The frontier lands were... boring.

Throughout history, natural barriers such as mountain ranges or rivers had often become frontiers between territories due to being easy to defend and hard to conquer. This trend, according to [Olden Knowledge], was even more prevalent now, thanks to those kinds of places often having fearful creatures that would make it hard for an army to cross through.

But this frontier wasn't like that.

If anything, it was quite the opposite. It was a giant stretch of barren desert, with barely any life other than some pitifully tiny cacti.

The mana in the air was awfully thin too, which greatly lowered my regeneration and forced me to slow down my pace to prevent burning through mana faster than I produced it.

The terrain was flat, but there were barely any winds. The weather was always scorching. It didn't have any precious resources nor any kind of strategic value. It was, all in all, not the kind of place a country would want to expand into and invest in.

And so, no one did. That was the reason why this 1000 kilometer by 1000 kilometer (rough estimate) patch of desert wasn't claimed by any force, meaning it was, as I mentioned before, a frontier land, bordering Fairland to the south, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, the Central Kingdoms to the west, and my destination, the Hearthen Empire to the north.

I sighed, and continued onwards with my boring journey. I had managed to reach level 24 by killing countless critters under level 20, but this barren land would, unfortunately, give me no opportunity to get that juicy second skill anytime soon.

But as I was cursing my bad luck, my decently high Intelligence allowed me to pick up on some minute mana fluctuations occurring westbound of me, and, interest piqued for the first time in several days, I decided to go and investigate.

The fluctuations disappeared quite quickly, but I had already locked onto the direction they'd come from. There were barely any dunes in the desert, but the few present obscured whatever had caused the phenomenon from me.

It wasn't a big commotion at any means. It was in fact small, shy even, and I may not have even paid it any heed had I been on the more mana-rich forests of Fairland, but here, I was completely starved of excitement.

The cause soon came I to view. It was not a monster, like I had expected, nor a cute girl like I'd hoped. It was... a door, in the middle of the air.

Well, it wasn't really a door per-se, but more of a door-shaped hole in the fabric of reality, leading to... nowhere. It reminded me of an ender portal, but vertical, and without the frames.

'God, I'm a freaking nerd. In any case, that's gotta be a dungeon, right?'

I walked towards the tear in reality that was spewing minute amounts of mana out into the environment, and threw a pebble through.

It dissapeared as soon as it crossed the barrier, as expected. Immediately after, I pushed the tip of my finger inside.

When I pulled it out, it was just fine.

'Hmm... a dungeon is really convenient, now that I need that last level, but maybe trying to solo it would be to much for me...

Wait, this is probably the weakest of dungeons, with such thin mana and no adventurers to use as fertilizer, right?'

Just as an assurance, I [Grand Appraisal]'d the dimensional door, but it barely have me any new info, only confirming what I had already guessed. Also, it tired my soul slightly, maybe enough to knock out cold someone with 150 points worth of Soul Power.

'Yup, these high-tier stuffs really put a dent on my soul strain.'

I calmed myself, and tightening my nerves, I stormed inside.

...And when I came out the other side, I was in the middle of a flower garden.

I smelled the heavily scented air, and the sweet fragrance that tickled my artificial nostrils soothed my tense soul. The ground was littered with colorful flowers laid about in thick patches, a field which extended several tens of meters in each direction until they were met with steep, rocky cliffs on all sides, which went up towards the blue—and I assumed fake—sky.

The cool breeze swept past my body (I had already activated the touch enchantments) and I relaxed as I plopped down onto the grass and flowers.

'Is this really a dungeon? Damn, I want this to be my mental palace. Just close my eyes and arrive at a place like this. How nice would that be?'

After a few seconds, some bees came out from the cliffs, where apparently their hives were, and started trying to sting me. They couldn't even scratch the mythril, they were level 1 mobs after all, so I felt no need to kill them. At one point there were thousands of them flocking me, but after seeing how fruitless of an endeavour it was to attack me, they eventually started leaving, until none were left.

Looking around, not that my field of vision wasn't obscured bumpy countless flying objects, I found an inconspicuous cave in an indentation of the cliff which I had apparently missed beforehand. It was as high and wide as a single adult, so I fit inside fairly snugly.

It went on for several meters, and had a few twists and turns, and as I arrived at the end... there was only a milky white orb about the size of a palm, on top of a shoddy stone altar in the middle of what could barely be considered a room.

The ball seemed to have tome kind of white mist swirling inside it, and as I instinctively reached out to touch it...

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A high-pitched voice assaulted my mind.

'Nooo! Please don't kill me! Please don't crush me! Please, please, please?'

'What the hell!?'

'Noooo! You said a curse word! That's a bad word!...EEK!!'

It let out a small shriek, and then there was a moment of silence.

'I-I'm sorry, I didn't really mean to tell you what to do, I just... err...'

As the voice trailed off, I started getting my bearings back, and thought, tentatively,

'Errr, can you hear this?'

'Y-yeah?...'

'Are you... the Dungeon?'

'Yes...'

'Umm... hello, I'm Damuel, just a passerby...'

'Oh, y-you didn't come here to hurt me, Damuel?'

The voice sounded a bit more spirited now.

'I didn't, I just... found your entrance by chance, err... how should I address you?'

'Oh, uhhh... I think I used to be human, but I don't really remember anything from back then, so I don't really know what my name used to be. I just remember that I liked flowers a lot, so when I saw I could create flowers by using something called DP, I decided to place a bunch of them!'

I smiled, although bitterly. I found this Dungeon quite pitiful, to be honest. Such an earnest soul, not only losing their memories, something I was unfortunately quite familiar with, but also being trapped in their own little world with nobody to talk to, waiting for their demise once some random adventurer happened to pass by and slaughtered it.

'Haha, you certainly have good taste. They're really pretty, those flowers. Do you... at least remember if you used to be a boy or a girl?'

'Oh, that's easy! I was definitely a girl!'

'Hmm... then, do you mind if I gave you a name? You know, for convienence?'

'A new name... okay! It'd better be a good one though!'

'Of course, hahaha. So, I was thinking... how about Flora? I'm almost positive it means flower in some language or another, and it's really cute, just like you!'

'Flora... It sounds pretty. My name is Flora from now on! Thanks, Damuel!'

I could hear from her tone how genuemly excited she was. It made me feel quite warm.

'Of course, it's my pleasure.'

'Your name is kinda hard to pronounce, by the way!'

'Yeah, I get that a lot... Anyway, Flora, don't you have any defenses or monsters, in case, I dunno... some bad guys come?'

'I have the bees! And they're super cheap because of the bonus from the flowers, plus, it says here that they respawn when they are killed if there are no delvers on the floor, whatever that means!'

'Oh, so dungeons have their own System too?'

'Yeah, but I already used all the DP I could on this floor, so it says I can't add more things even if my DP is full, and apparently I need to make a second floor to get more maximum capacity per floor... this is too complicated...'

'And... what do you need to create a second floor?'

'Umm, it says here that I have to kill three delvers or repel thirty... But I don't want to kill...'

'I see. I'll think of a plan for that, okay? You just sit tight. I'll talk to you in a bit.'

'Okay, thanks! You know, you're reeeaaally nice, Damuel, despite how creepy you look!'

'Thanks... I suppose I do look shady as all hell, huh...'

I laughed a bit, self-deprecatingly.

'Hey! No curse words! They're bad words!'

'Yeah, sorry... Anyway, talk to ya later.'

I chuckled a bit as I slid my palm off the milky core and the mental connection was cut off, but was startled by a screen that suddenly appeared. I read it as I made my way back towards the field of flowers, where I felt at peace.

You have reached the Core of a Dungeon. You have cleared the dungeon.

Dungeon Level: 1

No Rewards will be given.

Soul Power surpasses 5000. You have unlocked a new option.

You can become a [Dungeon Master]

-Your soul will move into the Dungeon Core, replacing the current one.

-System will be replaced with Dungeon System.

-You will be able to freely move your awareness all throughout the dungeon, and expand it to a small range outside it once enough floors have been constructed.

-Due to Soul Power exceeding the minimum of 5000 by over 4900, 49 extra floors will be added for free, for a total of 50 floors.

-All other attributes, unassigned stat points and skills will be used to increased maximum DP and DP regeneration.

Do you wish to proceed? [YES] [NO]

I read over the message once, and immediately pressed [NO] without a second thought.

'Hell no. First, I still haven't given up on turning back I to a human, and most importantly, I don't wanna destroy Flora, she deserves to live!'

I huffed, but then noticed a second screen in front of me, that had been obscured from view by the previous one.

Hidden requirements met.

-Dungeon Core's trust level is high enough.

-Soul Strength reaches 9999.

-No Dungeons have been destroyed by you.

You have unlocked a hidden option.

You can become a [Dungeon Overseer].

-The Dungeon will still be controlled by the Dungeon Core.

-You can freely command the dungeon, and it will be forced to obey. This feature can be toggled on and off.

-You will be able to instantly move anywhere inside the dungeon.

-You will be able to communicate with the Dungeon Core from anywhere in the Dungeon. This feature can be toggled on and off.

-Dungeon monsters will be friendly towards you

-As this dungeon is a Pocket Dimension Dungeon, which can randomly teleport its entrance by using up all of its DP once it is capped, the Dungeon will, instead of randomly teleporting, turn into a portable form that you can freely carry around and deploy.

Do you wish to proceed? [YES] [NO]

'Now this is something worth considering. Why the hell didn't you just show me this in the first place, System!?

I don't very much like the option to force Flora to listen to all my commands, but it can be turned off anyway, and if I'm reading this right, I should be take just take her with me.

I don't think I'll be able to use the Dungeon as an XP farm, since monsters will apparently turn friendly and I really doubt they'll give experience that way, but it still seems like a solid option. I'll go to consult it with Flora.'

I once again placed my palm on Flora's Dungeon Core, and spoke to her with my mind.

'Hey there, I'm back'

'I know, I saw you walk to my Core to place your hand, it seemed like ages until you got here! I missed you!'

'Oh come on, it's been barely five minutes. So, you can see anything inside the Dungeon?'

'Yeah, well, it's not really sight, I can just kinda... feel everything that happens? It's hard to describe. If I focus on one place the rest like blurs into the background, but if I don't, I can more or less feel everything going on at once. Well, I've only got this room and the flower field, haha.'

'Anyway, back on topic, I have the option to turn into something called a Dungeon Overseer, which will allow me to freely move inside your Dungeon and talk to you from anywhere. Unfortunately, it comes with the option of ordering you around without giving you a chance to say no. Of course I won't use it, but I wanted you to know just in case. How would you feel about it?'

'Great! Do it!'

'E-eh? That easy?

'Of course! I trust you!'

I couldn't help but feel heartwarmed by Flora's innocence.

'Alright, here goes nothing. [YES].'