A Dungeon Boss's Journal Chapter 4

Day 16

As soon as I woke up I found out what I look like. Other then the grey skin, pretty much like I was told hobgoblins look.

The boney jagged lips, and gnarly hands anyway.

Other then my red eyes, I kind of looked like the adventurers that attacked me so often. The sort of smooth well outlined face you might find on the elves, and humans that often come here. The ugly face that the other goblins have was missing. My face was the kind of usually human face Ash gained after turning into a Hobgoblin variant.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised if Ash looked more attractive then the normal hobgoblin, I would as well since we were both variants.

But I was still confused, not because the face felt wrong. But because it felt right. Like that jawline, and the way my eyes moved were how it was meant to be.

Like a part of my mind expected those features. Rather then say I was naturally growing accustom to my body and it’s features, its more like I was only recognizing some of the lesser human parts.

Given how the invading adventurers were not letting up that day I decided to swap out Ash with Harley and Brook.

Not because I didn’t want Ash by my side, she is a skilled archer, and was starting even give me a challenge when we trained. Ash seems to hate this idea and seems to think I hate her. I tried to convince her that I simply wanted to properly train the two lesser minions but she seems to think she did something wrong.

But the fact is fewer and fewer enemies are reaching us, and Ash’s personal experience with fighting was starting to to fall behind the two lesser goblins.

Also now that she can talk…

I’ve started to feel a bit weird training her as hard as I do.

It’s weird now that I think about, it how little I cared about their pain before. Before I get too soft, I need to properly beat the basics into my two lesser minions.

But why do I care so much? Yes dying hurts, but fighting them only seems to encourage more adventurers.

My training methods also hurt a lot, I’m starting to wonder what point there is in all of this.

Why do I care?

New idea, I am going to spawn another two goblins tomorrow when I have enough money. Train them well enough that with the two goblins and one hobgoblin I already have, I can have them all properly train as I expand this dungeon to keep the adventurers away and once they are strong enough I can use up all of the monster spawn points I have in order to make the process to get to me an actual challenge. At the moment the screen tells me I can spawn 20 out of 23 more goblins.

Only goblins for now, likely as a side effect of picking Hobgoblin as my species.

I’m not sure why I am here, but for the first time. I actually want to know why. If I have more time to focus on gathering information, I might even get to see the rest of the world.

I raised the coin spawn count to 298 recently. I am starting to get enough money thanks to adventurers that I might try out the additional features that I unlocked.

Day 17

Ash is an amazing archer, and seems to have learned tactics quite well. Working with Cerberus she has not let a single adventurer through, and because of that I was able to train the two goblins the entire day.

But of course, while I am a monster, I am not cruel. I gave the two breaks, which I used to read through more of the books Alex gave me.

One of the books was filled with pictures of the outside world. For some reason I had some faint memories of these sorts of places, details about forest, deserts, plains, tundras, farm lands.

But the interesting bits were about the towns. One of them was a small kingdom called [Mahdunt], a kingdom, a heavily forested kingdom of humans, elves, and gnomes surviving mostly on the spoils of adventurers. The name was circled in red ink by Alex, according to the note he scribbled in, this is the siblings home kingdom, and the kingdom my dungeon is in.

The book also offered a general idea about what most of the three species did adventurer wise, which I found useful.

Humans are a short lived race at at most only ever got as old as one hundred, they are considered average in attractiveness, but because they age so fast most other races avoid them. However they are also the fastest race in terms of development magically and technologically. So for the most part they control the worlds various kingdoms and occasional queendom. In terms of adventurers, most of the time they work as warriors and mages, a cleric human like Alex is apparently rare and is considered a blessing even if the human has no special blessing hidden in their skills.

Elves are a tall and unusually pretty species, and are considered the most long lived humanoid species that still exist, long lived to the point that nobody seems to know anything about the limits to their age, and because of that they are also the slowest at development, preferring to work within tradition and most are in tune with nature. However that is only true to the normal sort, as adventurers, they seem to prefer to work with humans and enjoy a much more rapid and carefree pace, when they do work as adventurers, because of their eyesight and nature magic they mostly work as archers druids and clerics. Druids being a unique form of mage that manipulates plant life, either as a form of attack or in order to tame and control animals to work as familures.

Gnomes are incredibly short race that other then oversized heads resemble children. They live around five hundred years, through some unknown magic they simply stop aging appearance wise once they reach ten, and then start rapidly aging when they die taking on a shape similar to elves. Because of their childish forms, outside of gnome communities they often resort to crime in order to make money, as they are small and fast, its quite easy for them, and with childish features, they are rarely punished harshly. As adventurers they often work as dagger or bow wielding thieves.

Disabling traps and monsters their main purpose.

While looking through the various screens I have, I realized there was an option to leave signs around. As I need more information, I might leave a sign claiming that I will meet with anyone who stands near the sign for a period of time or something. While I humored the idea before, I lacked the materials and figured the more aggressive kind of adventurer would just destroy it.

As the dungeon regenerates damage, I don’t imagine I’ll have to worry about it.

There might be consequences to this…

But I want to know more about the creatures attacking me and why.

Also I reached level 20, Ash reached level 14, Harley and Brook are level 6, and Cerberus is level 3. Ever since Ash was blessed she’s started to keep pace with me level wise. I would say that’s why she level’s up so fast, but I feel it has more to do with the unexplained skill [Minion of the Child].

As she is my minion, I can only assume I am [the child], but who’s child and why would it matter enough to count as a skill?

Day 18

Another day of leisure, beating Harley and Brook into shape. Brook seems like more of a muscle brain and was quite eager to fight me head on, charging in like an insane beast. Harley on the other hand, while not all that smart seems to like planning out his actions and is starting to mimic Ash’s tactics to avoid me getting close. Of course with [Charge] nobody can avoid me for long.

Hehe.

Perhaps I trained Ash too well, a few level 11 adventurers came in today, the same sort of configuration that slaughtered us not too long ago and she killed them easily without Cerberus’s help, they came a few times, and because of that we got a lot of nice new equipment. As a reward I let her keep the best bow that was found that day.

Beyond that I am starting to realize that all of my minions are rather drained.

When I asked Ash why, she claimed that she and the other minions have done nothing but train, fight, and sleep since being spawned. They were getting tired of the pain and being trapped in this dungeon is starting to get to them.

I can understand, and have decided that tomorrow and for the next two days, with Cerberus I will handle adventurers.

One of the features I unlocked was [minion room], the interesting thing about it is that while taking up a small space it creates a personalized alternate room for specific to the minion that enters. With coins I can personalize each minions room with various objects and into various styles with money. I have to spend money to upgrade the [minion room] once in order to allow another room, so I can’t afford to do this a lot for all of the minions I plan to later spawn.

But for Ash, Harley, and Brook, I suppose as my first companions they should have the right to a free space. I placed it next to my throne room, and asked Ash what she wanted in it. She seemed unusually excited about it so I figure my idea worked out well. Since she couldn’t see my screen I was forced to draw rough ideas in the dust of my throne room about what options there were. She was surprisingly fussy, and wanted far more plant life and soft objects then I would imagine any bed room would need.

But if she is happy with it, then I don’t really mind spending the money.

As for Brook and Harley, since they can’t talk and seem to lack the awareness to ‘want’ much of anything when I directly ask them, likely as a side effect of my control, I was forced to stick to simple things. So I gave them a basic bed, table and a few chairs for their own personal rooms. Given enough time they might become strong enough for that screen option that allows them some ‘awareness’ enough to talk. So I’ll worry about what they want then.

There is also a [minion bunker] that comes with enough beds in it’s alternative space to house up to 100 minions. While around the same price to upgrade, thankfully each upgrade adds room for another 100. I plan to hide one on each floor as a resting area later when I earn more levels in [Dungeon Administration], and can actually create more minions. I don’t plan to have 100 or more per level. I doubt I will even get near 100 minions in this dungeon. But thanks to Ash’s advice I am starting to realize how important a nice rest is.

Still not going to waste money on upgrading my throne or the room it’s in for now.

It’s strangely a nice place to sleep, even if it is just an ugly piece of rock. I won’t get to sleep on it for the next few days given my plan to guard the dungeon with my mid level boss minion.

Day 19

So nobody paid attention to my sign. Depressing but I expected that.

Maybe it seems like a trap, or maybe my hand writing is horrible, but I will have to think of another means of communicating. A few of my trap options trap rather then kill adventurers, but that feels a bit like kidnapping.

Which somehow feels worse then murdering them outright…

Huh.

I don’t imagine I’d get anyone willing to talk to me like that, so I will save it as a last resort.

Anyway, through fighting [Flail], [Cleave], and [Charge] have all maxed out. They’re not going to get any better. Hopefully I’ll run into adventurers with a better equivalent sooner or later.

I also learned the skills [Fire ball], [Lightning Strike], [Freeze Ray], [Confuse] and [Counter Strike]. All self explanatory skills I can rank up and are all quite useful to me, more so since I am gradually raising the magic stat.

But the thing that most interest me is that [Lesser heal], [Dodge] and finally [Skill Copy] are all a level away from 20/20. I can imagine how [Lesser heal] might change. But how will [Dodge] change? Will I get to keep the boost? Will I loose that in-exchange for some better equivalent? [Skill Copy], is curious to me. It’s a skill that none of the books I’ve read mention, and it seems already far overpowered given how often I actually get the skill I look at, at this point.

I reached level 27 today, Ash reached level 20, Harley and Brook reached level 10 today, so I plan to rank them up tomorrow and Cerberus is level 6. I don’t see any proof that ranking a minion up as soon as it’s spawned would hinder it’s growth stat wise as in any way. But I figured powering them up too fast might hinder their growth tactics wise. Also since I am meant to be the boss monster, having all my minions as the same class of species as me seems a bit weird.

I somewhat regret leaving my experience gathering to my minions given how many skills I could have earned a leveled up over this time. But I fought well over one hundred adventurers today, it’s overwhelming just how many are showing up. Quite a few of them even killing me. The number of people coming here is increasing at a staggering amount, and the number of adventurers I can’t take on, even with a mid level bosses help is starting to get higher.

I can’t just fight them all myself and the number of minions I have will be insufficient soon. I’m getting stronger, and as more Adventurers come at higher levels I will keep getting stronger, but I’ll be overwhelmed soon if I am not careful.

I miss my throne.

Day 20

Because I decided to rank up Harley and Brook today I had to call them up to me. While I could have went back down, I’d rather all our fighting force be up here rather then down near my throne at the moment. After ranking them up I finally figured out their genders, just like I did with Ash. Brook was a male, and even with the rank up into a Hobgoblin still had those blank white eyes. For a hobgoblin he was huge, his hands rather then gnarly reminded me of a Orc’s hands. Like Ash his level dropped to level one. I can’t really see his stats, just like I originally couldn’t for ash.

But I am betting they reset. As a gift I decided to give him an axe, it was one dropped off a burly human who was just as much a berserker as brook. One that was too big and cumbersome for me to carry even with both hands. Yet he dragged it around happily, and while he couldn’t move it properly, he was able to keep up just as well as he did with the club he used to use. I am betting he will grow into it well.

Harly turned out to be female, her ugly hobgoblin face seemed sort of educated for some reason. Like despite the reason hampering nature of Hobgoblins she was only a few points away from being able to talk. Her curled ears seem to have bent a bit further and she seemed like more curious. As a gift I gave her a staff that was dropped by one of the few mages I saw who didn’t focus on a single element of magic. While it seems most like to specialize, I would like my own person mage to be more of a jack of all trades. She can only use fire based magic now, but I hope I can encourage more elements out of her. She seems happy enough with the new staff so I figure she doesn’t mind.

After sending them back down I faced near 100 adventurers again, on the rare occasion that they got me, they still lost to Cerberus.

[Lesser heal] become [Heal] as expected.

[Dodge] become [Double Self] which resulted in the previous buff merging with my agility the +20 becoming part of my base, the buff starting back at +1, and now I can create a single body double to distract and trick people.

[Skill copy] turned out to be pretty much as I expected to my disappointment. It became [Skill Learn], which apparently means I no longer have a time limit or cool down, it’s a passive [Skill] that allows me to at any time learn a [Skill] I see, the possibility of learning it has boosted as well. Which is nice because it seems that despite claiming that I have a higher chance of learning a skill,I seem to be learning fewer and fewer skills. Which either means the description is lying, or the filtering process for what I can learn is getting stricter as I level up and the skill levels up.

I can only assume this since I learned no skills today despite facing so many Adventurers.

I’d say today was pretty nice.

Still miss my throne though.

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Glossary