***Ulbert Nzeft Irenthi’s POV***

A demon in a white doctor’s coat pulled some rounded handheld instrument away from Ulbert’s body, setting it into a stand and observing the information that filtered into the crystal below. He glanced up at the other man and smiled.

“You can put your shirt back on now, Ulbert.”

The patient smiled and picked up the shirt lying beside him, slipping his arms through the sleeves and doing up the buttons. He put his hands on the table behind him and leaned back. “I only get one week off, you know, Nethis.”

“Sorry, sorry,” the doctor smiled and pushed up his glasses. “You’re just such a good research subject.”

Ulbert chuckled. “Well, I’m a scientist too, so I understand.” After dressing himself, he came around and leaned in to examine the data the doctor was looking at. His snow-white hair fell quite freely when he leaned in, considering he was a demon without any horns to hold it back. “Looks like the results haven’t changed,” he murmured.

Nethis nodded and wore a woeful smile. “Yes, Ulbert. Thank you so much for continuing to showcase the inadequacies of our kind,” he sighed. “You still keep to your schedule regardless?”

“Of course. I have to set a good example for the children.”

Nethis peered over his shoulder, “Speaking of children, how’s that sister of yours doing?”

“The same as usual, I imagine.”

Nethis sighed. “Honestly, that one worries me a little bit. She’s like your polar opposite.”

“Well, senior inspector Nimhenzal is taking care of her, so I’m not too worried.”

“That’s true, I guess.”

Ulbert smiled. “If there’s nothing else, can I go? I wanted to squeeze in a little more fishing before I have to leave.”

“Yes, you can go. It will take me awhile to catalogue this.”

“Then I’ll see you again in about three years, Nethis.”

“Later, Ulbert.”

Ulbert returned to the room he was staying in to dress in his fishing gear. A messenger bird from the guild was waiting on his windowsill.

A reply from Cherise, perhaps? Ulbert smiled and unfurled the letter. Unexpectedly, it was from the guildmaster.

Cherise has been sent to survey a new dungeon? Ulbert put a hand to his forehead and sighed in exasperation. It’s still a century too early for her.

***Archimedes’ POV***

After observing them for a full day, Archimedes had come to a conclusion. Mandrakes were idiots.

Oh, socially, they were quite skilled. Even Merina, with her terrible personality, could read Minute’s emotions, despite him being a mechanical being with no facial expressions and a calm temperament. It could be said that they had high emotional intelligence, but they sacrificed basic intellect in exchange. Alphio in particular had a terrible memory for just about everything Archimedes tried to teach him.

In fact, he could hear those two reviewing their math right now.

“So, if it’s division, that’s when I take the things and make more of them?” Alphio murmured unsurely.

“No, dummy, you make less of them,” Merina snapped at him.

“So I take one away from the other? I thought that was addition.”

“That’s subtraction! Division is more like, um,” Merina trailed off and huffed, folding her arms. “For example, if you have seven divided by three, you get five.”

“I don’t think any of what you both just said was right,” Thesia said disappointedly.

In math, at least, they were completely hopeless. Well, he only needed them as ether machines anyway. Speaking of, though he would have liked to make more Mandrakes and bolster his growth rate further, they were surprisingly taxing to keep around. It was difficult to explain exactly how they were straining him; there was no direct maintenance cost once a dungeon monster was made, but they were little lumps of will and emotion scattered throughout his body. Even if there was no maintenance cost, that would weigh on him. He needed to grow more himself before he could safely produce more Mandrakes.

By now, Archimedes had dug out his second room and was brainstorming the second floor puzzle. Suddenly, someone entered his range of perception. It was just First, though. He was moving quickly and oozing excitement.

Archimedes watched curiously as the boy blazed through the first puzzle and ran right over to the second one. He got down on his knees and set his pack in front of him, digging around for something. Soon, he pulled out something wrapped in cloth. When the cloth was carefully removed, the contents were revealed to be a single slice of meat pie. With an excited look, First stood back up and dropped the pie into the door slot.

He’s getting quite close, isn’t he?

Feeding the Wolfbats was the right idea. Too bad Archimedes had specified to feed them cave rabbits. Now they would get free food and the puzzle still wouldn’t be solved.

However, the Wolfbats came forward and sniffed at the pie, licked it up, and then the one to finish first grabbed the door bar with her teeth and pulled it open.

What?!

Archimedes quickly examined what was left of the pie and noticed the filling was made from his own cave rabbits. How did this boy keep finding alternative solutions to his puzzles? That was two in a row already!

But even Archimedes had thought the requirements for the second puzzle were a little too strict, so he adjusted it from offering “cave rabbits” to “food.”

***Anther’s POV***

Anther’s chest swelled with pride. He had solved another puzzle all on his own. There were little winged fox creatures on the other side of the door, happy to see him, just like the picture on the door implied. The fox that opened the door trotted up to him and started licking his face. Anther laughed and gave a half-serious attempt to push it off before relenting and petting it.

Rybo was right about sharing food. I’ll definitely ask mom to let him come over for dinner.

He wanted to play with the foxes for longer, but he didn’t have a lot of time to spend here. Regretfully, he waved them goodbye, but four of them followed him to the next hall anyway. Anther smiled and ruffled the biggest one’s fur.

Looking around, the second hall wasn’t much different from the first. More like, they were almost identical. However, Anther did notice an herb he didn’t recognize, with puffy blue stems full of holes and no leaves or flowers.

I’ve never seen something like this growing near here. I should show it to Aunt Januiil.

Wrapping his hand in his sleeve in case it wasn’t safe to touch, Anther took some samples of the porous stems and their stubby roots and put them in his sack.

Now then, a dead end, huh?

Anther reached the end of the hall, and there were no more doors. All there was were some words carved on the far wall. They were a little hard to read from his angle, so Anther cast a simple light spell to add to the Glow Moss’s illumination.

“The sun exists to guide one’s path when the stars are not bright enough,” he read the words aloud and cocked his head. “Is that true? Mother says the sun is just a star that's very close to us, and Sun Priest Belsam says it was here before any of us, so even if it guides us, I don’t think that’s why it exists.”

Anther tilted his head the other way. “Maybe it’s a riddle, so it doesn’t matter whether or not it’s true.” He turned around to look for another clue and saw a path where there wasn’t one before.

“It opened!” His eyes widened in amazement. “Amazing! There was nothing there before!”

The boy extinguished the light spell he no longer needed and took a step toward the hole in the wall. However, before he realized it, it was gone again. His feet stopped suddenly. “H-huh?” He looked down at his feet and took a step back, but the path didn’t reappear. Maybe I missed something?

The boy reread the riddle on the wall. “The sun exists to guide one’s path when the stars are not bright enough.” He looked down at his hands and made another floating light. The hole in the wall became visible again. “I get it. The stars are the glowing moss on the ceiling, but I needed something brighter to “guide my path,” so this is my “sun.”” He looked at the floating wisp of light and nodded, smiling up at the ceiling, “You think of interesting things.”

Anther strolled into the second room and took a look around. There were no monsters here, and only one of the winged foxes was still willing to follow him: the biggest one which had opened the door for him.

The room was plain aside from a carving on the back wall. Anther held his light up to it and slowly voiced the words, “Why do dungeons exist?” He tilted his head, “I’ve never thought about it before.”

He had spent a lot of time here already, solving two puzzles in one visit, so he didn’t really have the time to sit around and think about it either.

“I’ll think about it more and tell you my answer next time, okay?”

Anther turned back then and returned to the entrance. The winged fox that had been following him all the while stopped at the first room and curled its tail sadly as it saw him off.

“And the next time I come here, I’ll be an explorer for real,” he whispered on the way out.

***Archimedes’ POV***

First did a lot to surprise Archimedes this visit. First, he befriended his Wolfbats, then he showed knowledge about celestial bodies that was beyond Archimedes’ expectations, then he stumbled upon the answer to his third riddle without any time wasted!

Archimedes didn’t know what to think. A puzzle he thought would have been easy was hard, and one which he intended to be hard presented no challenge at all.

Archimedes sighed and allowed himself to embrace the understanding that nothing First touched would turn out as he expected. With that being the case, he was very interested in what he had to say about the purpose of dungeons.

But perhaps he had gotten his hopes too high. First didn’t have an answer on the subject, but he did promise to think about one for his next visit. Without even taking a look at the next puzzle, the boy turned around and went back the way he came.

Feeling strangely disappointed, Archimedes scolded his Wolfbats from wandering away from their room and went back to thinking about his next puzzle. He had just started construction on it when he was interrupted again. This time, by a group he didn’t recognize. There were ten people: most were wolfmen, but there were also two demons and an elf. Archimedes immediately recognized them as people with bad intentions.

The wolfman at the front read Archimedes’ sign and laughed. “You’re picky for a two-floor dungeon, huh?” The man glared, “The Explorer’s Guild isn’t protecting you right now. So do you want to invite us into your core room like a gentleman, or do we have to get rough?”

So they finally appeared. Now this is what I’m used to. Archimedes examined the two demons in the group, but they didn’t have nearly as much of that berserk mana as Cherise.

If it’s only that much, my second floor can disperse it naturally. That won’t happen again.

Using a minuscule amount of mana, Archimedes loosed a stone from the earth above the lead wolfman’s head. It hit splendidly, and the man’s face turned red.

“Have it your way,” he growled.

Please get enraged and die quickly, Archimedes thought coldly. Angry people were terrible at spotting traps.