Chapter 117 - Dissemination

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"I have a report to make.

Lady Auf's condition has stabilized to the point where she can now receive work-related reports while recuperating in the hot springs on the eighteenth floor.

Accordingly, we intend to return to the eighteenth floor with documents summarizing the matters concerning the work under Lady Auf's responsibility."

Everyone around them erupted in joy upon hearing that Auf's condition had stabilized.

Duke Nausa, Auf's father, appeared particularly relieved. The previous report had indicated that there had been little sign of improvement in her condition, leaving him deeply worried.

Meanwhile, Her Majesty Yuzha was the only one whose feelings were more complicated. Although she put on a cheerful expression to match everyone else, as if to say, "What wonderful news!", she was troubled inwardly.

The reason was that the messenger from the First Unit delivering the report had kept one fist positioned over the center of the decorative pattern on her armor, concealing it as she spoke.

That gesture meant that she had a confidential report intended exclusively for Her Majesty Yuzha and was requesting a private audience afterward.

After the meeting ended and the other ministers and influential nobles had left, the messenger from the First Unit and Her Majesty Yuzha quietly withdrew to another room alone.

"So? Is it good news or bad news?"

"That is difficult to say. The matter is simply too significant for us, who are merely combat personnel, to judge."

The messenger from the First Unit proceeded to report everything she had witnessed on the nineteenth floor to Her Majesty Yuzha, recounting events exactly as she had seen them.

After hearing the report, Her Majesty Yuzha wore an expression of utter exasperation.

"It seems Lady Auf intends to keep the medicinal hot spring secret for the time being by remaining inside the dungeon. Would making them public really cause so much trouble?"

"Yes. Without a doubt.

People who sold beauty products that offered little more than false reassurance, or were practically scams, have already staged riots bordering on civil unrest several times out of resentment because the Hot Spring Dungeon rendered their products worthless.

And now we're talking about knowledge that could render not just beauty products, but every kind of medicine and pharmaceutical worthless! Who knows how much trouble we'd face from all sorts of directions?

Especially those groups that sell supposedly miraculous holy water and the like, fleecing the sick of their money…"

"It would certainly be unreasonable to venture all the way to the nineteenth floor for an illness that would go away after a little rest, so I doubt the demand for medicine itself would disappear entirely… But what should we do?"

"Was it medical knowledge written all over the dungeon walls? Why not conceal its source and spread that knowledge throughout the world as quickly as possible?"

"Pardon?"

"Look… Honestly, I want to avoid the hassle of having the Hot Spring Dungeon pull something like this and making the Kingdom of Sepans the center of another massive uproar.

I can already picture the harassment and obstruction we'd face from merchants selling medicines of questionable effectiveness, as well as those peddling so-called miracle water, pots, talismans, and other such nonsense. Just thinking about it is exhausting!

Besides, the research institutes of the Kingdom of Sepans are already stretched to their limits working on steam power! We simply don't have the resources to establish a new medical research division!

After all, that knowledge came from the Hot Spring Dungeon, so we can safely assume every last bit of it is correct without having to verify it individually, can't we?!

Once we distribute those papers without revealing their source, their accuracy will soon be proven on its own, and the whole world will erupt into an uproar, won't it?

Then some country or another will start conducting medical experiments using that knowledge of its own accord.

And those swindlers making money off their dubious wares will turn their fangs on them instead, won't they?

Medical research will continue advancing elsewhere, even if it means a great deal of conflict along the way. Once that happens, it'll be faster for us to buy or steal the resulting knowledge and discoveries!

While the rest of the world obsesses over this mysterious, highly advanced medical knowledge that appeared out of nowhere, we can simply ignore the whole affair and keep researching steam engines!"

"Y-You intend to use the medical knowledge written in the Hot Spring Dungeon as a diversion?"

"Why should we pour enormous sums of national funds into medical research when there's already an absurd hot spring that can cure every disease just by soaking in it?!

And to make matters worse, the moment we so much as begin our own research, swarms of scumbags will descend on us, nitpicking and trying to shut us down. I want no part of it! Absolutely none!

Just as Lady Auf said, our first priority is to finish that defensive weapon called the steam-powered catapult!

What we need right now isn't research that might or might not yield benefits! We need reliable power that will let us crush any fools who actually try something reckless without suffering a single scratch ourselves!"

"Y-Yes, Your Majesty…"

♨♨♨♨♨

"Her Majesty Yuzha actually said that?"

Auf asked as she reviewed the documents sent up from the surface in the physical recovery hot spring room on the eighteenth floor.

"Y-Yes, Lady Auf. Her Majesty seemed thoroughly exhausted by everything. She gave the impression that she didn't want to deal with even one more troublesome matter."

"Hmm… It might sound rather dismissive at first, but that's our queen for you.

Indeed, researching that medical knowledge would be highly likely to make powerful enemies, while offering relatively little benefit to the Kingdom of Sepans, which already possesses the Hot Spring Dungeon…

In that case, anonymously distributing the knowledge and leaving its verification to others for the time being might actually be the right move…"

"Um, my lady? Even if we distribute the knowledge anonymously, people will eventually discover that it came from the Hot Spring Dungeon. Won't we end up being resented anyway?"

"We can simply say, 'We offered the Hot Spring Dungeon a paper containing that knowledge, and it created a medicinal hot spring for us.'"

"H-Huh??"

"Think about it. Even if people inspect that room after the papers have circulated, there'll be no way to settle which came first. It'll just be one person's word against another's, won't it?

There's already a precedent for this sort of thing. When someone offered a towel from the Hot Spring Dungeon to the Thread Dungeon, towels started appearing in the Thread Dungeon too, and the towels from the Hot Spring Dungeon even upgraded to using fibers produced by the Thread Dungeon.

Her Majesty Yuzha wants to take the position of, 'Well, this will completely destroy the vested interests of pharmaceutical merchants, along with all the teachings and superstitions the Church has instilled in its followers over the years—but that's not my problem!' Isn't that right?

If that's the plan, then spreading that knowledge throughout the world as soon as possible is absolutely the right move. The dungeon can't run away, after all, so we need to hurry."

The plan was to distribute the new knowledge anonymously and free of charge, then, once it had become widely known, claim that it had been offered to the very source from which the knowledge originated.

Faced with such an outrageous proposal, utterly beyond anything they could have imagined by conventional standards, the female knights of the Kingdom of Sepans could only stare in bewilderment.

They could do little more than look perplexed. Yet, upon considering the matter calmly, none of them could come up with a more clever way to reveal the Hot Spring Dungeon's new hot spring without stirring up trouble.

"I'll hurry and write the papers myself. Here, I can keep going indefinitely without running out of stamina."

With her feet immersed in the Stamina-Restoring Spring as though she were enjoying a footbath, Auf began writing.

She compiled papers that extracted only the key points of the new medical concepts from the knowledge inscribed on the walls.

Auf kept writing as though she simply couldn't sit still, determined to finish the papers as quickly as possible.

"Um… Are you sure about this, my lady? The impact—or rather, the damage—this will cause to merchants dealing in pharmaceuticals and to the Church will be enormous."

"The only people who'll be in trouble are the ones like those who were exploiting my skin disease to keep squeezing enormous sums of money out of my father."

Auf retorted without pausing her writing for even a moment.

After hearing those words, Vihita could find nothing more to say to her.

"Once I've finished writing, could all of you help make copies? My handwriting is fairly well known, so it would be a problem if I sent them out as they are…

Besides, I want to distribute at least twenty copies all at once."

The battle-hardened female knights were bewildered by the sudden assignment of an unfamiliar task: copying manuscripts.

Lined up side by side, the female knights soaked their feet in the hot spring while using their armor-covered knees as makeshift desks, copying the papers through the night.

Some of the female knights even stripped naked and continued copying while immersed in the hot spring, using the floor as a desk.

When they grew overheated from soaking for too long, they would lie naked on the floor and continue copying while drinking cold water chilled with unmelting ice.

The whole operation was quite a chaotic sight.

♨♨♨♨♨

A few days later, around thirty copies of the papers were dispatched through ordinary postal caravans operating across several countries, reaching researchers, physicians, and research institutions at roughly the same time.

To get the papers to distant destinations as quickly as possible, members of the First Unit disguised themselves as ordinary civilians and raced along routes that would normally take a week to travel on foot, covering the distance in a single day.

They even resorted to outrageous measures, such as depositing the papers with postal services in faraway countries.

And, just as expected, pandemonium erupted a week after the papers began circulating.

One of the revolutionary concepts was the vaccine, described in explanatory passages among the hot spring's effects, such as "Side Effects and Long-Term Complications of Vaccines (What Are Vaccines? …)."

Another was an entirely new class of medicine called antibiotics, discussed in passages such as "Side Effects and Long-Term Complications of Antibiotics (What Are Antibiotics? …)."

The papers Auf had written contained numerous discoveries that overturned established medical wisdom, so it was only natural that they caused such an uproar.

Just a few days after the uproar began, a copy of one of Auf's own papers was delivered to her.

"If this theory truly proves correct, we may eventually be able to cure your illness completely!"

The letter from Auf's personal physician was filled with such excited remarks, leaving the entire order of knights able to do little more than smile wryly.

The new medical theories had, of course, spread throughout the Kingdom of Sepans as well, causing an uproar there too.

To avoid the suspicious appearance of the Kingdom of Sepans being the only country unaffected by the commotion, they had also sent the papers to their own physicians and researchers. In that sense, the uproar at home was only to be expected.

Wrapped in a bath towel, Auf listened to the report while repeatedly doing squats and push-ups with her toes immersed in the Stamina-Restoring Spring.

She had started exercising because Vihita had suggested, "Since you're going to be staying in the hot spring on the eighteenth floor for quite some time, why not use the opportunity to get plenty of training in before you return?" Auf had thought that was a good point and decided to give it a try.

"Hot Spring Dungeon, this is what you wanted, isn't it? Your goal was to heal not just me, but sick people all around the world too, wasn't it?"

Come to think of it, if its sole purpose had been to treat her, there would have been no need to cover entire walls with all that information.

In other words, the Hot Spring Dungeon must want people all over the world to become healthier as well.

Was that because, in the dungeon's way of thinking, the world needed to be healthier so that more people could explore dungeons?

Or did the Hot Spring Dungeon genuinely wish to help those suffering from illness by providing them with treatment?

Surely, the Hot Spring Dungeon truly wanted to heal those suffering from illness.

Based on everything she had learned so far, Auf came to that conclusion.

She had reason to believe that the Hot Spring Dungeon possessed a will of its own—and that this will was guided by something resembling a human heart.

Precisely because it seemed to possess a humanlike heart, she felt somewhat… no, quite a lot of reluctance about stripping naked when entering its hot springs.

She retightened the bath towel, which occasionally slipped loose while she exercised, and continued her workout.

As she continued, Captain Touji and members of the First Unit entered through the doorway, accompanied by Vihita, who was drenched in sweat and looked as though she were about to drop dead.

"Lady Auf, we went to the newly formed nineteenth floor of the No-Hunger Dungeon.

Unfortunately, we couldn't learn anything beyond the initial reports that a new gemstone had appeared on the new floor, nor were we able to make the gemstone appear ourselves."

"Was Commander Shield there, Captain Touji?"

"Yes. Her main interest is the No-Hunger Dungeon, so she doesn't come here very often.

After we reported that your condition had stabilized, she did express a desire to visit you, Lady Auf. However, since your condition had merely stabilized and your illness had not yet been cured, we asked her to refrain from entering the eighteenth floor altogether."

"Since Commander Shield is the only person besides your unit who might discover the nineteenth floor of the Hot Spring Dungeon, I suppose keeping her out, even if we have to be a little heavy-handed about it, is unavoidable…

According to the report, the catapult's test run was also successful, so I suppose the time is about right.

Next week, the nineteenth floor of the Hot Spring Dungeon will be 'discovered,' and members of the First Unit will explore it and find the medicinal hot spring.

Then we'll return home with the story that the healing properties of that hot spring completely cured my illness."

"Hah… hah… Th-Then, does that mean we can finally return to the estate sometime next week or later?

Haah… Once we get back, let's drink lots of alcohol, my lady. We got plenty during our last expedition too… Phew."

Vihita had been taken along on the expedition to the nineteenth floor of the No-Hunger Dungeon, along with some members of the First Unit.

It wasn't because she was needed as a combatant. She had been forcibly dragged along so that, afterward, she could be subjected to a thorough interrogation by Lady Auf, who would undoubtedly question her in minute detail about the nineteenth floor.

"My lady~! We'll join you in the hot spring, if you don't mind. We've been running nonstop all the way here from the nineteenth floor over there, and I'm just so, so tired…"

"The journey to the thirtieth floor will be nothing like this, Vihita."

"Captain Touji~! Please, give it a rest already…"

With that, Vihita, Captain Touji, and the others removed their armor and clothes before entering the Stamina-Restoring Spring.

Watching Vihita and the others casually bare themselves and enter the hot spring, Auf began to wonder.

Was the will of the Hot Spring Dungeon watching this very scene right now, too?

Or was it too busy to spend all its time watching us, even though we'd been camping out in the hot spring on the eighteenth floor for days on end?

If it was watching, which of us would be most to the Hot Spring Dungeon's liking?

After all, the idea that the Hot Spring Dungeon's will was male was nothing more than a hypothesis she'd arrived at based on circumstantial evidence and her own intuition. It wasn't confirmed information by any means.

For all she knew, that little girl demon could still very well be the will of the Hot Spring Dungeon itself.

Even so, the thought that some man might be leering at Vihita's naked body irritated Auf a little.

Auf grabbed a bath towel and shyly slipped into the hot spring beside Vihita, sitting with her knees drawn up against her chest to keep her body covered.

"Haaah~ What's the matter, my lady~? If you're going to ask me about the nineteenth floor, could you wait a little longer…? Ahhh, I'm in heaven…"

Auf had no idea how she was supposed to feel as she watched Vihita soaking in the hot spring after her long-distance marathon, her face blissfully slack and her body spread out in complete, unguarded relaxation.

She couldn't figure it out, but for the time being, she shot a sharp glare at the ceiling and silently sent a message: Please don't stare too much.

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