Chapter 42 - Post-Construction of the 12th Floor: Dungeon Master’s Perspective
What should I make the effect of the 12th floor?
Despite having had nearly half a year to mull it over during the First Unit’s boot camp period, I hadn’t come up with anything in particular.
If you leave too much open time with the excuse of “a period of passive observation,” ideas tend to just drift away like smoke.
Unless I thought things through in the momentum of progress and growth, surprisingly, nothing would really come to mind.
That said, during that vague, idle period of watching from the sidelines, I started to feel that, while baths were nice, just soaking in hot water felt a bit... lonely.
So then it hit me—bubbles! Of course! Let’s admire the steamy, seductive sight of women washing their bodies in foam!
Thus, I created a bubble bath floor.
The effects? Who cares! Honestly, I just wanted to feast my eyes on voluptuous female knights lathered in bubbles.
So I added the effects afterward as an afterthought: something like a lovely fragrance that lingers for a long time... say, about a month.
But that alone felt a little underwhelming. So I threw in a permanent effect that eliminates any unpleasant odors from underarms, feet, or down there.
If there were any noble ladies out there tormented by terrible body odor, they’d be sprinting here without a second thought.
Also, I figured it was about time to introduce something adventurers could take home. So I made the walls of the floor out of soap, allowing people to chip off and carry away as much as they liked.
I didn’t give the soap any special supernatural properties, because that would’ve cost me too many points. It’s just plain old, perfectly ordinary soap—like the kind you could buy at a hardware store in Japan. Because of that, I could mass-produce it without burning through too many resources.
Even so, I figured it would still be pretty valuable. Go on, take as much as you like.
And once you’re back, scrub yourself with it—and let me see that glorious foamy nudity.
Anyway, the reason I created the 12th floor was 90% pure perviness, so from a dungeon management perspective, there wasn’t much of a noble reason behind it.
Still, with how strong the current Second Unit had become, they should be able to handle up to the 20th floor, just as Captain Touji had said.
That meant I could afford to build a few fun, personal passion-project floors in the meantime.
Well, just because they can reach the 20th floor doesn’t mean they should—any further and we might start seeing actual casualties. To be safe, I’d say progress should be capped at around the 18th floor.
Meanwhile, thanks to the appearance of high-value gems and chocolates, the “No-Hunger Dungeon” had started drawing crowds to the 10th floor.
Nowadays, when chocolate popped out, adventurers would just casually go, “Oh hey, chocolate came out!”
At first, I was baffled. “Huh? Why? Why is it even called chocolate here too?”
Then I remembered—duh. I was hearing everything through the language-translation filter caused by miasma. Of course it would sound that way to me.
Even if the locals had called chocolate something ridiculous like “Unko-Chin-Chin-Onara-Puu,” it would still come through to me as “chocolate.”
Now that I thought about it, the crops growing in the No-Hunger Dungeon were also being referred to as “corn” or “melon” these days.
On the one hand, it made things easier to understand. On the other, it kinda took the mystery out of it.
“Hehehehehehehe, look at all the people showing up today—my dungeon’s still growing, growing~!”
Peta-chan, too, was overjoyed by the sudden spike in dungeon visitors, thanks to the 10th floor. Her points were surging.
That smug satisfaction would likely continue for a while—there didn’t seem to be any real issues on the horizon.
For now, as long as we kept making floors that gave people what they wanted, the growth would keep snowballing.
The real challenge would come after the late 20s—when the knights, or rather, the humans, could no longer keep up.
...Well, I supposed there was no point worrying about that so far ahead.
For now, I needed to carefully assess the current situation.
I’d keep an eye on how the bubble bath floor was being received, and use that to decide what the next floor should be.
And so, we decided to just sit back and observe things for a while longer.
A few days later, the knights who had returned from the 12th floor came back—this time leading a massive group into the hot spring dungeon.
Was this many people really necessary? It looked like practically every single female knight from Sepans had been deployed.
At the rear were numerous unfamiliar nobles and their attendants—probably foreign dignitaries.
“Entering such a gloomy dungeon...”
“It’s for beautiful skin... I must persevere...”
Murmuring those things to themselves, they cautiously stepped into the dungeon. The male attendants, meanwhile, lingered anxiously outside the entrance.
Since this dungeon was now frequented by noblewomen of all ranks, it operated under a strict “no men allowed” policy—like a harem reserved exclusively for women, both to preserve chastity and to avoid scandal.
The only times men were allowed into the dungeon were during the period when there was a bounty placed on locating the hot spring on the 9th floor—an exception made out of necessity.
Aside from that, the only other time entrance was permitted was when someone whose recovery would be of national interest was granted access to the 9th floor’s bath—under intense surveillance, of course.
Around a woman who looked every bit the part of a princess, her attending maids were clad in awkward, unfamiliar armor and were equipped with staff-like weapons resembling sasumata.
They were probably given blunt weapons because letting complete amateurs handle blades would’ve been more dangerous.
“We don’t have to fight... we don’t have to fight... we just have to keep bad things away from our lady...”
They advanced nervously, trembling as they surrounded their mistress in a protective circle.
Ah, it brought back memories—noble ladies who looked like they’d never lifted anything heavier than a pair of chopsticks, now venturing into the depths of a dungeon.
It was a familiar sight from the early days of the Hot Spring Dungeon.
At first, they’d shriek, “No waaay! I could never go in a place like this!”
But over time, they’d don light armor, pick up short spears for maneuverability, and brace themselves.
While waiting for their escorts to finish off the monsters, they’d point their spearheads toward any threat and focus purely on defense.
They’d eventually reach that level of competence.
Reaching the deep end of the 6th floor was no joke. It was like climbing to the summit of a treacherous mountain—riddled with waves of bloodthirsty monkeys and wild dogs.
After doing it enough times, anyone would get tough, whether they liked it or not.
But these ladies seemed like proper, well-bred nobles through and through. The 2nd floor bath was probably their limit.
Even though the trip, in theory, was just a gentle mountain hike—about an hour and a half one-way without monsters—it would be a grueling trek for these pampered princesses.
And so, three hours later, they finally reached the 2nd floor bath.
They looked utterly spent, gasping for breath. As one foreign princess approached her destination, she froze at the sight of a massive line stretching before her.
Everyone in the line—citizens from all walks of life—carried spears and chatted casually.
It wasn’t just young ladies or their guards. There were even little girls and elderly grandmothers in line, spears in hand. Honestly, it was an eerie, almost surreal sight.
Then, out of nowhere, a weasel-like beast crawled from a side tunnel and lunged at the line. But as if it were second nature, everyone turned their spears toward it in unison.
The moment it stepped into their range, the weasel was skewered from multiple angles and vanished.
After that, the line resumed their lighthearted chatter, as if nothing had happened.
The princesses watching from behind were visibly horrified.
“...They’ve gotten really tough, haven’t they? Those who regularly visit the 2nd floor baths.”
Even the foreign princesses, stunned into silence, quietly joined the queue.
Once inside the 2nd floor bath, they immediately began using the new soap. Yes, good—very good.
...Hey now, maids, stop washing yourselves with the leftover foam from the nobles’ baths. That’s just pitiful.
Well, I suppose the soap is the newest treasure unearthed from the Hot Spring Dungeon. Maybe it’s expensive enough to warrant that kind of behavior... Just how overpriced is it being sold for?
After the bath on the 2nd floor, the group was briskly transported to the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th floors by the knights of the Second Unit, carried as if on stretchers.
They were probably deemed too weak to continue on foot, having barely survived the 2nd floor hike.
As expected from those who had endured half a year of grueling training under the First Unit, carrying people all the way to the 6th floor was nothing to them now.
However, it seemed being carried came at a steep price. Only the princesses and nobles were treated to this service.
Their maids, meanwhile, staggered behind them, looking like they were about to collapse.
After delivering the foreign nobles to the 6th floor baths, most of the massive group of female knights left behind a small escort and then dove deep into the dungeon.
Wait a minute—so they weren’t brought here just for escort duty?
Were they planning to haul back huge amounts of soap?
That’s what I wondered as I continued watching their expedition unfold.
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