"You have been reincarnated as our Dungeon Master."
"Lure in as many adventurers as you can with their own greed. Through exploration and combat, create a dungeon that drains them of their blood, mana, and life itself, Master."
A demon who looks like a young girl says this to me.
Her eyes are sanpaku* with a sharp, darting gaze, and her long, wavy hair spreads out, covering her small frame.
Her body is small and she's completely flat chested... but she didn't come off as an actual child.
She looks more like a petite adult woman who appears childlike due to malnourishment. Yes... for a flat-chest connoisseur like me, this is just my type. Not bad at all.
As I'm staring at her while thinking such things, she looks at me suspiciously.
"Hey… are you even listening?"
She scolds me.
"Ah, yeah… I'm listening, I'm listening, I already got the general gist of it from you before I died, so I mostly understand. I was just observing your appearance, it's the first time I've seen you, after all."
The young man, who's just been called Master, responds smoothly.
Yes… This isn't the first time I've heard her voice.
Back when I was alive, I was dying.
While bedridden in a hospital with a terminal illness for about half a year.
One day, her voice echoed in my mind...
What she said was basically the same as what she just told me.
"Form a contract with me.. If you do, I'll reincarnate your soul after death as a Dungeon Master. You will become a Dungeon Master and lure adventurers into your dungeon."
…I thought it was just some kind of hallucination brought on by being near death.
I never thought it would turn out to be real.
I was able to converse with this hallucination while I was still alive.
She gave me a light explanation about being a Dungeon Master during that time.
And so, lying in my hospital bed, I entertained myself by daydreaming about running a dungeon.
Like: "Would this kind of setup attract adventurers?" or "Would they avoid it if I did that?" things like that.
It was different from the hopeless time before the hallucination started, when I couldn't even move and was just consumed by despair. Immersing myself in dungeon management thoughts was actually kind of fun.
From the day I first heard her voice to the moment I died… about three months passed.
Back when I was desperately clinging to life, thinking "I don't want to die, I don't want to die,"
I would instead think things like, "Wouldn't it be nice if I could actually run a dungeon after I die?"
Thanks to her, I was able to die more peacefully, almost cheerfully, right up to the end.
For that, I'm truly grateful.
And now, I've really been reincarnated, and she's telling me to begin running a dungeon.
Alright, what to do...
"So, you are a Dungeon Core, and you must lure humans in with their desires. But as a dungeon, you don't truly understand human desire. …So recently, it's become a bit of a trend among Dungeon Cores to reincarnate souls from other worlds to run things as Dungeon Masters... I think?" I state.
"I wouldn't go so far as to call it a 'trend'... Most Dungeon Cores are unwilling to hand over control to a human. But it's also true that dungeons that have done so tend to produce better results than those managed entirely by Cores," she responds.
Makes sense.
Most of the Dungeon Cores designs are apparently just places where, if you defeat enemies, gold or gems drop.
And the Cores themselves don't really understand why that pleases humans.
They just know from past experience that humans come if you offer gold and gems, so that's what they put into the structure.
A dungeon where the deeper you go, the gold and gems are better quality. That's the answer Dungeon Cores have finally arrived at after thousands of years.
Yeah… handing over the management rights to a human Dungeon Master might be more efficient after all.
"Was it that you can't produce good gems or gold unless it's in a deep floor?" I ask.
"Yes… The deeper the dungeon, the denser the miasma becomes.
That miasma allows the dungeon to perform various miracles…
Like turning minerals into gems, which you can have monsters carry to please humans.
But the gems I can create on the upper floors are smaller and have lower clarity." She responds.
"If I infused the underground water with mana, could I make it have healing properties?"
"…It should be possible, yes. But with the weak miasma on the first floor, it probably wouldn't be able to fully heal even small cuts. At best, it might just accelerate recovery."
"Even for something like mild skin irritation?"
"…I'm not sure, but it may be possible for something like that? It's lighter than an injury, right?"
"Can I heat the underground water and turn it into hot water, on the first floor?"
"…What kind of question is that? Well, if it's just hot water, I suppose that should be doable."
"Alright… I'm making an onsen dungeon."
"An… onsen dungeon?"
"A dungeon filled with danger, but with various onsens that have beauty effects. Soaking in them makes your skin more beautiful! That kind of dungeon."
She was silent.
The Dungeon Core couldn't understand it.
To begin with, she didn't even know what an "onsen" was.
And instead of proposing wealth or food, which are supposed to be what humans want most, he suggested beautifying skin.
Dungeon Cores don't have the concept of "skin trouble" to begin with.
At most, they just know that some external creatures suffer from such undesirable conditions.
Still… healing injuries is one thing, but can something like that really be a draw?
Will people even gather for that?
At the very least, no dungeon like that has ever existed.
…Well, fine.
Doing things I can't understand is precisely the role of the summoned Master.
And the fact that he didn't propose something I myself could've thought up already makes him promising enough.
"Understood… I'll leave everything to you. I entrust you with the dungeon-building energy, Dungeon Points. Using them, you will decide how far to expand the dungeon, how many monsters to summon, and how much of that 'onsen' you produce as a reward…
You decide everything. I'm counting on you… Master."
"Got it, got it. Back when I was alive and well, I loved management sims. Time to do this!"
And thus, my dungeon management began.