The humans were back, and they brought company. Well, more like a small army but still company. Entire caravans packed to the brim with an assortment of things moved through the forest in the distance.

Even though they were quite a distance away I could still see them with stunning quality thanks to my HD vision. The first thing to arrive was a beautiful and expensive-looking carriage which Sero and Markus stepped out of, I was a bit surprised by this.

Were they some type of noble? I mean, I did hear Markus say it, but I didn’t expect him to be one too. In hindsight, it should've been obvious, they both had red, fiery hair and eyes, I just wasn’t paying attention.

After they arrived, they stayed at the periphery of the forest, not venturing into the clearing to my dungeon entrance. I found this strange, but also interesting. A long Caravan came shortly after them, pulled by beautiful three-headed horses that reminded me of unicorns for some reason.

I had to get one! One way or another. The caravan unloaded with the help of some people in dirty clothes, I had assumed they were slaves at first but dismissed the thought when I saw a man in expensive blue robes with a floating blue tome behind him pay them and they changed into slightly better clothes and began donning leather and iron armor.

They were most likely peasant adventurers, I was basing this on the assumption that I was in a typical fantasy world, which I likely was. The man in expensive blue robes, who I surmised was a mage, or archwizard, made his way a bit further into the forest and summoned his floating tome.

What he did next shocked me, I knew something was about to go down, so I switched to my soul sight and watched as he began speaking words of power from his tome. Blue soul essence spilled out of his mouth every second he spoke.

The blue soul essence spilling out of his mouth gathered and shot into the air and began doing something, I didn’t know what, but I knew it was doing something, and reality cracked a second later as a human-sized scar rippled outward.

The man lifted his hands and began speaking rapidly, the rift in reality rapidly stabilized and he wove his hand around and brown soul essence rippled outward from his rainbow-colored soul and formed a stone archway littered with runes.

The rift moved and settled into the shape of the stone archway, rippling like disturbed water as it morphed to fit its circular shape. When that was done the man stopped speaking and turned around, lifted his hand, and suddenly snapped his finger.

Brown soul essence rippled out from his outstretched hand and dug into the forest floor under him, then it began to rapidly shift the dirt into pristine grey stone bricks that spread out in all directions. The trees it encountered were hit with a blast of multicolored soul essence that made them turn into perfectly cut planks.

I watched in awed silence as the man transformed the small patch of the forest’s edge into a stone foundation ready to be built upon with the rift at the center of it all. When he was done the wizard moved to the rift and touched it, it rippled again, and people of all sizes, colors, and shapes began pouring through.

They took the things carried by the caravan and began erecting wooden houses from the planks made by the wizard under his instruction. By the time the sun dipped they had managed to build five sturdy wooden houses, the largest of them being occupied by Sero and Markus. The wizard erected a massive stone tower around the rift which he disappeared into.

As the sun fully dipped the windows of the houses lit up with white light but I stopped paying attention after that. The display of such grand magic had left me in awe, the different types of soul essence I saw were elemental in nature. I only had a theory that elemental soul essence existed, but now irrefutable proof was before my eyes.

I portioned off a section of my soul essence and tried pushing the concept of water into it but nothing stuck or clicked into place. The blob of soul essence just remained there, doing nothing. Okay, so that didn’t work, maybe I had to use an actual soul instead of just soul essence?

I gently plucked a tiny soul from my growing soul reserves and pushed the concept of water into it, the soul rippled and sputtered, turning blue for a second before it collapsed and fizzled away.

Well, another failure.

Not exactly a complete failure but the soul had simply stopped existing, which was interesting in its own right. Could it be because the soul was too small? That was the only thing I could think of that could’ve had an impact on the experiment.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

I didn’t exactly have large souls in abundance though and decided to hold off on elemental soul essence for later. The humans would be here tomorrow, from the looks of it they were building a town, one that would likely explode in popularity once adventurers started delving into my dungeon.

I hoped that wizard didn’t come with the first batch of adventurers, or at all. That guy was scary, his casual display had left me considering the power scale of this world. Were wizards like him common? I sincerely hoped they weren’t, that wouldn’t mean anything good for me.

Just to be on the safe side of things, I started working on my third floor. My second floor had given me a lot of experience in designing floors and I wanted to take it to the next level with my third floor. I had severely underestimated how much space the things I wanted would take up and because of that my second floor was very cluttered, I didn’t want to make the same mistake again.

I didn’t want to attempt a jungle floor again until I had cleared out a massive amount of space, so I decided to make my third floor a grass plain. My mind made up; I widened the tunnel on the second floor then made another spiral staircase then another tunnel. After that, I began carving out the space that will be my third floor.

By the time I was done, it was nearly morning, but I was satisfied. The space I carved out had five times the space of my first floor and second combined. Which, I was quite pleased with, it was about the size of a football stadium and a little over.

Filling it with dirt was going to take days though, so I sealed off the entrance on the second floor with a stone door and layered a concealment enchantment over it. A group of humans arrived as soon as the crack of dawn.

An axe wielder, a sword wielder, a mage, and a heavily armored dwarf. They were all dressed in plate mail except the dwarf, who carried a massive sword and an equally massive shield that glittered with arcane light.

They didn’t talk, which was a huge bummer. They all looked tense, especially the dwarf, switching to my soul sight gave me an answer as to why they were so tense, their souls were faint, and barely any light filled their bodies.

Could this mean that they were actually weak despite being decked out in top-tier gear? I didn’t know how strength was classified in this world but everyone I had seen so far was filled to the brim with light and soul essence.

This was the first time I saw something different, l peered closer but I ended up spooking them, causing them to shift uncomfortably and look around.

“Halls..Halls! Did ya feel dat?” asked the dwarf.

The axe wielder swallowed gravely before answering, worry written all over his face.

“Yes, yes I did. Bloody hell! I almost pissed ma pants. What in Racktor’s arse was that?”

“Ah don’t know Halls, but ah don’t like it, somethin’ ain’t right.”

By now the rest of the party had joined in on the conversation and were discussing what they all felt, which was interesting. I didn’t know the mere act of me looking could spook people like that. Was I secretly overpowered? I hope so, that would be fun.

They continued talking until someone appeared in a burst of light, startling them, they rushed for their weapons but calmed down when they saw the figure fully materialize.

Whoever appeared was a void in my soul sight, their form looked blurry and more like a smear of colors rather than a person, which was weird.

Switching back to my regular sight gave me a better look. A woman in an expensive black and white striped military-looking suit stepped through the beam of light, she had bright golden eyes and hair that flowed gracefully in an invisible wind, and her face was beautiful, and if I was a human I’d instantly be attracted to her.

Her suit was interesting, and atop her head was a white hat with black edges, on the left side of her hat was an oddly shaped golden key, and on her chest was another golden key along with golden buttons.

Clutched tightly in her hands were swords of pure light that made my eyes hurt the longer I looked at them, a sense of danger and invisible pressure emanated from them that pushed away my sight.

Woah, wasn’t this a bit overkill for poor little me? What were you guys preparing for? War?

Suddenly, the woman’s eyes glowed and power slammed into me with the force of a truck.

“VILE ISEKAI TOUCHED! YOU DARE SHOW YOUR FACE HERE AGAIN?”

What? What were you talking about lady? She’s crazy. I mean, I knew what the word isekai meant but my memories didn’t extend further than vague notions of what it truly meant. I suppose my case could be classified as Isekai but did I deserve to be called vile because of that? Certainly not.

The woman began to transform, light washing over her form as something other took her place. A being made of pure golden light and..keys? Really? Keys formed. He extended a hand and made a grasping motion in the direction of me, and I felt a power slam into me, the world twisted for a brief second and I swore I died before everything snapped back into place and a voice spoke directly into my mind.

[WHERE IS YOUR CORE?]

Ugh..I don’t have one?

[IMPOSSIBLE! YOU LIE! YOU DARE LIE TO ME! A GOD?]

Look man, I don’t know what you’re talking about. But I’m not lying, also, why are you trying to kill me?

[LIE! YOUR KIND ARE NOT WELCOME HERE, ISEKAI TOUCHED!]

Isekai touched? What does that even mean?

The God looked like I punched him in the face when I said the first word, oops? What was that about?

[YOU CAN S-SAY THE WORD? HOW!? THE COMMANDMENTS FORBID IT!]

Of course, I can say isekai, what’s the big deal?

[YOU MUSTN’T MENTION THAT WORD! DO NOT SAY IT, DO NOT THINK OF IT. BECAUSE IF YOU DO, “IT” MAY AWAKEN!]

The God shifted around as if checking something before he continued.

[I DO NOT KNOW HOW YOU ARE ALIVE, BUT YOU ARE AN ANOMALY WITH FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE. I CANNOT LET YOU LIVE, YOU MUST BE AN AGENT OF “IT”, THERE IS SIMPLY NO OTHER WAY TO EXPLAIN YOUR EXISTENCE. FOR THE SAKE OF THIS WORLD, YOU MUST DIE.]

He lifted his hand, and something in the world moved, reality slowed for a millisecond before it resumed.

[HOW! HOW ARE YOU STILL ALIVE! I SHIFTED YOU TO OBLIVION AND YOU DIDN’T EVEN FLINCH!]

Look man, I don’t want any part of this okay? I just want to build a dungeon. I don’t even know what “IT” is.

[LIES! ALL LIES! YOU MUST BE AN AGENT OF THE SYSTEM!]

This world had a system?