day 9 chapter 8

Day 9

As always, there was nothing for me to do.

The bandits did eventually start mining the walls themselves, though they

kept grumbling while doing so. They started off by throwing the excess rock

and stone outside, but halfway through we started to absorb the stuff into the

dungeon under the guise of accepting it as an offering. It didn't earn us even

a single DP, but the bandits appreciated us helping out enough that they

started working faster without complaining.

They really are simple guys. I guess at this rate we'll be able to make a

small room in like ten days?

"Hm? It feels like people are coming." I glanced at Rokuko after she

murmured that to me. "Bandits?"

"I don't think so. They're probably adventurers. I think the bandits just

noticed them too. I guess they're gonna do another surprise attack?"

"Alright... They're almost definitely investigating this cave since those

last adventurers never came back." I didn't expect them so soon, but they

presented a good opportunity. I decided to tell Rokuko about the rest of my

plan to eliminate the bandits. She won't try to do anything unnecessary if she

knows what's really going on here.

"Since they came all the way to investigate us, they're stronger than the

last adventurers that came here. After all, it'd just be a waste of time if they

sent some weaker people that ended up not coming back either." From the

bandits' perspective, they couldn't let anyone see this completely changed

[Ordinary Cave] and survive to tell the tale.

So, they'll have to kill all the adventurers. No survivors. And if those

adventurers never return, another group will come to investigate. And of

course, that group will be even stronger than the last one. I don't know how

long it'll take, but at some point, the bandits will lose. And there you have it.

That's the plan I have for slaughtering every single one of the bandits. Right

now, my job is just making sure the bandits don't try to flee their hideout

before it gets crushed. Huh? That's not a job? I'm just sleeping without

actually doing anything? Hey, c'mon, that's not true at all.

The bandits were hunting for food, and they would offer up some of their

prey to us (mainly the internal organs, bones, and other stuff that they

couldn't eat themselves. It was all worth a little DP.) In return, I would send

them treasure chests with letters on the bottom explaining how best to fight

within the cave. Of course, since we would get more delicious DP whenever

bandits or adventurers died inside the cave, we benefited the most from those

battle plans.

See? I'm doing my part and working hard too. God! I don't want to

work...! At least my job was pretty simple. I just had to reward the bandits

whenever they offered up stuff to my dungeon.

"Oooh! That's amazing, Keima! I can't believe you thought of a plan that

great!"

"Yep. By the way, the true purpose of that goblin room is to be a dummy

[Ordinary Cave] when necessary. If worse comes to worst, we can move the

Dungeon Core over there and pretend we never knew a thing about the

bandits."

"Oh wow, really...? I totally thought that you had just forgotten that

monsters can only come out of the Dungeon Core when its floor has intruders

on it."Oh, I did forget about that. That goblin's just been sitting cross-legged for

the past week, so I was planning on letting him outside, but I guess that's just

not possible.

"Oh, the adventurers are almost here."

"Right. May as well watch what happens."

# Bandit's Perspective

"Boooss! Some adventurers are coming!"

"Alright, just as planned. We're gonna take'm down."

"Just as planned?"

"Yeah. The box that had the sword in it mentioned that adventurers would

be coming soon, remember? The dungeon wants us to protect it."

By the way, the boss of the bandits had studied for a while and learned

how to read simple messages. Since the letters from the dungeon were

intentionally being written in a simple manner, even he could read them. The

boss of the bandits was feeling pretty smug about that, too. He bragged to his

subordinates that he had gotten a lot smarter ever since he holed up in this

dungeon. He even said that he might turn back into an idiot if he ever leaved

it.

"...Alright. We'll use the new guys. Tell'm I'll make whoever kills the

most my right-hand man."

"Got it. What about us?"

"If the guys get slaughtered, we'll finish off the weakened adventurers.

That'll be the end of it if everything works out." The dungeon really had

taught the boss a lot about warfare.

Use the new guys first and get ready to get rid of the weakest ones as soon

possible. That was just one of the lessons he had learned. Having a hideout

where you could stash treasure and get shelter from the rain was everything

to a bandit. It was status. It'd be dangerous if anyone ever discovered the

hideout, but slaughtering everyone who finds it should take care of that... or

at least, that was what the letter from the dungeon said, and thus that was

what the boss of the bandits believed.

Two corners of the dungeon's first room were blind spots coming from

the entrance hallway, making them the perfect spot to launch a surprise

attack... though there was so little space, only about eight people could hide

effectively. That's where the new guys would be camping out. Every other

bandit hid in one of the two new rooms the dungeon had made for them. That

way, they could rush out and provide support whenever necessary.

"Huh? I thought this was a one-room dungeon with the core right at the

start." Those were the last words ever spoken by one of the three adventurers.

New Guy A had swung down his sword at the adventurer who had popped

his defenseless head out of the entrance hallway.

"Take thiiis!" His rusted, dull sword hit a weak spot on the adventurer's

uncovered neck and snapped that part of his spine with a single blow.

Right, that guy's one of the thugs I picked up at the slums. I remember him

being all smug and cocky. I told him to keep quiet until his first attack landed,

but I guess that was too much for a thug who's never killed a man before.

But by chance, he had managed to kill one of the adventurers with his first

swing. That could only be called the result of pure luck.

"Heh! Heheheh! Now I'm gonna be the boss's right-hand man!"

"Benny?! Tch, bandits! {Slash}!"

"Huh? Gah!"

The adventurer's... The swordsman's counterattack cut halfway through

New Guy A's neck. That wound was severe enough that he would need

High-Rank magic to survive... which basically meant he was already dead.

He had landed a critical hit with a surprise attack on the first adventurer, and

now he had been hit with more or less the same thing himself. The

swordsman's weapon was a sharp, well cared for sword... but what mattered

more than anything else was his prowess, reflected by the skill he had used.

New Guy A collapsed onto the ground.

Nobody made the dumb mistake of watching his corpse fall to the ground,

but the adventurers still moved faster than any of the newbie bandits.

"Shit, he's got a skill! We've gotta pile up on him! We'll win through

numbers... nghaaah!" The backmost adventurer launched an arrow that

pierced the chest of New Guy B's cracked leather armor and killed him

instantly. He must not have expected to kill the bandit in a single blow, as a

second arrow soon stabbed through his head.

He shot fast and he shot hard. His aim was good, too. He might have been

using a bow combat skill, but either way, an archer can't do anything in a

close-quarters fight. The fact he stood his ground in the hallway was probably

reflective of how little combat experience he had. Or perhaps he just didn't

want to run away and abandon his companion.

It was a brutal battle from that point on. Despite having lost one of their

own, the adventurers fought well together. They were definitely stronger than

the newbie bandits. That was obvious from the moment the adventurers first

used a skill, but even so, they couldn't win against numbers. The swordsman

was surrounded and the archer was defeated after the bandits used a corpse as

a shield to get close.

In the end, five of the cocky bandits had died trying to defeat the three

adventurers. Out of the three newbies who had killed one of the adventurers,

two had died from counter attacks, leaving only one alive. New Guy C, a

former mercenary who had luckily managed to survive after killing an

adventurer, was made the boss's right-hand man as promised.

"We're gonna be getting a lot of new members from now on. He can help

me keep everything together. Let's see... Only the criminal slaves and ex￾mercenaries survived. Guess thugs are pretty worthless, huh? Now. That

should be enough corpses to get us a new room, yeah? I'm counting on you,

my lovely dungeon friend."

And so, a treasure chest appeared. Inside was a letter saying "Good work!

I'll add a new room, so please go outside." As a nice bonus, the chest even

had food inside of it. There was even a sweet-smelling kind of bread that the

boss had never seen before. It smelled a lot like the incredibly expensive fruit

known as "melons."

...By chance, the boss had smelled a melon once before in his life. That

event led to his fall from grace and descent into banditry... but there's no

point in talking about that.

The boss offered the bread to his new right-hand man to test for poison,

and it ended up being so delicious that he said, "I've never tasted bread this

sweet in my life! I swear I'll serve you for the rest of my life, Boss!" while

shoving it into his mouth. His expression was so much more sincere than the

one he had when he first joined that the boss couldn't help but shake his

head, grinning.

# Keima's PerspectiveThe bandits killed the last adventurer. Really, the adventurers had been a

lot dumber than I expected. If the first adventurer had put his guard up after

noticing something was off about the dungeon, they might have survived the

bandits' surprise attack. Perhaps he just wasn't taking our dungeon seriously,

considering it was an [Ordinary Cave] and nothing more. He might have

assumed that even if there was a surprise attack, it would be conducted by

mere goblins. Maybe he knew that the roads had been getting more

dangerous, and figured that a random cave would have nothing to do with

that? ...He might have expected that the newbie adventurers from before had

simply gotten lost and set up camp in our cave.

We'll never know now, but that doesn't really matter since they're all

dead now. They should've taken this place seriously the moment they heard

about the last adventurers never coming back, but they didn't. That's their

fault.

I glanced at the monitor and saw the exact moment that the archer was

stabbed through the chest with a sword. Eugh, I saw something I shouldn't

have again... Am I gonna have nightmares about this stuff?

"Awww, so much DP! I'm starting to like these bandits a lot more than I

used to. They're not even stepping on the Dungeon Core anymore!"

"They're murderers and thieves, y'know."

Well, whatever. We got 1,900 DP from that battle, which increased our

total to 2,951 DP. Some rough mental math lead me to conclude that the five

bandits were worth about 1,000 DP together while the three adventurers were

worth about 900 DP. ...We're gonna get less DP each day without those

bandits hanging around, but I'd say that's a fair trade.

"...Alright, I'll give them those rooms they want. They've been mining the

leftmost wall of the left room, so I'll build two new rooms in that direction. I

want a bend, so I'll make the third room to the right of the second new room.

We can put the Core there for maximum safety... Oh, right. I'll give'm some

food too. I wonder what'll happen if someone from this world eats a melon

roll or something."

"Melon roll? What's that? I don't see anything like that in the DP

Catalog."

"What're you talking about? It's right there. Though, I did just find it a

second ago." I put one [Pastry Set (5 DP)], one [Fancy Bread Set (5 DP)],

and one [Dried Meat and Vegetables Set (15 DP)] into a [Treasure Chest (5

DP)] with a letter on the bottom telling the bandits to go outside before

sending it all into the dungeon. It took 630 DP to make those rooms, so we

had 2,291 DP left over after all of that. ...Looks like we've still got a ways to

go until we reach 10,000 DP.

I checked up on the bandits and saw one of them devouring the melon roll

with a blissful smile on his face. It was the guy who had stabbed the archer

through the chest. He swore his loyalty to the bandit boss thanks to that

bread. Talk about overkill.

"Holy cow, this tastes amazing! This [Melon Roll] is soooo good! Keima,

did you used to eat things this tasty all the time?!"

So, after letting Rokuko try out some melon roll because she looked pretty

curious about it, she started stuffing her face with it, eyes shining. Wait, you

eat bread? Wait, I mean, you can actually eat stuff? First time I'm seeing

that.

"Wh-What? It's not like I can't eat food or anything."

"...But you don't need to, right?"

"I don't, but it's like... a treat. I'm treating myself. Um... Do you have any

more?"

I mean, you know that a single one of these costs 5 DP, right? When it

comes with a drink, anyway. You can get six of them at once with a [Pastry

Set], so that'll be the better deal. It'll be cheaper to buy a drink from a 5 DP

barrel, too... Wait a second. Buying in bulk is so cheap I feel like I was

getting ripped off before... But I don't remember seeing this [Pastry Set] in

the DP menu before. What's going on?

"Well, there's a whole world of bread out there, but we need to save DP

right now."

"There's more kinds of bread like this?! H-Hey, you don't have to be so

stingy. We have like 2,000 DP right now, don't we? I-It'll be okay if we just

spend a little... just a little...!"

Oh man, she looks dead serious about this.

"You bought a bunch of useless things like that [Pillow] and [Futon],

didn't you?! Let me spend some on myself too!"

"Hey, you got to buy a goblin, didn't you?"

"What?! G-Gobsuke has nothing to do with this! And he was just 20 DP!

You're using almost that much every day just to eat, aren't you?!" Gobsuke?!

You named him?! I never heard about that!

"Woah now. Don't forget, I'm splitting half of my food with the goblin. If

you include that, he's already cost us way more than just 20 DP... And he's

not helping us out at all right now, so he's basically your pet."

"Th-That's not true! Gobsuke has a lot of potential, he'll be a big help to

us! Right, Gobsuke?!" Gobsuke tilted his head in surprise, as if wondering

why we had suddenly brought him into this. For some reason, despite how

hideous his goblin face was with its squashed nose and giant teeth, he looked

a lot like a dog. ...I wonder if he'll eat dog food?

"Well, anyway. I actually don't mind if you spend a little on yourself, as

long as you don't go too far. It won't cost us any extra DP if we buy our food

and drink in bulk, so that's a bonus." We'll actually save a ton of DP buying

in bulk, but I'll keep quiet about that.

"Yay! Then hurry up and buy me a pastry set!"

"Why don't you do that yourself? You can use the DP Catalog too, right?"

"Eh? But I've never seen a [Pastry Set] or a [Melon Roll] or anything like

those in it... oh wait, I have more options now. Wow, I didn't know I could

buy stuff like this here. Oooh, there really are a lot of different kinds of

bread! [Rye Bread], [Wheat Bread], [Melon Roll]... so many options!"

Huh? Wait a second...

"Hey, tell me what you're seeing in the Catalog again."

"Eh? Like I said, [Rye Bread], [Wheat Bread], and [Melon Roll]."

"...Just those three?"

"Um? Uh-huh, just those three. Why?"

I went ahead and bought a [Pastry Set], with my individual choices being

[Cream Roll], [Jelly Roll], [Steamed Roll], [Red Bean Paste Roll], [Apple

Pie], and a [Fried Roll].

"Do you know what these are?"

"...Kinds of bread, right? Wow, I've never seen bread that looks like this

before. And why does all the bread you summon always end up covered in

this weird, transparent stuff? Can I eat that too?"

"Nope, you can't. That's plastic. You rip it apart to get to the food inside.

By the way, this is called a [Jelly Roll]. Try eating it."

"Hmm, a [Jelly Roll]. Let's see... Nom... mmm! So tasty! [Jelly Rolls]

taste amazing too! Wow, there's some yellow stuff inside of it. Oooh, so

sweet! What is this stuff, it's delicious!"

I handed over the [Cream Roll], having more or less figured out what's

going on.

"Rokuko, check out the [Pastry Set] again and see if you have more

options this time.

"Eh? Okay... I do have more options. I can pick a [Jelly Roll] now. Wow,

this is all new to me."

"Alright. The next time you want a [Jelly Roll], buy it yourself. Get it in a

set with some [Melon Rolls] if you want."

"Really?! Ahaha, okay, th-then I'll get three of each... ahahaha,

hahaHAHA!"

"Oh, sure, I'd love to have one of your [Jelly Rolls]. Thanks."

"AAAAAH?!"

Right after Rokuko summoned her [Pastry Set], I stole one of her [Jelly

Rolls]. ...Yep. This is a [Cream Roll]. Any way I look at it, this is a [Cream

Roll]. Plus, it's completely bare without any plastic surrounding it.

"Sorry, Rokuko. What I gave you was actually a [Cream Roll]. This is a

real [Jelly Roll]."

"Eh, really? Wow... So this is an actual [Jelly Roll]. Wooow, this one has

red stuff inside of it... and it's super sweet! I love this one too! Real [Jelly

Rolls] are amazing!"

Sorry for tricking you again, but that's a [Red Bean Paste Roll]. Sounds

like it has red bean paste.

"Go ahead and buy another [Pastry Set]. This time, get four [Cream Rolls]

and two [Jelly Rolls]."

"What's going on? Do you really care that much about making me happy?

Awww, thanks! You're so nice today, Keima! Okay, four [Cream Rolls] and

two [Red Bean Paste Rolls]!"

"...How's your option list looking?"

"Eh? Oooh, I have more options again... Okay, I summoned them. Can I

go ahead and eat them?"

I looked over what Rokuko had bought. Four [Cream Rolls] and two [Red

Bean Paste Rolls]. ...And there we go. It looks like the DP Catalog prioritizes

displaying only items that the user of the Menu is familiar with. It's very

possible that it just fundamentally won't show items that the user doesn't

know about. Since Rokuko's pastries weren't wrapped in plastic, just

knowing the name of something must not be enough for it to be put on the

Catalog. Does the dungeon need to have absorbed it before? Wait, no, that

doesn't make sense. She's absorbed plastic plenty of times... I guess it does

have to do with being familiar with the item? ...Either way, it's very likely

that none of this applies to things from this world. I've never seen an actual

dragon before, but it's on my menu... though I do know that dragons are the

classic Dungeon Master monster of choice. I want to dig in to this a little

more, but this is getting pretty tedious. I don't want to waste DP, either.

Rokuko was looking at me impatiently as I contemplated the inner

workings of the DP Catalog to myself.

"I can eat them now, right? Right?!"

"Yeah, go ahead. ...By the way, those are all the pastries you'll be getting

for four days, so don't go through them too fast. And be sure to split them

with Gobsuke."

"Whaaat?!" Rokuko froze with half of a [Cream Roll] in her mouth.

Don't worry, I'll split my food with Gobsuke even if you eat all of those

pastries yourself. Not that I'm gonna tell you that, though.