19 Gunpowder

At the harpies' village, Harriet received the message from Mehlroth and transmitted it to Five. The latter was reluctant to go; "Do I really need to go? I will report to him tomorrow!"

"Of course! Master wants to talk with you! Hurry up! Don't make him wait because you're lazy!" declared Harriet as she stood up and placed her hands on her hips.

"Ok ok... " answered Five as he stood up. 'Did he notice something from the sketches?' thought Five.

Harriet quickly took out her wings and brought Five down to the Avian Cavern. It was already the third time that he was being carried in a princess carry. Five was naturally embarrassed at first, but now, he was used to it. Furthermore, Harriet did not seem to mind; she found it completely ordinary.

...

A few minutes later, the two stopped in front of Kroff. Harriet politely bowed while Five simply stood still waiting for Kroff to speak.

"Five! I gave you the command of the first 10 floors hoping to let you gain some experience. I have been keeping a close look at the situation! I am really disappointed! You looked so excited to experience what it is to be a Dungeon Master but in just one day, you've already lost more than 3000DP."

"While I know that you don't have any experience, it is not a reason to just give up like that. You did not even make a single change since you took command and it is my DP that is being lost! I cannot keep quiet when I see that you are just wasting my DP!" continued Kroff.

"Therefore, I shall now say that once the amount of DP that I gave you reaches zero, you will have to pay with your own DP to keep the dungeon running. You cannot simply throw out 10000DP like that! I hope that you will now take the things over control and do your best!"

Five looked at Kroff for a moment and replied: "There is no need to worry, I was planning the changes I wanted to implement in the Dungeon. I'll probably do them tomorrow or the day after when I finalize them."

"Oh, so you prepared something. Would you like me to have a look so that I can give you some advice?" asked Kroff while displaying a surprised expression. Although he was already aware of the drawings, he could not simply admit that he had been spying on Five.

"It should be alright, just the rearrangement of the floors. This way, the players will spend more time in the Dungeon and will generate more DP!"

"Let me have a look, it is better if you get the opinion of an experienced person, right?" said Kroff with a smile that was not a smile.

Five immediately felt some pressure as he saw Kroff smile. He internally sneered before taking out the map of one floor, the one where the Chinese Character was less obvious.

Kroff asked with a doubtful expression: "Is that it? What are you planning to do with that?"

"As I said, it's to rearrange the floors! It looks like a useless change but just wait till I put in the spawn point of the monsters and the other details. I told you it's not ready yet."

Kroff suspiciously looked at Five, his free hand was gently tapping his hand rest. He could clearly see that the map was not conventional; in fact, he believed that changing the floor this way was a useless attempt, but he kept it to himself.

"Alright alright! But you should hurry up! DP is precious. Don't wait until everything is gone! I will remind you again that once you've used up all the DP I gave, you will have to pay with your own!" said Kroff.

"There is no need to worry, I can guarantee the results will be terrific!"

...

"So, what do you think master?" asked Mehlroth who appeared out of nowhere as soon as Five and Harriet left.

"I don't know, I doubt he will be able to reverse the situation and would definitely end up with a deficit! However, I keep getting this bad feeling. Let him do what he wants but keep an eye on him. He is probably allowing the adventurers to climb to higher floors so that they can deal with the goblins that killed him," answered Kroff with a thoughtful expression.

As Five left with Harriet, he turned towards her and said, "I would like to go to my room and rest. No need to look after me. You should go back to the Avian Cavern."

"Are you trying to push me away? Is it because you are stressed now that master said that there will be consequences if you failed? " asked Harriet. She found it weird since it was the first time ever that Five was telling her to leave.

"Fine! You can just come with me then, I don't mind inviting you to my small cramped bedroom," answered Five with a smile.

"Hmmp! Nevermind, I'll just go and talk to my sisters. I could not see them as much as usual because I had to look after you," said Harriet as she flapped her wings and disappeared in the corridor.

"Sigh… If only I could be as carefree…"

Five quietly entered his room and lay on the bed. He calmed down and recalled the memories of his training; for once, he could make some use of the theoretical classes he was forced to take. Opening his own interface, he quickly purchased about 200g of charcoal, 700g of Saltpeter and 150g Sulfur.

These materials were actually available in nature and therefore, were not too expensive, but they still took out 1000DP from his reserve. He was now left with 1300DP.

He jumped from his bed, went to the desk and started to work on the materials he just bought. He used another 50 DP to purchase some containers and placed the materials inside. Then, Five used whatever he had in hand to crush down the materials into small pieces. It would be preferable to turn them into powder but that was impossible due to the lack of proper tools and lack of DP.

These three materials were the main components of gunpowder. When mixed in the correct ratio, they would create that very flammable and explosive mixture and this was precisely what Five wanted. He originally wanted to make more advanced explosive like Dynamite, but the lack of materials and DP made him turn towards a more primitive form of explosive.

After 30 minutes of constant smashing and grating, he finally stopped and looked at his results. The container in front of him now contained a rather crudely made powder with lots of large grains. It was nowhere near what he saw when he had to learn how to make explosive in the real world but Five was very satisfied with his result.

The gunpowder in front of him did not look too bad and he was certain that it was good functionality wise. Considering the severe lack of tools, it was close to the best he could make.

"I wonder if I will be able to destroy a Dungeon Core with that?" said Five to himself as he put the container with the Gunpowder in his inventory.

"This is enough for me... But if I want to cause some havoc. I'll need more... Shall I use Kroff's DP to make some?"

He clearly knew that the gunpowder would not be enough to deal enough damage to Kroff and his monsters. However, what if he used it against the players and the guards outside? If he recalled correctly, these guards were standing by in case of monster waves and would immediately try to kill as many monsters as possible to protect the city not far away.

"Then how would they react if several explosions occur right in their face?" asked Five to himself.

"Let's just use some of Kroff's DP, about 2500 should be enough to make a decent show! With another 2000 to rearrange the floors... It should be enough if I tweak the respawn time and monster's population a bit. Who cares if the players have to roam around the dungeon without finding monsters for a while. It's not my dungeon anyway."

Having made his decision, he grabbed the pseudo-dungeon core and started browsing through the dungeon shop.