Book of the Dungeon Maker

by Nathan Valerio

  More than half the wolves were the same and more still were reaching this point, but Veria held my attention as the amount of moonlight essence her body gathered was insignificant to the amount her body was releasing and gathering into a small orb above her.

  Slowly, her body began to lose its form, and she began to turn transparent.

  I opened my book and found her image. I saw her hp was lowering at a rapid pace and no mana was left in her body. Her level was dropping steadily; 1 level every 10 seconds.

  She howled again, and three light rays came from the blossoms into her body stopping her level from dropping, but soon the essence leaving her body grew even thicker and it continued to drop.

  The blossom she planted soon began to split in half as a new head of the blossom was literally splitting from her own.

  Hers was wilting while the other was growing vigorously.

  As her level reached 10 it stopped, and I noticed the body of a human baby with a silver wolf tail, wolf ears, and silver hair began to form in the light. Suddenly a powerful suction force came from her as the 10 levels were instantly transferred into the baby who rapidly began to grow until she looked like a two year old girl.

  Veria looked like a ghost as the pathways of moonlight essence moved to the baby now and not her.

  “Take care of her Master, until I return,” Veria said and let out a powerful howl once more causing one final massive wave different from the others.

  Instantly, my minions page gained a new minion, gray wolf. This meant she bound her minions to her daughter and in turn to me at once.

  Her ghost body suddenly gathered into an orb the size of an adult male's fist, and it flew right into my book where her name showed, ‘Body dead, reconstructing. 50 infusions of moonlight essence needed to begin.’

  As I saw that I nodded, “Don’t worry, she is in good hands,” I said and looked at the baby.

  The wilted blossom turned into particles and became a seed which flew up and into Veria’s image as well.

  Then slowly, a small chain of moonlight was formed between the newest blossom and the girl. Following that, the girl's body released two more chains and tied them into the other two flowers slowly invading them and binding them to her.

  Below Veria’s image, a second one appeared.

  ‘Newborn alpha spirit wolf queen. Nameless.’

  I walked forward and stood just below her. I waited for this ritual to end, but for six full hours she remained. Even as most of the wolves in the room became spiritual wolves and kept howling to their new queen.

  As the sun slowly rose outside, the moonlight beam weakened and the blossoms wilted. Like Veria’s, they turned into seeds that entered the child's forehead. The glowing energy around her slowly began to fade and her body descended. I held my arms out and caught her very light frame in my arms where she snuggled close to the new warm body holding her.

  I turned and looked at the wolves.

  They were nearly as big as Veria now, but they were transparent with glowing red eyes.

  One of the elites looked at me and at the girl in my arms.

  “We serve the new queen, Name her, Master of the Queen, so we may bring glory to our new alpha!” he said.

  Unsurprised that the spirit wolf was speaking, I began to think of a name for the child.

  After a moment I looked up.

  “I shall name her Valery,” I said.

  They all howled and turned into a dense fog that was soon absorbed into the child leaving the room bare of any being aside from myself, the girl in my arms, and the three others.

  Everyone was in shock at what they had just seen. I'm certain no one had been able to witness this scene in such close proximity and live to tell about it.

  Looking at the girl in my arms, I looked at the others.

  “Come on guys! Let’s close the dungeon and get moving before anything bad comes after us,” I said to snap everyone out of it.

  We soon left, I didn’t dismiss the girl since I didn’t know what was needed, but I did at least retrieve a blanket and wrap it around her since she was stark naked.

  With the girl wrapped in a blanket in my arms, we teleported back to the capital and once more teleported. This time to the border of the elf nation on the north east border, a safe distance from the demon lands which also happened to be the Jagged Mountains I first landed in.

  From there, we would face the wilds, but that is after all what adventurers do so it was time to live as real adventurers.

  Chapter 21

  “Kid, you’ve been gone only a week and you already got a brat! I must say you're quite quick. So which lass is the lucky one?” the dwarf blacksmith said as he saw Valery.

  “Shut it fat nose! This is a monster in human form. She is the daughter of a minion I recently acquired,” I said.

  “Oi! Who you calling fat nose? Mine is reasonable!” he shouted back.

  “Calm down Brock, he is just teasing. So what did you need?” Johnson, the head carpenter, said.

  “I need a carriage, or maybe a stagecoach. We are planning to go to the elven nation, and walking all the way won’t be fun. Let's not forget that this child was just born a few minutes ago,” I said.

  “It better a stagecoach then, they bounce around much less since they are wider and more well built. That said, it will take at least three days to build one. Unlike those rooms of yours, this is more complex work. Not to mention the cushions and all that must be ordered from the tailor,” Johnson said.

  “Mr. Brock, do you mind making the axis and wheels out of iron or steel. This is more so that we don’t have to worry about them breaking?” Charlotte said.

  “I don’t mind miss, boy got any improvements we can make for it? Since yer a hero you must have stuff we don’t know about,” Brock asked.

  After thinking for a moment, I realized a seriously important thing. I explained what I knew about suspension systems and how to use the spring to suppress the impacts. Obviously, it wouldn’t be as good as modern day suspensions, but it was a start, but just that was enough to cause a stagecoach’s price to skyrocket since the jumping and bad roads would affect the passengers much less.

  “Alright, I'll get onto trying ta make these with the boys. Johnson, get building the body,” Brock said.

  The two men soon left, but before that Johnson turned to me and said something important.

  “You should visit the tailor and make some clothes for the girl, it would be bad to leave her just wrapped in a blanket.”

  We did as advised and visited the tailor who was an old grandmotherly type. When we showed her the sleeping girl, her eyes sparkled seeing how cute the silver wolf girl was. She was still asleep, but with me holding her sitting up she could at least get the more important measurements of the shoulder length, waist length and such. I asked for her to make just a few white dresses and a few fur blankets. I used wolf and rabbit pelts as payment and material for the blankets, and paid in coin for the dressed. I also asked for a few coats for us.

  “Heh, Ace you do realize you're acting like an expecting father,” Hermes said chuckling.

  “Am I? I did promise I would take care of her so I don’t think I am excessive or doting,” I said.

  “Yeah but you’re a crude blockhead yet you are caring for the girl with so much care and even taking care to not remove the blanket from the waist down when she was measuring,” Misaki said with a mischievous grin.

  “Stop teasing him Shinigumi-san and Hermes. He is the diligent father type, even if he tries to make himself seem really cold,” Charlotte said joining in the teasing.

  “Hey, I just don’t feel right leaving her without clothes,” I said.

  “You should know Ace. A spirit remains in human form until their level rises to around 20 before they have enough power to change into their real form. In her case, similar to her mother. They use moonlight essence to make their clothing, but she can only do that after she gathers enough power as well. If I had told you that sh
e can make her own clothes would you have been angry?” Charlotte said.

  “I would have said, warn me first. Still at least it was the right choice, until she wakes up I can’t really just leave her in the book since she won’t understand anything, but I think it’s best to plant Veria’s blossom quickly.” I said and opened my book.

  I looked at Veria’s image and pressed it with my pen making the adjacent page turn from blank to showing her main information. At the bottom was a ‘plant bound soul seed,’ button. I found that soul seed thing strange but as I pressed it the blossom seed came out again. I turned the page to the wolf dungeon and pressed at the boss room and put it on the rock.

  It entered and planted itself and I saw the huge drop in mana regeneration once more.

  The gathered mana in the book handled it well enough though and I sent the guardian and farmers to tend to it. I also pressed on Valery’s and tried to do the same but couldn’t which meant she had to plant them herself.

  Grrrr!

  A sudden growl caught us by surprise as it sounded like a beast's growl.

  “Wha—”

  GRRRRR!

  Sounding almost like a roar, I looked down as I pinpointed the source coming from the small wolf girl’s stomach. Her face was frowning and her eyes were opening but rapidly forming tears.

  “Muuu WAAAAAAAAAAA!” She suddenly started to cry, and it goes without saying that her cry was extremely loud!

  The tailor came rushing out from the back as she saw the girl crying.

  “What in blazes!” she shouted.

  “She is hungry! Do you have any meat or food?” I quickly asked.

  The tailor quickly nodded and called her assistants to get some of the salted and dried meat.

  Soon they arrived with some cut slices.

  The crying girl stopped crying and sniffed the air with tears in her eyes. She looked around and soon spotted the meat. She looked curiously and stood on my lap letting the blanket drop before crossing the room in a single bound and landed right at the foot of the assistant before strangely trying to grab at the plate. What was strange was that her jump crossed five meters, but now she was hopping up like a normal little child wanting to take back her toys.

  “Give it to her,” the tailor said.

  The assistant lowered the plate, and she looked at the meat and put her face near it. She sniffed and frowned as she took a piece. She began to chew it but her eyes went wide, and she spat it back out with a resounding “Patui!” right before she started to cry.

  She ran back to me and looked at me crying.

  “What do we do?” Misaki asked.

  “What type of beastman doesn’t like meat?” the tailor asked.

  “She is a silver spirit queen wolf. She isn’t a common beastman,” I said.

  “Oh, why didn’t you say so, spirits live off mana or magic beasts with their attributes!” the tailor said.

  “Mana? Wait the rune!” I said and took my pen and opened my book and found the glowing ‘Moon’ rune which was releasing the profound feeling I was able to comprehend. I drew the ‘Moon’ rune and as soon as it took shape and released its mana, the girl’s eyes instantly shot up to it with a vicious glint. She did a small jump onto my lap, lunged at the rune and in one fell swoop caught it in her mouth mid-air. As she landed, she kept chewing with her hands on her cheeks and a look of bliss.

  Everyone was caught off guard before the old tailor started to laugh.

  “Boy, this child is quite interesting. Since her race is known to survive off moonlight, you should regularly feed her a number of those rune things and make a place for her to slowly draw in that energy,” the tailor said.

  “I have a place, I was just waiting for her to wake up,” I said.

  “Papa! Papa! Food! Food!” the little wolf girl said.

  She was pulling my hand looking at me with pleading eyes.

  The words she said once more took me by surprise but my party were shocked before they started to giggle.

  “Why did you call me Papa?” I asked.

  She looked at me with her big silver eyes and tilted her head confused then made a big bright smile.

  “Papa is Papa, Mama made Valery and Papa named Valery so Papa is Papa!” she said and asked for food again.

  I make a few more moon runes before she jumped up and fell asleep in my arms. I wrapped the blanket around her again so that she wouldn’t be seen naked again.

  “Well, she is spirited,” I said.

  “A child must be. Now let us get back to work. You, boy, should start to learn how to take care of her,” the tailor said.

  “Yeah ‘Papa’ you need to take good care of your little girl,” Misaki said grinning.

  “Come on Shinigumi-sama, ‘Papa’ has it hard since he is the only one that can feed her,” Hermes joined in.

  “Can you idiots stop this already!” I shouted.

  “Shh! You're going to wake up Valery… ‘Papa,’” Charlotte said blushing but with a smile since she couldn’t help herself.

  I sighed and the three laughed together.

  We went out and walked to the same house we stayed at before. I let them go in while I opened the magic hole. I told them I needed to have her plant her blossoms to get the most benefit since it was still early. The longer they are planted the better the result.

  In the boss room, I found the puppets bent over with their roots out tending to the flower. The area was pulsing green.

  As we arrived, Valery opened her eyes and it shone.

  “MOON!” she shouted and jumped out of my arms. She began to look around and saw the big moon stone and looked mesmerized by it.

  After a long time she looked at the blossom and walked over.

  “Mama…” she said.

  A small flash of moonlight from the flower made her startle, but she took a step back and closed her eyes.

  A moment later, three seeds came out of her forehead and planted themselves form a square formation of four blossoms.

  At once, I felt a rush of mana when they were planted as my book rapidly released a torrent of mana to supplement the flowers.

  “Puppets, tend to all the flowers,” I said and instantly the flow dropped by 20%, but I walked over and watched as the flowers readily sucked up my gathered mana. The crystals on the book vanished until all four were planted, causing the flow to stop and slowly begin to trickle out mana from within.

  “Okay it’s planted,” I said and pat Valery’s head.

  “Mn! Mama told me to plant them…” she said.

  “That’s good, once a month when these pretty flowers die, you need to replant them okay?” I said, and she nodded with a smile. She hugged me and I lifted her up.

  “Now, do you want to stay in the little house or here?” I asked.

  She looked at me and looked around and up.

  “Can Papa stay with Valery? It’s feels nice here, but I will miss Papa?” she said teary eyed.

  I smile wryly and thought of how I could remain there and could only think of making a bedroom through upgrading, but all my crystals were used up to make the flowers.

  “I can’t stay for now because I need to make a room for myself if I want to stay in here.” I said.

  “Boo! I will stay with Papa then!” she said and hugged me tightly around the neck then fastened her legs around my chest and tried her best to lock them behind my back but her legs didn’t reach that far.

  “Alright, alright, no hugging so much. I won’t leave you, but for now you can play in here, the big wolves will listen to you, but don’t hurt them or do ridiculous things or leave this place with any of them. I will be in the little house just outside okay?” I said.

  “Mn!” she said and jumped down. She ran off but instantly stopped to watch the moonlight flames curiously.

  “No wonder the other children were caught by the demon lord. They are too innocent early on and have no sense of danger,” I thought as I walked past her, but after I was out of earshot, I called
several older wolves and ordered them to watch over her. If needed, they were to softly discipline her on my order, or if she did something drastic, to bring her to me.

  With that, I left and entered the house where the others were just talking.

  “Ah! Papa returned, did you leave your little sweetie in the doggy daycare?” Misaki asked with a serious expression.

  “Shut up glutton! Now what are you guys doing?” I asked annoyed.

  “Nothing much, I had just asked Hermes how he makes the health potions he brought us,” Charlotte said.

  “Oh, speaking of which, have you been able to train any puppets into alchemists? I haven’t checked the minion page recently besides when planting the seed for Veria,” I asked.

  “You should look yourself,” he replied with a grin.

  I did just that and opened up the page showing all puppet minions class and level.

  Current Puppet Minion Overview

  Guardian

  Warrior

  Acolyte

  Archer

  Guardian Level 75

  Warrior (Halberd) Level 13

  Warrior (Spear) Level 10

  Warrior (Spear) Level 9

  Acolyte (Leader) Level 7

  Acolyte Level 5

  Acolyte Level 5

  Archer (unevolved) Level 2

  Archer (unevolved)

  Level 2

  Archer (unevolved)

  Level 1

  Swordsman

  Farmer

  Craftsman

  Beast

  Swordsman Level 12

  Farmer Level 18

  Farmer Level 17

  Farmer Level 17

  Craftsmen Level x4

  Armored Canine Beast Level 14

  Armored Feline Beast Level 15

  Armored Rodent Beast Level 10

  Alchemist

  Alchemist Level 3

  Alchemist Level 2

  “Oh, so you got two of them to evolve, nice. That said, I can’t evolve any more since I already have 12 minion types. And here I wanted to make carpenters and blacksmiths,” I said.