The people of the alpha plane have made it their hobby to enter the dungeons of other worlds and conquer them. Naturally not everyone is happy with this as dark undercurrents begin to work against the conquerors.

As some people die in the dungeons they are made an offer. To give up their humanity in order to live on. 
Guy, a veteran carrier, is one of them, he can't bear to leave his family alone and accepts. From then on he must fight in the dungeons but as a monster while simultaneously continuing his life in the alpha plane in the shape of a human.
Jade, an elite adventurer, also accepts the offer but her intent is solely to get revenge on those who killed her and make humanity suffer for her life.
Monica, a little girl not native to the alpha plane is pulled into the happenings due to her childish innocence.

Returning my attention to my current student, I choose to answer evasively.


"I saw a need for spells in this field so I set out to create a few I thought would fill the void. I took inspiration from monsters, other elemental magic spells and even architecture. If you too want to create your own spells I can forward you some materials. There's this really interesting paper about the angle of avalanche stopping fences. If you-"


"Uhm, no thank you. I was just curious. Thank you for the lesson."


He interrupts me and quickly ends the lesson by leaving the VR space we are in. They are really curious until I start talking about dry studies on avalanche fences and then they bolt. It's the only way I've found till now to keep the endless lines of questions at bay. Some of my supposed students tried to outright interrogate me and Navi had to intervene.


Ah, yes. Capitalism at its best. High supply of earth mages, low supply of work possibilities equals low pay. Increase the possibilities for work and the pay increases as well because people have options.


<Exactly. So some idiots who sat high up in construction companies tried to get to you. But they were relatively harmless and the tower of magic made it very clear to them that they were out of line. They won't let anyone hinder the development of new spells regardless of the spells complexity.>


I just wish they had made it clear before I got hounded by all those people.


What's next on my agenda? Great labyrinth of death?


<Nope. Remember the team building activities you had me sign you up for? Clink forced both Maribelle and Peter to sign up and agreed to lead the team. She can be a bit overbearing when she wants something.>


How can she just force people to sign up?


In this case force people to join a team building exercise?


<She's trying to meet you, Guy. Your instructing can also be incredibly effective on people like us, you know.>


Then why have I yet to instruct any member of VR dungeons besides Jake?


Why? I barely have anything I can teach someone on Darwin's level.


Is survival really a useful skill when you can respawn from anything?


<Well, there may be cases where you won't be able to respawn even if you are bound to VR dungeons through contract and your soul has been altered to avoid permanent deaths. There are powers strong or special enough to permanently kill even you, rare as they may be. Also, the founding members don't enjoy the benefits of having their souls altered like this. They are of the previous generation of humans turned monster that were directly thrown into the dungeon with no safety nets.>


Wait, Darwin and the other branch managers can't respawn?


<Indeed, they cannot. However, as survivors of the previous generation, they are notoriously hard to kill. Each of them has a unique rebirth or death cheating skill. Even when compared to you guys who can respawn, they are probably harder to kill permanently.>


Well, they are a lot stronger than we are.


<True, they also spent a lot of time to get those skills. They would probably have been able to evolve at least once more if they hadn't taken detours to get those skills.>


Everything has a price. So where do I meet these work colleagues of mine?


I thought this was a team building exercise to keep up appearances?


So, do I just head to the nearest teleportation station?


I briskly walk towards the main entrance and find Navi waiting for me in the lobby with a backpack that gives off a weird feeling.


"And one with an insane capacity to boot. Courtesy of one of Darwin's many experiments."


"You'll only lose it by dungeon in a dungeon. If you ever need it for something worthwhile, you can just ask to borrow it again. Otherwise you can always by one of the more moderately sized ones in our employee store."


"Sigh, guess everything really does have a price."


And even if I've managed to save a decent chunk of money since buying our house, I have no intentions of spending that. Better to have some emergency funds.


Chapter 334 - team building nightmare (1)