My Creations Followed Me to Another World-Chapter 30: The Grand Strategist

The heavy iron door of Hollow-7 slammed shut, sealing out the Undercity, the Spire, and the rest of the dangerous world.

For a long moment, nobody moved. The silence in the room was heavy, broken only by the ragged breathing of the party. The adrenaline that had carried them through the surface, the bank, and the alleyway fight finally crashed, leaving a physical ache in Dante’s bones.

Shivvy, the Key, didn’t even make it to the cot. Her legs gave out the moment the door clicked. Hana caught her, scooping the small thief into her arms. Shivvy was already asleep, her small hand still clutching the fabric of Hana’s tunic in a death grip.

"She’s out cold," Hana whispered, her voice fierce but exhausted. She carried the child to the bed, tucking her in with a tenderness that belied the violence she had been ready to unleash at the maintenance hatch.

Subject 47 stood by the door, her suit humming faintly as it entered a recharge cycle.

[STATUS: MISSION COMPLETE. ENERGY RESERVES: 12%. ENTERING LOW-POWER MODE.]

Dante slumped onto one of the wooden stools. He felt the weight of the Sun-stone in his pocket. It felt heavy. Not physically—it was a light, warm gem—but metaphysically. It felt like carrying a neutron star.

He pulled it out.

The Sun-stone of the Regent sat on the rough wooden table, glowing with a soft, terrifying inner light. It wasn’t just a jewel. It was a Keystone. It was the master access code to the Lord-Regent’s entire financial empire.

Dante stared at it. The euphoria of the Level Up, the rush of the Creator Level 5 notification, began to curdle into cold dread.

"We didn’t just rob a bank," Dante murmured, running a hand through his sweat-damp hair. "We stole the keys to the kingdom."

He looked at the black dragon-hide ledger Corva had given them. The contract. The "Retainer."

"Hana," Dante said, his voice hollow. "If I walk into Corva’s office with this... she won’t pay us."

Hana looked up from the cot. "What?"

"She’s a crime lord. An accountant for the underworld," Dante said, his mind racing. "Right now, we’re assets. Useful tools. But this?" He gestured to the stone. "This makes us a threat. If she gets this stone, she controls the Regent. She doesn’t need us anymore. In fact, leaving us alive is a liability. The moment I hand this over, she has every reason to kill us and scrub the books."

He was a Level 5 Creator. He had a Tank, a DPS, and a Rogue.

But he was an amateur playing a game of 4D chess against a Grandmaster. He didn’t know the politics. He didn’t know the leverage points. He was going to walk into that vault and get played.

He needed a brain.

Dante opened his System Interface. The blue light washed over his tired face.

[Creator Level: 5]

[Mana: 50/50]

[Party Slots: 4/4]

The empty gray box of the Fourth Slot pulsed, waiting.

He scrolled through his roster.

He didn’t need another fighter. 47 could kill anyone in the room.

He didn’t need a mage. Magic set off wards.

He didn’t need a healer. They were physically fine.

He needed someone who understood power. Someone who could look at a kingdom, find the loose thread, and pull until the whole thing unraveled.

He scrolled past his MMORPG characters. Past his FPS soldiers. He stopped at a folder labeled: "Strategy / Kingdom Builder."

The game was Grand Empire: Age of Kings. A hardcore 4X strategy game where he had conquered a continent not with armies, but with trade routes, spies, and ruthless diplomacy.

He clicked the folder. There was only one character he had poured his soul into. His Avatar. His Chancellor.

[Select Summon: Iris, The Grand Strategist]

[Class: Administrator / Diplomat] 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

[Level: 50]

[Lore: The Shadow behind the Throne. The Architect of the Golden Age. She managed the economy of twelve provinces and negotiated the surrender of the Barbarian Coalition without spilling a drop of blood.]

"Come on," Dante whispered. "I need a Manager."

He pressed [SUMMON].

***

The air in the room didn’t drop in temperature like it did with 47. There was no flash of light.

Instead, the air seemed to... organize itself. The dust motes stopped drifting and aligned in perfect geometric patterns. A faint sound, like the turning of a thousand perfectly oiled clockwork gears, filled the room.

Lines of golden light sketched a figure in the center of the room—precise, architectural lines forming a skeleton, then nerves, then muscle, then clothing.

The light solidified.

A woman stood there. She was tall, poised, and terrifyingly immaculate. She wore a high-collared, deeply formal suit that sat somewhere between a Victorian tailcoat and military dress uniform, colored in deep midnight blue and silver. Her hair was white-blonde, pulled back into a severe, perfect bun held in place by a silver quill.

She adjusted a pair of thin, rimless spectacles that sat on the bridge of her nose. Her eyes, a piercing, intelligent grey, scanned the room in under a second.

She looked at the sleeping child.

She looked at the recharging assassin.

She looked at the dirt-streaked farmer holding a knife.

She looked at the dank, moss-covered walls of the sewer safe house.

Finally, she looked at Dante.

She didn’t bow. She didn’t kneel. She simply pulled a sleek, leather-bound datapad (which looked suspiciously like a magical tablet) from thin air and tapped it with a stylus.

"My Lord," she said. Her voice was cool, crisp, and carried an accent that sounded like expensive education. "I see our standards have... evolved."

Dante let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. "Iris. Welcome to the party."

"Party?" Iris raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. She stepped delicately over a puddle of questionable water.

"This looks less like a party and more like a refugee crisis. I assume there is a reason I have been summoned into a sewer?"

"We’re in trouble, Iris," Dante admitted, standing up. "High-stakes trouble... Political trouble."

Iris stopped. The disdain vanished from her face, replaced by a sharp, predatory interest. She snapped her datapad shut.

"Politics," she purred, the word tasting like fine wine to her. "Now you have my attention."