章 20: Finally ready
The next morning, Five spent a few hours with Kroff for his daily lecture. Even if he was now responsible for some floors, he still had some lessons to attend to. They were not really lessons but more recaps and discussions with Kroff. To Five, these were absolute wastes of time. Although he would occasionally obtain some useful information, it was not really worth all these hours.
Kroff kept prompting him to quickly make some changes, acting like a very responsible teacher. From his capital, Five now had about 4000DP after spending 2000 to purchase some materials; over the night, when all the players left, the floors slowly generated some DP, resulting in him still having a decent amount.
He was not anxious since he was well aware that the number of players would keep increasing. All he did was slightly increase the respawn time of monsters. He was not planning on making any profit. All he wanted was to survive for a few more days.
"The lesson is over; do you have any questions?" asked Kroff.
"Not really, everything looks fine to me right now," answered Five.
"Then I have a question for you, why did you waste 2000DP on this load of crap? You should be focusing on the dungeon. How can a bit of coal, sulfur, and saltpeter change the situation?" asked Kroff with a weird expression.
"I am not ready yet! It is all part of my plan. Give me a little more time, everything will be fine!" said Five.
"Do what you want but remember, there will be consequences if you make losses!" declared Kroff as he dismissed him. Although he looked annoyed, Kroff was internally rejoicing; to him, Five just took an additional step towards his doom.
It was clear that Kroff had no knowledge of gunpowder. Although he knew about explosives, these were things he bought from the dungeon shop and since Five didn't, he was not too worried about this. With such a convenient shop where everything could be bought with DP, it was easy to forget about the manufacturing process of these items.
...
After the lesson, Five followed Harriet to lunch and spent the day in the Avian Cavern. He already got used to standing up just above the abyss and actually enjoyed the quiet atmosphere here. The harpies were talkative and liked to laugh but they usually did not disturb Five when he was doing his own things.
Just like Harriet, the other harpies were also very curious and often asked about the outside world. As a result, Five would often feel like one of those old storytellers that resided in villages.
"Hey Harriet, is there a way to leave the dungeon apart from the main entrance?" asked Five.
"Huh? Of course, there is even an exit in this village. Do you want to have a look outside?" answered Harriet as she closed her book.
"Sure, I have never seen the world outside of this dungeon,"
The harpy smiled, "Follow me but I hope you are not afraid of heights"
Five quietly walked behind the flying Harriet. A few minutes later, he finally saw an opening in the dungeon wall. As he went through it, he was greeted by a very strong wind, almost strong enough to make him lose balance.
A few steps forward and he finally stood in front of a breath-taking view. He was standing on what looked like the edge of the dungeon wall; in the distance, all he could see was an endless farming field.
When he lowered his eyes, he finally saw Algate City. From his point of view, the city looked like a medieval city, there were tall stone walls surrounding the city and even a small castle was found at the center. It was clearly not a large castle and so, Five deduced that the city belonged to a medium ranked noble.
Algate City did not look very large, but he knew that it was because he was looking at it from a high point of view.
"So? What do you think? It's quite a view, right? I like to come here to look at the landscape!" said Harriet who was flying carelessly, completely ignoring the strong wind.
"Yeah. it is definitely something unique. Even in my world, I have never seen something like that," answered Five. He did not know how high above the ground he was but it was definitely higher than a skyscraper.
Five sat on the edge and looked around him, on his left, he could see some buildings looking like a monastery while on his right, all he could see were farming fields and farms. When he looked down, he saw what looked like a temporary camp for guards. He was too far to confirm it, but he could guess it since he saw several tents with one larger than the others, what looked like a training field and several flags.
Even without the details, the structures below him could only be described as a temporary camp.
Harriet happily flapped her wings as she floated next to Five. "Do you want to stay here? There's some nice breeze here," said Harriet.
"Hmm, is it a guard camp I see below?" asked Five.
"Yes, they are from Algate City. Their task is to warn the city in case of monster waves from the dungeon."
"Are you not afraid that they might notice these openings and attack the dungeon from here?" asked Five.
"Haha, don't worry about it. There are several openings in the dungeon wall but Kroff used some strong magic to make it impossible to detect from outside. There's no risk," answered Harriet.
"That's good to know!" The two silently enjoyed the scenery for a moment.
"Let's go back, I still need to work on some changes!" said Five.
"Alright, you should work hard Five, it would be really bad if you lost more DP here..."
"Don't worry about it, I know what I am doing. I am just not ready yet!" answered Five.
"But I suppose that this is a great location if I want to drop something on the camp," said Five to himself
...
Back in his room,
Five took out the materials he bought using Kroff's DP and resumed crushing them into powder.
"Sigh... I am really not suited for this type of manual work," said Five. He already spent a large amount of time on this and yet, he only completed half of it.
"Looks like I won't get much sleep today too, but I should be able to finish this tonight!"
...
"Hey! Wake up Five!"
Upon hearing the voice, Five suddenly tensed and stood up. He looked around him only to find a confused Harriet standing next to him with a tray of food.
Five was confused for a moment but he quickly realized the situation. In the end, after hours of crushing the coal and sulfur, he ended up falling asleep at his desk. In fact, there were even some black marks on his face due to the coal.
"What happened to you? You should maintain a healthy lifestyle Five. What crazy thing s are you planning with these?" asked Harriet while pointing at the powder on the desk.
"Sorry about that. I worked all night on my plans and I think that I am finally ready," said Five as he quickly placed all the powder in his inventory.
"You look very tired, look at those dark circles under your eyes and don't try to say that they are marks from the coal," said Harriet. She was clearly concerned about Five, that guy was clearly not taking things seriously. Instead of focusing on improving the dungeon, he was preparing some crazy plans that might completely ruin his future.
"Haha, everything is ready now, I will make the changes tonight so stop worrying about me, alright?" said Five but he froze as he looked at Harriet.
He could not help but feel guilty when he saw Harriet's expression. He saw both concern and annoyance in her eyes as if she was a mother scolding her child for doing something wrong, and so, he decided to brighten her mood.
"Let me show you something. Can you lend me the Harpy's blood for a moment?" asked Five.
Harriet silently nodded and gave him a dagger, at the same time, she placed the tray of food on the now empty desk.
Five swiftly grabbed the dagger and used it to mark the desk. He drew 64 squares of equal size, following that, he marked half of them.
"Ikk, why are you damaging the desk!" exclaimed Harriet but Five ignored her and continued:
"Look, this is a game from my world, I don't know if you've heard of it, it's called Checkers," said Five as he took out some pieces of uncrushed sulfur and uncrushed coal.
"Since you like my world so much, I will let you experience some of it. Let me explain the rules. First, we both have 12 pieces, you can choose the coal or the sulfur, then...."
Having explained the rules, Five grabbed a croissant from the tray of food and sat down in front of Harriet, "It is a really popular game in my world. Do you want to give it a try?"
The latter was visibly excited, she completely forgot about wanting to scold him and quickly nodded. She would always become excited whenever Five would talk about his world and now that he showed her this game, she was quickly distracted and forgot about scolding Five for not focusing on his task.
The latter did not know if he needed to cry or laugh at her sudden change in attitude.
"Sure, who shall start then?"
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