"Smash smash smash"
Within a small cave, a young girl held a pick axe, smashing it into the wall. Chunks of dirt and rock fell off, adding to the pile forming beneath her. Beside her, an office lady wearing fiery red heels was doing the same, however, you could tell she was much stronger due to the larger pile forming beneath her. Behind them was a small pile of pick axes, shovels and an axe.
"Tell me again why we're the ones expanding the walls." Zwei complained a little puffed out.
Elise rolled her eyes and shot back. "Expanding through the dungeon shop is expensive."
"I got that part, but why are WE doing the work. Couldn't we summon some other creatures?" Zwei emphasised her point. There wasn't really any reason for that, Elise was just testing out the effectiveness of this method of expansion while making use of all the manpower she has, namely her and Zwei. In conclusion, quite slow and ineffective. just planned it this way somehow.
Elise looked down at the piles of dirt and reckoned it'll suffice. "Alright, that should be enough." She cheerfully replied to the slightly grumpy Zwei, they expanded the wall by only half a metre or so.
Having moved the dirt into one pile, Elise calmed down and interacted with her knowledge of skeleton summoning. The quickest and simplest method was to create skeletons from pure mana, however, she did not have much mana as she was a newly born. Well that didn't sound right. Newly spawned?
The second method, which was easier on mana was to reanimate a skeleton that already existed. As they didn't have any convenient skeletons lying around, Elise could only consult the shop once again.
[Generic Human Skeleton: 1DP
perfect for experiments and decoration. Just don't ask where it came from.]
Elise chose to ignore the description and simply purchased 6, the price of one lesser skeleton provided by the system. What a bargain. Curiously, Zwei stopped her mining and stared at the small pile of human bones that appeared. Her host was doing something weird again, she pondered to herself while fixing her glasses nervously.
Elise browsed through her newfound knowledge of skeleton creating and let out a wisp of her own mana and used it to command the dungeon's mana as the two were practically identical. Her instinct as dungeon master told her that within the dungeon, she was powered by an almost endless mana source. She pushed her mana into the pile of bones and shaped it according to the information she consumed, imprinting her mana into the skeletons. Soon the bones began jiggling around as they tried to rise according to their master's command. Untangling themselves, they picked up pickaxes from the pile and began smacking them at the wall. A frown soon formed on the two girls' faces.
"This isn't working, Elise." Zwei stated in a matter of fact tone only to be harshly cut off.
"I know this isn't working!"
The strength of the skeletons were not a problem, in fact they could mine at the strength of multiple men for endless hours without fatigue. No, the problem was that they had no intelligence, none, nilch. Elise facepalmed as she watched her skeleton wack the wall with the handle side of the pickaxe while another tried to dig with the flat edge instead of the points.
She twirled her finger sending a wisp of her mana into the skeletons giving them more detailed commands. Dig here, not there. Yes, like that, keep going. No stop hold the other side. The poor skeletons looked at their new master in confusion. Strange lady. Weird instruction. Don't understand.
Zwei watched as her master slowly taught the skeletons the basics of removing mining dirt in awe, magic came naturally to her. She could only lament her lack of talent which crushed her dreams of being a magician.
After the skeleton legion of 6 was mostly self sufficient, Elise released herself from skeleton-sitting duty and left them to their own devices. Casting Zwei a glance, she announced smugly, "See, now we aren't doing it anymore, are we."
Taking a break, she then opened up the menu and purchased an eagle, a slime, a lesser ghost and four goblins. Firstly, she sent the eagle out to scout the area and map it down. Thankfully, the dungeon maps down all the areas she or her subordinates know about and/or have visited. She then turned towards her current arsenal, a blob of transparent jelly, a barely existing man and two couples of goblins.
Elise could only thank the gods the goblins weren't naked, although they weren't much better. They were small-medium sized humanoid creatures of green skin, sharp ears and pointy jaws. Their finger nails were never cut and they never showered, you could easily tell from the putrid way they smelled. The only way to really be sure which one's a man and which one's a woman is by the animal skin clothing they had. The girls had a small top while they all wore rough skirts covering their private areas.
The jelly looked absolutely harmless and kind of cute, it had no attributes so it really was just harmless jelly. She wondered if she could evolve them like in those novels, same went for the goblins.
The slime just sat there while the ghost floated. It was actually the goblins who had the most intelligence as they knelt down and greeted her as their master.
This surprised her as she was hit by a sudden thought.
"Wait Zwei, where do these guys come from? I don't just steal them from places right?"
"No they're usually clones created by magic." Which explained quite a bit. It does make sense to do that after all.
She looked quizzically at the goblins, "It's fine to treat me normally, you know."
The four quickly scrambled up and nodded, a little surprised. Hierarchy is a large part of the goblin tradition after all.
The four looked around at the little cave, wondering about the dungeon they'd been summoned to. It seemed like the four of them knew each other already, which would save some introductions.
"So what are your names?"
"Names?" The first one answered, "Me snot." He declared proudly, wiping some of the snot coming out of his nose. The next one to talk was a girl, she had fair green skin as fair as a goblin's skin could be, which wasn't that fair, and shaggy blond hair. "I Clel." She pointed to the shy looking goblin beside her, she had the same blond hair, unlike Snot's brownish hair. "This Crel, sister." The last one to speak was a slightly bigger fellow with light brown short hair and a little more muscle. "Me Oko."
Elise scrunched her nose a little, quite bothered by the smell. She swore to make them shower the moment they had some free time. Efficiently, she sent the four out to pull out the long grass surrounded them to form a slightly larger clearing outside the dungeon and later a small road.
Having gotten rid of them, the smell eased and she quietly bought a matcha bun to nibble on as she turned towards to ghost. Although she had a plan for him, it wasn't time yet so he had nothing to do. It was barely dawn and the eagle had just been sent out. Helplessly, she let him wander as he pleased.
Lastly, she figured the slime's texture was pretty amazing so it was soon demoted to a pillow and stress ball for Elise. It was, due to Elise's amazing naming sense, named Clear.
Having dealt with her newest additions, she turned her attention towards the expansion crew, aka the skeletons. They were still happily hacking away at the wall and had created a small dip in the wall. The skeletons' strength and never tiring work ethic were really amazing, it was definitely efficient.
She added further commands to the skeletons telling them to move a little and create a wider corridor in. She planned for the corridor to be wide enough to two carriages to pass through comfortably. Looking at the small pile of soil created, she decided to make an investment and bought another 6 skeletons before putting them to work in the same way. She recycled the dirt, gaining her another 2 DP at a price of 1 per metre cubed.
Waiting for work to be done, Elise couldn't help but laugh when she thought back to those kingdom building games she played on her phone. This was really quite similar.
Soon a packet of popcorn appeared in her hands as she munched away while chatting with Zwei, waiting for the golems to do their work. It was quite boring after all.