Dungeon Maker

There is a saying that a rich man never goes flat broke.

The House of Mammon wasn't just an ordinary 'rich' family. In the days when Mammon was alive, he was the head of a huge and powerful family that controlled a quarter of the demon world. It wouldn't be a stretch to describe them as a royal family.

Because of that, it took a long time for the House of Mammon to truly collapse, and during that time, some of Mammon's heirs became pretty famous.

Kaiwan, the Devil of Distortion, the owner three generations ago, was one of those people.

"They say that Kaiwan had a very adventurous personality. She had spent a lot of time exploring the dungeon and had yielded a great number of achievements. During her time as owner of the dungeon, she had reactivated over 80% of the first floor of the dungeon."

Yong-Ho remembered back to a conversation that he had earlier with Catalina and asked.

"Do you mean the owner that discovered the arena?"

"Oh, I see that you've already been informed."

"Catalina told me. She doesn't know where it's located though."

Eligor nodded at the comment. He quickly looked around and quietly answered him.

"Yes, Kaiwan did keep the location of the arena a secret. I believe that she did so to stop her spirits from entering and challenging the arena themselves."

Even though this was a secretive discussion between Yong-Ho and of his closest aides, there wasn't anyone here to eavesdrop on their conversation. So Yong-Ho decided to sit on the throne to talk more comfortably.

"So then?"

Eligor looked around once more. He approached Yong-Ho and spoke quietly.

"She didn't hide all her discoveries."

The way Eligor smiled after talking made him look especially cunning. Ignoring Eligor's peculiar expression, Yong-Ho became very interested.

He quickly asked.

"What kind of facilities are they?"

"There's a variety of them. But, the most important ones are probably the armory and the gold mine."

"Gold mine?! There's a gold mine in the dungeon?!"

Yong-Ho unknowingly widened his eyes and raised his voice in surprise. Instead of looking around, Eligor responded with a bright smile.

"Yes, indeed. It's a little different from the gold mines of the human world, but it's still very much a gold mine. If my assumptions are correct, there should still be a good amount of gold left."

Yong-Ho wondered what wasn't in this dungeon, but he had to try his best to calm down for now.

Gold mine.

A mine filled with gold.

This was fantastic. If he found it, the dungeon's condition would improve substantially.

But at the same time, it was rather strange.

"Why was it deactivated for the previous owners?"

It was hard to believe that it was because of Mammon's spirits. It was the gold mine that Kaiwan had found and activated.

Did the spirits of the House of Mammon not acknowledge the previous owners?

A frown appeared on Eligor's face. He gave a similar answer to what Yong-Ho expected, but there was a slight difference.

"It's because of the dungeon monsters."

Dungeon monster.

The wild monsters of the demon world that dwell in dungeons.

The demon world wasn't like the human world. The demon world had a certain flexibility due to the high concentration of mana and because of that unexpected spatial twists could occur in dungeons, on the ground, or even in the skies.

Furthermore, the mana that existed in the demon could evolve small bugs and animals into demons.

That's how dungeon monsters were born.

It was either through monsters entering the dungeon through spatial twists or through the evolution of bugs and animals due to mana.

They were like bugs and rats, of the human world, that appeared inside houses.

Usually, ordinary owners could deal with these dungeon monsters very easily. If by any chance, the dungeon monsters couldn't be taken care of, then they could request 'dungeon cleaners' from the Dungeon Market to eradicate the vermin.

However, the House of Mammon couldn't do it either.

There were two main reasons.

First, was the distinct characteristics of Mammon's dungeon.

Ordinary dungeons didn't have a lot of inactive spaces. New rooms were usually created in ordinary dungeons by first creating a space and then filling it with mana, thus activating the room. The room would thus have an accessible entrance and lighting created from mana.

However, unlike ordinary dungeons, the House of Mammon's dungeon boasted an immensely wide area. Furthermore, there were a huge number of empty rooms that didn't have a mana supply, rendering them inactive.

These inactive rooms, when compared to the human world, were like really deep caves or underground construction sites. For a variety of dungeon monsters, these areas were ideal living spaces. Thus, a huge number of dungeon monsters had naturally evolved and among them, some had grown extremely powerful.

Second, the dungeon didn't have enough money to hire a dungeon cleaner.

So in the end, there was only one choice.

The previous owners simply couldn't handle the dungeon monsters, so they had to give up on the gold mine and the armory.

"It's like they got kicked out of the house because of the vermin…"

Eligor bowed his head at Yong-Ho's dispirited voice. His already red face turned an even brighter shade out of shame.

"I'm not trying to make any excuses, but I heard that the dungeon monsters inhabiting the gold mine are quite strong. They are records that state that not only are they very strong but there's a huge number of them as well."

Yong-Ho nodded his head at Eligor's words. It wasn't Eligor's fault that the dungeon monsters took away the gold mine. Eligor glanced at Yong-Ho and spoke again.

"It may be too difficult to take back the gold mine for now. However, if the armory...if the armory could be obtained, it would increase the dungeon's strength tremendously. And then someday, you'll be able to retake the gold mine, it was the dream of the previous owners."

Evolve the spirits and then arm them with the weapons retrieved from the armory.

It certainly wasn't a bad idea. During the last battle, after the Goblins finished setting up the traps, they grabbed the leftover bamboo spears and started to fight.

'I am curious about the gear that Kaiwan obtained in the arena.'

Yong-Ho made up his mind. He stood up right away with a recurring thought in his mind: 'strike while the iron is hot'.

"Go get Catalina. We'll begin the search right away."

Eligor's eyes shined with light.

The day after the discussion.

Yong-Ho opened his mouth after thinking back and sighed deeply.

It took ten mana to reactivate a disabled room. Currently, Yong-Ho's maximum mana level was 180, and since the dungeon's daily mana output was 50, he could activate a maximum of 23 rooms if he consumed all the available mana.

Of course, Yong-Ho couldn't do that. His mana was needed not only for the dungeon facilities but he needed to have a reserve in case of another attack.

As a result, the number of rooms that he could safely activate in a day wasn't that high and given the number of monsters he had to fight along the way, the progress of the search had slowed down considerably.

'At least my evolution rate is increasing quickly.'

Yong-Ho activated the Power of Evolution and examined himself. His evolution rate had increased from 50 to 80.

With a bit more experience, he would be able to evolve.

Since he now had a lot of spirits to study, he was able to further his understanding of the mechanisms of his power.

The evolution rate was equivalent to the experience points in a game.

The stronger the spirit was, the harder it was to fill the evolution rate and if a spirit was weak, the evolution rate could be filled up from even the smallest task.

Yong-Ho looked at Skull, who was currently lying on the floor.

[Name: Skull]

[Race: Skeleton Soldier]

[Main Elements: - ]

[Evolution Rate: 40/100]

[Bone Strength - Level 0 | ★ (1)]

[Physique - Level 0 | ★ (1)]

[Mentality - Level 0 | ★ (1)]

'The available evolution routes are [Skeleton Warrior] and [Skeleton Archer].'

After deactivating the Power of Evolution, Yong-Ho sat down and looked at Catalina, who was currently resting beside him. After noticing Yong-Ho's gaze, she quickly took out her map and laid it on the ground.

"I'm terribly sorry, but the records of the previous owner aren't perfect. However, I'm sure that it's somewhere around this area. If it's you, I'm confident that you'll find it."

At first, she sounded like a child afraid of being scolded, but as she talked more, her eyes started to sparkle.

It seemed like she believed in Yong-Ho's 'Midas touch', which was one of his powers.

"So you're using me, huh?"

When Yong-Ho made the comment with a click of his tongue, Catalina looked like she was at a loss for words. He expected such a reaction, which caused him to chuckle and lightly pinch her cheek. He then stood up from the ground.

"Since we've rested, let's head out. If it's not forward, then it must be to the left."

Yong-Ho mumbled to himself and looked around the room. He closed his eyes and extended his hands out in different directions.

'Clear your mind and follow your instincts.'

He was stimulating his power.

More specifically, Yong-Ho was able to satisfy his 'greed.'

Yong-Ho suddenly opened his eyes and looked to the left.

"That way."

He immediately started to walk.

***

While Yong-Ho was exploring the dungeon with Catalina and Skull.

The butler Eligor, who was one of Yong-Ho's key aides and led the Goblins to carry out construction work.

As Eligor had explained to Yong-Ho many times, dungeons in the demon world weren't just geographical features, but large spirits.

Therefore, the various facilities within the dungeon were known as its internal organs.

Mana was used to activate the rooms and then by further using the dungeon's available mana and ingredients, better facilities could be created.

These facilities made this way were able to move their location within the dungeon.

After the first battle, Yong-Ho chose to focus on strengthening the dungeon's facilities rather than evolving the spirits.

The distance between the dungeon entrance and his throne room had increased. Several rooms had also been secured to enable a variety of facilities to be created. Whereas, for the facilities that had already been installed, he changed their location to further increase their defense.

Eligor had widened the distance between the "central corridor", known as the dungeon's spine, and the prison by a fair margin. This was in order to create his long cherished new torture chamber.

In fact, he really wanted to expand the size of the prison even more.

In the dungeon, the role of the prison wasn't just to lock enemy spirits away and torture them.

A high-quality prison invested with a large amount of mana and ingredients could forcefully drain mana from the prisoners.

The prison can thus serve as an additional auxiliary facility for the generation of mana. It could also be used as a form of a breeding ground to retrain dungeon monsters and turn them into spirits.

Such a prison was considered the jewel of a dungeon. It was an incredibly versatile facility.

'The torture chamber is also a jewel.'

Eligor created the torturing tools with a joyful expression. Since the available materials were quite poor, he couldn't make any stylish tools like the Iron Maiden, but the art of torture could be implemented with just a simple chair and knife.

Eligor decided to be satisfied with what he had for now.

"Butler, butler. You feels good. Feels good?"

Jon was carrying the materials that were going to be used for the torture room and saw Eligor's joyful expression. Eligor answered with a warm smile.

"Haha. How could I not be in a good mood? The dungeon is improving everyday."

As soon as he finished talking, Eligor recalled Yong-Ho's actions during their first fight.

"Hoo hoo. His bedroom must be made as quickly as possible so that we're prepared for the future successor."

"Successor? Bedroom? What connection?"

Jon tilted his head and asked with a confused expression, but Eligor ignored him. He kept this peculiar daydream to himself and instead looked at the imprisoned Kobolds.

"You guys shouldn't worry so much. You'll be tortured as soon as the torture chamber is complete. After I confirm your honesty through torture, I'll allow you to serve the House of Mammon."

He then raised a plank of wood with nails pierced all around it. The Kobolds quickly raised their voices.

"Woof, woof!"

"Woof, woof!"

"Bark, bark!"

Though they were saying that they would swear allegiance right now, Eligor wasn't able to understand them. No, it was possible that he could from their desperate looks, but he chose to ignore that.

"Hahaha. Okay, okay. You'll just have to wait a bit longer."

Eligor had a warm expression as he placed the plank of wood down again. He looked ahead with a calm expression.

"I hope Master returns soon."

If it's Yong-Ho, he'll definitely be able to find the armory.

Just thinking about him made Eligor smile with glee and this time he picked up a very sharp knife. The imprisoned Kobolds' cry was music to his ears, as he focused on his work again.