Chapter 84 - Corruption
Yes, that’s right—my name is Vihita. These days I spent my time shuttling between the Hot Spring Dungeon and the No-Hunger Dungeon, setting up mobile bases, hauling hot spring water, and collecting alcohol.
The construction of our mobile base had been progressing at roughly three times the expected speed.
The real trouble lay in securing enough building materials—and more importantly, enough people willing to live inside and move the base around a little every day.
Thanks to a certain potion we could brew on the fourteenth floor of the Hot Spring Dungeon, both speed and strength could be boosted far beyond normal for a set amount of time.
With that, the tedious tasks sped up drastically, and when brute force was needed, our muscle power shot through the roof.
Using that potion at key moments allowed us to work at a terrifying pace.
Adventurers and knights from other nations who saw us setting up bases at such breakneck speed muttered things like, “Are all female knights of the Kingdom of Sepans monsters?” Thus, we gained ourselves a bit of an unflattering reputation.
Honestly, how rude. We’re delicate lady knights, you know—beautiful guardians who serve in the royal palace and noble estates, protecting princesses and aristocrats. Doesn’t that sound much nicer?
Today, however, our group was off-duty inside the dungeon. Which meant this was one of those rare days when we were allowed to claim a portion of the alcohol we had gathered from the outside world as personal spoils.
So, with the liquor we had collected from the No-Hunger Dungeon earlier, we spent half the day feasting, drinking, and lazing about in sheer bliss.
We soaked in baths brought into our mobile base, sipped warmed sake while relaxing in the hot water, and let the fatigue of battle melt away.
After a bath, to cool our flushed bodies, we sat around in nothing but our underwear and downed the whiskey and sake we had left chilling in tubs of cold water.
“Pwahhh—delicious! I’m so glad to be alive!”
“Ugh, still no tourmaline gemstone today. I really wanted one!”
“Well, it’s not like they drop that often. But hey, the booze from that floor shows up plenty, right?”
Picture it: a gaggle of maidens, half-naked with only panties on, breasts bared, faces red as they giggled and guzzled down alcohol.
Tell me, does this look like the noble image of knights? Is this what we were supposed to be?
If some male adventurer outside ever caught sight of us in such a state, it would be a disgrace beyond disgrace.
But honestly—without cutting loose like this on our days off, we’d never survive the grind!
I was pondering such thoughts while presiding over this rather unseemly drunken gathering when a knock suddenly came at the door.
“Heeey, who goes there?”
“It’s Niko, Vice-Captain Vihita.
A new floor has appeared with new drops, so I hurried back to report.”
Already? A new floor with tourmaline gems had only just appeared not long ago.
Still, with the sheer number of people swarming these dungeons, it seemed inevitable that their growth would accelerate abnormally as well.
“What did it drop this time?”
When I opened the door, Niko caught sight of our shameful state and pulled a face that clearly said oh nooo...
Well, excuse me! Not too long ago, you and your squad were lounging around looking exactly like this.
We thought oh nooo at you back then too, you know.
“...Er, ice. The new drop is ice.”
“Ice?”
Niko produced a chunk to show us.
It was about the size of a brick.
“Yes. But not just any ice—it seems to be magical ice that never melts at room temperature, remaining cold indefinitely.
Oh, but don’t ever put it in your mouth. If it sticks to your lips or tongue, body heat alone won’t melt it off. You’ll regret it terribly...”
From the way she said it, I could tell someone had already learned that lesson the hard way.
“Hey, Niko—so can you use it to chill drinks?”
“Yeah, exactly! That’s why the dungeon made it, right? For chilling booze!”
Everyone started blurting out whatever they pleased.
And to be honest, they had a point. Whiskey and sake chilled in tubs of cold water weren’t bad at all—but if they could be made just a little colder? Now that would be perfection.
We tried setting bottles of liquor directly on top of the ice, but they hardly chilled at all.
So instead, we filled a basin with water and tossed in the brick-sized chunk of ice.
Stirring the water around and around, the temperature dropped steadily until it was refreshingly ice-cold.
The water grew frigid, yet the block of ice remained exactly the same size as when we had put it in.
Truly, this could only be described as the dungeon’s mysterious magical ice.
Such a thing simply did not exist in the world above.
“Yay! Let’s chill these half-finished bottles too!”
We plunged about five bottles of whiskey into the freezing water, along with a few bottles of sake.
When chilling with water, bottles worked far better than those flimsy paper cartons.
“Hey, hey—can we use this to chill a watermelon?”
“Oh, that sounds delicious!”
“Wait, are you seriously going to dump a watermelon in there? That’ll just get in the way—we won’t have room for the booze anymore!”
“If you’re going to chill something, tomatoes or cucumbers would be better.
Dice them up, sprinkle on shredded chicken, then drizzle with noodle broth...”
“Ahh, that sounds amazing too.”
“I’m telling you, if you keep putting food in there, we won’t have space left for the alcohol!”
“Oh, shut up. Is booze the only thing you care about?”
“Come on, let’s do the watermelon! Cold watermelon sounds so good!”
“I said no watermelons! Vice-Captain Vihita, what do you think?!”
“Build a wooden tub big enough to fit all the ingredients you want to cool!”
“Y-Yes, ma’am.”
Before their petty bickering could turn into a real fight, I ordered them to make another tub.
We could have used one of the barrels meant for hauling hot spring water, but those were far too large, and besides—dipping into official supplies just to chill food and alcohol seemed rather irresponsible.
“Let’s just use some of the spare construction materials. It’s nothing fancy—we can whip one up in no time.”
“Hey! Put some clothes on before you step outside! This isn’t the Hot Spring Dungeon, you know?!”
I hastily stopped a subordinate who had been about to march out in nothing but her underwear.
“Oops! Wow, that was close. Guess it’s just habit at this point.”
The fact that such a “habit” existed in the first place was insane.
But after spending day after day in the Hot Spring Dungeon—where it was nothing but women, soaking nude while digging up soap—it was no wonder our sense of normal decency had begun to erode.
Dungeon life truly was no good for us. I couldn’t shake the feeling that our proper humanity was slipping further away with each passing day.
After all, we were supposed to be the delicate lady knights of the Kingdom of Sepans—beautiful warriors who guarded the queen and noble families at the royal palace and noble estates.
We were meant to be strong and graceful, the kind of women that every young lady in the kingdom aspired to become. That was the Second Unit’s very image.
And thanks to the Hot Spring Dungeon’s blessings, our beauty had only grown, inflating that reputation even further.
So why? Why was it that, after gaining such beauty, our lives had devolved into constant dungeon battles, followed by drunken, half-naked lazing about on our days off?
For what purpose had we pursued beauty within the Hot Spring Dungeon? For what?
Our outward appearance grew more radiant by the day, while our actual lives became less and less dignified.
If any of the fresh recruits—those who trained so hard in hopes of joining the Second Unit—were to witness us as we were now, they’d surely burst into tears.
To cool my increasingly heated thoughts, I grabbed one of the sake bottles submerged in the ice-cold water, uncorked it, and took a swig.
“Ahhh... delicious...”
The icy chill of the sake slid down my throat, quenching the heat in my body with a flavor fit for the gods.
It was the kind of cold you could normally only experience in the dead of winter, when the water’s surface froze solid.
I had never imagined that drinking something this frigid, outside of that season, could feel so utterly blissful.
If I ever had this in the sweltering peak of summer, I might just ascend to heaven on the spot.
Ah, whatever. So what if my lifestyle wasn’t beautiful? Let it be decadence, let it be corruption—I didn’t care anymore.
For now, I would surrender myself entirely to this comfort. After all... it was my day off.
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