Without wasting a second, I covered the crane’s remains in magma.

With the level of the spells increased, the whole process was quicker, and it all happened in less than a minute.

[You have gained 40 biomass]

After I was finished absorbing the magma, I returned my attention to the kids.

Most of them were standing at the back of the room while the white-haired boy had his weapon raised and was inching his way closer to me.

"What are you doing?"

The boy visibly jumped in surprise at the sound of my voice in his head.

For a second, he looked back at his friends to see if they had heard the voice too, but their faces showed no reaction other than horror at the sight of the monster before them.

The reason the others couldn’t hear me was because at Level 1, my telepathy skill could only connect me to one other person.

Right now, it was as if an invisible thread was linking our minds together and I could read the thoughts that surfaced in his head.

"Wait, it can’t be. Did you just..."

"Yes, I just spoke to you," I finished.

The boy spoke out loud, but when a person speaks, their words first manifest as thought for a brief second. This worked wonderfully since my hearing was terrible. I was only good at picking up vibrations.

With the level of my skill so low, I couldn’t dig deep into his mind unless he wanted me to.

"Don’t worry, I don’t have any intentions of hurting you. I saw that you were in trouble, so I came to help against the crane."

The boy frowned as a remorseful expression crossed his face.

"That crane was supposed to be our dinner," he responded.

Ah, so they were hunting the crane. This explains why they were the ones that had backed the crane into a corner and it wasn’t the other way around.

"But what are you guys doing in this dungeon in the first place?"

Surely a group of kids didn’t enter a dungeon just to hunt the monsters for food.

"We live here. That was until those humans began invading our dungeon. They killed our parents, and just a few days ago, a group of them kidnapped our big sis."

So they lived here before the players started showing up. Compared to what’s out there, this F-ranked dungeon was a safe choice.

Also, another thing they said caught my attention.

"You said humans took your older sister?" I asked.

The boy, though wary, nodded hesitantly.

"Yes, though they weren’t all humans. One of them was an elf, and another was a fox kin."

That sounded eerily like the party I killed earlier. They had a demon girl as part of their party but I remember I set the demon girl free.

Did she get killed by a monster afterwards?

The boy clenched his fist, and tears began accumulating in the corner of his eyes as he spoke.

"Our big sis only went out to hunt since our parents were gone and we were going to starve. She had to go out to a different section of the dungeon since all the dungeon rats had mysteriously vanished."

Oh crap. This was another group affected by the dungeon rat’s disappearance.

"I was the one that followed her on the hunt. She told me to run when the party showed up and attacked us."

"Alazar, who are you talking to?" the boy holding the stick asked.

From their viewpoint, it must’ve looked as if their friend was having a full-on conversation with a dungeon monster. Which he was...

Alazar answered the boy without turning around. His grip on his makeshift sword was tight, as if ready for any sudden attacks.

"I’m talking to this centipede. It asked me what we are doing here."

"Huh?"

The other kids looked back and forth at each other as if they couldn’t believe what their friend had said.

These kids won’t last long here. They were just too weak. Given their appearance, they were most likely demons.

The players said that this kingdom was mostly occupied by demons. It would be great if I could develop some kind of relationship with them.

But given my current appearance, this would be difficult, if not downright impossible.

So saving a few demon children and bringing them to safety would be a good place to start in building a relationship with the demons.

I rubbed my antennae against the ground to see if I could pick up any trace of their big sis. Luckily for me, I found something. That girl had several cuts and left trails of blood throughout the dungeon as she moved so luckily it wouldn’t be difficult to locate her.

"I think I know where your big sis is."

The boy’s face lit up.

"Wait, you do?!" the boy asked excitedly before pausing. He looked at me with deep suspicion before raising his sword higher.

"How do I know that you’re not lying? You’re just trying to get us to drop our guard so you can attack. I won’t let you hurt us!"

"Alazar, do you really think that if I intended to hurt you, I would be talking with you right now?" 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

"I umm... you’re just trying to trick me."

He was afraid and only wanted to protect his friends, but I had to get him to understand.

"If my real intentions were to hurt you, do you think I would need to trick you for that? You saw what happened against the crane. You were no match for it. If I didn’t intervene, it would have killed you."

Alazar’s hand trembled slightly as his grip tightened on his sword.

"But how can I trust you?"

"It’s your best choice. If not, you would be putting your friends in more danger instead of saving them."

The boy suddenly went quiet. Though he was young, he was a smart boy. He probably had lived through many things that adults couldn’t even comprehend.

It was desperation that drove him to attack the crane.

After a few seconds, he finally lifted his head with a serious expression on his face.

"Alright, but you have to promise me you’ll get everyone out of here safe. Including big sis."

This wasn’t how I had planned to spend my time here, but this was probably for the best.

I approached the boy with deep purple eyes and stopped just in front of him.

"I promise."