by Fuse
Realizing how many options were open to us—not just commercial, either—I decided to talk with Benimaru later about them.
I had my seed items, but it was too early to focus on the Dungeon; that could wait until it was done. For now, I wanted to wrap up talks with the one person we needed for the final touches, the whole cornerstone of this scheme—Veldora.
I found him relaxing in my little house a bit removed from town, a nice little Asian-style teahouse. There’s actually a secret to this building—but I’ll go into that later. Veldora was treating the place like he owned it or something, which I didn’t mind that much, but…come on, man.
“Yo, Veldora. Can you do me a favor?”
“Mm? What? I am busy.”
Yeah, busy reading manga, maybe.
“Ah… Too bad. I thought this was a pretty neat offer, too… But if you’re busy, then oh well. I just figured we could use your aura to— Oh, right, sorry. You’re busy. Never mind.”
I pretended to walk away. Leaving what was supposed to be my own house was a little weird, but well, I had lots of places to sleep. Besides…
“Oh, just one moment. I am busy, yes, but if you insist upon it, I will lend you an ear!”
Great, I hooked him. As gullible as always, I see. Like taking candy from a baby. I should start calling him the Gulli-Dragon.
The rest would now easily fall in place. I stood tall, looking as haughty as possible.
“Well,” I started, trying to sound suggestive, “I was thinking about providing a den for you to live in, sort of.”
“Wh-what?! My own place? You mean it?!”
I really got him now. He took his eyes off the manga he was reading, watching me curiously.
“Yep. All for you. But if you’re too busy right now…”
“Wait—wait! No need to be in such a hurry. We’re friends, are we not? I’d be glad to put your requests at the top of the queue! Kwaaaah-ha-ha-ha!”
I had Veldora excited now. Perfect. Might as well go through with the pitch. He almost never listened to people, so these preliminaries really were necessary. A pain in the ass, but I just considered it a little ceremony I conducted to help him be useful for a change.
“Mm, yes, what are friends for, after all?”
“Precisely. Tell me what you want!”
“Well, Ramiris is moving into town, and we’re gonna build her labyrinth right underneath the arena. So—”
“Oh, Ramiris?” Veldora replied, picking up on what this meant. “Her powers are a bit of an unknown quantity to me. I understood them as creating paths that led you to the same spot, no matter where you were. Does she twist and turn these paths around to create mazes?”
“Right. And she can add more floors to these mazes, so I want to fill them with tricks and traps and stuff.”
“More floors? That little girl was more powerful than I thought, then.”
Now Veldora was looking serious, engaged. So gullible.
I then regaled him about the entire story behind our dungeon plan. “But it’d be boring to just have a plain old labyrinth, right? That’s why I want to make it into something really great—like, great enough to be a huge attraction. I was just talking with Ramiris today, but she’s busy adding levels to her labyrinth right now.”
“Oh? And how does that connect to me?”
“Well, I’m thinking we need an overlord to govern the dungeon.”
“An…overlord?”
“Ramiris and I will manage the dungeon itself. On the hundredth floor, at the bottom, there’s a door that leads to the spirit labyrinth that’s Ramiris’s main residence. Don’t you think a door like that needs a guardian, Veldora? Like, the strongest guardian in history?”
“I do! I do! Yes, well said, Rimuru. And you would like me to take this role?”
Just as I thought, he latched on to the offer. The word strongest (when pointed at him) usually made him melt, so I knew uttering it would have the desired effect.
“That’s right, Veldora. And if you’ll take it, you’ll get another bonus out of it, too.”
“Oh? I was already waiting to say yes to you. But let’s hear what this…bonus is.”
Heh-heh-heh. The “bonus”…or really, the gist of the whole thing.
“So you’ve been wanting to let off your aura for a little while, right? You said you were about to hit your limit or whatever?”
“Ah! You mean…?”
“Yes! In the labyrinth, you’ll be free to unleash it all you want. You can go back to your normal dragon form, even.”
“Ahhhh…!!”
“Just imagine, this divinely cool dragon lurking deep in the depths of a forbidding labyrinth—”
“Meaning myself?” he interrupted. “So I’ll be allowed to use my full power on anyone who visits? All Kwah-ha-ha-ha-ha, welcome, you insects and so forth?”
Plainly, he loved it. The lethargy of a moment ago was gone. Dangling that bait in front of him got him monstrously excited. Now for one final push, I thought, as I recalled a little something Ramiris and I had discussed.
“I’ll even put some units in place for you to fight off the adventurers with. That’s right—I’m gonna re-create that game you wanted to try out. Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?”
This, in a nutshell, was what I wanted to make—a real-time (also, real-life) strategy game set in a dungeon. The idea came to me out of nowhere as I’d talked with Ramiris. I’d have units (monsters) in place to tackle adventurers, along with bosses to protect the loot chests. The Dungeon would be filled with Veldora’s magicules, growing thicker as you approached the hundredth floor. The force in the air would be pretty thin up top, so you’d only see minion-level monsters at first, but the deeper you got, the more higher-level foes you’d find patrolling the halls. Even in his former prison, enough magic leaked out to create tempest serpents (rank: A-minus) and other powerful creatures—I couldn’t even imagine what he’d create at this point.
Frankly, the whole “gate guardian” thing didn’t matter to me; I didn’t really expect anyone to make the hundredth floor in the first place. The key to all this was getting Veldora’s aura released. It felt to me like I couldn’t get away with making him keep it in much longer, but if I just left him to his own devices, he might decide to blow it all out in some empty corner of the world. I couldn’t take my eyes off him for a moment, because if he erupted closer to town, maybe my administration and I could withstand it, but nobody else would. With enough magicule concentration, anything below a B in rank would die.
I found it dangerous to rely solely on Veldora’s willpower to keep us safe, so Ramiris’s labyrinth was really a lifeboat in the nick of time. It was a completely sealed space, something I confirmed when I explored it myself earlier, so there was no worrying about magicules leaking out. Veldora’s full aura unleashed shouldn’t faze it at all.
Even in the Sealed Cave, it’d be impossible to resist the aura of a fully revived Veldora—not that I’d bring him down there now, what with our research facility and all. The Dungeon was perfect for him, and for the purposes of my true goal. I wanted him to whip out that aura and go to town with it.
My “true goal,” you see, was to use the large, dense cloud of magicules he’d create and generate monsters with it. The whole plan rode on that idea—Veldora releasing his aura, and me making good use of it. An excellent plan, if I do say so myself. Two birds—no, three birds—with one stone. Not only would it keep him from crashing my house uninvited, it’d also make him useful as a magicule generator for my new monster factory, giving him a job to do so he wouldn’t be such a freeloader. Not that I thought anyone would actually make it all the way to his floor, though…
But what did he think? Veldora stood up, placing his manga in a pocket, then extended a hand toward me, offering to shake.
“I like it. I like this very much, Rimuru. We will have adventurers dispatch these ‘units,’ so they can stand before me, and I can deliver them divine justice. They may try to run f
rom me, of course, but I will never allow them to. Perhaps I could bellow something akin to Bah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! You cannot escape me! Didn’t you know? There is no fleeing the Storm Dragon! I always wanted to try saying that, and now I’ve got the chance, don’t I? Ahhh, I cannot wait to begin!”
“Um, yes…”
His imagination was already running wild. I nodded back at him, but now I worried that I’d egged him on a little too much. Is this gonna be okay? Like, there’s really no way someone’ll reach Floor 100, right? I was a little concerned about that, but I needed to push this plan forward.
“…Well, you’re the only person I could ask to do this. Are you in?”
“Of course. Rimuru, you’ve done well to reach out to me. Truly, it is a task only I am capable of.”
He gave me a firm nod. I’m so glad he’s really that stupid. His cooperation, and his reaction, were even better than I thought possible.
The next day, Veldora and I went to Ramiris.
Construction of the arena began early in the morning, and the site was alive with activity. Some of the beastmen that were out on training had come back to pitch in, following Gobkyuu’s orders as they ran to and fro. I didn’t want to wreck their concentration, so we headed for the labyrinth.
The moment we entered, we emerged in the room Ramiris was in. As she promised, she had been busy expanding the Dungeon.
“Hello, Ramiris. Doing well?”
“Ahhh! Hello, Master! It’s good to see you again. I’m doing fine!”
Ramiris looked a tad fatigued but eminently satisfied with herself. I advised her not to overdo it. She was now seated on Veldora’s shoulder; I was glad to see they were still getting along.
I was glad, but it was also a problem, because the sight of Veldora was making Ramiris totally forget my advice.
“Just leave this to me! I’ll do it! I can totally pull this off, guys!”
To calm her down a bit, I decided to start with breakfast.
After that, I asked her about her progress. For now, she had expanded the labyrinth down to Floor 15; at the current pace, she’d reach one hundred several days later. I could decorate the interior along the way, so there was no need to hurry her further.
“The subsequent floors will formulate themselves at this point,” she said. “I’ve got nothing to do right now. Would you like to mess around with the floors that are done?”
Apparently, the floor-making work would proceed on its own, as long as Ramiris had remaining magic strength.
“All right, how about we set up Veldora’s room first?”
The domain of Veldora would be on the bottommost floor. I wanted to get it all set up for him, if only so I could kick him out of my place pronto. For now, that floor was still an empty space—no walls, no hallways, no stairs; just a door in the middle of nothing.
“Wow. Literally starting from zero, huh?”
“This is my room, Rimuru? Because it reminds me of my time being sealed away…”
Veldora wasn’t a fan. I saw his point. I’d feel kind of bad for him like this.
“Not to worry, Master!” Ramiris smiled at Veldora. “I can add stairs and other things easily enough, just by thinking about it.”
“All right,” I said, “how about we all use Thought Communication to figure out what we want this place to look like?”
We connected our minds together, and I showed them what I was currently picturing.
“Oooh! Yes, yes! Quite fine, Rimuru! I knew you were better than that. I suppose I am in good hands after all!”
“Sounds like Veldora’s all for it. Think you can make it into this?”
“You got it! This much isn’t a problem.”
Ramiris wasn’t kidding. In another instant, the space transformed. We were quickly surrounded by walls of thick stone, forming a large chamber with several smaller rooms coming out from it. The main chamber was a square three hundred feet or so on each side, impassive and looking every bit like a boss room. She did it up exactly like I pictured it in my mind.
“Whoa! This is perfect…”
“That it is, Ramiris. I am eminently satisfied!”
“Hee-hee! Glad you like it! Yes, I really am that good, y’know!”
Ramiris didn’t get compliments often enough, I guess, because she looked beside herself with joy. I really was impressed, though. If you tried to physically construct this, it’d take decades, not even years—and she was done in an instant. Plus, since this whole space was under her jurisdiction, she could customize it pretty freely. Astounding. I really started to see her in a new light.
But I couldn’t marvel at her forever.
This chamber was meant to be the reception area for any adventurer who made it here. But it wasn’t just that. In reality, it was a space large enough for Veldora to return to his original form. He needed to be able to fully relax and get comfortable in this space, or we’d never get anywhere. Of course, looking at him lately, he was chill enough in pretty much any physical form, I felt… If anything, being human made it easier to play games and read manga. He liked that form enough to use it to hang out uninvited in my home, after all. Maybe we’d need to build a human-Veldora room, too.
In the chamber was two doors, a large one that connected to the upper floors and another that connected to his private chambers. Ramiris did such a good job crafting my vision, it was literally just as I thought it’d be.
“Hoh? This is my room?”
Letting the curious Veldora look around a little, I took out a set of furniture from my Stomach. Deftly, I laid down a carpet woven by our town’s goblinas, placing a handmade desk and chair set on top of it. There was also a sofa in case he wanted to lie down, as well as a bed that I wasn’t sure would be used very much. The place looked comfy enough to me, and I even copied some manga I knew Veldora would like and filed it all into a bookshelf on the wall. The main chamber was dark and foreboding; this one was a cheerful little studio perfect for young, urban singles.
“Oh, how nice!” chirped Ramiris, looking a bit envious. “I’d like some furniture like this, too, y’know.”
I promised I’d bring her some next time I stopped by. I wasn’t sure what to do about sizing it for her, but judging from how Ramiris was already spread out on the sofa and reading manga, I guess I didn’t need to worry… And whoa, there’s Veldora sprawled in bed and doing the same thing. Guess I made him happy. If anyone saw him in here, the solemn majesty of the main chamber would totally go to waste. I really hoped no adventurers would see him like this, as unlikely as that’d be.
Well, no need to go overboard. We spent the afternoon getting Veldora’s room in order before wrapping up the day.
One week later—the pace had dropped a bit toward the end—the labyrinth was complete down to the hundredth floor. The interior, as I directed, was made out of blocks whose structure could be altered freely, allowing us to switch the paths around once every few days. This way, even if anyone memorized the way down, they’d have to start all over next time. I’m talking truly demonic difficulty here. Selling maps would be sacrilege, I thought. I wanted this to be a true gauntlet, and this way, it’d be a new quest every time—always fresh, retaining its difficulty, never getting boring.
As a kind of fail-safe, I did provide “save points” every tenth floor. It turns out that Spatial Motion was possible in Ramiris’s labyrinths, under certain conditions. This wasn’t affected by the local magicules, amazingly. It made it possible to do things like transport food in and out—super-useful—and it also worked on people, letting them freely travel back to these preset locations. In other words, save points, through and through. Reach one, and you get to start from there next time.
It works on your fellow party members, too; you could cheat a little and bring someone below where they’ve been before. There was some debate about that quirk, but I decided to go with it, see how people used (or abused) the feature, and adjust as needed. Besides, even if you cheat your way down a few floors, you’ll
still have to deal with the challenge waiting down there. There’s a boss stationed at every level, guardians that work along the lines of the local boss warlords dotted around the Forest of Jura. I was thinking of making the ones located before save points particularly powerful; if you wanna take those guys down, save points weren’t going to help you.
Basically, someone would need to be strong enough to reach a save point in the first place before they could take others down there, so I didn’t think anyone would try anything too stupid with them. If a problem came along, we could always reconsider. We had some nice bonuses in the treasure chests, after all, so I hoped our visitors would try hard to defeat the bosses on each floor.
Was it okay for our bosses to kill (or be killed), by the way? Sure, that was another key point. Ramiris’s Mazecraft had the power to revive life itself, resurrecting any adventurers who came into the Dungeon. This could be done only with the subject’s permission, but as long as he or she existed as a consenting part of Ramiris’s realm, it was all good. Ramiris was, in essence, the eternal leader of anything made with Mazecraft. If she was killed, the whole thing would disappear, but otherwise, any of her servants could get revived at a save point, and a “servant” was anyone she had forged a pact with or otherwise agreed to the presence of. I still couldn’t believe the power of this skill.
Now I see why she wanted Beretta so bad. Ramiris was no big deal out on the surface, but in her world, she was invincible. It’s just that the invincibility only worked on people who were part of that world. It didn’t work on golems with no free will, including that Elemental Colossus that vanished. Beretta, meanwhile, wasn’t just a puppet—and that meant he was invincible, now that he served Ramiris. She had Treyni, too, now, which made me begin to wonder if I should start worrying about them. Treyni was kind of strong, after all, and if she couldn’t be destroyed, not even Benimaru or Shion could beat her. Beretta and Treyni were still outside, beavering away at the arena construction work, but still…