Chapter 1

Day ?

I hadn’t been doing anything special on that day. It all happened when I was, like always, sleeping in my ash gray shirt and sweatpants that were much more comfy than pajamas.

“Hey. Would you mind waking up? Mr. Keima Masuda?”

Someone I didn’t know was calling out my name, and before I knew it, everything except the clothes on my back was gone. My bed, my pillow, my apartment—heck, the apartment building, and even the ground were all gone, leaving me stranded in a star-dotted vacuum that looked a lot like space.

After making sure that I could breathe properly, I opened my eyes. I felt a floaty sensation, as if I were still asleep. For a second I wondered if I had been kidnapped, but after seeing my surroundings, I assumed I was dreaming and tried to go back to sleep.

This feels nice and floaty. I’m definitely getting a good night’s sleep tonight.

“Um, would you please listen to me? I am a god, after all.”

“Huh...? Yeah, yeah, I’m listening... zzz...”

“Is that true? You’re not sleeping or anything, right? I don’t have much time here. You’re being summoned to another world right now. You’ll regret it if you don’t listen to me, okay?”

“I’m listening, I’m listening... zzz...”

“Mmm, I don’t know if I’ve ever met someone so lazy before. But if you really are listening, I guess I’ll go ahead and start explaining. First of all...” His explanation really dragged on, so I listened halfheartedly while focusing on sleep.

“So, you get one present from me. Is there something you want to do in the world you’re going to? I’ll try to help you grant that wish. But in return, I’d like you to help me too, with what I just told you about.”

Something I want to do? My friend, how about the opposite.

“I don’t want to work.” That was my response to the person who had called themselves a god.

Helping out a god sounds like a lot of annoying work. No thanks.

“...Um, what am I supposed to do about that? I want to know what you do want to do, so I can help you with that.”

“The best life is one where you don’t have to work...”

“...Should I just reincarnate you as a tree?”

“Aaah, that sounds like it’d be nice.”

The god sighed and shook his head at me.

“Hey. Did you forget why I was asking you what you wanted to do?”

“Huh? Yeah, I guess I did.”

It was probably something about restoring the flow of mana or exterminating monsters or whatever. I hadn’t been listening very closely.

“You were studying things like Golems in your world, right? I thought you would be pretty excited about this...”

“Huh? Hahaha! Not a chance, not a friggin’ chance. That’s just how we youths are nowadays.”

My dream was to create a maid robot that could take care of everything for me.

People always look at me like I’m a waste of space as soon as they learn about that. Don’t expect too much from me, Mr. God-being-whatever.

By the way, my “research” was just me playing around with robots about thirty centimeters tall that I got from ready-made kits. Huh? I should build them myself? That sounds like a lotta work...

“Well, it looks like we’re out of time... I hate to let you go, but I guess I’ll just have to ask the next person that comes by here.”

“Whaaat...”

“...But I’ll at least make sure you can understand the other world’s language. And if you do help me out, I’ll make sure you’re repaid for your efforts.”

“I wish not to wooork...”

“The world you’re being summoned to has magic, but civilization there hasn’t developed very much. You’ll have to work to survive. Plus, the fact you’re being summoned means someone out there wants you to do some kind of job for them.”

“I want to go home...”

“Well, good luck.”

A bright light enveloped me, blinding my vision.

Day 1

“A-Alright! The summoning was successful! ...Wait, what?! A-A human?! But why?!”

I didn’t know how it worked, but I appeared in a room with a faintly glowing floor and white walls... is it still a “room” if it’s as big as a gymnasium? Either way, that’s where I ended up.

In front of me was a beautiful girl that looked a lot like the kind of princess knight you could find in all sorts of video games. She had golden hair that reached all the way down to her waist and a firm, though somewhat childish gaze. And lastly, long white boots that went all the way up to her thighs.

Yep, those are some good legs. I’ve got a foot fetish, though, so would you mind taking those boots off for a second? I really wanna see what’s under them. And after that, I’d appreciate it if you would put on some knee socks. Even some black ones would be fine. But I’m getting off-track here.

Apparently that hadn’t been a dream, but the real issue was how extremely sleepy I was.

I love sleeping more than I love eating three meals a day. Seriously.

“But why?! I spent all of my DP, why’d I have to get a small fry like thiiis...”

“...Mind if I go back to sleep?”

“Eh?!”

“You don’t mind, right? Oh, by the way, do you have a bed or something?”

“I-IT TAAAAALKED?!”

What’s with this girl? I just want to sleep, but she’s screeching and ruining the mood.

She’s pretty attractive (mainly her feet), but I guess looks are only skin deep. What a shame. She’d be some really nice eye candy otherwise.

“Grrr, what’s going on?! I’ve never heard of gacha monsters talking! ...Oh, right, it’s a human. Makes sense that it can talk, then. I guess.”

“Hey, what’s with you? Keep it down, you’re making my ears hurt.”

“Ah, o-okay... Wait, no, what’s with you? I’m the one who summoned you, so you should just listen to everything I say.”

“...Is your mom or dad nearby? I kinda wanna go home, so...”

“I’m not a child! Listen up! You’re a monster that’s been summoned by me, this dungeon’s Core! I’ll work you to the bone until you die, got it?!”

Dungeon Core... Monster... Yeah, I have no idea what’s going on. If that god was telling the truth, I’ve been summoned to another world, and this girl is the person who summoned me... but it doesn’t look like I’m a hero or anything. Whew. That’s a relief. I don’t want to get wrapped up in anything annoying like protecting the world or whatever. That’d get in the way of my precious sleeping time.

“C’mon, stand up and go outside already! Kill all those bandits! I spent 1000 DP on you, so you’re actually really strong, right?!”

Holy crap, girl. You sure started saying some pretty violent things all of a sudden. I’m a little less sleepy now, seriously.

“Alright, I’ll listen to what you’ve got to say, but first you’ve gotta help me out a little here. What’s a Dungeon Core? What are monsters? What’s DP? I can tell that, uh... you summoned me here.”

“Oh wow, I’m impressed. Makes sense that a talking creature like you is a little smart too. Maybe you’re a wizard-type monster... Well, whatever. This is my dungeon. And obviously, this is the Master Room within me, the Dungeon Core.”

“Alright. What about the... Dungeon Master?”

“Oh, you know about Dungeon Masters? That’s interesting. But my dungeon doesn’t have one. Oh, wait. I guess that would make me the Dungeon Master, kinda?”

Naturally, I knew nothing about the Dungeon Masters of this world, but I could guess that they existed thanks to how many fantasy games I’ve played.

But she also mentioned a Dungeon Core... That must be the “heart” of this dungeon. And also... this girl?

“Hey, wait a second. You said I’m a small fry since I’m a human, but aren’t you a human too?”

“Nuh-uh. This is just my human form... Hey! Wait a second! You need to start calling me ‘master’!”

“Aaah, that’s right, you haven’t told me your name yet. What is it?”

“Me? I’m Dungeon Core Number 695.”

A number? Really? That’s pretty lazy... but wait. If she’s number 695, that must mean there’s 694 other dungeons. Okay, I take it back. I would get pretty lazy naming them too. I don’t even know if I could think up that many names.

“Alright, you’re Rokuko now.”

“Um? I’m what?”

“I mean, it’d be pretty hard to call you Dungeon Whatever Number Whatever, so I’ll just name you Rokuko. Full name being Rokuko Dungeon Core. Oh, by the way, my name’s Keima Masuda. Go ahead and call me Keima. Not Masuda, Keima.”

Dungeon Core Number 695, henceforth known as Rokuko, looked at me with complete bafflement in her eyes.

“What? Masuda... Master Keima...? Is that a fake name or something? ...Wait, what did you just make me sa—”

“Keima Masuda has been recognized as Dungeon Master.”

“Wha?”

“Wha?”

Rokuko and I both said the exact same thing at the same time.

A transparent, green window popped up before my eyes. It looked like the kind of message window you see in video games all the time. Written on that window in white letters was a message describing that I had been recognized as this dungeon’s master.

I have no idea what’s going on, but I guess I’m a Dungeon Master now.

“Menu! Hold on! I take it back! Cancel! Undo what just happened!”

The blonde girl... Rokuko summoned her own window and shouted at it, but nothing in particular happened.

Aaah. My ears are really starting to hurt, sheesh.

“Hey, you’re being loud as hell right now. Tone it down a little. Actually, just shut up entirely.”

“Wh-What’s with you? Don’t order... me... aro—!”

She shut up.

Oh, yeah. I’m the Dungeon Master now. And it looks like dungeons have to obey their master no matter what. Heheheh.

A perfect life without work may have just fallen straight into my lap. That’s right. I won’t have to work anymore. I’ll make this blonde girl do all my work for me while I sleep all day every day! It’ll be perfect! .........Yeah, I’d have to be a completely trash person to do something like that. Wow.

“...Not to mention, she’s a girl. It just wouldn’t work out.”

If she were my age or older, I could at least rest easy while making her do my chores or whatever, but... she looks younger than me.

She’s like a middle schooler at best? Considering how well-developed some elementary schoolers are nowadays, she could probably get discounts at theme parks without trying too hard.

“Uhhh, menu? Woah! It actually popped up. Let’s see... What do we have here...”

A transparent window appeared before me after I called out for it. It was basically a video game menu. Everything I could do was listed out for me in a clear, easy to comprehend way. I had three main options available to me:

• Dungeon
• Minions
• Dungeon Point Catalog

Everything was written in nice and easy Japanese for me.

...Wait. Or is this what that god meant when he said he’d help me understand the language? Yeah, that must be it. Dungeon Point Catalog... Looks like I can use that DP Rokuko was talking about earlier to do things here.

“...Mgggh! Ngggh!”

Oh wow, she’s glaring at me pretty hard. Hahaha, you aren’t scary at aaaall. You’re actually pretty cute when you can’t talk. I’ll give her head a little rub. Oh, that just made her more angry. She’s screaming, but no words are coming out. Fantastic.

“Alright, you can talk again.”

“Trash! Idiot! Ah, f-finally, I can talk again! What did you do to me, you piece of walking garbage?!”

“Uh-huh. I’m afraid to say that the only idiot here is you, Rokuko. It seems like you accidentally made me your master... or in other words, your Dungeon Master.”

“Undo that!”

“Why?”

“B-Because! I’m! I’m the most important person here! Obey me! OBEY!”

The blonde girl glared at me, cheeks flushed red and eyes brimming with tears.

But now I know for sure. This girl’s an idiot.

“Don’t call me an idiot!”

“Oh, did I say that out loud? But seriously. Think about it... Why did you summon me?”

“Well, to make you a monster in my dungeon.”

“In other words, if I obey you, I’ll be forced to fight as a dungeon monster under your command. I’d live or die by the orders you give me. Actually, I’m pretty confident that any order you’d give me would just lead to me dying. So, I’m not gonna give up my power over you. No way. I love sleeping, but I’m a bit young to start sleeping for eternity, if you catch my drift.”

“W-Well, that’s just how dungeon monsters work... And you look pretty weak, so...”

Looks like we’re finally on the same page. Though she’s not too happy about it.

“I said this earlier, but you can call me Keima.”

“Mhm. Okay, Keima... Ngh! I can’t resist you...!”

“Anyway. I’m gonna check out the dungeon real fast. I’d like my sleeping arrangements to be nice and safe, after all.” I selected “Dungeon” from the menu. Just touching it worked fine, but I imagine it would have responded to voice commands as well.

Okay, let’s check out this dungeon map. She was saying something about bandits, so...

＊ ＊ ＊

“So, it looks to me that the Dungeon Core is right in the middle of the room filled with invading bandits.”

“It looks that way to me too.”

“...Why?”

“Eh? Don’t you know that the Dungeon Core won’t work unless it’s placed inside of the dungeon? That’s just common sense.” I was starting to get a headache.

Dungeon Cores don’t work unless they’re placed inside of a dungeon. This dungeon only had one room. So, the Dungeon Core was placed inside of that room. And there were eight bandits inside that very same room.

This dungeon’s already completely friggin’ screwed.

It was a complete checkmate.

Why did she let things get this bad...?

“This is why I used all the DP I had to summon a monster that could beat all those bandits. But what I got instead was you, Keima. This must be some mistake... I wonder if I can trade you for something stronger...”

“Yeah, that sounds good to me too. Can I go home?”

“No. That’s impossible. Well, it’s not completely impossible, since it was possible for you to be summoned here, but there’s no way we have enough DP for that. Anyway, hurry up and get rid of those bandits. Like, do you actually have an awesome secret skill that could slaughter all those bandits in seconds... or something?”

“Nope. I’m just some guy, who’s as weak as he looks...”

To be honest, I think the smartest move here would be abandoning this dungeon. And if possible, setting up shop somewhere else.

“By the way... What’ll happen to me, the Dungeon Master, if the Dungeon Core gets destroyed?”

“Well, obviously, you’ll die. The Master and the Core are connected, they live and die together.”

Holy crap, I’m gonna die. I’m completely done for. Oh god.

“Don’t worry, it’s okay. The Core will be fine even if the Master dies.”

“What’s okay about that?! And weren’t you just talking about us living and dying together?!”

“Aaah, yeah... Really, don’t worry. You’re not going to die yet.”

After hearing that, I realized that I wasn’t dead yet despite how it had been several minutes since I first saw that the Core was surrounded. I glanced at Rokuko and saw that she was looking at me with an irritated expression that said, “Hmph, why are you getting so worked up over nothing?”.

How about I tickle your feet until you pee yourself, huh? Huh?

“...What’s going on?”

“Well, about that. It’s been three days since these bandits invaded my dungeon, but they haven’t tried to destroy its core at all.”

“...Wha?”

“Look, you can use the Dungeon Menu to look into the dungeon and monitor it directly.”

As advised, I opened a monitor through the Dungeon Menu. A new window appeared from thin air before me, displaying what looked like video footage from a security camera placed inside of the dungeon. The bandits were all sleeping around the Dungeon Core.

Two of them seem to be awake and keeping guard, but... Alright. They don’t seem like they’re about to attack the Core.

By the way, the Core was about the size of a basketball and was glowing much like the walls and floor of the room I was in.

“...See? I don’t really know what’s going on, but we’re safe for now. Plus, I get more DP when intruders are in the dungeon, so it works out.”

How long are we gonna be safe like that, though? Wait. I don’t even need to ask her that. She used all her DP to summon a monster specifically because she knows this isn’t safe or good. But for now, it does indeed look like we won’t be dying anytime soon.

“...Alright. By the way, how do you get more DP?”

“Ummm, so.”

To summarize what Rokuko said:

1. Absorb it from the surrounding ground. (This tends to be about 10 DP a day)
2. Allow time to pass while an intruder is inside of the dungeon. (Varies depending on the strength of the intruder)
3. Kill an intruder. (Varies depending on the strength of the intruder)
4. Offer up a corpse. (Varies depending on the former strength of whoever died)
5. Offer up treasure. (Varies depending on the treasure)

Those were the main ways.

By the way, it would cost about 20 DP to summon one Goblin. Under normal circumstances she would be able to summon one Goblin every two days, but the eight bandits sleeping in the dungeon boosted her DP gain by an additional 80 DP each day (and apparently that number would increase if they stayed inside the dungeon for longer). So, using the 900 DP she saved up through ten days of being inhabited by bandits, in addition to 100 DP she had stashed away for a rainy day, Rokuko had pooled all of her 1000 DP into rolling a single Monster Gacha.

Yeah. I can understand why she would expect something as strong as fifty Goblins after spending fifty Goblins’ worth of DP on something. But sometimes, you gamble and you lose.

And wait a second, I’m what she got out of a gacha roll? Seriously? Well, the automatic translator that god gave me may just be translating something else into gacha, but still. I’m feeling preeetty conflicted right now. How rare am I?

As an aside, there were multiple ranks to the Monster Gacha. A 100 DP rank, a 1,000 DP rank, a 10,000 DP rank... and so on and so on. It goes up a degree each time, without ever reaching an upper limit. In other words, the gacha that I came from was second from the bottom. Apparently, there have been cases where a 100,000 DP gacha pulled a Goblin and a 1,000 DP gacha pulled a dragon. The chances for a rare may go up the more DP you spend, but it all still relied on luck.

“So, why aren’t you a dragon?!”

“I mean, it wouldn’t be surprising if you had rolled a Goblin. You’re being too greedy.”

Rokuko was just way too egotistical. Did she think she was the center of the universe or something? Bad things happen to everyone, you can’t expect everything to go well for you. You might even end up being summoned to another world and forced to work against your will even though you just want to sleep.

“Oh, I forgot to mention. Right now, the 10 DP from the ground doesn’t count.”

“Huh? Why not?” Rokuko’s explanation about DP hadn’t mentioned anything about intruders getting in the way of drawing DP from the ground.

“Well, it costs some DP for me to maintain this form.”

Speaking of which, Rokuko had mentioned that she was the avatar of the Dungeon Core or something like that. ...Does that mean she could save us some DP by vanishing?

“Eh? No, you’re misunderstanding something. This is just a special form I use when I want to look fancy. I didn’t want the monster I summoned to look down on me.”

“In other words, that’s just a temporary form... Oh, can you go back to your normal form, then? You’re wasting DP.”

“Eh? It’s not ‘temporary’ or anything, but okay. One second... Nnn!”

Rokuko flashed brightly, and then where she once stood was a blonde loli that looked just like a younger Rokuko. She was wearing a white dress and would only reach my waist even if she stood on her tippy-toes. She looked so small and cute a lolicon would be drooling at the sight of her. Even her childishly spoiled gaze just made me smile as if I were looking at a rowdy kid.

“So, what do you think? This is the low-energy form I use to save DP.”

“Oh, that’s your low-energy form, huh... You look pretty young.”

“Hm? Well, I guess I do look like a child from a human’s perspective. What, do you like this body more?”

I’m not a lolicon, so I think she looked hotter before. I still love her toes even though they’re smaller, but I’m not perverted enough to lay my hands on someone that looks like a little girl.

“So, now we’re getting 10 DP again, yeah?”

“Uh-huh. 10 DP a day.”

“...And we have 9 DP total right now.”

She must have waited until the very moment she had 1,000 DP to roll the gacha, given how basically no DP was left over. I scrolled through the DP Catalog, but found that you couldn’t even summon a Goblin with 9 DP. How about a dragon? Lady, even the weakest dragon there, a Lesser Dragon, costs 100,000 DP. Hahah! Whoever thought they could get an expensive monster like that for 1,000 DP sure is an idiot. I searched the Household Goods page and discovered that I could buy lots of things even with just 9 DP.

“Alright, I’ve decided.”

“On what, Keima?”

I exchanged 5 DP for a [Buckwheat Pillow].

“I’m going to bed.”

“Eh?! Hold on! What about the bandits?!”

“Be quiet while I’m sleeping. Night.”

Yep. DP sure is useful. Now just need to save up 50 DP so I can buy a [Futon]. I’ve also got my eye on that 10,000 DP [Heavenly Pillow] and that 100,000 DP [First-Rate Futon]. I rolled onto my side and closed my eyes, listening as Rokuko’s noisy cries slowly faded into silence.

Day 2

I stood up after waking up and stretched my stiff muscles. The floor was pretty warm, not cold at all, but it was also hard and constantly glowing. Not exactly the best place to get a good night’s sleep. I had been hoping that I might find myself back in my room after waking up, but had no such luck. I glanced to the side and... saw Rokuko glaring at me.

“Grr! Y-You’re finally awake, Keima!”

“Yo, Rokuko. How long was I asleep?”

“As if I know! You slept for nine hours! Aaah, my mouth said that on its own...”

I didn’t know if time moved at the same speed as it did on Earth, but I decided to just roll with it and assume I had indeed slept for nine hours.

I checked our DP and saw that our 4 DP had turned into 34 DP. ...I guess the bandits’ DP trickles in over time. The bandits probably aren’t all as strong as each other, either, so I should just give up on making precise estimations of DP gain.

“What time is it right now?”

“It’s eight in the morning! By the way, one day has twenty-four hours in it! Wait! Aaah, why am I answering yooou?!”

“Thanks, much appreciated. By the way, end every sentence you say with ‘meow.’”

“Don’t mess with meow!”

Each day consisted of twenty-four hours. As an aside, each year seemed to consist of twelve months, or three hundred sixty-five days. Basically the same thing as Earth. Perfect, I won’t have any trouble remembering that.

Just for peace of mind, I investigated how much weight my orders held and learned that Rokuko’s body would execute them on its own. I’m in another world and there’s a girl who has to listen to everything I say... If I weren’t a gentleman dedicated to sleep, there would be some adult-only things happening right now. I canceled the “meow” order and decided to double-check the situation.

“What’s going on with the bandits?”

“They just woke up and went outside. One stayed behind to stand guard.”

“Hm...”

“So, let’s summon a Goblin or something! DP Summoning! Goblin!”

“What?” While I was in the middle of being stunned, a faintly glowing circle appeared on the ground. It then flashed brightly, and before I knew it, there was a small, ugly-looking person with green skin standing where the circle used to be. ...The same thing probably happened when I got summoned.

“Okay!”

“Not okay!”

“Owie?!”

I thumped Rokuko on the head. I checked our DP and saw that we only had 14 DP left. 20 DP was gone, just like that.

“Wh-Why’d you do that?! Getting hit like that hurts! What’ll you do if you break me?!”

“Don’t just up and use DP on your own like that, idiot!”

“Whaaat? It’s my DP, I can do whatever I want with it.” Okay, yeah. She’s an idiot.

I grabbed onto Rokuko’s head and forced her to look me in the eyes.

“It’s not your DP anymore. It’s my DP. If you reaaally wanna use it for something, get my permission first. You don’t wanna die, right?”

“Wh-What, are you threatening me?! But if I die, you’ll die too!”

“That’s right. If the Dungeon Core gets destroyed, I’ll die too. That’s why I’m telling you not to do anything on your own!” After hearing me say that in a forceful tone, Rokuko trembled in surprise with tears forming in her eyes.

“Ngh... Y-You’re right. Sorry. But what else are we supposed to do?”

“That depends. Tell me more about this place first. And... can we return this Goblin?”

“Nope. Ah, but if it dies inside of the dungeon, we get 2 DP.”

“Only a tenth...? Alright. We’ll keep him around for now.”

I ordered the Goblin to wait in a corner for now. Sheesh... This room really is big. That corner’s really far away. Though, I guess it has to be if we can summon things like dragons in here.

“Ummm, okay. So, we’re right by Tsia Mountain... By the way, this dungeon’s name is [Ordinary Cave]! I heard an adventurer say that.”

Seriously? They’re not even thinking of this place as a dungeon. C’mon. Or so I thought, but apparently some dungeons just have names like that. Confusing.

Well, maybe things would be different if there were some rooms with brick floors or something, but yeah, right now this place just looks like an ordinary cave.

“What’s an adventurer?”

“Apparently, humans made something called the Adventurer’s Guild. I wonder what makes it different from the Knight’s Order. I don’t really know the details.”

Guess there’s a knight’s order too. I can guess that the difference between them is like the difference between a private organization and a public peace-keeping organization.

Wait... If that’s all Rokuko knows, doesn’t that mean I know more than her already? I mean, I’m just assuming, but still.

“Are there any human settlements nearby? Show me a map if you have one.”

“You can look at one through the menu. I think it was somewhere in the Dungeon Menu.”

I don’t remember an option like that. I went ahead and double-checked the Menu. There I found an option called “Surrounding Area Information,” and further within that, “Map.” Apparently there was a major road just down the mountain. The bandits were probably raiding it.

I fiddled with zooming in on the map to try and learn more about the lay of the land. But... basically all I could see was the immediate area surrounding this mountain. There was Tsia Mountain, a single large town nearby, and an ocean beyond the mountain. Oh yeah, and there were also a few small villages scattered about.

By the way, the map was very vague. Not really detailed at all. I really wished it would give more information, like distance or something. Better than nothing, though. Apparently it was the kind of map people use in this world, so yeah.

“Heeey, won’t you kill that bandit for me? We would get lots of DP if you kill him. Mmm, it feels like he would be worth about 200 DP.”

That may sound nice, but he would be worth just as much if he stuck around the dungeon for ten full days.

“Nah, we’re not going to attack the bandits yet.”

“Why not? He’s all alone. We could take him down if we had... around ten Goblins.”

“You’d spend 200 DP to earn 200 DP...? And we don’t even have enough DP to summon that many, anyway.” But seriously. Goblins are as weak as they look, huh? Ten Goblins to take down one bandit. Dang.

“We’re gonna keep saving DP for now. Don’t waste any of it. We’ll be better off saving a ton and using it all at once, and right now, we’re better off not agitating the bandits. What’ll you do if we send out Goblins and they decide to destroy the Dungeon Core to stop that from happening again?”

“...Ah! I didn’t think about that at all. You sure are smart, Keima!”

“Nah, you’re just an idiot. And now that you know that, listen to everything I say. Got it?”

“O-Okay. I will.” Rokuko nodded obediently.

I guess in her energy-saving form, both her body and her mind are that of a kid’s. ...Nah, she was always like that. She’s a ditzy airhead through and through. But I knew she wouldn’t try to do anything on her own after I ordered her not to. She was being forced to obey my orders whether she wanted to or not, after all.

Anyway, I should check out what else I can do in this menu.

“...Uhhh, Construct? Let’s see how much it takes to build a room... It depends on the size, but a simple small room with bare rock floors and stuff only costs about 200 DP. The size of hallways connecting rooms determines what kind of traps can be used in them, too.”

“That’s right! Adding rooms is a total waste of DP, it would be way better to just summon more monsters instead. That’s why I’ve never used the Construct Menu before.”

“Looks like I can use DP to get treasure and place it in the dungeon, too. Aaah, I see. Pillows and stuff are considered treasure too. Household Goods-tier treasure.”

“That’s true, but what’s the point in doing that? If you have DP to spare for treasure, you should be using it to summon monsters that can kill the intruders... hey, what are you looking at me like that for? Gross, stop staring at me.”

Whoops, my bad. I was giving her the kind of warm look a parent gives their idiot kid after they say something dumb.

“...But y’know, when I think about dungeons, it’s not monsters that come to mind. It’s traps and treasure.”

“Really? The other Cores I know never say anything like that.”

“Oh yeah. You said you were Dungeon Core Number 695 or something like that. Does that mean there are at least 694 other dungeons?”

“There’s a lot of Cores that have gotten dest... that have died, so there’s less than that. The Dungeon Core is our heart, after all. When it gets destroyed, we die.”

“You’re a pretty risky girl, letting your heart be defenseless in the only room of your dungeon.”

“But the other Cores always say it doesn’t matter how many rooms you have!”

The blonde loli puffed up her nonexistent chest in pride. I wanna rub it. I wanna rub that washboard chest.

“Wait. How are you contacting those other cores?”

“Ummm... We have gatherings. I couldn’t go this time due to all the intruders, but... it happens once a year. It’s kind of like a party. We talk about a lot of important things there.”

“Oh, so that’s where you learned all the stuff you’ve been bringing up?”

“Mhm. Dungeon Core Number 89 told me everything I know. She’s my big sister. Core 89 is a human-type dungeon just like me, but her dungeon is right in the middle of a capital city! She’s amazing! Her core number is only two digits and she ranks in the top ten for having the most DP! She takes really good care of me.”

Yeah, this girl’s definitely getting tricked.

“By the way, Core 89 has pulled a dragon from a 1000 DP gacha before.”

“Wooow. I’m mainly interested in those rankings you mentioned, and that capital, but ehhh... I’ll ask about those later. We’ve gotta take care of the danger in front of us first.”

“That’s true. We need to get rid of these bandits.”

All of a sudden, my stomach grumbled. ...Oh yeah. I haven’t eaten anything since yesterday.

“Alright, time to eat. Got any food?”

“Eh? Ah, right. Monsters need to eat food, riiight. I don’t need to eat anything, so I totally forgot about that.” Guess she’s still gonna treat me like a monster. Rude.

By the way, up until this point, Rokuko would use all the DP she had to summon Goblins whenever intruders came. Adventurers would come once or twice a month, massacre the Goblins, and then go home after butchering their corpses.

I flipped through the DP Catalog for food. There were lots of things there, but I went ahead and spent 5 DP to buy bread and water. A magic circle appeared with a flash, and soon enough, darkish bread and a wood cup appeared above it. After splitting half of it with the quietly sitting Goblin, we ate together like pals. The bread... was really, really hard. I felt as if it were just sitting in clumps in my stomach, but I was tired enough to just go back to sleep right away.

Day 3

Two days had passed since I was summoned. Looks like we’ve got 179 DP now... wait, no. It just went up to 180. I could summon nine whole Goblins with this much.

As an aside, I had figured out why the bandits hadn’t destroyed the Dungeon Core. They were using it in place of a foot warmer. The Dungeon Core glowed faintly and was just a little warm. The boss of the bandits had built his bed in the Core room and was putting his feet on it as he slept. I learned that we could look directly out of the Master Room, but after trying it out, an entire wall turned into a closeup of a dirty foot. Naturally, it was terrible. Hello, Miss Dungeon Core. How does it feel to have your heart getting stepped on?

“W-Well... I’m earning a lot of DP thanks to them being here, so... This is like, a win-win, you know? Hmph!”

Our lovable blonde loli had gotten teary-eyed after realizing that her heart was being trampled by stinky-looking feet. Honestly, she gets cuter the more time I spend with her.

I spent some more time investigating the menu and learned that I could look into the dungeon from basically any angle I wanted by using the existing walls and ceilings. I could peer into the dungeon from the ceilings of the hallways, the floors of the rooms, and basically any wall. By the way, Rokuko hadn’t known about that. Not surprising. There’s not much need for advanced reconnaissance when your dungeon only has one room.

“Alright. Guess I should finally start doing something...”

“You’ll summon something, right? You’ll summon a lot of Goblins and kill them all, right?! Ah, buying a lizard man for 150 DP might be smart! I won’t forgive that bandit boss, let’s stab him to death!”

“Idiot. They’ll just kill us in revenge if we try that. Look at how many of them there are.”

As expected, she felt humiliated over having her heart used as a simple foot warmer. She was practically barking like a dog and growling at the bandits’ boss. Though given how cute her appearance was in energy-saving mode, she was more like a puppy than anything.

“There’s eight of them. We’re way too weak to take them on. And if you hadn’t summoned that first Goblin, we wouldn’t need to waste so much DP on food.”

“Mmm, the maintenance cost. I had never thought of that before... Wait! Didn’t you waste a bunch of DP on that [Futon] or whatever?!” Don’t be ridiculous. That [Futon (50 DP)] was an absolutely necessary expense.

“So, what are you going to do?”

“I’ve got a plan, but... Hey, Rokuko, do you know how to write words? And do you think those bandits can read?”

“Writing? Uh-huh, I can write. I saw those bandits reading a book they stole from someone before, so... they can definitely read simple things.”

“Sweet. Then listen closely and write the things I tell you to.”

“Okaaay.”

# Bandit’s Perspective

“Boooss! Wake uuup!”

“Ngggh...?”

The boss of the bandits woke up in the cave and saw a chest in front of him. Was this thing here yesterday? Nah, no way. I woulda saw it before sleepin’.

“The hell is this thing? Where’d it come from?”

“We dunno, boss. Rodrige was on guard and he said nobody brought it inside or nothin’.”

“So what yer saying is... It just poofed and appeared in the middle of this cave like magic?”

“Er... I guess so?”

The bandit boss investigated the chest, but didn’t find any traps inside of it. He opened it carefully and saw that an iron helmet was resting inside. It was a high-quality helmet, and it looked new too.

“Heh, this thing is pretty nice. We could sell it for a lot of money. Or we could use it, either way.”

“Boss, there’s somethin’ written on the bottom of the chest.”

“Eh? The hell? ...Letters? Hey, Brakin! You can read, right? Read this!”

“You got it, boss! Leeet’s see...”

The boss showed the chest to a subordinate and made him read it. The contents of the message were unbelievable. “I am the Dungeon Core. Thank you for defeating those Goblins. This is a present from me. It may take some time, but if you bring me corpses, I can give you more presents.”

“Dungeon Core...? Hey, are we in a fucking dungeon?”

“I dunno, I heard this place was just an ordinary cave.”

“Ah! Wait a second, boss! I used to be an adventurer, and I remember hearing about a dungeon called [Ordinary Cave]!”

“Really, Johnny?!” The boss of the bandits was stunned.

There was a glowing stone sticking out of the ground that was perfect for warming feet. He just realized that might, in fact, be a Dungeon Core.

He had never heard of anyone talking to dungeons before, but right in front of him was a letter (in a box) from a dungeon. It might just have been a trick, but the guard didn’t see anyone coming in, and the helmet was too pristine for any of the bandits to have gotten a hold of themselves. Not to mention, the letter suggested that the helmet was a reward for them defeating Goblins. That was probably referring to the Goblins near the cave that he slaughtered after first going there. Five Goblins posed no threat whatsoever to the boss of the bandits. And yet killing weaklings like them was enough to earn a fancy steel helmet.

“Woah now, seriously? Looks like luck’s finally on my side...!”

Dungeons were very famous. One dungeon, known as the [Ivory Labyrinth], was located in the middle of the capital. Rather, the capital had been built around that dungeon in the first place. There were monsters in the dungeon, but there were also valuable treasures to be found, like gold and enchanted armor. And this [Ordinary Cave] was a dungeon. But the boss hadn’t seen any monsters inside of it. At worst, there were those five Goblins, but nothing more. But he had seen treasure. The steel helmet.

“Seems like this dungeon has taken a liking to me,” the boss of the bandits said with a grin.

Those who earn the favor of dungeons are rewarded with treasure... In other words, they obtain infinite wealth. Speaking of which, the letter had mentioned that they would be rewarded again if they offered up more corpses. The Goblin corpses had vanished while he wasn’t looking. He had thought that one of his subordinates had taken care of them, but... In truth, the dungeon had likely absorbed them. A single glance confirmed that the treasure chest had vanished as well.

# Keima’s Perspective

“GAAAAAAH! Why?! Why did you make me thank them?!” The blonde loli stomped around in a circle.

I can see your white panties, y’know. Absolutely shameful.

Though, I definitely understood why she was so upset. After all, I had spent every last DP we had giving that “present” to the bandits’ boss. To be specific, I had spent 5 DP on a [Pen and Ink], 5 DP on a [Treasure Chest], and 170 DP on a [High Quality Steel Helmet]. We now had absolutely no DP left. 0 DP. Zilch.

“Why?! It would have been way, way better for us to spend all that DP on Goblins!”

“And then die after the bandits came swinging at us? Hahaha, sorry, but I don’t wanna die yet. I just want to sleep.”

“B-But still...! That was just...! Grr, you traitor!”

“Calm down. That gift just bought us some valuable time. I’ll kill them all soon enough, trust me.”

“Eh?” Rokuko blinked in surprise, as if she hadn’t expected me to say something like “I’ll kill them all.”

“But why? Didn’t you give them that gift because you’re a human and want to help them out?”

“What? No. I just want my sleeping arrangements to be safe. And that’s not gonna happen with dangerous guys like them hanging around.”

“Um... W-Wait, don’t you feel bad about killing members of your own species?”

“Nope. I just wanna sleep. And it’s not like I’m gonna be doing anything to them myself, so... Ah, right. I don’t have anything else to do today, so I can just go ahead and sleep. Sweet. Night night.” I got into my futon and rolled onto my side.

“H-H-Hey! Wait, hold on! Explain what’s going on!”

“Alright, alright. I’ll explain everything... Tomorrow. Sleep tight!”

“D-DON’T GO TO SLEEEEP!” Rokuko’s voice faded out as I fell asleep.

Looks like that order I gave her yesterday is still working. Good night.

Day 4

“Aaah, I slept pretty well... not. Again. I really want a better futon...”

“Good morning. You really slept for the whole day... Don’t you get tired of doing that?”

“Not at all.”

“So, now that you’re awake, explain what’s going on... but first, look at the DP. What’s going on?”

I opened the menu to check our DP and saw that we now had 867 DP.

“Huh? Oh wow, it shot way up. Not quite as much as I was hoping for, but this will do.”

“Are you saying you knew this would happen?”

“Huh? Uhh, basically, but let me ask you this first. Did something happen?”

“...Some adventurers attacked.”

According to Rokuko, a bandit standing guard noticed that adventurers were on their way to the cave, so all the bandits hid in the main room out of sight from the entrance corridor before launching a surprise attack. They then defeated the four adventurers without a single scratch on any of them.

“So, after that, the bandits looted the adventurers’ corpses and offered up their corpses to me. They even went out of their way to push them against the Dungeon Core. I could do that on my own if they just left the corpses lying around in the dungeon, though. They figured that out after I went out of my way to absorb the corpses they weren’t pushing against me, I think.”

“They killed them inside of the dungeon, huh? I guess those bandits are smarter than you, Rokuko.”

“What do you mean by that?!” I mean what I said.

After hearing that, Rokuko’s smile became a peeved frown, cheeks puffing out. It looked less like she was angry and more like she was pouting.

“But how did you know that the adventurers were coming?”

“Seriously...? Didn’t you say yourself that adventurers come here once or twice a month?”

“Aaah... Now that you mention it, I did say that.”

This dungeon was probably being used as a training grounds for newbies where they could safely mop up weak Goblins and get battle experience. The fact that nobody had destroyed the Core yet strongly implied that it was being protected by some sort of rule. The Guild was basically saying “go get a look at a real Dungeon Core,” and that was that.

But think about it. Could rookie adventurers challenging a dungeon like this [Ordinary Cave] beat eight bandits? The answer was as you heard. No way would the bandits lose against rookies who had come here expecting five or six Goblins. They couldn’t lose, so they attacked them. They stole from them. They killed them. Naturally. They are bandits, after all.

“So, what does all this have to do with the helmet and letter you sent them yesterday?”

“Bandits are greedy. If we act friendly and give them expensive-looking gifts, they’ll be nice and cooperative with us. Basically, the bandits are going to stay in this cave now that they know they’ll be rewarded for doing so... which in turn will net us DP as they kill adventurers.”

Unless they had some major fetishes, they wouldn’t bring corpses into the cave where they slept. But by showing them that we could make corpses disappear... they’d realize that the best way to get rid of evidence was to offer the corpses up to us, rather than leaving them around where somebody might find them. And they’d get treasure for it too. Why wouldn’t they bring corpses to us?

Plus, under normal circumstances, the bandits would abandon this [Ordinary Cave] if the adventurers ever figured out that they were held up here. It just wouldn’t be safe. Put all that together and the bandits would feel compelled to slaughter all adventurers for three reasons: To stay in the cave, for treasure, and just because it was their job anyway. The fact they chose to ambush the adventurers inside of the cave was just a nice bonus. Though, in the long-term, the best thing really would be to just run away without fighting... but they didn’t seem to realize that.

I’m glad they’re a bunch of idiots.

“...But Keima, wouldn’t you prefer it if the bandits left?”

“No, I wouldn’t. I can’t kill them all if they run away, right? There’s a bunch of DP right there waiting for us, I don’t want to waste it. I’m gonna squeeze every last bit of value from them that I can.”

“...Wow. You called them DP even though you’re a human too. Keima, I’m starting to respect you a little bit. You monster.”

“Thanks. Now, I’m gonna go back to sleep. Night night.”

“You’re going back to sleep even though you just woke up...?” What an idiot. You can obviously only go back to sleep right after waking up. It’s a precious opportunity.

However. Hooowever.

I don’t feel bad at all that adventurers died because of my plan. Though, to be fair, the bandits killed them while I was sleeping, and I didn’t even see their corpses. I wonder if I’ll have to start killing people myself at some point. How will I feel then? ...Eh, whatever. Like it or not, I’m a Dungeon Master now. That’s who I am and there’s no going back.

I went back to sleep and had a peaceful rest without having a single nightmare.

Our DP went up a little. The bandits might have gotten stronger from killing the adventurers, which in turn might have increased how much DP we got from them hanging around.

“Alright, we’re gonna add a room. We have enough ink to write another letter on a treasure chest, right?”

“Eh? Oh, right. We do. But are you really going to waste DP on a room? We have so much...” Rokuko said that while flipping through the DP Catalog and looking at all the monsters we could summon for 800 DP.

Ha ha ha! Will this blonde loli never learn?

“Alright, here I go... Huh, it says that we can place items wherever we want, but since intruders are on this floor, we can’t build any new rooms. Any monsters we summon will have to come out of the Dungeon Core, too. Oh well. We’ll just have to get the bandits outside. Write down what I say again. ...It shouldn’t be a problem if we just tell them the truth this time.”

“Okaaay, I’ll write whatever you want. I just need to write it on the bottom of the chest again, right?” After I used DP to summon another chest, Rokuko scrawled another letter on the bottom of it.

# Bandit’s Perspective

“Boooss! Another chest appeared!”

“Oooh! Outta the way, I’ve been waitin’ for this!” The boss of the bandits opened the chest that had basically grown out of the floor in front of him. Inside was... something that made him tilt his head in confusion.

“...A pillow? It looks pretty high quality, but... it’s not a magic tool or anything.”

The bandit boss wondered why five Goblins got him a nice steel helmet, but four adventurers only got him a silly pillow. Did quantity matter over quality? Either way, his train of thought derailed after he noticed the letter on the bottom of the chest.

“You really saved me there! You’re really strong! Thanks for the corpses! You killed them inside of the dungeon, so I can give you your present faster. I’ll make some extra rooms for you. It’ll be dangerous for you if you stay inside, so go outside with everyone. Get really far away, okay?”

Everything made more sense. The boss had been thinking to himself that the cave was a bit cramped for eight whole people. And so, he took everyone and went outside. As soon as they were a fair distance away, the grinding sound of moving rocks reverberated out of the cave.

It took about ten minutes. They returned to the cave after the sounds stopped and saw that there was a new room on either side of the original room, separated by wooden doors. The boss panicked for a second after seeing that the Dungeon Core was missing, but he soon found it on the wall of the rightmost room.

The two new rooms looked exactly the same as the first room, but the addition of wooden doors suddenly made the cave feel a lot more like a hideout. They couldn’t believe that so much space had been added in only ten minutes. It would have taken at least a month for people to mine out two rooms of that size. Unless a trained magician helped out, that is, which would speed things up to about ten minutes as well.

Three rooms, lined up horizontally. Adding two rooms was all it took to triple the cave’s total space. And there was a bed in the rightmost room. Now the inclusion of the pillow in the treasure chest made sense.

What, the dungeon made all this for me? What a nice little cutie. The bandit boss murmured to himself.

# Keima’s Perspective

“...God! Why, WHY did you make me spend 480 whole DP on that guy...!”

“Woah, now. 10 DP for the [Treasure Chest] and [Pillow], 20 DP for the two [Wooden Doors], and 50 DP for the [Simple Bed]... We only spent 80 DP on him.”

“Whaaat? It cost 200 DP each to add those rooms, didn’t it?”

“Don’t be stupid. Unlike that steel helmet, they can’t take those rooms from the dungeon and sell them. They’re permanently ours.”

Rokuko tilted her head with a confused expression on her face, not understanding what I had meant.

You know, she is a Dungeon Core from a fantasy world. She might actually be as young as she looks. She can change her appearance whenever she wants, after all. ...Actually, I bet this blonde loli is even younger than she looks right now. Definitely.

“We had to expand the dungeon at some point. Here, let me try and make this easy for you to understand... Say we can only place six Goblins in one room. By adding two extra rooms, we can now place eighteen Goblins in total.”

“Wow, what?! That’s amazing! Let’s add even more new rooms!”

Yeah, I’m pretty amazed that was all it took to convince you.

“...W-Wait a second! We have a big problem! All of our 870 DP is gone, completely gone!”

“Yeah, ’cause I used it all.”

“H-Huh?! On what?!”

“Take a look.” I showed her the dungeon map.

Using the camera, I went outside the dungeon and showed her that I had built another single-room cave elsewhere on the mountain and added a dirt path to connect it with the main body of the dungeon. The room had cost 200 DP and the five-meter-wide path had cost 30 DP. Since there was no need to move rock around outside, the path was pretty cheap despite ending up being almost a solid kilometer long. Though I had still ended up using every last bit of our DP.

“...Haaah. I never would have thought about expanding the dungeon from the outside. You sure have a looot of crazy ideas, Keima. But what are you going to do with that room? Wasn’t it a complete waste of DP?”

“Rejoice, my companion. This is a room made especially for Goblins, just like you’ve always wanted.”

“Yaaay♪! ...Wait, did I want something like that?”

“Don’t you love Goblins?”

She was always telling me to summon Goblins this, summon Goblins that. It took a bit, but it finally dawned on me. Rokuko loves Goblins. She wants to be surrounded by Goblins. She wants Goblins to serve her. She wants to be queen of the Goblins.

“...Um, I think you’re taking things the wrong way.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to make fun of you. Everyone has their own fetishes. My friend, I’ll fight by your side even if you do have a massive Goblin fetish.”

“Hey, what do you mean by that?! What’s with that understanding look in your eyes?! You don’t understand anything!”

“By the way, I’m not a lolicon. I just love feet. The only thing I dig about your current body is your feet.”

“Hey, no, no! Seriously, what are you even saying?! And why do you look so condescending?!”

Anyway, there’s nothing left for us to do now that we’re out of DP. Time to go back to sleep for the third time.

I got back into my futon and listened to Rokuko’s voice fade out. ...How long is that order gonna last?

Day 5

I’m awake again, but we still don’t have enough DP... Oh yeah. It might be a bit late for this, but I’ll go ahead and explain how I’m surviving in here. What I’m eating, how I’m using the bathroom, all that good stuff.

Food-wise, I was eating a [Bread and Water (5 DP)] set three times a day. By the way, the bread that came in that set wasn’t just hard rye bread. The menu was nice enough to allow me to pick between pastries and even bread prepared with other food items such as meat or vegetables. I would pick the bread with as much food as possible and then split it with the Goblin.

As for the bathroom, well, I was taking care of business in the corner of the room. Don’t worry, I had set up a screen partition and got some toilet paper first. There was nothing else I could do, since I was stuck in the Master Room. If I tried leaving it, I would end up face to face with the bandits.

Thankfully, the Dungeon Core would suck up everything that came out of me, so we didn’t have to worry about the smell or anything. Though Rokuko grimaced whenever she sucked up my poop.

“...How would you feel if someone pooped inside of your heart? Huh? Not good, right?”

“Hahaha, you’re a girl, you shouldn’t be saying ‘poop.’ What’s your problem, anyway? The Goblin is pooping inside of you too. Shouldn’t a Goblin fetishist like you be crying of happiness?”

“Hey, seriously, is that really what you think of me?! You know I’m an intelligent life form, right?!”

“Uhhh... You’re still kind of a mystery to me, honestly. Oh, but like I said before, I definitely love your feet. They’re pale but nice and curvy. The definition of healthy feet. They’re so hot that if you were in your other form, I would—”

“Oh geez! This Dungeon Master is scary!”

Despite all that, I hadn’t showered at all since being summoned. Just when I was thinking about how my hair would probably start to stink soon, I looked at the Goblin next to me. His face was as gruesome as ever, and his massive tusk-like fangs looked like they would really hurt if he bit you with them. His clothes? Nothing but a raggedy cloth wrapped around his waist. He’s a pretty wild guy.

I would have thought that a wild guy like this would start stinking like a dog after few days of no washing, but he was still completely clean. Did he have some kind of secret I didn’t know about? My questions were all answered by Rokuko.

“Oh, I’ve been using the Survival Magic {Purification} on him.”

It was literally magic. Right, right. This is a fantasy world.

“Magic, huh? Well, that’s that, then. Would you mind casting it on me too?”

“Wha? You need {Purification} too?”

“...Oh, I see. You’re playing favorites with the Goblin because you have a Goblin fetish.”

“No! I just didn’t know that Dungeon Masters needed {Purification}! And anyway, do that yourself, sheesh!”

“Hey, now, why are you acting like I can use magic?”

“Eh? You can’t?”

Apparently, all humans were capable of using magic. Even the bandits had been using it when I wasn’t looking.

Wait, seriously? Do I just know nothing about nothing? Oh, wait. This is a fantasy world, obviously I don’t know much of anything. I wonder if I can use {Purification} too. I’ll try asking her how to use it.

“You just, like, build up your mana and cast {Purification}. That’s all.”

That didn’t help at all. What do you mean, build up my mana? What do you mean, just cast {Purification}? You’re like a cookbook that says to add “some salt” without listing grams or teaspoons or anything. C’mon, I’m a human from a world where magic doesn’t even exist. I’m as much of a beginner as you can possibly be.

“...Keima. You can use the Menu, can’t you? It’s basically the same thing as that.”

“Seriously? {Purification}... Oh wow, that actually worked.”

A fluffy, lemony sensation washed over my body from head to toe and purified it. Now I can sleep as much as I want, completely clean. I could cast {Purification} on myself right after waking up and go back to sleep immediately, feeling refreshed. I felt a little pleasantly tired, as if casting the spell had used up part of my MP or something. This spell is perfect for sleeping. Fantastic.

“By the way, you can cast simple Survival spells with just mana and some mental effort, but you’ll have to learn stronger spells through scrolls before you can use them.”

“Scrolls...?”

“Uh-huh. You could teach yourself the spells by figuring them out from the ground up with logic, but that’s not reasonable for most people. Only researchers really do that. So, normally you’ll have to use scrolls to learn magic. Well, I’ve never used a scroll myself, but... Oh, maybe there are some in the DP Catalog?”

I checked the DP Catalog and saw that in the treasure section there were plenty of scrolls, like the [{Fireball} Scroll (500 DP)] or the [{Earth Barrier} Scroll (700 DP)]. Each spell belonged to an element, and the four main elements were Earth, Water, Wind, and Fire. There were also special elements known as Light, Darkness, and Space-Time. Spells were then classified even further beyond that, with each one either being a Bottom-Rank, Low-Rank, Mid-Rank, High-Rank, Special-Rank, King-Rank, or God-Rank spell. {Fireball}, for instance, was a Low-Rank Fire spell. And in the midst of all that, there was one Mid-Rank Earth spell that caught my eye. [{Create Golem} Scroll (10,000 DP)]

Veeery interesting. I might be able to use this spell to summon a servant that will obey my every command. Well, technically Rokuko is kind of like a servant that will obey my every command, but she’s a girl... and she looks super young in her energy-saving form. I want something more like a robot to order around. I definitely want to get this scroll soon, but I dunno if I should get it or the equally expensive [Heavenly Pillow] first...

Day 7

In the end, we didn’t do anything for two days after expanding the dungeon. The bandits seemed to have taken some time off too, judging by how about half of them had been hanging out in the dungeon drinking and sleeping for the past two days. I had thought that bandits spent all day every day plundering, but I guess not. Maybe they just don’t work when their boss is away for a few days? Either way, I didn’t mind. Them hanging around inside the dungeon meant we got a little more DP each day.

When the boss of the bandits eventually came back, he had seven new thugs with him. I wondered where he got them and how strong they were... but judging from how much DP they were earning us, “thugs” was the right word for them. Each one of them earned us about 10-15 DP a day, so the seven of them combined boosted our daily profits by 70-105 DP. Not to mention, there was a young adventurer with them that they had probably kidnapped on the way back.

Yeah, too bad he’s not a girl, since he’s all tied up. That ball-gag especially would be pretty hot on a gi— My pervy thoughts were interrupted by the bandits suddenly stabbing the adventurer repeatedly with their swords. Holy crap. These guys are scary. I watched the dungeon absorb the blood flowing onto the floor in a daze, and soon enough the slaughter was over.

“Oooh! Wow, that earned us a lot of DP. Around 300 DP, just from that one guy.”

“...We can summon fifteen of those Goblins you love so much with that.”

Aaah, right. That was a live sacrifice to us, the dungeon. That’s the kind of enthusiasm I like to see. I should reward them somehow...

And so, since they went out of their way to bring back a sacrifice, I decided to reward them with a [Sharp Iron Sword (150 DP)]. 530 DP left, huh? I really wanna save up more than that.

“Hey, it looks like they wanted us to expand the rooms again.” I checked the dungeon monitor and saw the boss of the bandits looking at the iron sword and grumbling to himself. Talk about ungrateful. I didn’t have to give you that sword, y’know?

“Haaah. If they wanted more rooms, they really shoulda said that first. We’re not mind readers.”

“What are you going to do? Give them another room anyway?”

“I don’t want to use that much DP right now... Oh, I’ve got an idea.”

# Bandit’s Perspective

I went to town and sold all the stuff I stole. Though, I didn’t actually go into town. I went to the slums built right up close to the wall surrounding the town.

Naturally, things ain’t so bad around here that a bandit like me can get into the actual town... without paying a bribe, that is. Oh, and if yer wonderin’ about the steel helmet that dungeon gave me, I decided not to sell it. Somethin’ good might happen if I treat the first gift it gave me real well.

Anyway. I got seven new lackeys from the slums. Town thugs, bandits like me, runaway slaves... They were all a bunch of lowlifes like that. We stumbled upon a bratty adventurer walking down the road himself, so we knocked him down and brought him back to the base. Heheh. Things really go to shit once you get too far away from town. Rookies shouldn’t be traveling near the mountains alone.

Once we got back, I went out of my way to kill the brat inside of the dungeon so it’ll give us another new room. The seven new guys couldn’t believe it when the corpse started to sink into the ground, heh. Better not tell anyone about this, punks, unless you wanna end up the same way.

“Boss, a treasure chest appeared!”

“Got it... wait, what? A sword?”

The only thing inside the chest was a sword. An iron sword. It’s much better than the sword I’ve been using. But I don’t want a new sword right now. I want a new room. Things’ll be tighter now that we’ve got seven new guys. Though, we managed before with a single room by having six people stay inside while two people went outside to stand guard, so we can manage now with three rooms... but it’ll still be tight. I want a new room as soon as possible.

Another chest appears while I’m in the middle of grumbling about that. “Huh? What’s the deal this time?” I open the chest and see a letter written on the bottom: “If you want me to make another room, dig some of it out yourself”... with three new pickaxes on top of it.

# Keima’s Perspective

I gave them some pickaxes so they could help dig out the room, but they just got mad.

But why? The less rock that’s in the way, the less DP it costs to make a room, so them mining the walls a bit themselves would really help out.

“I dunno, I think it makes sense that they would get mad. I’d get mad too, you know?”

“Yeah, you’re right. I guess I knew this would happen.”

“You knew this would happen...? Keima, you gave them the pickaxes knowing they’d get mad?”

Weeeell, I was thinking that they’d work harder to bring sacrifices if they got mad at me for not giving them an extra room, but yeah.

Day 9

As always, there was nothing for me to do.

The bandits did eventually start mining the walls themselves, though they kept grumbling while doing so. They started off by throwing the excess rock and stone outside, but halfway through we started to absorb the stuff into the dungeon under the guise of accepting it as an offering. It didn’t earn us even a single DP, but the bandits appreciated us helping out enough that they started working faster without complaining.

They really are simple guys. I guess at this rate we’ll be able to make a small room in like ten days?

“Hm? It feels like people are coming.” I glanced at Rokuko after she murmured that to me. “Bandits?”

“I don’t think so. They’re probably adventurers. I think the bandits just noticed them too. I guess they’re gonna do another surprise attack?”

“Alright... They’re almost definitely investigating this cave since those last adventurers never came back.” I didn’t expect them so soon, but they presented a good opportunity. I decided to tell Rokuko about the rest of my plan to eliminate the bandits. She won’t try to do anything unnecessary if she knows what’s really going on here.

“Since they came all the way to investigate us, they’re stronger than the last adventurers that came here. After all, it’d just be a waste of time if they sent some weaker people that ended up not coming back either.” From the bandits’ perspective, they couldn’t let anyone see this completely changed [Ordinary Cave] and survive to tell the tale.

So, they’ll have to kill all the adventurers. No survivors. And if those adventurers never return, another group will come to investigate. And of course, that group will be even stronger than the last one. I don’t know how long it’ll take, but at some point, the bandits will lose. And there you have it. That’s the plan I have for slaughtering every single one of the bandits. Right now, my job is just making sure the bandits don’t try to flee their hideout before it gets crushed. Huh? That’s not a job? I’m just sleeping without actually doing anything? Hey, c’mon, that’s not true at all.

The bandits were hunting for food, and they would offer up some of their prey to us (mainly the internal organs, bones, and other stuff that they couldn’t eat themselves. It was all worth a little DP.) In return, I would send them treasure chests with letters on the bottom explaining how best to fight within the cave. Of course, since we would get more delicious DP whenever bandits or adventurers died inside the cave, we benefited the most from those battle plans.

See? I’m doing my part and working hard too. God! I don’t want to work...! At least my job was pretty simple. I just had to reward the bandits whenever they offered up stuff to my dungeon.

“Oooh! That’s amazing, Keima! I can’t believe you thought of a plan that great!”

“Yep. By the way, the true purpose of that Goblin room is to be a dummy [Ordinary Cave] when necessary. If worse comes to worst, we can move the Dungeon Core over there and pretend we never knew a thing about the bandits.”

“Oh wow, really...? I totally thought that you had just forgotten that monsters can only come out of the Dungeon Core when its floor has intruders on it.”

Oh, I did forget about that. That Goblin’s just been sitting cross-legged for the past week, so I was planning on letting him outside, but I guess that’s just not possible.

“Oh, the adventurers are almost here.”

“Right. May as well watch what happens.”

# Bandit’s Perspective

“Boooss! Some adventurers are coming!”

“Alright, just as planned. We’re gonna take’m down.”

“Just as planned?”

“Yeah. The box that had the sword in it mentioned that adventurers would be coming soon, remember? The dungeon wants us to protect it.”

By the way, the boss of the bandits had studied for a while and learned how to read simple messages. Since the letters from the dungeon were intentionally being written in a simple manner, even he could read them. The boss of the bandits was feeling pretty smug about that, too. He bragged to his subordinates that he had gotten a lot smarter ever since he holed up in this dungeon. He even said that he might turn back into an idiot if he ever left it.

“...Alright. We’ll use the new guys. Tell’m I’ll make whoever kills the most my right-hand man.”

“Got it. What about us?”

“If the guys get slaughtered, we’ll finish off the weakened adventurers. That’ll be the end of it if everything works out.” The dungeon really had taught the boss a lot about warfare.

Use the new guys first and get ready to get rid of the weakest ones as soon possible. That was just one of the lessons he had learned. Having a hideout where you could stash treasure and get shelter from the rain was everything to a bandit. It was status. It’d be dangerous if anyone ever discovered the hideout, but slaughtering everyone who finds it should take care of that... or at least, that was what the letter from the dungeon said, and thus that was what the boss of the bandits believed.

Two corners of the dungeon’s first room were blind spots coming from the entrance hallway, making them the perfect spot to launch a surprise attack... though there was so little space, only about eight people could hide effectively. That’s where the new guys would be camping out. Every other bandit hid in one of the two new rooms the dungeon had made for them. That way, they could rush out and provide support whenever necessary.

“Huh? I thought this was a one-room dungeon with the core right at the start.” Those were the last words ever spoken by one of the three adventurers. New Guy A had swung down his sword at the adventurer who had popped his defenseless head out of the entrance hallway.

“Take thiiis!” His rusted, dull sword hit a weak spot on the adventurer’s uncovered neck and snapped that part of his spine with a single blow.

Right, that guy’s one of the thugs I picked up at the slums. I remember him being all smug and cocky. I told him to keep quiet until his first attack landed, but I guess that was too much for a thug who’s never killed a man before.

But by chance, he had managed to kill one of the adventurers with his first swing. That could only be called the result of pure luck.

“Heh! Heheheh! Now I’m gonna be the boss’s right-hand man!”

“Benny?! Tch, bandits! {Slash}!”

“Huh? Gah!”

The adventurer’s... The swordsman’s counterattack cut halfway through New Guy A’s neck. That wound was severe enough that he would need High-Rank magic to survive... which basically meant he was already dead. He had landed a critical hit with a surprise attack on the first adventurer, and now he had been hit with more or less the same thing himself. The swordsman’s weapon was a sharp, well cared for sword... but what mattered more than anything else was his prowess, reflected by the skill he had used. New Guy A collapsed onto the ground.

Nobody made the dumb mistake of watching his corpse fall to the ground, but the adventurers still moved faster than any of the newbie bandits.

“Shit, he’s got a skill! We’ve gotta pile up on him! We’ll win through numbers... nghaaah!” The rear adventurer launched an arrow that pierced the chest of New Guy B’s cracked leather armor and killed him instantly. He must not have expected to kill the bandit in a single blow, as a second arrow soon stabbed through his head.

He shot fast and he shot hard. His aim was good, too. He might have been using a bow combat skill, but either way, an archer can’t do anything in a close-quarters fight. The fact he stood his ground in the hallway was probably reflective of how little combat experience he had. Or perhaps he just didn’t want to run away and abandon his companion.

It was a brutal battle from that point on. Despite having lost one of their own, the adventurers fought well together. They were definitely stronger than the newbie bandits. That was obvious from the moment the adventurers first used a skill, but even so, they couldn’t win against numbers. The swordsman was surrounded and the archer was defeated after the bandits used a corpse as a shield to get close.

In the end, five of the cocky bandits had died trying to defeat the three adventurers. Out of the three newbies who had killed one of the adventurers, two had died from counter attacks, leaving only one alive. New Guy C, a former mercenary who had luckily managed to survive after killing an adventurer, was made the boss’s right-hand man as promised.

“We’re gonna be getting a lot of new members from now on. He can help me keep everything together. Let’s see... Only the criminal slaves and ex-mercenaries survived. Guess thugs are pretty worthless, huh? Now. That should be enough corpses to get us a new room, yeah? I’m counting on you, my lovely dungeon friend.”

And so, a treasure chest appeared. Inside was a letter saying “Good work! I’ll add a new room, so please go outside.” As a nice bonus, the chest even had food inside of it. There was even a sweet-smelling kind of bread that the boss had never seen before. It smelled a lot like the incredibly expensive fruit known as “melons.”

...By chance, the boss had smelled a melon once before in his life. That event led to his fall from grace and descent into banditry... but there’s no point in talking about that.

The boss offered the bread to his new right-hand man to test for poison, and it ended up being so delicious that he said, “I’ve never tasted bread this sweet in my life! I swear I’ll serve you for the rest of my life, Boss!” while shoving it into his mouth. His expression was so much more sincere than the one he had when he first joined that the boss couldn’t help but shake his head, grinning.

# Keima’s Perspective

The bandits killed the last adventurer. Really, the adventurers had been a lot dumber than I expected. If the first adventurer had put his guard up after noticing something was off about the dungeon, they might have survived the bandits’ surprise attack. Perhaps he just wasn’t taking our dungeon seriously, considering it was an [Ordinary Cave] and nothing more. He might have assumed that even if there was a surprise attack, it would be conducted by mere Goblins. Maybe he knew that the roads had been getting more dangerous, and figured that a random cave would have nothing to do with that? ...He might have expected that the newbie adventurers from before had simply gotten lost and set up camp in our cave.

We’ll never know now, but that doesn’t really matter since they’re all dead now. They should’ve taken this place seriously the moment they heard about the last adventurers never coming back, but they didn’t. That’s their fault.

I glanced at the monitor and saw the exact moment that the archer was stabbed through the chest with a sword. Eugh, I saw something I shouldn’t have again... Am I gonna have nightmares about this stuff?

“Awww, so much DP! I’m starting to like these bandits a lot more than I used to. They’re not even stepping on the Dungeon Core anymore!”

“They’re murderers and thieves, y’know.”

Well, whatever. We got 1,900 DP from that battle, which increased our total to 2,951 DP. Some rough mental math lead me to conclude that the five bandits were worth about 1,000 DP together while the three adventurers were worth about 900 DP. ...We’re gonna get less DP each day without those bandits hanging around, but I’d say that’s a fair trade.

“...Alright, I’ll give them those rooms they want. They’ve been mining the leftmost wall of the left room, so I’ll build two new rooms in that direction. I want a bend, so I’ll make the third room to the right of the second new room. We can put the Core there for maximum safety... Oh, right. I’ll give’m some food too. I wonder what’ll happen if someone from this world eats a melon roll or something.”

“Melon roll? What’s that? I don’t see anything like that in the DP Catalog.”

“What’re you talking about? It’s right there. Though, I did just find it a second ago.” I put one [Pastry Set (5 DP)], one [Fancy Bread Set (5 DP)], and one [Dried Meat and Vegetables Set (15 DP)] into a [Treasure Chest (5 DP)] with a letter on the bottom telling the bandits to go outside before sending it all into the dungeon. It took 630 DP to make those rooms, so we had 2,291 DP left over after all of that. ...Looks like we’ve still got a ways to go until we reach 10,000 DP.

I checked up on the bandits and saw one of them devouring the melon roll with a blissful smile on his face. It was the guy who had stabbed the archer through the chest. He swore his loyalty to the bandit boss thanks to that bread. Talk about overkill.

“Holy cow, this tastes amazing! This [Melon Roll] is soooo good! Keima, did you used to eat things this tasty all the time?!”

So, after letting Rokuko try out some melon roll because she looked pretty curious about it, she started stuffing her face with it, eyes shining. Wait, you eat bread? Wait, I mean, you can actually eat stuff? First time I’m seeing that.

“Wh-What? It’s not like I can’t eat food or anything.”

“...But you don’t need to, right?”

“I don’t, but it’s like... a treat. I’m treating myself. Um... Do you have any more?”

I mean, you know that a single one of these costs 5 DP, right? When it comes with a drink, anyway. You can get six of them at once with a [Pastry Set], so that’ll be the better deal. It’ll be cheaper to buy a drink from a 5 DP barrel, too... Wait a second. Buying in bulk is so cheap I feel like I was getting ripped off before... But I don’t remember seeing this [Pastry Set] in the DP menu before. What’s going on?

“Well, there’s a whole world of bread out there, but we need to save DP right now.”

“There’s more kinds of bread like this?! H-Hey, you don’t have to be so stingy. We have like 2,000 DP right now, don’t we? I-It’ll be okay if we just spend a little... just a little...!”

Oh man, she looks dead serious about this.

“You bought a bunch of useless things like that [Pillow] and [Futon], didn’t you?! Let me spend some on myself too!”

“Hey, you got to buy a Goblin, didn’t you?”

“What?! G-Gobsuke has nothing to do with this! And he was just 20 DP! You’re using almost that much every day just to eat, aren’t you?!” Gobsuke?! You named him?! I never heard about that!

“Woah now. Don’t forget, I’m splitting half of my food with the Goblin. If you include that, he’s already cost us way more than just 20 DP... And he’s not helping us out at all right now, so he’s basically your pet.”

“Th-That’s not true! Gobsuke has a lot of potential, he’ll be a big help to us! Right, Gobsuke?!” Gobsuke tilted his head in surprise, as if wondering why we had suddenly brought him into this. For some reason, despite how hideous his Goblin face was with its squashed nose and giant teeth, he looked a lot like a dog. ...I wonder if he’ll eat dog food?

“Well, anyway. I actually don’t mind if you spend a little on yourself, as long as you don’t go too far. It won’t cost us any extra DP if we buy our food and drink in bulk, so that’s a bonus.” We’ll actually save a ton of DP buying in bulk, but I’ll keep quiet about that.

“Yay! Then hurry up and buy me a pastry set!”

“Why don’t you do that yourself? You can use the DP Catalog too, right?”

“Eh? But I’ve never seen a [Pastry Set] or a [Melon Roll] or anything like those in it... oh wait, I have more options now. Wow, I didn’t know I could buy stuff like this here. Oooh, there really are a lot of different kinds of bread! [Rye Bread], [Wheat Bread], [Melon Roll]... so many options!”

Huh? Wait a second...

“Hey, tell me what you’re seeing in the Catalog again.”

“Eh? Like I said, [Rye Bread], [Wheat Bread], and [Melon Roll].”

“...Just those three?”

“Um? Uh-huh, just those three. Why?”

I went ahead and bought a [Pastry Set], with my individual choices being [Cream Roll], [Jelly Roll], [Steamed Roll], [Red Bean Paste Roll], [Apple Pie], and a [Fried Roll].

“Do you know what these are?”

“...Kinds of bread, right? Wow, I’ve never seen bread that looks like this before. And why does all the bread you summon always end up covered in this weird, transparent stuff? Can I eat that too?”

“Nope, you can’t. That’s plastic. You rip it apart to get to the food inside. By the way, this is called a [Jelly Roll]. Try eating it.”

“Hmm, a [Jelly Roll]. Let’s see... Nom... mmm! So tasty! [Jelly Rolls] taste amazing too! Wow, there’s some yellow stuff inside of it. Oooh, so sweet! What is this stuff, it’s delicious!”

I handed over the [Cream Roll], having more or less figured out what’s going on.

“Rokuko, check out the [Pastry Set] again and see if you have more options this time.

“Eh? Okay... I do have more options. I can pick a [Jelly Roll] now. Wow, this is all new to me.”

“Alright. The next time you want a [Jelly Roll], buy it yourself. Get it in a set with some [Melon Rolls] if you want.”

“Really?! Ahaha, okay, th-then I’ll get three of each... ahahaha, hahaHAHA!”

“Oh, sure, I’d love to have one of your [Jelly Rolls]. Thanks.”

“AAAAAH?!”

Right after Rokuko summoned her [Pastry Set], I stole one of her [Jelly Rolls]. ...Yep. This is a [Cream Roll]. Any way I look at it, this is a [Cream Roll]. Plus, it’s completely bare without any plastic surrounding it.

“Sorry, Rokuko. What I gave you was actually a [Cream Roll]. This is a real [Jelly Roll].”

“Eh, really? Wow... So this is an actual [Jelly Roll]. Wooow, this one has red stuff inside of it... and it’s super sweet! I love this one too! Real [Jelly Rolls] are amazing!”

Sorry for tricking you again, but that’s a [Red Bean Paste Roll]. Sounds like it has red bean paste.

“Go ahead and buy another [Pastry Set]. This time, get four [Cream Rolls] and two [Jelly Rolls].”

“What’s going on? Do you really care that much about making me happy? Awww, thanks! You’re so nice today, Keima! Okay, four [Cream Rolls] and two [Red Bean Paste Rolls]!”

“...How’s your option list looking?”

“Eh? Oooh, I have more options again... Okay, I summoned them. Can I go ahead and eat them?”

I looked over what Rokuko had bought. Four [Cream Rolls] and two [Red Bean Paste Rolls]. ...And there we go. It looks like the DP Catalog prioritizes displaying only items that the user of the Menu is familiar with. It’s very possible that it just fundamentally won’t show items that the user doesn’t know about. Since Rokuko’s pastries weren’t wrapped in plastic, just knowing the name of something must not be enough for it to be put on the Catalog. Does the dungeon need to have absorbed it before? Wait, no, that doesn’t make sense. She’s absorbed plastic plenty of times... I guess it does have to do with being familiar with the item? ...Either way, it’s very likely that none of this applies to things from this world. I’ve never seen an actual dragon before, but it’s on my menu... though I do know that dragons are the classic Dungeon Master monster of choice. I want to dig in to this a little more, but this is getting pretty tedious. I don’t want to waste DP, either.

Rokuko was looking at me impatiently as I contemplated the inner workings of the DP Catalog to myself.

“I can eat them now, right? Right?!”

“Yeah, go ahead. ...By the way, those are all the pastries you’ll be getting for four days, so don’t go through them too fast. And be sure to split them with Gobsuke.”

“Whaaat?!” Rokuko froze with half of a [Cream Roll] in her mouth.

Don’t worry, I’ll split my food with Gobsuke even if you eat all of those pastries yourself. Not that I’m gonna tell you that, though.

Day 11

Two days after he had lost five lackeys, the bandit boss came back from town with some replacements. Nineteen replacements, even. ...There were eight bandits at the start, then the seven newbies, five of which died, so that left ten. Now it’s twenty-nine, three times that. Nice. I wondered where he had gotten them... but then I saw two tied-up adventurers in their midst. Whoops. Minus those two, it’s actually twenty-seven. Isn’t that still enough to form a small village or something?

“Oh wow. Those are all slaves, except the sacrifices.”

“You can tell just by looking at them? ...Ah. I see the collars now. Well, whatever. Two sacrifices... Alright, I’ll make a room just for them. I’ve been wanting to make a jail and see what its deal is for a while now.”

A [Jail] was an especially expensive, 300 DP room. I was hoping that it’d have some kind of special effect or something. After adding the extra room, the dungeon looked like (from above) a square with its top right section cut off.

But wait. Bandits can buy slaves in this world?

“Apparently, humans who break the law can end up slaves. They’re called ‘convict slaves.’”

“But they’ll go right back to breaking the law if bandits buy them. What’s even the point...?”

Either way, I noticed two of the slaves that stood out from the rest. One was an adult woman and one a young girl. They weren’t very dirty, likely thanks to this world’s Survival Magic. ...Yeah, those rags are so torn up they’re basically naked. That’s hot. But wait a second. The slave the boss is carrying definitely isn’t even ten years old yet. Why’d he buy a kid with dead-looking eyes like that? Is he gonna raise her as his daughter or something? And hold up, she’s got dog ears too. Another fantasy staple has come—a dark-skinned dog girl. She even has black eyes and hair. That’s the first time I’ve seen either of those in this world. Actually, I just noticed that the older woman has wings growing out of her arms. Is she a bird person? Is that what I should call them? Bird people? Nah, they’re probably called harpies or something. This world sure has a lot of colorful races... wait, wait. Hold on. HOLD ON.

THEY’RE! SEX! SLAVES!

We’re gonna turn into an adult-only story this late in the game?! Well, sure, I guess this does make sense... There’ve only been dudes out there up until now, so...

The bandit boss had likely bought those sex slaves to satisfy the lust of his subordinates. And naturally, so he could have some fun himself too.

The bandit boss grabbed on to the older woman and groped her body with hands so dirty I questioned whether he had ever used {Purification} on them. He then noisily slobbered on her mouth in a makeshift kiss before pushing her onto the bed and... Ah, yeah, cut. Cut!

The child slave was watching, too... Well, her eyes were so dark and clouded it was hard to tell if she was really processing anything, but still. C’mon, at least put her in another room! Now I understand why she looks so dead-eyed, dang! He’s even gonna make her clean up after them? Holy crap, what a monster... Oh, right. He’s a bandit. He’s killed people before. Riiight.

“Wooow... Wooow, amazing... That’s how humans reproduce, right? I’ve never seen it before... Ah?! Are you after my body too, Keima?!”

“I’m not a lolicon! And hey, stop watching them! Kids shouldn’t be looking at that kind of thing!”

“But I’m not a kid. You know that I only look like this because I can save DP in this form, right?!”

“Oh right, I forgot about that. Right, right. Your original body was way more developed, so... Wait, nah. You were still a busty middle schooler at best. That’s too young.”

“B-But you like my feet, don’t you? And look! That tiny slave is watching too.”

“Yeah, they’re making her walk on her bare feet. That has to hurt. What a waste of nice, shapely feet. Delicious brown skin like hers should be treasured. God, I want to at least give her some socks to wear.” ...Preferably knee socks. White knee socks, or dark knee socks. No, wait. I bet socks shaped like puppies would really go well with her dog ears.

“I feel like you changed the subject there...”

“Don’t worry about it. Anyway, time for sleep.” By the way, he later locked up the harpy woman in the jail (which I had built behind the room that the boss is more or less using for himself now).

# Bandit’s Perspective

Is there anything good about being a bandit, huh...?

I can’t easily get into towns, and all the shops I can buy stuff from overcharge like motherfuckers. I’ve tried making my more respectable associates buy my stuff for me, but the merchants always see right through them and keep overcharging. I can’t go to a blacksmith, so I’ve got to get a hold of weapons on my own and keep using them ’til they break. It takes a lot of guts to use a weapon that can break at any time, and to tell the truth, I’m scared shitless of the day my blade breaks in a fight. I have to risk my life just to earn money and get anything. It’s riskier being a bandit than it is being a mercenary.

But if I’m strong enough, I can steal anything. I can never know how much I’ll earn in a year, but when I hit it big, fuck do I hit it big. Not to mention, I can now go to gatherings of the legendary Dark Guild. I had only ever heard of them when I was a mercenary. It’s against the rules to attack carriages marked with the Dark Guild’s symbol, but the benefits more than make up for that. I can get my hands on anything I want, as long as I’ve got the cash. ...The stuff is expensive, though.

They have a tent of women I can buy... It’s not a high-class brothel, but a woman is a woman. Bandits can’t normally go into town, so naturally, we can’t go to brothels. Adventurers are almost all men, and female adventurers attract so much attention it’s hard to safely ambush them. So, we bandits have got no choice but to go to the Dark Guild’s “brothel.”

That’s why I went there today. There aren’t any good women, but they all cost as much as high-class prostitutes in the town’s most expensive brothel. It’s shameless. And if you don’t have any money, you can’t even get the best among those shitty women.

...Thinking it’s better to get something than nothing, I buy the cheapest woman they have. They brought out a demihuman with wings for hands. The Dark Guild’s cheapest prostitutes aren’t even valuable enough to have clothes on them, so she’s wearing nothing but a slave collar.

Demihumans like this harpy look different enough from normal people that they’re incredibly unpopular as prostitutes. That’s why she’s so cheap. A lot of demihumans are still mistaken for monsters even now. In fact, they actually are hunted as monsters in other countries. ...Oh yeah. Wasn’t there one country that considered all demihumans to be monsters? I can’t remember, but it doesn’t matter anyway. What matters right now is that the person in front of me is a woman, wings for hands or not.

Though, she hasn’t been trained at all and doesn’t know how to please a man properly. It’s not hard to see why she’s their cheapest prostitute. Having no other choice, I just held her down and fucked her as hard as I could. I paid money for her. She needs to earn it. Though, she’s probably not gonna see even a single copper from what I paid for her. No reason for them to pay their slaves.

I leave the brothel feeling refreshed, and soon decide to buy some convict slaves. The Dark Guild deals with every slave they can get their hands on. Slaves close to death are cheap, healthy slaves are expensive.

Would be nice if some of these convict slaves have killed before. All I need are enough thugs to kill adventurers by overwhelming them with numbers, but experienced murderers will still help out in a big way.

I’ll need a sex slave for the boys to use, too. Tch... Not sure how I feel about sex slaves being more expensive than convict slaves, but whatever. They’re a luxury, makes sense they’d cost more. Female harpies are pretty cheap, so I’ll buy one of those.

They lined up all the slaves I could buy in front of me. But hey, wait. The cheapest sex slave here is that harpy I bought at the brothel. I thought I’d just be wasting the money I spent earlier if I bought her now, but I ended up buying her anyway after they gave me a discount based on how much I spent earlier.

They even offered me a child slave as a bonus. She apparently had grown attached to the harpy for whatever reason. She’s a demihuman too, with flimsy dog ears. They must not have bathed her for a while, because she smells exactly like an unwashed dog. She does look feminine, but she’s too young to work as a sex slave. It wouldn’t matter much if she was older, though. She doesn’t even respond to me prodding her with my elbow. That’s no fun.

They were likely close to just “disposing” of her, judging by the fact she cost about as much as ten slightly moldy loaves of rye bread. She does follow simple orders, though, so I can get some use out of her by making her work as a maid or something. If that doesn’t work out, I can just sacrifice her to the dungeon. It’s that simple.

I pick up the child slave since she walks so slow and carry her back to the [Ordinary Cave]. We come across two adventurers on the way and surprise attack them from behind. Perfect. Now we might get a room to put these two slaves into.

“Luck sure is on my side lately, heh.” I cackle to myself.

# Keima’s Perspective

Day 18

One week had passed since the bandits bought those slaves. In a certain sense, the dungeon has been peaceful. No adventurers have come by and no bandits have died. They went out looting twice, and came back with corpses the second time. Four corpses, 600 DP. It must have been too hard to capture them alive.

...Honestly though, is two raiding trips a week really enough to sustain twenty-seven people? I know two of those people aren’t fighting, but still. Oh, how am I rewarding them? Don’t worry. I’m teaching them that it’ll take a long time for me to reward them if they don’t kill the people inside the dungeon. I’m not so easy to please. But either way, we’re getting tons of DP now that lots of “intruders” are hanging out in the dungeon all the time. Though, I feel like we’re getting more DP than we should from just twenty-seven people. One of the slaves they bought must be pretty strong.

Unsurprisingly, the bandits were fucking the harpy every single day, treating her like a sex toy. Yeah... That was the only thing I wasn’t too happy about. I knew that was the fate all sex slaves faced, but as a Japanese person, it wasn’t so easy for me to get used to.

“...I’m really surprised they haven’t gotten tired of doing that yet.”

“Yeaaah. It’s starting to be a real eyesore.”

“I was starting to like them a little, but I guess I just didn’t know them very well.”

Huh. Rokuko’s not happy about a woman being brutalized like that, huh? She’s got more humanity than I thought.

“It’s like... They’re covering my dungeon with dirty juices and stuff. It really ticks me off, somehow.”

“Oh, that’s what you’re upset about. Shouldn’t you be getting mad about me using the Master Room as a bathroom, then?”

“Oh, you and Gobsuke are fine, don’t worry about it. You two can’t help needing to go to the bathroom... and you’re both monsters I summoned myself, so.” You’re still calling me a monster...? Well, I guess she did summon me.

“It’s kind of like you two are just a part of me. I don’t like absorbing that stuff, but... like I said, you two can’t help it.”

“Alright, makes sense to me. But... shouldn’t you, like, actually love absorbing Goblin poop?”

“Keima? You’re misunderstanding something about me. Definitely.”

By the way, the boss was using the young dog-eared slave as a dakimakura (a body pillow generally with an anime girl on its cover) at night since she had the soft, smooth skin of a child. Aside from that, though, she was just a general maid. She took care of the bandits’ trash and whatnot. They would occasionally punch or kick her for no reason, but she didn’t respond. She didn’t even groan. She just stared ahead with her dead eyes. The silver lining was that they didn’t lock her up in the jail. She hung out beneath the boss’s bed when she wasn’t doing anything else. Makes sense. You use dakimakuras when sleeping, and putting things you use while sleeping under your bed is just how things work.

“Humans are really neat. Is that how your species always raises children?”

“No way. That’s just child abuse, plain and simple. I don’t know how things work in this world, but I’m absolutely confident that they’re just being cruel.”

“...Yeaaah. Actually, like, is the harpy woman even still alive?”

“She’s pretty exhausted, but since we’re still getting DP from her, she’s alive.” It would be problematic for them if the harpy died, so they’ve been at the very least making sure she doesn’t die. They wouldn’t want to lose their only real woman. But despite that, they were still being really violent with her. It hurt to watch. I don’t have a rape fetish or anything, after all. Consent comes first. But misgivings or not, I didn’t do anything to stop them. I watched these bandits slaughter male adventurers. I would be a hypocrite if I went out of my way to save those two slaves just because they’re girls. There was no merit in doing so. I would only be making things harder for myself. I turned off the monitor so I didn’t have to watch the harpy being raped and then went to sleep.

Day 19

“Oh wow. There’s a ton of people coming...” I opened up the map after hearing Rokuko whisper that. By pulling the map back to look around the general area, I could see information about the outside of the dungeon. It was limited to a range about as far as I could see by just looking out the entrance with my naked eyes, but inside that range, there were plenty of details. There I saw that there was already a platoon of red enemy dots, advancing towards our dungeon with a trained pace. It seemed that my peaceful days were finally over. Or perhaps, peace was finally coming for the first time.

“Thirty people, huh? I guess they’re finally here. Not sure if this is too early or what...”

“They’re finally here? You knew these people would be coming?”

“Yep. This is probably the squad sent to exterminate the bandits. Judging from how organized their marching is, they’re pretty well trained. I bet they’re knights. ...Yeah, the bandits are finished now. It’d be pretty great if they actually managed to survive somehow, though.”

The bandits noticed the knights too right after I finished saying that. I opened up the monitor and started watching them. It really was convenient that I could look into the dungeon from any angle, as if every room had multiple security cameras placed within them. One of the boss’s scouts had just gotten back to the dungeon.

“Boss, we’re in trouble! Knights are coming!”

“What the?! How’d they find us?! We killed everyone who saw us here!” The boss of the bandits was panicking. He didn’t seem to realize that it was precisely because they had killed everyone who found them that knights had eventually been dispatched to eliminate them.

“But hold on a second... Knights are humans. They ain’t invincible, we can kill them too. How many of them are there?”

“S-Sorry, I ran back here as soon as I saw their armor. There was at least, uuuh, at least five of them!”

“Tch, alright... Guess it doesn’t matter how many of them there are. We’re still gonna ambush’m here in this dungeon.”

“We are?”

“Yeah. We can knock their numbers down with a surprise attack, and either way, we’d be dead if they surrounded us outside.”

“Oooh! Nice plan, boss! Alright! Didja hear that, everybody? We’re gonna ambush’m!”

“YEAH!”

“HELL YEAH!”

“LET’S DO IT!”

It looked like the bandits were ready to fight, and they were planning to do so in the dungeon. Very convenient. I’m so glad I’ve been teaching the boss how to use the hallways and doors to ambush people in the dungeon. I’m so glad he’s not smart enough to realize running away is the best option here.

“So, do you think the bandits can win?”

“Well, it’ll depend on how strong those knights are... But if they’re at least as strong as those three adventurers from before, the bandits are definitely screwed. They’ll all die.”

It wouldn’t be long before I could see the knights directly on the monitor. I decided to watch the bandits get eliminated from start to finish. All this was happening because of me, after all.

The bandits spread out, with eight of them staying in the entrance room, eight hiding in the room halfway to the core room, and nine (including the boss) camping out in the core room itself. Although there was strength in numbers, they wouldn’t be able to ambush the knights if they all stayed in one room, though that would be physically impossible anyway. The knights reached the entrance to the cave right after the bandits finished hiding.

“All soldiers, halt. Hm... Henry, is this the [Ordinary Cave]?”

“Yes. I believe this is where the bandits are hiding out. Please... avenge Beck for me.”

“You have my word. Thank you for your assistance. O Life, greet mine wave with a hearty pulse—{Life Search}.”

A knight covered head to toe in armor used a skill. Moments later, a clear wave of energy spread out from him in all directions. Judging from its name, it was a skill that could detect nearby life forms. It probably worked like echolocation. But either way, I knew it would be enough to make the bandits’ ambush meaningless.

“Hm... It appears that there are indeed eight bandits inside. They’re hiding by the entrance, waiting to ambush us.”

There certainly were eight bandits waiting in the first room. But there were more elsewhere, obviously... Maybe the {Life Search} wave got blocked off by the closed wooden doors, making it impossible for him to detect the bandits behind them. Or was it just an area of effect that simply didn’t reach that far?

“That’s how many the report said there would be.”

“Stand at the ready, men. Our mission begins now. They might have prisoners... For safety’s sake, we’ll start with the sleeping drug.”

“Yes, sir!”

“Five of you will remain behind in case there are others lying in wait outside. Everyone else, surround the entrance and finish off any bandits that come running out.”

“Understood.” The knights surrounded the entrance to the cave and started burning some kind of incense.

...Welp. That’s pretty cheap. Though I don’t blame them for not walking right into a trap.

A few minutes after the incense started burning, the bandits started to panic. They had all noticed the smell of the incense, and one of them had passed out after being unable to resist his sleepiness.

“Ngh, this is... a sleeping drug! C-Crap, we gotta run deeper into the cave!”

“No, we should go and attack them before we get knocked out! There can’t be many of them out there if they’re pulling cheap tricks like this! Let’s go get’m!”

“The smoke won’t get through the doors if we sh—ngh! Wh-What are you doing...?!”

“Hmph. You just stay here, coward. I’ll take care of everything myself!”

New Guy C, who had killed an adventure earlier and became the boss’s right hand man, headed out of the dungeon with five slaves. The only ones left behind were the guy who had fallen asleep and the guy who had recommended that they retreat. New Guy C had punched him in the stomach, causing him to fall to his knees.

The six bandits who went outside, tired from the drug as they were, could barely do anything as the knights surrounding the entrance cut them down. Their chipped, dull blades bounced pathetically off the knights’ armor. All they could do was scream in pain and fear while dying like chumps.

The eighth bandit collapsed to the ground and fell unconscious, but not before hearing his screaming allies and thinking “aaah, I was right...” to himself. Though he didn’t seem to realize that it had been the wrong call to join the bandits in the first place.

The smoke from the incense began to fade, but the knight from before waited until he was sure everyone still inside was asleep before casting {Life Search} again.

“{Life Search}... Hm, it seems that two bandits are still inside.”

“Alright... This hallway is certainly cramped. We’ll go in rows of two. Keep your guard up, men.” The knights began to slowly infiltrate the dungeon. Though... they had technically been “inside” the dungeon ever since they circled the entrance. Yeah, expanding the dungeon outside a little from the entrance was a good call. We woulda missed out on the DP from those six dudes if I hadn’t done that.

“...Alright, here’s the two bandits. Finish them off.”

“Should we really do that?”

“Even if they do have allies on the outside, they won’t be coming to save them now. That means our job is to eliminate all the bandits in this hideout. Once we crush the leader, we can leave any possible survivors to adventurers... And just look. There’s more rooms inside. The boss of these lowlifes is likely in the room furthest inside... and if he’s not, we can assume he’s one of these. Best to kill them all now.”

“Understood.” The two sleeping bandits had their throats slit, earning us DP.

I felt my shirt being pulled and turned to see Rokuko looking at me with a puzzled expression.

“Are you sure I shouldn’t be absorbing the corpses? We’re kinda losing a lot of DP like this.”

“...Don’t even think about doing that. We won’t be able to trick them if you start absorbing those corpses.”

“Trick them?”

“...If they learn that dungeons eat people, or at least, if they learn that a beginner dungeon like ours is powering up by eating corpses, they might view us as dangerous and try to destroy the Core. I do have a backup plan, but...”

“Ngh... We’ll die if the Core gets destroyed. Wait... a backup plan? You didn’t mention that before.”

“...Remember that Goblin room I made a while ago?”

“Oh, right! The one that’s kinda far away from us! You were calling it a dummy ‘Ordinary Cave,’ right?”

“Yeah. The maps here aren’t so accurate, so there being another cave nearby shouldn’t arouse any suspicion... maybe. Hopefully, we’ll be able to trick them into thinking that the other cave is the actual ‘Ordinary Cave,’ and then they’ll leave us alone.”

“Ohhhh, okay. I get it... Wait, um... What about the Dungeon Core?” In truth, I wanted to place the dummy Core in the other cave and use the castling function, but that wasn’t gonna happen. Oh, by the way, the castling function allowed one to swap the real Dungeon Core with a dummy Core. It was a great tool, but it took 5,000 DP to use; we didn’t have enough saved up to use it. Not to mention, it was necessary to connect the dummy Core with the real Core with a path, which meant it couldn’t even be set up if intruders were in the way.

“...Well, we used hallways and doors to separate the rooms on this floor, so worst-case scenario, we can turn the Core room into an impregnable trap fortress.” It was possible to set traps on a floor with intruders by separating rooms with doors and hallways. Though, of course, you couldn’t set traps in rooms with invaders in them.

“Um, but there’s a bunch of bandits camping out in the Core room.” ...Of course, the bandits count as intruders.

“Yeaaah... In other words, all we can do right now is act like an innocent dungeon and hope they leave us alone.”

“I get it. So that’s why you don’t want me to absorb the corpses. But how are you going to make sure they leave us alone?”

“...L-Let’s just see what happens for now.” I don’t want to tell her that there’s actually nothing we can do right now.

I shifted my focus back to the knights.

“This must be their treasure room. The bed... ngh!”

“...I recognize this smell. They must have a woman with them. But this smell is so intense, I imagine they aren’t using {Purification} to clean up much... or perhaps the smell is so intense it won’t come out no matter how many times they cast it.” The knights had started to investigate the boss’s bedroom. By the way, the dog-eared girl was still underneath the bed. She stared ahead with her dead eyes, not moving an inch. Eventually, the knights advanced to the next room without finding her. That wouldn’t have happened if they had used {Life Search}, but they didn’t for some reason. Maybe it only had a limited number of uses. Or maybe the knights who had been assigned to the search party just couldn’t use it. The boss-type knight that had used {Life Search} outside of the cave was still by the entrance, giving orders to his subordinates.

Beyond the boss’s room was the jail, which was also being used as a storage room. All the loot that could help in battle had been taken to the Core room on the opposite end of the dungeon, so there wasn’t anything worthwhile left. They had even taken the harpy herself with them.

“There’s nothing good here, huh?”

“Do you think our timing was just bad? There might’ve been some more valuables here if we got here sooner. There is a lot of food, though. Maybe if we had gotten here later, there’d be m—”

“Hey, don’t talk like that. But either way, I’m sure no one will mind if we take some of this beer.”

We had taken anything that looked even a little good into the Master Room before the knights got there. That said, it’s not like there was anything good before we went through the stuff. Most of it was just moldy bread... The only really useful thing was, er, a Light-enchanted magic item? It worked kind of like a lantern.

The only things left for the knights were food and the shoddiest of the bandits’ treasure. Since the jail was a dead end, the knights carried the boxes of food back outside. Once most of them were outside, the knights resumed their investigation. One of them placed his hand on a door and made to open it, but at that moment... A sword had sprouted from the door.

“Gah?!” A bandit had stabbed at the knight through the door itself in a surprise attack. He then kicked down the door and started swinging.

“DIIIIIIEEEEEE!”

“Ngh?! Fall back, Ryan! Hyaaaah!” The wounded knight retreated and the battle began.

“Curses! I told you they would likely be hiding behind the door, and yet you still let your guard down... O Light, soothe the wounded sheep before you—{Healing}!”

“S-Sorry, captain... ngh, nnn!” Magical light enveloped the hurt soldier and began healing his wounds. The large gash on his chest closed up and stopped bleeding. He was still visibly exhausted, but there was less chance of him dying. ...Healing magic, huh? That’s the first time I’ve seen it.

And before I knew it, the battle was over.

“Sorry, but Beggs got hurt in the fight as well. Could I ask you to heal him?”

“Bloody hell, don’t you know how exhausting it is to cast this spell? ...If I pass out, you’ll be the one taking charge in my stead. O Light, soothe the wounded sheep before you—{Healing}.”

“There’s no use getting frustrated with me. You’re the only one here who knows how to cast Restoration Magic. Sheesh... Our lives would be a lot easier if they would just give us more [{Healing} Scrolls]...”

“Restoration Magic scrolls are difficult enough to produce that they simply don’t have enough to do anything like that. The Church keeps most of the scrolls to themselves for a reason.” Hm. That’s a nifty bit of information. Let’s see here... Seems like I can buy a [{Healing} Scroll] for 100,000 DP. They really are rare... I could buy a weak dragon for that much DP, geez. But, uh, dang. With healing magic like that, the bandits are definitely screwed. No way out of this one for them. All I can hope is that they take down as many knights as possible while they’re getting slaughtered.

“Alright. Next room. Be wary of any surprise attacks if you don’t want to end up like Ryan. Though... I had heard that this [Ordinary Cave] is an extremely small dungeon. There are far more rooms than I expected here...”

“Captain. There are pickaxes lying on the ground. The bandits might have dug out these rooms themselves.”

“Hrm? But dungeon walls will simply regenerate no matter how much you dig into them. Why would they do that?”

“I do not know... But you can see the pickaxe marks on these walls.” I glanced at Rokuko for confirmation.

“Uh-huh. Normally, any holes you dig will just close up. Humans are like that too, aren’t they?”

“So, you’re saying it’s like wounds healing over time.” Rokuko responded with a nod and a “that’s right.”

“Hm...? I wonder what’s going on here. Though, thinking about it, taking up residence in a dungeon is an extremely rare occurrence in the first place. There might be a connection here.”

“Are you suggesting that the leader of the bandits is the Dungeon Boss?”

“Hahaha! I’ve never heard of a human becoming a Dungeon Boss. Are these bandits led by a dragon?”

“These rooms are too small for any dragon.” The knights steadily advanced farther into the dungeon while talking amongst themselves. Out of all the bandits, only the nine hiding out in the Core room remained. That wasn’t counting the harpy slave, since she would likely be too weak to fight well.

The knights proceeded so cautiously that it took them a lot of time just to clear out of the seven-room dungeon, but eventually they reached the Core room. Though, the knights themselves wouldn’t realize it was the Core room until they opened the door.

I shifted my gaze to the bandits. One of them had been crouching by the door with his ear against it. I caught him right as he stood up to go report to the boss.

“...Looks like they’re here.”

“Alright. Archers, get ready. And be quiet. Shoot them down right after they open the door.”

“Boss, are we gonna be alright?”

“Hmph. They should be pretty worn down by now. All we’ll have to do is finish them off with a final push.” I wondered how they would react if I told them that the knights had healed themselves and weren’t worn down in the least. That’d have to remain a mystery, though. I didn’t want them to try and destroy the Core as a final act of revenge.

The wooden door to the Core room creaked open. The boss signaled for the archers to shoot the moment the door opened wide enough. Clang! Clang! The arrows noisily bounced off all the knights’ armor. Except for one. By pure luck—good luck for the bandits, bad luck for the knights—one arrow slipped through the eye slit on one of the knights’ helmets and pierced his brain. I saw our DP shoot up before my eyes. They had killed him in one shot.

“Louie! Bloody hell, he’s dead!”

“Tch...! We only got one of them!”

“Boss!”

“C’mon, boys! Aim for the joints! Our swords’ll just bounce off their armor!”

“You’ll pay for this, bastards!” A knight charged forward. Seeing that, the boss of the bandits put his sword against the harpy’s neck.

“Hey, move another step and I’ll slit this girl’s neck.”

“Ngh, a hostage?! Wait, look! It’s a demihuman slave! Don’t worry about her, just kill the bandits!” The bandits got some blows in after the knights briefly paused, but they didn’t do much damage. The distraction tactic itself was fine, the bandits were just too untrained. If they were better with their blades, they probably would have been able to take down one of the knights there.

“Tch, they figured it out! Fucking hell! C’mon, you bitch, charge at the knights! Make them panic!”

“Ah, aaah!”

“Hmph, making a slave like that attack for you won’t change a thing!” The harpy slave tried to obey the boss’s order, but her legs were too weak for her to move very well. She was cut down in seconds. Our DP went up. Well... at least she died in a single blow, without any unnecessary suffering.

“Wait a second! Aren’t you Melon-Puke Waver?!”

“DON’T CALL ME BY THAT NAME!”

“Uwaaah!”

The boss of the bandits charged forward in a rage. The force of his first blow knocked the armored knight to his knees, and the boss wasted no time to drive his sword into a gap in the knight’s armor. He then twisted his sword around as hard as he could inside of the knight’s body. Our DP went up again. I don’t wanna see what that guy looks like now... And what kinda nickname is Melon-Puke, anyway?

“What?! This is the shameless fellow who puked up a melon while dining with the princess?!”

“You’ll pay for killing Louie and Eugene, vomit-face!”

“I only threw up because the melon had gone bad! It wasn’t my fault! Why’d she have to fucking put a bounty over my head?! FUUUCK!”

“Not only did you eat too much and throw up as a result, but you unjustly blamed the chef for serving rotten food and killed him! Right in front of the princess, too!”

“SHUT UP! He was just jealous because the princess had fallen in love with me! I’d be the emperor right now if it weren’t for him! Fucking damnit!” Oh, thanks for explaining why he’s called Melon-Puke. I more or less guessed from the name, but still. That was a wild story.

After that, Melon-Puke got so mad he fought far better than I had ever expected. He killed one more knight and wounded several others.

But that was as far as he got. His allies that had been assisting him from the side were gradually cut down, and soon enough he was surrounded. In the blink of an eye, a sword was thrust clean through his stomach.

“Fuuuck...! And things... were just getting started... for me...” Melon-Puke collapsed onto his knees and then fell to the ground. One of the knights grabbed on to his hair and pulled his head up.

“Alright, Melon-Puke. Do you have any more allies anywhere?”

“Tch... Nope, you already killed everyone, fuck... Why’d this happen? I did everything... they said...”

His voice had gotten pretty raspy, but the knight still heard him loud and clear. And so, the final bandit turned into DP just like all the others.

“Was there someone pulling the strings here? They might’ve gotten away.”

“He said this was everyone, but... We can’t be sure. Oh. It looks like this room has the Dungeon Core.”

“Yeah? Huh... So that’s a Dungeon Core. I’ve never seen one before.”

“This was a pretty shallow dungeon, just like we heard. Only had one floor.”

One of the knights pointed his sword at the Dungeon Core sprouting out of the wall.

“Alriiight. Time to destroy the Core.” Destroy the Core. Hey, uh, what’d you just say? You’re gonna do what now? My mouth dried up. I felt a cold shiver run down my spine. I watched through the monitor as the knight lifted up his sword... and then brought it down.

“Gob!”

“Gobsuke?!”

Gobsuke jumped out of the Master Room. Neither I nor Rokuko could stop him. It might have been his natural instincts as a dungeon monster to do everything in his power to stop the Core from being destroyed.

“Woah?! Th-The hell?! Take this!”

“Gob... ngggh...” We watched as Gobsuke popped into the Core Room and was immediately cut down. He was cut clean in half and died just like that.

“Friggin’ Goblin, getting in my way... Let’s try that again.”

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing, new guy?! This dungeon is under our protection!” The captain stopped the knight after he rose his sword into the air again.

“This is a low-tier dungeon that the Adventurer’s Guild manages. It only ever produces Goblins and is as simple of a dungeon as can be.”

“Oh, that’s right... My apologies, captain.” The knight lowered his sword after being stopped by the captain.

“...Crap. I was so close to destroying a Dungeon Core and becoming a Holy Paladin...”

“I understand how you feel, but our job here is done. And if you could become a Holy Paladin through destroying the Core of a dungeon that doesn’t even have a Dungeon Boss, the capital would be overflowing with Holy Paladins right now.”

“Tch... Well, that’s true. This Core only managed to summon a single Goblin to protect itself. No glory in killing this one...”

“Idiot. You’re getting a pay cut.”

“Whaaat? Come ooon!”

“Well, just think about it. Wouldn’t it just be embarrassing to be knighted as a Holy Paladin for destroying a weak dungeon like this?”

“...Thinking about it, Melon-Puke was more or less the Dungeon Boss. Do you want them to say ‘O Holy Paladin, who conquered the [Ordinary Cave] and defeated Melon-Puke...’ or something like that? You’ll get destroyed, man. People would call you the ‘Melon-Puke Paladin’ or ‘The Holy Paladin of the Ordinary Cave,’ something like that.”

“Aaah, I wouldn’t want that... But still. I can’t believe we lost Louie, Eugene, and Thomas to a bunch of bandits.”

“Melon-Puke was actually a pretty fearsome foe...” Although many of them had died or been wounded, the knights were all relaxed. Their job was done. I suddenly realized I hadn’t been breathing and thus started gasping for air. Whew... I thought I was gonna die. For the first time since I came to this world, someone tried to kill me. I wasn’t just watching someone else die on a screen. I was watching someone try to kill me, personally. I almost peed myself... Almost! I didn’t actually do it, okay? My pants are clean. Though... That guy said he could become a Paladin if he destroyed the Dungeon Core. I wonder what’s up with that.

“Uuu, uwaah... G-Gobsukeee...” Rokuko was crouched down on the floor, crying. Goblin or not, we had spent the past few weeks together with Gobsuke. We had tons of memories together... Okay, not really. The only thing we did together was eat meals every now and again. I wonder if Rokuko ever did anything with him while I was asleep.

“At least give back the [Jelly Rolls] I lent you before dyiiiing...” I guess not. We were united only by food.

“Gobsuke... We really owe him a lot now. If not for him, the Core probably woulda been destroyed and we’d be dead right now.”

“Uuu, my [Jelly Rolls]...” Actually... This might just be her way of grieving Gobsuke without looking weak. I opened the menu and bought a set of six [Jelly Rolls] for Rokuko.

“Here, have some [Jelly Rolls]. Cheer up.”

“Eh?! Really?! I’ll cheer up, I’ll cheer sooo up! So so so up!” Rokuko cheered up so much that I thought light would start shining out of her eyes. Oh, right. This girl’s a monster that sent countless Goblins to their deaths to try and protect herself from adventurers.

“Wait, what is this stuff?! There’s something dark and sweet inside of it! Ah, but it’s really tasty too.”

...Oh yeah. I never told her that I tricked her into thinking that [Red Bean Paste Rolls] were [Jelly Rolls].

＊ ＊ ＊

The bandit corpses were piled up in the entrance room. It looked like the knights would be taking their deceased allies back home with them. It was honestly pretty disgusting, but I couldn’t look away. I needed to stay focused and look for an opportunity to score some extra DP. ...They’re pouring oil on them. I guess the plan is to burn the bodies. In the middle of the cave, though...? Air flows through dungeons no matter how deep they get, so I guess they may just not be aware that suffocating due to lack of oxygen is a thing outside of water. After all, the bandits lit torches in our dungeon like it was nothing.

“These scum don’t even deserve to be offered up to the dungeon.”

“Did you cover them all with enough oil? We’ll only have more work to do if any of them become ghouls later.”

“I did. It’s okay to burn everything here except the stuff we’re taking back, right?”

“Yes. Even if there are any survivors hiding out somewhere, they won’t get very far without any supplies.” So he said, but there wasn’t anything really worth burning. The beds were about the most valuable thing there. Their plan was to light the bodies in the entrance room on fire and let the resulting blaze take care of everything else. That was convenient for me. Once the fires rose up, I’d be able to absorb the bodies without any problems.

“Stand back, I’m lighting the fire. Dance, O Flames—{Ignition}.”

{Ignition} seemed to be a spell that made small flames flicker from the user’s fingertips, like a lighter. Once those flames made contact with a trail of oil, the flame began to spread like an uncoiling snake, and before long the mountain of corpses within the cave was ablaze.

“Oh. Hey, should we do anything about that dog-eared slave?” By the time Rokuko remembered that, flames had already burned down the door to the boss’s room and were fast approaching the bed under which the dog-eared girl was hidden. Her dead eyes reflected that she had completely given up. The deceased harpy slave had the same eyes before she died. Huh. I didn’t do anything to protect her from the bandits, but I get the feeling she’ll appear in my dreams if I don’t save her here. Is it because she’s just a kid? I don’t want to have nightmares about this... That’ll get in the way of me sleeping well. Not like there’s any reason not to save her. She could actually be a big asset if I can make her my pawn somehow. At the very least, I could just keep using her as a maid. She’ll be anything but useless.

“...Well, I guess it doesn’t matter. She can just turn into DP for us.”

“No, wait. We’re gonna save her. Can we get her in here somehow?”

“Um, no. Do you want to go outside and try to get her yourself? Everything’s on fire out there. She’ll be dead before you get there.” Rokuko was right. Since there was an intruder (the dog-eared girl) on the floor, we could only enter and exit the Master Room through the Dungeon Core. And outside of the Dungeon Core was a sea of fire. Physically saving her would be beyond impossible.

“Plus, we can’t ‘withdraw’ intruders or anything like that. She’s not an item.” After hearing Rokuko say that, an idea struck me like lightning.

“No... What’re you talking about, Rokuko? She is an item.”

“Eh?!” I started to talk as if trying to convince both myself and Rokuko of that.

“Slaves are tools. They belong to people. In other words, they’re items. Honestly, I’ve never seen her do anything on her own. She only ever obeyed orders. And now her owner, the boss of the bandits, is dead. The owner of that slave... that item is gone. When the owner of an item dies in a dungeon, their items become the dungeon’s items. Which means that girl is now an item belonging to us. Right, Rokuko?”

“U-Um... But she’s a living being with mana... Items aren’t like that...”

“But when you think about it, we can place monsters wherever we want in the dungeon as long as there aren’t any intruders on the floor. That means we move living beings in and out of the Core at will. Remember how we withdrew that moldy bread earlier? Well, mold is a living being. We could withdraw a treasure chest even if a mouse was inside of it, right? There’s no reason why we couldn’t withdraw a living being like a human. We can’t because she has mana? That doesn’t make sense. Magical items have mana. We withdrew that Light-enchanted magic item, remember? Same deal! We can do this too! WE CAN WITHDRAW HER!”

I glanced between the monitor and the map. The fire had reached the bed and started burning the sheets black. The map still displayed the dog-eared girl as a red dot, signifying her as an invader. Crap, that still wasn’t enough?! I didn’t convince Rokuko hard enough!

“B-But I’m telling you, slaves aren’t items!”

“Then she’s not even a slave! She’s a dakimakura! It’s a dakimakura! A pillow in the shape of a super young dog-eared girl! Just look, it can fit under the bed so we guys can hide it when the parents come home!” The only option left for me was to use conditioning on myself. In other words, hypnosis. And hypnosis is basically the same thing as sleeping. This is my time to shine! That’s a dakimakura, that’s a dakimakura, that’s a dakimakura, that’s a dakimakura...

I imagined it. That girl was a dakimakura. A dakimakura that’d feel amazing to squeeze in bed. It had ears to tease and play with. It was shaped like a human so one could dress it up with clothes and knee socks before playing with it.

Wow... This is going pretty well. Yeah. I can’t let a dakimakura that amazing get burned up. It’d be a total waste. Aaah. I want to sleep with that dakimakura. I could spend hours putting different kinds of knee socks on it. It looks pretty nice and warm, too. I could use it as a makeshift heater when the weather gets colder. Speaking of heaters, the boss of the bandits used Rokuko’s Core as a heater for his feet. Hahaha! Oh, I’m getting off subject a little. Y’know, I wonder if that dakimakura is more expensive than a [Heavenly Pillow]. A dark-skinned, dog-eared, little girl pillow must be expensive. That’s a high-grade item. To some people, that would be the most [Heavenly Pillow] in the world. Oh... Crap, I just remembered something nasty. Melon-Puke had been using it in the exact same way. Being used is a major sticking point for any dakimakura, but eh, it’ll be fine if I clean it thoroughly. A thorough cleaning will make it clean as new. Yep, yep. {Purification} sure is useful. I wonder how well it’ll clean a dakimakura. Either way, at least I don’t have to worry about taking the cover off and drying it outside where a neighbor might see it. Alriiight. Now I just need to get my hands on that pillow and start cleaning it.

By that point, the dog-eared girl had turned entirely into a dakimakura in my mind. I glanced at the map and saw that instead of a red invader dot, there was a green dot indicating an item.

“Alright, it’s a dakimakura. Withdraw!”

To sum it up: I did it.

＊ ＊ ＊

“Bwuh...?! H-How did you withdraw her?! Invaders can’t come into the Master Room!”

“Huh? All I did was withdraw a dakimakura. Oh yeah, and be sure to absorb the bandit corpses before they all burn up. But leave half of them behind, just in case the knights come in to check up on them.” Aaah, its hair is a little burnt. What a waste of pretty black hair. Well, hair can grow back, so no big deal. I’ll just cut off the burnt parts. A short haircut would look good on it.

I rubbed the soot off its squishy cheeks. Oh man, this thing feels really nice.

“Eh? I think I get it... wait, wait, no I don’t. She’s an invader! How did she get inside the Core?!”

“What’re you talking about? Dakimakuras are items. Why wouldn’t we be able to withdraw one?”

“Y-Yeah...? Honestly, I think I’m somehow actually starting to believe that...”

I tried casting {Purification} on the dakimakura. The {Purification} magic formed a bubble-like shape like always and lowered itself through the dakimakura from head to toe, thoroughly cleaning off all the filth that h—

“Aaah?!” ...The dakimakura let out a cute squeal. Whiiich reminded me. Oh yeah. This is actually the dog-eared slave girl. Not a pillow. Whew. A bit longer like that and I might never have snapped out of my own hypnosis...

“A-Alright, I’m back to my senses now. See? I told you we could withdraw her.”

“Oh, you’re back to normal? Then explain how you did that!”

“Sure. It’s pretty simple... I could do it because it was possible.” You thinking you couldn’t do it was just an assumption on your part. Magic is more free and less restrictive than you think... Though doing all that was pretty tiring.

“You saw it, right? I withdrew a slave. Cause they’re items.”

“Wow... I had no idea you could withdraw slaves, but I guess you can.” Yeah, it should be smart to make Rokuko think that. I don’t want to have to hypnotize myself again the next time we need to withdraw a slave. But anyway. What should we do with this dog-eared girl? Should I actually start using her as a dakimakura...?

“By the way, what’s this girl’s name? It’s kind of hard to talk about her without knowing her name.”

“That’s a good point... Er, do you have a name? Or at least, something that people call you?”

“Ah... ah... People called... me and the others, Niku... Master...”

“Alright. You’re Niku, then.” Her response was pretty slow, but she did answer me. Either way, the first thing to do was let her rest. I bought her a futon and some food with DP to start things off. She didn’t move at first, but she ate the food and got into the futon after I ordered her to. I decided to think more about what to do with Niku after the knights left. As long as they were still around, we weren’t safe.

Day 20

The knights didn’t really do much after that. They quietly made camp, checked that the corpses had all burned by noon, and then left. Yeah, I think it’s pretty impressive that they managed to cook meat and eat it while corpses were burning like thirty feet away from them. Like honestly. Wow.

We got a lot of DP thanks to all the dead bandits and how the band of thirty-some knights stayed within the dungeon radius for almost an entire day. We didn’t even have any problems absorbing the thoroughly burnt corpses. Suffice to say, we made bank. Adding it all up to what we had before... our DP stock had shot up to 14,504 in one fell swoop.

“Wow... I’ve never seen this much DP before in my life.” Compared to how little DP we were earning before, we had basically gotten rich overnight. But since the bandits were gone, our daily DP gain was less than before. We didn’t have to worry about Gobsuke anymore... but in his place, we had the dog-eared slave. We had to feed her too. Three meals a day with food and drink... We’ll be losing about 10 DP every day.

But our natural DP gain was only 10 a day. Maybe due to how we had withdrawn her as an item, the slave girl wasn’t earning us any DP. Though it was also possible that she just wasn’t strong enough to be worth any DP in the first place. Thanks to that, our DP earnings a day totaled to a spectacular zero... Wait, no. We were technically in the negatives since we would need to summon Goblins whenever adventurers came just to avoid suspicion. Could I sleep well in a situation like that? No, I couldn’t. I was a cautious, cautious man. I couldn’t bear to sit and watch as my savings slowly dwindled. So, unable to bear the weight of losing DP, I decided to fundamentally change this [Ordinary Cave].

...Haaah. I don’t wanna wooork.

# Rokuko’s Thoughts

It’s weird. Why’d things turn out like this? All I did was save up 1000 DP and roll the gacha with it, betting everything on a massive turnabout, but all I got was a weak-looking human named Keima. Somehow, he even turned into my Dungeon Master and now I have to obey everything he says!

What the heck happened? I don’t understand any of this. All I wanted to do was murder all those nasty bandits that put their gross feet on my Core. I definitely should’ve just used that DP to summon a mountain of Goblins. Aaah, geez! He ordered me to stay quiet while he’s sleeping, so I can’t even say anything. There’s a lot I want to talk to you about, buster!

So, I summoned a Goblin when he woke up and got yelled at. Not only that, but he didn’t do anything even when there was only one bandit still in the cave! It was the perfect opportunity for revenge! What’s with him?! All I want to do is attack the invaders with Goblins just like Number 89 told me to! Number 89 is amazing, you know?! She runs a dungeon in the middle of a capital city! You’re not even fit to lick her feet, Keima! She earns tons and tons of DP too! Anyway, he ordered me not to use DP without permission. It sucks, he’s using all the DP he wants on himself. I could understand food, whatever, but he bought a [Futon] for himself too. Grrr... That’s my DP!

And doesn’t this guy sleep way too much? I’m a Dungeon Core, so I don’t sleep at all. I wonder if sleeping really feels that nice.

Believe it or not, Keima actually used most of our saved up DP to give a gift to the bandits. He even made me write a letter thanking them for killing my Goblins even though I don’t feel that way at all.

AAAAH! GEEEEEZ! This guy is definitely sucking up to the bandits so they spare his life later! Or so I thought, but...

“Calm down. That gift just bought us some valuable time. I’ll kill them all soon enough, trust me.”

...That’s what he told me. With a deadly serious expression, too. Though, he said he’s doing it to make the place where he sleeps safer or something? I don’t know what’s going on in this guy’s head. I don’t understand him at all. And then he went back to sleep again. Explain things properly, geez!

So then, adventurers came while he was sleeping. The bandits fought and beat them. It was the first time in my life that something other than Goblins died inside my dungeon. Maybe these bandits aren’t so bad after all? But I still won’t forgive them for stepping on my Core!

So, I made Keima explain things after he woke up, and apparently that was all part of his plan. He knew that this would happen and steered things in this direction to earn us a bunch of DP. It is true that we earned way more DP from this than how much we used on the bandits. He actually knows what he’s doing. Wow.

Or so I thought, but then he used DP on the bandits again. He increased the number of rooms in my dungeon. But summoning a bunch of monsters in a single room is the best strategy! Or at least I thought it was, until Keima explained why it wasn’t. Being able to put a lot more Goblins in the dungeon is really nice! But he wouldn’t let me summon any Goblins. I just don’t get it.

I complained to him about how much DP he’s spending on the bandits, but he told me I was wrong. They can’t take the rooms to town and sell them, so they really belong to us. Mmm, that definitely seems right. Keima’s surprisingly smart, and it looks like he’s better at earning DP than I am.

But he really does sleep a lot... Hmph, hmph.

Oh, Gobsuke. Here, let me cast {Purification}. You knooow, Keima got really clean even though he used {Purification} on himself once. Normally you have to cast {Purification} on yourself a lot, like splashing yourself with water repeatedly. I wonder if he’s doing anything special? After that, the bandits went out of their way to bring corpses back to the dungeon, or kidnap adventurers to kill inside of the dungeon. Just like Keima said, our DP is going way up.

Also, [Melon Rolls]. Keima summoned some kind of bread I’ve never seen before in my life, called [Melon Rolls]. They’re so sweet and tasty I can hardly believe it... I guess eating food is actually pretty nice. Especially [Melon Rolls]. They’re amazing. I like [Red Bean Paste Rolls] too, but [Melon Rolls] are the absolute best. Eh?! I have to share them with Gobsuke? O-Okay... but I won’t give him any of my [Melon Rolls], got it?!

When I sensed some adventurers coming and told Keima about them, he told me that he actually had a plan for the Goblin room he made a while ago. Keima’s been taking his job as Dungeon Master really seriously. I thought he’s just been sleeping while making me write letters and withdraw things, but... That’s not true. He actually has a lot going on inside his head. You know, I guess in my case I would just summon a bunch of Goblins without thinking whenever adventurers came... Mmm. Maybe I should start thinking harder about things?

...And so, before I knew it, all the bandits were completely gone. I thought I was going to die when that knight swung at my Core, but everything ended up okay.

Except... Gobsuke died to save me...

I had just recently started to understand him without words, but now he’s dead. That... That makes me a little sad.

The bandits... Keima had killed them all, just like he said. They turned into a ton of DP for us.

...Keima’s really amazing. I can’t believe he actually managed to kill all the bandits. I definitely couldn’t have done that on my own, with just Goblins. No way.

...Maybe Keima could have done it with just Goblins, though. After all, he killed all the bandits without using a single monster or trap.

Also, he withdrew a tiny slave into the Master Room for some reason. I don’t really understand why, but the Menu is treating her like an item even though I thought she was an invader. I didn’t know that you could withdraw slaves as an item after their owners died. But I guess it makes sense that I wouldn’t know about that, since no slave owners had ever died in my dungeon before.

...What are we even going to do with this slave? Are we really going to use her as a dakimakura? No way, nooo way. This is Keima we’re talking about. He definitely has a really smart plan with what to do with her.

But her name is “Niku,” huh...? That’s definitely slang for something. I don’t think it means anything nice, but... if Keima says it’s okay, I won’t worry about it.

I wonder what’s going to happen now? My dungeon is a lot different from what it used to be, but... That’s okay. I’ll leave it all to the Dungeon Master. With Keima handling things, I might grow up to be more like Number 89! Ah, but I need to try hard too. I want to be useful, even if it’s just a little!