“Wait what do you mean?” Tris asked Finn after he dropped his bombshell.
“Well, exactly what I said. The dungeon temporarily locked two of my memories.” he answered. “The first one is the one starting from when we entered the dungeon up to when the dungeon gave me his blessing – though I’m not really sure it can be called that,” he said smiling wryly, “and the other one is when he gave it through me to Laura.”
“... I take it that Laura is that girl in the background trying to be invisible?” the guild master asked.
“Ahaha... Uh... Yes it’s me...” she said clearly really uncomfortable. “My name is Laura and I was a simple villager that tried to try my luck in the dungeon before meeting those four... Hello...”
“Also, she fled from her village she basically never left to do so, and she doesn’t know a thing about fights and weapons.” Daler added, scolding her a bit more at the same time.
“...Ahaha...” she said while scratching her head with lifeless eyes.
“... I won’t be saying anything more than them on this point, I’m sure they scolded you, but... Really? Sigh...” said the guild master. “Back on tracks, anything else? Which rank do you see fit for that dungeon? Well, I already have an idea though...”
Tris thought a bit then said “I think it should be around level E, seeing as the difficulty spiked but it was not impossible, you know? You all agree?”
“I do!” (Daler)
“I do too, though maybe F would be better?” (Jiro)
“Well I don’t. By the way we should be seeing one the strong monsters of the dungeon in a bit. And also, I would categorize it as Z, that is if what it told me was true. But we’ll see in just a bit.” (Finn)
“Wait, seriously‽” (Tris)
“Yeah, maybe we underestimate it, but Z-level‽ The highest recorded is J you know‽” (Daler)
“... What do you mean ‘we’ll see one of the strong monsters’?” the guild master asked.
“Well, what he means is that there is one coming and is around about there,” Laura suddenly said pointing at the guild’s entrance, “and that it’ll go through that door,” she said pointing at that room’s entrance door, “in about 20 seconds. Oh yeah also I don’t know if you remember but the dungeon can stop time, so that’s why the church hasn’t set off the alarm.” Laura said.
“... Huh?” The guild master was blanking once more.
“We’re stopped in time and not the church so the church didn’t set off the alarm. Also, 3, 2, 1...”
“Entrance! Hello there.” Someone no one met suddenly opened the door. “Also you were a bit late Finn you know, I waited for a full half a second. Pretty sure you could’ve done better y’know?” she said, totally ignoring the confusion of everyone else in the room.
“Sorry about that... Can we stop being Anthesis’ speakers now? Please?”
“Yeah, yeah... Anyway, do any of you have any question?” he asked to the four that didn’t meet the dungeon.
““““Yes we do! Who the heck are you!”””” the guild master, Daler, Tris and Jiro all said in perfect unison.1That place would’ve been a perfect cliffhanger if not for the lack of words before, only 532 x)
That man was someone you could see on the streets any day and had a distinctive... lack of distinctive features. His height was pretty average (about 1.5m), he looked like a male wolfkin, and that was it. Nothing else about him – except his behavior, in this case – stood out from the rest of the mass of the other wolfkins.
“Those two explained it right? I am Anthesis’ sentient autonomous monster fully capable of emotions. And before you tell me you forgot who is Anthesis, [it] are my master and the dungeon you are trying to evaluate. ...Also, before you ask, I’m not the only one nor the strongest. Just so you know.”
“... Huh?” The guild master was blanking once more. Again, for the fourth(?) time in a single hour. “... HUh? HuH?”
“... Hey, you okay? ...No you’re definitely not... Oh well,”
“DorretEntspiDowSifditmii-ditaiimii Ratroaa Noc.”
“... What did you do to me? Uh... well first thanks but still...” asked the guild master, suspicious.
“? It’s obvious no? I healed you.” said matter-of-factly the self-proclaimed monster. “Oh, I just realized, I forgot to give my name. My name is Juna, nice to meet you, Guild Master, Finn, Laura, Tris, Jiro, Daler.” he bowed toward each one of them when saying their name.
““““““Hello... That’s way too late!”””””” tsukkomied in unison the six others.
“I know! I forgot! Anyway, any other question?”
“Who is the most powerful ‘monster’ of that dungeon? Can I see it?” asked the guild master full of doubts.
“Oh, yeah, sure! Come with me to the dungeon!” Juna declared and without waiting started to walk out.
The group of six sighed simultaneously and followed him.
As they navigated outside, they were greeted by the strange sight of everything just frozen in place, immovable even when pushing against them. After a more in-depth exploration of this phenomenon, they realized that the air itself was frozen, and it also froze behind them, forcing them to move forward. Juna just kept watching them as they payed around with time stopped physics, smiling lightly and hiddenly, waiting for them regularly to make sure they followed quickly enough (even though they couldn’t do anything but move forward in the correct direction, since any other path was frozen).
---
After some time, the group finally arrived in front of the dungeon. However, Juna guided them through a hidden door (that the D-ranked party was sure didn’t exist when they came and won’t exist next time they come if they aren’t accompanied by a dungeon ‘monster’) into a side corridor, which enabled them to see perfectly clearly the main corridors they went and could’ve gone through, while still being separated from them.
The guild master, as one would expect, looked like he wanted to escape from this terrifying nightmare.
“So, while we are going there, do you have any other questions?”
“Yes, uhm, how to say it... How can the dungeon create such a ‘normal’-looking monster? Urgh I can’t ask it better...” asked Tris.
“I don’t mind,” said Juna, clearly quite amused. “But really, the only problem with creating a ‘real’ living, autonomous being like me is the problem of the dungeon needing to know all about that creature: its DNA, its birth conditions and fetal development is a starting base with which you can get a newborn baby, but to get an immediately grown-up person, you also need to know how much muscle density there must be in and for each muscle, what must its brain connections be in order to get a being that has muscle coordination, you must create at least some memories, you need to correctly connect all blood vessels, nerves, and so on, which leads to most dungeons being unable to even imagine starting this gigantic project.
“And even after all that, a living being can always switch sides and decide to betray you unless you decide to ignore creating a true autonomous being, in which case, well, you just create a regular monster, so you come back to the starting point.”2Wow that was a lot more info-dump-y than I expected x)
“... Oh. That was... different than I expected. So basically the other dungeons don’t even bother dealing with the problems right?”
“Well, that’s the TL;DR yeah.” said Juna with a smile full of self-derision.
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