Overlapping Visits

Despite his reservations, Violet could very easily tell that David was still remaining in the dungeon to complete the challenges. He was moving much slower than he usually did, forcing Alice to remain a short distance behind him as he tentatively explored things before declaring them safe enough for his daughter to continue. Violet just rolled her eyes, deciding to concentrate on building instead of monitoring his ridiculous behavior.First, she erased 1-meter of hallway from the 11-meter-long straight hallway to the left of the blackberry forest. Then she moved 5-meters of hallway to the left of the empty room just behind it, effectively cutting the remaining hallway in half. Next, she spent 64 MP on two 16-meters by 16-meters square rooms. She then placed these to the left of each of the 5-meters hallways she now had.While it was important to also fix the issue with the hallway that led from the stairs to the first floor directly to the dungeon core room, this was actually part of that. There was no point in having only long hallways spanning across the second floor. It was much better to cover 16-meters of distance with actual rooms than with hallways, even if they were a bit more expensive. Still, she definitely did need to finish fixing the initial problem.To do that, Violet first removed the middle section of the staircase room and dungeon core room. She split them into two 10-meters -long hallways and moved them to connect to the new empty square rooms. This made it so that the staircase room's hallway connected to the front-most empty room while the hallway leading to the dungeon core room's hallway now connected to the back-most empty room. Another 1-meter of hallway did have to be erased in the process, but Violet felt much better about things now.While there were now three empty square rooms that she would definitely need to turn into something useful, the layout was much better now. Adventurers would have to venture through six rooms, one after another, before they could reach the dungeon core room. It was doubtful that the two [Monster] field rooms and the flower hunt room, which still had slimes in it, would be very effective at deterring anyone from continuing forward. However, that would be fixed with enough time. After all, now she could take things much slower and focus on customizing the rooms one at a time instead of rushing to build everything all at once.Violet suddenly noticed two new energy signatures appear in the dungeon, so she pulled up the [Guest List]. As it turned out, it was just Avorn and Camellia who had easily accepted her words that they no longer had to wait for David and Alice to leave for the night before they could enter the dungeon. It was a little bit ironic that those two were willing to trust her at her word, even with how terrified Avorn seemed to be of her.This was actually the first time she had had two different parties in the dungeon at the same time. Well, that was if you didn't count that one time with the leftover skeleton that David walked in on. Violet certainly didn't count that as it just felt different having two adventuring parties in the dungeon at the same time. If things went well, this would hardly be a rare occurrence in the future, but, today, this was something worth celebrating.It wasn't long after they entered that Violet got the notification in regards to their nightly tribute. This time, there were 105 dungeon points, which had come from pine, fur, and spruce needles. The three had apparently been added to both the [Base Resources] and [Items] menus, resulting in them being worth 35 DP each. It was interesting to see the two of them slowly learning the ins and outs of their agreement, even if it was a bit disappointing not to receive extra DP like she had last time.Avorn and Camellia were absolutely fascinated by the changes to the dungeon's first floor. They hadn't been expecting it to change so drastically and overnight at that! As they explored the dungeon, they noticed that there were now two new empty rooms to one side of the entrance. However, they quickly stopped exploring that side after they ran into the slime parkour room. Neither really wanted to get their clothes wet tonight and they were worried that this was a sign that more difficult challenges were likely on the other side of this one.This idea was only reaffirmed as they explored the other side of the dungeon. The koi pond room they loved so much was the first thing they saw on that side and then they saw the rest of the rooms they were so familiar with one after another. They did end up running into another party and ended up having to politely apologize before giving them some space. Well, it wasn't quite as simple as that.While Avorn tended to be a bit cowardly in front of Violet, he was hardly that way all of the time. So, when he was met with a bristly adventurer with a bad attitude who seemed to be protecting a young girl, he couldn't help but want to act in defense of his wife. It was only because Camellia dragged him away, apologizing profusely, that they even left it at that. While he could have argued that he could protect them, Avorn was smart enough to know that wouldn't actually help anything, so he dropped it.They'd, unfortunately, have to see the two again when they went to exit the dungeon as there seemed to be only one path forward on this side. It was also rather doubtful that they'd go around to a path they didn't know about, if there even was one. Surely that would mean crossing the slime parkour room, which didn't seem ideal for such a young child, especially when they would then be going outside into the harsh winter weather before making the trek back to the nearby town.