***Cherise Manabella Irenthi’s POV***

Talk it over face to face? That was an odd expression for a dungeon to use.

… It was probably a trap. For reasons she struggled to understand, this dungeon hated her deeply. But Rybo was right; she needed to deal with this.

“Okay,” she nodded. “Just give us one moment.”

Cherise took Rybo’s arm and guided him outside of the dungeon boundaries her survey had defined. Then she handed him a small, egg-shaped, blue crystal. He looked down at it stupidly, then at her in concern.

“It doesn’t look like I have a choice,” she shrugged helplessly. “If I’m not back in two hours, you know what to do.”

The beastman nodded and held the mind stone close to his chest. “Good luck with the negotiations,” he offered, letting her walk back on her own.

“I’m ready,” Cherise said to the wall of spinning blades. “Do I have to make it there the hard way?”

As the dungeon’s answer, the trap deactivated, and the sign turned into mist. Cherise took a deep breath and walked right into what she strongly suspected was a deathtrap. To her surprise, she lived to the end of the hall. The door there opened without her having to do anything. She passed through an empty room and yet another deserted hall. The dungeon patiently guided her all the way to the stairs, and she tried not to wonder just what was waiting for her at the bottom.

And when her foot touched the ground of the second floor, it was like breathing fresh air for the first time in her life. Her head was clear, her heart was calm, and muscles she hadn’t known were tense relaxed.

“He says that’s not the reaction he was expecting,” came a young man’s voice.

Cherise jumped a little in surprise and turned her head to a person-shaped monster. He looked like a beautiful elf with short hair, round ears, and leaves growing from his head. She was rather caught off guard by this development, to say the least.

“Ah~ Archy asked me to talk to you for him,” the monster said pleasantly after reading her expression.

“Archy?” Cherise echoed.

“Yeah, that’s this dungeon’s name.” The beautiful leaf-headed monster looked over his shoulder and pouted. “He says to tell you his name is Archimedes. Well, I think it’s fine if you want to call him Archy. It’s cuter, right?”

From down the hall and around a corner, Cherise heard a young girl’s voice speaking harshly.

“Hey, let me talk to her instead! Alphy’s too stupid.”

After that, there was a moment of silence, followed by that same girl laughing raucously and the monster in front of her pouting and tearing up.

“Disposable?! Don’t say something so mean, Archy! That isn’t true at all, right?!”

“U-um,” the demon raised her hand slightly and cut in. “Is the reason you had me come down here so that you could use your monsters to talk to me?”

“He says ‘isn’t that obvious?’” The monster responded.

Cherise didn’t know what to say to that.

“Archy says he wants you to know what you did, since you don’t apparently know. He says it’s something hard to say with wooden signs.”

“I thought it was because I attacked and blew up the entrance for no reason,” Cherise said. “Is that wrong?”

“Really wrong,” the monster smiled sympathetically. “He says to try and remember before that when you sent a bunch of weird mana into him.”

Cherise frowned, but there was a hint of understanding starting to show in her eyes. “You mean the surveyal magic? That’s a standard when we find a new dungeon. I know it’s not the most comfortable thing, but it’s necessary so we can make sure there’s nothing inside that could cause a major disaster.”

The monster rolled his eyes up like he was listening to something. His face distorted worse and worse until he shouted out, “Hey, slow down! I can’t remember that much! And please don’t yell at me, Archy~” The leaf-headed boy stuck his fingers in his ears and winced a few more times before finally saying just a few words in translation.

“Um… something like, you raped him and it was super not good. Mana channels, something, something.”

Cherise scrunched up her face in confusion, and the monster plugged his ears again, wincing harder. Finally, his eyes became moist and he retreated down the hall. A little monster girl of the same species trotted up to take his place, hands assertively on her hips.

“Alphy’s an idiot, so I’m taking over as translator. I’m Merina.”

“Oh, um, nice to meet you? What was that about rape?” Cherise couldn’t help the small breath of a laugh that slipped out when she said the word. The comparison was ridiculous. Her face went paper white though when the ground quivered under her feet. It wasn’t much, but it was plenty to let her know that the dungeon wasn’t going to tolerate any nonsense here.

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“I’m sorry, that was inappropriate,” Cherise apologized sincerely, and Merina gave a satisfied nod.

“Alright, listen carefully, lady. Dungeons aren’t built like you or me. You’re made of flesh and you feel because of--” Merin paused and tilted her head, “n-neurons sending el-electrical signals?” She cleared her throat and resumed in a strong voice. “But dungeons are made of stone and other stuff, and they feel because of magic. So putting a bunch of mana into the dungeon that goes around touching and feeling everything isn’t any different from…” She stalled again, this time her face going beet red. The monster girl took a deep breath and resumed, perhaps a little too loudly, “Another fleshy being shoving their xx in your xx!” She huffed and folded her arms. “And a dungeon can’t run anywhere, you know?”

This monster girl was strangely convincing. Cherise had started blushing along with her and had almost gotten swept up in her words, but her brain hadn’t completely deactivated in the background.

“But it isn’t supposed to work like that,” she said in genuine concern. “Surveyal is supposed to follow periphery mana channels. That’s the reason it can’t be resisted, and that also means it shouldn’t be as intimate as you’re describing. I,” she puffed out her chest in confidence that she only sort of had, “I don’t think I executed it incorrectly.”

Merin blinked and looked behind her; waiting for a response from the dungeon, Cherise guessed. As the wait dragged on to more than a minute, the demon started feeling inexplicably nervous.

“He says maybe it isn’t your fault,” Merin frowned. “He’s built a little differently than other dungeons, so his periphery mana channels are all in use. You couldn’t have known that.” She paused for a moment, then resumed with an intensity, pointing directly at Cherise’s nose. “But he still wants you to apologize properly, because the pain he felt was real, and you caused it!”

Cherise sucked in a breath and blew it out slowly. Her head churned, processing the new information. It seemed that, somewhere along the way, the message Archimedes had been trying to spread had been mixed up, so the rumors about Cherise sexually abusing dungeon monsters were unintentional. They were unintentional, but they had come about regardless. Just like how Cherise hadn’t meant to do this dungeon any physical or psychological harm… but she had done so anyway, without realizing it.

The part about this dungeon’s periphery mana channels being active was also strangely believable. It was genuinely a young, two-floor dungeon, and yet it was capable of this level of reason, emotion, and communication. It had even given itself a name. The very suggestion was like the pieces of a puzzle falling into place.

But if all of this was really true, she had done something terrible, and that tied a knot in her stomach.

“You say he wants me to apologize, but is there anything I can do to make up for something like that?”

Merina made a worried face and listened closely to something the guild inspector couldn’t hear. Her face relaxed a little, and she returned a rough translation of the dungeon’s thoughts.

“He says even with emotions, a dungeon is still a dungeon. He’s willing to start over if you give him useful resources.”

“Does he have a preference?” Cherise held her chin. “Complex metals are hard to come by around here, and magic devices are scarce, but I can have some shipped from the closest demon city if he doesn’t mind waiting a few days.”

“He says not to bother with that stuff.” Merina scrunched her face a little in confusion. “He says he wants lots of books that describe the outside world and what the explorer’s guild does.”

Cherise nodded, already thinking about how she could get her hands on those things. “And that will be enough? Thanks to you, some really bad rumors have been going around about me: that I’ve been sneaking in here and abusing the monsters sexually. What will it take to get your help in fixing my reputation?”

“He wants a mind stone,” Merin said.

“That’s all?”

“They’re things that he probably won’t ever get without help,” the monster girl translated.

Cherise nodded, understanding the logic behind it. “It will take a few days for most of the books, but I can provide the mind stone and guild documents immediately.”

She hesitated, but there was something else she really did have to say. “Your traps and puzzles have changed quite a bit since I did my survey. Usually, I would have to do it anytime there was a significant change. It’s important to keep track of a dungeon’s growth so the explorers know what they’re getting into. It seems like I can’t use surveyal magic on you ever again though.”

“He says to bring him a copy of whatever documents you made after your first surveyal and he’ll give you updated information in the same format.”

The demon sighed, “That will have to do, I suppose.” She frowned. “I’ll also give you a copy of the blacklist. Study it closely and don’t make anything on there ever, or we’ll have to quarantine you. Also, since you can make signs and whatnot, let us know when you’re doing major construction or repairs, and we’ll keep the explorers out until you’re done. We had a bad start, but the guild is meant to work symbiotically with dungeons.”

Merina nodded. “He says you can go now.”

***Archimedes’ POV***

Archimedes watched Cherise walk out of his field of perception, feeling empty. He hated her so much, and yet he had promised her a fresh start for just a few rare resources. He was even going to help her clear her name; announce to the whole area that she was forgiven. It was enough to make him feel sick.

And worst was she wasn’t even that bad of a person. The whole thing had just been one big flop of a cultural exchange: an accident; a misunderstanding. But with his flawless memory, he would never forget how he had felt that day. All he could do was avoid thinking about it.

I could delete the memory… but I don’t want to stop hating her because I forgot what I suffered.

Merina folded her arms behind her head. “If you’re so unhappy about it, why did you make the deal in the first place?”

“Because,” Archimedes said, the rare emotions of compassion and hope surfacing in his core. “With mind stones, I can reverse-engineer creature cores so I can bring you guys back if you die. And through books, I can experience the outside world I’ll never get to see. They’re things I’ve longed for for two lifetimes. I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity.”

And so he started erasing the violent carvings he’d made of his unintentional abuser. And he put up a sign explaining the misunderstanding. A deal was a deal.

The mind stone and guild documents were dropped off at his doorstep later that night, as promised.