Chapter 85 - Bond
A newly emerging knife with a clever design, found in the Weapon Dungeon.
A completely new kind of metal, discovered in the Iron Dungeon.
Foreign people and civilization, arriving from an unfamiliar continent.
And from the No-Hunger Dungeon, ice that refused to melt.
“So many new elements are cropping up at once... I hardly know where to begin.”
Auf muttered as she leafed through her documents, though the grin tugging at her lips betrayed her excitement.
The situation wasn’t truly troublesome at all. For Auf, having too many things to investigate was no different from a child spoiled for choice with new toys—an enviable sort of dilemma.
“Hm... weapons and metals are best left to the craftsmen. They’ll know far more than I ever could.
As for the people from this new continent, we don’t even share a language yet. They’re still figuring out how to communicate with gestures for now...”
So far, what little was known about the newcomers suggested they were closer to castaways than explorers.
Swept away by a massive storm, they had lost all sense of their location. On the verge of despair, they had stumbled upon the guiding light of a new-style lighthouse, its beam reaching far across the sea, and followed it here with their lives hanging by a thread.
Their ship was in dire need of repairs, and they would require the kingdom’s help.
In return, their cargo would likely serve as payment for the work.
And in truth, depending on how things unfolded, they might never return home at all, instead becoming permanent residents—castaways settling in the Kingdom of Sepans.
It was already possible to examine the ship’s design, as well as to search its cargo for anything of interest.
But without a shared language, uncovering the finer details of their civilization or history would take years—if it was even possible at all.
“I am curious, but that’s clearly going to be a long-term matter. I’ll wait on reports for that.
Right now, what I need to think about is how to use this ice that never melts.”
According to Vihita and her team’s report:
When carried up from the dungeon’s sixteenth floor, the ice began melting once it reached the fifth.
In other words, creating a dreamlike icehouse on the surface that would remain eternally chilled was impossible.
Still, it could be transported above ground as ordinary ice.
Yet whether hauling great quantities from the sixteenth floor was worth the effort was questionable at best. A more practical solution seemed to be constructing an icehouse inside the dungeon’s mobile dwellings.
Furthermore, while the ice remained stable even in lower floors, it did melt if boiling water was poured on it, meaning there were clear limits to the temperature it could withstand.
It was likely that, just as the baths in the Hot Spring Dungeon maintained a constant temperature through magical energy, this ice was kept perpetually cool by the dungeon’s own mana.
It would not melt at body heat, which meant that if one were careless enough to put it in their mouth, it would stick to the tongue. The only way to remove it would be to douse it with scalding water—or to cut away the flesh. One must never, under any circumstances, attempt to eat it.
So the reports warned.
Meanwhile, in their letters, Vihita and her companions had written things like:
“Chilled liquor with this ice is divine~!”
“Whiskey mixed with properly cold water is the best!”
“Fruits and vegetables cooled in this ice water are irresistible!”
The tone seemed carefree, but it wasn’t meant as a joke. Auf had specifically asked them to write in the style of a personal diary rather than a stiff report, so that the mood of daily life—and the team’s mental state—would come through more clearly.
Judging by those notes, the ice might be somewhat dangerous, but with proper handling it could vastly improve the quality of life within the dungeon’s living quarters.
“It seems the dungeon itself is quite pleased with the knights and adventurers making their homes inside.
This ice is practically a care package—meant to make life underground more comfortable.”
Auf couldn’t stop the smile spreading across her face. She could feel the dungeon’s will steadily supporting her plan to make its depths habitable for people.
The exhilaration she felt now reminded her of childhood—those days shut up in her room, when she had mailed her own theories to the scholars’ conferences on dungeon studies, and one of them had written back with genuine interest.
No, this was even greater than that.
For now, she and the dungeon’s will only share a subtle bond—cooperating indirectly for the sake of exploring its depths.
But someday... someday she wanted to speak with it directly. To talk, to truly converse. Again and again, as much as she wished.
She longed to hear about the far-advanced civilization the will of the Hot Spring Dungeon surely remembered—stories that could go on for days, and she would never tire of them.
Ever since she had become convinced that the dungeon knew of a future society beyond their own, Auf had dreamed of a dialogue with that unseen will.
“That’s right, isn’t it? What you want from me now is to use this ice, to make life in the dungeon more and more comfortable.
Leave it to me, Dungeon’s Will.”
For Auf, dungeon research had grown beyond her personal curiosity, beyond even the benefit of the Kingdom of Sepans.
Her strange bond with the dungeon’s will—pursuing this research had become a way to preserve that bond. It was no longer just study, but a connection. A bond.
♨♨♨♨♨
“Hey, Sen, I heard Commander Shield has taken up residence in your dungeon?”
Bugu-kun asked this while tucking into a massive katsudon that Peta-chan had prepared.
A menu lay open in front of him; today was one of those days where we could order whatever we liked from it.
“Yeah. Seems like that commander’s gotten hooked on the booze from the No-Hunger Dungeon.”
“Booze, huh...”
Bugu-kun frowned.
I’d let him try alcohol once, but he hadn’t understood the appeal at all.
Well, of course. Bugu-kun had inherited my own palate, and I’d never had much interest in liquor myself. Like Peta-chan, there was no way he could appreciate its taste.
“Eh, whatever. This just means Commander Shield will benefit from the Hot Spring Dungeon’s power-ups too, right? I can definitely welcome that.”
In fact, Shield never touched alcohol while on duty. She trained rigorously, both in the No-Hunger Dungeon and the Hot Spring Dungeon.
Even if it was just in name, she clearly intended to build up enough strength to carry out escorts in the dungeon without relying on Captain Touji’s unit.
On her days off, she did enjoy the dungeon’s alcohol at leisure inside her mobile quarters—but not like some heavy drinker eager to get drunk.
No, her way was refined, almost scholarly, savoring each sip as if extracting information from it.
After tasting the sake for a while, she had muttered, “So this is rice wine, is it...” That level of discernment suggested a fine palate indeed.
“Still... even if she does get stronger, I can’t see her ever reaching Captain Touji’s level.”
Captain Touji and her men were currently obsessed with one goal: utterly crushing Captain Hitou’s First Male Unit in their next match.
They fueled themselves on bizarre buffed meals and trained with brutal intensity, hauling endless loads of hot spring water weighing dozens of kilos.
Sometimes they overdid it, shattering bones or straining their backs—but a soak in the ninth floor’s healing bath reduced their injuries to nothing more than minor aches. With recovery that easy, they could push themselves without restraint.
Honestly, it already felt like they had surpassed the limits of humanity.
“For now, maybe. But once the Hot Spring Dungeon breaks past twenty floors, its effects will be even more incredible, won’t they?”
Bugu-kun looked at me with a wide, hopeful smile.
What was that? He’d said before that growth was capped at twenty-seven floors, and that he’d already given up.
And yet, here he was—clearly expecting the dungeon’s blessings to shatter even that so-called limit.
“Hm? Hey, Sen, what’s that?”
“Oh, that? A letter from outside.”
Bugu-kun had spotted the folded cloth lying in the corner of the master room—the one Auf had sent.
I still reread that letter from time to time, so I never erased it.
When adventurers’ belongings vanished inside the dungeon, I could recover them into the master room if I wished. I could—but if I destroyed something without properly examining it, there was no guarantee I could ever recreate it again.
And that letter contained so much information that, even after reading it countless times, I could hardly memorize it all. If I erased it, I wasn’t confident I could summon back the exact same thing.
So the letter stayed, folded neatly in the corner.
“Ohhh, one of those letters from dungeon scholars, huh?
I picked up a few of those on a whim ages ago. But not once did they contain anything worth reading. I always just erased them right away...
Anyway, next I’ll take this ‘unadon’—rice bowl with eel, right?—Dungeon Core.”
“Alright, alright. Master, wasn’t this the kind you’re supposed to grill over charcoal?”
“Yeah, that’s right. Grill it over the coals, keep brushing on the sauce again and again to deepen the flavor.”
As the eel sizzled over the charcoal, sauce dripping down to hiss and smoke, filling the air with a savory scent, Bugu-kun kept the conversation going.
“Come to think of it, near our dungeon’s entrance there’s this researcher who’s been muttering at me for years.
The other day, he even hired guards to fend off monsters so he could try some lunatic experiment—tying himself up for days on end, claiming he wanted the dungeon to absorb him.
He kept saying nonsense like, ‘Once I’m absorbed, I shall become the will of the dungeon itself!’
Dungeon scholars are usually like that, aren’t they? Bunch of crackpots. Do you really think people like that could ever send a useful letter?”
...So that’s what dungeon scholars were like in this world.
If that was the standard, then Auf-chan was far too competent by comparison.
“And? Did that guy ever get absorbed?”
“As if. A living surface-dweller can’t be absorbed in the first place.
And even if he could, I’d erase him instantly and turn him into points. Creepy old fool.
Ah—this unadon is delicious! Incredible!”
Well, yeah.
If some weirdo tied himself up and screamed, ‘Absorb me, dungeon!’—no way would I actually take him in. I’d erase him too, wipe him out completely, not a speck left behind.
Which was why, all things considered, I was glad the scholar obsessed with my dungeon happened to be Auf-chan.
If it were her, I might even welcome her into the master room—if she ever could be absorbed. Even though I still didn’t know her face.
Her letter even included words of gratitude, saying that thanks to the Hot Spring Dungeon’s effects, her skin condition had healed enough for her to step outside again.
A dungeon I had originally built with nothing more than lecherous thoughts in mind... and yet it had genuinely saved a young girl’s heart.
As I glanced at the folded letter in the corner of the room, that thought struck me once more.
For some reason, I just couldn’t bring myself to erase it.
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