(Two days before the start of Season 389...)
“All right then, I’m counting on you for the preparations for season 389!”
“Okaaayyy!”
After receiving her orders from Lord Aldora, the boss of the dungeon, Marinnie headed over to the monster laboratory.
Marinnie was the mid-boss stationed on the tenth floor, and she was entrusted with management of the first through tenth floors.
It was the off-season. Surviving monsters had all returned to the maintenance area and were enjoying their time off. For mid-bosses like her, however, their jobs had just begun.
Marinnie left the castle and headed to the laboratory while thinking of the future. Dungeon management consisted almost entirely of deciding the initial placement of monsters. Once the season started, it would be impossible to micromanage and make changes.
Naturally, that meant learning the natures, abilities, and numbers of the monsters available to her would be important. First, she needed to get a total survivor count from last season. If there were any that had leveled up, she would need to rerank them.
Placements on each floor were mostly predetermined, though, which meant Marinnie needed to create new monsters to make up for any openings.
After she reached the laboratory, Marinnie entered the room where the monster maker was located. It was a black ball situated in the middle of the room, and it was where the newborns would pop out.
Spirits were needed to produce new monsters. They were a resource available to dungeon management, so it was important to balance their use. Thus, Marinnie’s budget for the season had already been decided by Lord Aldora.
Sure, injecting a large amount of the ethereal material would lead to a powerful monster, but would it be able to collect enough spirits for them to make a profit? That was always the question.
“It’d be so simple if the amount of spirits used really did produce a proportionately strong monster, though...” Marinnie spoke to the monster maker. After all, it was also a species of monster.
“I’ve been doing this a long time, and that’s the only part I can’t do anything about,” the monster maker replied, almost sounding like it was complaining.
It was possible to control the process to an extent by managing the attributes of the used spirits and their mixture, but there were no guarantees. It was still largely up to luck. The amount left to chance was so great that there were those that resorted to teasingly calling the monster maker the monster gacha instead.
“Oh well, let’s just do this like normal. For now, I’d like about three in the level 50 range, so aim for that, please.”
Marinnie started with the high-ranking spirits on her list. There were many ways to use them, but the most fundamental way was to repurpose a single spirit as it was without mixing or adding others. Since they were part of what made the core of adventurers and monsters, the strength of the spirit in life would translate directly to the rank of the creation. In other words, using a high-ranking spirit would make it very likely to produce a strong monster.
The monster maker reached out with black tendrils, grabbed a spirit flask off of a nearby shelf, opened it, and absorbed the spirit.
The monster maker started shaking vehemently. After a while, it spat out a lion with six legs.
Incidentally, the size of the monster maker limited the species of creatures created. The one in this room was five meters in diameter, which meant it could only create monsters smaller than that.
“Oooh, a massive leo! That’s a good sign.”
The monster maker continued to intake spirits and spit out monsters of various ranks. After it had produced the number of creatures that Marinnie had specified, it stopped.
“What next?”
“Well, it wouldn’t be good to be wasteful, so let’s leave it here for today,” Marinnie said.
She’d gotten the monsters she needed for her floors, so she didn’t need any more of them.
At least...that’s what would’ve normally happened, which would’ve meant that a certain monster that would go on to shake the world wouldn’t have been born.
(One day before the start of season 389...)
“A double item drop promotion?”
Marinnie was surprised at the sudden order she’d been given after being summoned to Lord Aldora’s room.
“Exactly. Haven’t the number of delving adventurers gone down recently? It made me think—we should try doing something flashy to remedy that!”
“Uhhh, but the season is starting in just a few more hours...” Marinnie looked up to and respected Lord Aldora, but even she couldn’t help but make that remark.
Such an order with so little time before the start of the season was a big burden.
In essence, Lord Aldora’s request meant increasing the number of treasure chests. That also meant that Marinnie would need to prepare more items and think about their placements.
Still, there was an even bigger problem.
“We don’t have enough treasure chests for that. Isn’t double too much? Couldn’t we just settle for a twenty percent increase?”
Chests were sturdy, so they were normally recycled. There weren’t many spares because of that, and there wasn’t enough time to order new ones now—they wouldn’t be done in time.
“No! Twenty percent wouldn’t be big enough to be obvious! Just throwing the items on the floor wouldn’t look good, though... Oh, I know! How about using mimics? We can just use spirits to make more monsters. Why not just make some weak ones?”
Mimics were both monsters and a sort of trap. That meant that they needed a decent amount of strength, so that adventurers who made a mistake in judgment would face the consequences.
“Wait, that’s really okay with you?!” Marinnie was surprised—the thought of making monsters weaker had never occurred to her.
“It’s fine, it’s fine!”
“It’s possible, but...all right. We’ll go with that.”
Marinnie had a hard time rejecting Lord Aldora’s ideas. Still, she was short on time, so she had no choice but to go to the laboratory right away.