Money’s meant to be circulated, not kept in a vault or whatever. As long as we purchased the materials we needed and paid for necessary upkeep, we could give back the rest to the adventurers. Word would spread about this over time, and I was sure it’d make our land famous. Besides, filling adventurers’ wallets would improve the outlook for our inns and lodging houses. More people coming to Tempest meant less downtime for places like that, which was important—for business and for advertising.
So the southeast side of town would have a battle arena, with Ramiris’s dungeon underneath. On the southwest, we’d have discount inns and hostels. Unlike the high-end facilities to the northeast, we’d keep things cheap down there, attracting primarily adventurers to help delineate our offerings. Their location would be convenient to the labyrinth, and I was positive it’d be a booming success.
I was worried at first when Ramiris talked about moving here, but maybe that was the right thing to do all along, huh?
We also planned to have at least one or two large-scale events at the arena each year. Mjöllmile was no doubt filling in the rest of the year’s schedule with other things, too—military training, test-your-mettle events for adventurers, and so on. There could be a lot of demand for that kind of thing, I thought. We could have people try to use that training in the Dungeon—a kind of standardized exam, you could say. If you can’t die in there, you could try some crazy stuff you’d ordinarily never dream of attempting.
Realizing how many options were open to us—not just commercial, either—I decided to talk with Benimaru later about them.
I had my seed items, but it was too early to focus on the Dungeon; that could wait until it was done. For now, I wanted to wrap up talks with the one person we needed for the final touches, the whole cornerstone of this scheme—Veldora.
I found him relaxing in my little house a bit removed from town, a nice little Asian-style teahouse. There’s actually a secret to this building—but I’ll go into that later. Veldora was treating the place like he owned it or something, which I didn’t mind that much, but…come on, man.
“Yo, Veldora. Can you do me a favor?”
“Mm? What? I am busy.”
Yeah, busy reading manga, maybe.
“Ah… Too bad. I thought this was a pretty neat offer, too… But if you’re busy, then oh well. I just figured we could use your aura to— Oh, right, sorry. You’re busy. Never mind.”
I pretended to walk away. Leaving what was supposed to be my own house was a little weird, but well, I had lots of places to sleep. Besides…
“Oh, just one moment. I am busy, yes, but if you insist upon it, I will lend you an ear!”
Great, I hooked him. As gullible as always, I see. Like taking candy from a baby. I should start calling him the Gulli-Dragon.
The rest would now easily fall in place. I stood tall, looking as haughty as possible.
“Well,” I started, trying to sound suggestive, “I was thinking about providing a den for you to live in, sort of.”
“Wh-what?! My own place? You mean it?!”
I really got him now. He took his eyes off the manga he was reading, watching me curiously.
“Yep. All for you. But if you’re too busy right now…”
“Wait—wait! No need to be in such a hurry. We’re friends, are we not? I’d be glad to put your requests at the top of the queue! Kwaaaah-ha-ha-ha!”
I had Veldora excited now. Perfect. Might as well go through with the pitch. He almost never listened to people, so these preliminaries really were necessary. A pain in the ass, but I just considered it a little ceremony I conducted to help him be useful for a change.
“Mm, yes, what are friends for, after all?”
“Precisely. Tell me what you want!”
“Well, Ramiris is moving into town, and we’re gonna build her labyrinth right underneath the arena. So—”
“Oh, Ramiris?” Veldora replied, picking up on what this meant. “Her powers are a bit of an unknown quantity to me. I understood them as creating paths that led you to the same spot, no matter where you were. Does she twist and turn these paths around to create mazes?”
“Right. And she can add more floors to these mazes, so I want to fill them with tricks and traps and stuff.”
“More floors? That little girl was more powerful than I thought, then.”
Now Veldora was looking serious, engaged. So gullible.
I then regaled him about the entire story behind our dungeon plan. “But it’d be boring to just have a plain old labyrinth, right? That’s why I want to make it into something really great—like, great enough to be a huge attraction. I was just talking with Ramiris today, but she’s busy adding levels to her labyrinth right now.”
“Oh? And how does that connect to me?”
“Well, I’m thinking we need an overlord to govern the dungeon.”
“An…overlord?”
“Ramiris and I will manage the dungeon itself. On the hundredth floor, at the bottom, there’s a door that leads to the spirit labyrinth that’s Ramiris’s main residence. Don’t you think a door like that needs a guardian, Veldora? Like, the strongest guardian in history?”
“I do! I do! Yes, well said, Rimuru. And you would like me to take this role?”
Just as I thought, he latched on to the offer. The word strongest (when pointed at him) usually made him melt, so I knew uttering it would have the desired effect.
“That’s right, Veldora. And if you’ll take it, you’ll get another bonus out of it, too.”
“Oh? I was already waiting to say yes to you. But let’s hear what this…bonus is.”
Heh-heh-heh. The “bonus”…or really, the gist of the whole thing.
“So you’ve been wanting to let off your aura for a little while, right? You said you were about to hit your limit or whatever?”
“Ah!
