***Archimedes’ POV***

Archimedes felt a hot and burning sensation, due to the sheer amount of time he’d been focusing. The calculations for building his second floor weren’t high-risk, nor were they dynamic, but they were extensive. He had to use his utmost focus to not lose track of how far he’d progressed. It was like he was completely separated from his dungeon body--to the extent that he barely knew what kind of state it was in. His sense of time was completely distorted. He didn’t know whether anyone was in his dungeon, or if Zemnes was still attentively guarding him in the fifth room. If he stopped now to check, he would likely have to start his efforts again from the beginning.

It was like he was paralyzed in nearly every aspect. The only thing he could still do was continue shaping his mana into a single, intricate pattern, easily the size of his entire first floor already. The attention to detail required for this task would likely drive a human mad after a couple of hours.

It was possible to customize new floors during this stage--with virtually no extra mana--by altering their default characteristics, but Archimedes didn’t attempt to. He was just concerned with getting everything to work smoothly.

Finally, the massive pattern was built. Archimedes checked it over once more and saw no errors, so he flooded it with his intent to activate. It felt like a massive growth, which had been attached to him and was weighing him down, but that he hadn’t noticed before, suddenly slipped free. He was instantaneously washed with a feeling of relief before a hot pain flooded his consciousness. A mass of heat came from “outside” and pressed down on his core from all sides as if it wanted to crush him. Archimedes writhed in pain and tried to curl in on himself for protection. He felt the heat intensify, his core curl tighter, and the pressure grow immensely. Then, also from “outside,” came a cooling wind. In a breath, it cleared away the painful heat and cleared Archimedes’ focus. He became aware of a greater force beyond his core: benevolent and strong. It came and wrapped around him, protecting him, and with its help, the pressure inside became power: power that he could unleash, at any time, for his own aims.

The greater force united with him then, and they became each other. Archimedes was still Archimedes, in ego, but his logical half had grown a new layer even more efficient and powerful than the last. All three aspects existed together in seamless harmony. This personal growth was more or less worth the effort spent to achieve it.

Appearance-wise, Archimedes’ core had shrunk just slightly, and what appeared to be a second, larger but identical, core encased it. The portal to the void inside of him had become more energetic. It could vaguely be seen as lashing energies buried in his center--if there was a creature present with the ability to see such things.

His second floor had been created, along with a new layer of his core to manage it. The state of deep focus Archimedes had been in quickly receded. When Archimedes had finally come back to himself, there were plenty of Vow’s windows waiting for him.

D rank dungeon core Archimedes has begun constructing its second floor! Estimated time until completion: three days. Congratulations, Archimedes. D rank dungeon core Archimedes has constructed its second floor! You may place one free room. You may place one free corridor. Please select a free monster model. Clockwork Golem (D) Havok Owl (D) Huge Slime (D) Nymph (D) Enough Voles have spawned to unlock the Vole spawn. Ability added: Place Spawn Enough Cave Rabbits have spawned to unlock the Cave Rabbit spawn.

Just to have all his cards on the table, he brought up his status as well.

Archimedes Species: Dungeon Rank: D Mana: 0 Accumulation: 178/h Abilities Absorb Substance, Create Creature, Create Structure, Destroy Creation, Dungeon Authority, Ether Conversion, Increase Creature Wisdom, Manage Loot, Move Core, Place Spawn

When he looked around, Archimedes found his core sitting at the base of a spiral stairway made of stone, the top of which connected to the center of his fifth room. The first thing he did was place his free corridor so that the stairwell let into something; then he put the free room at the end of that hallway.

Archimedes waved away the ordinary alert messages but saved the custom one from Vow off to the side. It seemed he’d finally unlocked spawn points, so that was nice. With those, he would never have to worry about creatures going extinct in his dungeon, nor would he have to worry about genetic degradation caused by inbreeding. He pushed those windows away too, simply making a mental note on the matter.

Now then, he would get a free monster model along with his new floor. The options were limited, but they were chosen based on his behavior until now, his rank, his specialization, and his Biomes. In other words, they were Monsters that were handpicked to be helpful for him.

A Clockwork Golem was something Archimedes had never heard of before. He wondered if it was related to the puzzles he’d been building. Since it was a kind of Golem, at least it would be more loyal than most dungeon Monsters. That might be a good counterbalance to his notoriously unloyal, well, the Monster Zemnes would become.

The Havok Owl sounded like a combat-oriented Monster. He’d seen it in his options before but never actually picked it. There would always be at least one Monster option that could fight to protect the core, like how a fleshy body would always produce some kind of antibody, even after encountering a disease only once. As a point in its favor, Archimedes seemed to remember that Owls were thought of as being wise animals.

He was honestly surprised to see that the Slime evolution track had remained as an option. On that virtue alone, he wanted to choose it, but Archimedes had made Slimes before, and he could draw up the model from memory if he wanted one. There was no reason to waste a free monster model on it.

Archimedes had had Nymphs in the past as well. They weren’t particularly smart or strong, but they were very compatible with his Fertile Cave Biome. Putting a single Nymph in an environment like that, where it could absorb all the overflowing life energy, resulted in something rather amazing. But again, he could make one himself.

The one I’m most curious about is the Clockwork Golem, he decided. There were tens of thousands of Monster models in Archimedes’ memory, and he would get a new free one with every floor he added. But, more importantly, the way he was growing in this life was completely different from his last life. If there were Monsters he’d never heard of, they were likely incompatible with his previous lifestyle. Since that lifestyle mostly consisted of murdering everything that entered, he wanted to avoid recreating it. New monsters might be exactly what he needed to support a puzzle dungeon.

I should let my mana recharge while I think it over.

Archimedes waited a few minutes, then chose the Clockwork Golem as his free monster model. It was a D Rank right from the start, so it was considerably more expensive than the other creatures he’d been making. A single Clockwork Golem cost about 1000 mana, but, oddly enough, Archimedes started to think that amount was cheap for what it provided. Just the parts used would have cost that much on their own, but the way they were assembled was truly a step above.

The Clockwork Golem he created was structured like a human: with a head, torso, two arms, and two legs. It was more like a doll than a living creature, with a sleek, hollow wooden shell for skin, copper rods for bones, and a complex assembly of gears, ratchets, and pistons and such for muscles and organs. Its face was overly simple, with only the vaguest carvings of eyes and a nose, and no mouth or ears. Like other Golems, it required no food and produced no waste. It needed only mana to survive and could work forever without rest.

It’s immaculate in design and reasonably intelligent, but how can it help me?

The Clockwork Golem was made of many delicate parts, so it seemed wholly unsuited to combat. Like his other monsters, it was incapable of speech, so he couldn’t use it to communicate with intruders. What purpose would this thing serve in his dungeon?

The Clockwork Golem seemed to have been listening in on his thoughts. It raised its arm to show that it had something to say. Archimedes peeked into its mind to analyze its thoughts. They weren’t like a fleshy creature’s thoughts, made of chemicals, electricity, and emotions; nor were they like a dungeon’s thoughts, made of enumerations and calculations. The machine-like creature’s thoughts were functional and based in the body. It thought with movements, sensations, and form.

Well, to this day, Archimedes had never encountered a manner of intelligence that he couldn’t translate back into numbers for him to understand. He took a moment to adjust to the Clockwork Golem’s mind and then translated its thoughts.

“Provided the materials, I can assemble most things. I can follow your instructions perfectly, or I have the imagination to design things independently. Is this useful to you?”

Archimedes saw the creature before him in a new light. Those intricate hands were steady and dexterous; well-suited to working with mechanisms. Also, for a creature that thought mechanically, building machines should be as natural as speaking was for an adult human. Additionally, those machines it built ought to be sophisticated to the extreme.

If I can think of the themes for the puzzles, and leave the mechanical implementation to Clockwork Golems, it would be a relief.

Archimedes had planned to switch from mechanisms to magic patterns as his mana pool increased. He’d made an abundance of traps in his last life, but they were all very simple in design. After all, complex puzzles were easy to break and expensive to fix, so he hadn’t seen any value in practicing with them. Thanks to that, he wasn’t very good with mechanics. However, leaving everything to spell patterns would be terrifyingly expensive. If he no longer had to do that, he could put all that mana into other things.

“That might be very useful, yes.”

Archimedes' instincts as a dungeon, which valued efficiency over most things, were quickly improving his opinion of this monster even if he didn't want it to. Just quickly approximating the time and energy he would save on the designing process--and the mana he would save by avoiding magic patterns--was getting him excited enough to make his core pulse.

To avoid embarrassing himself further, Archimedes quickly stole back control over his emotions.

He examined the Clockwork Golem closely, trying to figure it out. It was obviously intelligent and capable of thought, but was it aware of itself? If it was, he would name it.

Archimedes had to immerse himself in the Clockwork Golem for a few minutes since he had never really dealt with intelligent constructs before. On the opposite hand, he was fluent in biological intelligence, since both the monsters he preferred and his challengers in his previous life had been those types of creatures. Archimedes used to be known to humans as the Dungeon of Behemoths because he favored monsters with bodies that could grow to absurd sizes. As proud as the humans got on defeating his monsters, it rarely happened. A large difference in size was truly a difficult thing to overcome. It was a very barbaric, and very reliable, strategy for survival that he’d used.

After feeling things out for a minute, Archimedes hesitantly determined that the mechanical creature was aware of itself. The title Clockwork made him think of measures of time, so,

“I’ll call you Minute.”

It was best to pick a name that the receiver could understand. When it came down to it, a minute was something that could be experienced by the body, so it was compatible with the Clockwork Golem’s “language.”

Biological creatures were easier to name because they naturally leaned toward communicating with sound (barring some exceptions), so random sounds put together were enough for a name.

“Minute? Good. What do I call you?”

To be perfectly accurate, “Archimedes” was a translation of his name. When he had first named himself, it had been in his own “language,” which only included numbers and arrangements of numbers. “Archimedes” was how the string of numbers that was his actual name translated into sounds. For the record, he had only picked that arrangement of numbers because it was soothing and because he liked it; it wasn’t something he put much thought into.

Frankly, Archimedes wasn’t confident that Minute would understand his name either in its original form, or when expressed as a sound.

“Please give me a moment to translate it.”

Putting an abstract concept like a name into mechanical terms was quite difficult, so Archimedes decided to translate the physics of the sound-based translation of his name into concepts of motion and send that over. He could have based his translation on the original numbers that made his name, but doing it like this would help Minute to communicate with biological creatures more quickly. There were far more biological creatures than dungeons, after all, and Archimedes didn’t want to waste his time acting as a translator.

“Call me Archimedes.”

“Archimedes?” Minute tilted its head. “Good. What shall I do for you, Archimedes?”

“Actually, there’s something on the floor above I’d like your help with. I’ll show you where to go.”

He would start testing this new monster’s merits right away.

***Cherise Manabella Irenthi’s POV***

Cherise’s light body floated into the air and then immediately crashed back down onto the carriage seat. She moaned in pain and rubbed her sore backside, cursing at the ancient trees outside and their roots which made for an exceptionally painful transport. They had left the main road hours ago, and it had been nothing but lurches and bumps since. The only thing the girl could find to be glad about was that the ride was almost over and that the lizard beasts pulling the carriage were strong enough to keep the wheels from getting stuck and stranding them.

Cherise could see the beast man who was supposed to be her guard, Rybo, laughing at her with his eyes every time they went over a bump. His big and heavy body wasn’t affected by the bumps nearly as much, and his thick red hair buffered his head whenever it got too close to the ceiling.

“Quit laughing, you,” she growled.

“I don’t know what you mean, junior inspector. I haven’t made a sound.” The beast man turned his head and shrugged innocently, but Cherise could see his tail lightly tapping the seat beside him.

She scowled and pulled open the small window behind her. “Ruther, Dilsam, how much further is it?”

The pair of elves who’d been taking turns driving all this time looked over their shoulders and smiled.

“We can see it now, junior inspector.”

“It’s just about five more minutes.”

“Thank you,” Cherise closed the window and let out a sigh of relief.

Rybo chucked. “Awfully impatient for a demon, aren’t you? I guess you’re a kid after all.”

“Who’s a kid?! And you’re barely older than I am!”

Demon society was highly complex, and there were many things young people had to learn before they could participate in it. Thanks to that, demons weren’t considered adults until they’d reached 150 years old. Compared to elves, who were usually recognized as adults between 50 and 70 years old, and beast people, who were considered adults at 30, it was a long wait.

Cherise had already been an adult for half her lifespan, so she was far from a kid, but Rybo was a century older than her. Before she was born, he was already participating in adult society, so it was no wonder if she looked young to him.

Whatever. Beast people lived tragically short lives, so she would overlook his attitude for now. Besides, he's probably still just getting back at me for saying he stinks.

After a long, eight-day journey, the carriage finally stopped at the entrance to Genenwell village. Everyone eagerly got off the carriage, stretching out their stiff and sore bodies, as representatives from the village came to meet them.

“You must be from the Explorer’s Guild,” an elf greeted them. He was tall and beautiful, like all elves seemed to be, with long dark hair and warm, colorful robes. Judging by the golden, sun-shaped earrings hanging from the tips of his elongated ears, he ought to be the local sun priest. A village elder was standing to either side of him. Cherise examined their long, faded hair and tried to determine if any of them were older than her. This place was out in the middle of nowhere, and medical advancements hadn’t reached here. It wasn’t uncommon for people living in places like this to not even reach a thousand years old. Thinking of this, Cherise secretly let out a sigh of relief, thankful she’d gotten her shots before departing. No mysterious illnesses for her, thank you.

“That’s right. I’m the junior inspector sent to evaluate the new dungeon. My name is Cherise Manabella Irenthi.”

“Thank you so much for coming. Should we call you Irenthi’s daughter or junior inspector?”

“Oh, don’t trouble yourself with it. Cherise is enough; I’m in your care. These two are my guides. Maybe you’re familiar?”

The sun priest smiled, “Ruther and Dilsam. It’s been a while.”

“Hey, Belsam,” Dilsam waved.

The sun priest turned his eyes to the last stranger. “And this beast friend?”

“Tketh Rybo, my guard.”

“No formalities for me either,” Rybo grinned to show off his fangs.

“You all must be tired. Please, rest for today, and we’ll have someone guide you to the dungeon tomorrow.”

“Thank you, sun priest.”

Cherise and her helpers followed the three elves into the village. Though, there were no walls around the perimeter, and the only buildings were made from trees, so Cherise still felt like she was in the wilderness. She had never been to an elf village this out of the way before, but it had the same friendly, bright, and open atmosphere she’d come to expect. All elves were elves, the saying went. One had told her that that was the reason they didn’t have family names.

If she was perfectly honest, while she found elf settlements charming to look at, she was quite uncomfortable staying in them. I might be transferred here semi-permanently, so maybe I should try to get used to it. Oh please don’t let the guild building be a tree.

Word of their arrival was already spreading through the village. There were some elves who came over specifically to gawk. It made it quite obvious who had and hadn’t seen people of the other races before.

There was one particularly energetic group of children, led by a cute elf boy with wide and glittering eyes. He was probably barely old enough to leave his parents’ sight, but he was an elf, so he was already almost as tall as Cherise. That child’s fists, shaking with excitement, and his expression, looked like he was bursting with questions, but he’d paralyzed himself with his own enthusiasm.

This kid is really cute. He reminds me a bit of older brother. Pfft!

The moment she made the comparison in her head, she had to stifle a laugh. It didn’t escape the elf child’s notice, and he took it to mean her mood was pleasant enough for him to approach. The boy trotted up to her, startling his two friends, who followed with a bit more hesitation.

“Hello, demon friend!” The child smiled with the light of the sun. Cherise felt her heart melting and her sense of duty ebbing back. “My name is Anther! What’s yours?”

“Hello, Anther. My name is Cherise Manabella Irenthi. I’m a junior inspector from the Explorer’s Guild. You can call me Cherise.”

Cherise had stopped walking, thanks to the boy, and Rybo soon caught up beside her. The elf boy beamed at him.

“Hello, beast friend!”

“Hey there, little elf friend,” Rybo smirked down at the kid.

“I’m Anther!”

“Tketh Rybo,” The beast man returned, holding out a thick hand for the boy to shake. Anther reached out and excitedly grabbed on.

“It’s nice to meet you, Tketh!”

Rybo wagged the index finger on his free hand. “I’m a beast man, so the given name comes second. Call me Rybo.”

Anther blinked in surprise, then wore an even bigger smile and jerked his head up and down.

Cherise looked ahead to where the sun priest and two elders had stopped to wait for them. They were smiling at the scene, but it was still rude to make them wait.

“Anther, we’ll be in town for few days, but right now we’re a little busy. How about we talk more later?” Cherise tried to wear a warm and convincing smile to not ruin the child’s mood too much. Thankfully, he didn’t look upset at all. He was staring at the hand he’d clasped with Rybo and wearing a silly grin. He looked up and nodded when she addressed him.

“Okay. If you’re busy, I shouldn’t keep you.” The boy put on one of the most innocent smiles she’d witnessed, “You’re going to love the dungeon, Cherise!” and scampered off with his friends.

… Pardon?