139. Breaking the monopoly




 After finishing the day's work, I returned to the mansion with a transfer from the dungeon and came across Elsa waiting for me in front of the transporter room.

'Welcome home, Lyota-san.'
Elsa. What's going on here?
Mr. Lyota has a visitor.
Customer?
The association president is here.

 My brow creased with a cooing between my eyebrows, as much as I could see myself.
 It's Clint, the head of the Cyclodungeon Association, who doesn't come to me without business. He's brought it to me every time something has happened in the past.
 I'm sure he's doing the same today.

Are you at the mansion now?
Yes, in the parlor. And,
And?
There are so many sugar cubes in the garden.
What?

 Elsa told me to look out the window.
 As Elsa had said, there was a large quantity of sugar cubes piled up in the garden at dusk.
 I estimated that it was two or three truckloads, or maybe a year's worth of sugar cubes, as Clint often said.

 That's too much. The only thing that would make me happy to receive a year's worth of sugar cubes is a New Year's gift.

"How much do you mean, you got to pay in advance? I'm in serious trouble, right?
Yes, it's been quite a problem.
Does Elsa know?
We've heard from the store (Tsubame's repayment of the favor). We're at the end of the line, so we haven't heard that much about it.
Hmmm: ......

 Elsa says so, but it's also possible that it's more of a case that has come down to the end.
 Let's brace ourselves, I thought, and I headed for the parlor.

     ☆

 I walked into the parlor and saw Clint sitting on the couch, skinny, skinny, and devouring sugar cubes like a rodent.
 Clint threw the nibbling sugar cube and the still-unbibbled sugar cube together in his mouth and swallowed it down in one go.

 ...... throat, tough.

 Clint stood up and came towards me with his arms outstretched.

'Oh, you're back at last, Satou. I've been waiting for you, Cyclo's benefactor.
I decline for now.
Terrible!

 Clint, who makes a face like, "Gunn.
 No, because you will. When you meet someone you've never met before, what you're going to be asked to do is so important that you want to run away, right?

'I believed Satou was the only one who wasn't like that!
What more do you want? Until you brought all those sugar cubes.

 I sit down on the couch and talk to Clint as he sits back down.

'What do you know about the Clifford family, Satou?
'Clifford? No, I don't know.
'I'm talking about a family that has a virtual monopoly on the sixth to tenth floors of Bismuth's basement.
"Bismuth.

 There are seven dungeons in Cyclo.
 Tellurium, Silicon, Arsenic, Bismuth, and Boran.
 And then add two more, Nihonium, which has an exceptional drop, and Selenium, which has an exceptional location, and that's seven.

 One of them is bismuth. It's a dungeon I've never had to go near because I've never had to.

'What's wrong with that Clifford and Bismuth?
Do you know that the sixth through tenth floors of Bismuth drop wheat?
So?
That's the only place to drop wheat in Cyclo.
...... Is the dungeon on lockdown again?
Not exactly.
"? What does that mean?
'The method of defeating the monsters on the sixth to tenth floors of Bismuth is extremely specific and not everyone can do it. There are other sporadic adventurers spawning, but the Clifford family alone is making us calculate 97% of the amount. That Clifford family has asked us to raise the purchase price of the wheat.
I see.

 If it's 97%, it's a real monopoly.

'Frankly, I'm in trouble. Clifford hasn't taken any radical steps. He's simply saying, 'I'm not willing to work for less than this.'
'It's not like the last strike, is it?

 Clint nodded.
 It's a different story than the guys who sealed off the rice hierarchy before to keep the rest of us out.
 They're raising the price for the good of what only they can do.

In a way, it's also market driven.
But that's not good enough. When the wheat is gone, the inhabitants are no longer in trouble.

 That's certainly true.
 Rice, wheat and potatoes.
 I think these are the top three crops that need to disappear.
 Rice and wheat are, of course, the staple foods, and potatoes, although they are only a part of the earth, are by far the top producer of calories per acre of field, far more than rice.

 However, if they stop producing wheat, we're in more than trouble.

How about raising the purchase price? Also.
'I want to do what I can before that. If it's anything else, I want to keep the market as stable as possible for the essentials.
I see.
'And once you let a story like that through, they do the same thing every time, and it's confusing every time.
She has a point.

 If it's a complete indulgence, you can do what you want, but if it's something like wheat, stabilize it as much as possible.
 It's an understandable story.

"So,

 Clint looked at me.

Do something about it.

 He asked for the impossible.

'So I'm here to talk.

 In the living room at night, I gathered my friends together and told everyone the story that Clint had brought with him.
 Emily, Celeste, Alice, Eve's friends, Elsa, who is on loan, and the new addition, Cerberus.

 I gathered them all together and explained the situation.

'The sixth to tenth floors of Bismuth, right?'
What do you know about it, Celeste?
Yes. I mean, it's a famous place. There's all kinds of information out there, but you can't do anything about it.
Nothing?
'Oh ...... that's a bit different. A place where you can get away with it if you want to, but the effort is too much for it to be worth it.
I see.

 I know what you're talking about.

 The most important thing for adventurers in this world is "efficiency".

 We live in a world where everything is dropped (produced) in dungeons, which means we have to go around every day to get the same amount of stuff to drop.
 To "go around" also means to get rid of "danger".

 The adventurers of this world don't do things that aren't worth the effort or are not worth the effort as much as possible.

 In game terms, the adventurers of this world are the ones who go around endlessly when they are playing an RPG, even 10 levels below the proper level.

Can you manage that?
You can do it.

 Celeste assured her.
 She was the most knowledgeable of her peers and answered immediately without hesitation.

'What do you want me to do?'
'The strategy is simple, we all support each other and let Mr Lyota beat us once.

 Celeste paused her words there, so I knew what she meant.

'So you're saying that we can just fire a series of repetitions afterwards?
''Yes. It's only because Lyota-san has the Ultimate Circumference Magic Repetition and the Infinite Recovery Bullet that she can do this.

 I see.

'I knew you were great, Yoda. I'm already certain that what I've been asked to do will work.

 Emily lifting up. It's true that with a combo of Repetition and Infinite Recovery Bullets, it's possible to mass produce.

'It's hard to do that all the time.

 Yves points out.
 It's nice to be able to shoot Repetition with infinite recovery rounds with a perpetual engine, but this time you have to fill the 97% hole that the Clifford family left out.
 That's 97% of what the flourishing Cyclo city consumes.
 Although it's a task, it's a huge amount of work.

 But.

'I'm sure it will be fine,'

 Now Elsa said.

'In this kind of 'we're the only ones who can do it, so raise the price,' if someone else can do it, I'll pull back in an instant. That's because the premise would collapse.
I know.
'The problem is, if anything, you can attack the outside world when you're doing it,'
"The outfield?
You know, holding his family hostage or something.

 Yeah, I mean.

You'll take care of it. I'm the guardian of the house for my master.
Oh, come on, Cerberus.
Yes!

 Our guard dog said that and let out a round, growling sound.
 That would be pretty reliable if it weren't for the thunder.

Then we'd better get moving.

 I said, and my friends all nodded.

     ☆

 Bismuth Dungeon, 6th floor underground.
 Me and Alice came in the transporter room.

 I was surprised the moment we entered the dungeon.

'This is ...... amazing.'
Yeah, it's beautiful!

 It was a beautiful dungeon, just as Alice thought it was.

 There's something called Bismuth crystals.
 In the same way, the Bismuth dungeon is angular in structure and shines with rainbow colors throughout.

 It's so beautiful that even the stones that broke the walls of the dungeon could be a product of the dungeon.
 Me and Alice came there, and we're enough for the first shot.

 'Rather,' said Celeste, 'Alice is the most important thing.

'But there's really no one here,'
I'm afraid it's not going to be easy.
I don't see any monsters at all, let alone adventurers in the first place.

 I looked around the dungeon.
 Yes, there were no monsters.
 It was just me and Alice standing alone in the vast, rainbow-colored dungeon.

''No, it's not, er, .......''

 Alice said and looked around.

'Ah, there you are. Five seconds to go, four, three, two, one, .......

 Alice turned her head straight to the side and counted down.
 As soon as it reached zero, a single monster appeared as if it was oozing out of space.
 It was a chameleon, about the size of a small dog.

''So this is the monster here?''
Yeah, they say they only show up every ten minutes for five seconds.
'True, it's gone now: ...... I see, this is inefficient.'

 I think I've figured it out somehow.
 This is a very difficult one to mass produce unless you can devise a very specific method.

 I looked at Alice.

The fact that they're counting down now means they'll know when to show themselves.
Yeah, I know. I know. There's another one coming out of there in about 15 seconds.

 Alice looked in the direction she pointed, and as she declared, another individual appeared.
 It appeared and then disappeared again in exactly five seconds.

You can't attack when it's gone, and it's pretty hard for that look, so if you miss a quick attack, it will escape.
I see. This is not worth it.

 I was convinced.
 At the same time, I was relieved.

 I didn't need a second to trigger the Repetition, and if Alice could get to the appearance point, the second one(...) and beyond would be easy.

 As long as I could defeat the first one, the rest was no problem.
 I could already see the formula for victory.

 I was trying to think of an attack method that would give me the maximum firepower I needed for the first shot.

"Where's the next one to come up?

 I was ready to go, asking Alice about it.