“Bullying! Meany!” The kid wailed, still not satiated by the witch turned mother figure. “You killed my family!”

Wait. Don’t tell me. The witch was his mother, the knight was his father, and the ghost was… I don’t know, his dog? It looked like a traditional blob ghost, so who knew what it was in its former life. It didn’t appear very bright though. So, we barged into his home, killed his dad and his dog, and now he was crying.

“Can’t you just bring them back?” I responded stiffly, realizing for the first time I wasn’t that great with crying children.

“Bring them back?” He sniffled. “How if you’re just going to kill me too? I didn’t even do anything to you!”

“Master should apologize.” Celeste frowned at me.

“What? Wait! You said that you killed Miki! She’s my family! You’re not going to turn this on me!” I responded angrily.

“And you believed him?” The witch asked.

“Geh!” I stumbled back.

I mean, I didn’t believe him. If I believed she was dead, I would have just used resurrection first. Had her soul been in the dungeon, she would have resurrected.

“Bad master…”

Celeste was not helping…

“If Master is so bloodthirsty, he’ll even slaughter crying children, I must harden my heart.”

Alysia wasn’t helping either!

“Whether I believed him or not, that is what he said.”

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“Why wouldn’t he say that! A big scary person breaks into our dungeon starts breaking stuff. It’s just bravado!” The witch declared.

“Bravado! He tried to kill me!”

“He’s just a child!”

“He’s a dungeon master, this dungeon is 50 years old!”

“Hmph! A dungeon master is what a dungeon master is… you cannot change that.” The woman sniffed. “Our dungeon master is a child. No matter how much time passed, he’d still be a child.”

My mouth opened and then closed a few times. I didn’t know how to argue with such logic. This kid sets up death traps, approaches me all arrogantly, traps me in a boss room, and then sicks his minions on me, and dares to act like it was all my fault.

His crying had finally diminished to sniffles. I took a breath to calm myself and then tried to take a new method. I put a gentle smile on my face and then kneeled to his level while keeping enough distance between us that I wouldn’t appear threatening or be in danger.

“Look… little boy,” I said through my teeth as I smiled. “I’m sorry I came into your dungeon. However, I’m missing someone very close to me. That fox girl that came in here was my friend. I won’t poke holes into who is at fault here, but if you could just tell your big brother here what happened to her, I will be on my way.”

“B-big brother?” He finally looked up from the witch’s arms.

An idea struck me, so I decided to go with it. “Exactly, your big brother. You said you lost your family. Well, I’m a nearby dungeon master and my dungeon is stronger, so I’m like your big brother in a way, right?”

The boy seemed to be pondering my words for a bit. I had gotten through. This would make everything a lot easier for me. He took a step forward, looking innocent.

“Big brother is a poopoo head!”

“Pfft!”

I shot a look at Celeste, who had suddenly made a noise before turning away. Her shoulders were shaking. Meanwhile, I was feeling irritated. I was the bad guy then? Fine! I’d be the bad guy!

“Look, kid, either you tell me what happened or-“

“You’ll kill me?” He responded hatefully, the witch stepping in front of him defensively.

I pulled out a glowing orb in my hand. “Or I’ll take your dungeon lore!”

When I had opened up the floor to this level, that was also in the ceiling of the boss room, the place where the lore always descended from. As I jumped down, I had just seen it so I grabbed it just in case. The boy’s face turned white and he fell to his knees. His appearance was more satisfying than I cared to admit.

{You have tamed the Dungeon Master Mathew. You have Conquered Matty’s Maze of Mysteries!}

“S-seriously?”