n

nDealing with Immigration had gone better than expected, so Vandalieu decided to clear the Dungeon in the Immortal Ent Forest and inspect his skills earlier than he had planned.

n“I’m going to follow you this time!” Darcia exclaimed. “I was so lonely, but Vandalieu… I think it’s too early for you to become independent of me.”

n“I mean, you were still asleep when I got back, weren’t you, Mom?”

nDarcia, who was a weak spirit, spent most of her time sleeping in the small bone fragment that she inhabited. It just so happened that she had been sleeping when Vandalieu returned.

nHowever, he did think that it might have been for the best for Darcia to not be present at the time.

n“So, I was thinking, what if you turned me into a Fire Ghost like Levia-san?” asked Darcia. “I was burned to death as well; I’m sure I’m suited for it.”

n“Wait, I’ve acquired a way to create Homunculi, so wait just a little more,” Vandalieu told her.

n“But if I become a Ghost, I can help you and always be with you, Vandalieu,” she said.

n“I’m begging you, please wait a little longer,” said Vandalieu. “Also, something might happen to you if evil gods are around.”

nI have to hurry with this, he thought.

n“Aren’t there any evil gods, any wicked gods?*”

n“… Boy, why are you holding a hatchet in one hand?” asked Zadiris. “Also, I do not think that there would be any evil gods in a Dungeon that has only just appeared.”

n“No, I thought there was a sliver of hope that there would be,” said Vandalieu. He stopped his namahage* impression and looked up at the Dungeon that had appeared in the Immortal Ent forest.

nTLN*: Namahage is a Japanese folklore tradition where men dress up like demons and yell phrases like “Aren’t there any naughty kids?” to scare children into behaving.

nThe members who were exploring this Dungeon were Pauvina and the other youths, the women minus Eleanora, Bone Man, Vigaro, ten Cemetery Bees and Luciliano, the baggage-carrier.

n“But I am someone who works with my mind, Master,” Luciliano protested.

n“You don’t actually have to carry the baggage,” said Vandalieu. “Watch our spells from behind and if you have any advice, go ahead and give it to us.”

nAlthough Luciliano was a unique C-class adventurer, his ability in battle was quite unimpressive. However, although he had apparently been partially excommunicated, he was a mage who had studied under a master at the Mages’ Guild. He might have knowledge or ways of thinking that Vandalieu and the others didn’t have, as they were mostly self-taught.

n“And you’re supposed to be my apprentice, aren’t you? Please watch my magic and if you think that there’s somewhere else I could apply it, let me know,” said Vandalieu.

n“I shall do that, Master,” said Luciliano.

nThinking that this was impossible, Vandalieu faintly hoped that Luciliano would give up.

n“But if the inside is too narrow or the monsters are strong, we’ll come back and start again,” said Vandalieu.

n“I know,” said Kachia. “But it’s alright, I’ve become much stronger than I was last time!”

n“You won’t cry?” Vandalieu asked her.

n“I won’t cry! I definitely won’t cry!”

nThey entered the Dungeon while teasing Kachia to find that there was a forest inside. It was different to the Devil’s Nest forest, the forests full of broad-leaved trees near Talosheim and the forests filled with giant ferns in Borkus’s Sub-Dragon Savannah; it was a coniferous forest with pine and cedar trees.

n“While you were away, we ventured into the first floor to ensure that a monster rampage did not occur, and this was how it appeared, my lord,” said Bone Man. “The monsters… were like that.”

nBone Man was pointing at an enormous, brightly-colored mushroom that completely destroyed the feeling of this place being a coniferous forest… a Rank 3 Poison Mushroom.

nThey looked like giant mushrooms with limbs, but despite their charming appearance, they were vicious monsters that attacked living things and killed them, leaving spores on their corpses in order to reproduce.

nThere were three of them standing there.

n“They’re standing up,” said Vandalieu.

n“… At this distance, they’re within range of bows and arrows, but why are those monsters just standing there?” Basdia asked.

n“Perhaps it’s because there are so many of us that they are on guard now?” Darcia suggested.

n“No, they would run if that were the case,” said Zadiris. “Well, I suppose we should try and attack them.”

nBasdia, Zadiris and Kachia cast their spells to try attacking them. All of them were spells intended to test the waters, so none of them had much power.

nThe Poison Mushrooms remained motionless and took the attacks from the front. They were cut by blades of wind and the fragrant smell of burning mushrooms drifted into the air.

n“They’re not moving,” Vandalieu remarked.

n“Hmm, how eerie,” said Zadiris.

n“This is how the monsters have been,” said Bone Man. “Incidentally, I also defeated four of them with my bow and arrows, jyuuh.”

n“I threw my axe to defeat a few of them as well,” said Vigaro. “They were different monsters to these ones, though.”

n“So you defeated them… There’s something that I’m curious about, so please try defeating those Poison Mushrooms,” said Vandalieu.

n“Very well, leave it to me.” Zadiris, who was holding the staff that Vandalieu had taken from the mansion of the Mages’ Guild’s Guild Master, used the Blade of Light spell to defeat the Poison Mushrooms in the blink of an eye.

nVandalieu looked at the defeated person-shaped mushrooms for a while before tilting his head in confusion.

n“Those Poison Mushrooms have no souls,” he said. “I wonder why.”

n“Indeed, I can’t see them,” said Darcia.

n“Isn’t that because they’re plants?” Bilde asked.

n“Even plants have souls, Bilde,” Vandalieu told her.

nHe didn’t know about other worlds, but plants in Lambda had souls. To be more precise, a soul resided in every living thing.

nIt was true that he didn’t know if microscopic organisms and viruses had souls; he couldn’t see them without an electron microscope. But plants had souls, so it was difficult to imagine that Poison Mushrooms wouldn’t have them.

n“Also, Poison Mushrooms we defeated in other places had souls,” Vandalieu pointed out.

n“Then why in the world don’t they have any?” Darcia wondered.

n“Aren’t the souls still somewhere inside?” Vigaro asked.

n“No, they’re already dead,” said Vandalieu. “But let’s check whether there are Magic Stones.”

nMagic Stones normally appeared in the parts of the monster where their hearts were when they died. Thus, if Magic Stones were present in a monster’s body, it was certain that the monster was dead.

nCutting open the Poison Mushrooms’ bodies revealed that Magic Stones had indeed appeared. These Poison Mushrooms were unmistakably dead.

n“Hmm, I don’t understand,” said Vandalieu. “It’s not like I broke their souls, but they were able to exist without them. Luciliano, do you have any ideas?” he asked.

n“Master, I am a mage, not a Spiritualist, so I could not possibly know,” Luciliano replied.

n“Jyuuh~ I did not pay it much attention earlier, but thinking about it again, it is strange after all,” said Bone Man. “Could it be because this is a Dungeon that you created, my lord?”

n“Indeed, it is difficult to say as I have never heard of an artificially-created Dungeon before, but… Well, apart from Undead, only Spiritualists and you can see whether they have souls or not, boy,” said Zadiris.

nThey couldn’t be certain of anything. It was unclear as to what principles and mechanisms were at work to generate monsters inside Dungeons, so they didn’t know anything at all.

n“Well, as for why they have no souls, the next time I have the opportunity to meet a god, I’ll ask,” said Vandalieu, but there was no telling whether any gods would even answer his question.

nThis question was stepping into the realms beyond mortal knowledge.

nDungeons generated monsters one after another thanks to the Demon King Guduranis’s circle of transmigration system. The countless souls flowing through the system were used to create the monsters of the Dungeons.

nThis applied for Dungeons created by the evil gods as well

nBut Vandalieu didn’t have his own circle of transmigration system, nor did he know of a way to use the other systems.

nBecause of this, the monsters in the Dungeon created by Vandalieu were like soulless robots with living bodies. The exceptions were monsters that had entered the Dungeon from outside or monsters whose empty bodies had been possessed by exterior souls.

nThe same applied for Heinz’s Skeleton Caverns near the city of Niarki; the monsters had been programmed to move based on Vandalieu’s hatred and obeyed this programming the moment they were born. Other than the monsters in this initial monster rampage, the monsters of that Dungeon didn’t have souls.

nBut this information was only known to the gods, so Vandalieu and his companions couldn’t even make such conjectures. They had no choice but to put this matter aside for now and continue on.

n“Well, isn’t it fine?” said Darcia. “You can still earn Experience Points, can’t you?”

nVandalieu shook his head. “We can, but since they’re just standing like scarecrows, we won’t get practice for our skills,” he said. “It would be better if they just attacked us normally.”

nThere were Poison Apes nearby, apes with venomous saliva, motionless like the Poisonous Mushrooms. The moment Vandalieu finished speaking, as if a switch had been flipped, they attacked his party.

nAfter being surprised by the Poisonous Apes but defeating them without incident, Vandalieu and his party investigated why they had suddenly begun moving by examining other monsters.

n“Stop, turn over, paw, stay, come, stop… Yes, the only ones that work seem to be ‘stop’ and ‘come,’” said Vandalieu, watching the Rank 4 Poison Ents freeze like dolls and attack by swinging their branches based on his commands.

n“How surprising… is it different from taming them?” asked Kachia.

n“Yes, it is,” Vandalieu replied. “They don’t obey any other commands. For example, please take me around this place three times.”

nThere was the sound of buzzing wings.

nThe Cemetery Bees grabbed Vandalieu’s legs, flew up and took him around three times before letting him back down on the ground.

n“And now… take me around this place three times.” Vandalieu tried giving the same command to the Poison Ents, but they stayed frozen, not moving an inch.

n“As you can see, they don’t respond to my words,” said Vandalieu.

n“Wouldn’t one normally tell them to spin around three times?” Luciliano muttered. His words were ignored as everyone gave these strange monsters bewildered looks.

n“It does seem to be different from taming,” said Basdia.

n“Isn’t it because they have no souls? I don’t know much about soulless creatures, though,” said Kachia.

n“Perhaps they do listen to some of Vandalieu’s commands because he’s the one who created this Dungeon?” Darcia suggested.

n“Indeed, now that I think about it, they seem quite similar to Golems,” said Basdia.

n“Similar to Golems?” Luciliano repeated. Feeling relieved that he hadn’t been ignored this time, he began explaining. “Golems are puppets created by Alchemists; although there are various ways to create them, the one thing they have in common is that they produce Golems with no souls. Thus, in order to move, they require direct orders from the Alchemist that is their master or they must be provided with artificial personalities with orders given to them beforehand. It is said that Golems as useful and capable of making decisions as humans existed in the age of the gods, but now, even those that merely respond to the sound of their masters’ voices and are able to obey a number of simple commands are considered high-class products, Master.”

n“The Golems that Van creates are quite different, though,” said Basdia.

n“… No Alchemist is capable of creating Golems as capable as Master’s,” said Luciliano, his mouth twitching. “If they could, the world would undergo a revolution.”

nAfter coming to Talosheim and seeing the Golem surveillance network and Golem factories that used Golems in place of machines, Luciliano had experienced several occasions of shock that nullified his previous knowledge.

nLuciliano had become Vandalieu’s apprentice after admiring the way that he used the many beautiful, fearsome Ghosts to cast a spell to cave in a five-hundred-meter-tall rocky mountain without any incantation, but not even a few days had passed since coming to Talosheim and had already seen numerous things that overturned concepts that mages took for granted. He didn’t even want to count them anymore.

n“Leaving that revolution aside, it does seem that the reason the monsters are behaving so strangely is the fact that they have no souls,” said Luciliano.

nVandalieu, who didn’t have a good idea of these concepts that mages took for granted, simply accepted this explanation and nodded.

nHe also decided to cut down these Poison Ents with his claws for now. “They won’t make for good training like this, so I’ll have them attack us normally,” he said.

nFrom then on, the monsters attacked the party normally like monsters in any other Dungeon. Vandalieu didn’t know how it worked, but all of the monsters seemed to be this way even as they moved down the floors, so it was likely that all of the monsters in the entire Dungeon would be like this.

n“Later on, we’ll have to check whether the monsters still behave like this when Vandalieu isn’t here,” said Vigaro.

n“You are right,” Zadiris agreed. “If we need the boy to give them orders every time, they will not make for good training.”

n“… You can gather materials and Experience Points safely, so why would you go out of your way to make it more difficult?” Luciliano wondered.

nVigaro and Zadiris were of a warrior race, but Luciliano gave them a perplexed look, seemingly unable to understand. A Dungeon where monsters of Rank 4 and greater could be hunted – every nation would want this Dungeon if they knew about it.

n“What are you saying?” asked Zadiris. “You are an adventurer, are you not?”

n“I am an adventurer, but not all adventurers like adventures,” Luciliano replied.

n“Hmm, I suppose there would be a lot of people who would continue doing this because they can’t gain Experience Points any other way. And even if our skills don’t level up, we gain levels… I might have been pretty happy with this before I became a Ghoul,” said Kachia. She seemed to agree with Luciliano.

nIt seemed that not all adventurers were warriors. This fact surprised everyone other than these two.

n“What did you say?! Are adventurers not always full of fighting spirit?!” Zadiris exclaimed in shock.

n“I thought everyone was as reckless as me,” said Vigaro.

n“Are they not?” asked Levia. “Borkus in particular was always saying that combat was the daily bread of warriors in Talosheim.”

n“Jyuuh, I was so surprised that my jaw… My lord, please pick it up for me,” said Bone Man.

n“It’s hard to believe. What do you think, Van?” Basdia asked.

nIt was not only the Ghouls, who had only encountered adventurers who had come to hunt them, who thought that adventurers all loved fighting; Princess Levia had believed this as well.

n“The adventurers I know are Mom, Kachia, Borkus and the others… I think that people like Kachia are in the minority,” said Vandalieu as he picked up Bone Man’s jaw.

nIt seemed that one couldn’t gain good knowledge with a small view of the world.

nVandalieu’s party descended from the third floor to the fourth floor, checking whether there were any monsters or traps.

nThere were some differences between the floors of this Dungeon, such as the leaves of the trees and patches of wetlands, but they were mostly forests.

nOther than the top few floors, the monsters were mostly plant-type monsters of Rank 4 and above. The next most common monsters were insects, amphibians, reptiles, animals and fish in that order.

nMany of the monsters had the ability to inflict poison and disease, so anyone trying to clear this Dungeon without preparing properly beforehand could run into unexpected difficulties. If they weren’t Undead, that is.

nThere were quite a few traps, too. Pitfalls, webs that fell from overhead, vines that dragged the victim’s legs up into the air. There were even logs with spikes that came flying from the side when tripwires were carelessly triggered.

nThey weren’t the kinds of traps that would be found in ruins; they were mostly the kind of traps that would be used in guerilla warfare.

n“If the difficulty of the Dungeon was formally classified, I suppose it would be considered C-class,” said Luciliano.

n“C-class, huh. The only C-class Dungeon around before this was Borkus’s Sub-Dragon Savannah, so everyone should be happy,” said Vigaro.

n“It’s been packed every day,” added Basdia. “Lately, it’s not been unusual for there to be more people trying to clear the Dungeon than monsters inside it.”

n“Actually, nobody goes to clear the D-class Dungeons except for the stonemasons and fishermen nowadays, so they’re pretty empty,” said Kachia. “I’m not going to them these days, either.”

nThere were four other Dungeons near Talosheim, but there was only one B-class Dungeon and one C-class Dungeon, so Basdia and Kachia had been finding it troublesome to find a place to train.

n“The C-class Dungeon is packed full of people?! … Are the people here monsters?” Luciliano wondered.

nNormally, Dungeons of C-class and above wouldn’t be packed. There were few adventurers who could progress to C-class and beyond.

nD-class Dungeons, on the other hand, would be contested hunting grounds for the many D-class adventurers.

nThe only times when C-class Dungeons were full of people was when the first couple of floors contained desirable items for veteran D-class adventurers, or when certain products or monster materials were selling for a higher price than normal.

nNobody could blame Luciliano for being amazed.

n“Things weren’t like this two hundred years ago, though…” said Levia.

n“Until Vandalieu brought Levia-san and the others back, it was like the whole nation except for me and the children were adventurers,” said Darcia.

n“And us Undead do not tire,” said Bone Man. “We can train in the Dungeons for days on end, jyuuh.”

n“On top of that, I train in the Dungeons, and the ingredients for fish sauce, miso and soy sauce can only be gathered in the Dungeons. Everyone’s working hard,” said Vandalieu.

nAs a result, the tireless Undead and the normally-lazy Ghouls visited the Dungeons often. Everyone leveled up, and until the former slaves moved into Talosheim, most citizens were about as capable as C-class adventurers in battle.

n“Without the Dungeons, we’d have to walk about half a day away from the city to find monsters of Rank 5 or higher,” said Basdia. “I don’t want to leave Jadal alone for too long.”

n“Raising children is difficult, isn’t it? But this place is right inside the city, and you could make day trips if you’re just venturing into the first few floors, couldn’t you?” said Darcia.

n“Also, the trading post is close by, so moving materials there won’t be too hard,” said Bilde.

nThe three housewives were having a dangerous conversation.

n“Working women do need to consider the distance and methods of transport,” Vandalieu agreed. “The next time I make a Dungeon, I’ll make it closer to the city… I wonder if I can dismantle Garan’s Valley and Doran’s Aquatic Caverns and rebuild them somewhere else.”

n“It would be convenient if you could, but I have never heard of Dungeons being moved in such a way,” said Zadiris.

nLuciliano gave a hollow laugh. “Master appears to be very free, but I wonder who I am supposed to discuss things with.”

n“Jyujyujyuh, it appears that my lord’s apprentice has finally realized that superficial efforts will not make him worthy,” said Bone Man.

nAfter that, Vandalieu and his party continued through the endless Dungeon, inspecting his new skills and investigating whether the Dungeon’s products and monster materials were usable.

nBloodwork was simply a superior version of the Bloodsucking skill.

nThe amount of Stamina and Mana recovered by drinking blood was dramatically greater than through Bloodsucking, wounds healed faster and it seemed to increase his Attribute Values as well, though only by a few percent.

nAlso, this skill was apparently quite famous; Luciliano was familiar with its details.

n“It is a skill that indicates that one has consumed enough blood for the skill to become a superior skill, and many who possess the skill are apparently assaulted by a powerful thirst for blood,” he explained. “But… you are perfectly fine, aren’t you, Master?”

nDue to the skill’s properties, many who possessed it were powerful Vampires, and the reason they manipulated humans in the shadows was to maintain a reliable source of blood to drink.

n“I can drink as much blood as I want by hunting whatever monsters are available, can’t I?” said Vandalieu.

nThe thirst for blood wasn’t something he had been avoiding. Although he would have had a tough time on Earth or in Origin, Lambda was full of threats; there were always monsters to hunt.

nAnd unlike Vampires, who valued the blood of virgins, Vandalieu didn’t care whether the blood came from a middle-aged man, a bandit or an Orc. He didn’t have any particular preferences when it came to the taste of blood.

nHe didn’t enjoy strong-smelling Goblin blood or the blood of animals with bad-tasting meat, however.

n“Speaking of which, what are the Vampire Zombies working under Eleanora doing for blood?” Zadiris asked. “I have not seen them drinking blood very often.”

n“When they were training in the Dungeons with us, they were drinking monster blood,” Vigaro told her.

n“They sometimes drink a little of my blood, too,” said Vandalieu. “The Vampire Zombies… don’t they absorb some whenever they eat raw meat?”

n“I suppose I shouldn’t have asked this question in a country of Undead…”

nLuciliano had been treated like an outsider in human society, but he was astounded to find that in Talosheim, he was a normal person. He was worried that he would lose his Title of ‘Degenerate.’

nNext was the inspection of Vandalieu’s Insect Binding Technique, but this turned out to be simple as well.

n“It’s really going inside,” said Vandalieu.

n“Is that really alright?” Basdia asked.

n“There doesn’t appear to be any particular problems,” Vandalieu replied.

nThere was a large, vividly-colored, venomous-looking earthworm in his hand. And then it slowly dug its way inside his hand.

n“Umm, wasn’t that a Pain Worm? It’s only Rank 1, but it has tiny, poisonous needles growing all over its body,” asked Kachia.

n“So it seems,” said Vandalieu.

n“How can you be so calm about it?

nBasdia and Kachia’s voices sounded a little strained as they watched the Pain Worm disappear completely inside Vandalieu’s hand. But there wasn’t a single wound on his white, unhealthy-looking, candle-wax-like skin.

n“My Vitality hasn’t gone down, either, so it does seem that there isn’t any problem with this,” said Vandalieu.

n“Jyuuh? Are you saying that you consumed that creature?” Bone Man asked.

n“No, I don’t think that’s the case,” Vandalieu replied. “Look, it can come out whenever it wants to, too.”

nThe Pain Worm slowly emerged from Vandalieu’s other hand. It plopped onto the ground, but Pete leapt out after it, grabbed it in his mouth and returned to Vandalieu’s hand.

n“It’s difficult to believe, but it seems that Insect Binding Technique is a skill that allows one to equip insects to the body,” said Basdia.

n“Equip insects… will they actually be useful? It’s not like you can punch enemies with insects, right?” said Vigaro.

n“Well, that explains the mystery of why Pete settled in my hair,” said Vandalieu. “As for whether they’ll be useful, they probably will be. Cemetery Bees, can you enter my body in the same way?”

nShowing no signs of hesitation, the Cemetery Bees silently entered Vandalieu’s body. They forced themselves mercilessly into Vandalieu’s head despite their size, so it looked quite grotesque, but Vandalieu didn’t feel any discomfort or pain.

nAnd then once the Cemetery Bees were completely inside him, Vandalieu was able to control them as if they were a part of his body. He could poke their heads out from his hands or their poisonous stingers from the tip of his tongue. In the same way, he was able to produce Pete from anywhere in his body on command.

n“I see, so I can control any insect-type monster that I’ve tamed,” Vandalieu concluded. “By the way, what’s wrong?”

nEveryone except for Vandalieu’s apprentice touched their own heads cautiously as they looked up at him.

n“It’s just that they were completely inside your head, so I was wondering if it’s really alright,” said Basdia.

n“My lord, it may be fine for you, but to those watching, it appears as if you are being consumed by the insects, jyuuh,” said Bone Man.

n“… I’ll make sure to avoid using this in front of people. By the way, what about Luciliano?”

n“He’s fainted over there, but… I suppose we can’t blame him,” said Kachia.

nInsect Binding Technique was a skill that allowed Vandalieu to equip insects inside his body, and if those insects were tamed, then he could produce them or a part of their bodies from his own at will.

nBut if the insects stayed equipped for more than a few hours, they would begin taking the nutrients they required from the host’s body. In other words, Vandalieu had to eat a lot in order to avoid losing Vitality to them.

nThat was the kind of skill it was.

nIt would probably be another excellent skill for Vandalieu alongside Dead Spirit Magic.

n“What if I equipped the insectoid monsters that I’ve tamed, entered a city and registered at the Tamers’ Guild?” Vandalieu wondered.

n“I am a Ghoul, so I do not know much about Guilds, but I believe that it would be best to give up on this idea,” said Zadiris.

n“Vandalieu, I don’t think it’s a good idea, either,” said Darcia. “I’m sure you’ll shock everyone.”

n“It’ll be more than a shock,” said Kachia. “Luciliano hasn’t even woken up yet.”

n“There should be relatively harmless monsters like Pixies living somewhere, shouldn’t there?” asked Vandalieu.

nAt the very least, it seemed that there were no Pixies in this Dungeon.

n“Are Pixies insects?” Darcia wondered.

n“For now, I’m going to tame useful-looking insectoid monsters and equip them,” said Vandalieu. “It’s probably best to test how many I can fit at the same time, too.”

n“Umm, try to make sure they’re cute ones, okay?” said Kachia.

n“I’ll see how it goes.” Vandalieu nodded, but he couldn’t really imagine what Kachia had in mind.

nWhat were these cute insects that Kachia mentioned? Bees and centipedes didn’t seem to fit the criteria, so woodlice, perhaps?

nThe focus of this expedition was the inspection of the Labyrinth Construction skill, but not all of its details could be seen immediately. As Vandalieu examined this skill, more new effects revealed themselves.

nFirst, whenever Vandalieu descended to a new floor, he could see its overall layout. The moment he took his first step, a map would appear over his head.

nHe could also change the structure of floors that had already been cleared. He could build walls, set traps and even create staircases connecting floors, though only when both floors had already been cleared.

n“Oh, there’s a wall of trees appearing right in front of us!”

n“To think that you could make pitfalls and even stairs…”

n“It uses up quite a lot of Mana though,” said Vandalieu. “Small traps and walls cost ten thousand, and ten million for stairs that lead both up and down.”

n“But it’s not a lot for you, is it, Van?” asked Basdia.

n“That’s true.”

n“That’s amazing, Vandalieu,” said Darcia. “If you used it to create walls on all sides, we could rest safely, couldn’t we?”

nDepending on their layout, the walls of any Dungeon could be made of trees, cliffs, stones, bricks, unidentified metals or even like the internal organs of an enormous creature, but the thing that they all in common was that their structure couldn’t be altered artificially.

nThe cliffs of Garan’s Valley and the minerals of Doran’s Aquatic Caverns could be temporarily broken and chipped, but they would return to normal after a few days at most. Even disarmed traps would be replaced, although it was a mystery as to who had set them.

nIf this weren’t the case, high-class Dungeons would collapse during battles between high-Rank monsters and the mighty adventurers challenging them, so perhaps it was only natural that they had self-repairing functions.

nBuilding additional walls or setting traps was impossible. It was certainly difficult to bring the materials to do so into a Dungeon, but even if one did take the effort to do these things, they would be destroyed by monsters or simply disappear eventually.

nEven in Dungeons that were like labyrinths with stone walls, monsters wouldn’t destroy the walls unless they happened to hit them during battle. But they would destroy any artificially-built walls without hesitation.

nEven if monsters didn’t destroy them, they would be identified as foreign objects and the Dungeon’s self-repair function would cause them to disappear as if they were damage caused to the Dungeon.

nEven though Vandalieu could use his Golem Transmutation skill to mine rock and minerals, he couldn’t make large changes to the structures of Dungeons.

nHowever, the walls made by Labyrinth Construction changed the Dungeon itself, so it was highly likely that they would stay there.

n“Monsters destroyed the walls you made with Golem Transmutation, but they simply avoided and passed by the walls you made with Labyrinth Creation,” said Darcia.

n“Truly amazing, Your Majesty,” said Levia. “If you can use this skill in other Dungeons, there is no telling how much easier everyone’s lives would become…”

n“No, it’s not really that big a deal,” said Vandalieu, feeling shy about being praised.

nBut the great discovery came after this.

nIt seemed that Vandalieu and those with him could teleport freely to any cleared floor in the Dungeon.

nFrom the twenty-third floor to the first floor. From the first floor to the seventeenth floor. Whether it was the mid-boss’s floor or the Dungeon’s deepest floor where the boss was, they could go anywhere except for the Dungeon’s treasure chamber.

nAnd it wasn’t only the entrances to the floors that they could teleport to. They could teleport to any point in a cleared floor.

nEven the Magic Items installed in Dungeons through advanced Alchemy weren’t capable of doing this.

n“Teleporting is interesting, isn’t it?” said Vandalieu.

n“I suppose this makes you invincible in any Dungeon you have already cleared once, boy,” said Zadiris.

n“Yeah, I think any adventurer who works in Dungeons would want this ability,” said Kachia.

nWith the materials, treasure and tamed monsters in hand, Vandalieu and his party left the Dungeon.

n“To place the spirits around you into the soulless monsters… is this not an artificial reincarnation?” said Luciliano, trembling unnaturally in shock and fear.

n“My lord, it seems that your apprentice is going to begin foaming at the mouth soon. Should you not have held back a little?” Bone Man suggested.

nVandalieu thought that Luciliano was overreacting.

nIn his mind, there was nothing different from this and creating Golems or Undead. Also, the monsters that were following him now were important to him.

n“I want fruits and spices, after all,” said Vandalieu. “I can’t hold back.”

nThe Dungeon had contained all kinds of plant-type monsters, and among them, there had been Ents and Monster Plants formed from trees that produced fruit.

nThere were wild strawberry, watermelon and capsicum Monster Plants as well as Ents that produced pears, cherries, raspberries, blueberries, coffee, citrus fruits, bananas, mangoes, avocadoes and sap that could be turned into syrup.

nThere were even monsters bearing fruits that Vandalieu didn’t know. He didn’t know whether these fruits existed on Earth.

n“Jyuuh. In that case, it cannot be helped,” said Bone Man as he quickly joined Vandalieu in enjoying the fruits that he had never seen before. Despite being made of bones, he was quite the big eater.

nThe next day, this Dungeon was named the ‘Eclipse King’s Orchard.’

nA rare research-type adventurer. He is C-class, but his actual ability in combat is equivalent to a D-class adventurer. His high-level magic is specialized for creating Undead.

nThe Undead he makes are Live-Dead that he creates by granting life-force to fresh corpses, so they are different from the specimens that Vandalieu creates.

nIncidentally, he lost his qualifications as an adventurer when he became a slave.

n