Chapter 38 - Dungeon Core Meeting
“Well then, thanks to the forced boot camp of the First Unit, both our combat strength and dungeon points have gotten a solid boost. At this rate, maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to expand the dungeon a little earlier than planned. Honestly, fighting underground might be more efficient for leveling than training on the surface field.”
I hadn’t expected them to actually live in and keep up the brutal sparring practice nonstop. Thanks to that surprise, we got more level-ups and dungeon points than I ever anticipated.
Originally, I had planned for a two-year enhancement period, but now I figured I could fast-track the dungeon expansion.
“Hey... Master~”
During those six months of training, I also overheard talk that preparations were underway up on the surface to welcome military forces and dignitaries from various nations.
Most likely, the wives of those dignitaries or high-ranking nobles who saw the dramatic transformation of the First Unit were being lined up for visits.
It meant the Kingdom of Sepans was officially joining the ranks of dungeon nations—countries that opened their dungeons to others.
“Maaaster~...”
“So, with that in mind, I’m thinking of starting construction on the 12th floor ahead of schedule.”
“Hmmm... That’s great and all, I am happy about that, but Master, the ‘No-Hunger’ Dungeon points haven’t really gone up much at all—why is thaaaat?”
For the past few months, Peta-chan had been enjoying herself, completely immersed in cooking.
Then one day, after a long stretch of culinary bliss, she excitedly checked the points of her No-Hunger Dungeon—only to let out a sad whimper.
She had probably been dreaming that if she just focused on cooking and then checked after a while, she’d find the points had piled up, leading to a glorious instant expansion all the way to the 11th floor!
But reality was far less kind. When she saw how little the points had grown, her expression turned disbelieving... then shifted into a long-lasting pout.
See, in your spacious dungeon, the 8th and 9th floors are already more than enough to accommodate adventurers. Even if you prepare an even larger 10th floor, most people won’t bother exploring it. Which means that the entire floor ends up being pointless.
When there’s a floor no one visits, its potential points go to waste—and wasted potential means no point accumulation. You knew that, right?
“Right now, they can get bread and honey from the lower floors, and even for pepper, going as far as the 9th floor is more than enough. There’s absolutely no reason to go to the 10th floor. If you want people to explore it, you’ll have to offer drop items that can only be found there.”
“Hmmmm...”
“So, pop quiz! What item should we add to the 10th floor?”
“CURRY POWDER!!!”
Whoa, that’s impressive. After months of culinary obsession, she really nailed it. Flavor, preservation, trade—curry powder had massive potential across various industries. Even I couldn’t think of anything better. It was a perfect 100-point answer.
“Yup, full marks. Exactly because it’s so perfect... that’s why we can’t use it.”
“WHYYYYY!?”
“Because if we use curry powder now, then for the 11th floor we’d have to outdo that. Got any ideas for what would top curry powder?”
“......”
Peta-chan was stumped. Curry powder was such a peak answer that nothing beyond it came to mind.
Honestly, even I couldn’t think of anything better.
“So yeah... curry powder’s still too early. Let’s hold off until we reach around the 20th floor.”
“Hrnngh... Then what am I supposed to do now, Master?”
“Look, when it comes to food items, crops and pepper are already meeting demand. So we need to focus on the other products.”
“The other products?”
“Gems. Don’t forget about those.”
“Ahh, right, right. Oh yeah, my dungeon does spit out gems too. I had no clue what I was doing, so I just winged recreating the stuff I saw adventurers wearing on their rings or necklaces.”
“You just winged it?”
“Well, I figured if I made sparkly, shiny, pretty stones, humans would be happy, right?”
...That’s incredibly haphazard, you know.
“Still, even the stones from the 8th floor are selling for a decent price.”
“Sure, they’ve got value... but probably still less than pepper, right? That’s not good enough. We need gems to get people excited when they find them.”
Right now, when adventurers come across gems in the No-Hunger Dungeon, they usually groan, “Ugh, a dud.” They still take them back, so it’s not like they’re worthless—but based on their reactions, it was obvious that pepper had much clearer value.
“Buuut... I don’t really get how gem value works... Wait—Master, do you understand gem stuff?”
“Hmm, I’m not exactly an expert, but I do think I can create something humans would find valuable.”
Peta-chan’s eyes lit up with a dazzling sparkle as she looked at me.
It’d been a while since I’d seen her wear such an admiring expression.
“Oh! But, see, most famous gems are already under the rights of other dungeons... Like, ever heard of ruby, sapphire, or diamond?”
“Yeah, I know those.”
“Well, those are already being produced by other dungeons, so we’re not allowed to use them. Like, there’s a Ruby Dungeon that only produces rubies now. Every time you go deeper, the rubies just get clearer or bigger. So if other dungeons start offering rubies too, it causes problems.”
“Ah, yeah... I remember hearing something like that early on. Dungeons form agreements to avoid all producing the same thing, right? To prevent a market crash from oversupply?”
“Yeah, so most of the gems Master’s probably thinking of are already off-limits. And if I’m not mistaken, wasn’t it the Kingdom of Kenma’s Gem Dungeon? I heard they hired a human gem craftsman as a master and are systematically producing every gem not yet on the market.”
...Wow. That’s so like a human Master—utterly shameless.
There were hundreds of types of gemstones out there, so trying to lock them all down at once would just be a waste of dungeon points. There was no way they’d managed to secure everything.
Still, as someone who knew next to nothing about gemstones, I couldn’t summon anything rare or obscure—simply because I didn’t even know they existed.
Most likely, that Gem Dungeon Master had already locked down all the recognizable, popular gems—the ones even regular folks could identify—as a way to block other human dungeon masters from copying them.
“But how do they even check that? Whether a gem overlaps with another dungeon’s output?”
“Well, I only know their names, so I can’t summon them myself. But you can make diamonds, right? Try summoning one—just a diamond.”
“Sure thing.”
I gathered the surrounding mana and twisted it into the shape of a diamond. What emerged was a massive gemstone—something so pristine and brilliant, it’d either end up in a petrodollar-rich nation’s treasury or get passed down to the British royal family.
“Once you’ve got that, the system can check for dungeons that produce it. It’ll list them on a monitor or show them on paper—whatever you prefer.”
When I brought up the monitor to display dungeons that listed diamonds as a drop item, six names popped up: including the Diamond Dungeon of the Kingdom of Devi and the Gemstone Dungeon of the Ath Republic.
“Six overlaps? Looks like a bunch of dungeons were already producing diamonds even before any agreements were signed. Nowadays, if you want to create the same item, you’ll have to get permission from all six dungeon cores.”
“Huh... so you can negotiate with other dungeon cores and ask, ‘Hey, can I make the same gem as you?’ That means you can talk to them?”
“Yeah, we do chat now and then. But initiating contact costs a hefty amount of points. The one making the request pays for the call.”
“So it is like a phone call, huh.”
“Phone call?”
“Never mind, not important. Anyway, I’d kind of like to talk to this so-called human Gem Dungeon Master. I’m curious what the other dungeon masters are thinking.”
“Kenma’s Gem Dungeon currently has fourteen floors, so... let’s see. That’s a 3- to 4-floor difference. For me, it’d cost 400,000 points an hour. But for you, it’ll be just 200,000 per hour.”
So the price doesn’t increase with distance, but with the floor gap, huh?
Makes sense—probably a built-in deterrent to keep low-level newbies from pestering the big-league dungeon masters for advice.
Well, I wasn’t exactly low on points at the moment. Two hundred thousand was nothing I couldn’t afford. Yeah, let’s give it a shot.
“Alright, I’ll cover the cost. Can you connect me to the Gem Dungeon core or the master?”
“Okay, I’ll make contact now… uh… 遐皮”ィ縺ョ螳晉浹莉願ゥア縺帙ｋ?”
Suddenly, Peta-chan started speaking in some incomprehensible gibberish—not even remotely translatable.
“「繧上°縺」縺溘ｏ螟ァ荳亥、ォ縺ェ縺ョ縺ュ... Yeah, we’re good to go, Master.”
The space warped before me, and two unfamiliar figures appeared in midair.
One was a voluptuous, dark-skinned demon woman decked out in glittering gemstones from head to toe. The other was a slender young man with blond hair, wearing a silk hat and a gentleman’s suit.
So these were the dungeon core and master of the Kingdom of Kenma’s Gem Dungeon, huh?
That was fast. We were already connected. I hadn’t talked to anyone other than Peta-chan in ages, so I was feeling a bit nervous.
“Yo! You must be the ‘No-Hunger’ girl from Sepans! Heard you’ve been doing pretty well lately, huh?! Bet you’re glad you copied us and brought in a human master! Wahaha!”
“Nice to meet you, Sepans Master-san. I am the Gem Dungeon Master of Kenma. Please to be treating me well going forward, yes?”
...What the hell kind of cartoonish foreigner accent was that?
Wait, no—that had to be the system’s translation spell, using my own perceptions to render the language into something familiar. So really, I had no one to blame but myself for imagining him as a sketchy foreigner.
Also... not all summoned dungeon masters were Japanese? Great. That just made everything more complicated.
This guy was probably summoned decades before I was.
If I asked, “Hey, don’t you want to know how that manga ended?” or “Don’t you want to hear the new single from that band you used to love?” maybe I could get him to give me the rights to produce a gem or two in exchange.
That was the kind of negotiation I’d been planning. But now this sudden encounter had completely thrown me off my game. So... what should I do?
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