Chapter 1

Day 251

And thus I became a Dungeon Master plus Town Chief. But naturally, I didn’t use the dungeon’s advanced functions to help the town. My nature as a Dungeon Master was secret, and needless to say, it was best I kept it that way. I decided to keep using my powers for my sake and the inn’s sake alone. As long as I could guarantee myself a comfy place to sleep, I was happy.

Anyway. About the dungeon. I got the feeling that it was about time for some serious construction work. Reason being, the nineteen Magic Blades that Wataru had looted and brought back to town.

Due to rumors of his success spreading, more C-Rank adventurers than before were staying at the inn and steadily conquering more of the dungeon. That meant more people were exploring the labyrinth at any given time, which made it harder to move the walls around. Which in turn directly led to more adventurers challenging the puzzle area. The only punishment for failing a puzzle was being sent back to the first floor, but some adventurers would let their guard down and end up hurting their feet, which put them out of commission for a bit.

...Some of them did die due to hitting the ground in a bad way or wearing heavy armor. I didn’t really attempt to capture or imprison anybody, so it was leave or die. What about the garbage Hero Suzuki? He’s an exception.

“...Ah, someone just died.” Rokuko, lazing around in my room for whatever reason, let out a murmur. As the Dungeon Core, she could sense anything happening within our dungeon. I had no reason to doubt that someone had indeed just died. I feel like it’s been a while since anyone actually died... Ouch.

Rokuko was far past caring about people dying inside of her, so she soon returned to lazing around aimlessly.

“Did some Guild rookie let his guard down or something...? Ah.”

I just remembered that some noble got trapped in one of my trap rooms (specifically, one of those where spikes block the exit if you take the Magic Blade out of the pedestal. I had made the rooms intending for people to use them to test out the Magic Blades, but everyone ended up considering them traps.) Seems like the person who just died was that noble. Dang, he was still alive? His party got stuck in there a long time ago. I forgot all about them. I thought they had already died, honestly.

I took a look and saw that the smug noble who had pulled out the Magic Blade, Dorasan-whatever, had been stabbed by one of his companions. The companion then pried the Magic Blade from his cold, dead hands and returned it to the pedestal, successfully freeing the rest of the party. The sight of him putting the bloody Magic Blade into the pedestal was pretty touching. He had the expression of a man who had finally accomplished his goal after a hard and lengthy journey.

Yeah, you did good. I’ll reward your efforts by clearing a path to the exit. I’m in a good mood thanks to becoming town chief, so yeah, I’ll get you out of there alive. By the way, he’ll be able to make all sorts of excuses for why he didn’t come back with the noble. But thanks to lie detecting magic tools, he’ll likely get imprisoned after some brief interrogation.

Eh, well, that’s out of my hands. He’s on his own once he leaves the dungeon.

＊ ＊ ＊

In order to not forget anything important, I decided to go on patrol and see what my subordinates were up to.

Rei, Kinue, and Neruneh were chatting in the cafeteria. No customers were nearby due to lunchtime already being long over. Not to mention that the cafeteria was a lot less busy now that there was a bar nearby that also sold food.

Rei was earning some extra money by massaging people’s feet. Her attack power of zero somehow led to her massages making the subject feel no pain whatsoever, which led to more than a few people getting addicted to them. There were a lot of unforeseen and mysterious consequences to her zero attack power, but she was somehow making the best of it.

“Rei. Everything good?”

“Yes, Master. I have recently become known as God’s Fingers. Humans certainly are easy to manipulate!” Rei, my silver-haired vampire, smiled brightly at me. It was good to have employees happy about their work.

“You know, I think you deserve a bonus. How would you feel about me giving you a {Create Golem} scroll?”

“Me...?! Learning your ultimate technique, Master?! It would be an honor!” Ultimate technique...? Well, I guess I do pretty much only ever use {Create Golem}. But the idea here is that Rei does zero damage no matter what she tries, even using a bow and arrow, but this can be circumvented by her ordering a Golem to attack in her place. This is the best thing I can do for her... though, uh, I wonder if the Golems she creates will do zero damage too.

“Y’know, I think you deserve a bonus too, Kinue.” Kinue had masterfully learned the recipes I vaguely explained to her and could now perfectly recreate Japanese cooking on her own. Though she used some ingredients bought with DP, such as soy sauce and miso broth, she also used sugar made from the beets and salt bought from Pavella merchants.

...That cooking classroom I held before failed miserably, but now I get it. I coulda just summoned someone who knew how to cook already.

“Are there any magic skills you want, Kinue?”

“Hmm... I would like some magic that would help me clean, or perhaps cook. Other than {Purification}.” Kinue’s pride wouldn’t allow her to use {Purification} while cleaning, but she didn’t mind using wind magic to blow trash away or anything like that.

“I’ll give you some Low-Rank magic scrolls, then. The fire skills might end up useful for cooking.”

“Oh my, thank you very much.” Kinue smiled with a refined giggle, much like an adult woman would. Rei was more or less the de facto leader of the monster girls, but Kinue came across as the most mature of them. Ah, and Neruneh just comes off as an airhead.

“What about you, Neruneh? Have you learned any magic skills yet?”

“...Ummm, Master. You said that you would teach me magic if I learned all the skills Niku knows, buuuut... There’s just one I really can’t understaaand!”

“I’m guessing {Storage}?”

“{Storaaage}!” Makes sense. Every other magic skill Niku knows is Low-Rank. {Storage} is the Mid-Rank one. Wait, and she’s learned every Low-Rank spell I taught Niku? That’s pretty impressive. She may not have learned {Storage} yet, but still, she’s actually managing to learn stuff here. I’ll teach her some magic if the mood ever strikes.

...Actually, nah. That’d be a major pain. ’Cause I mean, in this world, learning magic without scrolls is basically memorizing a chant with perfect pronunciation. The learning process, then, is to repeatedly chant the incantation over and over and over. It’s basically just work. A magic teacher has to teach their student the chant, listen to them chant it, correct their pronunciation, and then repeat. It takes diligence and a lot of determination. Once the student learns the spell as a skill, they can make mistakes here and there with the only result being a greater loss of mana, though at that point a little focus will be enough to chant it properly.

“Please give me a scroll too, Masteeer!”

“If you don’t get used to learning them on your own, you’ll never be able to use magic like I do.”

“Ngh! It’s true. Your magic is nothing like what’s in the scrolls...”

“Alright, Neruneh. I’ll give you another goal instead. If you can do this, I’ll teach you magic.”

“What is iiit?”

“Think of a way to make Golems use magic. I’ll help with any experiments you think might be successful.”

“Okaaay! No take backsies, right? It’s a promise, riiight?! Eheheheh. It’s a promise for sure!” Neruneh laughed with determination. Golems being unable to use magic was the only thing standing between me and making Golem Blades into all sorts of Magic Blades beyond just sharpening ones, a key step towards expanding the dungeon. Heh heh. Work hard and unravel this puzzle for me.

I left the cafeteria. All that talk about skills reminded me that Ichika and Niku had both learned the Swordplay skill {Slash} thanks to all their Golem-assisted repetition training. {Slash} was the only skill Ichika learned, but Niku learned {Slash}, {Double Slash}, {Accel Turn}, and even {Assassin Edge}. That’s wild. She learned all those while teaching Neruneh magic, too. Guess this is what you get when you combine the innate strength of a beastkin with a child’s learning capabilities.

I went to check up on them and found them dueling in the inn’s garden with large wooden swords as part of their training. The sound of wood thumping echoed through the air, along with the occasional shouts of {Slash}. Not to mention some faux-skills. A faux-skill was just them using Golem assistance to force their body to move in a certain way. The resulting attack wasn’t too impressive compared to the real thing.

By the way, I tried asking Niku what the secret to learning so many skills was, but...

“You have to, um, let it happen. It’s like, pow. But you can’t just, ummm, leave everything to the Golem. It’s important that you pow pow pow yourself, too. Ah, {Double Slash} is fast, it’s important you go fast. {Assassin Edge} is where you slice the throat. You go poooow.” She tried explaining while acting the motions out, but unfortunately, I didn’t understand any of it.

But the fact that Ichika only learned {Slash} despite her long history of fighting could only mean that talent and compatibility had a lot to do with it. Oh, and I didn’t want to do all that repetition training, so I just learned it through a skill scroll. Since {Slash} is a Low-Rank Swordplay skill, the [Slash Skill Scroll] only cost 500 DP.

“Um, Master? It took me like, two months to learn that. Y’know what I’m sayin’?”

“Alright, alright. You can eat as many curry rolls as you want for three days.”

“...I’m just gonna pretend you said for a whole week!” I let her have that. Since we could buy packs of six rolls for 5 DP, she had to eat six hundred rolls to match the 500 DP I didn’t spend on her. Which would be... eighty-five rolls a day. Pretty sure that’s heart attack level. Good luck getting even with me, Ichika. Good luck.

“Do you want a reward too, Niku? You learned four skills, so you can have something four times as good as what I just gave Ichika.”

“...Please pat my head.”

“Huh? Alright.” I patted Niku’s head. Her damp black hair felt nice to the touch and her tail wagged rapidly.

“So, what do you want? A headpat alone can’t be enough.”

“...Nnn. This is enough.” Well look at this cutie. I ruffled her hair with both of my hands. It was messing up her hairdo, but judging by how happily her tail was wagging, she probably didn’t mind. She’s gotten a lot more sweet and dog-like ever since I gave her the last name Kuroinu (Black Dog). This is the power of proper beastkin naming.

“I-If you insist, Master, I would like it if we... went to bed, and...” Er. Looks like the Niku part of her name’s influencing her too. Oh yeah, speaking of which. I don’t think I’ve told Rokuko about me becoming town chief yet.

I headed to Rokuko’s room and entered with a knock.

“Ahahaha.” Rokuko was laying on her bed and grinning at the red ring on her finger. She had been doing that all the time lately... I hallucinated Haku’s footsteps and nearly genuflected on instinct. I need to be ready for the day she actually comes. Hopefully I can get her to spare my life somehow.

I looked at Rokuko for about half a minute, but she didn’t notice me, so I decided to just speak up.

“Heeey, Rokuko?”

“Bwuh?! H-Hey, knock before you come inside! And wait for me to answer, too! This is the room of a fine young lady!” Rokuko hid her left hand behind her and collected herself. Oh yeah. I knocked but didn’t wait for her to reply.

“My bad, my bad. I just wanted to talk to you about something.”

“Eh? I wonder what it could be. Wait... I need to collect myself first.”

“Uh, not sure what’s going on in your head right now, but this is about work. Can’t even imagine what you’re thinking about. Oh. Right. I’m town chief now.” I told the blushing Rokuko what I came to say and immediately turned to leave. How did this happen? It’s a bit late for me to be saying this, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t trip any romance flags with Rokuko... All I did was drive the bandits out, expand her dungeon, and make an inn. I guess I gave her some melon rolls too? Oh, right. I kinda fought Wataru for her and took down Suzuki after he dissed her. Riiiight.

I feel like I can hear Haku’s footsteps getting louder... I gotta survive. My bed awaits.

“Wait, wait, Keima. Town chief?” Oh, she called out to me before I got all the way out.

“Yep. There’s a lot of people staying here now, right? Well, there’s enough people that everyone’s calling this place a town now. One thing led to another and I was chosen as town chief.”

“Mmm, so basically, you have the most authority out of any human here. That’s good. This is my dungeon, after all.”

“...I’m the kind of person that likes avoiding work where possible, but after some thought, I realized a town chief’s main job is basically getting other people to do work for him.” You can’t play an RPG without a town chief unloading problems onto a Hero. The added responsibility would still pose some problems, but since I was stuck here as Dungeon Master anyway, eh. It’d all be the same. A problem for the town was a problem for me. Might as well just accept my fate.

“Mmm? But wait, what’s going to happen to the inn now that you’re the town chief?”

“I’d like to say that nothing’s going to change, but I don’t think I can live here any longer. People probably wouldn’t think well of their town chief living in a rented inn room.”

“Aaah, okay. Once you finish building your house, I’ll move in with you.”

“...Huh? But this inn is your home.”

“Eh?”

And either way, the entire town is part of her dungeon. Houses are basically like rooms to her, since she can just go anywhere she wants with a single step thanks to the dungeon’s teleportation functions.

“...That’s true.”

“Yep, but moving sounds like a pain, so I’m gonna just build my house onto the inn... It’d be a pain walking here every day, after all.”

“Okay, that sounds good. Are you going to do what you did with the employee dorm?”

“Something like that.” To the outside, it would look like I built the expansion after asking the owner for permission. This place would become an inn plus chief’s residence. Guess I’ll go ahead and get it built. If anyone asks, the mysterious construction mage Narikin did it. The other town authorities probably won’t be too happy with this, but if they complain, I’ll just crush them with my town chief status. ’Cause in the end, for show or not, I am the town chief.

“Ah, but make me a room in your chief’s residence too. That’d be super duper easy for you, right?”

“...Eh, yeah. Sure.” Guess I’ll make the chief’s residence a bit bigger than planned. No problem, there’s still lots of space around the inn.

＊ ＊ ＊

Anyway, I recently had an idea that might make teaching magic easier. Perhaps Golems could help, just like they did with physical skills.

My idea was centered around a phonograph. I would have liked to just buy an actual audio recorder with DP, but nothing computerized showed up in the DP Catalog. Is it the transistors? What’s so bad about transistors?

...Anyway, phonographs were purchasable in the catalog thanks to their lack of computer parts. But they were a million DP each. Too expensive. I had no real choice but to make one myself.

Luckily, phonographs weren’t particularly complex in nature. To record sound, the speakers vibrate and dig grooves into a record. To play that sound back, the speakers vibrate according to the grooves in the record. So, how could I make that work with Golems? Easy. Make the whole thing into a Golem and have it repeat vibrations that it learns. I didn’t know how well a Golem could learn vibrations, but experimentation would make everything clear.

But what about the speakers? That was even simpler. I’d make paper or animal skin into a membrane that made noise when vibrated extremely rapidly. Tin can telephones were basically speakers, and the same deal worked with paper cups, which meant all I had to do was buy a twelve-set of paper cups for 5 DP and everything was good. I just had to fuse it all together into a phonograph. “Alright, time to experiment.” I used {Create Golem} on a paper cup. After easily turning it into a Golem, I held it against my ear like one would a tin can telephone.

“Record the following vibrations. Er... Ahem. Test, test. Today’s weather is fantastic. Stop recording. Now, replay the vibrations you just recorded.”

“Er... ahem. Test, test. Today’s weather is fantastic.” I heard my faint voice coming out through the paper cup. Success. It even recorded my fake cough.

I ordered it to replay the vibrations even harder, and although the resulting sound cracked a little, the voice coming from the cup ended up being as loud as my original one. Another success.

...Alright, now let’s see how much it can memorize.

“Register those vibrations recording number one. Next, record these vibrations.”

So, ultimately, I learned that the paper cup Golem could at most memorize twenty seconds of vibration. Anything more and it would start to overwrite its own memory. Guess memorizing vibrations is a lot harder than remembering a normal order. But twenty seconds should be enough for a magic skill incantation.

It’d be annoying to constantly tell the Golem when to start recording, so I drew a “record” and “play” button onto the cup with accompanying orders to record when I pressed the record button, etc. That put its vibration memory down to eighteen seconds. Yeaaah, they definitely have a limit to how much they can remember. I never noticed until now cause I only ever gave them simple orders like “dig here” or what have you. This was some very fruitful experimentation.

Next, I tried recording a magic incantation, starting with water because why not.

“O Water, become a small ball. {Water}.” A blob of water appeared in the air, so I stopped recording. And not wanting the water to hit the ground, I caught it with the Paper Cup Golem and gulped it down. After a breath of air, I replayed the recording.

“O Water, become a small ball. {Water}.” Ah, it replayed the recording just fine, even though it got all wet. But no magic happened. Still, a Paper Cup Golem can be used as both speakers and a cup. Very convenient.

“But yeah, this probably won’t be enough to teach Golems to use magic.” Either way, I gave the Paper Cup Golem with the {Water} incantation memorized to Ichika. Neruneh already knew it, so yeah.

Since they would be practicing with it alone, it was best to give them something that could replay the recorded audio on its own. Ah. Wait, I just had a good idea. I could split the recording and replay parts like the mouthpiece and earpiece of a telephone. That’d be a lot easier to use.

...Uhhhh, what was the magic Neruneh couldn’t remember again?

Day 225

I had become town chief, but that didn’t change my modus operandi. God, I love sleep. My futon’s so warm. Nothing can top being wrapped in the toasty embrace of blankets during chilly weather. I honestly want to start a religion called Beddhism just to spread this message across the world.

Actually, speaking of which, I wonder what’s up with religion in this world. If there aren’t any major ones, yeah, I wouldn’t mind becoming the founder of Beddhism. I could order believers to form a futon of bodies for me and... Actually, never mind. That’s the kind of thing that’s fun to think about but isn’t so great in reality. It’d be hot, heavy, and wouldn’t even compare to a feather futon. For sure. Dreams are best left as dreams, where they can remain beautiful. And it’s not like I couldn’t just ask the monster girls to do that for me. I’m definitely not backing out of this because I imagined how much work it would be to be a religious leader and hated it. Definitely not.

...Wait. I can’t believe I forgot this world actually does worship a god. In fact, I met him. I’m a Soldier of God even. Wow. If someone asks me if I believe in God, I could just tell them I met him. Hahaha. Though I don’t know what his name was or anything.

...I’ll just say I worship Beddhism.

So, after getting a hearty amount of sleep yesterday, I got to work trying to build the chief residence within a single night. Construction went really smoothly and it was done in no time, all thanks to {Create Golem}. Really, {Create Golem} was basically a cheat skill. It normally could only make Clay Golems, but still, those Golems could move forever with mana and there was nothing more useful than Golems. Why isn’t {Create Golem} more popular? The capital city’s part of a dungeon, so it should be filled with mana at all times. Perfect for Golems, if you ask me.

As per Rokuko’s request, I had made her a room within the residence. I also gave Niku and Ichika their own rooms, plus a guest parlor. There were a lot of rooms. Most might not end up being used, but still, it was important to make them now while the space still existed. Who knew how expensive land would get over time as the town grew? Those who strike first win.

...I can claim land and reserve it for the inn thanks to being town chief, but there were limits to that. Maybe I should start seeing if we can build upwards. Like, attach ourselves to the mountain or something.

I looked up at the residence I built and nodded in approval, before getting interrupted by someone rushing up to me in a panic. It was the adventurer slash carpenter, Kuusan.

“K-Keima?! What about your promise to let me build the chief residence?!”

“I didn’t make a promise like that. Get outta here and build that storage building.”

“Ngh! Right, I totally forgot to make you promise me that... And I’ve only made one storage building myself. Anyway, I’m pretty sure this residence wasn’t here yesterday... And yet it looks perfectly crafted, as if it were here all along... This is some incredible workmanship. But I’m the son of a carpenter! I can’t let myself lose here!” Kuusan left it at that and ran off. Wait, he’s already built a storage building? Guess he’s planning on making multiple ones. That’s good too. And wow, he’s fast. Looks like he’s a much better carpenter than I thought.

...Well, anyway. That’s that for me. I’ll leave all the annoying town politics to others and get back to work on the dungeon. I gave them plenty of money, I’m sure they’ll be fine. Ahhhh. Life sure is busy when you’re the town chief.

＊ ＊ ＊

Since I would be sleeping in the chief residence from now on, I grabbed my futon and dakimakura (Niku) before getting to work sleeping. But that night... I woke up. Or to be more precise, Rokuko was kicking me awake.

“Keima! It’s an emergency!” I awoke to the sight of Rokuko pressing her feet against me. Naturally, I had requested that she wake me up like this, and therefore was not upset in the least. Think about it like a foot fetishist. If you’re going to get your sleep interrupted, don’t you at least want feet to be there for you?

“Ngh! Wh-What’s up...?”

“There’s an invader in the dungeon! And he’s dangerous!” If it were a normal invader, Rokuko wouldn’t go out of her way to wake me up. Especially not recently, given how there are always adventurers inside the dungeon. Which means that it must be a pretty serious invader.

I opened the menu and checked the dungeon map.

“This one!” There was a red dot on the map indicating an invader. It had the name “Dangerous thing” tagged on it. Rokuko must have done that. I didn’t know you could tag these kinds of things. Nice.

The red dot was racing through the dungeon at immense speeds. It ran into a party of four adventurers in the labyrinth area, and... their four dots vanished like the wind. They were destroyed in less than three seconds. Uh... I’m pretty sure that was a C-Rank party. Bancho and Sharty were in it, I think. And yet, they were nothing to this thing. Whew.

“Mmm... Master, what’s wrong...?” Whoops, woke up Niku. She looked at me while rubbing her sleepy eyes.

“It’s an invader! Niku, now’s not the time to be sleeping!”

“Ah! To the defenses!”

“Hold on. He just murdered an entire party of C-Rank adventurers. We need to hold back and observe him first. Rokuko, contact everyone and wake them up.” I held Niku back and moved to the Master Room before opening up the dungeon monitor to get a look at our foe.

It was... a pitch black wolf? He was kinda hard to see. But his whole body was definitely black, sole exception being his crimson eyes. It’s not that his pupils were red. Rather, it was like red balls had been put directly into his eye sockets.

“What kind of monster is this?”

“I don’t know! Maybe a wolf monster? Can you tell, Niku? You’re both dogs with black hair, there’s a definite connection here.”

“...I can’t tell. But I feel like there’s something weird about him.”

The monster was rapidly progressing through the dungeon as we spoke. He got through the labyrinth area in no time, completely undisturbed by the traps and wandering Golems scattered throughout. But up next is the puzzle area! No wolf is getting through that!

The black wolf paced round the room, sniffing the air, before eventually...

“GRAAAAAH!”

He bit into the [Gate of Wisdom]... shaped Golem and tore it apart. Hey, whaaat?! I know I just used stone Golems for those doors, but c’mon! I can’t believe the fastest way to beat the puzzle area is to use force... That’s jut not right.

“Rokuko, evacuate your Core to the inn.”

“Okaaay. Can I just put it in my new room?” We castled the Dungeon Core and replaced it with a Dummy Core. We should be safe now, unless anything crazy happens.

By the time Ichika and the others responded, the puzzle area had already been torn to shreds. I hurriedly called them into the Master Room.

“Sorry for the holdup! If you woke up for this, Master, it must be super serious!”

“Yep. An invader just broke through the puzzle area and is now at the spiral staircase. We’re gonna use the Golems in the storeroom to try and hold him back. If we can’t beat him, we’ll guide him into the [Flame Caverns].”

“Roger!”

Worst case scenario, we would leave him for Ittetsu to take care of. He’d probably complain, but... It shouldn’t be too big for Ittetsu and Redra to handle. Probably.

The black wolf jumped to the middle of the staircase and fell down before landing silently as if it lacked any weight at all. It then leisurely walked through the storeroom area. Several wandering Iron Golems attacked the wolf, but it easily dodged their simple attacks and kicked them away. The Golems flew backwards and slammed violently into the dungeon walls. They stopped all movement and became practical lumps of iron.

But what was most surprising out of all that was how the Iron Golems had clear, heavy dents where they had been hit. Out of all the monsters in our dungeon, Iron Golems had the most defensive power, but not even they could withstand a single blow from the wolf.

I swallowed hard. I was leaving control of the Haniwa Golem to Niku, but the one I had wandering the storeroom area was made of stone. No amount of armor would see it through an attack like that.

“...I’ll guide him away!” Niku saying that meant that she had determined her chances of victory to be exceedingly low, and was thus switching to plan B: pushing the problem onto the [Flame Caverns]. Good thinking, Niku. I’d expect nothing less from you.

“Leave the details to me, Keima! We’ll guide him to the right. Rei, shoot him with arrows from the right! Kinue, follow after Niku and attack the wolf while doing so! If he breaks your Golem, just assume control of another one and keep up the attack! But Niku, there’s only one Haniwa there, so use him well! Neruneh, use the Spiky Spiky Turtle to chase him from behind!”

“Understood! Golem, gooo!”

“Rokuko! Like, what do you want me to do?!”

“Ichika, move the Wall Golems to block side paths and guide him forward! Don’t worry about preserving a path to the Core, this is more important!” With Rokuko’s instructions, Niku’s Haniwa Golem, Rei’s four-legged Archer Golem, Kinue’s four-armed Golem, Neruneh’s Spiky Turtle Golem, and Ichika’s Wall Golems all sprung into action. They were clear, precise, and effective instructions. So much so that I had nothing to do myself. Wait. Do they even need me anymore?

“Archer number three has been destroyed! But he’s on the right path now! Assuming control of number four!”

“How is the Haniwa Golem holding up?”

“No problems so far. At this rate, it will last until the magma area.” I checked the monitor and saw that although the black wolf was attacking the Haniwa Golem, Niku would deflect its punches with the Golem’s shield to avoid taking the blow head on. When the wolf tried to bite, Niku pushed the shield forward, which was bigger than its mouth. Not only that, but she was sprinkling attacks with the Golem’s sword, although the wolf dodged each blow.

A four-armed Golem charged forward to get in the wolf’s way, but was knocked back by a light tackle and... turned to a pile of broken stone. However, like a never-ending stream of food in a buffet, another four-armed Golem rushed in to take its place. The Spiky Spiky Turtle attacked from behind at the same time, but with little result. Its stone spikes were soon crushed by the wolf’s tail, turning it into a useless Stone Frisbee Golem. Having no other choice, Neruneh made it perform a kamikaze tackle, but it was knocked away by the tail before it could do anything.

It was hard to read the wolf’s expression, but it was looking annoyed. Perhaps due to wanting to destroy all its enemies, or perhaps just annoyed by the stream of arrows being shot at it by the four-legged Golem, the wolf kept charging forward—right where we wanted him to. If we could keep this up, he’d be in the magma area with the door to the [Flame Caverns] in no time.

“Okay, we’re almost there! Niku, how are you holding up?”

“I’m okay...! I can keep, going...! Ngh!” The Haniwa Golem’s shield had finally broken. The black wolf noisily chewed up the chunks of stone and swallowed them. Really, it was impressive how long she had lasted with a simple stone shield. It must have taken an enormous amount of skill to deflect the blows and minimize the damage like she had.

The wolf immediately did a leg sweep. Lacking a shield to block it, the sweep shattered the horse part of the Golem. Niku managed to detach the torso section, but it was already game over. She somehow managed to block a few blows with its sword, but the damage piled on and finally the Magic Blade... the Golem Blade died and turned into a normal sword. Despite that, she continued using it as shield, a feat possible only thanks to the fact that it was made from iron.

...Retrospectively, I should have made the shield out of iron too.

“Ngh! The sword won’t last for much longer! We were so close...!”

“Just roll into the magma area! It doesn’t matter if the Haniwa Golem gets destroyed!”

“Roger!” Obeying Rokuko’s instructions, Niku rolled the Haniwa Golem down the stairs that led to the magma area. It doesn’t matter if it gets destroyed, huh? Just gonna toss it out there that I’m the one who has to fix it. Well, not that I actually care if it does.

The Haniwa Golem rolled down the stairs while chunks of its stone body flew everywhere. The black wolf chased it down into the magma area... or at least, I thought it would, before it suddenly stopped on a dime and turned right around.

“What?! B-But why?!” Rokuko panicked in confusion. No helping that. Golems or not, we had sacrificed a lot of troops only for the plan to fail at the last moment. Even I was surprised. The heck is going on here?

...After that, the black wolf noticed the Wall Golems. After a bit of sniffing, it destroyed them with tackles.

“Oh mega crap, he’s going straight for the Boss Room, dudes! Nothing’s stopping it!”

“...Guess we’ll have to end this in the Boss Room. Time for the Iron Haniwa Golem to shine. Niku, can you beat him?”

“I... I don’t think so.” She fought that well with a stone Haniwa Golem. I didn’t see any reason why she wouldn’t be able to give a good fight with an Iron Haniwa Golem. It actually had a shield made from iron, even.

“Maybe Rokuko should handle this...”

“Nah, you have experience fighting that thing. You’ll do better than her. I’m counting on you, Niku Kuroinu!”

“...Yes, Master!” I gave Niku a headpat to encourage her.

The coliseum was spacious and fighting the wolf there would be disadvantageous to us, given how mobile it was. Which meant that our best option was to concentrate our forces in the Boss Room and hold our final stand there.

“He’s coming!”

“Iron Haniwa, go!” The black wolf slammed against the Boss Room’s door and burst inside. A dark aura was visibly radiating off its black body. Facing him was the strongest monster in our dungeon, the Iron Haniwa Golem—also known as the Iron Haniwa. It was an Iron Haniwa covered in iron armor and sitting atop an iron horse.

“Graaaaah!” The black wolf roared. I probably would have pissed myself if I were actually standing in front of it. But the Iron Haniwa didn’t even flinch. Nor did Niku, the one controlling it.

“Quasi-Slash!” It swung its large Magic (Golem) Blade, designed to be used from atop of a horse, towards the wolf using a technique mimicking the skill {Slash}. The wolf dodged that first attack and lunged at the Iron Haniwa, who had lost its balance from the swing. Things looked grim, but the Iron Haniwa boldly dodged the lunge by falling off the horse.

“Rokuko, take care of the horse!”

“Got it!” Niku left controlling the horse to Rokuko so she could focus on moving the Haniwa itself.

Fundamentally, she fought the same as she did before. Block with the shield and strike with the sword. This time, though, it had the help of a charging horse. It may have lacked weapons, but it was also made from an Iron Golem. Even a simple tackle had plenty of destructive power at the right speed. And Rokuko made it run circles around the room to build up that speed before charging at the wolf. To give an example, it was like riding a bike in a wide circle before rushing down the road with it.

“Grrrr... GRAAAH!” But the wolf twisted and moved its body in impressive ways to dodge both the Iron Haniwa’s slices and the horse’s charges. I thought at first we had failed, but then noticed that it was attacking far less than before, likely due to focusing on dodging. Hm... We just need to give him one more push.

“Send out the boss’s helper Golems. All of them. Equip them with bows and wooden arrows. Don’t worry about shooting at the same time, just fire! Try not to hit our allies!” The helper Golems were normal Iron Golems, but they had actual equipment. That equipment allowed for a wealth of strategies, which made adaptability their specialty.

This time, I chose wooden arrows for them. Reason being, my primary goal was to distract the wolf, not hurt it, and wooden arrows would prevent any damage towards our allies. After all, a wood tip wouldn’t be doing any damage to a Golem made of iron.

Swoosh! Arrows flew towards the wolf... and got knocked aside by its tail. Just as planned. The wolf began attacking even less, allowing Niku’s Iron Haniwa to attack more in turn. The battle now rested on whether the wolf’s energy or our concentration would run out first.

Or so I thought, but the Horse Golem immediately landed a solid body slam on the wolf. A massive iron horse running at full speed hit the wolf directly on the side, literally destroying it. The force had just been to—

“Wait, what?! It survived?!” The wolf... No. It wasn’t a wolf, not anymore. A black clump of something clung to the horse’s stomach.

“What the heck?! It’s not a wolf monster?! Wait, it’s... eating the Horse Golem?!” The black thing enveloped the Horse Golem, swallowing it whole despite its metal body. It then returned to the shape of a wolf. Before we could process what had just happened, it dashed through the room and destroyed all of the helper Golems.

“Ngh?!” Niku’s Iron Haniwa rose its defenses, but... the wolf slammed its head against the iron shield, turning into a mist that swallowed up both the shield and the Golem’s entire left arm. Then, its sword. And finally...

“...I’m so sorry...” Niku let out a pained whisper. The Iron Haniwa had been swallowed whole by the black wolf.

＊ ＊ ＊

The black wolf left the Boss Room and entered the heart of our dungeon, the Core Room. Niku, naturally exhausted after all that, had fallen asleep on my lap. She was like a puppy.

“...Yeah, there’s nothing we can do about this.”

“Ngggh...!”

As we had brought out our ultimate weapon and still lost, the only thing we could do was watch as the wolf advanced further. That said, the Core Room contained only a Dummy Core, a basketball sized ball of treasure that radiated faint light and looked just like the real thing. It even mimicked the real Core’s cozy warmth. But since it was just a Dummy Core, no harm would come to us from it being destroyed.

...The black wolf looked at the Dummy Core atop the pedestal and ignored it, choosing instead to lie down onto the ground.

“...What?”

“Um, I guess it doesn’t want to do anything?” We kept watching him for a bit, but it looked like he had just fallen asleep. I considered the possibility of a surprise attack, but we didn’t have any more manpower. Not to mention that it wouldn’t be wise to attack him recklessly without knowing the limits of his power.

“Either way, we’ve got no choice but to leave him alone for now.”

“Uh-huh...” Rokuko looked conflicted, but this all just reminded me of what things were like when I was first summoned.

Oh, right. I hadn’t looked at how much DP per day he was giving us. The number wouldn’t convert directly into strength, but it’d be good enough to get a general idea. I didn’t think to check before now since they weren’t a human. Let’s see... 950/DP? Holy crap, this guy’s stronger than a lower-leveled Hero. No wonder we lost.

...No, wait. We didn’t lose because it’s strong. We lost because we’ve been relying too much on Golems. They can’t do anything against enemies resistant to physical attacks. I thought I was well aware of that, but I never planned any countermeasures.

We had reached the limits of what we could do with just Golems. It was a pain, but we needed to introduce other monsters and increase our options when it came to fighting. But not much would come from just summoning a bunch of weak mob monsters. We needed something with a unique specialty, or maybe something with unlimited power or whatever...

“...Well, planning for the future’s important, but right now we gotta focus on how to get rid of this monster.”

“Uh-huh.”

I did have a few ideas on what to do. It refused to enter the magma zone, for instance, which opened up the possibility that it was weak to fire. Hm... Might be best for us to try asking the [Flame Caverns] for help. Ittetsu might even know what this black wolf thing really is.

＊ ＊ ＊

After telling Ittetsu we were having an emergency, he rushed right to the conference room to meet with me. I’m glad this Salamander’s got quick feet.

“Fuckin’ hell, Keima, what’s goin’ on? It’s the middle of the night.”

“Sorry about this. Believe me, I wish I could be asleep right now, but it’s kind of an emergency and you’re the only one I can count on for help.”

“Hahaha! Alright then, let’s hear what’s going on.” Ittetsu let out a pleased lizard laugh and set on the opposite end of the table as me. Huh... He’s a four-legged lizard, but he can sit down too. I don’t know why something this dumb would impress me, but it really is.

“A weird invader just appeared in our dungeon, and, well... He got through our Boss Room.”

“Wha?! He fuckin’ WHAT?! You alright, lad?! That means he’s in your fuckin’ Core Room!”

“Yep, and he’s hanging out there now. Our strongest monsters couldn’t do anything to him.”

“That’s pretty damn bad. What kinda invader is it?” I opened up the monitor to show him the sleeping black wolf and explained how the battle with it went down.

“I tried leading him into the [Flame Caverns], but he just refused to go into the magma area in our dungeon.”

“Makes sense... Wait, you were plannin’ on pushing this fucker onto us?”

“I had faith that you could take care of him somehow, Ittetsu.”

“Heh, of course I fuckin’ could. I’m not a Core of the 100 lot for nothin’.” Ittetsu’s lizard mouth curved into a grin, as if he was happy I found him reliable. Wait, the 100 lot? Great, now I’m curious and we’re too busy for me to press the subject. Like, are Dungeon Cores made in batches?

“Uhhhh, so, do you know what this black wolf thing is?”

“Mmm? Let’s see here... He sure looks like a wolf type... dark type... ghost type...”

“Hm. Is he a Vampire’s transformation or something?”

“Transformation? That could be... Wait, nah. I think I might have an idea here...” Seemed like something about that tickled Ittetsu’s memories. He murmured to himself for a bit, gathering his thoughts. And then, he told me his conclusion.

“’Bout a seventy percent chance that’s a slime Variant. Probably a hybrid between a dark and ghost type.”

“...A slime? You’re saying that wolf shape is just a form it’s taking?”

“Yeah. Slimes move pretty damn slow when just squishin’ around, so when humans train’m, they usually end up taking the shape of animals. But this monster’s way too strong for that. Usually a slime mimicking an animal ends up pretty damn weak ’cause of changing its shape and stuff. So, this could be a totally different monster. That’s why I said seventy percent chance.” People train slimes, huh? Must be monster tamers or something.

“Any weak points...?”

“Hey, Keima? I’m thinkin’ it’s about time you pay me for my services here.”

“...I’ve got some powerful alcohol called vodka. I’ll give you a bottle.” I bought a bottle of vodka with DP and put it on the table. Each one only cost 100 DP, though they were human sized and might not be enough for him. Luckily, alcohol was an extremely welcome gift in this world and Ittetsu was happy to see it.

“Oooh! Alcohol, huh? That’s what I like to hear! You’re a drinker too, Keima?”

“Nah, I don’t really drink alcohol much.”

“Yeah? Guess I’ll drink it with Redra, then! The bottle’s a little small, but...”

“...Want two more bottles?”

“Hell yeah! Sorry for pressuring you like that, bud!” Ittetsu opened up the first bottle and cackled happily after getting a good whiff of the contents.

“Sure is rough having greedy friends. Not like this is gonna set me back much, though.”

“C’mon, don’t be like that. We’re living in connected caves, y’know? We’re basically brothers. Course, I’m the older brother.”

“Yeah, yeah. I sure am lucky to have a reliable big bro. So, does this thing have any weak points?”

“W-Woah, big bro? Stop it, you’re gonna embarrass me. Say it again.” Whatever, bro. Just tell me the weak points.

“Hm, weak points, huh? If it’s a dark type, some strong Light. If it’s a ghost, somethin’ holy. If it’s a vampire... Eh, they’ve got lots of weak points. Anyway. If this thing is a slime, pretty much all magic will... Wait. If it’s a dark type hybrid, it’ll be strong to Darkness magic. Nothin’ physical will do much damage to it. You wanna be hitting it with something Light, and there’s not many strong Light monsters. Redra’s fire breath would take care of it no time, though. For the right price I could send her over to help, y’know.”

“...And how much would that price be?”

“About a thousand of these bottles.” So 100,000 DP, huh? I dunno how I feel about this.

“Luckily, things have calmed down right now, so I’ll try to take care of it on my own. I’ll ask for help if things ever get really bad.”

“Gahaha! Just remember, you can ask your big bro for help whenever ya need it. She might melt the whole Core Room with her breath, though.” Let’s not go too far, now. But I’m glad I can ask for help if I need it. I thanked Ittetsu and threw in five more bottles of vodka just for the hell of it.

“Hey, Keima? Not gonna turn these down, but you sure? This’s more than the consultation fee.”

“Yeah. I’m thinking this is the least I can do to thank you for waking up to talk about all this.”

“Works for fuckin’ me. I’ll take’m. Just call if y’ever need my help again, yeah?”

“You got it.” Now, time to figure out a way to get rid of that black wolf thing. Won’t be able to sleep peacefully otherwise... Haah. I don’t wanna work.

Day 256

I woke up to see Rokuko peering into my face.

“...Why did you sleep?”

“Huh? Er, well...”

“Grovel.”

“H-Huh? G-Grovel?”

“Uh-huh. Get on the ground and grovel. Okay?” And so, I was forced to prostrate before Rokuko. Why? This is unjust. Sleeping is my right. As a human, I literally need to sleep.

“So, why’d you sleep? I’m in trouble right now.”

“...Is that like, a biological question? Humans like me will die if we don’t sleep.”

“You’d be fine missing a single night of sleep. You were even napping right before it happened.” I mean, that’s true. But think about it from my perspective. I was woken up in the middle of my nap. And yet, I resisted the intense sleepiness to fight the wolf as best I could. I even woke up Ittetsu and had a strategy meeting with him. I think I did pretty well, personally. Seriously. I didn’t actually end up helping the fight against the wolf at all, but I did my best!

“Couldn’t you have just stayed awake for my sake...?” Rokuko’s cheeks puffed out as she began to pout. Oh crap. She’s gonna be a pain in the butt if I don’t be careful here. I thought long and hard about my response before replying.

“Nah, Rokuko. I can’t operate at my full potential without sleeping. So, basically, I went back to bed so I could help as you as best I can.”

“...Really?”

“Really really. I think about things while sleeping, so yeah, I was planning out how to deal with the wolf while I slept.”

“Hmmm. So, what’d you come up with?” Rokuko gave me a piercing, doubtful glare. She then crouched down to look up at and pressure me from below as I remained sitting.

Okay, what to do about this. Aaah... Speaking of which, Ittetsu mentioned something about slimes being trained by humans. Which means I can tame monsters? Alright, time to make up some bullshit along those lines.

“I heard from Ittetsu that monsters can be tamed. I was thinking that if we could tame that black wolf, he would add some serious firepower to our dungeon.”

“I see. He would definitely be a strong ally to have. So, how do you plan on doing that?”

“About that. First of all, it’s very likely that the wolf is actually just a slime changing its shape. Probably because a human trained it to do so.”

“Uh-huh. So?” Seems like she’s buying it. I kept going.

“So, I’m thinking our next step is learning more about the wolf. I’ll try talking to it.”

“...You? How?”

The easiest option would have been to use the dungeon functions to talk to him directly, but unfortunately, we couldn’t choose one specific place to broadcast our voices. If there were, calling everyone together would have been a lot easier. Since, putting aside the monster girls, we couldn’t contact Ichika or Niku directly through the Dungeon Menu. But thankfully, I had just invented a voice producing Golem recently.

“...I’ll make a Golem talk to him. If everything goes well, I’ll get near him and try using {Air Voice}. I think there’s a chance he’ll be smart enough to understand human speech, given that he was trained by someone.” Mid-sentence, I remembered that I had learned the Wind magic skill {Air Voice} a very... very long time ago. Before I even went to town to buy Ichika. Seriously, the only magic I ever use is {Create Golem}. It’s way too convenient. I’m pretty much a Golem Master at this point. Though, uh... That’s kind of why we’re in this mess now.

“Mmm. I guess you actually did think about it.”

“Obviously. Who do you think I am? I’m your partner and Dungeon Master.”

“That’s right, you’re my partner! Sorry for doubting you.” Rokuko smiled and glanced at the red ring shining on her finger.

Better think of what to do if talking to the wolf fails. For now, I think a good plan B is just filling the Boss Room with magma and then melting the entire Core Room in a sea of fire. Wow, wait. That’s actually a pretty good idea.

“...I always get my best ideas while talking, for some reason.”

“Hm? What was that?”

“No, nothing. Also, can I stand up now? I kinda wanna get back to sleep.”

“...Keima? You know there’s an invader who beat our boss and is staying in the Core Room now, right? You know I’m so scared I can’t even sleep, right?” She made me sit cross-legged for about thirty more minutes. Not only that, but since “that’s not much of a punishment for you,” she even sat on top of my legs. I had become a human chair. But she didn’t do anything more than that. She just kept sitting on me. I thought about saying something, but ultimately just sat in silence for thirty minutes while feeling Rokuko’s soft butt press against me before finally speaking up and asking what she was doing. She stammered out “Th-That should be enough of a punishment!” and dashed out of the room without even turning around. What was her goal here? My feet fell asleep, too. Sheesh.

Ah, yeah, that’s a good punishment. She actually got me good.

＊ ＊ ＊

I couldn’t just go back to sleep after undergoing Rokuko’s human chair torture, so I got to work refilling the dungeon with Golems. Making the specialty Golems beloved by the monster girls was easy, since each only took a single cast of {Create Golem}, but the Haniwa Golem had a ton of parts and would take a fair chunk of time to rebuild. Sheesh, who the hell gave this guy so many parts? We’re not making plastic models here. God dammit, it was me.

I got to work with the help of other Golems and soon repaired the broken stone Haniwa Golem. While I was at it, I upgraded its sword and shield to be pure iron. As for the Iron Haniwa Golem, well, it had been eaten whole. I had to rebuild it from scratch. But I didn’t give him any real improvements. You know, it just hit me that a Clay Golem would be a lot more like a haniwa than either of these. Not gonna make one, though. That’d be pretty pointless.

I also made a Messenger Golem with the explicit purpose of talking to the black wolf. It wasn’t anything flashy, though. Just a normal Clay Golem carrying two simple Paper Cup Golems. The plan was to have the Golem run to the wolf. I’d speak to the Paper Cup Golem which would then repeat my message where the wolf could hear it. I could hear its voice through the dungeon monitor, so that was simple. Though it was very likely that this would end without the wolf speaking at all. After all, whether it was really a wolf or whether it was really a slime, monsters generally didn’t tal— Ah, wait, I literally just had a conversation with a talking Salamander. Who knows, maybe it will talk?

In any case, my Paper Cup Golem differed from normal paper phones in that it would still be able to produce speech even if the wire got caught in a doorway or stretched against a corner or something. The key point was that each paper phone was a fully fledged Golem. I just had to input the command “Voice playing cup, recreate all vibrations received by the receiver cup” and that was that. It was a command as simple as “if your right hand gets moved, move your left hand in the same way.” Plenty easy to make after some simple experimentation. As the veritable Golem Master, I wanted to keep it up and develop this idea further, but I couldn’t. We got spanked hard by this black wolf due to over-relying on Golems.

I took a look at the black wolf through the monitor. It was still sleeping. Does it like sleeping? Maybe he and I have more in common than we think, heh... Alright. Setting obvious flags like that should increase the chances of me successfully taming him.

Yeaaah. That’s just wishful thinking.

Anyway, I decided to keep rebuilding our Golem armies while waiting for the black wolf to wake up. Wait... Is it already awake? I double checked but it was just lying on the ground, head down and black tail swaying side to side. Weird. It looked entirely as if it was protecting the Core. Which I wouldn’t mind at all, for the record.

“Hey, Rokuko. I’m about to try talking to it. Get ready.”

“Mmm, okay. I’ll wait in the Master Room.”

After warning Rokuko, I sent the Messenger Golem running to the Core Room with the black wolf. I could’ve just had it leave through the Dummy Core, but I didn’t want to surprise the wolf or anything. Instead, I stretched out the paper cups pretty far, such that I was standing outside even the Boss Room. The plan was to have Rokuko immediately withdraw me if the wolf were to attack. I’d rather not put myself in danger in the first place, but I figured it was best to keep on top of the situation as much as possible.

“Everything’s ready here. Start whenever you want.” That was Rokuko. She could contact me through the Dungeon Menu no matter where I was in the dungeon. But that only worked for those directly connected to the dungeon itself. I really wish I could make it work with Niku and Ichika, too... Wait. Now’s not the time to be thinking about that.

“Alright, let’s see how this goes.” I moved the Messenger Golem while watching the Core Room through the monitor. Once the Golem slowly peeked into the Core Room, the black wolf immediately stood up in one smooth motion. I gave up on sending the Clay Golem into the Core Room and decided to just start the conversation.

“...Hey. Who’re you.” The wolf’s ears twitched. Okay, time to see if it’ll respond.

“Grrrr... Weird Golem. Who you?” Oooh! It talked! This wolf knows human language! I introduced myself.

“I’m the boss of this place. You can call me, uh, Uuma. Yeah. Who are you? If you’ve got a name, say it.” Just in case it did have an owner elsewhere, I refrained from stating my real name.

“I have name! I, Rin! This is... your home? Give it. To me. If you do. I won’t kill you.” Rin, huh? This guy sure talks with a lot of punctuation marks. But at least now I have an idea of what he wants. Give me your home, huh? He must want to live here... or maybe he just wants to make this his base. Could be that he just thought this was a perfect cave for hibernating through the winter.

“Hey, Keima, what’re you talking about?”

“Huh?” Rokuko contacted me. What am I talking about? She should be able to hear me through the dungeon monitor.

“It just sounds like you’re barking or something to me.” Ah. Aaaah. No, uh, that’s Mister Auto Translator doing his job. Everything I say is probably being translated into wolf language. That’s pretty amazing. I explained that in general terms to Rokuko.

“...So basically, we’re having a real conversation here.”

“Okay. His name is Rin, right? I’ll withdraw you if he tries attacking you.”

“Yep, please do.” I went back to diplomacy with the wolf.

“So, choose! Do you want, be eaten? Uuma!”

“Gimme a second to think.”

“Come fight me. Before I, get hungry. Heh. Heh. Heh.” He’s pretty bad at laughing. That was practically deadpan. Maybe because he’s a wolf?

“...Do you want food? What do you eat, Rin?”

“I eat. Anything. That’s right! Even, Golems!” He opened his pitch black mouth wide and exposed his dark teeth, eyes locked on the Messenger Golem. Okay, he gets hungry. Maybe I can sway him with food.

“You eat Golems, huh. How much do you want to eat? I’ll feed you as much as you want.”

“...You would. Betray? Your allies?” Rin spoke with emotional darkness in his voice. That was literally what I was doing, but I wish he wouldn’t phrase it in such a harsh way.

“That’s one way of putting it, but they’re just mindless drone workers. You can eat as many as you want.”

“What, really? But, Uuma. You are Golem, right? You rule, this cave.” Oh, I get it. He thinks I’m a Golem, which means it looks like I’m selling my family or something to him. Dang, that’s harsh. I’m real nice to my actual allies. I almost corrected him, but then stopped. I didn’t want to reveal that I was this place’s Dungeon Master. It was a secret Haku strongly recommended I keep. Nobody but my closest allies should know about it. If this guy had a human owner, and that owner came to retrieve him, my identity would be exposed.

But at the same time, it was important that I explain I wasn’t a Golem. His reaction made it obvious he despised those who would betray their family and allies. If he thought I was that kind of person, negotiations would fall through. Aaah... I guess since he thought I’m actually this Golem, he was threatening me when he said “I eat Golems too.” I just noticed that.

In any case, I decided to tell him that I wasn’t a Golem without getting too specific.

“You’re misunderstanding something. I’m not a Golem.”

“You’re not. Golem...? In that room. Behind you. There was a, strong one. Was that, your. Parent?” I already told him I’m not a Golem. What’s he not getting about that? Might have to consider making a Haniwa Golem family, though.

“No, I made that.”

“Ah?! You are, the parent?!” Y’know, correcting your misunderstandings is getting pretty annoying. He’s not wrong that I gave birth to it in an abstract sense, but I get the feeling it’ll take a lot for him to understand that. Yeaaah... Moving on!

“Basically, if you want to eat Golems, I’ll let you eat as many as you want. Whaddaya think?”

“...Golems. I don’t like, too much. They taste bad.”

“I-I see. Is there anything you do want to eat, then?”

“You!” What the hell is even happening heeeere?! Crap! I have no idea what he’s thinking! It’s like we’re living in different worlds or something!

“...I’ve said, too much. I’m hungry now. Uuma. I’ll eat you!”

“H-Hold on now. Eat me if you want, but why’d you come here? At least tell me that.”

“I came, to eat you! Nom nom!” Chomp. The Messenger Golem disappeared into the wolf’s mouth. I was immediately withdrawn into the Master Room. Rokuko must have done so after seeing the Golem get eaten. Through the monitor, I saw that he was slurping down the Paper Cup Golems like someone sucking a spaghetti noodle. I see he doesn’t waste his food. Very mature.

“Looks like he ate the Golems. So, how’d it go, Keima? Was it a fruitful conversation?”

“Ehhh... I feel like he kinda understood, kinda didn’t...” Either way, it’d be worth trying again. After giving him some space for a bit.

A visitor came to see me not long after I paused negotiations with the wolf and returned to the inn. It was a dude with a turban wrapped around his head... Uhhhh, right, this is the owner of the Dyne Company. The guy I gave a hundred gold coins to. The moment he saw me, he came rushing forward while yelling in a panic.

“K-Keima, bro! Sh-Sh-Shit got real! Shit got too reaaaal! Th-Th-The town’s in troubllle!” I understood that he had something important to tell me, but I had no idea at all what it could be. Did somebody get stabbed to death?

“The town’s in trouble? What happened? Did you lose all the money I gave you?”

“I-It’s not that! J-J-Just calm down and listen, alright?! Alright, bro?! Okay! I’ve got good news and bad news! Which do you wanna hear first?!” You’re the one that needs to calm down, man. This is the first I’m hearing about there being good and bad news.

“Alright. Let’s start with the good news.”

“The good news, huh? ’Kay... We’ve conquered the fourth floor!” The fourth floor... Oh, right. I never repaired the puzzle area. Oh fuck.

“Aaah, okay. So?”

“Just like the Hero said, there was a spiral staircase behind it, and, well, apparently they turned around after seeing that, but... What’s with you, bro? You don’t seem that impressed. Didja already conquer it forever ago or something?!”

“Pretty much. So, is that all the good news?”

“No, here’s the thing. All the puzzle doors were like, totally brutalized! They could walk right through them. They stuck around for a bit, but like, the doors just stayed broken. No sign of’m repairing themselves. This means we can go to the fifth floor and get as many Magic Blades as we want, man!” Yep. Until I fix the doors, that is. Haaah... What a pain.

“So, here’s the bad news, man! There’s a big chance there’s a boss-tier monster wandering around the labyrinth! It’s some serious crap, man! Truth is, someone found Bancho’s corpse in there. He was a C-Rank adventurer, and one about to get up to B-Rank too. But he got massacred. Must’ve been recent since his corpse was still there, but his armor had a big chunk of it bitten right off, so...” Yep, that’d be Rin. Guess they’re talking about the black wolf. And looks like I also forgot to recover his corpse. Teehee!

...Both the good and bad news had to do with the wolf. Thanks to him destroying the puzzle area doors, adventurers have gotten to the spiral staircase area, but they’re afraid of him wandering around within the dungeon. He’s actually just sleeping in the core room, but the villagers have no way of knowing that.

“...What should we do, bro?!”

“Can’t the Guild just post an extermination quest and an investigation quest for it? They could take the reward money from the operating funds I provided. I’ll leave the rest to you.”

“Oh, oooh! Right on! You got it, bro!” Dyne ran out of the room. Yeaaah... Hopefully that’ll be enough to take care of it. I’m not dying to make them an ally or anything.

Oh, wait. Are people gonna interpret this as another Paradigm Shift? I sure hope no quests for guarding the entrance get sent out. That’d be such a pain, I’ve got so much to do right now. I wonder if I could reject the quest with my town chief authority...

＊ ＊ ＊

The puzzle area was under watch and not in a situation where I could fix the doors, so I decided to just make the parts and wait. It was a good opportunity to let adventurers check out the storeroom area. There were a lot more Iron Golems wandering around there, after all. Actually, it was also a good opportunity to send experimental Golems at some adventurers. I wanted to really emphasize what kind of theme our dungeon had.

So, while I was making some new Golems, I called everyone to have a strategy meeting on what to do with the wolf. Though Neruneh and Kinue were busy at the inn and couldn’t come.

“Alright, let’s talk about what we’re gonna do.”

“Hold on, Keima. Why don’t you finish making Golems before we have a meeting?” Rokuko rained on my parade.

“Killing two birds with one stone like this gets me in bed faster. Am I wrong?”

“Oh, right. It’s you we’re talking about.” Rokuko nodded to herself about something. I didn’t know what she was nodding about, but I was fine as long as she understood me.

“First, about the dungeon. I’m planning on making another branch in our dungeon before making new floors. It’ll be like it is now, with the coliseum area and magma area after the storeroom area, only with a new floor as well.”

“They’re still having trouble with the spiral staircase area right now, but will adventurers reach the storeroom really soon?”

“Yup, and there’s no helping that. We need to work fast and build the entrance to it right away. I’m thinking this is the perfect spot for a new and improved puzzle area. Once that’s down, we’ll start expanding our dungeon downwards. I’m making the Golems we need for a puzzle area right now. I’ll leave the details to you, Rokuko.”

“Okay. I’ll order some Golems to dig out space in front of the new puzzle area.” I didn’t even have to tell her what to do. Yep, that’s my partner for you.

“...So, what are we going to do about the black wolf?”

“...His name is Rin. Negotiating with him is gonna be a problem. He understands what I’m saying, but he doesn’t really understand, if you know what I mean.”

“He did eat you, Keima.” Hey. He ate the Messenger Golem, not me. Aaand that reminds me I need to build another one of those. I’ll go ahead and make ’em in bulk in case he eats one again.

Ichika raised her hand.

“So, Master. What’d the wolf talk about? I, like, don’t even know a word of wolf language, dude.”

“Right. I tried asking him what he wanted. Best as I could tell, he just came here looking for a place to stay and food.”

“So basically, he’s gonna play nice if we let him stay in the Core Room and bring him some food sometimes?”

“...Yeah. He is playing nice right now, at least.” Rin, seemingly satisfied by his Golem meal, fell asleep not long after I left. Good grief.

“Anyway, we can communicate with him. If we just keep negotiating with him and stay determined... as annoying as that will be... things should go well.”

“Stay determined, hm? You know, Keima, for some reason I feel like ‘determined’ is both a really good and really bad way to describe you.”

“Thinking about it, Master does work quite a lot.” Yeah... Yeah, I’m working pretty much constantly when I’m not asleep. Dang.

“Master’s always, like, sleeping when other people are taking time off and stuff.”

“So basically, he sleeps too much!”

“I believe that Master’s workload is far greater than average despite how he’s awake for less time than most.” Hey, we’re getting off topic. Enough with the flattery, we’re talking about the wolf here.

“So, about the wolf. I’m gonna keep negotiating with him, using the same kind of Golem as before. We did strike up a conversation that way, after all.”

“You’ll be on your own, Keima. Nobody else knows wolf language.” Apparently, when I was talking to the wolf, only my first “who’re you” was in human language. Everything after that was in wolf language. It looked like I was barking to myself. Good work, Auto Translator. Rin understood me when I spoke in human language, which makes it safe to say he can speak it himself. Which meant someone just had to understand wolf language in order to talk to him.

“Um, Master. Can I have a second?”

“Huh? What’s up, Niku? Could you understand wolf language too?”

“Y-Yes. Somehow, I did. Maybe because I’m a dog beastkin.”

“Oooh! Those dog ears aren’t for nothing, huh? Goood job. Good job.” I rubbed Niku’s ears. Her tail wagged happily. This is a nice coincidence. Maybe she can succeed where I failed thanks to her being a “black dog” too.

“Alright. I’ll leave the next round of negotiations to you, Niku. Make that wolf join our side!”

“Understood! You can count on me!”

I went ahead and made a black Messenger Golem for Niku so that Rin would know she wasn’t me. Though I wasn’t sure he would tell the difference. Maybe it being black this time will change everything. Hmmm... Might be fun to try making a Golem out of actual black material or something, instead of just painting a normal one.

＊ ＊ ＊

Once Rin woke up, Niku controlled the Golem and sent him forward. Rei was tagging along with Niku so she could observe Rin through the dungeon monitor. As for me, I was waiting in the Master Room. My job was to do nothing if anything happened.

...Rokuko was in charge of withdrawing them if anything happened. There was a good reason why I wasn’t doing so myself. Rokuko could only withdraw Niku and other slaves to the Master Room thanks to how I had convinced her that slaves were items. The fact that was possible meant the dungeon was designed to allow it, but... to be honest, we were using a loophole. It was probably a function that was intended to unlock over time after our dungeon grew to a certain point.

So. If you asked me if I could treat Niku and Ichika like items too, well, I wouldn’t have a solid answer for you. I was keeping this a secret from Rokuko, but I really didn’t think I could. Doubt like that would just be putting them in danger if I was in charge of withdrawing them, and I didn’t want Rokuko to find out by me failing to withdraw them. Makes sense, right? After taking all that into consideration, I gave myself the task of doing nothing. All I had to do was watch.

Though honestly, I did spend some time making the black Messenger Golem and preparing food for Rin. That was plenty of work, if you ask me.

“Hello?” Niku immediately used the Messenger Golem to speak to Rin. He lazily looked towards the Golem, then his red eyes flashed open wide in shock.

“Wha?! Y-You’re, Uuma?! Why! I ate you!” Well, it is another talking Golem that looks the same. A different color must not be enough for him to notice it’s a new Golem.

“Why! Answer why, you’re alive, Uuma!”

“...That is my Master.”

“Oh. I look closer. You’re black. Different. I see. But Uuma, I already ate. Which means. You are now, mine.”

“...No? That’s not true.” The strong rule, huh. He sure has the mind of a wild animal. That’s not gonna fly with Niku, though.

“...Not true? You would. Remain loyal, to the dead? Magnificent.”

“Yes. I belong to Master in life and death.”

“I see. So. What business. Do you have, with me?” Niku paused, then responded to Rin’s question. Wait... I feel like she was referring to her own death, not mine.

“Please join my pack.”

“Never! I need, no, master!” He shut her down instantly. Yeah, I expected that. The real negotiations start here. The black Messenger Golem that Niku was controlling took out a hamburger.

“If you join now, you get this delicious hamburger for free.”

“I don’t want, your bait! I’ll eat! You! Too!”

“Aren’t you hungry? Here, you can have this candy too. It’s sweet and really nice.”

“I told you! I don’t! Want! Bait! GRRR!” She took out some candy, but that just made Rin violently angry. Wait, seriously now. It feels like Niku’s barely understanding him. Nikuuu, come ooon, you’re making him maaad.

“You’ll join my pack regardless of the candy?”

“Laughable! If you want, to rule me, first, defeat me! Then I will. Think about it.”

“I see, you’ll join my pack. Thank you very much. Here, have the candy.”

“No! I care not! I will, eat you!” And so, the black Messenger Golem was swallowed whole. Rokuko immediately withdrew Niku and Rei into the Master Room. Welcome back.

“...He ate the Golem too, but he accepted the candy. Next time should go well.”

“Hey, Niku... Were you being literal when you said you could just somewhat understand wolf language?”

“Hm? Yes, I was.” She just went and said it. Yeaaah... Dang. I wish she had just been humble.

“...He interpreted that conversation a lot differently. He got mad. Like super mad.”

“Ah?! I-It didn’t work?! I thought for sure that he was just being shy...”

“Not in the least. Though, he did say he’d consider joining us if you beat him in a fight, so it wasn’t a total bust.”

“I-I’m so sorry...” Well, whatever. It’ll be a pain, but I’ll do the negotiating myself. It’ll be... a major, major pain, but... Haaah... Good thing I made some non-black Messenger Golems for this exact situation, I guess.

“Leave the rest to me.” I patted Niku’s head and started preparing for some negotiation.

＊ ＊ ＊

“Heeey, Rin. You’re awake, right? Let’s talk.”

“Another, new one?!” Rin looked at my Messenger Golem with red eyes.

“Hahaha. I’m Uuma. So, is this a nice place to live?”

“You’re, Uuma?! Why are you, alive?! I ate you!”

“Make no mistake. That’s not enough to kill me. Wanna eat this Golem again and find out?”

“This can’t be... I ate it. I ate, the Golem. I know it.” Yep. You ate the Golem, but that’s all. The man behind the curtains is still totally safe.

“Is the, black one, alive too?”

“Oh? Why do you ask?”

“I ate it, but it didn’t, taste that good. It tasted. Like you, Uuma. Like a normal, Golem.” Uh... Golems come in flavors? Are there strawberry-flavored Golems out there?

“Uuma. You’re a, Unique Monster, so I thought, you would taste, good. Or maybe, interesting.”

“Golems are made from clay and stuff. I’m pretty sure they all taste the same.”

“Unique Monsters, taste good.” Maybe he just has a fundamentally different sense of taste. Normally, you don’t eat clay. Maybe trying to bait him with Japanese food just isn’t going to work. I took out the dog food I had brought with me.

“I brought this food in case you wanted it.”

“What is it?”

“Dog food. You don’t have to eat it, just thought I’d mention I brought it.”

“Don’t want it.” Okay, he doesn’t want it. Sooo... What should I do with it now? Not like I’m gonna make Niku eat it.

“So, I heard you’d join my team if we beat you in a fight.”

“Wanna fight?”

“Yeah. Not right now, but if you’ll join me, I’m definitely game for a fight.”

“Alright. I’ll eat you.” Rin opened his mouth wide, baring his fangs. Hey, c’mon! I said not right now!

“Down you go!”

“...Fine. I’ll be back.” What should I do about this guy? He’s just not listening to us. I thought about what to do while being withdrawn back into the Master Room.

Day 257

Despite acting cool and telling Niku to leave everything to me, my Golem still got eaten again. My authority as a master was crumbling, and I needed to do something about it.

“...What should I dooo.” I murmured to myself while eating onigiri in the cafeteria. Kinue had made it for me to serve as lunch. I bit into the white rice and found that fried eggs were inside of it. They were sweet. Dang, these actually go pretty well together. Never heard of egg onigiri before, but this isn’t half bad.

Anyway, I had thought of several possible ways to take care of that wolf... Rin. But I had no idea if any of them would work. I needed to investigate him a bit further. Alright, time for some experimentation.

Rin’s presence had shot up our daily DP intake enormously, so I was leaning towards plans which involved him joining our side. Though having him around all the time would be a little, uh... stressful. It was hard to sleep with a fighting monster like him around. Yeah, whether it’s taking him down or getting him on our side, I want this over with quickly.

At the very least, he hadn’t touched the Dungeon Core (that’s a dummy anyway) and didn’t seem interested in it. That was nice. If only I could get him to promise not to ever touch it, or something. Rokuko’s Core has been in her room ever since he came, and that’s pretty nerve-wracking. Things would get real bad real fast if a thief or something broke into her room... Not that anyone could manage doing that unnoticed in this town. Mmmm. I’ll strengthen security around Rokuko’s room just in case, anyway.

My lazy thoughts were interrupted by Gozou entering the cafeteria.

“Heya, Keima.”

“Hm? Oh, hey, Gozou. It’s been a while. Haven’t seen you around here in a long time.”

“That’s cause I’ve been hangin’ in the bar! But anyway. I was thinkin’ about accepting that investigation quest the Guild put out. Wanna take it with me?”

“You know that quest came from the town, right? In other words, it came from me. I’m the town chief.” Though the bar’s owner is vice chief and thus, more or less, the real chief.

“Ain’t no rules against accepting quests ye put up yourself. The Guild accepts them as quests and adventurers do’m, that’s all.” Is that seriously okay? You can finish as many quests as you want that way, as long as you have some money. It’d be easy as heck to boost your rank in no time. Hm... I guess that’s how young nobles rank up so fast. Apparently, adventurers who get a high enough rank are granted a noble title. It all comes together.

“Naturally, ye can only get up to C-Rank completing yer own quests. And the Guild checks to make sure they’re real quests, so if ye give yerself easy stuff, you’ll never rank up. Getting to B-Rank takes a recommendation, too, and there’s no point if ye can’t pass the examination.”

“Makes sense. But still... You can get all the way to C-Rank like that?”

“Usually the quests end up bein’ about collecting rare items and whatnot, so the Guild commission gets dang expensive. Not that nobles care. A lot of ’em rank up to C to save themselves the effort and then never rank up past that. That’s why C-Rankers are a mixed bag like they are. Lotta strong folk, lotta weak folk.” But still, C-Rank? Our dungeon’s classified as a limited C-Rank dungeon right now. If anyone can just pay their way to C-Rank, hmmm... I might consider doing that, depending on how much it ends up costing. Oh, but ranks above C-Rank have a written test too. That’ll be a problem for me. Though apparently you can earn exemption if you’re ridiculously, abnormally strong.

“So, what are the details of the quest? I didn’t give the specifics myself.”

“Right. They want us to investigate whether or not there’s an abnormally threatenin’ monster in the dungeon’s second or third floors. The labyrinth.” Guess I can’t tell him there’s not one. At least, not one in the labyrinth.

“And how are we gonna find this deadly monster?”

“Numbers. We’ll go on in and sweep the area. Truth is, nobody’s seen it for days, so we’re thinkin’ it’s gone further into the dungeon. Also. Ye should know that we’re also checkin’ to see whether a Paradigm Shift is about to happen. Anyone not searchin’ the dungeon will be guarding the entrance.”

“Alright, I’ll join you. Mind if I bring Nik— Kuro with me? Rokuko too.” Searching the dungeon would be a pain, but it’d be even more of a pain to guard the entrance when I knew nothing was coming. Especially now that it was cold out.

“Nah, Rokuko’s exempt.” Why? I wonder if Haku’s using her Guild authority to stop Rokuko from putting herself in any danger.

“Hey, I’m the town chief. I should be exempt too.”

“Sure, but yer party’s gotten further into the dungeon than anyone else. Can’t go in without any of ye with us, it’ll hurt morale. Are you gonna make li’l Kuro go in all on her own?” Hard to argue with that.

“...Fine. I’m also pretty sure the monster’s gone further into the dungeon. I’ll consider this an opportunity to have a nice walk through the labyrinth.”

“Hear, hear. Me an’ Roppe are joinin’ in too. Let’s help each other out, though we gotta split up with our parties once we’re in the labyrinth.”

“I’d feel a lot better about this if Wataru were still here.” Hmm... I wonder what would happen if I threw Wataru at Rin. He is a Hero, after all, and he earns more DP than Rin. I bet he knows all sorts of crazy strong magic, like {Sandstorm} or something.

“So, what were ye worrying about?” Gozou sat next to me and took a swig from his beer-filled thermos. It was a specialty product from our dungeon (or in other words, Japan) that kept the liquid within insulated. Apparently he carried around hot beer when he could.

“Yeah, I was thinking about... you know, Jobs. What do you think about Monster Tamers?”

“Tamers, huh? That’s the Job with taming monsters, yeah? I hear you gotta be able to communicate with monsters to be one of them. You thinking about Job Changing?”

“Job Changing? Well, maybe something like that. I’m thinking it might be better for me.”

“It’s rough, friend. You gotta learn each monster’s language first. You can buy’m like skills, but even the languages of weak monsters cost ten golds eac— Ah, right. That’s nothin’ to you. Guess you might be a perfect Tamer then.” Wait, monster languages are like skills? I never knew that. I stealthily searched the Catalog of language skills, and... Nothing. Hmm. Maybe I need to do something to unlock them?

“What would you think about taming, say, a Slime?”

“A Slime? Oh, those’re strong. Physical attacks don’t do crap against’m. But they’re weak to magic.”

“Yeah? I’ve heard of people training slimes to morph themselves into the shape of a wolf. Is that normal?”

“Yup. Lots of people raise’m in tubes, too. Convenient for carrying them around.”

“Wow. If you taught them magic, could you make them into Magic Blade or something?”

“Hahaha! Friend, lemme tell you, Magic Blades ar— Mmm? Wait, could you? Mmm?! Hold on, I gotta go tell Kantara about this!” Gozou ran out of the cafeteria, leaving his thermos on the table. Huh? Did I just make a major breakthrough? Well, alright. Sure hope this leads somewhere. I really want to make more Magic Blades.

Either way, I decided to tell Niku about the quest. And I figured it would be best to confirm with the Guild that I’d be joining the others in the dungeon, just in case. Gozou was so stunned he forgot about his beer, even.

There was no such deadly monster on the second or third floors, and the Guild had given everyone maps of the labyrinth, so we finished the quest up in no time. But seriously, I can’t believe they managed to make maps this accurate... They’ve figured out how the moving walls work and where they all are. I’m glad we finished the quest fast, but I think I might need to rework the labyrinth area a bit. I can change which walls move and where, so... Yeah, I’m glad I did this quest.

＊ ＊ ＊

With the town business settled, I returned to focusing on dungeon business. Since Rin said that my Golems tasted weird last time, I figured it would be smart to try flavoring them. And so, when I built my next Messenger Golem, I filled it with hot magma. The body of the Golem was a container for the magma. Time to get Rin to eat this.

By the way, I got the feeling that touching the magma would actually straight-up melt my hand off, so I had the Golem put the magma inside himself after opening a hole to its empty stomach, which was then sealed. Just getting close enough to seal the opening was still rough, though.

“Heeey, Rin. It’s meal time.”

“Fwaaah! I knew it! You live, Uuma!”

I sent my magma-filled Messenger Golem towards Rin, who was just waking up.

“C’mon, eat me.”

“...Uuma. Your head, got hit? Normal people. Don’t want to, get eaten.” Whatever, just eat me already. The magma’s cooling down.

“Aren’t you hungry? I bet you are. And you should know by now that I won’t die even if you eat these Golems.”

“Yes. Fine. I’ll eat you. But... Uuma. You taste, pretty bad.”

“I figured you’d say that, so I tried changing my flavoring a bit. Now go ahead, eat me!”

“F-Fine. I’ll eat you... nom!” He opened his mouth and swallowed me with one bite. I watched his reaction through the monitor, but it didn’t seem to hurt him at all. Guess magma isn’t his weak point. That’s one possibility down. Or maybe it just wasn’t enough magma? Well, either way’s fine. Lots of other things I can try out. Sulfuric acid, a strong alkaline solution, sleeping drugs, etc. I’ll keep searching for something that he either gets hurt from eating or can’t eat at all. Whether he becomes our ally or remains our foe, knowing his weak points will only be beneficial to us.

The name of this strategy? Operation: Gernie Gott’s Every Flavored Golems. Hopefully we can find something Rin doesn’t like. Oh, and I got this idea from Kinue’s onigiri. Thank you, egg-filled onigiri.