Now, on the third reset of his dungeon, Dan was feeling much more comfortable about moving forward. Thoughts about conquering the next area had always been on his mind, but he had been holding himself back to ensure everything ran smoothly.

  Alright, that wasn't true. Primarily, he was being lazy, as his dungeon was his domain, and he generally always knew what was going on. At least within reason, considering that he couldn't watch everything all at once and had to focus on areas to truly observe in clearer detail, almost like a guard focusing on a screen in his security room.

  Not that he was just the guard, as he was the guard, but also the security system, the camera, and pretty much the entire process. The thing was that the system helped him handle a lot of it, so he wasn’t fully omniscient in a sense.

  Anyways, even if realistically the fate of the world rested on his nonexistent shoulders, Dan had been fine with delaying his expansion. However, one particular realization had finally changed Dan's mind, or had at least caused him to come out of his lazy streak. Because even if Dan moved on to the next area, he could always come back and check out his previous floor. He could always add or remove things, and as far as safety and maintenance went, well, he had Merlin. Dan was also able to easily observe the adventurers he had come to treat as his own personal entertainment center. So it wasn't any of that that had changed his mind, but instead it was the fact that his adventurers would eventually not be able to enter his dungeon.

  The fact was that Dan's dungeon was an incredibly good place for people to advance. Dan provided the right amount of danger and safety to allow adventurers to advance. Of course, it was known that death was very unlikely in his dungeon, but one could never be 100% sure that they wouldn't be killed. This came mainly through accidents, but sometimes it was done intentionally. Sometimes, adventurers got a little bit too cocky, or they pissed off his monsters too much, and well, there were consequences. The point was that Dan had already seen some freshly minted D Rankers advance to the lowest of its stages in very little time.

  What this meant for Dan was that it would take even less time, probably around a year, for some of the more driven adventurers to reach C Rank. And considering that Dan didn't even have a proper High D Rank section since he wasn’t at that stage, these C Rankers would not have anywhere they could go within his dungeon. So, what this meant for Dan was that he needed to have a C Rank or, at the very least, a High D Rank section ready for when adventurers advanced.

  The one issue that Dan might have was whether his next area would be suitable for C Rankers. He felt like it would be, since it made sense, considering otherwise he would easily steamroll through it, and it was likely the Chaos Mother wanted him to be challenged at every turn.

  With the assumption that his next area would allow him to advance to at the very least High D Rank, Dan also thought about the general positives of gaining a new area. Mainly, with the new area and access to a new rank, new adventurers would come. Currently, he could only give access to D Rank adventurers, which greatly limited his mana productivity. However, when he had a C Rank area, not only would his previous adventurers come to it, but also completely new adventurers would join in.

  With all of this in mind, Dan began to make plans for advancing into the next area. This involved prodding the dimensional boundaries and trying to gauge what rules the Chaos Mother might impose on him.

  Feeling a bit better after having spent so much time in the turbulent water, the trio got back to it. They went back to town, spoke with a couple of frog folks, got the descriptions and possible locations of multiple of the Beast Lords, and then swam off into the darkness

  The first lord that they were looking for was the snake lord. From what a guard had told them, the snake lord lived in possibly the largest kelp forest in the lake. Additionally, the reason the frog folks left the snake alone was that it never really left the forest. The snake was very territorial, so it would attack if adventurers or others entered its territory, but aside from that, it was happy to keep to itself.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Having arrived at the edge of the forest, the party quickly made some preparations. From previous encounters and considering where they were heading, they already knew they would end up fighting snakes. So, much like when they were doing that one particular request involving the snakes, the party popped up their shields and began their march inwards.

  As expected, snakes began attacking them almost right off the bat, but they were simply fodder. The party mowed through the snakes with ease, and after a while, they realized that the snakes wouldn’t be the problem. Instead, no matter how many snakes they killed, the damn Beast Lord wasn't showing up. So, it had to mean that the lord was aware of them and was avoiding an encounter.

  Having realized that the Lord was avoiding them, the party came to a halt. Normally, this was when they would use a ridiculous amount of mana and general power to overcome the odds. However, considering that the snakes were naturally good at staying undetected, and that their leader would likely be steps above them. The party figured it would be much harder to locate the creature than they thought. This problem was further escalated by the sheer size of the kelp forest.

  If they had been in a much smaller area than a very condensed pulse from Adriana might have been able to pierce the creature’s stealth. However, attempting such a thing would only lead to wasted mana, as it was likely the lord was far away from them. The other option was to walk around the forest while sending out pings in a much more concentrated area. Yet that would also be a waste of mana if the boss was nowhere near them.

  That being said, it was usually at this point that the trio turned to violence and would have begun killing all snakes in sight to lure out the lord. If not to lure, then at least get its attention so they could use magic to pierce its stealth with a concentrated pulse. The issue with the strategy was that it should have been the first one they used. And now it was too late, as they had already been killing the snakes. Essentially, the party had a very limited number of options available to them, some out of the question due to being a waste of mana, a colossal waste of time, or simply because they had miscalculated.

  The thing was that there was one option the party hadn't thought of that technically covered all of the bases and might even piss off the boss. This would then possibly lead it to attack them, and thus allow them to kill it without issue. Of course, it was at that point that they realized they could have probably fought Tigress if the fish had attacked them first, at least, unless the dungeon was preventing the lords from doing so.

  The question was, why were they willing to use this option if it was possibly so bad? Well, because it was fun.

  The party began mowing whole chunks of the kelp forest as they sought to cut down the entire thing. After all, if they couldn't find the lord because it was hiding within the forest, and it was staying away from them, then there would either be no forest to hide in, or it would come and stop them. And sure enough, after spending a few minutes cutting down large chunks of the kelp forest and watching the plants drift upwards, the trio heard a slithery, angry feminine voice as one of their attacks was rebuffed—a slash of dark green energy canceling Alexion's pressurized blade of water.

  “Sssstop!”

  “Well, look who finally decided to show up,” Alexion told the lord, his eyes fixed on her movements to ensure she wasn’t planning anything.

  “Yesss, I am here, sssince you left me no choice-ss,” The lord told them, annoyance clear in her voice, while her three plant-like tails rattled menacingly.

  “Were you actually hiding nearby? Or were you keeping your distance?” Adriana asked as she admired the dark green scales that covered the relatively large body of the lord.

  “If you mussst know, I came to sssee what wasss killing my kin; however, asss I had no wish to ssspeak with you, I left you be.”

  “You really just left your kin to be killed like that?” Arctur asked, surprised that the snake seemed to care so little.

  “Yesss, and now that you have ssseen and ssspoken with me, leave.” The snake told them, thinking her angry glare and words would have an effect.

  “Yeah, I don’t think so. This has been an annoying waste of time, thanks to you, so now it's your turn to at least listen,” Alexion told the lord, electricity starting to spark on his skin as his anger sparked to life.

  “Very well, if that will ssseee you leave fasssterrr.”

  “Good, now as to why we are here. We were sent by the frog folk to try and recruit y-” Alexion never got to finish as a dark and cold slithering laughter cut him off.

  “You really think that I will accept anything to do with thossse frogsss? Nonsense-sss! They take my kelp and invade my forestsss. Now, if that’ss all you wanted, then you have my ansssswer, ssso leave!