[Goblin] 123
[Orc] 11
[Redcap] 4
[Ogre] 1
The creatures absorbed into the dungeon were displayed on the smartphone screen.
I'd taken in a pretty wide area, yet there were only this many, which seemed a little strange.
Oh well. Maybe it's just cold.
"Let's bring in water from the coast. I wanna take a bath already."
"If you don't properly set up the water and sewer systems, it'll be an absolute disaster, you know?"
Hmph. No gaps in my plan. I sent the absorbed water through underground passages and drained used water through separate ones. Water for use went through proper pipes—well, narrow tunnels I called pipes—and the excess got discharged back into the opposite sea. Dumping sewage straight into the other sea probably wasn't great, though. I'd just store it somewhere like a cesspit.
"Alright. Done."
"Please check it properly, and save if everything's okay."
"...Huh? Oh."
Why was my phone confirming stuff with me now? It never used to do that.
"Save... there."
Heh heh heh. Finally, I could use the bath.
"Well then, let's go~♪"
Excited, I spun on my heel.
Come to think of it, I hadn't made a kitchen yet. Now that the water was set up, I might as well build one while I was at it. I threw open the double doors and headed for the bath entrance right next to it.
Mwah hah hah.
Once I got more allies, we'd pass through these doors together and soak in the same tub.
I finally reached the grand bath. I couldn't wait!
"Alright... will it come out properly?"
Nervously, I placed my hand on the bath's main valve. A lion with its mouth wide open glared back at me.
I'd wanted a Japanese-style bath, but I guess for stonework, this was the way to go.
"Phew... Alright!"
I let out a deep breath and got ready.
"Here goes!!"
Yelling at no one in particular, I threw the valve wide open.
...
...Huh?
Nothing happened.
The lion's face looked like it was yawning in boredom—kinda embarrassing.
But what was going on? I checked the phone, and the water system was properly built. I tried saving again, just in case.
...Still nothing.
"What the hell is going on?"
I asked the phone, clueless. Its answer was simple.
"Well, since it's about 2,500 kilometers away in a straight line, obviously the water hasn't reached here yet, right?"
"..."
So embarrassing!! That was 1.5 times more embarrassing than before!! I'd just said it would take a full day at 100 km/h, and I still thought the water would be ready as long as I'd set up the pipes. And I call myself a modern kid...
I quickly shut the bath valve and curled up in the corner of the empty tub.
"Since you have time now, I suggest you check on the creatures in the dungeon. Some of them might be hostile toward you."
Yeah, but I wasn't really in the mood for that anymore. I wanted to crawl into a hole. Oh wait, I could make a pitfall easily. Maybe I'd make one and jump in.
"Master, please stop escaping reality. Your life is at stake, you know?"
Yeah, yeah, sorry.
"Um... how do I do that? Check through the phone?"
As a Demon Lord being scolded by my phone and meekly obeying, I looked objectively pathetic.
"No, you're the dungeon master. If you want to, you can sense the movements of every single creature inside the dungeon."
"Huh? For real?"
"For real."
Whoa, that was actually amazing. So I could see things far away without leaving this spot!? Whoa! Super ability vibes!
"Wait, wouldn't that mean I'm immune to surprise attacks or ambushes?"
If I could track every creature's movements, wasn't I invincible in this dungeon? If anything, I'd be the one pulling all the surprise attacks.
But the phone denied that.
"No. It's true you can detect every creature's movements in this dungeon. But that's only if you're consciously focusing on it. Even here, if you let your guard down, it's entirely possible to get caught off guard. In fact, right now, you're not even aware of any intruders' movements, are you? Besides, can you process multiple streams of information simultaneously?"
"Oh, right."
"Yes. As long as you can't split your attention between two things, you'll always need to stay alert."
No matter how much they called me a Demon Lord, I was still just an ordinary human inside. Multitasking was way too much to ask of a single person in a world without computers.
Not that I'd confirmed it—maybe there were computers somewhere.
"Okay, then... let me try tracking that one ogre. Start with the smallest number."
"Good idea. The ogre is the strongest creature among those you just searched. If it's hostile toward you, you should deal with it quickly."
Man, that's ominous.
"Uh, how do I do it exactly?"
"Just will it. If that's difficult, saying it out loud might make it easier."
Simple. Could I really see a distant ogre with just that?
I gave it a shot.
"Confirm: Ogre."
The moment I said that, alongside the stone bath view I was seeing, a reddish-brown landscape appeared. Both were incredibly vivid, like I was seeing them with my own eyes.
"Whoa! It worked!"
In that reddish-brown land stood a single ogre.
Its skin was a gray so dark it was nearly black, with a single jet-black horn growing from its forehead. It wore simple clothes, no armor, but its bulging muscles were clearly natural armor. Honestly, it looked pretty cool.
"Man, it's really on edge, huh?"
The ogre was frantically looking around, holding a wooden club in its right hand.
"Well, of course. It suddenly got pulled into a dungeon."
"Huh!? Can creatures actually tell that easily when they've been absorbed into a dungeon!?"
"Obviously. It's a sudden temperature shift, like going from a frozen wasteland into a comfortable room. Any creature would notice—unless they're as dense as you, Master."
"Hey, you finally went and directly insulted me, didn't you, you bastard."
I pushed the increasingly cheeky phone to the back of my mind and focused on the ogre.
"This is bad... for now, it's just on guard, but if I mess up first contact, it'll probably turn hostile."
"Then why not eliminate it? If there's a chance of hostility, the sooner you deal with it, the better."
Hmm... but if I could avoid it, I didn't want to do that. It'd make me stand out in a bad way. I wanted to live a little more quietly.
"If you want dialogue, how about 'summoning' it to talk? With a summon, it can't leave the summoning circle until it becomes your ally. If it does become your ally, it can't attack you. If it refuses, it gets sent back."
"Oh! That's the trick!"
I quickly operated the phone. Under "Custom" and "Dungeon," I touched "Summon."
"There are a bunch of fields..."
"Name," "Race," "Level," "Gender," "Age"—it was a bit strict for summoning an ogre I'd only seen.
"Master, you haven't forgotten about your own Appraisal skill, have you?"
Oh.
"W-w-w-would I ever!? I, I would never do that! Gosh, my phone is being such a teaser today!!"
"..."
The silence hurt.
I focused on the ogre, willing Appraisal in my mind.
Ogre (Lv. 52)
Wandering Ogre Outcast
HP 1205/2600
MP 62/114
EXP 1478/23506
STR 1720
VIT 2819
AGI 298
MAG 4
Skills
Beast of Burden
Club Lv. 70
Dash ▼
Equipment
Cloth
Club
Knife
"SO HARD TO READ!!"
Why was even Appraisal stuck in 8-bit mode!? Thanks to that, I had to throw in a joke before I could say things like "That ogre's strong" or "What the hell is my status even...?!"
Whatever. Since it didn't seem to have a name, I entered "Race" and "Level."
But wait—there were probably tons of creatures in the world with the same race and same level. What if the wrong one showed up?
"If you use 'Summon Within Dungeon' at the bottom of the list, you can target only individuals inside the dungeon. There's only one ogre in this dungeon, so targeting ogre will definitely call that specific one."
So I didn't even need to use Appraisal in the first place? Why the huge detour?
"I was bored."
...
...I can't with this thing anymore.
Summary:
The Demon Lord successfully builds a water system only to realize the water won't arrive for a full day, leading to an embarrassing moment of premature celebration. After being scolded by his increasingly sarcastic smartphone, he attempts to use Appraisal to check the dungeon's creatures and discovers the interface is frustratingly retro. He then learns about the Summoning system as a potential way to safely recruit the lone ogre without combat, but realizes he needs to properly identify the creature first. The chapter ends with the phone's bored confession that it made him take the long way around for no reason.
Trivia:
The Demon Lord absorbed creatures and terrain from approximately 2,500 kilometers away, but water travel takes 24 hours at 100 km/h.
The dungeon has exactly 139 creatures total: 123 Goblins, 11 Orcs, 4 Redcaps, and 1 Ogre.
The smartphone system can be sarcastic and deliberately unhelpful, having made the Demon Lord use Appraisal unnecessarily out of boredom.
The bath's main valve is designed as a lion's head, a common Western fountain motif, despite the Demon Lord preferring Japanese style.
The Demon Lord can track every creature in the dungeon but only one at a time, making him vulnerable to surprise attacks if he's not focusing.
The Ogre is Level 52 with stats far exceeding the Demon Lord's implied capabilities, and carries a Club at Level 70.
The Summoning system requires specific parameters including Name, Race, Level, Gender, and Age to function properly.
The "Summon Within Dungeon" filter allows targeting specific individual creatures already inside the dungeon, not just generic summons.