Valens hummed softly to himself as he watched the various adventurer parties wander about his dungeon. The one-party he had been watching before had just killed his chimera and tore a wide path of destruction through his eleventh floor. It was funny watching them grumble about sinking in the mud, but they were entirely too efficient in decimating his monsters. It was fun to watch competent adventurers sometimes, like when they were going up against a hard challenge but seeing them just crush his monsters was a little depressing.

The core turned his attention back to the rest of his dungeon and a different subset of adventurers that he affectionately liked to call the idiots. Valens not only got most of his experience from this portion of the human population, but he also got the best entertainment value from them. He watched in amusement as one unfortunate tripped over a tree root right in front of a fox, which promptly bit down hard on his nose. The tenacious little canine was not letting go either, and the human proceeded to run squealing through the forest completely ignoring the small knife he was still holding.

Speaking of his foxes, the little creatures were actually doing quite well in the dungeon. At first, he had thought that they would be completely overshadowed by the larger and stronger wolves, but the tier two greater foxes had carved out a solid niche for themselves on the lower floors as top-notch ambushers. Two of the monsters pounced one of the various crocodiles basking in the fake sunlight of the dungeon. One of the greater foxes pinned the jaws of the reptile shut and the other ripped open the enemy’s throat.

The two carnivores then dug into their meal as a nearby crocodile surreptitiously slipped back into the water. The aquatic monsters were deadly to anything caught out on the water, but they were significantly more vulnerable when on land. They weren't helpless by any means but they had only one main way to attack, their bite. As the foxes had just so aptly demonstrated, the reptilian monsters did have a rather obvious weakness that could be abused. Fortunately, none of the adventurers had figured it out yet. They were still hightailing it at the first sign of scales in or out of the water.

Valens moved on and inspected his ice floors, the wolves were dominant on these levels. Large packs constantly moving, hunting for prey, some of the wolves might evolve to tier three before any of the monsters on the twenty-first floor if this kept up. The core brought his gaze even lower and examined his only completed tier three-floor, it would be a lot more impressive if it had tier-three monsters.

He had decided to start with tier one creatures and while there were several populations rapidly moving up into tier two, tier three was still a long way off. It was actually rather interesting to see the changes to the ecosystem as the monsters grew in strength. Tier two monsters would mostly ignore tier-one creatures, which they couldn’t get experience from. This led to an odd double-layered ecosystem that only rarely intersected.

For the tier one creatures, the larger predators mostly dominated, goblins and wolves being the front runners. That was actually typical for most tier one ecosystems now that he thought about it, and it was only during the second tier ecosystem that different dynamics emerged. The desert environment wasn’t that different from the tier two forest environment, not particularly favoring any one monster over the other, well with one exception now that he thought about it.

The greater wolves grew thinner fur and hunted mostly at night, the monster lizards grew larger mirroring Sora’s previous evolution and thriving during the day. The goblins predictably were doing fine, the tenacious monsters quickly adapted to the blistering heat of the floor. The foxes adapted similarly to the wolves, often overshadowed by their larger cousins but doing quite well all the same.

The exception was actually one monster that was doing a lot better on the desert floor compared to the others, the hawks. Valens had been a little surprised at first when he noticed the hawks’ explosive growth on the newest food. The reason for the species’ newfound success was rather obvious in retrospect, the lack of cover in the desert. Sure there were trees and bushes to hide some smaller animals, but anything larger than a fox could forget about trying to hide from a sharp-eyed hawk.

Valens was looking forward to how the hawks would develop in the future, maybe one of them would make a good boss candidate eventually? Something to think about in the future, he still had a long way to go right now before he got to his next boss. Sighing Valens checked in briefly with his bosses, Sora was sleeping, bored out of her mind ever since she had evolved, the poor girl needed a hobby or something to occupy her time. His chimera was leveling quite well, the monster was level fifty already which was some crazy growth, humans really did make for a great experience.

Aspen however was still only level 78, Valens stared at the number mutely for a second. Two levels, in the time it had taken the chimera to evolve and get halfway through tier two she had gained two levels. It made sense now that he thought about it, the fairy had relied on killing humans to level before, and ever since she had been moved deeper into the dungeon there had been a profound lack of challengers for her. With a short and abrupt command, Valens kicked his boss out of her room, telling her quite firmly not to come back until she either evolved or died.

That might have been a little harsh but Aspen literally hadn't been doing anything for weeks now. Anyway if by some miracle an invader made it down to her boss room, he could always just send her back to stop them. The little fairy was not at all pleased to be sent out to fight and she made sure to let Valens know this sending a medley of displeased emotions shooting down their bond. The core smiled slightly to himself and ignored his boss’s provocations, she would fight and level, even if she didn’t like it.

Aspen grumbled non stop as she made her way through the icy landscape she found herself in. The fairy shivered and sneezed into the freezing air of the floor, she had lived her entire life in the temperate climes of the upper floors, and she did not enjoy the change. The fairy beat her wings rapidly trying to stay warm. A pair of jaws slammed shut right underneath her, but a rapid water blade struck the annoying fox right in the forehead killing it almost instantly. Aspen just carried on grumbling like nothing had happened, the boss had ordered her to come out and fight so she needed to do it, but didn’t the boss see how short-sighted this strategy is?

First off, who was going to keep an eye on her precious room and make sure nothing happened to it? It certainly wasn’t going to be the stupid foxes or their ridiculously large cousins. Also, what would happen if invaders came and she wasn’t there to protect the boss? Fighting in this cold environment was strenuous and she could easily miss some invaders which would be a disaster. Sure she couldn’t stop all of the invaders even in her room, but she could at least wear them down if she was there.

The most critical problem in the boss’ plan though was exhaustion. She was a delicate fairy who needed her beauty rest. Aspen offhandedly lashed out with another water blade laying out the back of a wolf who was trying to sneak up on her. Fighting was absolutely exhausting and she couldn’t be expected to fight at her best without proper rest now could she? The fairy stopped shaking her head at the foolishness of the world and conveniently giving the wolf pack around her a chance to slip away unnoticed.

Completely oblivious the tiny boss continued to wander her way through the floor, occasionally stopping to brutally eviscerate a monster with ease. Although the little fairy was distracted and petulant, her ranged advantage was serving even better against other monsters. The humans quickly figured out they needed to close with the boss to have a chance at winning but the fellow monsters of the dungeon more often than not just milled in confusion trying to figure out where the sudden attack was coming from.

If she had tried Aspen could probably have massacred every creature she had come across but her inattention let most enemies slip away. She even started missing a few times; she was so distracted contemplating how dreary and unfair the world was. Distracted enough to miss the sound of wingbeats in the air above her.

`There was a rush of feathers and a weird pinching sensation and then Aspen was flying through the air. Glancing behind herself the fairy saw a giant bird dragging her through the sky with its claws firmly embedded through her wings. She was lucky that she felt less pain than most creatures, otherwise having a limb so brutally punctured might have knocked her out cold. With a supremely pissed-off expression, Aspen promptly decapitated her attacker and started to fall.

The fairy looked down at the ground that was now rising to meet her, and then back at her useless wing hanging in the limp grip of the hawk and sighed heavily. This was really not her day, was it.

“My lord, but how will we know when it is time to act? Wouldn’t it be better to have a more simple plan? This seems like it could go wrong in any number of different ways.”

Gary spun around and glared at his subordinates, they had just arrived from Corinth and were all members of his family’s army. Unfortunately, they all looked remarkably similar, and he hadn’t spotted the one who had spoken. Giving up and yelling at all of them Gary vented days of spleen and built-up irritation. “Shut up you idiots, how dare you question your betters! Just pipe down and do what I say, the plan is none of your concern and if you breathe a word of any of it to anybody I’ll have all of you executed before you can say treason.” The young nobleman was faced with a sea of blank faces and quickly turned around shaking his head in disgust.

Why his father had informed the commoners of what they were plotting, Gary had no idea. It was dangerous enough what they were attempting without having some idiotic lowborn ramble bumbling it up. “We just need to wait, no long now, not long” the noble muttered more to himself than anyone else. The soldiers behind him kept quiet this time, but a few of them noted how his hands were clenched, shaking on the hilt of his too ornate sword.

Gabriel busily scribbled away at his desk signing an approval form for a new member of the guild. Independent magic users had to be actual mages to join, that is to say, they needed to be tier three. That meant it was quite the accomplishment for commoners like himself to join the guild, and it always cheered him up to see someone else accomplish the same. Now that they were a part of the guild they would have access to training and resources otherwise only found in the noble houses, available for any one member of the mage guild. They offered a lot to members so it made sense that they needed to have high requirements, but still making tier three was a struggle for all but the most gifted independent mages.

“Guildmaster Gabriel, sir.” A messenger barged into his office red face and panting.

Gabriel immediately stood up “what’s going on,” quickly ushering the man into a chair. He had left instructions not to disturb him while he was doing paperwork so this had to be important.

“Village wiped out… adventurer team decimated… one survivor, monster rampage!” The man managed to gasp out between breaths, before doubling over coughing hard.

Gabriel was already out the door of his office sprinting down to the guild stables, his blood cold as ice. Rampage, if it was bad enough a rampage could turn into a true monster surge. Entire cities were known to be wiped out in days by surges, swept under by a tide of bodies before help could arrive. The guild master burst his way into the messenger building right beside the stables. The frantic flow of motion that usually kept information flowing in and out of the guild ground to a halt as Gabriel straight before roaring at the top of his lungs. “Drop everything and send our best messenger to the new dungeon town. Find guild master Silas Fellborn, tell him ‘monster rampage ongoing, a surge may be imminent. Hurry now!”

The messengers gapped for a second before snapping into action with renewed vigor. Three of the fastest messengers were called up and outfitted with five horses each and the bare minimum of supplies they would need. They were instructed to ride for the dungeon town and not stop for anything. Each messenger was sent out within an hour of each other, hopefully spacing them out enough that if one got picked off by a monster the others might be able to continue unmolested. The messengers rode their horses as fast as they could fear giving wings to their speed, if a monster surge was coming no one would be safe, not even their families normally safe behind the great walls of Corinth. So, the messengers raced onward hoping that they wouldn’t be too late, and that disaster might still be averted.