Admin 6 was unceremoniously teleported into the Director’s office without warning.

Again.

This time there wasn't a chef or table full of cupcakes to greet him. The Director was alone, and her desk was sadly lacking in desserts.

“How are you communicating with people in the dungeon?” she asked.

Admin 6 tilted his head, raising an eyebrow.

The Director sent a screen to him. “She sent it to you directly instead of through whatever other means you’ve discovered.”

He read the message from Athena, his confusion turning real. She implied he helped set up the player’s party? Athena wasn't even one of his catgirls.

“Have you gone into the dungeon?” the Director asked.

He looked away from the screen, shaking his head.

“Have you brought anyone out?”

Again, he shook his head.

“I will be verifying that on my own,” she decided. “I will also be going through the catgirl’s messages with a fine-toothed comb. I will be monitoring her to see how you’ve been communicating.”

Admin 6 shrugged.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“That doesn't worry you?” she asked.

With all honesty, he shook his head.

The Director huffed. “I’ll message Athena, then. I'm sure she’ll be more communicative.”

For some reason Admin 6 wanted to stick his tongue out at her. He restrained himself, barely. The Director sent him back to the other Admins.

He took his seat, silently wishing Athena luck with her plan. Whatever it was.

*****

Dear Diary,

I suspect tomorrow the cycle will reset. Samurai says they’re on Floor 56, and at least one party is ahead of them. So yeah, it’s almost over.

Samurai also said that Lily has given up flirting. She got the message and is now just grumbly and unhelpful. Progress? At least nothing bad happened to anyone. That I know of.

Oh, Hash wrote me again, this time about some other person in her party who’s been annoying her. I kinda wonder if she’s going to eventually write me about everyone. Not that I’d mind, I did ask for it, after all. It’d be kinda funny.

I should look over the answers that the Admin gave me to all my questions again. I kinda got distracted and never, like, thought about them a whole lot. Other than the name thing, which is sad. I wonder if we’ll get new names when we leave the dungeon, too. I mean, we won’t ever come back here, and everything will be super different, so maybe?

But there seems to be a baseline laziness with all the Admins. Like, they only fix things with players or NPCs when it becomes a personal inconvenience to them. Or if they think it’d be amusing. The only person who has done things to be mean is the Director. For everyone else, being mean would just take too much effort.

I wonder why she’s mean. What happened in her life to make her kinda hate people. But then I guess Lily is kinda the same way. Lily is mean because she wants to be the center of the universe and wants everyone to think she’s the best, and is upset that people are happy without her approval.

Maybe the Director’s just upset people have opinions that don’t align with hers.

In which case she should get over it.

I’m going to be happy even without her approval. Just to spite her.

Goodnight, Dungeon!

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