Costs and Confrontation

Hans slowly came to the realization that the "grace period" he was granted was going to be a pain. He was already so close to "completing" his dungeon's first floor, yet not even a complete day had passed.

Was Veef so excited that she forgot the amount of time they had?

The duo had just finished their discussion on traps, how they worked, and the many different kinds that existed. The dungeon pixie's tiny childish voice was currently in the middle of guiding Hans through the trap spawning menu.

The menu wasn't that different from the [Room Creation] menu, the [Item Generation] or the [Monster Spawn] menu either. Instead of items or monsters, there were traps. Obviously.

The screen listed many kinds: pitfalls, arrow traps, fire traps, wire traps...etc.

Similar to the [Create Monster] function he found earlier, there was a [Create Trap] function under the "Trap Creation" section. It allowed him to generate his own trap designs, but at the cost of higher mana.

To Hans, it felt like everything was beginning to revolve around mana these days, heck, he almost died because of it.

At first, he was afraid his monsters would fall into the traps, but was soon assured that they became subconsciously aware of trap placements as soon as they were placed, not to mention - traps didn't allow themselves to be activated by monsters. The dungeon core speculated on how that was supposed to work out; what if his monster stepped on the pressure plate accidentally? What if it tripped over his trap wire? Did the trap just not go off?

He hoped his lesser intelligent monsters weren't clumsy either way.

_____________________

All preparations were in place for the final step. Hans had just finished placing traps in ideal locations, with Veef helping him make some minor adjustments. Lesser traps like: one or two ground spikes were placed in the first small room. A few of the larger ones were allocated to the bigger rooms: pitfalls, small fire cannons (spew flames), and a few arrow traps here and there.

There was even a trap called [Fake Wall] which was essentially just a destructible dungeon wall of optional size. It didn't look any different from the reddish stone walls of his dungeon, so he wondered why it wasn't in his room creation screen but rather his trap spawning one. Hans figured it had something to do with it being labeled an additional object, other than a direct "part" of his dungeon.

Nonetheless, he could see it's opportune uses in separating spaces inside of the larger rooms, which room creation strangely didn't allow.

It could even help build him a labyrinth if he was willing to place a ton of them in a large room. He had nowhere near that amount of mana though.

That being said, it was becoming a little difficult to utilize traps with how large the rooms were becoming too, but monsters helped sort that problem out. It became all the better when he realized he could place traps in hallways, making it way easier to make use of wire traps and such.

"Now! For the Finale!" He could hear a piercing cry of joy around him. It wasn't like he could see Veef's consciousness floating there alongside his.

He didn't care a few hours ago, but now her high pitch voice was beginning to get on his nerves.

"Treasure!!!"

'...'

'Do I even have enough mana for "worthwhile" items after all I've been spending?'

The thought caused Hans to revert back and calculate his previous transactions.

It costed around 200 mana to move the rooms, buy hallways, and create a small room. Another 200 mana to purchase all those light crystals so they could brighten up the dungeon. He spent 432 mana spawning monsters, and 300 on traps.

In total, the mana spent was near 1,132. Subtract that from the 6,250 he had previously and he was left with about 5,118 mana. He may have miscalculated, so saying it was 5,000+ mana wouldn't be wrong.

He checked his status and found that he was nearly right. Hans had 5,092 mana remaining.

"Relax, at your level, some common items will do for rewards. A few leather boots or cheap daggers should be fine for now."

'Wait... Why am I "rewarding" them again?!'

"*sigh* Not only are you putting it in there to give adventurers an incentive to come to your dungeon, but If they make it past the boss room, and you don't want to die, you'd better leave a worthwhile incentive - so that they choose to take it and possibly come back later for more, rather than killing you."

'...'

Hans felt a plausible fear of adventurers grow in the back of his mind. He began to think of them as akin to parasites venturing inside of his body (essentially what this dungeon is to him), and trying to either kill him outright or drain him of resources.

'Wouldn't it be better to just find a way to definitely eliminate them?!' Hans frightened himself, with his own willingness to end a human...or other...life.

The pixie responded causally, "It would, but it helps to have a backup plan! Plus, you've got to get mana somehow..."

'That makes sense... So what am I supposed to put, and where? Don't tell me that I only have to put a bucket of gold down right in front of my core room...'

"Don't be silly... you only have to place some small amounts in the other rooms, and put the rest of it inside of your core room..."

' ?!!!'

"Don't worry, there are plenty of ways to hide your core in the future... plus, once someone accepts an item while inside of the core room, they are immediately teleported outside of the dungeon and people can't come back in for a few days. That should give you enough time to recuperate."

"You DO have a second floor, but shouldn't go adding more rooms to it until you have more mana! If you can't add monsters and traps to the rooms you create, you are just prolonging the inevitable with empty space! Plus, you currently only have 5,000 mana reserve! And likely even less than that after you add treasure!"

She paused, giving Hans time to think.

What she said was true. He needed at least that amount of mana (what he had now) to re-summon most of his monsters should they die repeatedly.

"Its really the adventurers that go looking for your core that you have to worry about. Core hunters. They'll toss aside all the gold, dig through it, and really look for you"

"Most dungeon cores are small, which make them more difficult to spot... But you're quite big... So... that's just bad luck on your part..."

'Bad luck?!!'

This caused Hans to panic.

'I thought you said there were ways to hide my core!'

Veef released yet another sigh.

"There are... But you don't have the mana for them. Even if you retracted the mana you spent on everything you just built and some of the rooms even, you still wouldn't have enough."

'...?'

"It costs over 20,000 mana."

'20,000?! that's twice my current capacity!' Hans wondered why Veef even mentioned the method if he didn't have the means for it.

"That's why you will have to get there through core evolution! Don't worry! With me, Veef, you will definitely get there!"

'Core evolution?'

The dungeon core didn't understand what this pixie was going on about.

"That's right. After a dungeon core matures, which only adds 5,000 to their capacity by the way, they can begin to re-condense mana! They can use that mana to alter the property of the core itself.....the details are very fuzzy because very few dungeons complete this process, but I hear its effects are amazing!"

'Modifying the core? Aren't we formed by super-condensed mana to begin with though?'

He saw Veef shake her head subconsciously from zooming in on 'Dungeon View'.

"As I said, the details are really vague, even I don't know how its done!"

'...'

'Yet - Yet you claim you can get me there?!! The confidence!" Hans found it astonishing that the pixie would make such a claim without the information needed to back it up.

"Hey! Have some faith, don't you believe I can do it?!!!" Veef's voice shook a little.

'...Maybe' Hans was at a loss for how to respond.

"..."

'~By the way, what do we do after putting treasure in?' Hans quickly inserted, hoping to avoid the awkward silence.

Veef too, snapped out of it.

"Uh...Yes! We Wait!"

'...'

'Seriously?!!! We still have weeks left in the grace period!'

"Oh~ That's strange. I figured you dungeons preferred having nothing to do? I guess I thought wrong... my apologies."

'...'

"You can make a few minor tweaks to the dungeon setup in your spare time, but I would not recommend any major changes with your current mana...."

______

Hans proceeded to spread cheap armor around his dungeon; wooden shields, cheap iron daggers, leather gloves... Etc....

He finished by filling up his dungeon core room with the inexpensive gold and silver coins a few minutes later. Enough to cover his core entirely. He sprinkled some cheap gems here and there to make it look more enticing. He even went so far as to buy a 200 mana sword, something realms above the cheap articles littering his dungeon, and stick it in the gold pile.

He stopped when he was satisfied no one would notice his core, and that they would rather take the other stuff. Hans spent another 1000 mana in this manner.

His dungeon was left with a measly 4,092 mana, when Veef gracefully asked permission to use the excess 92, combined with the skills [Item generation] and an [Inter Connected Dimensional Room].

It was probably to make herself a little house. She did say the room size when using that skill depended on the amount of mana put in. He imagined it being a relatively small room with what he gave her.

And after being granted that much by Hans, she swiftly disappeared off somewhere. A one foot tall door appeared on the wall to the far right of his core's position, likely leading into the dimensional room she just created.

Left with nothing to do, Hans exited "Dungeon View" and tried collecting his thoughts.

...

The result was Hans getting a headache.

He truly wasn't a dungeon person. In fact, he dreadfully wondered why he couldn't be reincarnated as an adventurer. Even a weak one would be fine, as long as he got to travel places and at least do interesting things.

These thoughts were akin to throwing logs into the fire rampaging in the back of his mind however, so he tossed them aside for now.

The dungeon core irritatingly started searching for things to do. He settled on going into "Dungeon View" and checking up on everything. Immediately he spotted a few interesting developments, and almost all of them took place in the large room.

..

All of the monsters were huddled in the middle of the massive room, unlike their previous actions; grouping themselves by race. The reptilian kobolds and dirty green goblins were mixed into each other, forming a large circle of 8 monsters.

This wasn't the interesting part.

The extremely surprising bit was what the two monsters in the middle were doing. A goblin and a kobold were pitted against each other, without their small cheap scrap daggers or crude wooden axes.

They were wrestling.

Hans was left speechless as the two species of relatively the same height tustled about on the smooth dungeon floor. The surrounding audience cheered for their brethren.

'....'

'Wasn't expecting this....'

He only believed the monsters he summoned to be borderline sentient, not sentient enough to display knowledge on the subject of sport, although rather crude.

Could this be a factor in their road to evolution? Or do they have to kill adventurers to gain experience like those old games Hans used to play? He had no clue.

He kept watching for a few hours, taking note of the results for the matches. Goblins were Rank E minus, compared to the kobold's plain Rank E. The difference in rank levels was not all too noticeable. It was probably due to the goblin's smarts balancing out with the Kobolds brawn in some exchanges. The goblins managed to win rounds, but kobolds took the lead with a slight majority.

Either way, the methods they used to tackle each other seemed sloppy, and the time between interactions was rather long, so Hans lost interest once more. He did take a mental note to come back to see if anything progressed later.

For a second he had the idea of dropping some wooden sticks in the center of the circle to see if they would still go at each other, using them as makeshift swords. But when he really thought about it, it probably wouldn't be the best idea.

He could also do without wasting any more mana.

Just as he was beginning to lose hope, glaring at the blighted wolf cubs while they played with each other, he once again felt the ominous pressure from above that made his damaged core quiver.

He looked up to see the "room" he had created out of desperation floating there, black and murky as it stared down on him. Mocking him for his fear of it. As if it knew.

Hans did have to admit he was too worried of having to meddle with the room earlier, so he didn't tell Veef what it truly was. Even after she told him the room's exact functions - he still didn't trust it! Because you know what?!: "Having near death experiences can traumatize you!"

Or something like that.

That wasn't to say he was frightened out of his mind by it. It just made him unnaturally wary. Hans thought of the room as being a box, and the mana contained within - being a stray cat. He just didn't know...or rather -want to know, if he put his hand inside whether he'd be bitten or not.

'Maybe I'm overthinking it....'

With few things else to do... Hans felt the creeping thought that it might be the best time to confront this problem.

After all, it wouldn't be healthy to ignore this thing for the rest of the month out of fear, that would no doubt only make it worse.