Dungeon Creation (1)
Jesl, one of the Dungeonology professors at Soul Academy, let out a long sigh as she inspected the dungeon slated for the final exam.
"...It's become far too difficult."
There was no way she could use this as an exam. The moment the other Dungeonology professors laid eyes on this thing, they'd sneer and ask if she'd declared war on the entire first-year class.
Damned fossils. If they're such experts at dungeon design, why don't they write the problems themselves?
They dump every bit of grunt work on the juniors, then waltz off to critique everything — oh, this won't do, that's no good — while contributing nothing.
I sincerely hope every last one of them drops dead.
"Haah. How on earth did the design end up like this?"
As of lunchtime today, it had still been a reasonably serviceable dungeon. So why had it mutated into a hellscape that no student — no, not even a working professional — could hope to clear?
Retracing her steps through the day, Jesl soon arrived at the answer.
It had happened because, in the middle of designing the dungeon, her mind kept drifting to Lucy Aln.
Lucy Aln.
Current top scorer of Soul Academy's first year. A monster already judged to have left the student tier far behind, a genius busy writing new pages into the Academy's history.
And one of the students attending Jesl's own Dungeonology lectures.
The memory of that girl's insolent tone and insufferable smirk made Jesl's hand clench around her pen without her noticing.
Back when Lucy had first entered the Academy, Jesl had actually thought well of her. Ignoring every rumor that swirled around the girl, she had engraved only the striking impression Lucy left on the entrance exam into her memory, convinced that she would rise to great heights someday — and resolved to help her grow.
But that resolve did not last long.
'You call THAT a question? Honestly. Your skills are pathetic, so I guess it's only natural your questions are pathetic too.'
Barely two weeks into the semester, Lucy Aln had become the one person Jesl was determined to knock down a peg.
'Why was I sleeping? Because there was nothing to learn, nothing fun, and not even anything worth looking at. How could I NOT sleep?'
'Don't tell me you thought I wouldn't know this? Puhahaha. Look at that face — so proud of asking a "sharp question." Truly paaaathetic.'
'You don't know this even though you're a professor? Really? Wow. How exactly did you land that professorship, anyway?'
For the rest of the semester, Jesl threw her very best into catching Lucy Aln's mouth hanging open even once. She tried every trick in the book, all for the chance to say you don't even know this?
Yet all those attempts ever earned her was a condescending look and a tone dripping with pity.
'Whaaat? You want me to explain how we got this conclusion? Out of nowhere? Fine then. "Professor Alrn, please, I beg you — bestow your wisdom upon this pathetic, ignorant self-proclaimed professor~" Say that, and I'll teach you.'
Lucy Aln wasn't merely insolent. She was a genius among geniuses, with talent more than equal to her insolence.
"Aargh! This is SO infuriating!"
Shrieking at the memory, Jesl tore the papers bearing her dungeon designs to shreds and scattered them into the air.
That dungeon, stuffed to the brim with every manner of monstrosity out of her single-minded desire to make Lucy Aln suffer, was unusable anywhere. She might as well put it to use as stress relief.
"That wretched brat. If she understands dungeons so well, she should go make one herse— ...Ah."
Yes. Make her build a dungeon.
That's exactly what she'd said — that since a hack like me could never evaluate it, the dungeon would take the exam's place.
Oh, she'll hurl every barb in her arsenal the moment I bring it up. But I can endure that much.
And when she brings the finished dungeon and I get to sneer, this is all you've got? — picturing that future makes it all bearable!
"U-um. Professor?..."
The assistant professor voiced her concern at the sight of Jesl growling at empty air before suddenly breaking into the grin of a madwoman.
Jesl whipped her head around and glared at her, eyes shot through with red.
"Assistant Professor."
"Yes, ma'am!"
"Go to Professor Carl this instant. Tell him I have words for Lady Aln."
Lucy Aln. Let's see if you're good at this too.
Here is what Carl relayed to me.
My current level so far exceeded that of a first-year that the Dungeonology class could not possibly evaluate me through its regular examination. In exchange for awarding me top marks across every evaluation in the class, the creation of the final exam dungeon would stand in for my grade.
"He did seem to have quite a lot weighing on him."
Carl defended the professor with a wry smile, but no matter how I turned it over, this was Dump Work — plain and simple. His own workload had gotten annoying, so he'd shove it onto me. Doesn't the man have a slave of his own? If cranking out exam problems was such a chore, he should've ordered the slave to do it. Why dump it on me specifically? I genuinely can't figure it out.
"Will you be declining?"
Apparently mistaking my head-tilt for reluctance, Carl offered to go back to the Dungeonology professor and negotiate on my behalf.
'No. I'll do it.'
"Even a smart puppy would read the room faster than you. The title Incompetent Dog is wasted on you, loser."
Because he's handing me the chance to build a dungeon with my own two hands!
And not some dungeon on the other side of a screen — an actual dungeon that will be used in a real exam!
You think I'm crazy enough to refuse THAT!?
He's letting me build a dungeon free of charge — I'd have paid him everything I own and then some — AND guaranteeing my grades on top of it!
Boss, you're completely insane. I mean — Professor, you're completely insane!
I absolutely will not refuse.
No — I can't refuse.
If that Dungeonology professor tries to go back on his word later, I will kidnap and imprison him if that's what it takes to finish this dungeon!
This was my dream!
When was it, again. Back before I ever set foot in this world — back in the days when I used to run my mouth about how a game you'd burn out on after a measly few thousand hours had nothing left to offer, how it was nothing but a trash cash-grab.
That was when I once tried to build a dungeon of my own.
It started, as these things do, with a flame war against one particularly toxic modder on the forums.
After leaving behind the answer that even something slapped together with my feet would beat whatever trash this modder had produced, I dug up every scrap of information I could find in order to actually build the thing.
In the beginning, I harbored a grand dream of crafting the greatest mod of all time with my godlike knowledge — but that dream shattered against the wall of reality.
For one thing, Soul Academy was not a game that shipped with modding tools.
And for another, I knew absolutely nothing about programming.
At first, determined to defend my petty pride, I even bought a textbook, swearing I'd learn to code if that was what it took. But that enthusiasm didn't last long either. In under a week, I had listed You Can Do It Too! Teach Yourself Python! on the secondhand marketplace, bowed in full dogeza to that modder, and bought him hamburgers as penance for my own idiocy.
Even after that, whenever I ran into some deranged mod, the thought of building a dungeon of my own would stir again — and every single time, I failed. Not once did I ever succeed in making one.
I'd resigned myself to it being a wish I'd never fulfill in this lifetime. And now, the day to make that dream come true has finally arrived.
Just off the top of my head, there are already dozens of gimmicks floating around in my skull.
Since this is a dungeon built by the Academy, I can't exactly cram every last one of them in. But that's fine. A dungeon's quality isn't measured by how many gimmicks it holds.
"What happy news could you possibly have? You're looking awfully cheerful."
I was still pondering what kind of dungeon to build when Arthur, having just finished his sparring match, addressed me.
"Maybe I'm just amused that His Highness the so-confident Third Prince ended up losing to little old me."
"You clawed your way to that victory tooth and nail, and you have the nerve to spout nonsense! Had you not hurled your sword and charged at the very last moment, I would be the one standing victorious!"
"That's right. His Highness did very well. You were merely a loser compared to me."
"One misstep and you would have LOST!"
"Yep. Won by pure luck. Wow. So exciting."
Watching Frey dismantle Arthur with a blank face and a bone-dry voice, I couldn't help but blink.
Frey. Was she always this good at talking back?
She was the type to do her own thing and send people's blood pressure through the roof with sheer obliviousness — but she never used to provoke anyone directly.
...Could that be because of me?
Did sparring with me teach her the art of the taunt?
Come to think of it, she did have quite a bit of fun provoking me back at the first-semester finals.
Having realized, with no small horror, that I had created a monstrous chimera, I quietly took a step back.
"Again! This time I'll definitely—"
"No. You're a loser, Your Highness. Boring."
"Are you so afraid of losing to me?!"
"Yeah. Terrified. So I'll pass."
"Y-y-y-you!... FREY KENT!!"
It was Carl who mediated the pair's squabble. He seized the rapidly-unraveling Arthur and put an end to the bickering by swearing that the duel had been dead even — that whichever of them won, it would have surprised no one.
Frey did slip in a few more jabs along the way, but a pronouncement from Carl — a strongman even I have never managed to beat — carried its own authority. In the end, even Frey had no choice but to accept it.
Time passed, Arthur reclaimed his composure, and after a long sigh, he circled back to where the conversation had started.
"So then, Lucy Aln. Why were you laughing?"
'It's just...'
"Turns out I'll be building the final exam dungeon on behalf of that self-proclaimed Dungeonology professor who nobody can figure out how he got his chair in the first place. And when I think about all the little losers who'll be crawling and wheezing through it, the laughter just comes out on its own."
"...What? You're building the final exam dungeon?"
At my words, Arthur turned to Carl to confirm whether I was telling the truth. When Carl dipped his head in a nod, Arthur spun back toward me, drew a deep breath, and spoke with a gravity I would never have believed from the man who'd been shrieking at Frey mere minutes ago.
"Lucy Aln. I ask but one thing of you. I beg you — do not calibrate the difficulty to your own standard. If you do, I fear a catastrophe in which the entire first year fails."
He built up the atmosphere so magnificently, I wondered what wisdom was coming — and it's nothing but needless worry.
'I know that.'
"Pitiful Prince♡ Did you really think I don't know that most first-years are so pathetic the word 'loser' is too generous for them?"
"Of course you'd know! But you have no common sense whatsoever! I can see it all without even looking! You'll be thinking 'this is easy enough' right up until you produce some freakish dungeon that not even a third-year could clear!"
Arthur's voice climbed higher and higher as he doled out advice of every variety. Don't take lives. Don't give anyone dungeon trauma. Remember that other exams lie in wait.
I'm not so oblivious that I miss the fact all this counsel springs from worry for me. So yes, I know I ought to take it to heart.
But still.
Even well-meant lectures have their limits, you know? Cross the line, and things get awkward. You start understanding exactly how tyrants feel.
"Do you understand?! Let me say it once more—"
"Pitiful Prince♡ My, you do chatter on like a little schoolgirl♡"
"...What. Why are you raising your mace."
"It sounds like you'd like to become a Pitiful Princess♡ So I've decided to help you out, specially, just this once♡"
"I-I... I merely meant to advise you, and it seems I overstepped. I apologize. So might I ask you to lower that, er, ferocious weapon?"
"Aw♡ No need to hold back on my account♡"
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I spoke out of turn! I'll do anything you ask, so please, I beg you, put it down!"
"How wonderful. I'm delighted too♡ If only I'd known sooner that the Pitiful Prince was a pervert who dreams of becoming a little girl, what a shame it would have spared us both♡"
As I rested the mace on my shoulder and took a single step forward, Arthur hastily raised his voice toward Carl and Frey.
"Don't just stand there watching — help me! At this rate I'll—"
"I'm terribly sorry, Your Highness. It is my lady's will."
"Lucy's not a loser, and she's scary. Sorry."
"You heartless wretches! I shall never forget this day, not to my dying breath!"
Roaring with frustration, Arthur drew his sword and backed away a step at a time.
"How very bashful — just like a boy going through puberty♡ Scampering away from a girl as angelic as me♡"
"That's right — an angel you are! The angel of death, come to herald my passing!"
Goodness. What drama.
Relax, Arthur. I'm not going to kill you.
I'm just going to check whether you slacked off on your training while I wasn't looking, that's all.
So go ahead and roll around on the ground — right up until the very brink of death.
Understood?