It was 11 am, and the group of four were on the train, taking a trip across the city that would have taken on foot a good couple hours. Nata was looking excitedly outside the window, Olivia kept an eye on the passengers, Hiroshi was relaxing on his phone reading messages, and Julia was calmly keeping guard.

  Before they knew it, train came to a stop by the station, and taking steps outside, they noticed the city to look more traditionally finnish designed, than the more modern Elmspring.

  "The buildings look amazing." Nata happily exclaimed, as Olivia joined in the sightseeing.

  "Yeah, this was the original town that the Elmspring got it's start at, not sure what it's name was originally thought." Hiroshi noted, as they started their walk towards their destination.

  Slowly, they came to mix of modern Elmspring and old town aesthetic, and amidst the design mix of traditional building design and modern artistic design for buildings, they found the dungeon museum.

  Grand in scale while still fitting into the scenery, and as they approached, it made them feel small, not due to height but the width and art installed onto it's side, happily imagining not only Elmspring but old world itself.

  And as they took steps closer to the entrance, their views got quickly distracted as they saw two guards at the front, handling and dealing tickets.

  Both were rock golems. One was about human size, and appearances similar, clearly a Demi or possibly kin monster, but then the other one.

  15 feet tall, hulking with boulders making it's body, with a barely noticeable face on the head, and simplistic at that, with couple crystals functioning as eyes.

  It both amazed, and put fear into any troublemaker, especially as they approached.

  "Hello and welcome to dungeon museum. Tickets please, and if you don't have any, it will be 7,50 for each person and 4 euros for kids ten or below." exclaimed the demi-golem upon seeing the group of four.

  "Right, also, we are here in part due to Edith Hamilton asking us to do some research." Hiroshi noted as he took out his wallet, taking it calm with Julia with him, while Nata and Olivia went to inspect the big golem, who happily waved at them.

  "Oh, Are you Hiroshi?" The guard asked, to which he nodded.

  "Nice to make your acquaintance, then. No need for tickets or paying, she already got you covered. I will call in Klas." she happily noted, as she calmly called on radio. "Klas? yeah, they are here. right, I will inform them immediately."

  "Klas will come to us, so no need to go seeking him out" he informed, only to notice Hiroshi having something in his mind.

  "Just to note, Nata here." Hiroshi spoke, as he pointed to the fluffy cloud who wasn't too far away, looking like she was willing to dare to climb on the golem. "She is part of ancient species."

  The guard gave a surprised look, before returning to smile. "Wow, she sure seems unassuming as one. There will be no problems, but Klas will make sure nothing bad will happen."

  "And what exactly that 'bad thing' is?" Hiroshi decided to ask, to which the guard got against surprised, but was more than happy to explain.

  "You see, some of our exhibits has unique effects upon mana, so we prefer to know who to be careful of when something suspicious happens. But I assure you, it will be safe. Me and my little brother here are part of ancient species as well." He happily noted, as pointing towards the massive golem, who gave nod in response.

  "Good to know." Hiroshi noted, as he checked on the girls, Julia calmly waiting by him as Olivia watched as Nata was happily climbing on the golem, who was letting her without much care, as other kids have gotten in interest of watching the trouble being made.

  "Hey, better not get hurt." Hiroshi spoke up, as Nata happily just gave a salute with the golem.

  "Wild ones sure are troublesome kind." The guard commented, enjoying the sight as well for being some more excitement than usual.

  "You don't even know half of it." Hiroshi replied, giving a half-smile.

  After short wait, they saw as a human came to the entrance, in partly formal wear, 6 foot, wearing glasses and short dirty blond hair.

  "Greetings, you called?" He asked, as guard spoke up "Yeah, Hiroshi is here by request of the tamers."

  With it, he gave a wide smile and put forward his hand for a shake. "Nice to meet you, name's Klas and I am director and lead researcher of this museum."

  "Nice to meet you too." Hiroshi noted, as he shook his hand. "These are my fosters, Olivia and Nata." He pointed out the two, before moving to Julia. "And you may already know about her."

  "Name's Julia." She spoke, as she went to give him a handshake. "Currently doing community service by guarding Hiroshi and his fosters."

  "Ah, yes. I have heard of you." Klas commented, as he took in the group. "We have already started partly on the work, but you two could help on... lightening the burden, in a way."

  "We will see what we can do." Hiroshi replied, as Nata and Olivia slowly came to the group and greet Klas as well.

  "That's appreciated. I will only need two of you. So you two can enjoy the displays. Just remember, no touching unless sign allowing it." Klas noted, as taking Hiroshi and Julia with him, as Nata and Olivia were free to explore, as they were brought in, with the entrance hall made for lounging and plenty of adverts for exhibits they hold, and science fair they are having during the summer.

  With the History exhibit was built to the left wing of the museum, right wing was reserved for modern monsters and science made upon the discovered mana and magic.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Klas escorted Hiroshi and Julia towards the right wing, Hiroshi quickly spoke up to the fosters. "Just call if there is some trouble, otherwise just wait here if we take longer than expected." before separating, leaving Nata and Olivia look in curiosity to the two wings they had fully for them to explore, with couple other visitors enjoying the displays.

  Klas kept leading them through displays of anatomy and theories on many different species, before they arrived at backdoor with "employees only" sign.

  Entering through, Hiroshi and Julia got to see a whole laboratory with many people, many humans and few monsters working on all kind of stuff.

  "Welcome to our lab. We do most of our research in monsters here. And most importantly, where we keep our data on monsters." Klas noted, as he brought them to an large computer terminal. clearly built to be on-site.

  "And what exactly are we here to help with?" Hiroshi asked, as Julia nodded in agreement of same question.

  "to put it simply, Edith was curious about one lead that Julia spoke of, or more as, didn't" Klas noted, as after some time, brought them to a case, where he took out an container.

  Both were surprised by the prospect of what lead they have gotten.

  Nata and Olivia arrived at left wing's first exhibit, a mural of dinosaurs with a meteor, and displays of fossils during the time and geological depictions, as to their curiosity, there was a speaker talking about the depicted set-pieces.

  "Thanks to recent scientific discoveries and theories, our concept of how Cretaceous ended, and how Cenozoic era started has changed a lot. As of previous conception, end came due to an massive meteoric impact, that caused huge climate changes across the world, ending in extinction of many species, and allowing new lifeforms to grow and evolve from the torn world."

  They calmly kept walking onward on the exhibit, until they got shocked to see something they didn't expect, but many visitors would have, display of fossils, that slowly lead to display of human civilization rising.

  Tools, remains and cultural pieces that they didn't expect, and much more fantastical views came in, they could also note some monster fossils as well, and a notable display, that Nata couldn't pry her eyes from for too long.

  "But to our surprise, the meteor wasn't just some rock from outerspace, but something magical on it's own. Through history, it has had many names, and it has influenced every single species on this world, The mana core." could be heard from speakers, as Nata slowly came close to see a small crystal fragments in a glass casing, Olivia checking it in curiosity as well.

  "The source of what made us who we are. And not only that, What made us unique. For centuries it has influenced, bringing both peace and war, causing conflicts greater in impact than in modern day, due to magical influence between people. History has been scrubbed in many places, and many pieces are not known in whole, however, there was three notable events that influenced the world to become what we know it to be today."

  Olivia noted Nata was staring for pretty long, so she gently nudged her forward, as next exhibit changed the tone heavily, to more religious and notable in artifacts, with armor pieces and couple sets of bones, to both winged people and werebeasts.

  "Around ten thousand years ago, the world was ruled by what they called angels and demons. Their influence from mana core was massive, with the most powerful were declared gods on their own right, with humanity left at their mercy. This is where we saw our first massive diversion in were-monsters, and noted to be uncontrollable, compared to modern day weres. This era was marked with heavy amount of war for resources and needless death."

  They calmly inspected the displays, as they were captivated by the views, before until next exhibit came up

  Looking more medieval in appearance, and the religious theming changed to more grim dark, as while displays changed to look more into alchemic and science oriented displays.

  "After what in ancient texts is referred as 'Abyssal collapse', that lead to majority of angels and demons to go extinct, only for new form of monsters to appear, the undead. During this period, the civilization turned to more cultivated form of knowledge, where not only magic was common thing to learn, but there were entire advancements on all forms of old scientific fields, and brand new fields that brought a new age, that lead to a long lasting peaceful era."

  As they continued, they could notice that they got past half-way point, as next display became more modern, but still in fantastical realm.

  Olivia's eyes quickly caught as one of the displays had a full on painting depicting a crew on a boat, and to her most biggest interest, saw an dragonkin on it, while Nata got extremely curious to see what seemed to be displays of dungeon ruins as models.

  "About four thousand years ago, texts speak of time when world collapse into corruption by the mana core, humans seeking strenght from it greedily. And as one of the notable figures in this conflict passed away, it caused a power struggle from all over the world, and during this time, dungeons became notable guarding points for people's greed. Holding treasure, monsters and whatever else these powerful individuals wanted, and none would be spared. This conflict lasted for a millenia, which lead to records of an world, while much more sparse, it was technologically in similar stage to our own, thanks to the utility of magic. However, this age wouldn't last much longer, as upon mana core losing too much of it's power, this civilization was destined for ruin."

  Olivia and Nata kept on going, before Nata took a look outside a window, that had a view to an middle courtyard, where she could notice a dungeon entrance.

  In her own curiosity, and to Olivia's surprise and dismay, Nata found set of doors to the courtyard in the exhibit, and happily wandered off the tracks towards the dungeon.

  It didn't take long for Olivia to notice, and as no one was stopping her, while also herself not wanting to get in trouble for losing Nata, she followed her lead.

  "Recently we got plenty of mana core shards, and Edith theorized that it would be something the Chuvaki would get their hands on." Klas noted as he displayed the blue glowing crystal shards in a small vial.

  "I don't recall seeing any, but I wouldn't be surprised if this is something they want." Julia noted, as she looked at the vial, not overly impressed by seeing it.

  "And why exactly would they want this stuff?" Hiroshi asked, to which Klas was ready to answer.

  "It has an ability to enhance one's magical abilities. A lot of history got scrubbed just because how influential it was on the entire human race." He answered, as he returned the crystal vial into save container.

  "Thanks to Sophia's funding, we have been able to get most of the crystals that were in legal markets into safe hands, us having just small fraction."

  "Wait, Sophia's funding?" Hiroshi asked, clearly surprised by hearing her mentioned.

  "Yeah. Her family is extremely rich thanks to her lineage and influences. She has helped to fund-raise a lot of important stuff, that includes the tamer operation you work for." Klas informed, as Hiroshi was happily shocked from such knowledge.

  "I see. Didn't consider that too much." Hiroshi admitted, before attention was returned to the crystals

  "Anyways, from my knowledge, there wasn't any plans to steal the shards you have, only the usual operations with the train only brought up when Vaska took control of the head-honcho." Julia admitted, easing Klas' mind.

  "That's good to hear then. Would hate to see history repeat itself." Klas said, relieved from his worries.

  "But while we are here, might you have any information about dire-wolves?" Hiroshi decided to ask, seeing their current problem is resolved. "It would make things easier with Nata, as knowing she isn't exactly 'normal' doesn't ease my nerves."

  Klas gave a warm smile to him, as he took out his phone. "I will send our data manager to check right away. The dungeon is pretty troublesome place to explore, so they will get the information before you even know it. On the meantime, why don't you join with us for a break, and maybe discuss some more. It is rare to talk with someone who is undead, let alone a human who has visited the other world and is here to talk about it."

  Both took the offer, seeing no trouble in it, meanwhile Nata took her curious steps into the dungeon, with wary Olivia after her.