The Dungeon's Done!

"The dungeon's done, Kehma!"

"Oh. That was fast."

We'd set aside a month for construction, but Rokuko finished it in two weeks.

She'd gone all out with DP this time, spending it like water. At first she'd been hesitant, but lately she'd been consuming more than the Karisoto District generated, actually dipping into our reserves.

Normally DP decreases when you use it and you build dungeons by drawing from savings, so this was actually how things were supposed to work.

It seemed my penny-pinching ways had rubbed off on her before, making her resistant to spending lavishly.

That said, she was still being frugal where she could, using [Create Golem] to make golems and have them dig. I'd even been asked to make some 'Gate of Wisdom Golems'.

"Ufufufu, I need to thank Soto. Thanks to her, I was able to make a dungeon using DP to my heart's content!"

"… It's set up just like Narikin showed on his stream, right?"

"Yes, the early parts are. I archived Narikin's streams so there are no oversights."

'Yes, the early parts are.' … Just the early parts, huh.

"How many floors did the dungeon end up being?"

"Exactly fifteen floors!"

Whoa… She really went all out digging.

"The first ten floors are just like Narikin's stream."

"Then even accounting for the points he cleared in the previous stream, they should be able to conquer it in about a week."

"Huh?"

"Hmm?"

"… Oh, right!"

What was that about? I suddenly felt very uneasy.

"It'll be fine. Come to think of it, the Saintess can resurrect, right? And so can Narikin."

"Wait, Rokuko? Did you make the dungeon that deadly?"

"… It'll be fine, probably! I mean, it's better than going easy on them and making them suspicious, right?"

"Well, that's true, but…"

She's not actually trying to prevent them from clearing it, right?

"I mean, we're already using a Basilisk, so there's no way floors eleven and below would be easier than that, right?"

"What exactly did you do? The boss? What did you make the boss?"

At that, Rokuko broke into a huge grin as if she'd been waiting for this.

"A dragon! It's just an unattributed regular dragon, but it's a real dragon!"

"Oh boy. You actually went and put in a dragon, huh."

She'd been wanting one forever, so I guess this couldn't be helped. Actually, it was well within my expectations.

If it hadn't been a dragon, I'd figured she'd have gone with a Goblin Lord or something.

"It's a legit dragon, not some knockoff like a wyvern, you know? Heheh. I'm finally a dragon user now."

"Is owning a dragon some kind of status symbol for dungeons?"

Like whether you own a car or not. Something like that.

"If you own a dragon, you can participate in the Dragon Battles at the 'Valley of Dragons'."

"Dragon Battles."

"Hosted by Core No. 5-sama, the Dragon King!"

Oh right, the Dragon King. I'd forgotten about him. He was lurking behind that rock-paper-scissors trio during the Dungeon Battle.

But still, Dragon Battles and stuff like that… I'm not going, okay? I'm definitely not going.

"Oh. Let me use the Boss Spawner, okay? I definitely don't want to lose it."

"Sure. Using DP for Named revival on a dragon would be rough, and this is exactly the right use for the Boss Spawner."

Right now we were using it to produce Thumb Orichalcum Golem corpses, but monsters like this were exactly what Boss Spawner was meant for.

… Well, we'll keep using it for that until just before Narikin and the others arrive. Yeah.

"Well, the Saintess and Narikin should be able to beat a dragon. It's an unattributed normal dragon. The weakest among dragons."

"Oh? So you did show some restraint there."

"… Yeah, I just couldn't customize it. The price skyrockets…"

Yeah, figures.

"I'll save up my allowance DP and power it up! Aim for the strongest dragon!"

"Yeah, someday. For now let's keep it normal, okay? And we're not trying to become Dragon Masters, either."

"Right, it's still the weakest for now. I'll have to get Redra to train it later."

"We're not aiming for that, okay?"

I mean, Haku-san at least has dragons too, right?

The amount of DP she can pour in is on a completely different level. If she's been investing in hers, there's no way we can win. Not in the "it feels like we can't win" way either, we literally cannot.

We can't compete in spending power or time invested.

"So, what's the rest of the dungeon like besides the dragon?"

"Fufufu, behold! My masterpiece dungeon!!"

"Just to be clear, we're destroying it at the end, you know that right? Though we'll reuse the dragon and such."

"… … … … …"

Oh. Did she maybe forget we were going to destroy it?

"… Can't we keep it?"

"This dungeon exists for Narikin's trial, so destroying it was always part of the plan."

"We can't…?"

"You can expand the main dungeon instead. Okay?"

"R-Right! I'll grow even deeper!"

Yeah, yeah, grow into a fine dungeon. One that can think things through even while going wild. Okay?