Day 9
As always, there was nothing for me to do.
The bandits did eventually start mining the walls themselves, though they
kept grumbling while doing so. They started off by throwing the excess rock
and stone outside, but halfway through we started to absorb the stuff into the
dungeon under the guise of accepting it as an offering. It didn't earn us even
a single DP, but the bandits appreciated us helping out enough that they
started working faster without complaining.
They really are simple guys. I guess at this rate we'll be able to make a
small room in like ten days?
"Hm? It feels like people are coming." I glanced at Rokuko after she
murmured that to me. "Bandits?"
"I don't think so. They're probably adventurers. I think the bandits just
noticed them too. I guess they're gonna do another surprise attack?"
"Alright... They're almost definitely investigating this cave since those
last adventurers never came back." I didn't expect them so soon, but they
presented a good opportunity. I decided to tell Rokuko about the rest of my
plan to eliminate the bandits. She won't try to do anything unnecessary if she
knows what's really going on here.
"Since they came all the way to investigate us, they're stronger than the
last adventurers that came here. After all, it'd just be a waste of time if they
sent some weaker people that ended up not coming back either." From the
bandits' perspective, they couldn't let anyone see this completely changed
[Ordinary Cave] and survive to tell the tale.
So, they'll have to kill all the adventurers. No survivors. And if those
adventurers never return, another group will come to investigate. And of
course, that group will be even stronger than the last one. I don't know how
long it'll take, but at some point, the bandits will lose. And there you have it.
That's the plan I have for slaughtering every single one of the bandits. Right
now, my job is just making sure the bandits don't try to flee their hideout
before it gets crushed. Huh? That's not a job? I'm just sleeping without
actually doing anything? Hey, c'mon, that's not true at all.
The bandits were hunting for food, and they would offer up some of their
prey to us (mainly the internal organs, bones, and other stuff that they
couldn't eat themselves. It was all worth a little DP.) In return, I would send
them treasure chests with letters on the bottom explaining how best to fight
within the cave. Of course, since we would get more delicious DP whenever
bandits or adventurers died inside the cave, we benefited the most from those
battle plans.
See? I'm doing my part and working hard too. God! I don't want to
work...! At least my job was pretty simple. I just had to reward the bandits
whenever they offered up stuff to my dungeon.
"Oooh! That's amazing, Keima! I can't believe you thought of a plan that
great!"
"Yep. By the way, the true purpose of that goblin room is to be a dummy
[Ordinary Cave] when necessary. If worse comes to worst, we can move the
Dungeon Core over there and pretend we never knew a thing about the
bandits."
"Oh wow, really...? I totally thought that you had just forgotten that
monsters can only come out of the Dungeon Core when its floor has intruders
on it."Oh, I did forget about that. That goblin's just been sitting cross-legged for
the past week, so I was planning on letting him outside, but I guess that's just
not possible.
"Oh, the adventurers are almost here."
"Right. May as well watch what happens."
# Bandit's Perspective
"Boooss! Some adventurers are coming!"
"Alright, just as planned. We're gonna take'm down."
"Just as planned?"
"Yeah. The box that had the sword in it mentioned that adventurers would
be coming soon, remember? The dungeon wants us to protect it."
By the way, the boss of the bandits had studied for a while and learned
how to read simple messages. Since the letters from the dungeon were
intentionally being written in a simple manner, even he could read them. The
boss of the bandits was feeling pretty smug about that, too. He bragged to his
subordinates that he had gotten a lot smarter ever since he holed up in this
dungeon. He even said that he might turn back into an idiot if he ever leaved
it.
"...Alright. We'll use the new guys. Tell'm I'll make whoever kills the
most my right-hand man."
"Got it. What about us?"
"If the guys get slaughtered, we'll finish off the weakened adventurers.
That'll be the end of it if everything works out." The dungeon really had
taught the boss a lot about warfare.
Use the new guys first and get ready to get rid of the weakest ones as soon
possible. That was just one of the lessons he had learned. Having a hideout
where you could stash treasure and get shelter from the rain was everything
to a bandit. It was status. It'd be dangerous if anyone ever discovered the
hideout, but slaughtering everyone who finds it should take care of that... or
at least, that was what the letter from the dungeon said, and thus that was
what the boss of the bandits believed.
Two corners of the dungeon's first room were blind spots coming from
the entrance hallway, making them the perfect spot to launch a surprise
attack... though there was so little space, only about eight people could hide
effectively. That's where the new guys would be camping out. Every other
bandit hid in one of the two new rooms the dungeon had made for them. That
way, they could rush out and provide support whenever necessary.
"Huh? I thought this was a one-room dungeon with the core right at the
start." Those were the last words ever spoken by one of the three adventurers.
New Guy A had swung down his sword at the adventurer who had popped
his defenseless head out of the entrance hallway.
"Take thiiis!" His rusted, dull sword hit a weak spot on the adventurer's
uncovered neck and snapped that part of his spine with a single blow.
Right, that guy's one of the thugs I picked up at the slums. I remember him
being all smug and cocky. I told him to keep quiet until his first attack landed,
but I guess that was too much for a thug who's never killed a man before.
But by chance, he had managed to kill one of the adventurers with his first
swing. That could only be called the result of pure luck.
"Heh! Heheheh! Now I'm gonna be the boss's right-hand man!"
"Benny?! Tch, bandits! {Slash}!"
"Huh? Gah!"
The adventurer's... The swordsman's counterattack cut halfway through
New Guy A's neck. That wound was severe enough that he would need
High-Rank magic to survive... which basically meant he was already dead.
He had landed a critical hit with a surprise attack on the first adventurer, and
now he had been hit with more or less the same thing himself. The
swordsman's weapon was a sharp, well cared for sword... but what mattered
more than anything else was his prowess, reflected by the skill he had used.
New Guy A collapsed onto the ground.
Nobody made the dumb mistake of watching his corpse fall to the ground,
but the adventurers still moved faster than any of the newbie bandits.
"Shit, he's got a skill! We've gotta pile up on him! We'll win through
numbers... nghaaah!" The backmost adventurer launched an arrow that
pierced the chest of New Guy B's cracked leather armor and killed him
instantly. He must not have expected to kill the bandit in a single blow, as a
second arrow soon stabbed through his head.
He shot fast and he shot hard. His aim was good, too. He might have been
using a bow combat skill, but either way, an archer can't do anything in a
close-quarters fight. The fact he stood his ground in the hallway was probably
reflective of how little combat experience he had. Or perhaps he just didn't
want to run away and abandon his companion.
It was a brutal battle from that point on. Despite having lost one of their
own, the adventurers fought well together. They were definitely stronger than
the newbie bandits. That was obvious from the moment the adventurers first
used a skill, but even so, they couldn't win against numbers. The swordsman
was surrounded and the archer was defeated after the bandits used a corpse as
a shield to get close.
In the end, five of the cocky bandits had died trying to defeat the three
adventurers. Out of the three newbies who had killed one of the adventurers,
two had died from counter attacks, leaving only one alive. New Guy C, a
former mercenary who had luckily managed to survive after killing an
adventurer, was made the boss's right-hand man as promised.
"We're gonna be getting a lot of new members from now on. He can help
me keep everything together. Let's see... Only the criminal slaves and exmercenaries survived. Guess thugs are pretty worthless, huh? Now. That
should be enough corpses to get us a new room, yeah? I'm counting on you,
my lovely dungeon friend."
And so, a treasure chest appeared. Inside was a letter saying "Good work!
I'll add a new room, so please go outside." As a nice bonus, the chest even
had food inside of it. There was even a sweet-smelling kind of bread that the
boss had never seen before. It smelled a lot like the incredibly expensive fruit
known as "melons."
...By chance, the boss had smelled a melon once before in his life. That
event led to his fall from grace and descent into banditry... but there's no
point in talking about that.
The boss offered the bread to his new right-hand man to test for poison,
and it ended up being so delicious that he said, "I've never tasted bread this
sweet in my life! I swear I'll serve you for the rest of my life, Boss!" while
shoving it into his mouth. His expression was so much more sincere than the
one he had when he first joined that the boss couldn't help but shake his
head, grinning.
# Keima's PerspectiveThe bandits killed the last adventurer. Really, the adventurers had been a
lot dumber than I expected. If the first adventurer had put his guard up after
noticing something was off about the dungeon, they might have survived the
bandits' surprise attack. Perhaps he just wasn't taking our dungeon seriously,
considering it was an [Ordinary Cave] and nothing more. He might have
assumed that even if there was a surprise attack, it would be conducted by
mere goblins. Maybe he knew that the roads had been getting more
dangerous, and figured that a random cave would have nothing to do with
that? ...He might have expected that the newbie adventurers from before had
simply gotten lost and set up camp in our cave.
We'll never know now, but that doesn't really matter since they're all
dead now. They should've taken this place seriously the moment they heard
about the last adventurers never coming back, but they didn't. That's their
fault.
I glanced at the monitor and saw the exact moment that the archer was
stabbed through the chest with a sword. Eugh, I saw something I shouldn't
have again... Am I gonna have nightmares about this stuff?
"Awww, so much DP! I'm starting to like these bandits a lot more than I
used to. They're not even stepping on the Dungeon Core anymore!"
"They're murderers and thieves, y'know."
Well, whatever. We got 1,900 DP from that battle, which increased our
total to 2,951 DP. Some rough mental math lead me to conclude that the five
bandits were worth about 1,000 DP together while the three adventurers were
worth about 900 DP. ...We're gonna get less DP each day without those
bandits hanging around, but I'd say that's a fair trade.
"...Alright, I'll give them those rooms they want. They've been mining the
leftmost wall of the left room, so I'll build two new rooms in that direction. I
want a bend, so I'll make the third room to the right of the second new room.
We can put the Core there for maximum safety... Oh, right. I'll give'm some
food too. I wonder what'll happen if someone from this world eats a melon
roll or something."
"Melon roll? What's that? I don't see anything like that in the DP
Catalog."
"What're you talking about? It's right there. Though, I did just find it a
second ago." I put one [Pastry Set (5 DP)], one [Fancy Bread Set (5 DP)],
and one [Dried Meat and Vegetables Set (15 DP)] into a [Treasure Chest (5
DP)] with a letter on the bottom telling the bandits to go outside before
sending it all into the dungeon. It took 630 DP to make those rooms, so we
had 2,291 DP left over after all of that. ...Looks like we've still got a ways to
go until we reach 10,000 DP.
I checked up on the bandits and saw one of them devouring the melon roll
with a blissful smile on his face. It was the guy who had stabbed the archer
through the chest. He swore his loyalty to the bandit boss thanks to that
bread. Talk about overkill.
"Holy cow, this tastes amazing! This [Melon Roll] is soooo good! Keima,
did you used to eat things this tasty all the time?!"
So, after letting Rokuko try out some melon roll because she looked pretty
curious about it, she started stuffing her face with it, eyes shining. Wait, you
eat bread? Wait, I mean, you can actually eat stuff? First time I'm seeing
that.
"Wh-What? It's not like I can't eat food or anything."
"...But you don't need to, right?"
"I don't, but it's like... a treat. I'm treating myself. Um... Do you have any
more?"
I mean, you know that a single one of these costs 5 DP, right? When it
comes with a drink, anyway. You can get six of them at once with a [Pastry
Set], so that'll be the better deal. It'll be cheaper to buy a drink from a 5 DP
barrel, too... Wait a second. Buying in bulk is so cheap I feel like I was
getting ripped off before... But I don't remember seeing this [Pastry Set] in
the DP menu before. What's going on?
"Well, there's a whole world of bread out there, but we need to save DP
right now."
"There's more kinds of bread like this?! H-Hey, you don't have to be so
stingy. We have like 2,000 DP right now, don't we? I-It'll be okay if we just
spend a little... just a little...!"
Oh man, she looks dead serious about this.
"You bought a bunch of useless things like that [Pillow] and [Futon],
didn't you?! Let me spend some on myself too!"
"Hey, you got to buy a goblin, didn't you?"
"What?! G-Gobsuke has nothing to do with this! And he was just 20 DP!
You're using almost that much every day just to eat, aren't you?!" Gobsuke?!
You named him?! I never heard about that!
"Woah now. Don't forget, I'm splitting half of my food with the goblin. If
you include that, he's already cost us way more than just 20 DP... And he's
not helping us out at all right now, so he's basically your pet."
"Th-That's not true! Gobsuke has a lot of potential, he'll be a big help to
us! Right, Gobsuke?!" Gobsuke tilted his head in surprise, as if wondering
why we had suddenly brought him into this. For some reason, despite how
hideous his goblin face was with its squashed nose and giant teeth, he looked
a lot like a dog. ...I wonder if he'll eat dog food?
"Well, anyway. I actually don't mind if you spend a little on yourself, as
long as you don't go too far. It won't cost us any extra DP if we buy our food
and drink in bulk, so that's a bonus." We'll actually save a ton of DP buying
in bulk, but I'll keep quiet about that.
"Yay! Then hurry up and buy me a pastry set!"
"Why don't you do that yourself? You can use the DP Catalog too, right?"
"Eh? But I've never seen a [Pastry Set] or a [Melon Roll] or anything like
those in it... oh wait, I have more options now. Wow, I didn't know I could
buy stuff like this here. Oooh, there really are a lot of different kinds of
bread! [Rye Bread], [Wheat Bread], [Melon Roll]... so many options!"
Huh? Wait a second...
"Hey, tell me what you're seeing in the Catalog again."
"Eh? Like I said, [Rye Bread], [Wheat Bread], and [Melon Roll]."
"...Just those three?"
"Um? Uh-huh, just those three. Why?"
I went ahead and bought a [Pastry Set], with my individual choices being
[Cream Roll], [Jelly Roll], [Steamed Roll], [Red Bean Paste Roll], [Apple
Pie], and a [Fried Roll].
"Do you know what these are?"
"...Kinds of bread, right? Wow, I've never seen bread that looks like this
before. And why does all the bread you summon always end up covered in
this weird, transparent stuff? Can I eat that too?"
"Nope, you can't. That's plastic. You rip it apart to get to the food inside.
By the way, this is called a [Jelly Roll]. Try eating it."
"Hmm, a [Jelly Roll]. Let's see... Nom... mmm! So tasty! [Jelly Rolls]
taste amazing too! Wow, there's some yellow stuff inside of it. Oooh, so
sweet! What is this stuff, it's delicious!"
I handed over the [Cream Roll], having more or less figured out what's
going on.
"Rokuko, check out the [Pastry Set] again and see if you have more
options this time.
"Eh? Okay... I do have more options. I can pick a [Jelly Roll] now. Wow,
this is all new to me."
"Alright. The next time you want a [Jelly Roll], buy it yourself. Get it in a
set with some [Melon Rolls] if you want."
"Really?! Ahaha, okay, th-then I'll get three of each... ahahaha,
hahaHAHA!"
"Oh, sure, I'd love to have one of your [Jelly Rolls]. Thanks."
"AAAAAH?!"
Right after Rokuko summoned her [Pastry Set], I stole one of her [Jelly
Rolls]. ...Yep. This is a [Cream Roll]. Any way I look at it, this is a [Cream
Roll]. Plus, it's completely bare without any plastic surrounding it.
"Sorry, Rokuko. What I gave you was actually a [Cream Roll]. This is a
real [Jelly Roll]."
"Eh, really? Wow... So this is an actual [Jelly Roll]. Wooow, this one has
red stuff inside of it... and it's super sweet! I love this one too! Real [Jelly
Rolls] are amazing!"
Sorry for tricking you again, but that's a [Red Bean Paste Roll]. Sounds
like it has red bean paste.
"Go ahead and buy another [Pastry Set]. This time, get four [Cream Rolls]
and two [Jelly Rolls]."
"What's going on? Do you really care that much about making me happy?
Awww, thanks! You're so nice today, Keima! Okay, four [Cream Rolls] and
two [Red Bean Paste Rolls]!"
"...How's your option list looking?"
"Eh? Oooh, I have more options again... Okay, I summoned them. Can I
go ahead and eat them?"
I looked over what Rokuko had bought. Four [Cream Rolls] and two [Red
Bean Paste Rolls]. ...And there we go. It looks like the DP Catalog prioritizes
displaying only items that the user of the Menu is familiar with. It's very
possible that it just fundamentally won't show items that the user doesn't
know about. Since Rokuko's pastries weren't wrapped in plastic, just
knowing the name of something must not be enough for it to be put on the
Catalog. Does the dungeon need to have absorbed it before? Wait, no, that
doesn't make sense. She's absorbed plastic plenty of times... I guess it does
have to do with being familiar with the item? ...Either way, it's very likely
that none of this applies to things from this world. I've never seen an actual
dragon before, but it's on my menu... though I do know that dragons are the
classic Dungeon Master monster of choice. I want to dig in to this a little
more, but this is getting pretty tedious. I don't want to waste DP, either.
Rokuko was looking at me impatiently as I contemplated the inner
workings of the DP Catalog to myself.
"I can eat them now, right? Right?!"
"Yeah, go ahead. ...By the way, those are all the pastries you'll be getting
for four days, so don't go through them too fast. And be sure to split them
with Gobsuke."
"Whaaat?!" Rokuko froze with half of a [Cream Roll] in her mouth.
Don't worry, I'll split my food with Gobsuke even if you eat all of those
pastries yourself. Not that I'm gonna tell you that, though.