[D'sP] At Least They're Cute And Fluffy - Chapter 362 (Patreon)

Ally was watching the Aerie as well. While they might have left the bodies out in the wild, not bothering to bring any back to throw in the dungeon, with a breeding population one or two would inevitably get tossed in. Not that she thought the pigeon based griffin was a worthwhile monster to add. In fact, she was certain that they would be critters just like the horned rabbits, if not worse.

At least a few teams would actually try to hunt the rabbits for their horns every once in a while. The town might hunt the griffins if suddenly they needed to make a bunch of cheap arrows. Even then, it is more likely they’ll hit up the thirteenth floor.

While as a nearly sapient species like the kobolds, the hexku don’t really have stray magic infusing their feathers. If anything, that is a bonus. The mixed magic of the pigeon griffins will cause trouble for any crafter looking to use them, even for non-magical arrows. Better to start with a blank canvas than it is a canvas where a child has scribbled over it with three or four different colors.

Despite all that, Ally wants to add them. Griffin type creatures and other similar mash ups are like the crabs of a magical world. They just keep forming all over the place. You can get anything starting with these pigeon cats up to the more monstrous creatures such as classical griffins, owlbears, and sphinxes.

Though despite the potential for them to happen naturally, you also got a good few that are the result of mad wizards and scientists that start out as chimeras. The rare few of which can breed and do so until the instability settles and they become a new permanent form of monster.

Then you add on top of that all the various hybrids, bloodlines, and curses. So yeah, once you add magic, you just end up with these sorts of things. There is no helping it.

And more importantly for a dungeon, certain kinds are so consistent that they’re mythical, which gives them room to grow. Griffins are a good example of this. If you mash the back half of a feline onto a bird, most people will recognize it as being a griffin or at least griffin-like. This conceptual connection means that even in the wild, one of those pigeon griffins could evolve into a higher form of griffin.

That doesn’t mean every griffin colony eventually ends up being eagle lion hybrids. Griffins can go in many directions. Plus, most won’t evolve as that requires some outside force and even if they do evolve? Well, one new critter a species does not make. Unless they get lucky and evolve such that they can still have kids with the rest of their flock, that’s the end of it.

Such problems litter the magical world. You’ll have a group of monsters being watched over by a more evolved form, but that’s it. Then once that evolved monster dies? The group tends to shrink quite rapidly, as they will have been living beyond their means. Sometimes this is even enough to force another of the group to evolve, forming a cycle of sorts.

Dungeons, however, don’t have to worry about that cycle of boom and bust. If even one griffin manages to upgrade from a pigeon to something else, that new form is added to the pattern. So it might take millions of years, but once Doyle gets a hold of a griffin of any sort, he will eventually have classical griffins to play around with.

Then the eggs began to hatch. Not all at once, though in larger batches than a nest at a time. In the end, 25 eggs hatched and of those, 23 chicks survived the night. Though over the next week, the number of survivors would drop to 18. It seemed that the pigeon griffins were more the type to have a ton of offspring and then let nature sort out those worth keeping.

Jim had somewhat expected this. While there hadn’t been much evidence of this at the original nesting site. The fact that some evidence remained despite what had likely been a very active scavenger ecosystem said all he needed to know. That wasn’t quite what he wanted.

Doctor however, assured him this was likely a temporary situation. After dissecting those that didn’t survive, it appeared that the species was somewhat in flux for the moment. While it is possible that this was a long-term issue. Doctor believed it was instead the result of them being so new and that within a few generations they should settle down.

And yes, those remains were thrown into the dungeon. However, the result of this disappointed Ally. Whether it was the eggs that didn’t hatch or the chicks that didn’t survive, none of them were viable. Which meant they weren’t able to provide a pattern. Sure, she was certain that if they really wanted to, they could snatch up a pattern for pigeon/cat griffin meat. However, without any desire for such a thing, the system wisely did not provide the pattern similarly to how it doesn’t provide patterns for sapient sourced meats or even near sapient.

This holds true under the system even if the local people are okay with such things. Of course, in places without a system, such things are left up to the local concepts and intent. Which can cause problems for a dungeon that developed under a “freer” community. Don’t, however, think this is limited to more monstrous beings. In fact, it most commonly becomes a problem in human communities because of their willingness to ignore sapience in beings they see as animals.

All that aside, Ally can only wait for them to throw one of the proper griffins in before getting access to them. And this totally wasn’t her wanting one because they looked both stupid and cute. Ace, on the other hand, certainly did not want them for that reason, but had to deal with those that did.

The town hasn’t even figured out if you could tame them and yet there were people already asking about having one as a pet. Of course, if they ended up taking more after cats the situation wouldn’t be too bad. However, pigeons require a good bit more work to keep as a pet, if only because of unfamiliarity for most people. There was the third option of them acting like griffins of course. After all, while they had the head of a pigeon, it was a good bit larger than a normal pigeon’s head.

For now, though, Ace could easily turn people down. After all, with only 18 of them and the chance of more dying, he needed to keep control of the current population. Maybe after more research into their care has been done and they aren’t a single accident away from not having any left, some could be pets. In fact, as long as they don’t turn out to be untamable, they will probably end up giving them away, going by how quickly their population had increased out in the forest.

Though this was more of a sideshow for Ace. A distraction from the much more important issue of regaining lost ground. Ace, Jim, and honestly many of the town’s core members had managed to make it to floor fifteen. Enough that they knew it wasn’t another boss level.

To be pushed back? Expelled from what they had fought tooth and nail for? That didn’t sit right with Ace or any of the others. Worse, even though this increase in difficulty affected everyone equally, the lower floors remained easier to conquer. The regular townsfolk and some outsides were inching closer to parity.

Ace could not, would not have others match him in delving. If only because it represented being close in strength. The problem being the time it would take. He needed someone to handle the administrative tasks and just after he made his power grab.

There are options for this, though the system provided solutions all cost a lot of cash. Not just for him, either. The prices you need to pay for basically an aide except controlled by the system scales with how much you are worth and that they are to manage is worth. So no super rich guy getting one for the cheap to manage a small time thing. Plus, they aren’t short-term contracts either or Ace might have been willing to hire one for a couple days.

That meant he was stuck with local help. The question was who and sadly, the answer couldn’t be Jim. While Ace would have trusted him, at least more than most of the others. Jim was forbidden from holding such a position because of his own position in the Adventurers Guild. Sure, there were loopholes and such that would allow Jim to basically run a town or more. However, most of that depends on what amounts to homesteading rights. So since someone who wasn’t in the Guild already set the town up, he couldn’t run it.

And in a not so shocking revelation, Ace realized that the other people he trusted the most, all happened to be in his own delving party. Which, since he wanted to spend his time delving, meant they couldn’t sub in for him. Though thinking deeper, there was one person who he could hand things over to and, for a horrible reason, trust the town would still be there when he got out of the dungeon. Plus, she had a ton more experience in running a town like this.

That person was Camila, leader of the local wolfkin and going by what the Barrais had found out, likely all the other nearby wolfkin as well. Not that she was some sort of queen or anything. Rather, she was a recognized wise woman among her people and the only one within a week’s travel. Not to say there weren’t others out there, but for now she was it.

And she wasn’t human. Ace didn’t care about that, he had hung out with her son, Jay, more than enough to realize they weren’t some strange other. However, the local human population, especially those in the outer ring, were not quite so understanding.

Did they accept them living in the town? Sure. But would they accept one as the permanent ruler? Most certainly not. However, on a temporary basis, they wouldn’t mind her aiding Ace while he was delving.

Did this sort of planning, no, scheming make Ace feel good? Most certainly not, but it would work. Besides that, unlike her son Jay, Camila wasn’t actively trying to raise her levels through delving. She worked on weaving and provided the inner circle with some very high quality baskets as well as a few other such things. It was just that while Ace understood all paths to power were equally legitimate, something about her crafts made him feel less worried than if she had focused on fighting.

This was of course misplaced. If Ally had been able to hear his thoughts, she would have laughed and laughed. While crafts like weaving might not necessarily lead to the strongest fighting strength. A powerful weaver can have so many more tricks up their sleeve than a regular fighter and even war mages. Whether this is because they’ve figured out how to weave light, space, or magic; or simply can weave something that can contain even those of a similar level. There are many ways for them to come out on top.

As Ace at least understood on the surface. All paths to power are equally legitimate. This is not some work saying that people give lip service to, but rather a truth that constantly gets beaten into people’s heads when the next example of it rises to power. Any skill taken far enough can grant power beyond belief. Though, admittedly, more mainstream skills have an easier time getting there and fighting skills naturally apply to conquering and fighting much more readily.

The Wilds Are Packed Tight - Chapter 361

Camouflage - Chapter 363