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chapter-5

Two months passed since She that should not be named talked with me. During this time there were some changes in the dungeon, some to make me stronger and others more to do with coming kobolds. My northern tunnel right now has three rooms that have size of twenty on twenty meters and three meters in height. New room is one that's currently joined with crossroads room and it's also living space of Sqitak and three other needlehair's. Sqitak is now around eighty centimeters long purple hairball with black needles on tips of the hairs, while the other three are only fifty centimeters long and have brown hair and white needle's. He most likely grown so big because of me injecting him with mana directly, I did try to repeat this experiment again but let's just say that I'm happy that I don't need to clean up mess after those.

For some time I was even thinking about naming Sqitak, not like simply giving a name but engraving a name in to the soul of weaker existence. Gods have champions, mages familiars and dungeons named monsters. Of course it's not so simple as simply giving a name, creature named by heighten ranked being will be strengthened but one doing that will need to use a lot of his power for it and also have soul of the named bound to his own forever, and even if named dies its soul will return to the naming one. So this is even more permanent than marriage. Another reason why I didn't do it until now is because I'm uncertain of how much of my current recourses it would take to do, as such I decided against it for now.

My entrance corridor grown from two rooms before crossroads to five, so to make more space for future battles before they reach central parts of the dungeon. All those rooms are now standard size of five on five meters and three meters in height. All of them are pretty much the same barren rooms beside the third one where half of the room from entrance is lowered by half a meter and the other half of the room raised by another half a meter. Thanks to that there is one meter slope with only a single patch in the middle that should allow a Kobold to pass, this way my ability to defend myself should grow quite a bit.

Southern tunnel coming from the crossroads has five rooms. It's also tunnel with rooms for Kobolds from which the biggest one is build at size of twenty on twenty meters and three in height. But let's start from the beginning, fist there is single standard room to make some space between Kobolds living space and rest of the dungeon. After that is the big room where they will be able to live, If there will come a hundred of them that should give around four meters per Kobold. It may not be big enough space at least in my feeling but they won't be spending all the time there as I should find quite a lot for them to do, and if they will work loyally there is no reason for me not to increase its size at later date. Other three rooms are standard size one has deep hole for all those things that you don't want to have lying around in different corners of your dungeon, dung mostly. The second room also has hole but filled with water for drinking, I also hope that they will wash themselves from time to time. Last room for now is also standard, but most likely I will need to make it bigger in the future, and holds only some moss,  luminas mushrooms, standard murbaks and snails to become food source, not most tasty one but for now should be enough.

The last but not least is new eastern corridor going from the crossroad. There are three standard rooms and at the end of the tunnel my core room. I done It this way so I will have my own space only for myself, and so the kobolds won't be able to simply get to my core room from their lair. In future I plan to make it look more like palace with marble floors, paintings and some sculptures, you know even disembodied consciousness wants to look on something better than stone walls.

For new creature I got moths thanks to one that that flew inside the cave and got itself eaten by a spider, later It evolved into dust moth which only ability is to throw dust from its wings into eyes of those that would want to eat it. From observing Sqitak after he got his dose of it I think that it has slight irritating effect that for now only works weakly on not defended skin and much better if it gets into eyes. When some male spiders from the swarm got hit by it even female could not force all of them to listen to her orders.

Another new evolution would be bright snails, those guys most likely ate to much mushrooms. Because of that they can generate light that is close to the levels of that of luminas mushrooms, not truly useful for me but maybe they will have their uses in the future. Only other change is that the beetles that I added after my first battle against spiked beetle, can right now can grow up to thirty centimeters long.

After all those changes I done to my dungeon I'm almost broke on mana. If I didn't do any changes to dungeon It would reach rank three already. But what I done is what was needed and I can only hope that it will pay off in the future. I also hope that I will be able to get that annoying pest that is riding my dungeon, this time I have trap in place to get him. I cannot wait to... this filling, it looks like he came again.

That bastard of a spiked beetle. After he ran away the first time he gathered more of his minions and attacked my dungeon three more times always staying just far enough to be able to run when things turn sour. but this time I will try to get him deeper into the dungeon and close patch behind him. How far has I fallen to have a beetle as enemy, no, no, no he is not an enemy he is only a pebble on my way to be kicked away. Really annoying and tasty pebble but still only pebble. And it's time to get rid of him.

This time he brought forty two beetles with him, it's actually less than last time, then it was more than fifty. It looks like he reached a limit of what he can gather around here. Right now I don't have the foggiest idea why he is so obstinate in attacking me but oh well I'm not going to look gifted beetle into the mandibles.

This time I'm not going to be defending the third room, a slope room, but in fifth one. From our last battle my forces grown enough to meet him in normal battle. This way I should be able to trap and kill him. I divided my forces into three parts. Main forces in fifth room have thirty of my own beetles and twelve hedgehogs.  This way it would be enough to stop him but not enough to make him run away without fighting. Crossroads room forces has twice the number of forces in fifth room and also Sqitak and the needlehair are there, no it's not a name of a rock band, they will be both my reserve and hammer for counter attack. And last but not least is my third room ambush forces, they are made from sticky snails, armored murbaks and spider swarms that will be waiting under the ceiling until battle in the fifth room will fully start and then they will drop down and block corridor behind spiked beetle trapping him inside a dungeon.

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With all told and done its time to start the operation smash the beetle. Spike and his forces come to third room, calling him spiked bastard of the beetle is really long and quite a mouthful to do every single time so I shortened it. Then he stopped moving at the entrance and started sniffing the air, come on there is nothing in the room, really there is no ambush on the ceiling, you can trust me I'm your friendly neighbor dungeon. He slowly advanced further in the room moving right and left trying most likely to find source of the smell that he sniffed. You bastards on the ceiling don't dare to sweat on the floor, can bugs even sweat? After few more minutes he decided to move further into the fourth room. Oh boy, for the moment I thought that ambush will fail.

He still moved slower than normal until entering fifth room, but when he got there his focus shifted completely to my forces waiting for him. This time he didn't waste time on trying to intimidate my creatures and simply send his forces charging, himself staying behind as always. He was ready to escape at any time, not this time my enemy.

 When lines clashed I ordered my ambush forces to block corridor between third and forth room. Sticky snails started to move around making walls, ceiling and floor an adhesive swamp. Armored murbaks moved behind it to create wall to block those illegal immigrants from leaving and become second line of blockade. Behind all this waited spider swarms ready to attack any target that would get past blockade.

Mean time my forces in the fifth room were starting to take causalities and began being pushed back, all this was within my expectations. I think it's time to drop hammer on the anvil.

I ordered Sqitak to move his forces to attack. He roared and with wave of his fabulous hair reserve army charged, I called it roar but in truth it was just more of loud squeak. And that's how the Sqitak and the needlehair faced against the beetles. There weren't any surprise when eighty centimeters long purple hairball gone into the battle, in his first attack his hair punctured holes in three different beetles at the same time. Normally Sqitak isn't aggressive, sometimes even cowardly but when he sees any beetle going even remotely close to him he would attack it and make it full of holes before finishing it off, I think he still holds a grudge against them because of that time when they cut him open. Even for such battle I needed to warn him not to attack allied beetles. But right now he already cut loose starting slaughter and other needlehairs were going right behind him, their target, Spike. When spiked bastard seen change on the battlefield he screeched and together with six beetles closest to him started to run away towards exit. Not this time my friend, you aren't going to run away.

Shortly after Spike started to run away Sqitak and his group were able to brake through remaining beetles and continue their pursuit of them. Mopping up remaining enemies in the fifth room was left to the rest of my forces that already had outnumbered their enemies five to one.

When spiked bastard got to the blockade he didn't slowed down, he started to run even faster leaving his escort behind. Thought adhesive swamp didn't stop him it did slow him down, at the time when he started to get close to the armored murbaks Sqitak started to rip through the beetles that were left behind. I ordered snails to stop working and retred, adhesive they produced was strong and fast working but at the same time it also dried up fast, if it didn't do that all my rooms would be full of glued creatures wriggling around.

When Spike started to move over armored murbaks I ordered spider swarms to attack, thought they couldn't truly wound him females at least still could inject him with their poison by attacking weak points. Thought poison wasn't that strong there was enough of it to weaken the bastard and make him slower.

When he was able to make it through the blockade armored murbaks moved to the sides allowing Sqitak to pass through. Sqitak didn't play any games with Spike, right now he was much bigger than his enemy and hit him without stopping his charge, it was like an freight train hitting an car. My nemesis got thoroughly pierced, the way he looked he had more holes than Swiss cheese, he died immediately after.

This is how my first enemy passes away. You will be remembered, for now, at least until Friday or maybe Sunday thought if there will be someone stronger opponent coming before that it can happen faster.

- Sqitak he is dead you can stop making holes in him - He really hates beetles.

So where was I ah yes it's time to see my spoils.

Level up

Your core become level three.

You gained new creature.

Spiked beetle was added to the data base.

Spiked beetle

Carapace of this beetle is covered with spikes that both increase hardness of it and also can wound his opponents.

Nothing special but I will take everything I can.

There should be  still at least few days before Kobolds come into my dungeon so I shouldn't get one more contingency ready before that. When they become bound by contract there should be any danger after that but there is still a time before they do it and after they come here. For that I should have something to awe them, something that will show them I have power even without them, a monster strong enough to make them feel fear.

Right now Sqitak is hands down strongest in the dungeon and best choice for this also I know a way to make him even stronger.

- Oh Sqitak come here for a moment, you worked so hard for the dungeon that I have reward for you.

- Squak - after this squeak, he started to, manly and with greate determination, run away from my voice.

- You stupid hairball, come back here! You cannot escape me, you are inside my dungeon!

- Sssqqquuuaaakkk

- What do you mean you can try to hide! Come back here and become my guinea pig, I mean take your reward.