Chapter 12 - Who's there?

The other two goblins have run off, but there was still another one stuck in the pitfall trap.

Now then what should I do? Now that I have a clear look at this guy he seems more pitiful than I thought. Skinny to point you might as well just call him a skeleton dyed green, many parts of his body was bruised black and he even had many scars on his back. Those scars reminded me of whip wounds you sometimes see in movies or games based on the past when slavery was still a thing. It's pretty safe to assume that he was often beaten and whipped from behind.

Right now he's just curled there in the hole and softly whimpering.

Dammit, what do I do with him? He looks too pitiful to be killed but if I just let him go he might just call other goblins over. Not that it matters much since if there are going to be more goblins coming the other two that ran would've been the ones who called them. And judging from how he's treated he's probably pretty low on the social hierarchy of goblins so chances are nobody would care if he died or disappeared.

So essentially, there's a high chance I suffer no consequences no matter what I do to this goblin. Though there's that I still want to know more about the outside world and this guy is my only possible source of information other than Dungeon's Wisdom.

I suppose it doesn't hurt to try to establish communication with this guy. Though how I do this is tricky. As far as I'm aware, goblins don't have a language. However, this one must have some form of communication because there's a good chance of him being a part of some sort of goblin community or at least party. Given the fact he was bullied by other goblins means that he must've been in a sort of environment where the higher class is oppressing the lower class when this happens there is usually a societal structure and societies are based on everyone being able to understand each other in some way.

Given the fact I have All Language Knowledge, I should be able to find his language easily if I just repeat the same sentence over and over using different languages.

However, therein lies my second problem.

How do I actually talk to this guy?

I can sort of communicate my will with my dungeon monsters but that's probably because they are technically a part of me.

Have a monster talk for me? Impossible they don't have the needed vocal cords.

Try writing to him? I've seen a goblin's intelligence stat and according to Dungeon's Wisdom, most goblins don't even know how to talk. If this one could read he would be a hobgoblin or goblin sage and given his rough treatment, that's probably not it.

Running out of ideas I decided to check my status screen.

—~=~—

Status Screen

General

Name: - (&^#@?%*)

Title: Reincarnated One

Race: Dungeon Core, Dungeon Master

Gender: -

Rank: Level 11 Medium Iron Rank

Jobs: Dungeon Core LVL 7, Dungeon Master LVL 4

Stats

Strength: -

Agility: -

Stamina: -

Intelligence: 17

Wisdom: 18

Will: 8

Charm: 7

Mana: 16 (75)

Skills

Technique: -

Magic: Level 1 Mana Control, Magic Contract

Racial: Level 1 Dungeon Control

Unique: Reincarnated One, #*>@%,

Total Combat Evaluation:

LVL 12 Iron Rank (Dungeon is part of the Dungeon Core’s body and will be counted in the evaluation)

—~=~—

Looking at my status screen, there were several surprising things.

"I actually leveled up? And more than a few times too."

Normally when you level up you expect a notification of some sort but I guess it just doesn't happen here. Since I haven't killed anything I suppose you don't level up purely through mob grinding here. Looking back all I've done so far is build a bit of the dungeon and move my monsters around a bit, I suppose getting XP for dungeon building from building a dungeon would make sense.

Secondly, my mana regeneration is actually pretty decent. It's been about an hour and a half since I dumped all mana into DP but I have already recovered almost 90 mana. My mana regen seems to be about 1 per minute. However, in comparison, my mana purification isn't up to par, having only purified 9 mana points in the same amount of time.

If I want to get an Ant Hive Queen, which costs 100 DP, I would need 1,000 pure mana points, each pure mana point would take about 10 minutes to create. So it would take a total of 10,000 minutes, divide that by 60 for hours and that's... Dammit... too much math... brain can't take...

Well whatever, instead of saving up for a Hive Queen now I should start saving when I have a proper dungeon ready. So I don't die because I spent my DP all on a monster that takes probably a good month or two to become useful.

Another thing was my intelligence stat also increased by 1, so that's nice I guess. All I've really done that could've improved this stat was talk to the other dungeons in forums and using Dungeon's Wisdom. Which is kinda strange since why would Wisdom increase Intelligence? I supposed it's called Dungeon's Wisdom because it rolled off the tongue better.

And lastly, Magic Contract. I forgot about this skill because of the Dungeon and Mana Control and I don't know of its uses, but I suppose it could be useful right now.

"Hey, goblin do you want to become one of my dungeon monsters?"

--~=~--

You have initiated a contract with Unnamed Goblin

--~=~--

Suddenly, the goblin jolted himself upright and fearfully looked around.

"Who's there?" (Goblin)