Dungeon of Pride, Laplace

Seeing his behaviour, Simon immediately understood that he had gotten his hopes up too soon. He himself understood how low the chances of a mutation being successful were. There was no way he would be able to get the desired results soon.

"The mutation was a failure, the leader stormwolf that consumed it, died." Coleus said trying to explain the situation as carefully as he could.

"I see'¦ thanks for letting me know. Let's go to their cave, I want to know about it in more detail" Simon opened the [Main Menu] and swiftly teleported the both of them to the 15th floor.

"Lord Simon" the five [Helpers] arrived before him the moment he teleported to the floor and bowed. The place they were on was the exact same mountain that overlooked the wolves territory.

Currently, the place looked deserted and not even a single wolf could be seen on sight.

"Tell me what exactly transpired after the stormwolf consumed the crystal," Simon asked while walking towards the cave entrance. The [Helpers] followed behind and recited the whole event starting from the day after the leader Stormwolf ate the Scarlet Mutation Crystal that Simon left at the cave.

According to them, the stormwolf seemed fine for the first few days and didn't show any signs of being affected by the crystal. It was only after three days had passed that the stormwolf started displaying some obvious changes.

Its eyes and fur started turning crimson and it showed signs of going berserk, even attacking the members of its own pack. The leader wolf was the most powerful one out of the pack hence it managed to wound many of its kin.

After tasting their blood, the stromwolf became even more agitated and started ramming its head on the cave. Its peculiar behaviour and hostility towards its pack members drove the others out of the territory.

On the sixth day, its body had grown more than three meters and the fur on its body had turned a deep shade of red. However, the behavioural pattern of the stormwolf started getting more erratic and it even attacked other packs.

Due to accumulating many wounds, the wolf died on the seventh day. From their explanation, Simon understood that the crystal wasn't compatible with the stormwolf and showed obvious signs of rejection.

Its erratic behaviour, hostility against its pack members and intense aggression showed that the mutation was a failure.

"I see the mutation was bound to be a failure I guess" What made Simon disappointed was that even until its moments, it showed no signs of being able to use the fire attribute of mana. While he was deliberating whether the effects of the crystal was too strong for a low-level creature like stormwolves when the [Helpers] reported him of another piece of shocking news.

"Lord Simon the situation has changed. Something has been eating the remains of the dead wolf and had instead undergone a change that could be said as a mutation".

The moment he heard that, Simon couldn't help but blurt out "What?!".

-----

Arriving in front of the cave entrance, Simon smelled a pungent scent coming off from inside the cave. A smell like that could only come off from a dead being, the fact itself astounded him.

A monster spawned from the DP, does not provide any DP when killed inside the dungeon. Its remains get swiftly digested by the dungeon unless'¦

Entering inside the cave, the pungent smell became even more stronger and after walking for a while, they soon found the dead remains of the leader stormwolf.

Its body had enlarged by a lot since the last time Simon saw it and even its fur which was previously greyish, had turned a piercing red. The [Helpers] were right, the body was still there which could only mean that it was being eaten by another entity.

With a flip of his hand, gale magic was generated and easily flipped the three meters body of the wolf around and he could finally see.

The left side of its ribcage was coming out and pieces of flesh was dangling, evidence of something eating it. The scene was so gore that the [Helpers] couldn't help looking away from it, hands on their mouth and holding themselves back from vomiting out.

Simon couldn't blame these Forest Spring Spirits since the smell was so pungent that even he felt spewing the contents of his stomach out. However, his attention was on something else right now.

He carefully observed the gorging marks on the flesh of the wolf and the entity that could have done it. "But who could do something like that?" Simon muttered out loud.

The Stormwolves and the Direwolves are the apex predators here, who could have the nerve to eat their flesh?

"I-It was a small mouse" Maya replied in a wavering voice.

A surprised look flashed in his eyes, it was not only him but even the four [Helpers] that were beside her, were so. Why wouldn't they be? After all, a mouse was an extremely weak monster, the lowest of the low an [E] rank.

It was supposed to be the prey of higher-level monsters, how could they have the boldness to dine on the flesh of their predator? Although they found her idea amusing, they couldn't outright deny it. In any case, there might be a possibility that she might be right.

Simon pondered over what Maya said, judging from the marks left behind on the flesh it could definitely be seen as the work of a mouse. He was the dungeon master of this place and knew about the monsters inhabiting each floor.

Other than the Direwolves and Stromwolves inhabiting this place, there were few other low-level races spawned here as their prey and one of these species was exactly a mouse called Fanged Mouse.

However, just like the others, he found the thought amusing. A Fanged Mouse was an [E] tier monster with limited to no combat abilities. It was extremely weak and lived in huge numbers. This race usually survives on dirt and grass and was extremely timid.

There was no way a Fanged Mouse would be bold enough to eat the flesh of a Stormwolf. Although it was absurd, the possibility wasn't zero. Simon observed the place and soon found small holes on the floor big enough for a Fanged Mouse to pass through.

He turned towards the [Helpers] and asked "How did the mutated creature look like?". Before coming to any conclusion, he wanted to hear from them who had supposedly spotted this creature.

"It had a long serpentine tail, crimson fur occasionally blazing with fire and a body as big as one and a half meter" one of the [Helpers] said.

Just when Simon thought that the description didn't match with the characteristics of fanged Mouse, the other [Helper] Coleus contradicted the first one.

"What are you saying? The creature wasn't even a meter big, not to mention it had a brown fur with crimson stripes. It had huge fangs and claws that glimmered with an incisive light that could easily slice through a boulder".

Simon frowned hearing what the Coleus had to say. The description did match with the features of the fanged mouse being brown and having sharp fangs. However, its sharpness was nowhere near how Coleus described it and could hardly be seen as a weapon.

"Um'¦ it had crimson fur" Maya said breaking the stalemate.

"See I was right" the helper who was the first to describe the creature, flashed a confident smile towards Coleus.

"But it was very small'¦ about this big" Maya said indicating the size of the creature with her hands. According to her, it was a small mouse with crimson fur, a serpentine tail and not even half a meter big.

It was not only her, but each of the [Helpers] gave a different description of the mutated creature and there were so many contradictions that Simon couldn't put his hand on what the creature was.

Nonetheless, there was no doubt that the creature had mutated after eating the corpse of the stormwolf that had consumed the Scarlet Mutation Crystal. What was surprising for Simon was that the mutation could occur even when the flesh of the monster was eaten by another entity.

"It seems that the flesh and blood of the monster can induce mutation on the other creatures eating it" saying that, he looked towards the small hole at the corner of the floor and squinted his eyes.

No matter what creature or which race it was from, as long as it was able to mutate, it was good news for him. Putting the corpse back to how it was, Simon excited the cave and asked "What happened to the rest of the pack the Stormwolf was leading?".

Jared who was right behind him replied "After being attacked by their own leader, some of them fled and those that stuck around, after seeing the corpse of their leader formed a new pack".

It seemed that the wolves had formed a new pack and had deserted this cave. "In any case keep a look around and investigate the creature that is eating the flesh from the corpse. If you find any clue, don't hesitate to inform me" Right after saying that Simon teleported outside of his dungeon.

The place he chose to teleport to was high up in the sky above the spiral tower. From this height, he could see crowds of adventurers, erected tents and small camps all around. It seemed that some of the weak adventurers camped here and went in and out of his dungeon.

He could even see some shrewd merchants setting up some small shops and selling wares to the adventurers diving inside the dungeon.. Simon believed that the place would be completely swarming with adventurers and merchants before long.