I watched and waited for a bit longer, ensuring that the badgers were really and truly in a deep sleep, before I decided to get back to work.

They were actually kind of cute when they slept, though they were ridiculously noisy all the same. Papa Badger made the most absurd sounds I’d heard in my short time, every breath inward rumbling before he would exhale it all in a squeak. Mama Badger wasn’t much better, restless sounding groans leaving her as she continually squirmed about, rolling around and even occasionally kicking Papa Badger. To his credit, he simply kept right on sleeping, apparently unbothered by the arrangement. Maybe he was simply used to it.

It should have all been hideously annoying, but after spending who knew how long alone in silence I was actually feeling fairly happy to have my tunnels filled with the sounds of life. It left me feeling a little less lonely somehow, and they were loud enough that I didn’t need to turn any of my attention on them to ensure they were still sleeping away soundly.

I could put my full focus to my work and not have to worry in the least bit about whether or not they would notice me. I had yet to do any real work on the dungeon while they were still inside, so I had no way of knowing whether or not it would bother them. I didn’t want to risk the badgers being upset by me and going to hunt down the source of their annoyance. It felt safer to act while they were asleep, just in case.

Alright then, [Appraisal], let’s see what the new stats are again. I want to make sure I know exactly what I’m working with here.

Nameless [Dungeon Core] Lvl: 1

Title: None

Size: 213.19482

Points: 37

HP: 10/10

MP: 95/264

Skills:

[Mana Absorption] [Devour] [Tunneling] lvl.1 [Appraisal] lvl.2 [Room Building] lvl.1

It was still a bit surreal to see how much my mana and size had changed after the earlier incident. If I wasn’t looking directly at it I wouldn’t believe it. I had such a huge capacity for mana storage, and yet I still wasn’t even half full… Maybe once I summoned my first monster I would be able to fill myself up more effectively? I could only hope. I was going to need all I could get if I wanted to build myself into the dungeon of my dreams.

How fast did I take in mana, anyway? It was hard to believe I had yet to use [Appraisal] to find out. Was I really just that dumb? Sure, I had some work to get to, but I might as well check on it since it was right there in front of me.

[Mana Absorption]. A passive skill that all Dungeon Cores possess. The Core absorbs mana from the surrounding environment, filtering it, and storing excess inside of itself.

Oh… That hadn’t really answered my question, and I hadn’t exactly learned anything that I couldn't have already guessed just by looking at the name of the skill alone. [Mana Absorption]. It was a skill that absorbed mana, of course. I had been hoping that [Appraisal] would be able to tell me just how much mana I took in…

Hey, Inner Voice! [Appraisal]’s gone back to acting useless again, so can you help me out here? I just want to know how fast my MP goes up, surely you can tell me that much? I need to know so I can plan on how to expand out the walls after I summon this monster!

The Dungeon Core currently gains MP at a rate of roughly 1 per every 5 minutes elapsed.

Huh, I hadn’t actually expected Inner Voice to answer me. Normally it would just stay completely silent and I would be left frustrated at having no knowledge at all. It was nice that it was picking up the slack though!

So, if I gained mana at a rate of one every five minutes, and I currently had ninety-six on me, with a maximum amount of two-hundred and sixty-four, then it would take me about fourteen hours to fill myself up to max. That was terrible. I desperately needed that kobold in order to help me have enough MP to do anything. I was probably only gaining MP as fast as I was at the moment because the badgers were in the dungeon, and wasn’t like I could just force them to stay inside for the next fourteen hours, so if I wanted to be able to actually get any work done I would need all the help I could get.

No, it was okay. I had the time, I had the mana capacity, and soon I would have the monster to help me achieve my goals.

The space I had created with [Room Building] was now more than large enough to summon the kobold. In fact, according to the stats on my [Appraisal] screen, it seemed as if this one room was the equivalent of all the tunnels that had been dug out so far. My size had doubled after I had spent my mana expanding the room to avoid eating in reverse, so based on the evidence I could only assume that was what it meant.

Knowing just how tiny I had been before and that a single room had doubled my size made me feel like I must be the world’s smallest and most pathetic dungeon. Sure, I had only just gotten started, but was that any real excuse? My walls were only just now tall enough in this single place to summon a kobold, after all, and I still had my hopes set on one day being able to summon the Myconid Spore.

Those chubby little limbs… I could imagine them already, toddling along through my halls… I wanted it so badly… Not because it sounded cute, of course not! But because a monster with the potential to get stronger was appealing! That was the only reason!

I bet it would look pretty cute, though.

There was no use longing for something that I couldn’t have, however. I had decided to settle for making kobolds for now, and so I had to actually go and make one. I wasn’t really looking forward to it because I was sure they would somehow be hideous, but I could deal with whatever the results were. I just needed to be brave.

Alright then, Inner Voice! I’d like to summon a kobold!

Generating Kobold.

The flat and steady tone of Inner Voice’s reply was my first indication that I had actually managed to do something right for once, and the next was the sudden heat that flared through my core. Warmth radiated from within my center and with it a vibrantly red light. The light grew brighter and brighter, until it almost seemed white, blinding me from seeing anything in the vicinity around my core. It was a good thing I was no longer lodged in the root cage, or else the light would have woken up the badgers for sure.

I could feel myself pulling mana from the air around me to make this first kobold, and that only made sense in a way. If the first one I summoned was free then the cost had to come from somewhere, right? The mana was seeping in through the dirt from the outside world, draining in from things that lived in the soil and dwelled within the walls of the dungeon.

There was a sudden twisting feeling in me at that thought, but it had nothing to do with the actual creation of the kobold.

Were Mama and Papa Badger going to be alright? I was draining mana from the world around me, and they were currently my greatest sources of mana. Did that mean I was pulling it from them more than anywhere else? What would that mean for Mama Badger and the babies she had growing inside of her? Would I end up hurting them?

I split my focus briefly between the orb of light that was forming in the room I had created and the sleeping badgers. I needed to make sure they were still safe, but I couldn't just ignore my summoning either.

Mama Badger was rolling around and groaning, but I couldn’t tell if it were any different from her previous way of sleeping. Was she in pain, or was she just dreaming? At just a glance I had no way of knowing. Papa Badger was still snorting and squeaking, though one of his back legs had begun to twitch and jerk a bit. Was this normal for him, or had something gone terribly wrong?

It was a mistake to do this while they were in the dungeon, but I couldn’t turn back now that it had started. The process was already happening, so I just needed to ride it out. Why was I so impulsive all the time? Why did I never think?! I could only hope they would be okay… Maybe because they were creatures that used SP for movement and not MP like me they wouldn’t even notice what had happened? It was a ridiculous thing to hope for, but it was the only thing that made me feel slightly better about the situation.

At least the summoning didn’t last that long. It was over in maybe a minute at most, the red orb shaping into what must have been the form of a kobold as the intense light coming from my core finally faded back to its normal soft glow.

The moment the glow stopped I focused my full attention briefly on the badgers. Come on, [Appraisal], I need them to be healthy still!

[Badger] Lvl: 1

Female

Status: Pregnant / Asleep

HP: 147/150

SP: 50/200

Skills:

[Dig] lvl. 1

Oh, thank goodness. Her SP was still low, but it was higher than it was before, and so was her HP. Her status hadn’t changed to anything that made me think she was hurt, either. Looking at her again it seemed as if she were exactly the same as she had been before I had started draining mana. Maybe she really wasn’t bothered by it then?

Just in case, I checked on Papa Badger as well.

[Badger] Lvl: 1

Male

Status: Asleep

HP: 193/200

SP: 33/250

Skills:

[Dig] lvl. 2

His status still read as asleep, with nothing added that might suggest he was anything but healthy. Surely if he was in pain he wouldn’t still be sound asleep, right?

It was a huge relief to see they were fine! I wanted to just roll about in my joy from knowing I hadn’t hurt them by being an idiot again, but I resisted. It would be absolutely ridiculous for me to go wasting my mana by doing such a thing, even if I was regaining it faster now than usual.

I had only been worried about the badgers because I didn’t want to accidentally kill my free food source, that was all. I hadn’t been worried because I actually cared about them. In fact, I cared so little about them that I decided to completely ignore them and turn my focus back to where I had summoned my monster!

I hadn’t known what to expect when [Appraisal] had told me what kobolds were, thinking back on it I hadn’t exactly been told what any of the potential mobs really looked like, so I was a bit caught off guard by the creature that I had summoned. Bipedal was the only real detail I had been told, so for some reason, I had imagined something that looked more like a badger but on its hind legs only. The creature I saw now was nothing like a badger at all.

To begin with, it didn’t have any of the soft-looking fur that the badgers had, instead being covered in a layer of pebbly-looking green. Its skin appeared rough, and the green wasn’t a single shade, instead comprised of several hues speckled together as it covered the creature, fading to a sunrise orange on the ends of its limbs. Its belly was yellow and softer looking than the rest of its skin, and this went up to the underside of its jaw. It had a snout somewhat similar to the badgers, but its sharp-looking teeth stuck out along the edge.

It had a long tail that swished about as it turned slowly in place, almost comically large yellow eyes looking around the room that I had summoned it into. A ring of rounded, conical, lumps framed the back of its head in ridges, with a pair on the sides of its head that were shifting and twitching about. Ears, maybe? They looked nothing like the ears that the badgers had, which were small and round, but I couldn’t think of anything else that they could be.

Overall it was a bizarre-looking creature, and between the odd proportions and the long claws on its hands and feet it should have been ugly, and yet…

And yet…

It was surprisingly cute.

Its head jerked violently, turning sharply before the rest of it followed after, feet stamping at the ground as it completed the maneuver. That was almost ridiculously adorable. Stupidly so, in fact. I could watch the little thing move for hours if everything it did was that cute.

Normally I would be embarrassed about finding something to be adorable, but this thing was just so charming that I couldn’t help it. Maybe it was perfectly normal for a Dungeon Core to find their monsters to be endearing. That had to be it, right? I was totally and completely normal for finding it cute.

The kobold seemed to frown, the ridges over its large eyes pulling low, and it squinted hard as it looked about the room some more. Adorable. Though I did have to wonder what it was looking for. Was it looking for me maybe? It was a dungeon-made monster after all, so maybe it was looking for the Dungeon Core? If only I knew how to talk to it… I had learned from the badgers, however, that I didn’t make noise.

“Hello?” the creature called out, its voice a bit squeaky sounding, high and wavering. “Hello, yes? Is someone the there?” it asked, tone a bit nervous.

It could talk! That was good to know, though it wouldn’t do me much good at all since I couldn’t talk back… Actually, how was I supposed to tell it what I wanted it to do? I had summoned the creature because I wanted it to run reconnaissance on the outside world and bring me back tasty things to eat, but I couldn’t actually talk… So hadn’t I just done something incredibly stupid? For some reason I had just assumed that it would know what I wanted.

Once again I had gone and done something entirely on impulse without thinking about it at all. Just how much of an idiot was I, even? Seriously, I was constantly doing this! Why couldn’t I just spend a moment thinking things over before acting on them?! If I had just done that I would’ve realized sooner that I had no way of communicating with the thing! What was it even here for now, wandering around and looking cute?! What was the point of that?!

“Alright, that is the it! I am much the tired of being called the cute! I am not the cute, I am the powerful! I am the descended from dragons!” the kobold yelled into the darkness of the room, hands on its hips as it stomped one of its feet hard. It looked absolutely furious, but at the same time it was almost hilariously adorable. How could I take this thing seriously when it was just that cute?

The kobold snorted hard, letting out a frustrated noise. “I am not the cute! Cute Caller, come out now! I am to be the fighting you!”

Wait… It was hearing me call it cute, wasn’t it? It could hear me… I wasn’t a complete idiot after all!

Except… Now I needed to figure out how I was talking to it.