The dungeon city of Rivira was a mess... Not because it had been attacked or anything. No it was just naturally a shit shanty of a town due to the fact that building up permanent structures here in the dungeon was a damned fools errand.
The hundreds of buildings were made out of untreated wood pillar's taken from the thick forest of the Eighteenth floor or even the lower levels in the jungle floors. Along with the wooden wall surrounding the town being made from tree's that had been cut down to make the wall.
But despite the large amount of resources, down here in literally unlimited high-quality wood. Their buildings were shit shacks, due to the fact that there wasn't any real builders down here.
'I can fuse structures together, so I wonder if I should make a house down here... Nah, that would be a waste. Unless I can get Hepheastus to help have Familia members to reside here.' I mused as I knew that unless I made extensive defense systems.
Any house or nice structure I made and left down here would be promptly broken into as the dungeon, after all had no laws.
"I refuse to sleep here." Blake said blandly as we looked into the 'hotel', and I could already feel the bed bugs climbing over my form at seeing the holes in the poorly made structure.
Kali, however chuckled and said in amusement. "It will be better than sleeping outside, safer, and... It's better than sleeping on the desert sands of the far west."
I sighed and said. "No, she is right. I refuse to live in a such a shit hole... Anyway, let's grab some fresh food and then I will take care of our living situation."
We then headed over to one of the small restaurants and as I took in the prices of the food. My face twitched as I was reminded that ALL supplies down into the dungeon had to be escorted via large caravans.
So with the price of needing several adventurers around level three to safely guarantee the safety of the caravan, even if a monster party spawn with the likes of Minotaurs and Infant Dragons coming after the caravan.
I could kinda understand the five hundred percent markup fee to typical Orario... But it fucking sucked especially coming from Melen where everything was far cheaper then in Orario itself.
'If I made Vanishing Cabinets, but in much larger forms like trailer's to transport supplies. I wonder if I could get a deal with the Guild for their support.' I mused as I knew Hepheastus suggested I do such a project but with the caveat that the transports couldn't move people.
As moving people through teleportation in the dungeon would make the dungeon flip its shit, and Ouranos was obviously tweakin lately with all the bullshit that has been happening.
I mentally marked down a plan to do just that with Hepheastus when I got back. As frankly, I knew that I was going to need to come down into the dungeon more often seeing as Melen was fucking burnt down and I obviously still needed to grow.
And Rivira itself was needed if myself, and other adventurers. And I wanted to go into the deeper portions of the dungeon.
"Not even the food at the nicer surface restaurant costs this much... A sandwich with almost stale bread costs as much as a steak dinner with three jugs of beer, and a loaf of prepared garlic bread." I muttered in some exasperation
Tina snorted and said flatly. "Imagine the expressions of level two's who come down here to work on their levels and have to spend so much on basic supplies."
I grunted in agreement before Kali spoke up wisely. "Just because Jake has his spatial ability to hold food fresh for a good while. We should also carry some dried and prepared rations in case something happens to separate us."
My mind went to the whole arc of Bell being dropped deeper into the dungeon through a trap with Ryuu, and I nodded at the cat milf's words.
After eating our food, I took a deep breath and spoke. "Ladies, I suggest we get moving to the Tree Labrinth for our actual monster killing. The monsters there would be very good for my fusion taming to say nothing of allowing Blake the fastest growth."
Blake herself being used to fighting level two to three monsters with our aid from fighting on my large ship against the water monsters of Lake Melen nodded in understanding.
"I can handle it. I know when to retreat and advance with you all." Blake said in agreement, knowing that to become strong, she needed to push herself beyond her limits.
Not to mention, she also had a safety net in all of us as well.
With that, I spoke about how we would deal with the monsters of the Tree Labyrinth, and then when we got tired. We would come back to the town of Rivira, and I would put down the house I would later fuse from the wood we would collect from the Tree Labyrinth.
As honestly? The monsters from the Tree Labyrinth were very interesting and possibly useful.
The Bugbear was a stronger humanoid bear then the minotaur, the Battle Boar could be useful in being a work horse basically, Lizardman were capable of actual combat skill with swordsmanship and using a shield in tandem.
Firebirds were shitty phoenix ripoff's that could shoot fireballs from it's mouth as a long distance attack. The Dark Fungus was a mushroom monster that could throw out toxic spores, but what if I could fuse healing potions and such into it so it healed instead?
And lastly... The Vouivre is another one of the all-female, truly humanoid monsters, but this one was based on dragons instead of the sirens and mermaids, which had fish or serpent theme.
Basically, all of the monsters had abilities that could make them useful should I tame them, especially if like I tamed a fleet of Firebirds. Having an army of flying attack planes that could be fused together possibly into a true phoenix?
There was endless possibilities frankly.
Something I did want, however, was a large squad of Lizardmen with a Lizardmen queen like the one I captured and used to fuse into Tamamo. Having my own actual grown army besides my... Harem would be needed when I went into the deeper parts of the dungeon.
But as we were leaving the town of Rivira and heading towards the next floor, I saw a large group and saw the flag on the spear being carried by one of the ladies in the group.
I muttered. "Uh oh... I sense trouble ahead."
As the flag proudly displayed a depiction of a marble bust that was obviously Hera.