[SS] Chapter 20: Dungeon defense or run away?

Cleaning up was utter hell. I had to take breaks and more than a few of the bodies just ended up being absorbed by the dungeon because I couldn’t bare to eat them anymore. Gods, I felt utterly revolted as I melted the corpses and absorbed them into me. The only saving grace was that as an [Acid Slime] it hadn’t taken long. Seeing everything just melt into a puddle, feeling it, knowing what I was doing, seeing all of the blood just seem to come out, I had a new trauma to add to the rest. I cried slimy tears of joy that I had absolutely no sense of taste. It was also the first time I wish I had been blind.

As for my Hob-Goblin POW, after they saw the utter massacre, they went real quiet and still the whole way. I put them out into the yard and they didn’t even struggle or move or anything. That made me feel really bad. I just wanted some conversation and hopefully a friend! Come on! It’s not my fault they all horrifically died! Well, kinda. Okay, some of it is my fault.

Oh great, guilt. That’s awesome. Lovely, really.

Despite the horrors and trauma, I was honestly starting to feel great. Like my old self again. Mainly because now I had someone to actually talk to. The absolute worst part of this whole experience, probably even worse than dying twice (okay not really), was that I lost all the people I would have liked to talk to about this. Tell them about dying, how much losing them hurt, about all of my trauma. But no, instead I have a murderous monster for company, a freaky unalive simulacrum, and a small mountain of corpses.

No no, shake off that malaise. Let’s look on the bright side. I have someone to talk to, I now have more stats, my dungeon now has more mana, and if I can beat a Hob-Goblin in battle, and my Hob-Goblin can murder a bunch of wolves (probably with the help of goblins but still.), then that means I should be able to beat a bunch of wolves. So unless a massive horde of them comes at me all at once…. I should be…. fine.

Fuck. Great. Awesome. No, really. Keep going Slimy Slime. What next, going to say “How could things get worse?” Or are we going to ask for a dragon to shoot a meteor at us? How about we just up and say that the whole forest catches on fire and a giant monster eats me while I’m at it?

God, of course there’s going to be a massive fucking horde of wolves. Besides eating each other, I have no idea how so many wolves can sustain themselves in this damn forest. Something is up. But even beyond that, clearly, my dungeon is a far worthier prize than I expected. And I think I have a sneaking suspicion why. The paths to power are myriad but for a monster, the main one is evolution. And that’s a pretty significant and straight forward one but for anyone not me, it’s more instinct-based or pure chance. Combine that with animalistic level intelligence and it’s not a surprise I’ve been mainly running into regular run of the mill wolves.

But what if there was another path? Order had mentioned the human side of things and almost everything between monster and human is a mirror. Classes to evolution, stats to stats, etc etc. But one thing stood out. The subsystems. You could be a Human Acolyte, or a Human King, or etc etc. All with their own little quirks but monsters? Monsters didn’t seem to have anything like that. But what if they could? I already had the Crowned Monster system, but what if I had nothing and got hold of a Dungeon Core? I think that’s why the monsters are going absolutely ballistic. It upgrades the core part of themselves, the very system itself. It was only a theory, nothing was outright telling me this was true, but it fits. Maybe I’ll be wrong and it secretly gives +1000 stats if you eat the damn thing or something but I felt I was right.

So I had a decision to make. Everything within 15 miles, the radius of my Dungeon Domain, was going to be gunning for my Dungeon Core. So I could deal with all of that, fight every single challenger, be an absolute slaughter… or I could put it away. Simple as breathing, I could make the Dungeon Core go the fuck away and leave me to my own troubles without having to deal with an army at my doorsteps every other day. And there was no damn way there was only nice safe Gen 0 wolves in this forest. There had to be Gen 1 and probably Gen 2 wolves out there. Even without the qualitative leap evolution gives just by evolving, that’s more stats and skills and probably intelligence too. If I had to deal with a human intellect level wolf, I was done for. I had half assed my construction and had no real interest in making a super bunker and a proper dungeon. Maybe when I’m old and senile and probably not even then.

But there was a single issue. If I put it away, would everyone leave me alone? Or would everything still try to attack this area, even if it’s gone? It could be like putting bloody meat in the water. Even if you take it out, there’s still going to be sharking heading to where it was. And my dungeon didn’t want to tell me the answer to that. Taking a Dungeon Core out is simple, but putting it back out afterwards isn’t. It needs time. And that’s all it was telling me via vague feelings and knowledge. I truly, truly hated this way of learning.

I beat my slimy head against a wall.

Risk taking out my defense to prevent an army of monsters of attacking, which might only leave me defenseless against an army of monsters and do nothing OR fight off an army of monsters. Or, well, I could just leave? No one ever said I had to stay here, right here. I could take the Dungeon Core into that weird special place it goes and just walk a mile out into the forest and this time, build a small little place with my bare hands. God it’s weird having hands as a slime. Anyway, yeah. I think I’ll just do that. Vanish it in the morning and-

“AWOOO!”

Fuck me and my big mouth.

I went outside my cave, seeing my Hob-Goblin, the real living one, huddling in fear. Uh-oh, that’s not good. I went up some tiny stairs I had made to be able to see out from my wall. I saw my shitty wooden tunnel of death going out a bit aways and looked forward, trying to see how many wolves I’d have to deal with.

I saw them and my slimy non-existent heart clenched, hard enough that I thought I was going to suffer a panic attack.

Good news, there were eight of them.

Bad news, they weren’t regular wolves.

Standing outside my mediocre defenses, was what looked like wolves on steroids. They would probably be able to look a human in the eye while on all fours and their height wasn’t the only massive thing about them…. I was talking about their width you pervert. Oh good, I’m well enough to tell jokes because seriously, they were fucking massive beasts. They made regular wolves look like dogs by comparison. Their fangs and claws were even bigger than what their size would indicate. I’m pretty sure a single one was… was that even a tooth? It looked more like tusks coming out of their mouth… I’m pretty sure a single one of them was longer than my body.

Then, to make matters worse, a ninth appeared but it was only barely the same type of wolf. It was brutal looking, scarred, and even bigger than the others by a foot. It had snow white fur, showing its advanced age, and looked mean. The other wolves gave it space and it was clear that space was more than just out of respect. They looked like a walking calamity had just passed them by and they were lucky enough to have survived.

It saw me and let out a deep, deep howl that physically shook me.

“AWOOOO!”

I felt shell shocked. Oh, oh boy. This could literally not possibly get worse.

When an army of regular wolves, more than I could count, slunk out from behind them, I nearly fainted right then and there. WHY?! WHY DID I HAVE TO SAY ANYTHING?! STUPID! What on earth is with this ramp up in difficulty?! An army?! Nine evolved wolves with an Alpha that looked like he could take the rest of them on single handedly?! WHAT! No no no, we needed to run away, right the fuck now.

As I was panicking, the Alpha looked directly at me and I froze. I swear, it snorted at me. It looked towards my fake Hob-Goblin and then faster than I could see, it was already tearing it apart. Its fangs sunk into my Hob-Goblin’s throat and before it hit the ground, its head was already flying through the air. It hadn’t stopped there though. On the way down to the ground, it shredded it entirely. Within the span of only a few seconds, my fake Hob-Goblin was torn into so many bloody chunks, I couldn’t tell it had ever been a Hob-Goblin except for the head. As for that, the now bloody Alpha wolf walked over and casually put it in its jaws.

It looked directly back at me and crushed the head in its mouth. It then walked away and the entire rest of its army followed.

I wasn’t stupid enough to think I had been left alone, no, my worst fears had been imagined and then reinforced 100x over. That Alpha beast had human level intelligence. I looked up at the light coming through my wooden ceiling.

It would attack me at night.