In her office on the guild building’s third floor, Cherise set aside some completed paperwork and took her timepiece out of her pocket.

Three minutes until it’s time to make my rounds, she noted.

With the extra time, the demon sat straight in her chair, closed her eyes, and took slow, deep breaths. Her internal rhythm told her when time was up and her timepiece confirmed it.

The first step of her rounds was the top floor. She knocked on each office door in turn, including her brother’s.

“Good afternoon, dungeon researcher Irenthi. I’m here to request your status report.”

Cherise worried that if she wasn’t careful, the professional relationship between her and her brother would slip into something too casual for work.

Ulbert didn’t seem to mind, though. He looked up from his writing with a smile and greeted her back with the same decorum.

“Good afternoon, junior inspector Irenthi. I visited Archimedes last night and managed to earn his trust. Currently, I’m compiling a report for the Institute headquarters. After this, I intend to advocate on his behalf for the treatment being discussed downstairs.”

Cherise blinked and held back from biting her lip. “Thank you for the report, sir.” She turned on her heels to leave, but Ulbert called out behind her.

“Junior inspector, you don’t have to accept reports one-sidedly: you’re allowed a moment of cross-examination.”

Before turning around again, she shut her eyes and took a few deep breaths. “In your opinion, researcher Irenthi, how did you earn the dungeon’s trust in a single night?”

“The general technique is to be attentive and amiable, and arriving with gifts never hurts when dealing with dungeons.” Ulbert deliberately gave his sister a more thorough explanation than necessary, “Once you know that a dungeon has a preferred way of referring to itself, it’s best to follow suit, so I always called Archimedes by his name. Given his personal history, I also think my peculiarity helped me appear non-threatening.”

He smiled gently, “My duties include ambassadorial work, so don’t hesitate to come to me if you require advice or have any intentions of repairing the impression Archimedes has of you.”

Cherise’s back straightened hopefully. “Then, by any chance, could I accompany you the next time you visit him?”

“Absolutely not.” Ulbert was still smiling, but his eyes were strict. “You aren’t to go anywhere near him until he invites you of his own volition. Any and all dungeon ambassadorial duties that usually would be delegated to you will fall to me under section 4 of the mishandling clause.”

Cherise lowered her head. Despite her failures in application, she did know all the laws and standard procedures for interacting with dungeons. Section 4 of mishandling pertained to causing emotional distress to a dungeon. It existed to remove abusers—intentional or otherwise—from positions of power over them.

It was her own inexperience to blame that she hadn’t been able to notice Archimedes was an anomalous dungeon who achieved sentience early. Thus, it was her own mishandling to interact with him using non-sentient dungeon procedures. Despite it feeling unfair, legally the blame was on her; emotionally, the dungeon blamed her, so she would eventually lose her position if she didn’t mend their relationship somehow.

“What would you advise, then?”

“As your brother, I want to help you make up for your mistake,” Ulbert smiled sadly, “and as a DRI employee, I want to repair your relationship with Archimedes, who is still emotionally developing, to demonstrate to him that people aren’t one-dimensional: they can change. But as a researcher, I advise you to accept a demotion and allow a more experienced inspector to take the helm here.”

He gestured calmly with his hands, “I’m not saying you have to transfer again—that may even be counterproductive depending on Archimedes’ feelings. You could learn a lot from working this post, but it’s just too much for you to be in charge of, junior inspector Irenthi.

“I will of course be including my assessment of the situation in my report to headquarters.”

Cherise felt her eyes watering and shut them tight, taking breaths that were too short and fast to help her calm down. But her chest didn’t seem to be responding to her commands at the moment.

“Understood, sir. I’ll be taking a brief recess before continuing my rounds, in light of this information.”

“That’s fine,” he said, standing up from his desk. “Why don’t you take it here? There’s a bed to rest on and everything.”

Because dungeon researchers usually visited the dungeons at night, when they were closed to the public, they sometimes needed to take naps during the day or completely adjust their sleep schedule to avoid exhaustion. So Ulbert’s office had a twin-sized bed tucked in the corner, soundproofing, and blackout curtains on the windows.

Cherise’s mouth was shut tight, but she kept glancing at the exit. Ulbert shut the door gently and wrapped his arms around his baby sister.

“Our emphasis on perfection isn’t to beat you down when you make a mistake,” he said softly. “It’s to equip you with everything you need to succeed. You just didn’t have sufficient preparation for an assignment like this.”

“B-but I worked so hard to get this promotion,” she sobbed, clinging to his chest. “How many centuries will it take for another chance to come? They won’t pick me again after this!”

“What does your position matter?” Ulbert chuckled, patting her platinum hair. “It’s more important to do well in whatever position you’re given.”

Cherise cried for a few more minutes before taking a brief nap in Ulbert’s office. When she woke up, she was able to get herself together somehow. Thanks to a bit of ice magic, she reduced the swelling of her eyes to where it wasn’t noticeable.

“By the way, how are you going to perform all of my ambassadorial duties? There are spells among them.”

“Sister… how do you think I’ve managed to do my job until now?”

She blinked. “I don’t know. I figured you had help?”

“You’re not wrong,” he chuckled. “Cherise, the dungeons I interact with barely need our help for that sort of thing. All I have to do is explain the spell formulas to them and they can take care of the rest themselves.”

Ulbert opened the door for her. “Anyway, you still have more rounds to do. Please let me know if the situation downstairs has improved at all.”

She nodded and stepped outside, the door closing softly behind her.

The second floor, as it had been for days, was an active hurricane site.

The number of professors and doctors examining the dungeon’s treatment plan had swelled as word about the subject matter spread.

On the one hand, there was a politically-minded faction that wanted to find even a single error to reject the plan by. Because if dungeons were willing and able to perform surgical procedures on outsiders, it would directly disrupt their careers. There was also a faction of “pure scholars” who were simply excited to learn about a novel treatment plan and compare the brain scans a dungeon could provide to what their medical equipment could achieve. But—and this was the reason there were mathematicians here instead of just medical professors—the crux of the issue was that nobody had been able to identify any errors in the scans or calculations given, but those scans and calculations were too complex for anyone to fully comprehend them and say for sure that they were correct.

Thus, the factions continued fighting without making any progress one way or another.

“Where did page two-thousand seventy-four go?!” A retired surgeon shouted, holding pages two-thousand seventy-three and two-thousand seventy-five in either hand.

A student of his quickly found the missing page under a desk, a boot print stamped clearly on its face. His mentor saw that and had to close his eyes and take several deep breaths.

Across the room, a math professor who had taken leave just to study the dungeon’s formulas called out. “Does anyone have a proof of the formula used on page thirteen fifty-seven?”

“No!” Someone else shouted.

“… Would anyone mind going to request one?”

“NO!” Half the room threatened to chase the professor out for suggesting it.

Cherise understood that raising her voice in this situation would be pointless, so instead she cast a quick silence over the room with magic. When she dispelled it, the silence remained, and all the researchers were staring at her impatiently.

“I think I can gather the situation from what I’ve seen here, but I’ll ask anyway. Has there been any progress?”

“Well, inspector, in my opinion, this is a death trap,” said a beastfolk with gray hair and crows feet by his eyes. “We haven’t found any problems in the medical strategies proposed, but why bring both the child and his mind stone into the dungeon? It isn’t written here explicitly, but it’s obvious that he plans to kill the child after altering his mind stone, so that the effects will be applied immediately during resurrection—a procedure that will be free, I add. It’s fraud. And I oppose it on ethical grounds, because we can’t ensure he won’t change more about the child than he claims.”

After the beastfolk finished, the room exploded into argument again, and Cherise sighed through her nose.

No progress whatsoever, she noted. It will likely come down to a vote at headquarters after assuming a dungeon of all things didn’t mess up its math.

***

Archimedes had too many things on his plate these days, so he was reprioritizing his schedule. Anther’s matter was at the top, though he currently had no control over how fast it progressed.

That whole matter aside, Archimedes had decided to devote himself to studying his Etherium blueprints, since no matter what project he started from here on out, having more mana could only help, and mastering this new material would allow him to store as much as he wanted.

Before he could really get into it, however, morning came, and Vow sent him a message.

She was referring to his reincarnation and the life he lived prior to that, most likely. It was something she had probably wanted to ask him about back when he was spilling his life’s story to Ulbert and the ancient dungeons, but she didn’t have the stamina to say anything back then.

“Why shouldn’t I?” He replied. “The demons in this world seem to know how to pursue knowledge without pushing too far. None of the dungeons I saw in Ulbert’s memories were reduced to experiments. And having more attention suits my goals since it will draw more sages to me.”

“Of course I do!”

By some stroke of luck, Archimedes had met a person like Ulbert and opened up to him enough to not shut out the advice the demon offered. But he had gotten too caught up in philosophy in his misery. What did it matter what a meaningful life was or if it was possible? By posing impossible questions like those, he was doing nothing but sealing his own path forward out of self-fulfilling pessimism.

In the end, he had never cared about those things in the first place. All he wanted was to go out and see the outside world on his own feet, with his own eyes. However…

“Now I need a sage to come and help me do tangible work! If I knew how to make a mobile body for myself I would already be doing it!”

Most of Archimedes’ experiences told him it was impossible. What he wanted to make wasn’t a dungeon monster, but purely a technical contraption that he and only he would be in control of. Despite it not being a monster, he wanted it to be able to walk outside with the help of a creature core or something similar. He didn’t want to scan its memories after the fact, but experience them in the moment, so he wanted to somehow attach his core or at least consciousness to it. But if Archimedes left the dungeon, it would fall apart, and he was incapable of rolling his core outside on his own power.

Like how an animal couldn’t willingly eject their brain through their mouth. Even if they got help to do it, their body would only die as a result.

There has to be a way! This is a world full of impossible things: like dungeons that grow up into the air and strangers who care about others despite having their own problems.

Archimedes’ core glowed brightly in hope and anticipation.

“I rebuilt myself on the premise of solving puzzles, and that doesn’t just go for the outsiders who visit here. I’m going to conquer every puzzle life has thrown at me, one by one, until my path is completely unobstructed.”

“After getting what I want, I’ll spend the rest of time enjoying it. I don’t think I’ll get bored with how exciting the outside sounds, but if I do, I can always try to find out how to go to other worlds and see what’s going on there.”

Archimedes read the message with a warm feeling in his core. Vow was happy that he was happy, and the reverse was also true. Deep in the back of his mind, he did wonder if he would be able to make a body for Vow someday. Hers would be even harder than his, but he imagined just how much it would mean to her if it were possible.

Her next message caught him off guard though.

“Good luck?”

Archimedes didn’t know what Vow was talking about, but he could anticipate a lot if she succeeded. To his perception, the Voice of the World knew the answer to every question and the result of every possible action. She might even be all-knowing. Even receiving a little bit of advice from her would be worth as much as the words of any Sage.

Since his work had already been interrupted, Archimedes decided to check in on Anther before getting back to it. As a safety precaution, the boy had been visiting every day so that Archimedes could check up on him.

He was almost finished answering three of Deorsa’s riddles (provided by Lilith, of course). Once he succeeded and left his own riddles in exchange, he would be the first elf to reach the third floor.

Fortunately, the environment on the second floor didn’t bother Anther like it did other elves.

Archimedes had obtained enough test samples between all the elf explorers to figure out why they found the mana-less environment so repugnant. Essentially, they breathed mana through their pores. Just as quickly as the surrounding mana begged to mingle with the nearest elf and enter their body, the existing mana was pushed out by a natural cleaning process meant to counterbalance the supply.

It was similar to how fish had a swim bladder that would take in or expel water to keep the creature neutrally buoyant, except that the process was tuned to expel constantly. The elves didn’t have a say in new mana flowing into them, so the only thing their bodies could do to compensate was push mana back out.

The whole cyclical process made them very sensitive to their environment in general, but it became suffocating on the second floor where they would be emptied of mana completely if they stayed too long. And considering that elves had long since evolved to use mana as much as oxygen to sustain their internal organs, being without it would kill them before too long.

Archimedes had no exact measurement, but he hypothesized a normal elf would last between an hour and three days, depending on how their bodies reacted when their mana supply was in an extreme shortage.

Anther’s clogged mana channels made the whole process much slower, and his body was already used to a worse mana supply, so he was fine to hang out for a few hours on the second floor. There was also no reason for him to stay down there except to play with the Mandrakes whose duties kept them on that floor: he could ponder riddles anywhere. If he ever got uncomfortable, he just went upstairs to play with Theoria instead.

The elf child muttered his last riddle out loud to himself again while sunbathing on a hill. “A barrel of water weighs sixty pounds. What must you put in it to make it weigh forty pounds…?” He called out, “Is it negative twenty pounds of water?”

Deorsa, looking to the child like the long lost sister of the elven moon priestess, Yushiil, shook her head while floating ethereally over her blossom. “You already guessed negative twenty pounds of fish and air. It isn’t negative twenty pounds of anything.”

“I said I didn’t want any hints!” The boy gasped in dismay. Deorsa stared back at him, possibly also in dismay, but her face was expressionless as always.