early TL note:
Reverting greed’s inn to Avarice Lodge for less confusion.
I don’t know about the details, but it seems that the prince from Daido Country is here.
After receiving a report from Dolce, s.h.i.+kina and Maiodore also told me the same thing.
After thanking them for the information, I remembered that Leona said she is going to Daido country to play or something.
Either they are connected or not, this is still a matter that requires caution.
“You are a prince, but you choose not to stay in the suite…”
I decided to watch the prince or whatever they called him from the Master room.
Harks, the prince of Daido.
And his two aides, Crusch and Kenho.
Dolce said that in addition of this group of people, there was one other pretty good [shadow] with them (she said he is not an a.s.sa.s.sin, so she did not really bother, but she also said that ‘I can deal with him quite easily’)
And that [shadow] didn’t hide his presence when accompanying those three to dive into the dungeon.
If we judge them by DP they generated per day then, the prince is 202. His two aides are about 250 for each. And the [shadow] is 532.
532… a pseudo-Hero cla.s.s? The other is also pretty good, by the way. Our Goblins and traps are easily obliterated, the golem also didn’t pose too much problem for them. Prince Harks and Kehno are using swords, while Crusch is supporting them with earth magic. The [shadow] are keeping guard at their surroundings, it’s a flawless formation.
They put the drop item into their [storage]… I see… all of them have [storage], this is quite troublesome.
“… they are quite excellent.”
“Yeah, I should review their movement today.”
And before I knew it, Rokuko was beside me. Our faces are very close.
“Hey Kehma, what should we do about this?”
“I wonder…”
“They will capture the dungeon as this rate.”
“… that’s okay, even if they can capture the dungeon it’s enough to just show them the dummy core, just like that time with Wataru.”
“That’s also true.”
Also, this is a good chance, let’s review our dungeon state.
The first is Gollen village. This is where the dungeon can generate tons of DP just by letting people sleep at the inn.
Then we got [s.h.i.+a mountain tunnel] that bypa.s.sing s.h.i.+a mountain to the Pavuera side.
Next one is… the dungeon first floor, a novice floor with light trap and some goblin.
The second floor and third floor, from here the iron golem will sp.a.w.n, this floor is also the location for the famous [Avarice Trap] room.
The fourth floor, it used to be the mystery-solving room, now it where the [Avarice Lodge] is, basically, a rest area, targeting the seasoned adventurers.
“For adventurers that diving to our dungeon this is usually their finish line, right?”
“Some also earning money by defeating iron golem.”
Fifth floor, the spiral staircase area, the wall may come out and push people on the stair, or sometimes with breaking foothold.
Sixth floor, warehouse area. We store Magic Sword Golem there, also some irregular experimental golem. The prototype Haniwa Golem is guarding that area, which makes this quite dangerous floor.
“Every once in a while there are some adventurers that can reach this floor.”
“The reward is some Magic Swords afterall.”
And finally, the Seventh floor, this is where the dungeon branches.
7F-1, the gra.s.sland area. It’s where the succubus’ village located, a peaceful place.
“You will be stripped of your belonging and thrown out to entrance of the dungeon, right?”
“Yeah, that’s how thing will go… is there anyone that reaches this floor?”
“Not that I know.”
7F-2, Phenny’s garden, the lava pool. It also leads to [Flame Caverns].
“ah, That’s the place where I kept Phenny the white phoenix. I’ve seen some adventurers that come here via [Flame Caverns].”
“Wataru is the first one though…”
7F-3, the new mystery-room. This is the main route if you want to reach the dungeon core. There’s a sign in j.a.panese saying [Under Construction]. It’s a Leona countermeasure, but the effectiveness is unknown because we haven’t got the chance to test it.
“The riddles here is designed to consume a long time to solve it.”
“Yeah, it will take at least a day’s worth of your time. Its purpose is to buy us some time.”
This floor also leads to the arena and boss room.
You will be forced to fight with Haniwa Golem in the arena, and then Dragon Golem in the boss room.
“The Dragon Golem is equipped with trap that can spew fire.”
“The trap also can only be used inside the boss room, but that’s fine because the Dragon Golem will never go outside boss room anyway.”
“It’s still not as good as real dragon though.”
“Please don’t compare common dragon to Redra, the final boss of [Flame Caverns].”
And if you managed to break through the boss room, you will finally find the core room.
It’s a dummy core though. This room was manipulating your perception that the dungeon core room = last room.
In fact, there’s still one more room hidden in the back, it’s also a boss room. The boss is a thumb-sized haniwa orichalc.u.m golem. This was Rokuko’s idea, and we agreed to use it.
And this tiny Orichalc.u.m golem is hidden behind the ceiling of said room, making it extremely difficult to find. Even if you can find it, to defeat this golem is not an easy feat.
And let’s say you managed to defeat it, all you did is only opening the door to the core room, whenever you can find the door or not is another story.
“Mini-sized Orichalc.u.m golem, this is an evil idea, even by my standard!”
“Because normally it would hide itself, and I’m not sure they’d realize this is a boss room in the first place.”
And let’s a.s.sume that you managed to do all that, you finally found the hidden door, inside you will find the real dungeon core, or so you thought, but sorry that was also a dummy core.
It’s a trap to make you believe that you finally find the real thing after that you’ve found the hidden room and defeated a horrible boss.
That was the entire picture of the current [Cave of Desire]
…What? You are asking where the real dungeon core is?
Until recently, I put it in the arena, but I moved it after listening to Rei and Eleca idea. Since if it stays there, there will be no guarantee that it won’t be hit by a stray bullet from a spell, like my [Elemental Shot].
…so where is it? It was hidden in the room I made in the middle of [Mount s.h.i.+a Tunnel], the room was located in the unmarked ceiling of the tunnel pa.s.sage, the very back of it.
Also, there are many similar hidden rooms there. Even if you find one secret room, you will not be able to immediately pinpoint the core location. And that will give us time to swap it for the dummy core in the deepest part of [Cave of Desire] using the [Castling] function.
These double and triple traps, is how I will protect Rokuko’s main body.
After reviewing the whole thing, Rokuko smile and said…
“Ehehehe, Kehma… I love you.”
“O-oh …you surprised me.”
“Because this difficulty is your proof of love, how can there be a core that isn’t happy to be so thoroughly protected?”
Was it like that? She’s not wrong though.
“That’s why you can rest a.s.sured, this Daido prince can do whatever they pleased.”
“Yeah, I will believe in you.”
Or is it better for me to say h.e.l.lo?
No, if they want to play around, it’s better to approach this carefully. Let’s give up the idea for now.
TL note
New character naming time!
ハークス: Harks / Harkes – which one sounds better?
クルシュ: Crusch – I took the easy way out, I’m adopting the name from re:zero and overlord. So this one is set.
ケンホ: Kenho – there’s really no other way to p.r.o.nounce this, so this one is also set