That line of numbers had been hanging in front of Owen for a while now.
[Soul Energy: 6,934]
He stared at it for a long time, long enough that he started to feel a little silly about it.
“Six thousand…” he murmured aloud. “Six thousand and change.”
Back when he’d first woken up, he’d had a measly five hundred or so to work with. He’d had to pinch every point just to carve out one decent corridor, like some little hole-in-the-wall shop on the verge of going under.
Four digits.
And four digits closing in on seven thousand, no less.
“Rolling in it,” he said with feeling. “So this is what it feels like to make money in your sleep?”
These past three days had been a circus.
Ever since the old man outside laid down his rules and set up that take-a-number system, the customers had come in a steady stream.
The line started forming at the door the moment the sky lightened.
Six at a time, party after party, sent in from dawn straight through to night, usually deep into the small hours before the crowd finally thinned.
There were adventurers who moved sharp and pulled back the instant something felt wrong; ones who rammed straight ahead and dropped face-first into an ambush; and a few who got so scared halfway in that they scrambled back to the chamber in a blind panic.
Every type under the sun.
And every jolt of fear, frustration, excitement, resentment, and giddy joy was converted, in the end, into Soul Energy that settled obediently into Owen’s little treasury.
He’d done some rough math.
An ordinary party netted him a hundred or two per run; a stronger party, with sharper emotional swings, could double that.
So many groups cycling in and out in a single day.
Three days of it, and naturally it piled up into this tidy little mountain of gold.
“Knew it. Service industry’s where the money is.” Owen gave a couple of pleased hums. “And everybody walks away with something. Win-win.”
The night deepened.
The line outside had long since broken up, and the last party left through the portal with their crystals, thoroughly content. The whole hill went quiet again, and even the lights in the camp by the door had mostly gone out.
Owen casually sealed the dungeon entrance for the time being.
[Entrance Sealed]
Closed for the night.
During the day, with people coming and going nonstop, there was no way for him to do any real work on the dungeon.
Slam the door shut on a whim, and how was that any different from turning money away?
But now, deep in the quiet of night, this was prime time for the shopkeeper to put his shop in order and plan for the future.
“All right.” Owen rubbed his nonexistent hands together and spread the management interface out in front of him. “All this money — how should I spend it?”
If he’d still had a mouth, the Core Chamber would probably already have been filled with tuneless humming.
Come to think of it, those adventurers had had a rough few days too.
Ambushed by corpses, sniped at by crossbow corpses from the shadows, chased around by the two big bruisers guarding the wooden camp — dying, getting back up, resting, and charging back in again. Grimy and battered, every one of them, and still they kept showing up right on time.
Watching it all, that “conscience” of his, wherever it had been hiding, started faintly stirring.
“Everyone keeps working so hard to hand me money,” he muttered. “Maybe… I should hand out some perks to my lovely paying customers?”
The thought had barely surfaced.
Ding.
In the corner of the management interface, a new panel he’d never seen before lit up without warning.
Owen paused.
[Dungeon Master’s Management Intent Detected]
[Hidden Management Category Unlocked: Reward System]
[Configurable: Treasure Chest Placement, Monster Drops, Treasure Creation]
[Reward Generation Consumes Soul Energy]
Owen: “…”
He stared at the lines, blinking eyes he didn’t have.
“You had a feature this handy and just weren’t going to tell me?”
He’d been about to praise how thoughtful the system was. Then it hit him: if he’d never started thinking along these lines himself, he’d probably never have found this panel at all.
His irritation flared all at once.
“Who wrote this garbage code? Could you not have spared a thought for a tutorial?”
Then again, he’d always assumed a dungeon could only configure monsters, traps, and terrain. It hadn’t once occurred to him there was a separate reward page he could adjust himself.
Was this, in fact, the dungeon’s complete set of functions?
And if so, how had the dungeons of this world become what they were now, step by step?
Owen couldn’t make sense of it, so he set the question aside for the moment.
Compared to digging into dungeon history, there was a more practical matter at hand anyway.
How to spend the money.
He eagerly opened the new panel, and the more he looked, the more he liked it.
Not only could he place chests around the dungeon, he could freely set what monsters dropped: from a handful of magic crystals all the way up to weapons, armor, consumables, a whole spread of options to mix and match.
“Heh. Now I finally get why game designers have so much fun.” His eyes brightened the longer he looked. “Give the customers drops when they fight, surprises when they crack open a chest. Ha. My retention rate and repeat-customer numbers are about to go through the roof.”
He gave a grand sweep of his will, ready to set things up properly.
Of course, none of it came out of thin air. Every reward he generated automatically gouged a chunk out of that little mountain of gold.
But Owen didn’t mind one bit.
This energy wasn’t earning interest sitting there anyway.
Better to spend it making his own instance look the part than to let it gather dust in the vault.
“Call it a bonus for putting in the work these past few days.” He paged through the options, muttering, in the tone of a boss handing out year-end bonuses. “I’m eating this well. The least I can do is set aside something nice for my dear startup partners.”
The crystal gave off a soft glow, lighting the Core Chamber in silence.
“Let’s grow together,” he said softly. “Everyone gets stronger, everyone makes money. What’s not to love?”
He said it like the most natural thing in the world, entirely unaware of just how… unsettling it would have sounded to anyone else.
Because a dungeon that hoped its challengers would keep getting stronger was not, no matter how you looked at it, a normal thing to exist.
If other dungeons ever found out, they’d probably throw their doors open, unleash their monsters, and come charging over to clean house on the spot.
◆ ◆ ◆
Still, the rewards could be handed out a little later. This story is hosted at g.com.
This chapter was taken from the author's publication page without consent; reading the version they posted there supports the writer.
Owen gave himself a shake and reeled his wandering thoughts back in.
Before he could hand out dividends, he had to get his own crummy little shop in order first.
He stared at that six-thousand-plus fortune for a while, then abruptly changed his mind.
“…No, wrong order.”
Expanding the dungeon. Paying out dividends to adventurers. Those were all matters of building upward, adding another layer on top.
But he had another option right now.
That core, with the crack still running through it.
[Begin Preliminary Repair of Damaged Core? Soul Energy Cost: 2,500]
Owen’s attention dropped to the corner of the management interface.
That prompt had been sitting there quietly ever since he’d taken over the dungeon.
The old him had had no choice. For one, it was too expensive; for another, he’d had no idea what fixing it would even do.
This useless interface didn’t offer a single hint.
But now, he had money, which meant he had nerve.
Guard creation was cheap enough anyway. Once it was fixed, he’d surely still have enough to give the whole dungeon a full makeover.
“Please, for the love of god, unlock something useful once this is done,” Owen muttered.
[Soul Energy Consumed: 2,500]
[Current Soul Energy: 4,434]
[Core Preliminary Repair in Progress…]
The process came with no earth-shaking fanfare. The cracked core at the center of the chamber simply had its fissures grow shallower, its dim light a shade clearer.
Then a string of new prompts popped up on the interface.
Owen read them line by line, his mood climbing with each one.
[Core Preliminary Repair Complete]
[Unlocked: Passive Soul Energy Generation: +100/day]
“Hold on.” Owen’s core flashed sharply. “Autonomous generation? Every day? I don’t have to lift a finger and it just makes money on its own?”
He nearly teared up. Never mind that he had no tear ducts anymore.
From the moment he’d woken up, this dungeon had been a bottomless pit, all outflow and no inflow. No customers was bad enough, but he’d also had to eat the upkeep cost on top of it. The whole thing had been running at a loss.
And now this core had actually started laying eggs of its own.
“Passive income!” He was too worked up to string a sentence together. “This is passive income! The thing I’ve dreamed about my whole life!”
As a former wage slave, was there any sweeter phrase in all the world than “getting paid to do nothing”?
But his elation didn’t last more than a few seconds before two more lines scrolled up.
[Core Stability Increased; Unit Generation Quality Improved Accordingly]
[Low-Power Operation Disabled; Generation Prices Restored to Normal]
Owen: “…”
He stared at those words, “Low-Power Operation,” dumbstruck for a good while.
“…A discount?”
After all this time, he learned for the first time that everything he’d generated up to now had been marked down.
“No, hold on.” The more he thought about it, the more absurd it got. “You’re a half-dead core, and you come with your own new-player discount?”
He could more or less work out the logic. While the core was damaged, it could only produce “scaled-down” monsters: impressive-looking on the surface, but watered down underneath, with broken combat logic and shoddy quality, which was why they were cheap. Now that the core was fixed, it could produce more complete, more respectable units, and the price would naturally…
Oh, come on. I clawed my way through the hardest stretch, and now you’re telling me there’s an even tougher boss waiting after it?
M-maybe the price hike wouldn’t be that bad.
Owen couldn’t help reassuring himself, then flipped the interface back to see exactly how much the prices had jumped.
And then he couldn’t laugh anymore.
◆ ◆ ◆
“Let’s start with the cheapest.”
Owen decided to begin with terrain expansion, to give himself a little time to brace.
With a sweep of his will, he opened three new passages off the left and right sides of the canyon, three in total. The passages were short, each one a dead end. He planned to set up other clear conditions inside them.
[New Area Added: Open-Air Canyon ×3]
[Soul Energy Consumed: 450]
[Current Soul Energy: 3,984]
“…A hundred fifty each.” Owen remembered it perfectly: something this length used to run him about a hundred a pop. A clean fifty percent increase.
The terrain was still on the reasonable side. The moment he started placing guards, the prices stopped making any sense at all.
The usual Desiccated Convicts, eight to a passage, twenty-four across all three.
[Generate Desiccated Convict ×24]
[Soul Energy Consumed: 480]
Up by a third.
Next, the Desiccated Jailers stationed at the sub-boss doors at the end of each passage. Two at each door, Mid Black Iron, no special abilities. Just slightly tougher mooks.
[Generate Desiccated Jailer ×6]
[Soul Energy Consumed: 420]
[Current Soul Energy: 3,084]
All he’d done was dress them a little better: a coat of chainmail and a few halfway-decent weapons. And they cost this much? Nearly as much as the Garrison Captain, which hadn’t even gone up in price.
“The mooks I can live with.” Owen drew a deep, nonexistent breath. “The real show is those three sub-bosses. Here’s hoping I don’t blow the budget.”
He dumped out every idea he’d been sitting on for three days, all at once.
“Monsters alone aren’t enough.” He talked to himself, warming to it. “A good dungeon needs a story.”
Fighting mobs and farming loot were the bare basics.
What truly got people hooked — willing to grind the same run over and over, even to head to the forums and pick apart the lore — was never just how strong the monsters were.
“Ha. I’ve got it all worked out already.” He locked in the theme. “A story about the end of the world.”
The setting came to him fast. His past life had no shortage of classic old games to crib from.
This canyon sat at the edge of the world, a prison for those who’d committed the gravest crimes.
To keep these dangerous figures from unleashing catastrophe at the front lines, every last prisoner had been exiled into this canyon.
And to stop them from escaping, the wounded knight Cassandre had volunteered to stay behind and stand guard.
Single-handedly, he had sealed the entire prison shut.
“Unbelievably edgy,” Owen said with a laugh. “But I love it.”
Next came the first prisoner.
A withered figure, bare-chested, without a scrap of armor, took shape little by little under his will.
A length of heavy, rusted iron chain dragged from its wrist.
Like a convict who’d finally torn free of its cell, yet could never quite shake off its shackles.
“You’re the appetizer,” Owen said as he shaped it. “Let the customers stretch their legs a bit.”
[Generate Sub-Boss: The Chainbound (Low Black Iron)]
[Soul Energy Consumed: 220]
“…Seventy to two-twenty. Tripled!”
The second took the strength route: hulking, heavy, built to break any party that thought it could win a straight contest of force.
The third took the technical route: tall, lean, cold, and vicious with a blade, with just enough dialogue about Cassandre to make the whole thing feel personal.
As for how well any of it worked, that was for tomorrow’s customers to taste-test.
[Generate Sub-Boss: Bonecrusher (High Black Iron)]
[Generate Sub-Boss: The Whisperer (Low Bronze)]
[Total Soul Energy Consumed: 1,115]
[Current Soul Energy: 1,749]
Once he’d spent a while getting the three bosses settled, there was one last important thing left.
Time to pay out the dividends.
Owen flipped the interface to the newly unlocked reward panel.
“Just dropping magic crystals is no fun.” He thought it over. “Every boss needs a special drop. Give them a bit of a surprise.”
For the Chainbound, he set a pair of [Broken Shackles] usable as forging material.
For Bonecrusher, a ring that gave a slight strength boost: the [Bonecrusher’s Thumb Ring].
As for the Whisperer, Owen hesitated, then spent big and slotted in a boss skill book.
[Configure Designated Drops: Broken Shackles (150), Bonecrusher’s Thumb Ring (350), Skill Book (800)]
[Soul Energy Consumed: 1,300]
[Current Soul Energy: 449]
That skill book was the crown jewel of the lot. It was only a minor, unremarkable boss skill, yet creating a book that let someone learn it on the spot cost a genuinely staggering amount.
When he’d designed the boss, the extra cost of that skill had been next to nothing.
It seemed the more ridiculous the reward, the less the system messed around with the Soul Energy cost.
“No idea what other dungeons offer for rewards. Here’s hoping this skill book pulls in more adventurers.”
He surveyed his new handiwork, well pleased.
Three passages, twenty-odd mooks, a sub-boss waiting in the prison chamber at the end of each passage, plus alternate clear conditions and the story he’d layered in. Atmosphere, pressure, plot, and rewards, each building on the last. That creator’s particular brand of satisfaction left his whole crystal glowing warm.
He was completely lost in the joy of creation.
Until he happened to glance at the balance.
[Current Soul Energy: 449]
[Daily Upkeep Cost: 382]
Owen’s crystal nearly stopped turning for a second.
“…”
Four hundred forty-nine.
A few hours ago, that number had been pushing seven thousand.
Repair the core, expand the dungeon a little, throw in some mobs and sub-bosses, plus the adventurer dividends at the end. One round of fussing later, and that little mountain of gold in the vault had collapsed down to nothing.
Owen was silent for a long, long while.
“…I think I understand now,” he said mournfully.
“Turns out the gap between striking it rich and going broke is less than a single night.”
He gazed sorrowfully at that balance, his whole crystal seeming to dim a shade.
But he rallied again soon enough.
He’d made it through those grim early days; never mind now, when the daily foot traffic was all but maxed out.
As long as there was still a line at the door, what did he have to worry about?
The money was spent, the work was done, and he’d even put together better perks for them.
Now there was only one step left.
“Brand-new Version 0.2.” Owen’s voice turned brisk again. “Time to open up.”
The sky hadn’t fully brightened, but people in the camp were already up. A few adventurers were sorting their gear, a Guild clerk hauled out the logbook with a yawn, and that familiar party had appeared in the line too.
Rayne.
He’d only just seen them yesterday, yet the whole party carried themselves differently now.
Owen paused, then brightened.
“Oho?”
“My loyal customers have leveled up.”
If they were growing this fast, his little treasury would be fattening right back up before long.
Owen’s crystal lit up faintly.
[Entrance Opened]
“Come on in.”
“I’ve already got all your rewards ready and waiting. Heh heh.”