*
That night.
After Gru had fallen soundly asleep under Joorim’s soothing pats.
Mephisto sat on the edge of the bed with his wings drooping heavily.
Of late, Mephisto had been in a very foul mood.
Ever since he had been born, Mephisto had continued developing just like any other living creature.
He had gained weight, found joy in learning, and experienced hurt feelings and jealousy.
“Piiiii…….”
Yes. That fluttering in his chest, that dark and sunken feeling—it was definitely hurt feelings.
Gru had become busy after being accepted into preschool, spending longer and longer stretches of time with Uju without paying attention to Mephisto. These were the emotions that surged up whenever Mephisto felt unloved.
Just then, a child came rolling out from beneath the bed and looked up at Mephisto.
Veilak had been secretly watching a zombie movie on his tablet PC, careful not to be discovered by Joorim.
“What a stupid bird.”
“Pip!”
When the enraged Mephisto spat at him, Veilak used gravity to suspend the spit in midair and send it back.
Mephisto turned his face slightly to avoid it.
Splat!
Mephisto’s spit landed on the head of the soundly sleeping Gru.
“……!”
“……!”
The two of them hurriedly got up and wiped Gru’s head with their respective wings and palms.
“Mmm…….”
Fortunately, Gru did not wake up, even with his mouth hanging open.
Phew. Veilak let out a small sigh of relief, then gestured for Mephisto to follow him.
Before long, the two of them were sitting across from each other in the living room. For a while, neither said a word.
The first to break the silence was Veilak, who had been glaring at Mephisto for days.
“You’re nothing but a pet desperate for its master’s affection. How pathetic.”
“Pip!”
Splat!
This time, the spit stuck to his nose before he could even use his skill.
That fat bird……! Veilak wiped the spit away with the back of his hand while desperately pretending to remain calm.
“As long as my lord’s skill remains trash-tier, he has no choice but to continue interacting with that delicious child.”
“Piiu?”
“Trash-tier means having extremely low stats. It’s a slang term used by young people in modern Earth civilization.”
Veilak spoke with the smugness of an old man trying to imitate the younger generation. Mephisto wrinkled his brow, his beak twitching.
Veilak had been diligently studying language ever since the superconductor incident.
He was learning through a tablet, and in the process, he was acquiring words every bit as bizarre as Serhi’s.
“The only way for you to be loved again is…… to raise my lord’s experience so that his skill can escape its trash-tier status.”
He had not the slightest intention of helping Mephisto, but there was another reason he was willing to entertain this concern.
His lord’s level had to rise if Veilak wanted to remain in human form for a long time as well.
A skill’s duration depended on proficiency and level.
In other words, he had to raise his level if he wanted to become a hamster—and remain human—reliably.
From Veilak’s perspective, unless he was in his original form, he did not particularly care whether he was a hamster or a child, but……
‘Living in Earth civilization is a little inconvenient as a hamster.’
In hamster form, he could not even press the buttons on the tablet properly.
He was supposed to watch zombie movies at 1.5 to 2 times speed, then switch back to normal speed whenever the mukbang started.
Mephisto narrowed his eyes at him as if he saw through every one of his ulterior motives.
“You delinquent. You’ll benefit too. If that tiresome potato-growing succeeds, he’ll pay attention to you again.”
“Pii…….”
Mephisto lowered his eyes as though deep in thought, turning over the matter in his tiny head.
It was not wrong.
Whatever his intentions, it was true that the advice would be helpful.
To level up, he needed experience.
Experience = monsters = dungeons.
In conclusion, Gru needed a dungeon!
Hunters usually grew stronger in dungeons, after all.
But Gru was trash-tier.
“Piiii…….”
Mephisto stroked his chin with a wing.
He needed to find a place where Gru could level up easily, like a mother bird dropping food into her chick’s mouth.
More than anything, he needed a dungeon that would be safe for Gru while allowing him to accumulate a great deal of experience.
If so, there was only one way!
“Pip-pip!”
They could make a dungeon!
Though he had lost his memories after awakening from his egg, Mephisto instinctively knew that this was possible.
[Connecting…….]
[Access confirmed for System Operator ‘Mephisto’.]
After connecting to the system, Mephisto began materializing a dungeon in subspace.
Its form: the lowest-grade slime.
Its experience rewards: S-rank.
Its setting: a toy factory.
A dungeon made solely for Gru!
*
The next day.
Preschool’s after-school ballet class had ended, and the children were changing clothes in the locker room.
As Gru took off her tights and put them in her bag, once again……
‘I can feel it.’
A fixed—
burning gaze.
Gru glanced toward the place she felt the stare coming from, and as expected, it was Gu Huiyeon.
Huiyeon was clutching her tutu skirt to her chest, rising onto her tiptoes and stretching her head out as she tried to see beyond the locker door.
Did she want to see inside Gru’s locker?
Was there really anything worth looking at that badly?
Inside were a four-cut photo taken with Gidan, Serhi, and Uju, along with a bunch of Teenieping stickers pasted all over.
Gru nodded as if she had only just realized.
Mmm, of course. When you were a child, you couldn’t help but be drawn to things like that.
‘Teenieping really is the best.’
There were plenty of different Teenieping stickers at home, so she should bring Huiyeon a few.
Thinking this, Gru poked her head out from beyond the door.
The moment their eyes met, Huiyeon froze.
“Huiyeona!”
“Y-yes?”
Gru gave her a knowing little grin, and Huiyeon’s face turned bright red before she hurriedly ran outside.
“Ah.”
She ran away!
Why?!
Gru had been about to tell her that she would bring some Teenieping stickers tomorrow.
As Gru grew gloomy, the friends watching from nearby each added their own comments.
“Does Huiyeon dislike Gru?”
“She always acts like that whenever she sees Gru, right? Weird.”
“Wooo…….”
Gru pouted.
She wanted to become friends with Huiyeon, but did Huiyeon really dislike Gru, just as the others said?
Feeling dejected, Gru closed her locker and left the changing room.
“Bye-bye!”
“Bye-bye!”
“See you, Gru!”
The children scattered in different directions.
Gru headed toward the garden. She was going to grow potatoes with Uju.
She was crossing the quiet school grounds when……
“Hm?”
The trunks of the trees began shaking, as if a localized earthquake had occurred.
‘What is that?’
At the spot where the earthquake had taken place, an oval entrance was wavering into existence.
That was……
‘A gate?!’
But it was clearly different from ordinary gates.
Some dungeons appeared without warning and then suddenly vanished. People called these ‘one-time dungeons’ or ‘instance dungeons.’
Some even called them ‘hidden dungeons,’ because they offered a high chance of yielding special materials.
When Gru placed her hand on the gate and read the dungeon’s information, she was startled.
[Kids’ Dungeon (S)]
The domain of the Frostblood clan. Only those seven years old or younger may enter. Guardians, please wait outside for a moment.
An S-rank kids’ dungeon?!
Gru’s mouth fell open.
An S-rank dungeon, despite being a kids’ dungeon! S-rank dungeons were classified as grand dungeons!
In an instant, a slot machine began spinning rapidly inside her head.
‘S-rank grand dungeon! S-rank experience! S-rank rewards!’
The letter S began popping up before her eyes.
And that was not all. The dungeon was luring the kindergartener with a series of flashy speech bubbles.
‘It’s fun!’
‘A paradise for kindergarteners!’
‘O Supreme One! Defeat the mischievous slimes!’
Normally, Gru would have considered this a tremendous opportunity, but……
‘Can Gru go to another dungeon without permission? Should I ask first?’
But Daddy would definitely say no. Besides, it was telling her that guardians had to wait outside.
Gulp!
Her hand tightened unconsciously around the small hand shovel.
Just then, Mephisto came fluttering over and landed on the shovel, curling both wings into fists.
“Pip!”
Mephisto flexed, declaring that he could do it all by himself.
“Mephiiii…….”
“Pip-pip!”
“Hm! Okey dokey!”
Gru texted Uju to tell him she could not go to the garden, then picked up a fork.
“Can’t be helped.”
If the world needed the Supreme Gru, then so be it.
Gru gripped the fork tightly in both hands and crossed through the gate.