That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, Vol. 8, стр. 51
This was the basic scheme of things up to Floor 5; the mazes gradually got trickier, but otherwise, no difference. Floor 6, though, is where things got tough. The traps would make their debut here, although nothing truly vicious up to Floor 9, so nobody would die from them (probably). A seasoned adventurer would cruise past them. If I made things too hard too fast, it’d discourage repeat traffic, and that was out of the question. I wanted to be kind with the first nine floors’ design.
That all changed with Floor 10. Here, I placed a single monster who was, shall we say, kind of strong. In other words, this was a boss room. Defeat it, and a door would open to the floors below.
“What kind of monster did you go with, Rimuru?” asked Ramiris.
“I’ll decide on that once I see how these guys are spawning, but… We haven’t seen any so far, have we?”
No, we had yet to encounter a single monster, all the way down to Floor 10. Veldora released his aura a week and a half ago, but it still hadn’t resulted in any baddies.
Understood. Even with his aura hidden, monsters can still detect the presence of the subject Veldora. Few would want to approach him.
Oh. I see.
“I guess monsters born from the magicules you released can pick up on his presence. They’re too scared to go near him.”
“What?! So that’s why!” said Veldora, convinced. “No wonder I never saw many in my presence inside the cave I was sealed in.”
I think it’s more like the weaker monsters literally couldn’t take the heat from him. But regardless:
“Well, I’ll figure something out. One way or another, I want just a kinda strong monster in here, ranked B or thereabouts.”
“Hmm… All right,” said Ramiris. “I don’t want any unintelligent beings among my lackeys, but if you find the right monster, bring it in here and put this collar on it!”
I accepted the collar, which apparently let the wearer be resurrected even if they hadn’t forged a formal pact with Ramiris. That helped a lot. It meant I didn’t have to find a replacement every time someone killed the guy.
“Wow, convenient. That’ll save us a lot of trouble.”
“Right? Remember, in this labyrinth, what I say goes!”
It probably did, too. Her skill let her change the effects of pretty much any item in here. I realized once again how much of a pity it was that I couldn’t learn it for myself.
That took care of the boss issue. The boss room formed the entirety of Floor 10, making it perfectly safe after the battle was over. Beyond the room lay a save point and a simple stairway down. And let’s not forget about the treasure chest! The one in the boss room had no trap installed, but I did carefully adjust the rates at which you’d find certain weapons or armor inside. In subsequent floors, however, there’d be both hidden chambers and chest traps.
Mimics would debut in Floor 20 and below—pretty diabolical, but that’s the thrill of a labyrinth like this. Being able to experience something like this in real life was something I thought I deserved praise for.
But it wasn’t all threatening stuff. With abundant magicules all over the labyrinth, the swords and lances found inside could start to get a bit magical themselves. Getting your hands on stuff like that was worth risking your neck a little, I thought. With a Resurrection Bracelet, nobody was going to die, so I figured revving up the difficulty would make it more fun and exciting. I couldn’t wait to see how the adventurers would react to all this.
Finally, we wrapped up our inspection of the first ten floors. “Well, now what? Should we set up someplace on this floor where you can sell the stuff you found or put it in storage for safekeeping?”
“Oh? Do we really need that? Because then we wouldn’t be able to sell any return whistles.”
Ah. Right. Ramiris actually had a great point. She was always sharp with issues related to money, I guess.
“True. Not much point putting ones up in floors with save points. How about safe zones starting in the middle dungeons, say one every five levels?”
“Oooh, that could work!”
We could offer storage for items found, sell healing potions at marked-up prices, and offer some simple fare to eat. The labyrinth could have doors at regular levels that connected to a single zone, so we wouldn’t need to construct separate zones all across the maze. It wouldn’t be that much work to implement. Would more people opt to go outside when they needed a break, though? It’d depend, I suppose. Return whistles were meant as insurance, after all, so maybe we could price them on the higher side. I decided to reconsider that once this labyrinth made its debut.
As we chatted about this or that labyrinth-related issue, we continued to inspect each floor—and as we checked out all the little details, the labyrinth slowly approached completion.
Finally, we were done with the hundredth floor, generally satisfied with ourselves. To be frank, the complete labyrinth ventured far beyond mere viciousness.
…Based on the skills of the average adventurer, low-level monsters and a labyrinth would provide enough of a difficulty level. Adding crafty traps and a legion of upper-level monsters, the term vicious seems rather tepid a description.
Sorry? I didn’t hear that. Raphael sounded a bit exasperated with me, but I’m sure, of course, that I was just imagining it.
I’d learn not much later that I definitely wasn’t imagining it. Between