Sarzina Acacia found the gnomes' way of executing their prisoners quite interesting.

Having ordered the execution of one of her own prisoners only days prior, she was naturally used to the idea of executing the worst of criminals.

But giving them a chance to survive their death sentence and have their crimes pardoned? That was a novel idea to her.

If this had been a normal Dungeon I likely would have insisted that the criminals should be executed even if they survive this 'Dungeon Retribution'. But with a blessed and sapient Dungeon like mine?

I'll trust their judgment.

…

When it comes to their survival, that is. I'm definitely banishing any survivors of any Dungeon Retribution from my town.

◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇

The Lightning Mage had naturally warned the gnome leader that my creatures would only harm bad guys or in self defense. That part was to be expected.

The unexpected part was his reaction. He accepted it like it made all the sense in the world. He even congratulated her for raising me right!

Hey! I'll let you know she's only been with me for, like, one month or so!

… Which is about a fourth of my life, but I would argue I've done more to raise her right, than she's done to me! I mean just look at all her changes since she met me! She used to be speciesistic but now she has a law forbidding slavery. She…

…

She's getting better at petting unicorns instead of running away in fear…?

…

I guess I haven't changed her that much, but the slavery thing was quite a huge deal!

And how has she changed me?

… I think I'm less biased towards elves, but I already knew they couldn't all be slave owners. It was really just nice to have it confirmed.

The first criminal to attempt their 'Dungeon Retribution' in my Dungeon was Jelci Ironthistle, the female gnome of the sibling pair.

Ladies first, I guess.

"Can't risk her trying to sweet talk her way out of this," the gnome leader - with the Class of Cavalier oddly enough - explained to the Lightning Mage. "While the Exodus now knows what to expect from her, I - no offense - don't know how your own people would react to her charms."

Oh. That makes sense. She does have the Bard Class.

Naturally the Lightning Mage replied that the elves would likely react to any sort of charms quite violently due to their recent troubles with the mind controlling cult. To which the gnome nodded and hummed thoughtfully.

Despite their short chat the two of them kept a sharp eye on the Bard as they herded her forward and blocked her exit.

With a karma level of 22%, the gnome Bard would activate my traps but my creatures wouldn't attack her on sight. And without weapons and with the goal of reaching my Core, not gathering loot, she didn't really try to harm my dragonets.

She definitely considered it! But decided it wasn't worth the attempt.

Speaking of attempts. She also tried to sweet talk the Lightning Mage into believing she was innocent and deserved to be let free.

But I had trained my 'dungeon mistress' well, and so she had naturally replied that the Dungeon, I, would be the judge of that.

Well said!

All talk then ceased between the three with the only words spoken was from the Bard cursing over the one pitfall trap she had missed in the Berry Forest. She had been really good at spotting traps before then.

"Shouldn't she have received a weapon by now?" The gnome leader questioned while the Bard attempted to pull herself out of the pit. The pit's purpose had been more of a way to restrain an intruder while my dragonets flew in and out of it while attacking. But as the Bard didn't have bad enough karma for them to attack unprovoked and as she hadn't attacked them, the pit was really just a deep hole.

Though with it being one of my first traps it was only deep enough that she needed to do her highest jump to grab a hold of the top of the trap.

And once you remember the fact that she was a gnome and thus quite small…

Yeah, it really wasn't that deep.

"The Dungeon of Karma is in many ways a pacifistic Dungeon. The only way to receive an actual weapon in here is through the loot of a kobold." The Lightning Mage replied with a shrug. "There's a chance you'll get their weapon of choice as loot. But kobolds don't appear before the 3rd Floor so she'll have to survive without one until then."

The Bard had paled at those news, lost her grip on the ground and fell back in the pit she had almost gotten herself out of.

Two rooms further - or one depending on whether or not the later room even counted - was as far as the 3rd tier Bard got. As she stepped into The Swamp Route she was blasted in the face with acid from above. Which in itself wasn't enough to kill. It did however make it harder for her to breathe. And then the sleeping gas was released a couple of meters later which made her lose consciousness.

She suffocated in her sleep.

I really thought she was gonna dodge the acid. She dodged most of the other traps she triggered, so I know she can.

Bad luck, perhaps? That is my thing, after all.

And I don't think a Bard like her had a lot of points in Toughness. And with no helmet or any kind of armor on…

Yeah… These traps might only be meant to be able to kill 1st tiers, but if you still have the Toughness of one…?

Then it was the other sibling's turn. Jezzie Ironthistle had the 3rd tier Class of Labourer, and while he seemed to have a higher Toughness Score than his sister, he also clearly had a lower Awareness Score.

Essentially he triggered more traps but was in turn better at tanking them. The acid spray, for instance, didn't leave burns bad enough to affect his breathing.

It clearly hurt him though. And at the end of the 1st Floor he was bleeding from his arms - from arrows shooting out from the walls - and right foot - from a spike appearing from underneath - and had both burns and lumps on the top of his head - from the acid spray and having rocks falling on his head. And the leg wound had naturally caused him to limp.

When it came to getting to the 2nd Floor the gnome leader stopped the Labourer from simply going done the staircase between the Floors. Instead he had the Lightning Mage go first so she could be ready to stop him from simply leaving my Dungeon by immediately going back up the stairs once he reached the bottom.

Smart. I hadn't even thought of that, but of course a criminal would try to run away from their punishment by exploiting the quick return function of Safezones which sends them back to my Portal.

And true enough, he tried. And he failed.

He didn't look for keys in The Forest of Territories or The Wood of Rebirth - probably thinking he was done with that after the 1st Floor. So when he noticed the four keyholes in the door of The Griffins' Treasure Room, he groaned, before setting his eyes on the treasure chest in the room.

You know. The one that's actually a mimic being guarded by a pair of griffins and located behind a moat containing a pair of territorial eels.

Or well… 'Fledgling karmic elemental sea serpent - Lightning'.

When the Labourer stepped into the moat to get to the treasure chest - likely thinking at least one of the keys were in there - the eels attacked him with Lightning for entering their territory.

And while he was distracted with them the griffins - who saw his movement towards them as a threat to their treasure, the mimic - attacked with their claws and beaks. Between his previous wounds and the griffins' 120% damage while guarding a treasure, he was soon felled.

He clearly didn't expect anything to actually attack him. Otherwise he wouldn't have stepped into the water without looking.

But, hey, 'karmic' doesn't mean 'pacifistic'. And not all my creatures define it the same way.

Then it was time for the last of the criminals. Mawgrim Bramblehide, who had the 4th tier Class of 'Apprentice Illusionist'.

With him being a tier above the other two, I'll have to assume he was the leader.

Well… Let's see how far you get without any weapons or armor!

Especially seeing as your karma level is just under 10%, meaning all of my creatures attack on sight.

◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇

How are you still alive?!

Realistically, I knew how he had done it. He had used his fledgling illusions to camouflage himself, stopping a large majority of my creatures from attacking him as they never caught sight of him. Only the ones who - like my bā zú lung dragons - 'saw' the world more through their karma senses than their eyes could detect him well enough to attack him.

He even had enough Awareness of his surroundings to avoid triggering basically all of my traps.

But knowing how he had survived didn't stop me from being simultaneously impressed and annoyed as I watched him pass through one obstacle after another. And while my puzzles slowed him down considerably, he had yet to take a lot of damage.

His illusions had even made the gnome leader and the Lightning Mage lose track of him on the 2nd Floor. Something he chose not to take advantage of to run away from his sentence.

8 hours had passed, and now he was on my 9th Floor in The Werewolf Wood.

And here his strongest and weakest Ability Scores would effectively be switched.

Which means no more illusions for you!

Which apparently wasn't something he knew how to deal with, seeing as he turned around and sprinted back out of the room the moment the werewolf pack attacked. An attack he had only survived due to Toughness now being his strongest Score.

But before the Apprentice Illusionist left The Werewolf Wood he had gotten numerous scratch and bite marks from the attacking werewolves.

And with his 9% karma level this ended up triggering a long forgotten aspect of my werewolves: The 10% chance to infect people with karma levels of 10% or lower with lycanthropy for every scratch or bite done to them by a werewolf.

Oh… I thought nonchalantly. I wasn't worried about him spreading lycanthropy to the whole world as it could only affect people with super low karma. And while the variety of lycanthropy he had gotten differed from the ones my werewolves had in that people with more than 10% karma could become dormant carriers, that had always been part of my plan with them.

The lycanthrope would turn into a bloodthirsty monster everytime the full moon was up - day or night didn't actually matter here - which would cause everyone around to fear and want to kill the monster. Which would help in my System-given Mission of ridding the world of as many bad guys as I could.

The dormant carries was to spread this to as many as possible to expose the truly bad people as the monsters they were and having them then be killed by their fellows.

I knew some good people would likely die while the lycanthropes were in their bloodthirsty states, but I firmly believed it was worth it to make the world free - or at least freer - of people with 10% and less karma. Especially as I imagined a large amount of those people were in positions of power.

Hmm… I should probably tell my 'dungeon mistress', or they'll kill him for failing to fulfill his sentence before he can spread the curse around.

The Apprentice Illusionist had run to the Safezone at the beginning of the 9th Floor, but took a break to rest and do what little first aid he could to his wounds before he cautiously took the staircase up and out of my Dungeon. Giving me a good amount of time to send a request.

Achievement tier up: A Friend in Need (V): You are a kind being who helps others without thought. Condition: Go out of your way to help someone without expecting any compensation for doing so 100 times. Reward: 10,000 EXP and 125% Charisma. [You do not have a Charisma Score. 125% Charisma changed to 25% discount on karma creatures.] You have gotten an Achievement tier up while having 3 passive Achievements. Do you wish to change which Achievements are passive?

Huh? The message had arrived as soon as I had sent the request to not kill, but simply banish the lycanthrope criminal.

But I'm only setting him free because I cursed him and want him to spread that curse. I have ulterior motives!

I had to reread the condition for the Achievement again before I realized that 'having ulterior motives' wasn't being taken into consideration.

It only matters whether or not I expect compensation for my help. And I don't. I expect him to spread lycanthropy for me, which will over time lower the amount of bad people in the world as people hunt them down. Which fits my Mission, but doesn't actually benefit me. If anything, having a lower number of bad people in the world makes it harder for me tier up. After all, I need to be the one to kill them for it to count towards tiering up.

You have gotten an Achievement tier up while having 3 passive Achievements. Do you wish to change which Achievements are passive?

Uh… Right. Let's take a look. Which one's were already passive?

Creature Designer (III) (Passive): Reward: Creatures have a 5% discount on their base cost. Creatures earn you 108% EXP. Dungeon God (Passive): Reward: The Ability 'Dungeon Rules' and a 3% mana discount on all creations. Freedom of Thought (V) (Passive): Reward: 15% easier to help people, including yourself, exercise their own free will and the Ability 'Mind Manipulation Sight'. Weeding the World (Passive): Reward: 1% more EXP per being of karma level 0% you have killed or freed from mind manipulation, and the Ability '0% Karma Sense'.

Right, and Weeding the World is automatically passive as it would do the same either way.

The one I would most consider replacing is Creature Designer, but I would save more mana by keeping A Friend in Need active. Creature Designer does come with additional EXP but I still consider mana more important.

So no thanks! I'll keep the passives as they already are.

◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇

Ever since they had lost track of the criminal leader, Kastle Brassheart had stood guard by the Dungeon Portal, waiting for the bastard to show back up. While he would normally have assumed that the originally unarmed and unarmored gnome had perished by now, seeing as he hadn't shown up by the Portal yet, the dungeon guide - or dungeon mistress as they called it around here - had assured him the guy was still alive and serving his sentence.

Kastle hadn't been aware that was something a dungeon guide could tell through their connection to their Dungeon.

While Kastle had been standing guard over the Portal, mistress Acacia had been escorting gnomes in and out of the Dungeon, taking them on a tour of the 1st Floor and introducing them to everything different about her Dungeon. Kastle had suggested she simply called a meeting and informed them all at once instead of doing the tediously repeating tour.

She refused before she had even taken the time to consider. And then she had insisted that every member of the Exodus joined her on a tour.

So, clearly it wasn't as tedious to her as it seemed to him.

"Chief Brassheart," mistress Acacia greeted him after having given yet another tour of the 1st Floor.

"Mistress Acacia."

"While Mawgrim Bramblehide has failed to reach the Core on the 10th Floor, he did succeed in reaching the 9th. As such, The Dungeon of Karma has decided to spare his life but let him live out the rest of his life cursed."

"Huh?"