Isekai Dungeon Architect

"Okay. Talk to me about these currencies," I instructed. "I'm guessing CU doesn't just create the safe zone and spike traps, right?"

[ "Correct. Creation Units are the raw measure of structural design capacity." ]

'Oh, she's speaking my language now.'

[ "They are consumed when building or altering elements within a specific environment." ]

[ "Essence Points derive from life force— expended whenever monsters are created or sustained." ]

I hadn't tried those yet. I should check the EP soon as well.

[ "Coins are transferable value tokens, substitutable for materials, catalysts, or external purchases within a designated environment. All three are required for large-scale construction." ]

The information slotted into my brain like puzzle pieces. Familiar in shape, if not in detail. My Cloud Architect instincts prickled immediately afterwards. "So CU is infrastructure budget, EP is user licenses, and Coins are third-party procurement. Got it."

We can also say that the EP is creation currency of gods, the CU is practically a matter-spawning token, and the coins are literally world scale crypto.

[ "…Your phrasing is… unconventional. But accurate enough." ]

"Story of my life." I was practically overjoyed to finally have someone who at least understood a fraction of my otherworldly jargon.

Below me, my frozen party members blurred into insignificance as my focus stretched outward.

In my eyes, the dungeon wasn't a cave anymore. It was a system. A living framework that breathed Mana and ate 'energy' from the challengers.

I could feel its boundaries like firewalls now, as if I had just become an AI myself, its environments like virtualized containers, its challenges like coded protocols.

Lost in my own imaginary world which seemed sweeter than the hot chocolate I drank earlier, I was brought back by the system's now familiar voice.

[ "A dungeon consists of three essential pillars: Environment, Boundary, and Challenges. Together, these dictate the 'How, Where, and Why' of its existence." ]

[ "Environment defines its form. Boundary defines its limits. While the Challenge defines its purpose. All of these are anchored by a central Dungeon Core. Without the core, no dungeon persists." ]

I could see it. The core of this dungeon existed a flow below us, far away from where we were right now, pulsing green like a heartbeat.

I could see practically everything there was in this dungeon while in this spectral form— I was the biblical angel with eyes everywhere.

Still, a question ate away at my heart.

"Then what about me?" I asked, crossing my arms— though the gesture was more habit than substance in this ghost-body. "What's my role in all this?"

Why am I in this spectral form, why did I have that rainfall of pop-ups, and what is this system skill up to this time?

[ "As an Architect, you may construct dungeons of your own. Or, as in this case, enter an existing one." ]

She started with a calm explanation, her voice sturdy and sweet.

[ "When you do so, for the guests, the dungeon core will generate guest-tasks. Completing these tasks allows you to harvest CU, EP, and Coins that ordinary adventurers cannot perceive. In return, the dungeon itself gains data— insight into its unanswered questions." ]

[ "To guide you better and to assist you to the best of the system's capacity, the system will also present you with various quests. Completing the quests will grant you extra rewards and resources." ]

"Wow, really?" I raised a brow. "I was wondering where I was gonna get more of the CU and EP in the forest but I guess the dungeons are the solution to everything for us, huh?"

The adventurers harvest resources from the dungeons: monster bodies and cores, plants full of Mana, crystals with different functions, even coins if they're lucky enough to find them.

The dungeon gives them challenges, and finishing these challenges gives them rewards as well… however, the rewards don't materialise before them like some game drops.

They get it inside the 'reward chests' that the dungeons generate periodically.

'But it seems like I'll have to do these quests to get the resources and money I need.'

Talk about discrimination.

'But then again, I have an unusual advantage inside the dungeon.'

If this spectral form isn't just a one time thing and something I can use at will within all the dungeons, I am practically invincible inside the dungeons.

Unlike the adventurers, the dungeons aren't my mortal enemies or my employers that produce the resources that I thrive on.

The dungeons, for me, might just be like children— not always my own, but ones I can adore, steal, and easily harvest from.

'Aria that sounded wrong.'

But then again, the point remains the same. Inside the dungeons, the dungeon architects, unless flagged by the 'creator' admins, are high priority guests that the dungeon cannot harm.

The guest privileges I have might just include a free surveillance ability, the ability to obtain more rewards than I ever could by adventuring, and a certain free pass to learn firsthand from the creations of my seniors who have left behind these amazing magical structures.

[ "All dungeons are created with fundamental queries: How their environment is chosen. Where their boundaries extend. Why their challenges exist." ]

[ "Until these queries are resolved, the dungeon remains incomplete. With each resolution, the core evolves, and the dungeon shifts accordingly." ]

I whistled low. "So the whole thing's basically a research experiment. Monsters for data. Adventurers for stress tests?"

[ "An apt metaphor." ]

For once, I didn't feel like joking. This wasn't just another adventurer gimmick. This was a system of rules, a structure of instructions, a layered construction of a marvellous creator. They spoke my kind of language, the language of order and sustainability.

"So this is a dungeon, huh?"

For the first time since I'd landed in this insane world, I realized something: I might actually be a qualified person for this job.

Dungeon architect might not be about building a cave brick by brick, or carving a tower out of some dragon's spinal bone…

As an architect of an ethereal world of code and data, I might very well thrive here as a Neutral Evil, the architect of modern dungeons, master of a monster hell with my kind of challenges, logical rules, and most importantly, less bloodbath.