I was soaking in the hot spring with Littleham.
“Ahh~. This feels nice.”
The effects of the hot spring felt like they were blowing away my everyday fatigue. In fact, if we were to talk about it in game terms, soaking in this hot spring would recover our fatigue gauge.
“That’s true. I wish I could stay in the water like this forever.”
It seemed that Littleham also liked this hot spring. In fact, it appeared that all the monsters in this dungeon were obsessed with it.
Other monsters who had finished their tasks began to enter the hot spring.
“Shall we get out soon?”
“Yeah.”
The hot spring here wasn’t particularly large. Therefore, we had no choice but to take turns enjoying it.
For now, there hadn’t been any disputes over it.
So while I didn’t feel the immediate need for the hot spring to be expanded, if the dungeon grew larger, we would have to think about expanding the hot spring as well.
At the moment, the only ones in this dungeon were creatures whose gender was questionable and males.
If female or female-type monsters were to come to this dungeon, it would be necessary to separate the baths.
After getting out of the hot spring, I drank from a spring in the dungeon to replenish the fluids I had lost, then headed to my bedroom.
There, I lay down and tried to sleep. While waiting to fall asleep, I decided to think a bit about the future.
We were living quite well at the moment. Our living foundation was coming together, and gradually the dungeon was expanding, enriching our lives.
It was a peaceful existence, but that didn’t mean we were without threats.
That threat was the existence of the hero, the protagonist.
The hero was strong. Strong enough that I could never defeat them.
There was no longer any potential for me to grow stronger. I couldn’t become any more powerful.
Therefore, I couldn’t take the approach of getting stronger to repel the hero.
I felt like it was time to seriously consider how to repel the hero.
One quick method would be to create subordinates who are stronger than me to defeat the hero, but…
Creating a monster that is stronger than me would be quite a challenge.
Moreover, would those stronger monsters obediently follow my orders?
There’s a good chance they might rebel.
Even if they could potentially repel the hero, if I were defeated, it would be meaningless.
Hmm… what should I do? If only the hero wouldn’t come, then this life wouldn’t be so bad.
I had no idea what I should do to repel the hero. Facing them head-on would definitely be impossible.
If that’s the case, would it be better to set traps and do something about it?
To create traps, I would need various materials. I definitely needed wood, ores, and more.
However, to efficiently gather the materials for those traps, I would need DP… and I was severely lacking in DP since I had just built a tree plantation.
I continued to worry about how to manage my DP. But there was also a fun side to thinking about it… but right now, it was a matter of life and death.
Ahh… I really hope the hero doesn’t come. If only that were the case, everything would be resolved smoothly.
As I continued to think about such things, drowsiness overtook me, and my consciousness gradually faded.
The next day, I woke up. There was no significant increase in DP, and I had to continue my usual routine.
Looking at the tree plantation, the seedlings I had just planted wouldn’t grow that quickly. I guess I had to wait for time to pass.
Having finished checking the tree plantation, and with the farming and mining taken care of by other monsters, I decided to go fishing to pass the time.
It was better to fish and distract myself than to do nothing at all.
At this point, I didn’t need any specific tools, nor did I need to devote myself to crafting.
I cast my fishing line and waited patiently to catch a fish.
I wanted to increase the variety of fish I could catch and gather better quality ones. If I could start catching bigger fish, my diet would become richer.
But for now, I needed to use my DP to survive.
The hero would eventually come. If I could withstand that, nothing would threaten my way of life.
I could worry about expanding the fishing pond later.
My fishing rod snagged a fish. I reeled it in and stored it away.
If I could feed the monsters fish and make them satisfied, my DP would also increase. Ultimately, DP would naturally accumulate as long as we lived comfortably in the dungeon.
Delicious meals, adequate rest, quality sleep. Ensuring those was my duty and goal.
What should I do next when I accumulate DP? Maybe expand the mining area. Or perhaps it would be good to increase the number of monsters to boost our manpower.
In the end, both labor and combat come down to numbers. As long as we can secure food, expanding the maximum number of monsters wouldn’t be a bad option.
That’s right. Increasing the maximum number of monsters would be better. At the moment, I didn’t feel like we were fully utilizing each facility.
I had increased the number of farms considerably, but we still didn’t have enough manpower in the mining and tree plantation areas.
If we increased the number of monsters, it would become livelier, but it would also become more difficult to manage them. After all, it was challenging for me to command all the monsters on my own.
That meant I needed to organize the group. We could divide into departments and appoint leaders for each. The leaders would manage their departments based on their judgment.
I would only need to communicate with those leaders. Yeah, that doesn’t sound too bad.
I would need to have Littleham assist me in this. So I should appoint leaders for agriculture, mining, tree plantation, and so on separately from Littleham.
Let’s start with agriculture.
I stopped fishing and headed over to Littleham.
“Littleham. Do you have a moment?”
“Yes, what is it, Evilham -sama?”
“I want to see the harvest data for the crops. Can you show me?”
“Of course. I have it recorded in this book.”
It was a blank book that I received from Jeet and the others. We were using it for our records.
At this point, we didn’t have the technology to create books in this dungeon, so being able to trade for one was extremely helpful.
“Um…”
I looked at the agricultural data. As expected, compared to the very beginning, the harvest yield was gradually increasing.
This was evidence that everyone was starting to understand the know-how of farming.
Everything grows if you train it. However, my combat abilities were stunted by the staff’s mischief.
Looking at this data, the overall trend in harvest yield was improving, but particularly remarkable was the area managed by the man-eating flower.
The man-eating flower is a plant-type monster. Perhaps that’s why it’s advantageous for growing crops.
Is it true that plants understand plants the best? Well, it might just be coincidence, but if we’re going to choose a leader, it’s better to pick someone with high abilities.
“Littleham. Can you gather the man-eating flowers after work today?”
“Yes, I can do that.”
“Got it. Then please gather the man-eating flowers here. We have an important meeting.”
“A meeting, huh… It’s rare to include the lower-ranked monsters in a meeting.”
Usually, meetings involved just me and Littleham deciding things. In fact, that was the only pattern.
“From now on, we need to have the other monsters involved properly.”
Honestly, I was unsure if the lower-ranked monsters could handle intellectual tasks. Could I really trust them to manage the other monsters?
But nothing would start unless I tried.
I believe in the potential of the man-eating flowers.
