Book of the Dungeon Maker

by Nathan Valerio

  “That felt good…” she said light heartedly.

  “Are… are you okay now?” Charlotte asked worried.

  “I'm fine, I vented all my emotions. I'm still scared of what is going on with me but I guess after killing so many monsters already, I think it helped me get what I was feeling a bit more in control,” she said clearly slumping and letting another sigh out.

  I opened my book and looked at the number of creatures still alive.

  “There are still quite a number of rats and small animals left. I doubt we can kill them that fast, so let's head to the second dungeon where bigger targets with more exp live, and I will set my puppets to kill. I found that small blade tools are quick to raise so I have a few weapons the puppets can equip and I feel safer with them hunting small animals instead of monsters since they only have 25 across the board,” I said.

  “If that is so then we can go,” Misaki said as she swung her sword clearing the blood and sheathing her sword.

  We left as three puppets walked out. Two were standing and one was on all fours.

  “What’s with that one that is crouching?” Charlotte asked.

  “I ordered it to train in walking on all fours until it can move as naturally as a quadruped. I found out that puppets have a large potential for evolution whether it is in a beast or into getting class like evolutions. I just need to research and train them properly,” I said.

  “This is to resolve the mount problem, isn’t it?” Misaki asked.

  “Of course, I don’t know how big it is though, I just hope I can choose between sizes. Welp, let's go,” I said and they nodded.

  The puppets pulled out small sharp wooden daggers and each split up to search for their own prey and as mindless puppets they were completely controlled by the dungeon, and knew where all the life in the dungeon was located.

  ***

  “Boss, we found them, also we hit the jackpot! There are some magic formation things in the forest that lead right into a dungeon. There must be a new type of dungeon or maybe a magic phenomenon. We only entered a bit, but left after confirming it!” one of my men said.

  “Dungeon? There were some around here? They must be getting their money from there. Hehehe, boys keep watching the dungeon. I still need time for the elixir to take effect so tomorrow we will hit them,” I said with a vicious grin.

  “Boss, since you want that eastern bitch let us have the other girl, ” one of my men suggested.

  “Sure thing, you guys can fuck the bitch as you like, kill the fucker following them and catch the girls,” I told them and picked up a mug of beer and downed it before slamming it on the table.

  “Just watch it bitch, I'm coming!” I muttered and shouted for more beer.

  Chapter 15

  Current Minion Overview

  Low Grade Guardian Puppet: Level 75

  Common Wooden Puppet: Level 3

  Common Wooden Puppet: Level 2

  Common Wooden Puppet (Beast): Level 2

  Common Wooden Puppet (Farmer): Level 1

  Common Wooden Puppet: Level 1

  Sitting a short distance away from the second dungeon we ate some dried meat and drank some water.

  The reason we were a bit away was because there were goblins guarding the entrance.

  I was reviewing my puppets stats while doing that.

  “Amazing, just from killing the 200 some remaining rats, a puppet reached level 3 and two reached level 2,” I said.

  “Not too surprising since the first levels have low exp requirement. Common rats may give around five to twenty exp depending their size,” Charlotte said.

  “They are already working to spread the grass all over the dungeon now while killing off any small animals that enter while they do that,” I said.

  “What of this dungeon?” Misaki asked.

  “Changing a few things as we speak, the goblins seemed rather bored besides when attacking some wolves. I am fixing that by adding a few rooms since I want to attract them to move inside. Oh? Seems they found a herbal patch, I wonder if they would form an alchemist because of it?” I said pondering.

  “No, they form a shaman, it breeds a magic user hobgoblin which can eventually become a shaman. They are rather hard to deal with since they learn magic as good as a mage and are intelligent,” Charlotte explained.

  “Can’t we just kill them?” Misaki asked.

  “No, I understand why Ace wants us to ignore them at the moment, as long as they move inside we can slowly attack them while keeping them trapped inside. He can also slowly attack them when he wants with his puppets,” Charlotte replied.

  “I'm going to avoid the total death trap dungeons when in normal situations, mostly because normal people may find them. Only towards demons I will use those. Now then, it seems they gathered things up, not much else… oh good they are heading back. Maybe because they were once dungeon monsters they seem to navigate the dungeon maze rather skillfully for stupid monsters,” I said.

  After about twenty minutes, the goblin party came out, I let them of course, and they returned with some wolf and rat corpses, which the guarding party grabbed, and they went back the way they came.

  After a bit we finally entered.

  “They didn’t kill much, a few confrontations with common wolves. I do have to say though, the gray wolf population here is a bit larger with 30 inside. This area here must be closer to the den of the wolves,” I say.

  “Good! Cross-san, plan out a second floor that you can eventually attach to this one to attract the bosses,” Misaki said.

  “Sure, I'll work on it at night, lots of small details I need to deal with to make the dungeon flow and to experiment with the puppets,” I said

  Walking inside we slowly moved as I watched the book.

  In the invaders section dull red light signaled that there was a very weak animal in front. When I looked, it was just a fly. I frowned at that disgusting thing and wanted to fry it with a fireball but that was a waste of mana.

  As I looked at the book I suddenly noticed that the door was blinking and growing stronger.

  We drew closer and I saw the bug had stopped in the middle.

  “Wait! Something is happening to that fly?” I said a bit pale.

  Stopping, the girls watched as well as the tiny fly suddenly grew a bit, then again. With a third wave of growth the carapace burst apart revealing a black darker green one. Another broke that one and showed a larger one.

  The last one. An almost black carapace appeared and the fly was as big as a human's fist.

  In the book it showed flesh eater in the monster section while common flies were below.

  “Mon-ster fly…” before I could finish speaking everything blurred.

  Huh why was it dark?

  “—n—”

  *Slap slap*

  “Ac…up!”

  “ACE CROSS WAKE UP!”

  POW!

  “OUCH! WHAT THE HELL!” I shouted as my gaze instantly focused with the overbearing slap to the face. I grabbed the burning side of my face that was stinging.

  “Ace, are you okay? You suddenly fainted out of nowhere,” Charlotte said worried.

  “Fainted? Why would I faint?” I wondered. “What exactly happened?” I asked.

  “We were walking down a corridor when suddenly a fly evolved into a monster. You collapsed soon after. What are you a sissy or something?” Misaki criticized me.

  “Fly? Like the common blow fly? Turned into a monster?” I said extremely confused. “I don’t remember seeing any monster fly before I blacked out somehow.”

  “Did he hit his head too hard?” Misaki asked.

  “Ace, do you have trauma of bugs or flies?” Charlotte asked.

  “Trauma? None that I can remember, I do feel uncomfortable around bugs but I don’t really know if it's at the level of trauma,” I replied

  “His mind is totally erasing his worst nightmare!” Misaki said in shock.

  I got up and dusted myself off looking around.


  I saw a strange object cut in half on the floor but paid it no mind as I started to walk forward and opened my book.

  “Let’s get going, the wolves should be further ahead,” I said.

  The two just smiled wryly at each other and followed after me.

  We spent the afternoon cleaning out the monsters and then like before I called the puppets to clear out the rest of the bugs.

  I got in the fight as well and worked on my sword skills. I wondered if there was a way for me to enter the third dungeon without me opening a hole.

  After we left we returned to the inn and I sat on my bed and reviewed the dungeons at that moment.

  Dungeon one had around 10k mana gathered.

  Dungeon two had 7k since there were much fewer monsters unlike the first one.

  And the farm dungeon generated around 6k mana, that is from when I woke up in the morning to six at night. At that moment there is over 18k mana gathered in the book.

  “Tell me the uses of the mana gathered by the Book of the Dungeon Maker,” I said out loud hoping for something.

  Book of the Dungeon Maker

  Gathered Mana

  The Book of the Dungeon Maker is a magical artifact that slowly gathers the surrounding mana so that it can function and do its job of aiding its owner.

  The mana is used in many different forms from feeding minions to keeping them from feeling hunger, repairing the dungeon, filling the dungeon for minions to slowly absorb to eventually evolve, mutate monsters and to overpower the mind of invading animals and monsters to kill them.

  The mana is incapable of forcing monsters to submit to the dungeon maker like a common dungeon can do by capturing the mind of the victim.

  Once enough mana is gathered it is possible to make several different crystal types as well. Exp crystal is formed naturally once more than 20k of mana is gathered and will appear on the book’s spine or cover and look like an ornament of the book. As more mana is gathered it will make more until there is enough to make a higher ranked gem which happens when three low grade gems come into existence.

  Another thing it can make is a dungeon soul gem. To make this dungeon, a dungeon maker simply takes a medium grade exp crystal still attached to the book and fuses it with a soul gem and it will make a dungeon soul gem which will allow you to leave the dungeon permanently in its present location and free the magic hole formation. The soul gem naturally transmits the mana it gathers to the Book of the Dungeon Maker and for every 10 mana gathered it produces one exp from the death of monsters for the dungeon maker.

  Methods to gather can come from natural generation and simple waiting, killing monsters, or by planting mana producing flowers to improve the generation of mana by having the flowers pull in more mana forcefully.

  “Dungeon soul gem, releases the magic hole so I can leave it permanently? Doesn’t this mean I can sell my dungeons? Wait, I doubt it is that simple, considering how much material goes into one dungeon I can only see nobles and the royal family even being able to afford it,” I said to myself.

  I reread the page and something appeared that I found strange.

  “I can’t get minions from overpowering their mind? Does that mean I must raise them from infant or do they need to be born and raised by me personally?” I pondered.

  Looking at the last part, it pretty much confirmed my suspicions on the flowers. If I could find a mana herb then I wondered how much of a boost it would have for my regeneration. Also to think the book made the exp crystals like that? The book was full of mysteries. I wondered if I could attach the gems into the book once the gems were made to fuse them? Considering my skill level at that moment, the low grade ones were fine.

  I moved on to the puppets in a good mood and eventually I went to bed as night fell.

  ***

  “Boss, this is the place,” one of my men said.

  “Have you guys checked inside?” I asked them.

  “Yeah boss, it looks like a well structured mine shaft, but full of tall grass and we found some herb gathering points. There also seems to be some strange puppet constructs walking around but there are very few. There are animals all over as well,” my men told me.

  “Animals? No monsters?” I asked.

  “Besides a very huge pack of gray wolves, maybe around 60, we couldn’t spot anything larger. Only rats and other rodents,” he said.

  “How many of the forests gray wolves are here?” I asked.

  “I think at least a tenth of the silver nightmares pack,” he said.

  “What is their movement pattern?” I asked.

  “There are maybe six wooden rooms inside the dungeon, and they are split into a pack of 10 in each room. Also we found a massive… thing guarding a gather point and all the monsters are completely clear of that area,” another man said.

  “There must be something important over there, since even a pack of 60 gray wolves are avoiding it then it must be akin to a boss of the dungeon. Until we understand the strength of this thing avoid it,” I told them.

  Although I wanted to teach that bitch a lesson I still knew dangers of dungeons and their infinitely dangerous traps and monsters. I couldn’t risk my mates for that. I might have been D rank, but most of them were F rank besides my top three mates who were E rank and had been with me since the start.

  “Alright men, four men keep guard at 100 meters away and keep hidden or in the trees. This place is getting dangerous with the wolves coming in. Other animals or monsters can be coming in eventually as well, so stay away enough to not get caught up in them. Once you spot them, run back while staying hidden and warn us,” I shouted.

  “Yes sir!” They shouted and we pulled back besides those staying the shift. They would switch out in a while.

  ***

  I looked around the tavern for a while through the corner of my eye.

  The girls next to me were eating a smaller more balanced meal at that moment. Misaki had found that venting rage through killing monsters worked better for her than eating, so her meals obviously decreased.

  “Hey, is it just me or are there… 20 guys watching us?” I asked.

  The two looked up and took a small look around.

  “You’re right,” Misaki said.

  “They are an adventuring group around 20 to 25 people. The leader is most definitely that man Shinigumi-san crushed the hand of,” Charlotte said.

  “You sure?” Misaki asked.

  “Yes, I had heard they came to take care of the goblins like us. They have fought but haven’t had progress,” Charlotte explained quietly.

  “I could probably deal with it just by letting guardian crush everything but it would be boring. So they probably want to catch us. Most likely they already followed us to the dungeon and will wait for us to enter it,” I whispered.

  “What is the situation for dungeon two?” Charlotte asked.

  I opened the book on the table and showed them the now two floor dungeon. The second floor was much smaller, but it was less of a dungeon and more of a collection of rooms that was a bit spread in a not so complex maze. Inside, were over 300 goblins.

  “Yeah, I confirmed the presence of all the goblins. It seems the dungeon still appeals to them. On the first floor is a hunting ground for them with lots of rodents, but they seem to war with gray wolves. I removed the mana drop flowers from this dungeon though. The other one attracted around 90 gray wolves that now dominate the dungeon,” I explained.

  “That doesn’t even come close to the full force of the gray wolf pack. I checked with the villagers and innkeeper and it seems that there are close to several hundred at the main pack. There is also an alpha, and such wolves aren’t as easily drawn to a dungeon with one floor and no large space inside,” Charlotte commented.

  “How do we do this?” I asked.

  “Ace, how many puppets do you currently have?” Misaki asked.

  I flipped through the pages as I took a bite from my food. I found ten plus the guardian.

&nb
sp; “Ten besides guardian. One is farmer so non combatant,” I said.

  “How many would you make farmers?” Misaki asked.

  “Planned for three crafter, two farmer, and five fighters. Today is day three since weapons began growing; swords, spear, armor, etc, should be finishing in a few hours and will be sharp enough to cut,” I said.

  Misaki looked at Charlotte and began to think something over.

  “Since the goblins have already fallen into the trap, we can attack now but the number could overwhelm us significantly so you can use it to train your puppets once they are ready. If there are still goblins left in the village we can finish them off. Us three go to dungeon one where they most likely followed us, and there we kill the wolves and slowly kill off the pursuers with your dungeon and by our own hands,” Misaki said.

  “That seems reasonable, they probably have other plans for us besides killing so they are getting off rather easy,” I said.

  Charlotte had a worried expression that showed concern for the plan.

  “I don’t know… do we have to kill them?” she asked.

  “Do you know what bandits normally do to women?” I asked her.

  She shook her head. I gestured to move closer and taking her ear I began to explain all the R rated things that a girl that has angered a man could suffer. First her face turned tomato red before I reached the hardcore stuff, and she paled and almost fainted.

  “And that is why I take no mercy on others that will try to attack me since I will suffer the short end and die and they will make you both suffer greatly,” I sad.

  “O-okay…” she muttered.

  “You overdid it,” Misaki said.

  “What? We are in a magic medieval era world, how do I know that they don’t have a caged up tentacle monster or a ogre that's been injected with drugs,” I said.