***Archimedes’ POV***

To Archimedes’ slight disappointment, the ether Alphio could produce was not infinite. In the first place, he was using a natural, automatic ability that let him heal rapidly under sunlight, but there was a slight mana cost. As there was no ambient mana on the second floor, he had to use his own mana supply to fuel the ability. When he ran out, the Mandrake had to step out of the sun for a break.

Additionally, Archimedes occasionally had to provide more sunlight as the old light was completely absorbed by the plant monster. After all, Archimedes was only providing light, not a light source. It couldn’t sustain itself forever like the Glow Moss, nor could he possibly put a sun in his dungeon. Still, the cost of making sunlight was much less than what he received in return.

Incidentally, Alphio didn’t have to absorb all of the sunlight through the little leaves growing from his head. The ever so faint hint of green in his white skin wasn’t just for show, and it could absorb sunlight just like any leaf.

Archimedes got rather into analyzing the creature since he’d never encountered an Adult Mandrake before. For example, though Alfy’s skin looked human enough, it had all the structures in place to turn sunlight into energy. Those took up space, and there was no room left for hair follicles or sweat glands. The Mandrake could only grow hair on his head, where there was a separate batch of leaves growing to absorb sunlight regardless. He guessed that Mandrakes would live near water and shade since they had limited ability to cool themselves off and couldn't stay in the sun once their mana was exhausted.

Speaking of creatures that struggled to mature in the wild, Thesia the King Slime also lived on the second floor, and she and Alphio had become friends. Well, technically Thesia was an it, but, like Archimedes, she’d chosen a pronoun set to use for herself based on her name. When she matured to the point where a gender appeared, Archimedes would… adjust things for her, if necessary.

Incidentally, because the sight of Thesia and Alphio rolling around under the sun when Alphy was unclothed had felt a little indecent, Archimedes had made him some simple coverings: just a tan shirt and brown pants, modeled after what Human farmers had worn back on Rachon in his earlier days. Something like that suited him better than colorful elf robes or a jet black explorer’s uniform.

“Papa, me too. I want one too,” Thesia dragged herself over to his core and complained. Archimedes examined her slick, spherical body and internally shook his head.

“I wouldn’t even know where to start. Wait until you obtain a more complex form and ask me again.”

Zemnes was also on the second floor, but he didn’t play with the others. He didn’t like the bright sunlight they were always in and stayed on the opposite side of the room. He seemed content to watch Archimedes develop his second floor.

“Waaaahh!”

A sudden cry startled Archimedes and made him stop digging the second room. He looked back down the hall to see Thesia’s shiny purple body bouncing around Alphio, emitting feelings of deep concern. Alphio was sitting quietly against the wall, looking down at his open palm with some bewilderment. One of his leaves was sitting there, now a glittering amber color instead of green. He silently stood up and took a few steps until he was standing next to Archimedes’ core, floating at chest level.

“Um, Archimedes,” it was the first time Alphio had called him by his full name. Little tears were welling up in the Mandrake’s eyes. “Am I dying? This, I don’t think this is supposed to come off…”

Thesia dragged herself over and cuddled against Alphio for encouragement. Though she came up to about Alphy’s chest, and it looked a little like she was trying to eat him.

“Papa, is Alfy okay?”

Archimedes sighed. Shouldn’t monsters know about things like this too since they knew all about their abilities from birth? Well, if he didn’t know, he didn’t know.

“You’re perfectly healthy, Alphio. It’s normal to shed some of your leaves now and then; it’ll grow back in a day or two.”

Archimedes used Manage Loot to set the fallen leaf as a treasure, and it vanished from the Mandrake’s hand. At the same time, a chest suddenly appeared at the back of the room. That should make it obvious that people weren’t supposed to harvest directly from Alphio. Archimedes would still make people work for the normal herbs.

The Loot system was simple: something was designated as a treasure, and it would be automatically collected from the dungeon, or from a specified area within the dungeon. A chest would appear, in which a certain number of the item would be stored for each group of adventurers. If he didn’t have enough collected, mana would be consumed to make more. For now, things were set so each group would get one Alphen Helio leaf, and the leaves would be collected whenever they fell from Alphio’s head.

The Mandrake blinked his tears away with his thick, dark eyelashes and put on a bright smile. “Okay, Archy, I believe you.”

Archimedes had seen many humans, but he lacked a conventional concept of beauty. To him, beauty was efficiency, power, and largeness, so he rarely saw living creatures as beautiful, not to say he thought they were ugly. All Archimedes saw when Alphio smiled was a happy child.

“Alright. Go back and play now.”

Shortly after that, Archimedes received word from Minute. It had done everything it could think of to improve the puzzles on the first floor. Archimedes told it to come downstairs and wait. He would surely need it down there eventually. Meanwhile, Archimedes continued to dig.

As one might notice, Thesia wasn’t able to speak words aloud, yet despite this, she and Alphio were able to communicate. That was because they were using Archimedes as a translator. He heard everything in the dungeon, whether he paid attention to it or not, and all of his monsters could hear him if they just focused a little. Like that, Alphio and Thesia were listening closely to hear the echo of what the other said in a form they could understand.

It was precisely because this was how they communicated that Archimedes noticed something was wrong. He wasn’t even half-listening at first, but their conversation quickly drew his worry.

“How do you know, Alphy?”

“I told you, Thi, I can just tell.”

“But it doesn’t look any different to me.”

“No, she’s ready.”

“If she were ready, wouldn’t she just come out?”

“I’m going to pull her out.”

“Alfy, no! Don’t do that! What if--“

“Pulling her!”

“?!”

Archimedes stopped digging, causing Zemnes to glance over at his core. He had a sinking feeling that his creations had just done something troublesome, and, frankly, he didn’t want to look to confirm it. But he couldn’t not look.

Thesia was sitting in a stunned state, her gelatinous body still wobbling from the earlier excitement. Alphio was standing proudly with one hand on his hip and the other holding a thin stem with some heart-shaped green leaves attached. From the stem down, was a little girl.

She looked like a nine-year-old human with emerald green eyes and long blond hair, curled into natural drills. She had a thin physique, and the same white skin Alphio had, with a hint of green. She looked less shiny than Alphio, though Archimedes wasn’t sure where that impression came from. Hanging in mid-air, the girl looked absolutely stunned that she wasn’t buried in the ground anymore.

This was the new Mandrake Archimedes had planted. It had only been three days, why did that idiot pick her early?

After making an expression like a surprised fish for a moment longer, a vein started to bulge on the girl’s head. She flailed her four limbs in every angle they could reach. “Put me doooooown!” she cried with a cute lisp.

Why? Archimedes marveled. Even a Kid Mandrake can speak?

Right, this girl belonged to the rank between the standard fetal Mandrake found in the wild and an Adult Mandrake. Archimedes had made her grow a vigor-enhancing herb, hoping she would produce even more ether than Alphio, but that plan had likely failed now that she was stopped before becoming an adult.

“Stuuupid! Put me down! I’ll hit you!”

Alphio widened his eyes and released the girl’s stem. She fell over, landing on her butt instead of her feet, and squinting her eyes shut in pain. She glared up at the other Mandrake with drops of water in the corners of her eyes, stood on her feet, and dusted herself off.

Thrusting her flat chest out, the girl put her hands firmly on her hips, “Who’s in charge here?!”

“That would be me.”

The girl’s head whipped around when she heard Archimedes’ voice, but she couldn’t figure out where it came from.

“Papa’s there,” Thesia pointed with a small part of her body, and the Kid Mandrake turned to see the floating, spherical dungeon core.

She stepped closer and tilted her head. The core floated directly in front of her face, and its violet color reflected in her pupils. “This thing?”

“I’m Archimedes, the consciousness of the dungeon you live in.”

The girl tilted her head the opposite way and furrowed her brow. “What’s a dungeon?”

She doesn’t know? Alphio knew. Even E Rank monsters have a concept of the dungeon.

Curious, Archimedes looked inside the new Mandrake. There really wasn’t any concept of a dungeon in her mind… but there was one engraved in her body. She was the type who could be put in front of the dungeon entrance and never step outside, without even understanding why.

Archimedes had a newly developing theory that the Mandrakes spent their time in the ground learning, not just growing. But her intelligence wasn’t worse off than a human of the same apparent age, so he could just teach her what she didn’t know.

“The dungeon is where you live. You will never go outside of it. Sometimes, people will come in from outside. If they want to hurt me, you have to help stop them. If my core is taken or destroyed, your world will end.”

“Hmm…” She slowly started to reach for his core.

“Don’t.”

She flinched and pulled back her hand, then held that fist over her mouth and coughed to cover it up.

“So, basically, you’re a weakling, and you made me to protect you.” The Kid Mandrake didn’t wait for confirmation before folding her arms and standing with her legs wide, “Alright! Since you’re so desperate, I’ll help out.”

Archimedes sighed, feeling like he just got two troublesome Mandrakes in a row. Could their whole species be a pain?

“Thank you, but you don’t have to attack everyone, only the bad people. Now, you need a name.”

The name of the herb on her head was Merin Posena, so following the naming sense he’d used with Alphio, “Your name is Merina.”

Merina grinned smugly. “I guess that’s good enough. So, what do you need me to help you with now? I don’t see any intruders walking around. Go ahead, I’ll listen.”

“Stand in the sunlight there and make ether for me. It will help me build faster and make more defenses.”

The cocky little thing tipped her chin up, “Is that all you need? That’s easy. Hmph, watch me.”

The Kid Mandrake turned on her heels and walked into the sunlight with firm steps. She turned around again to face the core and put her hands on her hips, smirking. She was producing a hundred twenty mana per hour for him, only twenty less than Alphio. Archimedes wondered how much she could have made if she was fully grown.

“That’s very impressive. You can almost make as much as Alphio, and he’s a rank higher than you.”

Merina’s eyebrow twitched and she glared up at Alphio, who blinked and looked down at her. He soon noticed she was upset for some reason and offered an encouraging smile, “Don’t be upset, Mery. You’re too cute to make that face.”

A red flush immediately took over her face, and she whipped her head away, folding her arms tightly. “I-I don’t need you to tell me that! I know I’m amazing; you’re not special for noticing!”

These Mandrakes were almost as tiresome to deal with as actual men--humans. Archimedes went on to ignore them and continued digging his second room. Once he moved his core into it, he would make his second floor puzzle.

***Anther’s POV***

Anther didn’t know where Rybo spent most of his time, but the beast person wasn’t seen in the village much. He was around even less than Cherise, who Anther was getting increasingly mad at the longer he couldn’t tell her about the dungeon. The boy was surprised when he finally found his first beast friend; he was helping to look after the goats they kept for milk and wool. That part of the village was quiet and boring, so Anther almost never went there, but he did today for a change of pace.

“Rybo!” Anther ran over, happy to see a friend, and determined to be taken to Cherise. He didn’t run all the way into a hug, but stopped about a foot away. Some people expected elves to be all touchy-feely since they were so friendly, but they really weren’t. Beast people, on the other hand, expected physical contact, so Rybo slouched a bit in disappointment when his hopes were betrayed. He sighed lightly and gave the kid a pat on the head, which he didn’t protest.

“What’s up, Anther?”

There was an order to everything, and first was, “How was the pie mother made you?”

Rybo grinned and patted his thickly muscled abdomen, “It was delicious. Even better than the stuff Vestiil makes for us.”

“She’ll be happy you said that,” the boy smiled back.

“Really? Well, if she’s in a good enough mood, maybe you could ask if I can come over for dinner sometime. Anybody can become a friend if you feed them good food.”

“Is that true?” the elf’s eyes started sparkling.

The large man folded his arms and nodded. “Of course it’s true. It doesn’t matter if it’s a beast, a person, or a beast person; everybody loves good food.”

The boy absorbed that wisdom, nodding his head furiously. Rybo chuckled and patted him on the head again.

“So, Rybo,” Anther looked up with wide eyes, “why are you out here helping with the goats?”

“We raised goats in my village,” the large man shrugged. “I like them.” He rolled his eyes slightly, “It’s good stress relief, too, since my boss can be a little annoying.”

“That, that reminds me…”

Rybo waited, but the boy didn’t continue. “Yes?” He waited a moment and waved a hand in front of the kid’s face, but he didn’t react at all. “Kid, are you okay?”

“I need to talk to Cherise, but I haven’t seen her around lately.”

Rybo raised his thick eyebrows when the boy continued as though nothing had happened, but he just shrugged and held a hand to his chin. “She’s pretty busy lately. I think you can get a minute or two with her when she’s on her way to the build site. That’s if you’re willing to get up at dawn to be ready for her.”

Anther held his fists up to his chest and nodded firmly.

“Thank you, Rybo. I’ll see you later.”

“See you around, kid.”

Humming to himself, Anther made his way back to Anniil’s house. It was mid-afternoon, and he was feeling a little peckish, so he checked in the icebox to see if they had any pie left. There was one slice left. Anther licked his lips and pulled it out, but he hesitated before eating it.

I want to eat it, but if I give this to somebody else, they’ll be friends with me.

Something clicked in the boy’s head, and he started to bounce up and down. “I’ve got it! I’ve got it!” He wrapped up the pie slice and packed it gently in his sack, careful not to damage it in his hurry. “Mother, I’m going out!” he called as he grabbed his weapons and ran out the door.

The sun was still high, and there was plenty of time for a dungeon run.