In my room in the mansion, I prepared to head out to my next job. It was then that Celeste rushed over in a flurry.
“Ryota!” she called out.
“What’s going on?”
“The dungeon master has appeared at Plumbum. Can you kill it?”
“I sure can.” I assented, left my room, and started on my way to the warp room, but I stopped as I remembered something. “Hmm.”
“Yes?”
“Plumbum’s dungeon master… Didn’t people kill it easily last time?”
“Yeah, they used one portrait each to defeat it. But lately, as research on the portraits has advanced, their price has gone up a lot…”
“And nobody wants to use them willy-nilly, huh?”
Celeste nodded silently.
That’s understandable, I guess. When I played games back at home, I was the kind of guy who hoarded elixirs “just in case.”
It made sense to be reluctant to use valuable items.
“Got it. I’m the best guy for the job, then.” I promptly walked away and to the warp room. “Which floor?”
“When I came back, it was on B3.”
“Cool.” I’d explored every floor of the dungeon, so I could warp anywhere.
I designated B3 as my destination, opened the gate, and immediately jumped in. Instantly, the air around me changed to that of the dungeon master.
I looked around─and there he was. No other monsters were here, and all of the adventurers had evacuated, so the dungeon master Prince Ryo was alone.
Am I just imagining it, or is he taller now?
He was about nine heads tall now. Truly, he was the spitting image of a shoujo manga protagonist.
“I hate how it makes him look cooler.”
Despite his girly manga vibe, he still looked like a cool, handsome guy to me. His appearance was identical to the pictures drawn by Plumbum, so this must mean that her drawing skills had improved again.
Prince Ryo noticed me and readied his gun. Incidentally, he held it sideways. Very cool, as usual.
“Whoops, right. Repetition.” I was curious how he’d move now that he was cooler, but adventurers would suffer for every minute that he lived, so I quickly killed him with Repetition.
Immediately after, I was exhausted. The MP cost of Repetition varied based on the strength of the target, so dungeon masters emptied even SS-rank MP in just one go.
I injected myself with limitless recovery rounds to fix that.
“Ooh, a key.”
When he disappeared, he dropped a rusty key. I picked it up and went back via the gate.
Celeste greeted me in the mansion, “Welcome back.”
“Thanks. I killed him.”
“Thank you. You really are the only person I can rely on.”
“What are you going to do now? Going back?”
“Yep.”
“Okay. Well, I doubt you need me to tell you, but be careful out there.”
All of the monsters in Plumbum, including Prince Ryo himself, seemed to grow─or perhaps evolve─unlike in other dungeons. It also seemed to me like the dungeon master appeared a lot more frequently than others.
All of that probably depended on Plumbum’s mood.
It was very possible that, someday, the fish monsters would all evolve into monsters that looked like me.
No… I must be overthinking it. Surely.
Either way, I figured the monsters might get stronger, so I warned her to take care.
“Thanks. I’ll be careful.” Celeste blushed, and she gave a mature smile before using the warp gate to go to Plumbum.
I wanted to test something, so I changed my plans.
Off to the basement I go.
First things first, I needed to turn this rusty key into a golden one.
I walked down the hallway and to the basement. When I passed by Celeste’s room, I noticed that the door was half-open.
“Someone’s careless…” I muttered to myself and reached over to close it.
But as I did, I happened to see inside her room. It was a surprisingly girly room, just the same as when she’d moved in.
Plushies all over the place…but there was something else this time. Amidst the line of plushies, I saw Prince Ryo standing there. He stood perfectly still like a mannequin, since there were no monsters for him to kill.
Why in the world…?
“I’ll just pretend I didn’t see this.” Unpleasant thoughts ran through my head, so I quickly bleached my brain. I didn’t know why she had Prince Ryo, but I could rationalize it away on my own. “So that’s why she’s been at Plumbum so much. And that explains why she came to tell me about the dungeon master. Okay, makes sense.”
I tried rather insincerely to blind myself from an inconvenient truth, closed the door, and went to the basement, where I put the rusty key on the floor and backed away.
The instant Prince Ryo spawned from it, I promptly killed him with Repetition. The rusty key then became a golden one.
This was the second time.
I took the first one out and turned it while still holding the second one. When I did, the door leading to the chamber from before appeared.
The number 02 was displayed above it.
Aha. So it does go up by one for each key. The only question now is what the number means.
I left the basement and yelled out to the rest of the mansion, “Heeey! Anyone else here?”
“I am!” Emily peeked out of the salon.
“Oh, you were here, Emily?”
“Yes. I’m cleaning the house today.”
“Huh. Well, would you mind helping me test something?”
“Of course I don’t mind. What do I need to do?”
“This,” I replied, turning a key. Another door appeared between us.
“Oh!” she gasped. “That startled me.”
“Can you go in there?”
“Okay.” Without any hesitation, she opened the door and went inside. She did it so quickly that I didn’t even have time to say some things I wanted to say.
Not that it mattered; what mattered was the number. As she went inside, the number above the door changed from 02 to 01.
“Ryota, you called?” Next was Erza. Not a surprise, since she was in the mansion for work.
“Sorry, would you mind helping me test something?”
“Of course. Do I just do something with this door?”
“Thanks for catching on quickly. Just go inside; Alice has already confirmed it’s safe.”
“Understood.”
“See if Emily is in there when you go.”
“Okay.” She quickly accepted, but she didn’t rush in as fast as Emily had, so I was able to actually give her directions.
Like Emily, she opened the door and went in. The number changed from 01 to 00.
It seemed the number, and therefore the number of keys, equaled the number of people who could go in at once.