Chapter 2

# A Certain C-Rank Adventurer’s Perspective

My name’s Uzou. I’m an adventurer. I know what I look like, but I’m a veteran C-Rank and a skilled warrior. I’ve completed countless quests with my partner Muzou, a scout. Our quest this time is to explore a dungeon that just had a paradigm shift. “This used to be a dungeon that only summoned Goblins, right? We’re gonna be fine.”

“Don’t get cocky, Muzou. Paradigm shifts can change dungeons from the ground up. Who knows what kinda monsters are gonna be in there now.”

“Sheesh, Uzou. You worry too much.” Sheesh, Muzou’s way too careless for a scout. Though I know that his carelessness comes from self-confidence.

“Hey, look at that, Uzou. There’s an inn by the dungeon’s entrance. Guess the Guild was right.”

“Let’s stay the night and check out the dungeon tomorrow. Sound good?”

“Yep, sounds great.”

The inn looks pretty well-built from the outside. Let’s go on in.

Behind the counter is a girl wearing a cute black and white outfit. The frilly design really catches my attention.

“Hi! Welcome to the Dancing Doll Inn, my dudes!” The girl’s beautiful and she talks with the casual style of a Pavella girl. Her face is shapely like a doll’s, and... they’re huge. What’s huge? Her tits, obviously. I wonder if the “doll” in “Dancing Doll Inn” refers to her. She’s so beautiful I find myself staring at her. But I get myself together and ask for the price. Fifty coppers per night, per person. That means one silver for two people. We got a room together. A silver’s actually pretty cheap for an inn this deep into the mountains. Newbie adventurers might struggle to pay for it, but it’s nothing to we C-Ranks.

“Oh, and food’s like, totally separate from that. You gotta pay more for it. The bath’s free, though!”

“The bath? Oh wow, this inn has a bath, huh?”

“You betcha. It’s called, like, an onsen. Lots of people can go into it at once. Oh woah, my bad, dudes. There’s lots of baths like this in Pavella, so I’m pretty used to them. Are they rare around here?” They are rare in Tsia, but I’m a C-Rank adventurer. I’ve been to all kinds of cities and Pavella too. I’ve gone to a large public bath before in my life.

“You can just borrow some of our bathrobes, consider it a treat from us. Oh, and about the food... We’ve got A-Rank meals down to G-Rank. Lots of choices, my guys.”

“Oh wow. Might as well splurge on A-Rank... wait, what?! One whole gold piece?!”

“You betcha. The super duper good A-Rank meal has the super duper high price of one gold coin! But lemme tell you, it’s totes worth it! I guarantee it! The A-Rank meal is so delicious you might just die eating it♪” I-I don’t care how good it is, I can’t pay a whole gold coin for it. I wonder what kind of meal it is anyway? I wanna know. I wanna know bad, but that’s just way too much of a gamble.

“Mmm, I think I’m just gonna settle down and get the C-Rank meal... Wait, what? It costs five silvers...?”

“Yooou betcha. C-Rank costs five silvers. But it’s pretty good too, dude. Wanna hear what exactly it is?”

“Nah, I’ll pass...” I look at the prices chart and see that the prices are as follows: A-Rank, one gold; B-Rank, fifty silvers; C-Rank, five silvers; D-Rank, one silver; E-Rank, fifty coppers; F-Rank, five coppers; and G-Rank, one copper.

“Uzou, I’ve made up my mind. I want a C-Rank meal!”

“H-Hold up. That’s how much we’re getting paid for this quest! What’re you thinking? You’ll just lose money here. And I’m not lending you any of mine!”

“Hahaha. We can sell whatever we find in there for more money, y’know? I’ll be fine. Hey, pretty girl. What’s your name? When are you getting off work? I’m Muzou, and I’m a C-Rank adventurer.”

“Oooh, okay. Thanks for the business, and enjoy your stay. What meal do you want, mister? I gotta recommend D-Rank or above.” Muzou, the heck are you flirting for? Seriously? And wow, she completely blew you off.

“...I’ll have a D-Rank meal. That’s still one whole silver, though. Your prices sure are expensive.”

“That’s just how good the food is. Thank yooou. Oh yeah, and you guys can go into the bath first if you want. The food’ll be ready for you when you get back.”

“Nice, that sounds good. I think that’s what we’ll do.”

“Hey, at least tell me your name. C’mooon.” I ignore Muzou’s feeble flirting attempts and pay my share. The girl gives me a slip that she calls a food ticket. I can exchange it for the food by going to the cafeteria later. Makes sense.

After that, we were told our room number and given a key. I think I’ll put my stuff down and head straight to the onsen.

I open the door to my room and see a dresser, shelves, and a bed. There’s no magic light tool, but there is a lamp. They must be trying to sell oil and make some cash from that. And... What’s with this bed? Is it... made from cotton? I had prepared myself for a wooden bed after hearing they had actually bothered to build a giant bath, but... ooh, my hand sinks right into this baby! This bed alone makes the room worth fifty coppers, easily.

Alright, next up is the bath. The changing room has shelves with lockers you can store your clothes in. The bath in Pavella had one of these too. Oh, and these must be the bathing clothes. I’m pretty sure she said we could borrow these for free. I take off my clothes, change into the bathing clothes, and store my clothes in the locker.

...I’m pretty sure these bathing clothes are better made than my own clothes. I kind of want to just keep these. But first comes the bath. Yeah... This is definitely an impressive bath.

It’s massive and made from stone. The hot water in the bath is giving off steam. I’m surprised they can use water this freely while deep in the mountains. They must have found an underground water source somewhere. Maybe that’s why they built the inn in the first place.

Either way, I cast {Purification} on myself and get into the bath.

“Oh, ooooh...” I reflexively let out a groan. This is good... Really good. I’m confident this inn is gonna be popular... I haven’t had the food yet, but I’m already pretty satisfied. Muzou comes in halfway through my bath and looks more surprised than I was.

I get out of the bath. I definitely want to come here again... Actually, wait. I’m staying the night so I can use the bath as much as I want. I’ll take another one tomorrow morning. Wait... What’s with this chair? It looks like it has a slot I can fit a copper into... I look up and see a poster explaining what the chair is. Apparently, it’s a chair that gives massages. Must be a magic tool they found in a dungeon. Though it mentions that you should expect people to throw you out of the chair if you fall asleep in it, so be careful.

Hm... Five minutes per copper, huh? I wonder what kind of massage a chair will give. Let’s try it out. I sit in the chair and put in the coin. After hearing the pleasant sound of a coin hitting something, the chair starts vibrating rapidly.

Oh, oooh! Wh-What’s, going on? I’ve never felt a massage like this before. Oooh, ooOoooOooh?! The vibrating gets stronger and weaker randomly, this is definitely... pretty good, ooooh...

.........

Someone roughly pats me on the shoulder. “Hey. Wake up, Uzou. You’ll catch a cold if you sleep here.”

“Woah! O-Oh, Muzou. Hey. Guess I did fall asleep.” I had indeed been sleeping peacefully until Muzou woke me up. Whew... That chair massage really is something...

“C’mon, let’s go eat. I bought a C-Rank meal for five silvers and I’m ready to eat it. I’m starving.”

“Oh? Right, right. I got a D-Rank meal. I wonder how different they’re gonna be.”

Food’s provided in the cafeteria, so we go there and exchange our food tickets. Our meals were brought out immediately without any waiting time.

“Um, here.” A young beastkin girl with brown skin brings out our food. She’s wearing the same frilly outfit that the girl behind the counter was, which looks super cute on her. The square tray she set in front of me is covered with several plates and bowls of thick brown soup, bread, and salad. This is all I get for one silver? Wait, no. The smell’s so good I can tell this is some high quality food.

“You can get extra bread for ten coppers a piece. Also, there is dessert after you’re done.”

“Dessert? We can’t have it now?”

“It’s cold, so I don’t recommend getting it now. But I can bring it out if you want it right away.” It’s cold? I wonder what it is. But either way, I’ll follow her recommendation and eat it after I’m done.

“Oh? Wow, Uzou. You didn’t get a lot of food, huh?”

“What’re you talking about? This is plenty. I guess that’s the C-Rank meal you’re eating. Now that’s a lot of food.”

“Well, ’course it is. My C-Rank meal cost five times as much as yours. Hahaha!” Muzou has one more plate than me, with a big steak on it. Plus, he got two rolls of bread. I’m jealous of that thick steak. Wait... His soup is a different color than mine too. His is white.

“And this one comes with a dessert, too.”

“So does mine... A steak, huh? Looks good. What kind of meat is it?”

“Probably boar meat...? Woah! This bread is really fluffy, and sweet?!”

“It looks pretty white, too. This bread’s crazy good... Oh, crap. I don’t wanna finish the bread off before eating the soup.” I hurriedly spoon some of the soup into my mouth.

What...?! Holy cow. This tastes amazing. I can taste meat in it. Actually, now that I’m looking, it actually does have meat in it. There’s a lot of vegetables, too. This soup is stacked.

“Woah, what is this, rabbit meat...? No, maybe boar meat? Man, if this is friggin’ minotaur meat...”

“Haha, fat chance of that. No way would minotaur meat cost one silver. And remember, we’re this inn’s first visitors.”

“Good point. By the way, your soup looks a lot different from mine... How is it?”

“Hm... nnn?! Holy crap, it’s really thick and... kinda fluffy, too? Is it like... some kind of milk? They must have made this soup... or stew... with milk. Right... I’ve eaten this stuff at the imperial capital before.”

“Looks pretty good. Let me have some.”

“No way! This is mine!” Yeah, same. I don’t want to split any of my soup either.

I dig into my salad and... what?! Sh-Sheesh, this is some high level cooking. Even the salad’s surprising me. Is this... dressing? It’s yellowish, and kinda white... oil?

“Oh, look at you, Mr. Appetite. How is it, dude? You like it? I beeet you do. Ah, the stuff on your salad’s called, like, mayonnaise. Some Hero invented it or something.” The receptionist comes over and sits next to me. Woah... I smell something really nice...

“Hey, c’mon! At least sit next to me!”

“Haha, too bad. Dudes who can’t take a hint aren’t my type. But I’ve got some time, so I came to talk about your food. Let’s see... About that white soup. You were totally right, it’s a kind of stew made with milk. You don’t see that kinda thing around here much, but people at the imperial capital eat it all the time.” Wow. Muzou was actually right about something, huh?

“So, about your brown soup. Hold on to your pants, but that’s some real beef stew!”

“...What? Beef, as in like, from cows? Seriously?! Was there some celebration recently or what?!” You usually don’t eat beef unless you’re celebrating something or retiring an old cow. There are farms near the imperial capital that raise cows, so people eat beef more often there, but it’s still pretty expensive.

“H-Hold on. Doesn’t that make his stew way better than my stew?!”

“Hahaha, no way, my dude. That steak you’ve got is beef too. And since we’re still not getting too many visitors... or more like, since you two are our first customers, I gave you an especially thick one as a treat.”

“Seriously?! Oooh, so this is beef, huh... This steak is worth five silvers by itself.” That’s right, this inn just got built recently. Them opening shop is worthy of a celebration, makes sense that they’d have beef lying around. But seriously... this is one high quality meal. No way is this normal. It’s gotta be like, a limited edition thing.

“Ah, aaah, right. Right. This is a special time for us; normally the steaks are just boar and stuff. Truth is, we wanna know the adventurer who built this inn for us has a real good time when they come visit, so we’re trying out a lot of things as practice right now.”

“The adventurer who built this inn?”

“...He was an A-Rank adventurer, but like, anything more than that’s a secret. Sorry, can’t lose my job over this, y’know?”

An A-Rank adventurer, huh...? Yeah, a celebration for someone like that would justify killing a cow or two. They must be using beef now to train their chefs for when it really matters. But either way, this meat is perfectly flavored with delicious spices. Cow meat or boar meat, it’s easily worth several silvers. I end up finishing off all my soup in no time.

“Oh whoops, it’s about time for your dessert. Niku! Bring it out!”

“Right... away...” The beastkin from earlier comes out holding dessert. It’s white... no, yellow. It looks like a trapezoid, but from above it looks like a weird flower. Also, there’s some brown sauce covering it.

“What is this...?”

“It’s called a [Purin], and it’s your dessert. By the way, it only comes with D-Rank meals and above. That’s why I recommended them. So... Get ready, boys. You’re gonna melt in this sweetness...” I gulp after she whispers into my ear, holding my spoon at the ready. The girl grins at me, amused. I push my spoon forward and dig into the purin, causing it to jiggle.

And so...

...That day, I saw a glimpse of Heaven.

It’s the next day. I leave the inn with a heart full of regret, chewing on the bread given out as a free morning breakfast. I honestly want to stay another night. The bath is great, the food is great, even the beds are great. Everything’s top class. Food that good should cost way more than a silver or fifty coppers! Aaah, sheesh. I’m gonna stay another night after finishing this quest, and then I’m gonna come back to stay a third night after turning the quest in.

We go into the dungeon and are immediately greeted by rooms filled with pitfalls. We would have fallen to our deaths in seconds if not for Muzou’s [Detect Danger] skill.

“Friggin’ crap. I wish I had at least gotten her name. I’m definitely gonna try to get it when we stay before going back.” Muzou seems to be pretty obsessed with that receptionist girl. Well, can’t blame him for that. She is a real babe. She seemed kind of familiar to me, somehow, but... ah.

“Aaaah. Muzou, this is kinda late, but... I know that girl’s name.”

“What?! The hell is going on here, when’d you get so close to her?!”

“Man, that’s Sorin.”

“Sorin...? Wait, you mean Sorin the Food Monster?! Th-That’s her?!”

I think back to all the bad memories I have about Sorin. Yeah... I’m pretty sure she lost everything she owned to gambling. She’s crazy strong to alcohol and her stomach’s a bottomless well. Countless adventurers have been drawn in by her good looks, only to end up spending all their money buying food for her. On top of all that, she’s strong enough to reach C-Rank without knowing a single skill.

“I heard she fell into slavery recently... What’s she doing in a place like that?”

“Woah, she was a slave? I didn’t notice at all...” She had a collar, man. Though it was hard to notice since her clothes kind of mixed well with it. Hm. Muzou really doesn’t pay enough attention when it comes to women. I don’t know what that says about him as a scout. He’s usually really reliable when it comes to exploring dungeons with no women around... usually.

“But man, there’s nothing but Goblins around here. What’s up with that, Uzou?”

“Remember, this used to be a dungeon that only ever summoned Goblins. The real problem here is all the traps. They’re deadly, and there’s a lot of them.”

“Yeah, there’s mountains of spikes in each pitfall. Pretty dangerous.”

“Sheesh. Do your job, alright?” We advance further, collecting the right ears of all the Goblins we cut down. Oh, a treasure chest. “Muzou, check it out. There’s a chest. Let’s try opening it.”

“Let’s see... No traps. Alright, sweet. Is there any treaaaasure...? Oooh! There’s a mana potion in here!”

“Nice, that’s worth a silver.”

We keep advancing just like that. Judging from how Muzou has to keep using his {Little Heal} spell, a normal party of adventurers might struggle a bit in this dungeon. And then, we find some stairs.

“I heard the people who were here before us found a Magic Blade somewhere after these stairs, Uzou.”

“Yep. I’m looking forward to finding one myself, Muzou. But be careful. Alright?”

The second floor is filled with Golems. But they don’t pose much of a threat to us.

“...{Slash}!” My iron blade cuts a Clay Golem in half. They were weak enough that I didn’t even need to destroy their magic stones. After all, there’s generally three ways to take down a Golem.

First is to destroy their magic stone. Magic stones are the practical heart of a Golem. They’re usually inside their bodies, but sometimes they’re somewhere outside of it. If you destroy that, the Golem will stop moving.

Second is to hit them with a magic-based attack. Golems are basically dolls that are powered by mana, so they’re really weak to attack magic that disturbs their mana. Though I don’t have any magic-based attack skills or anything.

Third and final is to really mess up their bodies. That’s more accurately disturbing the magic within their bodies, but... it’s basically the same thing. If you keep hitting Golems with attacks that they can’t defend, they’ll briefly get weaker, allowing you to...

“And another one bites the dust.”

The Golem I cut in half crumbles, returning to simple clay. Muzou recovers the safe magic stone from within it.

“You’re pretty good, Uzou. Thanks to that we get to keep the magic stones. It’s great.” We can easily recover the magic stones when they’re on the surface of the Golem, but we ignore them when they’re deep inside their bodies. Not worth the time. Plus doing that would be a huge risk for a pair of two adventurers like us.

We explore the dungeon some more and eventually find a small room.

“Huh? What’s with this room? The hallway looked different somehow... Oooh, this must be a Safe Zone.”

“Oh, really? Nice. Let’s rest for a bit. Wait, wait! Look! There’s a sword over there! Muzou!”

“Well look at that, it’s stabbed right into a pedestal, ripe for the taking. Let’s get closer while checking for traps.” Muzou steps into the room while keeping his guard up. Safe Zones may be free of monsters, but that’s it. They can still have traps inside of them.

Eventually, we reach the pedestal.

“Huh? I think I heard something in the hallway. Did you, Muzou?”

“Nah, don’t think so. I’ll check it out.”

“Might be dangerous to just leave. I’ll check out the sword first... Oh man, it has a magic stone inside of it! This is a Magic Blade!” I shout without thinking. I can’t believe we found the Magic Blade we were looking for this fast.

“Wow, that’s pretty great. Do you think I could use it too?”

“We found this one so fast, I’m sure there’s another one nearby. You can have that one Muzou.”

“I’m not sensing any traps here. Go ahead, take it ou—wait. Hold on! Don’t take the sword out!”

“Wha?” Seems like Muzou’s [Detect Danger] just noticed a trap. But it was too late. I had already taken the sword out, unable to contain my excitement.

I hear a loud thunk from the hallway, along with the sound of metal scraping together. I take a look and see that the hallway is locked tight with needles much thicker than the sword. They looked like fangs of a beast, blocking up its mouth.

“Hey, what the heck happened...?”

“...Sorry, it’s not a trap that directly hurts us, so it took longer for me to detect it...”

We’re... trapped in here?!

How long have we been stuck in here? Muzou says that the trap seems harmless and will probably deactivate given enough time, and I agree. We decide to rest in the room and wait for everything to blow over. It’s a safe room, after all. I’m not too worried, though. I got a Magic Blade and I’m high on life. We’re supposed to be resting, but I’m having so much fun swinging the blade around that time passes by in moments. Heheheh. Won’t be long before people all over the world start calling me Uzou the Magic Swordsman!

“Sheesh, Uzou. Don’t let your guard down so much just ’cause we’re in a Safe Zone without any traps nearby.”

“But c’mon, this is a Magic Blade! A real one! The iron sword I’ve been using up until now is pretty nice, but look, this Magic Blade’s tearing that wooden practice dummy to shreds! It’s so sharp!”

“Aaah, yeah yeah... Hey. Would you mind letting me try it out for a bit? I wanna see what it’s actually like.”

“Sure, the dummy’s not totally destroyed yet.” I hand the Magic Blade over to Muzou.

“Wow, this is pretty nice. It sharpens like hell the second I pour mana into it. Just what I’d expect from a Magic Blade.”

“Right?! We sure are lucky, finding a great Magic Blade like this on such an early floor.”

“Though we’re kinda stuck in here.”

“...Don’t say that, man...” We grin, joking around with each other.

And so, we keep passing time without worrying about a thing... or we did, until two whole days had passed.

＊ ＊ ＊

It’s been three days since we got trapped. I can make us water with my {Water} spell, but we’re running out of food fast.

“...The hell is going on? The trap’s still not unlocking?”

“Yeah, nope. I’m thinking we should start trying to get out of here on our own, but these spikes, man. They won’t budge.”

“Maybe they shot out because I took the Magic Blade out of the pedestal?”

“I thought that too, but nothing happened when I stuck my own sword into it.”

“...Should we break through them?”

“Dunno if we can. Look at those spikes—they’re made of iron.”

“...Maybe I could cut through them if I use {Slash} with this Magic Blade?”

“Don’t come crying to me if it breaks.”

I don’t want that, but I might have to try it out if all else fails.

Muzou and I go back to investigating the room.

＊ ＊ ＊

It’s been five days since we got trapped.

“Gaaaah, we’re screweeed. We can’t find a way out. We’re almost out of food. We’ve got nothing, man.”

“Hey, Muzou. Do you think someone will come looking for us...?”

“...They probably think we’re dead. Why do you think they hired us to check this place out? Huh?”

“Aaah, right...” If C-Rank adventurers are sent to explore a dungeon and don’t come back, the Guild can extrapolate that the dungeon will likely be too dangerous for lower ranks. In other words, they put this quest up knowing that whoever accepted it might die. Of course, we took the quest knowing that as well.

“Crap. If I knew this was gonna happen, I would’ve gotten the C-Rank meal too...”

“Hey, shut up, Uzou! You’re just gonna make me hungry! Aaah, sheesh. Now I’m thinking about that food again. Ngh... If we get outta here alive, I’m gonna spend all I have on getting that A-Rank meal!”

“...Alright. Guess it’s about time to throw down the gauntlet. I’m gonna try breaking the spikes with {Slash} and this Magic Blade. I don’t wanna mess it up... but our lives are more important.”

“You sure? You might even break the Magic Blade in two, y’know.”

“You’re telling me to sit and wait for death? That doesn’t sound so hot to me.” I ready the Magic Blade and pour mana into it. Then, after building up plenty of power into it, I launch a blow with all my might.

“...Nhaaaah! {Slash}!” My blade cuts through several of the spikes with a loud screech. It’s working! I can do this!

“Uzou! Do it again!”

“Yeah...! {Slash}!” Loud metal screeching fills the air as my sword cuts deeper into the spikes. Just one more blow!

“Alright, here it is! {Slash}!” The screeching intensifies as if the spikes are shrieking in pain, and then... they break! I did it, I cut through the spikes!

“Uzou! You did it!”

“Yeah! I... what?!” I froze in place. Right behind the wall of spikes I just destroyed... is another identical wall of spikes.

“D-Don’t worry, I already cut through one wall of spikes. What’s a second one on top of that?”

“...Nah, man. We’re finished.”

“Huh? What’s with you, Muzou? Don’t you want to get out of here?”

“Yeah, I do. But look... That Magic Blade can’t take much more punishment. We can’t use it anymore.” Confused, I look at the Magic Blade. It’s filled with cracks, punishment for trying to forcibly cut through a wall of spikes. The hell...? This is a Magic Blade, isn’t it? They’re not supposed to break this fast, c’mon...

“And look, the spike trap is already regenerating. You’re gonna turn into a pincushion if you stay in that hallway.”

“Shit...!” I curse and backpedal out of the hallway, moments before the spikes fully regenerate and fill up the hallway. The spike wall’s back without a scratch on it, thanks to how dungeon traps and walls regenerate over time. Now it really feels like we’re trapped inside the mouth of a monster. This is all I get for sacrificing my new Magic Blade...?

＊ ＊ ＊

It’s been eight days... I think. We’re stuck in this underground room with no sun to guide us, so who knows how long it’s really been. And we ran out of food. We had only planned to stay in here for two, three days tops. Really, it’s impressive we stretched it out as long as we did.

...But we’re still stuck inside here. There’s nothing we can do. Tensions are high for both of us.

“This is really all your fault, Uzou. I tried to stop you, but you just couldn’t wait to pull that Magic Blade out...”

“I only pulled it out ’cause you said I could. You took it back last second, but c’mon, I was already pulling the sword out. This is your fault.”

But we don’t stop blaming each other for this mess. We let out all our built up annoyance for each other, and even go down to just plain insulting each other. We get so mad we threaten to choke each other to death for saying another word. The fact we’re not actually backing up those threats is because we’re brothers who have shared a strong bond for our whole lives. Any other party would probably have started killing each other or stealing each other’s food, for sure.

“...Alright, I’m getting tired of this. Let’s drop the insults for now. Sorry for being a dick to you, Muzou.”

“Huh... Well, sure. What’s with you all of a sudden, Uzou?”

“Nothing’s happened since we got stuck in here. Maybe this whole thing is just a trap to break our party apart.”

“Aaah... Yeah, no point in us getting pissed at each if that’s true. Sorry, my bad. Not that we’re strangers to stupid fights.”

“Nah, it’s not your bad. This is all the dungeon’s fault. Sound good, Muzou?”

...I wonder if we can eat those Goblin ears. Ah, no, they’re definitely rotten by now...

I shut my eyes, hoping to save as much energy as possible.

Day 50 — # Keima’s Perspective

With the dungeon’s modifications finished, it was time to start managing it and the inn for real. But regardless of how ready we were, adventurers didn’t just storm the place as soon as we opened up. Things would take time to really get going.

By the way, I named the inn the Dancing Doll Inn. That name would provide cover if anyone stumbles upon the Golems farming the nearby fields. We could just claim that Rokuko, the owner, was a Golem user and the inn was named in her honor. And that wouldn’t be a lie, either, since the Golems do obey her orders. I was planning on buying a {Create Golem} scroll for her when I had the spare DP for it, too. I’d just have to give them armbands or something that signified that they worked for our inn.

“Haaah... I’m so freakin’ bored, man...” Ichika slumped against the counter in boredom, but I couldn’t blame her. We weren’t getting any customers yet. Wait... Speaking of which, do we even need someone to sit behind the counter constantly? Rokuko can sense people entering the dungeon boundaries, so we could just wait for that and then send someone to the counter... Wait, better yet, we could just have a Golem behind the counter that will come get us whenever a visitor enters. Suddenly, my thoughts were interrupted by our first pair of customers.

It was a pair of two men. I took up camp in my room and watched them through the monitor.

...They get a C-Rank and D-Rank meal, respectively. The C-Rank meal is a [Steak Set (10 DP)], while the D-Rank meal is a [Beef Stew Set (6 DP)]. By the way, the food was basically as good as the stuff you’d find in an average restaurant. If you think of 1 DP as 100 yen, eh, it basically worked out. In fact, it was a little cheaper DP-wise. So, honestly, I think charging five silvers for the C-Rank and one silver for the D-Rank is pretty much overkill. Cause like, if you turn one silver into yen, that’s basically 50,000 and 10,000 yen for those meals. Ichika said I could charge even more than that, but I dunno, it didn’t feel right to me.

Partially out of guilt, I decided to give a free purin with any meal over D-Rank. I bought them in a set of three, much like you’d find in a supermarket. [Three Purin Set (1 DP)]. They came on plastic plates that were actually valuable in this world, so I recycled them for use in Golems. Huh, I just realized. We’ll have an extra purin since there’s only two people... Wait?! Was Ichika planning for this to happen all along?! Anyway, they seemed to love the food, the onsen, the massage chair, and even their futons. They took a bath and headed to the dungeon immediately after waking up.

“Masteeer. I tooold you that you’d have the raise the prices if you want to sell beef like that. They totally got suspicious.” Yeah... She’s got a point. They were really thrown off by the beef. Though one of them forgot about it and fell asleep with a gross smile on his face seconds after eating his purin. I guess I’ll move all the meals up a rank and make [Ginger-fried Pork (5 DP)] the new D-Rank meal. E-Rank and below can stay as [Vegetable Rolls] and [Butter Rolls].

Also, I could now buy three pieces of black and hard bread—what you’d normally find in this world—for 1 DP. Though... [Butter Rolls] came in a bag of six for 1 DP each, so there was no reason to ever buy the bad bread. I just don’t understand.

“So, it looks like they picked up the Tsia quest to explore our dungeon. They’re brothers, Uzou and Muzou. Both C-Rank adventurers.”

“Are they really brothers?”

“Nah, they said they weren’t blood-related or anything. They were born in the same town, though.” Alright. I’m not gonna worry about what kind of “brothers” they are. In any case, thanks to them, we had earned seven silvers, one copper coin, and 125 DP. Each silver was worth 10 DP, so subtracting the points I had used on their food, we had earned 178 DP in total.

Oh, and about DP. At some point we unlocked another function, one that allowed me to see how much DP was coming from each individual room in the dungeon. Very useful. Maybe it unlocked because I had built an inn? Either way, I was surprised to see that they were earning us 120 DP per night. I figured they were pretty strong but then realized that just meant they were as strong as Ichika, maybe a little weaker. I wonder what’s up with that.

I checked the map to see what the invaders were doing, and realized that I could now see how much DP they were individually earning us. It was displayed as “/DP”. That definitely referred to how much DP they earned us in a day. Man, we sure are unlocking a lot of functions here.

So, I checked them out and saw Uzou was getting us 61/DP, while Muzou was getting us 59/DP. That meant that together, they were earning us 5 DP an hour. But that meant things didn’t add up. They stayed in our inn for one night, not a full twenty-four hours. They got here at 6PM and left at 8AM, for a total of fourteen hours. That shouldn’t have even earned us even 70 DP. Some simple calculations gave me 55 DP at best.

But after watching them closely on the map for a while, I noticed something. One of the rooms in our dungeon had a jail cell in it, a remnant of the prison room I had built for the bandits all that time ago. The moment Uzou stepped into that cell, his DP count shot up to 183/DP.

...Basically, the amount of DP earned from an individual changed from where they were in the dungeon. There might have been other factors, too, but all I knew then was that being in a jail cell probably boosted an individual’s DP gain by a factor of three. I should investigate this further. Ichika’s worth 65/DP, so she’d earn us 195/DP if she were in a jail cell... Yeah, this is some great info. I’ll show Uzou and Muzou my thanks by giving them a little [Mana Potion (150 DP)] as a gift. And wow, this /DP stat is really gonna be useful as a rough estimation of how strong someone is. Ah, right. Niku’s 10/DP, while Rokuko and I are both 0/DP. Cause we’re the Master and Core, probably. And Niku... Has she gotten stronger? Or did she just heal up? She was nearly dead when I saved her, so... Wait. Doesn’t that mean our daily DP from the ground is only 90 DP a day? I feel like that’s not much at all... Come on, ground! You can do better than this, I believe in you!

Uzou and Muzou found the staircase in the midst of their Goblin slaughtering and thus proceeded to the first underground floor. I put a lot of traps on the first ground floor, but they beat them all without much trouble. Maybe I should make things a little harder?

Basement floors meant Golems. The adventurers stumbled upon many groups of Clay Golems wandering around near their spawners. These Golems mostly didn’t have any swords and would just come fists swinging, so they weren’t very strong. They didn’t pose any threat at all to the brothers.

“...Oh, huh. Golems die if you cut them in half?”

“C’mon, Master. You’re a Golem user, you gotta know that much. Y’see, Golems stop moving if the mana in their body gets all messed up. And like, not moving is basically being dead, yeah? So, yeah, that kills them dead. It’s pretty normal to take Golems down with heavy blows or strong magic. Oooh, right, and their magic stones are a total weak point. Destroy it and they’ll die from the shock.” Ichika told me all about Golems and their weak points. In reality, the only thing I learned from the {Create Golem} scroll was how to make Golems. I didn’t know much else about them. And the instructions were just for Clay Golems, not all the original ones I had been making all the time.

Heavy blows, magic, and magic stones. Maybe Golems were actually pretty weak? They were low-tier monsters, with a Clay Golem costing two-thirds as much as a Lizard Man (150 DP). Oh, maybe I should make them wear armor or something. Golem Armor for a Golem... Ah, now I’m imagining terracotta warriors, like those that got super famous. I think they’re called haniwa. Wait, wait! That gives me a great idea. I should make a boss Golem that looks like a haniwa. They’re kind of like warriors that protect their master’s sleep, right? They’re perfect for my dungeon.

I kept watching Uzou and Muzou casually conquering my dungeon for bit, and eventually they reached the trial room. Uzou walked up to the pedestal and pulled out the Magic Golem Blade. Oh. Their /DP counts doubled the moment the exit got shut off. I guess... an individual’s DP income doubles if they’re in a closed room? Maybe I should make an extra floor of the dungeon and call it like, a training area, to put locks on the door... Wait, no. People will close and lock their doors on their own, we’re an inn. And that’s already what happened. Now I know why I got extra DP today!

They looked so excited after getting the Magic Blade that I couldn’t help but smile. I uh... I didn’t expect things to get so bad for them afterwards. Seriously. I honestly didn’t.

Day 53

Three days had passed since the adventurers went into our dungeon. Our inn hadn’t had a single visitor in the meantime, but we were getting 240 DP a day from them (the Zou Brothers, Uzou and Muzou). Adding on Ichika, Niku, and the ground’s DP, we were getting around 400 DP a day. Basically, I was earning 40,000 yen a day for doing absolutely nothing. Which meant, in turn, my monthly income was a whopping 1,200,000 yen. If that were a pension, I’d be having the retirement of a lifetime.

“...But why aren’t they leaving the trial room?”

“They must really like it in there! Just what I’d expect from my dungeon, eheheh!” All they had to do was stick the Magic Blade into the pedestal to get out, but... they weren’t doing that. What could be compelling them to stay inside there...? As far as I could tell, they were just walking around the room and tapping the walls. Oh! Uzou just stuck his normal sword in the pedestal. Almost, but not quite. You’re getting warmer.

“Wait. Have they just... not figured out what to do?”

“Aaah, now that you mention it, they did seem kinda dumb.”

“I don’t think you should be saying that, Rokuko.”

They must have been unconsciously avoiding the correct answer, maybe because they didn’t want to give the Magic Blade up. That reminded me of the experiments where monkeys got their hands stuck in jars when trying to take treats out of them.

“Let’s keep watching them for a bit. They’ll probably find their way out soon enough... and if they don’t, we get their tasty DP.”

“Okay, Keima. We’ve come this far. Maybe we should just keep them trapped in there until they die.”

With Ichika’s help, I discovered that DP gain was doubled by being in a locked room, tripled by being in a jail cell, and multiplied by six by being in a locked jail cell. In that last case, however, just being in the cell steadily tired her out. Maybe because DP was being squeezed out of her? I didn’t know jail cells had that kind of power. But either way... I’m gonna make sure to lock my door before going to bed from now on. Gotta work with everything I’ve got. Ah... Wait, I only earn 0 DP. Whoops. That won’t help at all.

Day 55

Five days had passed since Uzou and Muzou locked themselves up. A long time ago, I believe that I mentioned that an invader staying inside the dungeon for ten days would earn us as much DP as they would by dying. In other words, we had now gotten more DP from Uzou and Muzou than we would have by killing them instantly. I could give’m food and just keep reaping in all this sweet, sweet DP. By the way, several upper-tier dungeons apparently had human farms within them. They literally raised humans like animals on a farm to get their DP. Though if they ever got found out, they’d instantly be branded an enemy of humanity with everyone out to destroy their Cores. A small dungeon like ours wouldn’t be able to survive that kinda heat. Though nobody would find it if I built one on a really, really deep floor... No, even that’s too risky.

Anyway. I was watching Uzou and Muzou while lazing around, thanks to no other visitors showing up, when all of a sudden Uzou lost his patience and started wailing on the spike wall with the Magic Blade.

“...But too bad! That Golem Blade turns into just a normal [Iron Sword] whenever it’s attacking a dungeon object! In our dungeon, anyway!”

“Who are you explaining that to? They can’t hear a word you’re saying, you know.” Oh, though it’ll still work just fine on normal monsters. That way they can try out how good the sword is real-time. What about the boss? Well, the boss is special. I haven’t made him yet, but I’m planning on making our Dungeon Boss have a “special power” that negates the Magic Blades found in the dungeon.

So, just as expected, he failed... or not. He somehow managed to break through the first spike wall. He gave up after seeing that there was a second one behind it, though. I’m surprised he got through the first one, though. Thanks to this locked room having its key inside itself—that key being the Magic Blade—the doors and walls and so on should be so beefed up that almost nothing can break them. Wait... Huh? The Magic Blade is broken...?

“Umm... I guess I’ll just go ahead and repair the spike traps? It’ll cost us some DP.”

“Yeah, go ahead.” I left the trap repairs to Rokuko and started thinking about the situation. The Golem Blade had likely broken during the first swing. And when it was broken, it turned into a normal [Iron Sword] that wouldn’t work in the pedestal lock. With no way out of the locked room, the mysterious dungeon power buffing the walls and doors vanished, turning the spike wall into an easily breakable object. Then, while he cut down the spikes with the blade, it got cracked. Makes sense to me.

“...I think I’ve figured most of this out, but now I’ve realized something really annoying.”

“Mmm? What’s that?”

“Well, Golem Blades are kind of the big prize for our dungeon, but can they even really be used like Magic Blades? I’m not so sure anymore.” Thinking about it, let’s say someone blocks an attack with a Golem Blade. Like, someone swings their sword and they block that with their Golem Blade. If you think about it abstractly, that’s the exact same thing as a sword-shaped Golem taking a direct hit. And if the Golem gets taken down, it turns into a normal [Iron Sword] without any special properties. Even if they’re still in the middle of a fight. Isn’t that like... a huge fatal flaw?

I could repair my Golem Blades instantly, but Niku, Ichika, and other adventurers couldn’t. And of course, those using Golem Blades were fighting on the front line. Which meant that it was very likely that their Golem Blades would break while fighting. Yeah... I’m gonna need to fix this somehow. Oh, and I’ll make the trap unlock if Uzou or Muzou put the Magic Blade back into the pedestal, broken or not. Rokuko can take care of that while I’m sleeping.

Day 56

Uzou and Muzou still hadn’t escaped the trial room. Delicious, delicious DP. But when I looked at the map, I saw that someone was coming our way. Our next visitor?

“Owner! There’s a visitor here for ya!”

“Huh? They’re here for Rokuko, not the inn...?”

“Eh?! A-Ah, okay! I-I’m the owner, right! H-H-Here I-I-I-I g-g-g-go!”

“Stop, stop. You’re not going anywhere like that. Eh... Here, let me take care of this.” Rokuko was nervous to the point of shaking, so I decided to tag along with her. But that wouldn’t be enough, so I had her temporarily restore my Absolute Authority. I then ordered her to calm down, smile while next to me, nod if I said “What do you think, owner?”, shake her head if I said “Well, owner?”, and to say “Indeed.” if I shifted the conversation to her any other way. Hey, don’t get mad at me. I need her to calm down and this is the only way I know how. But man, this Absolute Authority really is powerful. She actually calmed down when I ordered her to despite being completely terrified. It’s a big help right now, but wow, that’s kinda scary.

Also, I had Rokuko wear a simple dress to reflect her status as the owner of the inn. Looks were actually pretty important for this kind of thing, especially since the idea here was that Rokuko was a member of Haku’s family. We needed to make her look as regal as possible while borrowing her sister’s fearsome reputation.

We went to the front after Ichika called us again and there we saw the receptionist who was always behind the Guild’s counter. She... She had a huge backpack on her back. Judging by how easily she was carrying it, there was either something special about that backpack or she was just really strong. I stealthily checked her out on the map and saw she was getting us 80/DP. Wait, what? Holy crap, that’s amazing. Guess there’s nothing special about that backpack, then. Wow. “You are the owner? It’s very nice to meet... wait, Rokuko? I heard that the inn was being run by a family member of Lady Haku.”

“Well, you know what that means, then. And by the way, you can just think of me as a secretary of sorts.”

“I see. In any case, I would like to discuss some things with you, owner. Would that be acceptable?”

“What do you think, owner?” Rokuko nodded, as ordered. Alright, looking good.

The receptionist was clearly treating us differently than she did at the Guild, a sign that she understood we were in different positions now. It wasn’t particularly rare for nobles to hide their status and work as adventurers. Normally, only a noble would be able to shape themselves up like Rokuko in her teen form. Not that Rokuko was a noble, though.

Anyway, to summarize what the receptionist said:

• I came to build the Guild branch office! There’s space in front of your inn, so I’ll build it there!
• But it’ll be under construction for a while, so lend me your bathroom! And your food, too!
• Oh, and the Guild will pay you for all this! You can just charge me what you would any other visitor!

That was it, more or less. She must have been talking about the branch office the guildmaster brought up. Her staying in our inn wouldn’t be a problem at all. I kind of had an issue with them building the office on the other side of our inn, partially since that’d be squishing the dungeon entrance between us, but I didn’t exactly have the choice to turn her down. This land didn’t belong to anyone (on paper) yet, after all.

“I thank you for your assistance. And... Might I ask how much your inn charges?”

“Fifty coppers per night, and meals cost anything from one copper to one gold. We give out free bread for breakfast.”

“One gold for one meal? What kind of meal is that?”

“It’s a meal fit for an A-Rank adventurer. What about it? Oh, the details are on this price list if you want to see.” I showed her the menu.

“...What are the contents of the one copper G-Rank meal?”

“I believe that mostly E-Ranks will come to the dungeon, so the G-Rank meal is planned to be for their slaves. It’s just black bread. The F-Rank meal above it is for beginner adventurers and consists of two pieces of white bread. The E-Rank meal consists of special rolls made from original recipes we devised ourselves. The specific kind of roll changes daily. The D-Rank meal is aimed at the more successful adventurers who can afford it, so it has both white bread and some sides. It comes with a dessert as well.” I gave details on the meals while going down the list. She probably won’t order the C-Rank meal, right?

The receptionist closed her eyes briefly, then answered.

“Then I would like to order the E-Rank meal.”

“Certainly. Feel free to change your mind if you want.”

“Fifty coppers... This meal is fairly expensive, isn’t it?”

“Well, that’s because it’s hard to get ingredients in a place like this. Right, owner?”

“Indeed.”

“...I see. There’s certainly no helping that. This inn is situated deep in the wilderness, with no paved road leading to it.” Score. One more silver a day, I’m making them big bucks now. And a stable income means some stable sleeping. Hell yeah.

“Oh, and there is a personal quest that the Guild would like to offer to your party, Keima. Would you care to hear the details?”

“Hmm... What do you think, owner?” I decided to hear what she had to say. After Rokuko nodded, the receptionist started explaining what the quest was.

“Several days ago, the Guild put up a quest to investigate this dungeon... We’re in the process of determining a new name for it, but in any case, two adventurers accepted it and left for this [Ordinary Cave]. They never returned.” Ah, that must be Uzou and Muzou. They’re sleeping in the trial room right now.

“They’re C-Rank adventurers and thus I believe they are fairly used to exploring dangerous dungeons. That they have not returned leads us to believe that this might be quite a difficult dungeon.”

“...I see. So?”

“We would like to know if you would like to take over the quest for them, as you have explored the dungeon and lived. If they are alive, we would also like you to attempt to rescue the missing adventurers. Though... It’s quite unlikely that they have survived in the dungeon for this long.” Naturally, I couldn’t just tell her that they were still alive. I fell silent and pretended to think about her request.

“If you accept this quest, the guildmaster will permit for this... [Ordinary Cave] to be a C-Rank dungeon only when trying to conquer it fully.”

“Oh, really. I just have to accept the quest for that?”

Naturally, they couldn’t let E-Rank adventurers just waltz willy-nilly into a dungeon that C-Rank adventurers had gone missing inside of. They’d need me to go inside and come back alive again before they’d assign it as a limited C-Rank dungeon, rather than a full on C-Rank dungeon. I had no reason to refuse the quest. Or rather... I was an E-Rank adventurer, so I had to take it if I didn’t want to get locked out of my own dungeon.

“...What’s the reward?”

“Five silvers for investigating the dungeon, with extra payment for any particularly useful information. You can keep anything you find in there for yourself after showing it to us. If you successfully rescue the adventurers, we will pay an extra five silvers. You can work out additional details with the adventurers themselves.” I had to take the quest no matter what, but the rewards for it were pretty sweet. Especially since Uzou and Muzou were still alive. Plus, more importantly, I didn’t want the dungeon to get such a high rank. That’d lead a bunch of really skilled adventurers to gather together and attempt to conquer it. No thanks. Not to mention, the first adventurers who visited my inn going missing would lead to some bad mojo.

“...I’d like to accept your offer, but I need a second an opinion. What do you think, owner?” We took the quest. I told the receptionist we’d be taking it. She nodded and left the inn to start setting up the tent that would temporarily serve as the Guild branch office.

I relinquished my Absolute Authority and started to prepare to go into the dungeon. Or at least, I pretended to. Obviously. We had a map and I was the Dungeon Master. We didn’t really need to prepare at all.

“Fwaaah! Aaah, that was really rough. Good work, Keima.”

“You too, Rokuko. Why don’t you ask Niku to give you a massage later? She’s pretty good.”

“Mmm, good idea. I’ll have to borrow her from you. So... Are we going to save them?”

“You bet. We won’t be able to go into the dungeon easily otherwise, and I’d prefer it if we started off dealing with weaker adventurers.” We were still lacking in offensive power, so we’d be completely and utterly destroyed if a bunch of strong adventurers came too soon. What about the boss Golem? I’m making him, I’m making him. Soon our halls will be guarded by a super armored haniwa. And since Uzou and Muzou seem like they’re fine, I’ll get back to work building him while pretending to be exploring the dungeon. Or I’ll just nap. Either way’s fine.

Day 60

So, ten days had passed since Uzou and Muzou trapped themselves. I decided to let them out since they had basically stopped moving at all. Plus, they were getting weak enough to earn us a little less DP than before.

I called for Ichika and went to the dungeon with her. They were probably feeling pretty hungry, so I brought some white bread with me as a gift. And naturally, we quickly reached the trial room with no issues at all.

“Heeey, I’m here to save you! Is anybody theeere?!” I faced the spike-filled hallway and shamelessly shouted towards it.

“Helloooo?! Is anybody theeere?!”

“...Here! We’re right here! There’s two of us, and we’re still alive! Please help!” Uzou desperately called out to me from behind the spike traps. Don’t worry, I can see you on the map. And I knew you both were still alive, too, thanks to the monitor.

“Hey, Ichika. How do you think we should do this?”

“...Why not just break the spikes, dude?” Yeah, it’d look pretty suspicious if the spikes just retracted like magic the second I got here.

“Alright, I’ll try hitting them with magic... Hey, I’m gonna try breaking through from this side! You’re gonna wanna back away from the spikes!”

“A-Alright, just give us a second... Okay, we’re out of the way!” I checked the map and confirmed that they had indeed gotten out of the way. I then thought back to the {Fireball} spell I had learned from a scroll a while ago. The chant for it came to mind immediately. Thanks, scroll. Seems like the chant is... “Oh fire, become a sphere and smite my enemy.” Okay, okay. We can do better than that. Language Cheat Skill: Go!

“Oh fire, become five spheres and smite my enemy — {Fireball}.” I said “five” without really thinking, but five fireballs did in fact appear and race towards the spike traps.

Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! The balls of fire hit the spikes one after another. Yeah... This isn’t gonna be enough to break those spikes. But wow, I guess I’m pretty good at shooting fireballs. If my mana lasts, I could definitely shoot out like a thousand fireballs, no problem. I decided to give the fireballs another shot and change my strategy a little.

“Oh fire, rise up and... uh... just explode or something. {Fireball}.” Ah crap. That chant was pretty half-assed, so I lost a ton of mana. I actually felt a chill run down my spine.

A fireball poofed into the air and slowly floated towards the spike traps.

“Master, that fireball is giving me hella bad vibes. I’m thinking we should back the heck up ASAP.”

“E-Er, yeah.” Ichika pulled me away and we waited together for the fireball to hit the spike trap.

The moment it did, it exploded with impressive force, filling the air with blinding light. But the spike trap was just fine. A-Alright, it didn’t break! Good job, spike trap, that was close. Wait... Crap. I thought for sure that one would work. I guess it was just dumb of me to try breaking through metal with fire.

“...Oh well, I’ll just fiddle with the traps to make them easier to break.” I shook my head at myself and used {Create Golem} on the traps to fill the spikes with cracks. Maybe because they were traps in my own dungeon, they were already filled with my mana without me needing to pour it into them. They changed shape fast and easy. But I was pretty tired from that {Fireball}. I’ll leave breaking them down to Ichika.

“Ichika, they’re weak now. Make a big show of destroying them.”

“M’kay. Leave it to me, boss man.” Ichika stood in front of the spike traps and readied her Golem Knife. And not just any Golem Knife. It had a special, experimental Golem Blade covered in a Water Golem to help absorb force, not to mention three extra layers of steel to enhance its force and magic resistance.

“...Slash! Wannabe!” Ichika quickly attacked the spikes with a large swing mimicking {Slash}.

Slash Wannabe. {Slash}, being a skill, would normally enhance a move magically. Slash Wannabe mimics that phenomenon by using the movement enhancing properties of the Maid Outfit Golem. Though it still wasn’t a skill and thus was several tiers weaker than an actual {Slash}. And apparently, you could learn skills without using a scroll, so I was having Ichika use Slash Wannabe partially as an experiment to see if she would eventually learn to use {Slash} for real.

Her knife cut right through the spikes, causing them to crash inward while clanging loudly. Uh... Uzou and Muzou, you two didn’t just get crushed to death, right? You’re both fine. Definitely.

“Y-You saved us... Hey, Uzou. We’re saved.”

“Yeah...” Yep, there they go, standing up on their own. Their legs are kinda shaky, but let’s not think about that.

Ichika and I went into the trial room, stealthily repairing the spike traps along the way.

“H-Hey! Hold on! Don’t come in here!”

“Huh? Why no... oooh.” The spike traps regenerated behind us, locking us within the room like teeth locking prey into a beast’s mouth.

“N-No... Fucking hell...” Muzou looked at the repaired spike wall with despair in his eyes.

“Hey now, this is a Safe Zone, isn’t it? What’re you two so worried about?”

“We couldn’t break those traps no matter what we did. Not even a Magic Blade was enough. We actually broke ours, even... I’m guessing those spikes are super resistant to attacks from the inside, somehow.” I knew all that, but I pretended to be surprised.

“Woah, hold up. You broke yours? Seriously?”

“...Uzou.”

“It’s this thing. See? Covered in cracks.” I took his Magic Blade and looked it over. Yep... It’s totally broken. This isn’t a Golem anymore, it’s just a [Broken Iron Sword]. I’m impressed they managed to break even just the first spike trap with this.

“...Yeah, this thing doesn’t look too useful. Guess we’ll have to use mine instead. Ichika, give them some of the bread we brought.”

“Okaaay, Master... Mmm. Here?” Ichika took out the bread and ripped off a single bite for them. Come on! I’ll give you as much as you want later, so let them have all of that!

“...Th-Thanks. Alright, I guess your name is Ichika now... H-Hey, Uzou. This bread is white. It’s the bread we ate at the inn!”

“...Are you an angel?”

While Ichika distributed the bread, I walked to the pedestal and tried sticking the broken Golem Blade into it. Yeah... Nothing. The pedestal’s definitely not considering this thing to be an actual Golem Blade anymore. I grinned on the inside, thankful for the valuable information, and tried sticking my own Golem Blade into the pedestal instead. Upon doing so, the spikes by the entrance retracted just like that.

“...What? Th-The hell just happened?”

“Looks like this room is set up so you can’t get out unless there’s a Magic Blade stuck in the pedestal. And your broken Magic Blade didn’t work, so I used my own.”

“A Magic Blade?! R-Right, so that’s how it works... Shit!” Muzou seriously got depressed. I had intended to stealthily fix their Magic Blade and stick it back in, but changed my mind on the way. Reason being? Well, let’s just say I wasn’t the nicest guy around.

“You’re gonna pay me for this, right? My Magic Blade’s gonna be stuck in here now.” That’s right. All my acting up to this point had been buildup to that one statement. The receptionist said I could work out the details of my payment with the adventurers themselves. The best way to get a lot of money for them wasn’t just to rescue them, it was to use my Magic Blade and demand payment for it. Heh! Pretty impressive, right! Tremble in fear of the life of debt awaiting you!

“...Yeah. Sorry man, I hate that you lost your Magic Blade to save us.”

“Of course we’re gonna repay you. We owe you our lives for using your Magic Blade to save us. Thank you. Sincerely.” Wh-What? They took that way better than I thought. Holy crap.

“W-We’re talking about a Magic Blade here, y’know? They’re pretty expensive.”

“...It’ll take some time, but we’ll definitely pay you back. Would you mind if we do it through the Guild?”

“I-I mean... I kind of want a new Magic Blade, so...”

“Alright. Give us two... no, one year. We’ll get it done somehow. I’ve uh... I’ve lost a lot of confidence in myself because of this, but we are C-Rank adventurers. We’ll get you a new Magic Blade no matter what it takes.” Holy crap. These guys are so honest. I’m kinda feeling like trash right now.

“...Oh, and how much do you want for saving us? I’d prefer it if you let us keep enough money to prepare for future quests, but...” What?! They’re paying me even more?! Oh man, I’m making bank off this. But... I’m already asking them to get me a Magic Blade. I’d be a real monster if I asked too much more from them. Alright. I’ll make up a ridiculous sum and then lower it based on their reaction.

“Hm, uh... How about like... T-Two gold coins?”

“...No way!” S-Sorry! W-Was one gold per person too much? Alright, I know how to barter! Come at me! I’ll bargain you into as high of a price as I can!

“You’re fine with us paying you that little?! You’re a lifesaver, man! Seriously!”

“Aaah, you mean two from each of us, right? We can do that. We’ll pay the four gold coins as soon as we get back to Tsia.” I definitely looked like a stunned idiot as Uzou and Muzou grinned at me. Whaaat...?

＊ ＊ ＊

I had totally forgotten to ask Ichika about what they’d be willing to pay for me saving them. Apparently, given the situation they were in and how Muzou had asked me to save them, I could have taken everything they owned if I wanted. They wouldn’t have complained even if I demanded they pay half as much as their potential value as slaves. Though naturally, recovering from something like that would be next to impossible, so most people would let them keep a small sum. A C-Rank adventurer would usually end up paying four golds to their rescuer.

“I knew you had a sharp head on your shoulders, Master. You got a promised Magic Blade from them and left plenty of money for them to get it. You’ll earn way more from that Magic Blade than anything they could have paid you. Maaan, you earned the big bucks from this little trick!” Well, that’s how it is, so at least I won’t lose sleep over this.

As an aside, they didn’t even have to go back to Tsia to get the cash. They just withdrew it from the Guild branch office and handed it to me then and there. Hm... Four gold coins. This is pretty sweet. They said an A-Rank meal would cost all their savings, but look at this. They had plenty. Though apparently three of these coins are Uzou’s. Four gold coins turned into Dungeon Points would be worth 4,000 DP, but I wanted to keep them as coins. I could use them to buy more slaves to work at our inn.

Uzou and Muzou stayed at our inn another night, this time both getting a C-Rank meal to celebrate. They even offered to treat me and Ichika to a meal. Plus Niku, since she belonged to our party as well. Yeah... I coulda squeezed out a lot more money from them. Well, whatever. I got plenty.

I decided to be nice and give them the original steak dinner C-Rank meal. When Ichika told them that I’d be making it the B-Rank meal after this, they looked both happy to be eating it now and sad that it’d be harder for them to eat later.

The next day, after giving their report at the branch office, Uzou and Muzou left with smiles on their faces, waving as they went. They were pretty tough dudes. All it took for them to recover from near starvation was a steak dinner and a good night’s rest.

To summarize what I had gained from Uzou and Muzou’s visit: 2,650 DP, four gold coins, twenty-nine silver coins, and five copper coins. I calculated the DP with some rough mental math, not accounting for all the minute alterations to DP gain the dungeon does on its own, but it was close enough.

If you put that all into Earth money, I had earned 4,290,500 yen in ten days. Oh man, I’m so glad I didn’t kill them! I wouldn’t have gotten their savings if I killed them in the dungeon. Not to mention the new Magic Blade they’re getting for me. Or the Guild’s reward for investigating the dungeon and saving them. Well, I sure “investigated” the dungeon, but I didn’t feel the need to tell them anything more than I had to. I couldn’t straight up lie, for both myself and others, but the Guild seemed to accept that most adventurers would keep some things to themselves. Plus, I mean... They have a lie detecting magic tool, so yeah.

All I told them were things that Uzou and Muzou probably already had: The first floor had Goblins, the second floor had Golems. Uzou and Muzou were on the first underground floor. They were stuck in a room and couldn’t get out due to a trap. By the way, I earned ten silvers for telling them that you could disengage the trap by putting a Magic Blade in the pedestal. Normally I’d only earn five silvers for that, but Uzou and Muzou had told them that the information came from me and requested they boost the reward for me. Seriously. Those two are so honest it hurts.

I also drew them a rough map of the first floor near the entrance. They paid me eight silvers for it. Man, they sure are loose with money. That would’ve been really easy for them to investigate themselves. And so, I got an extra twenty-eight silvers from the Guild, earning the big bucks. Also, the receptionist had stayed in the inn for five days now, giving us five silvers and about 600 DP.

We should have a lot more leeway with our DP now. We have... 49,532 DP left right now. We’re not over 50,000 since I’ve been spending a fair amount of it digging a tunnel through Tsia Mountain. I’m just throwing a lot of drills at it, so it’s only a matter of time until we’ve gotten through it. And yeah... With this much DP, I don’t need to worry too much about minor expenses. I could turn the gold coins into some emergency DP if necessary, too.

“It’s pretty great that our first visitors earned us this much. A lot of the money’s coming from bonuses from saving them, but still, we earned one hundred and sixty-two Goblins’ worth of DP in just eleven days.”

“Wow, that’s amazing! But why did you express that through Goblins? Keima?”

“Huh? Well, it’s easier for you to understand that way, isn’t it?” I gave Rokuko a bright grin.

“Well... It was easy to understand, but... I don’t like it!” I patted Rokuko’s head.

The point of the investigation quest was to determine the dungeon’s difficulty ranking before opening to the adventurer public. Both C-Rank and E-Rank adventurers returned alive from exploring it, so I imagined they wouldn’t give it too high of a difficulty ranking. If a bunch of low-level adventurers came and gave us some stable DP income, I’d be able to spruce up the defenses a lot more. Though, either way, I could swap the Dungeon Core on the bottom floor with the dummy core I was using as a light fixture in the owner’s room of the inn. We were totally safe no matter what happened, which was good for my heart. I could sleep easily.

What’s that? You wanna explore the dungeon? Yeah, go ahead. Don’t worry, you won’t find anything on the bottom floor. All you’ll end up with is disappointment and exhaustion. Oh, and maybe some Magic Blades that break like twigs in actual fights. Aaah... Yeah. I’m gonna have to remake the dungeon again once I save up enough DP.

Day 67

Several days after Uzou and Muzou left, the Guild finally decided on a new name for our Dungeon. That name being [Cave of Greed]. Apparently, it came from the fact that you would be putting yourself at risk if you weren’t careful about being greedy. Come on, you don’t need to warn people like that. It’ll be a lot easier for me if they let their guard down.

It was classified as an E-Rank dungeon. That put it in the lower tiers of difficulty. Well, I can’t get mad about that. Uzou and Muzou nearly dying despite being C-Rank adventurers was basically an accident, and the method for escaping that trap is now public.

“Congratulations, my sweet little Rokuko. That’s a beautiful name fitting for a girl as sweet as you.”

“Thank you very much, Haku!” Haku, who came to inform us of the Guild’s decision as soon as possible, gently rubbed Rokuko’s head. Behind her was Chloe, standing around in her butler outfit as always.

“...So, why’d you come deliver that news yourself?”

“Well, of course, I rushed over immediately to be the first visitor of Rokuko’s inn as soon as I heard it was going public.”

“Sorry, you’re going to be the fourth visitor.”

“What in the world...?! Hm... Could you please tell me the names of the three prior visitors? Everything will be fine if I can just eliminate them.”

“Please don’t. You can be the first visitor to sleep in the grand suite, so please uh... settle for that. And don’t kill anyone. Thank you.” The grand suite... in other words, the room for A-Rank adventurers that I had built just for fun. At the moment, I had no plans for anyone but Haku to stay in it.

I had put a lot of effort into making the sleeping arrangements in the grand suite top-tier. It had a [Memory Foam Mattress (200 DP)] that was much better than a plain [Futon (50 DP)] placed within a high quality wooden frame I had made and decorated myself. To top things off, it even had a [Feather Comforter (100 DP)]. I couldn’t help but congratulate myself on making such a high quality bed.

There were a ton of other minor improvements over normal rooms, like carved reliefs in the furniture, a candle-shaped light magic tool on the table, a glass window with curtains, and so on. It even had its own bathroom and bathing room. Yeah, bathroom AND bathing room. We wouldn’t make our valued A-Rank guests take a bath in the same room that has their toilet. The bathtub was made from wood, but since we used some pretty nice smelling lumber that was coincidentally growing nearby, the entire bathing room actually radiated a high class aura... maybe.

Plus, I threw in a massage chair as well. That way, guests could get out of the bath wrapped in a towel and go to sleep while getting a massage. They could get their food delivered by pressing a button in their room, so they didn’t need to go down to the cafeteria. We had everything taken care of. Though, since I made it with A-Rank adventurers in mind, basically only Haku would ever stay in it. Oh well!

By the way, since I made both the normal rooms and the meals fairly expensive, I wouldn’t be sleeping in the especially expensive suite room myself. People would start questioning how an E-Rank adventurer like myself was staying in such a costly room. I didn’t mind if people thought less of me, but I definitely didn’t want them getting suspicious. Crap! I wouldn’t have to worry about this so much if only the Guild hadn’t made a branch office nearby! I could have slept it in when we didn’t have any visitors...!

“So, how much does it cost? I’ll pay the money as I should. Don’t think I’ll let you get away with claiming I’m not the first visitor because I didn’t pay.” Why would I do that?!

“...Aaah, you know, I actually haven’t decided on how much the grand suite should cost yet.”

“I helped him decorate the inside of the room. Haku, how much do you think we should charge?”

“Oh my, you did? I’m quite looking forward to that. And, mmm... I suppose I’ll think up a price and pay after I’ve stayed the night.” That would be pretty helpful. I asked Ichika what she thought it should cost, but she had never stayed at a high class inn and thus had no idea how much a room like the suite would go for. She was more interested in paying tons of money for food, not sleeping arrangements. If you turned that around, I totally understood how she felt.

“Oh, and you’ll have our A-Rank meals for food. We’re passing things off as if you’re giving Rokuko the ingredients through {Storage}, so keep that in mind.”

“Very well. Ah, and I imagine the food comes from your world as well? Here, have two gold ones, for both Chloe and I. I’m looking forward to the meal.” I would’ve been fine giving her the food for free, but sure. I’ll take what I can get. And like, woof. The way she hands over gold coins like it’s nothing really shows how much of a different world she’s living in. Well, I mean, she’s literally living in a different world from my own... but that’s not what I meant.

Anyway. It’s kind of late to say this, but I really don’t think our current A-Rank meal is worth a million yen. I should probably turn it into a full course French meal fit to serve an entire table of people. Probably.

# Haku’s Perspective

[Cave of Greed]. That is the new name of Rokuko’s dungeon. The Guild discussed and decided on it after receiving reports on its nature from the Tsia offices.

The reports also mentioned that an inn had been built in front of the dungeon. I imagined that it would take more time for them to be able to afford an [Inn (400,000~ DP)]. I’m quite surprised that they had it ready by the time the dungeon went public... I wonder how in the world they earned so much DP so fast. Perhaps a human farm? Mmm, even then, they wouldn’t have finished it this fast. Did they stumble upon a vein of orichalcum while mining?

Either way, I used [Teleport] to speedily visit her inn to become her first (customer). Unfortunately, it seems like I missed that opportunity, but I nonetheless choose to stay in the inn’s grand suite. Also, they gave me the heavy duty of determining a proper price for the room. Fufufu. I have built countless inns throughout the imperial capital, and as part of work I’ve stayed in various grand suites in the Holy Kingdom and beyond. In fact, I’ve even stayed in a wide variety of inns while traveling as an adventurer. They could not have picked a better woman for the role.

“Now then. Could I ask for some hot water?” I could just clean my body with {Purification}, but it actually feels quite nice to wipe your body off with a towel wet with hot water. Though cheap inns aimed at Low-Rank adventurers don’t bother offering this service, I expect a grand suite to have hot water on hand at all times. Let’s see how many seconds it takes for them to get the water to me.

“...Aaah, um, I’m sorry.”

“Oh my, do you not have any ready?” It didn’t take long for them to lose points from me. My goodness, I’m surprised they would call this a grand suite without having basic services such as this...

“There is hot water readily available in your bathing room if you would like some. You can use as much as you want.”

“...What? I-I may use as much as I want?”

“There’s a lever inside that will produce hot water whenever you pull it.” I-I’m... I’m not sure if there’s an [Inn] room with that function available from the dungeon menu. Perhaps it’s in the expansion options? They must have saved costs by only expanding the suite room to have that option. Just what I would expect from Rokuko’s master.

“Oh, and this is true for every room, but you can use the onsen as much as you want too.”

“The onsen... I see, so you have one as well.”

“It’s our main attraction.” Hm... [Onsens] are completely separate entities from [Inns]. I wonder how much they spent on theirs? I don’t believe they are that expensive, but even so, they truly have spent a lot of DP on this inn.

...As I recall, a normal room costs fifty coppers a night. Most of that price likely comes from access to the onsen. In which case, it would be wise to not stay in the normal rooms, as all of them have access to the onsen.

“Okay, Haku! I’ll take you to your room!” Rokuko guides me to the Grand Suite. This service alone is easily worth a whole gold coin... Oh my, I need to take care to stay objective here. Though tips are a different story.

I reach the room with Rokuko. Mmm, I see that the door’s not just made of wood. It has metal plates enforcing it, and it even has a lock. They must have destroyed the original inn door and put a dungeon door in its place. Very clever.

“Here! Take your time looking around, sister!” I open the door and see that the room is bright inside, thanks to sunlight streaming through the windows. The furniture is all made of beautiful, engraved wood. The bed looks comfortable and there’s a large chair that looks perfect for a cozy afternoon nap. Hmm, but what country are these engravings from? Did they perhaps originate from an artisan from Keima’s original world? Or perhaps he did the engravings himself. He has quite the talent if so.

There’s a clock resting on the wall. Clocks, I believe, are a magic tool far more expensive than they’re worth considering how little utility they offer. Though, they’re more valuable out here, where unlike towns there are no bells to ring out the time.

As for the window with light pouring through it... I imagine this is a plate of crystal in the window sill. It’s very clear. It seems that I can use the cloth on the sides to block the light if I so wish. This, and much of the room in general, must have cost quite a lot of DP in total. All in all, I’d say it’s more than fine enough to be considered a grand suite.

Oh, I forgot for a moment that it has a bathing room and a toilet as well. I shall... investigate them immediately.

The bathtub has no water, but surprisingly enough, it’s made of wood. Mmm. It smells nice as well. Ah... Is this the lever that produces hot water? There’s a sheet of paper explaining things beside it.

I see, this lever produces hot water and this one cold. I experiment by pouring hot water into the tub. Mmm... It feels a little bit too hot? Ah, the idea must be to pour out cold water at the same time.

“What do you think, Chloe?”

“This is quite an excellent room. At the very least, it’s superior to any grand suite we’ve stayed at in the Holy Kingdom.” The quality of this room is surprising even to me. I sat down on the chair and decided what to do next from there.

“...This is quite a comfortable chair, I like it.”

“My lady, it says here that the chair you’re sitting in is a magic tool known as a massage chair. It seems that it will give you a massage if you put a copper coin into it.”

“Really now? I shall try that out.” I ask Chloe to put a copper coin into the chair, and once she does, it starts to shake.

“Wh-Wh-Wh-What in the world is this?! Fwaaaah!”

“My lady?! A-Are you alright?!”

“I-I’m, fiiine...! Aaah, this is amazing... Fwaah, it feels so goooood...” Aaah... I feel like just falling asleep now, as I am... I spent a lot of time finishing up work so I could come here, so... aaah...

＊ ＊ ＊

I wake up and see that Chloe covered me with a blanket as I slept. Hm... This blanket is quite soft. It’s not very thick, but it still feels nice and warm.

“...I must ask them to lend this chair to me. I imagine it will cost at least ten gold pieces...”

“I have never seen a magical tool like this before. In which case, it must be fairly valuable.”

“...Surely it’s worth no more than fifty gold pieces.”

“If you’ve grown that fond of it, why not investigate it yourself to try and make your own?”

“Ah, that’s quite a good idea... but since I took a nap, I’m now in the mood for supper. I hope it’s not too late for it. Either way, I believe I just have to push this button and wait for them.” The button has a simple cover over it so as to prevent accidental pressing. This cover is made of crystal as well, for some reason... I see no seams on it, which must mean he’s shaving a large crystal down into this shape. Why go that far for something this trivial? I put that aside and press the button. Immediately, I hear the sound of two pieces of metal vibrating against each other outside of the room. I wonder how this works? Is this thing in the [Inn’s] options as well?

After a brief wait of only three minutes, someone knocks on my door. That was quite fast. I suppose they’re using DP for the food as well, then.

“Sister, I’ve brought you your food!”

“Please come in, Rokuko!” I open the door wide and see a pushable food cart in front of Rokuko. It has three meals on top of it. Each meal is covered with a silver dome known as a cloche, hiding their contents. That is another sign of this service being quite high level. In fact, I recall the food in one country’s grand suite being brought to me bare.

Oh my, and what’s this square box...? Ah, there are drinks inside of it. I suppose this is a cloche for drinks. It opens from the side.

The drinks have spoons and straws with them. Wait... Are these crystal cups? And the straws, too. He truly holds nothing back when it comes to using crystals... This allows me to see the contents of the cup. It’s, erm, a green liquid? With a white crescent of something on top of it. Is this perhaps a potion with mashed potatoes on top? That’s quite the combination.

“Wait just a moment. Why are there three meals?”

“I-I wanted to eat with you, sister... Is that okay?”

“But of course! Come now, Rokuko, take a seat. Leave the rest to Chloe.”

“H-Hmph, I can’t do that. Chloe’s our visitor today.” Rokuko carefully places the meals on the table... Aaah, just seeing that makes me want to give her a gold piece tip. The cups have droplets of water on their sides. That’s what happens when you use water-based magic to cool drinks down. And indeed, they are quite cold.

“And here we go. Tadaaa!” Rokuko lifts up one of the cloches, revealing an assortment of food stuffed onto a single plate.

“The plates have ridges which separate the food, allowing multiple types of cooking to be delivered at once... That is quite a clever idea.”

“Heh heh heh, isn’t it? Ummm, this is [Hamburg Steak], this is a [Napolitan], and these are [Fried Shrimp]! These long things are [French Fries], and this bit with the flag in it is [Omelette Rice]! Ah, and this is [Butter Corn Stew]. Oh! Right. The green drink is called, um, [Cream Soda]. It’s a drink, but it’s a dessert too! The white stuff on top is called [Vanilla Ice Cream]. It’s really cold and sweet! It melts fast, so you should drink it soon.” I pick up my fork and begin eating while listening to Rokuko’s explanations.

[Hamburg Steak], hm? It’s definitely meat. It’s not like any steak I’ve had before, but it’s definitely made of meat. And I believe this meat is beef as well? Either way, the mushroom-filled sauce is fantastic.

This [Napolitan] is a kind of pasta. I suppose this sauce covering it is made from tomatoes. It has a sharp flavor that stimulates my tongue.

[Fried Shrimp]... This feels like seafood. I wonder what “frying” entails? This must be another kind of food from his own world.

[French Fries] are made from potatoes, obviously. Hm... They’re crisp and crunchy, much like the [Fried Shrimp]. Potatoes are quite easy to obtain, so I would be able to make this myself if I could just learn how to “fry” things.

It seems that you can eat [Omelette Rice] with a spoon. These are cooked eggs covered with tomato sauce, with a side of... some kind of small grains. Hm, this isn’t bad at all. But what is with this flag?

[Butter Corn Stew] is sweet, warm, and practically makes my heart melt. It certainly earns high marks from me.

On top of all this, there’s even a salad covered in [Mayonnaise], which originated in a world not our own. I suppose it makes sense that Keima would be able to recreate it himself, then. It’s fairly common in the imperial capital, but I appreciate being given the option to eat it in a distant location such as this.

Although he produced all this food with DP, it still had to be prepared and made presentable like this. It’s fair to say that he likely put a fair amount of effort into this meal. Although that effort doesn’t compare to how much it would take to make this meal from scratch, the price of the suite shouldn’t be impacted whatsoever by the fact the food came from DP. In which case, thinking about how much effort it would take to make the meal on its own, without DP... Yes, it’s easily worth a full gold coin. Though in many cases, it’s difficult to say just how much effort it takes to make a meal that originates from another world.

“Ah, this boxy thing is a [Purin]! It’s a dessert covered in cream and cherries! It’s sweet, pretty, and super tasty!”

“I see, so this is also a dessert. Now that you mention it, I recall cream being a luxury food made in some imperial farms. Cherries... Where do cherries come from, again?”

“I believe they are grown in Wakoku.” Wakoku, hm? That’s a country to the far east, as I recall. The transportation costs would be quite hefty... Ah, I see. That’s why they plan to pass off the food as coming from me, an A-Rank adventurer helping them out of kindness. Time is stopped within {Storage}, after all. But with that in mind, I feel that even one gold piece is not enough for a meal of this caliber.

...Ah, this [Purin] is quite tasty. It’s squishy, sweet, and makes me feel like melting... ah, oh my! That was close. My mind was nearly consumed by this heavenly dessert.

...And finally, the [Cream Soda]. I was put off by the green liquid due to it looking like a potion, but Rokuko seems quite fond of it, so I suppose I must try it out. Apparently, it is a drinkable dessert made from [Melon Soda] and [Vanilla Ice Cream], but... I wonder what in the world it tastes like. Ah, and it has a cherry on top of it as well.

First, I’ll use the straw to taste the [Melon Soda]. Mmm...?! So sweet! And I can feel it popping within my mouth! Also, it’s so sweet! What kind of overwhelmingly powerful drink is this?! The way it stimulates my mouth with a sort of hardness reminds me much of alcoholic drinks. But perhaps due to how cold it is, this drink feels significantly stronger. And the melon flavoring pierces my nose while the sweetness fills my mouth. This [Melon Soda] is strong enough that it feels as if I’ve been punched in the mouth!

“Try eating the [Vanilla Ice Cream] on top of it, sister. It’s melted a little by now, but it tastes the best right after it starts to melt!”

“C-Certainly...” Using the thin spoon that is likely made especially for this purpose, I scoop up some of the [Vanilla Ice Cream]. I then bring it into my mouth and am immediately hit with its coldness. And then, sweetness that surpasses even the [Melon Soda]. However, it’s a gentle flavor that melts like snow within my heated mouth, filling it in the process. The soft scent and milky sensation of the ice cream spreads across my tongue and cheeks as it melts, producing a truly pleasurable feeling.

“Do you like it, sister?”

“...Yes, quite a lot.” This drink, no, this dessert wields both intensity through its [Melon Soda] and peaceful calm through its [Vanilla Ice Cream]. It dominated my heart and mouth. In the end, the [Vanilla Ice Cream] melted into the [Melon Soda], creating a combination so heavenly I feel as if I’ve caught a glimpse into the true meaning of the world. Eh? This is all only one gold piece? Yes, that’s certainly cheap.

I let out a sigh of impressed satisfaction.

“That was... extremely fulfilling.”

“I’m honored to hear you say that, sister! That’s our inn’s A-Rank meal, I’m really proud of it.” Hm, I see. A meal of this caliber is only worthy of an A-Rank to them.

“Rokuko. What is the overall name of this meal? I feel that ‘A-Rank Meal’ is simply too drab of a name for something like this.”

“It’s called the, um... Grut... no, ummm... [Glutton Set]!” This must be their answer to those gluttons that come to the [Cave of Greed] wanting to eat a lot of delicious food. In order to be more satisfying, they focused on offering a large variety of food without giving too much of any one meal. Having the insight necessary to come up with that idea and then having the acumen to execute it well is no small feat.

“Ah, you must be playing off of the [Cave of Greed’s] name by naming the meal with another sin. That’s very clever.”

“Right? Oh, sister. Do you mind if I take your flag? I’m collecting them.”

“Oh my, not at all. Here you are.” I take the small flag out of my [Omelette Rice] and hand it to Rokuko. While I’m at it, I give her Chloe’s as well. It seems that all of our flags have different designs. I didn’t understand the purpose of the flags while eating, but now I recognize them as collector’s items. He’s attacking people’s greed for collecting items while feeding them. Keima has quite the fearsome mind.

“Oh yeah, sister. Did you try the onsen? It feels super good in there.”

“I have not yet, but... now that you mention it, it’s been far too long since I’ve visited an onsen. Though my castle does have a large bath.”

“...You have a bath where you live?! That’s amazing!”

“Oh my, but you have an onsen yourself, don’t you? We’re equals here.”

“Ah, you’re right! Fufufu, I’m equals with Haku...” Rokuko smiles happily. Just seeing that makes my heart warm up.

“Do you want to visit the onsen together, sister?”

“Oh my, that sounds delightful.” An onsen... Mmm, yes, that certainly sounds nice right about now. I’m fond of the personal bath in my room, but a large bathing area like an onsen will allow me to bathe with Rokuko. Despite having just finished eating, I decide to go to the onsen immediately.

“I’ve visited a real onsen created by a Hero, so I can teach you how to properly bathe in one.”

“There’s a ‘proper’ way to bathe in onsens?! Wow, I’m looking forward to learning that!”

＊ ＊ ＊

It was a very nice bath.

“...I didn’t know that in real onsens, you don’t wear any bathing outfits or anything.”

“Oh my, Rokuko, did you overheat in there? Your cheeks are quite flushed.” Although onsens by the imperial capital do have bathing outfits to wear, this is an onsen. A bath created by Keima, a visitor from another world. It’s only right that I would teach her to bathe in public naked like those from his world do. And thanks to that... I saw something wonderful. The only problem was that someone else was in the onsen. If not for that human, I could have been all alone with her... Aaah, next time, I’ll just reserve it for the two of us. Fufufu. Now I’m really looking forward to my next visit.

“Now then, I suppose it’s time to sleep. Will you join me, Rokuko?”

“I will!” Speaking of which, I don’t believe we’ve slept in the same bed before. That makes sense. As Dungeon Cores, we do not need any sleep and only choose to as camouflage or as a form of frivolous entertainment. Though of course, it does help speed the passing of exhaustion.

I return to my room and see that Chloe’s already on the bed, laying down. What in the world is this girl doing...? I cannot believe that she would sleep on her master’s bed without permission... and while still wearing her butler outfit as well.

“Chloe?”

“...Ah?! M-My lady...!” I call out to her, causing her to immediately jump out of the bed and bow before my feet. Bowing like that is a classic form of apology derived from alternate worlds. It is also known as genuflection.

“...Well, fear not. I understand. You actually do require sleep, after all.”

“I have no excuse...!” However, it’s rare for Chloe to make such a blunder. I wonder what in the world happened?

“...The truth is, I wanted to check the bed to make sure it was up to standards before you slept on it. However, it felt so oddly comforting that before I knew it, I was...”

“Hm... It’s entirely as if you’ve been charmed by a spell.” Although this could be the work of a magic tool... I find it hard to believe that a succubus like Chloe would fall under the effects of a charm spell. After all, since succubi specialize in charms, it would have to be an extremely powerful one to catch Chloe unnoticed.

“You may sleep on that bed tonight, Chloe, since you’ve already taken a liking to it. I will use the other bed.”

“Understood, my lady! Thank you very much.”

“Oh wow. I’ve never seen Chloe do something like that before. I can’t blame her though, these beds are really comfy.” Rokuko smacks the bed that Chloe had just been lying on. She seems to be hitting it pretty hard, but the sound is still soft. I gently touch the bed as well. And... my fingers sink into it...? What in the world? This isn’t cotton, is it...?

I reflexively push my palm against it. The bed is soft, yet still firm enough to resist my hand... Oh my. I nearly became charmed by the bed myself. I pull a tactical retreat and observe the bed from afar. The frame is made of tastefully decorated wood, which would no doubt make it a valuable luxury item. Since it was built by a craftsman from another world, it would run for at least fifty silvers. I personally wouldn’t mind buying it for that price, even.

Though I must question how thin the blanket is. It seems like it would be quite cold at night... Oh? It’s still warm... Chloe’s body heat from earlier is still within it. Despite being so thin and light, it seems to have quite an impressive degree of heat retention. Hm. Perhaps it has bird feathers inside of it. The entire blanket is soft. I had no idea feathers could be used for sleeping implements like this. I’ll have to try making one of these blankets myself after returning home. I can certainly understand how Chloe was taken off guard by this bed. Succubi, given their nature, can get quite invested in beds and such.

“Sister, it’ll be hot with both of us in bed, so let’s use this thinner blanket instead.” Rokuko picks up the thin blanket on the massage chair and brings it over. She seems... quite used to doing that. Keima hasn’t laid his hands on her, has he? He better not have.

“Over here, sister.” Rokuko gets on one side of the bed and, leaving plenty of empty space for me, pats the other side. I... I feel a happiness that’s difficult to describe right now. A trembling happiness that feels as if it’s filling my entire body.

I get into the bed as invited and, like a pair of happy sisters—I do think we truly are a pair of happy sisters, but in any case, like a pair of happy sisters—we nestle together and fall into a blissful sleep. The comfortable bed is nice, but that’s not important to me. What I truly care about is the fact I’m sleeping together with Rokuko. Dungeon Cores don’t need actual sleep. But even with that aside, up until now, Rokuko hasn’t had the leeway necessary to do things such as sleep. I myself had forced her to live in dangerous, rough conditions in order to hide from the Soldiers of God. Just cause or not, I cannot help but feel guilt and regret over what I’ve put her through. With that in mind, perhaps I should feel grateful for Keima.

Or at least, right now. If he makes Rokuko unhappy for any reason, I will never forgive him. But in any case... This experience is certainly worth one hundred gold coins. W-Well, I’ll remain objective when determining the cost of the room, but I can express my gratitude with a special tip. It might be nice for me to give Rokuko DP through another direct transfer, so she can have some spending money. Yes.

Day 68 - # Keima’s Perspective

“Twenty-five gold pieces. No question.” Haku gave me a small bag packed with gold pieces first thing in the morning. Uh... What?

“That is how much a night’s stay in your Suite is worth. Twenty-five gold pieces per person, and thus fifty gold pieces for two people.” A copper piece was equivalent to about one hundred yen. So one hundred of those would be worth ten thousand yen, or one silver piece. Now taking it a step further, a hundred of those would be worth one million yen, or one gold piece. And she just gave me fifty gold pieces. In other words. Fifty million yen.

I had definitely delivered Haku’s food through Rokuko with instructions to get in the onsen together with her in hopes of boosting the price as much as possible, but fifty million yen for a single night’s stay was more than I had ever imagined. And on top of that, Haku put another thirteen gold pieces on the counter.

“And as for the food, one gold piece is simply too little for a meal of that caliber. I know the special circumstances under which you are acquiring the food, but normal inns would charge around ten gold pieces for such a meal. You should raise the price to five gold pieces at the least. Here is my payment for our meals, splitting the difference, with Rokuko’s included.”

Five million yen per meal?! A [Child’s Deluxe Lunch (10 DP)] and [Cream Soda (8 DP)] is worth five million yen... Inflation is a hell of a drug. Economically speaking, I’m making over 99% net profit from this... I mean, I definitely want to earn as much as I can from this, but I kind of feel like I’m ripping people off. Like, sure, it’s deluxe, but I literally fed a child’s lunch to Haku and she’s paying this much for it. Ichika also said that the meal would be worth five gold coins, but it just... feels bad to sell a lunch worth a thousand yen in Japan for friggin’ five million yen. I’m middle class, y’know?! I’m not a gangster running a laundering scheme here.

“Honestly, I feel like this is a bit much...”

“Are you suggesting that you cannot trust my opinion?”

“Not at all! Perish the thought! I will gratefully accept your payment!” I jerked out a deep bow, feeling a chill run down my spine. As Haku stood at the top of the entire Empire, whatever value she personally assigned to the room would become the proper price for it, twenty-five gold coins or not. Haku didn’t just pay prices. She created them. And that wasn’t a joke, either. In a situation where the price of a good is unknown, whatever someone pays for it becomes its real price. Doubly so if that person was a higher up in the Empire or an A-Rank adventurer. People would see what they paid and assume they must know what they were doing. Art in particular was influenced heavily by this phenomenon.

Since I had asked Haku to determine the price, I had basically gotten her backing for whatever price I may charge. In other words, twenty-five gold pieces for one night’s stay and five gold pieces for a meal were both prices Haku had determined to be correct. Requesting them to be cheaper would be, by extension, not trusting Haku... which would basically be picking a fight with her.

“...It seems you do not fully agree with me, so I will explain my reasoning in more detail.” However, she was kind enough to elaborate for me.

“R-Right. Sorry.”

“First of all, I assume that you attempted to match the price to how much DP you spent on the food. However, the resulting price feels lacking and inconsiderate of such costs as transportation and labor.” For example, cherries were apparently fruits grown in a distant eastern country called Wakoku. A single one of them would cost fifty silvers in Tsia. They rotted quickly, so fresh cherries had to be stored in {Storage}... and the only adventurers with {Storage} going back and forth between Tsia and Wakoku were generally A-Rank adventurers. Sending an A-Rank adventurer that far on a delivery quest would run you up five gold pieces at least. To make up for that, you would buy in bulk, and subtracting the cost of the cherries you ended up with... fifty silvers per cherry. Makes sense. I never considered that until she brought it up.

...Yeah, the only reason I could buy stuff like vegetable stuffed bread rolls for cheap in Japan is thanks to factories, mass production, and a globalized economy with cheap shipping. Recreating Japanese recipes in this fantasy world that doesn’t have factories or even the recipes for the food will naturally lead to a lot of invisible costs coming out of seemingly nowhere. This world has magic and dungeons, but it hasn’t developed any forms of mass production yet. Crap... I made a big mistake trying to equate one copper to one hundred yen. Thanks to making a shortcut between this world’s money and Japan’s money, I ended up calculating prices based on what they would be worth in Japan. Haku’s suggested price for the A-Rank meal is basically exactly what Ichika suggested to me. She shoulda worked a little harder to convince me... oh, wait. Slaves can’t really backtalk their masters too much. Right. This is completely my fault.

“By the way, B-Rank adventurers and above are practically treated like nobility. Many of them are even given noble titles. Such is optional for B-Ranks, but it’s mandatory once you reach A-Rank. And an A-Rank adventurer fundamentally pays with gold coins.” Apparently, it was a common saying that A-Rank adventurers would pay a gold coin for an apple and not ask for any change to save time. The saying reflected how A-Rank adventurers would get so rich their sense of money would go wild... Yeah, now I know for sure that inflation in this world is out of control. All that said, however, there weren’t many A-Rank adventurers in the Empire. Excluding Haku and her squad, there were about twenty in total. Heroes—Soldiers of God—were A-Rank by default, so they were another story.

“But either way, I don’t think you needed to pay Rokuko’s share or anyth— Er, uh, I mean, I am extremely honored that you deigned to share your precious meal time with the owner of our establishment. Yes.”

“I would really love to pay for her staying in my room as well, but as Rokuko is the owner of this inn, it is practically her own home. It would be odd for one to pay a fee for sleeping in their own home, so I restrained myself and settled for only paying for her meal in an act of selflessness. Understand? If you don’t, I’ll pay you another twenty-five gold coins.”

“I-I understand, please, no need to glare at me like you’re about to murder me and my whole family.”

“Fufufu. I’m glad you understand. By the way... I suppose it would be best for me to tip Rokuko directly with DP, yes?”

“E-Er, yeah. That sounds good to me.” By the way, both Haku and Chloe were giving us 0/DP. I had been looking forward to some massive gains from them since they were both A-Rank adventurers, but oh well. Though... I understand why a Dungeon Core like Haku would give 0 DP, but what’s up with Chloe? Maybe monsters summoned into a dungeon with DP end up permanently earning 0 DP a day.

“Okay, Rokuko. Open wide.”

“R-Righteo!” Haku asked Rokuko to prepare for the DP transfer. Okay, okay. Here comes another kiss scene... Or so I thought, but then Haku thrust her finger into Rokuko’s mouth.

“Nmm?! Nnn, nmm!”

“Come now, don’t pull away. Loosen up your shoulders and relax... okay? Let it flow over you.”

“Nnn, nmmm! Nmmm, fuaah! Nnn...!” Haku’s cheeks flushed slightly as Rokuko sucked on her finger desperately, ears bright red. Th-This is uh... Yeah, this is something. Really gets the blood flowing.

After a while of that, Haku pulled her finger out of Rokuko’s mouth. A small string of saliva bridged the gap between them.

“...You aren’t going to kiss her this time?”

“Correct. Now that Rokuko has made her debut as a public dungeon, I imagine she will end up in Dungeon Battles with other Cores that come to duel her. She needed to learn how to accept DP from them without using her mouth. After all... I have no doubt that you will defeat every one of them, and we can’t have Rokuko kissing them afterwards each time.” Haku smiled. Uh... I can understand all that, but why are you licking Rokuko’s saliva off your finger? I almost pointed that out, but decided not to. Her murderous glares were bad for my heart.

“By the way, speaking of other Dungeon Cores... Did you know that there’s another dungeon in Tsia Mountain? It’s on the other side of the mountain, more or less, so I imagine you won’t be seeing them anytime soon.” Haku said that without a care in the world.

“...Haku, do you know what the word ‘flag’ means?”

“Flag? Like those tiny ones you put into the [Glutton Set’s] [Omelette Rice]?”

“Er... Nevermind...” I’m not sure why, but I’ve got a really bad feeling about this...

Suddenly, I remembered the egg that Rokuko had got with her 10,000 DP. We didn’t know what it was, but Haku might. And so, I had her look at the egg that for some reason had grown to the size of a soft ball. I, uh... I’m pretty sure eggs aren’t supposed to get bigger. This is weird. I wonder if it’s going to get even bigger.

“Here, sister. Do you know what it is?”

“Oh my... It’s been a long time since I’ve seen one, but I believe this is an immortal phoenix egg. Phoenixes are quite tasty, you know.” Haku’s inspection revealed that it was a phoenix egg. Apparently, they tasted pretty good. I wonder if you could just keep eating the same phoenix over and over? I’m pretty sure they’re immortal or something.

“They are like big clumps of mana, so their blood is useful for making medicine. Phoenixes are truly useful in many ways, though they aren’t too powerful as monsters.”

“They’re not strong?”

“Although they revive on their own after dying, they’re more or less birds that are constantly on fire. They’re classified as B-Rank monsters due to their rarity, but in a fight they’re weak enough for a single C-Rank adventurer to defeat them. Their primary advantage is that they don’t use DP when reviving, I suppose.” They’re weak, huh? Guess this guy’s not gonna be a boss in our dungeon. Might be smart to have him wander the dungeon as a rare monster or something, though.

“By the way, you’ll want to really heat up the egg if you want it to hatch. I suggest throwing it into a fire. Though it wouldn’t die even if you froze it or something of the sort. Egg or not, it is still an immortal phoenix.” It would also revive even if I broke its egg. It would revive... as an egg. How it worked was a mystery. Apparently, the only thing that could kill a phoenix was old age. Though they turned into eggs after reaching old age, so it was questionable whether or not they truly died.

“Wow, an immortal phoenix! Thanks for telling us, sister. I really want to thank you, but I’m not sure how.”

“Fufufu. It’s the thought that counts, Rokuko. Ah, but there is one thing... Erm, I would quite like the, um, the massage chair from the room. W-Would that be possible? I’ll pay in DP if necessary.” Oh hell yeah, it’s money making time. Time to wring as much DP out of her as I can.

“Oooh, that thing? It just tickles me, I don’t think it feels good at all. Let’s just give it to her for free, Keima.”

“How about no... is what I’d like to say, but Haku, you’ve been a good friend to us. I don’t mind giving it to you for free.”

“Oh my, really? I’m quite happy to hear that.” Haku’s smile was filled with suspicion and her eyes practically pierced my soul, trying to figure out what I was planning. I smiled back at her as brightly as I could. My face muscles hurt.

“Seriously, I’m just being nice here. At most, it’s a little gift to encourage you to visit our Dancing Doll Inn again sometime.”

“I would do such without your encouragement, believe me. So, anything else?”

“Well, I’d be pretty grateful if you’d tell me about that dungeon on the other side of the mountain. I get the feeling that they might end up posing some problems for us later.”

“Oh my my, that’s no problem at all.” Haku gave a slight smile and began telling me information I wanted to know.

The dungeon was known as the [Flame Caverns]. They were indeed on the opposite side of the mountain from us. Adventurers needed to be C-Rank or above to enter it. Same for even getting information about it. The monsters within it were almost always fire-based, though there were some earth monsters as well. The fire monsters were like... magma slimes and red lizards.

Now, that was all information that any adventurer (C-Rank or above) could get at the Guild. Everything after that was information I could only get from Haku herself.

The Dungeon Core is a salamander type. Its number is 112. Salamander type, huh? I guess Cores aren’t always human shaped, then.

“Rather, human type Cores are relatively uncommon. That’s partially why I dote on Rokuko as excessively as I do.” What?! This woman knows she’s being excessive? Wow, color me surprised.

Furthermore, the [Flame Caverns] had a Dungeon Master as well. And that Master was a Dragon, even. Apparently it was a Red Dragon that had originally been living in Tsia Mountain long ago.

“Dragons have a tendency to be attracted to shiny objects. I imagine their dungeon is absolutely filled with treasure.”

“Er, I’m more worried about the fact that Dragons can become Dungeon Masters...”

“Anyone with intelligence can become the master of a Core they match wavelengths with... Though I believe there are some other requirements involved, with names and such. Masters tend not to advertise themselves very much, so it’s still mostly unknown what requirements there are to become one.” Oh yeah. I became Rokuko’s Master without really knowing what was going on, now that she mentions it. Though it turns out that a Core with a Master can’t replace their Master on their own, so I haven’t been worrying about it.

“...Ah, I almost forgot. You won’t be able to use your rat strategy on their dungeon if you end up in a battle with them.”

“Huh? Why not?”

“The floor of their dungeon is quite hot. A good pair of boots would provide enough protection to not worry about it, but rats wouldn’t fare so well. They would likely all be crippled by the end of the first floor.” Now that’s some good info. If she hadn’t told me that I’d probably have summoned a lot of doomed rats. And... I guess I really should start preparing for a Dungeon Battle with those guys. Shouldn’t be anything wrong with me thinking up a battle plan right now. Wait, wait. I might lose some sleep getting plans ready. And I was just reaching thirteen hours of sleep a day, too.

Anyway, that was basically all the information Haku gave me. Most of it seemed pretty useful, so yeah, I didn’t feel bad about missing a chance to sell the chair for fifty gold pieces. Although half of the information could be learned from the Guild, I wasn’t a C-Rank and thus it’d all be blocked off from me. And I was pretty grateful to get any information on the Dungeon Master themselves.

“Though as I mentioned, you likely won’t be seeing them for quite some time. They are on the other side of the mountain, after all.” Haku, come on! You’re tripping a lot of bad flags here! And so, Haku left with clear reluctance after giving Rokuko one final hug. Her visit had proved very beneficial to us, both financially and intelligence-wise. Huh... Thinking about it, Haku is kind of like a bonus character to our dungeon. I’m starting to see her as a goddess of good fortune or something. Guess I should start praying to her.

Oh, and by the way, I decided to let Rokuko do whatever she wanted to with the DP tip. I didn’t want to even think about what Haku would do to me if she found out I took it from her.

“How much did she give you, anyway?”

“...Ummm, about 100,000 DP.” Yeah, I’m sure she’ll be fine if I take just a little of that. It’s tempting. She gave us sixty-five golds in total for her stay at the inn. Buying that much money with DP would cost around 650,000 DP. Turning it back into DP would earn us 65,000 DP. It’d be more valuable as money thanks to that, so I decided to keep them as they were for the time being. That was plenty on its own. I decided to settle down and let Rokuko keep her tip. Though Haku surely wouldn’t complain if Rokuko wanted to use her DP on the dungeon. I’ll just borrow that DP from her if the circumstances demand it.

Anyway, about the phoenix.

“...So, um, do you want to break the egg and see if it really revives?” I went along with Rokuko’s invitation and broke the egg with a lit torch.

...Have you ever heard of the Vietnamese dish known as hot vit lon? It’s a type of boiled duck egg. Except that the egg has a live bird inside of it, just days away from hatching. It’s a dish famous world-wide for how... gross it is. Pretty weird, isn’t it? Boiled eggs aren’t gross and bird meat isn’t gross, but mix them together and you’ve got something extremely gross to most people. Hahaha. The mind can play some funny tricks, huh?

...Okay, enough trying to escape reality. The broken phoenix egg looks exactly like hot vit lon. I feel like I’m gonna have nightmares about this...

Soon enough, however, the gory mess was consumed by flames and, with light particles gathering around it, regenerated as an egg right on the spot. The broken shell remained on the ground, but the revived egg didn’t seem particularly smaller. Therefore, I could conclude that the egg revived itself by forcefully sucking mana out of the surrounding area.

I threw the egg against the ground again to confirm my findings, just to be safe. Yep... It only took about one second for it to regenerate after burning up. This is pretty disgusting, by the way.

“So, that’s what Haku said would taste delicious if we ate it?”

“........You’ve got a pretty strong stomach, huh? I’m impressed. Sincerely.”

“Eh? Um, okay. Thanks?” Anyway, the hot vit lon... I meant, the phoenix egg apparently hatched best in fire, so I decided to place it in one of the torches in the dungeon that mysteriously never burned out. Not having to worry about its safety was pretty convenient. I dropped and broke it once by accident while putting it in the torch, but it revived in no time.

I figured that the phoenix eggshells would be valuable for something, but the menu only gave us 0 DP after I tried offering it up as treasure. Either way, now was our only chance to get eggshells from the phoenix egg, so maybe it’d be smart to order a Golem to automatically destroy it every few seconds. Also, since biting into it would set your mouth on fire, I decided not to show it to Ichika. She’d throw it into her mouth without a second thought, no doubt.