"What do you think, love? I think it's starting to look quite nice around here. You always did love the smell of the rain in the spring."

Violet smiled sadly as she stood in the doorway to her wildflower meadow room, watching the rain slowly fall from the sky. If it weren't for the strange phenomenon of the entrances, the room would almost look like the real thing. The sky and ground seamlessly blended together and you could barely even tell that there were walls. It just looked like an endless field of wildflowers, grass, and cloudy, gray sky. Of course, if you looked hard enough, there were some tells that the effects were rather artificial and the room was somewhat limited. However, Violet much preferred to allow the illusion to take over.

It helped to keep the feelings of imprisonment at bay. Being a Dungeon Master might give you a lot of power and freedom to build a seemingly endless amount of space to explore. However, the feelings of ostracization and imprisonment always seemed to remain in the back of Violet's mind. She couldn't leave this artificial space and she would never be able to walk among other people again, accepted and welcomed as one of them. She would always be stuck in this dungeon where she was to be feared, respected, and kept at a distance.

The slime that was now bouncing adorably through the grass, oblivious to the rain, helped to keep things lively, but it didn't really respond to Violet's words. This made Violet think that it was likely that her slime couldn't really understand anything she had to say and that it was likely that it was acting on pure instincts. It fought invaders because they didn't belong to the dungeon and also likely because they kept attacking the slimes.

Honestly, Violet wondered if her slime would even think to attack the invaders without them attacking it first. It wasn't like the slime ever engaged opponents first or that it engaged the wrong opponent. At least, that hadn't been the case during the short time that Violet had been in this world. This was certainly a question Violet wished she could have answered since it would be a real waste to only have [Monsters] that either avoided combat entirely or were reactionary.

Who was Violet kidding? Even if she had a million slimes, they were so bad at combat that they weren't reliable enough to protect the dungeon at all. It would be far better for Violet to try and confuse adventurers with unfamiliar puzzles and winding passages. Maybe even use some [Traps] in some of the hallways and rooms in order to make it more difficult to continue exploring the dungeon.

Violet swung her wooden sword through the grass idly. She had spent 10 DP to create a schematic for wooden toy swords from her wood [Base Resource] and then another 2 MP to summon one. Since she was supposed to learn swordsmanship from David, Violet had wanted to have a sword to use. However, the fact was that Violet didn't have any metal [Base Resources] and stone didn't really sound like any better of an option than wood to make a sword from. At least wood was a material Violet had heard of swords being made from.

Most small single summon [Items] were fairly cheap. If Violet wanted to summon a single apple, carrot, or potato it would only cost 1 MP while a more complex summon like a bread roll or a wooden sword cost 2 MP. The [Items] that were applied as room features like the various wildflowers or mushrooms cost slightly more at 2-5 MP per 100 Square Units. However, they also had a tendency to be respawnable resources rather than a one-off like the cheaper [Items]. Of course, it wasn't like Violet had that many [Items] either so it was entirely possible that more valuable and rare [Items] might have a higher cost.

Violet wasn't too bothered by her wasteful spending. Since it was a new day, she already regenerated another 13 MP and still had 29 MP, even after summoning the wooden toy sword. Since her kodama had brought back some meadow garlic, common daisies, and some repeat [Items], Violet had also gained another 73 DP, so her total was now sitting at 231 DP. This meant Violet was fairly happy with where she was sitting.

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If anything, she had to wonder if she should spend some mana on a new room or something since it would be a waste to only be 21 MP away from full and then have adventurers come in. Since the 50 MP was a hard limit, any extra mana she had a chance to earn would be wasted if someone spent any sort of significant amount of time in the dungeon. However, before Violet could continue her line of thinking, Violet felt the familiar feeling of someone entering the dungeon.

Violet smiled, hoping it was Gregory or David returning to the dungeon. However, Violet was rather confused when her guests took so long to make it into the room. Violet furrowed her brows as she headed for the entrance on the opposite side of the wildflower meadow. In the process, Violet slowly grew soaked, but she tried to ignore her discomfort as she continued. By the time she reached the other side, a strange thudding sound had begun against the other side of the door.

Violet grew more confused as she pushed the doors open, but began to shriek in fright when she saw just what her visitors were. Where Violet had been expecting living, breathing adventurers decked out in armor or, if she was lucky, her new acquaintances, she was instead met with the rather horrifying and revolting sight of three zombies. The zombies who had been previously smashing against the door in an attempt to brute force their way through were now stumbling forward into the wildflower meadow room.

"This isn't good! What do I do, love? I don't think I can take all three of them..."

The good news was that the zombies didn't seem wholly focused on Violet, but the bad news, to Violet's utter horror, was that they were trying to get to the core room. While two of the zombies seemed interested in Violet, one of them continued to blindly stumble forward towards the other door that led to the core room.

Violet wasn't sure how she ended up with zombies in her dungeon, but she did know one thing. There was no way that she was equipped to handle something like this. In desperation, Violet tried to swing her sword at one of the zombies' heads. Violet couldn't help but panic as she continued to attack haphazardly, constantly worried about the other zombie who was still heading towards the other doorway.

Violet finally got one of the zombies she was fighting knocked to the floor when she heard a familiar-sounding thud. Violet whirled around and looked in the direction of the other zombie, but was painfully reminded of the other zombies as she had a chunk bitten out of her arms. Violet cried out in pain before whacking the zombie in the head and knocking it to the ground.

Even once it was on the ground, she continued to bludgeon it to death in anger. It was already frustrating enough feeling helpless about her having no good way to protect her dungeon and now she had to worry about whether a zombie bite would actually result in her turning into a zombie? Why the heck were there even zombies? This seemed like the entirely wrong genre for this!

Once the zombie was dead, Violet looked around, trying to figure out where the second zombie she had been fighting had gone. When she saw her slime bouncing up before knocking the zombie over, Violet laughed amusedly. She had just been wondering how well the slime would defend the dungeon and here it was keeping the zombie distracted while she took care of the other threats.

Feeling satisfied with her slime keeping the second zombie busy, Violet headed for the third zombie that seemed to be making no real discernable progress with the door. The entrance seemed to be too sturdy for the zombie to destroy by itself. Violet sighed as she swung the wooden sword at the zombie to knock it over before also bludgeoning it to death. Unfortunately, this was not a fast process by any means, but it was the best that Violet could do with a wooden sword.

Finally, Violet took care of the last zombie, grateful that her slime had kept it pinned while she was busy. Maybe her slime couldn't deal any real damage to the zombie, but it was a relief to have even this small amount of help. Once all the zombies were dead, Violet collapsed on the ground, allowing the rain to wash away the dirt and blood as she rested on the ground.

"System, am I going to turn into a zombie?"

Dungeon masters are immune to all forms of death. Only the dungeon core being destroyed will result in the Dungeon Master permanently dying.

That didn't feel like a very direct answer, but Violet decided to accept it.