“Why didn’t you tell me that you wanted to become a dungeon master? You scared me, hahaha.”
Vorn “…”
Suddenly, the light snapped.
One moment, I was alone with the core and its laughter.
The next thing I knew, I was back in front of the others, the white space peeling away like wet paper, returning to a normal floor of a skyscraper.
Nyx, Orik, and Aelar looked at me as if looking at a ghost.
They have seen everything that happened on the display screen, although they couldn’t hear anything.
They knew the content of the challenge, five level two undead; they expected an epic fight, however, all they received was a couple of sentences from the boss that they couldn’t hear, and a system notification that they had cleared the dungeon right after.
I looked at everyone calmly as a child was floating behind me.
He looked smug and irritating, “Hi,” he said while grinning and waving his hand to everyone.
Just then, Lilith spoke.
Her brows drew together out of anger or calculation.
“Why,” she asked, voice low and cold, “did you become a domain master?”
“If you have done this on a whim, then everything we’ve worked for will be for naught.”
After hearing this, I thought to myself, ‘But I don’t even know what a domain master is.’
I was on the verge of tears, afraid that Lilith might slap me to death, while the core child stopped spinning and looked at us as if watching a show.
I kept my face still.
Kept the mask on.
Without even looking at her straight, but with the corner of my eye, I said,
“You’ll know in the future.”
Lilith’s eyes narrowed, not convinced. She knew what being a domain master entailed, so how could she be convinced, but she held her thoughts in as she knew that this dungeon isn't normal?
“Rest well and regroup. I’ll call you when it’s time. It has been a long day.”
I felt like Nyx wanted to speak, so I took the initiative and started to walk away.
The child/core floated after me without being invited.
I thought to myself, ‘I have to ask him what the hell he is.’
…
I didn’t stop walking until there were walls between me and everyone else.
Through the dungeon map, I found a suite on the same floor, so I headed toward it.
I clicked the door shut.
Only then did my lungs remember how to work.
I looked around, and the place looked like shit, but I cared too little as I headed toward the sleeping room.
I sat on the bed and looked calmly at the child genie. This little guy really thought I was powerful, this poor thing.
I’m the dungeon master, and he is the core of the dungeon. I think I will break his heart and tell him the truth, after all, he can’t rat on me if I command him not to.
Although it is your job to make things difficult for those who enter your dungeon, it is still painful when done to me.
I looked at the flouting child in front of me and said in a calm tone, “How strong do you think I am?”
The child looked at me nervously, a little less jokingly, “peak E-grade in multiple stats or at the initial D-grade,” he said uncertainly.
I sighed inwardly, ‘Why does everyone think that I’m some sort of an ultimate boss?’
I ignored the child and checked the system notices for clearing the dungeon.
[[Dungeon Clearing Rewards]]
You have cleared the Hollowlight Tower dungeon; you have been rewarded with one targeted scan of the surrounding area.
[[System notice achievement]]
You are the first participant to clear a dungeon in record time. You have been rewarded with 3 allocation charges and 2000 shop points.
[[System notice record]]
You are the 37th participant in the entire history of the End Games to clear a dungeon on the first day of arriving in a hostile world. Your name will be recorded in the annals of history.
[[System notice achievement]]
You are the first participant to become a domain master. You have been rewarded with 1 allocation charge and 5000 shop points.
?SYSTEM PANEL?
?PERSONAL?/ITEMS/SHOP/CHAT/TRADE/GIFTS/RANKING/DOMAIN
NAME: Nightworn
TITLE: Domain Master
RACE: Devil
CLASS: N
STATS: DEF: F (0%)/ MP: F (0%)/ FOCUS: F (0%)/ STR: F (0%)/AGI: F (0%)/ LUCK: F (12%)
ALLOCATION: 4
[Each Allocation increases a stat’s percentage within its current Tier.]
NOTE: Domain Master cannot exit his domain boundaries.
…
?DOMAIN?
NAME: Hollowlight Tower (changeable)
STATUS: Bound to ‘Nightworn’
CORE: Active ‘unnamed.’
BOUNDARY: Floors 1–80 (Expandable)
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
AUTHORITY: delegated to core 'unnamed'
SENSE: Active (within boundary)
RULES: Core-Controlled
BOUND INDIVIDUALS: 10/5154 (Limit exceeded)
…
7000 shop points.
4 allocation points.
Targeted scan.
I didn’t know if I should be happy or not.
I did absolutely nothing.
So many rewards and achievements; my name will be recorded forever, too.
I don’t know much about the Game but with so many rewards, I will probably be in the top 100 in this round of the game.
It’s common knowledge that people in the top 100 have the most followers outside, and End Game management even promotes them as celebrities to the whole world.
They would usually receive gifts from followers, but at the same time, they would be targeted; whoever kills them would basically replace them in fame.
As I saw the note ‘Domain Master cannot exit his domain boundaries.’
I wanted to cry, this is a prison, ‘is this why Lilith said everything would be for naught?’
She thinks I am some kind of a god, so why entrap myself, even if there are some benefits, would they be as good as going out and slaughtering enemies left and right?
I looked at my stats filled with Fs, and the corner of my mouth twitched, ‘Does my luck status fry brains or something? Why does everyone think I’m powerful? D-grade my ass.’
…
The core/child looked at me with his big, innocent watery eyes, and if I didn’t know that it had killed countless people, I would have fallen for it.
I spoke to him calmly, “Do you have a name?”
The boy’s eyes lit up instantly, “I’ve never had a name, well, given the fact that I’m less than a day old, I shouldn’t have a name, I’m still too young, did you know that when I was created the system lit up as if welcoming the new king of this wasteland, even the…”
The kid kept on rambling as if forgetting what I even asked for. After listening for a couple of minutes and getting a minor headache, I said in a commanding voice, “ENOUGH.”
“Your name is Hollow from on, nod if you agree.”
All I saw in response were a couple of nods. After sorting this out, now to the important business.
I said to Hollow, “Be concise. What are the merits of being a domain master?”
Hollow looked at me in surprise. “If you don’t know, then why did you want to become the master of this dungeon?”
I didn’t answer, I just looked at him coldly, waiting for an answer. In reality, I didn’t care if he believed me to be powerful or not now, as he has lost all of his bargaining chips. He is the first being under my mercy since I entered the exciting game.
Hollow shuddered under my gaze and said, “Well, there are countless benefits, for example sense you could see everything within your domain through a visual map.”
I nodded to myself; this feature was the first I experienced. After clearing the dungeon, the map changed its name to Hollowlight Domain map without any rarity.
“also all the undead who were assigned as guard as guard of the dungeon transformed to domain guards, so you have a small personal army, although a large number of them were killed by you, some by survivors, and some by other undead who weren’t part of the dungeon at that time.”
“You have about 5000 normal undead, they are useless unless used in wave tactics, as for the good ones, you have 109. Some are peak F-grade in a certain field, some of them have mid F-grade in multiple stats; they are useful in many ways.”
“As for the great ones, we only have 10; all of them are physical class E-grade status, excluding the two remaining wardens, so 12 E-grade undead.”
“Right, the level 3 undead that was being nurtured failed because you cleared the dungeon before the core formation was finalized. Although he isn’t level 3, he still has a much better status than a normal warden, even though he was classified as a warden.”
When I heard this, I was very surprised. I knew the undead inside the dungeon or domain now wouldn’t hurt me, but I didn’t expect there to be this many, and I would have control over them. This is not bad at all.
I nodded to myself as I checked the status of the failed level: 3 undead.
?SYSTEM PANEL?
IDENTITY: Level 2 Guardian of The Hollowlight Domain
RACE: Undead
CLASS: Warden
STATS: DEF: E (60%)/ MP: F (0%)/ FOCUS: F (0%)/ STR: E (85%)/AGI: E (70%)/ LUCK: F (0%)
As I was grinning inwardly for having such a beast as a minion, I heard Hollow saying.
“Now that I think about it, if you had waited for a few more minutes before challenging me and had me finish stabilizing myself, you would have owned a level 3 undead… but you wouldn’t be able to make him leave the domain for now, as the rules wouldn’t have allowed it.”
His eyes lit up as he said, “This must be part of your plan, right? You want this army to go and do something outside, right?”
I thought to myself, ‘stop fantasizing’.
“You are right, now continue.” I cared too little for his thoughts
After jumping up for a while, Hollow said, “well currently there isn’t much more, but you could buy a mana generator from the shop. It can gather mana and feed it to me. I’ll be able to reanimate corpses into undead through mana, even if it’s a corpse of an E-grade being.”
“You could also establish a summoning platform, although all the summoned will be bound to the domain, so you can’t use it now as you have already reached the maximum number of allowed bound individuals.”
“You could also expand your domain by either conquering other domains or dungeons, or buying from the system shop.”
“You could also build buff rooms; in these rooms, a specific status within a current tier will keep evolving.”
“also if any life form bound to the domain kills another life form, you will get all of their points, unless that bound individual has enough intelligence of his/her own, in that case, you only get 30% of their points.”
“To put it bluntly, there are countless possibilities, everything you could think of is possible, you must pay its price either through system shop, or by achieving some condition.”
After hearing all of this, I couldn’t help but think ‘although I’m trapped here, it is not such a bad deal; I have an army doing everything for me, life isn’t so bad.’
After thinking of it in this way, I felt much better.
I sighed inwardly. I’m tired, and for the first time since arriving here, I can sleep in peace.
No more bullshit for the day, it has been about 10 hours since I arrived here, and now the sun is about to go out as the 3 moons in the sky disappeared one after another.
Finally, I can sleep.
I said calmly as I slid back on the bed, “Protect me while I sleep, also close the window blinds.”
As I said that, I closed my eyes and fell into deep sleep within seconds.
Hollow looked at me in some bewilderment; he couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t ask the most obvious question.
‘What am I thinking? He must know why there are so many undead here, otherwise why would he become a domain master this early on and without any shop points?’ Hollow thought to himself as he closed the drapes.
…
Korgan was sleeping on a bed, his skin was much paler than it used to be, his beard and hair turned white, and the wounds on his chest and body had completely healed with only bloodstains remaining as proof of his injury.
He had died 3 hours ago. At first, everyone was nervous, especially Nyx and Aelar.
However, to their surprise, his wounds were healing, though he had no pulse.
Korgan opened his eyes suddenly; his eyes were as dark as the abyss, cold, and detached.
He pulled himself up and looked around to see everyone looking at him nervously and with some hope.
Korgan looked at their faces and said in a gruff voice, “What the fuck are you all looking at? Also, where the hell am I?”
Everyone broke into smiles when they saw it was still the same Korgan.
?SYSTEM PANEL?
NAME: Korgan Bronzebrow
RACE: Devil’s Spawn
CLASS: Abyssal Bastion
STATS: DEF: F (98%)/ MP: F (0%)/ FOCUS: F (0%)/ STR: F (42%)/AGI: F (10%)/ LUCK: F (0.2%)
