He wasn't in the mood to ask the system what he should spend the 10 DP he accumulated over the days, so he was just wasting his time.
He had shut off his hearing and instead he spent that Mana to use his Transmute Skill, all he could really do was change the texture of his surfaces.
The walls, floor and roof were all smooth, and the right wall was a little concave. He had tried to expand, but he gave up after three days of getting practically nowhere.
Instead he was making a small hole on the left wall, it was about the size of a large rat.
He also wasted time testing out the other effect of Transmute, to change the type of rock. Occasionally, enough gravel would be blown in by the wind to make limestone, however it was incredibly slow and unbearably boring.
Ten days, that was how long he had spent not interacting with his system. The reason was simple, he was pissed off.
The Dungeon Altar that he bought at the recommendation of the system was pretty cool at first.
The white slab could even be moved along the cave's surface, so it was like a limb he could slowly move, which was pretty exciting.
However, even after struggling for a while, he finally managed to get a stalactite to land on it, but it wouldn't work.
[Dungeon Altar Lv. 1: Objects placed atop the altar can be consumed for Mana or Dungeon Points.]
As it turns out, he couldn't be the one to place an object atop the altar, it had to be someone else. It made sense, but that didn't mean he wasn't pissed.
In his spare time, he browsed the Dungeon Shop and even stumbled upon a Monster Summoning Skill that he could've gotten instead. The more skills he browsed the more pissed off he was at his system for the dud he bought.
There wasn't any real point, he was aware the system didn't have a consciousness, and that technically the responses were no different than his Status or the Dungeon Shop.
'Well, whatever, I've had enough. Funny, I always imagined I could last longer than ten days of isolation, but I'm ready to switch off my thoughts.'
…
The system didn't respond, as it wasn't directly addressed.
The Goddess didn't respond, she would probably never interact with him ever again, she wasn't benevolent, she was lazy.
'Let's do this.'
…
'Hgh, I'm ready.'
This could probably be classified as a form of suicide, so he didn't think anyone could blame him for his hesitation.
Even though he didn't have a heart, he could feel the phantom sensation of it thumping anxiously in his non-existent chest.
Perhaps it was a miracle, or simply good fortune, whatever force or concept responsible, he was extremely grateful when his suicide attempt was interrupted.
A small dirty girl, covered in dirt and leaves, and, more importantly, she had brown wolf ears and hair. She was dressed in rags and wearing a large metal shackle around her neck as she stumbled into his cave.
"Haah-hah-haaa-ha." She panted desperately, her sweat mixing with the dirt on her skin and forming light mud. She was clutching her side in pain and wiping away an almost endless stream of tears from her eyes.
Unfortunately, she was rather young, she probably hadn't even experienced puberty.
He would've preferred the first woman he met to in this world to be a mature woman with a great body, however he couldn't really bring himself to complain about what he preferred at the moment.
The small dirty girl was in pain, crying, and as she staggered in the cave, she left bloody footprints where she had stepped.
It was rather uncomfortable, his dreams didn't really include a lost child.
'She's a Faunus right? What's with that collar, is she an escaped slave or something? I doubt she was a prisoner.'
While he was distracting himself, the young girl reached the back wall.
Her body bumped into it and she fell backwards, she yelped during her fall. She continued to groan on the floor for a while, but then she looked around to all the walls and began crying a bit louder.
Tears, snot, and blood were smeared onto the ground beneath her.
He almost switched off his vision and hearing, he really didn't want to deal with an injured lost girl.
"Sss-sorry e-everyone." She mumbled through her sobs. "I c-couldn't d-do it, you all died for nothing."
'Ah sure, go ahead, just make me feel even more uncomfortable.'
There wasn't anything he could do, and he wasn't a fan of watching someone in pain.
'If you die here, I'm definitely killing myself.'
He couldn't imagine watching her corpse decay, he would rather die.
She sobbed some more before she went silent, he almost switched off his consciousness before he heard small whimpers from her.
'System, what should I do? How can I help her?'
He tossed aside his small grudge, but unfortunately he didn't get a response, he knew why; the life or death of the young girl didn't affect his existence as a Dungeon Core.
If it didn't matter, then he shouldn't care about it. However, before becoming a Dungeon Core, he was a person, so he couldn't just accept ignoring the young girl.
He was reincarnated in another world, something he could only dream of, and even though it sucked so far, he still didn't want his dream tarnished by the death of a child.
He admired the heroes in the stories he's read, and it was time he stepped up and followed their example. Which included saving the innocent.
"Ah! AAAH!" She suddenly spasmed and began screaming in pain, her hands shot up and gripped the buzzing metal collar on her neck. The buzzing lasted for a while, and so did her pained screams.
He searched through the Dungeon Shop, but there wasn't anything helpful in his price range.
'C'mon think! Think! How can I help an injured girl as a Dungeon Core?'
He cleared his mind, and began thinking intensely, his entire focus was on helping the young girl, but he couldn't come up with a plan.
However, after realizing he had just used a lot of Mana to form complex thoughts, he also realized he wasn't exhausted yet. The skill hadn't leveled up, so that meant something else was at play.
He only needed about a minute until he realized he was siphoning the young girl's Aura.
'Duh, obviously. I almost forgot a basic part of Remnant, the people here have physical souls. And Dust, which is probably powering that torture device around her neck.'
He shut off everything unnecessary, and he focused his Ambient Purification skill on the Dust inside the collar. The skill was supposed to be passive, but this wasn't a game, so what did that actually mean in regards to the real world?
As he felt Mana being spent and generated, he could also feel it rapidly reaching his cap, so instead he used the unspent Mana to expand the hole on the left wall he was making earlier.
He didn't have a proper sense of time, but as he felt the Dust inside the collar completely disappear, he switched on his vision and saw that it was nighttime outside.
He wasn't in the mood to think much, the young girl was shivering in her sleep as she laid in a dark cave. Even if he removed the power source of her pain, it didn't heal her injuries or comfort her.
And as he was struggling to imagine another way to help her, he saw an odd creature crawl into his cave.
A small white and black scorpion with a glowing yellow stinger.
'A Grimm! Seriously!? Fuck.'
The Deathstalker was pretty small, no bigger than a mouse, and yet even smaller non-magical creatures could have fatal venom.
As he began panicking, twisting and turning his sight, searching for something to protect the girl with, he saw the Dungeon Altar resting in a corner.
He used a bit of Mana to move it, and then he zipped it across the smooth ground. The white slab crashed into the small Grimm, and it dragged it over to a wall, where he repeatedly squished it until it faded away.
He had forgotten about the Dungeon Altar during his panic, but if the young girl survived, she should be able to offer things up to him. So now he had a more tangible reason to save her.
For the rest of the night, he was playing a close game of almost exhausting himself keeping watch, and then restoring his Mana from the ashes of the Grimm he had defeated.
