They arrived at the dungeon entrance in the middle of the night.

“How long do you think this will take?” Lily asked.

“Geon?” Caeldaemos asked, the core hanging around his neck.

“If my friend can hear me, we should be able to teleport there. If not, we may need to walk. But don’t worry about the monsters and bosses. I should be able to guide you to my friend.” Geon replied.

“Oh, can you prevent the message announcement?” Liara asked.

Geon said she could manage that if she received some mana. Caeldaemos charged her with his mana, and they stepped through the gateway, the Demon-Lord being last.

Like last time, the gateway sealed, and the message started, but it was quickly shut down by Geon.

“Okay. Hello? Can you hear me? It’s me! Your friend!” Geon called out but received no reply.

She tried a few more times but got no answer. “I’m sorry. He can’t hear me….” Geon sounded sad.

“It’s alright. It may take a while, but we can travel there.” Caeldaemos assured her.

“Right! Before we proceed, do not go too far from me. I can generate a field that will have all the monsters and bosses think that all of you are also monsters. So, stick close to Caeldaemos. Do not attack the monsters. Defensive spells are fine. If you attack them, they will realize that you are not a monster and attack. When it comes to the bosses, our boss will likely have to fight some of them on the lower floors.” Geon’s illusion form pointed at Caeldaemos.

They agreed to her precautions and proceeded into the dungeon. Geon guided them down the fastest path.

They made it halfway through the dungeon in four and a half hours and took a break after walking past the 25th-floor boss.

“This feels so weird!” Liara cried out.

“I agree. This feels like we are just on a stroll.” Listamati agreed.

“But we have been getting some nice loot from the boss chests,” Mari commented, holding her new short sword.

Lily stepped out of the ‘Restroom’ Domain Caeldaemos created. The rules applied to it were any non-living things inside it, after an occupant leaves it, would be absorbed, and converted into mana that would disperse into the air. It would also ‘Clean’ any filth from the body as the occupant passed through the barrier. With Geon’s guidance, Caeldaemos was getting used to how domains worked and how he could customize them.

“That domain ability is so useful! I wish I had selected it!” Lily exclaimed.

“Though you have many skills and abilities open to you, Lily, you would have had to get Spatial magic first and upgrade from there. Domain is five steps up from there.” Geon explained.

“That means five dungeons!” Lily whined.

“That’s five new dungeons to conquer, not just any dungeon.” Liara teased before heading into the domain space to relieve herself.

Caeldaemos chuckled as his daughter flopped into his lap in sadness.

After their break, they continued their way down.

On the fortieth floor, the boss engaged them in battle. It was a giant, armored scorpion that could use poison, earth-magic and shoot beams from its tail.

Caeldaemos stood back while maintaining Decahedron Barriers on all the girls while they battled the scorpion. They were doing well, but they had already been fighting it for thirty minutes, an amount of time they agreed on before it was the Demon-Lord’s turn.

He called out for them to back away. No longer having his aversion to using wind magic, he used wind and water to create a highly compressed beam of water. Caeldaemos focused the beam on the scorpion’s head to destroy the brain. It tried defending with its claws, but the beam cut through them and kept attacking the head.

The scorpion tried attacking the Demon-Lord with beams of its own and poison, but to no avail, could not scratch the powerful barrier.

Caeldaemos created a small floating domain that maintained his spell and set the rule that the magic was to continue to attack the scorpion’s head until it was dead and then dissipate. He fed the attacking domain his magic continuously. The scorpion kept trying to defend against the attack, but the floating domain would change the trajectory of its attack to complete its mission.

It only took a few minutes before the scorpion no longer moved.

“That was amazing, Dad!” Lily tried hugging him, but their barriers bounced off of each other.

He laughed and helped her up after he disabled the barriers.

“You’re getting the hang of Domains now. I can’t wait to see what you do later.” Geon commented.

Caeldaemos stored away the giant corpse.

“Why?” Rana asked.

“Crafting materials. Sure, we have dragon-scale gear, but it doesn’t hurt to have material. Create Item is much easier if you have good stuff.” He replied.

They continued on their way, repeating their agreement on the following boss. They then arrived at the final boss room. But there was nothing there.

“Are we missing something, Geon?” Caeldaemos asked.

“I think I know. To keep himself from collapsing, he must have sacrificed the final boss. Quickly! To the core room.” Geon worriedly said.

The group arrived at the dungeon core. Unlike when they reached Geon’s core, her friend’s core was dim, with a black mist floating within.

“My friend! I’m here! I brought help!” She cried out but got no answer. “Um, could you give him some mana?” She asked.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Caeldaemos placed a large hand on the core surface and poured his mana inside. He could feel the that the core was in pain. Unsure if it would work, he tried casting Panacea on the core. Some of the black mist cleared.

Seeing the effect, he stopped adding mana and cast Panacea over and over until all the darkness was gone. The light within the core improved and gradually got brighter.

“My friend, can you hear me?” Geon tried.

“It’s you. You came.” A tiny voice replied weakly.

“Yes! I brought help! The Demon-Lord!” Geon answered, excited her friend sounded better.

A small boy in white robes appeared within the core. “The Demon-Lord? Why would the Demon-Lord help a core? Normally we are just used for making monsters for them.” The boy stated.

“Make monsters?” Caeldaemos was surprised.

“Yeah. That is how they build their armies of monsters.” Geon answered.

“Well, Geon here asked for my help, so I came to help her friend,” Caeldaemos told the boy.

“Thank you, great Demon-Lord. They won’t hurt me anymore?” The boy asked.

“Nope. We took care of that.” Caeldaemos replied.

The boy smiled. “Thank you, great Demon-Lord. Consider me subjugated by you. Give me a name, and I shall generate monsters for you.”

“I don’t need monsters. I’ve seen how they only desire the destruction of the world, and I want nothing with that.” Caeldaemos answered.

“Really? Thank you!” The boy swam about his core happily.

“I thought dungeons want to eat people.” Liara wondered.

“Eating people for their Spiritual Energy is wasteful. Sure, it greatly boosts our power and allows us to grow, but it is wasteful. It is better to try for the excess energy people constantly release.” Geon explained.

“I agree!” The boy exclaimed with a playful smile.

“So, is it possible to make a dungeon that doesn’t kill people?” Lily asked.

“Is it?” The two dungeon cores wondered.

“Why not, instead of death, they get kicked out of the dungeon while losing all their gear?” Caeldaemos offered.

“That is cruel!” Both Listamati and Liara yelled.

“How is that cruel? Instead of the tension of death, you have the tension of losing all your stuff and getting it all back. The dungeon gets a boost from the equipment they absorb or use as extra loot. Then they also get a bunch of energy from the despair and anger of losing their stuff while they don’t die and continue to challenge the dungeon. We can’t make it too easy on mercs.” Caeldaemos smirked at the two ladies, happy with his idea.

“Wow! Wow! WOW! That is amazing! I love that idea! I have to tell the others!” The boy sped around in his core, more excited than has been.

He stopped and turned to Geon. “Geon. What about you? You are no longer a dungeon….” The boy was sad.

“Not to worry. My boss here treats me well! Besides, I am still a dungeon core. I think if I am installed somewhere permanently, I should be able to re-establish my connection to the network.” Geon shrugged while giggling.

“Establish a dungeon?” Caeldaemos wondered how that would work. He wouldn’t want monsters roaming about if they were dangerous. Deciding to put the question off for later, he turned his attention to the core.

The two cores were going back and forth on how to make the idea come true. Seeing a good spot, Caeldaemos cut in.

“Hey. Couple things. To answer your idea of how to let people know, just use signs or maybe try the dungeon announcement system.” The two cores got giddy over the idea. “I wanted to ask if we could get our reward for conquering the dungeon and be sent back outside. I don’t want people to know that I’m here.”

“Of course! Please wait a moment….” The look on the core’s face saddened. “I’m sorry, on such short notice and having so little power, I can only upgrade a skill’s rank for you by five. I’m sorry.” The boy bowed his head in apology.

“It’s fine. Are we the first to conquer the dungeon?” Caeldaemos asked.

“You are! If it wasn’t for those mean people, I would have been able to give you a hereditary ability. In exchange for not being able to, once you establish Geon back into the network, I will pass a bunch of my power over to her. I promise!” The boy announced.

“Thanks. Does that mean the next people to conquer your dungeon won’t get the guaranteed reward?” Caeldaemos wanted to ensure the Hero of Sylfaerune didn’t get their hands on power.

“Correct! Since that stupid Hero was the one who came up with the idea, I’ll ban him from entry!” The boy announced with a firm look on his face.

They laughed and thanked the boy.

Each chose the skills they wanted to be ranked up, and they were teleported out of the dungeon. They turned to see the gateway unfreeze, meaning it was open.

“Let’s return to Lady Temerilla’s manor to update her with the news,” Caeldaemos said. Using Lord of Darkness, he rapidly moved them back to the manor.

A few days later, Lady Temerilla led a large group of mercenaries to the dungeon entrance. Word spread quickly that the dungeon was reopened and had been conquered, so the edict the Hero Gabriel had used now became useless.

“Damn, look at that huge guy!” One mercenary exclaimed.

“Could they be the ones who beat the dungeon?” Another asked.

Lady Temerilla approached the group, the mercenaries several feet behind her.

“Report. You said something had happened to the dungeon?” Lady Temerilla said to the big guy.

“Your ladyship.” Caeldaemos bowed his head. “When we arrived to check on the dungeon gateway, we received a message that the Demon-Lord had conquered the dungeon.”

Several people became worried and looked about nervously.

Caeldaemos continued. “After a shadowed form blew out of the gateway and flew off to the southeast, the dungeon stated something odd. It has been repeating the same message every hour. The mes-.”

“Attention! Attention! Dungeon Rules have been altered due to Demon-Lord influence.”

“There it is,” Caeldaemos stated.

“This dungeon shall no longer absorb interlopers. Interlopers will be expelled from the dungeon, and their equipment shall be the price.”

“What does that mean?” A mercenary asked.

“We tested it with some beasts we dragged in. When the monster went to deal the killing blow, the beast was teleported out of the dungeon. We tried wrapping blankets on a couple of the beasts, the blankets stayed inside, and the beast was sent out. A few of my party went in to test it one more time with a monster we found.” Caeldaemos reported.

A magic circle appeared on the ground not far from the gateway, and a beat-up, naked goblin appeared. Realizing it was still alive and seeing the large group, it tried to run but got reduced to ashes with fox fire.

“We took care of the nest,” Caeldaemos added.

The mercenaries began to chat among themselves about how great it would be to not have to worry about dying, but others were panicking over losing their gear.

“This is… Interesting news. I will be sure to pass this on to the emperor. It said that the rules changed because of the Demon-Lord. Why would a malevolent being prevent the death of people?” Lady Temerilla asked.

“I don’t know.” Caeldaemos shrugged his shoulders. “Could it be possible this one doesn’t want to destroy the world?”

The mercenaries muttered amongst themselves in disbelief.

“It is hard to tell.” Lady Temerilla replied while going into thought. “Other than hiding all this time, there have been no signs of monster armies or people being attacked. I won’t say it is impossible, but I will pass the idea on to the capital.”

“Oh, we also repurposed some of the buildings left here into rest areas, but I guess with the rule change of the dungeon, you could make it into a hospital to treat people spit out of the dungeon,” Caeldaemos mentioned.

“That sounds like an excellent idea. I will hire and fund some doctors and healers to stay here.” Lady Temerilla smiled brightly. “I shall reward you for your efforts Michael.”

Caeldaemos thanked her as his party members returned from inside the dungeon.

“Dad! I got some news!” Lily said. “Well, did the goblin pop out here alive?” She asked.

“It did.” He answered her.

“Great! So, instead of letting the monsters or dungeon kill it, we did it ourselves.” Lily stated.

“Does that mean we don’t have to worry about being killed by others?” A mercenary went wide-eyed.

The discussion between the mercenaries went wild at the news.

“That’s what gets them going?” Caeldaemos asked, disappointed.

Liara giggled and placed a hand on his arm. “I said it before, didn’t I? Nothing worse than a blade at your back.”

Caeldaemos laughed and led his group to the side with Lady Temerilla and Alpen.

“Looks like things will go well.” The noble stated as many of the mercenaries rushed toward the gateway.

“Looks like it. As I said, a lot of dungeons will be converting to this idea. So, instead of costing life, it costs you, Tress.” Caeldaemos commented, seeing a younger group of mercenaries heading toward the gateway.

“Survival rate of mercenaries will go up quite a bit. Most deaths occurred in dungeons as they are the most lucrative.” Alpen said with a warm smile on his face.

“So, your lordship, where will you go from here?” Lady Temerilla asked.

“Not sure yet. We have a lot of things to do. Changing the image of something so feared is going to be difficult.” Then, he saw a man with a bow heading toward the gateway. It reminded him of his old friend. He smiled. “Actually, how far is Dunluun from here?”