After five more rounds of goblins coming out I was satisfied with everything I had learned.

Also it felt like I should head back if I wanted to meet up with everyone in time.

My staying and testing everything I felt like I had a good handle on what was going on in the dungeon.

First off, the dungeon was releasing the goblin packs at regular intervals. There seemed to be approximately twenty minutes between each group rising from the ground. It did not matter how fast or slow I cleared the new pack, the next group came out about twenty minutes from when the first one started clawing up.

For the next to last pack I had kited them around the dungeon room for an experiment. The goblins kept up their single-minded charge towards me the whole time and didn't seem to tire at all. The only other thing they seemed to take note of during the whole encounter was the way down to the next floor. No matter how much I baited one into charging and falling down the steps they had some kind of sixth sense for the hole and managed to avoid it.

They managed to keep this up until I noticed another green hand clawing up from the ground.

I grimaced at that. It looks like the dungeon officially did not care for the status of the last group of goblins before it decided to force more into the world.

It was very punctual though keeping to the twenty minute time frame.

Sighing I began clearing the room of the little miscreants. The last wave finished coming up before I had fully cleared the room so I knew the twenty minute timer was already ticking down.

Secondly, it did not matter the location or if anything was touching the corpse of the goblin for its decay. I piled some bodies into a big pile, some into a medium pile, some a small pile, and a few scattered around by themselves. No matter what the bodies all decayed at the same rate, and always in the same manner. None of them had their bones disappear first for instance. It always seemed to be innards first, skins, then bones.

While this at first seemed logical to me, the more I thought about it the more I questioned it.

It made sense from my perspective due to my knowledge from Earth. However that all stemmed from how corpses were exposed to air and the environment. In the dungeon, enclosed as it was, the bodies should not have decayed in that fashion. There was also supposed to be a bloating phase that was getting skipped and a bit more gruesomeness than what I was seeing.

No, the only thing that made sense for them to disappear as they did was if something was actively eating them.

But there was nothing there to do it, except of course the dungeon. The question was how though? Was it merely able to reclaim the monsters in some way because it was what made them? Was it something in the air?

Just something to figure out at a later date. There was unfortunately no way for me to determine that at this time.

Lastly, my final experiment squirmed in my hands.

I had grabbed the final goblin of this wave and held it by the back of the neck. I was holding it far out from me, as it was still incredible hostile and flailing every which way.

I walked forward with it until I was next to the stairs to the next level and it was dangling above the giant hole. I shook it a bit, but its demeanor did not change. It didn't seem to quite grasp what was in store for it, so there was definitely a lack of intelligence.

Sighing, I tossed it down the stairs and watched.

It bounced quite a few times until it came to a rest. It was angrily snarling the whole time, and even when it was still in a heap the snarls didn't cease.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

I was very confused, as it was entirely anti-climatic from what I was envisioning. Although I wasn't quite sure what I expected, but it was definitely more than nothing.

Finally the little beastie stood and seemed to look around and get its bearings before it saw the stairs and followed them up to look at me. I gave it a little wave.

It seemed to get a bit more life in it at that and began charging up at me.

I waited at the top of the stairs and just let out another sigh.

I had decided to not go down to the second level. The knights had explicitly told us not to, and they were obviously able to tell roughly where we were and I did not want to risk falling out of favor. This had been my chance to see if anything interesting happened on the second floor and it was a let down.

Once more I focused on the goblin and noticed he had slowed down in his charge. He eventually came to a stop before he had even gotten halfway up the stairs and I tilted my head at him.

He was just standing there looking at me and making his angry sounds.

Our staredown continued until he started having a visible change, which I perked up to.

As I continued to watch he jerked and twitched every which way until he suddenly bulged out. It was comical, like a water balloon about to burst. Suddenly it looked like it got squeezed and it's height lengthened considerably. It's arms and legs were suddenly longer and it shot up to five foot or so in height.

Strange as the drastic body changes were they didn't end there. The ugly green skin mellowed into a yellow brown, and the nose and ears stretched out further than should be necessary. Lastly a pair of what could only be described s tusks jutted out ofits lower jaw until they reached almost to its nose.

The whole process felt like it took just two to three minutes, and I was left with a goblin that looked nothing like how it started, save for the humanoid shape.

The goblin stopped snarling at that point and stared at me. It looked around once again before finally looking back down the stairs. With one final glance at me it gave a huff and calmly walked down the stairs back to the second floor.

I shook myself from my stupor and yelled out at out. "Hey!" I cast out my mana detection and discovered the goblin no longer had a "one" on his mana pool anymore.

He was officially a "two".

Sadly I didn't have the mental capacity to come up with anything else at the moment. And my shout didn't seem to phase the little, well not so little anymore, guy. He just made it to the bottom of the steps and then continued on past my line of sight.

I stood there for a minute straining my ears for any sounds signaling it would come back, but it was to no avail. Taking one final look around the room I decided it was time to head back.

—----

I made it back to the intersection right as the bell tolled and met up with my friends in the main corridor. We all greeted each other as we came in before making our way back to the main room with the knight instructor.

Along the way we all talked about how our solo delves were going. There was very little progress amongst my friends. Everyone still went through the same amount of packs they did earlier in the day.

I was trying to avoid saying mine as it seemed absurd, but Tom picked up on the fact that I hadn't said mine and very pointedly asked me about it.

With a shrug and sigh, I said that I ran out of goblin packs as I made it to the entrance of the second floor. At that, everyone came up with some excuses like that I must have gotten an especially short hall and I was more than happy to go along with them. We laughed and joked all the way to the cafeteria to grab some food.

Bella however had stopped joining in the conversation, and I turned to sneak a look at her during our conversations and found her staring at me. I just pulled a face and turned back around. Bella always seemed to know more than the rest of us. I had a feeling I was in for another "talk" later about messing something up somehow or how I was being ridiculous about something or another.

As we chowed down and continued to talk about our lives these days, Bella did eventually participate in the conversation again.

Strangely enough though, we wrapped up dinner and went back to the sleeping quarters without her bringing up anything to me about the whole situation.

Back in the barracks we said our goodnights and split up with Bea, Tom and myself heading to our little section of the room. We were having some final jokes and hanging out before falling asleep when Tom pulled out his journal, presumably to recap his day for his folks.

As he was writing I suddenly had the bright idea to copy down whatever was going on with the torches. "Tom, would it be okay to borrow a sheet of paper and one of your charcoal sticks? I found something cool looking and I just wanted to copy it down. I will totally bring it back, promise!"

"Uhh, sure. Its not too big of deal honestly." Tom removed a single sheet from the journal and passed it and a charcoal stick to me.

"Thanks! Don't be surprised if I ask you guys about it when I get back!" I clapped him on the back as I thanked him very enthusiastically.

"What was it anyway? Can't you tell us now?" Bea asked, while looking at me very confused.

"Nope! You will have to wait until tomorrow! Sorry!" I laughed as I broke the news to her and stowed away the paper and stick Tom gave me. "See you in the morning!"

And with that I got in bed, excited about what I could do the next day.