“Right, now that everything is cleaned up and more or less back in place, let’s see what we can do with all of this mana and EXP,” I thought, flipping through my options.

“First things first, I’m going to need more space to play with,” I said as I braced myself before selecting the ‘Expand: In’ option.

Once again, I felt a sensation of someone inflating my brain with compressed air.

I shook myself off as the feeling of distorting space inside my own head wore off.

“Everyone okay?” I asked.

“No problem here,” Midnight said.

“Just fine, Mr. House,” Carmen replied.

Tom let out a deep meow in affirmation.

“Good,” I nodded, “now, let’s see if all of this effort was worth it.”

The warehouse was now much bigger than it had been when I first arrived in this new world with nearly enough space to fit a professional sports stadium inside.

I pulled up my blueprints and selected the [Alchemy Station] before deploying it next to a wall.

! Assign worker to [Alchemy Station] (Y/N?) !

! Warning: Scion Midnight and Scion Carmen only applicable selections !

I should have seen this coming. You can’t really do fine measurements without thumbs or magical telekinesis.

“This next upgrade should take care of that,” I thought before moving over to the [Cat Spawner] and selected the [Lucky Cat] upgrade path.

I crossed my fingers and prayed to whoever might be listening that the description of [Humanoid felines] would give me cute cat girls and by a lesser priority, give me a mob with thumbs.

! Special mob unlocked: Denizen [Cat-kin] are now available !

“Denizen? Nevermind. Show me cat girls!” I thought excitedly as I tried to spawn a mob.

! Denizens spawned: will occupy as much space as comfortably available !

“Huh?” I sputtered as a dozen [Cat-kin] marched out of the [Cat Spawner].

“Aww, how adorable, Mr. House,” purred Carmen as she bounded over to the new mob.

“Are you sure you should be spawning so many?” asked Midnight.

“I swear, I only tried to spawn one!” I exclaimed.

“Greetings, Mr. House,” said one of the new mob.

[Cat-kin]

>Denizen: Beastfolk, Humanoid Feline

>Size: Small

>Will occupy as much space as comfortably available

>Can be assigned to perform tasks, skills will be determined on an individual basis

>Quality of Life: living quarters will award bonus EXP to individual mob's skills. Higher level living quarters will award additional bonus EXP.

“Well they aren’t cat girls, but they are pretty cute in a mascot kind of way” I thought with a tinge of disappointment as I examined the new two and a half to three foot [Cat-kin] who honestly leaned more into the feline part than the humanoid part.

“Um, greetings,” I replied.

“What shall you have us do?” the cat asked.

“Uhhh, first order of business is to build some beds,” I said, looking at the stats.

The loft was probably a good place to start, seeing as it was out of the way and was now much bigger than just my office.

I deployed some tools, nails, lumber and rectangular cushions that I had gotten the blueprint for from some furniture that I had broken down.

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“A wise decision, Mr. House,” the [Cat-kin] said before rallying up the others and marching up to the loft.

“Carmen, can you make sure that the [Cat-kin] don’t hurt themselves with the tools?” I sighed as I watched the new mob curiously examine the tools and lumber.

“Certainly, Mr. House,” Carmen chuckled before teleporting to the loft.

“Okay that’s what I get for not reading anything beyond [Humanoid Feline],” I sighed before looking at the next upgrade.

[Voice of the Dungeon]

>Speaks the common language and allows you to communicate with other sapient races

>Size: Medium

>Vox Populi: Powers of speech can be shared among Denizen mob type

>Leadership LVL 1: Skill based EXP is increased by 10% while under the direction of the voice

>Intelligence (+)

>All other stats are within expected parameters for a humanoid

“Hmm, medium size and also a humanoid, not a feline humanoid,” I thought to myself.

Obviously, I also noticed that combining the [Leadership] skill with the [Quality of Life] skill could lead to some pretty nuts EXP multipliers.

“Okay, one more time, please be a hot catgirl!” I thought while crossing my proverbial fingers and selecting the Voice of the Dungeon.

The [Cat Spawner] glowed for a moment as wisps of light coalesced into a humanoid shape.

“Yes! Yes! YES!” I exclaimed as the light faded to reveal that someone up there had listened.

She stood in a simple outfit that wasn’t worn, but definitely resembled some starting outfits that I had seen in a few MMOs I had played. Her dark hair framed her face to reveal a heterochromatic pair of cat eyes, the left a yellow-gold and the right a light green.

“It’s about time you got me here,” she said with a grin, “you’ve been doing your best, but it looks like you could use some help.”

“Oh I’m so getting you office attire as soon as I can,” I thought before saying, “wait, you say that like you know what’s been going on before just now.”

“In a sense,” my voice replied, “it wouldn’t do either of us any good if you had to catch me up with everything that’s been going on here.”

“Yeah I guess you’re right,” I said with trepidation.

“So, first things first, I need a name and I need something to do. I can’t stand around just looking pretty, now can I?” she said with a wink.

“A name, huh,” I muttered.

We sat in awkward silence for an uncomfortable amount of time.

“Well…” she said expectantly.

“Umm how about Selina?” I offered.

The corners of her mouth twitched into a smile.

“What?” I asked.

“Oh nothing, it’s a great name,” Selina said in a way that suggested that she was barely holding back laughter.

“I could always have gone with Siri or Alexa,” I said with a deadpan tone.

She let out a bit of a snort and tried to hide it with her hand.

If I had a face, I would have had a shocked expression.

“I’ll go ahead and help the [Cat-kin] with their beds,” Selina said as she turned around and joined Carmen and the other [Cat-kin] in the loft.

“What the fuck, she laughed at a reference to my old world,” I thought.

***

“When I told you about this wizard, you said ‘no problemo Don, we got this’ and I believed you. When you said the wizard was able to cast through multiple familiars at the same time and you needed a proper crew, I believed you. And now you’re saying that everything I’ve done for you wasn’t enough,” Don Skisfink said.

“Don, I didn’t mean-” Rex began without a hint of his usual slang.

The Don just held up a finger to silence him.

“No, I don’t think you’ve suddenly decided to start lying to me after years of loyal service, so you’re going to tell me about everything you’ve seen, step by step, as well as you can remember,” the Don said.

Rex took in a deep breath and began to recall the details of his most recent trip into the fledgling gambling hall.

“And I figured if Haggar could dispel the wizard’s focus-” Rex continued before he was interrupted for the second time.

“Stop,” Don Skisfink said curtly, “what did the focus look like?”

“It was a large gold orb about the size of a watermelon,” Rex explained.

The Don rubbed his face and let out a laugh.

“Don?” Rex asked.

“Ah, you’re forgiven, Rex,” The Don said, wiping a tear out of his eye.

“I don’t understand,” Rex said.

“Did I ever tell you that the Skisfink tribe originated from a dungeon?” The Don asked, “my grandfather even saw the core once. It was a dark red orb, larger than he was.”

Rex’s eyes darted back and forth as he began to put the pieces together.

“You don’t mean..?” Rex whispered.

“Yes Rex, we’ve got a dungeon that’s popped up right in our own back yard,” The Don chuckled.

Rex stood up and thumped his chest with his fist in a salute.

“Don, let me try once more! I swear on my life that I won’t fail you again!” he exclaimed.

“Rex, please, sit down,” The Don said calmly.

Rex slowly relaxed himself and sat back down in his chair.

“Your service is too valuable to me, Rex. While I have no doubt that you would be able to break the core given time and enough resources, the solution to this problem is simple and has no further costs to us,” The Don explained, “we just need to tip off a group of specialists.”