***Anther’s POV***

The Yadh festival had come. The final element that tied all the other preparations and decorations together was the stone statue that was hauled out from storage and freshly painted. Several elves worked together to stand it up in the middle of the village and hang it with colorful strings and ribbons.

Oddly enough, the figure that the statue depicted wasn’t an elf. It was a tall woman with large muscles, wild red hair, two wolf ears growing from the top of her head, and a furry tail sprouting behind. That woman was Yadh Nissa, a beast person and, more importantly, the hero who drove back the Demon King two hundred years ago. For the grand achievement which affected all people across the world, she was celebrated by everybody.

Anther looked at the statue and at the food and games that had been laid out everywhere and felt excited. He took a stick with some grilled meat on it from an old woman and started playing a game where one tossed little sacks filled with grains into pots that had been lined up. He used one hand to eat and the other to throw. The way he couldn’t wait and had to do both things at once made him look like an eager kid--which, frankly, he was.

Just after successfully tossing one of his sacks into the furthest pot, Anther felt a hand grab his shoulder. He turned around, still with the meat stick in his mouth, and saw two elves smiling brightly.

“Nice aim!” Kasser said, making a thumbs up with his free hand.

“I can’t believe you started without us!” Myla complained, her arms crossed playfully.

Anther hurriedly swallowed his food and smiled. “Hey, guys. Want to go play with the water skins?”

“Yeah!”

“Sure!”

These three kids were all close to each other in age, so they got along quite well. Myla was 31, Kasser was 26, and Anther was 23 years old. Past that, there wasn’t anyone born within a decade of any of them. To be clear, elves were usually over fifty before they were recognized as adults. Myla was the only one in the group who had started puberty. Her chest had swollen to an impressive size double-A, and she couldn’t wait for Kasser to wake up to her feminine appeal! Even Kasser’s mother was merely a triple-A, so she was confident.

Of course, none of the elf women paid any mind to the statue of the Yadh hero and her bountiful curves. She was beautiful, but in the same way that a predatory animal was beautiful. There was no need to compare the two races when they were so fundamentally different.

Anther, Kasser, and Myla ran around the village together, stopping at various food stands and games. Their favorite game every year was one where a water skin was modified into a ball, and they would toss it around for as long as they could without getting wet. Of course, whoever got spilled on lost the game, but it was hot out, so they would be happy anyway.

After being energetic for a while, the three sat down at some tables that had been dragged outside to eat a proper lunch.

“Oh yeah!” Anther suddenly remembered about the dungeon he had discovered. He figured that at least Kasser and Myla would want to hear about it. The boy lowered the sandwich he had been eating and smiled brightly. “You guys…”

Myla and Kasser shared a look with each other when the boy froze still. They both gave awkward smiles and waited patiently for Anther to unfreeze.

“You’ll never guess what I found!” he continued like nothing had happened, and Myla chuckled.

“What did you find?”

“When I went out to hunt… in the forest… I chased a silver horned rabbit up the mountain…”

“A silver horned rabbit, huh?” Kasser interrupted, thinking the story was over. “That’s pretty neat.”

Myla rolled her eyes and elbowed him in the ribs. “He can’t hear you,” she said. “He’s stalled.”

“Ah,” Kasser noticed Anther’s unfazed smile and went back to waiting patiently.

“... And when I went up the mountain, I found something really cool!”

“Better than a silver horned rabbit?” Kasser asked.

“Yep!” Anther nodded and waited for their guesses with sparkling eyes. Myla was the first to give in.

“So what--”

*Bwooooooooh*

The sound of a horn being blown cut her off, and the three kids turned to look at where the sound had come from. There was a man in bright and festive clothes standing on the balcony of a nearby tree home, and two people next to him who were holding horns. The man was very beautiful, with silky brown hair that reached below his waist and delicate facial features. His ears were pierced near the tips with little sun-shaped earrings hanging from them. When he had everyone’s attention, he smiled and raised his voice.

“It’s almost time for the first ritual, everybody. Gather up your offerings and start walking to the river.”

“Shoot!” Kasser gasped, quickly shoving food into his mouth.

“It’ll still be here when we get back,” Myla chided him.

Kasser shook his head and swallowed a mouthful of food. “But they’ll do storytelling after the ceremony!”

Myla and Anther shared a look and laughed, but they didn’t leave without him. They all ran desperately together after Kasser had had his fill, and they ended up just in time for the ritual. Everyone approached the river and fished little paper dolls out from their pockets, which they had all prepared beforehand independently. The man with the sun-shaped earrings spoke heartfelt praises to the gods, the sun, and the forest. Standing quietly beside him was a woman wearing deep and calming colors, with equally long hair and an equally elegant face, but with moon-shaped earrings. She smiled faintly and held the man’s hand while he led the ceremony.

The sun priest, Belsam, finished his words with a call for everyone to send out their invitations so that the spirits would know to come and join the festival. Anther, Kasser, and Myla all crouched down and set their little paper dolls onto the water, where they were quickly swept away. Those who had sent their invitations went back to the village to continue having fun.

After the first ritual, the village switched from game-mode to story-mode. There were puppet shows and storytellers sharing various tales that the elves had passed down for generations, but the most impressive story that everybody wanted to hear was delivered as a play. A large wooden stage had been set up for the performance, and many elves were contributing as actors and support. Kasser waved at his father who he knew was below the stage, manipulating various effects, such as pushing orange sheets up through the stage floor to mimic fiery explosions.

The story being presented on the stage was precisely that of the Yadh hero driving off the Demon King with her allies. A female elf had been dressed in a bright red wig with wolf ears on top and had had a bright red tail affixed to her costume. She held up a wooden sword--painted blue to look like mithril--and aimed it at the Demon King.

There were several elves all operating one huge black puppet, shaped like some kind of horrible monster made of the parts of many lesser monsters. There were tentacles, horns, and far too many eyes, and fire flared from its every breath. The Yadh hero fearlessly threatened that monster.

“Evil God! I will not allow you to oppress the people of this world any longer! No longer shall you spread your chaos, hurting the elves and demons which are my friends! We beast people will not bow so easily to you!”

All the people in the Demon King costume spoke together to make his voice sound more disturbing and powerful.

“Hahaha! You mortals think you can oppose me? I am Phegmehogal! I am chaos! This world and all who inhabit it shall be mine!”

The demon king spat out black fire at the heroes, and a few of them fell to it, but the Yadh hero charged forward and swung her mithril sword. One of the Demon King’s many horns was severed, and he reeled back in pain.

“How could this be?! You lowly mortal!!”

The Demon King’s horns must have been tied to his power somehow because his magic started to go out of control and start fires upon his own body.

“Keep your pitiful world then! I will go conquer another one!”

A swirling vortex appeared, and the Demon King disappeared into it, never to return. The Yadh Hero held the Demon King’s horn in one hand and her mithril sword in the other and raised them both to the sky.

“Usain is safe! That monster shall never return here as long as my Yadh family lives on! Our people are free!”

The audience cheered loudly and threw things like flowers and flower crowns onto the stage. All the actors returned and bowed, and the jovial mood didn’t fade even after the sun had set. The festivities continued even then, under the light of torches and light spells, and the activities shifted to song and dance where everyone participated. Elves with ability plucked on five-stringed instruments, blew on wooden flutes, and pounded on wood and leather drums. This merrymaking continued until the sound of horns resounded once again.

This time, the person on the balcony was the moon priestess, Yushiil, who smiled mildly down at the revelers.

“Everyone, it is almost time for the final ritual. Please make your way to the river.”

For the second time, all the elves left the village. The moon priestess spoke her sacred words praising the moon, water, and land and guided one large, multicolored paper boat into the river. A light spell was cast on that boat so that the spirits could follow it through the dark back to their homes. And with that, the festivities were over, and everyone went home.

The following day was spent cleaning up all the decorations and enjoying the leftover food, packaging whatever was left. Anther never quite found the right moment to tell people about the dungeon he’d discovered.

After finishing his chores, two days after the festival, the young elf laid down on his bed in his mother’s house and stared at the warped wooden ceiling. His eyes settled on a moth that intersected his vision. He watched it calmly and without blinking, but the little bug suddenly warped forward. Anther moved his eyes to lock on to the creature again and breathed out a short sigh through his nose.

He had bad focus, or something like that, so his brain would sometimes stop thinking, and it looked like everything else jumped forward when it started again. He took a special medicine for it, one that his great aunt Januiil made in her spare time. It was designed to “focus his mana,” or something like that. Maybe she was getting old, but the medicine didn’t seem to work as well lately.

Anther sat up and smiled. He had decided: he would go out into the forest to gather herbs for more medicine. While he was at it, he would revisit the dungeon and try to solve the door puzzle! It was a perfect “two birds with one arrow” idea!

The boy jumped out of bed and put on his boots and carrying sack, grabbing his bow and quiver from their hooks. He hurried down the ladder from the second floor to the first floor and called to Anniil on the way out.

“I’m going to the forest to pick herbs, mother!”

“Alright, sweetie. Come home for dinner,” was her easy reply. Yep, he could tell others about the dungeon after he came back. Putting it off for one more day wouldn't make any difference.

***Archimedes’ POV***

Three days had passed since the long ear’s visit.

… Why is nobody coming?

Archimedes had finished his second hallway. He had started making another room. His third puzzle, placed at the room’s entrance, had been conceptualized and was about to be built. He had rushed forward with all of his strength and focus, but the long ears were taking longer than expected.

Frankly, Archimedes didn’t understand much about the free-roaming people that existed outside of his dungeon. For example, he didn’t know that people gathered together in villages and cities. If he knew that, he might have thought that the long ear boy had to travel quite far to the nearest settlement before he could gather an invasion force. Since Archimedes didn’t know, it seemed just as likely to him that people just roamed about wherever they pleased in the world, and the long ear boy had to put efforts into herding enough of his kind together to form a group.

It would be best to just be happy that he had more time than he thought and to focus on building. He didn’t know how capable the enemy would be when the finally arrived, so he had to prepare.

No, not the enemy, Archimedes reminded himself. Potential sages who can explain the thoughts of the voice of the world to me.

He still hadn’t decided how to deal with these “potential sages” when they eventually reached his core. They could apparently read his writing, so should he put up a sign? “Please don’t enslave me. Also, do you know how I can live a meaningful life?”

How far the Dungeon of Behemoths had fallen.

Archimedes put aside his emotions and began crafting his third puzzle. This one required a complex magic pattern that would force him to use the limits of his current abilities. Archimedes’ plants and fungi had spread to fill every corner of his structure, and he was currently accumulating 63 mana per hour. Considering that, it was amazing that all of that was being funneled directly into the magic pattern for a whole four hours before it was finally complete.

The effect was to create an illusion over the entrance to the second room so that the hallway looked to be a dead end. In fact, the entrance had been placed along one of the sides of the walls, instead of at the end of that hall, so it really did look like the dungeon just stopped.

At the end of that hallway, Archimedes carved a hint: “The sun exists to guide one’s path when the stars are not bright enough.”

Archimedes had never seen the real sky, but he had been able to create artificial skies in his previous life, with guidance from the voice of the world, so he knew about things like astral bodies. The hint, he thought, was a little bit more difficult than his previous riddle. Since the glow moss on his ceiling provided plenty of light to see by, his invad--er, potential sages shouldn’t think to bring an alternate light source with them. But the illusion would not dissipate until the light of fire or something similar washed over it. Unless they got lucky and stumbled through the illusion without noticing it, they would have to turn back. It should buy him some decent time.

Congratulations! Dungeon core Archimedes has registered a new Puzzle! New Puzzle registered: Light-Triggered Illusion Door

Archimedes moved his Dungeon Bat into the second room to guard him, then continued to develop and expand the room to full size. He was just starting to carve a message into the back wall when he felt something slip into him.

Just when I thought he wasn’t coming, that long ear child is back.

Archimedes split his attention between carving the wall and observing his entrance. The long ear from before had come alone a second time. Wasn’t he able to tell others about Archimedes? Or perhaps long ears didn’t like to group up the way humans did. If that was the case, Archimedes didn’t know if it was a good or a bad thing for him.

The long ear child slid the tiles around as he pleased, sometimes stopping his hands to think. Luckily, he wasn’t able to solve the puzzle, even after three attempts. Archimedes watched as he started to repeat previous mistakes. After a little while longer, the boy let out a breath containing his stress and turned to leave. Archimedes rejoiced that his first puzzle was holding out well. He had noticed new herbs in the long ear’s bag this time and planted herbs with similar properties in his second hallway.

The thing he planted was called Blue Land-Coral, and no, it wasn’t actually a coral. It was just a plant that looked similar thanks to its hollow, wafer-like structure. It was a very easy-to-work-with ingredient for a mana focusing potion.

Since the matter with the long ear boy was done again, for now, Archimedes turned his whole attention back to developing his dungeon. He observed the carving that he had completed just now and nodded internally. Yes, it was a splendid cry for help. There shouldn’t be anyone who could make it past his puzzles and fail to understand the message here. Probably.

Archimedes took a step back to look at his current state objectively. First off, his status:

Archimedes Species: Dungeon Rank: E Mana: 41 Accumulation: 63/h Abilities Absorb Substance, Create Creature, Create Structure, Destroy Creation, Dungeon Authority, Ether Conversion, Increase Creature Wisdom, Manage Loot, Move Core

Honestly, it hadn’t changed much. Then, besides that, he had two hallways, two rooms, three puzzles, three F rank monsters, one E rank monster, and a bunch of basic organisms. The long ear child would likely return within three days, possibly with allies.

The various creatures in Archimedes’ dungeon huddled together as they felt a cold draft.

Doomed. I’m doomed. Level 1 is the worst. Ah, I want to die.

Archimedes, figuratively speaking, sucked in a cold breath. Since being on the first level was being the closest to death (enslavement), he would charge toward his second floor at maximum speed. And to do that, he would use the most broken, and most brutal method he knew about. Expansion would go on hold: first, he had to balance the ecosystem.

_____________________

Costs (Compressed):

Spoiler: Spoiler

Monsters (per 1)

Dungeon Bat: 130 / 7 min | Wolfbat: 30 / 5 min

Animals (per 1)

Cave Rabbit: 14 / 2 min

Plants (per 1 or per 1 square meter as appropriate)

Bee Balm: 9 / 36 | Black Pepper: 10 / 45 | Blue Land-Coral: 18 / 50 sec | Glow Moss: 6 / 25 sec | Ice Fern: 13 / 48 | Weeds: 7 / 13 sec

Fungi (per 1 or per 1 square meter as appropriate)

Mycelium: 4 / 15 sec | White Fungus: 6 / 18 sec

Materials (per 10cm x 1meter x 1meter / realtime)

Dirt: 5 | Stone: 10 | Water: 15

Constructs (per 1 / real-time)

Stone Door: 22 | Stone Door Bar: 4 | Stone Plaque: 4

Costs (Expanded):

Spoiler: Spoiler

Monsters (per 1)

Dungeon Bat: 130 / 7 min | Wolfbat: 30 / 5 min

Animals (per 1)

Cave Rabbit: 14 / 2 min | Earthworm: 3 / 15 sec | Dung Beetle: 8 / 25 sec | Moth 6 / 13 sec | Pill Bug: 4 / 25 sec | Termite: 4 / 22 sec

Plants (per 1 or per 1 square meter as appropriate)

Bee Balm: 9 / 36 | Black Pepper: 10 / 45 | Blue Land-Coral: 18 / 50 sec | Glow Moss: 6 / 25 sec | Grass: 5 / 30 sec | Fern: 5 / 25 sec | Ice Fern: 13 / 48 | Weeds: 7 / 13 sec

Fungi (per 1 or per 1 square meter as appropriate)

Mycelium: 4 / 15 sec | White Fungus: 6 / 18 sec

Materials (per 10cm x 1meter x 1meter / realtime)

Asbestos: 16 | Beryl: 17 | Dirt: 5 | Granite: 11 | Stone: 10 | Water: 15

Constructs (per 1 / real-time)

Large Copper Spring: 8 | Sliding Stone Door Bar: 4 | Sliding Puzzle Tile: 3 | Small Rock: 2 | Stone Door: 22 | Stone Door Bar: 4 | Stone Plaque: 4 | Tiny Copper Spring: 1

Puzzles (per 1 / instant)

Double-Door Sliding Puzzle (12 tiles, stone): 95 | Double-Door Offering Puzzle (cave rabbit): 56 | Light-Hating Illusion Door: 192