“No, really, I saw it myself. There really are pictures of the guild inspector in there. They show her getting tortured!”

“What the hell? I haven’t heard about this before.”

“Seriously? Have you been out hunting these past few days?”

“The rumor is that when the guild inspector went to inspect the dungeon, her spell showed it was safe. Then she went inside, held down one of the monsters, and--”

“Hey! I don’t want to hear something like that!”

“That guy’s got it wrong, anyway.”

“Huh? What have I got wrong?”

“Everyone knows Rybo’s a good guy, and he’s the guild inspector’s guard. He wouldn’t let her do something like that if it was happening right in front of him.”

“Then how do you explain the wall carvings?”

“Let me finish. The guild inspector snuck out later that night without telling him. That’s when she cast paralysis on a monster, drugged it, and--”

“Hey, hey, stop already!”

“Hmph. Anyway, the proof is that she tried to cover it up.”

“Ah, that right?”

“Yeah, that. When the dungeon was still closed, the guild inspector snuck out again at night, probably to do it with the monsters again. She saw the carvings the dungeon made, got mad, and wrecked the whole place. The dungeon’s pretty ballsy though. Despite her threats, it repaired the carvings for us to see.”

“That actually makes more sense. I was trying to figure out why people saw Rybo running in and out of the guild inspector’s office with a furious look on his face.”

“Man, seriously? I hadn’t heard that yet.”

“Um, you guys, isn’t this really bad if it’s true? Doing that with monsters is...”

“Right, the guild will definitely fire her when they find out.”

“So then--”

“That’s exactly why we can’t report it! Even if she’s young--for a demon--a guild inspector is still a guild inspector. You think you could hold her off if she lost her temper?”

“Well, I’ve never seen a rampaging demon before, but if we all teamed up, I’m sure we could do something.”

“Haha, oh boy. You have no idea. We wouldn’t last a minute. Look, Rybo says he’s looking into it. Let’s just wait for him to handle it.”

“If you say so. But I don’t know how comfortable I feel waiting around with a person like that in this village.”

***Cherise Manabela Irenthi’s POV***

Cherise had just cleared a pile of papers from her desk when her timepiece let out a chime. It was break time right on schedule. For a change of pace, she left her office for a pleasant walk outside. There weren’t many people socializing in the grassy elven streets today. They must all be out exploring the new dungeon. She’d heard about something valuable being found there; people must have been excited about it.

After strolling for a minute, she ran into Rybo, standing in the road with his arms folded. He was giving her a harsh expression that she’d seen a lot from him lately. Just how upset could one silly beastman get about a dumb rumor? She wished he would assign that level of seriousness to his actual work.

“We need to talk,” he said darkly.

“I’m on break, Rybo. If it’s business-talk, please wait for me in my office. If it’s about that ridiculous rumor, I don’t want to hear it.”

She tried to brush past him, but the beastman broke all ceremony and grabbed her shoulder.

“We. Need. To. Talk.”

The demon glared up at him coldly. “You’re overstepping your authority, Rybo. Let go this instant.”

“If you don’t want to be subpoenaed or stoned in the street, you’ll shove that worthless demon pride and propriety up your ass and listen to me.” Rybo pinched his nose with his free hand and drew in a deep breath. “I’m not sure I know what happened in that dungeon anymore, but this has to get sorted out. I’m going to take you there, and you’re going to get on your knees and beg for forgiveness.”

“In front of all the explorers?” Cherise cocked a snowy eyebrow and interrupted. “I might as well stand in the central plaza and shout about how guilty I am. Do you think that will help invalidate these baseless rumors?”

“We’ll go at night after the dungeon’s closed.”

“That’s against regulations,” Cherise interrupted again.

“I will drag you there!”

Rybo’s fed-up shout echoed in the empty streets, and shadows fell over his eyes as he gritted his teeth. For a minute, there was silence, as Cherise found herself unable to say anything. She suddenly realized the very real possibility that the beastman could ignore her orders and physically force her to comply.

“Why would you go that far?” she asked softly.

He snorted. “Lots of reasons, including keeping order in this town, keeping you safe and employed—since I’m supposed to be your guard—and to smooth out that dungeon’s relationship with the guild for the future.” He glared, “Why are you so against it? Did you really do it?”

“Of course not,” Cherise shook her head.

“Then doesn’t it bother you that half the people in town are convinced you did?!”

“It doesn’t.” The demon’s violet eyes were cold to the point of looking emotionless. “I can’t let myself be bothered by it. I already lost my self-control once in front of that dungeon. If I did it a second time, I might as well pack up my office and return to my hometown to start my schooling over.”

Rybo’s grip slowly loosened until he let his large hand slide off of the senior guild inspector. He stared down at her with a mixture of sudden understanding, derisiveness, and pity.

So it was all because of that. The philosophy that a demon had to be in full control of themselves at every moment. The shadow left behind by the Evil God Phegmehogal.

Rybo sighed and ran his hand through his wild red hair. “Look, I get what you’re trying to do now, but this isn’t self-control. You’re letting fear push you into inaction; you’re paralyzed. There’s a distinction between being in control and just not lashing out. Right now, as the senior guild inspector here, you have to take action to reestablish order. Self-control is a tool that people use so that they can look at the things that upset them and deal with them appropriately.”

A small crack formed in the demon’s expression: a hint of grief or regret leaking through.

“Tonight, huh? If I must, I’ll come with you to talk to the dungeon.”

Rybo nodded, “Yeah, better.”

***Archimedes’ POV***

“Hey, isn’t this door different from last time?”

“It’s my first time coming here, so…”

“Wait, you guys, this is platinum, isn’t it?!”

“What?!”

Archimedes watched the delicate blade he was crafting with a careful gaze. Its edge was uncommonly sharp, and it slid perfectly into place between two identical blades. Sounds of steel tools hacking at soft metal started to echo in from outside before light suddenly flooded the tunnel. There was a loud thump as a person-sized chunk of platinum hit the forest floor. Sensing the disturbance, the apparatus of polished scythes started spinning, accompanied on all sides by swinging, flying, rotating, and jabbing instruments of death.

“It’s looking more and more dangerous in there,” the watchman muttered, leaning out of his seat to look inside.

“Isn’t that a bit excessive?” one of the explorers mentioned, wiping sweat from his brow.

“Well, that only happens if you damage the door,” he shrugged. “In my opinion, that’s its way of telling us that treasure-seekers shouldn’t go farther than this. I mean,” he pointed at the plaque above the generously excavated entrance, “it’s looking for sages, apparently.”

“What’s this button here? Reset?” The explorers had noticed a small stone button on the wall just outside the door.

“It takes hours for the door to fix itself naturally. That’s if someone comes along to try the puzzle seriously.”

“Oh, you’re right. There’s a sign here.”

“So we can just press this and collect twice the platinum?”

The watchman laughed. “That worked once. Every time after that, an acid waterfall opened up and melted whoever tried it. This area is still technically inside the dungeon, even if we can see the sky.” He leaned back in his chair and smirked. “When it first opened, this thing only had a simple pitfall trap behind the door. It’s learning so fast.”

Archimedes felt his mana boiling. “You call this learning? I’ve been disillusioned, I’d say! If you can break it, you break it. If you can steal it, you steal it! How many times have you creatures carved up my front door these past two days?!”

Genuinely, he never expected every single explorer who came would be able to use magic or sheer physical force to break platinum with their bare bodies. He had planned for the door to last long enough to alchemize into adamantine—even if he wanted to force the process himself, it was too expensive!

Archimedes started replacing the untouched surfaces of the first hallway with needle-like spikes, then coated them in necrotic venom for good measure.

“Papa lost his temper~” Thesia cooed from downstairs.

“Should I be worried?” Merina asked. “I don’t want spikes and blades and all that in here while I’m sunbathing.”

“For now, I just need them here,” Archimedes grumbled. He was infuriated, but he hadn’t gone completely insane.

“If it’s such a bad thing, why don’t you just change the door again?” Alphio wondered. “It’s just been making you mad this whole time.”

Archimedes sighed. “Because one way or another, it’s keeping people out. They don’t seem to want to risk their lives in a dungeon after acquiring something so valuable. This is an annoying defense measure, but it’s much more effective than my last one.” He hesitated, then thought to himself, “But the next door will be made out of a Mithril Steel alloy.”

Platinum was a valuable material because of its rarity and strength. It was better than steel at withstanding blunt-force trauma if the only qualification was that it didn’t split into pieces. Rather than breaking, platinum would merely bend. However, it was much softer than steel, so it was easily scratched and chipped. These weren’t huge issues to Archimedes, who could repair the things in his dungeon, but a whole different problem arose when these features were combined with a valuable material.

Finding a source of soft platinum was like a dream come true for treasure hunters. Platinum could be made into adamantine through a complex but inexpensive process, and adamantine was one of the single best metals to use in weapons, armors, and industrial machinery. It was harder to enchant than materials like mithril or orichalcum, but extremely durable.

Many dungeons used adamantine weapons to tempt adventurers at lower levels, but adamantine deposits were rarely mined. Why? Because it was so tough even as an ore that you could only mine it if you already had an adamantine pickaxe! The process was intensely physical. Mining Platinum was much easier, but Platinum was rarer in nature than adamantine due to the concentration of mana in the earth. Usually, even if dungeons tried to make a Platinum deposit, it would quickly turn to Mithril and be ignored.

At this point, the Platinum door was so effective at shooing treasure hunters that Archimedes had decided to preserve it with the knowledge from his previous life. As it was now, it wouldn’t turn to adamantine even if he left it alone.

Regardless, seeing yet another bad side to the explorers in this world had finally pushed him beyond his patience.

Clearly just because this is a place where I can supposedly live a meaningful life doesn’t mean I can avoid any of the troubles dungeons face. Why did I even entertain the hope?

The creatures in the dungeon had been doing their best as mana potions all day. Archimedes was instigating some serious defensive overhauls, and he needed all the mana he could get. Bring back the deadly traps and behemoths humans used to fear him for! So what?! The beings known as explorers were immortal anyway!

The Explorers outside had finished their conversation. They had also stripped away all the platinum they could get their hands on, even going so far as to dig out the ground inside to get the parts that were submerged. Archimedes stared at that coldly and spawned parasitic monsters in the freshwater pools. They would despawn if their host left the dungeon, but as long as they stayed inside, Archimedes could command the parasites to cause greedy explorers a great deal of abdominal pain. They probably wouldn’t drink it—on the first floor, they would still have their own water that they brought from outside—but he would be glad if they drank it anyway.

The intelligent dungeon monsters did their best not to listen in on his more sadistic thoughts. Some of them were quite innocent and soft-hearted.

***

Later in the day, the guard shift changed as it always did, and the few explorers that had been hanging around near his entrance dispersed for the night. Archimedes had picked up a few things from listening in on the conversations outside and, first impressions aside, the guild was actually a somewhat useful organization for him. One of their policies was to keep people out of the dungeon after dark so Archimedes had time to rebuild and grow. It was a privilege he hadn’t been expecting.

Usually, he could turn his attention inward around this time, but tonight, some people approached. One that he would have given a great many things not to run into again.

Along with her beastman guard, the devil spawn Cherise stepped into his field of perception. The dungeon walls creaked minutely: cramping in response to the core’s rage and fear. Archimedes opened the entrance up wide and started the maelstrom of blades spinning, vaguely hoping he could scare her away. Logically, he knew she could just blast the trap into powder, but he had more sinister ones waiting if she tried.

The woman’s jaw fell open and the beastman elbowed her.

“See? This is serious.”

Cherise flushed pink and scowled at the tunnel of death. Archimedes could read her like a book. She was offended and worried that he would go so far to back his stupid slander. Did he really hate her that much?

Archimedes scoffed and watched the guard cautiously leave his field of perception, showed off by his superiors. She still didn’t feel a speck of guilt over what she had done. No, she didn’t even know what she had done wrong in the first place. This walking bundle of mana and foolishness thought he was just so petty that he’d fabricated everything to get revenge for her blowing up his front door. Even knowing approximately how often his door was assaulted, she still thought that!

“Dungeon,” Cherise raised her voice to be heard over the spinning blades, “I’ve come to talk so we can work out our differences. Please, can we stop this? This slander is getting out of hand, and the village is falling into disorder.”

Archimedes counted for several seconds to quiet the rage in his heart. He hated, positively hated this, but he couldn’t afford to make enemies of a group of three immortal races if it could be avoided.

A sign popped up out of the ground, simply reading, “Do you want to make things right?”

“That’s exactly why I’ve come,” she answered boldly. The only duplicitous thought he could sense in her was confusion over the fact that he was able to communicate back with her.

The text faded and was replaced by possibly the most dangerous line Archimedes had ever written.

“Then come to the second floor. We’ll talk it over face to face.”