“I’ve made my home in a cave up ahead,” I told Roland who lagged behind me. He kept an eye on the goblins who tagged behind.

“Are you sure it’s alright?”

I shrugged, “It’s not as bad as it sounds. You’ll see what I mean.”

“No,” he said, “I meant the goblins.”

“Not sure, honestly.” I took a look back at them and they looked docile enough with their blank faces. “When I used my powers to subjugate them, I kind of forcefully invaded them and their minds. I don’t know if they are supposed to be like this or I just… broke them.”

“I’ll add mind breaking goblins to the list of questions.” Roland pulled out a folded piece of paper and asked, “But first, can you explain this letter? It told me pretty much nothing.” I didn’t have to look at Roland to know he was annoyed with a side of angry.

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t put too much information in it in case someone got their hands on it.”

Roland sighed, “I’m sure a letter being sent from someone declared dead by the kingdom wouldn’t go over so well.”

“The cave is right up ahead in a clearing,” I said. “We’ll sit down and I’ll tell you the full story: why I’m here and what happened.”

We broke through the trees and into the clearing. The two golems and three skeletons lined up – and Alexander sat tall on a horse?

“Welcome, Master. What a splendid victory,” it said beholding the line of goblins behind them.

“T-thanks,” I replied, “but where did you get that horse from?” It wasn’t even a normal horse – maybe at one point it was. It was dead and bones with the same ghoulish energy locking it together as the death knight. Some of its flesh and tendons remained but it was still a ghastly sight with the cold greenish-blue energy misting off of it.

Alexander proudly answered, “I acquired this steed out in the fields. I have christened it Malus.”

“Wait a second,” Roland interrupted, “That was my horse!”

“Not anymore.” Alexander looked at him coldly.

Roland threw up his arms, “Give me a break. The horse’s name is Autumn and its mine.”

“Not. Any. More. And its name is Malus now.” Alexander patted its neck and it neighed in response.

Roland threw a glance at me and I could only helplessly shrug. I got in between the two, “We can, uh, work this out later. I need to talk to Roland first alone and catch up. Alexander could you take care of the goblins for me? Check them out and see what they are made of?”

“As you wish,” the death knight responded.

“This way,” I said to Roland leading him into the cave. The entrance still wasn’t glamorous, just a bunch of rock and stone and I could tell he was skeptical. I led him further down the levels and cobbled stone pathways and walls started cropping up (I had been partitioning portions of my mana to slowly convert everything from dirt to stone) at around the third floor.

“Not as bad as it sounds,” Roland whistled as we came down into the fifth floor. It was my personal floor so I had put a lot of time into making it look nice. A foyer, columns, rooms. A homely feel with a dash of epic.

“This is my floor in the entire place,” I explained to him. “I’ve kept this portion kind of an entrance – my room and study and other stuff is behind the doors at the end here.”

We went through my room and he said, “Hector, how did you get all this furniture here? Its well-made as well…”

“I made it,” I nonchalantly said taking him into one of the side rooms. It was a conference room. Small it was but it would be sufficient as a place to sit with a little privacy. Slime was nowhere to be found; I thought she was following me on our way back, but I didn’t notice her anywhere. I hope she won’t interfere as I wanted to talk to Roland alone.

I picked a chair and sat down. Roland did the same and I started my story, “My company was moving north towards the border. Then we ran into this place. It was a dungeon. Fresh too. You could tell by the miasma amount and the monsters’ power. My commanding officer made the call to come in and take care of it.”

“You all went missing,” Roland said. “What happened?”

I put one elbow on the table and held up my head, “They all died. When we reached the bottom, I was the last one. It was down here, on this floor, I found it. A dungeon core. It wasn’t in some monster or fused with anything. A small, round black orb…”

“And? Did you destroy it?”

“No. I went up and touched the thing like a cat and a ball of yarn.”

Roland smacked his head with a hand, “You idiot.”

“Yeah… I didn’t think it through – I was too curious. When I touched the dungeon core I fused with it. I became a dungeon core. I became a dungeon.” I looked at my hands, “I can shape the dungeon as I see fit. I can make monsters, empower them, and even take them over.” I closed my hands and began rubbing my fingers against each other. “I can do amazing things now. Roland. And it scares me. I don’t understand it. I don’t understand myself. What am I? What have I become?” I stood up and looked at Roland. “What am I? Am I human?”

Roland sat there silently. His face was an emotionless stone as it always was when he didn’t know what to say.

I took off my shirt and displayed the dark marking that radiated out from my body. I activated my dungeon powers and filled them with energy. Miasma seeped out from them and into the room. It poisoned the air, made it heavy. I asked again, “Am I a monster?”

“You’re Hector,” he said, “And that’s all that matters.” Roland shook his head with a pained expression. “I’m so sorry. I should have come out sooner. I should have looked for you. I didn’t know you would be in such pain and loneliness…”

I shook my head. “I wasn’t entirely alone. I had Slime by my side and slowly other monsters and people cropped up here. But I was lost – and still am. I tried not to think about it. Made some plans, kicked around ideas, kept myself busy. I was thinking about making something out of this place, you know? I can’t leave this area anyways, might as well make it a nice home I thought. But I don’t know can I, should I. What else is there for me? I don’t know…”

“Hector,” he said, “You need to believe in yourself more. Look, no one can tell you what to do. Not me. Not your family. Not your monsters. There are some things you have to figure out yourself. We can only give you our opinion and advice.”

I dropped my shoulders, looked my head at Roland, and shook my head suppressing a chuckle. “Never knew you could speak like that.”

“Hey, don’t make fun of me! I was trained to be a solider – not a speaker.”

“No, but really, thanks,” I said taking a seat. “I don’t know if it will help, but I’ll try. It’s just everything feels so different, so complicated. Hard for me to figure out anything since my mind is all over the place.” I wondered how much of my confusion and self-doubt was a product of fusing with the dungeon core. They were always known to exhibit self-protective characteristics – that’s why they often fuse with a strong monster if they get a chance and expand and develop. Are those feelings of wanting to make this place a home, something more, my own genuine ambitions or desires, or was it a product of the dungeon core’s innate desire to preserve itself seeping into me?

“Whatever the case is, you aren’t alone. Looks like you got some… good companions here. You got me now. And we got some others on the way – Marina is coming for sure.”

“Marina is coming?” I rubbed my hands together, “Oh boy, looks like the whole squad is going to be back together at this rate.”

“We couldn’t exactly leave you out here once we heard that you were actually alive. Part of our job description, you know,” he said with a laugh.

“At any rate,” I said wiping the smile on my face, “There’s a bit more to the story. After I had fused, I made Slime. Right now, Slime is taking the form of a girl, not sure why, but it, or she now I guess, started as a normal slime that fed on metal. It evolved into a metal slime and gradually grew stronger. A group of adventures came by mapping and searching the area. Things got dicey and I ended up killing them, turning one of them into a zombie as an experiment. Later on, a group of soldiers came by. Not for me, but for an elf village that was north of the river. They killed all of them except one girl, Lia, who I saved. She’s with me now and is trying to gather more information on what happened.

Roland said, “No, I heard of this actually. They were accused of attacking travelers and robbing merchants that passed by. Your death was blamed on them.”

“That’s what we understand so far. However, I don’t think that’s the full truth. Of course, relations between humans and other races have been declining and recent decades. There’s tension. The land here is good, fertile, and on the ocean. Between the adventures scouting this area and the soldiers being very thorough in clearing out the area, I suspected someone is targeting this land. It’s going lots of minerals and resources, but it can’t be used if elves were on it.”

“Makes sense,” Roland said leaning back in his chair. “So, this Lia person is out trying to figure out who is behind this and what is going on.”

“Exactly so. I was building up my strength with the goblins for example if we confirmed that someone was after this land – that would mean them running into me is an inevitable as I can’t leave. If there was no one and this land isn’t going to be taken anytime soon, then I wouldn’t be too sure on what to do.”

Roland suggested, “I think you should keep trying to build up regardless. If you really are a dungeon core now and stuck on this land, your existence being discovered seems more like a when rather than an if. No matter who or what you are. I don’t think there would be a shortage of people wanting to get rid of you quickly and quietly if you turned up alive, especially as a dungeon.”

The best option would be to keep building to protect myself, I thought. “What if we continue to build up and then purposefully reveal myself to the kingdom?

“Hmm…” Roland scratched his chin. “If we were strong enough, that would stop them from getting rid of you quickly. Going public and releasing your existence would also make things very complicated politically I would think. If there was any motion to get rid of you, it would be far from quiet and quickly at that point. And I think there is zero chance that they would leave you alone – not unless you grew strong enough to rival a duke.”

It was a good sounding plan; it afforded us time in many cases, a valuable commodity. However, would the kingdom or its nobles and people really accept my existence at face value? “What we need is legitimacy,” I decided. “If I do expand and announce myself, would the people think if they saw me with hordes of the very monsters that poison the land, burn their fields, and kill the people? They would fancy me a demon, a monster.”

“So you want to diversify this location with people and other races. If there are other beings living here, it would support the idea that you are indeed peaceful and in control. It’s harder to come up with an excuse to attack a settlement of people than it is a den of monsters.”

I smirked, “Roland, you always know what I’m thinking.”

“Please,” he said, “We’ve been friends for ages. Of course I know what you’re thinking. Again, it’s also kind of part of the job description.”

“So how do you think we should go about that then?”

“I think it’s simple,” Roland remarked, “We target slavery.”

I nodded my head, “Ah, of course. That makes sense.” There used to be a movement to outlaw slavery several kings ago. They chipped away at it over time by limiting and restricting it. Citizens or their families can only be made slaves for high crimes. Slavery for debts was outlawed. Only citizens of another nation are allowed to be sold. It was laws like this that sought to slowly constrict the practice. However, the movement lost traction due to war and economic depression and the movement’s leaders dying. “We can target the illegal slave trade. Even if we are caught, no one can wrong us for targeting the black market.”

“Verily. We liberate people whose freedom was wrongly snatched and offer them land and a home.”

“Sounds like a good plan,” I said, “But we need to figure out a whole lot before we can even try it.” Targeting the black market for slavery was never easy. They had force and played dirty of course. Their networks are hidden and their reach is long. Raiding any of the organizations in it would require strong fighters, solid logistics, and loads of intelligence.

Roland got up from his chair, “Our work is cut out for us. How about you give me a proper tour and introduce me to everyone? I thought I saw Gil around here.”

“Sounds good,” I said getting up.

As we were leaving Roland whispered in my ear, “And about that horse… what can we do about that?”

“Sorry man, I don’t think Alexander will give it up that easily.”

“Bah,” Roland made a face and waved his hand. “He can keep the damn horse then. The death knight killed it anyways.” He looked at me and we both broke out laughing.

It was good to have an old friend around.