Kazue had enjoyed helping out in the battle, though she had to admit she was a little shaken by Gil's raw power. She had been able to feel his aura the whole time he was here, but seeing it unleashed was different.

But now the party was dying down, and they had a glut of mana. Oh, some of it went into repairing the wetlands, and there were a few other projects to spend it on like making the changes Mordecai had done for Betty into a template they were calling Usagisune, which they would be making available to all the rabbit based clans.

And Mordecai was off making some final tweaks to what were now hex-wolves. Four of the tentacles had been migrated to put two under each wing along the center line of the hex-wolves, and two had been moved to the upper back, right at the shoulders. Any tentacles in excess of those six were suppressed and the tentacles were granted the ability to inflict random curses when they hit, though they were immune to curses from their own kind and inherently resistant to curses from others. The curses were all minor with a limit of a day, and most of them were mere inconveniences or embarrassing, but there were a few bad luck and clumsy type curses in the mix too.

The number and variety of curses that Mordecai knew was a touch disturbing, but Kazue decided it was probably best to not think about it because then she might be tempted to ask about what other curses he knew, and after consulting with Moriko they both agreed that this might fall under the category of things she didn't actually want to know. And Mordecai would tell her if she asked.

Once the hex wolves were finalized, they were added as roaming predators to the wetlands. The mushroom forest seemed like better terrain, but a pack of these guys was very dangerous now that they were smarter and able to learn pack tactics. Their wings were only good for short flights right now, but as the species matured under the guidance of the dungeon, Mordecai expected older ones to be able to gain full flight.

And a bit more mana could be spent incorporating more minor life forms that had either been brought in deliberately or were small things that had come in incidentally with travelers. The ecosystem of the warrens was thriving and there were constantly new plants and fungi to add to the appropriate floors.

But even after she had stretched to bulk out all the options and variety of the early zones, they still had a lot of mana, which meant it was time to go for their next zone. And they had agreed to continue to grow out. But this was conflicting with their dedication to maintaining two paths, and failing in the spirit of that would collapse the node that increased their capacity beyond the doubling they already had from having a dual-core. Now that she was aware of the structure of the boons, she could see why Mordecai had guided some of their decisions the way he had.

Their Zone Zero managed to intermingle the two paths and still had a selection process for only combatants being challenged for combat, so it fulfilled the intent of dedicating to a dual path if barely, but it was proving harder to find a way forward with their upward expansion, and it was further complicated by organizing the power levels of the zones and their current desire to not advertise how far their territory extended.

And unfortunately, Mordecai could only help her so much. In all else their power over the dungeon was equal, but establishing a new zone was reserved for her alone, he couldn't do more than provide suggestions, so it was on her to figure out the correct concept to imbue the zone with.

Kazue was fairly certain that their desired configuration for power levels would work; they wanted to keep the town at the lowest mana density and have a minimal amount of increase spreading into the next outward zone, which they had mentally labeled "Zone Out 1", along with the lower zones being redesignated as "Zone Down 1" through "Zone Down 7" for precision in addition to being named 'wetlands' and such. The strange labeling was Mordecai's idea, but while it was weird she had to agree that it added a certain sort of mental clarity.

She wasn't sure if keeping Zone Zero at a minimum strength would work for a 'normal' environment dungeon, as the information they had suggested the outer most zone was always the weakest, but that town was supposed to be the primary entrance to the dungeon and abutted against Kuiccihan's territory so they couldn't spread radially anyway. It didn't seem fair to have people who were following the proper course of things to be forced to start in the more difficult zone.

One of her ideas had been to try and have 'safe paths' marked through the outer zone, with warnings that leaving the safety of the marked paths could allow dangerous animals to attack. But playing with the idea felt awkward and it didn't seem like it suited the dual path of combat and non-combat very well.

A suitable concept finally clicked into place along with a design for the bosses. It was going to be a bountiful hunting and nature preserve. All of the 'animals' would be passive unless anyone tried to hunt or trap them, which would allow people disinclined toward fighting to partake in the rest of nature's bounty. In the meantime, the creatures would make tempting targets for those already inclined to seek a challenging fight, especially the most tempting game here: the mysterious silver and gold bats.

Belle and Freya were game for this role, and Kazue could finally feel her mana rolling out from their current borders to claim the land beyond. Interestingly, their base zone around the town spread out as well, rippling out in a stretch along Kuiccihan's border in a strip about a hundred yards wide, preventing their more powerful zone from touching the border. Their new zone was otherwise a semi-circle spreading along the foothills and approaching the mountain proper.

If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

And the mana kept pouring out, flowing beyond her control as she was forced to claim the territory caught in the 'V' between the upper zones and the lower zones. The sudden emptying of their pool left both cores stunned and unable to react until they were only left with the small amount that she'd already marked for evolving the two bats.

“What was that?” Kazue asked once she'd finally recovered enough.

“I'm not sure,” Mordecai replied as he examined the new territory that she'd not intended to claim, “but it felt like there was a pressure differential that was equalizing. Mm, it seems to be still drawing a trickle of mana here on the edge. Let me measure the geometry of our territory relative to the outside.”

As soon as he created a diagram of the situation, Kazue was able to see the problem. When she'd expanded their territory, there had been unclaimed land caught between two pieces of their territory. You could draw a straight line across it that began and ended in the dungeon's territory. They didn't have enough mana to fill out the cone, but thankfully the demand seemed to drop off as the distance and the angle between the edges grew.

Now that she was looking for it, she could feel a faint pressure that wanted to fill the entire area in a line from the highest point of their territory down to the farthest point of their current zones, which was their own private area that they had been moving with each zone down they'd grown. Really, it was like a misshapen cone whose vertex was their private chambers and whose edge was defined by any other point of their territory that a direct line could be drawn to.

That was a lot of empty space that wanted to be claimed. “Um, Mordecai?”

“Yes, I see it. That's not something I've noticed before, I think we've been instinctively modifying the outer edges of our zones to create a smoother line, but growing this way made too sharp an angle to be automatically compensated for and we had to pay the price to start filling it in.”

“What are we going to do? We'll be unable to do anything with our primary pool for quite a while buying up all that space.”

“Well, with the sharpest need met, I think we can regulate the flow, so long as we don't cut it off. I, erg, never mind, you have to do it because it touches claiming new territory. But you should be able to reduce the outflow to a steady and more sustainable rate. Maybe think of it like a promise of regular payment or a tax on our mana? You'll have to find the concept that works for you, but the point is to keep paying while controlling how much. I don't think we can claim more zones until we've got this fixed, so we don't want to reduce it too much.”

Kazue got to work while Mordecai turned his attention elsewhere. She could tell that he was working on something related to their glut of unwanted territory, but getting this flow under control was taking up a lot of her concentration.

That was when Moriko asked what was going on, which Mordecai also took care of answering. Kazue was glad their wife knew to not interrupt while they were working on a sudden problem, but it also made her feel bad that they couldn't involve her more in the process.

Eventually, she got it under control and automated so that it wouldn't eat at her attention so much. It was going to remain a minor nuisance until that debt was paid off by claiming all the proper territory, but now she could ignore it.

Once her attention was free, Mordecai showed her what he'd been working on and talking with Moriko about. While Moriko didn't have the logistical background to directly help his plan, she did know the dungeon and its inhabitants and made a good sounding board for him. Kazue liked his plan and gave her approval, but let him handle it. She felt tired now.

Mordecai's voice went out to all of their inhabitants, “I hope we didn't worry you with the abrupt mana flow. We discovered the hard way that we needed to claim some odd territory before we could create another zone. This is proving to be a little bit taxing on our mana, but I've come up with an idea where you can help. We're marking all of this new area as 'warrens' unless anyone comes up with a better idea, but we aren't going to spend mana to reshape the space or create tunnels. Instead, I think it would be interesting to challenge you to expand your skills to mining and new forms of construction, and leave it open for you to exploit any materials or spaces as you like.”

He paused to let that sink in before he continued, “Now, while some of the hazards of mining are effectively negated by the nature of being dungeon inhabitants, I'd like anyone who takes up this challenge to treat it the way outsiders would have to, and take precautions against all the potential hazards. Any resulting wealth is yours to do with as you please.”

They both knew that the innate loyalties of inhabitants would incline them to take up this project anyway, but they also felt better making this offer and giving them at least the benefit of claiming personal wealth.

Conversations sprung up and the hum of all the talking and planning created a nice background to relax in while she recovered from the mental fatigue of wrangling the outflow of mana. Eventually, pieces of conversation drew her back into a more focused state and she joined in on an interesting idea.

The consensus was that they were going to start up by mining into the hillside from the exterior near the trading post. This would allow them to move materials conveniently, rather than trying to shuffle them through the dungeon. As neither time nor money were high priorities, they were going to focus on the efficiency of materials instead. Every bit of earth and rock that they pulled out was going to be put to use in any way that it could. Even just loose dirt could be used, whether to level a piece of land or to be packed into insulation around smaller buildings. The insulation wasn't entirely needed as the buildings were well constructed, but it would be a nice boon to have in place when winter eventually came.

There was also some thought about earthen work fortifications, but in the end, it was decided that it would go against the appearance they wanted. And the real defenses were deeper in the dungeon anyway. They might have trouble finding use for all the materials eventually, but as they were not going to be digging quickly it was a problem that could be worked out over time.

It also provided an opportunity for a new sort of challenge, which was what had snagged Kazue's attention. Any delvers who wanted to help dig a hole would be able to get paid for their troubles while providing mana to the dungeon through their sweat and effort. Dwarves had already come through before, and Mordecai was certain that an official delegation would eventually be sent if for no reason other than to discuss the dungeon's ability to duplicate GOME, so they might get some enthusiastic experts eventually.

Kazue was feeling better now and was ready to turn her attention back to Belle and Freya, as the mana to evolve them had been set aside before the issue with claiming territory had begun.