The Royal Military Academy's Impostor Owns a Dungeon [BL]

Lumensteel.

A rare, hybrid material created by fusing crushed luminous crystals, refined spiritual iron, and binding flux.

In truth, it didn’t particularly sound rare anymore, not with everything Cece had seen since swearing loyalty to Luca and House Kyros. But to the right craftsmen, this material could make even an old dwarf weep tears of wonder.

But why?

Of the required components, binding flux was the easiest to obtain, so that was not really the concern.

Refined spiritual iron was expensive and usually required connections to dwarven forgers, but it was still obtainable if one had the right people and the right money.

Heck, with Cece’s experience, even if someone didn’t have the right money but managed to find someone as gullible as she once was, they could still make a living selling refined spiritual iron. Just look at a certain man whose balls were the size of peanuts and whose brain was even smaller.

Ahem, but that’s for another day.

For the pertinent issue was the remaining component to make Lumensteel—crushed luminous crystals.

And soon, they would all understand why it was about to become the star of the show.

__

Cece cleared her throat sharply. The sound echoed across the meeting room like a gavel.

Everyone sat around a large table that had been dragged into one of the dungeon-linked space’s briefing halls. This time, there were even more people listening in, including Duke Leander, who had gone from pale to entirely shellshocked the moment he learned where Luca had been while he was passed out in the medical bay.

He already thought he reached his limit after hearing about the monster, the battle, and the mass looting, err—harvesting.

Then he learned the cadets had actually trekked through the Mature Contaminated Zone.

On foot.

Which was how they discovered the probable origin of those aberrant creatures.

The Duke had sat down so hard everyone thought the chair would break.

And so Cece thought it would be best to explain everything now rather than have to face his wrath twice.

”I was not sure at first, so I had to go back and confirm everything before telling you all about my hypothesis.”

The curious listeners leaned closer as she gestured toward the samples on the table.

”It was obvious that they tried to pass it off as a meteorite during the season. I guess I have to give them props for that.” Cece rolled her eyes. The plan was clever in a very annoying way. Apparently, meteorite strikes were common enough in Zone Four that no one would ever think to inspect every single one.

And considering how understaffed this place had been—populated mostly by soldiers close to being medically discharged or those who weren’t full-time combatants—checking rocks was not exactly on the priority list.

”But the thing is, they probably believed they could hide the traces completely.”

”Sure, the outside was rather creative, but in truth, what’s truly interesting is the inside of this thing.”

Cece flicked her wrist. A projection lit up, enlarging the interior of the shattered capsule.

Confusion rippled across the table.

”What exactly are we looking at?” someone muttered.

Before anyone else could guess, Cece dropped the bomb.

”This thing was likely supposed to be food.”

”???”

”Huh? Food?” Duke Leander asked, blinking like the world had tilted sideways.

”Yes, Your Grace. Like how some creatures eat their shells for their first meal, I think this entire capsule was made as the initial sustenance for the monsters they sent over.”

”So I guess, they thought the creature held inside would be able to eat all of it, leaving no traces behind. And for the most part, that’s what actually happened—if not for bits of it snagging elsewhere.”

”!!!”

”Auntie Cece, is that actually possible?” Luca gasped, completely bewildered. The expensive material was actually food?

”Yes. This thing was made with a material that can somehow hold spiritual energy. But I almost didn’t recognize it at first because most of what made it Lumensteel had already been gnawed out.”

She pointed to a chunk of rubble on the table. Up close, it barely resembled metal and looked more like chewed stone.

Then she picked up a fragment separated from the central wreck. It gleamed faintly.

”This is what it’s actually supposed to look like. And this is how I realized it was made with Lumensteel.”

”As you can see, it is like the monsters chose specific bits to eat. And that is because Lumensteel can only hold spiritual energy through the crushed Lumen crystals used to forge it.”

”?!”

”Huh? Wait. Lumen crystals? Isn’t that from—” Ollie sat up stiffly, eyes wide. As a Mylor, how could he not recognize something so expensive?

The dwarf actually smiled at this, figured that kid would be familiar with something so expensive.

”Yes. As you know, there is a strict monopoly on Lumen crystals. And that monopoly is held tightly by House Aetheryon, the elven royals of Lumira Spiral.”

”!!!”

”ELVES?! ACTUAL ELVES?!” Princess Kira shrieked. She shot up so violently she nearly flipped the table. Her hands dug into her red hair, her eyes bulging in disbelief.

”Are you saying the rebel orcs actually teamed up with elves?! THE ELVES?!”

”I was going to say maybe they were framed or something,” Cece replied, shrugging. ”But with the quantity of Lumen crystals used here, and how mature these crystals turned out to be, the orcs would have had to rob the royal family at this point.”

A beat of stunned silence passed.

”Uhm... and I think you should all see this,” Cece added.

She paused for barely a second before deciding to reveal everything at once.

The dwarven woman, smallest person in the room yet somehow the most terrifying, reached into her storage device and pulled out a giant glass box. With a firm thud, she placed it right on the middle of the table.

Two sworn brothers shot out of their seats like launched fireworks.

”!!!”

”Auntie Cece!” they yelled in unison.

Inside the massive glass terrarium sat a breathtaking sight.

Crystals.

Not small crystals either.

A huge lattice of glowing, branching crystalline structures filled the container from corner to corner. At the center of it all pulsed the crystal seed they had found during the crystal quake.

It had grown.

A lot.

”Yep,” Cece said proudly. ”Remember that crystal seed? Well, look at how it reacted with the remnants of the wreck.”

It had been an accidental discovery. At first, Cece was simply trying to pick a place to store the samples she collected from the rubble. But the moment she set them near the terrarium, she noticed something strange.

They moved.

Not abruptly. Not dramatically. But they shifted—just enough for her to narrow her eyes and think, What in the world is that supposed to mean?

And sure enough, when she leaned closer, she realized the samples were inching toward the crystal seed, which was submerged in a supersaturated solution about two displays to the right of it.

So she experimented. Carefully. Very carefully. She even muttered a prayer before placing a tiny fragment inside the enclosure.

And at first? Nothing happened.

Or so she thought.

Because when she returned moments later, she nearly choked on her own breath.

The glass encasement had transformed into the beginnings of a crystal garden—delicate formations branching out from the seed that now surprisingly hosted the fragment she had added earlier.

All of that in just a short span of time.

And now, that was exactly what Cece had brought out to show everyone.

The entire terrarium sparkled like a star-born forest.

Luca’s mouth fell open.

Ollie looked ready to pass out.

Cece smirked.

”Now, I don’t know about you guys,” she said, tapping the glass, ”but I believe we just got ourselves an accidental Lumen Crystal farm.”

__

Obviously that was an unexpected good news. But considering the heavy and burdensome discovery about the possible involvement of the elves, finding such a resource at least gave them something that wasn’t as gloomy.

Naturally, both Luca and Ollie had practically healed from their most recent traumatic experiences.

In the mind of one heir, they wouldn’t have been able to see the rubble with their own eyes if not for how they had to manually trek to look for it.

In truth, his husband thought that this could not possibly be related because Sid and D-29 already flagged the site as odd even before the soldiers had all turned weird, but how could he say anything when his little money-grubber was already skipping around in happiness?

And so he let him.

Just like how Kyle let Ollie stick himself against the glass like a real-life barnacle.

What about the twisted roots and deadly projectiles? Forgotten. Because apparently the little star could be healed by something that shone remotely as brightly.

It was just that contrary to the contemplative atmosphere around the officers who had been trying to think about the implications of this possible collusion, one princess had to be sent to the medical bay for hypertension!

Forget about all her earlier grievances! Because more than anything, just how could those absolute dimwits even think of breathing the same air as those elves?!