Another week passed and Veronica was starting to feel antsy. Dungeon traffic was beginning to increase and a few adventurers had already made it past her first challenge. It would only be a matter of time before they'd be storming her dungeon core room, she just knew it. Even despite Seraphina's reassurances that she would ensure no harm would come to her or the dungeon, she couldn't help but feel unsettled.
A few days ago, she had tentatively agreed to accept training from Seraphina again. Before that, she had left for a few days to attend to business outside of the dungeon. Veronica didn't see much point in holding a grudge unless she was actually going to do something about it. Since she couldn't do anything to the dungeon core without it harming herself, something she really wasn't a fan of, and Seraphina wasn't the main guilty party, she had decided it was time to move on. It would be a shame to waste the opportunity to learn martial arts from the elven woman and she really wasn't making much progress training by herself.
The main problem she had now was that she couldn't help but want to continue building on the dungeon side of things. It was like being bitten by a mosquito and having very little impulse control, it was only a matter of time before you'd end up scratching it, even if it meant scratching yourself raw. It didn't matter what the consequences were, the sweet relief of giving into the urge to scratch the itch felt so worth it.
That was why Veronica was now heading over to the dungeon side while it was still empty of adventurers. Seraphina was deep asleep in her inn room and it would be too late to stop her by the time she awoke. Despite the fact that the elven woman hadn't said a single word on the matter, nor had she been hovering to ensure she didn't start building again, Veronica couldn't help but feel like there was an overwhelming feeling of disapproval emanating from her.
Perhaps she was projecting her own feelings onto Seraphina. It didn't even matter whether she was aware of what she was doing or not. It was the dungeon itself she had to be wary of and it was never going to be separated from her. Still, the dungeon core and system didn't exactly answer her questions the way another person might. There were no warnings about her overdoing things and there was a limit to its knowledge.
Asking questions about the outside world would be met with silence whereas questions about if she could make something specific would be met with a system prompt, if it was possible at all. Either she'd be told she was missing the ingredients required or met with silence if both she and the system were lacking the knowledge required. It all felt a lot like talking to a computer program or something similar, which left Veronica feeling more than a little frustrated.
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Taking things slow seemed like the safest bet. So, Veronica simply built six new [Monster] field rooms and a space for a new challenge room. The [Monster] fields got 50 MP spawners and three gargoyles each. She'd leave the challenge room empty, for now, but she doubted it would be very long before that too was taken care of.
On the inn side, she spent 40 DP to research 9-Units by 11-Units rooms before building twelve of them in between the space used for the large and small inn rooms. These would be the last inn rooms she planned to incorporate into the first floor since she needed the rest of the space for a kitchen and tavern space. The alcohol and food ingredients would prove quite useful for that particular endeavor, she was sure.
Since she didn't want to overdo things, she decided to stop at that, for today. It wouldn't do much to slow down, much less stop, the adventurers, but it still made her feel a bit better. She only wanted to test the waters and ensure that she didn't end up losing another month, or longer, of her life once more. There were other things she could work on in the meantime, anyhow.
For example, the other week, she had met Amelia. After returning her necklace, the young half-giant woman had been so grateful that she had promised to do all she could to convince the local craftsman to take on the project. She wasn't certain how much payment they would require and even if they would accept anything outside of the coins that served as currency in this world. Veronica knew that was a bit of a long shot as well. However, they both agreed to remain optimistic and she was supposed to return once she had news either way.
That hadn't happened yet, but Veronica decided it wasn't worth worrying about. It didn't matter much whether adventurers were trustworthy or not since she could mitigate her losses. She hadn't spent more than a few dungeon points for some ink and paper, which she was enjoying using for other purposes as well. Her mana costs were a moot point since she could easily earn more and it wasn't like she wanted her entire life in this world to consist of nothing but dungeon management, anyhow.
While she was well aware that there needed to be some level of trust between her and the people of this world, she wasn't really sure where to draw the line. Seraphina had painted a picture of reclusive Dungeon Masters and nervous adventurers worried about getting killed off if they made the wrong move while interacting with a Dungeon Master. Those like herself were meant to be treated with the same respect one might treat a member of the royal family, always addressing them with a proper title, but interactions were also so rare that everyone seemed to spend the whole time panicking.
As Veronica was more interested in running an inn and tavern than playing the role of Dungeon Master, that wasn't going to work for her. Sure, she wanted to do all that she could to preserve her life and ensure no one could cut it short, but it wasn't ideal that she had gotten so absorbed in preventing it that she had forgotten about her own dreams and goals. Maybe this forced break was, secretly, a good thing. It had given her enough time to herself that she could focus on what she wanted in her daily life rather than just dungeon management. Now, she just needed to figure out where to go from here.