Chapter 51 - Cooperation
“Alright then, Peta-chan. Let’s expand the dungeon.”
“Yay! I’ve been waiting for this!”
Peta-chan responded with delight—after all, expanding the dungeon was one of the primal joys of a dungeon core.
“By the way, those points we earned from talking to Bugu-kun earlier... would they belong to you or to me?”
“Hm? Well... that guy came all this way because he wanted to talk to you, Master. So wouldn’t they be yours?”
Her wording made it sound like it wasn’t so much that the points could only be used in the Hot Spring Dungeon, but rather that I had the right to choose where to spend them.
“So then, if I wanted to, I could use them for the No-Hunger Dungeon?”
“Yeah, basically.”
“Then let’s use them to expand the No-Hunger Dungeon.”
I said it casually, and Peta-chan’s eyes widened in surprise.
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Ehh—? Why, why? What’s the reason?”
She wagged her tail and smiled shyly like a girl who’d just gotten a surprise gift, though she still made sure to ask for the reason.
Well, I did have a reason.
“Knights from other countries are going to be arriving in droves soon, right? But female knights are rare outside the Kingdom of Sepans, so rather than rushing to expand the Hot Springs Dungeon...
I’d rather get the No-Hunger Dungeon into a state where it’s worth sending male knight squads in to explore it.”
“Ahh, now that you mention it, there are supposed to be lots of foreign knights coming in soon... Hehehe.”
“Let me ask you something—after the Weapon Dungeon grew into a massive dungeon, did the growth of other dungeons also speed up?”
“Huh? ...Ah, yeah, now that you mention it, I’ve heard that more dungeons have reached the 20th floor since then. How did you know?”
“It’s simple. Armies from other nations got stronger thanks to the gear they earned in the Weapon Dungeon, which let them explore other lucrative dungeons too.”
Peta-chan gave a face like, Oh, that makes sense.
“When the knights powered up in the Weapon Dungeon went deeper into other dungeons, those dungeons grew more as a result.
In a way, you could say the Weapon Dungeon helped the growth of the others.”
“That’s true.”
“That’s why the No-Hunger Dungeon needs to grow too. The crops grown there can be planted on the same floors as the Hot Spring Dungeon, which means the hot springs side wouldn’t have to worry about food either.”
For now, the food harvested on the wide grasslands of the 9th floor was probably enough—but eventually, we’d need to reach the 20th, maybe even the 30th floor. At that point, the food supply from the No-Hunger Dungeon would become indispensable.
In other words, it was better to have both dungeons expanding at a similar pace, rather than just letting the Hot Spring Dungeon surge ahead on its own.
“Also, can’t we give the food from the No-Hunger Dungeon some kind of special effect?
Something like the supernatural effects you get from the Hot Spring Dungeon?”
Even if it was a dungeon-exclusive feature, it’d be nice if we could serve food that kept you full for days after just one bite.
Or food that boosted your strength—like power-up items in games.
That alone would create some great synergy.
“Hmm, that might be tough.
Your hot springs, Master—they only produce hot water aside from soap and mirrors, right? And that water barely ever gets taken out of the dungeon. Everyone just leaves it behind and goes home.
To put it bluntly, your dungeon is insanely low-cost compared to others in this world.
Aside from the supernatural effects of the hot springs, it hardly uses any miasma at all.”
“So what you’re saying is... with the No-Hunger Dungeon, you’ve got all sorts of food items and even gems being produced, and people actually take them home—so there’s no surplus miasma?”
“Well, that’s the gist of it. Plus, unlike the Hot Spring Dungeon, this one isn’t designed to produce items with special effects.
Giving supernatural properties to food takes way more resources than doing it with hot springs. The cost is so high that we’d risk running a deficit and might even be forced to scale the dungeon back.”
Hmm... so that means I can’t just toss in some game-like “Power-Up Seeds” or the like. Too bad.
“Well, if knights powered up by enhanced food start going to the Weapon Dungeon instead of the Hot Spring Dungeon, that’d kind of defeat the purpose, wouldn’t it?
Besides, male knights probably won’t even be allowed into the Hot Spring Dungeon, so it’s not exactly meaningful for them...”
...Hmm?
Right as I said that, a thought suddenly struck me.
“That’s it! I’ve got an idea, Peta-chan—a collaboration combo between the No-Hunger Dungeon and the Hot Spring Dungeon!”
“Ooh, what is it, what is it?”
“Hot spring geothermal cooking!”
“Hot spring... geothermal cooking?”
Peta-chan tilted her head with a What’s that? expression.
“In short, it’s cooking using the scalding-hot waters of a hot spring. The most famous example would be making boiled eggs in hot spring water.
They also use steam-filled stone kilns to steam vegetables and such.”
That’s right—hot springs weren’t just for bathing.
There were even hot spring inns that let you place vegetables or seafood in baskets and steam them with geothermal vapor.
I recalled a company trip to a hot spring town in Oita, where I ate steamed vegetables prepared with the infamous jigoku-mushi—literally “hell-steaming.”
“Mmm... Just remembering it is making me hungry again. We’ll take those delicious vegetables from the No-Hunger Dungeon, put them in a basket, and steam them using the hot spring steam from the Hot Spring Dungeon, Peta-chan!”
I summoned a steaming cauldron modeled after the jigoku-mushi cookers I’d seen in my old world.
Peta-chan, who’d recently been getting into cooking herself, jumped into action, efficiently preparing the ingredients and steaming baskets.
Just hearing the idea made her hungry too, it seemed.
“Can we... maybe put in some shrimp... or scallops too?”
“Absolutely. Just the thought of it makes me drool! Go for it!”
“How about keeping the seasoning simple—just salt?! Or maybe a touch of kombu broth for subtle flavor!?”
“Ooooh! Yes! That’s the spirit! More! Let’s add ponzu and kabosu too!”
And so, we delighted ourselves with a feast of jigoku-mushi steamed vegetables and seafood.
“Phew... that was delicious.”
“Mmm-hmm! The simplicity really brings out the flavors. That sweet steamed corn was just perfect.”
We’d completely derailed from the original conversation, but in the end, this was the conclusion I wanted to reach:
“So basically, if we cook the No-Hunger Dungeon’s ingredients using the hot springs from the Hot Spring Dungeon, we might be able to give them special effects, right?”
“...”
Peta-chan fell into deep thought. When it came to things like dungeon mechanics, she had a natural instinct for them that far surpassed mine.
“If Master sets the Hot Spring Dungeon up that way, then yeah, it should be possible... But I don’t think you’ll be able to finely control what kind of effects show up.
“After all, the crops growing in the No-Hunger Dungeon weren’t originally designed for that purpose, and there are so many of them.”
“Yeah, the combinations alone would be overwhelming.”
Like, this happens if you steam corn. That happens if you melt chocolate into a hot spring and drink it...
No way I could assign specific effects for every possible combination.
We’d have to leave it vague—something like, “Cooking these ingredients together might produce some kind of beneficial effect.”
“That’s fine. We’ll let the locals handle the testing.”
“Before that though... will they even think to cook the food with the hot spring? And will they realize that cooking the No-Hunger Dungeon’s ingredients that way produces good effects?
Right now, everyone’s using the cold bathwater for cooking, aren’t they?”
“...They’ll figure it out. Without a doubt. At the very least, that Auf girl definitely will.”
I’d never seen her face or heard her voice—the third daughter of a duke’s family.
But I was sure she’d be the one to independently test and discover the effects of this cooking method.
And eventually, she’d start coming up with applications I hadn’t even thought of.
She was just a name that occasionally popped up in conversations between the female knights—but even so, I had absolute confidence in her.
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