7. The Gallery's Unpaid Slaves and Dungeon Expansion
Yeah, the gallery's number two after Joodak in terms of apparent power—but in reality, they're just 'unpaid slaves'. That's right. In exchange for their formidable strength, they've been saddled with the endless task of deleting the grotesque images that keep flooding the gallery.
What they deal with ranges from basic gore pics to shitposts, and even... well, let's just leave it at that.
Oh, of course, they don't only delete the disgusting stuff.
"Don't delete the sexy pics before I get to see them...."
The occasional succubus, elf, or busty beastkin pics that pop up get steadily archived by me the moment they appear. They've become my treasured collection now.
Anyway, the Joodak of this world was no one to underestimate. Pretending to extend a helping hand while naturally conscripting me into being Padak....
If I had been a newbie with barely any community experience, I probably would've happily accepted Joodak's offer.
Realizing that sent chills down my arms.
"Joodak... scary kid...."
The tickets weren't the goal. She showed me favor first just to turn me into Padak and make me an image eraser.
"Kuh... She's not gonna let me off easy, huh...."
"Hm... A gonik feels a bit burdensome... But yeah, impersonators could make fake tickets...."
Turning me into a named user was too much pressure, but the impersonation issue was real, so making a gonik seemed right.
*
Dark room
The girl lounging naked on a luxurious bed while browsing the community lets out a hollow chuckle.
"...What a funny guy. Come to think of it, I heard a new transmigrator arrived in our shelter...."
Could this be that transmigrator? The timing lined up perfectly with the tickets appearing and the transmigrator arriving.
But the girl soon shook her head.
"Nah... No way a newbie transmigrator is this slick." It was just one chat, but she could tell the guy had serious community experience.
Knock knock—
"Tower Master, it's Aisha. I'll leave the research progress report by the door."
Hm... Aisha, huh....
"Come in for a sec." With a wave of her hand, the door opened automatically.
"...? Tower Master?" The elf, who rarely left her room, was inviting her in? Last time, Aisha had to bust the door down because reports piled up outside. This was highly unusual.
"Aisha, I heard a new transmigrator moved into your building as a tenant?"
"How do you know that when you're always holed up in here?"
"...Ways exist. So, what's he like?"
"What... He seems pretty clueless? You're unexpectedly interested in people all of a sudden?" The mysterious elf crossed her arms, eyeing the girl suspiciously.
"Clueless, huh...." That matched what she'd felt chatting with him.
"Alright, just in case, maybe I should check him out myself?" She figured it was unlikely, but better safe than sorry.
The girl strode confidently toward the door.
"Hold on, Tower Master."
"Oh, you coming too, Aisha?"
"No, you planning to go out like that?" The elf sighed, staring at her.
"Ah." The girl looked down at herself. Flawless pale skin, not a stitch of clothing.
"Ugh... Don't wanna get dressed...." In the end, the Tower Master failed to go out today too.
*
"Phew—"
There was the forced conscription crisis, but things worked out with Joodak. She'd watch my back in the community from now on.
The notice would go up later when ticket hype got out of hand. Posting it now would just spread awareness to people who didn't even know about tickets yet.
"I still need time for my abilities to grow anyway."
If the whole gallery learned about dungeon tickets but I couldn't supply even the minimum volume... Ugh, no idea how that'd blow up.
"Whatever."
First priority: expand the dungeon as much as possible.
*
Hm... Skimming the community, I could see info on dungeon tickets starting to leak.
"Info posts already, huh...."
Still, the dungeon had grown decently by now.
Kkomangi shits three times a day—morning, lunch, dinner—with crazy frequency, by the way.
"Hm... Maybe extend ticket duration next?"
But more importantly.
"No other monsters besides slimes in the dungeon...?"
Raising variant spawn rate in the dungeon status would bring new monsters, but it'd just be slime variants. No totally different species.
"Guess it's that, huh?"
I had a hunch. Only food I'd eaten since coming here: slime noodles. Cheap habit from my old world meant daily cheap slime noodles, so Kkomangi only ate those too.
"If I feed Kkomangi other monster materials... maybe new monsters appear?"
Kkomangi's a slime dog, but essentially a living dungeon. My guess: absorb monster genes from materials to spawn new types.
"Alright! Fancy food today, Kkomangi!!"
Hek hek...!!
We excitedly headed to our usual street vendor debt spot.
"Uhyot, gotta try menus besides slime noodles~!" Time to make a new dungeon.