3

Keizane was thrown into consciousness roughly as her maturity tail slapped her awake.

There was someone walking around. Keizane froze in place as she thought about that for a second. Was it the tier 3? It couldn’t have been, no way it had the strength to move that massive pillar, it was humanoid, she knew that for sure. Even if it had moved the pillar, she would have heard, that thing was massive and the only reason she could lift it was because Weak Gravity Manipulation was her highest levelled skill, she used it like breathing and with the same effort, although that pillar had been a bit much even for her.

So who was this person then? Keizane didn’t recognise him as one of the humans who normally came up here to harass her, this was her home now, and they just needed to accept that! He wore a simple shirt and trousers stained from dust and … stains. He wore a longsword at his waist, hand constantly at the ready on its long hilt. He seemed weak, she could take him.

Keizane cast Weak Gravity Manipulation on herself, and she sprung from her perch in the shadowy alcoves of the worn-down church at a ridiculous speed, the wood cracking under her fingers and her mind scrambling to think of her next movement as she rapidly bore down on the man under her ‘Light Gravity’ state.

She landed right behind the man and entered her ‘Heavy Gravity’ state as she thrust out with her tails using them as a whip. She hadn’t gotten the skill ‘Tail Whip’ yet, but she was still a tier 2 under the effect of all of her attacks having greater weight.

The man blocked her attacks with the flat of his blade with apparent ease, but sank down to a knee momentarily under her tails barrage, while his hand bled where he gripped his sword with his unprotected hand.

Keizane briefly thought she’d won but the man seemed to quickly recover and then push her back with ease sending her stumbling back as she was knocked briefly off balance as her soft paws gripped the rough earth for purchase. She gritted her teeth however and growled at the man hoping to frighten him but his face remained flat and unresponsive. Stupid hu man.

It was smart to be afraid of her.

Her tail whipped around and pointed at him, casting Weak Gravity Manipulation on his body, to make him heavier, as he seemed like a fast fighter, so it was better to slow him down a little. He stumbled a little under its effects but didn’t even fall or collapse and just seemed to make a couple of practice movements like he was testing things out. He seemed to recover a little momentarily and could fight on instead of being incapacitated like she would have liked.

Keizane frowned, it had taken her weeks to learn how to move effectively under the influence of her Heavy state. It just took this human under a minute. She was wary of what other tricks this one had.

She cast Minor Illusion, making it seem like tails were attacking when they weren’t, and the man barely managed to fend her off, flailing against attacks that weren’t there, and struggling to move at high speed while he was slowed down.

This reassured Keizane, and she went further on the offensive knocking the man around with her tails, like a rat in a trap.

She sent him flying up into the air, but lightly catching him at the apex of his flight before smashing him hard against the ground. She swept his legs out from under him and pounded on his stomach until he managed to get a lucky slice out while still lying on the ground. Her normally pale and slender white tails became dyed with her red blood as the fight progressed, while his body looked soft and tender from all the things she’d thrown him into, and he had splinters sticking out of him in several places.

His eyes widened as he was knocked around the broken church for the fifth time, crashing through some rotting crates and he finally brought his sword around to bear on her. He’d gone on the defensive up until that point because of her elusive nature, but he seemed to become aggressive after being thrown around like a piece of meat. In addition, she’d used quite a bit of mana, so he’d probably judged that she’d run out.

His moves weren’t bad, he seemed to be using some kind of art in his movements as they seemed stronger and more powerful than his aura would suggest. His movements were slow, but his sword had a deceptively long reach.

He advanced, ducking around her slower lashes with her tails at a longer range, then when he got closer, he hid his sword behind him to make her unsure of his attack range while angling his body to avoid her close-range downward smashes.

Suddenly and with no preemptive moves, he jabbed forward with his sword, piercing through her body and the tail she hastily used to defend herself. Her other tail (shaky from the pain) tried to cast Weak Gravity Manipulation on him again, to slow him down further as he was now closer and the effect of the spell would be greater, but he just slapped the tail as it lit up, interrupting it from casting.

He took another step towards her, pushing his sword in deeper and she screamed as the sword grated against something inside her. He stepped in further, possibly preparing to rip his sword out and finish the fight by ripping a massive wound in her side, but his eyes widened just before he did so.

Too late, she thought.

Her other two tails had extended behind him, lit up with green glows which were rapidly depleting her mana reserves. Air spiraled forth into arcs, which were then spun at the human.

He somehow knew, letting go of his sword and throwing his body backward. He was too late though, and the Air Blades ripped through him, one taking chunks out of his neck, but the other only lightly nicked his waist. He was dead either way.

Curiously he ignored her entirely, and just sprinted while stumbling like he was drunk out of the church.

She would live, he would not.

Kitsunes had curious bodies, no matter what Job they took, their bodies, souls and mind would all improve at the same rate every level they received, except for their vitality. This made them a very short-lived race, and so they cultivated a skill or habit you could say. Maybe 80% of their time they spent napping, and in doing so they all raised the tier 2 skill Sleeping from Napping, it gave them a high Vitality as well as an extra well which they could draw from if ever injured.

So when Keizane pulled the sword limply out of her chest and tail, the wounds sealed themselves together instantly with a wisp of steam.

She slowly pulled herself up to her familiar plank bed, all of her resources extinguished, but just thankful there had just been the one attacker this time at least, but she could rest now at least …

Her body convulsed as her heart was impaled on a blade, piercing through her bed and coming through her blindspot. Her tails thrashed around momentarily, while she tried desperately to heal herself, but her flesh just reformed around the motionless blade and withered away as the organ was prevented from remaking itself.

Her tails continued to thrash helplessly with a mind of their own though, even as Keizane had already resolved herself to her fate. Slowly her flesh gave up reknitting itself as her well ran dry and her thoughts slowed.

She closed her eyes, and the tails grew still.

#

Dorzath felt something drop down through his entrance and into his main corridor.

It was taking some getting used to, being able to zoom into one section of his Dungeon, while also being aware of everything going on inside of it at once. He eventually figured out how to look at the new challenger though, and gulped.

Shit, it’s a tier 2. He thought.

The tier 2 was tall, carrying a sword, and male. He had a splash of new skin around his neck, either from having used a potion recently or he just had a bad birthmark, if it was the latter, at least Dorzath would be able to tall this one apart from the other humans easier.

On the other hand, Dorzath was a little disappointed that the first challenger was so much more powerful than his Dungeon was currently, one of the things he’d enjoyed doing in hell was trapping, those seeking his Faerie book of runes, in a maze of mirror world, and watching them struggle to get out. It was the struggle he enjoyed, or maybe it was the suffering, but either way, when a challenge was too hard or too easy he received no pleasure from watching a challenger go through it.

The tier 2 hesitantly walked down the tunnel, but why did he have his eyes closed? Oh. Dorzath had forgotten to put any light sources in, as a Dungeon, he now had no need for light in order to see. But other less evolved beings still had a need for light in order to see. So the tier 2 human was walking down the corridor, sword at the ready, but with his eyes closed, using his powerful senses to pick up on the sound of even the smallest of movements.

A growl from the wolf cub made him hesitate, but once he figured out how close the growl was to the ground, he stepped forward and ran through the cub in one movement. He held his sword in place though, Dorzath wasn’t sure why maybe he was posing? There was no one around to see him though…

He stayed that way for a while, before pulling the corpse off of his blade and pushing it over to the side, up against the wall. He continued onward, faster now that he was aware of the danger he would face. He disposed of the next two cubs with a casual slice of his blade, cutting them down and moving on, with no pause in his movement, none of that ridiculous posing he’d done earlier.

There was some evidence of an art in his movements, so Dorzath thought he was probably a Swordsman. He reached the end of the corridor, and tried to enter the Moss room, but hit his head on the low ceiling, he retreated and continued onwards down the corridor, hastening his steps when the soft glow of Dorzath’s core reached his eyes.

He entered the core room, the final room of Dorzath’s Dungeon with wide eyes. He reached out with his hand to touch the core, while Dorzath tensed up, ready to activate any of his protective artifacts at a moment's notice. The human didn’t do anything suspicious or shady though and proceeded to lay his bare skin against the core. It’s glow diminished as a large amount of Dorzath’s mana was sucked into the surroundings, and the man lit up with a blinding flash of red light, disappearing from Dorzath’s sight.

Dorzath sighed inwardly, that hadn’t gone too bad, all things considered. The human was clearly familiar with dungeons to some extent, which was unsurprising considering he was a tier 2. The human had known about the fact that if you conquered a Dungeon then you could either choose to destroy its core or do the logical thing and touch the core and be warped back to the beginning of the Dungeon, thereby allowing yourself and others to reap the rewards of the Dungeon multiple times.

He’d been planning to start work on his second room for this floor, but he could use the Swordsman having arrived as an excuse for his rapid increase in size, he’d gained over 2 life energy for every minute that he was there, which was more than enough to build out another room.

/Life energy 132 - 157/

Before he did that though, he absorbed a few of the materials he’d brought with him, camouflaged in his pouch below his core. He didn’t absorb all of them, and he’d gained enough levels in Essence Absorption by now that he could pick and choose what he wanted to absorb. He didn’t want to absorb everything he’d brought so far, as life energy made his core shinier and smoother, making it look more like a living thing than an object the more life energy was inside it.

Of course, it was very unlikely that someone that familiar with Dungeons would arrive at his, but Dorzath chose cowardice and safety over boldness and danger.

/Cow leather absorbed - Cow leather unlocked as a material/

/Mana Crystal absorbed - Mana Crystal unlocked as a material/

/Bone dust absorbed - Bone dust unlocked as a material/

/Assorted woods absorbed - Assorted woods unlocked as a material/

/Life energy 157 - 436/

Now that he’d had a look at a tier 2 of this world and seen what level of technology this world they had, Dorzath was relieved, it looked like he’d arrived at one of the border worlds, where they were aware of the War, but not one where recruiters would come regularly, due to the low level of Mana concentration in the air leading to weaker troops.

They also had steel, that tier 2 had a steel sword, which was good, and meant they had progressed away from mud walls in some cases. Dorzath had seen the church he’d arrived in but it was so run down he was unsure as to what century it was even from. Technology levels changed as nations rose and fell, and that could have been an ancient relic from a previous era.

It also meant he could be less restrictive with the things he offered as rewards.

He planned out his next two rooms, thinking that was a suitable amount for his current level of development. Unaware, naturally created dungeons ranged from the carnivorous to the pacifists, and they were as varied in personalities as much any other race.

But the one thing they all shared was a desire to have people or animals enter their dungeons, and to keep them there for as long as possible in order to passively absorb life energy from them or to consume them and obtain a large portion of life energy that way.

Dorzath was looking to emulate and copy their behavior by creating features in his Dungeon that would be designed to keep people there as long as possible, even though he really was in no need for more life energy for an extended period of time.

For his second room, and the one he was going to place closest to the entrance, was a resource room, something people would come to and regularly stay in for extended periods of time. He chose iron, there was some in the ground around him probably so it wasn’t too strange for him to have encountered and absorbed it and learned how to make it.

He hollowed out a room, making it have a high ceiling, making it clear that this room was made for humans to use, and made it approximately 6 by 6 meters this time, he willed a large chunk of iron into existence, trying to get started on progress towards the skill Material Creation, something he would need if he was going to be supplying the army. He felt his mana dip downwards noticeably, and brought up his personal interface, as opposed to his Dungeon interface, to check. His mana had dropped by about a tenth.

The cost of creating materials was greatly reduced when using the interface, and even greater if he put in place rules to reduce its cost, but if he obtained the corresponding skill the cost would be reduced even further, which would be very important when he was mass-producing equipment for the army in the future. Dorzath was literally creating something from nothing, which was far more difficult than simply shaping what was already there, or altering its properties, like what he’d done with the rock cage.

Really, if he wanted to create something from nothing, he would use the Dungeon interface, which would cause him to use life energy, life energy was the energy in all aspects of creation, the building blocks of life and death, and so it was incredibly efficient at creation. Dorzath knew from his studies, however, that while he was experiencing high levels of life energy gainage currently, that it severely levelled off when he reached the higher number floors.

The chunk of iron he surrounded by dirt, making it so challengers would have to really work in order to dig it out. Dorzath willed a few more chunks of iron into existence inside the walls, having some corners stick out here and there to signal that there was something in the walls.

Once again he thought about what sort of rules he wanted to be put into place for this room. He wanted the room to restock itself with Iron, but only once the challengers had left the room, there was no point making it too easy after all. He liked to watch them struggle. Once more the System responded to his intentions, while also giving him options he hadn’t even thought of.

Name Room the ‘Basic Iron Ore Room’

Makes room produce iron ore naturally over time.

10 LE

Differ quality of iron ore extracted according to the skill of the challenger removing it.

5 LE

Make Iron ore only reappear once challengers have left the room

1 LE

Install Sturdy wood door to the room

5 LE

Lock the door to the room until the monster guarding it has been slain.

5 LE

Again, the mana requirements would not appear, Dorzath’s mana pool was so far above the requirements it would be insulting to have it shown, he suspected it would finally be shown when he would not be able to afford all of the rules shown.

He chose the option to name the room, he could do the same thing to a monster, but doing so was such a spectacularly bad idea for him considering he was trying to stay under the radar. He also chose the option to install the door and to make the ore only appear after the challengers had left. He left the other options there, he would grab them in the future, to make it seem like his Dungeon was growing slowly and steadily rather than in rapid bursts.

/Life energy 436 - 420/

Dorzath spent the rest of his free time making and remaking simple objects and weapons, trying to use up Life energy as well as unlock blueprints for basic objects.

/Life energy 420 - 306/

/Basic tier wooden stick created - Basic tier wooden stick unlocked as an object/

/Basic tier wooden shield created - Basic tier wooden shield unlocked as an object/

/Fire-aspect Mana Crystal created - Fire-aspect Mana Crystal unlocked as a material/

Dorzath desperately wanted to just improve his main corridor and add lights, but he knew he was already pushing the suspension of disbelief of his challengers by having two rooms. It was just so frustrating!

Before he could get himself worked up into another frenzy however, the next batch of challengers arrived, led by the man from earlier. His wolf cubs had already long ago respawned so he had no worries about them mistaking his Dungeon for a normal cave.

They dropped down one by one, he should do something about that, maybe add some stairs? There were 4 of them in total. The Swordsman, an older woman who was tier 2, a young boy who was still tier 0 but wore a serious look. Finally a big man, only tier 1, but they all looked to him with respect. The Leader?

The boy took the lead, after being handed a thick glass jar by the elderly woman, which he promptly shook and it released a weak but usable light. The Swordsman, not that much older than the boy, tried to hold him back, but he strode forward with a grin on his face while unsheathing a … blade of questionable quality.

With a collective sigh, the rest of the band followed after the boy. The boy didn’t hesitate when he encountered the cubs, holding them down with one hand wrapped in cloth and stabbing them several times in the chest until they stopped moving. He’d come prepared with a way to deal with these monsters. When the rest of the group reached him, he held up his dripping trophy proudly before throwing it into a bag. The rest of the group looked on proudly while not interfering, and just observing the Dungeon around them.

They reached the first room, and the big tier 1 man marveled at the room, looking at all the places in the wall which had iron ore with a critical, and then deeply satisfied look on his face. They moved on however as they had no equipment with them, but Dorzath was happy that the function of the room had been quickly picked up, he hated dealing with stupid people.

The boy claimed all of the other kills as well, leaping ahead as though he was worried the others would steal his kills, even though not one of them moved a muscle the entire time. He took his time though, not out of sadism, just lack of ability, but the others seemed content to wait and discuss the Dungeon. Dorzath was both gratified that he didn’t have to hear their meaningless conversations, he knew they would just be discussing how incredible it was to have a Dungeon arrive in their town and how lucky they were anyway, and at the same time regret that he wasn’t quite advanced enough to pick up on their conversations yet.

The boy gained a level when he reached the end of the Dungeon though, and he and all the others seemed quite happy for him, maybe a little too happy, maybe children took a long time to level up? Dorzath had never studied Human cultures as in-depth as he had other species, they were just very uninteresting and also one of the least advanced species. He was close to ascending now, probably just one more level and he’d be there.

They walked out of the Dungeon though, although the boy seemed to want to try teleporting, his elders held him back. Dorzath understood why, they wanted the Dungeon to develop faster, and it was well known that using a Dungeons teleportation function would deplete it of mana. It was actually a way that fearful kings would try to halt the development of Dungeons.

On their way out, the Swordsman dropped an oiled torch on the ground before leaving. Dorzath didn’t hold back and absorbed the torch as soon as he was out of sight. It was clear that he was unhappy about the lack of light in the Dungeon and was hoping that if the Dungeon absorbed the blueprint of the torch, it would provide some to challengers when entering. Unluckily for him, Dorzath had a plan and torches weren’t on it for some time.

/Oiled Wooden torch absorbed - Oiled Wooden torch unlocked as an object/

That object combined with the passive Life energy he absorbed off of them which then increased his Life Energy once again.

/Life energy 306 - 360/

As soon as they left, Dorzath stopped holding back on the upgrades for his first room and bought the rest of them.

/Life energy 360 - 350/

He also formed a third room, almost identical to the basic iron ore room, except this one would have a random tree which would grow rapidly over time, he placed his first trap in this room as well. Dorzath wasn’t a big fan of traps in general, but Dungeons were generally expected to have a few of them every now and then. It was a rock which hung over the door which would be released when the door opened. Unless someone sprinted into the room they wouldn’t be hit by it, and it was a gentle reminder to the challenger that they were still in a Dungeon, which was an extremely dangerous being. This would hopefully cause them to slow down a little and increase his Life energy gain.

That new room along with the trap set him back in Life energy considerably.

/Life energy 350 - 304/

Dorzath also created his fourth room but didn’t add an entrance, leaving the room buried in the earth. In this room, he placed a wolf cub and placed a few mana crystals in the room. He would need to advance to his next floor in a little while and there would need to be more advanced monsters for that floor, he was planning to have tier 0 wolves on that floor.

He could unlock that monster simply by placing his monster alone and then waiting for six months for it to age and unlock the System and the tier 0 job. Dorzath did not want to wait six months.

He could also accelerate the wolf's aging though by doing what he had just done now. Mana Crystals when directly ingested tended to cause rapid skill growth as well as mutations. He would end up unlocking quite a few variant species of the wolf cub first, but on the list of potential mutations was simply the more aged version of the species.

The best part was that it wouldn’t be strange that he could spawn higher tier versions of the monsters he already possessed so quickly as many Natural Dungeons sometimes had more advantages than the Created Dungeons like the one Dorzath had. Amongst those advantages was the fact that they often started with tier 0 monsters, but only started creating them on their second floor.

His LE started to quickly plummet as he started to spend it so frivolously. Dorzath was fine with the spending however as the challengers would never know, and it also reduced the shine on his core slightly. It was a win win win. Before moving forward though Dorzath decided to make a list of his priorities moving forward, as he kept getting sidetracked in the process of Creation, and he was annoyed at himself for shifting so far away from his plan, even though for the last ten cycles he’d had limited freedom. He’d enjoyed living an unorganised life for a brief time, but he’d fallen back into his old patterns of strict self-organisation when he was studying to become a DM and he felt uncomfortable falling out of them again for even a short period.

Dorzath’s list:

Finish the first floor Finish entrance Obtain a weak tier 0 monster Start the Second floor Kill the Imp Get a body

He carved everything into rock, practicing his Terrain Manipulation once again. Once he had everything laid out in front of him, his focus was sharpened once again. It was one thing to know that you had a lot to do, but it was another thing entirely to see it laid out in front of you. His personal Contract whispered that there was one last thing to add to that list, but Dorzath ignored that voice.

By becoming a DM he had effectively chained himself to the demon army for eternity, and he knew it. He was fine with it though, he was a god unto himself within his Dungeon, and once he reached tier 5 he could form a body which even if destroyed outside his Dungeon, he could still reform himself within the Dungeon for limited cost.

He was fine with the current situation. Really.

His cubs had barely all respawned when that tier 0 boy was back, carrying his glowing flask. He was making Dorzath consider expanding the length of the main Corridor and adding more cubs along its length. He’d wanted to start his first floor off being extremely weak and then raising its difficulty if even the tier 0’s didn’t consider it difficult. The only reason the Corridor was so short was because the machines he’d used to create it would overheat if used for too long, but Dorzath had severely underestimated his own speed at manipulating the environment around him, so at this point the machines, while being initially useful had already reached the limit of their usefulness.

He’d brought along a fierce little girl, who while mildly terrifying was also struggling to drag a sword along the ground behind her. Wait, how did a small human like that even lift something that heavy, without even a tier 0 job? The girl just dropped the sword as the boy quickly outpaced her after slicing through the cub. Dorzath was happy to accept the gift and quickly absorbed the sword, hopefully, that would make the girl cry. It was always funny to see the shapes a human face made if you prodded them enough.

The girl failed to catch up to the boy however as he was older and considerably more advanced. In addition, he didn’t even need to hold the wolves down, he simply waited and then darted forward when they leaped at him like he knew where they were going to be. Maybe he’d gained a skill?

The girl finally caught up to him just as he finished off the last cub, and he grinned at her triumphantly, while she made a facial expression which Dorzath couldn’t place, was that the one they made when they were h***y? Unlikely, this little one was still very small.

He picked her up and carried her on his back, as they kept going forward. What were they …?

Ah. They were attempting to do the very thing they were just forbidden from doing, teleportation.

Bad children. A problem in every species. By his own species standards, Dorzath was still considered a child, even though he could slay kings. He also understood rebellion, sometimes all he wanted to do was rip a fellow demons head off, but his Contract prevented him from doing so. He applauded these children for rebelling, even when he could not. The mana loss for transporting a tier 0 and a no tier would be made up in minutes, so he didn’t care about that.

As Dorzath’s attention was focused on these two children however, the inexperienced dungeon core wasn’t paying attention to the rest of the Dungeon.

The two children rounded the corner leading to his core room, but before they could marvel at his beauty, a bear fell out of the wall.

A bear-shaped wolf broke through the reinforced dirt like it was well, dirt and screamed its rage at its existence into the air.

A tier 1, evolved Abomination teen wolf. In his excitement at being so clever and forward-thinking like he had done so, Dorzath realised at that moment that he had failed to consider the dangers of what he had attempted to do in his hidden fourth room. Something normally attempted on tier one monsters, he had just left a base tier monster alone with a mountain of evolution catalysts, normally reserved for safe use on tier 2 and above monsters to ensure predictable results, and only just now was he quickly realising what a mistake that had been.

The boy didn’t freeze up though, instead, he grabbed the small human and screamed something at her, probably ‘stay here while I go get help’.

The girl saw through the obvious ruse and ran away stumbling, while the boy was left behind trembling as he faced the tier 1 Abomination, which was actually close to ascending to a higher Job. If Dorzath had put one more Mana Crystal in that room both of the children would be dead right now.

Dead. Dorzath mentally slapped himself. Focus! If a challenger were to die this early on, there was a very real chance the villagers would wall his Dungeon up, or worse destroy his Core and sell it. He was less scared of the second option because he had an artifact which could wipe that town off the map, but the first option made him feel sick. That boy could not die.

The boy. He probably had at least one skill, but he would much prefer to know in detail so he could plan out how best to help to influence this impossible fight in his favor.

In response to his thoughts, a notification popped up asking him if he wanted to put in place a rule to be able to read challengers status screens as they passed through his Corridor. The cost was 1000 LE and over half of his available mana, but there was little he could do with mana in this situation anyway as the Abomination wouldn’t listen to him, a wonderful feature of his Job, using an artifact would make the boy realise he was more than a Dungeon, and Terrain Manipulation would take too long and the wolf would just move out of the way of his snail-like ground and wall movement.

Dorzath quickly burnt through a large chunk of his available materials to absorb, discarded his notifications and let out a gasp which almost felt real as the Life energy left him, tiring him out tremendously. Thankfully he didn’t have a body, or it was unlikely he would be able to move right now.

He brought up the boy's status screen.

Name

Invim

Race

Human

Tier

0

Job

Tracker

Level

5

Skills

Predict Movements (1)

Steady Hands (/)

Okay, the boy was going to die.

Dorzath had hoped he had something like a Wolf-Killer Job, with specialised wolf killing skills, because that was the only way he could see the boy, no, Invim getting out of this alive. He had an inherited skill, which happened occasionally if your parents were powerful enough, but it was used mostly for ranged weapons, and even if he had a ranged weapon, it would have to be firing an arrow crafted by Dorzath if it had any chance of killing an Abomination.

Abominations were just that, abominations. They couldn’t breed, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t even communicate, and generally after being created they would seek out and destroy whatever made them before killing themselves. Even this one was just repeatedly hitting its head into the floor with enough force to shake the Dungeon as if trying to get rid of the weeping pustules and sores which covered its entire body. Invim shifted slightly as if thinking he could make a run for it when the malformed and melted wolf snapped its head up looking straight at the boy.

Invim froze, before throwing himself to the side with all the force his tiny legs could probably muster. The Abomination blurred, before seeming to reappear where he’d just been standing, biting down hard through the floor, and then, because it was insane, it continued chewing through the earth.

Invim was actually lucky, Abominations had a skill which forcefully raised their tier when they faced their creator and gave them a lock on ability which made them never lose sight of their target. Right now he was facing a very distracted Abomination, which gave him … nothing. The boy was still going to die.

Dorzath watched as they continued their dance, with the Abomination blurring in and out of existence, and the boy nimbly moving out of the way each time. One time it abruptly continued chasing after the boy normally even after he’d dodged its blurry attack, and Invim used the chance to get a couple of slashes in with his dagger, rolling past its attack and coming up slicing through its rear tendons, it hobbled briefly before shaking its body as a wave of steam washed over it as its wounds closed up.

The limitation of the boy’s skill was obvious as the wolf used the skill inside the cloud of steam, but the boy clearly had no idea.

It appeared in front of him, biting into his body across his stomach before he could even try to react.

It had its jaws around him while he screamed and wailed.

He was sobbing as the jaws of the pustulent wolf crunched and ground into his ribcage. Through his mad flailing, and through some weird miracle he still somehow held onto his sorry excuse for his knife all this time, he stabbed it deep into the wolf’s eye.

He quickly seemed to figure out what he’d done as he pushed deep, twisting his knife as he did so. The jaws of the wolf opened wide as it screeched in pain and howled up at the dirt roof of the Corridor.

Invim rolled away out of its mouth, quietly sobbing as his body shook in fear in pain and fear as he tried to crawl away from the monster, towards the exit. The wolf was distracted, maybe he had a chance?

Dorzath knew Invim was just deluding himself, but for some reason, he couldn’t quite work up the effort to mock his facial expression at that moment.

Curious as to what was going on, Dorzath looked inwards at his mental world where his sins fought for supremacy over his actions, wondering which one was driving this action.

His inner thoughts were telling him something new, something he hadn't heard before. All his life his body made of sin was always pulling him in several directions, as his greed, lust, sloth, pride, envy, rage and gluttony fought for control over his body and actions. Most of the time Dorzath just let them fight it out in a mental war inside his head, as most demons did. Most of the time his rage, pride, and greed were the ones to come out victorious as they were the strongest sins he was constructed of. But now his sins were quiet. Like they were trapped behind glass and for this very moment, Dorzath was free to make a choice regardless of his sin's opinions in the matter.

Maybe this was his contract? Maybe it was something else, but who cares. His subconscious thoughts were telling him to help, and his conscious thoughts agreed. He felt a strange need to help this boy, and he was thinking up reasons to himself to rationalise this strange need to save the boy.

The reasons were mostly for his own sanity and because he didn't have the time he needed to think this over.

Maybe it was the fact that they both were rebellious children, even close to the same age, the fact that he’d struggled so much, given him so much … Entertainment wasn’t the right word to use here, but he didn’t know the right one to use. Was there even a word to use here? He liked watching the boy struggle, and he wanted to continue to watch the boy struggle. He was being greedy, but that was just his nature.

And with that thought. the barrier between Dorzath and his sins was back down again, and they were back influencing his every action again except for the thought about protecting Invim, which stayed. Dorzath threw the matter about being momentarily released from his sins to the back of his mind.

Dorzath went into his bag with his Essence Absorption, using it as a feeler to locate … there! He didn’t have time to figure out how to send the object to Invim, he just brute-forced his way through the process, absorbing it, then willing it into existence in front of the boy along with a random bow from his memories. He was a Dungeon, and so a god within his halls. The Universe pushed back in weak defiance that he was breaking the laws of energy.

This was his Right! He roared at the System and the universe as his Rage reared its head for the first time since he was Student, and pushed through the force pushing against him with his mana. Mentally exhausted from his endeavors, and partly worried he'd overexerted himself slightly Dorzath saw the brilliant blue light of Dungeon Creation as the universe bent to the will of a tier 4 and then saw nothing as black hit him like a tidal wave.

#

Invim knew it wasn’t right, he knew it was selfish, but he didn’t want to die. Why couldn’t Helen have stayed behind? She was really strong for a six-year-old, or somebody else, anybody but him.

The ground. He was on the ground. He could feel it in his hands. He remembered thinking about how clean and smooth it was. He’d never seen ground that smooth before. Up close though, it was filled with imperfections, just like everything else.

Just like this Dungeon and just like him.

He was still moving, wasn’t he? Could he feel or his hands or was that just his imagination? He had to be moving because if he wasn’t then that meant he was going to get caught, and if he got caught then he was going to … No. Don’t think about that. His arm was tired, so he couldn’t feel it, that was all.

His eyelids burnt bright red as something lit up the world around him, but he didn’t want to open them to see what it was.

What if it was the wolf-thing? Maybe it could do magic like Old Hag, but that would make it a tier 2 monster, and he would never survive fighting a tier 2 monster, nobody would.

What would Emmet do? He’d get up and fight.

But Emmet was strong, and he was weak. So what? His thoughts seemed to be angry at him for some reason

Would he lie here, waiting here to die? No. He wouldn’t.

So what are you going to do? What are you going to do Invim?

Invim opened his eyes.

Before him, forming from nothing, like magic, was a beautiful arrow covered in strange glowing symbols. It was like nothing he’d ever seen before and it lay there floating in the air beside a silver bow. It was long and sharp with a shaped handle, like something out of a fairy tale.

He reached out, his left hand took hold of the bow. It fit, it belonged in his hand.

The arrow gently floated around him and into place, nocking itself on its own as Invim pulled himself up off the ground and looked up at the monster.

Its crazed and bleeding eyes stared back at him, gleaming in a way they hadn’t before, as it waited there in silence frozen in place. What was it waiting for?

He was dimly aware of notifications sounding off around him. He just mentally thought yes, hoping they would leave him alone, knowing that if he broke eye contact with this thing he would die.

His hands hurt, maybe they were broken, who cared. His hands hurt, but they were steady. Always steady. He could do this.

Then it was like the world around him changed all at once like he was watching two versions of the monster at once, like he was different all of a sudden, like the world was different. He felt more confident, but the thing across from him, the thing that used to be a wolf. It was different now. Or maybe it was always the same.

Either way, he could see it in a way he couldn’t before. He knew that it was in pain, that it was asking for release, that this wasn’t the way it wanted to live. That this thing standing motionless across from him, it wasn’t a monster, it was a Hunter.

In one motion he raised the bow up, never breaking eye contact with the thing. He brought the string up to his cheek, he’d never used a bow before but it was like he was in a trance, like he was a hero in a story, his hands just knew what to do and he let them.

The glowing arrow flashed as he felt drained all of a sudden, and like a pin drop in an empty room, it broke the silence.

He knew it would though, he saw it before it happened. He knew the bow would flash, and that look of recognition in its eyes the thing holding it in place out of respect, out of acknowledgment, something he would see in a human, not in an animal or a monster, would disappear. He knew it would blur in and out of existence, and he knew that once it blurred out it would appear behind him, jaw wide. He knew all of that would happen. And then it happened.

The arrow flashed, the beast blurred and vanished.

In one movement, Invim spun and dropped to a knee, almost waiting for the beast to reappear. It dropped back into existence but he knew that it knew that it would die. He knew what he would see but he looked anyway.

The last thing Invim saw before his vision turned to white, that he saw with his eyes and not with his mind, was the open eye of a fellow Hunter, thanking him.

Name

Invim

Race

Human

Tier

1

Job

Hunter

Level

2

Skills

See Movements (2)

Steady Hands (/)

Bow Proficiency (1)