5 Living Inside the Dungeon
Ein listened to the story of Nayta and Melina.
A fortnight ago, an elder flame dragon apparently attacked their settlement. Many of their people died, while some managed to run away in time. Among those who successfully escaped were the mother-daughter pair. They wanted to return to their village, but the dragon had turned the area into its nest, making it impossible for the elves to retrieve their belongings.
Having scattered in different directions, the two didn't manage to see any other survivors. While they were barely surviving off of foraging for weeks, the bandits found the two and attacked them, planning to sell them as slaves to the nearby dukedom. When they regained consciousness, they were then surrounded by two-and-a-half-meter-tall wolves. Then, when they were planning to gamble their lives against the wolves, Ein appeared and diffused the situation.
'This chain of events was so timely that I started to feel like the main character of a novel.' Ein thought, chuckling.
He felt a little pity for the two elves, but that was all. If he was late by a day or so, the bandits would have already departed from their temporary hideout to liquidate their loot. He couldn't help but wonder if they were lucky or unlucky, really.
Realizing that the two of them didn't have anywhere to go, Ein offered, "Do you want to stay in this cave for now?"
If they stayed, Ein would at least have a fixed daily income of a few hundred DP. He wasn't sure how much the two would be worth in DP, but something is still better than nothing at all. On the other hand, Nayta and Melina will have a temporary place to stay. It was a win-win offer for both sides.
Hearing this offer, Nayta furrowed her brows instead. She looked like she was thinking about this deeply. Ein, considering the perspective of the other party, noticed how shady his offer seemed. He quickly added.
"Of course, it's not for free," he claimed. "I'm only providing you with a place to stay and a stable source of water; you would need to procure your food on your own."
Hearing this, the doubt in Nayta's eyes lightened.
"That's par for the course," she said. "We would also give you part of our hunt as tribute."
'I don't really need it.' Ein thought but kept it to himself. He nodded at Nayta's proposal.
Monsters in the dungeon don't need food or water to survive. As long as there are traces of mana, the power source of magic, present in the surroundings, they will survive. This included the dungeon master too, meaning that as long as there was enough mana in the air, he wouldn't need to eat, drink, or sleep. The worry about his lifespan was the only problem he had. As he was already over 30, and due to the aftereffects of the elixir that turned him into a Warrior, he had at most about a decade left to live.
'Can I reach the 5 trillion DP needed to travel to Earth before my life ends?' He genuinely wondered. Still, he plans to do whatever he can to achieve his goal.
The knowledge stored within the dungeon core was limited to monsters, dungeons, and dungeon items. Although he already had the required knowledge to run the dungeon, he still lacked a lot of basic knowledge regarding the world at large.
Nayta and Melina were honestly a big help to Ein. Not on the dungeon side, but rather mentally. It wasn't that obvious since he was only alone for a short while, but he was pretty exhausted emotionally. With the two, he could slowly manage his chaotic emotions by spending time with them.
Furthermore, they are the only sources of common sense he has for the current world he is in. With them, he could at least gain some insight into what to expect from the residents of this world.
...
After cordoning off a section of the wolves' floor for the two elves, near the entrance to the slime area, he provided them with a pair of bedding and a blanket. Both were items from the dungeon's item catalog, but Ein couldn't guess why they were even there.
"Mr. Tamer, could you perhaps lend us a dagger?"
Nayta asked politely. Although it was risky to provide them with such tools, with the protection of the wolves, they probably couldn't do a thing to him even if they wanted to.
Ein quickly passed a golden dagger from the bag of the bandit's loot. The two were slightly speechless upon receiving the dagger, seeing as how it was glittering with gold. Checking the blade, it was sharp enough to work, so Nayta gave her thanks before the two walked outside the dungeon.
About an hour later, the two elves came back carrying some nicely trimmed branches and a few cocoons of what looked like spider silk. Ein observed them through the surveillance footage of the dungeon, curious as to what they were doing.
Melina carefully undid the cocoon, stretching the strand of spider silk to a specific length before cutting it off. Then, she started merging multiple strands to form something like a thin strand of string.
Nayta, on the other hand, carefully carved the branch into a bow shape. She worked fast with experienced actions. Despite doing the more laborious part of the assembly, she finished two bows faster than Melina could thread two strings.
Nayta made a loop on both ends of the finished string and, with a lot of effort, strung the bow taut. Ein was amazed at how the spider silk was able to be so strong, but since he is in a different world currently, he just blamed it on magic.
While waiting for the other string to finish, Nayta carved the remaining branches into what looked like a crude arrow. Since there was no available arrowhead, she just sharpened the end of the stick for now. Adding a split-off feather of some kind of bird to it before tying it down with the remaining silk string, it finally looked like a proper arrow.
Nayta was able to make about a dozen arrows before running out of materials. Then, after assembling the second bow, the mother and daughter pair talked to each other for a while before taking out their bedding and going to sleep.
Ein, seeing the two of them fall asleep, turned off the surveillance. The two elves were quite skilled in making bows. Seeing this, an idea popped into Ein's head.
"If I have humanoid monsters and arm them with weapons, won't I have an easier time protecting my dungeon?" he pondered.
Dungeon monsters are usually empty-handed. Only boss-level monsters would sometimes have weapons or armor equipped. That was why, when the people of Earth found a way to make humans able to damage monsters, the counterattack went smoothly. Fighting empty-handed monsters with long-range weapons is like snatching candy from a child. Only monsters with claws and fangs posed a significant threat to the Warriors.
Looking at the summoning circles' list, he found that the elves and dwarves summoning circles were worth the same at 100,000 DP. It would take him quite a while before he could enact his bright idea.
Ein considered summoning goblins; however, it was hard to explain to the two elves how he could make goblins obey his words if that happened. A tamer is usually only able to tame animal-based monsters. Even Ein, who had no knowledge of this world, at least knew that a tamer who could tame a goblin was an anomaly. As long as the two elves were under his care, and while hiding the fact that he was a dungeon master, it would be best to only summon animal-based monsters for now.
When the time reached approximately midnight, a new announcement was heard.
[Computing cost of daily upkeep: -1,750 DP (500x1, 1,250x1)]
[Computing total DP earnings from surviving invaders: +500 DP (250 x 2)]
[Computing total DP earnings from surviving monsters: + 298 DP (2 x 49, 10 x 20)]
[Summoned slime x 5, wolves x 2]
"Damn!" Ein shouted after hearing the announcement.
An upkeep! He didn't imagine that there would be a need to pay DP to maintain his dungeon. Looking closely, he discovered that a summoning circle needs about 25% of its initial cost as upkeep. This wasn't noted anywhere in the dungeon core; what a scam!
If he did summon another floor's worth of wolves earlier, then his DP would be in the negatives right now!
After the ups and downs, he still has about 5,000 DP left. If he did nothing, he would be left with zero DP in less than a week. Although Ein was surprised that the two elves provided 250 DP each, the DP he earned from them didn't even reach half of his required upkeep.
"I need to plan more carefully... I need more DP sources!" Ein said resolutely.
