Let's Figure Out the Situation

"Fuaaah, slept well… is what I'd like to say. Damn, my body hurts."

When I woke up, I sat up and cracked my shoulders.

The floor wasn't cold—actually slightly warm—but it was hard and faintly glowing. Overall, not a great environment for sleeping.

"Gh, y-you're finally awake, Kehma!"

"Hey Rokuko, how long was I asleep?"

"How should I know!? Six hours! Aah, my mouth moved on its own."

I don't know if time flows the same way here, but it seems I managed to get six hours of sleep.

Checking the DP, it had gone from 4 DP before I slept to 34 DP.

… The DP from the bandits is time-based, huh. Since strength seems to factor in too, I should probably give up on calculating the exact income.

"What time is it outside?"

"Seven in the morning! And one day is twenty-four hours! Wait, aah, why am I answering!?"

"I see, thanks. Add 'nya' to the end of your sentences."

"Don't mess with me nya!"

One day is twenty-four hours. Apparently one year is twelve months, three hundred sixty-five days. It's convenient that it's the same—easy to understand.

I checked just to be sure, and it seems orders are obeyed automatically at a physical level.

Another world plus a little girl who does whatever I say… if I were a lolicon, this would be heading into R-18 territory right about now.

I canceled the sentence-ending order and reviewed the current situation.

"What's the state of the bandits?"

"They woke up and went outside a while ago. One person is staying behind to watch the place."

"Hmm…"

"Well then, let's summon a goblin and take care of things. Summon! 20 DP Goblin!"

"Huh?"

A magic circle appeared on the faintly glowing floor.

The magic circle grew brighter, and the moment it flashed, a small figure with an ugly green face stood there.

I was probably summoned the same way.

"Alright!"

"It's not alright." "Adah!?"

I bonked Rokuko on the head.

"Wh-what are you doing!? My durability goes down! What if I break!?"

"Why are you using DP without permission, idiot!"

"Hah? It's my DP, what's wrong with me using it?"

Ah, right, this one's an idiot.

"It's not your DP anymore, it's my DP. If you want to use it, get my permission first—if you don't want to die, that is."

"Wh-what, are you threatening me!? If I die, Kehma dies too!"

"That's right, if the Dungeon Core is destroyed, I die too. That's why I'm telling you not to do things on your own!"

"Ugh… th-then, what do we do?"

"For now, tell me about this area… Can this goblin be returned?"

"It can't. But if you kill it inside the dungeon, it'll give back 2 DP."

"One tenth, huh… Got it, let's keep it for now."

For the time being, I ordered the goblin to wait and had it stand in the corner of the room.

… Speaking of which, this room is pretty big. Now that I think about it, isn't it about the size of a gymnasium?

No, but if you're going to summon dragons and such, maybe that's natural?

"Um, so, first of all, this place is called 'Tsuia Mountain.'… By the way, this dungeon is called 'Ordinary Cave'! An adventurer said so."

It's not even recognized as a dungeon. Hey.

Or so I thought, but apparently that's the actual name of the dungeon. Confusing.

Well, sure, it doesn't look like a room lined with bricks or anything—from any angle, it's just an ordinary cave.

"What about adventurers?"

"It seems humans made something called an Adventurer's Guild. I'm not sure how it's different from the knight order though, I don't really know the details."

So there's a knight order too. The difference is probably just between individuals and a peacekeeping organization, right?

… Once I hear everything Rokuko knows, won't I end up knowing more than her?

"Are there human settlements nearby? Show me a map if you have one."

"You can see it from the menu."

I checked the menu.

It seems there's a highway near the base of the mountain. Maybe the bandits are targeting that.

When I adjusted the zoom, terrain information for the area around this mountain appeared… but I could only make out the immediate vicinity of the mountain. There's a decent-sized town nearby, Tsuia Mountain is here, and beyond the mountain there's an ocean—that's about all I could tell.

Oh, and besides the town, there are a few scattered villages.

… By the way, the map was pretty rough. No, I wish it showed distances more precisely. Oh well. It's apparently a map used in this area.

"Hey, aren't you going to kill the bandits? If you kill them, you'll get tons of DP, you know? At the rate it's coming in now, hmm, I'd say we'd get about 200 DP?"

That would be about ten days' worth if they stayed a full twenty-four hours, she said.

"No, we can't make a move on the bandits yet."

"Why not? If it's just one bandit… maybe ten goblins would be enough?"

"To get 200 DP, we'd have to spend 200 DP… and we don't even have enough DP in the first place."

Also, goblins are weak just like they look. Ten of them for one bandit?

"Let's save up DP for a while. Don't waste it—it's better to use it all at once when the time is right. We shouldn't carelessly provoke the bandits right now either. If we recklessly send out goblins and they decide to destroy the Dungeon Core, what then?"

"…! I never thought of that. Kehma, you're smart!"

"Rokuko is just stupid. Now that you understand, listen to what I say, got it?"

"O-okay. Got it."

Alright, with this she shouldn't do anything on her own anymore. The order is in place, after all.

"… Let me see, what about the labyrinth? Making a room costs… it depends on the size, but a small bare-rock room is about 200 DP. Passages depend on length, and traps are separate?"

"That's right! It's better to summon monsters than make rooms. That's why I've never used that."

"And you can use DP to get treasures and place them… Ah, so pillows count as a treasure category."

"Yeah, but what's the point of placing something like that? I'd rather spend DP summoning monsters to defeat intruders than on something like—wait, what's with that look? It's creepy."

Oops, I should stop giving this idiot such a lukewarm stare.

"… Yeah, well, when you think of dungeons, the image is more about traps and treasure than monsters."

"Really? The other Cores never said anything like that, you know?"

"… Come to think of it, you said you were Dungeon Core No. 695. Does that mean there are at least 694 others?"

"I think the numbers have gone down quite a bit from Cores dying when theirs get destroyed… The Dungeon Core is our heart, after all."

"Having your heart exposed in a one-room dungeon is incredibly risky."

"But the other Cores said it doesn't matter how many rooms you have!"

The blonde loli puffed out her nonexistent chest proudly. Maybe I should pat that flat chest of hers.

"Can you contact other Cores?"

"Well, there are gatherings. I couldn't attend this time because of the intruders, but… we get summoned about once a year… it's basically a party. A valuable place to gather information."

"Heh, so that's where you heard all this?"

"Yes, Dungeon Core No. 89 Nee-sama told me. Nee-sama is amazing—she runs a dungeon right in the middle of the imperial capital, even though she's a humanoid type like me! Her number is in the double digits, she's in the top ten of the DP rankings, and she always pays attention to me."

Isn't this girl just being deceived?

"By the way, 89 Nee-sama once got a dragon from the 1000 DP gacha."

"I see. Well, there's a lot I'm curious about like the imperial capital and rankings, but let's set that aside for now. Right now we need to deal with the crisis in front of us."

"That's right. We need to do something about the bandits."

Guruuu, a sound rumbled.

… Come to think of it, I haven't eaten anything since yesterday.

"Alright, let's eat… Got any food?"

"Eh? Oh, right. Monsters need to eat, huh. I forgot since I don't need food myself."

By the way, it seems that whenever intruders came, she would always spend all her stockpiled DP to summon goblins. Once or twice a month, adventurers would come, annihilate the goblins, chop up their corpses, and leave.

And apparently I'm classified as a monster. How rude.

I spent 5 DP to produce bread and water, shared some with the goblin that had been quietly waiting in the corner of the room, and we ate together.