'How did this happen? I just wanted to help people. Actually, scratch that. I just wanted to have a good few years in some town out in the boonies after uncle Uter got his new job. How did that turn into this?'

First, it was all about getting stronger for the sake of me and my family.

Then, it was about slowly spreading the use of magic through clandestine pseudo-dungeons for people to get basic cores in.

Then, it was about helping to prepare my family for magic by growing harmless things for them to fight.

Then, it was about growing enough food to keep the poor people of the world from starving.

All of them objectively good goals to have from my point of view.

'So how did they lead me here? How did I end up standing in front of a bunch of concentration camp victims and helping some crazy codger to make them fight for food?'

I was a mystery.

All of my other goals seemed good. The kind of stuff I would normally want to do. After all, who wouldn't want to feed the needy if they could?

But making them fight monsters for food? On the behalf of some billionaire boomer and his secret society?

That didn't sound like me at all.

That sounded like something your average comic book hero would be trying to stop.

Yet here I was. Doing it anyway.

Because at the end of the day all the reasons I was given were logical and I couldn't find a counterargument for them.

It was true that these people needed to be stronger if they wanted to survive the monsters. It was true that making them fight now would make their survival a whole lot more likely in the future. It was true that merely feeding them now was kicking the can down the line and not really solving anything. Especially when they could potentially get the power they needed to run to freedom from what I was doing. Or maybe even the power to overthrow their dictatorship.

And still...

Looking at the crowd arranged in front of me brought on a whole host of conflicting emotions.

On the one hand, I was thrilled that these people finally had something to put in their mouths.

On the other hand, well. They looked very thrilled to be here too. As in REALLY thrilled.

Their eyes tracking me and my every movement as I meandered about. Almost as if they imagined I was some kind of wild fey creature that would vanish in a puff of smoke the instant they looked away. Or worse, demand payment in the form of their first-born children.

It felt unsettling.

Especially when almost none of them were breathing properly. Their hands grabbing out for more mangoes and bananas before they finished swallowing their current bite.

'And the stares they gave me when I put my hands on the ground and grew the plants....'

It was as if they thought I was made of gold. Or really expensive chocolate.

Even now, a part of me warned against turning my back to them. Lest an inquisitive individual take a bite or three.

I felt a rush of magic then and turned to see hundreds of my monsters standing by Casper and the loon. All meandering about and waiting for orders.

"Right then." The loon in question started. "The new Dungeon should be popping out within a week. In roughly this general area. Your job is to keep coming back, day after day and get our new friends used to the way things will work out from now on. If they fight and they fight well, they get to eat as much as they want. No restrictions. If they don't fight the monsters you'll keep making, then they won't eat and they risk getting sent back to the... uh..."

"The camps?" I offered.

"Their previous accommodations." The loon finished. "Also, I brought in a great many other seeds from all kinds of plants. Brought you some mushrooms too, so you can get to doing what you do best. For today, I think we'll stick with hollowing out a practice Dungeon from this hill we're standing on. Your buddies here should be able to get it done within a couple hours, given how efficiently they work. After that, we'll have our first sparing session and then they get another meal. Then they should rest up for tomorrow. Given how nutritious your food is, they should be more or less ready to do some heavy exercising by then."

"You're a monster." I said. Really not caring about my current circumstances beyond that point.

"What makes you think I'll listen to a word you have to say? What's stopping me from just feeding these people as much food as they can eat?"

"Nothing!" The loon answered cheerily. "But it will mean that these 450-ish people from three different camps are all the difference you will be making here. When you could have saved thousands or tens of thousands within half a year, if we stuck by my plan. Also, you'll be robbing them of cores that they will later be able to use to defend their homeland, their lives, their families and humanity in general. So you'll be crippling their future and pretty much guaranteeing their deaths by not following my plan."

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He paused to let the reality set in.

Then he shrugged theatrically.

"But hey, you do you I guess. I can't really tell you what to do now can I?"

I said nothing, but continued to focus my magic on the poor soil beneath my feet.

Calling out with my mind to command the monsters as I did so.

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The pit was indeed hollowed out within a few hours. My creations having no need for rest or relaxation.

The tunnel took a bit longer than that, but only because I was trying to make it as wide as possible while also building in plenty of support pillars that would keep the whole thing from crumbling at the first sign of stress.

I called it a tunnel but it was really a series of passages that were interconnected by larger, circular chambers.

If I had to compare it to a video game it would be like the most uninspired level in a dungeon crawler. Merely a series of rooms with a bunch of monsters stationed outside and within them. The central circular chambers were roughly 50 meters in diameter and 3 and a half meters tall. While they were similar in height, the corridors ranged from 5 to 3 meters in length from wall to wall.

The idea being that each person that made it underground should be fighting and training without having to worry about the chances of being trampled underfoot by a mob.

Halfway through the project's completion it struck me how much effort I was putting into an affair that I emotionally disagreed with. Then I realized that, despite my misgivings, I was determined to do right by these people. Or at least, to do as much as I could given the circumstances.

To that end I stationed half of the roughly two-hundred drone monsters I'd created outside the actual Dungeon. With the express purpose to serve as tests for those who might wish to come in. They weren't supposed to attack anyone. Rather, I wanted them to merely bar the way for as long as they were conscious.

We weren't rushing the process of them getting cores as we had back in Alaska; So this much should be okay until the real deal manifested a week later.

'Uncle Uter spent days crushing them and burning them and then hacking them open with the side of the shovel and his improvement was astounding. Which means that this first line of defense should be training enough for people on the brink of starvation.'

Nevertheless, I had an inkling that the loon or coach Russell might take offense to a 'Lazy' job.

So, I also pushed my magic into some rose, sunflower and tulips seeds.

Making them grow to supernatural proportions so that they covered most of the actual entrance, the length of the first tunnel and the subsequent first circular dome.

It served several purposes from my point of view.

Firstly, it smelled nice and I'd been working for hours under the baking hot sun.

Secondly, it created a whole mess of tangled underbrush that no normal human would be able to sprint through.

Anyone trying to make their way deeper into the cavern would need to tread carefully and slowly, thus making sure that everyone kept a steady pace as they advanced. Whatever thorns the flowers might have had were purposely blunted, so it wouldn't be too hazardous. Merely inconvenient.

Lastly, I found that I had a lot more control over the finer details of the monster's minds now than I did before. Same with their bodies.

To the point where I successfully managed to create three different brands of relatively weak punching bags for the crowd above.

All with different builds and the actual flowering organ where their faces should have been.

The roses where thin and small. With narrow limbs and long, dexterous fingers. They did not have eyes, so much as they had several pairs of ears and their slender frames and quick feet-like appendages let them scurry in and out of the thick foliage with ease. The idea being that it would help the people to train their accuracy and perception, as well as their stamina as they kept trying to hit them.

The sunflowers were large, clumsy, barrel-bodied brutes. With all the grace and subtlety of a inebriated hippo trying to make its way through a lamp store. They were slow too and almost as deaf as they were blind. With thick cords of plant and fungal matter intermixed to create a soft, yet solid layer of padded armor around all of its limbs and torso.

Each one stood at two meters when standing tall, but I had also added an extra third leg where a tail might have been, so that it couldn't be easily toppled over when struck. I was planning for it to be struck many, many times in quick succession, so that part was key. The idea was that they would form up into lines and try to push the people out. That's it. Nothing more. Just plain old pushing. That way, they could train up their muscles and, well, grow some new ones.

Meanwhile, the tulips were designed to be as human-like as possible. With flexible arms, moderate builds and excellent sensory abilities from their eyes, ears and noses. The tricky part was their lower halves, which I had fashioned into serpentine forms. Kind of like how lamia's looked. While their tops were flexible and accurate, their bottoms were thick and sturdy. Able to slither in and out of the brush and foliage with impunity while also resisting any attempts at being toppled.

To top things off I also gave them a greater degree of intelligence and a weapon in the form of a quarterstaff for each one.

"Okay. One more time. From the top. When the people come down you..."

"Hit them in their arms or legs. Not the chest or their heads." Five of them echoed. Glossy eye organs glowing in the darkness.

"Good. If you see one fall over, you..."

"Stop hitting them and let them get up."

"Good. If you see one bleeding or one that has a broken bone, you..."

"Retreat and let the rest of the group carry them back to the surface."

"Good!" I finished. "Good good good! Great! I think we might have worked out something here. Right then. Get ready for the first wave. I'll just be upstairs."

I looked around the place one last time before leaving. The echoes of working drones digging deeper into the earth still audible from this far up.

"Actually, on second thought. I think I'll use those oak seeds before I go. The pillars I first dug up don't seem to steady, now that I take in how big the rooms are and how we're still digging."

I descended through the shadows. Walking with confidence as my sense for life guided my steps.

At the lowest level, some five floors down, I planted several seeds some five meters apart.

When I allowed my magic to flow into them, they broke open the hardened earth around them and started to spread outwards. Their roots clawing hungrily at the stones that surrounded them.

More magic allowed the changes to speed up. For their trunks to begin forming and heading for the surface.

I saw the thick pillars breaching the fourth floor. Then the third. Then the second.

Until I felt the new creature's leaves tasting sunlight for the first time.

Then they kept going and going and going. Past the height of most commercial buildings.

By the time I drew back, the trunks were so thick that they were pushing up against each other. Like siblings trying to shove the weakest members of the family away from an ice-cream truck.

"Right then." I said with some exasperation. "Gonna need to dig deeper tunnels and make the rooms bigger now. But that's okay. At least each floor has their own set of roots. I can't imagine them collapsing at this point."

Indeed the roots looked more like a series of tangled-up tentacles to my supernatural senses. Gripping their surroundings with a stranglehold so mighty that not a single pebble seemed likely to escape.

With that small success under my belt, I ascended to find my new charges. Eager to see how they would do and glad that I could make a positive difference in their lives.