Chapter 23 - Queen Yuzha’s Derangement
“Ah... My skin is breaking out from stress. I must soak in the 11th-floor hot spring soon...”
Her Majesty Yuzha muttered this with a weary expression.
The fact that the dungeon has started producing pepper is undoubtedly beneficial to the nation, so it’s not the kind of stress that comes from anger.
It’s the stress from the daily political adjustments required—renegotiating all the trade agreements with merchants that were previously in place for pepper and deciding how to handle future interactions with those who set sail from this country to acquire pepper independently.
In other words, it’s the kind of luxurious stress one might feel if they suddenly became a best-selling author or a hugely popular idol and were inundated with an overwhelming amount of work.
“Regarding the pepper, for now, treat it like honey... Notify them that the royal family will buy it all at a fair price.”
Following Lady Auf’s advice, Her Majesty decided to promise to buy the pepper at a fair price to prevent market collapse and panic.
A fair price would be roughly equivalent to the cost of direct purchase through ship trade. This way, it’s simply a matter of increased procurement volume, and it shouldn’t cause too much panic.
The lower classes and adventurers might become a bit too prosperous, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing for the country, probably.
That daughter of Duke Nausa is indeed useful. She quickly solved the Hot Spring Dungeon’s 9th-floor with a balloon, proving her extraordinary talent.
She is the third daughter of the Nausa ducal family, a branch of the royal family, who had long avoided social gatherings due to skin disease scars.
Until now, she was merely known as someone from the Nausa ducal family, but it might be necessary to meet her.
“For now, the projected annual production of pepper and honey is equivalent to the trade volume of one ship, correct?”
“Yes, the amount produced at a time is about this much.”
One of the subordinates took out a jar of salt and pepper.
It was a small glass jar with a plastic lid, resembling an ordinary pepper jar you might find on a modern Japanese dining table.
“Considering the current daily output from the No-Hunger Dungeon, even at the highest estimate, the annual trade volume of pepper would be roughly equivalent to that of one regular trade ship.”
“One ship... Currently, the annual trade volume from around the world averages about three large ships... and twenty-two regular ships... If our country monopolizes the sale of one ship’s worth of pepper, honey, and some delicious fluffy bread, it shouldn’t cause too much of a stir, right? ...Right??”
In response to the queen’s question, the surrounding vassals remained silent, their expressions difficult to describe.
The queen’s idea of a “stir” wasn’t something as simple as a street brawl.
Rather, she was referring to a situation where insurgents defying the state or invading forces begin to emerge—
Where threats like “You ruined the market, so I’ll kill you” or “If it’s that valuable, I’ll take it by force” became a reality.
However, the value of one regular trade ship’s worth of high-value products isn’t enough to justify a war over the dungeon.
At least, it shouldn’t be in the current state.
Just then, a messenger entered the conference room.
“Pardon the interruption, Your Majesty! I have a report!”
Her Majesty Yuzha and her vassals listened, already guessing what it might be.
“...What is it? Has another new ingredient appeared?”
“Yes! A new path to the 9th floor has been discovered in the No-Hunger Dungeon! The 9th floor is said to be very similar in structure to the vast 9th floor of the Hot Spring Dungeon!”
This means a dramatic improvement in the situation on the 8th floor, which is currently crowded with adventurers fighting over the occasional monster spawn.
It also implies that the pepper output could increase unpredictably.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!”
Her Majesty Yuzha slammed the table and suddenly shouted, leaving her vassals and the messenger wide-eyed and stunned.
“If it increases little by little! Then it’s just a matter of national benefit! And I can manage with a happy scream!
But not when everything changes all at once!!!
Do you have any idea how much it confuses the parliament when national affairs shift in detail every few weeks?!
Ah?! You think it’s great to just keep producing more and more, don’t you?! This dungeon??!!
At this point, it’s not a happy scream anymore! It’s just a screaaaaaaaam!!!
Ah! Whatever!! Damn it! I don’t care anymore! I’m dumping all this on you and heading straight for the 11th-floor hot spring to get my youthful skin back!!”
At the queen’s genuine outburst, none of the vassals could say a word.
“Uhehehehehehe! 9th floor, 9th floor, 9th floor! My dungeon has reached the 9th floor~~~!!!”
Peta-chan danced around, expressing her joy.
It feels good to see the dungeon you created grow.
Moreover, the 9th floor she created isn’t just a grassland—it’s a space filled with self-sustaining food sources like corn, potatoes, pumpkins, apples, wheat, and rice.
If you’re strong enough to handle the monsters on the 9th floor, you could live here happily.
I wanted to introduce regular food ingredients too, but using up valuable drop item slots for common ingredients felt like a waste—and would probably attract criticism.
Then it hit me—why not just have the dungeon grow some ingredients on its own?
At this point, this dungeon truly lives up to its name—the No-Hunger Dungeon—a food paradise.
I considered making the 9th floor of the Hot Spring Dungeon similar, but creating something that deviates from the dungeon’s concept costs an absurd amount of points.
To give an extreme example, placing a magma zone in a fire dungeon costs 10 points, but doing the same in an ice dungeon costs 10 million points.
It’s not that the Hot Spring Dungeon can’t have an area where food ingredients appear, but given how absurdly inefficient the point cost would be—potentially leading to a deficit—there’s no real need to set one up.
If the need arises for a large army to stay long-term on the 9th floor, even if it meant running a deficit in points, I might consider it, but that time hasn’t come yet.
“Ah~, but it’ll still take a while to expand my dungeon to the 10th floor.”
In the No-Hunger Dungeon, adventurers stay for long periods, but they’re mostly elite.
Gathering more people would only shrink the shares, so unlike in the Hot Spring Dungeon, adventurers don’t rely on large-scale groups of hundreds here.
Also, while there are always many refugees living in the dungeon, the point return rate is poor in the shallow floors.
You need a lot of stronger individuals staying in the deeper floors, moving and fighting vigorously, to earn more dungeon points.
“With Peta-chan’s food dungeon concept, we’re definitely short on adventurers from within the country...
It would be great if many adventurers from abroad came and stayed long-term in the deeper floors.”
“In most large dungeons, foreign adventurers can explore in exchange for giving a portion of the drops to the dungeon’s owning country.
I’ve heard that some of the world’s largest dungeons aren’t just explored by adventurers—various nations actually send their regular armies to collect drop items and bring them back home. I don’t know the details, though.”
“Ah, I think I saw something like that while reading about the female knights...
The female knights investigating our hot springs are actually the 2nd unit, whose main job is to be close aides and guards to Her Majesty Yuzha.
The elite 1st unit is sent to conquer dungeons in other countries, searching for valuable drops related to national defense and interests.
I only got fragments of this information from a 2nd unit knight, so I don’t know the details either.”
“Fufun, so if we make our dungeon attractive enough, even that 1st unit might switch from exploring other dungeons to ours!”
Oooh, it seems Peta-chan has moved past the initial stage of just thinking about point profits and dungeon expansion.
It seems that Peta-chan has grown to the point where she’s now fueled by a competitive spirit against other dungeons, proudly claiming, “Our services are better! Come to us!”
That’s good.
“Somehow, managing a dungeon isn’t much different from competing for customers at supermarkets or convenience stores...”
“Huh? What? Supermarkets? Convenience stores?”
“Never mind.”
I cut off the conversation, as explaining would be too troublesome.
“Well... It seems there’s not much to do with the Hot Spring or the No-Hunger Dungeons for a while. Maybe we’ll take a break for a month.”
“Yeah. I’m looking forward to seeing how many points we’ll accumulate.”
And so, we decided to skip ahead a month.
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