Vampire Aren.
She was a young vampire who had barely escaped the paladins’ large-scale air raid.
At present, she had left the dungeon where she originally lived. And she was living quite contentedly in her current location.
“I like it here because there are lots of friends!”
Bloodsucking butterflies fluttered around Aren.
Aren caught one of the flying bloodsucking butterflies and stuffed it into her mouth.
The more she chewed, the more the bloodsucking butterfly’s juices burst inside her mouth.
“…Delicious! Butterfly friends really are gud!”
Aren’s red eyes sparkled brightly.
That was how satisfied Aren was with her current life.
She had been watching the bloodsucking butterflies flit about and playing with them when, all of a sudden, she looked toward a corner.
There were certain beings settled there.
“Uuugh…”
The ones occupying the corner were enormous venomous spiders.
They were still drooling as they stared at Aren.
“They’re not friends…”
Just as Aren was about to droop and turn her gaze elsewhere—
“You’ve been playing quietly here, I see?”
Her savior appeared.
“Pretty big sister!”
It was Celia.
Aren immediately leapt into Celia’s arms.
This was the dungeon where Celia served as chief administrator.
The dungeon, made up of several zones, was quite vast, and Aren was living in a place called Zone 3.
Zone 3 was a place close to nature, with wide fields and man-eating plants, bloodsucking butterflies, and spiders living there.
For Aren, who was staying in such a place, Celia had built a small hut where she could live.
Of course, it was not as though she received nothing in return.
Aren was not yet an official member of the dungeon.
She had the status of a visitor.
Strictly speaking, she was no different from a dungeon refugee.
Since Celia could not simply let such an Aren play around all day, she assigned Aren one task.
Zone management.
Unlike the other zones, Zone 3 had no monsters capable of thinking and acting on their own.
That was why Aren, following Celia’s orders, personally went around managing the monsters within Zone 3.
And the reason Celia had come to see Aren now was not greatly different from that either.
“Today, I intend to give Aren a different task.”
Celia smiled and stroked Aren’s head once.
“Okay!”
Aren, feeling Celia’s touch, answered with a smile.
“Aren really is a good girl.”
Praising her, Celia handed something to Aren.
It was a small box.
Aren received the box and checked what was inside.
Wriggle, wriggle—
Something was squirming inside the box.
Looking closely, it was something like an earthworm.
“Wriggly…?”
Aren murmured as she looked at the wriggling being.
“Yes, that’s right. It is a child bestowed by the Great One. From now on, Aren’s task is to raise that child well. It’s very important, so you must not make any mistakes. Understood?”
Celia believed Aren could handle a task of this level well.
Originally, it would have been right for her to raise it herself, but at present, a great deal of work had piled up.
In this situation, where even one extra hand was precious, she had entrusted it to Aren.
Celia gave Aren a warning along with her request.
Along with the warning—
“In return, if Aren raises it well, I will send the spider friends outside.”
She also offered a carrot to raise Aren’s motivation.
“Really…?”
Sure enough.
Aren’s eyes shone once again.
To Aren, the spider friends—no, the spiders who were not friends—were not beings she wanted to get close to.
That was why Celia’s words sounded so very welcome.
“Don’t worry! I’ll take good care of Wriggly friend!”
Aren clenched her fist and showed her confidence.
She immediately opened the box and placed her self-proclaimed Wriggly friend on her palm.
“Wriggly friend! From now on, Aren will protect you!”
Perhaps understanding Aren’s ambition, Wriggly wriggled even more vigorously.
Watching Wriggly, Aren swiftly caught one of the nearby bloodsucking butterflies with practiced hands.
Then she placed it in front of Wriggly.
“Let’s be friends with butterfly friend too!”
Wriggly squirmed and began to wrap around the bloodsucking butterfly Aren had caught.
After wrapping its whole body around it, it suddenly began to open its mouth.
Inside its mouth, tiny thorn-like things were packed tightly together.
“Ooh! As expected, Wriggly friend likes butterfly friend too!”
Aren murmured that and examined Wriggly closely.
“Hm? What’s this?”
As Wriggly wriggled busily, something had fallen onto Aren’s palm.
“…A scale?”
To Aren’s eyes, Wriggly felt similar to something else not only in appearance but also in surface texture.
“Ah! It’s just like long friend!”
The long friend Aren knew, the snake, also had scales like that.
However, Wriggly’s scales felt a bit harder.
‘Maybe Wriggly friend will turn into something like long friend when all grown up?’
Aren looked at Wriggly with anticipation and excitement.
* * *
Name: Small Baby Wyrm, Wriggly (★)
Traits: A juvenile wyrm. Crawls underground.
- Would you like to set it as a lieutenant of the dungeon “Nest of the Evil God”?
- [Yes] [No]
Wriggly had come out on the tenth and final lieutenant draw.
Originally, I had intended to refuse.
But they said that if I refused, the price of the next lieutenant draw would double, so I had no choice but to choose the little guy as a lieutenant.
“Yeah, let’s think of it positively.”
Celia had originally been a 3-star too.
A being like that was now exerting an incredible influence, so perhaps I could expect Wriggly to grow in an extraordinary way as well?
Of course, I knew full well that comparing it to Celia was unreasonable.
Still, because I believed there was a small possibility, I did not let go of the thread of hope.
On top of that, to be honest, I was secretly hoping that, like with Celia, a promotion perk package might appear separately, but nothing of the sort showed up.
“Well, relying too much on packages isn’t right either.”
Convincing myself of that, I sent Wriggly, who had come out of the draw, to Celia.
The dungeon where Celia served as chief administrator could be said to have a well-established system.
Even if I assigned a 1-star monster as a lieutenant, the chance that such a system would suddenly collapse was practically zero.
“I’ll just draw some monsters separately for her.”
Apologizing to Celia in that way, I checked the dungeon list.
[Nest of the Evil God]
- Chief Administrator: Celia (★★★★★★)
- Lieutenant: Wriggly (★)
- Subordinate Managed Dungeons: [Red-Haired Tribe], [Village Shrouded in Mist], [Dregs of the Demon Realm], [Sticky Puddle]
- Special Note: A dungeon core connected by soul to Master Lee Kanghyeon exists.
“Seeing it like this, the difference is way too big, isn’t it?”
A 1-star under a 6-star…
If a package that could help Wriggly grow ever came out, I planned to buy it without question.
For the time being, with a feeling of apology toward Celia, I could only hope that Wriggly grew well.
I prepared for the next draw.
Since I had given Celia a new lieutenant, this time it was Azmo’s turn.
Fortunately, the lieutenant to draw this time was decided quite easily.
The moment I spun the draw anew, a monster with a whopping four stars appeared.
Name: Master of Transformation, Better (★★★★)
Traits: A slime whose entire body is blue.
A master of transformation with the trait of mimicking an opponent’s appearance exactly.
Better never forgets anyone it has seen once, and copies their appearance exactly. While copying their appearance, it also faintly copies the opponent’s traits.
- Would you like to set it as a lieutenant of the dungeon “Temptation of Illusions”?
- [Yes] [No]
“Wow!”
A slime whose entire body was blue had appeared.
If you only called it a slime, it somehow sounded weak, but this guy was a full 4-star.
“It mimics appearances exactly?”
On top of that, after checking the details, it seemed like a monster that would be useful in many ways.
“This takes care of one of the biggest problems.”
The dungeon where Azmo was the administrator currently had one major problem.
That was the fact that its composition was too simple and uniform.
Since every monster was made up of incubi, it would be easy for intruders to respond.
In reality, most dungeons of B-rank or higher were difficult because monsters of various attributes appeared.
Because one had to calculate that many different possibilities and bring along various Hunters to respond, they were difficult.
If there were only incubi like now, it was only a matter of time before it was cleaned out.
For now, the Death Knight and Arch Lich were there together, but I could not keep them assigned to that dungeon forever.
To state my thoughts clearly, I had no choice but to care more about my original dungeon, where my life was on the line, than about Azmo’s dungeon.
Of course, that did not mean I would do something foolish like easily abandoning Azmo’s dungeon.
“The more dungeons, the better.”
I immediately assigned the guy who came out of the lieutenant draw to Azmo.
[Temptation of Illusions]
- Administrator: Azmo (★★★★)
- Lieutenant: Better (★★★★)
I had only assigned an additional lieutenant, yet I already felt proud.
Lastly, I touched the screen to check another dungeon I owned.
It was the dungeon where I had captured Ji Taehun and Ji Seongmin last time.
The F-rank Skeleton Dungeon.
Perhaps it was thanks to my “True Dungeon Master” trait.
Normally, humans could not hear the words of skeletons.
But I had started to hear even their words.
Thanks to that, I was able to communicate with the F-rank skeletons, the monsters that existed in the dungeon, and they swore loyalty to me.
Well, since having more dungeons was no loss to me, I accepted their loyalty.
“Hmm, I can’t manage these guys separately?”
The problem was that, unlike the other dungeons, there was no way for me to manage the F-rank Skeleton Dungeon whose loyalty I had personally obtained.
[Weak Skeleton Dungeon]
- Administrator: Vacant
I could not even appoint someone as administrator at will.
The name of the Skeleton Dungeon merely appeared and occupied one slot on the screen list; there was nothing I could touch.
“Do I have to go there myself to manage it?”
What a truly troublesome system.
It seemed I would have to find out why, for this place alone, I could not manage it through my smartphone.
* * *
The dungeon “Temptation of Illusions.”
There, the administrator Azmo was continuing to talk to someone.
“With just this air freshener, the scent of the clothes changes quite wonderfully.”
Saying so, Azmo began spraying the air freshener toward the clothes in front of him.
Spray—spray—
“How is it? Does it not smell very pleasant?”
As Azmo said, a pleasant fragrance began to rise from the clothes.
The being who owned the clothes nodded, satisfied.
It was the Death Knight.
To think such a wonderful scent would come from the maid outfit attached to his shield.
The Death Knight felt extremely satisfied.
At the same time, the Arch Lich was beside him.
Not long ago, he had received Master’s grace and had been promoted from a Lich to an Arch Lich.
He too was satisfied, feeling ecstasy at the oiling that Azmo’s subordinates were applying to him.
Could this place perhaps be heaven?
The Death Knight and Arch Lich wanted to remain in this dungeon a little longer.
And then, at that moment—
A change began.
Wooooong—
The dungeon entrance had begun to vibrate.