Chapter 78 - Addition
Alright then, time to resume my observations.
When I turned the monitor back on, which I had shut off earlier, I saw that Captain Touji and her team were hauling in various special hot spring waters from the deeper levels—such as the tooth-healing bath, the weapon-repair bath, the aromatic bath, and the beautifying bath.
“Before we bring Her Majesty down here, you did bring someone with actual bad teeth to test the effects, didn’t you?”
“Yes. This girl has cavities, and the other one over here lost a tooth during combat.”
“Perfect. Saves us the trouble of knocking someone’s teeth out on purpose.”
The casual way Captain Touji dropped that alarming statement sent a shiver down everyone’s spines.
Seriously, what the hell was this woman saying?
“You don’t need to soak in this one. Just scoop a bit and gargle with it.”
The water—now cooled to room temperature—had been brought in by the barrel. The knights with dental issues dipped cups into it and began gargling.
“W-Whoa?! Amazing! My bite alignment’s been fixed in an instant!”
Apparently, thanks to their newly straightened teeth, even their facial features looked a bit more balanced.
The cavities were completely gone too.
So it seemed the hot spring water worked just fine even on the ninth floor.
“Hmm... My teeth are straight now, but the broken one didn’t grow back,” said the female knight who had lost a tooth.
So regeneration didn’t work on this floor, huh. I hadn’t known that.
There’s so much I didn’t know—and I’m supposed to be the Master!
When I displayed the results on the monitor and researched how far one had to descend for tooth regeneration to kick in, I found that it worked starting at the fifteenth floor.
Huh. So for regenerating lost parts, you really did have to go pretty deep.
Well, that’s fine. The Master can always figure it out... as long as he checks.
“No regeneration on the ninth floor, huh? Then you’re coming with us.”
“...Huh?”
“We need to verify which floor will restore a broken tooth. So we’ll descend, one floor at a time.”
“Um, I-I was only assigned to temporarily assist on the ninth floor... I mean...”
Before she could finish, the girl with the broken tooth was basically abducted by the First Unit and taken underground.
Her eyes were silently pleading for help, but the rest of the Second Unit could only watch her go in silence.
“W-Well then... Let’s test the effects of the other baths on the ninth floor, shall we...?”
Pretending they hadn’t just lost one of their own to a live experiment, Vice-Captain Vihita returned to her duties as if nothing had happened.
From the way she talked about testing the aromatic bath and the eleventh floor’s youthful skin bath, I couldn’t help but chuckle. Was this... bath time?
They began heating the water and preparing a warm bath in the back room for testing.
“縺ゅｌ? 縺セ縺滂シ
Hey, Master? The Iron Dungeon Core wants to come visit again.”
“Huh?!”
Wait a minute. We’re just about to witness the results of the aromatic and beautifying baths on the ninth floor...
Well, I mean, not like it was that important.
I am the Master—if I really want to know the effects, I can just research them later.
What was important was the part where people undressed... Not that it mattered—I’d already seen Vice-Captain Vihita naked dozens of times by now anyway!
“...Yeah, fine. Let him in.”
No matter how I rationalized it, I just couldn’t convince myself that the Iron Dungeon Core’s business was more important than this. So I gave up.
Just a few hours after our last meeting, the bearded dwarf-looking old man reappeared before me.
“Hey! Are you sure this metal is the same material used for this knife? The strength doesn’t match at all!”
How should I know? They probably mixed something in to adjust the strength.
Pure aluminum would be way too soft anyway.
“I’m pretty sure the main component of the handle is aluminum, but it looks like they mixed something in to tweak the strength.”
“Mixed in...? Ah, an alloy, then.”
Ohh, as expected of the Iron Dungeon. So they did have the concept of alloys in this world.
“For example, if you mix aluminum with copper or magnesium in just the right balance, and process it a certain way, you get a material called duralumin.”
I pulled out a duralumin case and handed it to the dwarf-looking old man.
“...”
“As for the blade... maybe it’s titanium? Or maybe stainless steel?”
While I was at it, I took out a stainless steel ingot and handed that over too.
“...”
The dwarf old man went completely stiff.
He looked like he had no idea what to say anymore.
“Anyway, all I’m doing is recreating things that were developed in the world I originally came from.
So, to be honest, I don’t really understand the details of how this knife is made.”
“...You know what? My brain’s already full. Thinking about the details is exhausting.
Do you at least know the alloy’s exact composition?”
“Yeah... no, not really.”
What little knowledge I had about metals and elements was...
Nihon Poruno, Ashita Sābisubi. (N, P, As, Sb, Bi)
Osu no seieki, te ni porori. (O, S, Se, Te, Po)
Fukkura burajā, ai no ato. (F, Cl, Br, I, At)
...those dumb mnemonic rhymes we used to memorize the periodic table in school. I just scribbled them down to fill out the test sheet.
And now? I couldn’t even remember what those elements were supposed to do.
Seriously, what was even the point of those lessons in school? Absolutely useless.
“...So analyzing, reproducing, and reinforcing it with dungeon mana—that’s my job, huh.”
Alright, kid. Mind if I take this ‘duralumin’ case with me?”
“Go ahead.
It’s too costly to reproduce in my dungeon, so it’s not really usable anyway.”
“I see. Even if I gave you some high-quality iron in return, I guess it’d be useless in your dungeon too, huh...
Alright then. I’ll just pay you in dungeon points.”
With that, the Iron Dungeon Core handed me a mountain of points—enough to rival what you'd get from escorting Her Majesty on a grand tour.
Man, what a generous guy.
He must be like Bugu-kun—sitting on a hoard of unused points.
Most likely, the Iron Dungeon still had expansion points, but it had reached the stage where expanding further would only lead to losses.
Stuck at the profitable floor range, unable to move forward, the points just kept accumulating.
It must’ve been that way for decades... maybe even over a century by now.
“Well then, I guess you are someone who can shake up a stagnant dungeon.”
And with that parting remark, the old man vanished.
“Uwaah, no fair! You got that many points?!”
Peta-chan, who had been silently listening while cooking, finally voiced her complaint.
“Oh, come on. You are the Hot Spring Dungeon, aren’t you?”
“Well yeah, but still~! The No-Hunger Dungeon is finally starting to catch up! I wanna reach that level too!”
I figured she didn’t need to worry too much—it was only a matter of time.
After all, there were already plans to bring the Hot Spring Dungeon’s hot spring waters over to the No-Hunger Dungeon.
Once that happens, the male hot spring guests are bound to come flooding in over there.
But more importantly—the Iron Dungeon guy was gone now, which meant it was time to check on the female knights again.
I quickly pulled up the monitor to see how they were doing... But it looked like bath time was already over. Everyone was just relaxing and lounging about.
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