Preamble

I woke up from a nap and started thinking.

I had gone on patrol for no particular reason, but it might not have been necessary after all.

And even after patrolling, there was still no contact from Tsuia.

… Calm down, it's only been a day or two. There's a good chance the lord is just building up his strength.

Or maybe he's trying to rattle me by doing exactly this?

Damn it! What the heck. Fine then, I'll develop a new dungeon boss to take my mind off things.

Actually, I've been warming up an idea for a while now.

I've been making weapons using magic tools, but the phenomena produced by traps are generally stronger than those from magic tools. For producing water there's [Water Source], and for producing fire there's [Fire Trap]. Even though we haven't used many traps from the DP Catalog and thus have few options, they're still completely superior for what they do.

… Oh? I can customize traps now. I don't think that was there before.

Well, the customization is just being able to slightly adjust the effective range when placing them… alright, since we're at it, let's also try using lots of traps from the catalog to see if we can unlock some kind of achievement.

It'll use up quite a bit of DP, but oh well. That's fine.

I can't set up traps in the Master Room since it's inside the Dungeon Core, so I'll work in the boss room.

First, I'll test whether I can set a trap on a golem.

I brought an Iron Golem into the boss room and opened the catalog.

… Yeah, no good. I can't select it as a target for installation.

Next: can I set traps on walls? That's normally possible, so I dismantled the Iron Golem and turned it into ingots. Then I flattened them out and stuck them on the wall before trying to set up a trap there.

I'll start with [Water Source]… actually, maybe [Fire Trap] would be better so the room doesn't get soaked.

After installing it, flames shot out from the dungeon wall, and the iron I'd attached formed a lid over it.

… No good. I was hoping to develop that into putting [Fire Traps] on statues if it worked out, but I guess not.

Or maybe it didn't work because I used an Iron Golem as the base? … Well, I could use this to make a sauna in Succubus Village at least.

Then I happened to notice there was an [Interior] category in the DP Catalog.

Looking inside, there were all sorts of decorations. Since it's called Interior, they must be dungeon decorations.

I hadn't looked at these at all since I've been making all the decorations myself, but there's quite a lot. Pillars, walls, statues… wait, could it be?

I selected a stone statue (100 DP) from the list and purchased it.

A stone statue of a goblin threateningly brandishing its sword appeared before me. Five goblins' worth for one goblin statue. Normally you'd never use it.

However, this stone goblin statue? I could set traps on it.

Apparently, items in the Interior category are considered part of the dungeon, so traps can be installed on them.

… Seeing a [Fire Trap] spew flames from a goblin statue's chest is pretty surreal.

I used [Create Golem] on the goblin statue and changed its shape. It seemed like if I reshaped the area where the trap was installed, it would stop activating. When I changed everything into a simple cylindrical shape, it stopped working.

Apparently it counted as "destroying" the "trap."

So I tried repairing the trap with DP. And it worked nicely; flames now shot out in the direction the cylinder was aimed. Oooh, it's a flamethrower.

Alright, so I've confirmed that traps can still be used even after changing their shape.

This is a big step forward. For example, I could now install a flamethrower like this in the mouth of a dragon-type golem.

… Ah, but it looks like I can't install new traps on things I've already modified with [Create Golem]. That's annoying. So only repairs are possible, huh.

Also, if I made the cylinder too thin, the flame pillar would engulf it. If I'd been holding that, I'd have gotten badly burned. Close call.

Even narrowing the [Fire Trap]'s emission range through customization as much as possible, it seems like a diameter of about 30 centimeters is the minimum.

The customization can only be done when first installing the trap, so I'll need to think things through carefully in advance.

And I discovered another problem.

When I took the flamethrower out of the boss room to show it off, it stopped working. However, when I brought it back into the boss room, it worked again.

After some additional verification experiments, I found that traps only activate on the same floor where they were installed.

The reason it stopped working when I took it out of the boss room was because I had separated the boss room into its own floor so I could [Install] more monsters in case of emergency.

Presumably, traps are only ever meant to be fixed installations. If they're designed for puzzle mechanics within rooms, then maybe they can be moved around within the same floor, at best.

It's a bit confusing, but I just need to remember that traps can only be used within the same floor where they're placed. Taking them off the floor is basically forbidden.

Well, as long as I keep that limitation in mind, this means I can make a new golem model that incorporates traps.

Alright! I'm pumped to make a giant fire-breathing dragon golem! Let's do this! Yeah!

 

＊ ＊ ＊

 

I fell asleep. Good morning.

The dragon golem was still in progress, so I went back to the Village Chief's room and took a nap.

I'll take my time and finish it over the next week or two. Not like anyone's made it to the boss room anyway.

"Ah, Kehma. Morning."

"Morning, Rokuko. Has there been any progress on the Tsuia situation?"

"Nope. Isn't that great?"

Muu, this is frustrating.

I know I'm being selfish, but I can't help worrying about when it'll happen. It was so bad that I could only sleep for eight hours last night.

Is that it? Since I told him he could use my name for a month, maybe nothing will happen if a month passes without incident?

In other words――

――Does that mean I'll feel this restless for up to a month?

Give me a break. I won't stand for that.

"Alright, let's attack Tsuia."

"Wait, Kehma? That's too sudden, even I can't follow that. Explain?"

"Sorry, I was just talking nonsense."

Attacking them really would be too hasty.

But well, I should probably take some kind of action from my end…

"… Hmm. What do you think I should do? It's been bugging me."

"Just leave it alone?"

Rokuko answered casually, like it was someone else's problem. Well, that was my original plan though.

"But the more I try not to think about it, the more I end up thinking about it."

"I sort of get what you're saying, but… in that case, hmm. Wouldn't you forget about it if some other incident came up?"

Another incident, huh… Either way, that would mean I wouldn't be able to sleep.

Having nothing happen really is the best though…

"Come to think of it, it's almost time for Wataru to visit again, isn't it?"

"When Wataru gets here, let's give Nerune a special holiday. The information he brings is pretty important."

That said, the thought that Wataru would bring along some incredibly troublesome news…

… I somehow had a faint feeling that would be the case.