The adventure Adam, the young man who was searching for his little brother in total desperation had met its fate by the hands of the monster that had killed its brother.
The dungeon core had an recovery function, allowing the dungeon master to recover bit faster by entering an "sleep" state. It survived and was slowly recovery. True, those wounds are big and will take time to get repaired…. But it lived…..But…..But it didn't felt safe.
…
No….
It wasn't relived at all
It was completely terrified.
It knew that the being it just fought was far stronger than any other beings it fought ever since it was born.
It didn't even understood why the hell man had fallen on the ground and wouldn't move.
The man had managed to destroy the puppet body, overpower it and drive it into the corner.
It was about to kill the puppet.
It didn't understood at all what had happened at all during the fight.
When the dungeon master fought the murder rabbit and it had managed to completely surprise it with it quick and powerful charge, the dungeon master was shocked and curios while also panicking, but this?
It was only fear.
The puppet was dredged in the fear.
It knew it was about to die.
"Fear"
"Panic"
"Dread"
It didn't understood at all why the man had collapsed.
There was no relive at all.
Only confusion and fear.
However,…. This fear wasn't the end.
The man had scared the puppet in more than one way.
Specifically, it made the puppet terrified of the future.
(Stronger? What if even stronger one come?)
(Can't defeat….. Can't see.)
(Deadly! Danger!)
The puppet monster realized that it may end up dealing with foes as strong as the swordman if not stronger ones in the future.
It realized that JUST upgrading the puppet action patterns would not do.
And that the puppet lord itself was weak compare to the swordman.
It understood one thing.
"Lucky"
It got lucky.
That it.
Nothing more. Nothing less.
It didn't won because it was smarter, faster, stronger or anything.
It was an pure luck, an coincidence, an accident.
And it was right. If the man took even an short rest, he would have enough power to kill the puppet, but obviously the puppet didn't knew that.
However, what it understood was that if the men haven't suddenly fallen and stopped moving, the puppet would had died.
And that terrified the puppet. It was the first time I had ever been pushed that far and how it almost experienced the death itself where it could feel it coming for it.
…
It understood.
It understood that it needed to change.
Not only the puppet monsters, but the dungeon master itself.
It needed an "upgrade".
But how?
It didn't had an ability to evolve…. But it could possess an "Class".
However, was there even an class that fit the dungeon master?
Not only that, but to even acquire class you need to create "class root".
You need to acquire specific skills that can react to each other and cause the "class root" to appear.
Simple put: You cannot become an swordman if you have never wielded an sword in your life nor you had even trained or manifested your own efforts into the [Swordsmanship] skill.
As for the dungeon master? It knew next to nothing.
It had learned any skills at all and was fully and only focusing on developing its puppets.
Can it learn enough skills to obtain the class? And how long it would take? Would it had enough time to become "stronger"?
It didn't known, it was full panicking.
"Magic?"
"Bow?"
"Skills?"
"Sword?"
"Coding?"
The puppet tried thinking in desperation in the ways to overcome the situation….. But it couldn't come up with the good situation.
The options it had were "not enough".
…
And the only real option would be to develop the dungeon.
Develop the dungeon, research more monsters and improve coding.
This was the only option.
But it would take time and that scared the dungeon master, since it wasn't sure if it had time at all.
"What if they attack soon again?"
"What if I won't be ready yet for another attack?"
It was scared.
…
But even after thinking of an option, it couldn't come up with anything at all.
…
It gave up.
It couldn't think of anything and chose its current and the option it was the "best" with being developing the dungeon as well as continue its research of the core engravement coding.
It was the only choice…. But that didn't stopped the dungeon master from worrying.
The only positive light about the situation was that the thanks to the swordman death, the dungeon had obtained enough DP to somewhat operate.
Dungeon master, even full knowing that it didn't finished it coding research yet had chosen to fill the dungeon with puppet monsters that were still "Useless".
Why it did something like this? Simple.
It was scared and wanted to boost the dungeon defenses desperately to the point it used all of its DP to create as many monsters as possible.
Dungeon master then would just fully focus on developing its research of the coding.
And so, the time passed like this.
The dungeon master was developing its core engravement coding skills more and more, causing the wooden mannequin movements to get better and better…. But something was off.
No attacks came.
Dungeon master was confused.
Why nobody had attacked the dungeon?
Normally by now it would had been attacked.
Reason?
It was thanks to the swordman.
The rabbits that had made the area outside the dungeon their "home" were killed by the swordman and then the rabbit corpse were devoured by the wild monsters.
However, with the rabbits gone in the area, there was no benefit for the monsters to "take" the horned rabbit home, meaning that the dungeon had somewhat obtained an temporarily peace, but for how long?
Even though the dungeon wasn't being attacked, the dungeon master was still panicking and was fearful of the next attack, thinking it could be as deadly as the last one if not more.
It rushed, it tried understanding and learning the code engravement crafting as soon as possible, making progress and discoveries along the way regarding the subject.
And then it happened.
The mannequin was moving.
It was walking, it was swinging, it was doing all sort of stuff.
It wasn't the original coding that the puppets were given even though it may look somewhat like, no.
It was the dungeon master own coding that it had made from the scratch.
Truth to be told, it should had taken anybody way longer to even do an extremely basic command set, but the dungeon master did it thanks to its "curios" nature.
[You have obtained the skill: [Golem Crafting – Level 1].]
The skill had been finally obtained and the dungeon master understood how the coding works.
The dungeon master started seeing light, an "hope" in its situation.
However, dungeon master…. He was still screwed.
The reason?
He killed the young adventure party that had caused the swordman to look for them.
But now?
This swordman was dead…. And it is easy to imagine what will happen next.
[Current location: Adventure guild – Guild master office.]
"For fuck sake!" – shouted guild master while smashing the table with his fist.
"Are you fucking kidding me right now?! He is missing?! You are not shitting me right now?!"
"…N-no." – replied the young man with the scar.
"He said he will go back to the town, but according to the guards, he never came back, we even made double sure if they didn't missed him and he wasn't in the town, but no. He never returned."
"We even looked around a bit, especially around the undead dungeon, but there was nothing." – said the brown haired young man.
"Even the guys that went and destroyed the undead dungeon said that Adam was never there."
"…"
"Let me get this straight." – said the guild leader while holding his head.
"One of our most promising adventures, that could possible become an high ranking adventure, was searching for his brother like mad man and completely abandoned reason in order to find his brother."
"And you two idiots LET HIM GO HOME ALONE WHEN HE WASN'T IN THE RIGHT STATE OF MIND?!"
"HOW FUCKING STUPID ARE YOU?!" – shouted the guild leader while the two adventures tried looking away.
"LOOK AT ME YOU IDIOTS AND ANSWER ME! WHY THE HELL YOU TRUSTED HIS WORDS AND LET HIM GO ALONE?!"
"You fucking…..*Sigh*"
"I just fucking can't." – said the annoyed guild master as he sat down.
"…"
(Honestly, I can understand somewhat Adam actions…. He was an orphan that had to raise his brother all on his own while being both homeless and poor.)
(However, he had THAT kind of potential!)
(He was able to show it off, earning enough money for himself and his brother while also gaining reputation everywhere! He was still young and was still developing, but the speed of his development was astonishing! He easily climbed up ranks quiet quickly as well and that was only when his talent only started to slowly showing up!)
(Hell! I even helped them out financially as well when I found about his talent!)
(And it wasn't just him! His brother had also shown the same kind of dormant talent like him!)
(They were good people!)
(…. And I fully understand why Adam went mad when Arthur went missing, considering how much they suffered…. But now?! He also went missing?!)
(According to those two, he hasn't taken an proper rest at all….)
"I will post the search request on the guild board…. If you find anything, report it immediately."
(Damn you Adam.)
(You better be safe.)