Though it felt as if hours had passed while I waited for my kobold’s return, doing absolutely nothing except listening to the sounds of the badgers as they grunted and shifted in their sleep, it was probably only a little over five minutes. By the time my monster came back, squirming into the dungeon entrance with more wood held tight against their body, my MP had still yet to reach the sixty that I’d need to expand out the passage the way that I wanted. Not that I was actually planning on using it right away, between my desire to avoid passing out again and my creature’s request for me to hold off on using my mana until they spoke to me.

I couldn’t help my excitement at seeing my monster return so quickly, the relief from the pain that was boredom rushing through my tendrils in a wave as I greeted them with just a bit too much enthusiasm.

“Welcome back! Did you get everything? You don’t need to go back out again, do you?”

My creature pressed the end of their snout against the dirt of the dungeon floor, and it didn’t take me long to realize they were trying to muffle a wheezing squeak. Apparently they found it funny that I was so desperate for them to stay longer. I just couldn’t help it! Doing nothing at all was much too boring, and at least if they were here I could talk to them!

“This should be the it, my Core,” the kobold whispered as quietly as they could manage, and for some reason I found the sensation almost ticklish, their breath against the floor of the dungeon that was also part of my body. I didn’t feel much when things walked around and dug at the tunnel walls, so it was odd how much I could feel from that. Was it just because I was so focused on them at the moment? It was a mystery that didn’t really matter much, forgotten as soon as they continued to speak. “But do not be the making me laugh, I would not want to be the waking badgers, yes?”

I wanted to complain that I wasn’t trying to make them laugh, but all I could really do was quietly agree. The last thing I wanted was for the badgers to wake up before the door was built. I had no way of knowing how they would react to the sight of my monster, and I didn’t want to find out. Would they attack my kobold? Would they flee and never return? And if they did attack, who should I hope would win?

It left me feeling uncomfortable somehow, a twisting and squirming sensation as if my entire core had become a knotted mess of worms. The badgers were just food and I shouldn’t care about them at all, just like my monster was simply something I could make again if they happened to die… All the same, I found the idea of losing any of them to be somehow unbearable.

It was just because I liked the free food, right? Just like I only didn’t want to lose my kobold because it would be too annoying to explain things to a new one. I wasn’t attached to any of them, nor did I have reason to be. They weren’t irreplaceable, they weren’t special.

At least not to anyone else but me, and even then I hated admitting that thought, though I was the only one who could hear it.

My creature rolled their way back into the larger tunnel in a similar fashion to their previous attempt, tumbling end over end as they hit the ground with a smack that left them laughing softly. I didn’t understand how falling and getting hurt could be funny, but the look in their large yellow eyes as they dusted themself off made me forget all about the uncomfortable way my earlier thoughts had left me feeling.

“Do you really think that’s enough wood?”

My kobold blinked once, then looked to the pile of materials that lay scattered across the ground. They squinted at the wood and strangely motionless worms, and then turned slightly so they could peer up at the hole behind them. I watched the way their eyes flickered and shifted, as if they were measuring and sizing things up, and then they nodded firmly. “Yes. This will be the being enough, but barely. If we are the needing more, I will be the getting it. Do not be the worrying, my Core.” They flashed me an open-mouthed grin, fangs all on display, and I couldn’t help but trust them.

Maybe my kobold had some kind of skill or ability that let them know how to build things? If so, I should probably defer to their expertise. It wasn’t as if I knew how to do anything but make dungeons, and I didn’t even really know how to do that much. There was no way of knowing what my creature was skilled at… Except… There was. There was a way, but for some reason it just hadn’t occurred to me until now. For some reason I hadn’t bothered to use [Appraisal] on them. I should probably fix that.

Unnamed [Kobold] Lvl: 1

Female

Title: [First Born]

Status: Healthy

HP: 9/10

MP: 10/10

SP: 89/100

Atk: 25

Def: 50

Skills:

[Basic Dungeon Knowledge] [Kobold Knowledge] [Mining] lvl. 1 [Trap Knowledge] lvl. 1 [Trap Making] lvl. 1

A lot of things jumped out all at once when I saw my kobold’s listing of information, a lot of them things I would normally put [Appraisal] to use learning about, but for some reason only one of them seemed to require immediate attention.

“You’re a girl!”

My monster’s head snapped upwards from where they, or rather she, had been arranging the pieces of wood so they would form a square that would cover the hole between passages, purple tongue poking out of her mouth in concentration. Her head tilted, large yellow eyes blinking as she seemed to be trying to understand why I would suddenly bring this up. The heavier ridges over her eyes narrowed as she squinted, before she finally spoke in her squeaky voice, “Yes? Is this being the surprise to my Core?”

“Kind of? For some reason I just didn’t think monsters would have a gender.”

Even though it required a certain amount of concentration to project my thoughts so they could be heard I had still somehow managed to blurt the thought out to her without meaning to, the same way I had accidentally projected my thoughts of how cute she was previously. I knew the moment it echoed out of me that I had made a mistake.

Her clawed hands came up fast, clamping down around the end of her muzzle as she tried to physically hold in the laughing wheezes that shook her, her tail slapping against the ground. I had been embarrassed before by not knowing she was female, but my embarrassment reached levels of burning shame as I watched her struggling desperately not to laugh.

“You’re the first monster I’ve ever made! How was I supposed to know?!”

My attempts at justification fell on deaf ears it seemed, because she proceeded to fall onto her side as she poorly did her best to not laugh loud enough to wake the badgers. One hand moved to clutch at her soft yellow stomach, and I saw moisture gathering at the edges of her closed eyes. She was laughing herself to tears, and all because I continued to be a complete idiot.

I was forced to endure her not so silent laughter for another minute until, finally, she quieted down enough that she could wipe her eyes and look up at the ceiling. “I am much the sorry to be the laughing.” There wasn’t a single thing in her voice or the way the edges of her mouth curled into a smile to suggest she was actually sorry. “It is just… Well… I was never the thinking that the Dungeon Core would be the concerned with if I were being the girl or the boy,” she explained.

It was a slow realization that she was right, it was pretty funny that I had bothered with the information. Why had I even cared? Was it because of the badgers? That was the only reason I could think of. I had learned through them that males and females were needed to inflict the pregnant status and create more badgers, so, since I was the one who made my kobold, I had assumed that monsters wouldn’t need a gender. Why would they when I was the one making them?

Did that mean that monsters could make more of themselves without me? I could outright ask, but for some reason the thought was a little embarrassing. Would my kobold laugh at me again? I didn’t want to risk that. I would just have to bother Inner Voice for information later, this time when my monster was asleep so I didn’t risk accidentally projecting any thoughts that she could overhear.

“You’re right, it was an odd question. I only asked because of the pair of badgers, that’s all.”

I didn’t want to explain any more than that, and it seemed as if she weren’t in the mood to go divulging any free information to me either. Instead of answering any unspoken questions that I had, my monster sat upright once more and picked up one of the long brown worms in her hands. “I said before I had something to be the telling you, yes?” she asked, graciously changing the subject as she looked down at the wood before her, beginning to weave the worms in and out between the branches.

I replied with the affirmative, but I was only half paying attention now, my focus mostly on what she was doing with her hands. What were these weird creatures? Why were they just letting her do whatever with them? Why weren’t they fighting back? She didn’t have any sort of [Animal Taming] ability, so why were they just laying there?

[Vine] Lvl: ???

Status: Severed

HP: ???/???

MP: ???/???

SP: ???/???

Vine. A kind of plant that grows long stems that either climb across things or trail across the ground, hanging. Some vines can be parasitic, sinking their roots into other plants to feed off of them.

With that mystery solved and my curiosity sated I could finally pay attention to my monster again, and fortunately, it didn’t seem as if I had missed too much of what she was saying. It hadn’t taken [Appraisal] long to feed the new information directly into me, after all, and most of it was simply nonsense that could be ignored.

“And from what I was the seeing, it is the looking like a whole village is not too the far away, not just the farm. This is being much the good for when my Core is the having the many kobolds for the defense, and the things that the peoples will be the wanting, but it could end up being the dangerous if they are the finding the dungeon before my Core is the ready,” she was saying, and though I had missed out on what she said to begin with I was immediately intrigued.

“Woah, slow down there for a moment. What’s a village? Or a farm? What are these peoples? Why would I make things that they want? How are they dangerous?”

It felt as if a thousand questions came pouring into me all at once, and I couldn’t stop myself from asking all of them. I might have kept going if my monster hadn’t paused in her work, lifting a hand as if to tell me to stop and give her a moment to speak. Instantly I cut off the stream of projected thoughts, but I could still feel them vibrating inside of me, eager to escape.

Once I quieted down she lowered her hand, returning to her work of using the vines to bind the wood into a sheet. “Let us be the starting with the peoples, yes? Everything else will be the making sense then.” She waited for me to agree before she continued, frowning hard at her hands as she spoke. “The peoples are being what the Dungeon Core is meant to be the feeding off of. Animals like the badgers and the things that the Core’s monsters can be the bringing it are good, but the peoples are being the better.

“You see, they are the giving much more of the mana and the points when they are in the dungeon, even if the Core is not the killing and the eating them.” She tied off one end of the vine around the other and bent, snapping it off above the knot with her sharp teeth, before she continued her explanation. “Being near the peoples is good for when the dungeon is the large, full of the things the peoples might be wanting: armor, weapons, the rare gems and the metals… But is much the dangerous when the dungeon is being the small. If the peoples don’t want the dungeon they could be the shattering the Core.”

I felt a cold chill shoot through me at that thought. I had no idea what a people looked like, of course, but all the same, I had a clear image of some massive dark shape with arms and legs like my kobold approaching my core. I could almost imagine the sensation of them bringing a heavy object down onto my core, could almost hear the cracking sound as the shockwave went through the crystal… It would splinter, slowly at first, and then it would explode outward with the force of all my built-up mana and swallowed material.

I wasn’t sure if that was how it would actually happen, of course, but that was what I imagined. If it happened like that it would probably be pretty dangerous to the people shattering me, but maybe they wouldn’t care. I didn’t know what a people was, for all I knew they would be able to withstand something like that.

“I don’t like the idea of dying…”

“No one is the liking it,” she replied quickly, moving onto a different section of the wood. “That is why the Dungeon Core is the making the monsters. Monsters are to be the protecting the Core, and are to be the gathering the things from the outside, giving the Core more to be the working with. Dungeons are being all the different types, so my Core will need to be the deciding what dungeon it is the wanting to be, but I am the here to be the supporting you.” She looked upwards again, flashing a confident grin that only marginally eased the tense feeling that was growing in me.

Her HP was the same as mine. How could she be much help in defending me? Still, at least she had claws and fangs to fight with, as well as legs to use so she could run away if it got to be too much for her. That was way more than I had. All I could do was sit and hope my end came swiftly and painlessly if things came to that.

“So… I want to lure these people into me but only when I’m bigger? When I’ve made the dungeon into something that they would want to keep around?”

She nodded rapidly, her cute little ears flopping as she did so. “Yes, that is the being it exactly! I, and any other kobolds you are the making, can be the sneaking about. Looking to see what the peoples could be the needing. The kobolds might be the weak alone, but we are the strong together. Just like we are the strong together.”

Somehow I found myself wrapped even further around her finger, hanging on her every word and, more importantly, believing in them. She was right. She was weak on her own, just like I was, but together we were already stronger, and if I made even more kobolds that would make us that much stronger.

“Okay, so it sounds like I should make my second kobold after we finish the door and I give you your name, then the two of you can go lurking about gathering intel and resources while I build. Am I getting that right?”

“Yes! That is the being the right!” She let out a squeaking laugh, lifting the now completed makeshift door, holding it out before herself. “The Core is in the awkward position, yes, but it can also be the advantageous if we are the clever and the smart, which we both very much the are.”

[Item Making] automatically acquired.

Wait… [Item Making]? Shouldn’t that have been [Door Building]?