The Core's idea for its next floor was very simple in order to balance out with the unique entrance.

  It was ending with the sand theme and instead going for a living cave system!

  This was similar to its first floor, but only in the broadest sense. Its first floor was very bare, the only plants being the Illusion vines camouflaging its dungeon entrance, but this one would feel alive, with plants saturating every inch of it, like its 8th floor, expect not all of them will be poisonous.

  With the exception of the hole where an Invader would fall, of course, it wouldn't want them to have any sort of cushion to minimize the fall damage nor a vine to grab to stop falling. Even if it's pretty sure a mundane vine will break, it still doesn't want to give them that chance.

  Like always, it started off by digging out the framework for the floor, but unlike the first or second floors, this one was going to be more complicated.

  It even would have tunnels that led to nothing but an empty chamber! A stark contrast to the first floor where everything led to something and you didn't need to backtrack at all.

  The Core had a lot of fun imagining Invaders having to run all over the place, getting impatient, making mistakes, and dying!

  This gave it so much motivation that it ended up making the 14th floor bigger than it planned, but that only meant more space for Invaders to get lost, so everything worked out!

  Just as it opened the monster catalog to find plant-based monsters to fill the floor with until Invaders would be struggling to breathe because of the lack of space, it sensed interlopers entering its dungeon.

  The Core felt a brief pang of disappointment that they didn't wait for it to finish building all of the floors available before remembering that its main component, the core, was still at the end of the 10th floor and frantically relocated it to the deepest part of its lowest floor.

  This was perhaps the moment when it felt the most grateful for its Invaders' atheistic ways. Where else would it be able to do that? But also, where else would it need to wait so long for them to arrive in the first place?

  The Core decided to be bitter about it while it watched them die and shifted to focusing on the invading group full-time.

  The adventuring party consisted of the Crazy One and four others that the Core didn't recognize.

  It wondered if these were some more of the disciples they sent in to get plants just like the last time, but if so, why wouldn't they be moving already?

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Indeed, the group was sitting in the same weird position that it recalled the Lined One and Crazy One doing before—a cultural thing of this part of the world, perhaps?

  It wondered if maybe while it was scrambling to move its core, they told it something, as it remembered they only started moving after it talked back.

  Why were its Invaders so troublesome?

  It spoke telepathically to the Crazy One.

  "Yes, I spoke about the alliance between our sect and you, esteemed one," it replied, not moving from its posting.

  So they really were talking when it wasn't paying attention! But an alliance? The Crazy One was really living up to the title the Core bestowed upon it. What human thought it was a good idea to form an alliance with a dungeon core?

  Its whole purpose was to kill the Invaders in order to advance itself. Sure, it had generous incentives in the form of various treasures, but that was nothing more than bait.

  Not to mention the Core also refused to adhere to someone else; it was the Absolute Master of its own dungeon, and it would remain that way until it got destroyed.

  Besides, what would the Invaders get from this? The treasures and plants that they collected were free to be picked if any of them survived to do so. An alliance was redundant at best, foolish at worst.

  And then the Core remembered that it was horribly dependent on those people.

  Weren't all its Invaders from this sect of theirs? Sure, there was the village next to the forest, but other than the Lined Human, who barely even entered its dungeon, nobody else from there showed up.

  Would they even do that? The settlement seemed to be under the jurisdiction of the sect from the looks of it, so if the sect told them not to delve, what other choice did they have other than to obey?

  And the chances of other Invaders coming when, throughout all this time, nobody did? Very small.

  So if they really wanted to make the alliance, then they could just... not show up until the Core was the one pleading to join it.

  So it needed them, but what would they gain from it? As it said before, everything it had was free to collect as long as one was strong enough.

  Maybe they wanted it to make specific treasures? Or allow them to delve without dangers? It absolutely refused to impede its own progression, so the latter was a no-go. Maybe it could do the former, but if they requested something powerful or particularly rare, then it would put it into the lower floors, and they would need to go get it themselves.

  After all, if it put them on higher floors, then the chances of an Invader dying would decrease. And if it began with good loot, then finding better loot would be harder, which meant that there would be less incentive to explore deeper, further reducing the death rate!

  Not to mention the chances of them sending Invaders strong enough to reach and return with the desired treasure safely if it did that.

  And if they threatened isolation? It could wait some more even if it didn't want to, but cutting off its paths of advancement in such a drastic way felt... off.

  In any case, if they did stop coming to it, then it could just search outside for a different set of Invaders; not every sapient in the area should adhere to them.

  But what if they threatened death? Would they even do that? They must want it for if they're proposing an alliance, so it felt that it was safe to ignore this alternative.

  Regardless of their intentions, the Core would try to reach a compromise since it really didn't want to leave the dungeon if it didn't have to.

  "-and your protection and collaboration are all we request in turn," the Crazy One finished saying something.

  It seems the Core didn't listen once again to the conversation.