With her first challenge room completed, Veronica felt more confident that her dungeon would be more adequately protected. Sure, it was possible that the supernatural skills of the people of this world would allow them to easily complete the parkour challenge, but it wasn't like there was much she could do about that. Instead, she was much more interested in beginning work on some bigger rooms for her inn and tavern.

On the opposite side of her inn side of the dungeon, she started building 18-Units by 18-Units rooms. Of course, in between each set, she also placed hallways. It wouldn't do any good to have new rooms if no one could reach them. Thanks to the abundance of adventurers, this process went rather quickly. Before too long, she had twelve of the larger rooms in place, which easily took up half of the free space she currently had on that half of the dungeon.

Veronica thought the 9-Units by 9-Units rooms were pretty fancy already. However, she wanted to make the 18-Units by 18-Units ones even better. That's why she planned to include a bathroom in each. She could already picture Seraphina's surprised expression when she saw them. Seraphina had been going on all morning about how much she loved the inn rooms, saying they were way better than any other tavern she'd stayed at. Since Veronica couldn't personally leave the dungeon, it had been a very enlightening conversation.

Would you like to spend 50 DP to research wooden partition walls using the [Base Resource] wood?

Yes

No

Would you like to spend 10 DP to research wooden door frames using the [Base Resource] wood?

Yes

No

Would you like to spend 10 DP to research wooden doors using the [Base Resource] wood?

Yes

No

The doorways and doors could easily be slotted into place, combining with the wooden partition walls seamlessly. Unlike the dungeon walls and doors, though, these weren't nearly as sturdy. According to Seraphina, an intruder could break down a door to get through an area, if they were strong enough and desperate enough. However, part of locking the doors or setting a room as a boss room was that the entrances would be reinforced so that only S-rank individuals could break them down. Well, that or an A-rank that specialized in strength and had a weapon suitable for such a task. That was, somewhat, reassuring, even if there was a limit to how much such things could slow intruders down.

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After waiting for her mana to refill sufficiently, something that didn't take long, she began to build a separate area for the bathrooms in each 18-Units by 18-Units room. The partition walls were 25 MP / 10-Units, but that was enough to cover a few room's worth of partition walls. Then she just had to add the doors so that inn customers would be able to have some extra privacy, in case they were sharing a room with someone else.

It wasn't even sunset by the time Veronica finished setting up the basic walls, but she still decided to call it a day. There was a lull in dungeon traffic and she was eager to get some more [Monster] fields put in. Just something basic with a 50 MP spawner and three gargoyles. It was a bit boring and generic, especially considering she now had access to a few varieties of [Critters], but the adventurers visiting her dungeon hardly seemed to mind. They just wanted to get in, earn some experience, and then get out.

Since she now had a solid pattern down for where to place her challenge rooms, she also went ahead and built another 17-Units by 37-Units room while she was at it. It remained empty, for now, but it wouldn't be long before she'd be setting up her second challenge room. In the process, she had learned an interesting fact. She could pay for a 17-Units by 37-Units room and place it, even if it overlapped with her dungeon core room. The space would just be subtracted from her challenge room, making it imperfectly rectangular in shape. Hopefully, when she unlocked her second-floor the dungeon core room could be moved and the room would fill out the rest of the space. Otherwise, she could easily imagine it would make things awkward.

Seraphina was impatiently waiting for her when she finished trekking the rest of the distance to the dungeon core room. It was time for their nightly sparring match. While the experience was still painful, Veronica couldn't help but look forward to it. Seraphina seemed happy with her progress learning how to wield a staff and she was happy to be learning self-defense skills. There was no telling when Bo would show up again and she didn't want to die quite as easily as she had the last time.

"Why don't we try something slightly different today? I know it's only been a few days since I started teaching you. However, you seem comfortable wielding the staff now, so it seems like a good time to move on to working on specific skills."

Seraphina announced. Veronica raised one eyebrow, gesturing for her to continue expectantly.

"I'd like you to focus more on dodging and blocking skills. So, don't try to attack me, just try to step out of the way or move your staff to stop incoming attacks. Once you improve, we can move on to transitioning from blocking to retaliating more smoothly.

You're lucky that wild [Monsters] won't attack your dungeon very often. They'd get caught by the city guards before they could ever make it to your dungeon. The city and your dungeon are positioned just right so you get some extra safety that way. Many dungeons end up in mountains or forests and adventurers have to trek a short distance to get to it. Still, that does mean it's more likely that any troublemakers will be sentient, so your training needs to be flexible enough to deal with that."

Veronica didn't have any arguments. As much fun as it was to try and get a hit in on Seraphina, she didn't actually have any current grudges against the woman. She had already forgiven her for letting her die, so she no longer wanted revenge. Of course, an eye for an eye wouldn't have truly been possible in the first place. Seraphina was far too strong and she wouldn't come back to life if she died. Well, Veronica was assuming she wouldn't, but she didn't have any reason to think anyone not tied to a dungeon would have that ability. So, she was most likely correct.

Feeling a little more unsure of herself, she steeled herself as she tried to block the first attack that came her way. However, Seraphina's strike was too strong and she easily got pushed back, causing her to stumble and fall on her behind. The elven woman rarely seemed to hold back or, perhaps, wasn't capable of it. Veronica was fine with that, though, as she doubted taking things easy on her would have been helpful in the long run. Adventurers were always going to be stronger than her, so she needed to be able to overcome such shortcomings.