Chapter 1 - Prologue: Becoming a Dungeon Master
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“You have been reincarnated as the master of my dungeon. Lure countless adventurers with desire, and create a dungeon that can drain their blood, mana, and life through exploration and combat, Master.”
A demon with the appearance of a young girl speaks these words to me.
Her eyes are sharp and restless, with slanted eyes with visible white between the iris and the lower eyelid, and her long, wavy hair cascades down her body.
Her figure is slender and flat-chested, but... she doesn’t exactly look like a child, though...
More like an underdeveloped adult woman who appears childlike. Hmm... she’s got just the kind of look I like. Not bad at all.
As I’m lost in thought, staring at her, she gives me a suspicious look.
“Hey... are you even listening?”
She scolded me.
“Ah, yeah... I’m listening, I’m listening.
I already heard the gist of it from you ‘before I died,’ so I know most of it. I was just observing your appearance since I’m seeing you for the first time.”
The young man, now called Master, replies with a confident tone.
That’s right... this isn’t the first time I’ve heard her voice.
I was on the verge of death in my previous life.
When I was bedridden in a hospital for about half a year with an incurable illness,
one day, a voice echoed in my mind...
The content was pretty much the same as what she just said.
“Make a contract with me...
If you do, I’ll reincarnate your soul as a Dungeon Master after your death.
As a Dungeon Master, you’ll lure adventurers into your dungeon.”
...I thought it was just a hallucination I heard while dying,
but I never expected it to be real.
I was even able to have conversations with this hallucination before.
I had already received some basic explanations about being a Dungeon Master back then.
And so, while lying in my hospital bed, I spent my time fantasizing about dungeon management.
Would adventurers come if I did this? Would they avoid it if I did that? And so on.
Unlike the time before I heard the voice—when I was dying, unable to move, drowning in despair—
the time I spent lost in thoughts of dungeon management was actually quite enjoyable.
From the moment I heard that voice until my death, it was about three months...
Compared to the time when I was just despairing over my fate, thinking, ”I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die,”
thinking ”It’d be great if I could really manage a dungeon after I die...” had been much better.
Up until the very moment of death, I was able to face it with an almost carefree ease—thanks to her.
I’m deeply grateful for that.
And now, I’ve truly been reincarnated, and I’m being told to start managing a dungeon.
So, what should I do?
“You are the Dungeon Core, and you must lure humans with desire.
But as a dungeon, you don’t fully understand human desires.
...That’s why it’s become a trend among Dungeon Cores recently to reincarnate human souls from other worlds as Dungeon Masters and let them handle the management... was what you said, right?”
“It’s not exactly a trend...
Most Cores are resistant to handing over control of their dungeons to humans.
But it’s also true that dungeons managed by humans tend to produce better results than those managed by Cores themselves.”
Makes sense.
From what I’ve heard, most dungeons envisioned by Cores are the kind where you defeat enemies and get gold or gems.
And the Dungeon Cores themselves don’t really understand why humans are happy with that.
They just know from experience that humans will come if they offer gold and gems, so they structure their dungeons that way.
Dungeons where the deeper you go, the better the quality of gold and gems you can obtain.
That’s the answer the Dungeon Cores arrived at after thousands of years.
I see... it does seem more efficient to hand over dungeon management to humans...
“Doesn’t it take deeper layers to produce high-quality gems and gold?”
“That’s right... the deeper you go into a dungeon, the thicker the miasma becomes.
That miasma can create all sorts of miracles with the dungeon’s power...
Like turning minerals into gems for monsters to carry, which makes humans happy.
But the gems produced in the upper layers are smaller and less transparent.”
“Can you infuse groundwater with mana to create healing effects?”
“...It should be possible, but with the miasma of the first layer, you probably couldn’t fully heal even a small cut.
At best, it would just heal much faster.”
“What about something like minor skin irritation?”
“...I’m not entirely sure, but... maybe? It’s less severe than an injury, right?”
“Can you heat groundwater to turn it into hot water on the first layer?”
“What’s with that...? Well, I guess making hot water should be possible.”
...Then maybe the dungeon I dreamed up while lying in bed is doable.
“Alright... I’m going to create a hot spring dungeon.”
“...A hot spring dungeon?”
“A dangerous dungeon where a hot spring with various beauty benefits bubbles up.
When you bathe in it, your skin becomes beautiful! That’s the kind of dungeon I’m talking about.”
“......”
The Dungeon Core couldn’t comprehend it.
First of all, this Core had no concept of a hot spring.
And instead of offering gold, treasures, or food—things humans are supposed to desire most—this guy was proposing benefits like smoother skin.
Dungeon Cores don’t even have a concept of skin problems.
At most, they know that the creatures outside can have such conditions.
But... if it heals injuries, that’s one thing, but is curing something of that level really enough?
Will people really flock to something like that?
At the very least, there’s no precedent for such a dungeon.
...Well, whatever.
It’s the summoned Master’s job to do things I can’t understand.
The fact that he’s proposing something I wouldn’t have thought of is reason enough to have high expectations.
“Fine... I’ll leave it all to you. I’ll entrust you with the Dungeon Points, the energy used to build the dungeon.
How much to expand the dungeon, how many monsters to summon, and how to produce the returns—those hot springs or whatever...
It’s all up to you to decide. I’m counting on you... Master.”
“Got it, got it. Back when I was healthy in my previous life, I loved management games. I’ll give it my best shot.”
And so, my dungeon management began.
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