There was an agenda for each day: training with the slime, exploring, planning, testing. I was kept busy as there was always something to do. However, on this fine morning where a cloudy overcast made the air cool, I lounged with the slime in front of the dungeon. Today was the reunion between me and Lia and my old friend Gil – my dungeon senses alerted me to their presence the moment the stepped foot in my sphere of influence.

I waited for them in a reclined chair I constructed with some spare mana. A soft campfire also cackled with meats cooking on it. Lia and Gil broke through the brush and I greeted them with a smile, “Glad to see you two after so long! Have a seat,” I bade them towards some extra chairs. “I went hunting and got some meat cooking on the fire. What’s a reunion without a warm welcome?”

Gil, grinning ear-to-ear, strolled up and gave me a bear hug, “It’s been over a year and you greet me with fresh, cooking venison? I couldn’t have asked for a better friend.”

“So, how was your trip?” I asked him.

His face went pale and Lia swopped in clasping his shoulder, “It went well.” Her tone was matter-of-fact and her expression plain. A curious thing when contrasted to Gil who looks like he saw a ghost.

“Lia, I’ll be honest: I didn’t think you would come back.”

She pouted and crossed her arms, “You really thought that? Well, I considered, but I didn’t want to leave behind my savior prince charming, now would I?” Lia tilted her head and winked. My back shuddered; she was like a tiger.

And then my leg flared and pain. The slime rammed my thigh. Again. “Dammit! I yelled in pain, “Slime, can you not do that.”

“T-the hell is that?!” The mage shrieked waving his pointed wooden staff haphazardly at the metal slime, slowly inching back in panic. Poor Gil, he already was white and fright and now he was sweating uncontrollably as if he was suffering a panic attack.

“Woah, calm down there Gil! It’s just Slime, a monster I made in the dungeon.”

“So you weren’t bullshitting about that?” he asked with his voice quivering.

The slime inched up towards Gil, extending its body out to survey the frightened mage. Can I kill him?

“Slime, no, you can’t kill Gil – he’s my friend.”

Gil recoiled, “W-w-wait, you can talk to it?” He did a double take, “W-w-wait, it wants to kill me?!”

“Oh, calm down,” Lia said with a roll of her eyes. One arm crossed, she pointed at the slime with her thumb, “It’s just an adorable little slime. What’s it going to do? Dissolve your shoe?”

The slime retracted itself to its normal form. Can I kill her instead?

Lia let out a singular laugh, “You want to kill me now? I’d like to see you try little guy.”

“Hold up!” Gil yelled, his eyes darting back and forth. “You can talk to the slime too?!”

“Of course,” she replied, “You can’t hear it?”

He yelled at the top of his lungs “OF COURSE NOT! It’s a slime! A monster! M-O-N-S-T-E-R!”

Discrimination, said the slime.

I agreed with the slime, “Yeah, Gil, that’s discrimination. I got all sorts of monsters around. Gotta learn to live with them!’

Gil Fins did a double take, “Wait, there are more?!”

I nodded my head, “We got a zombie around too, and uh, yeah.” I left out the skeletons I had made; they were created from Lia’s village people, so I felt uneasy bringing them up with her around.

“Yeah,” Lia chimed in, “And you put those shadow dog things in my shadow, right?”

I frowned and stroked my chin, “I did, but I think they died?”

“Huh?”

“I think they kind of need mana, or some equivalent, to live,” I explained, “And sitting in your shadow I don’t think they got any, so they kind of died, I guess. At any rate, I don’t sense or feel them anywhere, not in your shadow at the very least.”

“Strange because I think I can still feel something,” she said, “But makes sense. Maybe my imagination is playing tricks on me.”

“Anyways, why don’t we eat for now?” I pointed to the fireplace full of simmering meats. “We can discuss more later.”

Gil was more than happy at the change of pace, gathering as much meat he could carry off the fire. We all sat casually around the fire and ate our fill. Gil caught me up on his life. His troublesome life after graduation surprised me with the debt and failures. But, it made sense since he refused to resort to joining the military. A conflict of morals, he would explain.

I, in turn, told him my story, bringing him up to speed. It was a hard sell telling him I fused with a dungeon, but he had to accept it after I showcased the dark marks etched in my chest, my ability to extend myself into the dungeon, and my control over monsters. After the shock wore off from meeting Slime, his mage-like curiosity twinkled in his eye. Git barraged me with questions, asking how I made it, its diet, abilities, and so on.

The serious discussion began when the meal was finished. Gil asked, “To recap, you have fused with a dungeon and the land you are tied to is sought after by some unknown party?”

“Correct. That is why I need to know if it’s safe to expand the dungeon and essentially increase the size of my activities. There is going to be trouble one way or another, and I’d rather have it on favorable terms.”

“Verily,” quoth the mage. “I have already looked into the mana source you spoke in the letter – the one coming from underground.”

“Already?”

“Don’t say ‘already’ as if it was some difficult task. The answer is simple: under this area are large tracts of mana ley lines flowing beneath. Naturally, there is just a huge amount of mana just floating around underneath. Lucky it ended up like this for you; you don’t have to worry much about endangering the environment by sucking out mana from the ley lines. Also double lucky because it seems no one knew about this area being so rich and plentiful with these mana ley lines.”

The explanation flew over my head. “I’m astounded – how did you figure out so fast what it was?”

Gil giggled to himself, “You should know as well. There isn’t another likely answer anyways. A large source of flowing mana under the earth is almost always going to be some ley line.”

“Then how come I didn’t know this?” I pouted, annoyed by my lack of information.

“You were asleep when we went over that in class.” Gil tried hard to suppress his laughter.

My face fell to the floor, hiding my shame. Lia off to the side was full out laughing at my shortcomings. “All right I guess that answers my question. I can start building up the dungeon without much worry. I’m thinking of giving it a defined circular structure with branches that lead off to strategic areas.”

Gil shrugged, “You’re the boss here, not me. I’m just here to advice and do research – speaking of which can I do some testing on the metal slime over there because I am very curious on its structure and properties.”

Slime jumped behind me, This guy is scary. Truthfully, Gil did looks scary. He had a glint in his eye and a grin that could only be seen as sinister.

“No experimenting on the slime, but you can observe it, I guess.”

Gil deflated, disappointed. “If those are the rules, I understand. But I implore you: I have many research topics I wish to go into since monster biology and habits is a very low information field. I will need specimens to… work with.”

“That’s fine,” I said, “But not the slime. I will set up some rooms for you to work in, but that will take some time.” The mage nodded his head satisfied. I cleared my throat, “Now that I can work on shaping the dungeon, there are still two issues to be dealt with: our lack of manpower and lack of information. Hopefully some of the people I contacted with the letters will listen and come down. It would be a great help. But if they don’t, we will have to work out some sort of recruitment process that won’t attract any unneeded attention. The second point is that we don’t know much about who wants these lands or what their plans are. We need to prepare properly, and to do that we need to know who is plotting, what they are plotting, and why they are plotting. The more we know, the better.”

“I guess I will take care of that?” Said Lia reclining back on a wooden log. She shifted and cross her legs in a manner that made Gil gulp and continued, “Since mage boy will be doing experiments and you can’t leave, that would leave gathering information to me, would it not?”

I scratched my neck and signed, “Yes, that would be correct. I feel like I’m asking a lot of you, so I feel bad about it…”

She doubled down on my guilt, recrossing her legs and folding her arms beneath her breasts, “Shame on you for making a lady work so hard, turning me into your errand girl!” I felt as if I was stabbed in the gut. “First you send a defenseless woman across the entire country to meet strange people and then you ask me to do dangerous recon?” Both Gil and I doubled over as if we had been shanked. Lia purred, “But don’t worry! I’ll do it – not because I’m the only one who can, but because I’ll do anything for the man who saved me…” She ended with a wink and my face went red. She laughed, “Oh, it’s so easy to tease you two! Someone has to bother you two, and me being the oldest one here makes me the perfect candidate!” Lia grinned from ear-to-ear.

Slime came to my rescue, No bothering. We need to get to work. Build. Train. Learn.

I recovered myself, “Slime is right. We have work to do. We might have the luxury that no one knows what’s going on here, but that doesn’t mean we can take it easy.” I clapped my hands and rubbed them together, “Now, shall we get started?”