A Dungeon’s Survival

Connie

[Entity “Crystal Puffer”'s handling has been transferred to handling protocol “Familiar_Handling_Entitled_Nuisance_Fork”.]

[Entity “Loot”'s handling has been transferred to handling protocol “Familiar_Handling_Entitled_Nuisance_Fork”.]

[Entity “Noctis”'s handling has been transferred to handling protocol “Familiar_Handling_Entitled_Nuisance_Fork”.]

[Entity “Prism”'s handling has been transferred to handling protocol “Familiar_Handling_Entitled_Nuisance_Fork”.]

“Kindly avoid making more work for me in the future.”

Plooh.

Wait, what?

I found myself speaking to the void. Where Seven had been a moment prior, where he'd remained motionless above the pond in my core room for the past handful of hours straight, there was no trace of the magical robot to be found. The instant he claimed to have finished his work, he vanished without so much as bothering to explain what he'd actually done to me. Instead, I was left with only the four System messages to try to piece together what might have changed.

Entitled Nuisance Fork? I repeated the written words to myself, Really, Seven? Really?

Then again, it might've been for the best that he was no longer around. I'd already pushed my luck with that Custodian farther than I should have. Had he not disappeared, I likely wouldn't have been able to hold myself back from saying something I would've ended up regretting, so not getting a chance to do so was likely to my benefit. Still, reading those words ticked me off.

I do not get that guy, I groaned internally.

Seven presented himself as cold, uncaring, and as though he was completely unconcerned with anything other than the existence of errors, yet he'd apparently been willing to assist me to make up for putting me in a bad spot. It was a pleasant surprise I hadn't expected from him, but then, he'd gone straight back to brushing me off and just acting like an overall jerk. Higher being or not, that inconsistency wasn't something I could make sense of, and it rubbed me the wrong way.

Whatever, I pushed those thoughts away, He did say that he fixed it, right? I might as well see what he actually did.

As much as I wanted to believe he'd done as he'd said, his previous comment about removing my ability to convert Dungeon monsters to familiars still lingered in the back of my mind. Even if he hadn't ended up doing anything so extreme, I still half expected there to be some downside awaiting me. Fortunately, nothing looked off at first glance at my status. My familiars didn't suddenly start taking up DP, and there were no noticeable changes that jumped out at me. That wasn't enough to clear my suspicions entirely, but keeping my hopes in check and expectations tempered, it was enough for me to feel comfortable reaching for my ability once more.

Unbind familiar.

[Do you want to dissolve your familiar bond with Crystal Puffer (Level 2)?

Yes / No]

I braced myself and confirmed my choice with the System.

[Your familiars' level cap has increased from level 2 to level 7.]

[Your familiar, Prism (Level 2), has had its level partially restored to level 7!]

[Your familiar, Loot (Level 2), has had its level fully restored to level 7!]

I waited for something more. I wasn't sure for what, but whatever it was, it never came. The ability just seemed to work, at least according to my status screen and the distinct lack of errors popping up.

Huh, what do you know? He actually fixed it.

With that realization, I moved my perspective back to the arena where the monster in question waited. I was still expecting some sort of surprise, like for it to not be there or something, yet as it came into view, nothing about the scene before me even hinted at anything having happened. The plant monster remained in the exact spot I'd left it, calmly swaying in a nonexistent breeze in the way wind-attributed Crystal Puffers did. The only discernible difference there was was that I could no longer feel a bond between it and myself. It just existed.

Well, it worked, I guess, I announced to the others who were still nearby.

“Yay!” Pee cheered.

“Wonderful,” Vie commented.

“What worked?” Stein asked.

I groaned.

Never mind that now, Stein. I need you to do something for me. Could you order this Crystal Puffer to use Mana Puff, please?

Just because the error had been resolved didn't mean the tests I'd previously set up had to go to waste. This was where the soul pact I'd preemptively made with the creature came in. It was also the reason I'd brought Stein in to help with this in the first place. Now that I was disconnected from the monster weed, even if its loyalty remained, I had no way of giving orders to it. Stein, on the other hand, had no such physical limitations.

“Activate your Mana Puff ability, now!” the ghoul spun on the spot, relaying my orders in the form of a half-growled, half-roared demand as he shifted his body as aggressively and in as unnatural of a way as was possible for him to pull off.

A moment later, the Crystal Puffer exploded in a burst of wind. The only problem was I wasn't entirely sure if that was a display of System-enforced loyalty to Stein or if it he'd just managed to scare the plant into reacting. I wasn't even sure if it could understand his words now that I thought about it.

While my Dungeon monsters could understand each other, even the transition to being a familiar was enough to cause a disconnect there. I'd initially chosen Stein to convey my words to the creature since he, much like Archie, spoke the verbal language everything in this world seemed to understand, but now that we were here, I was only just realizing that, despite all of the experiments I'd run with the elemental weeds, I'd never actually tested if they could hear. They relied almost exclusively on Mana Sense, and with Stein's aggressive display of body language, it was entirely possible that he'd just startled the thing.

You know, I projected my thoughts to the ghoul, I keep forgetting you still have that level eighty-two intimidation skill mimicked.

“Should I not have used it?” he asked.

For the purposes of our research, no, probably not, but nice display, regardless. Have you been remembering to use Record Memory alongside that skill?

“Yes, mistress.”

Oh, did you use it then, too?

“Yes, mistress.”

You know, that actually explains your current lucidity. Good job, then. Could you give that another try, though, but this time, could you ask it not to use Mana Puff?

“Okay,” he said before turning back to the plant, “The mistress says not to use Mana Puff.”

Um, Stein?

“Yes, mistress?”

You didn't use Intimidation that time.

“Mistress said I shouldn't have.”

That I did. Well, uh, now that you have used it, could you try again? I'm trying to test something here.

“Mm,” he agreed before exploding at the poor Crystal Puffer, “Don't even think about using that ability again, weed, or I will rip your roots from that pathetic crystal of yours!”

In response to his words, the Crystal Puffer didn't activate its ability. I took that as a sign that it could, in fact, understand him at first. Then, I thought about it some more and realized it was just as possible that the puffer had naturally refrained from activating the ability since using it again wouldn't have any major effect and would likely end up killing it. It was then that I realized something entirely different. This entire experiment was poorly thought out on my end.

Ugh, forget it. We'll try again later with something that can actually talk. The important thing here is that unbinding it worked. It actually worked! Seven kept his word. I can unbind monsters now. Just think, the things I could do with this!

Slowly, the implications of what this discovery meant were beginning to dawn on me. At first, I'd only done this as an excuse to contact the Custodians in the hopes that they'd divulge some kind of trick to getting strong faster. Ironically, though, it was the method itself that contained so much potential, and whether I wanted to admit it or not, that was all thanks to Seven. My own distaste for the standoffish Custodian aside, he'd done me a massive favor.

We'll have to try this out with a Trenti or maybe a Lizard Man next. If I can just convert monsters into familiars and then unbind them now, wouldn't that let me overcome my DP cap?

A single glance at my status screen told me that nothing had visibly changed on that front. Assuming everything worked how it seemed to and there were no downsides I was missing, I had a potential method of summoning unlimited intelligent monsters at once. No sooner than that thought had crossed my mind, though, it hit me. There was a downside.

If I used this method to expand my forces, many of the same moral dilemmas I'd initially taken issue with when unbinding the Crystal Puffer would still apply. I would be bringing about intelligent life into the world and asking it to die for me. The mere thought of doing so was sickening, yet I couldn't deny the benefits of it. Being able to exceed my DP limit by adding a single new monster to my ranks per cooldown duration was an invaluable opportunity I couldn't dismiss outright. Still, I felt wrong even considering it.

“Mother, what's wrong?” Pee asked, picking up on my emotional changes.

This ability to unbind familiars, it has the potential to be game changing for us, I explained, It's just, I don't like the idea of sending intelligent monsters that can actually die into combat. A Crystal Puffer whose normal lifespan is short to begin with dying of natural causes is one thing, but using this in large scale, just the thought of it feels wrong.

“Why not keep them out of combat then?” Pee asked, “Couldn't you have them make things like the Lizard Men do?”

It was something to consider, but it didn't take me long to gauge the benefits of doing so.

I could, but we already have the Lizard Men for that, and we don't operate on a large enough scale yet to warrant having more crafters than we already do. Using this process on the Lizard Men we already have would be an option, but unless Seven changed something else I don't know about, the modifications I already made to them would make them ineligible to be converted to familiars.

It was a good idea in theory, and I could see merit in doing as she suggested in the future, but for the time being, I valued my current crafters' potential to one day become awakened monsters or true familiars too much to consider replacing them. The prospect of securing their knowledge and expertise permanently outweighed the potential of having more intelligent craftsmen as far as I was concerned.

“What about a royal guard?” Vie suggested, “You could create an elite group to protect your core. That would keep them out of combat save for situations where the risk was necessary. Or you could have them assist Stein in training more of their kind. If they weren't expected to fight invaders, they could instead devote themselves to mastering skills and passing them on.”

Hmm, that might actually work. We'll have to see how it goes with the first one later and take it from there. I'm not actually sure how long it will take before I can bond with another familiar, so all we can do for now is brainstorm and wait.

And that is exactly what we did. We couldn't be sure how we'd actually end up taking advantage of this new opportunity yet, but one thing was for sure. Unless we ran into some unexpected issue or something else unforeseen forced me to rethink this, we would take advantage of it in some way. I'd needed another method of increasing our collective strength, and whether it was what I'd been expecting or not, we'd found one. The potential was boundless.

Eventually, however, our planning came to an unexpected halt. First thing in the morning, the scouting group returned, and while I was initially tempted to retaliate for what they'd done the night before, it soon became apparent that they'd come bearing unexpected and incredibly valuable gifts, that and a warning. It seemed trouble was approaching sooner than I'd been expecting.