My improvements seemed to work at first. One of the humans from before brought another one with him and tried hunting my pets, but when they tried to camp in a clearing I sent a pack of wolves to attack them. They proved better than I thought, and I sent two boar along with the wolf that escaped to attack them again. Both ended up wounded, and they were forced to leave. Though they did take out the wolf that escaped as some sort of vendetta, and killed any of my pets that got in their way as they left, apparently to heal one of them with the DP they dropped. Still, I didn’t lose that many, so it was a good day.
They returned a week later with two others and I thought things would go the same way, but these humans proved more skilled. They killed every boar and bear I sent after them, but what they did to my bears was the worst part. Unlike the first group that fought them properly, this group just built a fire at the entrance and filled the cave with smoke to choke out my pets. I could have tried to keep them alive with DP, so they could clear the status condition, but instead I told them to charge. Only the boss of that room still had the energy to do so, though, and when he broke through their fire and got a breath of fresh air, they cut through his spine in one swing, killing him. After that they hunted down my other pets and mugged me before leaving.
For the next week I tried to prepare. I released even more DP into the air, having converted all of the mana they left behind, and put a hole in the top of the boss room so that the smoke trick wouldn’t be more than an annoyance. But when they came back the next week the fought through my pets once again and, instead of fighting my bears properly once they realized their little smoke trick wouldn’t work, they simply climbed on top of the cave and poured oil down it, then lit my boss bear on fire. After that I immediately ordered the bears that weren’t covered in oil to break through the large fire and attack them. This time two of them at least fought properly, but the other two just threw a few javelins at them from the safety of the cave top and then threw more magic at them. And to make things worse, they even took the outside bear that I had lured in here, taking away a source of mana. These humans were really starting to get on my nerves, even if I didn’t technically have any.
The next day, a goblin showed up with a message for me. His master, another dungeon nearby, would be launching an attack on the human settlement these invaders came from in order to capture a few. He asked if I wished to join the invasion, and offered a cut of the loot and captives if I joined. I was planning on building a second floor, with boar men, the less evolved cousins of Orcs, kind of like the relationship between goblins and hobgoblins, but I wasn’t there yet. And while I could loan him some wolves, bears, or boars, if I did that I wouldn’t have enough to restock the floor this week. I told the goblin to inform his master that while I would like to accept his offer, I simply couldn’t at this time. In two months, however, I would likely be strong enough to send a group of boar men and wolves to aid him. The goblin thanked me for listening to his offer and left. After that I found that a new feature had unlocked in my Dungeon Shop. I could text or telepathically chat with any dungeon I had met, and meeting the goblin from one of them counted. This would come in handy for later.
After that I got a few reasonable adventurers, coming in every day to kill a few animals, harvest their cores, and carry out the bodies, presumably to sell to a butcher. I could live with that. This continued for several days until it stopped. The group that normally came on the sixth day of the week didn’t come. That was very strange. Maybe they died when the other dungeon invaded the village? I sent him a message. “How did the raid go?”
“Terrible. I lost all of my troops and didn’t capture any humans.” he replied. I doubted we actually spoke a common language, but I also didn’t speak goblin and could speak with his messenger, so it wasn’t a surprise that we could communicate. The God of Dungeons had probably worked translation magic into his cores so that they could communicate with each other.
“What did you want humans for, anyway?” I asked. That was confusing me.
“Batteries.” he responded. I had to look that word up in the dictionary to know what in meant. Apparently it was a portable source of electrical energy on technologically advanced worlds. That meant that the soul within the other dungeon was probably from such a world. I doubted he wanted electricity, though.
“You want to use them as a mana source, so you can regenerate DP faster?” I asked.
“Exactly.” he responded. “I would keep them in a prison and feed them plenty of food. I would even give them games to play and make items for them. Even if I gave them a basic standard of living comparable to what they would have in the city, I would probably profit 3000-4000 DP per day per human. And the fact that I had them would mean that more humans would come to try to rescue them, increasing my DP production even further. And I’ve designed my floors to require many humans staying for days.”
I had to admit, it was a genius plan. “Quite a good plan. The only problem is that it would require at least one human to start the procedure. Preferably not an adventurer, as people will just assume they are dead, as it’s their job to risk death in dungeons.”
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“Unfortunately, you are correct. A group of ten adventurers killed my followers outside the dungeon, and seized a fortress I built inside the dungeon to give them a reason to stay. While they were here for more than a day, once they saw the goblin fortress, instead of recklessly attacking it as I had hoped, they simply left the dungeon. I don’t know why, or if they will even return.”
“Sorry to hear that. But maybe I can help. I might be able to use my knowledge from my past life to figure out a way to capture them.”
“Really? I don’t think we are allowed to talk about our pasts that much, especially to mortals like humans, but if you have some skill that can help, I would appreciate it.”
For the next day we made plans. As he liked to send goblins and hobgoblins out on missions, he could easily create a group of hobgoblin bandits to raid merchant caravans in the area, using the old fort as a base, and maybe fixing it up a bit so that it was harder to seize and they would send a bigger group. “You should never underestimate the value of a good tradesmen.” I told him. That would give him humans to hold in captivity, and when the guild heard about it, they would attack his fort and dungeon to get the captives back, thus kick-starting the exponential growth of human batteries.
I thought that if he lasted more than a human generation he could just breed humans in captivity, but when I suggested it he informed me that if two outside humans had a child in a dungeon, at least if most of its development was in a dungeon, the child would be born able to absorb DP, and if two dungeon creatures had a child outside the dungeon, it would lose that ability and use mana instead. He would conduct experiments with his goblins, who could gestate a child in only three weeks, but he doubted he would be able to find a solution to this problem.
As I hoped to get stronger and maybe even help him kidnap humans in the future, I started working on my second level. I had dug most of it out and filled it with animals, just like the top level, but the second level was a bit different. First, I had to build a set of steps almost to the first floor, though a half meter of stone separated the false core room from the staircase. There was a barrier at the bottom of the steps which discouraged monsters from going to the first floor, the same kind that I had at the entrance to discourage them from leaving the dungeon. Much like a wooden fence, though, if the monsters were frightened or agitated enough, or if the population got too large, some of them would brave the pain and go through the barrier. Essentially it was a rule I made for my pets, anything that was supposed to obey me had to work up the courage and willpower to ignore my orders. And I could let them leave any time I wanted, just like the Endless Battlefield had done with his goblins.
On this second floor I put a second false core in an alcove in the wall, and built a village around it. The adventurers would have to wipe out a village of boarmen, male, female, and children, if they wanted to mug me. Let’s see how their consciousness handle that moral issue. I had settled on releasing two hundred and fifty DP per day on the first floor, and the core on the second was releasing five hundred DP per day. That would mean that they got strong twice as fast if they had the same creatures, though the Boarmen used more DP than animals and all creatures used more DP to fuel their bodies the stronger they got, so they would simply reach a stronger level and find some sort of balance with the background level.
I also got started on two more levels, though I hadn’t gotten nearly as far. The third would be full of wolfmen who lived in trees or caves and ambushed adventurers. The fourth would have bearmen, who fiercely protected their territory with their overwhelming strength. The fifth would break with the pattern a bit to have a swampy forest full of lizard men. Eventually those would lead to four more levels with the more evolved forms of those monsters, Orcs, Lycans, Ursines, and Dragonnewts. Every level would have a DP rate 250 greater than the one before so that my warriors got progressively stronger the deeper you went. After that I’m not sure what I’d do. Maybe bring in other animal people? Maybe humanoids? Mounted warriors? I could figure that out later.
For now I spent my time talking with the boarmen I had in the nursery. I had built another level for intelligent beings, but it seemed that every intelligent creature had to be at least a small child to be able to support itself and the knowledge that the dungeon would put in their heads. I had six boarmen, three males and three females, as they cost 5000 DP each, and they were currently the equivalent of human six year olds. So I was stuck babysitting, teleporting things around as a game, teleporting food and water in and waste out, and lecturing them when the started to act up. I didn’t think being a Dungeon Core would mean that I also had to be a parent. Thankfully they grew the equivalent of one year every day, so I would only need to put up with them for another ten days, after which I could send them to the second floor.
Wait, no. That would be stupid. I have thirty thousand invested in them, even if you don’t count the food, clothing, toys, etc. I should keep them here, and once their population increased enough, then I could send some of their descendants to Floor 2. That would work. Once they reached adulthood they would age much more slowly, so they would be able to have dozens of children, and I could provide for all of them. Well, assuming I had enough mana I could. Ideally, I would capture humans and keep the monsters living off of the DP I made from their mana, but I didn’t have any yet. So I was stuck raising a group of animal people the old fashioned way. I did, however, spend as much time as I could spare absorbing rock and building my other floors. Each one would need to be a larger copy of the one before it, and would need a new race of animal people. Which meant I had to raise them again.
I temporarily stopped after a few days, when the boarmen were close to the equivalent of a human ten year old, to expand the nursery area so that there were four houses and some other amenities, just like they would have in the village once they were sent there. If I sent them there. I also gave them a patch of woods with a few of each animal to hunt in and gather wood, and a small cave with regenerating iron ore patches. I even gave them a training field. That way they could practice their production and combat skills before they went to the village.
The weaker adventurers came back not long after that, and three of the four stronger ones started coming back every weekend. Things returned to normal and, now that the boarmen were having children, three or four per litter, which would happen every few days for each adult female, it only took another month before some of the grandchildren of the original six were old enough to move to the village.
After moving the first batch of boarmen, I started a group of wolfmen. At least they had boarmen children to play with, and boarmen nannies to raise them. After the first generation, though, I would separate them and have them develop on their own.