New Dungeon Rule:

Family Reruns: Only someone the Dungeon considers family can see the Dungeon Rerun Portal located in the Core Room. Entering the Dungeon Rerun Portal will make the family member exit the connected Portal, which has been placed overlapping the Dungeon Portal to the Surface World, and transporting said family member to the 1st Floor of the Dungeon. This will initiate “Rerun Mode” for the family member if said member is an adult.

Rerun Mode has an allowed number of family members in each Floor at 4. As a rerun means not leaving the Dungeon with loot, only one-use items will be offered as loot during Rerun Mode to limit hoarding inside the Dungeon. Rerun Mode ends once the Party has entered the Core Room of the Dungeon.

‘Limit hoarding’? I hadn’t thought of that, but of course they would want to keep any valuables they earn, even if it won’t be of any use as long as they’re in here.

At least EXP gain wasn’t touched. And meat drops count as one-time use, right? They did. That’s good enough for me! The lack of meat has caused a lot of… well not so much complaints… more… debates as some people loudly longs for the taste of meat, while others arguments they had rarely gotten any meat as slaves and they are used to it. If the latter group hears the first long for meat they will reprimand them for not feeling grateful for their freedom and safety. To which the meat lovers will respond by saying they have the right to miss the taste of meat, and that they can do so while still feeling grateful. ‘But your complaining is so disrespectful to [Insert the name of my Dungeon or one of the titles the Tribe calls me by].’

… I’ve clearly heard that discussion at least one too many times…

Let. It. Be. No. More!

It was currently the middle of the night, meaning my Dungeon had no elves in it, and the Tribe had by now become mostly nocturnal. As such, there was no reason for me not to inform the Tribe of the new Dungeon Rule.

Or rather: Chief Nerok. He quite liked acting as my spokesman.

After describing the Rule to him, he asked why the allowed number of family members were 4 instead of the usual 6. Before giving him an actual response, I told him to wait a moment.

I assumed at the time that the number was 4 as that was the lowest it could go and thus the default. I hadn't intended for there to be a maximum after all, that was something the System had added. And given its similarity with the normal 'allowed number of sapients in each Floor', I had assumed the number could easily be changed.

It couldn't.

That didn't mean it couldn't be changed at all! Just that it wasn't as easy to do.

To allow an additional family member to enter Rerun Mode at a time costs 6,790 mana.

The 6,790 was exactly half of the original price of 13,580 mana, which had made the Rule and allowed 4 people to enter Rerun Mode at a time. Yet the 6,790 mana would only allow one additional person. And as the Rule had been expensive in the first place simply by virtue of being a Rule…

I would rather use that mana on filling out my 11th Floor. The Tribe could make do with Parties of 4.

Getting back to Chief Nerok I told him I was too young to handle Rerun Parties of more than 4 per Floor. A white lie, so he didn't have to know I had prioritized my Dungeon.

After nodding understandingly - I was very young considering my immortal species, after all - Nerok set out to gather the Tribe, so he could give them a speech detailing the effects of the new Rule, all the while singing my prayers. And naturally the Tribe responded to the news with cheers. Something different to do, a better way of getting EXP, and a renewable source of meat! It overshadowed the limitations of the Rerun Mode.

At the end of the speech Chief Nerok asked the adults who wanted to do a rerun that day to sort themselves into Parties of 4.

◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇

The first Party to enter Rerun Mode consistent of Begdar, Nalir, Thenac, and Zaktak, alongside their bonded creatures, Shadow the karmic elemental shapeshifter of the Shadow element, Hyper the karmic Lynx, and Emerald the fledgling karmic mimicking elemental dragon of the Forest element. Begdar was still without her own bonded creature, though it didn't seem to bother her.

Just as the Party had entered the Rerun Portal a message from the System appeared:

Error: Departure failed.

… Then the Party exited the entrance Portal in The Great Tree Room.

Huh…? 'Cause they both left my Dungeon and didn't at the same time? I couldn’t think of any other reason for that message.

At least Rerun Mode seemed to be functioning as promised and soon Hyper Thenac's hyper lynx had hit level 20 and evolved into a karmic clairvoyant leopard.

Hyper didn't seem all that happy with her new bigger size, however. While she was still excellent at hiding, it was clear that the smaller amount of places she could fit into annoyed her.

'If I fits, I sits.' But clearly Hyper doesn't fit into as much anymore!

◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇

As a token of trust, the Dungeon of Karma had allowed Sarzina Acacia access to the System descriptions of a large variety of its monsters, including the newest two types of dragons. The Dungeon hadn't included all the different monsters it used, but it was actually pretty close. Only phoenixes, several black animals from the 4th and 5th Floors - which Zina had concluded was most likely a shapeshifting fey called a púca, but as the floating label above their heads referred to them by their current form, she couldn’t be completely sure about that -, its first Boss the kirin, the fledgling karmic hoarder dragons, the fledgling karmic elemental wyrm of the Fire element, the mysteriously well-hidden creature from the room with werewolves - which Zina only knew was there due to its unidentified meat drop -, and, of course, the unicorns.

To only hide the details of 7 out of 44 different kinds of monsters was more generous than Zina had dared to hope for.

Then again… Its second Boss was likely a monster it hadn't showcased before, so the actual number was likely 8 out of 45.

Unless the second Boss Room contains additional monsters like with its first Boss. Then those monsters could potentially be completely unknown as well.

Even then, the number still looked pretty good. Not perfect, due to the lingering mistrust between the dungeon mistress and her Dungeon.

At least I know I can trust the descriptions. The elven noblewoman had had a late-night discussion with Fader Ginkgo where she had used hypothetical wording while avoiding mentioning the word 'Dungeon' to ask if the descriptions of monsters, traps, and puzzles could be faked through the System.

Fortunately, the high priest had concluded that while a false message from the System could be sent, any questions the System answered were truly and honestly from the System. He also made sure to emphasize that this was incredibly hard to do as it needed both a specially-made, high quality tool which could mentally link the sender and receiver as well as a sender with an incredibly high Awareness Score.

So while the requests themselves were false, every other interaction she had had with her god had been real.

During said late-night discussion a lupinekin woman in clean but ragged clothes had served them tea. Before then Zina had been quite unaware of Fader Ginkgo's possession of a beastkin. Not that that was all that surprising. Most people had the opinion that guests should only be able to feel the presence of beastkin through the cleanliness of a house and the quality of its food. Only if a servant couldn't be hired to serve the food would guests actually see the beastkin of a household.

As such, Fader Ginkgo presumably came from a well-off family to have a beastkin in the first place but not so rich as to have a personal assistant as well. It was quite likely his family had a couple of servants as well as several beastkin, just not so many as to be able to part with more than one for the high priest.

As the lupinekin looked healthy, only poorly dressed and tired, Zina had decided to deal with the matter later. She had had too much on her plate.

Later turned out to be around noon the next day. She had gotten a good night's sleep, knowing she could trust in the System's descriptions of the Dungeon's monsters and then awakening up to write them all down in the Dungeon Bestiary.

With the next run through the Dungeon to figure out how to get to the second Boss planned for after dinner, Zina had several hours to kill. She had already spent some time checking up on various different people to see if her input was needed, such as Chalia with the construction workers and the teenagers she had hired to guard the Dungeon Portal after the company left. But no one seemed to really need her today.

And so, it was off to accuse the high priest of going against his god!

I have to be really careful in how I word this…

◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇

"We need to talk about beastkin, Fader Ginkgo." Mistress Acacia stated after a suitable amount of small talk.

"What about them?" Talking to the elven noblewoman had proven quite interesting and insightful. Her questions never had an obvious answer and Travaran had ended most of their conversations feeling like he had learned something profound. As such, he was quite excited to hear what she had to say.

Mistress Acacia seemed to ponder her wording for a bit before beginning. Her Enchanted Contract must be involved.

"As you know… as a dungeon mistress I get to ask the System questions and get an answer as long as it's related to my Dungeon." She began and Travaran hummed encouragingly. "The Dungeon of Karma was originally found by a group of escaped beastkin and during my questioning I…"

She stopped and shook her head. "No… Let's back up a bit." Looking directly into the high priest's eye she asked for confirmation. "We concluded that this Dungeon has been particularly blessed by the holy System, correct?"

"That we did." Travaran replied, curious as to where this conversation was leading.

"Can we…" She began to falter a bit. "Can we then conclude that the wants of the Dungeon are the wants of the System?"

"What?" Travaran asked, confused. "Dungeons don't have wants. Or at the very least they have no way of communicating them. Dungeons are created for sinners to be punished and forgiven for their sins after their death…" Travaran had been fully prepared to keep going but something about his last sentence had made Acacia open then suddenly close her mouth again.

... It had seemed like she had wanted to interrupt him to correct him on what he had said.

"You don't believe that is their purpose?" Travaran questioned, curiously. For what other purpose could they have?

But mistress Acacia couldn't find any words to answer him with. Something that clearly frustrated her.

"You know that is not their purpose." Travaran exclaimed, wide-eyed as he watched her reaction to his statement.

"It's not that that's not a part of what Dungeons do, I don't know about that, it's just not their main mission!" Mistress Acacia blurted out. At the end of which she flinched hard.

She must have gotten dangerously close to going against whatever Enchanted Contract she's under.

…

Punishing sinners isn't a Dungeon's main mission?

"Is their main mission leveling up the living then?"

Acacia shook her head lightly yet replied: "It's… a part of it…"

Travaran blinked rapidly in confusion. What else could be a Dungeon's purpose?

Killing?! No! The System wouldn't create both people and Dungeons only to give Dungeons a purpose in killing people! It wouldn't make sense!

But the thought was there and so Travaran had to ask, so he could get it denied. "Is their purpose killing people?"

Mistress Acacia swallowed but didn't even attempt to answer.

Which, in itself, told him the answer.

Just as Fader Travaran was sinking into the despair of hearing his god wished him and everyone else dead - for he had no reason to doubt her words, when she had had to work so hard to get around her Enchanted Contract - Acacia began talking again.

"Remember the secondary trigger?"

Before Travaran could recall the exact details around the secondary trap trigger, he got distracted by the noblewoman suddenly straightening her back as she stared straight forward.

It kinda looked like she had gotten a level up System message. Or maybe a request from the Dungeon? Timing wise that seems more likely.

Having read whatever message the System had given her, the dungeon mistress began to smile and relax. And after another couple of seconds she began speaking again.

"You didn't hear this from me, okay?"

Travaran simply nodded, too overwhelmed to speak.

"The System gave Dungeons the primary mission of killing sinners, the living ones that is, and level up the rest." There were no longer any odd pauses as she considered her wording. No hesitation of any kind in fact.

The System message must have included some form of ease of her Enchanted Contract.

I didn't know that could happen without having both people in the same room…

"Specifically, Dungeons are meant to kill the greedy by luring them in with promises of loot, as well as the power hungry through the promise of fast level up. Of course, good people do get killed as well. To do so is just not their purpose."

Regardless, that was a big relief for Travaran, who had already thought the worst.

The System is with me, and has always been with me.

Even in my moments of doubt!