Hunters from the village stood guard around the cave. Many still feared the place and tried their best to keep their distance. However, they couldn’t be too far away - only the gods knew what strange and horrible monsters were in the cave. Many of the victims of the paralysis venom were still ill as the herbs to heal these ailments were rare and only found in the dangerous parts of the forest.

They waited, their bows ready to be drawn, when they heard something in the forests. Their ears, honed through training and experience, could tell that the footsteps of the mysterious thing weren’t human. They were big.

They readied themselves but paled when the monster stepped out into the moonlight on its journey towards the cave. The thing was tall and on four legs, covered in layering armor of old wood, and there were green lights in its eyes. It was a wooded beast, a monster from the deeper parts of the forest.

These creatures were often docile and dumb, but that didn’t make them easy to hunt. Few things make it through their armor, fire didn’t work either despite the wooden armor. These things were used to teach their ways of hunting, of how to examine and track and create traps. These types of monsters could be felled but it took time and a plan. If the plan failed and the beast became hostile, few managed to survive.

None of these hunters had anything to fight against it. They all fled to warn the village, dread and paranoia for the future rotting their hearts.

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Alex waited in front of the entrance to his dungeon. His dungeon fairy alerted him ahead of time that there was an attack on his dungeon. He hoped these were more people, his soul points were running low with everything that he needed to do. There seemed to be a million cheap things he needed to do.

He managed to find an insect he wanted. While it wasn’t a queen, he was able to turn it into one. These insects were hivers, so he needed to upgrade them to live in the dungeon. The rest of his other animals needed upgrading too. The predators most of all, many of them were starving.

He also needed to update his dungeon layout. The maze idea was useful in the game, but it wasn’t working how he wanted it here. Maybe it was because he was too broke. Either way, it was necessary for him to get as many soul points as possible.

“Dungeon Lord, the attacker is invading!”

“Alright…wait, did you say attacker, as in singular?” Alex asked, a sudden feeling of foreboding brewing in his gut. Before the dungeon fairy could reply, the attack entered.

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This wasn’t a fucking animal, this was a true monster. The thing looked like a living tree mixed with a troll or a gorilla. It was covered in wooden armor, plates of ancient and glowing shelved bark layered over each other. The front legs were large and reminded him of arms and hands. The thing's face was a mask that looked like bone, except wood. Everything was covered in old foliage, mushroom and rot, and old magic.

There was little mania in the thing’s eyes too. It wasn’t intelligent though, not from what Alex could tell. The thing looked around, then it turned its gaze and seemed to look straight at him.

“Dungeon fairy, why is it looking at me?”

“It…it shouldn’t…”

The monster screamed and it felt like the very molecules that made of the stone in his dungeon walls shook. Around the monster, moss and mushrooms of the glowing, magical sort grew from nothing in moments. The layers of wooden armor seemed to peel and open, and whip-like vine tendrils grew out of it.

The thing charged into the dungeon, only occasionally getting distracted by his lukewarm maze. Alex went into full panic, sending all of his upgraded small creatures after it. What made it worse was that his neurotoxic rats had been updated with less toxic venom; he wasn’t sure how the other animals would fare.

He didn’t have the funds to do anything grand with his animal modification. Nothing that can deal with this behemoth. Still, he commanded his animals to try and attack the monster, but this thing was hard to kill. He hadn’t specked any of his animals into attack or breaking armor, there hadn’t been any reason.

He started to feel his mind overrun as he controlled the army of small animals. He forced the dungeon fairy to help him, but it didn’t matter. Despite the lack of obvious intelligence, there was still no mania or only slight mania. The monster wasn’t distracted by his animals like the other animals that attacked, nor was it easy to control or scare like the humans.

He thrashed its hands and vines, sending off the animals that were attacking it while it searched. His animals couldn’t get through the armor so he forced them to attack the tendrils and find a weak point. Neurotoxic rats were chewing on the vines, trying to get venom into its system. The monster didn’t seem to mind.

He quickly checked his account and saw that he had saved over fifty soul points. That might be enough. He forced his dungeon fairy to manage all the small creatures while he rushed deeper into the dungeon. He found one of the deer-like animals he had saved. The poor thing was experiencing slight malnutrition from being forced to consume dungeon grass.

He activated [Create Dungeon Creature] and selected the deer in front of him as the subject. In an instant, he was surrounded by screens showing the animals different attributes, ailments, and internal systems. The world around him slowed down but he didn’t feel like there was enough time.

Normally, creating creatures was a lot like creating ecosystems, he needed to manage the animal’s internal systems to keep it alive. He didn’t have time for that though. He created a tumor in the deer’s throat and started to shape it. He didn’t care anymore that this would kill his deer or maybe other animals.

As he finished his changes to the deer, the monster found the hole into the inner part of his dungeon and jumped.