Over the next week, Veronica continued to earn more dungeon points. As the inn traffic was steadily increasing, she had earned 930 DP from room rentals alone. Meanwhile, she had only earned 294 DP from tributes with only a few new [Items] and [Base Resources] being unlocked. This included: Japanese barberry hedges, Japanese holly hedges, elderflower nectar, and a woven grass mat.
The hedges were quite useful since she planned to utilize them in her next challenge room. However, it was still disappointing to see just how few new tributes she was receiving each week. There were thousands of species of plants alone in her old world and this one was surely the same. It was most likely just that the resources collected in the area were the most common type of tribute she'd receive and that the adventurers who visited her dungeon thought too much alike. It didn't matter how many different minerals there were in the world if most people could only afford the cheaper ones like limestone or quartz. That was simply just how things worked.
While her focus wasn't on the dungeon side of things as much as it used to be, she still needed certain resources for the inn. She'd have to come up with another way to obtain what she needed for the upgrades if she couldn't rely purely on the luck of the draw. That would mean making new friends and hoping they followed through better than Amelia had with the cart. After this long, it seemed wholly unlikely that she'd be returning at all, which was a shame since it would have been nice to have confirmation she couldn't or wouldn't help.
Sighing, she finished making her way into the space she had set aside for her newest challenge room. It wasn't entirely necessary to be in the room she was working on and she certainly didn't usually bother walking the whole way over, but it just felt right this time. The trees were dense around the outer edges, but the rest of the room was vast with trees nearly spaced out and grass underfoot. The air felt refreshing and the sun felt warm on her skin, even if it was likely mostly imagined since she didn't truly get cold or hot anymore.
It had taken some time to decide how to build the new hedge maze she planned to build today. She had to first decide which plant to use. She had some flowering options that could, technically, work, but had wanted something more plain. From the two newest options, the Japanese holly hedges seemed the most fitting for that as they were a nice evergreen color without any flowers or other details added in. Meanwhile, the Japanese barberry was spotted with little red berries, which would affect the aesthetic she was going for.
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It was a bit funny to think about a plant even being called "Japanese" in this world. Surely they didn't have anywhere that went by such a name here? The kingdom she was in was known as the Rosefall Empire and most of the cities and towns were supposed to have equally inspired names that just screamed elven with how they related to nature. Bluecove City wasn't super flowery, but even it was clearly named after the water it was surrounded by.
Veronica could only suppose that it must be her system relaying the information based on the world she had come from and what would be most familiar to her. Strange considering she had never heard of these plants before now so whatever the local name is would be equally as fitting. Of course, it didn't really matter, she was just distracting herself because she was nervous. Even with how much time has passed and the fact that this room would be far less dangerous than the other two, she still worried she'd once more be punished by the dungeon core.
Shaking her head, she balled her fists before relaxing then, repeating the process a few times before beginning on the work she had come here to do. Veronica had decided to arrange the maze to form the word "Tavern" as it seemed like a fun idea and would also serve as a reminder.
Whenever she went to build anything in the dungeon her vision would shift until she had a bird's eye view and could see an overlay for building. It reminded her of when she used to play the Sims games, before she transmigrated. It had been disorienting the first few times she had attempted it, but she had already grown used to it. Now, it felt like second nature and she could easily shift from one perspective to another.
Since the challenge room was made up entirely of hedge bushes, it cost her nothing to set the maze itself up. The only costs came from researching a reward, setting the challenge with its reward, setting the room theme, and locking the door. Just as it always did, 300 dungeon points were deducted for the room theme and door locking portion. It had taken her 50 DP to research a luxury green silk bathrobe and another 50 DP to set up the challenge with the reward.
As she had, previously, used a comb and mirror set as well as a luxury green towel set for challenge rewards, it seemed fitting to do a bathrobe this time. Besides that, the same reasons as before still applied this time around. She had a public bathhouse, which meant the robes would be useful there, thus it served as a free advertisement. This trend was, honestly, likely to continue for the next few floors as well.
As she was running out of room on the first floor, this would be the last challenge room for the floor. Veronica wasn't in a hurry to build anything else, but she knew it really was just a matter of getting a boss room built and paying to unlock the next floor. Since she still had 7,819 DP remaining and could easily earn more, it was unlikely that would be difficult at all.