Volume 4, 16 – Debriefing Session

Volume 4, Chapter 16 – Debriefing Session

The day after the re-opening of the new dungeon.

I called everyone again to hold a briefing.

With the tower dungeon’s management getting bigger, we decided to construct a conference hall large enough for all of us to sit down with still a lot of seats left. For now, in this conference hall gathered seven people.

“Thank you for coming. Let us start the briefing”

But right in that instant, a hand was raised to interject from one of the members.

“Belle, what’s up?”

“That girl, she’s one of the intruders from yesterday, right? Why is she here!?”

I who have been anticipating that question started explaining.

“This is Sarah. As I have said yesterday, she was the first escapee I have caught in our dungeon.”

“I am called Sarah. This time, I’ve decided to become Gilles-sama’s maid.”

Sarah stood up and greeted everyone.

Come to think of it, she was the lowest rank in the mercenary corps where she came from. I guess she’s used to being treated this way.

“Gilles-san, I’m sad. Is this onee-san not enough of a maid for you?”

“Well, for starters, I’ve never seen such a maid dress so scantily like you”

Dahlia immediately rebutted the words of Carol.

That’s also what I have thought in the first time we met.

What’s more, everyone else unexpectedly supported Dahlia’s retort, and are all nodding to it right now. Carol was shocked!

Nevertheless, I ignored her reaction and continued with the topic at hand.

“Firstly, Carol is Belle’s subordinate, and not mine.”

One of the reasons I made Sarah my maid was that I wanted to have a clear subordinate whom I can freely move around.

Elsie and Dahlia might be listening to my orders, but the relationship I have with them is still pretty delicate.

Though there are also pros in our relationship aside from the cons, there maybe situations where it is easier or better to move a direct subordinate like Sarah.

“I’ve already heard from Sarah on how she had escaped from my prison. So this time around, she’ll be my full responsibility as repentance to it.”

Since everyone of us here is a beginner in recreating a dungeon, it’s inevitable to still have a few rough edges.

However, those errors must be remedied as soon as possible.

“Anyway, Sarah here will play the role here in the meeting as my assistant. And as we are expecting the number of visitors to increase, there shouldn’t be any trouble getting a pair of extra hands.”

“I see. Certainly, we will be getting more intruders in the future. This onee-san may not be able to do her housework all alone”

Carol, who had suffered a barrage of gunfire from all sides because of her uniform, also tried diverting the line of fir-err change the topic.

“Yes, just like that. In accordance to this, please give Sarah the skills and techniques necessary to maintain this dungeon well, Carol. I’m counting on you”

“Understood. Please leave her to me”

I was able to obtain Carol’s consent finally.

“Well, if Carol is alright with it, then I’m also okay with it.”

Belle also said in agreement. Everyone else also agreed.

“Now that’s settled, let’s move on to the main subject”

I crossed my arms and this time, spoke in a serious tone.

“This reopening, I think it has been pretty successful. What do you guys think?”

Evelyn answered my question first.

“First of all, I think we have pretty much succeeded in changing the image of this dungeon, which is the most important part, from the infamous “Tower of Death” to a “Dungeon that One can’t Die”. Of course, with Sarah here, it wasn’t a perfect score anymore, but those mercenaries should have already guessed that the traps and monsters weren’t aiming to kill anymore.”

“It can’t be helped. I can’t afford to leave my new partner to escape”

However, almost all the female mercenaries have escaped unharmed or mildly injured.

Even though we are near the city, there isn’t enough material evidence we could use to make them believe that the dungeon has changed from within. However, with these mercenaries, we can now show proper evidence to support our claim.

“Here, here, Elsie reporting about the status of the monsters! On the recent invasion, two of the three golems can be repaired, while the remaining one will have to be replaced. As for its completion, all will be completed the day after tomorrow on schedule”

“Good. Because it is clear now that the golems are effective obstacles, well keep on using them in the future. Keep it up”

This time, because we have more than ten people as our opponents, I have sent out three of these golems, but it might be better to limit the number of people that can enter the boss room at a time instead.

“As for the slimes, though their numbers have decreased considerably, since its production method has been already established by senpai, we can replenish them right away”

“Elsie, please wait a moment”

“Yes?”

I stopped Elsie by my hand.

“You see, this time, a slime is deeply involved with Sarah’s escape”

I then explained to them on how Sarah released herself from my restraints and how she was able to carry it out.

“wowー, so you can use such a method? To think here was a defect in our slime”

Elsie nodded with admiration.

Though she always gave a fluffy feeling, her enthusiasm in studying magic is so much that she would even come along with it if possible, just to ease her curiosity.

“You bit the slimes and chewed them!? That’s one tough gut you have”

“Ahahahaha, you don’t usually think of biting the monster back, usually. I like you!”

It seems that our two members who specialize on combat gave a high evaluation. Thank goodness things have started well for Sarah.

“Now that we understood the situation of her escape, how will you deal with this?”

Evelyn hit me with a question out of the blue.

“Until now, I have been giving each of the slimes instructions after they are produced whenever I need it. However, because of this incident, from now on I am thinking of making slimes with specialized roles right from the manufacturing stage”.

“In other words, you will produce and distribute them according to their application? But then we will have to expand our facilities”

“Yes, and it will surely take time and effort, but it’s a great investment and prevention to make sure this won’t happen again”

If we removed the corrosive attributes of the slimes in charge of “training”, then an escape like this won’t even happen in the first place.

“Next is about our traps. About 30% of all the traps installed have been activated. From there, the 20% were able to hit their targets, eventually incapacitating 30% of the intruders at their last lap.”

Only the team that made it to the fourth floor were caught by the traps due to exhaustion and the difficulties of the traps installed there.

Still, it was a good result.

“The problem is, it will take a considerable time to install the traps once again”

“So you are saying that even though we are still fine, the traps will be likely to be thinned out if we were to be intruded in rapid succession?”

“Yes. Therefore, I want you to lend me the slime you have mentioned earlier”

Dahlia offered a suggestion to me who was troubled with the pending tasks.

“Slimes? Can monsters be able to fix and install traps?”

“They will alright. They are dexterous enough to be able to train those women to submission, so being able to do this should be no sweat for then”

Indeed, if you look at it like that, she’s somewhat right.

“Then for now, let’s modify them in that direction”

After that we discussed and made some minor tweaks and put together a revised version of the dungeon.

“Fuuu, hopefully this will be enough. As we have all concluded, for this test, the dungeon that has been renovated to the fifth floor must be extend to the tenth floor.”

Yes, this time is all just a just a test dungeon.

This is why the mercenary corps was allowed to safely return, and also the reason why I showed off the dragon and myself to Captain Lorraine.

And now we have to expand from there.

“Evelyn, how much grace period do we have left?”

“Let me see. Because this time the mercenary corps’ client is me, I can manipulate the information to some extent, but still, now that the mercenary troops have left, rumors will surely flow from them, so on estimate we still have a month to prepare”

“I understand. We’ll set up our work schedules based on that deadline.”

With this, we have finally set off for a full-fledged start.

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After the meeting, I returned to my room and sat on the sofa.

Unlike the bedroom we usually use all the time, this room is a completely private space, hence the sofa in the room.

There’s also a bed, but I rarely use it.

“Finally, I can see a way to open the door to the 101st floor”

We still have to earn a lot of points, but one of the systems we established for that is just about to be completed.

A place where I can have a peace of mind, huh.

When I relaxed, a scenery in my previous life was suddenly revived in my brain.

I had avoided remembering them until now, but maybe because I was too attached to depraving Sarah, who was a lot like me back then, that some of them were pulled out of my subconscious with no warning at all.

One of those memories I have strongly recalled was when I was still young.

From time to time, I remember a bunch of memories, and from them I encounter bad ones too, and what’s worse is that they linger even longer in my mind after that.

“I see, I also had a time like this”

It happened when I was still young, our parents have just relocated due to work transfers, and because I was the type of kid that couldn’t make friends that easily, I felt really lonely that time. Still, I remembered a few names of those I have made friends with.

I wonder if they are still doing well?

Speaking of which, there were two girls in there too.

If I’m right, their names were certainly………

I remember them well because there was a shocking incident that involved those two.

“Still, I think now is not the time for reminiscing. I have many things to do right now”

I pumped myself up, cleared my mind and head over to my desk to write my future plans.