Soon enough, however, Lorelei did figure out how to manipulate the menu through her mind alone. She was quick on the uptake. Plus, she seemed to understand written English just fine. As one would expect of a Dungeon Core, indeed.

“Marvelous. With this, the management of the dungeon will become much easier. You’re really something, huh, Vincent.” She clapped her hands. That was the second time she called my name… and it was the first proper one.

Back to the main subject: I didn’t know how much this many CP could do. And in order to find out, I needed to first see familiar monsters to gauge their worth. Besides, to build a dungeon, I would need a reliable helper; looking at Lorelei’s stature, I doubted that she could do much.

What’s this, a goblin for 10 CP? That was the first monster that caught my eye because its original price was strikethrough and changed to half the original.

[Goblin (20 10 CP)]

A green bipedal monster with the body and strength of a child. Despite its adequate ability to use simple tools and to cooperate with its own kind, it only possesses low intelligence. But don’t underestimate its agility and nimbleness.

In simple math, with a total of 7,060 CP, I could make exactly 706 goblins. I also noticed that there were options for different types of them, but I didn’t bother with that for now. What was the most intriguing part was why it was discounted. Was it because of the dungeon type?

“Lorelei, let's say, if you wanted to make as many goblins as possible with all the power you had, how many could you make?”

“Goblins?” She watched me suspiciously before opening her mouth, “I'm sure I could create at least seven hundred of them, possibly more… That’s weird. Originally, only half of that amount was possible, perhaps because of having you, a human, as my Dungeon Master. So. Why with the sudden question? You aren’t asking me to—”

“Of course not! That would be insane.” It was confirmed then. The conversation suggested the same… Moreover, it appeared that the dungeon type being “[Humanoid]” did influence the menu — because I was a human.

Although it was tempting to summon some of them to work the field, I held myself back for now and went to check for different monsters before switching to the Minions catalog. I figured knowing what we had in our arsenal would be better in order to gauge what we needed.

Inside was a list of every creature under the control of the dungeon. It was void of any monster and only filled with normal animals. There were about fifteen rats, seven bats, and a few dozen miscellaneous large insects. Maybe using a human wave tactic with them sounded fun. But be that as it may, they couldn’t even be called a mob, much less the protector of the dungeon.

That said, bottom-feeders like them were essential as being the lowest rung of an ecosystem, and without them, the monsters would die of hunger. With what we had now, I couldn’t add too many monsters.

I switched back to the Monster Creation category in search of more suitable monsters. Small- to medium-sized monsters would be ideal here. They didn’t consume much and were cheap at the same time. One of the candidates that I found was [Kobold (30 15 CP)], which had its price discounted as well.

“Vincent,” Lorelei suddenly broke in, “how about creating a chimera as the ‘Dungeon Boss’?”

“Chimera? Dungeon Boss?” I swiftly searched for chimera on the menu and found it soon.

[Chimera (1000+ CP)] (Customizable)

A monster that breathes fire and has a lion's head, a goat's body, and a snake's tail. Its ferocious nature causes fear to many, and because of its high adaptability in synchronization, it can be changed and customized at will.

“Mm-hmm.” She nodded. “While at it, we can make it a ‘Crowned Monster’.”

“Whoa there, those two are terms that I never heard before: Dungeon Boss and Crowned Monster.”

“Well, you can assign one monster as Dungeon Boss to make it much stronger, whereas Crowned Monsters are monsters that grow along with the dungeon, and it’s kind of ‘permanent.’ Look, just check out this Minion catalog.” She sent her Dungeon Menu my way.

[Dungeon Boss]

A designated boss of a dungeon. The designated monster will gain strength depending on the dungeon’s size and its total occupants.

Currently used: 0/1 (Have a one-day cooldown)

[Crowned Monster]

A monster of the covenant, a chosen one among many. Will make the chosen monster grow alongside the dungeon and even spark their evolution faster.

Remaining usage: 1 (Unable to be retracted upon use)

What she said might sound logical at first, but that wouldn’t be good in the long run. While highly customizable — meaning that I could buff it whenever I wanted — there was only a limited opportunity to use the Crowned Monster option. It might make the monster strong, but it would waste everything we had. And I didn’t know whether we could get more down the line.

Hence, rejected. “No. Let’s not make haste in our decision. I wanna test some monsters first by summoning a single goblin, kobold, and… slime.”

“Those weak monsters?”

Well, they might be weak. Nonetheless, among the seemingly endless monsters available on the menu, those were among the few that I was most familiar with. Obviously, I would only summon one for each of them, just for experiment purposes.

“What do you know? Maybe they can give us a surprise.” I shrugged.

Not waiting for Lorelei’s answer, I selected all three of them on the menu and summoned them—

Whoa!

At once, three bright circles appeared on the ground, then tiny, transparent particles coalesced above them and before I knew it, they manifested three monsters as if assembling them from atom to atom. They lined up in the order following the list of choices I made. All in all, these three monsters cost 35 CP as the slime only cost 10 CP despite there being no discount.

The left-most monster — a goblin — was a small, ugly-looking person with green skin and the body of a child. It had crooked teeth and coarse hands and feet, and only wore tattered cloth that covered its private area.

The middle one was a kobold. Not unlike the goblin, the kobold was about the same size, maybe a bit taller. It was a half-man, half-dog monster that stood on its hind legs, but it was bare of anything except for the thick brown furs that covered its whole body.

The last was a wriggling lump of almost transparent green liquid — a slime. It appeared to have no eyes, like really nothing, with a diameter of about fifty centimeters. Of the many choices among slimes, I picked the most common of all; it had no attribute, maybe at most, quite acidic.

Now that I have summoned them, what should I do? There were a few things that I wanted to make sure of… and to achieve all that in one go, I had thought of the best way.

“Goblin! Kobold! Fight each other! However, you are not allowed to kill your opponent!” I ordered with a commanding tone. I felt that I needed to act as dignified as possible to instill fear in their hearts and make them obey me, but it was all unnecessary.

They stared at each other, baring their sharp teeth and fangs. As though announcing their fight, the kobold howled before launching itself onto the goblin. What ensued was a contest of hitting and biting.

While all that was happening, I used [Developer Interface] on the two of them to see their stats.

Species: Goblin

Sex: Male

Height: 105 cm

Stats:

STR: F- (4) AGI: F- (5) VIT: F- (3) MAG: F- (2) SPR: F- (2)

Accumulation Points: 6 [F-]

Species: Kobold

Sex: Female

Height: 117 cm

Stats:

STR: F- (6) AGI: F- (4) VIT: F- (5) MAG: F- (3) SPR: F- (3)

Accumulation Points: 6 [F-]

Stats-wise, they were both weaker than me. This also made me somewhat curious, how much was the difference of one point? Umm, I better conduct research on that later. The kobold is a tad stronger, yet both AP are the same—

“So weak,” was what Lorelei suddenly commented. Despite her remark, I didn’t know how she would fare against a human child in this world, but compared to the goblin… she was inferior, physically… Even in her adult form, she was only a tiny bit stronger.

“My, you’re thinking something rude about me, aren't you?” She gave me a skeptical look with her hands on her hips. Crap. She’s sharp.

“It’s nothing like that.” I had my eyes wander to come up with something. “I, I was just wondering… are the gender of monsters randomized?” I mean, if monsters could procreate among themselves, this would cut us some spending.

“If I created that monster, I can design it however I want. So to answer your question, it is not. Have you checked the Dungeon Menu?”

Now that she mentioned it… There was indeed a choice to set their gender.

Before long, the battle between the goblin and the kobold was reaching its critical point. The goblin had numerous bite and scratch marks on its body, copious amounts of blood bled out from them, but the kobold wasn’t in a much better shape as some parts of its fur were bald with bite marks.

At the end of the day, monsters with higher stats would almost always be superior in a fight, and the winner was pretty much decided when the kobold punched the goblin to the ground. Maybe the result would have been different if one of them had weapons in hand.

“Grrr… Chief…?” the kobold uttered weakly, looking my way.

Eh? I stroked my ear but didn’t feel that I heard it wrongly. Did the kobold just talk? It appeared that my Vocation allowed me to not only understand foreign languages but also monsters’ languages. Neat.

“That’s enough.” No use in wasting CP by senseless killing, so I stopped them from going all the way.

“Hm… Vincent, did you just speak with the kobold?” She looked at me, curious. Lorelei seemed to understand them too, not from their language, she said — if that could be called one — but from their hearts and mind or whatever.

“Say, Lorelei, can you heal the injured monsters?”

“Sure can. Just have to bring the monsters to the Core Room.” She ordered the two monsters into the Core Room. When they were in the vicinity of the Core, the monsters’ injuries were healing at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Now the last to test was the slime, but I figured that fighting either the goblin or the kobold who were injured wouldn’t be a good idea. And so, I looked around to find a suitable opponent, and my line of sight fell on the rats.

“Lorelei, call the strongest rat around.” It somehow felt silly to say this, but this was a required necessity.

“What for? Well, okay.”

All the rats that lined up retreated briskly, leaving the one with the biggest stature. It was a big dark gray colored rat that looked like a common sewer rat with a total length of about forty centimeters. The two front teeth protruding out of its muzzle were rather conspicuous.

Since I could check a goblin’s stats, I wondered whether it would be possible to check smaller animals as well… And I could! Though, the smaller the creature, the weirder and simpler it became. Ants, for example, didn’t show any stats or other things.

Anyhow, I made the slime and the rat battle each other.

Upon hearing my order, the slime made its body tremble, the rat squealed just the same, and then they began their battle. Not waiting for the slime to move, the rat swiftly leaped at the slime. The rat scratched the slime many times, and at times, it also bit it, causing damage to the slime.

Unbeknownst to the rat, the part of the slime that got onto its feet and mouth became viscous. As time went by, the rat’s movement grew stiff before it went almost completely still. Seizing the chance, the slime swallowed the rat whole inside its body.

This time, in contrast, I didn’t stop the slime from killing the rat.

The slime burned the pelt of the rat by using liquid acid— its own body. As the rat’s body was burnt by the acid, the slime’s volume increased… Despite the rat’s relentless struggle for its life, it couldn’t get out of the slime. Not long after, the rat’s body dissolved as not even a piece of bone remained.

By this, the bout was concluded: The slime won.