Diamond In The Rough

After Seraphina left, Veronica couldn't help but sit down as she took in just how very real everything now seemed. She'd likely never get to see her family again and she had likely just wasted most of her youth away by dedicating herself to only learning about how to run her parents' bed and breakfast. It didn't really matter that she wasn't going to inherit their business now that she was in another world, but it was still a bit lonely to think that she'd never see them again.

Shaking her head, she stood up once more, determined to get a head start on building her dungeon while she still had the chance to. If adventurers would be arriving as soon as tomorrow, it would be a good idea to try and get some defenses built today. Even if it was unlikely to be sufficient, it was still far better than the embarrassment of having nothing built like she did now.

After re-opening her dungeon status menu, she decided to start off by looking at the [Construction] tab. It was a bit embarrassing to remember how she had been talking to the system aloud just a short while ago when she only had to think of what she wanted to get the system to respond.

[Rooms Options:

-9 Meter x 9 Meter Square Room (18 MP)

-18 Meter x 18 Meter Square Room (36 MP)

-36 Meter x 36 Meter Square Room (72 MP)

-9 Meter x 18 Meter Rectangle Room (27 MP)

-18 Meter x 36 Meter Rectangle Room (54 MP)

-36 Meter x 72 Meter Rectangle Room (108 MP)

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Hallway Options:

-1 Meter Straight Hallway (1 MP)

-3 Meter Straight Hallway (3 MP)

-6 Meter Straight Hallway (6 MP)

-9 Meter Straight Hallway (9 MP)

-10 Meter L-Turn Hallway (10 MP)

-26 Meter 4-Way Hallway (26 MP)

-32 Meter Square Hallway (32 MP)]

The options being in-meters was a bit strange for Victoria who had grown up using the imperial system. However, what was even stranger was how easy it was to recall the math lesson she had taken in school, which made it impossibly easy to convert from imperial to metric and vice versa. Had bonding to the dungeon somehow improved her memory? It was strange, but not really something she wanted to get distracted by right now.

While hallways were useful dividers, Veronica wasn't so sure that they were really a good thing for her dungeon. If it was currently an open floor-plan, it might be better to simply have the rooms all connected to one another without bothering with hallways. That would allow her to make the most of the space she had. So, she decided to choose an 18-meters by 18-meters square room to start with. It was a bit expensive, but she wasn't sure that going with the smallest option was very good either.

When her vision started to shift to a bird's eye view, she felt like vomiting. It was horrendous and she couldn't help but feel disoriented. Hopefully, this was something she would get used to with time as it was unlikely she could avoid doing this in the future. Once her vision finally, settled, though, she took the opportunity to explore her dungeon and was surprised to learn a number of interesting things.

Maybe her dungeon was a diamond in the rough? It would seem that the [Tavern] option on her menu and the initial messages about her dungeon being changed to reflect her experience with running an inn had resulted in her dungeon being divided in half. One side looked like the inside of a log cabin with wooden walls and floors. Meanwhile, the other half was a tropical rainforest with towering trees, ferns, a blue sky, and dirt floors. Down the middle of the dungeon was a hallway that had entrances to both halves of the dungeon and the dungeon core room in the middle. There was also an area for a staircase, but the system seemed to be indicating it was locked until she obtained the next floor.

Being in charge of her own dungeon had certainly never been something she had wished for, but Veronica was fairly confident that she could work with this. At least, she'd still get the opportunity to run her own inn and tavern, even if she didn't quite know what it might look like just yet. Seraphina had been wearing clothing straight out of a medieval dungeon explorer manga, but that didn't really tell her much about the outside world. It could very easily be modern-day technology or even more of a steampunk sort of world with magic gadgets everywhere. Only time would really tell on that front.

Feeling a lot better about her new circumstances, she finally placed her first room in the front left corner of the dungeon half. Two doors were automatically added that led into the open area of the dungeon while a third led to the initial hallway with the dungeon entrance. While it almost seemed silly to even use rooms in an open floor-plan dungeon, Veronica was just going to roll with it, for now. Maybe there was a reason it was an option that she didn't know about quite yet.

Next up on her agenda, was to get some [Monsters] for her new room. So, she opened that tab on her dungeon status menu.

[Summonable Monster Options:

-Gargoyle (15 MP) [Evolves]

Magic stone statue with no special features. Has poor defense and low combat damage, but is capable of evolving.

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Contractable Monster Options:

-Will-O'-Wisp (20 MP) [Can't Evolve]

Requires a dark environment to live in before you can form a contract. Does no combat damage, but can add ambiance and lure unsuspecting adventurers into traps.]

The initial theme-selection process hadn't said anything about will-o-wisps, just the gargoyles. It was also interesting to note there were exactly two different types of [Monsters] and she had two different sides to her dungeon. Were the will-o'-wisps meant to be used for the hotel side? She could certainly see them leading adventurers to their rooms, similarly to bellhops, but without the luggage carrying. Well, even if she was extrapolating a bit too much, it wasn't like they seemed good for much of anything else in the dungeon. Surely the people of this world were smart enough not to follow will-o'-wisps into [Traps]?

Unfortunately, it also seemed that Veronica had come to an impasse in her dungeon building. She was 1 MP short for summoning even a gargoyle and she had no clue how to earn more mana. Suddenly, she wished Seraphina was still here as it would have been nice to have someone to ask questions to. While she would be returning tomorrow, Veronica had the feeling she wouldn't see her until after the locals started stirring up trouble.