day 2 chapter 3

Day 2

I stood up after waking up and stretched my stiff muscles. The floor was

pretty warm, not cold at all, but it was also hard and constantly glowing. Not

exactly the best place to get a good night's sleep. I had been hoping that I

might find myself back in my room after waking up, but had no such luck. I

glanced to the side and... saw Rokuko glaring at me.

"Grr! Y-You're finally awake, Keima!"

"Yo, Rokuko. How long was I asleep?"

"As if I know! You slept for nine hours! Aaah, my mouth said that on its

own..."

I didn't know if time moved at the same speed as it did on Earth, but I

decided to just roll with it and assume I had indeed slept for nine hours.

I checked our DP and saw that our 4 DP had turned into 34 DP. ...I guess

the bandits' DP trickles in over time. The bandits probably aren't all as

strong as each other, either, so I should just give up on making precise

estimations of DP gain.

"What time is it right now?"

"It's eight in the morning! By the way, one day has twenty-four hours in

it! Wait! Aaah, why am I answering yooou?!"

"Thanks, much appreciated. By the way, end every sentence you say with

'meow.'"

"Don't mess with meow!"

Each day consisted of twenty-four hours. As an aside, each year seemed

to consist of twelve months, or three hundred sixty-five days. Basically the

same thing as Earth. Perfect, I won't have any trouble remembering that.

Just for peace of mind, I investigated how much weight my orders held

and learned that Rokuko's body would execute them on its own. I'm in

another world and there's a girl who has to listen to everything I say... If I

weren't a gentleman dedicated to sleep, there would be some adult-only

things happening right now. I canceled the "meow" order and decided to

double-check the situation.

"What's going on with the bandits?"

"They just woke up and went outside. One stayed behind to stand guard."

"Hm..."

"So, let's summon a goblin or something! DP Summoning! Goblin!"

"What?" While I was in the middle of being stunned, a faintly glowing

circle appeared on the ground. It then flashed brightly, and before I knew it,

there was a small, ugly-looking person with green skin standing where the

circle used to be. ...The same thing probably happened when I got summoned.

"Okay!"

"Not okay!"

"Owie?!"

I thumped Rokuko on the head. I checked our DP and saw that we only

had 14 DP left. 20 DP was gone, just like that.

"Wh-Why'd you do that?! Getting hit like that hurts! What'll you do if

you break me?!"

"Don't just up and use DP on your own like that, idiot!"

"Whaaat? It's my DP, I can do whatever I want with it." Okay, yeah. She's

an idiot.

I grabbed onto Rokuko's head and forced her to look me in the eyes.

"It's not your DP anymore. It's my DP. If you reaaally wanna use it for

something, get my permission first. You don't wanna die, right?"

"Wh-What, are you threatening me?! But if I die, you'll die too!"

"That's right. If the Dungeon Core gets destroyed, I'll die too. That's why

I'm telling you not to do anything on your own!" After hearing me say that in

a forceful tone, Rokuko trembled in surprise with tears forming in her eyes.

"Ngh... Y-You're right. Sorry. But what else are we supposed to do?"

"That depends. Tell me more about this place first. And... can we return

this goblin?"

"Nope. Ah, but if it dies inside of the dungeon, we get 2 DP."

"Only a tenth...? Alright. We'll keep him around for now."

I ordered the goblin to wait in a corner for now. Sheesh... This room really

is big. That corner's really far away. Though, I guess it has to be if we can

summon things like dragons in here.

"Ummm, okay. So, we're right by Tsia Mountain... By the way, this

dungeon's name is [Ordinary Cave]! I heard an adventurer say that."

Seriously? They're not even thinking of this place as a dungeon. C'mon.

Or so I thought, but apparently some dungeons just have names like that.

Confusing.

Well, maybe things would be different if there were some rooms with brick

floors or something, but yeah, right now this place just looks like an ordinary

cave.

"What's an adventurer?"

"Apparently, humans made something called the Adventurer's Guild. I

wonder what makes it different from the Knight's Order. I don't really know

the details."

Guess there's a knight's order too. I can guess that the difference between

them is like the difference between a private organization and a public peace￾keeping organization.

Wait... If that's all Rokuko knows, doesn't that mean I know more than her

already? I mean, I'm just assuming, but still.

"Are there any human settlements nearby? Show me a map if you have

one."

"You can look at one through the menu. I think it was somewhere in the

Dungeon Menu."

I don't remember an option like that. I went ahead and double-checked

the Menu. There I found an option called "Surrounding Area Information,"

and further within that, "Map." Apparently there was a major road just down

the mountain. The bandits were probably raiding it.

I fiddled with zooming in on the map to try and learn more about the lay

of the land. But... basically all I could see was the immediate area

surrounding this mountain. There was Tsia Mountain, a single large town

nearby, and an ocean beyond the mountain. Oh yeah, and there were also a

few small villages scattered about.

By the way, the map was very vague. Not really detailed at all. I really

wished it would give more information, like distance or something. Better

than nothing, though. Apparently it was the kind of map people use in this

world, so yeah.

"Heeey, won't you kill that bandit for me? We would get lots of DP if you

kill him. Mmm, it feels like he would be worth about 200 DP."

That may sound nice, but he would be worth just as much if he stuck

around the dungeon for ten full days.

"Nah, we're not going to attack the bandits yet."

"Why not? He's all alone. We could take him down if we had... around

ten goblins."

"You'd spend 200 DP to earn 200 DP...? And we don't even have enough

DP to summon that many, anyway." But seriously. Goblins are as weak as

they look, huh? Ten goblins to take down one bandit. Dang.

"We're gonna keep saving DP for now. Don't waste any of it. We'll be

better off saving a ton and using it all at once, and right now, we're better off

not agitating the bandits. What'll you do if we send out goblins and they

decide to destroy the Dungeon Core to stop that from happening again?"

"...Ah! I didn't think about that at all. You sure are smart, Keima!"

"Nah, you're just an idiot. And now that you know that, listen to

everything I say. Got it?"

"O-Okay. I will." Rokuko nodded obediently.

I guess in her energy-saving form, both her body and her mind are that of

a kid's. ...Nah, she was always like that. She's a ditzy airhead through and

through. But I knew she wouldn't try to do anything on her own after I

ordered her not to. She was being forced to obey my orders whether she

wanted to or not, after all.

Anyway, I should check out what else I can do in this menu.

"...Uhhh, Construct? Let's see how much it takes to build a room... It

depends on the size, but a simple small room with bare rock floors and stuff

only costs about 200 DP. The size of hallways connecting rooms determines

what kind of traps can be used in them, too."

"That's right! Adding rooms is a total waste of DP, it would be way better

to just summon more monsters instead. That's why I've never used the

Construct Menu before."

"Looks like I can use DP to get treasure and place it in the dungeon, too.

Aaah, I see. Pillows and stuff are considered treasure too. Household Goods￾tier treasure."

"That's true, but what's the point in doing that? If you have DP to spare

for treasure, you should be using it to summon monsters that can kill the

intruders... hey, what are you looking at me like that for? Gross, stop staring

at me."

Whoops, my bad. I was giving her the kind of warm look a parent gives

their idiot kid after they say something dumb.

"...But y'know, when I think about dungeons, it's not monsters that come

to mind. It's traps and treasure."

"Really? The other Cores I know never say anything like that."

"Oh yeah. You said you were Dungeon Core Number 695 or something

like that. Does that mean there are at least 694 other dungeons?"

"There's a lot of Cores that have gotten dest... that have died, so there's

less than that. The Dungeon Core is our heart, after all. When it gets

destroyed, we die."

"You're a pretty risky girl, letting your heart be defenseless in the only

room of your dungeon."

"But the other Cores always say it doesn't matter how many rooms you

have!"

The blonde loli puffs up her nonexistent chest in pride. I wanna rub it. I

wanna rub that washboard chest.

"Wait. How are you contacting those other cores?"

"Ummm... We have gatherings. I couldn't go this time due to all the

intruders, but... it happens once a year. It's kind of like a party. We talk about

a lot of important things there."

"Oh, so that's where you learned all the stuff you've been bringing up?"

"Mhm. Dungeon Core Number 89 told me everything I know. She's my

big sister. Core 89 is a human-type dungeon just like me, but her dungeon is

right in the middle of a capital city! She's amazing! Her core number is only

two digits and she ranks in the top ten for having the most DP! She takes

really good care of me."

Yeah, this girl's definitely getting tricked.

"By the way, Core 89 has pulled a dragon from a 1000 DP gacha before."

"Wooow. I'm mainly interested in those rankings you mentioned, and that

capital, but eeeh... I'll ask about those later. We've gotta take care of the

danger in front of us first."

"That's true. We need to get rid of these bandits."

All of a sudden, my stomach grumbled. ...Oh yeah. I haven't eaten

anything since yesterday.

"Alright, time to eat. Got any food?"

"Eh? Ah, right. Monsters need to eat food, riiight. I don't need to eat

anything, so I totally forgot about that." Guess she's still gonna treat me like

a monster. Rude.

By the way, up until this point, Rokuko would use all the DP she had to

summon goblins whenever intruders came. Adventurers would come once or

twice a month, massacre the goblins, and then go home after butchering their

corpses.

I flipped through the DP Catalog for food. There were lots of things there,

but I went ahead and spent 5 DP to buy bread and water. A magic circle

appeared with a flash, and soon enough, darkish bread and a wood cup

appeared above it. After splitting half of it with the quietly sitting goblin, we

ate together like pals. The bread... was really, really hard. I felt as if it were

just sitting in clumps in my stomach, but I was tired enough to just go back to

sleep right away.