Sitting on a stone throne fashioned from dissolved stalagmites, today, like most days, I eyed my minions.
Below my rubber duck body, a slime in the shape of a woman wearing a priestess outfit that constituted my seat cushion. Around my neck and the slime’s wrist, a handcuff. A countermeasure to prevent me from being ducknapped.
Or… at least that's what I chose to tell myself.
To my left, a muscular ten-foot tall humanoid, a woman with green-hair and armored scales. She yawned, closing her eyes, the narcoleptic crocodile girl falling asleep upright.
Then to my right, a bleach white skeleton, one wearing chitin plates and a fine robe made of spider silk that matched its body.
And finally, in front of me, an armored magic spider that was twenty feet tall. One in the middle of molting as it kowtowed to me to plead to let it have a taste.
“Please my Lord! I beseech thee! Allow me but a simple taste of your body!” Ayaka pleaded, it's skin shedding in places. “EvERY day is agony!!!”
No. I sent, the spider in the midst of going through withdrawals but unable to attack me thanks to being under my command.
“Such insolence!” Slimey seethed, her body flashing red with her serrated teeth coming out. “Filthy bug! To think you deserve to touch our Lord, be thankful you can gaze upon him at all!!!”
I could feel Slimey's bloodlust, her desire to kill and take apart the spider Matriarch.
Now now, settle down. I sent, scolding my menagerie as I opened my dungeon system.
[Dungeon System Interface!]
[Name: Hiro Dungeon]
[Level: 2]
[HP: 8000/8000]
[MP: 683/1500]
[DEVOTION: 100]
[EXP 130/1000]
Tamed Monsters: 27/30
Pylons: 5/5
[SKILL LIST]
Bubble Blow: LvL1
- Using mana, you create a bubble of charged mana. When it pops, it releases a light burst of mana. 5MP
Squirt Water: LvL1
- Squirt Water. Using Mana you create and squirt water out of your beak. 5MP
Summon Rock: LvL1
- Summon a small Rock. That's it. It summons a rock. 10 MP
Impart Instruction: LvL1
- Teach skills and share experience to minions or selected creatures.
Squeakerlocation: LvL3
- Using squeaks, you ping your nearby surroundings to paint an image in your mind. 1 MP
Purify: LvL 5
- Gathering Light mana, you may attempt to purify a source of your choice, rendering it free of curses, poison and disease. Effectiveness scales with level. 50MP
Minion Synchronization: LvL 8
- Take control of a minion for the duration of Eight minutes. Duration scales with skill level. COOLDOWN[12 HOURS]
I turned my attention to my mana heart, the pulsating orb radiating magic as it hung behind my throne.
Within a minute, my quest would finally complete, increasing my minion capacity. Increasing my army.
Skittering into my throne room, a spider entered the room, reporting to me via taps and arm gestures that the defenses had been finished setting up.
Good.
[Quest Complete!]
[Dungeon Heart Matured!]
A series of notifications hit my mind.
Suddenly, a flood of power hit me, a feeling of strength and solidification that reinforced my sense of self. I began to feel a rhythmic thump, like a heartbeat, one in time with the pulsating core behind me.
[New Quest!]
[Establish a Manacyst Culture!]
[Reward: New Construction Options!]
Huh…
Guess I really am a dungeon core huh.
Manacyst crystals were mana condensed and given form, usually in the form of crystals that hung on the walls of dungeons.
From what knowledge I retained about dungeons, they were part of a planet's magic recycling system. A way to gather mana in mana-rich environments and create monsters to redistribute the energy via dungeon breaks and invasions.
They could also be used for experience or crafting magical tools.
Redistributing mana, growing monsters, this looks to be my new purpose in life…
Nah.
Unlike the fractured dungeon cores that sat beneath my throne, I possessed one key trait that set me apart from my defeated cousins.
I was mobile.
Which meant I wasn’t limited to the scope of just a dungeon cave or some hole in the earth.
Oh, and I guess I also possessed a human will and intelligence…
So with these factors combined, who's to say I HAD to stay here. Because I didn’t. After all, there was a wide world above that was just awaiting to be cleaned.
Hmmm. For now I would continue to follow these quests, so long as they unlocked functions and power. I didn’t want to get too locked in or trapped, especially since staying in one place for too long was a death sentence.
A human had managed to delve into the demon lord’s castle and found me, meaning there would no doubt be more on the way.
How much time did I have to prepare? I didn’t know, but if they returned, I would need to be ready. And part of that readiness was securing the homefront.
I turned my attention to the pit near my throne, the gaggle of monsters bound in webs and wiggling about.
New additions awaiting to be added to my collection.
Seven blighted goblins, two gnolls, and a skeleton. I dominated them all, rooting around in their minds for any useful or tactical information.
Of course the skeleton was useless, a clean slate that had no intelligence, while the furry brown gnolls only had an insatiable desire to consume everything. In fact, the feeling of wanting to eat and devour was almost akin to my own thoughts of wanting to clean!
But I suppressed it, disciplining myself to tolerate the filth as I moved on to dominate the goblins busy letting out muffled screams.
Now, this… was different.
Due to their ability to communicate in their goblin language, I had attempted to talk with them when they had first been plucked from the upper strata and brought into my chambers, but alas all they did was scream and cry.
SILENCE YOU CRETINS! YOU ARE IN THE PRESENCE OF LORD HIRO!
It also probably didn’t help that Slimey kept yelling at them as they were brought before me.
Reaching out, my mind probed the goblins one by one.
Unlike all of the monsters prior, I could feel personalities, more vivid memories, strings of terrified intelligence that fought against my will.
Still, they, like all others, succumbed, their terrified screams finally ceasing as they became loyal soldiers in my army. Did I feel bad? Oddly no. Not that I didn't want to mind you, I did, however... I just... didn't. Was I changing? Maybe. I was about the business of domination after all and there was a part of me that felt as though I was crossing the line when dominating an intelligent being. Almost asking what right did I have?
Conquest. The reality was conquest.
[You have laid claim to new minions! Would You like to Name them?]
Gnoll 1 and Gnoll 2. Goblin 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 and skeleton 2 of course. No names given.
Forty monsters under my command, a sizable force no doubt, but one comprised of mostly weaklings.
Weakllings... when did I start referring to them as such?
I turned my attention to the far corner of the chamber, willing the dungeon management panel to open to craft a manacyst culture.
Suddenly, I was outside of my body, a top-down view of my domain as if I were a bird flying overhead. I could see the entirety of my kingdom, every monster under my command highlighted in green while every creature not under my control in red.
Perhaps most interesting was the fact that I could see the manacyst culture, not physically mind you but like a holographic 3-D rendition of the item with a messaging asking me where I wanted to put it.
This… THIS IS EXACTLY LIKE A RTS!!!