Paul took of his helmet after he sat on his bed, where he was lying to play DKW. He was surprised to see that he wasn’t really minding all the gore he had seen on the game until now.

“I’m somewhat weak against blood… but how I’m not flinching in the game?” He asked himself as he stretched his body before placing his glasses on.

“Luckily the game will progress even when I’m not playing it. That was a nice touch the developers gave the game.” Paul said as he walked to his computer to read. “Though no major changes will be made.” He said as he passed through some of his open browser tabs but no new updates to any of the stories he read so he went to one tab and entered the chat he had entered for almost a week now and there he saw his friends talking about random things.

Paul smiled as he started talking with the said friends, though most of them he had never met and would probably never meet, he still liked to talk with them.

It was a Den of Madness but that was okay because the place was where he could be himself the most, play some games with the people there where they would all have fun while joking around, most of the time.

[Hey, War, you're alive?] Paul asked after some time.

[War is always here] The person with the nickname War said.

[Are you playing DKW?] Paul asked because War, Warhawx, or Richard, which was his real name, was his friend in real life and both were studying together for some time already.

[What are you asking, Captain Obvious… Who do you take me for?] Richard typed back and Paul couldn't help but smile.

[Good, so you picked the ‘golem’ race you wanted?] He asked.

[Yes, my dungeon is all rocky!] War answered with a stupid pun of his.

[I see… anyway I can pretty much guess that your nickname is something similar to all the others you put on your main character.] Paul said ignoring most of the other talks.

[Pretty much it is the same as ever.] Richard said.

The two continued to talk for a while but soon changed to talk about other things while leaving the game aside for a while.

“Paul! Father is calling you!” Someone shouted from the at Paul’s bedroom, it was his sister, Patricia and nothing good happened when his father called for him.

“Coming!” Paul answered before he stood up and walked down the stairs where his father was. “I'm here, father.” Paul said as he looked at an older version of himself.

“Don't just stay holed up in your bedroom all day, walk around for a bit as well.” His father, which shared the same name as himself said looking at him. “The life is not only inside your four walls.” He added.

“I know, father. I leave everyday, it is just that you don't see, since you're always out.” Paul said looking at his father's eyes. “You go to your farm and just disappear, when we go there you don't stay with us and we can't do anything… so it does feel like I never get out.” He said still a feeling a bit sad that his father never accepted or tried to understand that his hobby was playing games.

“I can do that, I'm already old.” He said as he wiped the floor. “And you can do what I'm doing when you see that the floor is dirty.” He said throwing some house chores to his son.

“I do some chores, ask my sister to do some as well, you always say to me but never say to her… except to do the dishes since it is for us to take turns.” Paul said. “I'm going if this is all.” He added as he turned away just to walk at his bedroom where he locked the door before breathing out.

He and his father always had a bone between them and it looked like it was just getting worse as he grew up.

“I should shave.” Paul said as he passed his hand on his face just to feel the small beard that was growing. He grabbed his electric shaver and with a change of clothes on his hands he walked to the bedroom he shared with his sister.

As he left his room Paul knocked at the of the room across his before shouting. “Can I use the bathroom?” He asked.

“I'm not using it!” His sister answered and Paul nodded before he closed the door so he could shave in peace before he took a bath to get all the loose hair, that fell on his body as he shaved, off.

***

Paul logged in just to appear on the white room he used to create his character and before him Isis stood with her normal attire.

“You sure came back quickly.” She said staring at Paul.

“Little things to do on the other side and you just told that the maintenance would take only a few hours.” He answered while shrugging.

“I see… so you had nothing to do and once you could you logged in as fast as possible.” Isis said nodding her head.

“Something like that, anyway, did something major change, except for the kill number?” Paul said as he stopped near the portal.

“Nothing really changed, only the kill number that was reset… though I had to do some debugging because of some people that were trying to break the game code, so nothing out of normal.” She answered while her long hair changed into a bob cut. “Though I did want to have more things to do while I wait…” She said.

“Like you’re not having fun messing with the ‘chosen’ players…” Paul said and the AI couldn’t help but smile. “I’ll not say for you to stop since I know you will not, but tune down the number of appearances… it is a bit troubling.” He sighed as he watched the girl turn around.

“Nah, that wouldn’t be fun. But I might have to tune it down for a while… I’m getting a few ‘hackers’ trying to get into the game so I’ll not be appearing too much, until I deal with them.” She said seriously. “Have fun with the game.”

“That is my idea.” Paul said as he finally stepped inside the portal.

***

Opening his eyes Kai looked around and seeing that it was still night outside so he walked around his dungeon and seeing that no noise was coming from the outside and the guards were still on their places he walked back to the back room to sleep, even if he didn’t feel the need of it he couldn’t do much while it was still night and he had to get some sleep since he was only sleeping inside the game since it was released.

He calmed himself as he thought what he would do on the next day with the points he had left and maybe try to gather some more resources for his dungeon while at it.

***

“I don’t think it is a good idea.” Roran said looking at his daughter, who was sitting on the chair before him. “He is dangerous and no one knows what he will do with you.” He said but the girl just shook her head.

“Mister Wolf is not bad… you saw that too.” Laura said with a bright smile. “He is scary but he helped me, so I want to give something to him too.” She said a bit timidly.

“I know you want to thank him… but he almost killed daddy, you know?” Roran said firmly. “He can easily attack this town if he wants to.” He added but his daughter only shook her head at his words.

“Mister Wolf is a good wolf, he is not mean like the ones daddy hunts… and daddy said that Mister Wolf only attacked after Big Gust released his arrow.” She said looking at Roran, who had a strange face. “And he did let daddy go, together with Big Gust… and daddy, you said he was hurt. I want to see if he is not feeling pain.” Laura added a bit sad as water gathered at the corners of her eyes.

“Then… Daddy will go with you, but you have to promise that you will not let Mister Wolf get mad with you.” Roran said as he looked at his daughter’s eyes.

“Yup! I’ll not make Mister Wolf irritated!” She said giving her father a bright smile. “Daddy, I love you!” She said before running to her bedroom.

“You’re too easy on her.” His wife said looking from the kitchen’s door.

“You know I’m weak against that face of hers, but now all the village already know about it and it will be good to know where the Wolf’s lair is.” Roran said to his wife. “It will make the hunt easy this way.” He added and the woman sighed.

“She will get really depressed if the wolf is killed… but that was bound to happen sooner or later.” She said walking over to her husband’s side. “Just don’t end up being eaten by the beast… when you said you saw him and his appearance… I wouldn’t be able to bear losing you.” She hugged Roran, who hugged her back.

“I know… I was lucky that he picked her scent from her ribbon.” He smiled as he remembered the look on the wolf’s face. “But man, that sure was scary.” He said and his wife chuckled at his true colors.

“Let’s sleep, it looks like you will have a long day before you.” She said and the two walked to their own bedroom.

***

‘Status.’ Kai thought as soon as he woke up.

Name: Kai

Race: Canine Dungeon

Boss Level

05

Minion Level Range

01-05

Dungeon Points

374

Rooms

02

Minions Number

10-18

Deaths: 0

Kills: 0

Minions Races

Wild Dogs

Wolf

Grey Wolf

Dungeon Skills (Hide/Show)

Boss Skills (Hide/Show)

‘So I did level up after yesterday’s fight…’ He thought as he looked at his level. “And the number of minions did not increase… maybe it meant that the female wolf wasn’t pregnant?’ He thought but he wasn’t sure why it didn’t grow so he left it for now.

With enough food Kai knew that his numbers would soon grow more, that was the real reason he wanted to expand his dungeon. More prey meant more minions for him and it meant that he himself could grow stronger.

“But it is unreal… the other players are just not doing anything… I haven’t even seen a single ‘boss’ around.” Kai said as he looked outside from his dungeon as he waited for the sunrise, which was slowly approaching as the sky turned brighter every passing second. “What should I do with these points of mine…” He asked himself before turning to the wild dogs and wolves, which were coming out from the den after the night have finally passed.

Their constitution was better than when he started, where they only hunted to survive while now they could eat enough to stuff themselves but always paying attention to not overeat.

Seeing that he couldn’t not feel proud of himself as he saw his minions grow in strength and number, even if it was just on how energy they had, it was enough to make a difference on their body as they had more energy to use.

Kai observed his minions and had an idea of how he could make them stronger without the need of making them evolve.

“I can give them stronger muscles and bones…” He said as he watched as the group walked around the dungeon doing the tasks he had given them.

Kai opened the menu and walked over the traits he could buy and stopped at the two he wanted. They both costed 100 DP each, making he smile wryly at the points it would drain on his own points but he bought both anyway.

“Wait! It didn’t consume 200 DP!” He said as he looked at his points once more and it had drained 25 DP more. “What with this?!” Kai said as he looked at the window but stop rumbling as he saw that some of the changes had bigger values now than before. “So… all the traits I could buy now have some DP added on them… great!” He said and soon all the minions on his dungeon started howling and he too howled.

He felt his muscles and bones grow denser by a small amount. It would make even easier for him to hunt. “With this soon no one will be able to stop me.” Kai said before releasing a loud howl making all his dungeon shake.

The smaller minions soon answered with a howl of them own, but this was just the answer of their excitement from their boss’ howl.

Kai looked around and seeing that all the eyes were on him he smiled. “Wild Dogs, go back to digging! Wolves and Grey Wolves… we’re going out with full force.” He couldn’t even think about protection as he walked outside his dungeon with the six wolves following behind him. They all ready to hunt like Kai, who walked on the front sniffing the ground and air as he lead the way towards the forest where he knew he would be able to test his new strength.

Kai soon picked the smell of the big lizards and rushed towards the creatures just to be surprised at how fast he was, even while dodging the trees of the forest.

‘I can’t wait to have a straight path without obstacles to see how fast I can actually run.’ He thought. ‘This is so amusing! I can’t stop of thinking how fun this is!’ He said just to stop as he had lost the track because he was too excited with his new speed.

Cursing he bent down but soon heard a growl from one of the wolves before he darted in that direction and soon the prey were found.

Kai stopped as he watched, from the shadows, the Lizards, which numbered five start to walk around something. They weren’t attacking but weren’t running away either.

‘This is weird…’ He thought as he slowly got closer to the lizards. His wolves were following him but they had already covered a bit more of ground and were only waiting the time to attack.

Seeing that the Lizards had not noticed him or his wolves he growled and jumped towards the closest lizard with enough force to leave paw prints on the ground.

The hit was clean as the wolves startled the Lizards which weren’t able to evade in time as their death arrived with its jaws biting off their necks.

“Too strong.” Kai said as he landed just to hear a loud sound coming from under his paws.

CRASH

“Hum?” He asked as he looked down and what he found made him want to scratch his head with his hands… or claws. “A doll?” He said sniffing the now broken doll, which soon vanished. “Oh… a dungeon minion.” He said startled.

Without waiting for the dungeon boss to appear he quickly made his shadow flicker and suck the dead bodies of his hunt before giving the retread order for the wolves.

‘So there is a dungeon nearby.’ He said as a smile creeped on his face. ‘Might need to pay some visit to it later.’ He thought as he run back to his dungeon.

***

“Eh?!” Terra said as she looked around her dungeon. “No way… did I just lost one of my dolls?” She said opening her menu and finding that she did had lost a doll.

She would have cried, if her body allowed to, because she now was able to get some DP, even if she relied heavily on the DP Boxes until now, she still used some of her minions to hunt and to look for some branches.

“What do I do now?” Terra asked herself as she looked around. “If it was found… I will get attacked! I need to protect this place!” She said as she hurried to the center of her third room, which was all excavated by the hands of her minions and herself.

She wanted to make traps but her resources would never allow her to do such a thing because she was saving DP for a future use.

“There is no way… I would need to upgrade some of my dolls.” Terra said as she opened her menu and scrolling down to the race upgrade she could get and used 100 DP from her small amount to buy Enchanted Wood Doll before she selected two Wood Puppets and herself.

The doll’s appearance didn’t change much, but all over their body some small runes and glowing magical veins between the runes, could be seen and they glowed once every few seconds.

“With this I’ll not be easily beaten.” She said with a bit of hope as she readied herself and her minions with stones and branches. She readied herself before her dungeon before making some of her dolls to make some hills of dirt before the entrance. “I won’t lose without a fight!” Terra said as she watched the outside.

***

As Kai run back to his dungeon he smelled the same smell once again and growled at his wolves making them stop.

“She is here… again…” He said as he stopped at the edge of the forest, watching the inside of his dungeon. “And there is another smell with her… one from before… and another thing too.” He added as he waited.

“Daddy, I can’t see him here.” The girl’s voice said from inside the cave.

“He probably left to hunt…” A man’s voice came from inside as well.

Seeing that they had actually dared to enter his domain he could do nothing but sigh. “You are not to kill them… they are not dangerous, yet.” Kai said as he walked in.

“Mister Wolf!” The kid soon shouted as he entered the second room, where he saw the girl, her father and a horse, which was completely surrounded by the wild dogs, which were being chased away by the man.

“Kid… you came once again.” Kai said sighing. “You, go back to work!” He roared to the wild dogs, which stopped trying to eat the horse before they run to the left cave opening where they were making the third room.

“Mister Wolf, I heard you were hurt.” The girl said showing some worried expression on her face. “So I and mommy made this and I brought a brush to brush your fur.” She side with a smile as she showed him a small basket.

“There was no need… and you… what are you doing here, with that thing?” Kai said looking at her father, which was trying to calm the horse. “CALM DOWN, STUPID BEAST!” He shouted looking at the horse who froze as it looked at Kai’s eyes.

“I-I came to see if it wasn’t dangerous for my kid…” The man said after breathing in.

“Daddy… Mister Wolf is a good guy. It is not dangerous here, see?” The girl said getting closer to Kai.

“Kid… don’t come here anymore.” Kai said looking at the girl. “I’m not a good guy as you say.” He said looking at the girl’s eyes, which had no fear in them.

“But you didn’t eat us as we entered you home… and even before, you protected me, so if Mister Wolf is not a good guy, no one is.” She said amusing Kai with her strange logic.

“Are you sure you can come here?” Kai asked totally ignoring the man, who was looking at him with fear. “You know I can easily eat you whole and no one will be able to do a thing, right?” He continued to press as he opened his mouth just to stop a few inches from the girl.

“I know… I have seen Mister Wolf kill some rabbits before… but you’re not doing things to kill me, right?” She said without flinching.

“...” Kai took a step back before a smile appeared on his lips. “You’re a weird girl.” He said walking to her father. “Your girl sure has a weird head on her shoulders.” He said to the man who quickly let go of the horse reins as he bowed just to touch his head to the ground.

Seeing the opportunity the horse ran away, and Kai didn’t even look at it as it disappeared in the forest.

“It looks like that someone has a good head.” Kai said finding it fun how the horse ran away as soon it saw it was ‘free’. “So… tell me. What do you want, man?” He said looking at the man’s shoulder.

“I-I came to protect my daughter of any danger.” He said not daring to look up as he could feel Kai’s breath on his back.

“I see… kid, go home and don’t come back, mainly with that red hood of yours.” Kai said as he sat down on the back wall.

“Eh? But these are good… and can I brush you? Mommy and I baked some cookies…” She said showing the basket once more.

“Do whatever you want.” Kai said turning his head to the wolves, which were looking at the man and kid. “You, protect the dungeon, don’t let anyone pass.” He said as the girl placed the basket on the floor before him.

Kai lied down before he started eating the cookies while the girl happily brushed his fur, though with some difficulty as he was bigger than before and would continue to grow.

‘The cookies are good.’ He thought as he ate them pleased with the taste while enjoying the brush on his fur.