A loud purr could be heard as the Liri Fox moved about under my hands, seemingly searching for the best spot to be petted. While I was rewarding her for being here to help me, I carefully told her just what I needed her to do. The small, white flame fox readily accepted her task after hearing me explain it just once. She was the same as all the other foxes that had come to help me in the ritual in the past, as all of them had known exactly what they were about to be tasked with.
Marisa, on the other hand, asked for more explanations as she began placing the orbs in their positions. She had been more than a little surprised about me being about to summon my first boss monster even though most of my rooms were yet undefeated and even unexplored for the most part, but more than that she was worried about my overall strength.
Dungeons, according to her explanation, should be easily defeated by a raid, as that was exactly what a raid’s sole purpose was; overwhelming monsters and traps by bringing both the skills and the manpower to render them all useless. For me to instead stop such a large-scale endeavor with a handful of fights and without the help of a single trap was unheard of. Still, Cilia allowed it to happen, otherwise, she would have tasked or even forced me to lower my danger level in some way or another a long time ago.
Still, I had to somehow make the dungeon weaker, even if it was just the first few rooms. I didn’t want to cause needless suffering, after all. And even though most of the adventurers would come here solely to hunt down my monsters, not a single one of these monsters had behaved any different compared to before when they were killed, at least so far. There was no fear, no reluctance to fight once more, no mental or physical scars left behind - nothing. It was as if the part featuring the fight was gone from their memory, making me question my methods. Was it really the right choice to always side with my monsters, regardless of the cost? Wasn’t it my duty to help those men and women grow rather than simply killing them off as efficiently as I could?
I could only sigh as I realized just how much I had to change things. But as I didn’t know much about dungeons myself and Marisa, too, had grown up in the notoriously peaceful town of Abervale, there was no advice I could adhere to. Sure, I could ask Cilia about all of this, but was she really the best teacher when I was the first dungeon she had ever been bound to?
A gentle click reminded me it was about time to get to work. Marisa had just placed down the second of the two orbs, forcing me to let go of the Liri Fox that was still enjoying my attention and care.
As I made my way over to my spot I once again thanked Marisa for her help, before kneeling down on the pedestal I had chosen, closing my eyes, and concentrating on the fox of my dreams. With everything that had been going on, it had been hard to find the time to think about just what my next fox should look like, but if the raid had shown me anything, then it would be that my foxes had a good head on their shoulders. They had known how to use the landscape to their advantage as well as when to attack and when to retreat. Even them retreating was a great sign of intelligence, as many if not most monsters simply fought to the end without even once considering to flee. Knowing all of that, why not create a fox that uses tricks, faints, and smarts to outmaneuver its opponents? Naturally, I had no way to affect the results of the Opal Orb, as it would add a random element to the magic ritual, but I could at least influence the fox, right? I had basically created the Liri Fox out of my imagination, after all!
Knowing that I did my best to imagine a real trickster, a fox that was intelligent and knew how to use its surroundings to its full advantage. And soon enough, I was rewarded, as a cold feeling took hold of me: mana was seeping out of my body.
I couldn’t help but open my eyes just enough to take a single glance at the Opal Orb before quickly closing them again. The artifact was already surrounded by a red mist of fire-attributed mana, meaning the ritual would result in a four-tailed fox of pure fire.
Naturally, I tried my best to imagine just what this meant. There were many types of flames, such as the holy fire the paladin leader had used, the white fire magic of my Liri Fox, or the one used by the normal fire foxes, but the by far most famous one I knew about was one I had only read and heard about so far.
It was the so-called Heart of the Forge, a blue flame which, albeit being considered holy by the mountain folk, did not actually have any attribute other than pure fire in it. From what I knew it was a rite of passage for smiths to forge at least a single sword using this superior flame as it could make even rare materials malleable. Only by completing such a task would they be able to call themselves master blacksmiths. Abervale was by no means important enough to have such a skilled smith living within its walls, but they would soon have a fox taunting them with the flame!
As my remaining mana seeped from my body, I did my best to imagine a new fire fox to come into existence, one covered entirely in blue fur, with only its ears and tails featuring white flames instead.
It took more than a minute for my mana pool to empty out, but I still kept my eyes closed trying to influence the result to become as perfect as it could be. But when I then heard Marisa’s surprised voice, I couldn’t help to open my eyes, only to become stunned myself.
The ritual wasn’t creating a regular, beast-shaped fox but a much more humanoid shape. It was still only a silhouette of blue flames, but I could already identify two arms, two legs, a head with large fox ears, and a total of four tails. When the figure then revealed itself, there were no flames to be seen on its body, rather it looked like a woman in her early twenties with blue hair and fur.
The stranger simply dropped to the ground, seemingly lifeless, with only her black-tipped ears twitching. Then, suddenly, she was already coughing as if she had just choked on something. But that lasted only for mere seconds, as her long, white-tipped tails soon began waving in the air. After a minute or so of lying on the ground like this, she suddenly rolled on her back only to utter two words.
“I’m alive.”
Her voice seemed surprised about the fact as if she hadn’t expected to end up being summoned by me. And I certainly did not think about this being a possibility at all, as I had only ever dealt with monsters.
Needless to say, both Marisa and I needed a few moments to come to terms with the fact that I had just summoned a real, living person. The Liri Fox that had been involved in all of it, however, didn’t seem the least surprised. It gleefully yipped, before making its way over to the woman with wagging tails and happy jumps. Soon, it was already sniffing at her, before summoning a white flame to envelope the body of the supposed boss monster.
I took this moment to use one of the new materials I had unlocked thanks to the raid and summoned a robe made out of Crimson Weaver Silk, a material dropped by oversized, red spiders that was highly resistant to wear and tear and inflammable on top of that, making it a very popular material for a mage’s robe. The robe came out to be almost entirely white thanks to the silk I had used, with only a small, black fox to be seen on its right chest part that I didn’t put there myself. At least it was practical, as it had a long slit on its back for the tails to pass through.
While I was busy trying to get my supposed boss some makeshift clothes, the Liri Fox was doing its own thing with its magic, and soon enough, the young woman already reached out for the helpful little fox, lifting it above her head to take a good look at it.
“Well, aren’t you the best thing that has happened to me today?!”
The Liri Fox happily answered with a few yelps, before being placed down on the stranger's belly, where it almost immediately searched for a good sleeping position. Seeing this as my cue, I made my own entrance, walking up to the supposed boss monster and trying to give her the cloak. The woman stared at me in surprise, looking me up and down, before suddenly reaching out for me. Before I knew it, she had already pulled me in. I could hear her sniff at me.
“Who are you,” she asked me after a few moments of doing so. “I don’t know you.”
“I’m Kiomi,” I introduced myself after she had let me go. “Daughter of Cilia.”
“Aren’t we all?”
I could only look at her questioningly. She was a monster, even though she was a boss and a foxkin on top of that, so shouldn’t I be considered her mother instead? When I asked her about it, the stranger answered with a loud laugh before pointing out that I was nowhere near old enough to be in that position.
“But I summoned you,” I heard myself protest.
“You summoned me?”
It was only now that she seemed to find that something was amiss. She reached for the robe, before hastily donning it. Only then did she take a closer look at the artificial sky above us, likely only now noticing its tiny flaws such as its way too close cloud cover or the way it connected to the cliffs surrounding the room. Before long, she even began looking left and right for even more clues.
“We are inside of a dungeon,” she finally asked.
I nodded in reply, causing her to suddenly lift herself up much to the surprise of the small fox that was now forced into her lap instead. Once she had made herself comfortable, she went to check on her white-tipped tails, placing them on her sides. Her eyes widened in surprise.
“Blue fur,” she asked. “And four of them? I had two! I’m sure!”
She quickly went to check on her long hair, which had the exact same shade of blue to it as the fur on her tails. And after finding even this changed, she could only stare at me in confusion.
“Tha- that might be my fault.”
“How is it your fault?”
I took a deep breath before explaining how Cilia made me her chosen dungeon and gave me the ability to create monsters by combining those I already had with or without the help of various artifacts. The woman seemed intrigued by this but kept silent as I went on to tell her just what exactly I had done for her to appear in my dungeon.
“So you are telling me I am a boss in a dungeon now?”
I nodded.
“And you will make me fight off invaders?”
“Only if you want.”
“And I can never leave the dungeon, either.”
“You can! I just have to select you as a gatherer!”
“A gatherer? Wouldn’t that mean I can’t regenerate mana outside of your dungeon?”
“I- I don’t know,” I heard myself stammer. “But I made a big room just now! We can build houses in it. Maybe a real town!”
“You make for a terrible dungeon master,” she said, before sighing. “But it would be nice to have a home again.” She slowly raised up, lifting the Liri Fox with her. “I will be keeping this one.”
To that, I could only nod, happy that we had come to some sort of conclusion. The lava foxes wouldn’t be too happy about this agreement, but that was nothing a little mana couldn’t help with.
I was just about to introduce Marisa to her when my newly summoned boss approached me once again, leaning in to sniff at me a second time. This time, the show of intimacy or friendship lasted awkwardly long, with her seemingly waiting for something to happen.
“You are supposed to sniff me as well,” she finally explained. “Are you sure you are okay?”
I quickly took in a single whiff which honestly did not smell like anything. Maybe there was a slight scent of flowers, but I wasn’t sure about that. Still, it was enough for her to let me go and pet the little fox in her arms instead.
“My name’s Myra,” she finally introduced herself.
“I’m Kiomi, as you already know,” I explained, before pointing to Marisa. “This is Marisa. She is Cilia’s champion.”
“A champion,” Myra answered with a whistle. “Now those are rare.”
Marisa didn’t let Myra wait, instead, she came over and leaned in for a greeting herself, which my supposed boss monster readily answered. Within seconds, the two had already parted again, both of them seemingly satisfied with the weird ritual. I could only shrug as I tried to change the topic.
“Want me to show you around?”
“Sure,” Myra answered almost immediately. “Show me what you’ve got!”
A loud purr could be heard as the Liri Fox moved about under my hands, seemingly searching for the best spot to be petted. While I was rewarding her for being here to help me, I carefully told her just what I needed her to do. The small, white flame fox readily accepted her task after hearing me explain it just once. She was the same as all the other foxes that had come to help me in the ritual in the past, as all of them had known exactly what they were about to be tasked with.
Marisa, on the other hand, asked for more explanations as she began placing the orbs in their positions. She had been more than a little surprised about me being about to summon my first boss monster even though most of my rooms were yet undefeated and even unexplored for the most part, but more than that she was worried about my overall strength.
Dungeons, according to her explanation, should be easily defeated by a raid, as that was exactly what a raid’s sole purpose was; overwhelming monsters and traps by bringing both the skills and the manpower to render them all useless. For me to instead stop such a large-scale endeavor with a handful of fights and without the help of a single trap was unheard of. Still, Cilia allowed it to happen, otherwise, she would have tasked or even forced me to lower my danger level in some way or another a long time ago.
Still, I had to somehow make the dungeon weaker, even if it was just the first few rooms. I didn’t want to cause needless suffering, after all. And even though most of the adventurers would come here solely to hunt down my monsters, not a single one of these monsters had behaved any different compared to before when they were killed, at least so far. There was no fear, no reluctance to fight once more, no mental or physical scars left behind - nothing. It was as if the part featuring the fight was gone from their memory, making me question my methods. Was it really the right choice to always side with my monsters, regardless of the cost? Wasn’t it my duty to help those men and women grow rather than simply killing them off as efficiently as I could?
I could only sigh as I realized just how much I had to change things. But as I didn’t know much about dungeons myself and Marisa, too, had grown up in the notoriously peaceful town of Abervale, there was no advice I could adhere to. Sure, I could ask Cilia about all of this, but was she really the best teacher when I was the first dungeon she had ever been bound to?
A gentle click reminded me it was about time to get to work. Marisa had just placed down the second of the two orbs, forcing me to let go of the Liri Fox that was still enjoying my attention and care.
As I made my way over to my spot I once again thanked Marisa for her help, before kneeling down on the pedestal I had chosen, closing my eyes, and concentrating on the fox of my dreams. With everything that had been going on, it had been hard to find the time to think about just what my next fox should look like, but if the raid had shown me anything, then it would be that my foxes had a good head on their shoulders. They had known how to use the landscape to their advantage as well as when to attack and when to retreat. Even them retreating was a great sign of intelligence, as many if not most monsters simply fought to the end without even once considering to flee. Knowing all of that, why not create a fox that uses tricks, faints, and smarts to outmaneuver its opponents? Naturally, I had no way to affect the results of the Opal Orb, as it would add a random element to the magic ritual, but I could at least influence the fox, right? I had basically created the Liri Fox out of my imagination, after all!
Knowing that I did my best to imagine a real trickster, a fox that was intelligent and knew how to use its surroundings to its full advantage. And soon enough, I was rewarded, as a cold feeling took hold of me: mana was seeping out of my body.
I couldn’t help but open my eyes just enough to take a single glance at the Opal Orb before quickly closing them again. The artifact was already surrounded by a red mist of fire-attributed mana, meaning the ritual would result in a four-tailed fox of pure fire.
Naturally, I tried my best to imagine just what this meant. There were many types of flames, such as the holy fire the paladin leader had used, the white fire magic of my Liri Fox, or the one used by the normal fire foxes, but the by far most famous one I knew about was one I had only read and heard about so far.
It was the so-called Heart of the Forge, a blue flame which, albeit being considered holy by the mountain folk, did not actually have any attribute other than pure fire in it. From what I knew it was a rite of passage for smiths to forge at least a single sword using this superior flame as it could make even rare materials malleable. Only by completing such a task would they be able to call themselves master blacksmiths. Abervale was by no means important enough to have such a skilled smith living within its walls, but they would soon have a fox taunting them with the flame!
As my remaining mana seeped from my body, I did my best to imagine a new fire fox to come into existence, one covered entirely in blue fur, with only its ears and tails featuring white flames instead.
It took more than a minute for my mana pool to empty out, but I still kept my eyes closed trying to influence the result to become as perfect as it could be. But when I then heard Marisa’s surprised voice, I couldn’t help to open my eyes, only to become stunned myself.
The ritual wasn’t creating a regular, beast-shaped fox but a much more humanoid shape. It was still only a silhouette of blue flames, but I could already identify two arms, two legs, a head with large fox ears, and a total of four tails. When the figure then revealed itself, there were no flames to be seen on its body, rather it looked like a woman in her early twenties with blue hair and fur.
The stranger simply dropped to the ground, seemingly lifeless, with only her black-tipped ears twitching. Then, suddenly, she was already coughing as if she had just choked on something. But that lasted only for mere seconds, as her long, white-tipped tails soon began waving in the air. After a minute or so of lying on the ground like this, she suddenly rolled on her back only to utter two words.
“I’m alive.”
Her voice seemed surprised about the fact as if she hadn’t expected to end up being summoned by me. And I certainly did not think about this being a possibility at all, as I had only ever dealt with monsters.
Needless to say, both Marisa and I needed a few moments to come to terms with the fact that I had just summoned a real, living person. The Liri Fox that had been involved in all of it, however, didn’t seem the least surprised. It gleefully yipped, before making its way over to the woman with wagging tails and happy jumps. Soon, it was already sniffing at her, before summoning a white flame to envelope the body of the supposed boss monster.
I took this moment to use one of the new materials I had unlocked thanks to the raid and summoned a robe made out of Crimson Weaver Silk, a material dropped by oversized, red spiders that was highly resistant to wear and tear and inflammable on top of that, making it a very popular material for a mage’s robe. The robe came out to be almost entirely white thanks to the silk I had used, with only a small, black fox to be seen on its right chest part that I didn’t put there myself. At least it was practical, as it had a long slit on its back for the tails to pass through.
While I was busy trying to get my supposed boss some makeshift clothes, the Liri Fox was doing its own thing with its magic, and soon enough, the young woman already reached out for the helpful little fox, lifting it above her head to take a good look at it.
“Well, aren’t you the best thing that has happened to me today?!”
The Liri Fox happily answered with a few yelps, before being placed down on the stranger's belly, where it almost immediately searched for a good sleeping position. Seeing this as my cue, I made my own entrance, walking up to the supposed boss monster and trying to give her the cloak. The woman stared at me in surprise, looking me up and down, before suddenly reaching out for me. Before I knew it, she had already pulled me in. I could hear her sniff at me.
“Who are you,” she asked me after a few moments of doing so. “I don’t know you.”
“I’m Kiomi,” I introduced myself after she had let me go. “Daughter of Cilia.”
“Aren’t we all?”
I could only look at her questioningly. She was a monster, even though she was a boss and a foxkin on top of that, so shouldn’t I be considered her mother instead? When I asked her about it, the stranger answered with a loud laugh before pointing out that I was nowhere near old enough to be in that position.
“But I summoned you,” I heard myself protest.
“You summoned me?”
It was only now that she seemed to find that something was amiss. She reached for the robe, before hastily donning it. Only then did she take a closer look at the artificial sky above us, likely only now noticing its tiny flaws such as its way too close cloud cover or the way it connected to the cliffs surrounding the room. Before long, she even began looking left and right for even more clues.
“We are inside of a dungeon,” she finally asked.
I nodded in reply, causing her to suddenly lift herself up much to the surprise of the small fox that was now forced into her lap instead. Once she had made herself comfortable, she went to check on her white-tipped tails, placing them on her sides. Her eyes widened in surprise.
“Blue fur,” she asked. “And four of them? I had two! I’m sure!”
She quickly went to check on her long hair, which had the exact same shade of blue to it as the fur on her tails. And after finding even this changed, she could only stare at me in confusion.
“Tha- that might be my fault.”
“How is it your fault?”
I took a deep breath before explaining how Cilia made me her chosen dungeon and gave me the ability to create monsters by combining those I already had with or without the help of various artifacts. The woman seemed intrigued by this but kept silent as I went on to tell her just what exactly I had done for her to appear in my dungeon.
“So you are telling me I am a boss in a dungeon now?”
I nodded.
“And you will make me fight off invaders?”
“Only if you want.”
“And I can never leave the dungeon, either.”
“You can! I just have to select you as a gatherer!”
“A gatherer? Wouldn’t that mean I can’t regenerate mana outside of your dungeon?”
“I- I don’t know,” I heard myself stammer. “But I made a big room just now! We can build houses in it. Maybe a real town!”
“You make for a terrible dungeon master,” she said, before sighing. “But it would be nice to have a home again.” She slowly raised up, lifting the Liri Fox with her. “I will be keeping this one.”
To that, I could only nod, happy that we had come to some sort of conclusion. The lava foxes wouldn’t be too happy about this agreement, but that was nothing a little mana couldn’t help with.
I was just about to introduce Marisa to her when my newly summoned boss approached me once again, leaning in to sniff at me a second time. This time, the show of intimacy or friendship lasted awkwardly long, with her seemingly waiting for something to happen.
“You are supposed to sniff me as well,” she finally explained. “Are you sure you are okay?”
I quickly took in a single whiff which honestly did not smell like anything. Maybe there was a slight scent of flowers, but I wasn’t sure about that. Still, it was enough for her to let me go and pet the little fox in her arms instead.
“My name’s Myra,” she finally introduced herself.
“I’m Kiomi, as you already know,” I explained, before pointing to Marisa. “This is Marisa. She is Cilia’s champion.”
“A champion,” Myra answered with a whistle. “Now those are rare.”
Marisa didn’t let Myra wait, instead, she came over and leaned in for a greeting herself, which my supposed boss monster readily answered. Within seconds, the two had already parted again, both of them seemingly satisfied with the weird ritual. I could only shrug as I tried to change the topic.
“Want me to show you around?”
“Sure,” Myra answered almost immediately. “Show me what you’ve got!”
