The Dangerously Cute Dungeon [A Dungeon Core LitRPG]

1.52 Choices, Choices, Choices

Violet rubbed her eyes sleepily. It was difficult to nap when adventurers were in the dungeon, but this last group had stayed for quite a while. Since no one could get to the dungeon core room without passing through the hay meadow, she had chosen to sleep in the long grass. Luckily, there weren't any ticks or fleas to worry about in dungeons. At least, there wouldn't be without Violet purposely choosing to put them in and there was zero chance of that happening.

The sun shined down brightly on the hay meadow, blinding Violet, temporarily. A small, green, scale-covered slime bounced past her and Violet watched with a small smile on her face. The slime landed gently, sending small ripples through the grass and flowers as it did so. Soon enough, it began to fade away, blending into its surroundings once more.

It always felt so peaceful here, surrounded by the flowers and slimes. The only thing that would make it better was a few butterflies to flutter around and land on the flowers. That was one of the things that made the wildflower meadow room better than this one. It had the buzz of bees, which made the room feel more full of life without ruining the peaceful scenery.

Checking her system menu, Violet looked over the tributes she had received. Willow tree seeds, red roses, sunflowers, white spider mums, brown paper, and an orange ribbon. Violet looked thoughtfully over the list. Since it was the fall time, it was likely that the willow seeds had been purposely brought to the dungeon. Violet could remember the willow tree in her childhood yard and knew quite well that the trees spread their seeds in early summer, not the fall.

As for the other tributes, it seemed likely that the flowers had been part of a flower bouquet, wrapped in brown paper and tied with an orange ribbon. This was the first time Violet had received flowers from a garden rather than the wild. If it weren't for the fact that the last group had been a group of four, she would have thought a florist had stopped by the dungeon.

However, the evidence seemed to point to the tribute being a result of her request for beautiful things as tribute. It wasn't as clear as to whether the previous group who had been mapping her dungeon had returned or if the news was just starting to spread, though. Sure, it didn't matter who had come and gone from the dungeon, so long as the dungeon core was still safe that was all that mattered. Still, it was fun to guess what sorts of people were visiting the dungeon.

Violet entered her newest room and looked it over. It was now quite full of plants, but it would soon be even more crowded. She smiled giddily, she could only imagine just how colorful and wild the room would look when she was finished.

"I'd like to research round stone altars that can be used to place an item on for a challenge."

[Would you like to spend 10DP to research round stone altars using the [Base Resource] stone?

Yes or No?]

Violet selected the [Yes] option and then checked her total dungeon points. She still had 431DP, which was a decent amount, but she had no plans to spend any more right now. Instead, Violet spent 20MP to create four round stone altars. She placed each in one corner of the room before moving on to the next step of her plan.

Violet spent 30MP applying chicory flowers, lavender, black-eyed susans, beebalm flowers, butterflyweed flowers, and allium roseum to the room. With this, she felt satisfied with the appearance of the room. A few small details still needed to be finalized before the room would properly be set up for challengers, but the majority of the work was taken care of now. Soon enough, it would be time to build another new room.

There were now seven rooms that had been, mostly, completed. A total of twenty-one slimes, one kodama, five queen bees, and five jade tree frogs now called her dungeon home. After this most recent room was completed, there would be a total of four challenges in the dungeon. While the dungeon's defenses were still a bit weaker than Violet would like, it did feel nice to see some progress being made.

However, Violet couldn't help but feel like it would be best to start considering what she wanted to do for her first-floor boss room. More than likely, a slime would have to be set as the boss monster. As such, Violet would have to get creative to make it more difficult for adventurers to pass through the room and defeat the boss.

Once the boss room was built, it would be nice to move the hallways around so that the only entrance to the dungeon core room would be through the boss room. After all, what was the point of having a boss monster if it could just be bypassed? Outside of [Traps], the [Monsters] were the best defense a dungeon had. As much as Violet could continue to pretend she was the final boss of her dungeon, it wasn't very practical and it wouldn't help her unlock the next floor.

The only limit to Violet's room size, thus far, had been her mana cap. However, the fact that one of the first room sizes the system had unlocked was larger than she could unlock with a mere 50MP was curious. It made Violet wonder if it was just supposed to be a glimpse into the future or if there were other ways that such a large room could be built.

Regardless, it would take a while before she could afford to experiment with such things. There were plenty of other things to worry about as well. Once the boss room was completed, it was still possible that the requirement to use half the space on the first floor might not be met. Even if that wasn't an issue, there was the matter of needing to save up enough dungeon points to unlock the next floor. That was if Violet even felt it worth the trouble to move on to the next floor right away. After all, she still didn't know if she'd be able to easily modify the first floor after she unlocked the next floor and adventurers started crowding this one.

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