Napping was a mistake.

I slept for much too long, far longer than I really should have. As I came back to myself, senses clicking on one by one, I became aware first of all of the sound of scratching and heavy breathing.

I had my first invader!

Something had burrowed into the hole with me, and it was close enough that I could feel the hot, wet, breath of it against my main body. For the moment I kept my sight off, just listening to the sound of it, a fear thrumming through me that I hadn’t been aware I was capable of feeling.

Without sight I was left in the darkness with my silent fear, imagining all the things this creature could do to me if it wanted. That heavy, deep, breathing had to be something huge. Those deep scratching sounds had to be the sound of something with massive claws scraping away at the hard packed earth and tearing it apart. I almost trembled with the thought, images swarming through me at what it could be and what it could possibly do.

A huge beast with large claws and larger teeth, just waiting to sink its teeth into me and crack me into pieces. I almost shivered with the fear of it.

After a few moments of heavy silence, filled only with the sound of digging and breathing, pushing farther back into the hole from where I had originally eaten myself out of the earth, I couldn’t resist the curiosity any longer. Fear would get me nowhere, freezing would only leave me vulnerable. I needed to see what threat I was facing so that I could begin planning out how to tackle the creature and protect myself.

Bit by bit I allowed my sight to branch out, the small cave beginning to light up with red as I began to really look rather than just hide.

There was definitely something in the tunnel with me, something large and dark and covered in thick hair. With a surprisingly cute little rump that ended with a stubby little tail.

Whatever the creature was, it seemed much too intent on huffing and puffing and digging into my tunnel than it was interested in paying any attention to me. So I let my senses spread out further as I watched it, surrounding it from all sides so that I could watch its progress.

Now that I was fully awake again I found it almost impossible to believe that I had managed to sleep through the invasion of the creature into my tunnel. Though I was the red crystal lodged into the roots of the tree, I was also the walls and floor of the tunnel that I had cleared out as well. I could feel the creature as if it were inside and outside of me all at once, and each swipe of those claws sent shivers of strange discomfort running through me.

It wasn’t painful, but it was strange, like waking up to find you had been sleep eating and now you were uncomfortably full and standing somewhere you hadn’t been when you had gone to sleep. I made a silent note then and there to absolutely not go to sleep again if I could help it. Clearly I was a heavy sleeper and an idiot, and I could only do something about one of those two things.

I expanded along the walls and floor as the creature dug past where I had been buried, slowly eating away at the loose dirt that was thrown backward. It didn’t feel as if just eating the dirt was solving my hunger, or making me tired. It seemed like, so long as I wasn’t the one actively digging, I wasn’t expending any real energy to expand. A bonus came in that I could eat as much as I wanted, though the dirt wasn’t very filling.

A few more moments passed before the creature looked back, white and black stripes across its face as it looked back for the dirt that it had been throwing toward the entrance. Finding none, it paused and huffed, turning carefully in the tunnel in order to investigate. Despite the fact that I was glowing rather brightly in my curiosity, the red of my light glittering in the beast’s black eyes, it didn’t seem to notice me at all as it shuffled along the tunnel to investigate the disappearance of the dirt.

Actually, that was a good idea now that I thought about it, investigating the creature. I had that [Appraisal] skill now, I should put it to use, right? What was the point in using up those so called points if I did nothing with the new ability?

I focused on the creature, narrowing all of my senses until it consumed my vision on all sides, all the while silently willing [Appraisal] to work.

[Badger] Lvl. 3

HP: 150/150

SP: 132/200

Status: Pregnant

The words seemed to echo off the walls, but the creature, a badger apparently, didn’t seem to hear them at all. Its ears didn’t even flicker to catch the sound.

If that was the case then logic seemed to indicate that it was something that only I could hear, though I could see it as well, like an odd image that was everywhere and nowhere all at once in my vision. No matter where I focused my gaze in particular, the overlay seemed to stay there until I dismissed it.

Now that I had looked the creature over and appraised it, it made perfect sense. Of course it was a badger. The peppery gray fur, the sharp snout, that strong and stout body, and of course those alternating stripes of black and white that ran along its head. It was obviously a badger, it looked exactly like one.

Had I known what a badger was before? No, not really. Did I even actually know what a badger was? I knew that they looked like this and that they dug. That was the extent of my knowledge on badgers.

That status worried me a bit, however. Did that mean it, or rather she, was digging into my home in order to give birth here? She didn’t look particularly pregnant, but I wasn’t really sure what pregnant was supposed to look like to begin with. I knew what it meant, but this was the first time I had ever seen a pregnant anything, let alone a pregnant badger.

Grunting softly to herself, she made her way to the entrance of my tunnel and out into the night. I was alone again, suddenly and achingly aware of the loss of warmth.

There was no time to dwell on the odd emptiness and loneliness I felt after she had left, I should probably try to hide myself better before she returned, or set up some sort of trap to keep her out. Maybe I should even figure out some way to kill her so I could have something to eat, but… I weirdly felt a bit more full now, as if just her being here had been like a light snack of sorts. Strange, but it made me more wary of trying to stop her from coming back.

I definitely wasn’t being sentimental, or thinking about the fact she was pregnant. That would be ridiculous.

If her just being here had helped ease my hunger, then why would I try to hurt her? It would be more food in a short period if I killed her, but I wouldn’t have to worry about going hungry if I just let her be. So long as she didn’t go after my main body, there was no reason to bother with her.

Now that I was left alone, I turned my gaze inward and onto myself, focusing that power I had just used onto the red crystal that was tucked in between the roots of a tree near the entrance of the tunnel. If I could see what I was working with, then maybe I could figure out how to make this situation more advantageous to me.

Nameless [Dungeon Core] Lvl. 1

Title: None

HP: 10/10

MP: 30/30

Size: 2.012 M

Points: 15

Skills:

[Appraisal] Lvl. 1 [Tunneling] Lvl. 1 [Mana Absorption]

Oh.

Well, some of that made some sense to me, I supposed. I was a dungeon core, of course. It clicked in the same way things had clicked when I had realized that the badger was a badger. Once I saw the word, things sort of made a bit more sense to me. Not much more than a simple impression, of course, but enough to get the idea.

No wonder I kept eating dirt, no wonder I was both the crystal but the walls as well, and no wonder I had sought the light despite being unable to go out into the sun without being in pain. I was a dungeon core, a dungeon needed an entrance.

What exactly did HP mean? I narrowed my gaze onto it, hoping that might answer my question. Could I appraise something I was already appraising? I focused my gaze even tighter on those single two letters until another flash of insight swept through me.

Short for Health Points, more commonly referred to as Hit Points. HP is an indication of the amount of damage that can be taken before death.

Oh. Well then, that was a huge disappointment. I was so weak! Only ten HP? I was beyond weak! It probably wouldn’t take much to do me in. A few swipes from that badger would probably be the absolute end of me! Could I even heal if I were cracked? I wasn’t sure, but I was nervous about it all the same. It was better to avoid getting hurt altogether rather than to satiate my curiosity and test it out.

I kept my gaze focused on myself as I gave a little bit of a wiggle, watching the MP tick down by a single point. That explained that. Maybe my MP worked the same way the SP worked for the badger? Only one way to find out it seemed! Same as I had with the HP, I let my vision narrow down to the single point that was those two letters until the voice rang out through me again.

Short for Mana Points. Mana is expended when magic is used.

Alright, so that answered that then. I must be using magic to move myself about, or at least the gem part of myself. It didn’t seem to expend any energy when I let the shadowy tendrils that made up the other part of my body snake through the walls of the tunnel to feel out my surroundings.

I made a mental note to appraise the badger again when she returned, I wanted to confirm my suspicions about the SP as soon as I could. It would make some sense in a way, after all. Were badgers even able to use magic? According to the lack of an MP listing it seemed as if they couldn’t, but my [Appraisal] skill was also apparently something that could be leveled up so maybe it didn’t show me everything in one go.

How did I level that up? For that matter, how did I level up my [Tunneling] ability? If I was supposed to be a dungeon, didn’t it make sense that I needed to be able to dig a lot and very quickly? Maybe it would go up the more I used it? I could always test out that theory by actually making an attempt, but I was a little bit nervous about what would happen if the badger came back and saw that things had changed. She seemed to notice me eating her dirt, after all, even if she hadn’t noticed me at all, and I didn’t want to risk her either leaving forever or attacking me.

Somehow her being in the tunnel seemed to feed me, and since that was the case I wanted her to stick around as long as possible.

Actually, come to think of it, hadn’t the voice that was me but not me said I only had ten points left before my nap earlier? When I had checked again my points were all the way at fifteen. Was that what I was eating, or was it the mana that I was eating?

Again, there seemed to be only one way of really checking, and it made me beyond nervous.

On the one hand, I could let the badger continue to dig for me while I sat quietly and hoped she never noticed me just so that I could continue using her as a source of food. On the other hand, I could satiate my curiosity and see what happened when I actually attempted to move a little bit.

It didn’t take me long to decide. After all, the tree roots were nice, but I was feeling a bit too much like I had been when I was covered completely in dirt. I wanted to be able to feel the air on all sides of my crystal, my core, not just on the parts that weren’t hiding behind the wood and dirt.

After the first attempt at tunneling I had a good idea of how it worked, and I turned all my attention inward on the space behind the tree roots. This time as I focused I didn’t even hear that voice echo through me, I only felt my tendrils begin to stretch forward into the soil ahead of me.

Bit by bit I ate through the dirt, consuming it as I moved bit by bit into the tangle of roots beneath the tree. I worked carefully, keeping an eye on my MP as I moved along the roots without actually biting into them. I didn’t want to take the tree out, after all, I needed it to act as a buffer between my delicate core and the badger once she came back.

As I ate through the dirt I found something that was suddenly squishy and cold, a feeling shuddering through my core as I swallowed it down. I stopped immediately, turning my gaze right away back in on myself to see if anything had happened.

Nameless [Dungeon Core] Lvl. 1

Title: None

HP: 10/10

MP: 17/30

Size: 2.026 M

Points: 16

Oh. That was interesting.

Aside from my size obviously going up, it seemed that whatever I had eaten had actually given me a point, as well as keeping my MP from lowering as much as it had been. As those were the only things of importance to me at the moment, those were the only things I was really focused on.

If my digging was going to level up [Tunneling], well, it hadn’t happened yet, but I had found something very interesting out.

I focused my attention on the dirt in front of me where I had been digging and eating, and saw half of a small, pink, wiggling thing in the earth. It seemed to be flailing about, obviously missing part of it where I had taken a bite. I felt something that was a mixture of pleasure and disgust run through me, and I focused hard on it.

[Worm] Lvl. ??

HP: 1/1

SP: 1/100

Status: Bisected

I shuddered with disgust at the fact I had just eaten a worm, or half of one as it seemed. It was a bit odd that I had managed it though, some sort of instinct told me that I shouldn’t be able to just eat something that I was living like I just had. Didn’t I need to kill things to eat it? Wasn’t that sort of the whole point of a dungeon?

Almost as soon as I thought that, I got a response.

Worms, among other small creatures living in soil, are weak enough to be eaten by Dungeon Cores without the need to kill them beforehand.

I shivered again as that voice that was mine but also not rang through me again, like some deeper part of myself posing a hypothesis forward to the rest of my mind, but loud enough that I couldn’t help but to notice it. As much as I was sure the voice was mine, I was also sure that it wasn’t, and I had to resist the urge to give it a seperate name.

I didn’t even have a name! No way I was giving some other part of me a name first!

It made sense in a way, that I was able to eat that worm. I was sure there were all sorts of little things that lived in the dirt that I had been casually snacking on as I dug my tunnel. Since it didn’t seem to hurt me, other than giving me the sensation of disgust, I gobbled up the rest of the worm quickly as I watched my points. This time, however, they didn’t budge an inch in either direction, and my mana even ticked down by a point, which just left me feeling cheated somehow.

What was so different about that first time, huh?

I waited a moment in silence, but that inner voice didn’t return to explain things at all, which just left me feeling even more annoyed than before. That badger seemed to huff when she was annoyed, but I didn’t have any sort of ability to make noises, so I just imagined myself huffing like she had. It made me feel just the slightest bit better.

Mentally chanting “screw you, inner voice”, I went back to digging out my little side tunnel, off away and to the left of where the badger had been digging so I could try to avoid her running into me again. As I dug I encountered another mass of thick roots that seemed to belong to a tree that was growing down into my tunnel.

I stopped digging to think over what I should do next. Did I go off in yet another direction? Or should I clear out the roots a little bit and make myself a nest in them? If I opened up a space, I might be able to set more core into the roots so I could be off the dirt and feel the air on all sides.

That idea appealed to me. It really, really, appealed to me. So much so that before I could even really think about it I was already automatically knocking the roots clear of dirt gently in the middle. I needed to be careful. Trees needed their roots to be in dirt, right? Like I needed living things in my tunnels. It was how we both ate, a sort of gut kind of instinct told me as much. So I only cleared the dirt out of a small section in the middle where some of the roots seemed to loop back around.

There was plenty of room in a sort of circular space that was just a little bigger than my core. I didn’t have a ton of mana left, but it seemed like it would be enough to move myself if I did it in slow steps.

Bit by bit, inch by inch, I moved myself down the tunnel and toward the roots, all the while watching my MP. I didn’t want to make the mistake of using it all up again, since that seemed to be what had caused me to pass out the first time, so as soon as it dipped down to two points left I stopped.

I had gravely underestimated how much energy it took to move my core. It took so much more mana than it took to actually tunnel, it was insane! No wonder moving myself earlier had knocked me out cold like it had!

I huffed again. It was time to wait again it seemed, but at least I was no longer right at the entrance of my little tunnel system. As it was, I was laying somewhere in the middle of my offshoot tunnel, out of sight of the badger entirely if she came back and chose to look to where I had been.

Either I would lay here until I regained mana on my own, which I felt like would take a very long time, or I would need to wait until the badger could return and I could use her as a source of food. I still wasn’t sure what exactly I was eating off of her. Ambient mana? Was I eating her shed hair and skin for a source of points?

That second thought was pretty disgusting. I’d very much rather it not be that one.

As much as I hated it, it seemed like I would have to wait and see what happened next. As low as my MP was I didn’t have very many options if I wanted to avoid causing myself to pass out again. The badger wasn’t interested in me at all, but who knew what could come in next while I was asleep!

I huffed. Waiting was such a pain.