Staged

Within a cave—a dungeon, rather.

[N-Narikin, which dungeon are you challenging?]

[That is still a secret for now. After saying this much, it would be embarrassing if I failed to conquer it within a month…!]

While the elder high priest flustered, Narikin tossed him a playful wink.

Here, I gave Narikin the prearranged hand signal: "wrap it up soon."

[Ah. We're nearing the communication limit of the magic tool. That's all for today. Let us meet again tomorrow at the same hour! Everyone, please come watch again tomorrow as well! Until then!]

[W-wait! Explain in more detail—]

And cut the feed there.

It ended abruptly for the elder high priest, but that's fine. With this sort of thing, it's best to leave them wanting a little more.

"Aaaand cuuuuuuuuuuuut!"

"… Whew. Good work, Master."

"Yeah. You too, Narikin."

I offered Narikin some words of appreciation.

The Bible was firmly strapped to his chest.

This was a derivative dungeon of [Cave of Desire]. It had no name and existed only for this shoot—let's call it [Filming Set Dungeon].

As for moving Narikin here, that was thanks to Soto.

"Master, your ideas are outrageous. To think you'd show a dungeon conquest to the masses via magic tool…"

"It's one of the strategies I planned to use someday. And we happened to have the perfect magic tool on hand."

As for the filming gear—well, in practice we're leveraging the dungeon's monitoring functionality—the magic tool in question can normally only communicate across the distance of about three towns, which will serve as good camouflage.

That said, people in the Holy Kingdom probably don't know the tool's exact specs anyway.

… The camouflage is mainly for Haku-san. If asked, I'll just say we modified the ruins of the dungeon that Core No. 10 managed and used it to film.

"How did you borrow this magic tool, by the way? And was the transport via Soto-sama?"

"Toy had it under her management."

"Ah. So ToyNaana already had it prepared."

Toy had taken out a magic tool that Leona crafted and left in Daido.

After this whole shoot wraps, we'll hand it back to Daido. Then it will be true to say, "We borrowed it from the Daido Kingdom."

At that time, we can add, "We recovered it from the culprit who took it," and it will not contain a single lie; it also doubles as payment for borrowing their name. Probably.

As for why we didn't borrow from the Empire, it's too soon to reveal connections with the Raverio Empire, the nation known for its dungeons. Once Narikin becomes Pope, we can bring those ties to the fore as much as we like.

To summarize what we did this time…

• Created the derivative [Filming Set Dungeon]
• Used Soto's dungeon to summon Narikin to it
• Had Toy operate the magic tool (in reality, we leaned hard on dungeon functions) (and we'll return the magic tool to Daido afterward)

… That's about it.

Oh, and the [Filming Set Dungeon] will ultimately be collapsed by destroying the [Dummy Core].

In reality we'll keep it in a reusable state, but destroying the set for a shoot makes for a great climactic scene.

"If we broadcast to the masses while hugging the book, then 'anyone can see he's carrying it' is satisfied. The condition is met."

"And by being in an undisclosed dungeon, we needn't worry about assassins or saboteurs. Moreover, if we say 'we are conquering a dungeon,' no one in that country will complain."

Exactly. The Holy Kingdom is a nation that lives to slaughter dungeons.

Dungeon conquest is the top priority above all else. If you're in the middle of a dungeon conquest, then it's 'details be damned!'

Most nitpicks can be silenced by saying, "Then you go conquer a dungeon!"

Right. Even if someone says, "If you're not streaming, then you aren't showing it and fail the condition, no?" we can steamroll them with, "Shut it! We're conquering a dungeon!! If you want to see it, come to the dungeon!"

Though the dungeon's location would remain undisclosed.

"Unfortunately, due to mana consumption, the magic tool can only stream for a few hours a day."

"Which means the rest is essentially downtime."

Since it's our own dungeon, whether enemies appear is up to us.

Enemies are spawned, so they cost us effectively nothing. They also obey our orders, so they'll naturally attack Narikin, who wouldn't normally be targeted as an ally.

And an order like "Do not target the book" is valid, ensuring the Bible's safety.

"This is what you call 'staged,' then."

"Staged, Master?"

"Well, enjoy a measured dose of dungeon life. Think of it as a timely homecoming."

"Indeed. I've now spent more time in the Holy Kingdom than since my birth. It's about time I reminded myself what dungeon life is like—from the conqueror's side, mind you."

He looked pleased, if only a little.

"Then tomorrow let's switch to an environment room. Today was an obviously-a-dungeon cave, very easy to understand."

"Another two days like this might be better. If the aim is to emphasize that I am in a dungeon, the first three days should remain dungeon-y."

"Oh? Well said. Approved."

"We could discover an environment room at the end of day three."

And so began the first-ever safe-and-secure papal-election dungeon stream.

We've got a month. Opening treasure chests, camping in safe zones, how-tos on procuring food on-site… We won't be short on content.

"By the way, Narikin, you can take that book off now, right?"

"Oh, no. The instruction was to keep it on at all times, so I intend to leave it as is."

"Conscientious, aren't you."

Well, that's fine by me.