Chapter 37 Dungeon Core: “The Eternal Training Ground”

POV: Ace

"There are no loopholes. If we sign this, we need to commit," someone said, but I was too miserable to look up and see who it was. We had hoped that we would be able to get a good deal with the dungeon for the foreseeable future, where we needed to do the bare minimum to keep it happy, but now we were quite literally in trouble. "Who could have done this?" someone asked, but no one answered back because there shouldn't be anyone down there capable of this.

"Could they have been living inside the dungeon ever since, and we just believed them to be dead?" That made me look up, and I saw in many people’s faces the same understanding as in mine. If that was the case, we might never find that person.

The contract he gave me was incredibly well-made, and we would need to work quite hard to fulfill it, but the contract was also quite reasonable, which was the only reason why we were still considering it.

We already had a few candidates: old and powerful adventurers and nobles who could be convinced to come and live here, and who already had a reputation for collecting all kinds of creatures and plants.

With them moving here, it would only be natural for a market of interesting animals and plants to start flourishing. It would take a lot of funds to make this happen, but that was one thing we didn't have to worry about.

The forest around here was now so filled with different kinds of berries that I wouldn't be surprised if we were the number one producer of berries in this kingdom, if not the continent. Combined with how much meat we were pulling out of the dungeon, we were able to produce a lot of rations that lasted a long time and didn't taste like wood dust.

Just two years ago, we had a hard time selling our product as we were producing so much, but now, with the airships that constantly came here to resupply for their journeys, we began selling a lot to them.

Over time, more and more cargo space on those ships was left open to pick up more of our rations, as they were quite desirable. We even have contacts with a few different dukes' militaries to produce military rations for them and roads from several kingdoms are currently being built towards our town.

We also had a few other industries, but honestly, the entire town could be run off the ration business, and we would have plenty left for spending and expansion. But if things continue, the crafting section might overtake it in terms of profits, as the quality of monster materials dropped by the dungeon has been steadily climbing.

That gave me an idea of something we hadn’t thought about before. "If I remember correctly, recently an incredibly good quality moose leather was sold for quite a high price. It was made into an expensive set of armour that was sold for an even higher price in our markets. If we continue to give the dungeon more creatures, there's probably a good chance that even more incredible materials could be gained as drops." My words lifted the somber mood a little bit.

What followed was another few hours of discussion, but more and more we were talking about how to make this happen, not if we should. Eventually, even without us voting on it, we came to the realization that everyone was on board.

So, without much celebration and knowing that we were doing something dangerous, I mentally accessed the connection with the dungeon and the contract that was waiting for me there. I took a slow breath in and then signed the contract.

POV Val

I just finished filling in my map with the latest section we just completed. The 13th floor was a lot harder, but the thing I hate the most, as I looked up, was how many people there were here. From my information, there were only about 2000 rooms currently available on the 13th floor, and that was just too little for how many people have reached this far down.

I flipped my map book to where I had a small version of the entire 13th floor; however, there were obviously seven possible places where a gate to the next huge section might be. I wonder which one of them will have the gate.

"No, don’t set up; we’re leaving right away," I said. My friends looked at me with questioning looks. "We are running low on supplies, and we should offload some of our drops. So we're headed to the Three Corner Market. We should be able to get everything we need there and stay in a nice inn instead of camping once again." I could hear high fives, and everyone quickly packed up their gear. I, as well, packed up my map gear, and we were off towards the gate.

There was a short line to use the gate, but after about a 10-minute wait, it was our turn. I mentally prepared the destination we wanted and placed my hand on the gate. It took about 3 minutes of waiting before the gate connected, as the place we were going to was quite a busy waystation. The longest wait we ever had was about 30 minutes, and that was when a large auction was happening in one of the most developed waystations in the dungeon.

With one step, we were in another place, and while at the start this was a bit disorienting, we had all gotten used to this. While this place was called 'Three Corner Market,' it wasn't just a market; it was an entire village catered to adventurers.

There were many inns, blacksmiths to service your weapons and armour, and quite a few other crafters to keep everything else in working order as well. While there isn’t one here, there are a few other waystations where there are actual bank branches, so you could keep your coin there and not have to worry about bringing everything with you all the time.

I quickly told everyone their tasks and left to get some more map supplies myself. I haven’t been up on the surface for over a year now, and currently, we have no plans on returning anytime soon as we could literally get anything we need down here and sell everything we have without ever having to leave.

There is only one problem, and that’s that the dungeon is advancing too slowly for us. From my calculations, we would be wasting quite a few years if we wanted to get to silver as fast as possible, but then again, our skills will definitely not fall behind our rank like it would happen in other dungeons.

We enjoyed a nice meal in a decent inn and were able to sleep on proper beds, which was so nice. The morning started normally; as we were eating breakfast, we discussed whether we wanted to proceed or should take a small break. It was at this point that more and more people started to rush out of the inn.

When we got outside, the place almost looked like a ghost town compared to yesterday. Curiosity led us to the gate where hundreds of people were waiting in line to go through, and we saw a few groups of people running into the tunnels, probably to go to other gates where there was probably less of a wait to get through.

"What is going on?" I asked a person who looked both panicked and excited while packing up his stall. "Haven't you heard? The 13th floor was opened up. The dungeon will probably push for a breakthrough quite soon. And this time, it isn’t just one gate that leads to the next section; from what I heard, it’s at least seven."

I quickly scrambled to get my map book out and flipped to the 13th floor. Of course, the dungeon would open up the seven places I theorized might be the way we can progress, but now the question arose: which one should we go through? It was hard to contain my excitement as we returned to the inn to discuss our strategy.