No Bath? Unthinkable

[Core Room]

"There is no bath."

Dr. Sapien declared this dungeon-city's problem outright. Of course, just as the Dungeon Master holds a Master's degree but never completed the Master's course, Sapien-sensei holds a doctorate but never wrote a doctoral thesis.

"A bath?"

The Master didn't take baths, and the Asura found an occasional cold shower sufficient, so a bath was unnecessary.

"Humans are creatures that bathe every day. Of course, barbarians and mountain bandits do not bathe."

"Is that so."

"The dungeon absorbs garbage, so the interior never becomes unclean. But what of the human body? With no bath, it grows filthy, and that could become a source of pestilence."

"So you'd summon a bath."

"……There's a tricky problem there. This dungeon can only summon libraries, and books hate moisture, so a bath and a library are a poor match. On top of that, open flame is strictly forbidden, so even if we summoned the sort of boiler a public bathhouse uses, we couldn't run it."

Marie shot the idea down.

"What about physically building a bath on the dungeon grounds, outside the dungeon proper, and heating the water with newspaper logs?"

"Burning things has poor energy efficiency, you see. Rather, the most efficient approach would be to bring in a heat-pump electric water heater, summon a small library to set up as a separate building, and remodel it for dedicated bath use. We don't have the energy to summon a fourth tier-group, though."

"So forcing the summoning of the third tier-group was a mistake, was it."

The Master ought to reflect on that.

"The basement stacks of the second tier-group should still be vacant. There are no books in the first tier-group worth preserving, so even in the worst case, if the water overflows it's no problem, and since it's a basement to begin with, it ought to have a degree of watertightness."

"We did 'clear out' the collection by moving it to the third tier-group. Still, it has no windows, so it'd be a fine candidate to convert into a bath. Now then, could Mint manage relocating the water heater, I wonder?"

"So we'll build the bath there."

"The settlers' residences are in the second tier-group, so with the single-story first tier-group as the entrance, the bath effectively on the second floor, and residences on floors three through six, the flow makes sense."

"Marie-san, I'd like you to confirm the settlers' wishes."

[Second Tier-Group, Basement]

Since the first tier-group is single-story, this was effectively the second floor. As it's dangerous for the Dungeon Master to go to a floor where residents and adventurers are already coming and going, Marie handled the meeting with the settlers. Named monsters can be revived even if killed.

"Okada Tarōzaemon-dono, the talk has turned to building a bath."

"Personally, I'd like something done about that foul drink, but if the Secretary-General-dono says so."

"Did your original village have a bath?"

"There was one, near the residence of the Daikan, Lord Yoshida Nishinoichinojō. Though, since fuel is precious, the hours it was open were limited."

"It seems, as Sapien-sensei says, that baths are common in human society."

The settlers went off to the fields, while Marie and Mint prepared the bath.

"First, the tub. We can't summon the material for a cypress bath itself, so we'll break down and reconfigure a teak bookshelf with the dungeon-furniture rearrangement function."

"It beats doing it by hand, but this thing's going to leak, no question."

"If we build it into the dungeon structure, it'll be fine."

"Why does every wooden product we summon as an add-on come out as teak?"

"Probably a side effect of the dungeon monster having been forcibly overwritten from Ox-Head and Horse-Head into Shiso. When it comes to timber in the Shiso family, teak is the one. Hypothetically, if we ever become able to summon umeboshi, it may turn out there's no plum at all and only red shiso."

"Is there even a route to get hold of plums or kelp."

"None that I can think of. Next, summoning the heat-pump water heater as a library auxiliary device."

"I really can't figure out the criteria for what can and can't be summoned."

"Mint, you're up. Connect the power lines and water pipes to the supply from the World Core."

"This is electrical work and plumbing work, so it needs licenses, you know. I've got an Electrician's License so that's no problem, but we don't have anyone with a Water Supply Installation Works Chief Engineer license or a Plumbing Work Execution Management Engineer license."

[Core Room]

"And so, the bath cannot be built."

"Marie-san, that's an unexpected pitfall. ……Wait a moment. Instead of installing pipework, what if we use a dungeon function to generate a faucet, then connect a hose to that faucet? Then the legal problem is, well, Good enough!"

"……Is it good enough, though? Come to think of it, this dungeon is clearly more than 13 meters tall, but Master, you don't hold a First-Class Architect license or anything, do you?"

"True, on paper I'm registered as a graduate of the Architecture Department, Faculty of Engineering, but I don't hold an architect's license. However, while designing a library from scratch would require a First-Class Architect, merely remodeling a library I've summoned only takes the Construction Execution Management Engineer license, which even I hold."

Where did it accumulate the practical experience, one wonders?

"……But, come to think of it, even though the libraries and books are products of another world, it doesn't seem we have any need to obey that other world's statutes. ……Or do we? Someone summoned from another world would have to obey them, I'd think."

"Maybe it's not licenses but court ranks. That Daikan held a court rank too."

"Nishinoichinojō, yes. In which case, eventually I, too, will need to be properly appointed to something like Director of Books. But in this world, who is it that appoints court ranks? The shogunate and the imperial court don't appear to be functioning."

Of course, the majority of Dungeon Masters, possessing no intellect and acting on instinct, hold neither licenses nor court ranks.

[Second Tier-Group, Basement]

After this and that, the bath opened for business.

"Marie-san, this has turned into a mixed bath."

"Given the state of this world… whether the whole world is like this is unclear, but from what we've seen, it's well within expectations."

To the Dungeon Master and the Shiso (Asura) alike, naked humans were a matter of complete indifference, so the description from here on is omitted.