“Ugh. I’m feeling… Unwell?” Lorelei crossed her arms over her stomach, squirming as if she was experiencing nausea for one reason or another.

“What? Wanna poop? There’s a toilet in the mansion,” I half-jokingly said. For one thing, I’d never seen Lorelei go to the bathroom… Not even once. She also never took a bath or anything like that, yet I didn’t smell anything strange off her… Actually, she smelled good— I mean, she smelled all fine.

“Nuh-uh. It’s nothing like that. Er, I guess eating their corpses, life forces, emotions, and mana have made me full to the brim inside.” She closed her eyes, no change over her outward expression, but I noted that she was satisfied with what she gained.

“I see.” Lorelei must have felt bloated out because she gained lots of CP in a short period of time.

Ooh. So that’s one way to make her stuffed. Wait, then the reason she keeps getting hungry despite eating much must’ve been because what she ate consumed her own CP... It was no wonder that she was like a bottomless pit.

“Well, Lorelei, let’s have a deep assessment of this invasion to further perfect the system in place.” I opened the Dungeon Menu and began sorting out the aftermath; this would be key in solving future contingencies.

“Of course,” she said, but instead of opening her own menu, she craned her head in my direction and leered at mine.

“Uh, I… Whatever.” I ignored her and began inspecting the traps in the hallway first.

The long hallway was now empty of corpses as what had remained had been completely absorbed. Yet the fire hadn’t stopped burning the mix of kerosene oil and water (oil and water couldn’t mix) that had overflowed the area, even though there was no longer any drizzle from the mechanism on the ceiling.

It was important to note that mechanism traps were obviously those that had been premade from the dungeon since it would be unfeasible for me to make one… Perhaps I might be able to with my Vocation, but that was a big “maybe.”

In any event, I’d gained tons of data. Using a mix of simple yet overlapping traps was proven to be effective in stopping and killing invaders, but if my purpose was to make a dungeon for adventuring by luring humans, then these traps shouldn’t be put too early and should be more spread about. However, that was a talk for later.

By the way, these overlapping traps included things like changing the tiles of the dungeon. In the first place, a 5-degree incline wouldn’t let the boulder trap achieve high acceleration, but that wasn’t a problem when the track was long and had almost no friction whatsoever.

Regardless, the final nail in the coffin was the four new “special” golems I made through the inspiration that struck at the last moment: the flamethrower golems and the gunner golems. They really served their purpose in achieving an element of surprise to the enemies, especially with two flamethrower golems using flammable oil and lighter to unleash a fire pandemonium.

Furthermore, the gunner golems were made with the thought of uniting both my stone bullets and the self-improvised clay golems. Since, after all, the secret recipe behind why the hands that could shoot bullets could even function was none other than [Programming]. Without it, it wouldn’t be much of a weapon and more like a child’s toy without any explosion to cause any significant acceleration.

Above all, what I had saved as the best for last was the mud golem. I made it from the clay soaked in water and shaped it haphazardly before putting in the monster core I got from the hybrid boar which had been imbued with [Programming]. It was the cause of the impetus of how the trap worked perfectly.

“Say, Lorelei, if this dungeon didn’t adopt my ideas, how many do you think you could have taken down with conventional traps?”

“Um, if we’re speaking of using traps that I know of and means that I understand… Possibly half of them before my dungeon would be conquered, but that is if I have gained sentience, or else…”

“Yeah, the result would be fatal.” Though I was the sole reason for them knowing this place, so it couldn’t really be counted.

Nevertheless, this had been almost perfectly executed. Although some sacrifices were unavoidable, mostly we merely lost a good number of insects and rats which were dirt cheap. In fact, a single rat only cost 2 CP, which could be easily replenished.

Still, the golems, kobolds, and goblins also suffered moderate casualties. The golems that could be easily repaired aside, half of the kobolds and goblins died from fighting the last three desperate invaders.

From this clash, I inadvertently discovered that corpses belonging to the monsters from the dungeon only returned half of their original value, even those with discounted prices, meaning that a dead goblin only returned 5 CP. This meant that having an unending wave of minions with “pseudo resurrection” would be nothing more than a fool’s dream. Although, since their cores were similar to the ones used inside the clay golems I made, I asked Lorelei to retrieve those.

“Vincent, you said you have prepared a last ace or whatever. But what is it exactly?” Lorelei asked.

“In truth, there’s no longer any clever trick. It’s just this.” I picked up a sword with a scabbard out of my backpack. “While facing all of them would be impossible, I’m confident that with this, I can even give Rowan, their leader, a run for his money.”

Even so, I breathed out a sigh of relief over the fact that I didn’t need to stick my neck to danger. What luck.

“And what can this crappy sword do?” Lorelei examined the scabbard and unsheathed the sword that had its blade sticking together like it had been glued together with super glue.

“Crappy or not, please touch it with care!” While I had made it stick together through my Vocation and even added several functions by pushing the envelope, I hadn’t tried it yet in fear of breaking it… not that it mattered.

Well, this “special” sword aside, I inspected the total CP we had, and seeing the amount subconsciously made my mouth grin widely like an evil villain. Hehe. With this much CP, even doubling the current size of the dungeon after replenishing the loss isn’t nigh impossible.

The source of all this CP came from other human beings… yes. Still, I didn’t flinch. Now that I had achieved my vengeance, I felt… rather hollow. For better or worse, I didn’t feel anything about killing fellow humans, not even as much as a shaking.

Truth be told, I’d noticed signs of this before but experiencing it now made me realize what it was to become a Dungeon Master. And the more I thought about it, the more I felt calm and composed, much to my fear. Frightening… yet not at the same time. How weird.

“Ooh. I sense that some monsters inside the dungeon are undergoing ‘evolution.’” Lorelei’s remark brought me out of my thoughts.

“Evolution, huh?” When she mentioned that, I was reminded of a certain “cartoon’s” evolution.

“Yup. When invaders are killed inside a dungeon, the benefits aren’t limited to the Dungeon Core itself, but also the responsible monsters.”

“I see. Neat. So, who are the ones evolving?”

“There are a total of six monsters: three goblins and kobolds each — they should be finished right about… now.” She looked up and stared at me soon after.

“Bring them here, Lorelei. They surely might an interesting specimen.”

“Very well,” she nodded, but not without continuing her sentence, “but success in repelling the invasion calls for a celebration. So let’s eat something nice, shall we?”

“Haaah… Fine. Once I’m finished with the inspection.”

“That’s a promise.” She, who was still beside me, clapped her hands and no longer bothered me.

Before long, six monsters were summoned inside the Artificial Realm, and there were exactly six of them. However, except for the oversized bluish goblin the size of a teenager, the rest looked just like more buff goblins and kobolds.

I got curious and inspected each of them with [Developer Interface]. To my surprise, they now had some kind of extra information — or a job — adjacent to their species names, though some shared the same kind of evolution.

Species: Goblin (warrior)

Species: Goblin (thief)

Species: Kobold (footman)

Species: Kobold (bowman)

In fact, they also received an increase in their overall stats, all of whom had their evaluation pushed to around F, which meant that they were about as strong as me. Great… However, I didn’t see their weapons or equipment changing with the evolution, so that was a big letdown. Welp, I cannot treat this as a game…

Lastly, I locked my gaze at the one that stood out like a sore thumb — a goblin that had its skin color changed and seemingly suffering gigantism or something — and checked its status.

Species: Hobgoblin

Sex: Male

Height: 158 cm

Vocation: [Leadership]

Stats:

STR: F (13) AGI: F+ (16) VIT: F (12) MAG: F (7) SPR: F (12)

Accumulation Points: 9 [F+]

I was bewildered enough that a monster actually possessed a Vocation, but what he did next redoubled the surprise.

The gob— The hobgoblin suddenly went on its knees, saluted, and said, “Chief… I am the first goblin you created.”

“You are?” I raised my chin, sizing him up. Since the hobgoblin had exhibited a superior intelligence to his peers, it would be rude to call him “it,” so I decided to call him “him.” But “chief,” huh. The kobold had called me so previously, but hearing it again feels a bit weird.

“Indeed. He’s the one that killed the last insect in the hallway too,” Lorelei chided.

“Is that so?” Holding my chin, I pondered for a bit, then made a strong posture and stated, “Ah, since you don’t have a name, and in regard to your contribution, I’ll name you Achilles.” It might sound like too grand of a name, but it represented my hope for him to be a strong warrior.

“Hrr… This one is grateful for receiving a name.” The hobgoblin, now Achilles, responded by lowering his head, full of glee and excitement. Was receiving a name that much of an honor?

“The rest of you,” I said, moving my gaze from left to right, “I’ll give you a name once you have contributed enough to the dungeon.”

That wasn’t actually the reason why I didn’t give them a name, but I just felt that it was a pain in the butt to prepare them with names. I could go with Gob-random names for the goblins and other kinds of random names for the kobolds… but… that sounded cheap.

““We swear… our fealty! To… the dungeon!””

They pledged in unison. Although the way they spoke was still crude, I could hear the aspiration behind their words. Maybe having a name worked as a symbol of status?

In addition, giving monsters a name would make them a “Named Monster,” they were among the order priority in the Minions catalog. But unlike Crowned Monster, which received a boost to their power, Named Monster didn’t really gain any benefit.

I was curious about Achilles’ species, so I checked through opening the Dungeon Menu and went to the Monster Creation category to search because it couldn’t be done straight from the status screen. I wondered why… My best guess was that living beings’ species couldn’t be checked directly.

[Hobgoblin (50 25 CP)]

A higher goblin species with a juvenile body, and strength on par with a normal adult human. They possess higher cognitive abilities and bigger brains, making them more fluent in speaking and having better prowess in using simple tools and planning strategies.

Hm? Possessing strength on par with a normal adult human? Just how strong are the humans in this world? Or am I… just that weak? Though I had experienced the strength of Rowan and his gang up close, the sample was still too small; it’d be, by far, better to have a larger sample pool, like a town, for example.

Anyway, for a monster to get a Vocation seemed to be entirely unlikely — Achilles was an anomaly. But with this evolution thing being a thing, it might be a good idea to raise weak monsters and let them evolve—

“I know what you’re thinking. No, it’s not that easy to evolve monsters. So toss aside your wishful thinking,” Lorelei coldly stated.

“Whoa there, no offense, but did you read my mind or what?” I looked at Lorelei, a bit taken aback. So the first goblin evolving to hobgoblin was just a fluke?

“Nah. You keep spacing out at the screen while changing your facial expressions frequently as though in deep thought.”

Crap. It was normal for me to be immersed in front of a computer screen since programmers tend not to disturb one another. Better be careful next time.