Phong washed his hands first.
Not because he felt dirty.
Because habit grounded him.
Soil under his nails.
Water over his knuckles.
Breath steady.
Then he opened the group chat.
No drama.
No buildup.
Just text.
[Assassins came. Likely Josh or Olen. Could be both.
I used myself as bait. They're gone.
If you hear about divers killed by lizardmen near the decoy farm, that's mine. Don't worry.]
Three dots appeared almost at once.
Dominic.
Then stopped.
Then started again.
[Are you okay?]
Another message followed.
[Did you throw up?]
Phong almost smiled at that.
He replied:
[I'm fine.
A bit shaken. Not crying.
They came for my life. They should've been ready to lose theirs.]
A pause.
Longer this time.
Then Alex.
[I'm proud of you.
But you don't have to push yourself like that.]
He stared at the screen for a moment.
Her typing bubble flickered again.
[We'll come back.]
He did not answer that part.
Instead he typed:
[Crop stash enough for Floor 2?
Don't ration unless needed.]
Dominic answered first.
[We're good. Don't change anything.
Just stay alive.]
Then Janet added:
[We trust you.]
After that, the chat went quiet.
No speeches.
No overreaction.
Just acceptance.
Then they cut contact.
Floor Two did not forgive distracted minds.
Phong set his phone down.
The adrenaline was already gone.
What remained was not guilt.
Not triumph.
More like recalibration.
He walked to the chicken coop.
He needed oil.
Needed heat.
Needed something simple.
Cooking helped.
The steady chop of garlics.
The crack of eggs.
The dredge through seasoned flour.
Oil heating in a deep iron pan.
The first piece of chicken dropped in.
Sizzle.
Violent.
Alive.
The sound filled the air.
Rico showed up at once.
"FRIED CHICKEN?!"
Nyx appeared from nowhere, like a tiny patron spirit summoned by the smell of hot oil.
Bruno skidded around the corner so fast he nearly hit a fence post.
"You hogged the fun!" Rico accused.
"You didn't even call us for the explosion!" Nyx added.
Bruno huffed in agreement.
Phong blinked.
"Explosion?"
"The assassins!" Rico snapped. "We heard the garlic!"
Nyx narrowed her eyes.
"Next time, we help."
Bruno pounded the ground once like a tiny war drum.
Phong shook his head.
"You'll get your turn."
All three groaned in protest.
The oil bubbled harder.
A golden crust formed.
He flipped the chicken carefully, watching it brown.
Little Fireball fluttered down from a beam and landed on his shoulder.
Then she hopped to the edge of his hood.
Then climbed into it like it was her rightful throne.
She chirped once.
Demanding.
Phong tore off a piece of crisp batter, just the crunchy part, no spice.
Blew on it.
Offered it up.
She snapped it up at once.
Crunch.
Satisfied trill.
Rico stared at him in betrayal.
"She gets first bite?!"
"She's smaller," Phong said.
Nyx made a loud offended sound.
Bruno tried to push his face into the pan.
Phong gently nudged him back.
"Hot."
The animals crowded close as he lifted the first batch out to drain.
He made extra.
More than needed.
Something about oil and crunch and salt helped.
It grounded him.
Anchored him.
The killing had not stayed in his chest the way he once thought it would.
No nightmare waiting to rise.
No shake in his hands.
Those men came with interceptors.
With staged monsters for cover.
With a plan to erase him before sunrise.
He had just changed the math.
The dungeon did not reward hesitation.
He had learned that long ago.
He plated the chicken on a wooden tray.
Then sat on the steps by the pond.
He handed pieces out to Rico, Nyx, and Bruno in turns.
Little Fireball stayed tucked in his hood, pecking at crumbs in content silence.
Rico chewed loudly.
Nyx hummed with pleasure.
Bruno tore through his portion with barbarian joy.
Above them, the lime-oak rustled softly.
The treants stood still.
The lizardmen kept up their patrols as if nothing had happened.
Somewhere beyond, bodies cooled near the decoy farm.
Already rewritten.
Already filed away as a dungeon hazard.
Phong leaned back against the wooden step.
The sun dipped lower.
The smell of oil still hung in the air.
He did not feel heavier.
Did not feel darker.
If anything, he felt clearer.
They made a move.
He answered.
Quietly.
Cleanly.
No announcement.
No manifesto.
Just consequence.
Rico wiped grease from his mouth.
"You really hogged the fun."
Phong looked at him from the side.
"You can handle the next batch."
Rico froze. He knew Phong wasn't talking about fried chickens.
"…Maybe not that kind of fun."
Nyx giggled.
Bruno bumped Phong's knee with his head.
Little Fireball shifted in his hood, warm against the back of his neck.
He reached up and scratched under her chin.
Crunching fried chicken.
Cooling evening air.
Camp intact.
The kills did not weigh on him.
Not because he was heartless.
Because he understood something simple.
In the dungeon, intent mattered.
They meant to kill him.
He meant to survive.
Then he chose to water strawberries after.
That choice defined him.
Not the bodies.
Not the blast.
Just a farmer.
Frying chicken at sunset.
Waiting for his people to come home.
Olen did not take the news well.
He did not rage.
Did not shout.
He stared at the report with a thin, unimpressed smile.
Three divers.
Dead in lizardman territory.
[Amateur,] he typed into the encrypted chat.
Josh read the message in silence.
Olen kept going.
[Walking into hostile biome without proper suppression?
That's sloppy.
I expected better from you.]
Josh's jaw tightened.
His knuckles whitened around his phone.
[Bad luck,] he replied.
It was bad luck.
Lizardman mages escalated.
Olen leaned back in his chair.
[Bad luck happens to careless people.]
A pause.
Then another message.
[Next time, hire professionals. Not thugs.]
That one landed.
Josh's breathing sharpened.
His pride had already taken hits.
First when he backed out of the collaboration.
Then when Horns of the Earth humiliated his father's portfolio.
Now this.
A failed assassination wrapped in dungeon bad luck.
He typed back:
[Next time we'll succeed.]
No emojis.
No polish.
Just naked intent.
Emma sat across from Josh in the same lounge, scrolling through her own alerts.
She had stayed quiet through all of it.
She saw the rumors.
Saw Alex's post.
Saw the French divers mocking "feudal kings."
Saw the failed dungeon "accident."
She could be mean.
Competitive.
Arrogant.
But murder was different.
That was a line.
And she knew they were crossing it.
She said nothing.
Did not approve.
But did not stop them either.
Making enemies of both Josh and Olen would be bad for the Tannenbaums.
Spoiled.
But not rotten.
Not yet.
Josh stood suddenly.
"We try again."
He was already opening another channel.
Mobilizing.
Escalating.
Then the lounge door opened without a knock.
His father stepped in.
Crisp suit.
Calm face.
Eyes that measured and consumed.
"Enough," the older man said.
Josh stiffened.
"We have bigger optics to manage."
His father glanced once at the screen in Josh's hand.
He did not need details.
He knew the pattern.
"You're coming with me to the G7 conference."
Josh blinked.
"What?"
"You will represent the family enterprise. Smile. Shake hands. Explore infrastructure contracts. Insurance expansion. Reconstruction bonds."
"But…"
"No."
The word was not loud.
It did not need to be.
"This is not the time to create more variables."
Josh clenched his fists.
"But the stain…"
"Is contained," his father cut in. "Dead divers in a dungeon are not a scandal. Assassinations tied to my son are."
The meaning settled in.
Josh lowered his eyes.
Across the city, Olen got a similar call.
His parents.
Different tone.
Same answer.
[You'll attend the summit.]
[You need visibility.]
[You need stability.]
[The Guild must not look volatile.]
Olen pressed his lips into a thin line.
He hated interruptions.
Hated unfinished business.
But international leverage and investment pipelines were not optional.
Power needed stage presence.
So he answered smoothly.
"Of course."
Two young men.
Two second attempts stopped.
Not by morality.
By politics.
For now, Phong would not be targeted again.
Back in the dungeon, Phong was thinking about something else.
During the Bamboo Black Ant siege, he had given the trolls shelter.
Not as a strategy.
By instinct.
And that had changed something.
The Troll King had not forgotten.
The lizardmen certainly had not.
Their eggs rested safely in the pond at Camp Stymphalian.
Protected.
Warmed by mana-rich soil.
Guarded by chili lines and garlic mines.
For the lizardmen, the alliance was simple logic.
Their future lay inside his perimeter.
For the trolls, it was more complicated.
They loved caves.
Loved stone.
Loved isolation.
Loved hierarchy.
But the Troll King had felt the ants.
Seen the shiitake shields hold where rock would have cracked.
So after several long, rumbling talks, he agreed.
Death Peak, the great mountain near the gate, would become an extended outpost.
Not owned by Phong.
Not controlled by him.
More like the same honorary vassal status he once received from the Lizardman Kingdom of Lake Baratok.
His defense network would now stretch farther.
Garlic mine paths mapped along troll routes.
Chili corridors layered over approach lines.
Bonktato launch zones set to cover choke points.
The trolls did not leave their caves.
They did not need to.
But they accepted something new.
Interdependence.
When Camp Stymphalian faced danger, they would come.
The treants needed no convincing.
They already saw the plants inside Camp Stymphalian as kin.
Mutated.
Changed.
But kin.
When the bamboo shifted, the treants marched.
When the ants surged, the treants held.
Now they offered silent agreement.
Root systems slowly intertwined along the outer edge of Phong's territory.
Information flow improved.
The early warning radius widened.
Some even allowed eavesdropping woodears to be planted on their bark.
A few treants treated them like accessories.
And just like that, without massacre, without conquest, without slaughtering whole ecosystems, Phong's influence on Floor One grew.
A network.
Lizardman canals.
Troll mountain paths.
Treant forest edges.
Moletato tunnels below.
Woodear listening lines above.
All of it linked.
No banner declared it.
No throne named it.
But reality recognized it.
On the surface, he was a level one farmer.
A curiosity.
A meme.
A footnote in someone else's story.
In the dungeon, he was becoming the anchor of stability in a floor growing more dangerous by the day.
The jade dragon watched from above.
This one did not rule through annihilation.
He stabilized.
Balanced.
Integrated.
A rare kind of strength.
No conquest.
No throne.
No roar.
And yet the food chain was beginning to bend around him.
Interesting.
Very interesting.
On Floor One, there were floor bosses.
There were warlords.
There were predators.
And then there was a farmer.
Alone.
Quiet.
Building alliances with roots instead of blood.
Not feared loudly.
But respected in silence.
On the surface, he was nobody.
In the dungeon's first floor, Phong was becoming something far more dangerous than a conqueror.
He was becoming indispensable.