According to my kobold, “two minds are the being better than the one”, which didn’t make too much sense to me at first but seemed to mean that if we were both thinking about the problem that it would be easier to find a solution. That explanation made it sound pretty obvious, and maybe it would’ve been if I had stopped for more than three seconds to actually try to puzzle out the meaning of what it had said. Maybe I wasn’t so much an idiot as I was just far too impulsive? I had a bad habit of acting before thinking, running on pure instinct first. If I could learn to think then maybe, just maybe, I could live up to how smart my creature seemed to think I was.

“So, what even is a door?”

My monster blinked, eye ridges briefly pulled low in confusion before those bright yellow orbs widened and it looked up to the ceiling again. “The Core is not the knowing what the door is being?” it asked, and I could hear the disbelief in the way it spoke, the obvious confusion in how I could miss something that must have seemed to it to be basic knowledge.

Was this supposed to be something I should have known already? I couldn’t really see how, though. I had never encountered a door before and I had used [Appraisal] on pretty much every new and interesting thing I had seen, even things I already recognized. If a door existed somewhere underground then I would’ve learned about it the moment I came across it. Were doors something that were supposed to exist down here? There was really only one way of finding out, though it made me feel pretty dumb to ask.

“Should I know what a door is?”

My kobold opened its mouth to begin speaking, seemed to think better of it as its eyes darted about, and then shut its mouth with a soft snap. Its head tilted, ears flopping about, as it put a claw to its soft yellow chin and seemed to think long and hard about what I had just asked. The tip of its purple tongue poked out of its mouth, making it somehow more adorable than it already was.

I was left alone in the silence, with only the distant sounds of the badgers sleeping, as I watched my creature ponder what I should and shouldn’t know.

After what felt like far too long but was probably only a few seconds, my monster looked back up and asked, “What skills is the Core the having?”

That was a pretty weird question to ask, wasn’t it? What did my skills have to do with anything at all? Was I supposed to have some kind of skill that would grant me knowledge about what doors were? That seemed like an oddly specific skill to have, didn’t it? [Door Knowledge], ridiculous, right? Regardless, I decided not to argue with the creature that seemed to somehow know more about being a dungeon than I did, and instead directed [Appraisal] on myself.

Nameless [Dungeon Core] Lvl: 1

Title: None

Size: 213.19482

Points: 37

HP: 10/10

MP: 101/264

Mobs:

Kobolds: 1/2

Skills:

[Mana Absorption] [Devour] [Tunneling] lvl.1 [Appraisal] lvl.2 [Room Building] lvl.1

My skills hadn’t changed at all since the last time I had checked on them, though I did have a new section on my stat sheet that was interesting. It was pretty self-explanatory, though odd all the same. It was a listing of all of the monster mobs that I could summon, with a spot listed for kobolds, but the weird thing was that I could apparently only summon two of them. Wasn’t that just way too few monsters? How were two of these little guys supposed to do anything to protect me? The one I had was barely bigger than a badger.

Hey, Inner Voice, how come I can only summon two? Isn’t that just way too few? And you better answer me this time, too! No more ignoring my questions. So tell me, why can I only summon two kobolds?

The Dungeon Core can only summon one of each of its monster mobs per room that exists in the dungeon.

Oh, that wasn’t too bad then. So if I made more rooms then I would be able to summon more of them, that made sense. That was a limitation I could live with. If I needed or wanted more kobolds then I just had to dig out more rooms first, and since I wanted to expand the dungeon and make it better that wouldn’t be asking too much of me.

Coincidentally… Inner Voice, is there any limit on the amount of rooms I can build?

The Dungeon Core can only create five basic rooms on the first floor, not counting any bonus rooms that may be unlocked later.

“You’re kidding me!”

“Is something being the wrong, Core?” the kobold asked, head cocking so sharply that its little floppy green ears almost jiggled in place when they came to a stop.

Damn, I had ended up projecting that thought out louder than I meant to. Still, it was just way too shocking to learn. I could only build five rooms on this floor, and the badgers had already taken one of them from me! What would I do if they went and dug out more rooms? Actually, why was I so strangely upset by this? What did it matter if the badgers made more rooms? I was basically just making the dungeon appealing to them so they would stay, so what did I really need more rooms just to myself for?

More importantly, I needed to answer my kobold.

“I got a little distracted with Inner Voice, that’s all. I was supposed to be looking at my skills, right? I have [Mana Absorption], [Devour], [Tunneling] level one, [Appraisal] level two, and [Room Building] level one.”

There went that subtle frown again on my monster's face, the slightest wrinkle to the pebbly skin of its face and the way the edges of its mouth pulled down hard. Had I said something strange? I must have because it looked almost concerned now. This went way beyond simple confusion, my monster was apparently worried about something.

I waited for it to tell me just how broken and messed up I was. At this point, I was convinced that something was wrong with me, and I had seen the signs of that in the way my kobold reacted to what I said. I didn’t seem to know things that I was supposed to know, and when I referenced talking to Inner Voice it had frowned. I might have been an idiot, but I was at least observant enough to pick up on that much.

My kobold gave its head a shake, letting out a puffing little breath, “The Core is not the having anything the called [Basic Dungeon Knowledge]?” it asked.

“I just listed all of the skills. I didn’t hold any of them back for any reason.”

My monster had basically just confirmed my fear: I was broken. There was something deeply and fundamentally wrong with me, and I didn’t even have the skills that I was supposed to have. How was I supposed to do anything I wanted to if I wasn’t a complete Dungeon Core? I was starting at a disadvantage, and I didn’t really like the sound of that.

“All of them?” There was such clear disbelief in my creature’s voice that a cold, sinking, sensation washed over my core. Was I missing even more skills that I should have had? Skills that even my monster didn’t know about? I didn’t that, not in the least bit. “The Core is not the having anything for the building of walls if it is doing the too much eating?” it continued, confirming my worst fears almost as soon as I thought them.

Oh, oh no. I really was missing more skills I should have. I was a disaster. I was a broken, stupid, messed up, and impulsive disaster and I would never be able to achieve my dreams of being the perfect dungeon, so beautiful and great that no one who entered it would ever want to leave it again. I might as well just give up now and let the badgers eat me. I would be better off serving as fuel to the creation of Mama Badger’s babies than existing.

“Core? Are you the alright? It is being the okay, really. I am the having the knowledge of dungeons, we can be the doing this together. You are not the being better as the food for the Mama Badger,” the kobold spoke, causing me to want to dig a hole beneath my core and drop myself down into it.

At some point during my wallowing in despair, I had apparently started projecting those thoughts outward instead of keeping them bottled up inside where they belonged. I had no idea how much my monster had heard, but it had definitely heard the part where I wanted to be eaten by a badger. How absolutely embarrassing.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Really. Just a bit frustrated by finding out that I didn’t even know how much I didn’t know. That’s all.”

My kobold nodded slowly, big yellow eyes looking up vaguely towards the ceiling as it smiled in what I was sure was supposed to be a gentle and reassuring way. “It is being the alright. We will just be the working together. The two heads are being the better than one, yes? Like I was the saying earlier?” How its squeaky little voice could sound so lovely and caring I didn’t know, but it made me feel almost instantly better.

It had, in fact, said as much earlier. Whatever was wrong with me, broken or not, I should be able to make up the difference if I worked with my monster. It knew things I didn’t, and Inner Voice was becoming more and more helpful over time as I figured out how to work with it. With the three of us, we should be more than enough, though… Did a weird not-me count as a third head to put together? I didn’t want to think about that too much, it was distressing.

“That still leaves the question of what a door is. Do you know?”

There went the little crinkling of my kobold’s forehead again, heavy ridged brow pulled down low. “I am the knowing it is a thing for the blocking of the passages, and that it has a thing for the grabbing so it can be pulled the open.” The creature looked just as confused as I felt. Did it only have the very vaguest of ideas of what a door was? “Is the Inner Voice the knowing what the door is being?” it continued, voice hopeful.

That was a pretty good question. Could Inner Voice tell me more information? It didn’t always answer me, but normally when it did I found that it was pretty helpful. Now I just needed to figure out how to word the question in such a way that Inner Voice couldn’t ignore it. It seemed like if I asked just the right way it would almost always answer.

Okay, Inner Voice, listen up! I want to know what a door is, so can you tell me? What is a door? How is it made? What is it made of? How do I build one? Come on, Inner Voice! Answer me already! I’ve asked this question every way I can think to ask it!

…

Normally when Inner Voice didn’t answer me there was just nothing at all. Complete silence, empty space where words should be. No answer at all, as if I hadn’t managed to trigger the weird me that wasn’t me into answering. This time, however, it almost felt as if Inner Voice was purposefully holding back. I could almost feel it deliberately being silent, though I couldn’t think of why it would be. Normally the thing had a habit of speaking up when I didn’t expect it to and of staying silent when I needed an answer. Now it was somehow purposefully ignoring me? What even was this thing?

Come on, Inner Voice. Please? Could you please answer me?

The standard door is constructed of wood, either as a solid slab or several pieces bound together, in such a way that it blocks the entrance of a place. It moves on a hinge or swivel of some kind, allowing it to be opened and closed.

Was it really possible that I had just witnessed Inner Voice being petty enough to refuse to answer me until I said please? That was impossible, right? It was just another part of myself, wasn’t it? It spoke with the same voice my own thoughts used, just in a more flat sort of way. It sounded exactly like [Appraisal], but without the friendly sort of warmth that it had. [Appraisal] was a skill, of course, but it was a skill that I possessed so it seemed to follow that it was also a part of me…

Did… Did that mean that Inner Voice was a part of me that was upset that I had been being rude to myself…? Did that even make any sense? It was a mystery that I wanted to unravel, but I had bigger problems to tackle first.

“Yeah, it seems to know what a door is. We might be able to get more specifics out of it as we go along. Right now it seems like we either need to find a big enough chunk of wood, or smaller pieces that we can tie together somehow.”

My monster didn’t seem to be too surprised that Inner Voice had answered me and knew what we needed to know. It only nodded its cute little head, making a soft noise in the back of its throat. “That is the good… Maybe the Inner Voice is being the [Dungeon Knowledge], but has the somehow been the cut off from the Core? Whatever it is the being, am I being the grateful that it can the help.”

That was certainly a theory! It sounded like a pretty good one to me, too. It fit with what I knew of my skill usage, though it was strange how I would be separated from that skill at the same time, so that I couldn’t use it when I wanted to. It wouldn’t do to dwell on it, however. I couldn’t just sit around forever trying to puzzle out what was wrong with me, I needed to get to work.

“Now that we know what to do, I just need to make the tunnel bigger for you. I can’t widen it where the badgers are, so you’ll need to do some wiggling through there, but I can at least make our part bigger so you can build the door more easily.”

My kobold nodded its head, looking determined and ready to go, which meant that it was time for [Tunneling] to get to work. Luckily, it seemed as if I would have enough MP to do what I needed to, with extra left over in case something went wrong.

While my kobold waited in the room that I had built for it, I set [Tunneling] loose on the passage that led to both my core and the entrance of the dungeon. My phantasmal tendrils sank into the walls, pulling out chunks of dirt as I first began to widen the tunnel, starting with the section closest to the kobold.

I had intentionally kept things narrow, not needing much space for my core to begin with, but also to make it more difficult on the badgers if they found my offshoot. Every bit they would need to widen on their own would be more time for me to find a way to hide, which made it feel very wrong for me to intentionally make it easier for things to move down the hall.

The dirt came away easily, though it was thicker and more sticky the closer to the room that it lay. I still needed to use [Appraisal] to see what the difference was, but I could do that while my creature was out exploring the world outside of the dungeon. It wasn’t a priority at the moment.

As I dug and ate, I managed to find a few more worms here and there, but none of the strangely delicious things that had filled me with far too much mana. It was a little bit disappointing if I were perfectly honest, mostly because I had the stores for that much mana now and it would make expanding so much easier, but I tried to think of it as a blessing. The amount of pain I had gone through was something I never wanted to experience again, and for all I knew whatever I had eaten would always find a way to push me past capacity.

I widened the tunnel all the way to the hole that I had dropped through, stopping when I reached the roots. Making this area bigger would be the last thing I did, just in case the badgers somehow sensed all of the construction and woke up. Hopefully, the curtain of roots would still act as a deterrent to them. Once I widened that hole my kobold could easily squeeze through, and with its claws that seemed even sharper than the badgers, I was sure it could remove the roots as an obstacle.

The door being finished quickly was of the highest priority to me. With that hole big enough for the badgers to come though I would be in danger, and so would my monster. I couldn’t speak to the badgers like I could to it, after all, so there would be no way of explaining to them that we didn’t mean them any harm. Either the badgers would flee, or they would fight my creature, and either option was an outcome I didn’t want.

Once I finished widening the tunnel, I began to expand its height.

This one was a bit more tricky for me. The ground above seemed to be uneven, leaving roots beginning to dangle from the ceiling in certain places like they did in the room that I had made to summon my monster. I started first with evening out the angle by the hole, digging straight down so that it would be level with the rest of the floor, and then I continued along that way.

I dug slightly down all along the floor of the existing passage, lowering the floor so that it would sit just a bit lower than the room that my kobold currently resided in, making odd little noises as it fidgeted and picked at its claws. I had plans on making that room taller at some point, to give any other creatures I summoned into it more room, so it didn’t matter that the passage was lower down for now. Eventually, everything would be on an even playing field.

I raised the ceiling of the tunnel as far as I could before I ran into thicker roots, occasionally knocking out a few tasty snacks as I did so. My goal was for the tunnel to be the same height across its length as the room was, to make sure my creature would be able to work efficiently as it moved and created the door.

Lowering the floor beneath my own core felt a bit odd, and sent me rolling further down the tunnel, but luckily it was a very gentle slope with nothing for me to bounce against. It felt good to have more room in the dungeon, somehow. There was more airflow, more room to stretch out my tendrils. It felt right somehow in ways that I just couldn’t express. Were dungeons not meant to be small things made for housing badgers and other creatures? Were they meant for things even larger than that? Thing even larger than my kobold?

Sure, I knew that I could summon monsters like the Myconid Sprout that had a greater height than my kobold, but they were just things I was supposed to summon to protect myself with, right? There was something that felt different about my realization that I preferred my dungeon being larger, but I had no real way if expressing the feeling or figuring out what it meant. Without access to the same kind of [Dungeon Knowledge] as my creature, I had no real way of knowing anything, so I could only make guesses.

It took a little longer than I liked, but I eventually finished expanding the size of the tunnel all the way down, which just left the hole that connected it to the entrance where the badgers lived.

Cold grew inside of me again, a nervous feeling that I might somehow mess up everything else and create more trouble for myself, but instead of dwelling on it, I acted. Thinking would get me nowhere in this situation, it would only eat up more of my valuable time. I pulled the dirt out from around the tangle of roots, making the hole the same size as the tunnel that the badgers had dug. It would be a bit awkward, but it looked like it was enough room for my monster. If the badgers could walk around on all fours through the space, then surely it could as well.

“It’s done. Just turn right when you get to the hole, left goes to the badgers.”

My kobold’s bright yellow eyes seemed to somehow glitter and gleam in the darkness, shining with its excitement, its mouth falling open into a wide grin as it jumped to its feet. “I will not be the failing you, my Core, this I am the promising you!” it exclaimed, squeaky voice higher than usual.

I wasn’t sure how confident those words made me feel, but at least it looked cute while saying them.