Part 10

Walking out of the dungeon was very easy, as all of the enemies recognized me as their master and chose not to block my way. I also used my system as a map, so I knew exactly where to go. It only took me a little bit over an hour to reach the first miniboss room. Inside were the three Salamanders and the Salamander Elite, all of which were gathered near the center of the room.

I knew what they looked like because I saw them through my system while I was creating them, but they were still much larger than I had expected. As the Salamanders saw me walk into the room, all four of them bowed their heads and moved out of the way to let me pass.

Icarus followed behind me, not bothering to bow before me after he saw how the Salamanders treated me.

"It is good to see you, Creator," The Salamander Elite said as they bowed to me. I looked to them in surprise, shocked to find out they could speak. The Salamander's voice was shockingly feminine, though it still held as much weight as Anos's voice carried.

"You can talk?" I gasped, still shocked. I quickly inspected the Salamander Elite, hoping to gain some insight on their abilities.

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Salamander Elite

Race: Monster

Core Level: 2

HP: 100

MP: 60

AC: 70

Rank: E

Titles: Dungeon Miniboss

Skills: Lunge, Spear Skills, Fireball, Respawn

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'Huh,' I thought to myself, 'I only created the miniboss as an extra layer of defense. It looks like the system recognizes it as a literal thing, now.'

"I can, Creator," The Salamander told me, still bowing.

"Huh. Cool," I chuckled, "You name will be Silfang. If you do a good job, I'll make sure you become the first floor boss after the second floor get's built."

"You named me? Just like that?" Silfang shouted, losing all forms of composure as she looked up at me in shock.

"You're a subleader of my dungeon," I told her as I turned to Silfang, "Obviously, i'm going to name you. That goes for you three, as well; If you do well, you'll be promoted."

I turned to the Salamanders that guarded Silfang. Each of them bowed ever lower, shivering with either excitement or fear- I couldn't really tell which.

"I see. Thank you very much for the name, Creator," Silfang said as she bowed once more. Then she looked to Icarus and bowed once more, "And who is this majestic creature?"

Icarus only snorted with pride in response.

"I'm sure Aros is going to tell you eventually," I sighed as I heard the name 'Creator' again, "But don't call me that. 'My Lord', 'Milord', or 'Lord Aureys' all work as substitute names. That's what Aros has been calling me, at least."

"Understood, Lord Aureys," Silfang said. I nodded, then quickly left the miniboss room and continued making my way out of the dungeon.

Thanks to the map from my system, I managed to reach the surface after another two hours of walking. When I reached the cave system, I was surprised to find the Kobold's even weaker lookin than I had expected.

They were small, not even the height of my waist, and were built like twigs. Only the Kobold Elites had any sort of muscle on them, though it was only enough to be compared to a school grader's body. Their armor was even worse in person and their blades were on the verge of falling apart.

Luckily, the Kobolds managed to recognize me as their 'creator', despite their low intelligence. Then, after a few hours of walking, I finally made it to the entrance of the dungeon. Even Icarus, who had just been born a few hours ago, carried an aura of superiority that caused the Kobolds to bow their heads to him as well.

I chuckled as I saw how excited Icarus got when the he saw this. Not long after we met with the Kobolds, Icarus and I finally found the entrance to the dungeon. I sighed in relief as I felt the sun on my skin while Icarus was jumping around in excitement as he looked at the forest around him.

"Now then, lets go find a town," I chuckled as I looked down at the forest and found the dirt path, "This should lead us to a main road, shouldn't it?"

Icarus and I moved away from the dungeon and walked onto the dirt path. Not long after I stepped onto the path, I turned around and took one last look at the dungeon's entrance. This was the starting point of my adventurer, my origin.

Even if it wasn't for very long, this place was a home to me. After I stared at it for a moment longer, I opened my status and looked to the Dungeon Panel. I fidgeted with the buttons displayed in front of me for a moment, then turned back around and began to walk down the path.

『 Nameless Dungeon renamed to:『 Labyrinth of Aros 』』

"I'll have to check the dungeon's progress every day," I mumbled to myself. Icarus followed close behind me, not quite understanding my words but still hooked on them regardless, "Maybe it'll be a good idea to tell others about the dungeon so I can increase my DP? I'll have to make sure not to tell anybody strong, or they'll just end up clearing the dungeon without much resistance. God! I'm worrying too much. I just need to focus on the road in front of me! C'mon Icarus, let's go!"

Icarus happily barked as I increased my speed to a light jog. Icarus followed behind, happily prancing as he easily kept up with me.

The two of us followed the path for a little more than a day before stopping to rest. Unfortunately I didn't have any camping tools with me, so we would be forced to sleep out in the open, but I did have enough to create a campfire.

With Icarus's flame, we'd be able to cook anything to an acceptable condition to have for dinner. Not long after we stopped, I searched around the forest for some food. With my speed and with Icarus comfortably resting on my back, we were able to find a rabbit within a few minutes of searching.

The rabbit was dead before it even knew what happened, but I decided to go for another one while we were still out. After about ten minutes of hunting, we returned to the campsite with two smoke forest rabbits to cook for dinner.

For some reason, Icarus preferred to cook his rabbit personally. I didn't mind, as I was eager to see how Icarus's flame worked. However, before he did so, he turned to the campsite and opened his mouth. Suddenly, as if his gullet was a flamethrower, a stream of fire escaped from his mouth. The flames quickly ran across the campfire, setting it ablaze with surprising speed.

I nodded proudly after Icarus turned away from the campsite and focused on his food. He held the rabbit between his two front paws as he carefully cooked his prey. He didn't use his fire breath as recklessly as he did so with the campsite, instead barely scorching the rabbit before stopping and moving onto a new spot to scorch.

When he was finally satisfied with his progress, he began to eat. My rabbit still wasn't cooked all the way, so I was left to watch him eat without anything for myself. While I did so, I quickly inspected our levels, hoping to see how close each of us were to leveling up.

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Aureys

184.6/200

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--

﹃

Icarus

XP: 4.6/100

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"Naturally, Icarus still has a way to go. I wonder why the required XP to level up is different. Is it because we're different levels or is for another reason?" I mumbled to myself. Then, after looking closer at Icarus's XP progress, I happily groaned as I leaned back against the tree stump I was relaxing on, "Still, it looks like he's gaining the same rate of XP as I gain, probably from that title of his. For an A ranked monster, that's a monstrous rate of growth. Will he level up like I will, or will he level up like a normal A ranked monster?"