***Nhum Chulka’s POV***

“Boss, what’s the plan? Are we going to sell the core?”

Chulka smacked the idiot beastman who said that upside the head. “Do you want to get hunted down by the Explorer’s Guild? There isn’t any way to sneak something like that onto the black market—not for people like us, at least.” He grinned, “You’re greener than I thought, considering you don’t even know this method.”

The lackey was still rubbing the sore spot on his skull. “What method, boss?”

Chulka grinned maliciously and fished a small gold coin out of his pocket. “A dungeon core will do just about anything to keep from getting smashed. We’re going to force it to make, say, a few hundred of these in exchange for us leaving peacefully.”

The lackey’s eyes glittered with greed. “In that case, boss, can’t we take the core with us and have it make gold all the time?”

One of the demons in the group rolled his eyes. “What do they teach you beast people in school? I dropped out, and even I know that a core can’t make anything outside of its dungeon.”

“Like how you can’t make anything in society?” The beastman lackey shot back.

The demon’s violet eyes glared at him harshly. Bolts of metal were pierced through his horns and metal sheets and rings were wrapped around them. His appearance and magical ability were plenty intimidating, even if he lacked size compared to a beast person.

“S-sorry about that, Kazef, bro,” the lackey quickly apologized. “Then, uh, boss,” the lackey decided to show his ignorance one more time, “Why not have the core make a few thousand coins while we’re in there instead? Or even more?”

“It’s a two-floor dungeon,” Chulka explained. “There’s no way it has enough mana for that. Any more questions?”

“No, boss,” the lackey lowered his head.

“Good. Then let’s head in.”

Chulka and his gang were essentially bandits. They mostly harassed travelers on the road or stole from small villages during the night. However, there had been a time when they posed as a group of explorers and “guided” new members into dungeons, just to turn on them and take their stuff.

The people managing the guild weren’t stupid, so they were caught before long, and their guild badges were confiscated. However, the second demon of the group, Casanuella, had managed to sneak away with her guild badge. She was a somewhat vulgar woman, with pierced horns, an explosive body, revealing clothes, and too much makeup, but she wasn’t as stupid as she looked.

Because Casanuella was still technically an explorer, she had received word when a new dungeon was found and proven safe. The guild spread information like that around to help populate areas where explorers hadn’t been needed before. But in this case, it was being used to help a group of bandits raid the dungeon before proper security measures were in place. Most importantly, there shouldn’t be a barrier cast in front of the core room yet.

“It’s amazing that they’re not even guarding the entrance yet,” a scruffy beastwoman muttered.

The elf, an uncharacteristically gloomy-looking fellow, with his long hair left to fall freely and dark circles under his eyes, smiled unpleasantly. “It looks like every guild employee they could bring over through the warp gate is being used to construct the branch building. The new inspector is either a bitch who doesn’t want to hire locals, or an idiot who thinks trouble won’t come to a backwater place like this.”

“But it’s a good thing for us that there aren’t any guards,” Chulka grinned. He stepped up to the door sealing the entrance and noticed the plaque embedded above. ‘Brutes and Fools Beware: This Dungeon Calls for a Sage,’ it read. The beastman laughed.

“You’re picky for a two-floor dungeon, huh?” His smile vanished, and he glared harshly, “The Explorer’s Guild isn’t protecting you right now. So do you want to invite us into your core room like a gentleman, or do we have to get rough?”

A small stone fell from above and hit Chulka between the ears. His face immediately flushed red from anger. He bared his fangs and growled, “Have it your way.” He looked over his shoulder with a wild smile. “Alright you bastards, on the count of three. One,” everyone drew their weapons. “Two,” they lowered their postures. “Three!”

***Archimedes’ POV***

The wolfman raised a huge leg and kicked Archimedes’ ten-centimeter-thick stone doors. They buckled, and the hinges cracked and crumbled in places. Archimedes felt his tension rise.

Well they aren’t humans, that’s for sure. Where is that strength coming from without using physical enhancement magic? Are these wolfmen monsters?

Taking a closer look at their muscular and skeletal structures, Archimedes found that they were built more like something in between a bear and a tiger than a wolf. Every single one of them, even the woman in the group (who he thought was a man at first), was built like a beast and full of testosterone. If he just added in how the ambient mana treated them coldly, he could stereotype these people as the exact opposite of the elves he first encountered.

When the doors didn’t break immediately, the two beastmen standing to either side of Chulka rushed forward, each hitting one door with their shoulders. The hinges shattered, and they continued forward boldly, only to fall into the pit trap placed immediately after the entrance. A sick, wet sound pierced the air as the jagged debris at the bottom assaulted their bodies. Thick, hot blood splashed on the walls and floor of the pit, and continued to pool. The guttural screams and desperate movements soon quieted.

Archimedes felt the two wolfmen transition from foreign entities in his body to materials for his use. In other words, he watched them die with that much apathy. He had seen this sort of thing happen hundreds of millions of times, after all. Archimedes claimed his prize, and the bodies and possessions of the wolfmen sublimated into a mist of mana that he promptly added to his stores.

The lead wolfman watched his comrades’ eyes turn dull with a grim face. He kept watching until they vanished entirely, then set his jaw. “Let’s go. And watch out for traps.”

They walked slowly down the first hallway, giving odd looks to the violent statues and carvings. The leader and another wolfman worked together to break down the next set of doors, and Archimedes issued a few orders to his monsters.

***Nhum Chulka’s POV***

While Casanuella and the other ranged fighters lagged at the back of the group, Chulka got the lackey’s help to break down the next set of doors. He didn’t want anybody falling into any more pit traps, so he held the lackey back from running inside. However, that backfired, as monsters leapt at their faces through the settling dust. Chulka shielded himself with the hilt of his axe, but the lackey got bit in several places.

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A pair of ice shards and an arrow came shooting from the back, and the little fox-like monsters scattered, hiding themselves in holes in the walls. Chulka gave the rear group a nod in acknowledgement and looked at the lackey.

“Can you go on?”

“Of course!” he said, though sweat was beginning to bead on his forehead, and he was looking a little pale. “They just sting a bit, that’s all.”

Casanuella just rolled her eyes. “Get over here, you.”

The lackey trudged over and she cast a healing spell on him. His wounds rapidly closed, but he stumbled.

“Hey! Get off!” The demon panicked a bit as the much larger beastman nearly fell on her, desperately pushing him back with both arms until the scruffy beastwoman nearby helped steady him.

“Sorry. I felt really dizzy all of a sudden.”

Casanuella huffed. “Haven’t you ever been healed before? That’s normal.”

“If we’re ready, then let’s go, before those fox things come out of their holes.”

Chulka led the way down the next hallway, where they met a dead end. They knew this couldn’t be all, since the dungeon was supposed to have two floors, but they had to stop and start a search for the way forward. The lackey, who was still feeling tired, leaned against the cave wall to rest, and they watched him slip right through, accompanied by the wet cracking sound of skull hitting stone.

Chulka shut his eyes tightly and shook his head, then searched along the wall carefully until he found the boundaries of the illusion. He peeked across to the other side and jumped over the pit. The others all followed him through and they found a third set of doors.

“The rest of you idiots stay back,” he said glumly, kicking the doors by himself to knock them down. They broke in one hit, and felt rather hollow and more fragile than the others.

Chulka checked closely for any holes in the ground and stepped forward slowly. Then, from the very edge of his vision, he saw something sharp and arched his body back. A swinging blade cut him from his left shoulder to his right pectoral. The cut was nearly an inch deep. If he didn’t have such a large body, it might have been a fatal wound.

He stumbled back and Casanuella immediately began healing his wound. Chulka stopped her when it had scabbed thoroughly. “I don’t really want to be unconscious right now,” he said.

The demon woman nodded and let out a breath. “I’m almost out of mana anyway.” She glared at Kazef and the gloomy elf who were both too lousy at mana control to heal, “I’m leaving the ranged support to you numbskulls from here.”

A pair of yellow eyes glittered at them from the shadows in the corner of the room, but the owner let them walk down the next tunnel without doing anything.

***Archimedes’ POV***

Archimedes breathed a sigh of relief that none of his Wolfbats were killed. He understood from seeing the wolfmen easily break down his stone doors that his Wolfbats stood no chance against them. Once the slaughter started, it would be hard to stop it.

His mood improved further when his illusion puzzle worked as he expected it to, even down to someone stumbling onto the passage without realizing it.

And he was unlucky enough to fall head-first.

As before, the brutes smashed through his fourth puzzle while ignoring the effort he put into these things. However, Archimedes was glad to be able to test out all of his traps in sequence. He was right about multiple pitfalls making people wary of the floor. The wolfman leader didn’t even check the ceiling, and he got a nasty wound because of it, though the demon woman was able to stop the bleeding.

The healing magic she used was strange. It was unlike the healing magic the humans’ used, which drew on the power of a god or nature spirit; and it was unlike his version, which relied on his own power of creation. This magic seemed to use mana to stimulate the body and force it to recover on its own. That magic made Archimedes wary. If there was no need to rely on the favor of a god or something else, any human who could use magic would have been able to heal as well. He would have to expect the same of these demons.

The group arrived at his fifth puzzle, but they didn’t even bother to look at the riddle on the door before the two remaining uninjured beastmen kicked it down. They looked around carefully, but they didn’t see any pitfalls or pendulums waiting for them. Of course not. Archimedes knew he’d used those as much as he could on this floor before they were simply expected, and Minute had hidden the real trap quite well when it rebuilt it.

They won’t make it to the second floor, Archimedes thought with dark confidence.

And then the trap misfired.

***Casanuella Euria Opherion’s POV***

They had lost too many already, so everybody was watching for traps without any laxness. The next door seemed to not have a trap behind it, though. The lone decorated room in this series of tunnels and caves could be seen ahead. The walls were carved with pleasant patterns, unmarred by roots and fibers. Small dots of light were floating lazily to replace the lighting from the Glow Moss. It looked a bit like civilization was waiting to welcome them out of this trap-laden wilderness.

Even though they could see that scene just ahead of them, the group moved slowly and carefully down the tunnel. Just when they thought it might actually be safe, a dull click was heard: the sound of a pressure plate being stepped on. Unsure what to expect, the group scattered. After a second, what looked like arrowheads shot out of the wall from unseen holes. Kazef and the gloomy elf were right in the line of fire, and they took several arrowheads directly.

Their wounds weren’t too deep. Casanuella was even wondering if she should waste her mana on healing them, but before she knew it, they started to convulse and foam at the mouth.

Poison? Troll spit, I’ll be too late now!

Whatever devious concoction had been used was very fast-acting. The two were dead before she could do anything.

Chulka watched with a bitter expression as the two ranged fighters turned into mist and vanished. “We can’t go on like this,” he said weakly. “Let’s go back while we still can. I think we all underestimated this dungeon a little too much.”

So, with their numbers halved, they were simply going to leave with no gains? It didn’t sit well with her, but she didn’t see going forward as a real option either.

All the doors had been broken, and all the traps had been triggered, so the walk back was peaceful. Or, she thought it was, until they were passing through the third room, and Casanuella heard a sudden snarl and a snap behind her. She turned around and saw a large black wolf releasing the scruffy beastwoman's neck from its jaws. She fell to the ground with a thump, blank eyes staring, and quickly became fog.

The black wolf shifted its yellow eyes to Chulka next, lunging at him fiercely. The beastman fought back with his axe, but he was injured and couldn’t use his full strength. In fact, his body buckled under the animal’s force, and a flower of blood bloomed as his neck was torn open.

The creature looked at her next, and she panicked, forming a black chaos sphere with nearly half of her remaining mana and launching it out at the wolf. Its body exploded into a dozen meaty chunks, which smeared the walls and floor. Around the same time as Casanuella’s breathing returned to normal, the animal’s remains turned into mist and vanished.

The demon woman looked at the two beastmen who were somehow still alive with her, and they made the unanimous decision to flee for their lives.

***Archimedes’ POV***

To think the mechanism Minute had installed for the poisoned arrowheads would include such a long lag time! The entire group could have been downed right there otherwise. Some adjustments would have to be made. However, it was good that it managed to take out the rearguard. He wanted to keep that aspect, if he could, and make it a little more reliable.

Well, he had considered that a few of them might manage to escape, which was why he had told his only Dungeon Wolf, which guarded the third room, to hide and wait to ambush any who fled. Two more of them had been killed like that, but his Dungeon Wolf had been done in by that berserk demon magic. At first, he was too shocked to recognize it had happened. How easily its body was turned into chunks of blood...

He was quickly coming to understand, through repeated observation, that that blackish-purple orb wasn’t a spell; it was just raw demon mana. Most likely, he would encounter that whenever he forced a demon into a situation where they were too frightened, enraged, or pressed for time to cast an actual spell.

What are they, squids? Shooting out raw magic whenever something rubs them the wrong way…

But they really did have the strangest mana Archimedes had ever seen. Did approximately a third of this world’s intelligent people really have mana like that? And it was just accepted here?

And are they all trash who try to assault my dungeon?

Anyway, three of the intruders managed to escape, including the demon woman, so his traps still needed some work. Most of his puzzles were trashed too. At least the mana he’d gotten from the dead intruders’ bodies and possessions would cover accelerated repair costs. According to First, he should be expecting visitors tomorrow.

I’m sure I’ll have to deal with more like this group. Why doesn’t anyone take the sign seriously?

Archimedes waved away all the windows telling him that he’d killed an intruder, how much mana he had received by absorbing them, and that his Dungeon Wolf had died.

Where was I? Oh yes, I was building that next floor puzzle. Back to that, then.