Dungeon Discovery, Report, And Mechanics

Afternoon in the Royal Capital.

Since Liricia and I had discovered a dungeon entrance in the shop we rented, we came to report it to the Adventurer Guild.

When we went in through the entrance and headed for the first-floor reception, adventurers started whispering while looking at me.

“That’s him, that guy.”

“The one who killed the Hell Lich, Alec.”

“I heard he gave Barial pain so bad he wanted to die but couldn’t.”

“That’s insane.”

“Figures someone who can casually walk around with a beauty would do that.”

“As expected of the man who broke the crystal ball.”

It seemed I had become a bit of a rumor. It felt a little uncomfortable.

At least it was a relief that no one tried to pick a fight with me anymore.

Whether she was scared or not, Liricia pressed closer to my side.

But her cute cheeks were relaxed in a happy smile.

When we reached the reception counter, the bespectacled receptionist rushed over before I could even speak.

“Ah, Alec-san! We have been waiting for you!”

“Hm? Did something happen?”

“Yes. Based on the diary you brought in, the Adventurer Guild and the Royal Knight Order formed a joint investigation team and looked into it. As expected, we confirmed that Farlbule was the Hell Lich and that he repeatedly carried out human experiments.”

“I figured… What about Barial?”

“Barial himself was proof of the human experimentation. We got him to confess everything. But perhaps due to a rejection reaction, his internal organs started to rot… He writhed in agony from the pain and passed away early this morning.”

“I see. Well, he gained power through inhuman means and threw his weight around, so he got what he deserved.”

“And this is the reward for the ‘Royal Capital Dark Physician Forbidden Spell Incident.’ Also, may I see your card, please?”

She set two large gold coins and five gold coins on the counter. 250,000 Gort.

I looked at the coins and asked,

“So it officially has a case name now. But I already received payment for defeating the Hell Lich—are you sure it is okay to get this much extra?”

“Yes, this is… the bounty that the families of those who were kidnapped had put up as a search reward.”

“I see…”

I accepted the money and put it into my pouch.

Their families had surely never imagined it would end in such a tragic result.

We would just have to be satisfied that at least we were able to bring the victims home.

Next to me, Liricia’s brows also drew together in pain.

I forced myself to switch gears and brought up the main topic.

“Anyway, we found a dungeon entrance inside the Royal Capital.”

“Eh? Huh? Eeh, what do you mean?”

“It seems the dungeon to the east of the Royal Capital has extended itself under the city. The entrance is about five minutes from here.”

Liricia cut in from the side.

“There may be entrances besides the one we found.”

“I-I understand! That is dangerous! We will have it investigated at once!”

The receptionist’s eyes went wide with shock, and she hurriedly left her seat and headed into the waiting area.

She quickly called out to some adventurers who seemed to be regulars and put a party together.

Then she brought them back over.

“Alec-san, please take these people and guide them to that entrance.”

“Got it.”

We left the Adventurer Guild, and I led them to the shop.

After that, the adventurers went down through the shop floor to investigate.

Judging from the dungeon’s structure and the monsters that appeared, they concluded it was the dungeon east of the Royal Capital.

They also called on parties with thieves and scouts and had them survey the entire city.

They discovered six more entrances besides the one in my shop.

When we returned to the Adventurer Guild, the first floor was in an uproar.

The receptionist looked over the investigation results and furrowed her brow deeply.

“This is a major emergency. The Adventurer Guild alone cannot handle it.”

“And if that is the case, what happens?”

“We will likely mount a joint dungeon assault with the Kingdom Knight Order. We will inform the crown.”

The adventurers grew noisy.

“A dungeon in the Royal Capital, huh?”

“This is going to turn into a large-scale guild campaign.”

“This will help a ton since the monsters in the forest have dropped off.”

“I heard the one who found it was the Hell Lich killer.”

“Who even is that guy?”

All kinds of rumors and speculation flew through the air.

And just as people were saying, it was decided that the entire Adventurer Guild would throw its full strength into a dungeon assault.

For a while, we would not be able to take on ordinary requests.

Instead, they would apparently assign missions.

The details would be decided at a meeting and announced tomorrow.

As for me, I received three gold coins as a reward for discovering the dungeon incursion. 30,000 Gort.

It seemed cheap, but since I had only stumbled on it by chance and still made money, I decided to count myself lucky.

You could never have too much money.

Liricia and I left the guild and headed to a cheap inn with first-floor rooms.

We talked as we walked down the street.

“This turned into something big.”

“Yes. But if it is a full dungeon assault, we will not be able to help much… We have no party member who can disarm traps or hidden doors.”

“And since the enemy dungeon found us, we could not make an entrance from the shop. What should we do?”

“If I recall, among the books Farlbule collected there was one that wrote about dungeons. We might learn something if we read it.”

“Oh right, we repaired a broken core, so of course he had that kind of book.”

“We could also ask Kou-chan.”

“Kou-chan?”

“The dungeon core, Kou-chan… I thought it might be inconvenient if it did not have a name.”

“Well, ‘Kou’ is a little hard to say in our language, so maybe ‘Kou’ is just fine as is.”

“Yes, Kou-chan it is.”

It was a simple name, but cute enough. And we did not even know if it was male or female.

Then we stayed at the cheap inn and had it create a passage from our room to the dungeon using the sub-device.

The lodging fee for the two of us was 3,000 Gort.

Total funds on hand: 44 large gold coins, 30 gold coins, 11 large silver coins, and 28 silver coins.

4,713,800 Gort.

The dungeon corridor was brightly lit by pale blue light.

When we soon reached the main chamber, Liricia headed for the archive, and I went to talk to Kou, the white sphere.

“Dungeon Core. Got a minute?”

“What is up, Master?”

“First off, your name is Kou now. Liricia and I decided.”

“Yaaay, thank you, Master, Missus! A named dungeon is born!”

Blue light ran all over the surface of the sphere—it was even happier than I had expected.

And “Missus,” huh… That might not be so bad…

I pulled myself together and explained the situation.

“So, the guild and the knight order are going to team up to assault the dungeon.”

“Oooh, a large-scale assault. I hope they stomp it into the ground… Will you be joining too, Master?”

“I want to, or rather, they will probably make me. But I doubt they will give me any critical mission. My party does not have anyone who can disarm traps.”

“In that case, you just have to assault a dungeon with no traps.”

“Huh—wait, what? There is such a thing?”

It said it so casually that I nearly missed it.

Kou’s sphere glowed brightly as it spoke.

“There is, you know? Once you set a trap, your minion monsters cannot go past that point. So if you want your monsters to go all the way to the edge and bring back materials, you need to build trap-free corridors.”

That was extremely valuable dungeon intel.

High-ranking adventurers might have realized it from experience, but it was the first I had heard of it.

In that case, the corridors that had reached under the Royal Capital would basically be free of traps.

They said people and goods had gone missing there without a trace, after all.

I checked on the type, just in case.

“I have heard the dungeon east of the Royal Capital has goblins and orcs…”

“That one is more like a decoy dungeon, you might say? Its main dungeon uses golems as its minion monsters. It sent about a thousand of them at me and beat my core to a pulp. No mistake.”

“That must have been rough.”

Golems were slow but tough and had high attack power.

They also rarely dropped items, and the only thing that could be exchanged for money was their core.

On top of that, weapons used against them could break or have their edges chipped, so they were unpopular monsters.

I was not fond of them either, so I scratched my head and said,

“If it were only Clay Golems, that would not be so bad… But if there are rock and iron ones too… Oh, so that is why it extended the dungeon all the way to the mountain range for materials.”

“Exactly. Since it has four cores, it can field minion soldiers—that is, golems—up to Tier 4.”

“Tier? Is that like a level? Like Golem Lv 4?”

“Nope, not quite. In human terms… for example, Tier 1 would be a Clay Giant Soldier, a Clay Golem; Tier 2 would be a Stone Giant Soldier, a Stone Golem; and Tier 4 would be an Iron Giant Soldier, an Iron Golem.”

“Ah, I get it. So it is not a level but a monster rank. In our classification, a Skeleton would be rank E, and a High Lich would be rank B.”

“Yep, that is how it works. And if it spends points, it can make one rank above its own—so that one could make up to Tier 5.”

“What is a Tier 5 golem?”

“A Mithril Giant Soldier, a Mithril Golem that is insanely hard and practically immune to magic, and an Iron Sand Giant Soldier, an Iron Sand Golem that is completely immune to physical attacks.”

Just hearing that made me grimace.

“Those sound like a huge pain.”

“But if you take them down, they make great materials. I especially want mithril!”

“Yeah, got it. I will do what I can… though hauling it back will be a chore.”

“In that case, I will make it so the sub-device can absorb materials when you touch it to them. Give it back, please.”

With a soft “fiin” sound, a long, narrow slit appeared on the white sphere’s surface.

I inserted the thin, plate-like sub-device I had been given.

After a bit of beeping, the sub-device slid back out.

It was still thin, but it had grown a size, now about as big as a man’s palm.

The surface of the plate gleamed, and the screen now read “Kouphone SE.”

“I added a camera function too, so you can take all sorts of pictures.”

“I do not really get it, but it seems like it can do a lot. It could already make calls—do you have a manual for this?”

“Just use it by feel.”

“Well, I am glad I got to hear all this. It was helpful.”

“Happy to help.”

Being able to hear about dungeons straight from a Dungeon Core itself was a huge advantage.

Then Liricia came out of the archive.

She gently spread her white wings and in an instant was by my side.

“Master, I found something interesting.”

“You too, huh. I just got some good info from Kou.”

“Yes, I heard it as well through my angel powers. This is something separate.”

She opened a book and held it out for me to see.

The title of the book was The Mechanics of a Dungeon Core.

The traps created by a Dungeon Core were determined by the type of monsters that appeared there.

Goblins used spear traps or pitfall traps. Golems used rockfalls and pitfalls. Ghosts used poison gas, and so on.

“Knowing the type of traps makes it easier to conquer a dungeon.”

“Yes, and there is more…”

For example, dungeons that held multiple cores could sometimes field multiple monster types.

“I know that part already…”

Kou explained the broad categories of its minion soldiers, their detailed variants, and the materials required for each.

We continued talking after that.

In this way, we shared what we each knew about dungeons.

If things went well, I thought, we might be able to make Kou stronger and reap the benefits.