Little Owls

The new day had brought Violet another 13MP and 2DP from her kodama. It wasn't entirely surprising that her kodama wasn't finding anything new to forage in recent days. The kodama was a very small creature who couldn't travel very far very quickly. Besides, if it was supposed to snow any day now, then it was likely that there weren't very many plants left to harvest. Perhaps things would be easier in the spring?

Violet had just bought another two lollipops before going to rest. Surprisingly a new group of two visited the dungeon at that time. One of the energy signatures was weaker than the other, so it was easy to tell that it wasn't the two who usually visited the dungeon. This new group of two also didn't leave her wildflower meadow room. That made Violet wonder if Greggory and Henry were visiting the dungeon again, but she didn't bother to go and check. The last thing she wanted was to risk scaring away any new people who might be uncomfortable around her.

Perhaps, with time, the locals and the various adventurers who visited her dungeon would become more comfortable with her. It would certainly make it difficult for Violet to pretend to be a dungeon merchant if people weren't comfortable around her. Although, perhaps she was overthinking things. It wasn't like every adventurer who had entered her dungeon had immediately guessed that she was the dungeon master. If she could use that to her advantage, perhaps she could try to use the time it took for them to figure it out to convince them she wasn't a threat.

It didn't take long for the duo to leave her dungeon. Violet checked her system logs and noted she only got 2DP from their tribute. Well, that was to be expected to an extent as well. If one adventurer thought something was good enough to be a tribute, it was likely that others would as well. Besides, Violet wasn't even sure if most adventurers were aware of what value the tributes held for dungeons or if they just did it out of tradition. They certainly had no real way of being able to tell which tributes Violet had already received, if they even cared about that at all.

Oh well, that was a big part of the reason Violet wanted to try this whole dungeon merchant thing out in the first place. She planned to charge the same cost in tributes as she had spent in mana to create the [Items]. If she had to spend 5MP to create a wild violet and honey lollipop, then she wanted to receive a minimum of 5DP for it. Of course, it would be even better if she could get a new [Item] or [Base Resource] instead.

Perhaps many adventurers would get confused by her prices. They could just as easily trade her five random leaves from the outside world as they could five lesser healing potions since they would hold the same value for Violet. However, it couldn't be helped that what was worth a certain amount outside of the dungeon held a different amount of value inside the dungeon. However, perhaps Violet could use that to her advantage. Maybe she should try to charge double the value of the items in her dungeon. Getting ten leaves for a lollipop still seemed utterly absurd, but she would hardly complain about getting an entire 10DP for the item.

Besides, even if people could purchase items for a bargain, they still had to find Violet first. She also had no intention of spending all of her mana on merchandise since she still needed some to build the dungeon. As for the rest, why should Violet begrudge anyone the chance to make a profit? They could make their profit and Violet could make hers. It just sounded like a win-win to her.

With her mana full again, Violet decided it was time to build another room. 32MP was spent on building a 16-meter x 16-meter square room to the right of the wildflower meadow room. The hallway had already been built the day before, so it was easy enough to slot the room in right next to it. Violet planned to turn this new room into another puzzle room. It was likely that she wouldn't need to build very many more rooms. Heck, maybe this was the last one she needed.

Violet decided to pull up the [Missions] menu.

[Missions:

Origin: System

Status: Incomplete

Info: Place first trap

Reward: Unlock a new [Critter] option

Origin: System

Status: Complete

Info: Complete a boss room

Reward: Unlock a new [Critter] option

Origin: System

Status: Complete

Info: Complete half of the first floor

Reward: Unlock a new [Critter] option

Origin: System

Status: Incomplete

Info: Complete the first floor

Reward: Unlock a new [Critter] option

Origin: System

Status: Incomplete

Info: Unlock the second floor

Reward: Unlock a new [Critter] option

Origin: System

Status: Incomplete

Info: Unlock [Critters] from five different phyla.

Reward: Unlock a new [Critter] option

Origin: System

Status: Incomplete

Info: Unlock ten [Critters]

Reward: Unlock a new [Critter] option

Origin: System

Status: Incomplete

Info: Earn the favor of a patron god or goddess

Reward: Unlock new schematic]

It would seem that Violet had forgotten to check her [Missions] system menu for a while now. She not only had the mission for filling in half of the floor taken care of, but she also had the one for building a boss room to collect the reward on.

"I'd like to collect the reward for the boss room quest."

Violet stated.

[Would you like to receive the reward now?

Yes or No?]

Violet selected the [Yes] option and was met with the next prompt.

[Please select one of the following phylum options to be randomly awarded a [Critter] from:

-Cnidaria

-Mollusca

-Chordata - Aves]

How lucky! She hadn't chosen any of these options yet. That would make it easier to complete one of her other quests. After some thought, Violet selected the [Chordata - Aves] option.

[Randomizing options...]

[New [Critter] option unlocked!

-Little Owl (5MP)

Behaves the same as a normal little owl. Mediocre combat skills, excellent flying skills, nocturnal. Is safe to consume.]

Violet frowned. Why did her system always feel the need to tell her when things were edible? She wasn't going to be eating an owl, a frog, or any of her other [Critters]! She could barely even imagine adventurers wanting to eat an owl. So, it was just a really strange thing to always have included in the description.

On another note, Violet had never heard of an owl called a little owl. Was it meant to be a descriptor or was that the name of the species? Well, all of the other [Critters] were named whatever they would have been in her world. The bees weren't called fuzzy bees, they were called bumblebees. The jade tree frog wasn't named "tiny green frog" either, so she had to assume that "little owl" was the proper name for the owl as well.

Violet didn't have anywhere to assign the owls right now, so she'd have to wait to see what they looked like. Instead, she went to claim her other quest reward.

"I'd like to collect the reward for completing half of the first floor."

[Would you like to receive the reward now?

Yes or No?]

Violet selected [Yes] once more.

[Please select one of the following phylum options to be randomly awarded a [Critter] from:

-Chordata - Mammalia

-Chordata - Reptilia

-Echinodermata]

Violet still wasn't sure what most of the phyla options even meant. All of these options were ones she hadn't selected either. Violet wasn't sure what her next floor theme would end up being. She kind of hoped it would be something forest-themed, though. With the plants David had brought her and the owl, it would be a pretty good theme to have next. Since she didn't know what would fall under [Echinodermata], Violet decided to go with the safer [Chordata - Mammalia] option.

[Randomizing options...]

[New [Critter] option unlocked!

-Fennec Fox (5MP)

Behaves the same as a normal fennec fox. Mediocre combat skills, average burrowing skills, nocturnal. Is safe to consume.]

What were the odds of that? Both of the new [Critters] she had unlocked were nocturnal and have mediocre combat skills. Violet supposed that meant the creatures would make for better defense than her jade tree frogs, koi fish, and bumblebees who were said to have poor combat skills. It wasn't clear if [Monsters] and [Critters] were compared on the same scale, so she wasn't sure if they'd be stronger than her basic slimes or not.

Feeling satisfied with her new [Critters], Violet decided to spend the rest of her free mana. Candy apples were too sticky to keep in a leather satchel, so Violet decided to purchase some lavender meringues instead. Where the lollipops were only 5MP and could create a single lollipop, the lavender meringues were 15MP to create five cookies.

The price still seemed a bit high to Violet since the meringues were much smaller than something like a chocolate chip cookie or a doughnut might be, but it wasn't like they were any smaller than their modern-day versions. That was just one of the problems with luxury items like this, Violet supposed. Hopefully, the adventurers would still be happy to exchange their tributes for them.

Well, Violet already had the perfect customers in mind for trading the lavender meringues to. Tobias's party would likely have just as much trouble as David was having with the flower hunt challenge. So, she might be able to convince them to purchase the lavender meringues from her since they were meant to be the reward for that challenge. She'd just have to wait for the perfect time to bring it up.