The mana of the dungeon slowed, the minions felt a chill within that put them all on edge, and the dragon boss of the dungeon pulled the heavy gates closed. All was quiet.

Travis was blind, deaf, and felt like he was being attacked from every direction. What was worse, he was pretty sure he'd been ripped out of the comfort of his dungeon.

Then everything was different. He could see, hear, and feel again, but with only one point of view. It felt weird, and he was sure he was getting some kind of vision-related headache. Then the reality of what had happened set in: this was the regular experience of a person with only one body.

"Hi!"

Travis figured out movement pretty fast once he realized the strange body he was in wasn't all that different from the human one of his past. He looked at the woman standing before him. She had big, brown eyes that traced over him in return. Her hair looked unkempt and hanging just past her shoulders, complemented by a fringe that needed to be trimmed. She had a hoodie on that came down to her knees and seemed to engulf any attempt to judge her physical body type. A long pair of striped socks (one blue and white, the other pink and white) trailed down into a pair of sneakers that looked as if the laces had never been fastened in their lives. "H-Hello." A sinking feeling grew in Travis as he began to suspect he knew exactly who this was. "Are you the god of dungeons and cities?"

A tingle of excitement ran through Bookkeeper that elevated her energy to massive levels, though it didn't stop one hand from picking nervously at the hem of her hoodie. "Yes! Wait. How did you know?"

Unsure if he should kneel, bow, or lower his eyes, Travis' indecision resulted in him performing none of them. "Well, you said you would. Is my dungeon safe?"

Bookkeeper squinted, gestured, and then Travis watched as she reached up toward him with one glowing finger. When she couldn't actually reach her target, which he was pretty sure was his forehead, he crouched down and tried not to think of the "talking to short people" meme. When her finger made contact, Travis saw a vision open up of Penelope and Fife standing in the entry room of his dungeon, both with their backs to the stairs down. The image disappeared as quick as it came.

Wobbling a little, Travis shook his head. "Thanks."

"I didn't realize you didn't sleep as well when your dungeon shut down to upgrade," Bookkeeper said, her tone shifting to apologetic. "If you get any more floors, I promise to get you out as soon as the process starts."

Trying to study her features, Travis noticed she pulled the hood up and forward. "Uh, you know who I am, and I guess I know what you are, but would it be okay if I have your name?"

Bookkeeper blushed and stared up at Travis. He was still crouched, but there was only so much crouching that someone could do. She cursed her unconscious choice to make him a body that was so tall. "B-Bookkeeper."

It was a start, or so he hoped, toward making her more comfortable with him. "Well, Bookkeeper, thank you. I don't exactly know everything about how I got here, but these things usually start with the person dying, right?" She nodded to him, and he smiled a bit wider. "And again for giving me a second chance. I"—he hung his head a little—"might not have been as grateful in the early days, and there are still some parts of all this that annoy me, but if the option is no life—I'll take this every time."

"Do you want to know what I have planned for this month?"

Travis tried to not let his annoyance show when he heard it would take a month. "I don't think I could guess, but I bet it's related to cities or dungeons."

Giggling, oblivious to Travis' concern, Bookkeeper nodded. "It's a dungeon I want you to help. It opens the moment you're ready, and it's in a high mortality area. I want you to build it up in a month while the dungeon's new core watches and learns from you."

"Do I get to choose the type?" Travis asked, his mind racing for a moment before he halted. "Wait, is this dungeon in the Trade Kingdom?"

"Uh, err…" Bookkeeper knew the kingdom that Travis was in held a special place for him. It did for her too, given it was where she started implementing her system. Other places hadn't been as accepting of her gift. "Nnnn…oooooo… No. It's in another kingdom a long way away. Over an ocean." She picked a bit more at the hem of her hoodie.

Travis huffed, something he'd been unable to do for quite some time. "Okay. And the objective is…?"

"The dungeon's predecessor was wiped out by another dungeon after the local city weakened it. I will make the new one in whatever location you want, as whatever type you want, and you get a month to get as far as possible."

"Uh. Bookkeeper, not that I don't appreciate not spending a whole month stuck in the worst hell my head can be, but—"

"You don't like killing, do you?" Bookkeeper asked.

The seriousness pervading her tone made Travis relieved he was at least being taken seriously. "Yeah it— I'm not a fan of killing people."

Feeling a little glum at that herself, Bookkeeper looked down at her feet and thought about what she could do to get Travis to help. She jerked her head up so fast, when she had the answer, that she almost hit Travis with her crown. "What if I warned them? It will make it harder for you, but I could send an omen to the city that a champion dungeon has been created and everyone should leave."

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"And the city itself?" Travis asked.

"The city… I will offer it the same. It can be made into a new city. There are new ones popping up all the time."

"I'll do it on one condition," Travis said, drawing a raised eyebrow from Bookkeeper. "Why do you dislike these people so much?" He was surprised at her smile as she relaxed.

"I don't like them because they're the ones causing all the mess right now. Why do you think your friends came to this continent? Stewart—he's the new king, right?" When Travis nodded, Bookkeeper released a sigh of relief. "Stewart's ancestor begged for help from the gods. She asked that someone give her and her people a place of their own.

"Back then, I didn't have the power I do now, but I showed them a direction to sail and did what I could. When they landed, they had nothing and the very land itself was often hostile to them. So I built dungeons for them to challenge themselves in and gain resources from. I built cities for them to live in and to protect them." Bookkeeper reached one sleeve up to her face to wipe tears from her eyes. "And now the ones who forced her to flee kill my dungeons before they can even establish themselves.

"I want you to break the poor little city and drive them out. I— I want you to show my dungeons there how to fight." Steel had settled in Bookkeeper's voice, so much so that it surprised even her. She hiccuped at the emotional torrent running through her. "S-Sorry I—"

Travis didn't know how to treat a god who was upset, but he knew how to reassure a friend when they were. He put an arm around Bookkeeper's shoulder and pulled her into a one-armed hug she could pull back from if she wanted. She didn't, though, and clung there in his grip for a few minutes. When she looked up at him, Travis asked, "Feeling a bit better?"

"It depends." Bookkeeper pouted a little, doing her best to process the emotions boiling through her. "Will you help?"

"Why do you give them cities and dungeons if they don't appreciate them?" Travis was close to saying yes, if only to avoid the horror of living inside his head for the whole month. "Why these people?"

Bookkeeper shrank a little at that and tugged at the hem of her hoodie. "It was meant to be a gift. They're hurting the cities as much as the dungeons."

"Like the Northerners?" Travis asked, getting a nod. "But you don't punish them."

"They're not—" Bookkeeper closed her mouth.

"If it's important, and you promise me there's a good reason for it, I'll try. There's a lot of detachment in a dungeon, unless you are stupid enough to open an entrance in the city, that is." Travis hoped his joke would reassure her a bit. While she was a god, Travis felt protective of Bookkeeper. "Can you tell me, what dungeon's minions are the least intelligent? I've seen the gnolls, dragons, and even the animals in Breeze seem reasonably intelligent. Are the undead like that?"

"No. The undead—the simplest kind, skeletons and zombies—are more like robots."

"Then I think I've come up with what I need to get this done. I will use an undead Rot dungeon." He also remembered the way some adventurers had spoken of such places. Of all the non-goblin dungeons to be sanctioned, undead Rot dungeons were the most common he'd heard.

Recovering quickly from her mood, Bookkeeper nodded. "I was going to ask you to help test that eventually anyway. I thought it was a little OP, but then I found out about Breeze."

Travis couldn't resist giggling along with Bookkeeper. "She's really something, huh? Oh! Can you make it so repeated messages don't all get heaped on you at once? When Fife teleported to the bottom of Breeze, I had hundreds of messages telling me I'd gotten resources."

"I… You should never get so many messages so fast." As soon as Bookkeeper said it, she shook her head. "No. This is a code problem. I'll fix it after I give the city a premonition of disaster."

"Can I visit you here again? Maybe just once or twice a year? It's nice to be able to touch someone." As soon as he'd said it, Bookkeeper blushed crimson and took a step back. "I mean, not—" He rubbed his forehead and sighed. "There is no way to unsay that."

Fanning her face, Bookkeeper managed to say, "Nope! I'll see what I can do about it, though. Also, I'll try to make a way for you to report bugs. Also-also, are you ready to go?" As soon as Travis nodded, she started to rip apart reality to insert him back into it.

"Wait! One thing I never figured out. How do I make workers?" Travis asked, feeling his body starting to wobble. An arm turned to mist before his eyes.

"Like kobolds? You select a lizard and upgrade them. Have fun!" Bookkeeper shattered the rest of his body and sent Travis on his way. "Oh, I forgot to ask him where he wanted to start. I'll put him as far from the city as possible."

Dungeon Status:

Floors 1

Heart 200(1)/200 Kills 0 Toxin 1

Minions 1/10

Situational Quest: Empty the nearby city. Good luck! (*˘︶˘*).｡.:*♡

The interface was a little different, but the emoji was more than enough to anchor Travis in this new dungeon. He could see around him, a skeleton stood literally dead still, making it hard to tell if it was undead or not—though he suspected it was the same as his previous start had been.

"Okay, I don't know if you can understand and hear me, but we're going to do this the fast way. Let's find what makes more of you… Here! Can you build a Burial Pit for me?" Travis ignored the direct opening that led to the outside. It had been dumb luck that Stephan had found him, or so he figured. He'd get a work crew to disguise his entrance when he had a chance. Giving the order through the system had the skeleton spring to its task.

The mound didn't require resources, for which Travis was thankful. In short order, the skeleton had dug it out, and large section of ground in the room was marked as a Burial Pit. It took a moment for a rat to appear. When Travis focused on it, he noticed it was called a plague rat, and it had the option to Evolve To Skeleton. "Okay. First guy, build another Burial Pit," he said, giving the command as the second skeleton began to form from the rat body. "Second guy, build a Toxin Brewery."

What was fascinating was how they dug wherever they wanted. He couldn't see through their eyes, either, though when a new plague rat appeared, he could see through its eyes.

From what he could tell, the skeletons had no upkeep, but he had a max number of minions. The Toxin Brewery had cost him his one Toxin he'd started with, but he was sure it would soon be making more. He'd also discovered that his heart got some kind of bonus health based on his Toxin quantity. When he'd used that Toxin, it had lost the bonus.

Everything was different, but it was still a similar system overall. "Thanks for giving me something to do."

(っ ᵔ◡ᵔ)っ

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