The Land of Sin: Zelandia

A few days later, a group of Spider Drow finally arrived, only to find the place completely deserted. They could only stare at one another across the riverbank lair, which had been licked cleaner than a dog's bowl.

Naturally, cautious by nature, Li Wei wasn't about to stick around after making such a huge commotion and wait for someone to come looking for trouble.

Although he had nearly wiped out a Gnoll tribe and more than twenty Ogres all by himself, and scared off a Black Dragon even more cowardly than he'd been back in the day, he knew that in this world—which seemed to be a high-magic plane—his strength might let him bully ordinary creatures with no supernatural abilities, thanks to his superior information. But he was still far from being able to openly dominate a territory. A few well-prepared adventurers who had memorized spells specifically designed to counter him might be enough to send him tumbling into a ditch.

Most importantly, he was certain that if he dared to stay in that lair after the battle, some faction would definitely set its sights on him.

There was a reason for that. In the battle a few days earlier, he had paid a considerable price to lure out the Black Dragon behind the scenes. The Gnolls and Ogres had hacked him up enough to leave a few flesh wounds, but it was his point-blank breath attack that had left him feeling truly awful.

In his Red Dragon form, he was almost immune to most fire damage. But at the time, Li Wei had apparently worried that the Red Dragon's Flame Breath wouldn't be powerful enough, so he'd foolishly mixed in a little Void Umbral Energy. The resulting, unknown magical-energy reaction turned his original stream of flame into a tremendous, high-yield explosion.

The shockwave nearly knocked him unconscious. It felt as though all his internal organs and bones had been dislodged, and two of his teeth had been knocked out. Most of his scales had fallen off, too; he was now as bald as a Shar-Pei. Conservatively, it would take at least six months for them to grow back—and only if he underwent a deep sleep first.

It had been an undeniably insane move. That scene had become the Black Dragon Kangerweian's worst nightmare, and was also why Kobolds called him the "Son of Madness."

After that, he had forced himself to keep up the act on nothing but the conviction that if he fell, someone would loot his corpse. The moment he plunged into the river, he transformed into Slime form and fled as far away as he could.

All the Slimes had followed the orders he'd given them before the battle: disperse. After collecting all the spoils, they hid in the shadows, transformed into small creatures unlikely to attract attention—scorpions, geckos, beetles, and the like—and headed for several predetermined nesting sites.

That was right: predetermined nesting sites.

Over the past three years, aside from the time he spent eating and sleeping, Li Wei had devoted almost all his remaining time to exploring the Underdark.

His Slime population, now nearing six figures, had spread outward from the riverbank over the years, like his own tendrils.

A Slime on its own was hardly a threat, and its body was made almost entirely of nutrient-poor slime. Even the slime itself smelled like a sewer, and it was mildly corrosive and poisonous. Apart from the occasional starving creature that caught a few Slimes and drank their slime out of desperation, most Slimes could safely bring the things they considered "valuable" back to the lair and present them to their silver-backed boss, Li Wei.

As everyone knew, individual Slimes weren't exactly known for their intelligence. It was easy to imagine what an assortment of bizarre things they brought back.

Most were worthless things like ordinary rocks, weeds, and insect corpses. Once, a complete idiot even came back excitedly carrying a clump of what looked like pixelated shit. Li Wei was so furious that he slapped it straight back into the river.

But the beauty of probability was that when the sample size was large enough, good things were bound to turn up.

For instance, Li Wei urgently needed all kinds of metal ore, especially iron and copper. One lucky fellow even found a deposit of Mithril ore. But it was unclear what poisonous substance remained on the Mithril; after the Slime hauled it back, the brave fellow promptly succumbed to the poison and died.

Li Wei guessed that it was probably a Green Dragon's lair. He immediately felt the utmost respect for the martyr Slime. Stealing a piece of Mithril from a dragon's lair when dragons valued money above all else, and doing so in the body of a Slime, was enough to go down in the history of their species.

Whenever something Li Wei considered valuable turned up, Pipim, the brains of the Slimes, used their collective consciousness to estimate the Slime's direction and approximate distance traveled. Li Wei would then transform into a Slime and go with them to inspect the discovery in person.

Over the past few years, he had surveyed hundreds of sites and shortlisted several promising places to serve as potential future nesting grounds.

Li Wei had set a few requirements for these candidate sites: they had to be well hidden, far from the major factions and outside their patrol routes. Ideally, they would be near a Dark River, with some mineral deposits nearby, and partly enclosed. If they were ever surrounded, there also had to be a concealed natural cavern to serve as an escape route.

The gathering place Li Wei ultimately chose was a natural cavern more than twenty miles beneath Gershon City, which was ruled by the Drow. It was far larger than the place Li Wei had occupied before, with more than two hundred miles of open space. It was said to have formed when Karsus used his twelfth-circle spell, the Karsus God-Seizing Spell, to seize the authority of Mithriel, the First Generation Goddess of Magic, causing the Weave to spiral out of control and Wild Magic to pour out unchecked.

After the Second Goddess of Magic returned and reclaimed the Weave, her control over it was far weaker than it had been before her fall. As a result, some areas of the Weave remained unregulated. People called these areas the Dark Magic Web, and Spellcasters also called them Dead Magic Domains. In such places, ordinary spells that relied on the Weave could hardly be cast.

This cavern belonged to the Dark Magic Web, which was why the Drow had always used it as a sewer.

The first to discover it had been a group of desperate Goblins. They found that they could live quite comfortably just by scavenging here, and soon they multiplied and grew in number.

But before long, the Goblins noticed that every so often, the corpses of female Drow were thrown into the tunnels. The Goblins gladly made off with them. Gradually, living Drow began fleeing into the place, too. Well, the outcome was obvious: nearly all of them became the Goblins' hereditary Elves.

As for why female Drow were constantly being forced to flee here...

It was because Lolth, the Spider Queen worshipped by the Drow, favored intrigue and conflict. All manner of backstabbing, power struggles, and persecution pleased Lolth and earned her favor. As a result, the Drow's tradition of infighting was world-famous. Most of the pornographic stories that circulated widely in the surface world used Drow as a convenient subject.

To borrow a long-running joke from Coriel, a human man had gone to a city in the Underdark to experience the pleasures of the Drow. He insisted that the woman had to be highborn, because that was the only way he could feel the thrill of conquest.

The Boss had looked at him like a bumpkin and gestured to the women around her. "Nine of these ten women are eldest daughters from great Drow families who lost their power struggles. The last one was a Matriarch who'd only just seized power before her daughter staged a coup and brought her down. Which one do you want?"

Clearly, these female Drow were mostly losers from the power struggles between families in Gershon City.

After suffering grave injuries and being captured by Goblins, no matter how noble their status had been or how extraordinary their talent, endless breeding and bearing of young left them with dazed minds. They remembered and understood nothing except their craving for sex.

Having tasted the benefits, the Goblins even started sneaking into the city through Gershon City's complex sewers from time to time. During the Fluorescent Moss's dormant period—which everyone in the Underdark treated as night—they slipped into the city and searched outside taverns for Drow who had drunk themselves into a stupor. Then they carried them underground to serve as free breeding stock.

Before, when the Goblins had dealt with Drow who'd lost their power struggles, the city had been able to turn a blind eye. But sneaking into the city to loot drunk people? That was going too far.

Especially after they abducted a Drow who had only recently risen to power within her family. By the time she was found, she'd become a sow with nothing left but her instincts. This act of desecration finally enraged the upper echelons of Gershon City.

The Drow were deeply frustrated. The cavern lay within a Dead Magic Domain, and the area around it was riddled with narrow tunnels and caverns. After several small-scale purges, those damn green-skins always seemed to spring back to life before long, and they never learned their lesson! It was only when a Drow scholar dissected a Goblin and reached a horrifying conclusion—that if this kept up for a few thousand years, these damn Goblins might end up becoming almost indistinguishable from Drow—that the severity of the problem finally became clear.

The issue was finally brought before the Drow's ruling elite. But they were locked in a standoff with the Mind Flayer city of Iron Melting Fortress and couldn't spare the troops for a major purge.

The Drow had no choice but to organize a group specifically to patrol the cavern. But the work was thankless, the conditions were terrible, and the patrols were repeatedly attacked—often by Drow themselves, who were eliminating their rivals. Before long, the system existed only on paper.

That was how things remained until a group of Duergar runaways arrived.

They couldn't stand the Drow's oppression, but escaping through the city gates was too dangerous. So they decided to use the cavern as a halfway point on their way to freedom.

Then they discovered the Dead Magic Domain was rich in mineral deposits, and couldn't bring themselves to leave. So, at the risk of being wiped out by the Drow, they settled there.

They were lucky enough to enjoy a peaceful period of prosperity. More and more Duergar fled there after hearing about it, and various other slave races began appearing as well: Halflings, Kobolds, Gnolls, Lizardfolk, Half-Dragons, and even humans.

As for the Goblins, whose Combat Power was inferior to theirs, they could only seethe in silence.

By the time the Drow discovered what had happened, the newcomers had already banded together and become a force to be reckoned with.

And these slaves had named the place ZeRanDiRian.

That was the Land of Sin.

Zelandia.

At that point, the Drow ruling elite seemed to have only two choices.

They could pay a tremendous price to wipe out these slaves, who had banded together for warmth and were no weaklings. Then they could go back to being harassed by Goblins every day.

Or they could make a few token concessions and turn a blind eye to their existence—but Zelandia would have to pay a huge monthly tax in rare ores of all kinds. In a sense, that would be like acquiring a rich mine without lifting a finger.

They could also add a clause to the agreement requiring Zelandia to exterminate the Goblins, or at least prevent those damn pests from sneaking into the upper districts and causing trouble for them.

For the Drow, that choice was a no-brainer.

The Drow, who put profit above all else and were famous for having no shame, gladly chose the second option. After all, the initiative would always be theirs.

As time passed, Zelandia's tax burden grew heavier and heavier. It had become especially oppressive lately, as tensions between Gershon City, ruled by the Drow, and Iron Melting Fortress had grown increasingly fierce. The pressure had reached an almost unbearable tipping point.

In a sense, they had been the Drow's slaves from the very beginning. They'd only been given a different name.

And at this sensitive juncture, Li Wei arrived in this Land of Sin.

I wonder if those Slimes are sticking to the plan and getting the job done properly, Li Wei thought.