Chapter 11 - Did You Do Something Weird While I Was Asleep?
“Whoa, a group of burly female warriors. Rare sighting.”
Unlike the well-dressed, etiquette-conscious female knights we usually see, these were rugged, adventurer-type female warriors in heavy, no-nonsense gear.
A female knight guarding the dungeon entrance checked the pass-like item the warrior handed over and then let her through.
“Never seen armor like that before. Must be a traveling warrior who heard about this place from afar.”
Lately, it hasn’t just been female knights visiting. Thief-like girls, hunter-like girls, martial artist-like girls—all sorts of customers have been showing up, often accompanied by high-status ladies.
This time, it’s a female warrior who seems to have come from a distant land.
Has our reputation finally spread beyond the borders?
“Are they charging an entrance fee with those passes...?”
Most of the kingdom’s female knights have already had their turn in the baths, and lately, the knights have clearly shifted their focus to securing profits.
The first-floor bath is now almost entirely closed off, with all efforts focused on extracting the water.
The task of drawing the water is no longer restricted to women either, as there are now many civilian-looking male workers involved.
The current national policy seems to be:
*Don’t dirty the first-floor spring water that we can sell outside. If you want to bathe in the hot spring, go to the second floor where the water can’t be taken out. If you’ve come all the way to the dungeon, you might as well go for the more effective option, right? If you’re fine with the first-floor water, just buy it in town and bathe there. Got it?*
As the Master of the Hot Spring Dungeon, I can’t help but feel a little conflicted about the first-floor bath being treated more like a cosmetics factory than a place to relax.
Well, I suppose I’ll just think of this as a sort of cosmetics testing facility—one that delivers the reputation of our hot springs to countries all over the world.
After all, it’s probably thanks to this that female warriors from other countries are now coming here.
“Haah... Still no plans to add more dungeon floors?”
“Whoa?!”
Peta-chan, who had been inactive for about a week, suddenly spoke up, startling me.
“Wh-what the heck? Don’t scare me like that!”
So, this is how the Core wakes up? No warning, just suddenly starts talking?
I’ll have to be careful next time...
“I was hoping you’d wake me up with a ‘Time to add more floors, wake up!’ or something... but nope, it’s already been a whole week... Ugh.
Maybe I’ll just go back to sleep... ...Hm?”
Peta-chan suddenly made a puzzled face.
“? ? Huh? ...What’s this?”
She kept tilting her head repeatedly, staring at nothing in particular above her, as if she had something stuck in the back of her teeth that was giving her an odd sense of discomfort.
“? Hey... Master. Did you do something weird while I was asleep?”
“Huh?? Wh-what are you talking about?”
What? What’s she saying?
I didn’t touch her! I swear I didn’t do anything weird!
I’ve been a perfect gentleman, yes.
I only occasionally... indulged myself while watching the baths on the monitor...
“Hmm... How should I explain this...?
For example... did you ever make food using the dungeon’s mana and eat it?”
“No...? I haven’t...? I haven’t felt hungry at all since becoming the Master.”
Is it the smell? Did I leave some kind of bad odor that made her bring this up?
“Right... Dungeon Cores don’t have desires like hunger.
Since Master shares the Master Room with me, your soul is fused with mine, so you shouldn’t need to eat anymore.
That’s why you don’t feel hungry now.
But back when you were human, you did have an appetite, right?
So, if you wanted to, you could still eat based on those memories without any issues.”
“............Huh.”
I still don’t really get what Peta-chan is trying to say.
“And you know... when Master gets nostalgic about food and keeps making meal after meal here, eating over and over again, even I, with my soul linked to yours, could start to feel this strange thing called ‘hunger’ creeping in.”
“............Oh.”
I think I’m starting to understand, and I’m sweating bullets.
“So...? Did you do something weird? I feel this vague, unfamiliar sensation in my soul...?”
“N-no... Nothing at all...”
“No way! You definitely did something! But I can’t figure out what this craving even is, and it feels so weird!
Hey! What did you do? What is this feeling?!”
“Uh... Peta-chan, if we were to make the 9th floor, how would you want it to look?”
“!!!! I want it to feel super spacious!!!
Not a maze with walls, but a maze of vast open spaces! That’s the vibe I want!”
“Got it~ What about the hot spring’s effects?”
“Oh, that doesn’t matter. You can decide that, Master.”
“Alright... Then... how about something like this? A sprawling grassland that stretches to the horizon!”
I quickly threw together a vast, open grassland floor within the 9th floor’s specifications and displayed it on the monitor.
Just an endless plain of grass with no landmarks, stretching as far as the eye could see, under a wide-open sky.
The ceiling is super high too, so even a giant would feel at home!
Look around—no walls or ceiling in sight, just endless space!
...Is this really okay? It’s just a plain grassland with nothing in it...
“Kyaaa!!! Amazing! Such a huge, open floor inside me?!”
...Is this really fine?
Peta-chan gazed at the scene, utterly mesmerized, as if she were lost in a dream.
It seemed that her mysterious sensation had completely vanished from her mind—forgotten and no longer of any concern.
Hahaha...
I threw this together without much thought, just making it as vast as the 9th floor’s specs would allow… but damn, it’s huge.
So you have to search this vast expanse for the hot spring, huh... What a crappy game.
So even after finding the hot spring, you won’t know when the entrance to the deeper floors will appear... meaning you’ll have to comb through this ridiculously vast grassland on a regular basis?
What a crappy game...
I ended up hastily creating the 9th floor to distract her, and now we’ve got this ridiculous level incorporating her suggestions.
Poor female knights who’ll have to navigate this mess.
Ah... I didn’t even think about the hot spring’s effects.
What should I do...?
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