The Dangerously Cute Dungeon [A Dungeon Core LitRPG]

Lilypads & Lotus Flowers

"I brought you a lily pad and a dried lotus flower like you wanted. It took quite a bit of travel to find what you wanted and I had to ask everyone I knew if they had ever heard of such a thing. They especially seemed confused by the lotus flower, I don't think we call it that here. I don't mind doing this much for you, but I might have to get some more information from you the next time you make a similar request."

Theodore explained. Violet felt a bit guilty, but still smiled gratefully up at him as she replied

"Thank you! I'm excited to put them in my pond room. I'm probably just going to wait until I've unlocked the next floor, though, since I'm trying to focus on that right now. Apparently, it costs an entire 1,000DP to do that. Since I tend to spend most of my dungeon points on research and upgrades, I'm pretty low on them right now."

Theodore nodded, looking unsurprised as he replied

"That sounds about right. There aren't a lot of dungeon masters who bother decorating their first floor so thoroughly. Well, most dungeon masters also started out as [Monsters] or beasts, so that should go without saying. Still, even dungeon masters who are more like yourself tend to prefer to keep things simple on their first floors until they have a few floors built. They tend to be more afraid of dying and want to unlock a few mana capacity increases. It becomes easier to build once you aren't so limited by your mana.

Still, I like what you've done with the place. With how fast your dungeon has been growing, it seems like a lot of adventurers must like it as well. It'll likely take a few years before you can get a steady flow of adventurers in her, though. Things take a lot longer to be built in the outside world and most adventurers aren't willing to go without a proper bed and a roof over their heads.

Although, that does bring up another point I wanted to talk to you about. It's going to be wintertime soon, which will likely mean you won't see as many adventurers visiting your dungeon, certainly not as many new ones anyway. Also, you likely won't be getting anymore dungeon points from your contracted monsters."

Violet furrowed her eyebrows as she asked

"Why would that be a problem?"

Theodore looked at Violet in confusion, taking a moment before replying

"Are you not aware of how difficult it is for your kodama to get in and out of the dungeon? It's too small to open and close the dungeon doors by itself. It likely has to wait until adventurers open the doors before dashing outside. Then, I imagine it just throws anything it does manage to forage into the dungeon before going out to look for more things. Then, it has to decide when to call it a day before sneaking back into the dungeon. With the snow, it'll be much more difficult for it to traverse the outside world and there will be fewer adventurers to let them in and out of the dungeon."

Violet hadn't really put much thought into how the kodama had been going about getting the tributes. She knew that she couldn't personally approach the dungeon entrance, so she couldn't help it get in and out, but she wasn't exactly watching the kodama come and go. Now she felt guilty for expecting the small spirit monster to do such hard work. 

Perhaps she should look into whether she could make contracted monsters from the second floor do the foraging? They'd have to go down to the first floor and then traverse the dungeon just to reach the entrance, but, hopefully, they'd be larger creatures who could open the doors by themselves and travel a lot further a lot faster. Maybe they could even bring back more items at once so they wouldn't have to work as hard to get the same amount of tribute.

"I didn't realize that was what was going on. I'll talk to the kodama I have collecting tribute now and let them know that they don't have to do that anymore."