The New Arrangement

Violet sighed and walked to her slime jigsaw room. While she couldn't afford any big upgrades right now, she could still make some minor improvements before starting to save up for the big purchases. Violet went through her menus and selected the options to set the jigsaw room's sky to always be dusk, the weather to always be sunny, and the temperature and humidity to always reflect the weather. This brought down another 85DP, leaving her with 147DP.

Considering Violet had more than 600DP just a day ago, the 147DP felt quite small. However, it was hard for Violet to complain when she had gotten quite a few useful upgrades thanks to it. Besides, she would, hopefully, gain more dungeon points soon enough.

Next, Violet wandered off to the room she wanted to turn into a hay meadow and spent 12MP applying long grass, yarrow, and butterflyweed flowers to the room. This left only 8MP remaining, which wasn't really enough to do anything meaningful. So, Violet laid down to take a nap in the room until David showed up for training.

"I'm sorry, I wasn't able to get any berries for you today. There, apparently, aren't any in the forest near here and I had to special order them. I bought you something else I thought you might like, though."

David showed Violet a long, thin pod and she furrowed her brows in confusion as she asked

"Is that a vanilla bean pod?"

David nodded enthusiastically as he replied

"Yep! They can be a bit expensive since most dungeons don't grow them, but I figured I could afford to splurge on one since the other [Items] you asked for are fairly cheap in comparison. Although, I do hope you have some new rooms for us to collect resources from soon. It's going to be a while before the adventurers guild will be able to offer me a job and I need to be able to cover my living costs as well as these tributes."

Violet frowned, feeling a tad bit guilty that David was going so far out of his way to buy things for her. I mean, sure, his contract required him to purchase tributes for her that could cost as much as the resources in her dungeon allowed. That didn't exactly leave much leftover to cover other living costs and David had a little girl to look after. Violet wasn't sure how much it would help, but she said

"I do have a hay meadow now. It has butterflyweed flowers and yarrow you can harvest. I doubt the grass would have much value, but it's something, at least. I don't really have enough dungeon points and mana to build any faster than I already am. Plus, I need a better variety of tributes before I can add a better variety of plants to the dungeon.

It has to be things that fit the meadow theme as well, which is why I want the berries. Honestly, my new slime parkour challenge room just barely counts as a meadow by the system. It's like the system has classified the water pool as a giant river or pond, even though the room is primarily made up of said pool of water.

Of course, if you are willing to spend more time in the dungeon, you could always try out some more of the challenges I have set up. They all have rewards that you could keep or sell for completing the challenges. I think, so far, I have iced carrot bread in the slime jigsaw room and wild violet and honey lollipops in the slime parkour room."

David slightly tilted his head as he asked

"What is a lollipop? The bread is a bit strange, but I've, at least, heard of bread before."

Violet smiled as she explained

"It's just a type of sweet candy that is held on a stick for convenience. It keeps your hands from getting sticky and you are supposed to lick or suck on it while you slowly enjoy the flavor."

David had heard of candies before, so he just nodded in understanding before asking

"Wouldn't it be difficult for you if we stayed in the dungeon too long?"

Violet pursed her lips before answering

"Well, it would actually be more helpful, so long as you leave occasionally and take a short break. Then I can spend the mana on more upgrades in between your attempts. I will note that the puzzles do reset when you leave the room empty for a short while. So, you'll have to complete the puzzle before you leave or else you'll be forced to start over."

David seemed bothered as he thought over Violet's words. Finally, he asked

"Are you going to get upset with us if we don't leave a separate tribute each time we re-enter the dungeon?"

Violet shook her head as she replied

"I'm not going to turn down tributes, but you can consider it one visit if you are just exiting the dungeons for a short break. You'd be helping me out anyway."

David nodded, looking determined as he replied

"Alright, we can do that, but I expect you to continue to train while I attempt things. I'll give this parkour challenge an attempt once a day and then let my daughter attempt the jigsaw puzzle. Then we will take a break before we come back and switch to collecting plants instead."

It wasn't quite an infinite source of mana, but the extra 50MP a day would certainly be beneficial. So, Violet was willing to take what she could get and accepted David's choice.

David stripped his excess gear off and left it with his daughter while he tried to carefully jump from wooden platform to wooden platform. He refused to let Alice attempt the challenge claiming it was too dangerous and she was too young. Violet couldn't really argue with that since there was every possibility that David could end up slipping on the wet platforms, hitting his head, and then drowning.

While Violet had been, basically, tortured by David at one point, she didn't exactly want the guy to die. She'd rather he continue to be useful to her and that his daughter didn't have to watch him die. So, she was a bit nervous as she watched him carefully jump from one platform to the next. Whenever a slime would jump up and try to knock him off, he'd move his upper body to dodge or punch them to knock them away. However, halfway across, a slime took him by surprise as he was jumping through the air and he slipped and fell into the water. Thankfully, he just ended up soaked rather than dead.

David said nothing about the frustrating puzzle as he swam back to where he had started and gathered his gear. He'd have to wait until his clothes dried to put his armor back on. Violet wasn't sure how much help the now much darker puzzle room would be. However, David also said nothing about this, just pulling out a magic lantern for his daughter from a backpack.

Alice happily ran off, eager to start the puzzle. Violet wished her good luck in her heart, but said nothing aloud. She didn't want to upset David by being overly friendly with his daughter. She was still young and impressionable. Plus, the recent changes to the dungeon made it very clear where Violet stands. She would put her own life before that of the adventurers who entered her dungeon.