Labyrinth management was going swimmingly.
My initial grand giveaway had firmly captured the hearts of the customers—adventurers, that is.
From now on, like ants drawn to sugar, they would repeatedly challenge the labyrinth over and over again.
The bounty rewards every ten floors were certainly one of the draws, but that was merely the initial hook to get people through the door. The real key was what could be obtained inside the labyrinth.
Starting from floors 11–20, monsters began to coordinate in groups.
Brute force alone would no longer be enough to push through. And on top of that, increasingly sinister traps blocked the path at every turn.
This was where the real game began.
News that the 10th-floor boss had dropped
Rare-grade equipment was, by definition, something that only outstanding weapons and armor made of
The Magisteel produced in the Monster Nation had been created by exposing ore to Veldora's dense Demon Aura emissions, which fundamentally transformed it. As a result, it contained Magicules of vastly superior purity.
Because of this, Magisteel bonded with alloy components far more readily than conventional materials. Weapons forged from such high-quality material inherently possessed Rare-grade performance just by virtue of their composition alone.
And when Kurobei was the one crafting them, even prototype pieces reached Rare-grade status.
However, one important fact had come to light.
Even among weapons of the same grade, there existed differences in performance.
The Rare-grade equipment forged by Kurobei's disciples and Kurobei's own work differed dramatically in quality.
This was a distinction only someone with appraisal and analysis skills could detect.
In a manner of speaking, it was possible for me to copy Kurobei's work, and the resulting product would naturally be the same grade.
But as I had been saying from the start, the performance would be a degraded version.
This appeared to stem from the fact that my forging skills fell short compared to Kurobei's.
From this, I could conclude that weapons had levels too.
An amateur wouldn't be able to tell the difference, and most ordinary weapons merchants probably couldn't either. But for an adventurer staking their life on that weapon, the distinction would be crystal clear.
Most likely, weapons grew with use as well.
And Kurobei probably forged even freshly made weapons with a certain level already built in.
Looking at it from that angle, I had a feeling that appraising a weapon would reveal its level.
The Rare-grade equipment dropped by the 10th-floor boss was the masterwork of Kurobei's finest disciples.
There were differences in skill between disciples, but the performance gap wasn't all that significant. Going forward, I intended to have them continue honing their craft and producing various series sets.
That was the real story behind the scenes.
The equipment dropping from the 10th-floor boss might seem incredible by normal standards, but for us, these were essentially success pieces produced through competition among Kurobei's disciples for their growth.
It didn't exactly break the bank, and I was actually more surprised that they were Rare-grade at that level.
It wasn't as if they dropped every time, either.
The drop rate for Rare-grade equipment from the treasure chest guarded by the boss was set at about 2%.
Even if a party defeated the boss once per hour, they could only open the treasure chest 24 times a day. So obtaining one Rare-grade piece every two days was considered lucky.
I thought it was an optimal drop rate to fuel gambling instincts.
If they were part of a set, human nature would drive them to collect the whole thing, and if they got a duplicate slot, they could trade or sell it.
This gave them even more reason to delve into the labyrinth.
And then there were the inns inside the labyrinth.
Beside the stairs connecting floors, I had placed doors with a conspicuously placed sign reading "Inn."
First, opening that door required one silver coin—equivalent to the labyrinth's entrance fee.
But adventurers had no choice but to use these inns.
The reason was the labyrinth's transformations.
Originally, I had planned for transformations every three days, but Masayuki argued that made it too difficult to clear.
So now, transformations occurred once every seven days, once per week.
He had blitzed straight through using his innate luck, but even so, it had taken him three days to clear the 10th floor.
Very few adventurers could navigate the vast map without getting lost. Using spirit guidance to scout the shortest route had its limits.
That meant spending the night inside the labyrinth was unavoidable.
Even if you secured a room with a treasure chest and slept inside, you still needed someone keeping watch.
Then there was the equipment you'd obtained in the labyrinth—some pieces were too valuable to just leave behind. You needed to prepare food as well, and there was only so much you could carry.
Once your food ran out, you had no choice but to retreat immediately.
You might think the emergency escape function on the Resurrection Bracelet meant you had nothing to worry about about starving, but it tended to encourage people to reduce their food supply to make room.
Given that, it was only natural that the presence of an inn would be appealing.
If you could find the stairs before starving, you'd only need to carry the bare minimum of food.
As for the silver coins needed for re-entry, this was not the time to be stingy.
However, the fees inside weren't cheap, either—not just the initial one-silver-coin entrance, but the charges within as well.
Meals cost triple the usual rate. For sleeping arrangements, despite being cramped capsule-hotel-style spaces where you bunked together in a crowd, the price was still three silver coins per night.
At least they did separate men and women into different buildings.
But no matter how expensive, people would use them. I had installed a large communal bath available for five silver coins, and to my surprise, the customer traffic was quite high.
After fighting continuously inside the labyrinth, covered in blood and sweat, the demand was intense. The equipment cleaning service I'd included proved quite popular as well.
The service quality wasn't as good as at the roadside inns, but in terms of profit margins, the labyrinth interior was overwhelmingly superior.
This particular space had originally been assigned to the Treants, but I'd also repurposed it as a training ground for newcomers.
Those who were still rough around the edges in cooking or had never done customer service before could practice here.
It had only become possible because the profits were higher than expected.
Oh, and the availability of restrooms was another major selling point.
There were no restrooms in a labyrinth. When you were one wrong step from death, you had to be prepared to just go right there if it came to that.
No cleaning was necessary, either. The monsters handled that on their own.
Slimes born in the labyrinth ate absolutely everything—waste, monster corpses, leftovers. Everything.
Even if adventurers killed them, new ones spawned right away, so the labyrinth was surprisingly clean.
But that didn't mean you could just go anywhere you pleased. The bathroom situation was a real problem.
Being ambushed by monsters while in a vulnerable state would make you want to cry. Calling "Time out!" wouldn't work on monsters, you know.
You needed a lookout not just for the big business, but the small stuff too. Urinating, you could at least just go on the move in the worst case, but I personally wouldn't want to do that.
The moment that happened, you'd want to head home—but returning to town only to be spotted with an accident? That would be the ultimate humiliation.
So did you just stay the same until you dried out? Either way was terrible.
In the end, the conclusion was that a lookout was necessary.
If you had a room, you could at least go in there, but it was still a real hassle.
This was manageable for men, but for women, it was a matter of life and death.
Mixed-gender parties weren't exactly rare, and from a bathroom perspective alone, the increase in inn usage was completely understandable.
Incidentally, there was apparently a type of magic called "Physique Management."
It reduced the frequency of bodily functions as much as possible and allowed you to hold everything in. Naturally, there were limits, but it was said to hold for about three days.
Apart from the rare individual who could go during combat without caring, it was practically a must-have spell for any adventurer.
The effect was limited, though, which was another reason I'd recommend the inns.
So, in that fashion, operations were running smoothly.
Entry screening into the Monster Nation was being conducted rigorously.
Unlike before, we now restricted entry to select merchants and those with verified adventurer credentials.
Well, we were on guard against spies, but there were other reasons too.
It came down to classification.
The inns in the Monster Nation had been oriented toward a high-end clientele. There were ordinary ones as well, but accommodating every adventurer would be difficult.
Bringing in hordes of unsavory, unknown individuals in large numbers would overwhelm our ability to respond.
So we drew a clear line, establishing a system where ordinary visitors stayed in the inn town, creating a proper division.
After all, while street fighting was strictly forbidden, it was hard to prevent if some fool started casting magic. With important research facilities also in the area, we had no choice but to screen people.
However, I also wanted to advertise the area as a tourist destination, so we promoted the fact that anyone who cleared the 10th floor would earn the right to stay in town.
Cause trouble, and your privileges would be revoked, naturally.
It was something of a status incentive, and for some reason word had spread about the high quality of the food, which translated into increased motivation.
It was also an opportunity to purchase weapons and armor from the Monster Nation.
Through merchant gossip, rumors had begun circulating among adventurers that the weapon and armor shops here carried exceptional merchandise.
I was, of course, the one who'd started those rumors.
Myourmile had done an excellent job spreading them.
What we'd leaked to the merchants were ordinary weapons and armor crafted by Kurobei's disciples—naturally high-quality, with excellent reputations.
Special equipment and prototypes were displayed but not for sale. We only sold those directly to the buyer.
Anyone who'd cleared the 10th floor was at least B-rank caliber.
They could defeat a B-plus-class Ogre Lord, so they had earned the right to wield strong weapons.
I wanted them to gear up here and push for even greater heights.
Besides, B-rank adventurers had a decent amount of money. Elen and her group had been broke, but that was the exception.
Keeping people without money from flooding in was another way to prevent unnecessary trouble.
You could say I was using the labyrinth to screen adventurers by temperament and strength.
In truth, there was always the possibility Yuuki was planting spies, so I couldn't just accept everyone indiscriminately.
Mind control could be detected as a sort of insect-like concept; remove it, and the influence was broken. Fortunately, no one who'd been flagged with that marker had shown up.
It probably depended on the degree of control.
Hinata had been infested. That was evidence of powerful domination.
Masayuki had not been infested. Yet he had still been under the influence of mind control somehow.
What a troublesome ability.
But for anyone not carrying those insects, my Demon Lord Haki could easily dispel the influence, so it wasn't something I needed to worry too much about.
For now, I needed to maintain entry restrictions while quietly gathering intelligence and staying vigilant.
Then a month passed.
Myourmile approached me, beaming with satisfaction, and gave his report.
"Everything is progressing nicely, Lord Rimuru. Revenue is on a steady upward climb.
Even after deducting necessary expenses like labyrinth drop items, profits remain quite healthy.
The return on investment stands at roughly eleven for every ten invested.
Labor wages for the residents are more than adequately covered. National profit will likely take some time to materialize, however.
As usage increases, that should improve.
Also, merchants have begun visiting frequently, eager to set up trade deals.
Over in the inn town, merchants and artisans dealing in monster materials have moved in. The place has practically become a small town in its own right.
We've even received inquiries about setting up workshops for permanent stays."
Mhm, mhm. About what I'd expected.
As I'd explained before, if all you wanted was pure profit, you could simply sell crafted goods at high prices and call it a day.
But that would generate far too few jobs relative to the flow of people in and out of the nation.
Providing work—and by extension, a sense of purpose—to all the residents was the job of me as their King.
I'd built the labyrinth as a diversion, but it had succeeded in drawing people in as its centerpiece.
Now I needed to have them spend the gold they earned from labyrinth runs on our nation's products.
Products meant not just inns and food, but weapons, armor, and consumables as well.
And in time, word would spread about how good the equipment made in this country really was.
That reputation would propagate through word of mouth, eliminating the need for advertising efforts and pulling in customers on its own.
As a result, the Monster Nation would come to be recognized and needed by a great many adventurers.
High-performance weapons and armor? Very few would question their quality.
After all, the perfect testing ground for purchased equipment was right next door.
And so, gradually, trust in this country would accumulate.
More important than profit was trust.
Running a deficit to make it happen wasn't advisable, but if the overall balance was in the black, labyrinth management could be called a success.
The purpose of creating the labyrinth was to attract visitors and earn this country recognition.
If the labyrinth alone turned a profit, that was a major success.
I gave Myourmile a nod of agreement, and he returned it.
"No problems at all, sir. The foot traffic keeps growing.
And this is with people fully aware that this country is the Monster Nation ruled by a Demon Lord.
I believe we can safely say that, just as you planned, we've begun to earn their trust."
Myourmile affirmed this with conviction.
And he'd said "we." Despite being human, he was thinking entirely from our perspective.
That made me genuinely happy.
Trust couldn't be earned overnight.
There was an old saying: "Trust is hard to gain and easy to lose." Truer words were never spoken.
I had drawn people in by stimulating their desires, but nothing bonded to trust quite as readily as self-interest.
If they came to see this country as the place where their wants were fulfilled, that was trust achieved.
I just had to keep at it, steady and patient.
A relationship built solely on desire was shallow, but it was also an excellent environment for getting to know a person's true character.
I nodded back to Myourmile, and together we celebrated this initial success.
And then there was the inn town.
The inn town housed a workshop run by Kurobei's disciples, established for equipment repairs.
Skilled artisans who'd heard rumors from adventurers had begun settling in the surrounding area, requesting permission to open their own workshops.
These requests had been coming in steadily.
Before long, I had a feeling the inn town would develop into something resembling a satellite city.
Good. That sounded interesting.
I granted Myourmile permission to approve the workshops.
And sure enough, just as I had predicted, a town began forming at the foot of the mines, with satellite developments springing up around the labyrinth on all sides.