Dungeon? This Tree? Why Don't You Join Me for Lunch? (Dungeon Core)
Chapter 25: Assessing the damage.

Chapter 25: Chapter 25: Assessing the damage.

I was looking through Aron’s eyes. The gnome village looked better, but it had no walls. The problem with the land having been ravaged by the storm was that they could do nothing until spring.

And winter was around the corner.

"May I suggest something?" Aron asked, as he helped a gnome carry a wooden beam to a construction site. "Master Sylvan?"

He practically purred that last one, but I ignored it. For me, that was the norm for vampires.

Then again, every vampire knew something about me that I did not: my blood was tastier and lasted longer when it came to hunger than normal blood.

"Drop the master part, Aron, please. It is just Sylvan from now on," I said, as I continued to look. There were no good places for watchtowers. The soil was too unstable for the foundation of a wall. And even if we started to build one now...

"Oh? Just for me?" I heard the gnome giggle next to Aron.

"Aron, please, concentrate!" I snapped, mistaking his innocent flirting for teasing.

His shoulders sagged.

Of course, I took that as a sign that he was hungry...

So, I fed him from my mana.

"Uhm..." Aron began, as he took in a deep breath. Sure, my mana was not blood, but it had the same taste. "Thanks, Mas... Sylvan."

"You’re welcome! Aron, I need you to speak with the chief gnome. He is vital to getting the humans to move to the tree!"

Because, as kind as Aron was, there was no way that the humans were going to welcome him in their ranks. No, there were torches and pitchforks in his future.

And a coffin with hammer and nails, if I had to be honest.

"Ok, I will do it," he sounded a bit somber, but I gave him more mana, thinking of ways to get him blood via post or something like that.

He sighed, licked his lips, and then let me lead him to the house of the chief gnome.

0000

The old gnome was just as I remembered him. Proud, with laugh lines on his face, and a frown on his lips.

The fact that he was holding an amulet did not help our case any.

"I come to bring news from the dungeon core Sylvan," Aron began, smiling. I did not know how he got the bravery to say something like that to someone who could stir an entire gnome tribe in a frenzy, but my respect for him began to grow. "He would like for you to move to his tree."

"Go away," ah, the chief was his normal charming self...

"No," Aron patted the gnome who had taken a hold of his hand and smiled down at the small humanoid. "Kind sir, I am not done talking."

"Oh, sorry," politeness, it seemed, was able to melt hearts. I smiled. Ok, Aron was good at this!

Which begged the question: what was he doing in Solas’ army guarding Boliari?

Aron gave the gnome a charming smile. A smile which promised me quite a lot, and something in my brain even pinged

, but it was shushed by my more practical self.

Which wanted to save the gnomes!

"May I ask why you would like to stay here, Chief? Why you want to rebuild, so close to winter, when my dungeon core...M... Sylvan," I sighed. Darn it, why was he so keen on calling me Master? "Would like to offer you a safe haven?"

"Why?" The gnome asked, as he regarded Aron as if my helper was going to bite him. "We were born here, in this clearing! Its magic, its mana, keeps us alive!"

Oh...

"But that is not a problem," Aron said, without missing a beat. "The dungeon can expand. And not only that, but we can become that, for which you have always dreamed of."

I saw how Aron’s lips turned up. How the moonlight shone on his white hair, making it shine. Making me remember that one unicorn who ate a blueberry bush at night and left its hoof marks all over Methuselah’s garden.

I did not have the heart to punish the cretin. Methuselah wanted to adopt it.

But the horse never came back. No matter how many blueberries I planted.

No matter how much I hoped for a return.

"Expand?" The gnome chief asked. Aron nodded.

"My dungeon core has the mana of an army of zombies at his disposal. And not one, but three Boliari as boss mobs."

I could see in the chief’s eyes that he was considering it all. I smiled.

Please — let me have mini farms in my Old Girl’s tree! She is going to giggle at the cuteness!

"You think us toys!" The Chief might or might not have managed to hear my thoughts. It was hard to say.

"No, I think you farmers," Aron said, as he knelt before the chief gnome. "And farmers are many things, good sir, but they are rarely warriors."

The gnome chief took a hold of Aron’s hair, I could see that he wanted to tear a cluster off, and to hell with the consequences.

Aron just continued to smile.

"I will never hurt a gnome," he said in a voice as smooth as silk. "Because your kind knows where the true value in this world is."

The gnome chief and I began to blink. What was that now?

"And where is it?" I can see as the grip loosened. As the gnome chief began to look at Aron with wide eyes.

"In the soil," Aron said, pointing at a mini garden. I gasped, drawing the attention of the three Boliari, who were acting as my shadows as I cooked some simple rice with cabbage.

Army fare, nothing to do about that.

But I could not explain to myself how the gnomes, who had so little mana, had managed to get an entire mini garden back to growing food!

That was... after the storm, not even I would have managed!

"And because you know what is important," Aron said, as he placed a hand over his heart. I felt as my ears began to heat up, but decided that there was just too much firewood under the pot... "I offer you a deal: You protect what is important, and I will protect you."

The chief let go of Aron’s hair, Aron offered him his whole hand.

Just like I had done.

The gnomes were mine!

I was so happy, I let my mana slip into Aron without thinking.

His chuckle made my ears heat up again. I took more logs out from underneath the pot...

Search the lightnovelworld.cc website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.