Side Chapter — Winter Monsters

Winter. The season of frost where snow falls and builds up upon the ground. In order to save heating costs, I allowed townspeople to use the onsen for free. Naturally, I planned to start charging them taxes at some point to earn a monetary profit for them, but for now I was letting them pass with just their daily DP income. More than half of the townspeople didn’t have a steady income, after all.

But despite being such a cold winter, my room was warm and toasty. I had put tatami mats on the ground. There was no problem with that since we could claim they came from within the dungeon. Each mat cost 300 DP. Heheh. Feels great to have lots of disposable income. And these tatami mats are trapped, too! You aren’t allowed to step on them with dirty feet! In order to enter my room, you have to take off your shoes... Heheheh, in other words, I get to see as many feet fresh out of shoes as I want!

Too bad only Rokuko and Niku really come in here. Too bad indeed. I want to see other feet. Besides Rokuko, Niku is way too young. Though thinking about it, Rokuko’s almost always in her loli mode when hanging out in my room. Why? I’m not a lolicon. But I’m also too embarrassed to tell her to go into her adult form so I can look at her feet.

Which led me to come up with a genius plan. I wouldn’t wait for them to come here; I would build a break room for inn employees and place the same trapped tatami mats inside of it. Heheh, going on the offensive with traps. Now I’m thinking like a Dungeon Master.

In order to encourage my employees to enter the room, I built something special for it. The symbol of winter. The winter monster itself. A kotatsu.

“So this is what you made for us, Master?”

“How in the world does one clean such a thing?”

“I helped him make iiit. I engraved modular magic circles so you can adjust the heat by altering the width of the lines. In many ways this is veeery revolutionary technology... Aaah, so waaarm.”

It was a regular square kotatsu that sat four people. Neruneh entered it from the side in front of mine. Since Neruneh had made it with me, she fell for its magical charms before any other employee. The break room had its first victim. Her simple brown socks were pretty nice.

“...If it is acceptable, I would like to try it out as well. Please excuse me for sitting beside you, Master.”

“I will join in as well. There is still much time before I need to get back to cooking, after all.” Rei and Kinue took off their shoes to step onto the tatami. Nice black stockings, Rei. You know what’s up. And Kinue? Keeping it green with your socks too, I see. Personally I’m not such a big fan of green, but sticking to a single color really boosts a girl’s points, I think.

But soon, both of their feet snuck beneath the kotatsu and left my line of sight. Crap...! I can’t look at them now! This kotatsu was a waste of time... I should have just made a standard break room. Monster of the winter my ass. Whatever.

“Oooh, this truly is warm...”

“This is a pleasant degree of warmth.”

“Eheheeeh. We spent a lot of time adjusting the heat to be juuust right.”

“Yep, we sure... we sure did. Haaah. Oh well.” I let out of a sigh of grief over the visual feast taken from me and tried to move on. The kotatsu was still nice to have on its own.

But right before I fully gave up, something bumped against my feet. Curious, I grabbed it... and immediately heard a “Hyaaahn?!” It was Rei’s feet. She had bumped them against mine after stretching her legs.

“F-Forgive me, Master. I seem to have bumped your feet.”

“I don’t mind. Bumping feet is part of a kotatsu’s charm!”

“Oh, are you supposed to stretch your legs? I will as well, then... ah. Excuse me.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it, Kinue. The underside of a kotatsu is basically unclaimed territory. We’re all on equal footing here, heh.” Th-This is pretty nice. I shouldn’t have looked down on the mighty kotatsu. I’ve done another 180 and now I’m back to positivity.

“Ah, Keima! I heard you built something new, is that thing it?”

“Hey, Rokuko. Yeah it is, come on i—Ah. All four sides are taken.”

“Mmm... Guess I’ll squeeze in beside you then, okay?” Rokuko jammed herself next to me, infiltrating the kotatsu by force.

“C’mon. There’s not enough space.”

“What’s the problem, aren’t we partners?”

“Yeah, yeah. Partners in body and soul and all that. Ehhh... I should’ve made it a little bigger.” I went with a square design this time, but it might have been better to make it a long rectangle. Or maybe just a bigger square in general. It’s always fun to crawl beneath a kotatsu and sleep with just your head sticking out.

Anyway, yeah, Rokuko got into the kotatsu by pressing against me and really squeezing in. Gah...! She’s soft and smells so nice!

“Wow, this really is warm... But you three, get out. Your feet are in the way.”

“Huh? No waaay. This is so warm, I never wanna leaaave.”

“Agreed, this is quite nice...”

“Also, do you truly want us to leave, Lady Rokuko? If we do, there will be open spots for you to move to.”

“...Ahhh. Actually, you three can stay.”

I’m glad the Dungeon Core and monster girls are getting along. Uh... Don’t worry, they didn’t get so absorbed in the kotatsu’s power that they ignored a direct order from the Dungeon Core. I’m pretty sure I didn’t have her make a magic tool that dangerous.

Afterwards, everyone was so reluctant to leave the kotatsu that the entire shift system nearly broke down, so I had to give all employees strict orders to follow their given schedules. But before that, I enjoyed my time in the kotatsu, despite Rokuko pushing her somewhat sweaty body needlessly hard against me.