. He has already done so much for us by using the Magic Council. If we remain independent, the Sylvester Empire would without a doubt put pressure on us. It is the only way we can develop in peace. Besides, money is just secondary to us. Remember, DP is more important!"

Iris smiled as she thought of her mentor. Lord Brann left Venetia as soon as he returned from spectating Five's battle, but it was not without leaving behind a gift. Using his identity as a Supreme Elder of the Magic Council, he pressured the different associations into settling at Venetia and hastened the administrative processes for Venetia to be recognized by the Sylvester Empire.

So far, Venetia was one of the rare towns in the game to have developed to this extent without having any association. Usually, towns had an association dedicated to each profession and main class. These associations allowed adventurers and craftsmen to take quests and exchange resources directly. Venetia did not have all these; it only had an Adventurer Guild.

Adventurer Guild could only be found in small villages that were not large enough to justify having so many associations settling there. They acted as a middle-man between associations and the adventurers. Venetia's Adventurer Guild was fully operated by Iris' monsters. All the quests and items were provided by the dungeon monsters themselves. As Venetia was not part of the Sylvester Empire yet, it could not receive any quest from the royal court. This had both pros and cons as Iris was essentially able to use the players as she wished.

"Alright. Next topic."

"We allocated a few iron golems to the railway construction. It is going well so far and it should reach the target location in about one month. We should start looking into sending a few monsters there to set up a village and build the appropriate infrastructure," explained Ceres.

"No problem. I have already unlocked "Humans" I will summon them later. Neptune will be the one overseeing that village. It is close to a lake; it will be the perfect place for you to build a hideout," answered Iris.

"The Elphames have finished sowing the third agricultural floor. According to our estimate, the first agricultural floor should be ready to harvest in two weeks. It will fill up our warehouses and should be enough to deal with the incoming food crisis."

Iris nodded. With the massive increase in population due to the arrival of players, the harvests of the empires were bound to be lacking. The general population was still unaware of this but it was estimated that the food reserves would run out one month before the end of winter. In an attempt to delay the inevitable, the royal court organized a lot of events like fishing competitions or a monster-hunting competition to find alternative sources of food for the citizens.

Iris wanted to capitalize on that to earn some easy money. She could easily manipulate the weather settings of her dungeon, turning the underground floors into perfect greenhouses. The Elphames were happy to look after the fields and with their blessings, the crops grew healthily.

Ceres continued, "The Gym is finally ready. As per your wishes, we changed the scent there. Instead of the usual Scent of Adventure used in the town, we will be using the Scent of Inspiration. We also made sure to divide the Gym into different floors, each with their own equipment. There should be enough to appeal to casual users and the hardcore ones."

"Good. Let Karyn know. She will be in charge of the Gym. I am sure the players will be delighted to be coached by her. She does nothing aside from her daily matches anyway."

"I will pass the message. Now on our final topic. The expansion plan of Venetia. Since you asked your friend Mercy to release the statement, many players rushed here, including the members of the large guilds like Blue Lagoon and Vultex. We did not discriminate against them but there is some clear tension in the town. Quite a few citizens from the nearby towns also jumped on the opportunity. They are all waiting for an official statement. When exactly will we start selling the land around?"

This was Iris' plan to further grow Venetia; to sell the land around the town and allow the players and NPCs to build their own house or stores. Venetia has already reached a critical point; its growth slowed down significantly. It was starting to stagnate. If Iris wanted to quickly increase her revenue and DP, she needed to attract more people to her dungeon.

One way to do it was to sell the land she had. It did not officially belong to her but no one would come to claim it from her either. The announcement was greatly received by both the players and the NPCs. Currently, no other towns were willing to sell their land and expand. A few plots of lands were available for sale in those towns but the prices were exorbitant.

The reason was simply taxes. The taxes of the towns depended on their population. They had different brackets and generally, the town mayors did their best to restrict their population just below the bracket's upper limit. It was why towns in areas with limited natural resources were generally smaller.

This was not an issue for Iris. As Venetia was not considered to be part of the Sylvester Empire yet, she did not have to pay any taxes. She would have to do so in the future but to her, money was secondary; the development of the dungeon came first. Allowing other people to settle down around the town would boost Venetia's economy and would put pressure on the surrounding towns and the royal court. When the buildings would have been built, Iris would then just need to build the outer walls and absorb all these buildings into her town.

The only possible downside of her plans was the possibility that the royal court would forcefully try to take Venetia from her. Venetia currently had twenty thousand official inhabitants with several thousands of adventurers staying as guests. All towns with populations of less than fifty thousand inhabitants could be ruled by a regular person elected by the citizens but once it went beyond that cap, the town would need to be overseen by a noble!

According to Iris' estimate, once they started selling the land around Venetia, the town's population would easily go beyond that limit. Then two things could happen. Either the empire recognized her as a Baroness or the royal court would use this as an excuse to take Venetia for themselves and send a noble without a territory to claim it.

Iris was not scared of the second scenario. If the royal court became blinded by greed, she would not mind reminding them that she built this town alone. All the delegations that would come her way would have to mysteriously disappear and this would take place in Count Desmond's territory, causing additional trouble for the noble.

"Then, start selling as from tomorrow. We will start by only selling ten plots of land under the form of an auction. It should be enough to create enough hype for our second round. If people complain about not having enough time to collect money, just ignore them. If they really want the land plots, they will find a way to gather enough funds."

Chapter end