Chapter 1

"You have been reincarnated as my Dungeon Master. Please create a dungeon that can lure many adventurers with desire, and extract their blood, magic, and lives through exploration and battles, Master."

A demon with the appearance of a young girl asks me this. Her eyes, which are slanted and have a shifty look, are surrounded by long, wavy hair that spreads out over her body.

Her body is flat-chested, but... she doesn't look like a real child... She looks like an underdeveloped adult woman who appears to be a child, hmm... Quite a sophisticated appearance that I like, not bad at all. While I was thinking about this and looking at her, she looked suspicious.

"Hey... Are you listening?"

She scolded me.

"Ah, yeah... I'm listening. I already know the gist of it from before, when you told me in my 'lifetime.' I was just observing your appearance for the first time."

The young man, who seemed to be in a good mood and was called Master, replied.

That's right... This isn't the first time I've heard her voice. I was on the verge of death in my lifetime. I had been lying in a hospital bed for about half a year with an incurable disease when one day, a voice echoed in my head... The content was almost the same as what I just heard.

"Make a contract with me... If you do, I will reincarnate your soul as a Dungeon Master after your death. As a Dungeon Master, you will lure adventurers with desire."

...I thought it was a hallucination I was hearing as I was dying, but I didn't expect it to be real.

I could even have conversations with this hallucination in my lifetime. I had already received a light explanation about being a Dungeon Master at that time.

And I would play with the idea of managing a dungeon while lying in my hospital bed. Things like, "If I do this, will adventurers come? If I do that, will they avoid it?" and so on.

Unlike the time before I started hearing the voice, when I was just in despair and couldn't move, the time I spent thinking about dungeon management was quite enjoyable. From the time I first heard the voice until I died, it was about three months...

I didn't want to die, and I was just despairing about my fate. But I started thinking, "If I could really manage a dungeon after I die, that would be nice..." and I was able to die more calmly thanks to her. I am deeply grateful for that.

And now, I have really been reincarnated and am being told to start managing a dungeon. What should I do?

"You are the Dungeon Core, and you must lure humans with desire. However, as a dungeon, you don't understand human desires very well. ...That's why it has become a trend for Dungeon Cores to reincarnate souls from another world as Dungeon Masters to manage them."

"It's not exactly a trend... Most Cores resist giving control of the dungeon to humans. But it's also a fact that dungeons managed by humans have a high probability of performing better than those managed by Cores themselves."

That makes sense. I've heard that most Cores think of dungeons where enemies drop gold or gems when defeated. The Cores themselves don't really understand why humans are happy with this. They just know from experience that humans will come if they drop gold or gems, so they design dungeons that way.

The deeper you go into the dungeon, the better the quality of gold and gems you can get. This is the answer that generations of Dungeon Cores have finally arrived at after thousands of years. It makes sense that it would be more efficient to let humans manage the dungeon...

"Isn't it true that you can't get good gems or gold unless you go deep into the dungeon?"

"Yes... The deeper you go into the dungeon, the denser the miasma becomes. This miasma, using the power of the dungeon, can create all sorts of miracles... like turning minerals into gems and giving them to monsters, which humans like. However, the gems created in the lower levels are smaller and less transparent."

"Can you infuse the groundwater with magic to create healing effects, like healing wounds?"

"...It should be possible, but with the miasma of the first level, it might not completely heal even a small cut. At best, it might just speed up the healing process."

"What about mild skin irritation?"

"...I'm not sure, but it might be possible to heal something that minor, right? It's less severe than a wound."

"Can you heat the groundwater to make hot water in the first level?"

"What's that supposed to mean... Well, maybe it's possible to make hot water?"

...If that's the case, can I create the dungeon I was thinking about while lying in bed?

"Alright... I'm going to create a hot spring dungeon."

"...A hot spring dungeon?"

"A dangerous dungeon filled with various hot springs that have beauty benefits. If you bathe in them, your skin will become beautiful!"

"..."

The Dungeon Core couldn't understand. First, this Core didn't even know the concept of a hot spring. And she proposed an effect that makes skin beautiful, not the most desired items like gold or food. The Core doesn't even have the concept of skin irritation. She only knows that there are such conditions in the outside world. However, is it really effective to propose something that heals such conditions? Will people really gather for that? At least, there are no precedents for such a dungeon.

...Well, it's fine. It's the job of the summoned Master to do things I don't understand. Just the fact that she didn't make a suggestion I could think of is enough to give me hope.

"Alright... I'll leave everything to you. I'll give you the energy needed to construct the dungeon, the Dungeon Points. Use this to decide how much to expand the dungeon, how many monsters to summon, and how much of the hot spring, or whatever, to produce. I'm counting on you, Master."

"Got it, got it. I was a big fan of management games when I was healthy in my lifetime. I'll give it a shot."

And so, my dungeon management began.