"...произошло столкновение фургона с трамваем номер 95. Спасатели все еще..."

The television was shut off. A man and a woman were huddling together on the sofa in their small apartment, quietly crying due to the reality of the situation finally setting in. Their daughter was dead, and they would never see her smiling again.

~~~~~

An unfamiliar ceiling, again. How much time had passed?

I was lying on warm white ground, staring at white walls and white ceiling. The soft glow was soothing. It then came to me what had happened. My death, or at least near-death. Being rushed to an audience of an uncaring royal couple, then brought to a dungeon without a clear reason.

'Save the country'? I probably would have if they'd just bothered to tell me what their issue was. But they didn't, so there. I got up when my thoughts drifted to Mimissa's face. She must've been worried sick. I held out my right hand, palm forward - the archetypical magic casting pose.

"[Menu]."

A transparent maroon screen popped up. By its top-left corner was a second, smaller one with an iconographic repre- an image of the dungeon core. In other words, an image of myself. It was in 3d, bars and wild text surrounding it to indicate its functions. My sacrifice had not been in vain - the core was repaired. It even ran at 109% expected efficiency. I smirked.

I decided to familiarise myself with the system - I instinctively knew what was where, but actually seeing it helped make it properly familiar. As I looked through the menu functions, it became more and more clear to me that someone must have programmed this interface. It was all too much like a video game HUD.

There was of course the image of the core itself, always visible alongside its vitals in its own little window. I set that one more to the left, then embiggened the main screen.

(This is surprisingly easy to use.)

The main window could be duplicated to have certain functions visible next to each other, like having several computer screens. The visible options included "Basics", "Floors", "Monsters", "Traps", and "Treasures", and each of those had many, many sub-options. Several other options were listed, but greyed out and thus unusable. For the time being, at least. Probably.

The very basics of any dungeon are placing monsters and traps, exactly what they sounded like. Treasure is the same. After all, a dungeon without rewards will eventually be abandoned and forgotten - good if you're making a tomb, bad if you want to attract people.

People give energy - DP or Dungeon Points, which allow a Dungeon Core to buy monsters and traps, place treasure chests, and generally add and modify floors. I knew instinctively that both living people i.e. 'invaders' and their corpses gave DP; over time and in one go, respectively. Offerings could also be converted into DP, but not as efficiently.

(What's this? 'Relocate monster'?)

Under the big category for monsters was of course not only the buying option, but also functions to place and retrieve them.

(I should place Mimissa here.)

A map screen opened automatically. The map was normally under Basics, but if not already open it would show up on its own. Very convenient. I clicked on the physical core, which changed the map view to the inside. The map was a rough approximation of my surroundings, with a 2d circle showing my own position in green. By clicking a bending arrow I exited again and could see all the floors.

(This place had 37 floors in total? It's really just a shadow of its former self.)

Floors 3-36 of course factually didn't exist anymore. The fact the map still showed them probably meant it never properly updated. In any case, Mimissa and Mr. Imp were on Floor 37 as expected. I looked at the time, then remembered I didn't know what time it was before, so comparing was pointless.

"Ahaha, go! Come to me, Mimissa!!!"

I selected both Mimissa and Mr. Imp, and clicked on "Place". Since I'd probably need to do that often, I copied the map screen and set the internal view of the core to the side. Click, place. Two magic circles appeared next to me, and both Mimissa and Mr. Imp showed up, confused.

"Huh- wh-where the heck am I-?"

"Mimissa, Mr. Imp! Turn around."

The moment they spotted me they came over. Mimissa being slow meant she couldn't tackle-hug me, but not for lack of trying.

"Czara! You're alive! Oh I'm so glad- but, wait? What happened? There was a quake and-"

I put a finger on her mouth.

"Shhh, it's all good now. Have a look around."

Mimissa took in the sights - not that there was much to be seen in the white room. I showed her the menu, but she was confused.

(Oh right, the Menu's probably invisible to her. Errr, make visible... here!)

"Ohhh, is that?"

"The dungeon menu, correct. Or [Dungeon Menu]? Well in any case, to summarise: I've become the Dungeon Core. I learned everything the dungeon knew, what I should know. Problem is I still have no idea what happened here."

"Kinda sad. But you saved us, so I'm happy for that at least."

"Ahaha... haaah. Yeeeaaah, I don't want to die a second time in a week if I can avoid it."

We looked over the menu. On the permanent screen with the core was the DP counter. It was at a low 187. Considering even a basic Goblin cost 20 points, we were effectively broke. Except it then ticked up to 188. I made a mental note to figure out how slow that was.

"By the way, I was super scared when you got sucked into the core! Don't leave me again, got it?"

"Of course. And hey, if you want you can be my co-Admin."

"...'Co-Admin'?"

"Yeah. I doubt I can do this whole control gig by myself, so I'll rely on you."

"Sure!"

~~~~~

Mr. Imp had gone to sleep while Mimissa and I explored the menu. One of the first things we did was place the Dungeon Core on Floor 2, reason being that each Floor requires a little bit of DP for maintenance reasons... even if the floor is a gaping void. It was probably some spatial field effect or something.

We collected everything we could on Floor 37, all the corpses of monsters, all the treasure chests - most of which were empty, and even the beautiful white sand. The sand was actually the most concerning, because it was from Floor 2. The void had crept so far up it was gnawing on Floor 2's bottom side.

We then scrapped Floors 3-37, which got us a refund of like 50 points - probably because effectively nothing was regained but the space itself. We also refunded all the monster corpses. A Goblin refunded for 2DP, or 10% its initial value. In total we got 639DP out of this, most of which came from a Frost Wyvern (400DP, i.e. 4000DP original cost). A monster called a Cave Leech was also in there, and I resisted my immediate urge to burn it. 20DP saved.

Our passive income sped up a little, indicating the 34 broken floors were not as much of a drain as I thought, but what was done was done. We were now a 2 Floor dungeon.

"Should we summon the remaining monsters?"

Mimissa looked at me while nibbling on a piece of chocolate. I took one she offered me as well. Ah, marzipani bliss.

"Good idea. Since Floor 37 had only corpses, there should have been no issue with the floor delet- we should have checked on that first, dammit..."

"Oh... right..."

We checked the monster list. It contained two lists actually - Unnamed Monsters simply grouped by species that were sorted by Floor such as "Floor 1: 125 Dire Rats, 57 Red Bats, 1 Bulk Petonator, 3 Goblins" while the Named Monsters list of 27 was purely alphabetical (cyrillical?) regardless of where the monster in question currently was. This then tipped me off to the fact that monsters - or at least Named Monsters - could leave the dungeon.

"Oh look, here's my name." Mimissa smiled. Among a decent list of greyed names was hers in shining white. Mr. Imp was surprisingly also on the list.

"Huh, guess we accidentally named him for real."

But I was trying to find Anastelle on the list.

"[List Search: Monster, Anastelle.]"

The list scrolled down, then started from the top again. The result blinked white.

"We should summon her first, she was very helpful."

"Moooh, I don't like her! She looked at you funny!" Mimissa was cutely pouting.

"True, but she got us Mr. Imp. We wouldn't be here without his help."

"Riiight. Okay, [Summon Monster]!"

Unexpectedly I didn't need to manually place her, her magic circle showed up automatically next to us.

(Can this be any more convenient? That programmer deserves a raise!)

Anastelle in all her draconic-succubusian glory towered before us.

"A monster summon? Oh goodness, it has been far too long. Do say, how are you do... ing...?" The moment she looked at us, her face showed pure confusion. "Please do explain why you two are in the Dungeon Core room."

I correctly guessed we had some explaining to do.

~~~~~

"You did WHAT!?"

Several maid servants cleaning the adjacent rooms and the corridor connecting them all cringed at the outburst. One would wonder how loud it really must have been, considering the heavy wooden door to the Dean's chamber was closed shut.

"I-I-I did as y-you suggested!"

The other voice was not as loud, a lot more shaky, and implied the man speaking was growling on the ground or otherwise looking downwards.

"No, you imbecile! You were supposed to keep people AWAY from that dungeon!!! Have you forgotten that it's full of alluring females that could easily tear anyone apart if they felt like it!? Seriously, the ROYAL DUNGEON is a proving ground for none other than ROYAL FAMILY MEMBERS! How did this even get approved!?"

"The czarina will have my head on a stick for this, won't she...?"

"If, IF she's feeling merciful." The Dean slumped down, all his power leaving him. "And you won't be the only one, she might execute me for this as well." The two men stayed silent for a moment. "We have to enact an immediate information ban. Claim we sent the subject matter to some dungeon in the ice desert of Sybillia. It's unlikely anyone would return from there, so we can just claim there was probably a failure and thus not the hero material we were looking for."

"B-Brilliant idea, Dean. I'll do that at once!"

The man made to leave, struggling to get the heavy door open as fast as he could, and was out of sight within seconds.

Dean Kristofferus slumped even further down in his ornate chair and grabbed for his pipe. Naturally it was a gift by the czarina - the former one - for many years of distinguished service. Now it could only remind him of the wrath the current ruler, Czarina Alexandra II, would inflict on him should she ever find out that someone as low as a commoner was let into the Royal Dungeon.

A maid knocked against the open door, waiting until she was allowed to enter the study that was also his office.

"Dean? We have unfortunately heard part of your altercation," he looked at her, then double-facepalmed in despair, "and I would like to say that I and the others who happen to have heard are all behind you."

He looked at the wolf girl maid, unbelieving what he was hearing. This girl spoke so casually of what would be treason, but in a way it also made him proud.

"What...?"

"You're a good man. I and the others here have never heard anything bad about you, and I think you do a fine job as Dean. A single mistake shouldn't cost you your life."

"Thanks... honestly, thank you. But I expect you to forget what was talked about in this office today."

She made a mock gesture as if thinking.

"Hm, was there anything important discussed today? I can't seem to remember."

He smiled. Maybe, just maybe, things would work out.

~~~~~

"Is that really what happened? Goodness me, no wonder this place had become so... quiet."

"Did you never check?" I really had to wonder about monster behaviours.

"Of course not, I was told to never head below Floor 2. I could not go against... against... well, her wishes."

"Who's she? Our Dungeon Core?"

"Ex, it seems, since we evidently got a new one." Anastelle pointed in my direction with her right hand." On that note, why was I summoned? Did you just wish to announce yourself, hmm?"

I blushed a little because Anastelle leaned a little forward. 'Mom' type indeed.

"That, and I also wanted to say thanks. Without Mr. Imp we'd all have died, most likely. So thank you, Anastelle."

"My pleasure. It is rather unfortunate that we lost... ah, her, but since I cannot remember her name or face, this is probably for the best."

(Aren't you being a bit too nonchalant about that? These are your memories being messed with, you know?)

"Right, in any case. What've you two done before this? Even with the whole Dungeon Core knowledge doesn't mean I can just do everything right. Kinda need some info here."

This felt like the saying 'the inmates running the asylum', but well, I kind of wanted this, so I'd just roll with it.

"Right, of course. Well, first of all..."