Live Dungeon!
chapter-13

The next day, Tsutomu awoke only to regret his failure. After shaking off the temptation to return once more to the warmth of the bed and let his consciousness drift off, he was able to fully wake up.

Tsutomu approached the sink with a longing face. Beside it was container holding water gems. Tsutomu unsealed it and brought one of the gems close to the faucet, which began to take colour and pour water into the sink.

Tsutomu then cupped water in his hands and threw it at himself, washing his face. After which, he brushed his teeth with his custom-made wooden toothbrush.

As Tsutomu was preparing to head to the barbershop to cut his now considerably long black hair, he carelessly dropped some of his papers on a chair. The papers detailed the landscape of the valley as well as some monsters you might see there.

Feeling a little sleepy from staying up late last night making those papers, Tsutomu slowly removed his pajamas and put on his outside attire.

Tsutomu left the room with his magic bag on his back and began to head to the inn’s dining room. All around him, he could hear many sounds from the other customers due to the thin walls. He heard someone using the well from outside, and heavy footsteps from the room he had just passed.

As he arrived at the dining hall, he examined his surroundings. Most customers were either elves or beasts, and they were rarely humans. He then called the attention of a young lady who had been working hard all morning serving the customers.

“Hey, sorry, I’d like some breakfast.”

“Are there any additional orders?”

“Nope.”

If you are a guest, the inn gives you breakfast free of charge. However, this comes with the condition that you don’t get to choose what you eat, which Tsutomu didn’t mind anyway. As he looked around, he began examining the inn’s demographic.

The inn is usually filled with adventurers and workers, who would be considered middle class. And since each night at the inn would set you back 10,000G, the large number of customers meant that the inn earned a lot of money.

The adventurers were usually elves or dwarves. There were also many beast-men and dragon-men amongst them. As Tsutomu looked around, he saw many parties discussing their strategies whilst eating their breakfast, with the beasts swallowing large quantities of meat at a time.

He also saw many workers reading the newspaper over breakfast, chatting with others nearby. The newspapers contained plenty of general information, but most of them focus on the dungeon’s most recent news instead.

In the dungeon, anybody can see the adventurers battling monsters and clearing floors on the broadcasts set up by the god of the dungeon, which functioned basically like a TV in this world.

Journalists collect information and news about various parties from the broadcasts and publish it in their newspapers. There are many companies competing right now, but the biggest is most likely Solit Newspaper. Since it was the first major newspaper to be established, it has a lot of influence and power.

It was also them that reported on Tsutomu’s luck. As a result, the auction gained popularity, and its price increased, bringing Tsutomu merit. However, he still felt uncomfortable having them report his story without his permission.

As Tsutomu snapped out of his deep thought, he realized that bacon eggs and salad were being carried towards him, as well as four slices of bread with butter and jam on top of the net-like grill, and barley tea with ice in corn soup. While cutting the fried egg, which has been cooked thoroughly, with a knife and chewing it, Tsutomu spotted one of the major clans in the front of a newspaper from the side of his vision.

[Looks like they haven’t been active recently]

This clan had recently broken the record for the highest floor and has stated in an interview that due to repairs and preparations, they weren’t able to continue any further. They had taken about 2 weeks to break the record that stood for half a year. The clan’s name was Demon Group Komadon.

The words of Alma, the clan’s great red swordsman, were still stuck in Tsutomu’s mind.

As Tsutomu continued eating his breakfast, he eventually took his eyes off of the Demon Group Komadan.

After finishing his breakfast, he returned his used kitchenware to the waiters, left his key at the receptionist and left the inn.

Then, Tsutomu headed straight for the cleaning shop where he has his robes and pants washed every few days.

When inside the dungeon, clothing can get dirty from many things. Even though the monster’s blood disappears after it is killed, your clothes could still get dirty from their spit.

There’s also a large amount of dirt and mud in the dungeons. Although most adventurers say they don’t really care about dirt, there’s a point where it piles up too much on your clothing and begins to gross you out.

The laundry shops that open early in the morning are usually bigger than other buildings. The Shiroishi Laundry building, where Tsutomu frequents, is divided into right and left. On the building on the right, large amounts of steam are emitted, since that’s where clothes are washed and dried. The building on the left is where customers are attended to and where their clothes and equipment are stored when the queue fills up.

As Tsutomu opened the door, he was greeted by an old man with a beautiful smile plastered across his face.

“Good morning. I’m here to pick up my equipment.”

“Ah, yes, Mr. Tsutomu. Over here, please.”

The old man handed over the equipment to Tsutomu. It was covered in a plastic film to protect it from dust.

This type of plastic film was harvested from a slime that spawns near the forest. They are used in all sorts of things, such as preventing food from rotting.

However, when a monster dies, it turns into gems and disappears. So, the people in the dungeon have figured out ways to collect slime bodies.

One is from treasure chests, which mainly appear when killing monsters, or randomly throughout the dungeon.

There are various things inside these treasure chests. Materials from monsters, such as slime from the forest slimes, equipment, and gems. However, the chests are pretty rare. In fact, finding a chest would be considered lucky already.

Even the wooden chests, which are the lowest level, are quite rare. However. Just one chest may be enough to live comfortably for one month.

The rarest chest is the gold chest. It has only been seen once, which caused many people to rush to register as adventurers.

Another method to harvest slime is to use the outside dungeon instead of the one in the labyrinth city and defeat the monsters there for their materials.

If the specific dungeon is not under the jurisdiction of the gods, then they will not turn into gems and disappear, but remain as a corpse. There are certain techniques you have to learn first to harvest the slimes’ bodies, but it’s more consistent than treasure chests.

However, in these dungeons, there are no rules, meaning you can’t be revived if you die there, so white mages and many potions are essential, as well as extreme caution.

Because you risk your life, few people do this, and as such, demand for monster materials is high, and one can expect high profits when selling them.

Many of those who go to the outside dungeons only farm really low-level monsters, or are on an expedition for a guild that promises large bounty in return.

The outside dungeons are very rarely explored, and as such begin to overflow with monsters. Because of this, many guilds ask for expeditions to clear the monsters.

When there is low demand for expeditions, the labyrinth city is usually attacked by monsters once every 6 months. High-level monsters are rare in such attacks, but there is still plenty of damage.

However, for adventurers, it is safer to attack the monsters in the labyrinth dungeon rather than heading on expeditions. As a result, it is usually those who are popular that would be recruited by the nobles as private soldiers, and hence go on expeditions.

The monsters’ levels aren’t that high, so the labyrinth city isn’t in much danger during attacks. However, there are towns and cities that are much closer in proximity to the attacks, and the people from these towns tend to dislike those who explore the labyrinth dungeons.

After paying the fee to the old man, Tsutomu said his farewells and left the store.

Tsutomu then began to head towards their usual meeting place and met up with Garm as they saw Amy slowly approaching.

“Hey! Maybe it’s Amy’s twin sister!”

“Hahaha, nice one.”

Amy continued approaching them as Garm had to clasp both hands tightly on his mouth to contain his laughter.

“Hey, after levelling myself up on the beach, I think I’ll practice flying for the valley.”

“Okay, no problem.”

As they began lining up at the receptionist desk, they saw the usual unpopular skinhead man.

“Hey, you guys, I have a request for coverage.”

“An interview?”

“It’s from Solit Newspapers. Come here for now.”

The man walked from behind the wooden counter and began leading them towards the interviewers.

Tsutomu and Garm glanced at each other, exchanging weird faces, as they continued to follow the man.