Summoner Online: I Became the Tutorial Boss with a 999+ Villainess-Chapter 118: To house a monster.

"Got it, Boss. Leave it to me."

She turned and walked through the gate, her confident stride cutting through the tense atmosphere like a blade through cloth.

The refugees flinched when they saw her. The wolf beastkin at the front raised her head from the dirt, her amber eyes widening as she took in the sight of Fhera, a beastkin like herself, walking out of a city full of monsters as though she owned the place.

"Hey," Fhera said, stopping a few paces in front of them. Her hands were on her hips, her tail still swaying lazily. "You all look like hell."

No one responded.

"Relax. The Boss says you can come in. You are going to get food, a place to sleep, and someone to patch up those wounds. But there are rules. You follow the rules, you stay. You break the rules, you leave. Simple enough, right?"

The wolf beastkin stared at her.

"You... you are a beastkin."

"Lion beastkin, actually. Name is Fhera. I am one of the Pillars of Valdris. That big scary guy in the black cloak back there? That is my Lord. The Shadow of Victims. He runs this place."

She leaned down slightly, meeting the wolf beastkin’s eyes at her level.

"And he just told me to bring you inside. So get up. You do not need to kneel here."

The wolf beastkin’s lips trembled. She pressed them together hard, the way people do when they are trying very hard not to cry in public.

She failed.

The tears came silently, rolling down her furred cheeks as she pushed herself up from the ground on shaking legs. Behind her, the others began to stir.

A few of the children stepped out from behind their parents, their wide eyes taking in the city walls, the skeleton guards, and the lion-eared woman who was smiling at them like the whole thing was perfectly normal.

One by one, they stood.

And one by one, they walked through the gates of Valdris.

...

Kai watched from inside as the group entered.

’Forty people. Give or take. Non-combatants, most of them. A few look like they might have had military training at some point, but nothing recent. The majority are families, laborers, and elderly. Not exactly the population boost I was hoping for when I imagined growing the city.’

He paused.

’But Sanovere was right about one thing. These people have nowhere else to go. That makes them loyal by default. Not because they love me, but because the alternative is death. And loyalty born from survival is the most durable kind there is.’

He turned and began walking toward the council room.

’That said, this changes everything. Valdris was supposed to be a military installation with a trade hub attached to it.

A fortress city.

But you cannot call something a fortress city when it has children running around and elderly people who need medical attention. A fortress does not have families. A nation does.’

The realization settled over him like a weight he had not been expecting.

’I am not building a base anymore. I am building a country.’

...

The processing took the rest of the day.

Sanovere handled it with the efficiency of a man who had been organizing things since before most of the people in the room were born.

Each refugee was brought to a makeshift desk in the eastern courtyard, where one of Sanovere’s undead scribes recorded their name, race, age, place of origin, and any skills they possessed.

The results were more useful than Kai had expected.

Among the forty-three refugees, there were six former craftsmen, including a leatherworker, two carpenters, and a blacksmith’s apprentice. There were eleven laborers with experience in farming or construction. Three had basic medical knowledge, which in this world meant they could set a bone and apply a healing salve without killing the patient.

The rest were families with children, elderly dependents, and a handful of individuals who had no discernible skills but were willing to work.

The wolf beastkin who had spoken at the gate was named Ren. She was twenty-six years old, a former scout for a mercenary company that had dissolved after its leader was killed in a territorial dispute. She had been leading the group for the past three weeks, guiding them south through the wilderness after they were driven out of a border town.

"They burned our homes," Ren told Sanovere during the processing, her voice flat with the numbness of someone who had told the story too many times.

"The town elder said non-humans were attracting trouble. That the Adventurer Guild was cracking down on mixed settlements. So they gave us a day to leave, and when we did not leave fast enough, they set fire to the eastern quarter where most of us lived."

Sanovere’s quill did not pause. He wrote every word.

"Did any authority intervene?" he asked.

"There is no authority that cares about beastkin in Traona. The guards watched. Some of them laughed."

Sanovere looked up from the parchment.

"You will find things are different here."

...

By evening, the refugees had been housed in a row of newly constructed stone buildings along the outer wall of the eastern district. The buildings were originally intended as storage for trade goods, but Sanovere had them repurposed within hours, adding bedding, water basins, and basic furniture commandeered from the dungeon’s supply reserves.

Kai sat on his throne in the First Floor hall, reviewing the registration documents that Sanovere had compiled into a neat leather-bound folder.

’Six craftsmen. That is more than I expected. The leatherworker alone is worth ten laborers in terms of what he can produce. And the carpenters can integrate into Teriam’s construction teams on the surface. If I pair the blacksmith’s apprentice with the Fifth Floor forge operations, Teriam might actually stop complaining about being understaffed.’

He flipped to the next page.

’The three with medical knowledge are the most valuable. We have healing potions and basic monster regeneration, but none of that works on non-monsters. If I am going to have civilians living here, I need people who can treat them. This is not optional.’

He closed the folder and leaned back.

Sanovere stood at the foot of the throne, waiting.

"You anticipated this," Kai said. It was not a question.

Sanovere dipped his head.

"Not specifically, my Lord. But I have studied enough history to know that power attracts more than soldiers. The moment Valdris was named and the sovereignty agreement was signed, we became visible. Not just to empires and kings, but to every displaced soul on the continent who had been told there was nowhere left for them."

"And you think more will come."

"I am certain of it. These forty-three are the first. They will not be the last. Word travels fast among the desperate, my Lord. Within a month, I expect the number to double. Within three months, it could triple."

Kai stared at the ceiling.

’Triple. That means over a hundred civilians by the end of the season. Mixed in with over a thousand monsters. The logistics alone are a nightmare. Housing, food, water, sanitation, medical care, conflict resolution between species that have never lived together before. This is not a military problem. This is a governance problem. And governance problems do not get solved with swords.’

He looked at Sanovere.

"Draft an amendment to the city code. A sixth law."

Sanovere’s quill was already in his hand.

"The citizens of Valdris are protected equally under its laws, regardless of race, origin, or species. Any monster that harms a civilian resident without cause will be treated the same as if they harmed another monster. And any civilian who betrays the city will be treated the same as if they were a monster."

He paused.

"Equal protection. Equal consequence."

Sanovere wrote the words without comment, but the faint curve of his lips suggested he approved.

"My Lord, if I may add a suggestion."

"Speak."

"The refugees will need a point of contact. Someone who speaks their language, understands their concerns, and can serve as a bridge between them and the monster population. I would recommend the wolf beastkin, Ren. She led them here. They trust her. If we formalize her role as a civilian representative, it will give the refugees a sense of structure and give us a reliable channel for communication."

Kai considered this for a moment.

’A civilian representative. That is not a bad idea. It is actually a very good idea. If I appoint a monster to manage the civilians, they will be terrified. If I appoint one of their own, they will feel represented. And if that representative answers to me, I maintain control without appearing heavy-handed.’

"Do it. Inform Ren that she has been appointed as the Civilian Liaison of Valdris. She reports to you, and you report to me."

"Understood, my Lord."

...

Later that night, Kai walked through the eastern district alone.

It was not something he did often. The dungeon lord of Valdris did not make casual strolls through his own city.

But tonight, something had compelled him to see it with his own eyes.

The refugee quarters were quiet. Most of the adults had collapsed into their beds the moment they were shown to their rooms, their bodies finally giving in to the exhaustion they had been carrying for weeks.

But not all of them.

Near the end of the row, sitting on a stone bench outside one of the buildings, was an elderly Reptilian woman. Her scales were faded and cracked with age, and her hands rested on a wooden cane that looked like it had been carved by someone who loved her very much.

She was staring at the sky.

Kai stopped a few paces away. He had not intended to speak to anyone. He had intended to observe and leave. But the old woman noticed him before he could turn away.

"You are the lord of this place," she said. It was not a question.

"I am."

She looked at him for a long time. Her eyes were cloudy with age, but there was something behind them that was still sharp.

"In seventy-two years of living, I have been driven from four homes. Twice by humans. Once by war. And once by a flood that the spirits never warned us about." She tapped her cane against the ground.

"Each time, the people who took us in made sure we knew we were a burden. They gave us food, but they made us eat last. They gave us shelter, but they put us in the worst rooms. They helped us, but they made sure we never forgot that we owed them."

She looked back at the sky.

"Your skeleton gave my granddaughter the same bed as everyone else. Your vampire gave us the same food as your soldiers. And your lion girl told my grandson that he could play in the courtyard tomorrow if he wanted to."

Her voice cracked slightly.

"No one has ever treated us like we belonged somewhere. Not once."

Kai said nothing.

He stood there for a moment longer, looking at the old woman and the quiet buildings and the skeleton guards patrolling the perimeter with the same mechanical precision they applied to everything.

Then he turned and walked back toward the dungeon.

’...’

He paused at the entrance to the First Floor.

’But maybe that is exactly why it needs to be this.’

The gates of Valdris had opened for the first time to people who were not soldiers, not merchants, and not monsters.

And they would not be the last.