Without another map, the knight warned me to leave or else there would be more danger. Ironic, I thought as I unfurled the area map on a table. Maps were a valuable thing, so I took the liberty of using my mana to replicate them. Having spares and extra copies would be useful, but I didn’t expect it to be used as a bargaining chip for my life.

Tapping my fingers on the wooden table, I perused over the map. Expansion was on my mind, but where to was the question. The dungeon is currently situated under a large, mountainous hill with a river flowing on its side. Setting up on both sides of the river appealed to me: having openings and paths between the two sides that didn’t involve crossing the river could open up safer movement and transportation.

“So,” interrupted Lia, “Is there anything you need us to do?” She hesitantly looked over at Tall the zombie and Slime.

I stroked my chin. Nothing came immediately to mind, so I checked my journal. Still nothing. They would have to do something I couldn’t that was also practical. I snapped my fingers, “There is something, but it’s a little complicated.” Lia tilted her head as if to question me. “I can’t leave this area,” I continued, “But there is work to be done elsewhere. I am literally unable to do it so someone else has to.”

“Oh,” She said. “You have that sort of restriction?” I nodded. “So what do you need done.”

“A few things,” I murmured while flipping through the pages of my notebook. Scratching my head, I said, “Well, we need to publicly reveal my existence. Sure, more people might come after me, but it is harder to sweep something under the rug the more people that know about it. Also, since we already have people targeting this land, we need to figure out who and what exactly they are after and their resources. On our end, we need to increase our own size and I don’t mean the dungeon side. For a time, we might be able to get by with me creating dungeon monsters, but any long-term goals will be helped by recruiting skilled individuals: trained men at arms, scholars, engineers, you get the idea.”

“Woah, that is a lot of stuff to do. What should we start on first?”

“It is a lot and I think we should abuse the fact that me and this dungeon’s existence is unknown. If the nobles want this land but don’t see any danger to their claims, I would bet they won’t feel pressured to act. As soon as my existence becomes revealed, everything will begin moving at an accelerated pace.” I traced my finger on the map, constructing a mental image of expansion. “Meaning we should take this time to build up. Recruit a few people to help with development, build the dungeon in a constructive manner, and assemble some sort of defense that would defer immediate action.”

I raised up two fingers, “Two of those things I can work on by myself: dungeon construction and defense building. Some things I will have to figure out as I go, like how to manage the dungeon mana intake, but I will have to tackle that issue eventually. What I need from you in particular – I can’t send out a slime or a zombie – is to recruit some people to help start building this place into something.”

Her throat tensed and she made a wish-washy face, “Sounds a little difficult? I’m not a good talker or convincer, and I don’t know anyone.”

“Don’t worry about that. I already have people in mind, friends and acquaintances and such.”

“Well, uh, that’s great then. Should I leave now?”

“Well… are you alright leaving now? I mean…” I didn’t want to say it, to bring up the massacre. She didn’t seem bothered by it, not in the slightest, but who knew what she was hiding under her mask.

Lia turned her head and clanked at the floor, holding one arm by the elbow. Her face wore a cold smile. “It’s alright – there’s nothing that can be done to undo it or bring them back. You know, I feel like I was supposed to die back there, maybe I did, but here I am, alive. I asked you to take responsibility, but it wouldn’t exactly be fair of me to sit around and do nothing either, right?”

“That’s fine, but don’t force yourself,” I wagged a finger at her. “So what are we going to do about supplies?”

“I took a look at the village a while ago,’ Lia said, “much of it is burned but there is still plenty of food and clothing left I can take.”

I nodded, “Sounds good, but now I just need to give you some sort of protection just in case…”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not going to just send you out alone,” I chuckled as if it was obvious, “What if you ran into danger? Some protection is needed.” A new monster would have to be made: sending a zombie or a slime as a guard was no good.

Tapping into my dungeon abilities was becoming more second nature to me; I could flip it on in an instant, a seamless transition. The monster would have to be able to hide, stay out of sight. I focused my mana on creating two beings.

A monster that could hide in a shadow was my goal. There were plenty of strong and complicated beings that could have that ability, but I aimed for something simple; I aimed just for the run-of-the-mill shadow monster, a dark, figureless creature that lurks inside a shadow. Two of them took shape before me and I molded them into dog-wolf type of creature. Four legs to run, sharp teeth, razor claws, that type of armament should be fine for defense purposes.

The two alternated woofing at me. Their shadow tail waved in the air. I instructed them to follow Lia, protect her, and listen to her instructions. They woofed and dove into her shadow.

Lia yelped and jumped, “What the hell was that? Did those two things go into my shadow?”

“Yup. They are guard-dog-shadow type creatures I made. There are two and I instructed them to listen to you and protect you.” I smiled, attempting to hide my pain. Most of mana was spent on making the two. It was a conscious choice as the more mana I poured into them, the stronger they would probably be.

Lia was looking over her shoulder with a strained face, “I can kind of feel them there – it’s strange!” A woof came out of her shadow and she jumped again. “Holy shit that scared me I have to get used to that.”

Hand on my mouth, I attempted to suppress my giggling. It was the slime discreetly ramming into my thigh that cut my laughter.

She should go.

Slime seemed anxious about this. It was unusually silent since he woke up, which was strange for the murderous thing. I half expected it to try something with Lia here, but it was quiet. I wasn’t sure if I liked this tame slime; I was getting used to my little loud slime.

“Slime here is saying you should go,” I pointed at it with a thumb.

“Oh, yeah,” said the elf, her ears perking up, “I heard.”

“Really now?” Perplexed, I jotted this down in my journal. I didn’t think anyone else could hear Slime, but maybe it was because she was now ‘part of the dungeon’. I tore out a few pages and started writing directions on them for Lia. “Lia, the friend I want you to meet is named Gil Fins. He is a mage west of here. I want you to let him now of my situation and invite him over – and, uh, don’t be alarmed by his eccentrics.” She tilted her head, confused. I didn’t explain; she would learn soon enough. “As for everyone else, just go to that town in the West, Jourd, and mail out these letters. I won’t send you out in a wild cross-country trip so this is for the best.” I hastily wrote and prepared them and handed them over. With the map, I gave her directions as best as I could and explained the rest of the way. It was simple, almost a straight shot west and there should be a road anyways that would take her there.

Lia took a spare map and started walking out, “I’ll be off then. And no need to see me out,” she remarked as I scrambled to follow her.

I wheezed out a half-chuckle, half-sigh. She was an independent one – strong willed to. Probably even more than me. I envied her, to be able to act so fast and quickly with all that happening to her. I would be paralyzed, have been paralyzed.

There was no use in worrying about it. Though most of my work can begin when Gil arrives, there was still somethings I could do. I would hold off on heavy duty expansion until then as he should be able to answer the mana intake problems of the dungeon and help me map out a proper expansion route.

The slime rammed me again. Rubbing my throbbing leg, I glanced annoyed at the slime. For now, my work would be on the monsters.