Chapter 1

Day 37

Haku had given us 150,000 DP as a reward for defeating her in the Dungeon Battle. Since we had 30,000 DP left over from the battle itself... minus the 10,000 DP I gave to Rokuko to do whatever she wanted with... we had in total 170,000 DP to do with as we pleased. I figured it would be best to use all that easy money (DP, actually) to prepare for the future.

First, I expanded the dungeon boundaries to encompass all the forest near the entrance to the cave with plans to turn the land into a large farm. I then bought ten [Sugar Beets (10DP)] while waiting for Golems to till the land. Naturally, I could turn sugar beets into pure sugar after growing enough of them. I would steadily increase the size of the farms, keeping a good distance from the dungeon itself, and make a lot of high-quality sugar. I would then sell that sugar. A get-rich-quick scheme, basically. It would have been easier for me to just buy sugar with DP directly, but that wouldn’t be sustainable. I’d get more money, but not more DP. Though, it seemed like fifty coppers together were worth 5 DP, so earning DP from sugar was possible if it sold very well. Just not very likely. I’ll have to give that a try if the sugar beets turn out bad or something.

I also tried buying several kinds of magic scrolls:

Low-Rank Earth Magic. [Stone Scroll (700 DP)]. A spell that makes a stone that you can send flying.

Low-Rank Water Magic. [Water Scroll (500 DP)]. A spell that makes a ball of water that you can send flying.

Low-Rank Wind Magic. [Air Voice Scroll (400 DP)]. A spell that makes wind that you can carry your voice on.

Low-Rank Fire Magic. [Fireball Scroll (500 DP)]. A spell that makes a ball of fire that you can send flying.

Low-Rank Light Magic. [Light Scroll (500 DP)]. A spell that makes a ball of light that you can float around.

Low-Rank Darkness Magic. [Blind Scroll (600 DP)]. A spell that makes a ball of darkness that makes it harder to see.

Bottom-Rank Space-Time Magic. [Wallet Scroll (600 DP)]. A spell that lets you store and withdraw money.

I bought three of each. One for me, one for Rokuko, and one for Niku. I just wanted us all to learn something from each element of magic. It might be useful one day, somehow. Though, uh... I went with a Bottom-Rank spell for Space-Time Magic, but why’s the spell called “wallet?” I mean, it apparently just lets you use an alternate dimension as a wallet, but still. What’re you doing here, Mr. Auto Translator...?

I also bought the useful-looking Mid-Rank Space-Time [Storage Scroll (10,000DP)]. It was pretty expensive, but since I didn’t want to be stingy with our easy money, I bought three of those as well. Handily enough, it seemed that time stopped for whatever item you had stored. I immediately stored away my [Heavenly Pillow]. Yeah... Looks like I’ve got about a closet’s worth of space in here. I put my [Futon] in there as well. Now I didn’t need to worry about any inns with hard beds.

And so, I used about 40,000 DP in total, leaving us with 130,000 DP. That seemed like a lot, but I was planning on using most of it to expand the dungeon further. Yeah... I’m starting to feel really nostalgic for the times when using a bunch of DP meant having literally zero left over. Now anything less than 10,000 is just rounded out. I’m like a minor celebrity.

Oh, right. Perhaps thanks to expanding the dungeon so much, our natural DP intake had risen to 100 DP a day. I think Rokuko said something about that being DP absorbed from the ground. Ten times as much, huh...? That seems like a lot, but our dungeon is way more than ten times as big as the single room it used to be. I wonder if there are like, special DP spots that boost daily DP income or something? Power spots. Y’know.

Hmmm... I feel like 100 DP a day is enough for me to sleep soundly. That’s like earning 10,000 yen a day for doing nothing, okay? My income for doing nothing is 300,000 yen a month. I could handle living peacefully with Rokuko and Niku for that much money. Sounds good to me. Ah, but wait. I can’t do that. Adventurers are gonna come. Crap.

Anyway, I looked at the DP Catalog after the Dungeon Battle and realized that there was a new trap... or rather, a new contraption available. The [Monster Spawner]. It cost one hundred times as much DP as the selected monster, but it would regularly spawn that monster in return. According to Haku, new items and options would be unlocked within the menu by fulfilling certain conditions with our dungeon. I figured that the [Monster Spawner] was unlocked by the overall number of monsters summoned. After all, we had summoned a lot of monsters for that Dungeon Battle.

Oh, and monsters born from the spawner couldn’t leave the dungeon. They wouldn’t earn us DP after they died, either. Though they would leave behind corpses like a normal monster, so making a Golem spawner would net me an infinite amount of any material I wanted. Iron Golems would be perfect for this, but a single one of those costs 500 DP. That means the spawner would cost 50,000 whole DP... Might be worth it for all that iron, though.

Anyway. I intended to turn our dungeon into a place that people would regularly visit and relax in for a while, earning us both DP and money. In other words... I intended to build an inn within our dungeon. Or rather, outside the dungeon, but within the dungeon boundaries. That was my ultimate plan. Heheh. Adventurers will pay to sleep the night and I’ll still get DP from them. Two birds with one stone, hell yeah. Huh...? I’m being cheap? Aw, c’mon. Let me have this. If I stand out too much, heroes... Soldiers of God will start investigating my dungeon. And remember, I’ll die if the Dungeon Core gets destroyed. I can’t sleep if I’m dead. And before you say anything, I don’t count eternal sleep as real sleep.

I wanted to at least build up the dungeon to be strong enough that I could sleep peacefully even with Soldiers of God hanging around. The best example I could think of a dungeon like that was the [Ivory Labyrinth], with its surrounding capital city. I had never been there myself, but the [Ivory Labyrinth] seemed like a clear case of success that would be worthwhile to aspire towards. People gather in cities, and that means more DP. DP can be used to expand the dungeon. More people would gather in the city in search of the dungeon’s treasure. And that’s that. It would be an infinite loop of profit for me.

The only problem would be that as more people came, so too would Soldiers of God. I needed a dungeon as strong and powerful as the [Ivory Labyrinth] to fight back the Soldiers of God. According to Haku, the [Ivory Labyrinth] was at least over one hundred and fifty floors deep. 150! That’s three whole digits. Our dungeon still only had four floors. One digit.

To take things a little further, it was important to consider that the capital city of the Laverio Empire was in fact part of the [Ivory Labyrinth] itself. That effectively turned every human in the city into a hostage — destroy the [Ivory Labyrinth’s] Dungeon Core and all those innocent people would suffer. Plus, Haku was actively using her knight platoons to hunt other dungeons in order to please the Soldiers of God. That’s how far I would have to go to be safe from them.

Honestly, the dream seemed so distant and the road to get there so treacherous I felt like I’d die before I reached it. So, I decided to start off with a miniature version of that. I’d build and manage an inn. Or more accurately, I’d build an inn and make other people manage it. I planned on staying inside one of the inn’s rooms and sleeping all day, which was especially why I wanted to build a really nice inn.

But no matter how nice the inn was, nobody would come all the way out to the middle of nowhere just to stay in it. Well... There was a dungeon nearby. But it was a pretty shabby dungeon. In order to make our dungeon attractive to potential customers... Yeah. I would need to place some [Monster Spawners] and such around. Eh. If it turns out becoming a Dungeon Master has made me immortal or something, then I’ll shift my sights to reaching the [Ivory Labyrinth’s] level.

＊ ＊ ＊

“Oh crap. I totally forgot about him.” While laying in bed and visualizing how I wanted the inn to turn out, I suddenly remembered that I had told the Tsia gatekeeper that I’d be back in two or three days. A week had already passed since then. W-Well, coming back a little late shouldn’t be a problem. I’m just a newbie adventurer from nowhere to them, after all. Wait... do I even need to keep pretending to be an adventurer? I guess it’ll still be useful for getting into town, and it’s not like it hurts to be an adventurer. Plus, Haku may have taught me a ton of things, but I still know way less about this world than I’d like to.

“...Guess I should pay a visit to town.” While I was there, I would have a chance to get some help for the inn. Not help with constructing the inn; Golems could do all of that physical labor no problem. What I needed was a person. A person that could interact with customers. Right now, my squad consisted of me, two lolis, a bunch of Golems, and a ton of rats. We weren’t equipped to deal with customers.

For starters, I had no intention of sitting behind a counter and dealing with customers. At the same time, customers wouldn’t take the inn seriously if they were greeted by receptionist lolis. Customer service was too complicated for Golems, and rats were just out of the question.

To make things worse, our inn was in truth part of a dungeon. There were countless secrets we needed to hide, and we couldn’t just tell a normal person to keep those secrets. Then how was I going to find help? Yep, you guessed it. Slaves. I would buy a slave. I would need to feed and shelter the slave, but thanks to Contract Magic, I didn’t need to worry about them spilling secrets or avoiding work. Niku was proof that a well-raised slave would become an excellent worker.

“So, I’m going to town, and I’m planning on buying a new slave while I’m there.”

“A-Am I not good enough?!” Niku raised her voice in panic. That may have been the first time I had seen Niku really assert herself.

“I-I learned how to read and even use magic! I-I... I’ll be even more useful to you, Master! E-Even at night, I’ll... I’ll be an even better dakimakura for you, so please!”

“Er, uh, thanks. I really appreciate that. Self-improvement is always a good thing. Good luck. And while you’re at it, spend some time thinking about how you’ll help your fellow slave get used to how things work here.”

“Wh-What? Y-You’re... You’re not going to sell me?”

“Of course not. I won’t sell you. So calm down. Why are you stripping? Why?”

I calmed the panicky Niku down and stopped her from stripping.

Listen to me. Don’t strip your clothes off. Especially not your socks. Keep those on. Taking off socks is a signal that a nighttime “battle” is about to start. Let’s not cross that line.

“I wouldn’t have taught you magic if I planned on selling you to begin with. Plus, you know way too much about our dungeon and what’s going on behind it. At this point, I’m gonna have to keep you here forever.”

“...Th-Then, I get to be your slave for the rest of my life, right?!” Niku spoke happily while wiping away her tears. Yeah, pretty much, but uh... Well, whatever. If she’s happy about that, I’ll just be happy for her.

“Hey, just so you know, there are ways to keep being his slave even after you die. The King-Rank Darkness spell called {Necromancy} can help with that.”

“Yes, please use that on me!” Rokuko, come on. Did you really have to say that? And... according to the catalog, a [Necromancy Scroll] costs about 800,000,000 DP. We’re not buying that anytime soon...

Day 38

I exchanged 10,000 DP for one hundred silver coins and put them into my {Wallet}. I hope one gold coin is enough. I’ll bring the cash the bandits died with too just in case. Worst scenario, I just buy an apple or something. I also decided to bring an actual coin bag to disguise when I was casting {Wallet}. Huh? They’ll notice me chanting? Nope, {Wallet} doesn’t need a chant or anything. It works without a word being spoken, which makes it easy to use stealthily. I dunno why that’s the case, but it is what it is. Whoever created the spell probably put in overtime to make it silent after realizing that walking around chanting “{Wallet}” made him look like an idiot who had lost his wallet somewhere.

Either way, we had 120,000 DP left over after that. I-I’ll start being more frugal soon. Rokuko came up to me pouting while I was in the middle of packing for the trip.

“Hey, Keima. You’re really going to that town again?”

“Huh? Yeah. Sorry, but you’re gonna have to hold down the fort while I’m gone. I don’t wanna leave our dungeon alone with just a bunch of Golems and rats protecting it.”

“Okaaay... not! Did you really think I’d be okay with this?! I’m going too!” Uh, I mean. Do you really wanna leave our dungeon alone with Golems and rats?

“There are Goblins too!”

“Why do you always overrate Goblins so much?” What’s so good about them?

“...Would it really be so bad for me to go with you? I mean, nobody’s going to come by while we’re gone.”

Well, she’s got a point. And if someone does come, they’ll probably just be a low rank adventurer. No A-Rank adventurer other than Haku is gonna be rushing down here to explore [Ordinary Cave]. Plus, the Guild is still protecting our dungeon, so... Yeah. I’ll put the Dungeon Core as deep into the dungeon as possible for safety and order the Golems to protect it no matter what. We should be safe for a day or two that way.

“...Alright. You can come with us.”

“Yay! I’ve never been to a human city before!” Rokuko instantly gave me a bright smile.

So, after finishing packing, I went to Tsia City again with Niku and Rokuko. I briefly wondered if the living avatar of a Dungeon Core would be fine leaving their dungeon, but then I remembered that Haku was walking around outside without any issue. Apparently, everything would be okay as long as that shining rock stayed inside the dungeon.

We arrived at the city and, coincidentally enough, the same gatekeeper as last time was there.

“Oh, you’re alive, huh?” He called out to me, having also remembered me. Seemed like it was pretty common for adventurers to come back later than planned. This is a world without any trains, after all.

“...Hm? And who is that other girl with you? I’ve never seen her before.”

“Aaah, she’s... a friend of mine. She wants to become an adventurer too, so we’ll go ahead and lend you the insurance money.” Niku and I showed our Adventurer Guild cards. Rokuko paid him five silver coins instead. I’ll have to get that back later. After paying an additional three coppers as a toll fee, we were inside Tsia.

I decided to start things off by heading to the Guild, where I could both register Rokuko as an adventurer and get info on where I could buy a slave. Rokuko looked curiously at the food stands on the way there, but eating could wait.

The same receptionist as usual was sitting behind the Guild’s front counter.

“Oh my, I see you’re still alive. Welcome back.”

“Yeah, some things happened and it took longer to get back than I thought it would. Oh, right. Do you have any dungeon-related quests that I could take?”

“Umm, I’m afraid I do not at the moment. We’re planning to put up a few soon, however.” By the way, Haku had finished up the investigation quest before the Dungeon Battle began. I guess she can just submit complete quests in the Imperial City no matter where she got them. Apparently, she reported that there was nothing suspicious about our [Ordinary Cave]. She may have abused her authority to pull that off, but either way, I was thankful. She had bought us some time.

“Okay. I’d like you to register this girl as an adventurer.”

“Hold on a second, Keima. Why’re you calling me ‘this girl’? I have a name.”

“You two seem to be close. Very well. I will give her the interview.” Rokuko quickly finished the interview and became an adventurer with no issue. She was a G-Rank adventurer on her own, but she’d be treated as an F-Rank adventurer due to being in a party with Niku and I. Nice. Now Rokuko has an excuse to be hanging around humans too. We did lose some of our slave-buying funds, though.

“Oh, right. I want to buy a slave. Do you know where I could get one?” I tried asking the receptionist about the slave market. I could probably rely on the Adventurer’s Guild introducing me to a good place to buy slaves. It was apparently fairly common for adventurers to use slaves. This receptionist would definitely know of a good place or two.

“...It depends on what you wish to use the slave for. Do you have any plans for them?”

“Yeah, a few. I want one with a lot of life experience. Preferably a smart one, too. And... Right. They have to be a girl.” Hey, don’t look at me. I’m just following Haku’s instructions. She was really serious about me not buying a male slave. It was pretty obvious that she didn’t even want me close to Rokuko. I wouldn’t mind either way, but Haku’s a pretty important patron. I don’t want to get on her bad side. Trust me. I’m not trying to make a harem here. I swear. I have no interest in the carnal desires of flesh. I’m not exploiting this situation to get my hands on a girl slave with beautiful feet. I want to lick her feet. Ah, crap, the truth slipped out. My thoughts were interrupted by the receptionist shaking her head in exasperation and telling me what I wanted to know.

“If you have enough funds a slave market within the city is preferable, but if not, you could also try finding a black market slave trader in the slums. Though the Guild will not be able to introduce you to such a trader.”

“I have a little under one gold to spend on a slave.”

“In that case, I recommend Docosp’s Slave Market within the city. And by the way... If you are looking for an experienced slave, you could try checking the local brothel to see if they are selling any of their slaves today.”

“Ah, no, I didn’t mean it like that.” The receptionist seemed to be misunderstanding something, but since I couldn’t exactly go around talking about our dungeon, I just brushed it aside and asked her to point out Docosp’s Slave Market on the map. Between you and me... I actually am interested in that kind of thing. I’m just not planning on saying so in front of Rokuko and Niku. We left the Guild and immediately went to Docosp’s Slave Market after dropping by the gate to get our insurance money back. Rokuko stopped by several stands on the way, so it took a long time for us to get there.

“Look, look! Keima, they’re selling magic stones! I wonder what for?”

“They power magic tools, apparently.”

“Oh wow. Magic tools like that, um, shiny thing we have, right?”

“Yep. Some tools shoot out fire, water, and other stuff. I might buy some of those for our inn.”

“Eh? But there are traps and contraptions that do the same thing, right?”

“...Oh yeah. I remember seeing [Water Sources] and [Flamethrowers] in the catalog.” And so, we reached the slave market without buying anything on the way. We needed our money for the slave, after all. I looked the place over and... Yep. They may be selling slaves, but this place just looks like a normal old brick building.

“...This place is very different from where I was.”

“Huh, you really were sold to those bandits. What kind of place were you kept in?”

“Um, it was a really dirty place outside the gates.” I guess that means Niku came from the slum’s black market. Can’t say that’s surprising. She was bought by bandits, after all. It crossed my mind that it might be better to check out that slave market instead, but what I needed was someone who knew a lot about the world. Someone who would immediately be very useful. I could check out the slums later.

Nothing was gonna happen if we just stood around, so I went into the building with Rokuko and Niku. Alright. It’s shopping time. The moment we entered the building, we saw a counter with a slave standing behind it.

“Welcome to our establishment. What business do you have with us today?”

“Er, I would like to buy a slave.”

“Please excuse me, but may I ask who introduced you to us?”

“The Adventurer’s Guild.” The slave left the counter, asking us to wait a moment. Soon enough, she came back with a buff-looking middle-aged guy.

“Welcome. I am the owner of this establishment, Docosp. Valued customer, I heard that you would like to buy a slave on this fine day.” The shop owner gave us a smooth business smile. He looked like a reputable salesman, which made sense given that he ran a shop right in the middle of town.

“Yes. A member of the Adventurer’s Guild told me that this is a good place for buying slaves.”

“That is indeed correct. There is not a slave I own that isn’t the best of the best.” He chuckled confidently.

“So, what kind of slave are you looking for?”

“Mmm, first of all, I want a girl with really pretty feet. I have lots of things I’ll want her to do, so her being smart would be a huge plus.” Rokuko punched me in the side after she heard me casually include “pretty feet” as a criteria.

“Hold on, Keima. Why did you mention pretty feet? And as the first thing, too.”

“...Sorry, my friend, but could you keep quiet while I’m negotiating? This is actually an extremely high-level bartering technique. It’ll play a very important role in us finding the slave we need.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I’m too busy to explain how right now. So please keep quiet for a bit.” Rokuko nodded, though her expression was conflicted enough that I couldn’t tell if my answer had satisfied her. But either way, it looked like she’d stay silent for me. Perfect.

“And my budget is one gold coin. What do you think?” Since we had the Guild backing us here, I doubted the slaver would try to rip us off too hard. I hadn’t fully grasped the economics of this world yet, but his business would be effected both by whether customers came back to buy more slaves and by what kind of reputation they developed through word of mouth. Plus, he would definitely find a slave within our price range. The receptionist recommended this place after I told her our budget, after all.

“Hm. May I ask you to be a little more specific about what you want? You are here from the Guild. I would like to find the absolute perfect slave for you if possible.”

“Alright. I’ll be using her for basic chores, so she won’t need to know any skills. Preferably she’d be of adult age. Plus, of course, the cheaper the better.”

“And even better if she has pretty feet, yes?” Looks like he remembers the request I accidentally let slip out at the start. This guy’s good.

“Hm. So you are looking for a slave to do chores. And if you’re fine with a cheap slave, that must mean you’d be fine with a non-human slave. I will bring several candidates for you to look over.” The slaver stood up, left, and came back after a brief while with four women in tow. Judging from their collars, they were all slaves. Yep... They all have fantastic legs and feet, every one of them. Spectacular.

“Are these slaves to your liking? They respectively cost eighty silvers, one hundred ten silvers, ninety silvers, and sixty silvers.” The fact that he brought out a slave a little more expensive than one gold coin, despite that being my budget, just showed how experienced of a salesman he really was. But anyway. Starting from the left, the slaves were a bear-eared beastkin, a fox-eared beastkin with a fluffy tail, a vaguely unhappy elf, and a normal human. For whatever reason, they were all eyeing me over as if they were the ones buying me, instead of the other way around.

“Wait. Why’s that sixty silvers slave so cheap?”

“Aaah, erm, how should I put this... She has a, shall we say, troubled history. I brought her out due your request for a cheap slave. Shall I take her away?”

“Nah, that sounds interesting. I’d like to hear what that troubled history is.” You could usually count on people with ‘troubled histories’ being the exact kind of people you want on your side.

“Very well, I will explain.”

To summarize what the slaver said:

• She had fallen into slavery after being unable to repay a loan she took out for gambling and extravagant foods.
• Her last owner returned her after she wounded him.

...The man who bought her said that he’d give her “a real tasty meal,” but then came back the next day saying that she had bit his, uh, member. The slave herself, when questioned, would only say “It tasted like total garbo. Gimme my money back.” I’m pretty sure that’s what the guy you bit should be saying. In the end, his wounds were healed with Restoration Magic and that settled that.

“But wait. I thought slaves were incapable of harming their masters?”

“The fact she managed to break that rule is why I called her history troubled. It seems that she sincerely considered the... thing presented to her to be food, rather than a part of her master. Naturally, her collar activated after the deed was done. The... conflict arose due to the fact that her master had promised her a good meal, and then thrust out his member while saying ‘Come on now, eat it.’ Have no fear. There is no issue with the Contract Magic cast upon her. It was just a series of unfortunate coincidences.” Ah. In other words, he basically gave her permission to bite him. There’s no helping that. Since it was so important to slavers that their products be restrained by Contract Magic, Docosp had apparently taken her to the Merchant’s Guild and used lie detecting magic tools to determine the exact truth of what had happened. That’s why he knew the exact statements they had said to each other.

“...That said, we’ve naturally been struggling to sell her again due to that. We paid a large sum of money for her, however, so we’ve been hesitant to get rid of her. Especially since she has an appealing appearance. We’d at least like to make some of our money back. So... What do you think? I believe she is quite the steal.” She certainly did have a nice and shapely body, with healthy curves where you’d want curves and a narrow waist to boot. Her hair was blonde with a hint of red, as was common in this area. Visually, she was a feast... though I was satisfied with her beautiful feet alone. And to be honest, having a busty receptionist with a pretty face was more than ideal. The biting thing wasn’t even a major problem to me. I just had to avoid sexually harassing her.

“I want to hear what she thinks first. So? What’s on your mind?”

“I let that turbojerk buy me ’cause he said he’d give me some tasty food. Can ya blame me for doing what I did when he shoved that nasty thing in front of me the second we got back to his place? I was super hungry and really looking forward to whatever good stuff he had ready for me. Really, like, did I have any other choice but to give it a bite and see if it really did taste good? But y’know, trust me, if he actually gave me a good meal and filled up my belly first, I definiiitely wouldn’t have pulled any tricks like that. You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours, ’kay?” What the hell? This slave sure has a big personality.

“I care more about food than my own life. I’ll like, die if it means eating a good meal. For real.”

“I see, I see.” I would do basically anything for the sake of sleeping, but even I would hesitate before saying I’d die for it. Yeah. I like this girl. She’s not bad at all. And her cheap price just makes things better. She might have a gambling addiction so intense she literally took out a loan for it, but that also means she lived an active enough life to know the things I’ll want to know. I guess it’s settled, then?

“Rokuko, Niku. What do you two think? I like her.”

“Well, she’s the cheapest one, so I feel like buying her would be smart.”

“I think so too. Plus, our food is really good. She’ll like that.”

“Oooh, really now! Are you gonna share that tasty food with me?” A slave with a “troubled history” that butts into conversations without permission, huh? She let out a tiny choke, probably due to her collar squeezing her throat a little. I guess that just goes to show how much she cares about food. I asked the slaver to give her permission to continue speaking.

“I don’t know if you’ll like it, but yeah, you can eat the same food as us.”

“Really?! Just so we’re totally clear, I’ll bite your thing off if you’re lying, okay?! You don’t wanna make a gourmand angry.”

“Yeah, I promise. As long as you promise to work well for me.”

“I like this guy! Hey, hey, Mr. Docoooosp, would you be super duper nice and lower my price for him? Please? I’m actually worth like forty-five silvers, aren’t I?”

“Hey! Don’t say that! Ah... Uuuh, my valued customer, this is... I mean...” The slaver paled and stumbled over his words. Seemed like this girl really was a bit of a handful. But she seemed smart. After sensing my intent to buy her, she tried lowering her price to help solidify that decision. She even knew what her actual value was. That all could have been an act planned by the slaver, but even if it were, I’d have to praise the sincerity of her acting. Yep. I’m buying her.

“Alright, I’m willing to pay fifty silvers for her.” I threw the slaver a bone by adding five silvers.

“...Thank you very much.”

“Hell yeah! Trust me, my dude, you have made a fantastic purchase today. Oh whoops, I’ve gotta start calling you Master now, huh? Haha!” The slaver was shrugging his shoulders. Although he was earning less than he wanted, he had finally sold a major pain in his side for a decent sum. Though he did make sure to inform me that he wouldn’t pay me anything if I came to return her. That was all, though. I’m glad the negotiations were short.

I paid the slaver fifty silver coins (or rather, five big silver coins) and watched him cast new Contract Magic on her. While I was at it, I bought her some new clothes as well. They shamelessly charged me a whole silver for a single dress and pair of underwear. I didn’t mind too much, though, since I was still way under budget. I had paid only half of what I intended to. And so, I left the store with a new slave.

“Oh yeah, I never asked what your name is. What do people call you?”

“Wha? The heck’re you talking about? Masters name their slaves after buying them. Am I right, Niku♪?” She shifted the conversation to Niku as if she was saying something obvious, but all she got was a confused head tilt.

“I didn’t know about that.”

“Wha? How didn’t you? This is like, ultra common sense. Just think about it. What if you bought a slave with the same name as your mom? No matter how much of a sexy babe she is, it’d be awk as heck during nighttime festivities if you know what I’m saying. So, people get rid of their names after being enslaved.” Ah. Makes sense.

“Hey, Keima. What are ‘nighttime festivities’?”

“Uhhh, nothing. Nothing at all.” I patted Rokuko’s head. Dirty jokes were a no-go around her. I didn’t even want to know what Haku would do to me if I started teaching Rokuko about dirty jokes.

“...Well, it’s not like I totally forgot about my name after getting rid of it. I could tell it to you if you really want... aaah, but I’ve actually made a looot of enemies, so like, I’d way prefer a new one. I’m not picky, give it your best shot.”

“Uuuh. What did people call you before today?”

“Hm? Well, they called me ‘Niku’ too, y’know?” She responded after licking her finger, as if thinking about the flavor or something. A shudder ran down my spine after I realized it might have been the... thing she bit. Huh. I wonder if Niku is just a common name for slaves? Like how a ton of people call their dogs ‘Poochie’ or cats ‘Mr. Scruffles.’

“It’d be really confusing if they shared a name. Let’s think of another one for her, Keima.”

“Yeah... You like eating a lot, don’t you? I could name you after some food... How about Apple? Or Kebab?”

“Apple isn’t the worst name I’ve ever heard, but Kebab? No thanks... How about, like, Melons? Actually, I really wanna eat some melon right now. Could you buy some for me?”

“I’ll let you eat something like that soon enough.”

“Woah, really?! Geez, I’m really gonna have to work hard for you, huh?” She cackled happily with her own large melons swaying side to side. She was hardly acting like a slave at all.

“Oh, right. Whaddya think about ‘Ichika,’ boss man?”

“Huh? What’s that mean?”

“It’s a name I ripped off from the God of Food. They’re named Ishidaka, and they’re also the God of Oceans. So, mixing their name with salt, since salt comes from the ocean, we get Ichika. Super cool, huh?”

“Oh wow. That’s really clever. We definitely bought the right one, Keima.” Rokuko nodded, impressed, but I had no idea how she got “Ichika” from “Ishidaka” and “salt.” Probably had something to do with the auto-translator messing up. Yeah, I’m used to this now.

“Alright, Ichika’s good with me. Here’s to a long and fruitful relationship.”

“Hehehe, you got it♪” From nameless to Ichika. We shook hands again. But Ichika was looking somewhere else while we shook hands. I followed her gaze... and saw that she was staring at a kebab stand.

＊ ＊ ＊

We all headed to the Adventurer’s Guild, each of us holding a kebab.

“Mmm? I’m pretty sure the Guild is over here, yeah?”

“Yep. The Guild introduced me to that slaver. I feel like I should probably give them the heads up that I went through with it.”

“Woah, you’re an adventurer? What’s your rank? D? C? Oh dude, are you a B-Rank?”

“Nope. F-Rank. I just became one like a week ago, so yeah. Oh, but Rokuko here is a G-Rank.”

“Wha? F-Rank and... G-Rank? I’m hella impressed you had the cash to buy me... Are you a noble? Or maybe a trader?”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll tell you everything soon enough.” The fact that Ichika immediately started thinking about how I could have gotten that much money without just shouting “That’s impossible!” was yet more confirmation that I had bought the right slave.

“Do you want me to register you as an adventurer too, Ichika? Having some ID would be pretty useful.”

“Aaah, I used to be a C-Rank adventurer before falling into slavery, sooo... I really don’t wanna start over from G-Rank. Plus, this collar works as ID just fine.” Ichika pointed to the slave collar around her neck. Oh yeah. Slaves can use their collars as ID, right. Niku and Rokuko are both adventurers, I guess that’s good enough for now. By the way, slaves were treated as items and could go with their masters on any quest regardless of their own rank. Wait, wait. She used to be C-Rank? Isn’t that really good? Hell yeah. Always buy things with a “troubled history.”

We returned to the Adventurer’s Guild. The same receptionist as always was behind the counter.

“...Oh my, you’ve already bought one. And she’s even a human... that’s very... big...” The receptionist looked directly at a certain part of Ichika’s body while saying that. Or rather, two certain parts. Bigger was better for some people, but I liked a nice middle ground. A girl’s feet were what really mattered anyway.

“I see you can appreciate girls that are small, average, and large. Congratulations?”

“...You’re talking about her height, right?”

“Nah dude, she’s talking about my tits.” Seriously? I went out of my way to play dumb and that’s how you repay me?

“...By the way, just how much did she cost?”

“Uhhh, well, I got a pretty good discount on her. She only cost fifty silvers.”

“That is... quite a steal, no doubt. At a glance, she seems to be easily worth at least twenty or thirty gold coins.” Woah, what? Twenty golds? That’s stupid expensive. The receptionist looked at me with doubt clear in her eyes. H-Hey, I didn’t do anything wrong, okay? Seriously, you can trust me. I may have gotten the money through dungeon points, but apparently all the money in the capital comes from DP-produced money anyway, so that shouldn’t be a problem... I-It’s not counterfeiting, I swear...!

“Aaah, yeah, I was totally worth twenty gold coins at first. It’s just, y’see, I have a liiiittle bit of a troubled history.”

“Hm. That must be... quite the history, then.”

“Honestly, between you and me, I should be dead as crap right now. But thanks to Mr. Docosp doing me a major solid, I got off with just a price drop. Hence me being cheap as heck. So? We all good?”

“...Well, the Guild will independently verify that story. You did visit him on our introduction, after all.”

And so, we finished our report. I thought about just going straight back to the dungeon, but it was late enough that night would fall on the way back. Worst case scenario, we’d end up camping outside for the night before getting home. In which case, it would probably be better to just do some simple quests and relax at an inn for the night.

“Ah, speaking of which. We have received a quest addressed to you specifically.” The receptionist took out a quest slip as if just remembering its existence. I thought it’d be another one requesting us to clean toilets, but I was wrong. It was a rabbit hunting quest.

“It seems that the meat you sold to the kebab stand ended up extremely popular, with customers stating the kebabs tasted delicious without smelling poor at all. He sold out before the afternoon was up. From now on, he’ll buy up to six rabbits any day you bring them to him, with a maximum reward of twelve coppers each. If possible, he would also like you to tell him your secret.” Oh yeah... The kebabs we got a second ago were from a different stand. I didn’t realize that until just now. Either way, this seems like a good quest to me.

“Oh! Tasty kebabs, huh?! We gotta do this one! Right, Master?!” Oh. Ichika’s sure enthusiastic about this. Looks like we’re definitely gonna be taking this rabbit hunting quest. That’s fine. We didn’t need to leave right away or anything.

“Would you like to take a Goblin extermination quest as well? There’s even a boar extermination quest available as well.” The receptionist suggested even more quests after we accepted the first one, speaking entirely like a cashier from a certain fast food chain. It was possible to complete the requirements of an extermination before taking the quest itself. Apparently, this happened often with regularly scheduled extermination quests. The quest was completed by showing proof of your kills, and it didn’t matter whether you got that proof before or after you took the quest. The only difference would be that you didn’t need to pay money to go through the city gates, and you didn’t need to worry about someone else taking the quest while you were out hunting.

So, it was recommended to take extermination quests “on the side” while doing other quests. Goblins were troublesome monsters that damaged crops. The sprawling farmland to the north of the city had to be protected from them at all times. There was some farmland within the city walls, but the quality of soil outside was high enough that the risk was worth farming out there. Only Goblins and boars ever came after the crops, so ultimately it was cost-effective to farm outside while paying adventurers to hunt them every now and again to cut down their numbers. Apparently.

Additionally, although the boars were significantly less common than Goblins, their meat tasted delicious and depending on their size they could be worth anything from one to five whole silvers. Their noses were used as proof of each kill, but apparently that was the most delicious part of their body. Since carved up Goblin corpses could technically serve as fertilizer, it was standard to cut off their right ear for verification and just leave their corpse in the fields. Uh... They won’t become undead Goblins or anything, right? Right?

Plus, both the Goblin extermination and boar extermination quests were F-Rank and available all the time. You could bring five Goblin ears to the Guild at pretty much any time to clear the quest and get thirty coppers. You would get ten coppers for a boar nose, though you could keep the nose and get only one copper. If you chose to keep the nose, they would cut it into three parts before giving it back. That way you couldn’t turn the nose back in over and over. The extra third cut was because sometimes the boar’s nose would get cut in half normally during battle. Basically, boars were pretty tasty in more ways than one. I could use [Storage] to carry them back, too.

And so, we were heading out to the east to hunt basically everything we saw. Ichika was brimming with enthusiasm to hunt boars... or at least, I thought she would be. In reality, she didn’t seem too excited at all. I wonder what’s up with that?

“Well, y’see, I hunted boars like crazy back when I was an adventurer. They’re probably so uncommon now because... well, nevermind. Aaah, but I can definitely vouch for them being totally delicious.” Guess I’m a little late. Her boar enthusiasm’s all dried up.

We left through the east gate to go rabbit hunting. The gatekeeper didn’t charge us anything since we were on a quest. I didn’t even have to pay for Ichika. I feel like I could abuse this system somehow. But anyway. I knew I could expect great results from the master of hunting, Niku, but I was mainly interested in seeing how Ichika did. She was a former C-Rank adventurer, after all. Surely I could count on her kicking butt and taking names, especially when delicious food was on the line. Though leaving her bare-handed would probably get in the way of that, so I lent her my sword.

“Oh, thanksies! Well, I’m gonna be real for a second, I can just use my bare hands for this. Rabbits’ pelts are worth way less when they’re covered in blood. It’s just like, common sense to kill’m without cutting them up too bad.”

“Huh? But you can’t bleed them without cutting them.”

“Bleed them? What’re you even talking about, dude?” Huh? She doesn’t know about bleeding animals after hunting them?

“If you drain the blood from an animal corpse, the meat won’t smell so bad later. It’ll taste better, too. Raw meat smells so weird because of the blood.”

“Wow! I totally didn’t know that. You sure know a lot for someone with no common sense. Huh, meat tastes better if you drain their blood... Yeah. I feel like that’s gonna make a lot of meat more tasty for me, geheh.” Ichika immediately started drooling while imagining the taste of delicious, blood-free meat. This girl really is a food monster.

“Hey, Keima, what about me?” Oh yeah. I never gave Rokuko a weapon or anything. But... Wait. She’s wearing a sword on her hip.

“...Is that sword just for show?”

“Uh-huh! It’s just for show!” She just said it like it was. Welp, that settles that.

“Hold up, are you saying you want to fight too? Forget about it. I’m not letting you fight anything, no friggin’ way. Remember: if you die, I die. That decorative sword will be good enough for you.”

“That’s true. We are connected in body and soul.” Yep, but you’ll be fine even if I die, so it’s kind of a one-way thing.

“Oh wow, look at you two being all lovey-dovey. Guess I won’t need to be taking care of you at night, Master.” Sorry, Ichika, but we’re being literal here. Dungeon Masters die when the Core of their dungeon dies, that’s all. Nothing romantic here.

“What does she mean by ‘taking care of you at night,’ Keima?”

“Uhhh, like, being my dakimakura. The thing Niku does.” Rokuko asked a tough question so I deflected as best I could.

“Hmmm. I see.” Seems like she bought it. Well, it wasn’t a complete lie, so no worries.

“Oh double wow. You’re doing that kind of thing for him, Niku?”

“Yes, basically every day.”

“...He has a girlfriend and he’s still doing that? Honestly, I’m pretty dang impressed. Wait... I guess that means you’re gonna make me a member of your harem, huh? You like all sizes, big and small? Kyaaah♪” Hey. Quit misunderstanding things. And I may have some weird fetishes, but I’m not interested in having my you-know-what bitten off.

“Oh. What do you do to drain the blood, anyway?” Ichika changed the subject for me, having guessed that I didn’t want to talk about that kind of thing in front of Rokuko if I could help it. I’m glad she knows how to read the mood.

“Right, right. A little demonstration should show you all you need to know. Niku, go hunt a rabbit for me.”

“Understood!” Niku dashed into the forest. And thirty seconds later, she came back with a rabbit. She had sliced its head clean off. I grabbed it by the feet and held it upside down, causing blood to gush out onto the ground.

“Ew, there’s blood everywhere. It stinks, Keima.”

“Hey, the blood’s gotta get out somehow. It’d make the meat stink if we didn’t do this... So? What do you think, Ichika? Blood starts gushing out after you cut off its head and hang it upside down. You keep hanging it upside down until no more blood comes out. That’s it. Simple, right?”

“Totally. Looks super simple... but like, I’m kinda distracted by how a tiny bean sprout like Niku managed to hunt that rabbit. Like, girl, bagging a rabbit in only thirty seconds is crazy fast. Were you a hunter before becoming a slave? Finding rabbits inside a forest is no joke.”

“Eh? It’s really simple. I can smell them.”

“Right, right, you’re a beastkin. I totally get it now. But like... still, hunting with thin arms like yours must be hard as heck.” Ichika was getting caught up in admiring Niku’s skill, but it was her turn to hunt. I wanted to see just how skilled she was, so I left the bleeding rabbit to Niku and followed after Ichika. Rokuko waved goodbye as I left.

Ichika advanced through the forest, brushing aside branches and occasionally pausing to listen. After about five minutes, she suddenly flipped her blade around in her hand and slid the blade across the ground in a fast backhanded swipe.

“Yo, how’s this? Oh, woah, it’s bleeding like crazy.” Ichika lifted up the headless rabbit by its feet. Looks like she killed it with one smooth blow. Just what I’d expect from a former C-Rank adventurer.

“Yep, you’re pretty strong. You cut off its head in one slice... I can tell you’re skilled with blades.”

“Yup, you bet. But I used to be a scout, so I’m more used to daggers... well, like, kitchen knives. I can use bows, too, ’cause I gotta hunt birds to eat’m.” She uses kitchen knives as her main weapon? I dunno if that’s just her being way too proud of loving food or what, but sure. I’ll try making her some when we get back to the dungeon.

“I can cook too, so yeah. You definitely scored big with me. Didja know I cost twenty golds at first? Like dang, why’d my price drop to fifty silvers just cause I bit one little thing? I dunno, I just don’t know.”

“I remember you mentioning that at the Guild, and I’m pretty sure biting what you did is some pretty solid reasoning for dropping your price that far.” I still shudder just thinking about it. Sheesh. And whether that guy deserved it or not, a slave harming their master just isn’t something any customer’s gonna be happy about.

“Y’know, I wonder if Goblin meat will taste good if you bleed them first. Lemme tell you, they taste preeeeeetty garbo, so I’m pretty sure it won’t help. But still.”

“You’ve eaten Goblins...?”

“Well, see, I tried fighting in the capital’s underground arena to pay back my debt before becoming a slave and all, so... Well, I’ll only tell you this since you’re my master now, but that arena had little shows where fighters had to eat monsters, so yeah. It was like, you fight living monsters with a bunch of dumb rules mixing things up, and it was a literal dog eat dog kinda thing. Eat or die. I’ve eaten every part of a Goblin except their bones. Eugh... Goblin balls tasted like toootal garbo, seriously...” Ichika laughed awkwardly, embarrassed. There are underground arenas, huh? I’ve been interested in what kinda things people do for fun in this world, but that kind of arena just sounds like some kind of shady black market thing. We headed back to Niku and Rokuko with the rabbit in tow.

“Ah, welcome back, Master.” Niku was standing where I had left her, with the rabbit still in hand... plus five Goblin corpses scattered around her. All five of them had their heads cut clean off. By the way, Rokuko’s head was covered with red blood. For a second I thought for sure she had been hurt really badly, but apparently it was all Goblin blood that had sprayed onto her. I looked around and, piecing all the clues together, concluded that the Goblins had been drawn to Niku by the smell of the rabbit blood and attacked her thinking she was just a little girl, only to be completely slaughtered in return...

“Aaah, yeah, I knew it. I definitely felt that there were some Goblins sneaking around. Well, whatevs. Not like Niku would’ve had any problems taking them down.” Ichika said that as if it were obvious that Goblins had been sneaking around, but I hadn’t noticed them at all.

“Keima, cast {Purification}, pleaaase.”

“Right... here.” I cast {Purification} on Rokuko. A big bubble engulfed her and cleaned off all the blood. But why was Rokuko covered in blood and not Niku? She’s completely clean.

“Oooh, looks like you killed’m all at once, huh? How’d you do that, Niku?”

“They were surrounding me, so I held the rabbit in one hand, and used my other hand to, um, spin around.” Niku reenacted what she did by holding the rabbit in one hand and spinning around on her tippy-toes like a ballerina while holding her Golem Blade out. The blade was about on the same level as a Goblin neck. She was wearing her Wearable Golem, but I never taught it any moves like that. Huh... I guess she’s using her Golem to strengthen her movements, instead of just making it do them for her.

“That’s not the kinda move any old F-Rank adventurer can pull off. What kinda training do you do?”

“...None?”

“By the way, I did this to defend myself!” Rokuko crouched into a small ball by Niku’s feet to get out of her way and covered her head with her hands so poorly it was a little sad. Ah. That’s why she got so much blood onto her. And it looks like Niku has some blood on her feet, too. Whoops. I went ahead and cast {Purification} on her as well. It must have tickled, since her tail wagged like crazy. Anyway, it looks like we’ve finished the Goblin extermination quest before the rabbit hunting quest. Nice. I cut off the Goblins’ right ears to show to the Guild later.

“Alright, I’ll leave hunting the rest of the rabbits to you two. Thanks.”

“Oh? You’re not gonna come with, Master?”

“...I’m not that good with a blade. The customer wants top-quality meat, so it’ll be better for me to just stay here and focus on bleeding the rabbits. Rokuko’s out of the question, obviously.”

“Really now? You seem pretty well-trained, though I’m just guessing from how you walk and stuff.” Ah, yeah, that’s my Golem clothes helping out. Hm? I’m not really helping with these quests? Well, let me tell you, the best kind of food is the kind you don’t have to work for! Ahaha... Well, I guess bleeding rabbits technically counts as work.

“Hey, Keima. Do you want me to hold a rabbit too?”

“...Sure. We’ll take shifts.”

# Ichika’s Perspective

“I smell meat.” The moment Niku found a rabbit, its head was sent flying off the very next second. Niku was hunting so effectively that even Ichika, a former C-Rank adventurer, was struggling to keep up.

“...Wait a sec, Niku. Is that maybe a Magic Blade?”

“I don’t know. Master gave it to me.” She flicked her sword, causing the blood on its blade to cleanly fly off without any need for {Purification}. That was proof of both the sword’s high quality and of Niku’s skill with blades. She immediately returned to hunting, clean sword at the ready. Ichika was holding the rabbits that Niku had hunted. Between the two of them, Niku was more skilled at finding rabbits. Ichika knew from the fact that Niku could sniff out rabbits despite the thick smell of blood in the air that her partner wasn’t relying on a skill to manage. It was raw talent.

“Y’know, Niku, you sure know a lot about hunting and stuff for a niku.”

“A niku? What do you mean?”

“Eh? Well, I mean... Your name’s Niku. That means you’re a slave all about nighttime servicing, yeah?”

“Um, I do sleep with Master every night as his dakimakura, but...?”

“No, no, no. Y’see, here’s what the name ‘Niku’ actually means.” Ichika told Niku what her name meant. After a brief pause, Niku nodded to herself while digesting the significance behind her name. She then found a new rabbit and sliced its head off on the spot. More meat for the pile.

“Ichika. Thank you very much. For the first time in my life, I know what my name means.”

“Eh? But um, don’t you have like, a real name?”

“No. I don’t remember anything from when I was little.” Ichika swallowed the urge to make a joke about how Niku was still a tiny little girl.

“I want to know more about nighttime servicing. Would you please teach me, Ichika?”

“Oh yeah, for sure. You can count on me. I’ll teach you all sorts of special techniques.” Suddenly, Ichika remembered something important. Beastkin had a deep, innate instinct to greatly value the names given to them by their parents. A beastkin she had been in a party with in the past told her such. He himself had been given a name taken from a past Hero, and he took such pride in it that he spent each day working as hard as he could. Beastkin are individuals that hold pride in their name and try to live a life that won’t bring shame to it. Even those who fall into slavery and are forced to abandon their name will still live true to it. They may pretend to abandon it, but they never truly do.

Ichika was sure that even slaves born into slavery still received a proper name from their parents. And even those who never got one would still name themselves on their own after getting old enough. If their slavers forcibly gave them a name they didn’t like, they could just think up a new one for themselves. And yet, Niku seemed to be quite fond of her name. She was smiling slightly to herself as she chopped off the head of the sixth and final rabbit. Perhaps she was happy to have finally found meaning in her life. A reason for existing. Niku tended to be expressionless, so that slight smile was a clear sign of her being extremely pleased.

“A young girl like her, getting serious about living as a niku, huh? I’ve got a baaad feeling about this...”

“Hm? Did you call me, Ichika?”

“Nope, nope. Not at all.”

# Keima’s Perspective

I hope we can just leave these Goblins lying around here... We’re not in the fields, but yeah. Should I throw their corpses into the forest? My thoughts were interrupted by Niku and Ichika exiting the forest, headless rabbits in hand. That was fast.

“Master, I brought back the meat.” Niku was smiling a little, maybe due to her innate dog girl instincts being stimulated by all the hunting. She seems satisfied. But either way, we all bled rabbits together for a while and threw them into a sack after they ran out of blood.

“Oh, right. Wanna take the magic stones out of the Goblins? I mean, it’s prolly not worth it... like at all... but they’re a nice source of extra cash for F-Ranks like us.”

“Goblins have magic stones?” According to Niku, Goblins had magic stones buried within their brains. I asked her to dig one out, just to see how it was done. She split open a Goblin’s skull with my sword and stirred its brains up... Yuck. Eventually, she dug a small magic stone (even smaller than the ones I could buy for 10 DP) out of the gray mess. I guess about five of those would be as big as a single 10 DP stone?

“They’re called monsters cause they have magic stones in them, y’know. Sometimes they’ll be super tiny, but any monster’s gonna have a magic stone somewhere inside their body, always. If rabbits had magic stones inside them, people would start calling them monsters on the spot. Mmm... This stone’s probably worth about a single copper, yeah.” It would just be a waste of time to dig out magic stones worth one copper when five Goblin ears together would equal thirty coppers. Using that time to hunt more Goblins would be more efficient. I’ll just abandon these corpses here. Don’t wanna waste too much time. I took the trash magic stone from Ichika just in case I wanted to try making a Golem with it or something later.

After getting back to town, we immediately took the rabbits to the kebab guy from last time.

“Heya. Didja hunt some more rabbits for me?”

“Yep, here they are. Take a look.” I took out the headless rabbits so he could estimate their value. Of course, they all scored top marks and thus earned us twelve coppers each. Six rabbits, so seventy-two coppers in total. The Guild handled the payment, so the kebab guy didn’t give us that money himself, though. Mixed in with the Goblin quest reward, we had earned one silver and two coppers. Hell yeah, a whole silver. We’re in the big leagues now.

“Good work. And... I’m guessing those two girls are new companions of yours?”

“Yep. That one’s just a slave, though. And... looks like she thinks your kebabs smell pretty good.”

“The name’s Ichika, my man. And you bet I think these kebabs smell good! Mmm, yum. I wanna eat one of these kebabs. Would you buy one for me, Maaaster?”

“Ahaha! You don’t wanna let her down, do you? I’ll give you a little treat if you buy now.”

“...Alright, I’ll have four.”

“You got it!” I handed over twenty coppers and took the five kebabs he held out. Seemed like his treat was the extra kebab. I gave two to Ichika and one each to Niku and Rokuko.

“But you know, you sure are surrounded by a bunch of hotties, aren’t you? Even the little girl’s gonna grow up to be a nice woman, judging by how fast she’s eating that kebab.”

“Hahaha. They’re all pretty into food, yeah. They can be a real handful sometimes.”

“Heh, then seems like it’d be smart for you to drop by my stand pretty often. Oh, right. The meat you brought me last time tasted a lot better than most rabbit meat usually does. People loved it. I’d appreciate it if you brought me some rabbit meat pretty regularly.”

“Mmm, I dunno, I can’t just keep hunting rabbits forever... I did rank up earlier.”

“Oooh, congratulations. You don’t have to hunt rabbits, then. Boars, rabbits, whatever has good meat. You bring it to me and I’ll buy it. I’m actually a butcher, y’see. This stand is just a side job. I’ll take care of any meat you bring me.”

“Alright. Luckily, we just killed some Goblins.”

“Hahaha! Goblins taste bad no matter what you do with their meat. Boiling, cooking over a flame... nope. Nothing works.” Yeeeah. Figures.

“So, would you mind telling me what’s your secret to making the meat taste so good? I’ll pay you twenty silvers if you tell me.”

“Woah, for real? That’s like, a ton. Go ahead and tell’m, boss man. We’ll get to eat lots of good meat whenever we want that way.” If Ichika thought it was a good deal, it probably was. Twenty silvers seemed pretty good, so I decided to tell him.

“Alright, I’ll tell you for those twenty silvers. See, there’s this thing called ‘bleeding the meat,’ and...” I explained how bleeding meat worked to the stand keeper, but he just shook his head sadly and said that would be too dangerous for rookies. Makes sense. Rokuko and Niku ended up surrounded by Goblins, after all. If Niku hadn’t been there, those Goblins would definitely be having some adult fun with Rokuko right about now... wait, now that I think about it, wouldn’t Rokuko actually be happy about that? I mean, we’re talking about Goblins here. But either way, the guy was nice enough to still pay me the twenty silvers. The Guild would be handing us that money as well. They would even treat the whole exchange as a special quest. I really appreciate that.

We went to the Guild, reported our completed quests, got the money, and went to an inn for the night. They paid the twenty silvers with two big silver coins, each worth ten silvers. It was quite a sizable chunk of change for newbie adventurers like us.

In any case, our inn was the Sleeping Songbird Inn, the same one I stayed at last time. To save money, we got one room for all four of us... Wait, hold on. I’m a guy, y’know? I’m the only guy here. Can we at least get two rooms?

“You’re my partner, Keima. It’s definitely important for us to sleep in the same room.”

“I’m your dakimakura, Master. I’ll sleep together with you.”

“I don’t wanna be all on my own, so like, I’m just gonna watch and take notes.” Take notes? Please. I’m not gonna do anything funny. Of course, I bought a normal meal for everyone. No slave meals. The one I bought last time was the only one I ever planned on buying. Ichika grinned as she looked at the food in front of her.

“Yup, looks like you really are gonna feed me well. I’m like, super duper happy.”

“Food’s really important to you, isn’t it? I know how you feel. I want all the people who work for me to feel good about their jobs.”

“Oooh, you want us to feel good, huh? Y’know, the moment I saw how healthy Niku looked, I knew you were a major score. So yeah. I’m not gonna complain about anything as long as you keep feeding me this well, ’kay?” Seemed like she was thinking of me as a score as well. She gulped down the vegetable soup and wiped up the remaining drops with her bread, leaving nothing behind. She’s not wasting anything. She didn’t even waste time, saying “Hold up, lemme test this for poison,” and starting to eat before me. “Ummm, I don’t think this tastes very good. Ichika, you can have my share.”

“Oh? For real? I knew I could count on you, my queen Rokuko! I’ll follow you for the rest of my life!” Rokuko, however, didn’t eat her vegetable soup. She must’ve gotten picky thanks to how good melon rolls taste. In my opinion, the vegetable flavoring in the soup tasted pretty nice. Though it wasn’t a big deal since Dungeon Cores didn’t need to eat anyway. Also, Ichika, don’t swear to follow someone for the rest of your life over a bowl of soup. Remember, I’ve got a contract making me your master, alright? “Thankie thankiiie. Sooo, what’re we gonna do now? Just sleep?”

“Yeah, that sounds good to me. You can use the bed if you want, Ichika.” Ichika had asked that after getting onto all fours while looking up at me sensually and emphasizing her sizable cleavage, but I ignored her.

“Wha?” Ichika tilted her head, as if not understanding what I meant. Ah, right. There’s only one bed, so she doesn’t know where Rokuko and I will sleep if she gets the bed. I took my [Futon] out of {Storage} and spread it out onto the floor.

“I’m gonna be sleeping on this. Rokuko, spread out yours too.”

“Okaaay. Ahaha, sleeping outside feels really exciting, doesn’t it!” Rokuko took out her [Futon] from {Storage} and spread it out as well. Niku was my dakimakura, so she didn’t need one. Only after both of our futons were ready did the stunned Ichika finally snap out of her shock.

“Hey, hold up! What’s with those crazy good-looking beds?! That’s the kinda thing super expensive hotels use! Aaah, I’m hella surprised here, I can’t believe you two have beds this good... and like, what? You two can use {Storage} too? Weren’t the scrolls super expensive?”

“Just like you’re dead serious about food, I’m dead serious about sleep. Okay...? Listen up — whatever you do, don’t interrupt my sleep. I’ll say it again. No matter what. Do not. Interrupt. My sleep.” I emphasized “sleep” when I said it. Ichika let out an “aaah” of understanding.

“Dude, I hella get what you’re saying, for real. I’ll never wake you up unless junk gets really serious... I swear upon my breakfast, boss man.” Now that was a vow I could trust. I nodded in satisfaction.

Day 39

“We actually did just sleep... What the heck...?” Ichika left the hotel while murmuring some nonsense to herself. I had gotten used to casting {Purification} after staying overnight at inns, so I cast it before we left. This time, I intentionally cleaned the entire room. Hey! I know what you’re thinking, but no, that wasn’t an accident! I was planning on cleaning the whole room from the start! Aaah... But sheesh, my legs still hurt. Muscle pain is no joke. This suuucks. I only got to sleep for nine hooours. I should’ve been more careful, accidentally casting {Purification} on the whole room really tired me oooout. Eh... I’ll stop talking to myself now. I’ve got work to do... Actually, wait, I don’t. I bought the slave I wanted to, so yeah, I’m just gonna head home now.

“Wha? We’re not gonna go to the Guild? But we’ll miss out on all the juicy quests.”

“I’m not really interested in becoming an adventurer for real, so that’s fine. Though it’d be pretty useful to be a high enough rank to enter dungeons.”

“You’ll def want to get up to C-Rank, then. Most dungeons are locked by rank, so yeah, that’s like the bare minimum you wanna be.” The Guild locked dungeons by ranks, or in other words, required adventurers to be a certain rank before allowing them to enter certain dungeons. Well, the low-ranked adventurers could still go into the dungeon on their own and die if they wanted to, but the Guild wouldn’t give them detailed information on the dungeon or anything like that. Things got more serious when it came to dungeons managed by the Guild, however. Adventurers that went in without being a high enough rank might even be viewed as poachers. They’d have their loot confiscated after emerging from the dungeon, plus a fine.

“Hey, do you know about the imperial capital’s [Ivory Labyrinth]?”

“There’s not an adventurer who doesn’t, my dude. It’s a dungeon in the middle of the capital that C-Ranks and above can get into. I’m pretty sure it has a lotta unrestricted dungeons around it, but most of’m are under the Guild’s control.”

“Wow. My sister’s really doing well, huh?”

“Yep.” To quote Haku’s book Intro to Dungeonology: “Dungeons are natural phenomena and grow by the day. Once they grow large enough, new dungeons begin to form around them as if they are creating children.” Those new dungeons were in fact branch dungeons with Dummy Cores like the one Haku made for our Dungeon Battle. The book also said: “Sometimes, a dungeon will rapidly grow, or perhaps rapidly shrink in size. This is known as a Paradigm Shift.” Beside that section was a small note written in clean letters, stating that “This is referring to Dungeon Battles.”

“I wanna go hang out at the [Ivory Labyrinth] sooner or later, so I guess I should at least try to get up to C-Rank.”

“Oh wow, ‘hang out,’ huh? Look at Mister Confidence over here. Y’know... Back when I was an adventurer, I think we had gotten down to floor fifty-two. I wonder if they’ve gotten any further since then?” The [Ivory Labyrinth] apparently has over 150 floors, so they’re about thirty percent deep into it at best... wait, hold up. People have been challenging that dungeon since the imperial capital itself was founded. How many friggin’ years did it take to get to floor fifty-two? That dungeon must be just unfairly hard, wow.

“So, where we going?”

“Our base is outside of town. We’re heading there.”

“...Mmm, and you don’t mean it’s in the slums, right? No need for an inn if it were. Must be pretty far away then, huh?”

“Yeah, basically. It’s right by a mountain. It’ll take us about half a day to get there if we run.”

“Yeah? You might wanna drop by the Guild anyway just to tell them what’s up. They prolly won’t care too much about what a bunch of F-Ranks are doing, but yeah.” Huh. I never thought about it like that. I guess communication and such with the Guild is important even for F-Ranks. Last time I was in a hurry to get back so I just left on the spot, but the situation now isn’t that urgent. Dropping by the Guild should be fine.

“Alright, cool. Thanks for telling me that, it’s a big help. I’m kinda not used to how things work around here.”

“Okie dokie, I’ll tell you what’s up if I ever notice you about to make a fool of yourself, boss man.” Yeah, I knew having an actually smart partner with a lot of life experience would be a huge help. Rokuko’s a Dungeon Core and basically doesn’t know anything about humans. Niku was raised a slave and never taught much about the world. Haku... knows a fair amount about humans, but she’s not someone I can just casually ring up and ask for advice. I mean, let’s be real. That woman’s spooky.

“So, what’re you gonna do?”

“...Good question.” She said she should be putting out the [Ordinary Cave] exploration quest again, so I might as well look for it. And so, we headed to the Guild.

We arrived at the Guild and saw that the morning train... I mean, the morning quest board rush was in full effect. It was ridiculously crowded. Maybe we should leave and come back later?

“Oh wow, there’s a lot of humans here. These are all adventurers?”

“Yeah, probably.”

“Master. Do you want me to get the quest for you?” Uhhh, I think I’ll just have her look for the [Ordinary Cave] quest. I don’t care about any of the other ones.

“Alright, go check the board out. If you see the quest, take it and bring it back to me.”

“Understood!” Niku slid into the throng of people. Ten seconds later, she came back. In her hand was the quest slip for the [Ordinary Cave] quest. Fantastic. Seemed like it had just been put out on the day we went. Great timing. Our dungeon may be buff as hell now, but I don’t want any adventurers dropping by before I’ve finished building the inn. The requirements were two or more F-Rank adventurers and the reward was one silver. That’s probably the same details as last time, I guess?

“Oooh. Good job, Niku.” I rubbed Niku’s head, causing her tail to wag.

“Hey, let me see that too. Wow... The reward is a whole silver coin. Is that a lot?”

“Well, since it’ll take two F-Rank adventurers over a day to complete, nah, not really.”

“Yuppers. This quest is small-time even for small-time F-Ranks.” Well, we’re still gonna take it. Niku and I were both F-Rank adventurers, so we met the requirements. I took the quest slip and lined up in front of the receptionist.

“You know, I really think they could up that reward a little...” Rokuko was grumbling to herself. Yeah, figures. She must feel like the Guild is saying she herself isn’t worth much. But I wish she would be more secretive in public like this. She’s lucky that this time it just sounds like she wants more money for the quest.

My turn finally came and I gave the quest to the same receptionist as always. This girl’s always working, huh?

“...Well, the recent report stated that all was normal, so I imagine you won’t find anything out of the ordinary. But if you do, remember to tell us. And be careful not to harm the Dungeon Core under any circumstances. Dungeon Cores are very valuable sources of information for dungeonology, and this one is under our direct protection. And... a certain A-Rank adventurer has stated that they will personally hunt down and eliminate anyone who harms this Dungeon Core in particular.” Ah, I think I know who you’re talking about there. She must be using her status as an A-Rank adventurer to threaten anyone who might harm Rokuko.

The time limit for the quest was one week. That was plenty of time to finish the inn and come back to town. Even if I didn’t finish the inn on time, I could just say that everything was as expected. The lie detector wouldn’t register that as a lie, since I did indeed expect to see the expanded dungeon and the under construction inn... maybe. If that got dicey, I’d just improvise.

On top of all that, we were made to swear to not harm the Dungeon Core. Seeing Rokuko vow “I won’t harm the Dungeon Core!” with a serious look on her face was bizarre enough that I couldn’t help but laugh. Anyway, back to the dungeon. We headed to the west gate.

“Hey, are you like, totally sure we’re packing enough for a mountain trip? I mean, I know you have {Storage}, but still.”

“I don’t really wanna use that too much in public, so yeah, I guess preparing a little better would be smart.” I handed over two silvers to Ichika.

“Could you buy enough stuff for us with this?”

“For four people? Mmm, for sure, if three days of food max is enough.”

“Yeah, it is. We can stock up at our base, so that’ll be fine. I’ll be waiting for you at the central park, napping. Oh yeah, and take Niku with you.”

“Roger that. Cya later, boss man. Can I buy some snacks while I’m at it?”

“...Sure, but at least tell me everything you bought and how much it cost, alright?”

“You got it♪!” I’ve got a bad feeling about this. But she’s a former C-Rank adventurer, so I’ll trust her with this.

“What do you wanna do, Rokuko? You can go shopping with Ichika if you want.”

“Mmm... I’ll be nice and take a nap with you, Keima.” Sweet. But I dunno know if there’s any benches that could fit two people on them.

＊ ＊ ＊

“This meat sandwich is super good. Mmm, the fresh vegetable taste is like, mixing with the meat’s fat and making an explosion of flavor! Some kinda genius cook must have made this! It even feels good to bite down on. And this subtle flavoring... it’s cheese! This thing’s got cheese in it! Holy cow, talk about tasty. This is what I’m talking about... Yum!” The moment I woke up, my appetite was hit by a terrorist attack in the form of Ichika’s raving. Ngh, now I’m hungry.

“Doooon’t worry, I got some for everyone else too, Master! Let’s all eat, my dudes!” I glanced around and realized that Rokuko and Niku were each holding a sandwich as well. Ichika herself, however, was biting into her second sandwich. Crafty girl. I took a look at what Ichika had bought... while eating my sandwich.

Let’s see here. Flint, tents, food, water flasks, blankets, food, knives, food, water flasks, food... Hey, what’s with all the food?! “What’re you getting so worked up about? We gotta bring lots of food if we don’t wanna go hungry, dude.” We didn’t need any changes of clothes thanks to {Purification}, it was warm enough that we didn’t need to worry too much about the cold, and a Survival Magic spell called {Heat} would boil water for us. If we wanted actual fire, we’d just need to use flint or the magical skill {Ignition}. In other words, thanks to Survival Magic, the main thing we needed to survive in the mountains was food. Plus a knife that would help with a ton of random things, and blankets to sleep on when camping outside. But y’know... These blankets are really white and fluffy. I’m pretty sure these are made out of rabbit pelts. We’re not gonna get cursed by anything, right?

“I also got this bag we can put a ton of junk into. Prolly won’t need it, though, since you guys have {Storage}...”

“So, how much did everything cost?”

“Get this! These crazy-good sandwiches only cost eight coppers each! What a total steal!”

“That’s not what I’m talking about. I meant everything, not all the sandwiches.”

“Well, obviously I spent all the money you gave me. Aaah, I’m so glad I bought these sandwiches!” She beamed, making it clear she wanted me to praise her for her efforts. Well, honestly, I did only give her two silvers. That’s basically asking her to buy three days worth of food and supplies for four people with only twenty-thousand yen. Not any easy feat. In which case, yeah, she did some impressive work.

“And Niku actually helped me a ton, y’know? A lot of the shopkeeps cut their prices for her. No way could I have paid for these sweet sandwiches without her, for real. Oooh, and it sure was lucky that the sandwich stand was run by a guy. I got him to sell me the sandwiches at half the price since he stared at my tits like an idiot♪” Is that even legal?

“Guess children and attractive people just have it easy sometimes, huh? Well, still, you actually did a good job. You too, Niku.”

“Oooh, calling me attractive, are you? Flattery won’t get you anything from me, ’kay? ’Cause you already got my everything when you bought me.” Yeah... I’ll treat them to some melon rolls and hamburgers or whatever when we get back to the [Ordinary Cave].

“Hold on, Keima. What about me? I took a nap with you, remember?”

“Yeah yeah. Thanks, Rokuko. I’ll give you a headpat.”

“Eheheeeh...” I know I’m the one who offered to pat your head, but really? Are you really okay with this, Rokuko?

And so, with our preparations complete, we headed to Tsia Mountain. The guard didn’t suspect anything. He let us through for free after seeing our quest slip and that was that. We were outside. Y’know, I feel like I haven’t been doing anything like an actual Dungeon Master. I’m pretty sure that it’s not a Dungeon Master’s job to go to human settlements and do adventurer stuff or whatever. I’m starting to feel nostalgic for when I first got here. I slept all day inside the Core with bandits outside... The good ol’ days.

After we got some distance away from the town, I put all the stuff Ichika bought into {Storage} and started running down the mountain road carrying basically nothing. Ichika was the only one among us without a Wearable Golem helping her out, but as expected of a former C-Rank adventurer, she kept up just fine. The sun started to set on the way there. Ichika gave some good advice, suggesting that we start setting up camp, but I ignored her and kept racing towards the evening mountain. By the time we reached the [Ordinary Cave], the sun had completely set.

“Niku, how long was that?!”

“Eh?! How long did it take us to get here?! U-Um... Six hours and thirty-two minutes, Master!” Niku took out her Golem Watch and gave a proper answer. I... I was just making a joke, but she took it seriously. And wait, she checked the time before we left?

“Aaah, dang. Cutting out the breaks we took, it seriously takes six hours to go back and forth. What a waste of time. If only we had bikes... Actually, I guess bikes wouldn’t be too good on mountain roads.” Wait... I don’t need to worry about using bikes at all. Couldn’t I just have Golems carry us? Suddenly, my thoughts were interrupted by Ichika complaining.

“Maaaasteeeeeer. I’m super hungry. Can we, like, start setting up camp?” Oh, whoops. I gotta let her inside before I start thinking about that kinda thing. And now that I think about it, I never even told Ichika where we were going.

“Nah, we don’t need to set up camp. We’re here.”

“...This is your base, Master? I totally though you were talking about a whole village or something...” I had been planning on explaining things once we reached the dungeon, but now that we were there, I wasn’t sure what exactly to say.

“Um, this actually is our base.”

“This is a cave, dude.” Rokuko just told the truth straight up. Ichika replied with her straight up feelings. Yeah, can’t blame her for thinking that.

“Let’s just go inside.” Tired as I was from running for so long, I wanted to sleep as soon as possible. We entered the cave and soon the rocky floors turned into paved stone passageways with [Dungeon Lighting Torches (50 DP)] casting bright, flickering lights along the path. As an aside, these [Dungeon Lighting Torches] would never ever go out as long as you didn’t move them from their initial position. They were probably using mana as fuel or something.

“Woah woah woah! Hold up! This is totally a dungeon, isn’t it?!”

“This is a dungeon.”

“What happened to this being your base?!”

“Um, it’s also our base?”

“This is a freakin’ DUNGEON!”

“Yeah, it is a dungeon. Oh, look out. There’s a pitfall right over there.”

“Holy CRAP there is! What the heck dude?! This is freakin’ dangerous!” Ichika dodged the pitfall with an exaggerated leap.

“Haaah, holy cow. I used to be a scout and I still didn’t notice that pitfall... Wow, Rokuko. You sure aren’t phased by these pitfalls. Aren’t you like, G-Rank?”

“Well, it’s me we’re talking about.”

“That’s some hella confidence.” Rokuko gave a smug smirk. Yep. It’s you. The dungeon itself.

“Oh, wait a sec. This is the [Ordinary Cave], isn’t it? I asked the Guild about it... but this is totally not like what they told me. It should be super small with nothing in it...”

“That’s because the Guild has outdated info. They were talking about the [Ordinary Cave] from a month ago.”

“Ohhh, which means... things changed since then. This dungeon prolly had a Paradigm Shift. We gotta tell the Guild about this.” A Paradigm Shift was a dungeon rapidly growing or shrinking in size, as discussed in Intro to Dungeonology. Though that’s just fake information meant to disguise the effects of Dungeon Battles.

“You sure know a lot, huh?”

“Well, knowledge is power, my dude. I heard about it from a guy I knew who was studying Dungeonology.”

“You’re definitely gonna be a big help to us.”

“Leave everything to me! Though... Er, Master? Didn’t you buy me for like, chores and stuff? Is one of those chores gonna be asking me to be a meat shield while exploring this dungeon?” Ichika, watching Rokuko and Niku advance ahead of her, wasn’t sure what she should be doing.

“Nope. I’m gonna have you work in the inn, not help out the adventurers... Oh, don’t touch that. Spears shoot out of it.”

“GAAH! H-Holy freakin’ cow! Ah... W-Wait up, Master! I guess this dungeon really is your base.... No way would you be moving this fast if you weren’t used to the place.”

“Master doesn’t lie.” Niku was speedily advancing through the dungeon right in front of Ichika. She too had perfectly memorized the location of each trap.

...Suddenly, it hit me that I could probably just ask Rokuko to withdraw us into the Master Room. Huh. I guess all this exercise has tired my brain out a little bit.

“Hey, Rokuko. You can withdraw us, can’t you? Sweet, thanks. Take us away to the Master Room.”

“Eh? Oh, ah, that’s right. We don’t need to go all the way to the Core Room. I’ll just withdraw us here.”

“Hm? Whaddya mean, withdraw us?” My vision was engulfed by a bright light the moment Ichika asked that. My vision blurred and I felt a little floaty. Before long, I was in a familiar old white room. The Master Room. Our base within Rokuko’s true body.

“Aaah, I’m so tired. Hey, Keima. I’m going to just go ahead and sleep right now.” I turned just in time to see Rokuko plopping down onto her [Futon]. Wait, no, that’s mine. What gives? She has her own futon.

“Wh-Wh-What the heck? Where are we? Did we step on a teleportation trap or something?”

“...Oh, did I not tell you about this already? I’m this dungeon’s Core.”

“Hold up hold up, I’m not keeping up with this. You’re a Dungeon Core? You’re not a human, Rokuko?” Ichika was rubbing her temples.

“Does this mean... Rokuko is a human-type boss monster Dungeon Core? I’ve never heard about something like that... Wait, have I...?” It looked she was thinking about this as hard as she could, using all the knowledge she had. Unfortunately, the knowledge she had was intentionally spread misinformation, so she was basically doomed. I decided to call out to her and help her along.

“Hey, Ichika.”

“AAAH! Master, are you... a Demon King?!” Where did that come from?

“And Rokuko is a boss monster Dungeon Core, a human-type one. If you’re a Demon King, everything makes sense.” In truth, Ichika basically had the right idea. According to Haku, the Demon Kings of this world are all Dungeon Cores belonging to the Demon King Faction (one of many Dungeon Core factions), with a Great Demon King on top ruling over lesser Demon Kings who in turn ruled over the rest of the Dungeon Cores belonging to the faction. In other words, since I had gained control over Rokuko the Dungeon Core, I was basically a Demon King... maybe. That would make Haku the Great Demon King. Metaphorically. She wasn’t really the Great Demon King.

By the way, Dungeon Masters don’t exist in Dungeonology. Instead, there are things known as Dungeon Bosses. Sometimes it was a strong summoned monster, sometimes it was the Core itself — Rokuko was a human-type Core, but apparently there were many other types, including Dragon-types. It would be rational to call Rokuko the Dungeon Boss from that perspective.

“So. What would you do if I am a Demon King?”

“I’ll do anything as long as you feed me the good stuff! Are you planning on destroying Tsia City? Ah, that’d be a waste of food. Let’s conquer it instead.” In front of me was a woman willing to betray humanity without a second thought in return for good food.

“Nah, I wanna stay on good terms with that city. I don’t wanna die, either.”

“Huh, ’kay. But think about it for a sec. If you conquered the world, we’d be able to eat as much tasty food as we want. How could we not do it? You’ll at least give it a shot eventually, right?”

Correction. In front of me was a woman actively attempting to betray humanity and conquer the world for her own benefit.

“Conquer the world... Th-That sounds really nice! Keima! How about we make our ultimate goal world domination?!” There was also a Dungeon Core eager to join in.

“No thanks. Think about what we’ll have to do after conquering the world. Ruling involves a lot of management and other tedious things. All I want is to build the dungeon up until I can sleep peacefully. I don’t want to push my luck any further than that.”

“But you’ll do it if you get strong enough, right?”

“I’ll get killed if I stand out too much. So, no.” If I stand out, it won’t be long before Soldiers of God — Heroes — come for my head. They’ll probably have some cheat powers from that god or whatever, so the basic math is that Heroes equal me dying pitifully. I don’t wanna stand out. I wanna sleep.

“I’ll tell you what’s really going on here. Don’t tell this to anyone else, but I’m the Dungeon Master of this place.”

“Dungeon Master?” Oh, right. Haku’s misinformation campaign is hiding the fact that the term Dungeon Master even exists.

“This dungeon is under my control. In other words, this dungeon and everything in it belongs to me.”

“Oooh... You’re not a human either, Master?”

“No, I’m a human. But I wasn’t raised here, so I don’t know much about this world. Which is why...”

“You went and bought me.” That’s it.

“Well, anyway. Getting back here really tired me out, so I’m just gonna go to sleep now.” I heard a stomach growl loudly right after I said that. It wasn’t mine. It was Ichika’s.

“...Whoops, almost forgot. Let’s eat.”

“Oooh, finally! Wait... This is just an empty room, yeah? Where’s the kitchen?”

“Heh, perfect timing. I’ll show you what my true power is! HAAAAAH!” I pretended to gather power in my fist and bought a [Roll Set (5 DP)]. Now that our dungeon was earning 100 DP a day, money was no longer an object. Er, I mean, dungeon points were no longer an object. Anyway. I waved the [Roll Set (5 DP)] around, flaunting it.

“What the heck...? Is that... bread?”

“Heh heh heh. Niku, my friend. Go ahead and feed her.”

“Understood!” Niku ripped the plastic off a curry roll, freeing it. The distinctive, spicy scent of the curry roll and the sweet scent of cooked oil filled the air, stirring my hunger.

“What the?! I-I can’t stop drooling... Wh-What kind of bread is th— Mgh?!”

“It’s a [Curry Roll]. It’s a little spicy, but it tastes really good.” Niku shoved the curry roll into Ichika’s mouth as she flailed a little violently.

“Nooo, th-this... Ammn, nom... fuaaah! O-Oh no, th-this scent... is making my brain tingleee...!”

“Don’t hold back. Eat as much as you want. This is Master’s gift to you, remember?”

“Nmm, mggh, nom... nnn, aaah! Sh-Sho goood! Thish tashtesh, sho amashiiing...!” Perhaps due to the spiciness or perhaps due to the tasty flavor, Ichika smiled blissfully with teary eyes. For some reason, I was starting to feel kinda weird about the whole situation.

“I was born to meet this food... For suuure...♪”

“It tasted good, didn’t it? Listen to me. If you serve Master well, he’ll let you eat a lot of food just as good as this.”

“I-I’ll... I-I will... I’ll do anything Master says, anythiiing... So please, moooore!”

“Do you want to give her another one, Master?” Seemed like she had already eaten the whole thing. I-I knew she’d be happy with the food, but I definitely didn’t expect her to go this crazy over it. I’m honestly pretty weirded out.

“...I’ve got other kinds of food, y’know? Bread rolls aren’t the only things I have.”

“Aaah... This just isn’t fair... Now that I’ve tasted something this good, normal things just won’t satisfy me...”

“You’re talking about food, right?! The rolls?!”

“Ichika, I’ll split my hamburger with you, okay? I like hamburgers a lot.”

“Reaaaally? Aaah, I feel like I’m gonna go crazyyy... Eheheh...” Am I the only one who thinks she’s already gone completely crazy? I glanced at Rokuko and saw that she was eating a melon roll while ignoring us.

“...I-I’m not giving her any of mine.” Ah, yeah.

Day 40

And so. Tomorrow afternoon, the next day. Huh? You think I would wake up in the morning? No way. I went back to bed. I decided to shift gears into making the inn for real. Due to the investigation quest, I had about one week to finish building it. The location I had chosen for it was right next to the cave’s entrance. Before going to bed last night, I had ordered some of the worker Golems to dig a big hole in the ground. I had a lot of space set aside for construction; I was building an entire inn, after all. Ah, Niku. I don’t mind you exercising, but I’m trying to make an inn here. Could you do that somewhere else?

“Alriiight then... Time to start with the foundation.” I wouldn’t be able to sleep in the inn if the foundations weren’t solid. I’m basically making my own house here. Let’s take this seriously.

I took out some stone from {Storage} and set it beside the clay and wood lying around. I had more materials than I could ever use.

“Mass of stone, change your shape and become a servant that obeys my every command — {Create Golem}.” I poured mana into the stone while casting the {Create Golem} chant that I had said countless times during the Dungeon Battle. I didn’t need to chant or anything, but for some reason, I used less mana when chanting and overall it just made the whole process much easier. Though doing the chant was so tedious I forgot to sometimes.

What made {Create Golem} really amazing was that I could morph basically any material into whatever shape I wanted. I could make stuff human-shaped, board-shaped, and so on. My mana would make the material pliable like clay, allowing me to use my hands to physically change its shape directly. I could turn a bunch of copper coins into a copper ingot if I collected enough, but... it’d just be cheaper to buy the ingot directly.

Whatever I made through {Create Golem} did end up becoming a Golem, but only in name. It would be a normal object if I didn’t give it any orders. Here, I was pouring the stone into the giant hole and making a single giant stone slab. I didn’t know much about real construction, but I figured that the stone would fulfill the role of concrete well enough. In place of rebar, I just made a pillar-shaped iron Golem and jammed it into the stone mixture. Making pillars first and then moving onto walls seemed like the smart thing to do. I want to make baths too, so I’ll need to think about making a water system. Well, everything’s gonna be a Golem, so I can just open up holes later. I might even just make more space for a bathing area and build one from the ground up. I don’t have an exact plan for it, but I’ll be careful building it so it doesn’t collapse or anything.

After that, I started building flat board-shaped Wooden Golems and connecting them with the assistance of Clay Golems. I was building the inn kind of like how you would make a gingerbread house. Though, since materials morphed by {Create Golem} can fuse together with a mere touch, I didn’t need any nails or anything to combine them. Plus, since they fused entirely, the resulting structure was quite sturdy. Though just to be safe, I made some Golems into the shape of nails and hammered them in just for appearances.

After working for a while and getting most of the outer walls set up, Ichika came sleepily walking out of the cave.

“Fuaaah... What’s up, my duuude?”

“Yo. Morning.” Hey, wait a second. Did she sleep better than me? What’s up with that?

＊ ＊ ＊

I ignored Ichika screaming about how unnatural my {Create Golem} was and just focused on building.

“...But uh, dude, I didn’t see anything like this when we got here? Were you like, hiding it from me or something?”

“Nah, I started building it today.”

“...Dungeon Masters or whatever are builders, too...?” Well, the menu powers we Dungeon Masters have don’t include construc— Oh wait, there’s a [House (50,000~ DP)] in the DP Catalog. Seriously? That exists? There was probably an [Inn] I could buy hidden away within the catalog, waiting for me to fulfill some requirements to unlock it. Unfortunately, my pondering was interrupted after I noticed I was getting close to running out of wood.

“Heeey, Niku. C’mere for a second.” I called over Niku, who had been swinging her Golem Knife around and practicing magic.

“Understood!”

“Niku. I’m about to run out of wood, so would you mind chopping up some fresh logs for me?”

“Right away.” Niku nodded and trotted off to the woods near the cave.

“Hold up, Master. How’s she gonna cut down a tree? I don’t see an axe or anything near here.” I silently pointed behind Ichika. She turned around and saw Niku brandishing her knife at a tree with a trunk about thirty centimeters thick. She pushed the blade against it and started cutting right through the tree as a loud screeching sound filled the air, much like a chainsaw. She gave it two chops after that, and on the third chop cut in deep enough for the tree to fall over. After that, the Golems just carried the log to me.

“Holy cheeseballs... I’ve never heard of using Magic Blades to cut down trees.”

“Convenient, huh?”

“I-I mean, I guess... But it’s just wrong. Magic Blades are too good for that... Don’t blame me if it breaks, ’kay?”

“Ah, yeah, a few of them actually did break. Now that she’s used to cutting trees that doesn’t happen anymore, though.”

“For real?! Holy cow, what a waste!”

That said, Golem Blades are kind of like (fake) Magic Blades. They aren’t the real thing, so to speak. Their only function was vibrating and sharpening a little. They were nothing compared to, say, the real Magic Blade (Spear) that Chloe had used in the Dungeon Battle. Golem Blades couldn’t cast spells with just a keyword. However, they were super cheap and didn’t take much material to make. I could repair them for free if they broke, too. And I would never run out of the material to make them, either. Even if the blade snapped in half, it’d only take about ten seconds to put it back together.

“Wait a sec. How many of those Magic Blades do you have?”

“Niku and I have the only full-on metal versions. I think I have around... ten weaker ones made from stone?”

“That freakin’ many?! Do you think I could have one of those too?” Oh yeah... I need to get Ichika a weapon too.

“You mentioned that you used kitchen knives as weapons, right?”

“I’m pretty used to short swords, spears, and all sorts of traps, but yeah. My main gig was kitchen knives.” Kitchen knives, kitchen knives... Yeah. I can make kitchen knives. A butcher knife should be good here.

“Ichika. Go get me a good tree branch.”

“You got it. But like, what for?”

“I’m gonna try making you a weapon.”

“...With a tree branch? I mean, I’m not picky or anything, but I’m not all about clubs and wooden things.”

“The branch is just part of the equation here. I don’t need a particularly big one. I’m just making it into the handle.”

“Mmm, ’kay. I’ll be right back.”

I took an iron ingot out of {Storage} while Ichika was off getting a branch. Ma’am, I’ll be using {Create Golem} today. I’m just going to make a Golem Butcher Knife from this iron ingot. Don’t worry, it’ll only take a second. By the time Ichika came back with a branch, I had already finished forming the iron into a blade.

I cast the Survival Magic spell {Dry} to remove the water from the branch, used that to make a Golem in the shape of a butcher knife handle, and then finally combined the blade and the handle. Behold, a butcher knife. To finish it off, I made it such that the blade would vibrate rapidly when mana was poured into it. And so, the Golem Butcher Knife-type Magic Blade was complete. It took thirty seconds to complete. And if I do say so myself, it was pretty well-made. If I’m not careful, I might just fall in love with myself.

“Alright. Is this knife good enough?”

“Eh? Ah, s-sure.” Ichika, who had been watching me finish up the knife, took it from me with her mouth wide open.

“Wha? Eh? The heck did you do? How? Is this some kind of special Dungeon Master power?”

“Heh heh heh, this is the power of my own magic spell, {Maker}...!”

“Wh-What the, I’ve never heard of any magic like that...! Is that a Unique Skill?!” Oh, whoops. I said that as a joke but Ichika took it totally seriously. She was sincerely shocked. I hurriedly went and corrected myself.

“Sorry, sorry, I was just acting cool. It’s just a slightly customized version of {Create Golem}.”

“Whaaat?! Hold the freak on! {Create Golem} can’t do anything like this, no way! That’s magic for making freaking Golems!” Weird. I set things straight but she just got more mad.

“Huh? But that knife is a Golem. Just one shaped like a knife.”

“L-Listen up, Master. Golems are like, human shaped. They’ve got hands, legs, a head, a body... uhhh... Wait, you were making those walls with {Create Golem} too. I don’t even know what’s going on anymore... I know you said you didn’t have much common sense, but this is just insane...!” I guess normally you can’t customize skills. Weird, it seems like a really natural thing to do. “You can kinda customize skills... but only like, by mixing things together. Like throwing a {Fireball} at water to make hot water, or something. Customizing the skill itself and making it into a new one? Dude, that’s something only expert mages and dedicated skill researchers can do. Not to mention, it can take your whole freaking life to make a new skill if you aren’t careful... Yeah. Master, trust me on this. Stop calling that skill {Create Golem} and roll with {Maker}. For real. You can pass it off as some kinda Unique Skill passed down from an ancient tribe of locals or something that way.” Huh. I guess that’ll be important for keeping a low profile. I don’t really intend to use this skill in front of people, but if I ever need to, I’ll remember that.

Wait... But wouldn’t I need to change the incantation for that? The chant for {Create Golem} is “Mass of clay, change your shape and become a servant that obeys my every command,” so... Oh, and that’s when I’m working with clay. It’s slightly different when I’m working with wood, stone, metal, or so on. I’m just working with clumps of a single material to keep things easier for myself, but it’s nice that if I say the name of what I’m working with in the chant, it takes less mana to do things with it. That works both ways, though. It takes a lot more mana to work with stone if I call it a “bundle of wood” or something.

...Oh, right. If fiddling with the chant a little is fine, changing the chant entirely should be fine too. Let’s give it a shot.

“Bundle of wood, change thy shape and obey me. {Maker}.” Sweet. Looks like it’s working. I poured mana into the wood and morphed it, making the outer layer of skin into strings to attach to a belt. I then successfully turned the rest of the wood into a sheathe (Sheathe Golem).

“Magic really is pretty fast and loose with the rules, huh? This is pretty cool, but {Create Golem} feels like it takes less mana, so I’ll just keep using that. Though maybe that’s just because I’m more used to it.”

“Woah woah woah, back the freak up. I said to call it {Maker} but I didn’t say anything about changing the freaking chant and crap! Like, how did you even do that?! What the crap was that weirdo nonsense chant?!” What?

“Weirdo nonsense chant...? You didn’t understand what I said while chanting?”

“I-I mean, I’ve heard that chants are like, derived from the language people use in the ancient civilization of magic, but I can’t understand a single word of it.” Ah. Aaah, yeah, okay. I get it now. I can probably just tell what the chants mean because my friendly little auto translator is working really hard for me. Not only that, but when I start chanting, it translates my words into proper ye olde Magic Language. Whew. I guess the “understand languages” power that god gave me is actually a cheat skill. Y’know... I feel like that may be enough for me to make a pretty easy living in this world. Wait, no. I’m a Dungeon Master, so that’ll just make me stick out like a sore thumb. Nope, nope. I’m gonna keep this cheat skill all to myself.

“Oh, how’s that knife? I can fix it up a bit to fit your hand better.”

“...This is the first time I’ve ever held it, but all the bumps and bends and stuff are perfect, like it was literally made for my hand. The heck is up with that? Are you a master craftsman or something? Like holy cow, dude. I’m impressed.” I had just mimicked what I remembered kitchen knife handles feeling like, but Ichika loved it. Advertisers on TV hyping up the ergonomic design of their knife handles weren’t all talk after all. (In this world, people apparently just wrapped leather around cylindrical handles when they wanted to modify the grip.)

“Oh, and if you don’t mind, pour some mana into the knife and chop up this branch for me.”

“Eh? Mana...? No freakin’ way, is this a Magic Blade?!” Ichika let out a stunned cry. Woah, no, you’ve got the wrong idea. That’s obviously just a (fake) Magic Blade. Ichika poured mana into her Golem Knife, making it vibrate. She brought it up to the two inches thick branch next to me and slowly swung it downwards.

“Woah! I didn’t feel, like, any resistance there.”

“Alright, let’s try that again, but with three branches this time.” Sure, she cut through one branch easily, but how about three—The mana-powered knife cut through them all like butter.

“This... This is totally a Magic Blade, dude...”

“You think so?”

“Magic Blades are just any weapons that do something when you pour mana into them, so yeah. Sometimes that something is getting sharper... but like, I’ve seen a Magic Blade like that and even it didn’t get this much sharper.” Oh my goodness. My Golem Blades are actual, genuine Magic Blades. You may stop calling yourselves (fake) Magic Blades, my children. I’m ever so happy for you.

“Wow. Magic Blades are surprisingly easy to make, huh...?”

“GAAAAH! No FREAKING way! You can normally only ever get Magic Blades inside of dungeons! It’s not impossible for people to make their own, but they’re way less effective than normal ones and it takes a skilled blacksmith-mage team several days to make just one! They’re totally, TOTALLY not something you can just snap your fingers and make in a spare minute, my freaking dude!” Oh geez. I, uh... Wow. I’m sorry.

“Ngggh, if I had this knife when I was an adventurer, I definitely could’ve gotten up to B-Rank... You could make a lotta money selling these, y’know? They’d def be way more than how much I cost you. We’re talking gold coins here, for real.” Now that’s some good info. In other words, I can make something worth a lot of money for basically free. Maybe I should put some of these around the dungeon as treasure or something. Or I could just sell them myself... ah, wait, no. I’d really stick out if I started bringing in a ton of Magic Blades to sell.

By the way, I checked the DP Catalog for Magic Blades and saw that they started at 10,000 DP. They had tons of different effects, with the upper tier ones costing an absolutely mind-blowing absurd amount of DP, like literally hundreds of millions of DP, but one with an effect similar to a Golem Blade only cost about 20,000 DP. Well... If it’s not an especially fancy Magic Blade, maybe it won’t be a problem for me to mass produce and sell them? Oh! I could make Golem Shields too, that might be nice. I could make them... vibrate constantly, such that... they can... deflect attacks better? I dunno. I don’t think that idea’s gonna work out. Either way, it’s pretty great that I can make a product worth big bucks at the snap of a finger. Hopefully I can start making Golem Blades with all sorts of different effects. Having the blade cast a spell would be a nice start. I should start experimenting later to see if I can get Golems to cast spells. Yeah, later. Eventually. I’ll try not to forget about this.

...Ichika said these Golem Blades would be worth a lot of money, but I wonder exactly how much. Golem Blades likely still had some major flaw I hadn’t noticed yet, but there was something else I was more concerned about. I was making weapons equivalent in power to Magic Blades worth 20,000 DP out of stone. Could I not make Golem Blades out of stone and then turn them into DP to make infinite cash?

No, I could not. Golem Blades were only worth two DP. Naturally, things wouldn’t go that well for me. I mean, it was nice that I had a definite way to turn raw materials into DP, but the time and effort to reward ratio was just way too off.

I put aside the Golem Blades and got back to work on the inn. Things were going pretty well with it. There was even a room on the second floor that had glass windows. I had made them using leftover potion bottles, though there were so few bottles I only had enough glass for that one room. Maybe I’ll really make this room fancy and turn it into a kind of luxury suite. But first, let’s see what my lovely companions think.

“Master, where the heck is the kitchen? The dining room?”

“Good point.” Neither was necessary since I could just make food out of nothing with DP, but not having a kitchen would look suspicious. Time for some extra construction.

“U-Um, Master. There’s no bathrooms...”

“...I’ll add some with the water system.”

I totally forgot about those. I’ll make the toilets flush-able. And Rokuko can take care of the septic tank when it gets full.

“Keima! Give me my own room, please!”

“I’ll make a dog house off to the side for you.” There was a lot of extra construction I had to do.

“Hey! Why are you just being mean to me?! We’re partners!”

“C’mon, don’t be dumb. I’m only joking around with you like this ’cause we’re partners.”

“O-Oh, okay! I don’t mind then!”

I continued building the inn to ever greater heights with the advice of my companions as a guiding light. And so, right before the sun set, I finally finished the inn.

Day 41

...The inn was far from finished. It didn’t have a bathing area. A mountain inn needed an onsen, plain and simple. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.

And so, I entered the second day of construction. I may have finished the main building already, but finishing the whole inn within a single day was naturally unreasonable. I added a small building behind the inn with plans to turn it into a full bath. To be more precise, I had surrounded an area with wooden walls, then put a few pillars and a roof in the middle of it—the groundwork for an open-air bath. Since the design was more simple than the inn’s, it only took an hour to make.

In this world, cleaning one’s body amounted to {Purification} and nothing else, aside from maybe rubbing yourself with a wet towel if things were really bad. Therefore, according to Ichika, baths were treated as an extravagant luxury. Which meant that simply having a bath at all might be a big bonus. But about the hot water...

I checked the DP Catalog and saw that it had both a [Water Source (1,000 DP)] and a [Heat Source (500 DP)] in it. Maybe the [Heat Source] was so cheap because we were by a mountain? Either way, we wouldn’t be buying one. I had my Golems start digging holes, looking for a real source of hot water instead. Tsia Mountain seemed to be a volcano, so it would definitely have some heat sources inside of it. If there was an underground stream of flowing water nearby, digging into it would get us hot water then and there. That would definitely be more efficient than just digging around randomly looking for heat sources. Though... Finding the water stream was up to luck, too.

I developed Drill Golems in order to dig all those holes. The Drill Golems were a work of genius, if I do say so myself. Instead of making Golems with pickaxes or shovels for hands, I made Golems that had their entire bodies built for excavation. I think they would be called a shield machine or something back on Earth? Either way, they had a drill dedicated to efficiently digging through tunnels without an ounce of waste. Modern Japan would have trouble dealing with all the dug out dirt and stone, but we of the dungeon faction could just withdraw all that junk without any problems whatsoever. Basically, Rokuko would expand the dungeon limits and withdraw the excess material as the digging advanced further. And that’s the secret behind how I had a thirty centimeters wide Drill Golem digging steadily into the ground in search of heat.

...Seriously, why didn’t I think of this earlier? I could’ve made the underground labyrinth floor a lot easier if I had figured this out back during the Dungeon Battle. This should have come first, way before making drones out of glass bottles. I missed out on a lot of sleep time because of this. I replaced the pickaxes + Golems team expanding the Goblin room with a new Drill Golem + Golems team, speeding things up immensely. The Goblin room team had originally been put there just to mine materials, which I didn’t need anymore, but at that point I figured I may as well just dig straight through to the other side of the mountain. Maybe I could charge a toll fee for passing through the tunnel after completing it. Heheh. The future is looking bright. Sometimes, the dreams I have while awake are pretty nice.

By the way, I had Rokuko and more Golems digging underground to expand the dungeon further downwards. Thanks to my know-how from the Dungeon Battle, we were digging much more efficiently than before. All that empty space meant that we were gonna be making some massive floors. I could just fill in the walls with Golems and DP later, so all that mattered now was securing a lot of space.

Yeah... We’re getting kinda tight on DP now. It costs five thousand DP to add a new floor, which is rough, but... I really wanna expand the dungeon before we open up the inn. We had two aboveground floors and three basement floors (two of which were part of the labyrinth), which meant five floors in total. I wanted at least two more floors, and including the contents of each floor, they’d cost 10,000 DP per floor. In other words, I would spend 20,000 DP. Which would leave 100,000 DP total. That’s really low. I’m really gonna have to straighten up now. Might not be long before I have to start worrying about the single digits column again.

＊ ＊ ＊

I made a Wearable Golem for Ichika. This time, I based the design around a [Navy Blue Maid Outfit Set (500 DP)]. That was what came up when I looked through the Catalog for some clothes fitting for an inn receptionist. It was less a real maid outfit and more a cosplay thing, but it came with gloves, socks, a hairband, and even underwear in addition to the maid outfit itself. Now isn’t that just cheap for something that only costs 500 DP? Oh, and of course, it came with kneesocks and a garterbelt. Those two are very important to me and I won’t accept any maid outfit without them. I’m talking function-wise here, okay? Trust me. The Golem can’t assist her properly unless it’s covering her legs up past her knees.

It was kind of embarrassing to turn panties and kneesocks into Golems, but I managed to force myself to sew (bury) Magic Stones into them, successfully turning the entire outfit into a Golem. You might be wondering if this kind of outfit is normal in this world, but when I asked Haku about the butler outfit her companion was wearing, she told me that maid outfits existed as well. Of course, the fabric and whatnot all consisted of materials that existed in this world as well. There was no problem with her outfit... probably.

“Holy cheeseballs, this outfit is hella awesome! You’re really letting me have this?!”

“Yep, be sure to wear it.”

“Awww. That looks really nice. Keima, give me one of those outfits too.”

“I’m gonna play you off as the owner of the inn, so I’ll be making you a dress like the one Haku wears.”

“Yay! Thank you, Keima! I can’t wait!”

“Niku, I’ll get you a matching outfit, since you’ll be an inn employee too. Start wearing it most of the time from now on.”

“Okay!” Somewhat worried about whether or not I’d be able to get a maid outfit Niku’s size, I handed Ichika her uniform.

“Oh dude, I’ve never seen lace panties before. You’ve got some good taste, Master.” Ichika went out of her way to spread the underwear apart with her fingers and show it off to me.

“Sorry, but my tastes lie a little bit lower than that.”

“...Riiight, you’re one of those dudes into feet. Back at the market, did you ask for a slave with sexy feet or legs or something?”

“You know, I remember him talking about my feet like that too.”

“Oh hoooh.” Ichika grinned after hearing Rokuko mutter.

“Heeeey, Masteeer. Do you wanna see me... put these socks on?”

“...Wh-What did you just say?” She’s going right for my weakest point...! Clever girl!

“...Y’know, I’m your slave, Master. You don’t need to hold back aaat all.” Holy crap. I wanna see it. I wanna see it right now. So much. I reflexively ended up staring at Ichika’s feet, but she noticed something while rubbing the socks and stopped her teasing.

“Hold up. Why’re there magic stones in these clothes?”

“Huh? Well, so that they can help out even when you’re not in the dungeon.”

“Sorry, I shoulda asked this first. Is... Is this a set of Magic Equipment?”

“Magic Equipment?” I had never heard that word before, but apparently it referred to equipment that had special properties activated by pouring mana into it, just like Magic Blades. Makes sense. Magic weapons exist, so Magic Equipment existing isn’t weird at all. If a sword could become a Magic Blade just by getting sharper, equipment that increased the wearer’s strength and assisted their movement was more than worthy of being called Magic Equipment. Naturally, such equipment was as difficult to make as Magic Blades were, and Ichika had apparently never heard of normal clothing being Magic Equipment. Well... If nobody’s ever heard of it, nobody will figure it out. Probably. Alright, I’ll just interpret this as it being fine for them to wear these clothes all the time.

“Oh, by the way, Keima. You’re making new clothes for all of us, but what about yourself?”

“My plan is to lend these slaves to you and have them work under you, while I use the resulting money to rent a room and pass myself off as an adventurer that sleeps like a log all day, so yeah. This outfit’s good enough for me.”

“Oh boy, Keima. That really makes you sound like a failure of a human being. Well, a lot of people with slaves end up like that too, but still.” Yeah, I think so too. I won’t argue because it’s the truth.

“I’m fine as long as I get to sleep. People can say what they want about me. My reputation in Tsia’s probably already terrible, anyway. I left Niku alone after we went on that bathroom cleaning quest.”

“I dunno my dude, slave owners making their slaves do all their work is hella common. But wow, you made Niku clean a bathroom on her own? Harsh. That’s actually a pretty rough job. Totally normal for slaves to do, but yeah, dang.”

“Nah, I actually cleaned the whole bathroom with a single {Purification}. I didn’t do anything that would make Niku hate me... and thus, I can sleep peacefully with a clear conscience. Perfect plan, huh?”

“I-I would never hate you, Master!” Heheh, that’s right. I couldn’t sleep at night if my own dakimakura hated me, after all. I’ll take good care of you. I rubbed Niku’s head. Her tail wagged side to side in a really cute way.

“She cares more about her master sleeping well than her own rep on the streets, huh? Cool, cool. I guess you just had Niku stand by the toilet with a bunch of cleaning tools, then? That’s some pretty easy money.”

“Yep, with a bunch of cleaning tools.” Wait... Actually, I don’t think I gave her any tools.

“...Niku, you said someone came by while you were waiting for me, right? Did he ask you about what you were using to clean the toilet?”

“Yes, he did.”

“What’d you say?”

“I told him I was using my hands, feet, and mouth just like I should!” Niku responded, her tone filled with pride and confidence. Oh crap.

“Hold on, that’s way too intense. Why’d you say that?”

“Eeeh? I-I shouldn’t have? I’m sorry!” Niku paled and panicked a little. Ichika, seeing that, figured something out.

“Aaaah, Master, lemme make a guess here. Did you get Niku from the slum’s slave market?”

“...She used to be the slave of some bandits, so she probably came from the slums, yeah.”

“Figures...” Ichika nodded to herself, with a somewhat sad expression. She then looked Niku in the eyes.

“Niku! Normally, you use brushes and stuff when cleaning bathrooms! You can use water from wells too! And this is the most important thing: your body isn’t a cleaning utensil!”

“Eh?!”

“What?!” I was stunned after hearing Ichika say that with a deadly serious expression on her face. But it seemed that Niku truly didn’t know that. Holy crap, just how terrible are the slum’s slave markets?!

“Uh-huh. I didn’t notice until now because she’s so clean and well-dressed, but yeah. Slum slave markets treat their slaves worse than garbage... And beastkin slaves are treated even worse than that. Most of them die before they even get sold, for real. Anybody raised in a place like that will get a messed up perspective on the world... Niku, you’ve worked really hard, haven’t you?” Ichika hugged Niku tightly and patted her head... though she ended up smothering her face with her boobs.

“A lot of slaves get sick from cleaning toilets and just die... And beastkin or not, kids just don’t have the strength adults do. To make things worse, slavers kick and beat up the slaves for fun. They use them as punching bags to test out skills. Lots of slaves have their limbs cut off for no reason. Beastkin children are worth a couple of coppers at best, so slavers just view them as toys to play with. Even those lucky enough to survive have no chance of being bought by anyone respectable. Not in the slums. Their lives are hell from beginning to end.” Just listening to that is enough to make me feel like crap. Ouch.

“...Niku, you suffered a lot more than I have, huh?”

“R-Rokuko?” Rokuko hugged Niku from the opposite side of Ichika.

“I’m kind of a weak dungeon and get bullied a lot, but Haku has always been there for me, so things never got worse than that. Mhm. I’ll be a little nicer to you from now on. You’re welcome.”

“Rokuko...”

“I-I’ll even give you some of my [Melon Rolls]. Just a bite, though.” I... I guess this is Rokuko trying to be nice? But anyway. The slum slave markets may treat their slaves worse than garbage, but I’m not planning on trying to destroy the slums, or free all beastkin slaves. I don’t want to do something I couldn’t take responsibility for, and people will absolutely try to have me killed for doing something like that. I’ll leave that kind of stuff to goody two-shoes, invincible Heroes. The best I can do is free Niku before she suffocates to death in Ichika’s cleavage.

“Ooooh, whoopsie-do! Sorry about that, Niku. You okay?”

“Y-Yesh...” Her legs looked a little shaky, but she’d be fine.

“Ah, right. Keima. We kind of got off topic, but really, what were you talking about a second ago? Really, you need to tell us all the details about this inn. We’re still in the dark here.”

“You’re talking about me lending you my slaves and just sleeping all day as an adventurer, right? Alright then.” I started telling them about Operation: Inn.

I first decided to build an inn to secure safe sleeping arrangements for myself, but consider this: the safe little [Ordinary Cave] suddenly exploded into a decently-sized dungeon, and it even got an inn built in front of it out of nowhere at the same time. What would people think about that?

Answer: They would be suspicious as hell.

So, I decided to try and make everything fit together logically so I could somehow explain things to the Guild. Not to mention, Haku was actually helping me out with this.

“The owner of this inn will be Rokuko, little sister of the A-Rank adventurer Haku. The inn was built by one of Haku’s associates, who did so in no time with their skills. Are we all on the same page so far?”

“My sister would definitely know someone capable of making an inn in a single day, or at least bringing one from somewhere else. After all, you did that yourself, Keima.”

“That’s it. Well, be sure to keep the fact I made it myself a secret. It’d probably be annoying if people found that out.” They all agreed with me so far. Haku herself suggested that we focus on presenting Rokuko as the little sister of the “A-Rank adventurer Haku.” It would be good for them both for Rokuko to have a recognizable identity. There might end up being some people taking out their anger for Haku on Rokuko, but that’s what the dungeon was for. If things got dangerous, she could just escape to the Master Room. We had lots of options.

“From there, I just happened to meet Haku, and one thing or another led to me lending my slaves to her little sister and owner of this inn. Bam. My role will be acting like an adventurer that stays in the inn and sleeps all day.”

“Aren’t you just going to do that because you want to...? That’s not a role, that’s just you being yourself...”

“What’re you talking about, Rokuko? I’m actually the Dungeon Master, remember? This is an important role for me to play.”

“Oh, right! I get it now!” I mean, I’m not gonna say I’m NOT a Dungeon Master, so technically I’m not lying! And if you think about it, slaves working to make their master’s life easier is basically common sense. Though, there’s so much inn and dungeon related stuff only I can do, I’ll probably end up working anyway...

“Wha? But why’s your role gotta involve you sleeping all the time, dude?”

“It’ll be a lot easier to hide a bunch of things if I’m supposedly in my room all the time. Not like I can do Dungeon Master stuff in front of people.”

“Yeah, I totally see your point.” Well, even so, there’s probably gonna be a lot of things that people will find suspicious. But all those minor contradictions can be washed away with one simple sentence: I mean, we’re talking about an A-Rank adventurer here!

“It’s perfect!”

“I know, right?” I glanced at Ichika, wanting to know if my plan wouldn’t fly in this world for whatever reason.

“My dude. Do you and Rokuko really know Haku the Ivory Goddess? Like, for real?”

“That’s what you’re worried about? Yeah, we do. And she gave us permission to say these things. She said we could use her name all we wanted if it meant helping out Rokuko.”

“L-Like, seriously? I mean... With her backing, we can say whatever we want and nobody will question us, dude. The Ivory Goddess is an A-Rank adventurer and a major higher up in the imperial capital. Plus, she’s partners with Chloe the Black Winged Demon and four other hella strong adventurers known as the Four Braves, forming the S-Rank party the Dungeon Busters. She’s got so much authority and power nobody’s gonna question her. Nobody.” In other words, Ichika was backing up my plan. By the way, I asked Haku before any of this started if we could frame the inn as something she selfishly wanted for personal reasons, and subsequently entrusted to Rokuko due to wanting a reliable family member managing it in her stead. I had planned ahead after winning the Dungeon Battle.

Framing it that way had the extra benefit of allowing Haku to come to this backwater city without drawing suspicion. No one would blame her for wanting to see her little sister. Though, Haku had figured that out immediately... or rather, Haku had more or less set up things to be that way. After the Dungeon Battle, Haku had asked me what I would be doing. I told her I might set up an inn, to which she said, “Oh, and I presume Rokuko will be presented as the owner? In which case, you will certainly need my help. Very well. I will permit you to use my adventurer identity as you wish. But in return, do a good job, understand?” Yeah, I hadn’t thought that far ahead at all. I knew I wanted to make an onsen inn, but I hadn’t thought up any ideas for how to make people not suspicious of an inn popping up out of nowhere next to a massively expanded dungeon. And yet, the approval of an A-Rank adventurer fell straight into my lap.

And you know, thinking about it, Haku’s really doing whatever she wants as an adventurer, huh? She’s got two names and a strong party called the Dungeon Busters. Does she destroy dungeons in her spare time? What? I doubt she’s gonna come after our dungeon or the Ivory Labyrinth, but still.

“Buuut y’know, it’s super funny that we’re gonna be claiming that the leader of the Dungeon Busters is the older sister of an actual Dungeon Core. Like, talk about irony, amirite?” Hahaha, yeah. The real irony is that that she’s also a Dungeon Core herself. Ah, yeah, I’m still hiding Haku’s true identity from Ichika. Slave or not, that information isn’t something I should be spreading around lightly.

“...Wait, wait. Is this really okay? Is this actually gonna work?”

“What’s with you, Keima? It’ll definitely work. We have my sister on our side.”

“Yeah, my dude. We’ll be totally fine.” Uhhh, y’know, I was hoping that since you’re the only one here familiar with how this world works, you’d kind of help me work out the finer details and stuff. I mean, I’m one to talk, but this plan is just ridiculous. It’s filled with holes. Could you throw me a bone here? I’ve developed the backstory for a mage called Narikin who’s an expert in earth magic and is an old friend of Haku’s. I guess we won’t need him? I guess not. I, uh... I made a cool mask in case we needed him. Are you sure we won’t?

Day 42

It was day three of me building the inn... or it would be, if I hadn’t taken the day off to restore some mana. To be honest, I didn’t actually need to restore mana or anything. I had used {Create Golem} so much while chugging mana potions back during the Dungeon Battle that it barely took any mana at all to make Golems at this point. I just wanted a day to rest since I had been working really hard lately. Feelings are important. Also, Golems were digging out the onsen while I was resting, so yeah.

There were still a lot of things I needed to build, though. Although I could buy food with Dungeon Points, people would get suspicious if I didn’t have fields and crops. So I would need to make some. Luckily, the sugar beet fields I had some experimental Golems and Testle build were coming along nicely, so I could just add a vegetable field near them. Though even then, I could just buy the vegetables with DP and have Golems take care of the rest. The only thing I personally needed to do was build a wall surrounding the fields, more or less.

Ichika and Niku had cut down a surprisingly large number of trees over the past two days, so I let them take the day off with me. I dried up all the logs at once with the Survival Magic spell {Dry}, which stunned Ichika. According to her, wood splintered and became useless if you tried drying it with {Dry} too quickly. It all melded back together when I used {Create Golem}, though, so it wasn’t a big deal to me. And then, while I was lazing around on my [Futon] in the Master Room, Ichika suddenly said something.

“...Wait a sec. Aren’t you an F-Rank, Master? This dungeon’s definitely gonna be an E-Rank dungeon, for sure. If you’re not careful with those Magic Blades it might even end up as a D-Rank dungeon.”

...I hadn’t expected that at all. Naturally, it’d suck if I couldn’t go into my own dungeon. The inn was located with the dungeon regions, so I wouldn’t be stuck outside of it or anything, but it’d still be a definite problem. The simplest solution would just be to raise my rank. Going up to E-Rank from F-Rank just took completing ten F-Rank quests and a combat test administered by the Guild.

“The combat test is something simple like killing Goblins, right? If so, the main problem here is the ten quests... The only F-Rank quest I know of is that Goblin extermination one.”

“I mean, what’s wrong with hunting Goblins, my dude? I ranked up just from hunting boars.” And so, I got to work summoning Goblins and collecting enough right ears to fulfill the quests...

...Not. Naturally, I’m not enough of a monster to summon a bunch of Goblins and then cut off their ears. Feral Goblins in the wild are one thing, but I owe a lot to summoned Goblins. Heck, Gobsuke sacrificed himself to protect the Dungeon Core. Even I’d feel like garbage summoning them en masse and mutilating them.

“Guess I’ll go hunt some wild Goblins...” Rokuko tilted her head in confusion.

“If you want Goblin ears, why don’t you just buy them with DP?”

“Huh? What are you on about, Rokuko? We can’t do that... can we?”

“There are [Dragon Claws] and stuff in the treasure section of the Catalog, so I don’t see why not.” Why not indeed. I checked the treasure section of the Catalog, but there were no Goblin ears. Makes sense. It’s kinda hard to call Goblin ears treasure. But I didn’t give up there. I checked the other sections and... found right Goblin ears under the materials section. Right Goblin ears. One for six DP. Five for thirty DP, which would earn us thirty coppers. They cost just as much as the quest’s reward.

“Why is it selling specifically right Goblin ears? And what are they a material for, anyway?”

“This is just a total guess, but maybe that’s ’cause the Guild recycles the ears into fertilizer with a special recipe?” Although they didn’t have to be right ears, the Guild apparently made a recipe using right ears after struggling to deal with all of the ones given to them as a part of quests. If they just threw them away, adventurers would pick them up and try to turn them in again, so they had to do something with them. Man, I can’t believe someone who would do that actually exist... Oh wait. I’m trying to do basically the same thing. These may be fresh ears, but it’s hard to say I’m following the spirit of the quest. The whole point is to encourage adventurers to take care of Goblins hurting crops, after all. But whatever. This is fine. I care more about my time than that. The quest says to bring ears, and that’s it. I’m not breaking any rules here.

“But tiny little rules are nothing to a mighty Demon King like you, right, Master?”

“I’m not a Demon King, seriously.” For the last time, I’m a Dungeon Master. Big difference.

“Let’s see, we’ve already done the quest once, so... We just need forty-five more. That’s 270 DP.” In other words, about two days of our currently daily DP income. Oh, right. Since Ichika’s boosting things up, our daily DP income is now 160 DP a day. 60 DP in one day means she’s at least as strong as three tough bandits, doesn’t it? Dang. Just what I’d expect from a former C-Rank adventurer...! She’s strong!

In any case, the problem then became explaining where we got all the ears from. The solution, however, was simple. I placed a Goblin spawner within the dungeon. Apparently, one Goblin spawner could summon up to five Goblins at once. It would spawn a new one each time one of the existing five died, as long as it had enough mana stored up.

Also, I placed a jelly spawner next to it as a food source for the Goblins. Jellies were cheap, pitifully useless monsters with no function in combat whatsoever. A single one had a cost of only 1 DP, so even the spawner only put me down 100 DP. They looked like blobs of bowl-shaped gelatin with tendrils growing out of them. They were basically the weak slimes of this world. You could easily defeat them through magic or a well-placed punch. By the way, a strong slime would be immune to physical damage.

“...Do they taste good?”

“They don’t taste like anything. Like, they’re basically just water, so yeah.” I gestured a summoned jelly over and touched it. My finger sunk into its squishy... flesh? It felt nice. Though, judging by how my fingers were getting wet with water, I definitely wouldn’t want to use one as a pillow.

I went ahead and put Golem spawners on the second and third basement floors—the labyrinth. Each one was 10,000 DP. They also could summon up to five Golems each. And since Golems were monsters, they had magic stones in them. That had obvious implications. These Golems would likely end up as a nice source of income for adventurers.

All in all, I put five Goblin spawners and ten jelly spawners on the first floor, plus three Golem spawners on each of the labyrinth floors. I was in the middle of building the fourth and fifth basement floors, but... I didn’t need them just yet. I wasn’t even sure if any visitors would be making it that far in the first place.

...With all that done, we had 60,000 DP left. Oh man. We’re already down this low? Losing funds isn’t good for one’s mental health. I’ve gotta slow down on the spending. Anyway, we have the stuff to get up to E-Rank now. I’ll ask about what we need to do to rank up again just in case our dungeon ends up being restricted to D-Ranks and above. “Ichika, do you remember what we need to do to go from E-Rank to D-Rank?”

“Um, I think it was... One hundred total quests done and a combat test at the Guild. They’ll wanna see how good you are at fighting other humans. No need to sweat that, though. You and Niku would crush that junk, trust me. Dunno about Rokuko, though.” Fighting other humans, huh...? I might need a backup plan for that. Luckily, we’ve got a former C-Rank adventurer on our side. If I can teach our Wearable Golems the combat techniques Ichika’s built up over the years, we should be able to power up fast and hard. Even Rokuko would be able to take care of herself in a fight.

“You got all the way to C-Rank without ever learning a skill, right? That must mean that you’re pretty strong. Do you think you’re about as strong as a knight captain?”

“I dunno, dude. I might be stronger than a weak-ass captain, but I’ll probably lose to most of them... Eh. The best I can do is hold my own in a one-v-one with a minotaur.” I guess that’s how strong you have to be to get to C-Rank, huh? Wait, no. If she had a skill, I guess she’d be able to beat the minotaur on her own too? There are definitely skills unrelated to magic. Like {Slash}, which initiates a very strong... slash. It might be smart for me to learn some of those skills too.

“Ichika, would you mind helping me train? And by that I mean, help train Niku.”

“What about you, Master?”

“I’ll be watching. That’s a very important job, y’know.” It really was important for me to watch their movements through the dungeon monitor to record them, and then teach the Golems the same moves through repetition. I wanted to make more human-like Golems in the shape of mannequins that would be useful sparring partners. There would be no downsides to doing so.

“Ah, but y’know, it’s not like you gotta worry about boosting everyone’s individual rank. It’ll be a lot easier to just get your party rank up. There’s this rule like, ‘When all members of this party are together we recognize their collective rank to be higher,’ or something like that. Rokuko will be fine if you and Niku are in her party, for sure.” Party rank. I guess that’s like a system where you jump through hoops to get special benefits. Oh yeah, I remember hearing about Haku’s Dungeon Busters party being S-Rank when all the members are together. Party rank probably exists to help out those who aren’t so hot in actual combat, like mages and others in more indirect, supportive roles. Not to mention nobles. Like, if some rich kid wants to explore a dungeon for whatever reason, he can just join a party with his strong bodyguards and get into C-Rank dungeons that way. Or from the opposite perspective, since parties take written tests together as well, smarter party members can back up meathead warriors to secure their help in the dungeon. In any case, we won’t be having any problems ranking up with the former C-Rank adventurer Ichika on our side.

“Well, Niku’s definitely way stronger than your average C-Rank, so yeah. Uh-huh.” Wait... Am I dragging her down? I’ve been kind of worried about that, honestly...

Day 43

Day four of constructing the inn. It was already mostly complete, and I had already made one of the rooms mine. The onsen was the only thing left, more or less. I had enough wood to finish that on my own, so I had Ichika and Niku spar in the meantime. Niku was in her Wearable Golem Mark 2, whereas Ichika was in her Maid Outfit Golem. For weapons, I had prepared them wooden versions of their normal weapons. The wooden weapons were blades in shape only.

“Woooah, holy cow! What’s with these clothes?! I’m not using my muscles at all but I feel hella strong... Wow, I guess this is Niku’s secret. I’ll definitely be able to pull off some crazy tricks with these babies.”

“I want to try out a lot of moves today, for Master’s sake.” My job was to watch them spar... or more accurately, to open up the dungeon monitor and film them. I had put my Wearable Golem on a much more human-shaped Mannequin Golem. By having it repeat what was happening on screen, it would master the perfect moves for assisting me and thereby become the first truly complete Wearable Golem. This was a lot easier than what I did before, since I didn’t have to teach it the motions myself. If it were a robot, I would have to program in detail the exact angle to move my legs, arms, and so on. No thanks.

In any case, it was very convenient that my party rank would go up without doing anything if my party members were strong enough. Very convenient, very nice. I didn’t even want to be an adventurer in the first place. I just wanted to have a nice time and sleep all day. And yet, I get the feeling I’ve been working all the time lately. What’s up with that? Well, no more! It’s time for me to buckle down and get to snoozing! I dove into the [Futon] spread out on the floor of my inn room while still recording Niku and Ichika sparring.

“Keima! We finally hit an underground water source! And it’s warm!” I try to sleep... and this is what I get? I mean, I’m not gonna complain about finding water for the onsen, but c’mon...

“Alright. I’ll start connecting it to the bath and all that, I guess.”

“Um, by the way. I probably should have asked about this earlier, but what’s an onsen?”

“Just a warm pool of water you sit inside. It feels pretty good. The warm water helps your blood flow, too, so it’s healthy.”

“Wow. Can I get into it too?”

“Sure, but I dunno if it’ll be all that special for a Dungeon Core that doesn’t need to eat, sleep, or even use {Purification}.”

“I own this inn, so it’s important for me to check this stuff!” Rokuko got all noisy. I’m glad you’re motivated. Work hard in my place, friend.

“Oh. Sometimes they stink, depending on what’s in the water.”

“They stink?! Humans sure are weird. Who would want to get into stinky warm water? Mmm... Do you think {Purification} would get rid of the smell?”

“.........” Sorry, sorry. Honestly, the only thought that crossed my mind was the fact it’d be nice to sleep after spending some time in an onsen. I didn’t even think about the smell. Some people actually like the smell of sulfur, but as you would expect from a smell most commonly likened to that of rotten eggs, a lot of people had a hard time getting used to it. A sulfuric onsen might have a negative impact on weapons and such, so one of those would be pretty bad for an inn marketed towards adventurers. Well, either way, I gotta see what kind of onsen it is before making any decisions.

I checked the map and saw that they had hit water at around one hundred meters underground. That was more shallow than I expected. I expanded the dungeon bounds around the water source and withdrew some of the hot water, which I then placed into a bucket-shaped Wood Golem. I had made the bucket after deciding that onsens really did need buckets.

“...It’s clear. It doesn’t smell, and it’s pretty dang warm too.” I didn’t go as far as taste testing it, but the water was clean enough that it’d probably be fine to do so. Hm? Wait, I think I remember Ichika saying she’s an expert at taste-testing poisons or something. I won’t tell her to drink this stuff, but she might still be able to tell if it’s poisonous or not.

“Ichika, stop sparring for a minute and come here.”

“Hm? ’Kay, got it. Be there in a sec.” I stuck my head out the window and called Ichika over, interrupting her duel. She came right away, so I went ahead and just showed her the stuff in the bucket.

“Would you take a look at this water for me? I’m not sure if it’s poisoned or something.”

“Oh? Lemme take a looksie.” Ichika picked up the bucket and, without a moment of hesitation, started gulping down the water.

“The hell?! What’re you doing, Ichika?!”

“Fwaah. Okay, if I’m not dead in two hours, it’s definitely not poisoned!”

“And if it is poisoned?!”

“Aaah, I was just kidding about being dead. At worst I’ll get a stomachache or something like that. Its smell, taste, and clearness is enough for me to figure that out. Fufufu... Were you worried about me? Thaaaank you♪” Ichika smiled as if embarrassed.

“...Y-Yeah. I was a little worried, sure. If you died I’d be out fifty whole silvers.”

“Sure, suuure. But trust me, I don’t wanna die this early. I’m planning on being the best slave you’ve ever seen, with my eyes set on you freeing me sooner or later.”

“...Sorry, but now that you know so much about our dungeon, I’m not gonna be able to free you.”

“That’s okay too. ’Cause like, you feed me some hella choice food. Anyway, I’ll get back to sparring.” Ichika left the room, grinning at me and waving.

And two hours later, she was still totally fine. The water wasn’t poisoned or anything. Whew... I really hadn’t expected her to just drink it out of nowhere like that. Seriously. Sheesh, that girl’s a real wild card.

＊ ＊ ＊

I filled the bath with the warm water. The steam was incredible, revealing that the water was indeed still heated. I love taking long baths in warm water. I’ll have to try this onsen out myself later. And so, with the onsen complete, so too was the inn.

Every day, either Rokuko or I would need to swap out the water manually using our withdraw powers. That was annoying, but my plan was to eventually have the thirty centimeter Drill Golems drill out water tunnels that would cycle the water automatically. The walls of their tunnels were technically considered dungeon walls, so I didn’t need to worry about them collapsing. I was putting that off, though, since we didn’t have much DP to spare and I needed some kind of rubber for use in pumps. For now, withdrawing the warm water and putting it into large, insulated Stone Golem containers would have to do. Worse case scenario, I could just throw a {Fireball} into the container and heat the water back up.

Including all the resources dumped into digging out the onsen, building the inn had cost us roughly 5,000 DP. The inn needed water too, so I had bought a [Water Source (1,000 DP)] for it. The tools and such used for digging out the onsen totaled to about 4,000 DP. Wait... I’m pretty sure it would have been cheaper for me to just buy a [Water Source] and then heat it with a [Heat Source]. Dang. Well, I guess having a natural onsen isn’t so bad either. I had built the inn for much cheaper than, say, just buying a house directly for around 50,000 DP, but even so, we were running lower on DP than I’d like. We had around... actually, let’s be more specific. We had 56,390 DP left. That wasn’t including the DP I had spent on the fourth and fifth basement floors, nor did it count the DP I had given to Rokuko to do whatever she wanted with. I really needed to be careful with my spending now... Ah, geez. I just wanna start earning DP so I can sleep already.

“So, Keima. How do you use this onsen, anyway?”

“Simple. You take off your clothes and then just get in after washing your body.”

“...I have to take off my clothes? Honestly, I’d be pretty embarrassed going in there with just my underwear on... ah, I guess that’s why you built those walls around it. Nobody can see inside the onsen thanks to those.” Rokuko nodded to herself, impressed.

“Hey, hold on. You have to take off your underwear too.”

“I what?”

“You don’t wear any clothes in the bath. That’s just common sense.”

“Hold on just a second. Don’t you go into the onsen with multiple other people? Are humans really fine with that?”

“.........Good point. I forgot we come from different cultures.” It was a bit late, but I asked Ichika about the onsen. Teach me, Ms. Ichika!

“Mmm, there were definitely some baths in some imperial capital inns. I think in those you just changed into simple clothes before getting into the bath.”

“It’d be hard to wash yourself like that, though. Oh, right... You guys have {Purification}...!” Crap! I totally wasted my time building rooms for cleaning! I should have asked her fiiirst. I even built faucets, shower heads, and everything... Honestly, now I feel depressed over how needlessly hard I worked...

“You don’t think people will go in naked?”

“Aaah, ummm... There’s like, one bath I know of that a Hero made, where like, you go in naked with just a towel. That’s just the kind of thing that Hero liked, though. I don’t think a random inn should be copying it, trust me.”

“...Alright, I’ll change those rooms into changing areas. I’ll make some bathing clothes that visitors can either buy or just borrow.” Well, I only made the onsen for my own benefit anyway, so whatever. This is fine.

“Ah, don’t forget that me and Niku are totally your slaves. We can bathe naked with you no problem. Whaddya think?”

“...The onsen has separate sections for men and women, so I’ll have to pass. Oh, and Ichika. Would you teach Rokuko and Niku how to use a bath? In the women’s section, of course.” Trust me, it’s not that I don’t want to see them naked. Okay? Trust me. I wanna see them legs and feet.

＊ ＊ ＊

After getting out of the bath, I bought a coffee with milk (5 DP) and chugged it down with a hand on my side. I was wearing a bathrobe, obviously, with some trunks on underneath. Bathrobes were considered a variation of normal clothing, so they only cost 10 DP each. Even buying one for each of us only cost 40 DP. Nice and cheap. The hot water was nice, too. I had just taken my first bath since coming to this fantasy world. I got the feeling I’d sleep like a baby that night.

And so, I got into my massage chair (Chair Golem) and let myself drift off. I had made the massage chair with wood and a [Futon]. It barely cost anything. When you sat in the chair, the Golem would start massaging you... so to speak. It was hard to manage how hard it would squeeze or chop, so I settled on the chair just vibrating.

A light vrrring filled filled the air, weakening and strengthening as the vibrating did. It felt pretty good. Oh yeah. I should make it so this chair will vibrate for five minutes after getting a copper put into it. If it gets popular, I could earn a lot of money... haaah...

I opened my eyes after feeling something ticklish and noticed that Niku had spread a blanket over me. Niku was wearing a bathrobe as well. Seeing her reminded my sleepy brain of how the DP Catalog had included an option for the bathrobe to include a hole for a tail. Aaah, fantasy worlds. What wondrous places you are.

“I-I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to wake you up...”

“Fwaah... Nnn, nah, don’t worry about it. I’m just gonna go back to sleep...” I yawned and got out of the chair to follow Niku back to my room. Hmm. Guess I might need to think of a way to stop customers from falling asleep in the chairs and keeping them all to themselves.

“...Eeeh, and I’m honestly kinda feeling unsatisfied. Just vibrating really isn’t enough... Oh. Hey, Niku. Do you know how to give massages?”

“...Ah! Yes, I do. Ichika taught me how.” Ooooh! When did that happen? Niku sure loves to learn, huh?

“Fantastic. Would you mind giving me one, Niku?”

“Ah, b-but, it’s a... um, it’s a stepping massage, so...”

“It’s a... stepping massage...?!” A stepping massage. Obviously enough, that was a massage performed with feet. Normally it would be done by kids who needed to use their full body weight to put a satisfying amount of pressure on someone else’s body. Parents often requested that their children give them such a massage. The execution was simple. You put your foot on the person and stepped down using your body weight. The end.

That’s right. You step on someone. With your feet. I mean, obviously, stepping on someone means using your feet. That’s just how language works. And to someone with a foot fetish like me, that’s the best massage I could ask for.

“That’s absolutely okay. Actually, it’s better than okay. Please, please give me that massage.”

“Eh?! O-Okay! Um, please lay down, then.” I lay down onto my futon. C’mon. Do it.

“A-Ah... U-Um, excuse me...” Niku timidly put a foot on my back. I felt the heat of the underside of her foot through my thin bathrobe. So... So warm. Her hesitant stepping feels really ticklish... Crap. I was just about to fall asleep again, but this is just gonna make me wide awake. Though her shaky feet feel pretty nice.

“Ohoooh... Would you mind stepping down a little harder? It’s way too ticklish right now.”

“O-Okay, sorry!” Oh. She’s stepping down a lot harder than before. Now this is what I’m talking about. I really wanted her to push her foot down hard on all the stiff spots covering my back.

“Would you mind, like, digging your toes into the harder spots on my back...?”

“Okay! L-Like this?”

“Aaah, that’s the stuff, right there... Ohoooh, this feels so goooood...” Niku drilled her toes into my back as if digging into it while rubbing her heel against me. Aaah. This really is a stepping massage. I’m being stepped on while laying down. Sweet mother of God, I feel like my dreams have all come true...!

“Oh, I’m gonna fall asleep soon, so just stop whenever you feel like it.”

“Okay... Hyah! Hyah!”

“Oooh, yeah, that’s it. Being stomped on feels good too...” The bottom of her feet gently stomped on my hips.

Fwaaah. Her feet rhythmically hitting my back is making me really tired... This is great, I’ll have to ask her... to do this... again... zzz...

Day 44

I woke up and found that I was using Niku as a dakimakura just like always, thanks in part to the distinctive sweet scent of a girl.

“...Ah. Good morning...” Niku woke up at the same time as I did, as if she had somehow been waiting for me.

“Yo, morning.... Aaah, I slept pretty well. It’s pretty rare for me to wake up feeling this good.”

“...I’m happy that I was helpful to you.” Niku smiled slightly. So... I gently rubbed her head.

“I’m gonna have to ask for another one of those massages.”

“O-Okay. I’ll do my best.” Alright. Thanks to Niku’s massage, I’m feeling pretty energetic, unlike usual. What to do, what to do... I’m done building the inn, so I guess I could spend today sprucing up the dungeon.

“Oh, right. That massage felt great, Niku, so I really wanna give you a treat. Is there anything you want? Something you want me to do?”

“Eeeh?! Th-That’s, um... Um... R-Really?”

“Yep. Just say whatever comes to mind. If you want something I can give, consider it yours.”

“Y-You really will?”

“What, are you doubting me?”

“Ah! N-No, I would never!” Niku vigorously shook her head side to side. Maybe I teased her too much. Anyway, now I just need to wait and see what she wants. I wonder what she’ll say. Maybe she’s gonna ask for all the hamburgers she can eat. After a minute or so of silence, Niku opened her mouth.

“Um... Please step on me!”

“Wha?!” Huh?! What the heck is this girl saying? I asked her what was up and, putting things together, it seemed that stepping on another person was—massage or not—something she innately viewed as an act of dominance, and since she viewed me as her superior... stepping on me was very rough for her, psychologically speaking. (As an aside, since I bought Ichika after her, Niku had no problem stepping on her.) So, in order to set things right in her mind, she wanted me to step on her. Of course, I didn’t have to do it if I didn’t want to, but she really wanted me to step on her. And on top of that, she wanted me to step on her head if possible. In fact, to be honest, what she really wanted was for me to straight up kick her. Seriously?! I wouldn’t go that far!

And so, I had Niku settle for bowing in front of me and letting me tickle the back of her head with the bottom of my foot. She looked really satisfied after raising her head.

＊ ＊ ＊

“And that’s what happened this morning. Is that normal for beastkin or what?”

“My guy, that’s totally normal.” I asked the all-knowing Ichika for help, and apparently Niku was just being normal. Beastkin were really uptight about superiority and inferiority in relationships, not to mention hierarchies in general. Add onto that the fact that Niku was raised as a slave, taught from birth that she’s the absolute lowest on the social ladder, and things just got worse.

“Like, sitting and stepping on others are like, suuuper fundamental ways to show superiority in beastkin culture. A lot of beastkin propose by saying something like ‘I want you to be right beneath me,’ or ‘I want you to lay me down beneath you.’ It’s wild.” Those are proposals...?

“They’ve got some more normal ways to propose too, but yeah. My heart would totally thump if someone said ‘I want you to eat the prey I hunt each day’ or ‘I swear on my fist that I will fill your stomach each day’ to me, yeah.” Okay, I can understand that a little better. It’s like saying, hey, I won’t let you go hungry. That exact kind of proposal would really work wonders on Ichika.

“There’s a few others I know, like ‘I want you to brush my tail,’ or ‘I won’t let anyone touch my belly except you.’ Now there’s a winner, huh?”

“Do you know those ’cause someone’s said them to you before?”

“Bahaha, as if. I just had a tight beastkin friend when I was an adventurer. He teased me a little, that’s about it.” Oh, whoops. We’re getting off topic.

“Y’know, this all means that Niku just likes you that much, yeah? That’s super nice.”

“Well, uh... Sure, let’s go with that.” Oh yeah, and I asked her to give me another massage like that sometime. Maybe I should take that back. I dunno though, the massage seriously felt great... Yeaaah, I feel kinda weird about it, but I’ll just go through with it. I’ll repay her by stepping on her again... Am I seriously okay with that?

Oh! Wait! Maybe Niku is a comrade with a foot fetish too...?! Nah, no way. Hahaha. Ha... Yeah, I’ll make some hamburgers to give her instead.

And so, four full days had passed since we returned to the dungeon. We needed to go back to Tsia City by tomorrow and give a report on what we found. Going all the way to the city was extremely tedious, but dealing with the punishment for abandoning the quest (or them thinking we got killed by bandits) would be even more annoying. I’ll just go to town and rank up while I’m there.

The inn was finished, which just left sprucing up the dungeon’s interior. I had thought up ideas for how to expand on the existing dungeon while lying down, so it didn’t take long for me to start making good progress. First, I made a room on the third basement floor and put our dungeon’s prize item—the [Golem Blade] (Magic Blade)—within it. In turn, I made some of the Golems wandering the dungeon wield normal swords of stone and clay. Well, they were actually Golem Blades too, but I made them deactivate if the Golem wielding them got destroyed. I also half-assed making them, such that they were basically clubs in the shape of swords.

Anyway, back to the room with the Magic Blade. To reach it, an adventurer would need to clear the first floor, get through the labyrinth comprising the first and second basement floors, go upstairs and beat the puzzle area on the second above-ground floor, climb down the spiral staircase that’s three floors tall overall, and then finally find the room after exploring the third basement floor. Pretty simple.

Summarizing that, the order was: [Area One: Entrance], [Areas Two and Three: Labyrinth], [Area Four: Puzzles and Riddles], then [Area Five: Magic Blade Treasury] after climbing down the [Spiral Staircase]. After that is [Area Six: The Boss/Core Room]. Naturally, we would be in some big trouble if any adventurers made it to the treasury. I hadn’t even placed a boss in the Boss Room of the fourth floor, the deepest floor. I was thinking about making some kind of Golem to put there. Maybe one that can do a useless but flashy transformation sequence. Or a bunch of Golems stuck together like a super robot. That’d be cool.

Anyway. The labyrinth and puzzle areas were tough enough that I figured nobody would reach the Core Room for a decent amount of time. Which unfortunately meant that it’d be hard for people to realize exactly what our dungeon’s prize was. Thus, in order to advertise the existence of Magic Blades in our dungeon, I put a room on the second basement floor where adventurers could try one out. It was a fundamental sales tactic: the trial period.

It was a room with a Magic Blade stuck inside a pedestal in the middle, ripe for the taking. But if someone did take it, a trap would be sprung. The moment the Magic Blade left the pedestal, every exit would immediately get sealed. To leave the room, you’d need to put the Magic Blade back where it was. Basically, there was no way for them to keep the Magic Blade. Even if someone were to successfully get it somehow, I could just shrug that off out of respect for their wisdom. Though I’d make it so if they tried reusing the same strategy twice, the second Magic Blade would destroy itself upon exiting the room.

Also, stopping the door from closing with a stick or something wouldn’t work. Reason being, I had set spike traps in the walls, ceiling, and floor of the hallway leading into the room that would activate and block the exit with an impenetrable wall of spikes. Naturally that’d kill anyone in the hallway, but I made it so the plates covering the spike holes would retract when someone got close to the Magic Blade pedestal, so... Uh... Good luck dodging them?

I placed a Wood Golem shaped target (which was actually a real Golem, just without a magic stone) in the room for adventurers to try the sword out on. It might be a smart idea to turn the whole room into a training area, or something.

To sum things up, the beginning of the dungeon was basically the same as what it was during the Dungeon Battle. My modifications could be summarized as me fleshing out the puzzle area, adding a spiral staircase that leads to the next area, and adding the Golem Blade trial room. And by the time I finished those modifications, the sun had set.

“Whew, I sure worked hard today...”

“Thank you for your work, Master.” I was having Niku give me a massage again. But not another stepping massage. Why not? Well, I mean, that stepping massage is just so amazing I don’t wanna ask for one too often. That’ll just make it lose its magic. Basically, a certain amount of restraint is necessary for living a good life. Like, if you don’t hold back, your desires will just grow out of control and eventually most things just won’t satisfy you anymore.

“Wow, Master. No need to hold yourself back. You can use my feet as much as you want, dude.”

“Hey, I sure do want to. But y’know... Think about it like food, Ichika. Let’s say there’s a food gourmand and just a normal guy. The gourmand eats some mid-tier food and says ‘This is crap. It isn’t even real cooking.’ The normal guy says ‘Oh man, this is pretty tasty,’ and enjoys his meal. Which one’s happier? I think the second guy’s happier.”

“...My guy, you’ve got a point. I’m all about eating good food, not eating the same thing over and over.”

“Right. Happiness is really important. If most things don’t satisfy you, you’ll end up unhappy, and there’s nothing good that can come from that.”

“Yeah, I’m gonna have to remember that. By the way, can I have some more of those [Curry Rolls]?” Not even that’s enough for Ichika to hold herself back, huh? Well, her loss.

“You’re going to Tsia tomorrow to give a report on the Dungeon, right? That means I won’t be eating any [Curry Rolls] for the next two whole days. So, like, what’s the problem? Yeah?”

“That’s true, but... aaah, that’s the stuff. Right there. Do that again.”

“Yes, Master.” Niku directly stimulated some of my acupuncture points. I let out a weird-sounding grunt. Niku was using Glove Golems to boost her power, she she could massage me properly without using her body weight. Though my shoulders weren’t that stiff in the first place, so... Actually, they were super stiff since I had worked so ridiculously hard. Super, suuuper stiff. Yep.

“Hey, Keima. Are we really going to the city again? I better get ready, then.”

“Yep... Oh, yeah. Have you used your 10,000 DP yet?”

“Mmm, not yet. I was thinking about using it on the gacha again, but I’m not sure if I should roll the 1,000 DP gacha ten times or roll the 10,000 DP gacha once.”

“What’s gacha...? That word sounds totally rad somehow. Care to drop the deets on me?” Oh right... Ichika ended up super in debt after gambling too much, I forgot about that. She’s not just a big food lover. If I let her play the gacha as much as she wants, she’d probably use up all our DP in a single day...

“You’re right! Pulling the 10,000 DP gacha would be way more exciting!”

“Riiight? If you’re gonna do it, you’ve gotta do it all at once!” It took exactly one thirty-second conversation for Rokuko to decide on how she should use her DP. Seriously? Like, that’s good enough for you? I mean, I said you could do what you want with it, but c’mon. Oh well.

“Okay, let’s do it! 10,000 DP gacha, gooo!”

“Hey, hold up! Don’t do that in my room! Do it in the Master Room! What if something huge like a Dragon comes out and destroys the inn?!” I yelled, but it was too late. Rokuko had already used up all her DP. A magic circle glowed into existence with a hum along the floor. Uh... Hey?! Hello?! That Magic Circle’s as big as the whole room! Isn’t that a problem?!

“Oooh, I knew the 10,000 DP gacha would be fancy!”

“Please don’t be big, please don’t be big...!” I prayed that the inn I had spent so much effort on wouldn’t be destroyed. Meanwhile, Ichika and Rokuko were squealing in excitement. Niku, bless her heart, was standing protectively in front of me.

“Dragooon! Dragooon!”

“You can roll Dragons too?! We’re eating steak tonight, my dudes!”

“I won’t let you eat him!”

“...I mean, his tail will grow back even if we cut it off, so...”

“What?! No!”

The magic circle began to shrink while spinning rapidly. Eventually, it was small enough to fit within the room.

“Hm? Mmm?”

“Woah, woah, it’s getting small. What’s up with that?” The circle was getting even smaller. I patted my chest in relief. Nothing that size would destroy the inn. But then, it got even smaller. Yeah... It’s pretty small now. Yeaaaaaah... I’ll be able to hold whatever gets summoned in my own arms.

“Ooooh...”

“I-Is this is a miss? Is this what you called a bad roll?” Rokuko and Ichika were steadily losing their enthusiasm. Niku still stood in front of me without letting her guard down at all. And so, the magic circle disappeared, leaving behind a palm-sized box.

“...What’s this?”

“Only one way to find out, eh? Let’s open it, Rokuko. C’mon.”

“O-Okay.” Rokuko timidly opened the box. Within it was a single egg and nothing more. A pretty small egg, at that.

“...This is an egg, right?”

“Want to fry it? I bet it’d taste super fab, maybe...”

“No way! But... What is this, anyway? Mmm, I can’t tell, but it’s definitely something amazing! For sure!” Rokuko lifted up the box in a celebratory pose. The egg gleamed brightly... in my imagination. Either way, the summoning had ended without my room being destroyed.

“So, what is it? Did it come with a manual?”

“...Maybe it’ll hatch if we heat it up.”

“Sounds good to me. But... You spent 10,000 DP on this thing, so don’t break it.”

“R-Right...” Although she had spent all her DP on it, the day ended without us learning exactly what it was. We decided to just heat it in the onsen water for a bit. Though to make sure we didn’t kill whatever was inside, we did so under a managed pace, as if using an incubator.

Day 45

The dungeon and the inn were both ready; we had finished them within the week. It was time to head back to the city. And so, I prepared a kind of vehicle for us.

“Heeey, Master. The heck is this thing?”

“...A Golem carriage, I guess?”

“There’s no horses! There’s no wheels! It has freakin’ legs growing out of it!” That’s right. The vehicle I had prepared was a box-shaped Golem with six legs growing out of it, built to travel across the worst of roads. The front side of the box had a glass window made out of empty potion bottles. It was pretty unnecessary, though, since the Golem could move on its own. I based the design of its legs on horse legs, so it was pretty fast.

“Hmph... This kind of thing isn’t enough to surprise me anymore. I mean, this is Keima we’re talking about.”

“Glad to know you trust me that much.”

“Well, I mean, I’m totally okay with this. It looks fast and easy, so... yeah...”

“The box will completely cover us, so we can travel in this thing even through forests. Even when we can’t use it, the Golem is just small enough to fit inside our {Storage}.”

“Ahaha. I’ll let you put him into my {Storage}. You’re welcome.”

“...Rokuko and Niku can use {Storage} too, huh? I wanna learn it too...”

“I feel like that’ll turn you into a walking food pantry, Ichika. Well, I don’t mind teaching it to you when we’ve got the DP to spare, but that’ll only happen after we get enough adventurers eating out of our hands.” We needed a fair amount of adventurers exploring our dungeon, but not enough that we became too famous. Managing that seemed like it would be difficult.

So, using the Carriage Golem, we reached Tsia City in only two hours. We had to disassemble the carriage and put it into {Storage} a fair distance away from the city, but it was still only two hours even with the additional walking. Fantastic. Now we’ll be able to reach town quickly even if we have to go through back roads to avoid attention from adventurers heading to our dungeon.

“Hey, it’s been a while. You were on a quest, right?”

“Yep. And we’ll be going back to the mountain soon, too.” It was the same gatekeeper as always. We showed him our quest slip, passed through the gate, and headed to the Guild.

We got to town faster than usual, but the morning had ended a while ago. There weren’t many adventurers still inside. And behind the counter sat the usual receptionist. Man, this lady sure works pretty hard, huh?

“Hello. It’s been one week, I believe. How was the [Ordinary Cave]?”

“Before we get to that, I’d like you to take care of these first.” I gave her the forty-five Goblin ears that I had bought with DP.

“I heard from Ichika that I could take the rank up test after turning this many ears in.”

“Goblin ears, hm...? Well, they all seem fine to me. But still, this is quite a lot of ears to hunt in only a week. Did you find a colony of Goblins near Tsia Mountain?”

“Something like that. Truth is, we got all of these in the [Ordinary Cave].”

“Is that so...? Would you mind telling me more?” The receptionist, sensing that there was more to our story, stood up and gestured for us to come behind the counter. Alright. Time to shill our dungeon.

We were guided to the guildmaster’s room. Yeah, we are bringing some serious info here. Makes sense we’d tell it to him directly. Within the room was the old buff dude... the guildmaster. The receptionist remained standing in the doorway entirely, as if blocking off our means of escape.

“So, what happened at the [Ordinary Cave]?”

“Take a look at this.” I showed the guildmaster a Magic (Golem) Blade and two mana potions. In other words, loot from my dungeon that was good enough to sell. And not only that, but loot valuable enough to be a huge find in a small dungeon. To say nothing of the Magic Blade, even mana potions were a full silver each.

“This is...”

“I found it in the [Ordinary Cave].”

“Really now? I thought that dungeon only had one room...”

“One room? That’s crazy talk. There were tons of rooms, and even some staircases. I got this sword in one of those rooms. There were Golems all over the place, so I got out of there. I figured I had gotten a good enough look at the place.” He took it and held it at various angles, investigating it.

“...This doesn’t seem to be a normal old iron sword. Wait, it has a magic stone inside of it...?! This is a Magic Blade!”

“It sharpens when you pour mana into it.”

“Oh hoh, that makes it a Low-Rank Magic Blade... but still, a Magic Blade none the less. And you said there were Golems there, too?” I decided to press further.

“...And this info isn’t all coming from me, by the way.”

“Oh? What do you mean by that?”

“The A-Rank adventurer, the White-Winged Goddess. I heard she’s the one who took the [Ordinary Cave] investigation quest before me. I think you can tell what I’m trying to say here.”

“Lady Haku, huh? You’re telling me she’s involved in this?” Ah. I guess he’s calling her “Lady” Haku since she’s an important figure in the Guild, too.

“I met her by chance by the mountain. She told me that the [Ordinary Cave] had undergone a paradigm shift. Though she mentioned that the guild in the Imperial City made her report that everything was normal.”

“...A paradigm shift?! But why would she hide that? Falsifying information is... no, wait. A-Ranks have the right to keep some things to themselves... and Lady Haku is the one who established that quest in the first place...”

“There’s also an inn by the dungeon.”

“An inn?! Wh-Why the hell was there an inn there...?” The guildmaster furrowed his brows, baffled by what I had said. Yeah, it is pretty unbelievable. Basically as unrealistic as you can get. But this is where persuasion comes in!

“Does it matter why? Haku had an associate of hers build it. It’s probably pointless for us to try and think about why she’d do that.”

“You’ve... got a point. Who knows what the hell that woman is thinking. She made it clear that the [Ordinary Cave] was not to be touched, but... Yeah, thinking about this is a waste of time. Which means all we gotta do is take your word for all this and figure out what to do with the dungeon.”

“Er, well, a lot happened and now I’m actually gonna be working at that inn. I’m gonna be using it as my base of operations from now on.”

“...Alright. Sure.” The guildmaster closed his eyes and nodded. Nice! Persuasion really worked! But the moment I thought that and let my guard down, the guildmaster continued speaking.

“Guess I’ll put a branch office of the Tsia Adventurer’s Guild there.”

“...Huh?” A... branch office?

“Yep. Thanks for the report. Consider your quest a success. And after we’ve taken a look at this dungeon ourselves, I’ll let all three of you rank up to E-Rank. You managed to hunt this many Goblins in only a week. Should be fine.”

“Eh? Me too? Yay, go me!” I guess Rokuko’s getting to E-Rank despite doing literally nothing. She’s even skipping F-Rank. Is it okay to break those rules...? Wait, this isn’t what matters right now.

“Er, a branch office? What do you mean?”

“I meant what I said. If that dungeon really did grow, adventurers are gonna be crawling all over it. Things will go a lot more smoothly if we have an office there. Especially if there’s also an inn there.”

“W-Well, yeah, that’s true.”

“A town might spring up around that dungeon depending on what it’s like. We’re gonna have to investigate this further... which means another quest. You can take it if you want.” A... town?! This is serious. I didn’t plan on anything that big happening. If too many people come to the dungeon, I won’t be able to make Golems do all the farming! Crap, crap, crap. Can I grow crops inside of the dungeon? And it’ll be a lot harder to use special Golems like the one I used to carry us here. My thoughts were interrupted by the receptionist bringing back our guild cards. He had said we’d be ranked up after they checked out the dungeon, but our cards already had E-Rank on them. But that was the least of our problems. I said some half-assed goodbyes and left the Guild.

“...Things might not go so well for us here. Let’s get back to base.”

“Really? Mmm, I guess we can’t play around before leaving this time.” Luckily we had no business in Tsia City, so we could immediately head back to base. Also, Ichika said “Hell yeah! We’re eating [Curry Rolls] for supper tonight, dudes!” At least she’s happy.