The next few days, Veronica mostly kept to herself, even going so far as to skip out on martial arts with Seraphina. She still practiced with her staff by herself, but she was just not in the mood to talk with anyone. She couldn't help but resent the elven woman, even if she knew it wasn't fair. It sounded like she genuinely couldn't do anything to help her, so it wasn't really Seraphina's fault. Luckily, she didn't push things and Veronica was allowed her space.
As Veronica had enjoyed reading fantasy novels and had even pirated manga online, she had spent plenty of time reading comments from other readers. It was kind of ironic that she was being forced to slow down since it was almost a constant that readers would always complain about the main characters not being overpowered and making smart enough choices. Veronica hardly had main character syndrome and she wasn't exactly some renowned genius who could make the perfect dungeon with very little effort. Still, it felt rather insulting that she had been doing her best to do everything 'right' only to have it blow up in her face.
It had only been a little under two weeks since she had transmigrated to this world when she had gone to sleep. In that time, she had already built nearly half of the dungeon for both the inn and traditional dungeon sides of the dungeon. She had been planning to progress things some more when she woke up the next day, assuming her system wasn't locked from people being in the area she wanted to work on. However, now she would have to come up with something else to spend her time on and she was one month older than she had been expecting when she woke up. Who even knew how many more days, months, or even years the dungeon core would steal from her if she didn't fall in line?
After checking her tributes she was now 5,411 DP richer than she remembered being. She had gotten 2,001 dungeon points from tributes while the rest of the points had come from room rentals. Her total was now 6,273, which was amazing, at first glance, but seemed disappointing the more she thought about it. She had only made an average of 110 DP per day from room rentals and 67 DP, if she rounded up, from tributes. She had only earned so much because she had lost so much of her life in the blink of an eye. Having three or so room rentals and a few new [Items] thrown her way each day wasn't nearly enough to make up for that.
The good news, though, was that she could now afford to treat herself. She was getting sick and tired of wearing the black dress and wedges she had transmigrated into this world with. The shoes hurt her feet and were not ideal for fighting in. Her dress smelled awful and she didn't exactly have a washing machine to clean it, nor did she want to research a tub, washing board, and clothesline just so she could wash her only clothes. It was high time that she invested in some new clothes.
The first outfit she decided to make was a floral white blouse, a brown skirt, a cream crocheted cotton hat with fake flowers along the rim, brown socks, white ankle boots, a leather brown choker, and a white cotton tote bag decorated with flowers. The outfit had an air of cottagecore about it, making it more fitting for the time period, while still very much being more from her time than anything else. Her red hair and blue eyes stood out quite a bit with such earthy colors, but she still felt much more comfortable and in her element in her new outfit.
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She was, actually, quite pleased to see just how cheap the research was for everything as well. The total cost was only 72 DP for all seven pieces with the hat taking up a good chunk of it at 20 DP. The rest of the pieces only cost 6 or 10 dungeon points, keeping the overall cost quite low. With how satisfying the results were and the fact that she could easily reabsorb the outfit and spend a mere 36 MP to make a new, clean outfit, Veronica decided it would be a great idea to make a few other outfits, but she needed some time to think about what she wanted to make next.
There were, of course, other luxuries Veronica helped herself to as well. Most of which were [Items] she already had access to. Her tributes from the last month had included: oyster mushrooms, morel mushrooms, red pine mushrooms, chanterelle mushrooms, puffball mushrooms, chicken of the woods, brown beech mushrooms, shiitake mushrooms, porcini mushrooms, honey mushrooms, wood anemone, wild geranium, trout lily, spring beauty, blue wood aster, mayflowers, Chinese meadow rue, crested iris, wild columbine, fairy slippers, Alaska violets, starflowers, blue-eyed mary flowers, pine bark bread, cattail pollen biscuits, bearberry yuzu muffins, rosemary currant crisps, red gooseberry and rhubarb pie, chamomile birch bark shortbread, blackberry wine, falernian wine, posset ale, spiced braggot, sake, a mother of pearl bracelet, a fluorite stone, a silver coin, and a moonstone ring.That had allowed her to enjoy her choice of fresh flowers for her room and a variety of foods and alcohol.
Veronica hardly cared that she didn't need to eat to survive. If anything, that was one of the few good things about her new life, alongside being forever young and healthy. She had always wished she could eat whatever she wanted without having to worry about putting on weight or having her health suffer for it. Whether her physical appearance could be changed in terms of haircuts or gaining weight, she wasn't sure, but everything else about her life assured her she wouldn't have to worry about her teeth rotting if she ate too many sweets or her liver giving out from getting drunk too often.
Besides, there wasn't much else to do for fun in this dungeon. There weren't video games to play or a library full of books to read all day long. She had to take care of the inn rooms, now that she was awake, but that didn't take very long since the work was minimal for the twenty-two rooms she had available. Most of them remained empty day after day while the rest only required things like beds to be remade or the bedding to be replaced. The dungeon absorbed everything that didn't belong, so she only had to replace what was used/removed and fix what needed tidying. It only ever took her a few minutes to straighten the less than half a dozen rooms and then she had the rest of the day to herself.
Veronica hadn't bothered to interact with the locals pretty much at all since she had arrived in this world. She only ever talked with Seraphina, but even that wasn't happening now. While she did have one bad experience with Bo, she was hardly going to judge the rest of the population based on his bad attitude. Besides, from what she had observed of others, the rest seemed mostly sane and like they weren't looking to ruin what she was doing here. They just wanted to harvest resources in the dungeon, rent a room for the night, or gain some experience so they could grow stronger. That was fine by her, she would likely do the same, if she was in their shoes.
Still, it wasn't like she was lonely. There was no need to seek out companionship and she wasn't desperate for friends. If she met someone decent who she got along with, then so be it, but she wasn't going to force the issue. Maybe things would be different in a few decades' time, she hardly wanted to spend eternity all alone, but she had always been a bit of a loner. Transmigrating to another world wasn't going to change that.