"You."
Vale talked to the imp as it observed its shiny red eyes and the scar that cut from just above its eye to its chin.
"Your name is… uhh… Larry."
The imp's eyes narrowed.
"Baduh?"
'Did I imagine that or did it just sneer at me?'
'What's wrong with the name Larry?'
'Whatever…'
Vale resummoned the imp's status page by intently focusing on the little red guy and wishing it back into existence. A moment later, it did, showing his assumption had been correct.
The name Larry now stood at the top of the page.
Curiously, he pointed to the point of the wall nearest to them and ordered:
"Mine it."
"Baduhhh!"
The imp bounded over and started slashing at the walls with its claws, creating much the same effect the picaxe had, albeit a much smaller proportion was carved out each hit.
Once again, Vale summoned the page.
♥︎♥︎♥︎
Name: [Larry]
True Title: —
Worker Level: [0]
Loyalty: [100/100]
Traits: [Nascent Builder] [Nascent Miner]
♥︎♥︎♥︎
'Knew it…'
These workers could cultivate their skills over time.
"Come back."
Larry dropped to all fours and bounded back to Vale's feet and looked up at him like a scared puppy.
"Bring the loincloth in the Core out here…"
The imp ran off, then quickly reappeared with the eight remaining cloth strips.
"Uhh… make something."
Larry looked at him, confused, before slowly picking up a cloth strip and tearing it apart with his claws.
"Baduhh?"
Vale just kept watching as the imp played with a cloth, while he momentarily checked Larry's page. A couple of minutes passed, and it seemed like his hopes were dashed, but then it happened.
Larry had acquired a new trait: [Nascent Artisan]
The imp proudly held up… whatever the fuck that travesty was, and continued sharply smiling.
While Vale didn't know how to raise the rank from Nascent, he had the idea that it would happen naturally as they kept working on a task. So, he called over four goblins from the building and switched their tasks to mining, while assigning another goblin to also work on… crafting.
He was cultivating specialists: four miners, two artisans, and the final three were builders, but he'd give them other tasks once they finished the walls of his labyrinth.
He'd also discovered a secondary feature of the map, which was like a mining blueprint. It was a holographic pink wall that showed the imp's where to mine.
So, he'd played around with it and ended up creating a design that created separate rooms on each side of the current Core room — one side already half-done by Salome. As well as getting started on continuing the hallway and moving the Core room further away.
But as for the new rooms: one would be for sleeping, the other would be for sleeping… a dungeon in a dungeon, one could say.
While he didn't mind the little gremlins, he felt weird doing it around them. So, he planned to create an area with at least some privacy.
Vale grew a smug look on his face, content with his progress.
This was much more like managing a dungeon. Unlike what he'd been doing before…
[Satisfaction +1]
'Huh?'
Vale looked over at his Champion and Toy, who were mushed together with Salome's hand over Toy's mouth and the other hand...
'That was one way to calm her nerves… I guess.'