“Thirty days too long, me stupid.”

“No it’s the perfect amount of time, we can bring all the patrols back, you sent the last one way too far out, it’ll take twenty days for them to get back.”

“Ohh, me smart then.”

No, you’re definitely stupid, so stupid you can’t tell why the tiny bird was so confident.

“Birdy stupid, no even we fight army an’ live.”

“The tiny bird didn’t seem stupid, it looked more confident than it should have been in front of a divine beast, it probably has a skill or race skill that his stats or skills increase with multiple enemies.”

“That ba-bad, isn’t Dung-ga scared’d,” my companion for life, though stupid is awfully cautious in front of anything dangerous, he’s had to rely on me in more than one situation, but I don’t mind, I’ve gotten used to the little guy, though we’re a lot bigger than when we were born, we’ve been inseparable since birth.

I laughed at my little joke.

“What so funny, me serious, what we goin do.”

“Simple, as long as we limit the number of enemies at a time, he can’t get boosted with all of them.”

“But wha if he keeps stats long time.”

“Probably not, this worlds creator is awfully lazy in the way of making skills, there is only a couple of actual skill effects, they all might have different names, but if we haven’t seen one like that then there probably isn’t one,” seriously his secret intelligence surprises me all the time, he might be the smartest true-born goblin, he’s still stupid though.

“Bu if stats way too high?”

“It’s probably only a ten, twenty, or thirty boost per enemy, forty, fifty, or sixty isn’t unheard of, but it isn’t likely.”

“Don’ any of secret memories say anything.”

“Don’t say that out loud, I told you to keep that a secret.”

“Bu why?”

“The goblins would look at me differently if they knew I was a human before.”

“But me don’t look you differently.”

“I told you at an early age, you always learn easier when you are young, when you grow up, you learn something called common sense, all our goblins have that, they will think we are weird.”

Weler stayed quiet.

“Dunga?”

“Yes?”

“Can you tell me about your original world?”

I looked at him in shock.

“When, how, where did you learn to talk like that,” I have to have been with him since we were born, he couldn’t have learned to talk like that behind my back, and I gave up on teaching him proper grammar a long time ago.

“Me watch you talk words, me say it in head a lot.”

“So you can do it if you try, why didn’t you have this effort when I was trying to teach you?”

“Story?”

He obviously changed the subject, I’ll have to poke him about it later.

“I’ve already told you all of them before.”

“Tell again.”

“Well, it’s not like we can separate.”

“Me thought gave up that,” his pointy ears lowered.

No matter how hard I tried I never found a skill or evolution that could separate us.

We are conjoined twins, a goblin born two heads, one reincarnated, one normal.

“Well it’s like the saying goes, two heads are better than one.”

______________________________________________________________________________

Back to MC

I check my stats to find which one I should add points to...

"Target: Adolescent War Demon Chocobo LVL 52, Name: Kwehzalcoatl" "Title(s): Memory Keeper, Kill Stealer, Friend of the Suvunktah's, undefeated in duels, Damsel in distress, Pride, Puff’s friend, Dungeon Explorer: Cyko." "Skills: Analysis LVL 7, Copy Entity Number LVL 3, Mind Acceleration LVL 7, Crushing beak LVL 4, Night Vision LVL 2, Foul resistance LVL 4, Magic Armor LVL 7, Recovery Magic LVL 3, Pain resistance LVL 5, Heat vision LVL 2, Pepper Breath LVL 10, Shadow manipulation LVL 3, MP manipulation LVL 5, Fire Resistance LVL 7, Telepathy LVL 3, Life Steal Touch LVL 1, Telekinesis LVL 2, Punting LVL 9, Flamethrower LVL 6, Water Gun LVL 6, Aerial movement LVL 9, Hide Status, Rulers Orders LVL 2, Reckless Charge LVL 2, Press LVL 2, Earth removal LVL 2, Buff up LVL 2, Speed up LVL 2, Enchant LVL 1, Forge LVL 1." "Stats: HP: 2793, STR: 3681, SPD: 2468, VIT: 2901, MP: 3187, INT: 2709"

I got reckless charge from the minotaur, press from the gargoyle, earth removal from the moles, buff up from the dragon, speed up from the filolial, and enchant and forge from the kobold.

Also, the harpy leveled aerial movement, the flame monsters leveled fire resistance, and the centipede leveled pain resistance.

Also in the dungeon, I was bored so I activated Hide status, nothing happened, but I kept it on.

At the beginning of this dungeon I was happy that all my stats were in the thousands but look at them now, almost all three thousand.

I put the five hundred in speed, obviously to even the stats out.

The floor opened up revealing stairs, the bricks still glowing, so I started walking down.

It had about twenty stairs, just generic glowing brick stairs, nothing special.

Until I reach a door, brown wood, no fancy design, wood circular handle.

Well, this is a problem, I have no hands.

First I try to lift my legs to the height, I’m way too short, I mean my previous evolution was about two and a half feet, while this one's about four feet tall.

I’m so freaking short.

Whatever, I’ll try my wings, I just can’t get a grip.

I was avoiding this, but I’ll try it anyway.

I put my mouth around the handle, I just end up slobbering on it.

I thought the final boss was all 16 of them combined, now I see my true final boss was this generic wooden door.

That gives me an idea, what if I actually treat it like a final boss.

I kick the door down.

It works, I walk into the room and see it’s actually quite small.

It’s only a five by five-foot room with a little bit bigger than a five-foot ceiling.

Symmetrical to the doorway was a huge spherical green glowing object, cliche much.

“One for dramatic entrances are you,” a masculine, kinda fatherly voice mocked.

It took me an instant to find out the voice was coming from the sphere, I’ve read way too many books about it.

“Well now that that you are here, what can I do to convince you to not kill me.”

“I’m not going to kill you, why would I.”

There was silence.

“Because I’m a dungeon core, something that threatens to attack the world with monsters once I accumulate enough mp?”

“Just try, the first thing you will encounter is a giant fly that shoots beams of lights that disintegrate everything it touches.”

“Touche.”

“Well then, why did you do the dungeon if it’s not to kill me?”

“To get stronger.”

More silence.

“Hey, would you like to listen to a story?”

“You're not trying to run down the time, are you?”

“Can’t, you beat the dungeon, you get infinite time here, now will you listen or not?”

“Sure.”

“There once was a child, no money, no family, just him, his clothes, and his spot on the street.”

I sit down.

“The child's spot on the street was next to a restaurant that started serving beer at nighttime, and while the child was trying to sleep, he would overhear stories of how people would get rich in dungeons by finding loot, they would go on and on about how finding a single necklace could make them rich, so the child followed them to the dungeon.

The child watched from afar as they hacked and slashed at monster spiders and goblins.

One time the group missed something, a single dagger, a goblin dropped it, the child picked it up, and went a different direction from the group, the child found a group of three goblins and stalked them, then killed them.”

The voice started having a vague sadness in it.

“That was the first time the child had ever wielded a weapon, but he had the starter skill, adaptability, the ability to adapt to and overcome any task, anyway, the child did exactly as the group did and took various objects from the goblins, such as a dagger, a little longer than his own, and other objects.

The child did this day in, day out, waiting to find something as simple as a necklace, just to be able to sleep in a bed.

The group walked by me while the child was killing more goblins, they recognized the child and asked why a child was in a dungeon.

The child gave them the answer, and they didn’t know how to react.

They asked me how the child was surviving and how far the child had gone into the dungeon.

The child didn’t know.

They asked the child to show them what he had gotten, he showed them only half, as he knew better than to show a stranger his belongings, but wanted to trust the group.

He showed them and they offered to show him how to sell stuff for money, for a fourth of the loot, of course.

He did and started to easily make money, he got food without having to go through the trash, he slept in a bed, he met with the group again and they showed him lower floors.”

The sadness wasn’t vague anymore.

“While he was with the group they picked off more than they could handle.

They met a wyvern, it poisoned two members, and the other monsters were distracting enough that they couldn’t focus on it alone, the warriors in the group threw me-I mean the child to the stairs of the upper floor and broke the entrance.

The child beat himself up over it, if only he was a little stronger, only one level was enough, only one more level.

He fought in the dungeon again and got stronger, much stronger until he was sure he could do it, until he was sure he could kill that wyvern.

The child wasn’t a child anymore, he was over thirty and had been called a psycho for how long he had been in the dungeon.

He, alone, killed the wyvern and every single monster on the floor.

He met the dungeon core and was asked a question, if he had any wishes, what would they be, if the dungeon core could comply it would, so long as the person didn’t kill it.

He asked two things, one, access to the souls of his fallen comrades, two, to become a dungeon core.

He wanted to help prepare people, to make them one level higher, so that they would never feel that pain he did and has for years.”

The dungeon core transformed into a middle-aged man, in adventurers clothes, with the rough stubble that was obviously cut with a knife, surprised me a bit and made me stand up.

“His fallen friends, sadly never could remember him, as souls usually reset when they go to their next lives, and they were far into that process when the core took them, but I was just glad to have their presence near me at all times.

And now here you are asking me to help you with the very purpose of this dungeon. Come we have no time with your time limit of twenty days, but it will have to do.”

“How did you?”

“When you come into the dungeon, the light beforehand scans your knowledge, I had fun making levels off of things from your old world, except Yurel, he had his own idea with the ball.”

“The dragon?”

“Yes, my fallen comrade.”

“Wait, what? This is too sudden.”

“Stop acting like a lady who just got proposed to and come on, by the time you get out of my boot camp, you will be a true demon.”