If this keeps up, we truly could make it in time for the Founder’s Festival. I had spit out the land I ate earlier to create a small mountain, too, so perhaps we could use that as a field feature in the arena. It should work great.
“Leave the rest to us, Sir Rimuru!” said Gobkyuu.
I nodded, full of excitement over the arena’s imminent completion.
With the main construction now in full swing, Ramiris had been left to her own devices. She needed a job, if only so she wouldn’t start pestering everyone else. And what was she good at? Why, expanding the labyrinth, of course. Better use her while I got her.
“I gotta say, Ramiris, your Mazecraft skill amazes me.”
She had transported everything within a pretty broad stretch of land in the blink of an eye. I didn’t want to compliment her too much, but I had to hand it to her here. The labyrinth itself was pretty amazing, too.
“Hee-hee! Aw, it’s nothing! But right now, though, it’s only this room, the deepest depths where my spirit friends live, and a connecting corridor. I’ll have more levels for you tomorrow!”
It took one hour to build a level, right? Building a vast underground labyrinth that went down a hundred floors would be a pretty tall order even on modern-day Earth. Building up, after all, is a hell of a lot easier. Ramiris’s skill, though, made that possible—and suddenly, some pretty fantastic dreams seemed within reach.
“Okay, let’s go with your limit, then. One hundred floors.”
“Huh?! Do you need that many?”
“Yep. I want to fill it up with traps, and I want enough space to gradually up the monster-challenge level as you go down.”
“I mean, that’s fine by me, but can I ask you something?”
“What?”
“I was just wondering: How do you plan to expand the number of monsters in there? Are you gonna catch them somewhere?”
I suppose her question made sense. It’d take a lot of monsters to fill a hundred levels. But I had an idea. Let’s tell her a little about it, at least so she’ll cooperate with me.
“Well, between you and me…”
I let her in on the secret of how I wanted to structure this dungeon. As she listened, I could see her eyes begin to twinkle.
“Wait, so—so…”
“Right—right. So then, Ramiris…”
We began offering suggestions to each other as we whispered. This was getting exciting. And given it was the two of us involved, we naturally began to go off on tangents we never should have. Before long, we had worked out the concept for our Advanced Dungeon, as we called it. I honestly wondered if we could get away with it, but there’s no turning back now. We had to do it—and Ramiris was itching to start, promising me that she’d build this labyrinth with everything she had.
“You can take your time and rest along the way, okay?”
“Ha! There’s no way I’ll take a rest after hearing an idea like this! I’m gonna do it, lemme tell ya!”
I was just trying to motivate her a little, but I guess I got her really riled up. I’m glad she liked the romance of the idea, at least. I was just as excited. It was like a fantasy come alive.
“Well, do your best. I’ll get everything we need ready.”
“All right. Good luck, Rimuru!”
“You too, Ramiris.”
We were comrades in arms now, grinning at each other.
Exiting the labyrinth, I found the sun was already about to set. We must’ve been talking for a while. Work had finished for the day, with crews cleaning up and starting to cook dinner. I didn’t want to bother them, so I told Gobkyuu and Sufia that I’d see them the next day and took off.
My next stop was Kurobe’s workshop so I could have him give me some of the weapons and armor he couldn’t sell on the market—stuff that was more to his personal tastes. The southwest side of town was currently an industrial kind of area, and Kurobe’s place was there, along with workshops owned by his apprentices. There was also dorm space for the newer pupils without their own sites yet, along with lines of warehouses. There were inns and restaurants for all these craftsmen and apprentices, of course, and overall it was a fairly lively place.
Kurobe’s workshop was dead in the middle of it, and when I popped in, he warmly greeted me, showing me to his storage building after wrapping up dinner.
“Right here, Sir Rimuru. The stuff I have locked up in this warehouse is all pretty unique—not the kinda thing anyone can handle easily, you know. Are you all right with that?”
I nodded my approval. Kurobe was right—not all of it was very user-friendly or accessible. Some of it was locked up because it was too powerful, but a lot of it was just a total handful to use. The armor was a great example—like the suit of mail that sucked the wearer’s magical force to erect a magic barrier. That might sound useful, but it continually sapped your power whether you wanted it to or not, eventually killing the hapless owner. Great defense, but a pretty damn pointless piece of equipment.
There was also a sword that attracted all magicules in the local area like a magnet, making it impossible to cast any spells, and transformed them into explosive force. You definitely got a bang out of it, but it didn’t exactly spare the wielder from the blast. I’d be way too scared to use that thing or the suit of armor that granted the wearer extraordinary physical strength for a limited time. Once that time expired, your muscles all ruptured,
