Whoosh!

A cold wind blows as the bare trees rocked. Having winter robes on themselves, a party of six walked through the grass covered forest while shivering.

“I can’t believe it got so cold suddenly,” the leader of the party, a middle aged knight, said.

“Ahaha, you hate the cold don’t you Roran?” The defender of the party laughed at the middle aged knight.

The man frowned, “I’m from more southern nations, forget feeling cold, I had to figure out how to not sweat to death,” Roran said while rubbing his hands together and shivering.

Even when all was said and done, their party’s mage had a fire ball glowing in the middle of their group.

“We will soon reach one of the dungeon towns in the elven nation. We will be able to rest at an inn and if we are lucky the dungeon is at the town,” The mage said. She wasn’t that uncomfortable because wizard robes were high quality goods and already had magical resistances, so adding on the second layer they had on top left her without feeling much besides at her hands and face.

They looked up at the cloudy skies, hoping that these clouds were not natural and instead were from the cloud dungeon.

This party had gone to Dia’s dungeon over three months ago and left after Peter showed them a sight of Hook battling a party.

After leaving and getting paid for their large harvest, they went to train and explore, but they found it wasn’t as profitable as hunting in the dungeon.

It has been almost 4 months since then and 2 months, unknown to them, that Dia’s dungeon boss strength has grown. News of their trade for animals and monsters was clearly known though. Animals and monsters were what the dungeon lacked naturally while spirits and plants were plentiful.

In the time that news was spread, surprisingly, there actually weren’t many people who brought such things. A good number was actually purchased by Mir which was common crops and farm animals. Specifically wheat, barley, rye, carrot, cotton, potato, and bean plants. For animals they were cows, chickens, pigs, sheep, goats, horses and silkworms.

It’s not like there weren’t any other animals or monsters obtained like monkeys, orcs, slimes, undead skeletons and Harpies. Even a few sea creatures that were brought by merchants specially for the sale, but the price was quite high since they traveled from the coast.

Strangely though, as they followed the path and time went on, the cold grew stronger making them all shiver and huddle closer.

“It’s getting colder,” the scout said rubbing his arms and leaving them crossed so that he holds in his heat.

“Isn’t the elven nation supposed to be moderately cold and only raining in winter?” Roran asked.

“There can exist changes after all, considering what happened this year with the craziness following so many dungeons rising,” the priest said.

Indeed, there were huge changes in the last 4 months. A large number of sky dungeons formed, but they were made to remain peaceful. They gained the most benefits when there are people living in them but not all of them were of this type. Around 40% of the dungeons could set something up with the sentient races, but the dungeon’s ‘soul’ came in many different forms besides sentients. As such, the resident races usually match the soul of the dungeon as well while the sky dungeons move around and raid since they can appear from the air dropping out of nowhere.

There are, of course, dungeons like Dia who have a perfectly peaceful relationship with a single nation as well and have people of the nation living in them, increasing the territory of the nation by letting them occupy the skies but this causes a change.

Dia is still the only cloud dungeon but because she is a cloud, especially one that circles around only one determined location and also has the top most floor of her dungeon as one of a cold element, a very distinct change happened when winter soon came which was that the nation began to face a drastic drop in temperature.

The party soon faced this as well as they were nearing the city they were heading to. Snowfall was coming over the city and a large space around it.

At that time, the beanstalk was open showing Dia was there.

The party wanted to just climb up and escape from the cold in Dia’s warm habit but after almost ten minutes of climbing in the cold biting wind, they reached a island that was covered in snow and had a gentle cool breeze.

“T-This?!” the priest said in shock.

The entire island was covered in a soft snow while pathways were cleared. The island had grown in size since they last saw while there was a thin snowfall.

All around the ‘magical technology’ developed by the flower and mushroom spirits were shown. On the sides of the roads were closed up mushrooms that had a very faint bioluminescence that couldn’t be seen much during the day because this mushroom reacted to light and closed up but during the night, it was bright after opening its cap. While to its side was a large yellow colored lily flower and at the center of the flower was an orb of magical light. The cold air was slowly being sucked into it and a faint warmth was released causing a controlled temperature to form.

“This is amazing!” The female mage said walking to the flower lamp.

“Let's find an inn to warm up!” their leader said and walked around before finding a three story inn and ran in. The inside was much warmer with wooden flooring and a fireplace in the tavern as well as several Warm Light Lily Lamps on the ceiling and many fire spirits in the room making the heat spread evenly to block the cold.

“Greetings, how many rooms?” an elven woman walked over and asked.

“Three rooms for two,” Roran said.

“Alright, this way please,” she said and lead them to the second floor.

“Miss, can you tell us why the floor is covered in snow, I had expected the dungeon to be unaffected by the outside weather,” the scout asked.

“That is wrong to assume sir, the dungeon is directly affected and directly affects the outside. If it enters a thunderstorm, it will rain very hard in the dungeon and the cloud sea will be filled with powerful electric discharges. The same for the cold, only the wind is slightly decreased, but the snow and cold is coming from the sixth floor down due to the seasonal change affecting the entire dungeon,” she said. “This is your rooms, rooms 204 to 206. There is a bath in each room.”

“Thank you,” they said.

They each went into the rooms and took turns warming up then put on indoor clothing before walking downstairs to eat.

A mead fairy came over and after ordering and eating, they enjoyed the wide range of goods that had lacked before. Things like bread and mashed potatoes were staple items.

“As expected of a dungeon, the growth rate of common crops is amazing. I heard it’s been only 2 months since crops appeared in the dungeon and it can already supply so much. The prices aren’t that high either from the looks of it,” the scout said looking at the menu.

“It’s no wonder that the cloud dungeon is being regarded as paradise by adventurers. They said that this is one of the nucleuses for training dungeoneers as well and many novice dungeoneers ask to travel with adventurer parties because they need to train and learn about the new structure of the dungeon,” the mage said.

“Carlos, Stacy, you two sound like you want to move here?” Ronan asked.

Stacy, the mage of the party, sighed, “If only, abundant magical herbs, abundant magical fruits, always near spiritual creatures, I could indeed live here and simply study from them and train here,” she said.

“I heard they gained several hard to catch animals like monkeys. I’m interested in how hard they are,” he said chuckling.

“I’ve heard that the first floor alone already formed 48 islands all of solid rock and that there are at least 30 unique cloud island turtles floating around. They say the turtles have the richest resources that tend to be untapped since they are monsters and not islands so the compasses don’t find them. Though some say that there are really small turtles. Only a dungeoneer could be able to sense them if you get in range and get lucky enough,” the archer said.

“Look at you imagining all the money, just think of having to sail in these cold winds,” Roran said.

At this time, the mead fairy was floating pass them but stopped and came over, “If you're afraid to sail in cold then why don’t you have your boat upgraded, because of winter, the gnomes and sixth floor flower spirits have been working together with special flowers of the sixth floor that absorb ice mana and release a strange heated water mana. It might make you easily visible out at sea but you won’t be cold,” She said.

“That is a good idea but I wouldn’t make all of it heated,” Roran said.

“You should, ice builds up on the side of the ship making a new hazard. Also, ever since 3 months ago, the strength of the dungeon went up. You should visit the adventurers guild and purchase a dungeon guide book that tells you general information like the dangerous monsters on each floor and information on the boss monsters, if you haven’t already,” she said.

The party looked at each other and nodded.

They went to rest and the next day they went to the guild to see all this information. When they bought the book they were shocked. “The sharkman race went extinct, there is even a note suggesting new items for those who want Peter’s help at the fifth floor boss.” Roran said.

“The third floor boss changed from the blade wing flying fish swarm to a single boss, the seafolk (sky shark variant). It also seems the third floor exit island became the city for seafolk. Seems all the fish of the dungeon began to evolve into seafolk who are much less aggressive but the boss is made from the last remaining adult sharkman before their extinction,” the archer said reading from behind.

“Must be a resentful fellow,” Carlos said.

“He is much harder than the flying fish for sure. He commands seafolk warriors of the blade wing flying fish and sky shark variants. It seems seafolk haven’t made a connection with the crustaceans yet though,” Roran stated.

“It also says that the floors have become more chaotic, there is a lot of conflict between some rival groups and adventurers can sometimes get caught up in it,” the priest said.

“Carlos, Justin, Tristan, Stacy, Magumu, what do you guys want to do?” Roran asked his party.

“From what I heard, the adventurers guild gives out rewards for escort, hunting and gathering missions. There is even transportation missions to go to one specific island and take goods to another. They have fixed cloud compasses for that purpose leading to specific islands,” Justin, the archer, said.

“We should get a feel for winter sailing, it would work best for us in the floors above the fifth when we finally succeed in winning against the boss.” Magumu said.

“That feels about right, let’s go see how this ship upgrade is and then see if we can’t get a quest from the guild,” Roran said and they nodded as they went to do their parts.

***

“Ahahaha! Ahahahahahaha! Finally!” Dia said as she formed a snowball and threw it at a strange creature she had just finished creating.

Mir, Misty, Waid and Pearl looked at the side in awe as three snowballs stacked on each other, with a pair of coal eyes, a carrot nose and several stones for the mouth, shine and grew a pair of snow arms and legs. The coal shrinks to form the irises while the eye socket sinks in to get it into the proper spot. Meanwhile, the mouth stones fall out and a mouth opens up.

The hand had the proper bending space with three digits and a separate thumb but the four fingers were as if there was a glove on it.

Snow gathered into its hand and a perfect snowball forms. Suddenly it throws it at Dia with strange precision and strikes her face.

She falls down and gets up laughing, “He is good!” Dia laughed.

You have created a new sub-race. Please name your race.

“It’s a Snowman!” Dia shouted.

The sub-race, Snowman has been created.

Snowman

A sub-race created by a young child dungeon, this is a sub-race to the Golem race but formed completely out of snow in the form of a human. They have minor control of surrounding snow and are able to make projectiles of snow to throw. They aren’t very smart like golems though, but the older they get the more they grow mentally. They can increase their numbers by building snowmen themselves and mana will gather into the magically crafted snowmen. They are weak in warm temperate places.

“Ahahaha, it really worked!” She said then flew to Mir and showed her.

“Oh I see, so you took the creation method of a golem to make it, I see. This is quite something, a Snow Elemental. I have heard of Ice Elementals, but never snow.” Mir said.

“Yeah, i can’t find any snow elemental in all the information i have. Those rock golems we purchased from the mages did turn out useful.” misty said

“They’re weak,” Waid said.

“Snowmen aren’t mean and ugly!” She pouted.

Waid laughed while clapping and around them ten snowmen formed. “Let’s make a monster,” he said grinning.

Dia pouted when she heard it but Waid cut her off before she said anything. “I don’t want to change the shape much, I will just make something like a strong snowman. That way a strong one will hide in a mob of weak ones and have them catch unsuspecting enemy.” Waid said.

“Oh! That’s cool!” Misty said.

Pearl clapped, “How would you change them though?” she asked.

“Maybe reinforce their magic ability. Let them fire off really compact snowballs that can actually hurt the people who would be distracted by the weaker snowballs,” he said.

“That’s… really sneaky.” Dia said but there was a hint of mischief in her eyes showing she wasn’t against it.

In fact, when Waid began, she joined in and after a while the snowman in question they were working on began to shine and it grew by a very small degree but the snow became more compacted while gathering more snow, keeping it at the same size.

“There,” Dia said with a childishly mischievous smile on her face.

You have created a new variant race. Please name your race.

“It’s a Sneaky Snowman!” Dia shouted.

The variant race, Sneaky Snowman has been created.

Sneaky Snowman

A variant race created by a pair of young dungeons. This is a variant race to the snowman race. Unlike the weaker snowman race, this variant that looks just like their counterpart, are more compact and stronger. Their snowballs are as hard as rock when thrown. They have the same weaknesses as snowmen.

In the back the three spirits watched and chatted, “The two really influenced each other, Waid now takes care to keep the appearance of things presentable while making sure he can add his touch to a creature,” Pearl said.

“Yeah, I remember the monsters he used to make, although none of them survived, they were quite strong,” Mir said.

Misty was trembling, “Dia~! Can’t we go inside!? It’s getting colder out!” she complained.

“You go!!” Dia said.

The winter floor is the one most affected by the cold. Outside of Santa’s island, a blizzard was being whipped every night making it very dangerous to be out during the night.

Unlike before, the sixth floor already has 20 small island turtles on this floor. The floor also didn’t get any safer after all the new animals were added throughout the floor. Four new monsters appeared in the sixth floor, but since most creatures were farm animals not all of them were brought here. White Baboon, Snow Gorilla, Snow Slime and Snow Harpy are the creatures that appeared.

One of the animals obtained were monkeys allowing the baboons and gorillas to appear. The snow slime appeared thanks to common slimes and the snow harpy due to the harpy race.

Although harpies are somewhat like beastmen, they are monsters because they are violent and they aren’t that humanoid. They have a bird’s body and a human head, their torso taking only partially the shape of a human torso but covered in feathers.

The snow harpies are the same but Dia did call them and made her own version of a snow harpy, wanting a pretty bird girl, where the torso was more formed and they were more intelligent. That harpy become an Alpha Snow Harpy.

Clap! Clap!

“Alright! Now I can finally make Frosty!” She shouted.

When everyone heard her words, everyone turned serious. Mir walked over. “Dia, who is Frosty?” She asked.

“Frosty the Snowman! He is a very fun magical snowman who appears during winter and plays with kids. He is made with two piece of coal, a button nose and a corn cob pipe and is a friend of kids!” She said jumping around.

She lifted her hand then suddenly formed a big red button and a wooden pipe.

She pointed to one of the snowmen. He began to change into the variant race and she stuffed into his mouth the pipe. Then she replaced his nose with the button before lifting her hand and summoning a sheet of silk that began to glow and turned into a silk hat with a pink flower on top.

She put it on the snowman and then just touched him, “There, you’re Frosty the Snowman!” She said with a grin.

The three new additions began to shine and soon the body did as well but it doesn’t change except looking around and then at Dia with a smile. “Hello~!” He said.

“Hi~!” Dia said jumping in joy as the only girl here from her world that knows the real Frosty. “Come on Waid! Frosty! Let’s have a snowball fight!” Dia said.

“Oookay!” Frosty said and laughed before lifting his hand when suddenly he formed a large boulder-like snowball.

“Hey!” Mir shouted.

He froze and looked at her, “Games you play with small stuff. Hand sized balls only and only soft balls,” she said clearly frightened by the sudden explosion of size from the ball.

“Ooo! Kay!” He nodded and the ball dispersed into several dozen small ones that he took into his hand. He grabbed one like a pitcher, tossing it up and down as he had an innocent smile on his face while looking at the children.

Misty didn’t wait and went inside while the children were pummeled by snowballs but laughed. Eventually they came inside due to the cold from the coming night.

Frosty showed unique abilities like transforming into loose snow or sinking into the snowy ground. The sneaky snowmen could break down as if they died and reform without much problem. They couldn’t easily move around like Frosty though. Dia fell asleep happy and woke up happy as well. She then went out to play when she found it was sunny.

“Now I have Frosty and Santa!” She exclaimed happily, then she remembered another important holiday figure and stopped in the air.

Dia thought a long while before flying to Mir, “Mir~! Does this world have Easter?” Dia asked.

“Easter? What is that?” Mir asked while meditating.

Dia frowned and thought a long while when she thought of the stories her mother had told her about the holiday before it reached the modern day version with the big rabbit. “Um… mama said it was… a spring festival,” she said a bit uncertain.

“Oh, if it is the spring festival, there are a few including the festival of the Goddess of Life which gives blessing to the land after the cold winter,” Mir said. “Is there a reason for this?” She asked.

Dia nodded and explained about the holiday of Easter.

“Well, you ‘can’ make it but only after the tenth floor,” Mir said not even opening her eyes as she was meditating.

“Why~!?” Dia exclaimed.

“It’s because the theme of the next four floors are all set to ‘Winter Wonderland’,” Misty explained while curled up on a cotton pillow placed in front of the fireplace.

“Ah!” Dia exclaimed as she remembered she had indeed made that theme because the first holiday she ever thought of was Santa but hadn’t thought of what followed. “I wanna change it!” Dia said.

“NO!” Misty instantly shot out of her pillow and stopped in front of Dia, “You cannot change it, not without a very, very, very big price!” Misty said.

Dia pouted, “Why not!?” She said her face almost bloating from her pout.

Misty felt a headache and Waid walked in after going out with Dia and noticing she had vanished. “What’s this about changing the theme?” he asked.

Pearl appeared, “Dia, please try to understand that the price for changing a theme is very high,” Pearl said in a gentle tone.

“What is it!? I can pay!” She said.

“You won’t be able to.” Misty said. “First off, all the mana in the pond that you and Waid gathered, all of it will be flushed down and not a drop will gather for a week, seven full days, you won’t be able to make any creatures, you won’t even be able to even make a new floor or anything. You pretty much lose control of the dungeon after doing that,” Misty said poking Dia’s nose.

“It’s just one week!” Dia said angry.

“It’s not just that.” Pearl said and sighed, “You also have to pay with the sacrifice of either a creature of your dungeon that has been named by you or with an entire race. All the people of that race will die and be absorbed by the dungeon to change the theme,” Pearl said.

Waid and Dia froze when they heard that but Dia began to tremble, “S-so… m-my friends will be gone?”! She asked with a tear appearing in her eye.

Mir quickly walked over and pulled her into a hug. “No Dia, no one will die, the reason is because you want to change the future floors and not the current one. You will simply lose your control of mana this time,” Mir said and put her down next to Waid. “This is a very clear warning to you both, from now on you ‘must’ think of the future theme all the way through,” Mir said.

“How do you know?” Waid asked.

“Spirits have a quick communication method where I just need to touch her. You didn’t notice though.” Mir said but getting back on topic, “Dia, do you understand how dangerous it is if you don’t think about your actions. Everything has a price so from now on, please promise to talk with us when you are going to make a big ‘friend’, a new race or a new theme,” Mir said.

Dia nodded with tears falling down her cheeks. “Good, now how do you want to change it?” She asked.

The desire to change the current theme has been noticed. Warning, depending how drastic the change, the price you have to pay will become steeper.

The system recognized the action of wanting to change.

“What kind of theme do you want to change it to? Think well, since you want to add one holiday then there must be others right?” Mir asked.

Dia thought and nodded, “Um.. There is Valentine’s that is in spring, there is Halloween in fall and Christmas in winter,” Dia pointed out a few holidays and explained them.

“Hmm… this Valentine's I don’t know but Halloween might to be like the Harvest Festival or the Festival of Farewell for the souls of the deceased that can’t move on without help,” Mir said.

“Why not something like seasonal floors. This way winter is at the bottom, followed by spring, summer and fall on the seventh, eighth and ninth floors,” Misty said.

“And the tenth floor?” Mir asked. “It could be all of them, since Nicholas has his own hidden island, it is possible to move him to the tenth floor once it’s done and keep these holiday spirits on ‘equal ground’ up there,” Misty said.

Analysis, theme projection confirmed, Season theme.

From floors 6-9 the floors will rotate starting with winter and the tenth floor will possess islands with isolated seasons unique to themselves.

Floor setup cost: All mana for 1 week and partial loss of control of monsters.

Would you like to change theme, ‘Winter Wonderland’ to ‘Seasonal Wonderland’?

“Wow, it took into consideration her desire for wonderlands and kept the ‘Wonderland’ part,” Misty said.

“This part is because Dia is a spirit dungeon and her mentality focuses on spirits that match her mental image so since the change actually isn’t that much and more of an addition which expands upon the winter season, adding the other three, the name did not alter much,” Mir hypothesised.

“Oh~! Commander, that makes so much sense,” Pearl said clapping.

“Well Dia? Are you going to accept or will you stay with what we have until the end?” Mir asked.

Dia had tear stains on her face but nodded, “Okay, let’s do that,” she said with a pouting face while sniffling.

Theme change registered, Floor 6 is unaffected by the change as the Winter Floor.

The seventh floor shall be a Spring Wonderland

The eighth floor shall be a Summer Wonderland

The ninth floor shall be a Fall Wonderland

The tenth floor shall be a Seasonal Wonderland

At that time, they heard a gushing sound and ran outside. The group looked at the pond and found bubbles coming up and the water level dropping quickly as it drained somehow through the stone base.

The mana didn’t vanish though, it dropped into the clouds and mixed with the snow. It dropped lower and lower until it sank out of the dungeon via the snow and into the land under the dungeon.

Without noticing, the connection to the dungeon and the link that all the dungeon creatures had with each other through the dungeon also partially weakened. The rational races didn’t fight each other but it wasn’t like there wasn’t enmity. With the link weakening, something seemed to affect them slightly and they became more tense and aggressive towards their targets of hate.

That said, it didn’t happen instantly since it was a calm day and there was no intense movement on the oceans this day.