Demon Dungeon 2

Murmur looked proudly over her tiny dungeon. It was already shaping up into something more than just a sandy pit. She had lined the walls with stone, carved the entry shaft into a staircase, and added a small nook to the main room for her imps to work in. They were happily working away, carving the wood she spawned for them into basic vessels.

But she had a problem. Between the spawning and the redecorating, Murmur has used up her initial allotment of mana. Thanks to her newfound dungeon knowledge, she knew that she could only get more mana if she took it from the world around her. But she couldn’t send her imps or lesser demon outside to collect anything to drain, they were just as bound to her dungeon’s limits as she was.

Since she couldn’t go out to get anything, Murmur supposed she’d have to lure something in. But what? What would just poke its head into a random hole in the ground? Humans, she figured, they were always messing around with things they didn’t understand. She had taken advantage of that little tendency of theirs plenty of times in the past, but she didn’t feel up to taking on a human just yet. Not with only a single lesser demon.

But thinking of humans reminded Murmur of something. She was a succubus! She’s never had any trouble luring in humans, so she shouldn’t have any trouble luring in even stupider things. She just has to figure out how to pull off her old tricks in this new form of hers.

The console, sadly, wasn’t of any help. All it cared about was dungeon this and room that. And without mana, both this and that were next to useless. If only she had her physical body! If only...

“I’m an idiot. I summoned you, right lesser demon? So can’t I just summon myself? Not that I’ve ever done that or anything, but I know my name and my seal, it shouldn’t be too hard.”

While it wasn’t too hard, it absolutely wasn’t easy. Murmur sat on the pedestal next to her core, rubbing her head. The lesser demon tried to comfort her, but there wasn’t much it could do about headaches.

Now embodied, Murmur fired up one of her simpler tricks, spreading her charm out into the air. With any luck, anything that came into contact with it would be drawn to its source. And by carefully regulating the strength of the charm, she could be fairly certain that nothing too strong would take note. Now all she had to do was wait.

And wait she did. Only after several hours passed did Murmur feel the distinct and utterly bizarre sensation of something entering her dungeon. It was as if an ice cube had been dropped straight into her stomach, a chilling, numbing feeling that spread out from the source and made her limbs tingle. It was accompanied by the sight of the console graying out; a dungeon could only do so much with an invader present.

Finally, the invader made it down the stairs and into the entryway. A moderately sized boar, it sniffed the air curiously, looking around the empty room. As it neared the main room, the lesser demon got into position and the imps scampered into their nook to hide. Murmur felt that was somewhat silly; even an imp shouldn’t lose to a mundane boar.

And if an imp wouldn’t lose, a lesser demon definitely wouldn’t. The poor boar was handily dispatched the moment it entered the main room, it’s flesh and blood dissolving into mana for Murmur to absorb. A _small_ amount of mana for Murmur to absorb, that is.

Murmur sighed and started spreading her charm again. It would take more than one boar to do anything interesting.



Several days and boars later, Murmur wiped the nonexistent blood off her hands and returned to her spiritual state. The last boar had actually had some magical power of its own, and she had stepped in to help her lesser demon dispatch it before it caused any real trouble. Thankfully, the boar’s troublesomness was made up for with how much mana she got from it.

Of course, now that she had mana, Murmur had to spend it. But she couldn’t quite make up her mind on what. Traps were good, but so were more demons, or more rooms. Just what did she want to do with her dungeon, anyways? She wanted to stay safe, of course, but as a formerly undying demon, her nature was fairly reckless.

“Haaa, I’m not getting anywhere like this! Fine, I’m done thinking! What was that saying again? Don’t think, feel? Well I’m feeling... Hmm... Chains? Chains are good, what can I do with chains... Oh, how about a prison! That way, if any cute human drops by, I can just lock them up and keep them all to myself!”

Pounding her fist into her palm, Murmur called up the console and got to work. She started by expanding the main room and lining it with prison cells. The cell bars weren’t as strong as the dungeon walls, but they’d do for now, and she could always strengthen them later.

After setting up the cells, Murmur split off the imp’s nook into its own room, hidden by a secret door behind a ratty bed. When the console asked if she wanted to declare it a ritual room, she readily agreed. The benefits to crafting speed and summoning efficiency were nothing to sneeze at.

Finally, she hid her core room behind another secret door. The console wouldn’t let her completely hide her core away, so she compromised. The “secret” door had a fairly obvious keyhole on it, but the matching key was squirreled away in yet another cell. Apparently the console was satisfied with just letting invaders know that there _was_ something to look for, even if that something itself was hidden.

Left once again with no mana, Murmur got back to spreading her charm. She wanted something more exciting than a boar, but the goat that wandered in wasn’t it. She had a bit of a soft spot for goats, as did most demons, but as she moved to tell her lesser demon to shoo the goat away, the sensation of a new invader stopped her in her tracks.



“Where are you, old girl? What did you find? What the- was this here before? I think I’d remember a giant hole in the ground... Maybe it crumbled away or something? Whatever. Hey old girl! Come on, let’s get out of here. There you are, let’s get... you’re not-”

His day had started out so well. Sure, Abel had to get up early to watch the goats, but as long as they didn’t run off he could do whatever else he wanted. So _of course_ the old girl had to wander off, and he had to follow.

He’d finally caught up to her, following her into a strange stone chamber he was pretty sure wasn’t there a couple of days ago, when he came face to face with something that definitely wasn’t a goat. It was _close_ to a goat, sure, but goats didn’t have fangs (usually) or giant claws (most of the time) or bright red skin (except on certain holidays).

If anything happened to the old girl, his dad would kill him. Of course, that was only if the monster before him didn’t kill him first. Abel did the only thing a sensible person could do in his situation. He screamed. Then he did a very not sensible thing, and charged.



Murmur has to admin, she was not expecting him to charge. Scream? Sure. Run? Obviously. Take up his shepherd's crook like a staff? Acceptable. Charge? Maybe the shock got to him?

“He’s cute, try not to kill him!”

“I’ll do my best, boss!”

Luckily for the boy, the lesser demon’s claws didn’t hit anything too vital. And the bite that dragged him to the floor didn’t tear off anything important. Sure, he was bleeding a bit, but he’d be fine after a good night’s rest. Probably. Maybe.

With the boy down for the count, Murmur had her lesser demon drag him into one of the cells, only to discover a flaw in her plan. While the boy was indeed a good source of mana, he was also an invader. And with an invader in her dungeon, she couldn’t actually actually _do_ anything with the mana she was accumulating.

> Convert main room into a prison room?

Murmur eagerly assented, but recoiled when she saw the cost. No matter how much she wanted it, it was utterly out of her price range. It made some sense, she supposed. This “prison room” would let her keep prisoners without triggering the standard invasion lock down; a benefit so large the only way it wouldn’t have a downside would be if she was in some sort of OP isekai novel.

With no immediate solution to her prison problem, Murmur directed her lesser demon to throw the boy out into the entryway. Which, as it turned out, was a rather stupid idea. The entryway was still a part of her dungeon after all, so the boy’s presence kept the lock down going. But the entryway was a safe room; neither Murmur nor her demons could enter to throw the boy all the way out.

So there she stood, waiting for the boy to either bleed out or get rescued, when a bleating reminded her of the _other_ invader of her dungeon. The old goat looked up from the tattered bed sheet it had been nibbling on, and stared at the lesser demon. The lesser demon stared back, before turning to look at the entryway, and back at the goat. The goat followed the lesser demon’s gaze, the two shared a nod, and off the goat went, dragging the boy behind it.