It was when I was in front of the 10th floor boss room that I was convinced that this dungeon was made by my best friend, Azuma Akira.
Written on the boss room door was a picture, the number 10 and also letter-like things. These “letter-like things” are actually really letters. Moreover, they are letters that Azuma made himself. For his elementary school independent research…
My best friend, Azuma Akira is a genius. In addition to that, at an uncommon level… That sort of independent research of his wasn’t supposed to be normal, and so he called it an independent research for his fifth year elementary school summer vacation and created an original language.
That is an insane language that isn’t some magic characters brimming in chuuni spirit, is easy to learn if you have a certain level of knowledge and keeps affinity with existing languages while minimizing the number of letters …
I also ended up remembering those letters as his test subject. As a result, only me and Asai, who is another one of my best friends, came to be able to use this language. The teacher thought this is just a child’s joke and didn’t look at it enough to learn them from the looks of it, so only us three could handle this language.
The moment I saw that language on the boss room door, I was convinced that Azuma was the one who made this dungeon just like I had thought.
[“Just like you had thought” means that something beside this reminded you of him, isn’t it?]
Mio asked me. It is because I hadn’t explained anything in full details when we were in front of the 50th floor door.
Right now, we entered the residence while guided by Carro and talked while sitting in the sofa in the parlor.
[Yeah, this country name, Estia. Its spelling is E S T A and when rearranged, E A S T. It turns into east(東), in other words, Azuma(東)’s name. In the first place, Estia is the default name of power he uses in games.] -(ED: Author made a oops in here in english I guess. He wrote エステア(esutea) as spelling for E S T A, which makes little sense in english. Change the country name to Esta?)
Using Estia army, Estia kingdom and such as default name was standard for him. I intuitively knew when I heard the name after coming to this world, you know.
[So that means that no matter how you look at it, it’s a message to someone close like Master right, …]
[There’s a part of it that I chose to come to this country thinking like that after all. Well, being a dungeon country alone is enough reason to come…]
[It’s perfect as a bait, right!?]
[Guess so.]
That said, it’s become a little complicated with after hearing that Estia kingdom is quite an old kingdom.
[Estia kingdom has been established more than 300 years ago. I wondered if it was a coincidence, because by all rights it should have nothing to do with Azuma.]
It isn’t like there is no possibility of it coincidentally having the same name attached if it’s just “Estia”. Seeing that I couldn’t judge so, I had no choice but to actually go and confirm it. Alta even answered that he didn’t know…
A: I’m really sorry.
[However, I knew Azuma is related to it with the door on the 10th floor. This again changed the story now that it came to that.]
It didn’t mean that Azuma was transferred together with us members of the school in the first place. It is because that day, the day we transferred to another world, he was supposed to go overseas by plane for his paper presentation.
Precisely because he’s a genius, spending an ordinary senior high school student life was difficult, so it seems he had to raise some accomplishment once a year. I remember he talked about something bothersome like going to present artificial intelligence that he had made in his spare time while we were playing games.
I have no doubt about that, because I greeted him lightheartedly that morning before he went to airport. I saw him off to the airplane wearing a suit I’m not used to seeing him wear, oh, the same suit the dungeon master – replica wore.
In other words, Azuma ended up transferring to the other world in a separate case from us school students.
If it isn’t the case that Azuma crossed time with the world, then there is one possibility that I can think of.
[It seems that the flow of time in this world is different from the other world, isn’t it?]
[Yeah, I never would’ve thought that Mio is around the same age as me and Sakura either.]
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[Jin-sama, thanks for your hard work. …It seems you have safely become the dungeon master.]
Mio, Dora and Maria greeted me. Sakura and the others seems to have temporarily cut off their telepathy.
[Carro has become my subordinate at the same time I became the dungeon master,.]
[Your property to be more precise. Pyon.]
[Well, it’s kind of similar. And so, Mio…]
[Okaay~]
Omitting Mio’s easy to understand explanation.
[I see…, I did think you were indeed quick with its capture. I can understand if you have that sort of power.]
[Uhm…, you don’t think it’s unfair or against the rules or something?]
Sakura asked Carro. By the way, I’ve summoned Sakura and Sera too this time. Carro is my subordinate, so I don’t have to hide it anymore either…
[Oh, that won’t be a problem. Azuma-sama told me to make it so you can’t violate rules from the beginning if I hate it, or something. Not being able to prevent it would be the same as a failure on our side he said, pyon.]
It was one of Azuma’s principles. To be honest, there was also a part where I did a lot of self-restrain when it came to exploring the dungeon, because I knew that the other side was Azuma.
[H-He is quite an extreme person…]
[Azuma is that kind of guy after all.]
[Yes, he was that sort of person.]
Sakura was taken a back a little, but Carro and I agree with her.
[So, what are you going to do from now on, master? Are you going to succeed your best friend’s dying wishes and start managing this dungeon? In that case, leave it to me!]
Mio asked with eyes filled with some expectations. No matter how I look at it, Mio does seem to like domestic affairs and managing etc more than combat.
[Sorry. Dungeon is basically maintain status quo. There hardly anything I have to do personally.]
[How unfortunate!]
Mio struck her forehead. Seeing that her mood didn’t really change, it doesn’t seem like she wanted to do it at any cost.
[I want to hear from you about your future, Carro. What do you want to do for a living from now on? There is also Azuma’s will, so I do intend to let you do things freely to some extent, you know?]
I did get told to “make her happy please”.
[I want to continue being the keeper, pyon.]
[Is that okay with you? I won’t mind it if you want to do something else?]
[It is fine. I have hardly been able to do a keeper’s work for a long time until now, so I at least it has finally become my performance, you know pyon.]
She is surprisingly motivated it seems.
[It is because it is plenty worth doing compared to the routine work without any superiors or subordinates…Pyon.]
It looks like she just neglected too much the things that had been worth doing until now .
[Got it then. I will leave all about the dungeon to you Carro.]
[Yes, please leave it to me, pyon.]
Carro nodded full of confidence.
[First would be the supplementation of keepers, pyon.]
[Oh, so it will come to that then.…]
Even when she said keepers are unnecessary, she added the proviso that that was if you would not care about the dungeon deteriorating. Normally a few manpower is necessary just for maintaining the satus quo. And those manpower becomes keepers.
By the way, since keepers cannot increase without a dungeon master, Carro ended up having to manage it on her own until now.
[Jin-sama, is there something wrong?]
[Yeah, how do you think I can increase the amount of keepers?]
[……I’m sorry. I cannot imagine how.]
I tried asking Maria, but she doesn’t seem to know. It doesn’t look like there are people who know even if I look around me.
[There are several conditions to become a keeper. One, that they are of the opposite sex of the dungeon master. This is, well, a common point.]
[Aah…]
Mio showed an awkward face.
[Oh, I am a virgin, you know. That is because the primary factors for being hated by the new dungeon master has been removed, pyon.]
[Azuma, don’t go reading too much into things…]
So she’s pretty much been raised with that intention from the beginning… Not really having any chances to meet, was that also so that she would not hold any such feelings for Azuma?
[Well, let’s leave that one aside and go for the second condition. This is simply one where approval from the person themselves is necessary. Forcing them would be…a little difficult.]
[It is not that it is not possible, but this difficult procedure is necessary, and you would not want such person close at hand, now would you pyon.]
A subordinate being against it does no good and a lot of harm after all.
[But, if you become a keeper, you would lose your freedom as the dungeon master property right? Would normal people approve of that? If I’m pushed to say, I think it’s the same as a slave contract though…]
Maria is right, this is practically a slave contract. You do have a merit of eternal youth pretty much, but if pushed to say you would be “a slave for eternity” so it’s difficult to call it a merit.
[Yeah, that is why there is a recommended method in gathering keepers. That would be to “urge the option to people who are about to die in the dungeon”.]
[That is…, they would have no choice but to approve, right?]
Meaning “Choose to die or become a slave”. It is certainly effective.
[Oh, Azuma-sama could not use this method since the dungeon at that time was small-scale. Those who became Azuma’s dungeon keeper were girls who had been chased out of their homes or girls who had gone through a bitter experience. They were saved by Azuma-sama and their repayment was to become his keeper for a some time. I was an abandoned child, so I was raised by the keepers. You could say it is inevitable for me to become a keeper.]
I guess Azuma’s life was quite full of ups and downs. He was quite heroic even with just a fragment of it.
[Well, in my case, I could instruct some of my subordinate to do this, it won’t do if I have to force anyone to do this. Beside, instead of make dungeon keeper, it is better to reduce number of dead in dungeon.]
[If you want to reduce number of dead, then can’t we just reduce the difficulty level?]
Sure, if we lower the difficulty level like Mio said, then it would reduce the amount of people dying.
[The dungeon core’s resources aren’t infinite. Considering the recovery and consumption, the present state is the best balance. Perhaps, Azuma must have adjusted it with all his strength.]
[I see. So it would become like that when it comes to decreasing the damage even a little. Then, what if you tell them regardless of being keeper?]
[That is not good either. The existence of keepers has to absolutely be kept hidden, it seems. It is forbidden to get it out in the public unless we are confined inside, or where the other party is very certain to die]
[What a bother…]
[Well, with the options we can pick, there’s not much to do but to leave it to Carro.]
[Yes! I will increase the number of keepers in full force!]
[Sure…]
That is about explorers who would be about to die in full force though…
[I plan to go to the Crimson Empire via Atto Union just as planned. The Crimson Empire will force a war with Estia if I leave them alone from the looks of it.]
It’s details that Azuma had written on the door in front of the boss room, but Azuma has a lot to do with the founding of this country. Furthermore, it’s a country that Azuma had founded. If Azuma, who’s the dungeon master, had founded it under the premise that there is a dungeon, then it is guaranteed that the ratio that the dungeon holds would naturally become bigger.
[Azuma didn’t tell me to protect this country, but it is the country that Azuma took great pains to be involved in its founding after all.]
[Then, we’re going to resume our trip, right?]
[Yeah, that’s right]
Our next place of destination will be Atto Union, and after that Crimson Empire.
Our number one objective in the Crimson Empire is to make sure they won’t cause a war with Estia. I will intimidate them if possible and if that doesn’t work, it’ll be the birth of empress Rouge.
[I’m panning on having Rouge and Minerva travel with us when we enter the Crimson Empire. They should be just right as a guide.]
[Master is the only one in this wide world who can treat an imperial princess as a guide…]
Sera let out a voice of amazement.
[First off, shall we decide on the specific schedule for a little longer, after checking Cynthia team’s growth tomorrow?]