Chapter 48 - Absurd
Upon returning to the ducal estate, I found Lady Auf in her room... sniffing freshly laundered underwear and camisoles.
“Oh my, Vihita, welcome back! How’s the soap excavation going? Progressing smoothly, I hope? But listen—based on the tests, it seems like the soap itself doesn’t have any supernatural dungeon properties after all. It’s just... very high-quality soap.”
That was fine and all, but I sincerely wished she wouldn’t say such things while holding panties to her face.
“But! It looks like the sweat of those who bathed on the twelfth floor still retains some supernatural effects!
Of course, the best-smelling clothes were the ones washed directly in the water from the twelfth-floor bath, as expected. But get this—even compared to spare underwear washed with that amazing soap, the scent lingering on the underwear you were wearing was far stronger!
Which means—this proves it’s not the soap, but the sweat you produced after soaking in that fizzy twelfth-floor bath that holds the real perfume-like potency!”
“Milady! The thirteenth floor has been unlocked!”
I was starting to feel extremely embarrassed, so I decided to derail the conversation with some news I knew would capture her interest.
“What?! The thirteenth floor?! What kind of floor is it? Is there a new hot spring? What effects does the water have?!”
She took the bait instantly—as expected of someone obsessed with new dungeon floors. With this, the topic had been successfully changed.
...What effect did the bath have again?
Ah yes—it melted away body hair as if it had never existed.
That was bad. If I told her that, she’d no doubt strip me down on the spot and conduct a full-body examination. Talk about mortifying.
“There was a mirror! A huge mirror in the center of the floor! I brought one back with me! The one I have now is just palm-sized, but here—take a look!”
“A m-mirror!? N-no, it’s fine. I’m fine now... Whew. Back in the day, I used to be terrified of seeing my own reflection, you know?”
For a moment, Lady Auf flinched, her face tightening. But she quickly collected herself.
Right, I’d gotten so used to seeing her full of energy these days that I’d completely forgotten... She was someone who had once suffered terribly from her condition.
“Here it is, then.”
When I showed her the mirror, she froze.
“Whoa... That’s... incredible. What? What is this mirror? It’s like looking at my actual self, not a reflection...
Huh. So this is what I really look like... I mean, it’s great being able to clearly see that my skin’s healed, but... it’s a weird feeling, honestly.”
“Right...?
To be honest, this mirror showed everything with such sharpness and clarity, it felt unsettling.
Until now, we’d looked at ourselves through mirrors that subtly blurred the lines—soft around the eyes, mouth, and nose. In a way, we’d all been projecting slightly beautified versions of ourselves in our minds.
But this mirror? It reflected reality with merciless precision. There was no room left for self-deception.
Even we, the knights of the second unit—who’d soaked in every floor's waters up to the thirteenth to enhance our beauty—couldn’t help but feel slightly rattled seeing ourselves so perfectly rendered.
“How big was the full-sized mirror?”
“Well... the entire room was lined with mirrors, so bringing one back intact wasn’t an option.
The largest piece we could cut out and carry was about two meters tall by one meter wide. We strapped it to a stretcher and hauled it back like a wounded soldier.”
“This’ll definitely end up in the Dungeon Archives. And it’s going to cause a sensation.”
“No doubt. This is a revolution in mirrors. People all over the world will want one.”
“That’s true, but... I feel like this might unhinge society a bit.
Until now, the fact that we couldn’t see ourselves so clearly was almost a mercy, you know?
Like... I thought I was done with the deep-floor baths after my illness scars healed. But then I look at you, Vihita—someone who bathed up to the eleventh floor—and I can’t help but feel... ugh.
And I’m not even the type to care that much about beauty. So imagine how this will hit everyone else... I think a lot of people are going to be emotionally devastated.”
“Still, there’s no way we can keep something this valuable under wraps. It’s worth more than jewels.”
“Exactly. I wouldn’t be surprised if it sold for more than any new gemstone the No-Hunger Dungeon ever produces.”
The mirror kept at the ducal estate, to begin with, was already a masterpiece—a luxury item so refined that it stood among the finest ever crafted by master mirror artisans, polished painstakingly over years.
It reflected with such clarity that guests would sometimes visit the Nausa Ducal House just to gaze into it. That’s how exceptional, how opulent it was.
And yet, in the face of this newly discovered mirror, even that could soon be relegated to junk.
“I want more of these mirrors,” Lady Auf said, catching a shaft of sunlight with the new mirror and reflecting the light onto the walls and her hand. “A few hundred of them, if possible.”
What on earth was she thinking?
Surely it wasn’t something as simple as wanting to admire herself more. This was Lady Auf we were talking about, after all.
“You see,” she continued, “when you concentrate sunlight like this and focus it to a single point, you can theoretically generate enough heat to start a fire.
It’s technically possible to achieve something similar with the crystal lenses used in telescopes, but the materials you can ignite with those are pretty limited...
But the light reflected from this mirror—it actually feels like standing under direct sunlight. If we had enough of them, I bet we could start a fire from quite a distance.”
She was thinking of something far more dangerous than I’d expected.
Why did her thoughts always veer into such explosive directions the moment she encountered a perfectly reflective mirror?
“Well, the fate of this mirror depends on how the world reacts,” she said lightly. “Once it’s displayed in the Dungeon Archives, who knows what kind of stir it’ll cause among nobles from other countries?
Though really, how many we can bring back will be the biggest factor.”
“Sigh... Since when did the Second Unit’s job turn into hauling soap and mirrors out of the dungeon? These days, protecting Her Highness and Milady feels more like a secondary duty.”
“Oh, just until adventurers start bringing them out themselves. Both the soap and the mirrors will turn into goldmines, I’m sure of it. Eventually, adventurers will start transporting them in droves.”
“...Right. But how many female adventurers are there who can haul that much cargo out from the thirteenth floor?”
“Hmm... well, there might be more than you’d think. And since male adventurers aren’t allowed, there’s no competition—so maybe female adventurers will come flocking in.
Yes, that’s it. We need to strongly market this dungeon to women: ‘The Sepans Hot Spring Dungeon is where female adventurers make their fortunes!’”
She might be right. If we flipped the “no men allowed” rule into a unique selling point, we could potentially draw in women adventurers from every nation.
That was something I should report to Her Majesty. There was only so much we could do with just the noble Second Unit.
“Oh, and did you find any hot spring on the thirteenth floor?”
“Yes, we—ah.”
Damn it. I’d been carefully avoiding that topic all this time, and now I’d gone and answered her like it was nothing.
...Still, it was only a matter of time. This was never going to stay hidden for long.
“Yes, there was a spring... The water made body hair disappear. Completely. Even the fine hairs on my fingers—look, see?”
I tried to deflect by only showing her my hand, but it was no use.
As if it were the most natural thing in the world, she immediately had me stripped bare and conducted a full-body inspection.
Please, I beg you—this is too much! Please stop spreading my legs and inspecting places no one should be looking!
“Hm... It’s fascinating. Despite how thoroughly the rest of your body hair was removed, you still have hair down here. Could it be that the dungeon doesn’t classify that as unnecessary?
Was it the same for everyone? Does the magic target only what the bather considers to be unwanted hair? Or is this an absolute judgment made by the dungeon itself?”
I don’t know! Please stop!
No matter what I said, she wouldn’t stop.
To Lady Auf, observation, documentation, and experimentation clearly outranked personal dignity and basic human rights.
Someone please help me.
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