Minutes passed in silence as I tried to overcome my feelings of loss and loneliness. I knew it was for the best, as Fren had friends and family waiting for her, but being stuck in an oversized hole in the mountain with no way out was doing a number on me, especially now that I was alone with my thoughts. Sure, Marisa had promised they would return the next day, but she couldn’t possibly stick with me all the time. And even though my foxes did their best, they couldn’t hope to compensate for the lack of actual people surrounding me.
The two steam foxes as well were anything but a help right now, with how lovey-dovey they were. They made me feel like a third wheel in my own core room!
With a deep sigh, I decided to leave them to their devices. Instead, I lifted my way to heavy feeling body out of my nest and towards the rest of the dungeon, where there was already a bunch of work waiting for me. Hopefully, it would help get my mind out of the gutter for the time being.
Having Fren over didn’t amount to much mana gained in the grand scheme of things, especially since she was weaker than both Marisa and Alfred, but I still had enough of it now to fulfill at least one of my two waiting quests - namely the one that asked me to fill my rooms. It would reward me with another artifact for the Vulpine Circle, one that would hopefully give me a new fox or two.
I simply thought of that quest to make it appear right in front of my eyes, showing me my current process. With the soon-to-become fox family moving to the core room, I had lost quite a bit of progress, but I should have enough mana to still get the quest done for now.
『Quest 13: A Solid Defense
Task: Have your rooms reach their monster cap
Progress:
- Unnamed Room (320 / 1328)
- Unnamed Room (20 / 191)
- Unnamed Room (290 / 204)
Reward: Choose an artifact for the Vulpine Circle
The number of monsters a room can support with mana depends directly on its size and the cost of summoning the monsters in the first place. After reaching the limit, monsters will stop breeding.
Although you can still summon foxes even to rooms filled to this limit, every single fox in that room would grow weaker and they would also take more time to reappear after being defeated. Nobody wants that, right?』
First, I had to get my overpopulated slope room in order. The lava foxes had never seemed bothered by the fact that there were ten of them huddled together in there, as there was a lava pond and a den for each of them, but for the sake of the quest and their strength, four of them had to move anyway.
It didn’t take long for me to make my way over to the rather lazy foxes. Two of them were already greeting me at the room’s entrance, both of them floating in molten rock, with others sleeping on the nearby shores of their ponds. Not a single one of the way-too-cute slimes or the salamanders was actively being bothered by any of the foxes, who had seemingly grown way too used to them to still care. It wouldn’t take long before they needed something else to waste their time on - if they cared for that in the first place.
As I made my way up the slope, I called all of the foxes towards me, asking them to follow me to the upper side of the room. A few of them needed some help waking up, but I gladly scratched their backs until I was rewarded with yawns and sleepy gazes. When I had finally gathered all of them, I told them about my problem, asking four volunteers to step up and move towards the volcano room instead.
Sadly, not a single one of the foxes decided to go, even after explaining the disadvantages of overcrowding the room to them. So instead I had them promise to not actively engage adventurers in fights unless they were sure they had the advantage and instead summon balls of molten rock to toss at them like I had intended them to. At least to this the foxes happily agreed before returning to their favorite resting spots. Before long, they were already back to their usual routine of doing nothing at all.
I couldn’t help but laugh at their antics. The foxes still had to prove they were ready to face adventurers who managed to make their way this deep into the dungeon, but I wasn’t about to judge their work ethic as I spent half of the day resting or sleeping in the core room myself. And given that the lava foxes at the volcano room had turned entire fights in my favor just by themselves, there wasn’t much to fear in the first place.
Having failed my task at the slope room, I instead made my way towards the geyser room that now was without a single fox guarding it. Naturally, that wouldn’t do, because while the room was already a challenge enough with its floating parkour and spouts of boiling water, that didn’t mean I wasn’t allowed to make it a two-layered defense. Nothing had hindered the fox couple from being there and doing their things in peace.
Once I had reached the room, I summoned a total of six steam foxes, nearly hitting the cap of the room with just that. Soon enough my mana had left me as a cloud of blue mist and transformed into the wanted vulpine shapes, and once it had done so, I sat down and called all of the nearly-born monsters to me.
“Always heal each other when needed,” I instructed them. “Staying healthy always comes first! And don’t ever attack alone, instead wait for your friends! And when they are stronger than you hide and wait until they are on the parkour,” I explained before pointing at the floating rocks. “They will have a much harder time fighting against you up there!”
The foxes all yelped in response before swarming out to explore the room and all the holes in the ground that would serve them as future nests. I silently hoped that there would be a new couple finding their way into the pavilion, breathing a little bit more life into the room, but that was not up to me to decide. So far, only one couple had formed, after all, indicating there was more to it than just having male and female foxes share a room.
Stolen novel; please report.
After having summoned the foxes and having watched them for a few moments, I spend the rest of the needed mana points - twenty-one - in summoning both Windgliders and Pearl Shiners ten of them each. The very last point of mana I used on a single fire slime - just because I liked how cute they were and how squishy they were to the touch. I couldn’t wait for there to be someone in the future I could share this weird sensation with, someone who wouldn’t end up getting burnt, that was.
With both the slope room and the geyser room done, I instead made my way over to the one that needed the most changes - the volcano that required me to use over one thousand mana to fill it with life. Naturally, I once again had to think about my ideas for the room. With wind foxes still out of the picture and water foxes being unable to heal the fiery monsters, there was not much strategy involved in the fights that awaited adventurers in my biggest room. Simply summoning steam foxes to bridge the gap between the elements wasn’t sitting right with me either, as they simply wouldn’t have a nice place to live here, especially when compared to the much more suitable field of geysers and ponds waiting in the neighboring room.
After spending some time thinking about it, I decided to keep things simple and simply brought all the various types of monsters to a group size of fifteen each, before once again instructing the foxes on how to handle their fights. All of them would act in groups of ten each starting from now on, with fire foxes becoming the backline fighters for the much tougher lava foxes and water foxes in turn keeping their earthy friends in combat. Of course, these sorts of teams needed some testing, but I didn’t have a way for them to gauge their strengths and weaknesses without waiting for invaders or having teams face each other instead, which wasn’t something I was going to do for various reasons.
Not only would this sort of training hurt my foxes just for the sake of trying to make them cooperate better, something that would happen by nature sooner or later, but it would also make them injure each other, possibly causing discord between the groups or even types of foxes. It wouldn’t do for my precious monsters to be at each other's necks just for that, especially when not a single invader had passed the geyser room yet!
Having summoned my foxes, I took a look at the updated quest instead, which revealed to me that I was just three hundred and eight mana short of reaching my goal. So without much hesitation I walked over to my ring-shaped lake and summoned a hundred more fish for the water foxes to watch, fifty Mimicry Salmon and Mud Eaters each. This would likely also invite more peaceful adventurers to rest at my lake and try to catch some fish to go along with my berries and fruit, which would make for a far better meal.
To spice up things a little I next summoned fifty of the flying fish I had used in the neighboring room as well as fifty birds, hoping the few trees I had would be enough for the latter of them to roost in for now. The bees hopefully wouldn’t give them too much trouble, given how busy they were taking care of their own matters which were making honey and pollinating flowers.
With one-hundred and eight mana needed to reach the cap I then summoned Ash Moles and Forest Hamsters for my earth foxes to hunt and Fire Slimes and Crimson Salamanders for the fire and lava foxes to play with, bringing each group of animals again to the size of fifty. Although this brought me over the limit of the room, it hopefully wasn’t too much as to really affect my foxes’ strength and resummon time. If it did so, I could always hoard the fire slimes and crimson slimes into the slope room instead which already had the issue anyway.
Aside from the much easier-to-handle fire critters, I had no real hope of catching any of the animals in the room other than by simply desummoning them, which was just killing them put into better words. And how could I ever do that?
I could only shake my head at the very idea, but Cilia was quick to move my attention to different matters, as she soon revealed to me that I had indeed managed to finish her quest with almost three hundred and sixty mana left to spare:
『Quest 13: A Solid Defense
Task Completed: Have your rooms reach their monster cap
Reward: Choose an artifact for the Vulpine Circle
You are right. Strength isn’t everything~』
As soon as I had finished reading Cilia’s message, the green board was replaced by a much larger one, which both listed the crystal orbs I already knew as well as two new options to choose from:
『Available Artifacts:
Ruby Orb
Replaces a Fire Fox once. Costs no mana to use. Only one orb may be used at a time.
Tiger Eye Orb
Replaces an Earth Fox once. Costs no mana to use. Only one orb may be used at a time.
Sapphire Orb
Replaces a Water Fox once. Costs no mana to use. Only one orb may be used at a time.
Opal Orb x2
Replaces a random fox once. May only select unlocked one-tailed foxes. Costs no mana to use. Only one orb may be used at a time.
Tear of the Fox Goddess
Adds a tail to the resulting fox and makes it a boss. Breaks after one use. Costs no mana to use. May be used with other orbs.
Pearl of Preservation
Prevents Orbs from breaking due to failed summoning rituals. Breaks after preventing orbs from breaking twice. Costs no mana to use.」
My eyes were immediately glued to one of the options that clearly stood out among the others. “A boss!”
Before I knew it, I was already running towards the core room, leaving my newly summoned foxes and monsters to their devices. I made my way back into the tunnels with a grin on my face, before racing all the way to the nest where the unused Opal Orb was still waiting for me. Once I reached it, I immediately selected the Tear of the Fox Goddess as my prize while hoping for the best.
Soon enough a thick mist of mana began spreading from my nearby core, before slowly beginning to spin around it. It sped up more and more until it finally gathered as a blue ball of pure mana. Within seconds, the mana lost its color, making place for an orb that was the same size as my opal one.
Other than having the same size, the two artifacts had nothing in common. One was shining in all colors of the rainbow while the other one seemed to be made from polished glass instead sparkled in the artificial sunlight of my core room. Going by the theme, it couldn’t possibly be mere glass, however, but something way more precious.
“Is that… a diamond? A diamond this size could buy half a kingdom! I could-”
I quickly shook my head. There was no way I would sell one of my artifacts just for mere money. Not only would it be difficult to find anybody willing to pay a fair price for it, but I also had no way to spend money to begin with. For all I knew any gold coins I would receive would just be absorbed by the dungeon the very next moment.
Then there was the fact that each single one of the artifacts was a gift by Cilia herself, meaning I would never sell them to begin with. It just felt wrong to do so! The only way to use them was to honor Cilia’s wish and exchange them for even more foxes!
I could barely wait to do just that~