- The unique monster “Half-Goblin” has been born.
“Born?”
It was the first time I’d seen an alarm phrased like that.
Until now, the only alarms about acquiring new monsters had been when I obtained them directly through draws.
And when I drew one through the gacha, the alarm said I had drawn it. This was the first time I’d seen an alarm saying one had been born.
‘There wasn’t even an alarm when Celia bought monsters separately from the trading company.’
To see what had happened, I tapped the alarm.
As soon as the smartphone screen changed to the interior of the dungeon, I looked around here and there.
“Half-Goblin, huh…”
How long did I search?
I found three baby goblins.
The place was the prison at the center of the dungeon, and an adventurer was holding three baby goblins in her arms.
“So that’s what this was?”
I quickly grasped the situation.
As expected, Half-Goblins were monsters born between an adventurer and goblins.
I used my fingers to zoom in on the screen.
The baby goblins shown on the screen had appearances subtly different from ordinary goblins.
They weren’t fully goblins, yet their features were mixed with human ones. It was the very definition of the uncanny valley.
Their skin color was also similar to a goblin’s, yet different; rather than a complete green, it was closer to light green.
Their ears, too, were closer to a human’s than pointed.
At least their fingernails and toenails were sharp and long like other goblins’, but aside from that, they resembled human children.
‘Now that I look at them, they’re bigger than I expected too.’
Half-Goblins of a size that was hard to believe had just been born.
If they were human, they felt like they’d been born a year or two ago.
“To think three beings like that were born at once…”
I looked at the adventurer taking care of the Half-Goblins.
She was tending to them with an innocent, radiant expression, and her face was one I remembered.
She was probably one of the adventurers who entered not long after the dungeon was created.
‘Anyway, she must have lost her mind.’
The female adventurer was embracing the Half-Goblins as if they were her own babies.
If she were in her right mind, there was no way she’d act like that.
For no reason, a corner of my heart felt pity.
But that feeling didn’t last long.
“No, the dungeon has to keep developing.”
Because the moment the dungeon core was destroyed, I would lose my life as well.
That was why stopping those who invaded my dungeon was only natural.
Even if I went soft here, there would be no benefit coming back to me.
“I need more power.”
For the dungeon to grow stronger meant that my own power grew stronger as well.
I clenched my fist and looked back on my life so far.
How many disadvantages had I suffered because I had no power?
It was the same even now.
If I hadn’t had this power, I would have died long ago, countless times over.
Because I at least had the bare minimum of power, I had been able to protect myself.
But not yet.
“This still isn’t enough.”
Because the world as it was now was nothing less than hell.
Twenty-five years ago, Earth faced a great change known as the Cataclysm.
Dungeons and monsters that appeared everywhere destroyed humanity’s homes.
People at the time said humanity had set foot on the path to extinction.
Fortunately, with the appearance of Awakened, humanity had been able to maintain civilization until now, but the system had become completely different from the old world.
A world of survival of the fittest that had grown even more terrible.
Those with power became absolute law.
Otherwise, would there really be statistics saying more people were killed by fellow humans than by monsters?
Most lost their lives to those with great power.
And even now, I didn’t know when a dangerous situation might come for me.
‘Kim Suho…’
Since he was a dangerous bastard, he could appear again at any time.
My task was to build up as much power as possible before then.
And the first step was managing the dungeon.
“No matter how much I intervene in the dungeon, I can’t manage everything.”
To begin with, the dungeon on the Eldorad Continent was mainly managed by Celia.
Conversely, the dungeon on Earth was being managed by Azmo.
No matter how much money I spent drawing monsters and assigning adjutants, that fact wouldn’t change.
In fact, they knew this part even better than I did.
It meant they could pay attention to and manage everything, from the dungeon’s operating system to the smallest details.
“Right. I can’t intervene in everything.”
Of course, if I neglected it too much, something unexpected might happen like with Azmo.
But in a situation where intervening too much could create some unknown butterfly effect, I couldn’t issue instructions one by one for everything either.
“This Half-Goblin matter is probably the same.”
For Celia, protecting the dungeon came first.
So it was only natural that she would create more monsters to protect the dungeon.
If I blocked all of these things, the judgment of the minions on-site might someday be hampered.
And I couldn’t personally give orders every single time.
What if a dangerous situation struck when I was absent?
“This can’t be helped.”
If they didn’t want to die, they simply shouldn’t have entered my dungeon in the first place.
If an armed robber broke into my house, there were only two choices: either I died, or the robber died.
Even here on Earth, things like that happened all the time.
There was no way to describe the end of hunters who failed to subjugate a dungeon except as miserable.
There were hunters who, like that adventurer, were reduced to playthings for monsters.
Male hunters were no different.
News articles about hunters dying wretchedly inside dungeons were fairly common.
I immediately swiped the screen elsewhere.
‘Anyway, this is strange.’
Changing my train of thought, I had another question.
‘Why did a Half-Goblin appear?’
I had spent four years at the Hunter Academy.
As befitted a Hunter Academy, they taught us about the traits of various monsters there.
I’d learned that goblins were a species in which the proportion of females born was extremely low, so they used females of other species for reproduction.
No matter what species the female was, the result was said to be a goblin.
But the goblins born this time weren’t ordinary goblins.
They looked like a mixture of human and goblin.
Why had Half-Goblins been born?
‘Was that not an ordinary adventurer?’
My question didn’t last long, because of new alarms.
- Congratulations! A unique monster has been born for the first time in the dungeon you operate.
- Half-Goblin (★★★★)
- Rewards will be granted!
- The range of action of the minions within the dungeon has increased.
- Expanding the size of the dungeon.
“Tch, the reward isn’t that great.”
If only they’d given me a Transcendence Ticket that raised a monster’s grade.
All it did was enlarge the dungeon and increase the monsters’ range of action.
But the alarms didn’t end there.
- Please select the method of dungeon expansion.
1. [1st Floor, Area 5]
2. [2nd Floor, Area 1]
“There are a lot of alarms I’ve never seen before today, huh?”
It was telling me to choose the expansion method.
“Hmm.”
I looked over the current layout of the dungeon.
Right now, if you entered my dungeon and kept going straight from the entrance, you would come to a three-way path.
The leftmost path of the three-way path was [1st Floor, Area 1].
The mid-boss there was the Death Knight, and it was an area occupied by undead-type monsters.
The middle path was [1st Floor, Area 2], the goblins’ territory.
The mid-boss was, naturally, the Goblin Lord.
The rightmost path was [1st Floor, Area 3], where monsters called man-eating tentacle plants were located.
I’d spread dirt and grass on the floor to create the image of a field.
Above it, bloodsucking butterflies flew around, and I’d decorated it with a concept like nature.
It had definitely been like that.
Though now, two guys who didn’t belong to my dungeon and drooling spiders were there together.
“The concept of this place has completely collapsed.”
Even so, it was a bizarre space that functioned surprisingly well.
Gweeeek—
Even now, a plump water spirit was watering the plants through sprinklers.
When the spirit watered them, the other two tended the plants.
“Huh…”
Beside the little kid, Kkomuri was wriggling.
‘So that adjutant bastard was still alive.’
Kkomuri was the adjutant I’d drawn after Celia, but for now, it didn’t seem useful.
Well, even if a worm grew bigger, would it become useful?
Fine, you just live well there.
“Then again, if you call this a concept, it’s a concept too… right?”
If there were a farm inside a dungeon, wouldn’t it have this kind of atmosphere?
No matter how I looked at it, it was a strange place.
Naturally, there was no mid-boss here.
Only monsters of 4 stars or higher could be designated as mid-bosses, and there were no monsters of 4 stars or higher in Area 3.
Areas 1, 2, and 3, which split off into the three-way paths, merged back into a single area.
That place was [1st Floor, Area 4].
I had placed a large lake there, and it was an important place in its own way.
The goblins of Area 2 obtained their drinking water there.
The water the water spirit had sprayed in Area 3 just now was also replenished from this lake.
Monsters also existed there.
At the bottom of the lake lived a small number of naga, but like Area 3, it did not yet have a mid-boss.
After passing through Area 4, the [Dungeon Core Area] spread out immediately beyond it.
The core area was an extremely important space where the dungeon core was located, and if this place was breached, it meant the dungeon would be destroyed.
That was how important it was.
There was no mid-boss, but instead, Celia, the chief administrator, resided there.
In that way, my dungeon could be said to be composed of Areas 1 through 4 of the 1st Floor, including the core area.
I checked the alarm again.
- Please select the method of dungeon expansion.
1. [1st Floor, Area 5]
2. [2nd Floor, Area 1]
“Is there really any need to make Area 5?”
Even from the brief look I’d just taken, expanding the 1st Floor further seemed meaningless.
I might need it someday, but my eyes were drawn to the next option.
‘The 2nd Floor.’
I selected that option immediately.
- You have selected [2nd Floor, Area 1].
Along with that alarm, the dungeon on the screen shook.
At the same time, a new space began forming beneath the 1st Floor area.
It was a complete underground space.
“So the structure digs downward whenever a new floor is created?”
With the creation of the 2nd Floor, a major change appeared.
First, a new underground space had appeared beneath the 1st Floor.
That place was the 2nd Floor.
And the location of the dungeon’s core area also changed.
Previously, [1st Floor, Area 4] led directly to the [Dungeon Core Area], but now the structure had changed so that [1st Floor, Area 4] led to [2nd Floor, Area 1].
And [2nd Floor, Area 1] led to the [Dungeon Core Area].
“It’s gotten more complicated.”
And that wasn’t the end.
- [2nd Floor, Area 1 has been completed.]
- You have met the unlock conditions for [Floor Guardian]!
- [Floor Guardian] unlocked!
- With the expansion of a new floor, you can designate the “Guardian” of the existing [1st Floor].
- The [Floor Guardian] holds command authority over the minions of that floor and manages loyalty more easily.
A new system appeared.
“Guardian?”
A mid-boss system had appeared in this way before too.
But this time, it was called a Floor Guardian.
Huh.
The system would become a bit more complicated, but at the same time, efficient management would be possible.
- You can set the [Guardian of the 1st Floor].
- Only monsters of 5★ or higher can be designated as a “Floor Guardian.”
Like mid-bosses, Floor Guardians also had conditions.
“5 stars, huh…”
In truth, there weren’t that many monsters of 5-star grade or higher inside the dungeon at present. It would be more accurate to say there were almost none.
‘Should I promote the Death Knight or the Goblin Lord to guardian?’
No, that wasn’t it.
Until now, there had been no problems with my dungeon.
In other words, it also meant the existing mid-bosses had been faithful to their duties.
There was no need to change them for no reason.
‘By the same logic, Celia is excluded too.’
The only one left is the Arch Lich…
“……”
Should I entrust it to him, even temporarily?
After all, even if a 5-star monster came out of the gacha right away, there would be issues with setting it as a guardian.
“The Arch Lich has lived in the dungeon for a long time, so he’ll probably do well.”
- Would you like to designate the Arch Lich as the [Guardian of the 1st Floor]?
* * *
The Arch Lich returned to the dungeon.
After reporting to Celia, the Arch Lich entered Area 1.
The Death Knight, the mid-boss of Area 1, was nowhere to be seen.
The Arch Lich immediately took out the pouch at his waist.
Inside the pouch, it was filled with jewels and gold coins obtained from high society.
Wearing a satisfied expression, he opened a notebook.
Scratch, scratch.
In the silent dungeon, only the sound of the Arch Lich’s fountain pen rang out.
It was the writing of a household ledger.
While he was recording the profits for quite some time,
an unknown power was detected.
Around him, a powerful violet-tinged force began to gather.
Even the nearby air felt as if it were being swept along by the waves of power.
The notebook held in the Arch Lich’s hand began to open gently in midair.
Sensing the change, the Arch Lich raised his head.