Volume 10 Chapter 4 (1/2)

Together with Ruhe, I travelled to Avalon's new residential district.

My dungeon had two parts: the city floor and the dungeon proper. The dungeon proper was simply the term I designated to all the dungeon floors that wasn't the city floor. It was originally purely for defense, but it wasn't limited to just that anymore.

As for the city floor, until recently, it consisted of two [Plains] room—the first of which was where Avalon was first built and the second was an extension of the city where the casino was placed—and a [Mine] room that was hidden from the humans.

For a while now, housing shortage has been becoming a more and more serious issue in the city of Avalon. Between the residents' houses, the many stores as well as the residence units for the employees of those stores, and more, not much land within the city was left.

And even though I added a second [Plains] dungeon room, it was mostly for the casino, the hotels, and the new stores. Sadly, that also meant that the residence units for the employees of the casino as well as of those hotels and new stores had to be built in the first dungeon room, making the housing shortage even worse.

That was the state of things for now. Of course, sooner or later, there would be others wanting to move here or open their own stores. We were somehow managing with what little space was left, but if we let things be, we would eventually have to turn them down no matter how popular of a store they had or how much they wanted to live here.

That meant a decline or even a halt in Avalon's population growth, which in turn meant a possible stagnation in my DP income. Such was a luxury I couldn't afford.

So, before things come to that, I replaced the [Mine] dungeon room in the city floor with yet another [Plain] dungeon room. To be built there was another residential district.

I needed to discard a dungeon room—having another [Mine] room made it easier, but still—as well as pour manpower and other resources to build the new residential district, but if my estimates were correct, it should house more people than the first residential district.

After a while, Ruhe and I arrived at the newest [Plains] room.

Our guides for today were a Dwarf Smith and a High Elf. They bowed upon meeting up with us, so I bowed back.

From where we were standing, which was on a hill, we could see the whole of the new residential district. Upon seeing it, Ruhe was round-eyed with amazement.

”Woow. Patron, I see a whole lot of houses. But wait, what are those? Those three monstrously big houses there.”

”Those three are called apartment buildings. Each building could house about two hundred people. Well, so long as those people lived by themselves or with just one other person since each offered unit is not that spacious. On the other hand, each one's really cheap. I'll put all the units up for auction, and let the merchants resell or lease it out, essentially making them do the work of finding the tenants. As for the orthodox houses you see, they'll be generally marketed toward families. Each house is going to be priced according to the market price in Avalon. In other words, they're going to be cheap.”

If I just wanted to attract new citizens, I could simply offer each unit for dirt cheap and do nothing else but wait, but knowing the merchants, they would come up with all kinds of schemes to sell all of the rooms in no time.

The houses and the apartment buildings weren't all that was prepared though. Through the cooperative efforts of the Dwarf Smiths and the High Elves, infrastructures such as water and wastewater services were also in place.

Thanks perhaps to the knowledge they gained from the infrastructures already present in the city, they were able to prepare all of it without ever relying on Rorono or Aura's help. The Dwarf Smiths and the High Elves really did a marvelous job.

”Still, I'm surprised it's built already”

”Yeah, I am too. The Dwarf Smiths and the High Elves really put their backs into it. Though I guess their increased numbers helped too”

I had gained a few more DP, so I decided to create more Dwarf Smiths and High Elves to speed things up. And thanks to the expert guidance of the more veteran ones, work was finished even sooner.

Initially, I planned on selling nothing but plots of land—no houses or building—so that laborers and carpenters living in the city could also prosper, but the pressure of the housing shortage in the city made me give up on such notions.

Not completely though. Because we built only enough houses to satisfy the demand for the foreseeable future, there were still plots of land for the humans to build their houses themselves.

By the way, one of the reasons that convinced me to build the apartment buildings was to lessen the number of houses built for one or two people. If I left all of the construction work to the humans, the new residential area would be full of such small houses in no time.

”With this many houses, all the humans that want to live in Avalon would now be able to, wouldn't they?”

”Yes, for a time. I expect the already-built houses to last us for a year, while the apartment buildings should last for two.”

”…only that long?”

”The immigration boom we're experiencing is that strong. It depends on what we do with the still-vacant land, but the residential district shouldn't be full until the five years later.”

Of course, it was a different story if we added more apartment buildings, but it was better to watch and see first before doing so.

”But this is the third dungeon room of the city proper, right? You know, where the entrance to the dungeon proper is. Is it really okay to let humans live here? Won't they be a bother when the Darkness Dragons and such have to deploy?”

As mentioned, even though Avalon was a city, it was still a dungeon.

There were a great number of things in the dungeon proper that I didn't want the humans to see. In fact, I didn't even want the humans to know the dungeon proper existed.

”That won't be an issue. Before that, have you noticed that gigantic building over there?”

”Yeah, it's hard not to. What is it?”

”I think it'll be quicker to just show you. Come.”

I said so and then headed east.

After a while of walking, a white gigantic dome was in front of us.

It had a diameter of 300meters and could easily accommodate more than 10,000 people.

”If land's so scarce, why build this, patron?”

”Because it's necessary. This dome is connected to the dungeon proper, you see. So, without the humans ever noticing, we could gather our troops in there. When we're ready to depart, the dome's ceiling will open up, allowing the Darkness Dragons to fly out while carrying the containers we will be riding.”

The dome should be wide enough to accommodate my monsters as they were preparing to board the Darkness Dragons.

There should be no risk of humans inadvertently suffering from the Darkness Dragons' [Fear] skill either.