'From my speculation, I knew that the situation we are currently in is far from what we could call plausible, but now... "hopeless" - sounds like a better counterpart.'

'Well… at least now you know the reasoning behind my anger at you.'

Looking at my first thoughts - I argued that the worst part of our condition - the size of the dungeon itself being significantly inferior to those of lower ranks. Or that my lord was about to win a "Biggest Clown of Agatria" award for accepting deals like this, yet after the lord's explanation - those suddenly felt one of the most insignificant among the variety of problems.

My eyes were focused on the position of an artificial sphere near the center of the so-called dungeon. Usually, every dungeon has some astral artifact to constantly fill space with traps and monsters (as well as resources for their power and extension of life span). Under normal circumstances, even a greenish-looking sphere like this would be enough to sustain both of us for over a decade. Yeah, under normal circu...

'~But how did you manage to crack this one. Aren't artifacts supposed to be as hard as diamonds!?~' The question I made to break the seemingly depressing silence between us came out of my mind - putting the cave in tremble.

'I swear it was like this when I just got up here.' Comes from a lord, who immediately starts looking to see if there are any drops of sweat on him

'Maybe - it will teach you the important lesson of not listening to some strangers at the graveyards.'

'You such a huge stroke for someone I can put back into the grave with a single command of my.'

'~Isn't that gonna turn out even a bigger problem for you - "boss of the dungeon."~'

"Ahhhh;" The face of an archdevil turns a blood-like color from the overflowing anger within, yet in mere seconds regains his previous coldness.

-' Whatever you say, we should consider some plans on how to find another dungeon before meeting our ancestors on the other side!'

'~You said so, yet from the memories you have shared with me - it seems that the closest one from here is nearly 4 days of walking away, not to mention the required astral consumption for such a long distance, along with the difference of flow between desert and Latrian!~'

'I mean - the situation couldn't be that bad?? We probably would be able to find some of the low-stage monsters and gain some temporary energy from them - right??'

'Ah yeah, surely an archdevil, for whom it is impossible to leave this place, and skeleton with amnesia would handle all the treats of desert near the forest of Latrian without breaking a sw...Like that is even possible!'

The situation couldn't get any worse... both of us were lying on the ground while every plan we were making shattered and destroyed in mere seconds.

'Hey, speaking of monsters, I remember now about a pack of wargolds I had slightly noticed around 3 days ago near this place while running from death.'

'Well, that's at least something, but what is telling you that those dogs would go to an abandoned place like this?'

'You might be right - if only we forget about one undeniable fact!'

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'And that is?' Even considering my lack of emotions, something similar to curiosity took over my mind.

'The fact that they weren't moving into the forest direction!' Said the devil and signed proudly, as if waiting for the highest praise for his wonderful note.

'~Don't want to break the shine moment of yours - but do you know that wargolds are used to living in deserts, and the closest assumption of mine is that they simply were going back to the main part of their herd from some sort of investigation or negotiation in the forest, and the herd itself wouldn't be as close to the main forest?~'

"~Ahhhhh, don't want to hear you, don't want to hear, just shut up, shut up, shut up, can't listen to this anymore!~"

"......"

'Ah yeah, sorr... it wasn't my fault, to begin with - you must be a truly depressing person in your past life if you can't even believe in the small possibility of saving the life of yours.'

'Past life, eh... Maybe you are not that far from the truth - assuming that despite being seemingly noble in the past, all I was buried with were nothing - but a dirty shattered robe, wooden stick, and flower that, for some reason, was placed in your hair.'

'So about wargolds, the other point that you forgot to take into account.'

'I hope this one won't be as stupid as prev...'

'Just hear me out... as far as you can see, the sphere in the center of this cave - seemed to be cracked recently, but just how recently? If we take a better look at the sphere, despite looking like it's gonna break in a second, this artifact still glows green-like light - right? And considering the overall structure of this dungeon - it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that it was around that color from the start.

That could've led us to a certain scenario - the sphere has been cracked recently enough to, by one of the laws of magic compatibility made by the previous archmage, release all of that energy somewhere. Also, let's not skip over the fact that one of the main objectives of non-dungeon monsters should be to collect sources of life energy just to delay their unavoidable death, so even an insignificant artifact-like item should be able to take some of their attention, as for why they aren't here yet... let's see, wargolds are too scared to investigate unknown territories in such small group so they could've been asking for help, and second things that shouldn't be slept on is infamous lack of senses also not that great when it comes to not physical kind of things, so with all that it would fine to assume about why they didn't come here yet.'

'~This is the first time I've ever heard you say something not so stupid, now “I’m one of the four spears” joke of yours doesn’t even sound that absurd~' I implied, while a clear grimace of shock appeared on my "face."

'Aren't you a little too mean for a monster with no sign of emotion?'

'Maybe in a past life, I was working as some sort of comic or guard.'

'However - now the job of yours is to be a tool of mine, so I shall ask you to reduce the level of your comments towards the address of my, or I will have no option other than using another command for this.'

'You know you can't abuse those commands when our dungeon core is barely able to sustain our existence, right?'

'Then you should know that making conflict in a situation similar to the one we are currently in is nowhere near that good of an idea either!'

'Yeah, yeah, fine - stop complaining and better make some plans on how to make use of them since I doubt that they would so easily let me ride them to another dungeon.'

'Yo... Fine, what if we just told them that super strong archdevil that can potentially kill them all with one word live here?'

'Do you unironically need to make such statements every time I make a little compliment? First of all - the "archdevil" in question has lost all of the power he was so proud of, second is that this cave is not only small but frail as well, so if one of the wargolds tried to attack the dungeon itself that would lead to it's shattering in mere of seconds. And finally, even if that plan worked out as you wanted, the possibility of them running away is way higher than that of joining us. However, thinking about this now... I might use that idea as one of the points, but what abou...'

"Oooghuuuuu"

'Speaking of the devil... I guess I ought to think about what to do in the process.

Notes from other world: Artificial spheres fall into several categories:

Colorless without energy, Green- with energy somewhere comparable to an average magical artifact, Brown- energy potent enough to be equal to those of weapon-type artifacts, Blue ones would be enough to put a pretty strong barrier for several decades on a small village, Staring from Red it wouldn't be an exaggeration to call those a national treasure and potentially without using it can last for eternity.

There are some exceptional ones though: For example, white spheres are impossible to replicate under any condition since they are made by Gods whose power knows no limits and allows them to ignore any laws and orders.

Black ones on the other side of this coin are the complete opposite because instead of providing energy they consume an even greater amount after being made. Royal scientists speculate that this "must be the result of the last survivors among the Daemon race."

Oh! Also, the "artificial" part of the name comes from the artifact, not like they couldn't be created by using human mages, but at a time when that name was created because no one thought about this possibility.