I open my eyes, and pain greets me.

With a gasp of agony, I rapidly mend the hole in my chest. The black ground of the parking lot is a lot closer to my face than I'd prefer, and I slowly push myself to my feet.

What happened? I'm aware I was badly injured, but there is a lapse in my memory I can't explain.

I can sense Richter gathering mana. My mana, the energies I'd spent days converting the school to generate. Taking a deep breath, I center myself and examine the surrounding area.

Theory is still twitching, the lack of mana flowing through her body instantly noticable. With a rapid motion, I begin pumping dungeon mana into her, and she slowly relaxes. She won't be fighting any time soon... which means I'll have to face Richter without her.

Summoning all of the bugs in my dungeon, including both of the salamanders and Noodle, I start walking towards Richter's position. He's on the phone, happily talking to somebody on the other end. Already celebrating my death.

I don't bother alerting him to my presence. I wouldn't be gloating this time. Waiting for my minions to arrive, I sink my attention into the ground beneath Richter. A single thought reduces its solidity, and Richter stumbles as the ground gives way beneath his feet.

Walking behind him, I create a sort of invisible tornado of mana around Richter. I may not be able to pull anything out of him, but at least I can prevent him from absorbing any more. I have no intention of giving him any sort of advantage.

I'm under no illusions as to his skill. As much as I hate to admit it, I have to concede his superiority when it comes to combat. I'm more used to staying back and creating traps, summoning minions and trapping my enemies in close quarters, keeping them off their feet and making sure they never know what's coming next. As an adventurer in his previous life, Richter was most likely used to fighting much tougher opponents than myself.

Richter began pulling himself out of the sludge I'd put him in, shouting something into his phone. This will be an exceptionally tough fight.

A sudden thought occurs to me.

Why should I fight Richter like an adventurer? I am neither an immobile dungeon core, nor a helpless child.

I am a dungeon child.

With a breath and an enormous amount of effort and mana, I hollow out the entire section beneath us, shaping it into a maze. Hardly my best work, but I don't need my best work. Tearing the ground under Richter open, I drop him into my makeshift dungeon floor and throw a number of insects at him, sealing the ceiling above him at the same time.

Startled, his hands light up in flames, and a wave of fire erupts from him. It easily incinerates a good number of the bugs, but I'm already altering both the maze and the bugs physiology. The next wave of insects, largely composed of beetles and spiders, is considerably more resistant to fire. They get a few bites in, but Richter's flames extinguish and are replaced with poison in a fraction of a second.

With a small space, he bellows into the tunnels, "Who's doing this!? Show yourself, you coward!" Raising his hand, he blasts a hole through the wall in front of him and charges through...

...straight into thin air, tumbling into a pitfall lined with blunt spikes. To be safe, I'd rigged traps on every side of the hallway Richter had fallen into. Throwing a hand out, he generates a gale of wind and pummels the spikes. It's alright - I hadn't expected them to work. The intent was to throw him off, and it seems to have worked. Turning around, I head over to Theory and start investing more mana into her. I'll take all the assistance I can.

Meanwhile, Noodle is heading towards Richter at an excellent rate, assisted by the tunnels I'm creating in front of him. I grant him a quick upgrade, hardening his scales more than they already are, and he bursts out onto Richter with his fangs bared.

That should delay him for a minute at least. Splitting my attention further, I check back on the house and find to my surprise that Thesis is nowhere to be seen. Her eggs are safely stored in Theory's tunnels, and they look to be well on the way to hatching. A brief and uncharacteristic stab of gratitude shoots through my chest, and I shake it away. Now is not the time to be thinking about ungiven thanks, especially not for something as simple as company.

Theory begins to recover under my administrations, and I turn my attention away towards the school itself. I find Charlie sitting in class in a moment and scratch a hasty message into her desk. She doesn't notice it at first, engrossed in the construct she's creating, but when she sees it, her eyes widen and she shouts a question at the teacher.

I can only assume she's getting over here, one way or another. I don't have time to pay attention, due to Noodle's head getting frozen by a sudden wave of hoarfrost. I open the ground up beneath him and send another wave of insects, thawing his head out and mending the resulting damage.

The two salamanders aren't suited for this particular fight, so I leave them out of it for the time being. Richter is well and truly enraged at this point, indiscriminately hurling spells around him. Either he isn't used to having this much mana and is expending it without realizing how low he's getting, or he's used to having more than he could ever use. Either way, it's a mistake I intend to take full advantage of.

Dropping him further down, I fill in the whole maze he'd been in and create a new one. Both my core and human minds are being stretched to their limits by the difficulty of the tasks I'm undergoing, but all of them are necessary if I want to end Richter. I only hope that there aren't any more adventurers lying around ready to attack a vulnerable dungeon, although the odds seem decent. Richter came to my school relatively quickly, all things considered.

Charlie runs over to me, breathless. "Hey, Argus! Where's the bad guy?"

I point down, and the parking lot rumbles as if in answer. Richter is using some kind of earth magic to slowly ascend through the dirt and rock, coming upward.

Charlie's eyes widen, and she begins to build her unfamiliar construct again. I point at it. "What does that do?"

"I wanted to help more," she says, a look of deep concentration on her face. "So I made a thing."

Richter bursts out of the ground, and I throw walls up around him. He tears them down in a moment, his furious expression staring out at us.

Charlie raises her hands, construct prepared, and Richter tosses a fireball in our direction. I leech all of the mana out of it before it can get close, and Charlie unleashes her spell.

I don't have the slightest clue what it is. It looks like a ripple in the air, a barely visible mirage moving at high speed. Whatever it is, it smashes into Richter's forehead, and he grimaces. Shaking it off, he raises his hands, and then blinks hard. His eyes look a little unfocused, and he tries to level his gaze at us.

"It's a dizzy spell," Charlie says with great satisfaction, preparing a fireball, and I look at her in surprise. Considering how young she is, I'd expected her to be a good deal more scared of fighting, but she seems right at home battling Richter.

Raising a hand to his head, Richter dispels the dizziness, and looks up just in time to recieve a fireball. He'd already set up some kind of personal defenses, but it still startles him enough to send him back a few steps.

Out of nowhere, Thesis crashes into him. The furious spider dashes all over Richter, biting and tangling him up in webs as she ran. Theory rushes to help, and althogh she's nowhere near prime condition, she still manages to lock Richter's ankles together.

Shouting words I'd only ever heard come out of Pops' mouth, Richter continues to backtrack. Random spells firing off of him, he doesn't notice the pit he'd dug coming up behind him. Taking advantage of the moment, I raise several spikes at the bottom and reinforce them.

I pull a wall up between Charlie and him, and she doesn't see it as he topples into the hole, a horrendous scream tearing from his mouth. Brave or not, I don't think a child as young as her should see someone die.

Granted, I'm possibly younger than she is, and I've seen plenty of people die, so perhaps I'm not the best judge.

Thesis and Theory make their way over to us, Theory limping slightly. Charlie leans down, eyes wide. "You're so big! How did you grow so much!?"

Theory preens, but Thesis immediately begins checking up on me, pedipalps brushing along the pale skin visible from the hole torn through my shirt. I can sense her concern, but I reassure her that I'm fine.

I fill in all of the holes and tunnels, turning my attention to the school.

With Richter out of the way, I have but two objectives.

One, find a way to tell the Mother everything. For some reason, I have a feeling that it will be helpful to me to get something as critical as who and what I am off my chest. She'd want to know for sure.

Second, to turn the world into my dungeon.

Watching Charlie happily pet Theory, Thesis insistently making sure that I'm alright...

I'm already looking forward to it.