Chapter 1003: Three village pass

Chapter 1003: Chapter 1003: Three village pass

After another round of early morning exercise the throuple enjoyed a hearty breakfast cooked by the angelic Nanna before heading out to perform their own daily tasks but this time it was Daki walking by Frost’s side as opposed to Maya.

She would not be visiting, touching or even thinking about her forge today, a mandate given by her lover to help her get over her current hump.

The two started their travels on the 11th floor, where even C-rank adventurers would struggle to maintain their lives. Monsters with frightening power ran amok through chilling environments that would derail anyone foolish enough to wade through without protection. Thankfully however despite being more of a non-combatant Daki was still at the C-rank and a natural denizen of the Glacial mountains thus she was no stranger to the cold but even if she was the Dungeon could actively shield her from its more perilous effects. Even those as weak and vulnerable as Nanna and Loki were able travel freely through all 15 monster infested floors without the slightest amount of danger all because Frost had designated them as part of the Dungeon’s management.

So even though the winds held a dangerous and sharp bite and the ice element was dense enough to make an able bodied man freeze within the hour Daki felt no strain thus allowing her to walk hand in hand with her man through their personal abode.

"Much of the lower floors and the monsters that reside here are currently underutilised. Our target demographic simply don’t have the strength nor the means to reach them proper, but I plan to change this." After walking through the danger filled floors with Daki, Frost couldn’t help but bring up his most recent vision, keen to hear her input on the topic.

"Is that why you’ve been going on these walks lately and why you were absent for all of yesterday?" Although her focus may have been centred on her own actions she wasn’t blind nor deaf to the going ons in her own home. She noticed Frost was not present for most of yesterday.

"Yes, I realised that I’ve been spending too much of my time on the city and not enough on the Dungeon itself, so I’ve set out to change that. And the first thing I plan to do is push all our current monsters down a few floors, leaving the upper ten solely for beginner levelled adventurers."

"That would definitely make it easier for our guests to delve deeper, reaching our currently barely or unused floors but won’t that jeopardise your core. I know DP generation is important, but do you really need to open yourself up to danger." The closer the adventurers got to the core room the more danger Frost would be in, his idea sounded counterintuitive in Daki’s mind which technically it was, in fact the whole idea of him welcoming adventurers into his Dungeon in the first place is counterintuitive but at the same time it’s the most proficient way for him to grow and develop.

"If I was just pushing things down I’d agree with you but I’m also going to expand the Dungeon, at least another five floors to begin with, all with brand new designs and layouts that will hopefully help make known the difference between a Dungeon and a simple monster lair." He then turned and smiled to the green enchantress standing beside him. "And I’d love for you to help me with it my love."

"Me? I don’t know how much help I can be. Beyond smithing and the carnal arts I’m pretty poorly informed on other subjects." This was true, she barely even manged to run the management side of her own shop back in Kranor, often running in the red. In leu of this however she was a damn good smith and even greater at nightly battles.

"Don’t sell yourself short Daki, you’ll be a great help. Even simply by standing by my side you can act as my muse."

"A muse, I can work with that~" She very much appreciated being called a muse, it did wonders for her ego.

With help in hand Frost brought up the Dungeon menu and immediately purchased another unadorned floor, 20,000DP gone in an instant, 30,000 or perhaps even more by the time they reach 20 floors.

"This floor and the following four will have similar purposes, in each room or section there will be three villages hosting intelligent monsters like the frost dwarves, frost trolls, ice sprites, lesser yuki-onnas and maybe even revenants. I’ll leave the innate design up to the chosen residents, but the layout has to be solid, and the position easily defended. We want to deter adventurers from attacking."

"You don’t want a battle between adventurers and monsters?" So far this had been the Dungeon’s MO, and the MO of pretty much every single monster lair bar the odd few.

"Not with the residents of these villages no." Frost then proceeded to explain his idea to Daki, how he wanted establish exchanges and diplomacy between the intelligent monsters and adventurers on these floors all in the effort to create a new dynamic.

"Once enough favour has been accrued the adventuring party will be granted a token, a ticket basically that will allow them to proceed to the next floor. More tokens above the minimum required to open the gate will offer a chance at rewards and thus encourage those to remain on these floors for a substantial length of time." The DP would mostly be harvested via passive gains rather than mass deaths.

"I see, in that case you’ll want to avoid having forts made of wood like on the upper floors." Her inner blacksmith got to work, identifying the weakness and strength of materials.

On the upper floors the frost dwarves and frost trolls had established several defensive points within glades among the long stretch of forests.

"Because wood’s too weak?" It wasn’t the hardiest of materials, but it was certainly plentiful within the Dungeon and easily formed into pretty much any shape or form.

"Partly but mainly because it’s susceptible to fire. If you create a fort made of wood all it would take to bring it down is a few [firebolts] and some combustible liquid, flaming arrows would work too." Wood by itself wasn’t good enough, beyond small villages no one used wood as the prime material for their defences. Stone, metal or considering the local area pykrete fared much better.

"That’s true." If the adventurers were adamant in following their violent natures setting the village or fort on fire would be a sure way to clear the place of enemy monsters. It wouldn’t work in the wilds, where the monsters were stretched over a large area but if they decided to bunch up together, they’d simply be asking to be attacked by such depraved groups.

"But that’s only with standard wood right, if I use 3 star or even 4 star quality wood there should be no problems with fire, magic or even the rest of its durability." Most problems could be solved by using higher quality materials.

"Correct but do you have access to such reserves?"

"Urgh....no not enough to build several forts or villages at least." The amount of wood he had stored in the Dungeon vaults and how much he gained on a daily basis paled in comparison to his stone and ice let alone his metal.

"You can achieve the exact same effect with simple stone and a little refined metal which I personally know we have in vast quantities so use them instead." Given her work as the resident smith Daki was well appraised of the Dungeon’s stored materials.

"Any other advice?" It was good to hear the opinion of someone so well versed with raw materials.

"You’ll want to make multiple entry points, at least one being hidden so the residents can’t be locked in or at least make it harder to do so." A fort with no secondary entrance or exit was relatively easy to place under siege. "The walls don’t have to be all that high given the degree of opponents and the limited numbers they’ll have to face but they should be wide, wide enough to allow patrols to walk and defensive structures and machines to be placed atop of them."

"Similar to Niflheim?"

"Somewhat but also different at the same time, a fort or village is not the same thing as a city, the size and breadth between them can’t be compared thus they have to be defended in different ways, but some solutions are the same regardless."

Frost and Daki thus discussed some theoretical problems the forts and villages could encounter and even established a few basic layouts before moving onto the proposed environment for the floor.

"I’m thinking of going with a mixed environment, mainly 3 star quality but instead of choosing one that’s premade I think I’ll start from scratch." Ever since he deployed his Dungeon in the Glacial mountains Frost always had the option to design his own environment in the same way he could design his own monsters.

He’d just yet to use it.