Chapter 215: Episode 215

Episode 215

I was tired.

Ever since we took Frost down, I had gotten into the habit of sleeping in. Maybe it was because I had been drinking all night with the 4th-floor team, but my head was foggy.

And my chest felt tight, like something was squirming on top of it.

’Am I imagining things?’

“Yusin!”

Huh?

“Wake uuup!”

Hands shook me, and I opened my eyes to see Eunsol’s face.

“Ugh, Sol, you’re here?”

“Yeah! Hurry and get up!” she said, tugging at my collar.

’Ugh, I just wanted to rest on the weekend.’

Judging by her insistence, I must have promised to do something with her today.

’What was it again? Were we going to an amusement park or something?’

“Hurry uuup!”

“All right, all right.”

When I pushed myself up, she let out a peal of laughter and rolled around on the bed like a little ball. She dove under the blanket, then poked just her head out to peek at me.

’Adorable.’

I gave her cheek a light pinch and got to my feet.

“What are we doing today?” Since I couldn’t remember, I just asked.

“Today’s the day Sol goes to the 6th floor with you! I want to go right now!”

’Oh, right. That was today.’ My brain was still all over the place.

Woken up by Eunsol’s cute reminder, I took a quick shower and headed out to the lobby.

On the first floor, Jin Bora and Jeong Seojin were eating. They had news about Frost playing on a laptop while each of them munched on a piece of toast.

“Oh, morning, Yusin!”

“Welcome, Tower Master.” Pushing up his glasses, Jeong Seojin gave a report. “The 4th-floor team is in an instance Dungeon, and Hunter Samia is at Awesome.”

“Got it.”

’Looks like everyone’s busy except me.’

I took a seat at the table and grabbed a piece of toast. Inside were thick slices of ham and egg.

Grunting a little, Eunsol climbed into the chair next to me and started chomping away at her kid-sized toast with her small, determined hands.

Listening to the host on the news tear into Frost, I spoke up.

“Guys, how long are we going to keep watching the news on this tiny laptop? What do you think about getting a big wall-mounted TV?”

“Wow, yes! I’m totally in!” Jin Bora immediately shouted her support, but Jeong Seojin shook his head.

“To install a TV, we’d have to run cables and do some construction. We can’t exactly invite a service tech into the Tower, can we?”

“R-right, there’s that.”

We could probably handle an outlet or two with magic, but wiring was a different problem.

“Wait, you guys are really going to give up on a TV that easily? We just grab a technician, make him install it, then wipe his memory with a memory potion. Problem solved!”

“You really do live life on easy mode. Sometimes I envy how single-celled your thought process is.”

“You got a death wish? Why are you picking a fight!”

The two of them immediately went back to bickering.

“Yusin Oppa! I’m done!”

With egg smeared all around her mouth, Eunsol beamed up at me.

“Let’s go! The sixth floor! The sixth floor!”

’She’s really looking forward to this.’

I wiped her mouth with a wet wipe. It made sense that she was excited, since this sixth floor was directly connected to her golem workshop.

“All right, let’s go.”

“Yeah!”

Once we finished eating, all of us rode the magic-circle elevator up to the sixth floor.

“Wooooow!”

The entire floor was composed of what looked like a vast network of mana circuits.

The moment we arrived, Ea appeared as if she had been waiting for us, her dazzling silver hair fluttering.

“Welcome to the sixth floor, the Mana Mine.”

While everyone else looked around in confusion, I crouched down and placed my hand on the floor. This felt very familiar.

“Oh.”

The moment I made a slight attempt to synchronize with the sixth floor, a flood of data poured into my head.

It felt extremely familiar. This was definitely…!

“Yes, Tower Master. The sixth floor of the Magic Tower is a Dungeon.”

At her words, everyone flinched and dropped into combat stances. Ea gave them a gentle smile.

“Please, rest assured. No monsters appear inside the Magic Tower itself.”

“Th-then…?”

“You can think of this place as nothing more than the Dungeon’s core—its control room. This way, please.”

We followed Ea.

At the far end of the sixth floor, we could see a warp gate that looked like a black hole. The flow of mana I had felt when I touched the floor was all converging there.

“Is it okay if we go in?”

“Of course.”

I took the lead and stepped into the black hole. When I emerged on the other side, a massive cavern spread out before us.

“Whoa…!”

“Oooh!”

The administrators who followed me in widened their eyes and looked around.

“It’s so pretty!”

Luminous ore was scattered everywhere, making the inside of the cave so bright it almost hurt to look.

It felt like we had stepped into a beautiful underground world straight out of a fantasy fairy tale.

“Ea, can you hear me? We just entered the Dunge—”

Before I could even finish, a ring of light gathered in midair and Ea materialized.

“H-huh? You can come all the way in here too?”

“Yes, Tower Master. This place is also part of the Magic Tower.”

Ea looked around at everyone and began her explanation.

“The sixth floor, the Mana Mine, is a floor created by transplanting the Dungeon Kaspri’s Lair into the Magic Tower.”

“Oh my, you transplanted a Dungeon into the Tower? Why would you do something like that?”

“The Magic Tower is fundamentally designed to be self-sufficient. However, the problem lies in the amount of mana inside the Tower.”

The Magic Tower had a mana generator that runs continuously to maintain the Tower’s mana at a certain level.

However, that alone has its limits.

The magic-circle elevator, the magic cauldrons used for potion-making, the production facilities in the golem workshop, even the showers—all of them consumed mana.

In particular, creating a single warp gate on the fifth floor consumed a considerable amount.

As more floors open and more people arrive, mana consumption will only continue to increase.

I had just started to worry that the Tower’s mana reserves were gradually becoming insufficient.

“This place, known as Kaspri’s Lair, is one of the most productive mana-generating sites in the universe. Simply by transplanting this Dungeon, the Magic Tower can generate a significant amount of its own mana.”

“So it’s basically a massive, natural mana power plant.”

“Yes, although that is not the only reason.”

She stretched out her arm. One of the sparkling stones embedded in the cave wall flew into her hand.

“It’s so pretty!”

When Eunsol’s eyes lit up with interest, Ea handed the stone to her.

Eunsol toyed with the stone, her eyes full of curiosity, then her face suddenly froze in shock.

“Yusin! Yusin! This is it!”

“What is?”

“Orichalcum!”

Ah…!

I had heard of it. It was the exact mineral Eunsol had begged me for, saying it was absolutely essential, but which was practically nonexistent on Earth.

“In the Mana Mine, you can collect various minerals needed to craft all kinds of magical items. Because this place is so rich in mana, high-value magical ores such as mithril, orichalcum, and sunstone will naturally form throughout the Dungeon over time.”

“That’s amazing!”

Even Jin Bora’s face brightened.

“If it’s sunstone, that can be used as a potion ingredient too! We might finally be able to make those high-grade potions I had to put on hold because we didn’t have the materials!”

Impressive. No wonder the Magic Tower had invested an entire floor to link to this place.

Screeeech!

Just then, monsters in the cave started shambling toward us.

“Of course, since this place is rich in mana, monsters respawn very quickly as well.”

“Right, it is a Dungeon after all.”

A goblin-type monster was the first to charge.

I pulled my hand out of my pocket and extended my index finger. A magic circle immediately formed at my fingertip, and a golden arrow shot out.

Crack!

Kreee!

The goblin’s head was pierced clean through by the arrow, and it died on the spot. The surrounding goblins, seeing their comrade go down so easily, bolted in a panic.

“…Huh? That was really easy.”

“The Mana Mine is divided into four zones,” Ea explained.

“In Zone 1, rank 1–2 monsters appear. In Zone 2, rank 3–4. In Zone 3, rank 4–5. The deeper you go, the purer the mana becomes and the more ore you will find.”

“We’re in Zone 1 right now, right? That’s why they’re so weak.”

“Yes, Tower Master. And in the final Zone 4, particularly powerful monsters appear at random. There are records of monsters up to rank 8 appearing.”

Rank 8 monsters are hunted by officially certified 2nd-class hunters. I would have to avoid sending people into Zone 4 unless absolutely necessary.

“I get the general idea now.”

I rested my hand on my chin as I spoke.

“The Mana Mine serves as the Magic Tower’s mana generator, while also being a place to gather essential materials for crafting magical items. And to mine the ore, you have to take down the monsters.”

“Exactly, Tower Master.”

Eunsol tugged on my sleeve.

“Yusin! Then should I put a bunch of golems here?”

“That’s a good idea, too.”

“Since this is a Dungeon and the monsters spawn endlessly, it would be best to concentrate our forces and come in only when it’s time to mine the ore,” Jeong Seojin remarked.

“Why don’t we just use that thing? You know, that field magic that keeps monsters from coming in!” Jin Bora suggested, but Jeong Seojin shook his head.

“What a ridiculous idea. The field magic Sanctification only partially suppresses monsters in a control zone. Dungeon monsters and control-zone monsters are completely different.”

“Oh, right! Must be nice being so smart! Could you try being a little nicer?”

“As an administrator, you should familiarize yourself with the Tower’s functions.”

“A first-floor administrator only needs to focus on potions!”

The two of them started arguing again.

In any case, after listening to everyone’s opinions and mulling it over, I snapped my fingers.

“Decision made!”

“How are you going to handle it?” Jeong Seojin asked.

“We’ll just open this place up to the public.”

“Whaaaaat?”

Everyone stared at me in horror.

“We’ll turn this into a public hunting ground.”

The plan was simple.

First, we would connect this place to Samia’s warp gate. Access would be postpaid, with the fee increasing by the hour. I was going to set the price fairly high—somewhere in the thousands to tens of thousands of dollars.

Players would hunt here and earn both experience and magic stones.

It would be especially advantageous for mages, since they could hunt in a mana-rich environment. Their magic proficiency would rise quickly, and it would be great for circle training as well.

The hunting-ground fee would be settled when they exited the dungeon. At that point, if they paid with ore like mithril or orichalcum, we would give them a steep discount.

Of course, since these were rare minerals, people might try to smuggle them out. However, on Earth, there was still no hunting equipment or similar tech that made use of these magical ores.

From the players’ perspective, it would be more profitable to use the ore to reduce their access fee.

“What do you think?”

Jeong Seojin closed his eyes and nodded.

“So you intend to use the players to run a hunting-ground business, while also having them kill monsters and mine ore for us.”

“Exactly. Kill three birds with one stone.”

“There seem to be many details to refine, but the idea itself is an interesting concept.”

Jin Bora clapped her hands.

“Or we could just declare that all the ore in the dungeon is our private property and ban anyone from taking it out, right?”

I shook my head.

“I’m doing this precisely because people won’t stop just because we say so. Hunters with subspace pouches will just go nuts stuffing them full of ore and walking out.”

“…Hmph.”

With all her ideas getting shot down today, Jin Bora looked like she was about to cry. At that moment, Jeong Seojin snapped his fingers.

“Then we can run both methods in parallel. We declare the ore our private property and ban its removal. We offer discounts as compensation for their labor in bringing the ore to us. Naturally, we’ll also set a maximum discount so no one spends all day doing nothing but mining. And at the exit, we’ll conduct a belongings inspection. If anyone is caught smuggling ore out, we not only take legal action but also permanently ban them from ever entering this dungeon again.”

“That sounds great!”

I nodded as well.

With this, the Magic Tower had gained a new source of revenue.

This time, it was dungeon management.

* * *

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep