You know, in every dungeon story the protagonist is trying to stop being a dungeon. They want to go back to being a real boy, or girl, or non-gendered alien, or whatever. They also have one singular focus and usually either a single love interest or an inevitable harem. And the antagonist is the authority that is attempting to maintain law order and control and may or may not be trying to kill said dungeon.

These are just some of the things I think about as my mind processes a thousand thousand different things while going through the minutia of my dungeon. For example, I am currently tweaking a particular piece of dirt so that it makes a crunching sound underneath an adventurer’s boot as they step on it. There is no reason, just aesthetic. It won’t deafen the adventurer to the sound of my monsters or distract them enough to trigger a trap. It won’t make them slip or fall, though that is a possibility with unstable footing or any kind. It won’t lead to their death in any way. The only reason is the joy of the satisfying crunch it’ll make when an adventurer steps on it and adds that little bit to the ambiance.

Of course, making micro changes to one random pile of dirt in a small unused corner of my dungeon is just one of many different things my mind is focused on. Another thing about dungeon stories. The mind behind the core is always overwhelmed. That is not the case I have found. I can think in as many or as few things as I need and this focus doesn’t seem to split reduce or change as I do. It actually seems to be infinite and I seem to be able to multitask on infinite different things almost like there are infinite different instances of myself to do them. There is not of course, just the one little old me. Oh, that reminds me, The cores are also always worried about their cores being destroyed. They just don’t seem to buy the upgrade that prevents literally just that from happening. Though I understand why, it’s in the exact opposite path from what would allow them to become whatever again.

Oh yes, while I’m at it, I am a core and also I am the noble leader of the adventurer town just outside my dungeon. Yes, I understand it’s a bit tropey but it is just to useful to stop myself. Of course I choose the avatar route instead of the other more visceral routes as they would bring me closer to going all demon king, which is something I do not want. No, I dungeon to dungeon, and I love it! I just hate the politics, which is another thing that protags just can’t get enough of. I can’t tell you how many ‘loved ones’ have died and I didn’t really care, oh I put in effort to ‘grieve’ but why would I care about one ant over another? All ants have their place.

So while I would literally absolutely love to continue going on and on about that pile of dirt I’m fine tuning, forgive the musical pun, I guess that isn’t what you want to hear about. So I will tell you about the droll reality outside of my micro aesthetic pleasures that you so want to know…

Lord Walesburg was pacing through his halls as usual. It was a bad habit, or should he say a ‘bad habit’. Of course, he was also a dungeon with an amazing preoccupation with the sound of the crunch of dirt as well. So his ‘bad habits’ were mostly things he learned since his first foray as an avatar to ‘pick up’ because simply moving your body like a doll with strings attached ‘sent the wrong message’ and was ‘freaky’ to the mortals. Mr. Walesburg or the avatar this time is has been doing just this kind of thing for long enough to know how to ‘be’ mortal. Since he had been doing this since the first generation of settlers had settled down and nominated a ruler, or should he say the dungeon has through it’s avatar, and that each avatar had to be grown from birth to it’s adult stage the normal way, he had learned a thing or two about ‘acting’ human. He had also learned you don’t do the exact damn things over and over again each time, that was a real mess to clean up, so much blood. He didn’t want to have to kill his descendant/progenitor again, it causes so many problems.

Speaking of problems, he can only have one avatar out at a time. This means that when one dies, probably of natural causes, he will have to go through the whole thing over again. Luckily he can just make whoever he wants pregnant with his avatar and whoever he wants be the father. It doesn’t matter if they have done anything or not. This is why he spent that one time as the bastard son of a traveling performer and the daughter of the then noble head of the family. He did kind of feel bad for killing the innocent performer, but that was mostly because it wasn’t inside of his dungeon. Oh speaking of, that was his favorite form of execution! Send the criminal into the dungeon with nothing but a knife and they are deemed pardoned of all crimes if they clear it! No one has yet, and that includes an S ranked adventurer and a mob boss that had paid good money to get his rescue squad killed.

It also helps that nobody has cleared his dungeon for a long time. Not since that whole goblin incident a few thousand years ago. And he had mostly helped them along in order to do so.

But he didn’t need anybody killed right now. Oh, he put up quests for dungeon materials because he wanted to kill so people, but he didn’t need them dead. He did wonder how his mob squad was doing out and about though. He had charged them with finding out and stopping people that were messing about with fellow dungeons. He didn’t like other dungeons but they were the only beings he well and truly respected.

He didn’t need to put down any other uppity isekai dungeons right now so he sent out his mob to investigate what was going on. They should be back by now though. Oh well, it didn’t matter too much. He did find them useful and entertaining but they were mildly inept. Of course, what should he expect from monsters?

Mr. Walesburg got back to his paperwork with a smile on his face as he approved some suggestions and smacked down others. He would have to look into some of them, because these nobles were asking permission for things he explicitly did not allow them to do. And a noble asking permission is a noble asking to be pardoned for something that they have already done and expecting it to happen. Lord Walesburg scowled, this was the exact reason he had an avatar in the first place. Hmm, maybe he did need to have someone executed, maybe they could even help him fine tune that wonderful pile of dirt to see if he finally got it right!