8 I will Mark My Territory

Ein went outside the dungeon, staring at the rising sun.

"I can't believe it's just been a day..." he pondered as he looked back on his busy day.

Now that he had one less thing to worry about, he could finally breathe a sigh of relief. He could just pass the time and wait for his DP to reach a certain amount before heading toward the city. If this was a tabletop RPG, then this is where he should pass for a few turns. However, waiting while doing nothing wasn't something that he was used to doing.

"Let's survey the surroundings!" Ein nodded to himself as he decided.

He should be familiar with the immediate area around him since this location will be where his dungeon grows in the future. After calling for two wolves as bodyguards, he started surveying his prospective territory.

First of all, the dungeon entrance was placed in a very inconspicuous location along the cliffside of a mountain. However, since the area right outside the entrance was clear of trees for at least a couple hundred meters, it will be easily visible to those who passed through the forest.

The mountain it was connected to seemed quite small. With a generous estimate, it should be roughly 500 meters high with a base diameter of over 1 km. The mountain wasn't a luscious green but rather a reddish-brown with a rugged rocky surface. It was probably rich in iron resources based on the soil color.

Looking at the trees around him, he couldn't find anything familiar. Although the trees were probably a variety of pine trees, no pine tree on earth had fruits that explode when ripe. He was lucky that he was far away when this happened, but a small bird flying nearby wasn't too lucky. It was charred black before plummeting to the ground, dead.

Although Ein expected the surrounding trees to burn after the explosion spread fire all over, the fire died out in just a few seconds, leaving little to no damage to the trees.

'Let's just blame magic for everything that cannot be explained,' Ein convinced himself, resuming his trip.

It didn't take long to complete a lap around the foot of the mountain, especially when riding atop the wolves. Barely half an hour passed, even with their leisurely pace. After doing a lap around, he then aimed for the top of the mountain.

The wind at the peak was strong enough to cause his hair to fly around crazily. He took a leisurely look around him from there. As he scanned the surroundings, he could see several miles of lush forest that encircled the mountain.

Assuming that the sun rises from the east in this world too, then to the north, broad plains come after the forest with a few small hills strewn about. The bandits the day before should have been near that area before the wolves found them.

Ein couldn't see any structures there, since the city should still be a few days' travel to the north from the border of the forest. He then realized that this place was a good vantage point since nothing was in the way of his view of his surroundings up to the horizon.

"If I build a watchtower here, then I will be able to notice if invaders or an army is about to come and attack my dungeon." He contemplated. However, such a watchtower would be clearly visible from the other side too.

"Rather than that, if I built a wall surrounding the mountain with the entrance to the dungeon as the only available entrance, maybe I can trick them into entering. Then, a few floors in, I could put some wide-area annihilation traps to wipe the invaders along with the floor."

Thinking back, if he ordered the slimes to dig the whole third floor's flooring endlessly, he could create a sure-fire death pitfall trap. The only problem would be the cover, which needs to be as sturdy as the cave and made of the same material, but can collapse with the press of a button.

Thinking up to here, Ein quickly shook his head as if to drive away his thoughts.

"I'm still short of DP right now; I better think about it later when I have more leeway with my DP." He convinced himself.

To make sure that he had a better vision of the surroundings, he ordered the 54 slimes on the first floor to come out and clear the forest within half a kilometer of the foot of the mountain. Since slimes could digest literally anything, they could surely successfully finish this task. They only needed time—a lot of it.

Since he thought that he could use the logs later, he ordered the slimes-cum-loggers to fell the trees first. He didn't have any monsters strong enough to drag away the logs, so he left them where they were. It took the slimes two hours to fell all trees up to 500 meters ahead of the dungeon's entrance, clearing up a path about 10 meters wide.

Then, they started working on the other trees in a counter-clockwise orientation. Without any further support, the slimes would probably take a week or so to completely clear the surrounding forest.

...

When the two elves returned from hunting later that afternoon, they were shocked to see hundreds of fallen trees on their way back. When Ein explained that his slimes were responsible for it, the two brushed it off, thinking that Ein didn't want to tell them the truth.

'There's no way a slime can fell a tree in such a short time, not to mention a whole forest with hundreds of them,' the two thought.

Right now, after hours of non-stop work, the slimes have covered quite a lot of ground already. The site looks like the aftermath of a passing tornado, or maybe a landslide. There's no way a normal slime could do all these things. If a slime tried to cut down a tree, it would need a few days' worth of digesting before it could make the tree fall. There was also the great danger of the slime getting crushed by the tree they cut.

Ein's slimes worked in pairs, eating opposite sides of the trunk at the same time. When the remaining part in the middle looked thin enough, the two slimes would tackle the tree down. They felled trees quickly, safely, and efficiently, just like professional foresters.

Leaving the slimes to work overnight, Ein turned to the five wolves that came together with the two elves' hunting. Looking roughly, they were carrying several carcasses of game on their backs. There was something that looked like a deer but with green horns; a wild boar with red fur; several birds of different kinds; and there were even some unknown fruits.

Since bloodletting was already done right after hunting it, they only needed to butcher the carcasses and turn them into preserved foods like jerky.

As promised, Nayta passed half of the hunted game to Ein.

"Your wolves didn't even eat while hunting; they must be hungry." She smiled as she passed the large chunks of meat to him. "Even though they did most of the work."

Ein was troubled. He forgot to cover that part. "Thank you," he said while smiling awkwardly.

Then, as if to show it to Nayta, he chucked a piece of meat to the five wolves that went hunting with her while saying "Now eat.". The wolves, receiving the order to "eat" the meat, did so without much fanfare.

"Your wolves are so obedient. They're also so clever that it was a bit scary," Nayta said, chuckling. "We tamed animal companions in the village too, but nobody was able to make them as tame as yours," she complimented.

"Haha, I used a special method, so of course they are obedient." Ein boasted, "Though it's a family secret, so I can't share the technique with others."

"A tamer with a special taming technique." If he were to claim as such, he could deceive the two elves much easier. While thinking so, he sat down on a fallen log near the entrance, watching the wolves chomp down on the meat he gave them.

Nayta followed and sat beside him, looking at her daughter managing the flames while smoking the meat they gathered. Glancing at the beautiful side profile of the elf beside him, illuminated by the setting sun, Ein couldn't help but get a little bit conscious.

Nayta, on the other hand, was relaxed. As a long-lived species, elves tend to only choose other long-lived species as partners. Nayta herself was already nearing 300 years old. Her daughter, Melina, too, was older than she looked. Although she appears to be in her early twenties, she was actually significantly older than Ein, almost double his age at 72. In their minds, Ein was something like a helpful neighborhood kid; there was no way for them to develop special feelings for him.

... Or so she thought at first.

"Master, I have finished the task you have assigned." A slightly seductive voice echoed from the dungeon's entrance.