Isekai Dungeon Architect

"Ptsssssss…"

In the dark first floor of the dungeon, there was a certain area not much frequented by the common adventurers.

This section of the dungeon, unlike the many other places on the first floor, did not have anything that could help the rookies who entered the dungeon for the first time.

This place, while not devoid of simple natural resources, was also not abundant with them. The adventurers did not appear around this part of the dungeon often.

The dungeon's summoning locations were random, but the places that the dungeon dropped the individuals were either a monster spawn point or places that were closer to the exits or the following floors.

The first floor was also a unique place in this dungeon.

The monsters that guarded this floor were unlike the monsters on the higher floors. The monsters of the first floor were relatively more difficult to deal with than the rest of the lower floors.

These lower floors were not that simple for the rookies, so the rookies usually spent a few months on the first floor alone, exploring all kinds of places on the first floor in order to get familiarized with the dungeon as well as the resources they get from here.

The monsters here weren't that easy to deal with for them. Even the talented rookies could not deal with the powerful monsters on their own from the start.

"Ptssssss…"

That is why the association grouped the rookies with a few knowledgeable parties. The dungeon was never a safe place, but there was always a higher chance of survival when they entered the dungeon with someone who understood how things worked in the dungeons.

The first floor was vast, with fifteen boss monsters divided into fifteen different sections of the dungeon that were connected to stairs that took one upstairs.

These fifteen sections had a different boss, and each one of the boss monsters possessed the power of a certain element.

Wind, Water, Earth, Fire, Lightning, Ice, Sand, Metal, there was a boss monster that appeared in a limited natural field as well. This boss monster could control the natural elements like floors and plants.

These monsters possessed powerful abilities, something rookies needed a long time to understand and overcome with an appropriate party.

When it comes to the boss monsters of the dungeon, their strength cannot be compared to the mobs on any of the floors.

"Ptsssssss."

If one were talking about this certain tower dungeon, everything inside this dungeon was in ascending order. With each floor, the strength of the monster increased.

This was a tower-type dungeon; there were gate-type dungeons, there were field-type dungeons, and there were dungeons with different themes all around the world.

The very first dungeon, as it is believed, is a floating island comparable to an entire continent, the place where the transcendental powers of this world reside.

But still, compared to a primordial dungeon like the Floating Castle, the Westford tower dungeon was much easier.

The higher floors weren't easy to reach, but if someone was a level above the Westford association branch manager, reaching the highest floor of the dungeon and clearing it would not be impossible.

It is said that it has happened twice in the known history of Westford, so the people know it is at least possible. But, since they know it is possible and yet insurmountably difficult, they know how powerful the monsters that exist as a high-floor boss actually are.

It's not an exaggeration when one calls the Naga a creature of legends. They aren't commonly found outside of the dungeon, and their stories give them quite a reputation.

"Ptssssss…"

Even the one that had appeared on the first floor of the dungeon was a being that induced terror by its mere presence.

-Zuuuuuuuuuuu.

Under the warm light of the green safe zone, the mother continued singing to her three children.

She had neither wanted something like this evolution, nor had she wanted her children to die, even before seeing this pretty world.

As a snake, she had wandered through the passages of this dungeon for many years. She was perhaps blessed by fortune: every time death approached her, she would find a way to avoid it.

Death had stared her in the eye many times by now, but she had survived. Again and again, she made it through.

Be it the humans who were always hungry for their lives, for their bodies, for what they could rip from them. The humans were selfish creatures who called them monsters, and she had always found them to be evil.

Even when she was blessed by the dungeon as a carrier of new lives, she did not expect to make it. She had avoided death for so long that she started believing the dungeon's boon, these children, were not only a blessing but also an announcement of her fate.

She knew she would die soon. The dungeon would try to take her life to balance out the lives that were going to arrive in this world after her.

She knew her fate, but, somehow, right when she believed she was at the end of her life, she found a green, warm kindness— one that felt unfamiliar, yet more warm than anything the Naga mother had ever felt.

Thanks to the healing of this green kindness, she survived. She saw death in the eye and walked right past the gate.

Perhaps, the dungeon did not want that.

"Ptssssss…"

She was attacked by all kinds of creatures out of the blue, by a number that did not make sense to her.

As she did her best to get away from them, she ended up in a worse state than before.

She came back to the place where the green dome had saved her before, and as she had prayed for, the safe zone was still there. But now, there were humans present around it.

Once occupied by humans, the safe zone did not allow her entrance. In that moment, the mother learned how this kindness only blesses those who embrace her first.

"Ptsssss."

Maybe thanks to the eternal greed of the humans or perhaps it was because of something else, but the humans who were perfectly safe inside the green dome saw her as an easy opponent and walked out of it on their own.

-Zuuuuuuu.

She took her chance, endured their attacks, and made it inside the green kindness, the unoccupied safe zone that embraced her and healed her wounds.

The Snake mother had been on the verge of crossing over to the afterlife when this happened; perhaps that was also the reason behind her untimely evolution.

"Ptssssss…"

To evolve into a higher version of your kind is a process so rare that most adventurers don't even know it is possible. But, while extremely rare, it does happen.

And in this case, it happened right before she was ready to bring her children into the world.

-Zuuuuuuu…

The three pearls wrapped around the behemoth were responding to her voice, to her warmth, to her presence, and, as alive as they were, they were waiting to reach the maturity needed to come out of their shells.

They were going to need a little longer to mature since they went through evolution during a critical state.

They would have passed away had they been anywhere outside of this safe zone, but the unique protective properties of the special safe zone saved them.

The white snake owed her life, as well as the lives of her children, to this safe zone.

She would have thanked the creator of this warm kindness. However, when she met her… she realised the greater complication.

The Naga mother had become an anomaly that the dungeon was studying closely right now. She was a being that should not be on this floor; she was a being that those humans would do anything to get rid of.

She had seen the greed in their eyes— greed for her children, greed for her body, and also greed for her savior, the safe zone.

She had seen their evil nature, and she was disgusted by it.

There was no way she would surrender the safe zone to those beings. And, while she did not like it, she knew she would have to defend it against the very person who created this safe zone if she wanted to keep her children.

At the end of the day, she was bound to this dungeon. And, while she had avoided it for a long time, death was her fate.

She would not survive for long now that she had become such a great problem to those damned humans.

She would fight them.

"Ptssssss."

For her children and for the sake of preserving this safe zone, she would fight anyone who approached this place.

She did not care about anything else.

They would have to face her regardless of what they do about this whole complication.

If fate wanted her dead anyway, she would become their nemesis as well as the best guardian her children could have ever asked for.

She would protect her children…

-Zuuuuuuuu.

"Ptsssss.

Even if the end was dark and certain.