Rock’s P.O.V:-
We choose… Sorry, accidentally choose Insect dungeon and what did we get from it?
Nothing really! A bewildered me, a crying little fairy and a notification that informed me about the conversion of our ordinary cave into an official dungeon.
I can at least call myself an official dungeon master now. I mean until now, I have only been the master of a hole. A hole blasted out from the underground and connected to the surface by my rage.
I received the message with heart filled gratitude, but there was someone who did not have such feelings about the new wave of change.
I connected with Minie’s mind and noticed that it was in turmoil. There were her childhood memories playing again and again in a loop inside her mind.
They all mostly had the same content, with just some little changes here and there. All of her memories were about a little girl being chased by insects.
In one of the memories she was being chased by a horde of mosquitoes. 30-40 of them buzzing behind her, while she was flying with all of her strength. She was flying with her eyes watery and her nose running.
Then there was this one memory where she was being chased by bees, then another one in which she was crying sitting at the top of a tree. Even though she was cowering on a branch in fear and was crying like it was the end of the world, but I found her cute and also found the situation a bit odd.
There was one thing which was common in all of her memories. No matter which one it was, all of them had some other children standing at some distance and laughing at her miserable state.
Even though there were adults present in her memories, but they all neglected her saying that it was just a children game and shooed her away, like it was not their place to barge in.
I felt horrible watching the harassment that she had went through in her life. But I also understood that it was her childhood memories which were still haunting her and understood where her fear of insects came from.
I wanted to do something to help her get over her phantoms and an idea popped in my mind.
When all of her memories were done playing once, her mind and her thought process came to a standstill. Her brain stopped working and she went into a comatose state.
I hurriedly adopted my idea and started projecting a bit modified version of her own memories into her mind and the result came sooner than expected. I was able to achieve so because her usual firewall which protects her mind form my indulges was not working, making it easier for me to hack into her brain.
The haze over her eyes cleared and her dull sad face started shinning and a beautiful smile adorned it.
The thoughts I projected into her mind were a modified version of her own memories. I didn’t do anything excessive, just added myself into them.
I changed a little bit of the one memory in which she as being chased by the bees. She was flying high and fast. In her original memory she was chased around by the bees for half a day and that was where her trauma came from, but to help her recover or to simply make her lively again I changed its content.
The change was that when she was running away from the bees, someone came and saved her from them. It fired a fireball at the bees and then the bees ran away for their lives.
I wanted to obliterate them, but I can’t really show such graphic content to a child now, can I?
That someone was clearly me and I was giving her the suggestion that no matter who tried to harm her I’ll be there to protect her. I think she got my message and replied with her smile.
I was still thinking about it all when her voice reached my mind.
“Did you do that?”
“Yes. Was it fine?”
“Hah, it was… fun. Umm…”
‘It’s good then.’ If I was able to change one of her fear inducing memories and make it fun then what could be better than that.
“What happened?”
“Thank you.”
“Oh don’t worry about that. Now, tell me can you handle insects now or should I come rescue you in all of your memories. Well, I can do that.”
“Haha, no it’s fine. I don’t want all of my memories to have a comically sketched two dimensional rock to start spurting fire at everyone. And I also don’t think my fear of insects will go away just with that, but I can have hope, right.”
“Haaha. Yes, hope is what keeps one living after all.”
Well, it was the best I could do. I never said that my changes were made with perfection. At least she is back~. What more could I want?
I was going to ask her to carry forward with the training, but then her not so pleasant murmuring caught my attention.
“Rocky I never knew you care so much for me. That you would even do such things for me, to take my mind off them? I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please forgive me for cursing and yelling, and for thinking about killing you and for considering you as a lowly being who knows nothing about chivalry and that you are a cra…” Her tears kept falling and she kept whispering, but a vein bulged a top my head.
Her pitiful self was enough to make me want to hug her, but the content of her whispering made me think again.
“Okay, okay! Now you are going over the line, calling me a psycho and such. But don’t worry, I didn’t do this for you, but for me it’s not like I care about you” But steam was came hissing out of my crystal when I said I don’t care. I was possibly telling a lie with straight face but my body gave it away.
“Cho what do you want do to now*su*?”
I don’t know why, but it was the first time in my life that I felt her annoying, but because there was work to do and a safe haven to create, so I didn’t voice out my complains.
“Now that we have taken the first step out towards our exciting future, shouldn't we take another step and start by designing our dungeon. What do you think?”
To my suggestion, she nodded her head and wiped her tears, and then she slapped her face and gave a shout at the top of her voice. I wanted to stop her for a second but I stopped myself when I saw light returning to her eyes and she looking back at me with her perfectly round eyes and spoke to me in an emotionally sound voice.
“Yes, we should do that. But first we need to buy some monsters otherwise, who will do the physical work for us?”
“Can’t we just create rooms and floors with mana, why do we need monsters for physical labor?"
"This really is a big misconception around the world. A dungeon is not the territory of a god. Do you feel like a god with all of yo problems and such?”
“No, I have too many things to take care of. I don’t feel like a god at all!”
“Then why do you think you can make rooms and floors appear magically. Though this is a magical world and you are the master here, but even your powers have limitations and boundaries, which you can’t traverse.”
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Sigh it is such an odd world. I thought I would be able to make rooms appear and disappear o my whim, but it seems like its not possible, huh.
“We first need to buy the permissions to extend our dungeon by a floor, before e can extend our dungeon. Then we also need to buy monsters to defend us. But the rooms don't just appear out of nowhere, we have to dig them out. Don't think buying a floor will make it automatically appear.”
“So what is the difference between insect and money dungeon, if We still need money to buy everything?”
“You really don’t listen do you? Like I said before money dungeon has many advantageous, but it is also riddled with disadvantageous. No monster would evolve there, means there will be no special or unique monster and also the monsters bought won’t be able to give birth. So that makes a money dungeon only possible for those to operate who were born with an infinite amount of money to begin with.”
Che.. Why do I have to face such lame limitations? Even though both take money to, buy stuff but each has their own specific advantage, huh. Well, nothing can be done about it, so let’s just leave the matter behind.
“So how do we buy a monster?”
“Let’s see, open your dungeon interface and select the monster option. There we will be able to see all the monster options that are available to us, and then you can go on a shopping spree, but that is only until our resources lasts.”
Dungeon InterfaceMonstersStatus / Floors / Store---NameRankMana ReservedPriceAnt egg05Mp25DcAnt Worker010Mp50DcAnt caretaker025Mp75DcAnt Soldier(UQ)?????????Ant Queen(S)3100Mp500DcBee Egg015Mp75DcBee Farmer120Mp100DcBee Worker160Mp300DcBee Queen(S)3350Mp1750Dc---------LOCKED----------
Whoa, so many options. We can choose between ants and bees. Damm, god is really benevolent. I have so many options to choose from that I don’t think I even need to think what I should to pick. With my abundant Mana reserves and endless money I would probably be able to buy thousands of them...yeah, like hell I can.
This is utter bullshit what are the size of ants and bees? They are tiny~!
My monster catalogue is not the only reason for my anger. After 2 days and 14 hours of pure grinding my total mana increased by 5, and here even the lowest of the lowest monster takes 5Mp and 20 Dc out of me. How will I even create an army like this? Am I being made fun of? Is this world really created by gods for their fun?
“What did you expect? Didn’t I say you would need dungeon currency to buy monsters and would also need your mana to control them? To control them is the reason to you why they requires your mana to buy them. You won’t be able to buy them without money or mana. But don't worry unlike money you mana is only being used and not entirely eaten by your bugs. You will get it back once they die.”
“But you never told me that…”
“I didn’t! But I’m sure that I did. Well, anyways, now that you understand the knowhow, which monsters do, you think we should buy?”
Buy? What can I buy? Everything has a sky high price. I can only pick 40 eggs or 20 workers and that’s all. What kind of a dungeon has so few monsters? I mean, even though we are still creating our home, but shouldn’t this still be a… ah, for fuck sake.
“Minie help me I… don’t know what to do? Should I choose the bee soldiers or something? I mean even though we will only be able to buy10 of them, but they are still better than 20 Rank 0 ant workers, right. Ah! Minie also explain to me the difference between a rank and a level? I mean, if I remember correctly then I am also level 2 but my rank is 0. What is the difference?”
“NO, not bees, we are going to pick ants moreover an ant queen and some workers. As for the difference between a rank and a level; levels increase by hunting monsters and when and when a person’s level increases to 100, he goes through a Rank up and becomes it becomes 1 while his level returns to 0. A rank level holds a very significant role, as every rank up also brings a choice of selecting a different class or leveling their current one.”
“What? What? And What? Forget about the queen being costly. What the hell’s wrong with this leveling system? NO, actually there is nothing wrong with it, but what does it, if I am only level two?”
“It means, you have to a long way to go and that’s all. Forget about the levels and ranks, just buy the queen already~.”
“Can’t you see her price tag; it’s over 500Dc’s. How are we going to choose anything else if we pick her?”
“Hah, don’t worry. A queen as her name says is the queen of a whole colony and what does a queen do?”
“It breeds and gives birth!”
Oh, yes it gives birth and creates more monsters. But what good would that be.
“Oh, my handsome idiot partner, there are many benefits that monsters with natural birth give over bought ones.”
“Like??”
But why do I feel like I am getting swallowed by her pace? I think maybe it was not such a good idea to unleash ~the Beast~
“Like; Birthed monsters can evolve faster and are sometimes born with special abilities that system bought monsters can never have. Second, we won’t need to spend any money on them. Third, because they can use mana from the dungeon you won’t have to reserve your own, and then you will be able to use it somewhere else. Now tell me, is this not enough?”
“Okay, let’s buy an ant queen. Because our first floor unlocked and ready, we don’t need to buy it. Now, that is some timely relief, right there. With this we have spent 500 Dc from our deposits and my 200 mana is now reserved. What else?”