What the Succubus Queen, Licorice, did next was truly shocking. When she slightly lifted up her dress, the 213 succubi in the castle all transformed into bats and flew into her dress. The dress was see-through, but I couldn’t see the bats once they went in!

In utter shock, I stared at her dress fixedly and asked, “What happened!?”

She chuckled. “Huhu, you won’t see them even if you stare so intently. Do you want to try lifting my dress up?”

“No thanks!” I refused vehemently.

Licorice fiddled with the hem of her dress seductively, but I answered with a forehead flick. While she muttered in pain, the castle that she and the other succubi were living in began to crumble.

Once the pain seemingly subsided, Licorice raised her head and looked at the crumbling castle with a touched expression. She then turned around to face me and said, “Dear Husband, I have lost my home now, so you have to take responsibility. Food, clothing, shelter, and everything else!”

“Succubi eat food?” I asked.

She smiled toothily. “Yeah, but we do have a preference, huhu.”

Licorice stared intently at a certain part of my body as she licked her lips. I was already worrying about how the guild members would react once they saw her.

Wait, no, after the Floor Master battle, the first one I saw was always…

“Shin-nim? What hap…Kyak!?”

As I expected, we were sent to the front of the Floor Shop. I didn’t know what happened to the dungeon when I entered the Event Dungeon. Loretta was approaching me with a worried expression and screamed in shock when she saw Licorice.

“What’s that monster!? Shin-nim, n-next to you!”

I resisted the urge to sigh. “Oh, Loretta. This is Licorice.”

The succubus waved cheerfully. “Hi! I’m Licorice, Dear Husband named me. Who are you? Dear Husband’s concubine?”

“Dear Husband…?” Loretta gasped out.

Oh look, Loretta’s double-edged battle ax… Wait, no, stop with that!

For the next five minutes, I explained what had happened. Of course, I introduced Loretta to Licorice as well. Loretta clenched her fists, seemingly thinking about something extremely violent, as she flapped her ears.

“I see…Hmm, 213 succubi and a Succubus Queen…Not to mention, they’re a clan highly apt in battle…Uuu, they’ll be of great help to Shin-nim. Uu…I’ll have to accept…”

Licorice asked, “Hm? It’s not like you’re his concubine, so what relation do you have with Dear Husband that gives you the right to accept me or not?”

“Licorice, shut up,” I hissed under my breath.

Licorice continued brightly. “Dear Husband, this elf is glaring at me. Scary.”

Even Licorice seemed unable to withstand Loretta’s killing intent as she hid behind my back and trembled. That seemed to make Loretta even more furious.

“Shin-nim, that’s enough!” she hollered angrily.

I wailed, “What? But this isn’t my fault!?”

She shrieked, “You could have killed them all with an iron will and stone heart!”

“You want me to kill them when they never had any hostility against me!?” I exclaimed pitifully.

“Ugh…”

Hard-pressed for a correct response, Loretta drooped her ears and grumbled. At that moment, Licorice tapped on my arm and said, “Dear Husband, I want to go to your home now.”

I looked at her. “Home? You mean the one in the Residential Area? Or the one on Earth?”

Thinking about Licorice and the 213 succubi that should be hiding in her dress, I felt like I was going nuts. As Licorice’s master, I could command her servants perfectly. While each of them had a strength greater than a typical SS rank monster…

I made my decision. “Licorice, we’re going to Earth now. Loretta, I’ll be back in a bit.”

Loretta said with a slight sob, “Yes, Shin-nim. I’m trusting you, okay? You have to come back! Don’t be seduced by a mere succubus!”

“Mere succubus!? A succubus is a lot better than a mere elf!” Licorice retorted.

I snapped, “Quiet, both of you!”

After giving Loretta and Licorice appropriate punishments, I returned to Earth with the fretting Licorice. As no one was home, I messaged Hwaya and headed to our guild house on Earth.

I was sure I had only contacted Hwaya, but when I arrived at the guild house, Sumire, Yua, Ludia, and Ye-Eun were all there.

“Why are you all here?” I asked, bewildered.

Hwaya’s answer was particularly noteworthy.

“Well, you said, ‘I got a force we could completely trust!’, so that obviously made me think, ‘what woman is it this time?’ So I gathered the people I thought would be my allies.”

“Hey…” I answered, slightly hurt.

Sumire interrupted, “But it really was a woman.. Hwaya Unni’s intuition is scary!”

Ye-Eun asked, “So who is she? She doesn’t look human.”

While Ye-Eun’s respect for Hwaya seemed to have risen, Ludia specialized in holy magic and seemed to have felt Licorice’s aura as she put up her guard. Just like I did for Loretta, I explained what happened with Licorice to them.

“214…” Hwaya muttered.

“And they’re all succubi…” Sumire said with her eyes wide.

“Wow, she looks much stronger than the Succubus Queen I met before. Is she really a Succubus Queen?” Ye-Eun asked curiously.

Licorice raised her chin arrogantly. “Hmph, isn’t it obvious that I’d be stronger than the ones who have entrusted their existence to the dungeon? They’re tied to the dungeon, but I’m not.”

“Succubus…whew.”

I didn’t know why, but Ludia had put her staff down seemingly in a relieved manner. At that moment, Licorice tilted her head and asked, “I understand that they’re all Dear Husband’s women, but who’s the legal wife? You see, Mares have a strict hierarchy. If you tell me, I’ll behave accordingly.”

Silence descended. When I was about to say something with a sigh, the atmosphere changed. Ludia raised her staff again, while the air heated up from Hwaya’s fireballs.

I looked around and yelled out “What are you doing!?”

Hwaya shot me a glare. “I thought about making it clear. Legal wife…For now, I’ll accept that position.”

“That position belongs to me!” Ludia shrieked.

Ye-Eun interjected, “I’m confident in fighting too!”

I used Divine Speed and calmed them down by flicking their foreheads. Then, I continued, “In any case, with Licorice’s servants, things will get a lot easier. They all have human intelligence and there’s no need to worry about them betraying us.”

Hwaya stroked her chin. “Mmm, we do have a lot of work to do and it’s not like we can keep seeking outside help…and I feel sorry making Sumire work all the time.”

I nodded vigorously. “Right, if we think of them as 213 SS rankers, that’s indeed frightening. They can probably conquer the world with just their strength alone.”

Licorice raised her hand and said with a bright voice, “My servants are competent! If it’s Dear Husband’s command, they’ll do anything!”

After contemplating for a brief moment, Hwaya nodded.

“…Alright. I’m looking forward to working together. With your sincerity and ability, let’s maintain a healthy competitive relationship. That said, I can’t accept all 213 others as competitors. Let them find other men!”

Licorice tried to explain helpfully, “Ah, my clan normally chooses one man to serve. You see, we share a strong link. With it, we can share experiences and grow stronger quicker. But there’s also a clear disadvantage. We feel excruciating pain when we do it with other men. So it’s always been that the queen chooses a man, while the others follow. Don’t worry! Our Dear Husband can easily handle 200 or 300 of us and not even feel tired!”

“That’s not the problem!” I wailed.

“…”

So that’s why they were all together in that Event Dungeon… Just when I thought a good relationship would be established between Hwaya and Licorice, it was shattered. That said, everyone accepted the succubus clan’s usefulness. First, the Succubus Queen’s direct subordinate, the Elder Succubus ‘Mirei’, became Hwaya’s secretary. Though Sumire was still planning on staying in Korea, she was now free from all the work we had been putting on her.

“I like her. She’s even dressed modestly.” Hwaya remarked in satisfaction.

“Please take good care of me, Hwaya-nim.”

She had a leather jacket, leather pants, and gray hair that flowed down to one side of her shoulder. With serene gray eyes, she was the picture-perfect secretary. Not to mention, as Mirei had strength that was only second to Licorice, she could fight with Hwaya if something happened.

Additionally, dozens of other succubi were placed under Mirei to monitor and collect data on monsters, Event Dungeons, and Event Raids that appeared on Earth.

Until now, Revival didn’t have a proper information sector. As a result, information had to flow from an outside source to Hwaya then to me. With this new addition, everything would change.

Since all of them had the power of an SS ranker, their ability to collect information was far greater than before, and they were all highly motivated. Furthermore, Mirei could create mental links between herself and Licorice at any time, so Hwaya and I received information practically as they flowed in. The succubi’s ability couldn’t be described as just great.

“How did you guys lose?” Hwaya asked curiously.

Licorice primly said, “Maybe fate got in our way so I could meet Dear Husband.”

“Right.”

It was more difficult to deal with stealthy approaches like Hwaya’s, but I liked that Licorice was so brazen. That way, I could strike her down without hesitation.

…Eh? Why did I sound like a horrible guy just now?

However, other than Licorice, Mirei, and the thirty succubi under her command, there were still 182 succubi. What were they supposed to do? They couldn’t all climb the dungeon. Should we send them to other countries? While I was wracking my stupid brain, Licorice asked, “Dear Husband, why are there so many neglected monsters in this world?”

I explained, “Oh, that’s because people can’t easily enter territories that the monsters have claimed. It’s dangerous and we don’t even know what monsters are there. Since everyone’s busy dealing with the monsters appearing near human territories, they can’t gather the numbers to tackle such large areas.”

Then, Licorice pointed at the 182 bats filling the mansion.

“Aren’t they there?”

My eyes lit up. “…You’re right!”

The real territorial war between humans and monsters had begun with a trivial thought. Just like everything in the world usually was.