“What the hell?” I muttered. Taking a closer look, I confirmed their circles of influence clearly overlapped. “Why aren’t they coming into conflict?”

The entire basis of this dungeon revolved around the Hell Hounds and Water Sprites fighting. Hell Hounds were supposed to be extremely territorial, not accepting any invasion of their territory, so why weren’t they fighting?

My heart started to race as my anxiety mounted. If the dungeon failed after spending so much money on it, not only would Living Dungeon Corp’s reputation be ruined, but we might even have to pay damages if it got taken to court.

Taking a deep breath I tried to calm myself down.

“Okay, let’s think about this. The books clearly stated that Hell Hounds were territorial.” It wasn’t just unfounded speculation either, there were videos of Hell Hounds tearing into their enemies and feasting on them. It was a bloody, primal spectacle. The whole pack would fight over the meat, turning into a dominance exercise.

The images from the videos I’d watched flashed through my head and I suddenly realized what the issue was.

My face contorted into a grimace and a conflicted feeling rose in me.

“Is that really the only way?” I thought to myself desperately.

There had to be something else I could do. I ran through everything I knew about Hell Hounds in my head over and over again. Extremely territorial. Pack structures. No matter how many ways I turned it over in my head I couldn’t find another way to achieve what I wanted.

“You’re getting ahead of yourself.”

I hadn’t even verified if it would really work. Maybe it wouldn’t and this was all a moot point. With a thought I made slight changes to the dungeon. I watched as the circles of influence for the Hell Hounds and the Water Sprites turned red at the edges of the lake and knew I had come across the solution. It was just that it was too cruel.

As I debated what to do, I felt that voice rise within me again. The same one that I heard when Brock beat me down, when I felt the contempt coming off of combat classers.

“What can you do in this world without power?” it whispered to me. “Are you going to stay weak forever?”

And I knew in my heart that I’d already made a decision.

The world flashed brilliant blue as the skill took effect.

As my vision gradually returned to me, I noticed I was in the middle of the Hell Hound territory and had a moment of panic. How could I forget that I would be in the middle of them when the dungeon was created? These beasts would easily tear me apart.

But my panic was short lived as I quickly noticed that the Hell Hounds were ignoring me. I experienced a moment of confusion before I put it together.

“Is this the effect of Dungeon Ecologist?” I looked at the title and its description on my status screen.

“Dungeon Ecologist. Having spent the time to study dungeons, you are now knowledgeable enough to understand how their ecosystems work. As a result, your affinity with dungeons you create has increased! If you don’t provoke them, most beasts and monsters in the dungeon won’t attack you.”

I said a quick thank you to Janus; didn’t there used to be some phrase about God taking care of fools and children? I guess Janus kept the tradition going.

Even though they weren’t attacking me, I didn’t want to stick around the Hell Hounds for long as I knew things wouldn’t remain peaceful. I made my way back to where Jacques and Damien waited for me. Damien seemed relieved, but Jacques was frowning.

“Why aren’t they doing anything?” Jacques directed his frown to me.

The Hellhounds continued to stand around, at times engaging in minor scuffles amongst themselves, but there wasn’t the sort of cross-species conflict that I had described to Jacques in my initial plans.

I shook my head. “Give it a moment. Things are about to get violent.”

He didn’t stop frowning, but he directed his attention back to the dungeon. It was then that the final change I implemented began to take effect.

There was a high pitched squeal in the air, the sound of it raising the hair on my skin. There was no mistaking it for anything other than a sound of animal pain. I followed the sound with my eyes, though I already knew what I would see.

A Hell Hound pup was struggling to keep its head above water, every inch of its body straining to get its nose to the surface for air. As I watched, the Water Sprite beneath it succeeded in dragging it fully underwater as it let loose one more yelp. The sound drew the attention of the pup’s mother, which charged the Sprite as I watched. She bit at the Sprite, scattering it into droplets a number of which evaporated upon contact with the flames on her body. She didn’t stop for a moment, running to the now still body of the pup.

She gripped the ruff of its neck in her teeth ever so gently and brought it back to shore. Setting it down, she nudged at it, trying to get it to stand. It remained still. She let loose a howl of rage and pain before turning back to the pool of water and beginning to tear into every Water Sprite she could see.

Incited by her rage, the rest of the pack followed and soon the expected conflict ensued. I couldn’t stop watching even though I knew exactly what would happen. The conflict would calm with time as the majority of the Sprites were killed or fled to deeper water and the rage of the Hell Hounds was sated. Then the Hell Hounds would calm and return to their lives, and things would return to normal, until the next time one of the pups wandered close to the water and the cycle of events repeated.

My face paled and my stomach turned with nausea as I watched the entire process unfold, knowing that this would just be the first of many. I had deliberately placed the den close to the water for this exact reason.

I had engineered it all. The cruelty of what I’d done scared me, made me doubt myself. I felt myself growing nauseous as anxiety roiled my stomach.

When their circles of influence hadn’t turned red I’d desperately searched through my memories of what I’d read about Hell Hounds. I realized that, though it wasn’t specifically stated, every instance of territorial behavior that I’d read about or seen with Hell Hounds really fit into two larger patterns: competing for food and defending their young. In a feeding frenzy the Hounds would attack anything and everything, their predatory instincts going into overdrive. However, the Water Sprites offered no food for the Hell Hounds. That was what I hadn’t accounted for. Simple and obvious, yet I’d overlooked it. That left only one way forward.

“They’re just dungeon creatures.” I rationalized. “I created them; they literally exist for that purpose alone.”

Yet even as I tried to convince myself, a hazy memory played in my head of a boy screaming with excitement as a puppy climbed out of a box beneath a tree. I banished it back to where I kept the memories of the before, closing the lid tightly on that box so that it wouldn’t slip out again.

This wasn’t the before. I wasn’t that boy. That boy was weak. A victim waiting to happen. I would be strong.

Unaware of my internal struggle Jacques’ face had gradually transformed from a frown to a smile.

“Well done! I’m ashamed to admit that I doubted you for a moment there, but I see now that I had nothing to worry about.”

Reading something in my face, Damien stepped forward to continue the conversation while I tried to master the waves of nausea and doubt that threatened to drown me.

“So long as you’re satisfied with it.”

“Satisfied? I couldn’t be happier! Look at that output.” He pulled a holophone from his pocket and shared its screen to us. It showed a 3D diagram of the Sky Filter, a small portion of which had already been filled in with blue. Already the dungeon had begun to accumulate mana rich water.

All of this for good tasting bottled water. The thought sent my stomach into knots again, but I forced myself to ignore my nausea and put a sickly grin on my face as I shook hands with Jacques.