Well, What Now?

  After I headed back to the inn to take a break from negotiating with the black wolf, a guest arrived. A man with a turban on his head… uhh, who was this guy again…? Ah, the shop manager huh. The guy I entrusted a hundred gold to. I forgot his name though. Wait… did I ever even hear it?

  Soon as that guy saw me, he shouted in a panic.

  “K-Kehma-han! I-i-it’s bad! T-there’s been a major incideeent! S-s-serious for the villaaage!”


  ‘I need to tell you as soon as possible!’ I got his intention, but I don’t get what the incident is at all. Did someone die or something?

  “Major incident? What happened? Did you fail in that business venture?”


  “T-that’s alright! C-c-calm down and listen ‘kay!? It’s good, it’s good! Good news or bad news, which do ya want!?”


  You’re the one that should calm down. That’s the first I heard of there being good news.

  “Then let’s go with the good part.”


  “The good one, yeah, that’s… The fourth floor was captured!”


  The fourth floor… ah, I forgot to fix the riddle area. Crap.

  “Aah, cool, and?”


  “Matchin’ the Hero-sama’s report, the interior continues into a spiral staircase and, well, that’s when they turned back though… Muu, Kehma-han. Yer reaction’s a bit weak… did ya already capture it as well!?”


  “I wonder. So, is that all of the good news?”


  “Yah. The riddle room’s doors were smashed up so that people could get by! It didn’t look like they were repairin’ themselves after watching for a bit either. People could get to the fifth floor and get magic swords in swarms.”


  Aah, so they’ll flock to it until I repair it huh. Haah, so troublesome…


  “But here’s the bad part! … There’s the chance of a boss class monster is appearing on the second or third floors! It’s bad! In truth, Bancho-han’s corpse got found. The C-Rank adventurer, Bancho-han, was almost a B-Rank and got killed by it. The remnants of his corpse was burned, but there were traces that his armor was chewed off…”


  Yep, that’s Rin… so it’s about the black wolf huh. I mean, I forgot about collecting his corpse, huh. Rather, didn’t I forget about all of them?

  … More precisely, don’t both of those things have to do with the black wolf? The adventurers were able to advance into the spiral staircase area thanks to that guy wrecking the riddle area. But there’s also the possibility of it roaming the dungeon too, huh. Though it’s actually just sleeping in the core room, I don’t know if it’ll stay there.

  “… What do you think we should do, Kehma-han!?”


  “Wouldn’t it be fine to just have the guild put out an investigation or subjugation commission? … Use the operating funds I left with you to pay for the reward. I’ll leave the rest to you.”


  “O-ooh! Right! Leave it to me!”


  The merchant ran off.

  … Yep, it should be plenty leaving it to him. I don’t particularly feel like making him a comrade though.

  Ah, wouldn’t this look like another transition phase, making another lookout commission come up?

  Troublesome. Even though I have so much going on right now… Maybe I could refuse it using my authority as the village chief~

  *

  Since I couldn’t repair the riddle area with all of the eyes on it right now, I decided to just make the parts. It should be a good chance have adventurers try out the warehouse area. There are a lot of iron golems wandering around there.

  Well, it should also be fine to tease the adventurers with the variety golems. I want to steadily show off our characteristics as a dungeon.

  And because of that, while I made compact golems, I had everyone gather to discuss what we’re going to do about the wolf again. I say everyone, but Nerune and Kinue-san aren’t here since they’re working at the inn right now though.

  “Now then, let’s discuss for the future.”


  “Kehma, shouldn’t you only do one or the other? Make golems or discuss?”


  “Don’t be stupid, I’ll have more time to sleep if I do all of the troublesome stuff together.”


  “Ah, that’s Kehma for you.”


  Rokuko nodded her head, understanding something. I don’t get what she understood, but I’m happy she gets it.

  “First off, the dungeon. We’ll increase the number of floors again. After the warehouse area, it’ll diverge into the boss room, the magma area, and the new floor.”


  “There’s still the spiral staircase area to go through now, but won’t adventurers make it into the warehouse area soon?”


  “Yeah, since it can’t be helped, the new floor’s entrance… will be a new riddle area built quickly with nothing but DP. Well, make it quickly and we’ll hurry to expand the dungeon farther in. I’m making the necessary golems for a riddle area right now, so I’ll leave the installation of it to you, Rokuko.”


  “Got it! I’ll start digging out the area after the riddle area with golems too.”


  Hopping onto my train of thought, as expected of my partner huh.

  “… But what about that black wolf?”


  “The black wolf… its name seems to be Rin. I was able to talk with it… but although I could fundamentally understand it, it was hard to understand.”


  “It ate you after all, Kehma.”


  The messenger golem, huh. Right, need to make a new one of those too. Let’s make a few since more will probably get eaten.

  Ah, Ichika raised her hand to ask a question.

  “Goshujin-sama. What did that wolf say? We couldn’t get that wolf’s words at all…”


  “Ah, I asked what it wanted. The things that wolf wanted are… a dwelling, and food.”


  “So it’ll be quiet if it gets food and that room?”


  “… Docile huh, yeah.

  Right now, Rin’s been sleeping since it ate the golem. Haaah…


  “For now, since I was able to communicate, if we keep trying… even though it’ll be troublesome… me might manage somehow or another… even though it’ll be troublesome…”


  “Persevering, heeeh. Somehow, that word feels like it suits Kehma the least, and also not?”


  “Master, I feel you area working wonderfully.”


  … Yep, come to think of it, don’t I do amazing work when I’m not asleep?

  “The time that other people play is when Goshujin-sama sleeps.”


  “My vote is that he sleeps too much!”


  “Even though the time he’s awake is short, isn’t master’s workload more than the normal person’s?”


  Oi, the story wandered off topic. It feels like they’re praising me but right now we should be talking about the wolf, the wolf!

  “Well, the wolf… Rin, because we can negotiate with it, we’ll keep trying to negotiate with the golem. We can talk with it to some degree.”


  “When Kehma did the negotiations, no one else understand that wolf.”


  Before, when I’d talked with Rin, after my first, “Who are you,” nothing else was in human speech, it was all in wolf language. Like ‘bow-wow’. Translation Function-san did his best huh.

  Since my opening words were understood, Rin might be able to understand human speech. In other words, we should be able to converse with it in human speech as well if I just listen for the wolf speech.

  “Umm, Goshujin-sama. Are you sure?”


  “Nn? What’s up, Meat? Can you understand wolf speech too?”


  “Y-yes. Vaguely, though. I, am a dog beastkin.”


  “Ooh! Meat, your doggy ears aren’t just for show! Alright, good good.”


  I fiddled around with Meat’s ears. Stroking her head, Meat’s tail wagged back and forth with a pitter-patter.

  This was a good miscalculation. She might be able to connect with it better than me for the negotiations since she’s black colored and a dog type.

  “Alright, let’s leave the next negotiation to Meat. Show us you winning that wolf, Rin, over to our side, Meat!”


  “Yes! Please leave it to me!”


  For the time being, let’s make a black messenger golem for Meat’s use so that it sees it as a different person. I don’t know if it can distinguish them apart though. Being black may be something important… Maybe it’ll be interesting to mix black-colored paints into it instead of coating it or something?