Well, that had been a shitshow.

  A zero-casualty run against a dungeon boss when only two people were on the same rank as it?

  Oh. Come. On!

  And then they just backed right out of the dungeon, not even bothering to walk a single meter deeper into the dungeon.

  Thomas sighed and suppressed the urge to send Dexter after them. His other boss, a likewise D-Ranked Giant Sloth, would have made mincemeat of the pitiful bunch that had beaten Cheshire, but that would have also broken every rule of fairness he, as a dungeon, had to obey.

  It just stunk that they could so utterly overwhelm his best creatures with mostly raw numbers and a few simple strategies. Urgh …

  “You know you can just switch up your bosses, right?” Elias commented, having sensed his irritation without needing to be told. The dungeon fairy was, as always, wearing his crimson “toga” and riding around on the head of whatever critter caught his fancy this time around, a spider monkey, this time around.

  “Point,” Thomas conceded and proceeded to do just that. Dexter and Cheshire had the same Rank, but very different fighting styles.

  While his previous first boss, now second, had been a speed demon of the highest order, having razor-sharp claws that could cut through the marble floor like butter or simply act like the spikes on a sprinter’s shoes to easily traverse the ground of the boss room, a raw speed power called “Blur” and unnatural agility that was the very essence of “cats are liquid” and more besides, the new one was a bruiser.

  Cheshire might not hit overly hard, but with how sharp her claws were, she didn’t have to. One swift strike would be enough to eviscerate most targets.

  Yet, at the same time, the cat was comparatively easy to hold down, especially when someone was willing to be on the receiving end of a mauling in exchange for stopping her.

  And then, there was Dexter.

  A massive ancient monster that had gained the ability to extend its limbs to hit others from all the way across the room, the power to increase the weight of its fists to hit a hell of a lot harder, and finally, it could grow pillars from the ground or walls to act as handholds or corral its opponents.

  Obviously, that moveset came with its own set of vulnerabilities that could be exploited, but they were different and therefore needed new tricks on part of the delvers.

  Thinking ahead, it would likely involve tying down the limbs, attempting to lock them in their extended state, and generally avoiding being hit because, well, Dexter hit hard, even back at E-Rank, he’d have made any wrecking ball green with envy.

  But to be honest, there weren’t that many tricky stunts that could be pulled against him.

  Complicated powers tended to be more vulnerable to being outthought rather than beaten through strength of arms, while the simplicity of raw force tended to have a quality all its own.

  Straightforward, immense, power could rip straight through many stunts that one might pull, yet at the same time, it couldn’t do much if one did manage to pull one over on it. Though those kinds of highly “exotic” plans were the product of incredibly creative minds with specific skill sets, and while Thomas considered himself to be in possession of the former, he’d be hard-pressed to predict which skills might be leveraged to create the tricks.

  Magic, martial arts, material upgrading, healing, and artifact usage. There was a long list of what might be used.

  Which was mostly why he used a variety of tricks to protect his core, from hippos with toxic blood that could poison anyone who attacked them in melee combat to massive, fire-breathing, t-rexes.

  Of course, the best way to bolster his defenses would be to hit C-Rank, but that was still a ways off, considering he was only a little over halfway there and there was a serious lack of anyone who could challenge and therefore increase his level.

  When he did hit, however … a dungeon might not get quite the same immediate power boost that a human or orc did, but it would gain access to a whole lot of things that would massively increase power over time.

  First of all, intelligent creatures would become summonable, which covered everything from humans to orcs to the lizardpeople that had shown up a couple of times. So everything, basically. If he had the pattern, and was at the required Rank, he could summon it.

  Of course, there were certain moral implications to creating armies of mindless clones, and quite aside from that, it sounded like a fantastic way to wind up being declared fundamentally monstrous by the powers that be, but it wasn’t like he had to use them to fight delvers/invaders directly.

  In addition, once he was C-Rank, he would be able to bring his creatures up to that point, bit by bit, until he’d managed to create an army of beasts with four powers each and all the physical capabilities their new rank implied.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Though there was a gamechanger that would be unlocked as well.

  A fourth Champion that he would turn into an absolute juggernaut, and, even more importantly, a second subcore. Which he’d install in the museum ship HMS Belfast, which was anchored in the nearby River Thames.

  All the better to murder tricky delvers with …

  Thomas sighed internally.

  “Oh, I know that look,” Elias commented as he flitted over to look at the … utterly featureless dungeon core. Damn, had Thomas broadcasted his thoughts by accident?

  … and had he broadcasted that question too?

  “Yes, you let slip that you got murderous, no, you didn’t ask if you’d told me, we’ve just known each other well enough for me to know you were wondering.”

  “Yeah, that’s not creepy at all,” Thomas replied.

  “I know, right?” Elias agreed in a tone that made it abundantly clear that Thomas had been sarcastic.

  “What are trying to tell me?” he replied, trying to cut this off before it could spiral into a several-minute-long dance around the core of the issue.

  “I’m trying to remind you of the fact that you’re still sane, still worried about almost all of the things a normal person would be worried about … you just don’t quite care about humans anymore.”

  “Basic empathy … who’d need that?” Thomas snarked.

  Elias sighed and fluttered closer, landing next to his core. The physical proximity mattered less if he’d still been a creature of flesh and blood, but it was appreciated anyway.

  “It’s not like you don’t have it, you just don’t have the automatic ‘you’re human, so I feel pain if you’re hurt’ thing that you used to. Or are you telling me you’d actually like to see someone like the Inspector dead? What about that mage who keeps bringing you hats for your monkeys.”

  “I mean, she’s ‘the deputy director’ now,” Thomas pointed out. “But no, I don’t want to murder them.”

  “So, where’s the problem?” Elias asked. “You can care about individuals, but you’re not forced to care about everyone.”

  Looking at it from a perfectly neutral point of view, keeping emotion out of it, Thomas could almost see the fairy’s point. But ultimately, having an external force monkey with his emotions, even if the chances of a repeat performance being so low as to approach impossibility, would never be okay.

  Couldn’t Elias just let him spiral in peace?

  … Yeah, he’d heard it that time.

  The fairy wasn’t helpful, but at least he was trying.

  Giving himself a mental slap, Thomas started to move his mind through the dungeon to distract himself, looking over everything, from the titanic, fire-breathing t-rexes he’d crossed with literal dragons, to the fluffy-looking velociraptors covered in downy feathers that were one of his options for “ambassadors,” along with capuchin monkeys and Jan, his third champion, the spider monkey that he could control even outside his dungeon.

  In addition, Jan could both teleport items into his hands from afar, giving him a never-ending barrage of projectiles if needed, and be “gifted” items directly by Thomas, at range, including summoning tokens and just plain explosives. Something deeply unstable, like nitroglycerin.

  … Mental note, get nitroglycerin.

  Soon, Thomas’ mental “video drone” reached the edge of his influence, a mere meter from the outer wall, showing him what had been going on outside.

  A large area had been cleared by a combination of his efforts and those of the government, theoretically allowing for a camp to be built, though that project was yet to come to fruition, considering just how dangerous the jungle still was.

  And yes, there were a couple of military cars that he could best describe as “whatever the British army use in place of humvees” outside, where their crew could flee into the dungeon if shit hit the fan, but that was hardly a proper encampment.

  There was also a massive noticeboard outside the Dungeon now. Not just something to properly send people into the various parts of the Dungeon, telling them what they could find and would have to fight there, but also requests. Various creature bits, fossils, primarily, kinds of booze that he wanted to use as loot and also a pumpkin for Halloween.

  He could combine that last one with various scraps of cloth and animate the whole affair with a Spiritus. Should do for scaring the crap out of some people.

  Also, Thomas had recently figured that just because he could get a full, living, flesh-and-blood monster from a fossil didn’t mean he actually had to use the various fossils he had about the place that way. He could just summon the petrified bones for decoration if he wanted to … or, he could animate them.

  Though the more he thought about it, should he use the fossils?

  Or, how about summoning only the skeleton from the actual flesh-and-blood monster, and animating that instead? It’d be less brittle, and he could easily decorate it with bits of viscera for an extra intimidating look. But nothing that was rotting, that was just gross. Somehow, his disgust had carried across entirely unchanged, he now realized.

  A question to be answered later, quick, what had he been thinking about?

  Right, terror.

  Skeletal velociraptors for jump-scaring people on October 31st … oh, he couldn’t wait. That would be fun. Though maybe a little compensation would also be in order for people who embarrassed themselves, to soothe the sting somewhat. Trophies along the lines of “Highest Jump” and “Girliest Shriek.”

  Then again, what if he didn’t wait until All Hallow’s Eve? If he announced the event, but pulled off the first jumpscare a couple of days before that, preferably with an old-fashioned video camera recording the whole thing?

  He had a couple of those that worked without electricity, let alone microchips, which were extra vulnerable to the technology-disrupting effect of the transformed London. Though he’d likely have to ask for something better and more up-to-date than them, because the ones he had were, well, museum pieces.

  As much fun as he was having with his regular dungeon, a few seasonal events to mix things up a little would add some variety. Maybe have a monthly “raid” that let larger groups throw themselves against a single, overwhelmingly-powerful foe directly.

  But he didn’t have any really big bosses for that, though. Not yet. Dexter the boxing Giant Sloth and Cheshire the lightning-speed Sabre Tooth Tiger were powerful bosses, but not “provide an adequate challenge for fifty people” powerful.

  Maybe a massive crypt guardian amalgamation? It’d utterly annihilate his command limit in whichever Museum he set the Event, but it’d be fun.

  Oh, and the Belfast would qualify, once he got his hands on it.

  Even so, right now, he had another goal in mind, digging through his “inheritance” from the draconic dictator who’d died in the dungeon a few weeks earlier.

  There were still all sorts of goodies in there, both of the powerful and entertaining varieties.