Together, Teto and I stepped inside the newly born dungeon in the «Forest of the Creation Witch». The interior of the dungeon was just a single, empty room with all its walls and ceiling made of the same white material as the outside temple. There, we saw a pedestal on which the dungeon core was housed.
"This should be a dungeon core, I guess. Well, what to do now to create a dungeon?"
"Majou-sama, why not try touching it?"
At the urging of Teto, I stepped forward and touched the dungeon core. Immediately after, the dungeon core began to emit light.
"Ugh......"
"Majou-sama! Are you alright!?"
A groan slipped out of my lips as some kind of information, presumably a 'dungeon manual', was drilled into my head at the same time the dungeon core emitted light. Teto hurriedly moved beside me to support my body from falling.
Fortunately, the information transplant was only about ‘the easy way to use the dungeon’ so the pain was over in the next moment. I asked Teto not to worry as I corrected my posture.
"I'm alright. It was just showing me how to use the dungeon......"
Again, I timidly reached my hand out to the dungeon core, though it didn't glow or do anything weird this time.
"——«Charge». Dungeon Core - Activate!"
"Ohh! Something is coming out!"
After I poured my mana into the dungeon core, Teto and I found ourselves surrounded by several translucent screens.
They were like holograms. I maneuvered through them with my thoughts and parsed through every single one of them while setting aside the ones with information I thought necessary or important.
The holograms presented me with various information like dungeon rarity, possible summon, facility, item creation, the items that could be absorbed by the dungeon, and the income and expenditure of the dungeon among other things.
"These are like a video game's information screen."
"Video Game? Teto doesn't get it, but it looks easy to understand!"
Now that I think about it, even the status system the gods had introduced to mankind after the collapse of the ancient magic civilization also seemed like a concept taken out of a video game.
Well, considering the ancient dungeon's game-like systems as well, maybe the world originally had game-like rules? Hmm, but whether to adopt this system was entirely at God's discretion, which meant......
"Majou-sama, you've been staring at the screen for quite a while now. Do you see any problem?"
"Hmm? Ah, no nothing. Anyway, time for a trial run."
Standing side by side, Teto and I looked at the dungeon floor creation option and read through the items or tools we could summon. With each passing second, I could feel all my dreams turning into dust.
"So few. There's not much we can do or summon......"
There were variable mana costs required for monsters, summoned items, and floor creation. Moreover, the available varieties per subject were far and few between.
"We can only create wilderness and grotto floors, huh? No coastal floor?"
Also, there were two options regarding the summoning monsters option.
First was a quasi-lifeform summon. The monsters summoned through that option would exist as quasi-lifeforms in the dungeon. In layman's terms, they would be like dungeon-bound phantom monsters.
Due to their semi-corporeal constitution, such monsters, when defeated, wouldn't leave behind a corpse, but would only drop some items or mana stones instead.
There were quite a few merits in summoning them, like— 1. Since there is no need to prepare a complete physical body, the summoning cost is low. 2. They were quasi-lifeforms so the mana required to continuously summon them was also pretty low. More specifically, they could survive solely on the magical energy supplied by the dungeon, eliminating the need for food. 3. They were all kind of like machines and were obedient to the Dungeon Master's commands.
But they were not without demerits as well, as— 1. They would never become stronger compared to the monsters from the outside, since compared to the outside monsters who became stronger through accumulated experiences, dungeon monsters didn't have such a concept. 2. Due to their lack of physical bodies, they didn't reproduce. 3. Being pseudo lifeforms that they were, they didn't generate any mana.
"So, do they have their functions as living beings or monsters removed? Ah, or is it more like, restricted?"
Another option was actual monster summoning.
They were different from quasi-lifeforms as through this option, monsters with real flesh and blood could be summoned inside the dungeon.
Well, they weren't summoned entities in the trustest sense though as instead of calling monsters from somewhere in the world, they were kind of like an entity generated from mana. It was actually somewhat similar to how monsters were born through the accumulated mana in nature.
"Mu-mu-mu, Teto gives up! Teto can't understand it! Do you, Majou-sama?"
"Yeah, I have more or less understood it, though I can’t tell exactly to what extent without trying it out."
While the actual monster summoning eliminated most of the cons of quasi-lifeform summoning, it wasn't without its shortcomings. Like, the spike in the maintenance cost.
But looking at it positively, they could generate their own mana and multiply through breeding.
Additionally, they weren't phantom-like beings that would need mana to stabilize their existence, unlike quasi-lifeform monsters, so that was one less existence to feed mana to. That being said, they would die from hunger if we didn't prepare their food.
Lastly was that we could turn quasi-lifeform monsters into actual monsters by charging them with mana afterwards.
Furthermore, there was no need to fear a stampede since the instant these flesh and blood monsters escaped out of the dungeon, their physical state would dissolve and be turned into mana, assimilating into the atmosphere. Quite a convenient feature. Maybe, by utilizing this, we could consume the accumulated mana in the earth veins and return it to the world.
But for now——
"The best would be to gather more information before acting. Until then, let's seal the dungeon."
"Alright-nanodesu! Then let's have breakfast, Teto is hungry!"
Teto and I rushed to see the dungeon first thing in the morning without having breakfast, so both of our stomachs were growling.
"Well, how about having breakfast in the dungeon?"
"Oh, let's do that! Then we'll stay in the dungeon and hang out!"
I contacted Baretta, who was in charge of breakfast, through the communication magic tool and expressed my intention to have our breakfast in the dungeon.
We occasionally ate outside, and in some cases, we made our food by ourselves so Baretta just nodded when I notified her.
"Now then...... What do you want to eat, Teto?"
"What a tough question. But Teto knows she wants to eat bread filled with lots of stuff!"
"Bread, like sweet bread or stuffed bread? Which reminds me, it's been quite a while since I made them, huh? ——«Creation» sweet bread and stuffed bread!"
We set up the table and chairs we used during our adventuring days as I created some bread like red bean paste bread, jam bread, melon bread, donuts, Danish bread, curry bread, ham and cheese sandwich, croquette, and hamburger.
I created all sorts of bread wrapped in transparent plastic packaging, something that could easily be found at a convenience store.
Baretta would have surely said 'Master could have asked us to make them' if she were to see this.
But we weren't just eating them to fill our belly, it was the cheap taste from the memory of my previous memory and the food we ate right after reincarnation that we were looking forward to.
"We have been eating expensive and healthy food lately, but it's not bad to eat junk food sometimes......"
"Teto wants curry bread and yakisoba bread!"
"Let's see, what should I eat......"
Teto swiftly chose her stuffed bread, took off the packaging, and began eating.
For myself, I chose the sauce-filled croquette and the ham and cheese sandwich. I also created a small bottled beverage to go along with them.
"They still taste as great as ever!"
"I hope we can recreate the climate to cultivate the spices you like......"
I munched on the sandwich while analyzing the information from the holograms hovering mid-air.
"Did you find something, Majou-sama?"
It seemed like maintenance costs also included the repair cost in case of damage.
It was possible to remove randomly generated floors without actually implementing floor creation. (T/N - Didn't get the author's intention here)
Hmm, so modern dungeons were basically naturally spawned with random elements taken from the various ancient dungeons with the only thing missing being the presence of a Dungeon Master?
On top of that, the types of floor possible were basically determined by the characteristics of the land it had spawned on.
"Let's try to create one floor first. We can remove it if it doesn't work out."
Creating floors obviously required mana, but even removing them needed a significant amount of mana. Furthermore, no lifeform could be present inside when removing a floor.
Well, that called for some countermeasures like forced teleportation of humans and actual monsters from the floor.
I revised some settings on the sample floor while eating a sandwich.
The information on how to use it was already hammered into my brain when I first touched the dungeon core, but that was only about learning how to operate the controls.
How I wished there was something like a game walkthrough wiki to learn about dungeons, there were just so many things I didn't understand...... As my thoughts drifted around, I suddenly felt thirsty and stretched out my hand for the small bottled drink.
However——
" "Ah......" "
I didn't pay attention as my gaze was glued to the dungeon creation screen and as a result, the drink slipped out of my hand and spilled onto the dungeon floor.
"Uh-oh...... There it goes."
"It dirtied the floor......"
We were drinking carbonated drinks.
Maybe it was a rebellious intent on our part since we usually drank black tea or fruit juice prepared by Baretta so whenever we got such a moment, we indulged ourselves with different drinks.
"Majou-sama, here, the towel!"
"Thanks, Teto.—— Ah......"
Receiving the towel from Teto, I used it to wipe the spilled liquid on the table. Then, I was about to wipe the spilled drink on the floor as well when it was suddenly absorbed by the dungeon completely.
"Ahh, well, It's a dungeon after all, albeit one without a proper floor yet."
Any type of waste was usually absorbed by the dungeon on its own accord.
It could be corpses, weapons, or any other fallen items. In short, the dungeon took in unnecessary things to maintain the floor ecosystem and replenish missing parts.
Puzzled at the disappearance of the carbonated drink, I shifted my gaze to look at the dungeon management screen to see if I could figure out where it was taken to and saw an unfamiliar screen flashing on it
"Huh? What's this?"
"What happened, Majou-sama?"
Teto asked curiously after hearing my surprised yelp while eating the pile of bread she had taken in her hands. I wasn't sure as well so I quickly operated the dungeon core to see what was going on.
Apparently, the floating unfamiliar screen was a notification.
——«Dungeon has taken in «Carbonated Water». Henceforth, new materials related to it have been unlocked for installation.»
Along with the notification, I saw an increase in the objects that could be set up in the current dungeon layout as of now, and among the spring-related facility selection, «Carbonated Spring» had been added.
