Livelihood Dungeon! (English Version)

"Woof! Woof!"

"Woof!"

"Woof! Woof!"

"Woof! Woof! Woof!"

"Get ready!" Peter alerted his three spirit beast companions.

"Ooh! Aah!"

"Growl!"

"Grā!"

The three companion spirit beasts responded enthusiastically, seemingly still thrilled by the feast that had taken place yesterday.

The giant Ichiro heavily stomped his feet before remaining firmly in place.

In his Moon Bear form, Iyashi loudly pounded his own chest with his thick and furry pair of forelegs. After that, he began walking on all four of his broad paws. Then, the Moon Bear let out a threatening growl as he confronted the marching group of kobolds.

Meanwhile, Moriko repeatedly cracked her clenched fists. She was itching to charge forward, but restrained herself. She followed her master's pre-planned order—to remain at the rear of their formation. She didn't want to cause them trouble after bonding with them just yesterday.

As for their master, Peter sat comfortably on the chair he had prepared beforehand. He calmly watched the events that were about to unfold.

Speaking of which, he witnessed the first clash of that day.

The Moon Bear blew apart a kobold's head with its very first swing.

Some of the other kobolds even halted and stepped back because of that deadly, warning-like attack from Iyashi. The kobolds were truly shocked. They hadn't even managed to react, nor had they seen the Moon Bear's attack because everything happened so quickly.

Just moments ago, the giant black bear had only been slowly walking toward their direction when it suddenly vanished from where it stood. And when the Moon Bear appeared again, death immediately followed in its wake.

The kobolds instinctively raised their weapons in defense. Even so, the intense shiver of fear refused to leave their bodies.

The kobolds simultaneously swung and thrust their weapons after seeing the Moon Bear raise its clawed paws once more. However, at the same moment those attacks were launched, Iyashi vanished from his spot again.

And when he reappeared once more, another death was guaranteed.

A poor kobold's back was violently split open.

The kobold behind Iyashi's second victim panicked upon seeing what had happened. In its confusion, it thrust its spear at the Moon Bear's back.

It unknowingly caused damage to their own side.

The kobold had accidentally killed the kobold standing beside Iyashi's second victim.

The Moon Bear gave the kobold a sarcastic grin after effortlessly dodging the attack.

Only then did the kobold realize that the cunning Moon Bear had deliberately tricked it into causing friendly fire.

The kobold that had killed its own kin gulped after noticing the scrutinizing gazes directed at it from those around it—even from the kobolds that had first encountered the Moon Bear.

While Iyashi's deliberate move successfully sowed discord among them, the kobolds seemed to have completely forgotten about Ichiro and Moriko's existence.

Ichiro might be a goofy wolf, but a wolf would always be a wolf. Wolves were a cunning race by nature. Staying true to his instincts, the wolf seized the kobolds' momentary mental lapse. Ferociously, he slammed down the Meteoric Drops upon the unsuspecting group of kobolds. The moment the sharp chunks of stone struck, the Terrestrial Wolf immediately harvested several dozen lives.

On the other hand, the female Man-Ki merely nodded to herself. She showed no intention of joining the battle. She looked very, very satisfied with the performances her friends were displaying.

As for their master, he was just as pleased as Moriko. At first, Peter still had a few misgivings about his plan to merely watch the battle, but now he realized that he had simply been overly cautious.

With that attack from Ichiro, Peter confirmed that they could already handle the enemies even without his assistance. After fighting them yesterday, he had already estimated that the kobolds' stats were inferior compared to theirs.

He now knew he could safely relax because they could deal with the enemies easily—especially now that he was personally witnessing what the Moon Bear-formed Iyashi was doing in the middle of dozens of kobolds.

The Moon Bear-form spirit beast merely crushed, confused, and toyed with the large group of kobolds.

Before long, their massacre of the poor kobolds finally came to an end.

They happily returned to the Livelihood Dungeon afterward, naturally with new spoils in their hands.

While there, Peter also checked the ten thousand pieces of corn he had been drying. He noticed that a considerable amount of moisture had already disappeared from them.

"Not bad!" Peter commented.

The next day, Peter and the others returned to the top of the giant saba banana tree. This time, there were still troublesome creatures attempting to pick the bananas there. Naturally, as the guardian of that tree, Moriko automatically defended her territory.

As its new and responsible master, Peter was obligated to help alongside his spirit beasts. With four Rank C existences defending the treetop, their defense became smooth sailing. They completely wiped out the troublesome kobolds.

To Peter's surprise, on the third day of their defense, a different race climbed up the tree instead, trying their luck at harvesting the giant bananas.

Peter asked his spirit beast Moriko about it, and she answered his question very cooperatively.

"Why are there goblins here too?" Peter asked.

"They're also hoping to gather plenty of food for their group, just like the kobolds. It's far better for them to obtain food without losing members than to participate in the wars below—assuming they can get past me," Moriko replied with obvious confidence.

"This happens almost every day. Most of the time, it's the fiercer kobolds that try," she added.

On the fourth day, however, something unexpected happened. While Peter was leisurely watching his spirit beasts defend the saba banana tree, the entire tree suddenly shook violently.

The female Man-Ki, Moriko, panicked as she urgently tugged at him.

"Ooh! Aah! Ooh! Aah!" she cried noisily.

"Let's return to the dungeon first, Master. I'll explain later," Moriko translated.

Peter went along with his pet's sudden anxiety. He needed to get to the bottom of it later.

The four of them entered the dungeon after executing several skillful maneuvers to disengage from the battle.

"What did your panic earlier mean, Moriko?" Peter asked the female Man-Ki worriedly.

"First of all, I want to apologize to you, Master Peter," Moriko said calmly.

Peter nodded at her, as though telling her to continue.

"Didn't I already tell you that I'm one of the guardians of the giant saba banana tree? You've probably also noticed that I'm truly the only guardian left now. That's because of the recent death of my mate, as well as the departure of my fellow Man-Ki long ago," Moriko began, preparing for a much longer explanation.

Peter remembered that. Moriko had only opened up to them yesterday. But he also recalled that many parts of her story had remained vague. It was obvious that Moriko had intentionally avoided talking about certain details, and he had respected that.

"I also told you this before—the place where the tree stands is a massive garden, right?" Moriko asked, to which Peter nodded.

"I'm glad you still remember. This explanation will be easier that way," the female Man-Ki said with a sigh before continuing.

"I don't know who our ancestor was. Even the elder members of our group back then had no idea who the original Man-Ki was. But according to them, and according to the stories passed down to them by the elders of previous generations, they had already grown accustomed to being guardians—as part of living within the giants' garden," Moriko stated seriously as she recounted their legend.

"Does that mean someone owns that tree and the area you call the garden?" Peter asked the spirit beast sharply.

"Yes. The giants," Moriko confirmed.

"Were they the ones you were desperately trying to avoid earlier?" Peter asked probingly, narrowing his eyes.

"You're right, Master!" Moriko confirmed.

"They're also the owners of the enormous garden," she added.

"This entire place," she finished.

"But aren't you the only guardian left? If that's the case, why do you still need to avoid them?" Peter asked, unintentionally displaying his sharp observation skills.

"You're mistaken, Master Peter. I'm not the one avoiding them—you are," Moriko declared.

"Me?" Peter said as he pointed at himself, visibly surprised.

"Yes. You. The three of you, actually," Moriko clarified, only confusing her master even more.

"What do you mean?" Peter asked with a frown.

"To clear things up, Master, let me tell you about the agreement between the Man-Ki and the giants. According to the agreement, in exchange for allowing us to live there and giving us the freedom to gather fruits from their trees—as long as we do so in moderation—we are required to protect their crops from other exploitative races," Moriko explained once again to Peter. She looked directly into her master's eyes.

"Alright. Go on. Go on," Peter gestured to his Man-Ki companion.

"We also have another agreement. Whenever they visit us, they help us eliminate enemies if they happen to find us fighting any. It's incredibly easy for them to do that because they're giants. And that's exactly the problem—that's what I'm afraid of. If they see you this time, they might crush you before I even get the chance to explain anything," Moriko said, her voice tinged with worry.

"I understand."

Moriko finally let out a sigh of relief after Peter accepted the explanation.

...

On the tenth day, the four of them had already become much more skilled at hiding whenever the giants visited the garden.

By the twentieth day, nothing much had changed. The three spirit beasts had simply improved their coordination when fighting against larger groups of enemies.

Peter also noticed on the twentieth day that larger portions of each corn kernel he had been drying were already becoming completely dry.

On the twenty-fifth day, Peter realized something after observing everything that had happened for nearly a month. It felt like they were simply playing a tower defense game—the incredibly towering tree served as the tower, while his three spirit beast companions acted as his troops.

"Not bad," he said with a laugh.

On the very thirtieth day of their defense, Peter finally received some good news: the 10,000 overflowing pieces of corn he had laid out to dry were now completely dried. He decided to take a break for the time being. They remained inside the Livelihood Dungeon to temporarily focus on something else.

...

Peter first gathered the scattered corn he had laid out to dry and piled everything in front of his house before taking a seat on the chair outside his home. From the pile, he picked up a large and exceptionally healthy corn cob. Peter nodded to himself as he carefully rotated the corn cob in his hand.

Smiling, Peter swept his gaze across the distance. There, he saw his spirit beast companions also taking a break one by one. His smile widened even more upon seeing them.

After a while, he turned his attention back to the corn in his hand. He began working on the 10,000 pieces of corn while his spirit beasts rested.

Peter used the nail of his dominant thumb to strip the kernels from the cob. Much to his surprise, he immediately encountered an unexpected problem. The removed kernels scattered far away, and that would have been fine—if not for the corn cob in his hand splitting into two pieces.

Peter stared at his calloused hands in pure disbelief. He was certain he had already controlled the strength he used.

The dungeon master, who possessed stats equivalent to a Rank C spirit beast, had believed he had already mastered his newfound strength during his time fighting in the Eternal Forest. Apparently, he was mistaken. His control over his Rank C strength was still only surface-level.

He would need more reps to perfect his control. At that moment, the simple activity-slash-chore unexpectedly became a training ground.

Peter diligently continued the task. He tried adjusting his strength to the weakest possible level. But it wasn't easy. Either his force was too weak to move the corn kernels at all, or it was too strong and ended up breaking the cob.

That was when he realized his current task would be more difficult than expected.

Several tries later...

Finally, after around a hundred or two hundred attempts, he managed to apply the exact amount of force he intended.

Peter grinned and nodded to himself as he continued working—the master of the spirit beasts and the Livelihood Dungeon.

Halfway through the task, he had already started becoming proficient.

He also noticed another change as he became more skilled at stripping the overflowing corn. Only then did he remember that not only his strength stat had reached Rank C, but his agility stat as well.

He could feel the lightness and precision behind every separation of the corn kernels. Without hesitation, Peter took advantage of that discovery.

He practiced stripping the corn even faster. As time passed and his persistence continued, he eventually reached his desired level of control.

By lunchtime, he noticed that he was accomplishing far more than during his first few attempts—by a mile.

Peter ate together with his spirit beasts. After their lunch break, he began the somewhat daring plan he had thought of before finally taking a proper rest.

Peter grabbed two healthy corn cobs at the same time.

He positioned both his dominant and non-dominant hands properly to make separating the kernels from the cobs easier.

Using both hands simultaneously, he began removing the corn kernels from the two cobs. Just as he had expected, the movements of his non-dominant hand felt awkward. Even so, he continued with the clumsy method.

He was confident that his non-dominant hand would eventually learn through repeated practice.

And he was right. Before the day ended and the sun finally began to set, the clumsiness he felt in his non-dominant hand while working had gradually started to disappear.

The next morning, Peter woke up excited to begin his day.

After taking care of his responsibilities, he immediately returned to his unfinished task. The first thing he did was count the dehusked corn cobs.

He had managed to strip around 1.5k corn cobs of their kernels. Compared to the first time he had done this, when he could only finish 500 cobs in a single day, the improvement was enormous.

He continued stripping the remaining 8.5k dried corn cobs.

Fast forward three more days.

Surprisingly enough, he finished all 10,000 pieces of corn in just four short yet incredible days.

At first, he had to deal with a puzzling dilemma: the sudden increase in his strength and agility had actually become a hindrance. But once he solved that issue, those improvements contributed greatly to the speed of his work.

He also tried transitioning into becoming ambidextrous during the task—and succeeded on the very first day. On that same day alone, he managed to strip 1.5k corn cobs.

On the second day, he reached 2.5k corn cobs using both hands—already ambidextrous, though still slightly clumsy.

On the third day, he completed 3.5k throughout the entire day.

And on the fourth and final day, he finished the remaining 2.5k before half the day had even passed.

This was completely different compared to the first time he had done the task, when he averaged only around 500 corn cobs per day. Now, he estimated that his average had risen to around 2.5k per day—though that might not have been an exact calculation, since his efficiency was still rapidly improving as he worked.

Still, the difference between the two periods was crystal clear—the gap in his capabilities was enormous.

Peter carried the final batch of countless corn kernels into his Seed Storage. There, he added them to the container that already held the earlier improvised corn seeds.

...

Corn Seeds

Amount

- 11, 750, 384

...

A huge smile spread across his face as he looked at the overwhelming number of corn seeds. There were almost 12 million of them.

On average, he had obtained around 1k to 1.2k corn kernels from each individual corn cob.

Right then and there, Peter collapsed onto the cold floor of the Seed Storage. He let out a deep sigh as the heavy burden in his chest gradually faded away.

At first, he had been somewhat tense about the possibility of his theory not transpiring. Luckily for him, his Seed Storage recognized the improvised corn kernels as valid corn seeds.