The next day, Violet was pleasantly surprised to see her kodama had brought something new. She now had bearberries as both a new [Base Resource] and a new [Item]. From the item's description, it seemed a bearberry was a forageable plant that appeared around late fall through winter time and was similar to a cranberry in use. It was supposed to be ground cover like creeping charlie was, but more bushy in appearance with red bearberries growing on the plant.

Violet wasn't sure she'd ever be able to use a plant so unfamiliar to her, but she'd still happily accept the dungeon points from it. After adding the additional 36 DP, she now had 199 DP total. As Violet wasn't ready to research anything yet, she just planned to save them up, for now. However, 10 MP of her daily 13 MP could easily be used to add some more water to her pond. With only 5 MP left to go, Violet happily went to sleep.

Of course, this caused her to miss the start of the upcoming battle. Another four zombies and two skeletons had entered the dungeon and were stumbling their way through the place. Eventually, the zombies broke through one of the doors in the wildflower meadow room, which led to the rest swarming together as they made their way further into the dungeon. Only a single skeleton, which had gotten caught up in a battle with the slime in the wildflower meadow room, was left behind.

As there was only one direction to go, the zombies and skeletons, eventually, made their way into the floodplains meadow room. This had taken a while since the zombies were still slow when it came to breaking down the large stone doors, but it still happened in only a matter of minutes thanks to four of the zombies working together.

As the dungeon was actively in danger, the slimes, which usually stayed hidden as part of the capture-the-slime challenge, did their best to fend off the intruders. The second skeleton was easily held back by two of the slimes while the other three went after the zombies. The slimes didn't have higher brain function, so they couldn't coordinate their attacks. As such, while one slime could have easily taken care of the skeleton, given enough time, two ended up preoccupied with the same skeleton.

The river and rabbit holes alongside the other three slimes slowed the four zombies down considerably. It was difficult for such a mindless zombie to navigate even a river that didn't have running water. Even the rabbit holes caused their feet to get stuck while the slimes repeatedly knocked them over. One such incident even led to one of the zombies dying as it knocked its head off of the wooden fencing meant to corral the slimes. With one of their companions taken out, it took the zombies much longer to get through the next door.

While adventurers might have gotten confused about which way to go next, the [Monsters] had no issues with figuring out the correct path. They were instinctively drawn towards the dungeon core and would go whichever direction was the most direct route to the dungeon core. As such, the zombies went to the garden meadow next where there weren't actually any [Monsters] of [Critters] capable of being a real threat.

The frogs could attempt to trip the zombies, but they were really too small and would just end up squashed. Meanwhile, the bees ended up sacrificing a few lives attempting to sting the zombies, but ended up giving up when their attacks proved futile. Instead, they ended up swarming angrily as they attempted to look menacing, but this didn't exactly do much against the undead.

Before too long, the three zombies had finally made it to the hedge flower maze. While both doors would have, normally, locked the zombies in, they had destroyed one of the doors in the process of trying to enter the room. Similarly, the zombies fought against the hedge flower maze walls as they tried to force their way through the maze. While they may have instinctually known the most direct route to the dungeon core room, this didn't apply to something that wasn't an actual dungeon wall. Hedge Flowers were difficult, but not impossible to destroy or climb over, so that's what the zombies attempted to do.

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Of course, all of their efforts were only rewarded with a rather speedy death once they made it to the emperor rock slime that served as the room's boss. The three zombies were pelted with stones until they died. The skeletons took longer for the basic slimes to kill, but they still ended up dying not long before Violet awoke from her rest.

When Violet looked at her system menu logs, she was surprised to see she had 18 more dungeon points than she had previously. Looking over the specifics, she noted that she had the same sorts of tributes she did whenever zombies and skeletons invaded her dungeon. This was quite worrisome for Violet, but she was only left scratching her head in confusion when she checked to see if there were any [Monsters] left in the dungeon.

Of course, that wasn't necessary since the dungeon wouldn't have absorbed the zombie and skeleton remains unless they had all been defeated and the dungeon no longer had outsiders in it. It was just that people, including Violet, tended to feel the need to confirm the details without thinking things through.

While it was a huge relief that the dungeon had managed to fend off a threat without her even needing to get involved, Violet still couldn't help but feel perplexed. She had been so worried about [Monsters] invading and her poor, weak slimes being unable to handle them that she had barely been able to rest early on. To think that simply adding a boss [Monster] could have this much of an effect seemed almost too good to be true.

Still, Violet was quite happy as she went about spending the 50 MP she now had. As she walked to her new pond room, she noted that the dungeon had already managed to repair the damage on the stone doors and there was no sign there had even been any intruders. If it weren't for her system menu showing what "tributes" she had received while she was asleep, she might not have even known that [Monsters] had invaded her dungeon.

Filling the pond the rest of the way up, 5 MP was easily used up. Then Violet played around with the room feature that allowed her to manipulate the terrain. With another 8 MP she was able to build a small island in the middle of the pond, just big enough to put a tree on.

"I'd like to research a willow tree using the willow tree seeds."

Would you like to spend 10 DP to research willow trees using the [Base Resource] willow tree seeds?

Yes

No

Violet selected the [Yes] option and noted that the willow tree seeds had now been removed from the [Base Resources] menu. She supposed that made sense since it wasn't like there was a whole lot else she could do with it.

Luckily, since the willow tree wasn't a tree that bore fruit, it only cost 5 MP to put one in the middle of the new island in the middle of her new pond. Apple trees cost double that amount, but they were also a useful resource that encouraged adventurers to visit her dungeon, so she couldn't complain about them too much.

Before leaving the pond room once more, Violet spent another 15 MP to apply grass, watercress, and cattails to the pond room. The room already had grass, but applying grass made the grass more vibrant and the other two plants were the only ones that seemed well suited for such an environment. Similarly, Violet also spent her last 11 MP applying grass to her boss room so that her boss room could look extra nice.

The pond room would still need to have some [Critters] added as well as some other plants, but that would have to wait. Violet had to wait for Theodore to return to even get the lotus flowers and lilypads she had requested from him the last time they met. However, even [Critters] would be impossible right now since she needed to install a spawner and have enough mana to summon the [Critters] first. Still, Violet felt quite good about how her pond room was shaping up.