Chapter 22
I’m translating the chapter and shaping the UI/system text into the required HTML blocks while keeping the narration as novel-style prose. I’m also checking paragraph breaks carefully so the result reads naturally in English rather than line-by-line.CHAPTER_TITLE: Waking Up as a Little Dragon in a Dungeon
When he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was a black wall he had never seen before.
Smooth, worked stone.
He lifted his head and looked along it.
There were traces that resembled a natural cave, but not a single stalactite hung from the ceiling.
...Do caves without stalactites even exist?
The thought barely crossed his mind before a delayed sense of wrongness washed over him.
Instinct told him the space itself was off.
There was no light.
And yet, despite feeling no source of illumination at all, the outline of the cave stood out with perfect clarity.
Even the colors were distinct in the dark.
There’s no light here...
It was darkness.
And still, his eyes could see the cave’s colors as though it were bright as day.
Then there was another strange sensation.
Am I lying down right now....?
...No, was lying down even the right way to put it?
The cold touch of the floor came straight through to his abdomen.
His body was pressed flat against the ground.
“Where... am I?”
He tried to speak, but no voice came out.
Instead, something long and slippery shifted in his mouth with a faint slither.
Shaaaaaa—
An unfamiliar sound.
The sound of a serpent’s tongue moving.
What was that sound...?
He tried to lift himself in surprise, but his body gave way and his chin slammed into the floor.
Ghk...
He steadied himself through the dull pain in his jaw and turned his gaze around.
Only then did another sense of wrongness hit him.
His point of view was far too low.
Almost level with the floor.
...Too low.
It felt like this body was not his body at all.
A chill of unease crawled up his spine.
Carefully, he lowered his head.
What he saw was not a hand.
...It was a foot.
The front paw of a beast, split into five clawed digits.
“......”
His mind went white.
The sensation of his heart dropping clean through him.
No way.
The feeling of standing on all fours.
The heavy mass hanging behind what should not have been a tailbone.
An underdeveloped human?
Some kind of reptilian thing?
Neither.
No, this is...
He turned his head and saw what looked like a tail.
Looking at it, he thought,
Snake?
No.
Four legs.
Scales.
The weight of thick horns.
He had seen this somewhere before.
.......This was definitely.
A dragon.
Shit... I’m really a dragon?
It felt completely unreal.
He forced himself to breathe and searched through his memory.
Electric shock.
Blue screen.
And then he had opened his eyes inside a cave.
There’s no way... I didn’t even play VR. I wasn’t using anything like that.
Panicked, he flailed mentally for an explanation.
When he was still reeling, unable to sort out the facts, blue text overlapped his vision.
Body integration is complete.
The Dungeon Core pulses.
You are the Dragon of Evolving Life.
“...Hah.”
His head went cold, and a hollow laugh slipped out of him.
The moment he read it, he remembered with razor clarity what he had chosen in the game only moments before.
Dragon of Evolving Life.
The growth-type boss he had thought suited him perfectly, a late-game power scaler fit for an old man with endless time on his hands.
No way... I’m not actually a boss, am I?
Connecting to the core.
He felt something lock into place inside his head.
Even with his eyes shut, a scene rose before him.
A straight passage stretching ahead, and at the end of it, a faintly glowing white orb.
He had seen it more times than he could count.
It was the same structure that had appeared when he chose one of his builds.
...Far too familiar.
The Dungeon Core.
He turned his head, and the orb appeared in his actual field of vision as well.
Resting on a stone pedestal, it pulsed faintly like a heart.
So you really dumped me into the game, huh, GM?
He remembered the warning the GM had given him just before his memory cut off.
-You only have one life, so act carefully.
If that hadn’t been a joke...
Then this place was inside the game.
He stared at the core.
The core was the starting point and the end point, the place where the dungeon’s energy was born.
Strangely enough, as the core shone and the dungeon energy it emitted came with the message that they were linked...
As it synchronized with his body, he drew in a breath and felt warmth seep deep into his chest.
So this is dungeon energy...?
As he studied the core with that question in mind, a window opened.
Core Lv: 1
Energy Storage: 100/100
Energy Production: 200(+100)/h
Status: Beginner Protection Period (7d)
...Boss bonus.
The numbers were insane. He hadn’t expected the boost to be this absurd.
Production had doubled from 100.
Energy output had doubled.
This was definitely a “special bonus.”
And if everything scales by two on level-up...
When he considered the upkeep that would scale with production, the calculation for ongoing maintenance became easy.
But at the same time, remembering the GM’s constant talk about fairness, he suspected the difficulty of this new map was probably just as insane.
His reflection in the dungeon’s vision showed him jade-green scales and thick horns.
Aside from being ridiculously small, he was exactly the Dragon of Evolving Life he had set as his boss.
For a moment he watched the dragon, and another status window appeared.
Name: Lee Dohyun
Race: Dragon of Evolving Life
Growth Stage: Young Dragon
HP: 1000/1000
Traits: Evolution (EX), Authority of Life (F)
Skills: None
Dungeon Boss Blessing
All production increased by 100%, all consumption reduced by 50%.
※ Upkeep is not actually deducted yet, since the facilities are not active.
※ All upkeep will apply once production begins.
He nodded as he read the simple status window.
His body was probably of a draconic Eastern lineage.
Small, slender forelimbs.
...So I’m a lizard now...
The sight disappointed him, but as a dungeon boss blessing, it was absurdly powerful.
Of course, because his body had become this, the plain little dream he’d had was gone.
...With this body, a normal life is over.
He tried to laugh it off as a joke, but no laughter came.
Ignoring that, he checked the trait details more closely.
Evolution (EX)
Evolves a being that is ready.
Authority of Life (F)
Life regeneration within the dungeon increases by 10%.
Life growth within the dungeon increases by 10%.
Life reproduction within the dungeon increases by 10%.
Life energy within the dungeon increases by 10%.
Life consumption within the dungeon decreases by 10%.
Life recovery within the dungeon increases by 10%.
Life resistance within the dungeon increases by 10%.
(Additional effects unlock at E-rank.)
.
.
.
The traits made it seem like evolution was the dragon’s real core, while life was secondary, or perhaps just underdeveloped for now.
Game-like windows.
...Ha. It really is a game. I’ll admit it.
He was just about to let out another dry laugh when he felt his serpent-like tongue and the thought went cold at once, reason snapping back into place.
If I just sit here, I’m nothing but a rare trophy.
Dragons were the highest-grade, absurdly rare resource in the game.
The moment anyone discovered one in a beginner dungeon, he’d become a prime hunting target.
For safety, I need to grow immediately.
Maybe it was because he had become a dragon.
His mind seemed cold, sharp, and fast.
The instincts and thought processes of a ranker had begun running automatically.
This was a new map.
There was almost no information.
By contrast, the danger was ridiculously high, and a failed early build might mean death.
I need a build that’s safe, and that makes use of the bonus.
He focused on the sensation linked to the core and opened the interface.
[Map / Build / Summon / Transform]
Entrance side. Core room flank. Start with production facilities.
When he selected construction, the dungeon’s structure unfolded in his mind and he could see the veins of energy flowing through the walls and passages.
Energy moved mysteriously around the core.
...Dungeon energy, huh...
As he felt part of that energy flow into his body with each breath, he began to think the game had become real, and the dungeon energy with it.
Then the dungeon energy arrived, and construction began.
Thud.
Energy collapsed the soil, shaping it into a burrow-like facility.
Tch. It costs a lot of energy. Twenty points, of all things. If someone else dug it out, it would have cost less than half that.
Feeling the waste of energy, he studied the facility as it took shape.
[Goblin Production Site Lv. 1]
Effect: Produces 2M(+1) goblins per hour.
Upkeep: Energy 10(-10)/h
Control: 0/10
Production Method: Random
Two per hour.
And the upkeep had dropped from 20 to 10.
As expected, with this bonus... And green-skinned goblins are all about numbers.
He didn’t stop at one. He planned to build ten production sites in a row.
Ten.
A number expanded thanks to the bonus.
Once they were complete...
Twenty goblins would be produced per hour.
And as the production sites leveled up, the numbers would increase in triplets.
Soon, the core’s light dimmed.
All one hundred points of dungeon energy were exhausted, and after waiting for recovery, he finished building ten more facilities.
Since these were basic structures,
the burrow-like production facilities were completed quickly.
Then.
The soil gathered together, changing into a human-like shape, and a moment later it began to twitch as the goblins took form.
After all, goblins were fairies.
Being fairies meant they could be made from soil as a base.
The operating staff might deny it.
But after dragging in all kinds of old stories, he had been the one who won in the end.
So in the end, his victory had proven the theory!
Goblins were indeed the illegitimate children of fairies born from soil.
If you objected, that only proved you didn’t understand goblins.
The building he knew from before had been one that simply produced one goblin every hour.
But maybe because of the boss blessing, upkeep had dropped and production had increased.
See? This new stuff is broken.
He had started with ten buildings.
The dungeon energy began to replenish again.
Next, he built a transmutation platform and a spring.
[Transmutation Platform Lv. 1]
Effect: Swallows soil and transforms it into rock; swallows rock and transforms it into soil.
Upkeep: None
Use: 1 energy per 10kg consumed
Material: Random
[Spring Water Lv. 1]
Effect: Clear water 1L/h
Upkeep: 0(-1)/h
Effect: None
The transmutation platform looked like a flat stone slab.
The spring, meanwhile, let water flow out in a steady trickle from the designated point.
Since goblins were living beings too, he needed to build the essential survival facilities one by one.
Then he realized something.
So upkeep costs round down on decimals. No rounding up.
That was a pretty big advantage for someone who knew the system well.
In other words, large-scale construction at the right efficiency was profitable.
Deep inside the burrow, the first goblin let out a shrill squeak as it crawled out into view.
He planned to extract them right up to the control limit.
He lifted the corners of his mouth.
Good... now it starts.