Authors note:-
This chapter felt a lot longer than it really is, i don't know why?
.
I hope you all Somehow enjoy it.
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Rocky's P.O.V:-
Yeah, the people who died and the time that they were inside must have provided quite a nice amount of credits to us. We, who had not opened the status panel on the interface yet, didn’t knew what our total score really was. So, when we finally saw it, I don’t know about Minie, but I suddenly felt rich. Forget rich. I felt like I was in heaven and everything was made of gold.
Dungeon InterfaceStatusFloors, Monsters, Store,Creation,QuestsNameThe cave of MiseryTypeInsectFloors1Total no of Monsters2(5)Rooms/floor2(7)Total no of invaders0---Reserved Mana: (290/425)Dungeon(Floors/Rooms)100+50+40Monsters100Resources0upgrades0---Dungeon Currency3916ReputationGood (+138)DC Inc.0/dayMana Reg.20/hr
My vision traced all of the options, but it didn’t stop at the room, floor or any other panel, but travelled all the way down and stopped on the Credits panel and I felt bliss.
“Minie, we are rich. Almost 4000 Dc we are rich, we are so rich. Now we can buy everything. Now we can..”
Yeah, truly happy, I was too happy, but like they say, ‘happiness is a moment’s thing, you have to catch the right moment to enjoy it’, but I was trying to catch it at the wrong time. All of my delusions about being rich faded away when Minie moved her tongue to cleave my neck..
“Yeah, now we can at least extend our dungeon to the second floor is what you should be saying. What rich! Even buying the rights to the second floor needs full 2000 Dc, and then we also need to buy some workers to dig out the rooms and also some ants to protect, then some resources to be mined, we also nee…”
“It’s okay, I understand. We are not rich, heck we don’t even have enough to get by, but still we got more than we should have. I don’t want to act like a punk, but we really did nothing and are eating grub of someone else’s hard work. I mean we did nothing and… okay, I’ll stop. Don’t glare at me like that. Stop I feel like a laser is cutting me from the outside! Somebody save me!”
Yeah, that was my cute fairy trying to kill me with her glare. Well, jokes aside, it’s confirmed now. Whatever it is which is troubling her is related to the fight.
*Argh* Its depressing. I am going to ask her and end this, once all of these pending things are taken care of.
But, but, but… what the heck is wrong with this system! The heck, even after going through such a pain inducing, full of tension and trauma providing fight with illusions and big bosses and shit; we still only have enough to buy just a simple extension to our dungeon and some workers. This is bad, really bad. Won't it take me a long time to get over powered like this.
*Sigh* nothing can be done about that, not with our loose pockets anyways. Let’s just focus on things and plans that we can work on, for now.
“So, where are we? What do you want to do first?”
“Buying land and monsters, we need to invest in both of them to sustain our lives. Buy a floor first. Then we’ll buy some workers to work on the second floor. Let’s do these things first.”
Yeah, she is right. Let’s first take care of more time consuming and labor needing jobs, then we’ll be able to work around everything else.
So, I opened the Store in my dungeon interface to buy permissions to buy the second floor. I don’t know what kind of permissions these are or who we are asking permissions from? I remember asking Minie the same question and she replied with one word ‘God’.
What I want to say is, if we need someone to dig the rooms, then what reason is there to ever get permissions. I mean, we are only just digging downwards. Well, whatever.
So, I opened the dungeon interface and opened the store panel to check out everything.
Dungeon InterfaceStoreStatus/Floor/Monster/Creation/QuestFloorsPrice + ConditionsResourcesPrice + Conditions3rd3000DC + 100MPLOCKED (Unspecified)Floor LockedSpecialsConditionsPriceLockedLOCKED (available after unlocking 10th floor)
I saw the price listed and just like Minie said, our credits really were not enough to get things done. Even buying floor rights cost so much that I don’t even want to know what kind of things the locked portions of it would show. No, I am not scared that there might not be enough items or things in the list, but that they might be too costly for us beggars.
I checked whether I had enough Mana to buy the floor or not and I felt happy. Looked like all my practice with the meditation helped out and as a result, I had enough mana to reserve for the floor and also to buy some monsters over it. So, with that after expending 2000Dc I was able to buy the rights or permissions as Minie say it, to extend our dungeon by a floor.
But there was no happiness from doing that. I only had questions, no facts which proved the most difficult, which we would face in the future. No, not future, I should say, difficulties that I’ll be facing in the coming days.
“Minie, I have a very serious question to ask of you!”
“Go on. Ask anything.”
I tried to calm my mind, but when I failed to do so, I entered the troubled water with anguished, wavering and conflicting determination.
“If you remember then, we got our first floor for free so, at that time we didn’t care about our expenditure and stuff, but as you can see this floor has almost bankrupted us. And even though it was not able to completely empty our pockets, but buying monsters would do just that. What I mean to say is that we can’t spend our entire wealth on not needed merchandise and we also can’t buy too many monsters.”
This is a really big problem and I know, I just understand that if we don’t start taking care of it from now, then it will lead to our downfall and even if it didn’t entirely become the reason, it will at least play a very vital role in it. This money is a parasite that will leach on my soul for all eternity.
“Yeah, you are right. It is true, but what is your real question? What is it that is really making you so tense?”
I see, she was able to catch the slight fluctuations in my voice. Though there is no real reason for my tension, nothing which concerns our present, but everything is related to tomorrow, tomorrow which is yet to come.
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“You see only the second floor took 2000Dc to buy, like this I think the third would take 3000Dc. Like this, if we continued to improve and extend our dungeon, and then won’t the 10th floor eat 10,000Dc, 20th one 20,000Dc, so on and so forth?”
“Yes, you are right. The expenses are going to keep increasing and the difficulties which we’ll face in the days to come will also increase, but this much is to be expected. What? Did you think having triple elemental affinity, a title that improves your skill gaining speed are enough for you to get strong?”
She even caught that, but don't they help. I mean, I am able to get faster skills and stronger abilities, aren't I?
“Yeah, you mind waves tells exactly what you are thinking. Don’t forget you are a dungeon master, not a human or demon or Elf or any other kind of life form. You have a body that is the core of this dungeon and no matter how powerful you individually become, you will never have any way to deploy that power to protect yourself. What you really need are powerful subordinates, a strong bunker to protect your soul and also a lot of luck to get by unforeseen and unfavorable conditions.”
She is right. Though I have affinities and what not, but what use have they been to me?
We fought with the humans, but all that happened was my monsters getting swallowed whole by them and nothing more. We came out alive because of their internal fights. The thing is, we were just lucky and nothing more.
Though I am able to get skills faster and gain abilities to get stronger, but what do they even do to make me stronger?
I know I have the latest fusion skills, but they are also not easy to create and not all my monsters can use them.
So, what do I need to do? What should I do?
If I had teeth, then Minie would have starteed hearing a grinding sound by now, but the reality is that I don’t have any way to get stronger or to make my monsters powerful enough to take care of any and all the nuisances entering my home.
So, what should I do?
“You need to change your mindset. You need to work even harder to get even more abilities. Not for yourself, but for your monsters. You need to get familiar with your elements, so that all of your monsters get a chance to enjoy natural evolution. You see, even if you got individually stronger your core is still here so what will you even be able to do if a dozen or hundreds of humans and demons came to attack you? So get stronger. Not for yourself, but for the monsters in your dungeon and for me. My life is tied to you after all.”
Electricity started running inside my core. A new hope started shining its light over my soul and my life and mind which was knee deep in tension and stress, came out of the mud called depression and the extinguishing lamp called life started burning back again.
She is right, I won’t be able to help it if the whole world one day came to destroy me, but if I have monsters which are strong enough to keep them in check, then won't it become a wonderful life to life. I would love to dream even more, but the problem in real life can't be solved by imagination after all.
“So, how are we going to even pay for such extravagant prices? We are not rich, I don’t even know how we got so many credits with just two people dying. You see I’m really afraid, afraid that we wouldn’t be able to keep up with our expenses and it will be our downfall.”
She looked at me, but didn’t say anything. She looked at the ceiling for a minute before looking back at me and said, “We will do it! No matter what happens, we will get stronger! No matter how costly our upgrades become or how many restrictions this system puts on us to stop our advance, but we will solve each and every problem when the time comes. But no matter what, don’t lose your confidence. Tell me, don’t you want to be like them. Then follow their footsteps and don’t lose hope. It’s only the sixth day anyways; we still have a lot of time. Just concentrate on your training, and leave the management and other stuff to me; I’ll take care of it.”
I wanted to doubt her, but I couldn’t, I wanted to refute her, but I couldn’t, I wanted to say you won’t be able to, but I couldn’t say that to her and her resolute eyes, her confident demeanor and to her sparkling soul. I couldn’t say anything.
Turns out the fairy who I thought had a small heart and wavering determination, is the one who was resolved the most between us two.
Even though nowadays she is sulking in the corner most of the time, but she says she can do it, then I believe in her! If she says, we will get stronger, then I believe in her. Yes and just like she said, though a lot of things happened, but instead of thinking about the bad stuff, I need to hold on to every moment like them.
“I believe you.” I said and the depressing atmosphere turned normal again.
So, after thinking deeply about it for a moment, I bought the floor right and our dungeon credits decreased from 3916 to 1916.
But even though she said she would take care of it when the time comes, but I still couldn’t understand how we even got so much credit in the first place. Maybe if I knew the way to calculate them or something, then it would help us somewhat. So, to take care of my illusions, I started a questionnaire session with Minie.
“Minie, how had our credits even become 4000? Though the adventurers were powerful, but there were only five of them and couldn’t have blessed us with so much right.”
“Ah, that, well, most of those came from the demon which they killed. If he had died as a human, then I don’t think we would have had enough to even buy the second floor. “
“Really, there is such a thing.”
“Yeah, let me start from simple humans. A human gives credit equal to half of their level if they stay for one day inside the dungeon.”
“What? Doesn’t it mean if a 100 level human stays inside our dungeon for a day, then he would be gifting us 50Dc for free?”
“It’s not for free. Do you think they would come inside our dungeon to sleep? No, most people will come to kill ants and in our case each ant worker costs 50Dc. Now, think how many of such workers can a single 1 rank human kill in a day? Now would it turn into profit or loss? Think about it.”
Damm! She is right. What profits would we get from them if they could so kill a 10 or 20 workers in a day? And not only that, but we’ll also need to provide them with rewards. I don’t know for how long simple Ant body parts will remain in fashion, but one day or another we’ll have to start giving money and weapons. Now, I don’t know how that will work, but I am sure it won’t be cheap.
“Ahem… So… how… about... Capturing-one.”
Yeah, then can’t we capture a human. It will be easy, efficient and would work greatly for us. It was what I thought, but Minie snorted at my opinion.
“Think about it, is it easy to capture someone alive or kill them? Now, there are many ways to kill someone like sneak attack and stuff, but to capture someone we’ll have to beat them until they become unconscious and then we’ll have to feed them and everything, to sustain their life. Let me tell you it is not easy to capture anyone. Moreover…”
“Moreover, what?”