It’s easy to say that I’ll give each of the monsters in front of me a name, but the hard part is coming up with 5 names. I don’t want them to have names I’ll regret later, nor boring names, so I guess I’ll just wing it and hope for the best. I chose Vulcan’s name from Roman mythology, so maybe I’ll keep that trend at least for this first group.

  ?

  “From now on, you will all be addressed as Mars, the Lizardman, Virtus, the Hobglin, Caelus, the Quazit, Vesta, the Arachne, and Mors, the Skeleton. I will train all of you to be able to fend off the strongest intruders humanity sends towards this dungeon. My goal is for each of you to eventually serve as a leader to improve the rest of the monsters in the dungeon, but that’s a long way off for now.”

  ?

  Finishing the herculean task of coming up with 5 names, I still see traces of doubt in their eyes, but also some respect. Dungeon monsters place a lot of importance on being named, which I don’t entirely understand, but it serves my purposes well enough. It should at least be enough to get them to cooperate for a bit until I can prove my abilities to them.

  ?

  Mars, the Lizardman, is the first one to speak. “Thank you for granting us names, but what do you mean by training? How can you make us stronger against the intruders?”

  ?

  “Oh, that’s simple. To level up your skills, you need to use them over and over. Eventually, they’ll become stronger and easier to use. In other words, you’re all going to fight until the verge of death. I’ll watch over you all, so no one will actually die, and I can use my skills to help you train your technical abilities.”

  ?

  I then looked towards Vulcan, ready to begin his training in earnest. “Alright, Vulcan, you can go ahead and fight all of them now. This’ll help you learn how to manage against superior numbers of enemies. Just make sure to hold back. Good luck.”

  ?

  I wanted to see what they’re all capable of before adding my skills to the mix, so having them all fight Vulcan at once. He was able to test his new strength against Generon, so he should have a decent handle on his strength. No one will die… probably. But, desperate times call for desperate measures, as that caravan will get to the dungeon soon. The most I can do for now is train this group enough to at least ambush dungeon delvers and survive.

  ?

  …

  ?

  I was overseeing the group's training for a day or so, and their progress looks promising. The ones who had weapon masteries were all at level 1, so their fighting skills all paled in comparison against Vulcan’s level 3 ‘Martial Arts Mastery’. I think hitting level 3 also allowed him to earn a martial arts skill, ‘Punch Flurry [Lvl. 1]’. It looks like he can speed up his punches for a quick burst of attacks against an opponent. The interesting part was that the skill filled his fists with mana, so it should even be able to work against me. If all weapon masteries grant a mana-infused skill, I’ll have to be wary of all high-level dungeon delvers. The skill takes a decent chunk of mana to use and a cooldown time to use again, but it can still be used as a clincher in a fight. Leveling it up will probably reduce the mana usage and cooldown, so it’ll only get stronger with time.

  ?

  The second-level evolution monsters were just able to keep up physically with Vulcan, but they were always a second or two behind, even in a group. This difference must be caused by Vulcan naturally evolving, rather than being spawned, and since he’s a variant, he has an even greater boost in stats. The base-level evolutions, however, weren’t able to keep up with Vulcan’s moves at all. He was able to hold back in his attacks against them, but they weren’t even able to get close without suffering a major injury that took a bit of time to heal. Vesta, the Arachne, and Mors, the Skeleton, were relatively fragile, so they couldn’t submit them to too much physical combat. Vesta can serve as an ambusher, as Pim did, so she just needs to focus on her speed and tactical awareness. She has the skill ‘Venomous Bite’, so she can build damage over time in a fight and create traps with her webs. They aren’t too strong, but they can be used as a momentary distraction and crowd control. I’m mostly training her using glowing orbs and illusions to simulate combat, so I can build up my skills at the same time.

  ?

  Mors is in an interesting situation. He is meant to be a frontline fighter, equipped with a rusty sword and shield, but we don’t really need another frontliner at the moment. I looked at his potential evolutions in the dungeon store, and I believe he has the potential to become a magic-focused monster. There are different variants of the base skeleton, changing their weapon, but magic isn’t an option, even though they have a higher ‘Mana Manipulation’ because they work like golems. He needs mana to move and see, so he should have an easier time leveling up the skill. I think if he gets it high enough to earn ‘Mana Projection’, he’ll evolve into a magical variant of the skeleton knight. For his training, I have him practice manipulating his mana, mimicking how I move my mana. He needs more time to keep leveling up the skill, so I also give him a bow to train with. We don’t have any ranged combatants, so this should fill that niche. He’ll also be kept out of imminent danger with his more fragile body, so as long as he doesn’t get targeted, he’ll be fine.

  ?

  It has been about a day since I saw that initial caravan, so they have already made it into the dungeon. They set up an outpost with non-dungeon delvers at the entrance to the dungeon. There’s a campsite and everything, so I think they’re going to use it as their home base. They made their way to the final room of the first floor, easily beating the stone golem with all 15 of them. If they stayed in that giant group the whole time, I’d be worried, but they’re actually three groups of dungeon delvers working together. One of them stayed in the final room, setting up a forward base inside the dungeon. They had to kill the stone golem that respawned every now and again, but they had the supplies and skill to stay there for a while. The other two groups continued on, making it to the end of the second floor pretty quickly with their large group. Finally, they set up one more forward base in the final room of the second floor. However, they left the rest of their supplies in their second forward base. Instead of sending the last group to set up one more base on the third floor, they used the second base as a resting point as each remaining party rotated out to scout the third floor. There were four scouts and two mages amongst them, so they must be focusing primarily on gathering information rather than heading for the dungeon core. That would mean these are just the vanguard, with more dungeon delvers to come in time. There are still two other parties inside the dungeon, one on the fifth and the other on the fourth, but they entered well before the changes in the dungeon could be discovered. I don’t think they intend to destroy the dungeon, as they’ve been focusing on collecting monster materials rather than beelining straight for the end. However, that could always change when they inevitably run into the incoming dungeon delver forces that do intend to destroy the dungeon. So, for now, it’s just a race against time to get these monsters up to snuff. I don’t have much Entropy, but if I want to delay them, I’ll need to modify the dungeon.