Preparations

Before Five realized it, two days had already passed. In the middle of his small forge, Five dropped the small hammer and carefully examined the small dagger in front of him. A faint smile appeared on his face as Five slowly tossed the dagger in his hands, "Finally, a proper weapon! I will soon be able to move to larger weapons."

Having finally reached his goal, Five left the forge and returned to his room to rest. The week had been quite hectic for him; as he was leaving for an unknown period of time, a lot of preparations had to be made!

As soon as he returned to the dungeon from his deal with the Shaman, Five immediately informed Dreidus that the barbarians would start exploring the fifth floor. And as he expected from Dreidus, the lich was already prepared for this event and went there to brief the monsters on the situation.

Opening the 5th floor would not have an impact on the monsters' life; the only impact it would have would be to urge Five to build the 6th floor. Before, the 5th floor acted as the last line of defense but now that it was gone, Five did not feel comfortable at all.

As a result, he quickly used a large portion of the DP he gathered over the week to build a new floor. He initially thought of using the Nosferatus as the main monsters of the floor but after thinking more carefully, he concluded that the difference between the 5th and 6th floor would then be too big.

It was only after discussing with Dreidus that the ideal 6th floor was built. This time, instead of going with a completely different landscape, Five opted for a simple design consisting of caverns and tunnels, similar to the 1st floor but with the caverns being at a much larger size and with shorter tunnels. Aside from that, a few puddles of water were scattered around the caverns and a small lake was added to one of the caverns.

The key difference came from the ceiling; not only was it 10m high, Five decided to use a night sky with a bright full moon as the decoration and added a relatively large amount of moving clouds. They were just decorations but they had some synergy with the chosen monsters.

The main monsters summoned on the 6th floor were level 25 Cadavers; they were essentially corpses and had a similar appearance to the zombies on the 3rd floor but when they stood directly under the moonlight, then the flesh of the cadavers would temporarily disappear, making it appear as a skeleton. In terms of stats, the cadavers had both the advantages of the zombies and the skeletons; they had a good amount of vitality and significant strength and dexterity to be a threat.

While the cadavers roamed through the majority of the 6th floor, the cavern which housed the small lake was devoid of them. The reason being that Five decided to turn that small cavern into the habitat of level 26 Corpse Eaters. They were hairless white creatures with an elongated body and 4 thick legs. The face of a Corpse Eater was devoid of any human features aside from the mouth; as a result, they could only detect their prey through heat detection.

As their name suggested, the Corpse Eaters usually fed on corpses. They were living monsters and needed to be fed and the cadavers were the perfect source of food for them. Cadavers were undead monsters and did not release any heat; on the contrary, they absorbed heat and emitted some coldness, allowing the Corpse Eaters to detect them.

As for why a small lake was placed in that particular cavern, it was because Corpse Eaters needed a source of water and in the future, Five planned to turn it into a potential entrance to a secret room.

It was Five's first attempt at creating a sort of environment for the monsters; while it was not exactly a self-sufficient environment as cadavers would often need to be replenished, it was a perfect testing ground to see the living monsters' behavior. Each monster was different but Five wanted to see if the monsters summoned by the dungeon would behave like normal ones and hunt for food or they would simply wait to be served something to eat.

...

Five entered the meeting room and sat on the sofa for a moment. He took a moment to calm himself and relax. After much efforts, he had finally succeeded in making a dagger; while it was not a prestigious weapon, to Five, it was equivalent to making a step in the right direction.

Since he would not be at the dungeon for the next few days, it also meant that he would not have the opportunity to practice smithing and so, Five ended up spending most of the past 2 days in his small forge to make up for the time that would be lost.

Under the stress and pressure, he finally succeeded in making a tiny breakthrough before the departure time. With about 12 hours left before the departure time, Five decided to allow himself to decompress but before that, he quickly checked the time, "Perfect, the harpies should all still be here, I better call them now before they leave for their nightly excursion."

He quickly stood up and stepped outside the meeting room only to find Lyra making her way to the common room. "Hey, Lyra, can you please call the others for a short meeting? I have something to tell them," said Five.

"Sure," quickly replied the Banshee Queen before walking into the common room.

...

In the meanwhile, in the common room, the 3 harpies, Dreidus and Ivan were all chatting over a cup of tea. Even Dreidus, who as an undead monster did not need to consume any food to survive, was also enjoying his cup of tea as a way to socialize with the other monsters.

"Am I the only one or did you all notice it too?"

"Notice what?" asked Dreidus.

"I feel like master became more distant recently," answered Ariel while staring at the cup of tea in front of her. Her eyes were fixed on the small spiral in her cup.

Surprised, Dreidus looked up at the harpy, "I don't think so? Is it not just because he is learning how to craft? I think it is normal that he spends less time with us. Although I think it would be better if he summons a monster willing to learn to smith, I don't see anything wrong with master."

"It's not what I mean. It has been almost one month since we came to the dungeon. But I feel like master's behavior toward us has changed a little bit. I don't feel the same warmth and comfort emanating from him anymore. It's like he became colder and more distant, even when he talks to us, I feel like his sentences became a bit shorter and even our contact became less frequent."

"Maybe it's just your imagination. Master still speaks to me when I see him. He always asks me if the Shaman is teaching me well," said Angela. On her shoulder, Lumen started buzzing for a moment, occasionally emitting some light.

"I think Lumen is right! I don't spend much time with master but I think he changed somehow. Just look at how he announced that he would be leaving soon with someone. He simply informed us about it; although we would not refuse, if it was the old him, I am sure he would discuss with us first and more importantly, he would allow us to choose who he would bring with him and ask for our opinion!" commented Alice.

"mmm, now that I think about it, maybe you are right. I obviously spend more time with Lyra now, but master certainly does feel a bit off. I remember how at the beginning, he valued every single one of us; even the most basic skeleton was important. Now look at what happened when he learned that he could harvest some raw materials from us, he did not hesitate to sacrifice some monsters to run some tests and now, we have to submit our loot as soon as they grow back. It might not be painful for you as you just pluck off a feather, but imagine you being in a skeleton's situation, being ordered to cut off one of your ribs? I know that master was right in making these decisions... But maybe he could have been more tactful when passing the orders or he could have found other ways to test his theories?"

As Dreidus spoke, everyone fell into deep thoughts. "What about you? What do you think, Ivan?" asked Dreidus to break the heavy atmosphere.

"Nothing... I only joined recently and did not find anything wrong with master. Although it was my fault, he tried to intimidate me, merely seconds after I had spawned..." answered the Nosferatu who had stayed silent for most of the conversation.

"Do you guys think that it is just due to stress? I heard that males, especially humans, need to vent out their frustrations sometimes or they become gloomy and aggressive. Maybe one of us should go and relieve him? What about you Angela? You have a nice figure, especially at the level of your chest and beautiful wings, there is no way he would not be attracted if you try a little bit," mischievously said Alice while grinning.

"Me?" murmured Angela as she lowered her head. As no one could see her eyes, she immediately started comparing her figure with that of her sisters and as Alice mentioned, she indeed was the one with the most voluptuous chest.

"Alice, this is a serious thing! Stop joking like that!" exclaimed Ariel. She was also visibly disturbed by her sister's comment; only Alice could say this type of things so openly.

Even Dreidus coughed in embarrassment, "Maybe it is just because the dungeon is growing. It is normal to communicate less when an organization gets bigger. Before coming here, I was a member of Necro Valley; there, we only got to talk to our superiors and rarely spoke to other divisions. We just need to make sure that we listen to master."

"In any case, it is very important that we find out if it is just a mere coincidence. Maybe master is facing some difficulties and he is not willing to share his problems with us; as his monsters, it is our duty to help him. One of us will be going on a trip with master for the next few days, I hope that that one person can speak to master a little bit and find out if he is facing any trouble," said Ariel.

At that moment, the door of the common room suddenly opened and everyone jumped in fright. Fortunately, all the monsters calmed down as they realized that it was only Lyra.

Surprised by their reaction, the Banshee Queen suspiciously looked at the monsters, "What shady business were you all doing? Master just told me to tell you all to meet him in the meeting room. He is waiting for us and it is probably about the trip tomorrow."