The Continental Adventurers’ Guild Federation Office.
A wide variety of people had gathered inside the office.
Each and every one of them was the head of an Adventurers’ Guild branch somewhere on the continent.
They had come not only from the capitals and major cities of empires and kingdoms, but even from rural branches, so their numbers were considerable.
“The Federation Head is entering.”
A grim-looking man with a face covered in scars appeared.
It was Kyle, the man who had united and led the Adventurers’ Guilds scattered across the land.
“I know you are all busy, so I thank you for making time to be here.”
Everyone remained silent.
They were all busy people, and they had not made time just to hear such greetings.
However, there was no one who would say that openly in front of Kyle.
Who was Kyle?
He was the Federation Head who governed every Adventurers’ Guild on the continent.
At the same time, though retired, he had once been an adamantium-rank adventurer.
Considering how few people of that rank existed even across the continent, one could understand just how imposing Kyle’s presence was.
Amid everyone’s silence, Kyle was not so lacking in tact as to miss the mood.
“Now then, since you are all busy, I will get straight to the point.”
Kyle struck the desk, drawing everyone’s attention, and opened his mouth.
“The first matter concerns the White Order.”
At the very first agenda item, people began to look troubled.
“Doesn’t the matter of the White Order have nothing to do with us?”
Someone refuted Kyle’s words.
Several others gave small nods as if in agreement.
It was only natural, as the Adventurers’ Guild and the Order were fundamentally different in identity.
“It is not such a simple matter. The White Order is currently maintaining silence, but according to what I have learned separately, it seems one of the sealing stones has been released.”
“……!”
Even those who had shown little interest widened their eyes and turned their heads toward Kyle.
“No… what do you mean by that…?”
“Sir Kyle. Can you take responsibility for those words? This is not something to be spoken of based on mere speculation!”
“Even so, the Order has said nothing, has it not? I think it may be too early to jump to conclusions.”
The news that a sealing stone had been released was no ordinary matter to them.
Within the sealing stones slept the monsters that had once shaken the continent of Eldorad.
They included not only powerful monsters, but also high-ranking demons and Demon Kings.
Fortunately, the entire continent had joined forces to defeat and seal them.
The sealing stones created in that way were stored by the Order in a deep underground chamber and managed with utmost care.
And now, one of those sealing stones had supposedly been released.
If Kyle’s words were true, the Order would have to bear great responsibility.
“However, as there has been no official announcement from the Order, I trust that each of you will keep your mouths firmly shut.”
To spread word of this when the Order had made no announcement?
One might even be branded a disbeliever in the Goddess.
If that happened, the Order’s inquisitors would come personally.
An inquisitor coming to visit meant the same thing as the reaper of death paying a call.
They were mad dogs who were loyal only to the Order, and once they bit someone, they would not let go until that person died.
Because everyone knew that, Kyle trusted that they would keep their mouths shut on their own.
“Next is the list of newly appeared dungeons. Sixty-seven dungeons appeared this month alone. Whether it is fortunate or unfortunate, none of them stand out in particular.”
Adventurers explored dungeons and hunted monsters. They sold the byproducts from those hunts or used them as materials for equipment.
For that reason, dungeons were no different from a resource.
What Kyle meant by dungeons that stood out was that there were no high-rank dungeons among them.
“All sixty-seven dungeons will be assigned iron rank.”
Dungeon ranks were mostly assessed by the Adventurers’ Guild.
Naturally, the ranking criteria were the same as the adventurer ranking system.
Those who first became adventurers began at iron rank.
From there, they rose through copper, silver, gold, platinum, diamond, and adamantium.
Dungeons were ranked according to the exact same standard.
If what Kyle had just said was true, then all sixty-seven newly appeared dungeons were insignificant enough to receive iron rank.
“Lastly, aside from those sixty-seven dungeons, there is one additional dungeon.”
“Then are there not sixty-eight? Is there any need to separate it out?”
Once again, everyone nodded.
They meant that there was no need to separate it out and make things confusing.
“This one is somewhat ambiguous. It was discovered in the mountain range of the Sale Kingdom, and it was found by a hunter.”
The problem, Kyle added, was that no energy whatsoever had been detected from that dungeon.
“Could it not simply be that the dungeon itself is weak?”
Most of them were probably thinking the same thing, but Kyle was cautious.
“That is why I intend to designate that dungeon’s rank temporarily as copper.”
Kyle mulled over the hunter’s words once more.
‘There was nothing there until ten days ago. I saw it clearly with my own eyes, I tell you.’
Perhaps he was overreacting based solely on the hunter’s words.
Even so, Kyle was concerned about the possibility that something might happen.
When it came to safety, even excessive preparation was never enough.
“If it is confirmed that there are no abnormalities in that dungeon over the course of one week, its rank will be lowered from copper to iron.”
* * *
After the status window appeared, I became incredibly busy.
I took a mana test and began working in earnest as a porter.
Fortunately, I was able to find porter work without much difficulty. I hadn’t realized the presence or absence of a status window would make this much of a difference.
There was one other thing that had changed.
After getting the status window, I found myself enjoying the experience points I gained for the first time.
Since I ran around without even resting, my body was utterly exhausted.
“Still, tomorrow’s my day off….”
If I rested today and tomorrow, I’d be fine.
For the first time in a while, I launched the game.
Maybe it was because I suddenly felt more at ease psychologically.
“Come to think of it, hasn’t it been a week?”
All of a sudden, I remembered the Dungeon Concealment I had used when I first played the game.
Its duration had been one week, and that time had already passed.
Looking back, I wondered if it had even meant anything.
I had even spent real money on it, but after logging in a few times, I got busy and left it completely alone.
Still, before quitting, I had set it so that the adjutant had all permissions.
“I wonder if the adjutant’s been doing well?”
When I touched the game screen, the dungeon came into view.
The adjutant in a maid outfit was still roaming all around the dungeon.
“She really works hard too.”
Even if it was just a game, there probably wasn’t anyone who would dislike someone this diligent.
But that wasn’t the problem.
I was definitely looking at my dungeon on the screen.
Yes, it was definitely the dungeon.
“No, but what is this?”
Had I seen wrong?
The dungeon’s appearance had changed a lot.
The passage that had once simply stretched out in a long line now had wide open spaces carved out along the way like an anthill.
If someone came to the dungeon, they would have no choice but to pass through the narrow corridor and encounter the wide open spaces placed here and there.
There weren’t even just one of those open spaces, but three.
On the wide, flat ground, pillars that could serve as cover were set up here and there.
“Wow, she really put a lot of thought into this.”
There were even a large number of skeletons deployed in the area near the dungeon entrance.
“It can grow this much?”
I had only left it alone….
As expected, allowing all permissions in the adjutant settings had been the right answer.
But to do all this, she must have used a lot of gems, right?
Just drawing ten monsters through the gacha required 5,000 gems.
Judging by the number of skeletons now, there were close to thirty of them, and it seemed like even using all 5,000 remaining gems would not have been enough.
My eyes immediately went to the gem window.
“Huh?”
When I saw the number of gems remaining, I was genuinely dumbfounded.
“There are still 4,300 left?”
Were my eyes wrong?
It had cost me 5,000 gems to draw ten skeletons. And yet, after I left the game alone, only 700 gems had been used.
The number of monsters had even increased dramatically, and the dungeon’s size had clearly changed.
“…….”
Was I supposed to be happy about this?
It felt as though my own efforts had been denied.
No, let’s think positively.
It must have developed like this because I was there in the first place.
I touched one of the deployed skeletons.
Aside from the two-star skeleton I had fused last time, all of them were one-star.
Thinking that my combat strength would increase even more if I fused the remaining ones as well, I tapped the [Fusion] tab.
- Monsters already deployed cannot be used as fusion materials.
Ah.
For a moment, I had forgotten the nature of this game’s developers.
Come to think of it, this game was exceptional at pushing in-app purchases.
The fact that monsters already deployed could not be used as fusion materials meant one thing.
In short, it was no different from telling me to keep spending gems and rolling the gacha.
It meant I was supposed to use the monsters that came out that way as materials.
Of course, I couldn’t say it was only bad.
In another sense, I understood.
If it grew this easily just by leaving it alone, they couldn’t make the difficulty any easier on top of that.
“Developer guy, this big bro understands everything.”
If the difficulty was too high, people would give up quickly, and conversely, if it was too low, there would be no reason to spend money.
When I touched the screen again, a new alert popped up this time.
- The Adventurers’ Guild has determined this dungeon’s rank.
- The dungeon “Nest of the Evil God” is copper rank.
“……?”
I take back what I just said.
This game had an extremely high difficulty.
A copper-rank dungeon? Isn’t that too much?
The adjutant was a six-star monster.
And even just looking at the skeletons, there were a lot of them.
“Just how strong are the guys who’ll be invading the dungeon?”
I became more afraid instead.
Don’t tell me this is trying to lure me into spending money, right?
Even so, with a six-star monster here, that was crossing the line.
Since I had also spent two years on the continent of Eldorad, I prided myself on knowing quite well about adventurer ranks.
The ranks were decided in the order of iron, copper, silver, gold, platinum, diamond, and adamantium.
Copper rank.
Second from the bottom.
On top of that, I had learned that on the continent of Eldorad, six-star beings were so rare that they existed only in records of the past.
Realistically, shouldn’t my dungeon be set to gold rank at the very least?
I guess games really are different from reality after all.
“Sigh….”
My hand was naturally moving not toward the exit button, but toward the shop window.
If that’s how it is, then there’s nothing I can do.
If my dungeon is weak, I’ll just have to buy more gems.
* * *
Today, too, the Adventurers’ Guild was crowded with people.
This was the Adventurers’ Guild in the Sale Kingdom.
Into the noisy interior of the guild came a group of three adventurers.
Armed with shabby equipment, they were clearly iron-rank adventurers who had only just begun, no matter who looked at them.
They went straight to the information counter and showed their adventurer identification cards.
“Um… we’d like to look for a dungeon nearby. Are there any requests?”
The receptionist checked the identification cards they had presented.
Iron-rank adventurers.
With their rank, they could only go to iron-rank dungeons, no exceptions.
However, the number of iron-rank adventurers had recently surged.
All of the remaining iron-rank dungeons currently had requests assigned to them.
“D-do you perhaps have any dungeons left?”
In the end, they were in a position where they would have to leave empty-handed.
The receptionist felt pity for them.
Then, suddenly, she remembered what the branch head had said.
- This one’s a copper-rank dungeon, but you can just consider it iron rank. Its rank will be lowered soon anyway, so handle it as you see fit.
As it happened, it was located in the Sale Kingdom’s mountain range, so the distance was close as well.
It was copper rank, but it was a dungeon that would soon be adjusted downward to iron rank.
‘They’re trying so hard. It would be cruel to just send them away….’
Rather than waiting until then, she thought it would be fine to entrust it to these rookie adventurers now.
With three adventurers, they should be able to subjugate one iron-rank dungeon.
“Ah, as it happens, there is exactly one dungeon left! Its rank is iron, and since it’s a dungeon in the kingdom’s mountain range, it’s close too.”
At the receptionist’s question of what they would do, the three adventurers smiled and immediately accepted.
An iron-rank dungeon was still available.
Today was their lucky day.