Midnight, Auldurm dungeon, first floor underground.

'd*mn it!　An adventurer's hunt!
If I knew, I would have let you out...
Sorry, but that's it.

　He put the muzzle to the man's back, the man who had been threatening the adventurer with a scornful look on his previously scornful face freaked out and his face strengthened.

'Lyota Satou!
You know, you're a lot easier to talk to.
Nonsense, it's too soon. You're not ready to--
What do you think?　If you leave Aulum like this and never come back, I'll let you off the hook.

　He presses the muzzle further on the man, lowering the tone of his voice and threatening him.

'Wow, okay. Just let me go, I won't come back.
Are you sure?
It's true!
Okay.

　I lowered my gun and the adventurer-hunting man ran away like a de-rabbit.
　Finally, he turned around, looked at me, clicked his tongue, and disappeared from the dungeon.

　He probably wouldn't come again.

　Aulum, who was totally used to it, was able to recognize the "signs of an adventurer hunt" and I could run to him before he actually hunted me, the moment he did it, like now.
　Even if it's late at night, like now, when normal people are asleep.
　With Aulum's advance warning, I could wake up from my sleep and rush to the scene in plenty of time.

　So I started crushing all the adventurer hunts, and the number of adventurer hunts decreased rapidly.
　Soon it would be gone completely.

　I put my gun away and spoke to the adventurers.

"Are you okay?
Oh. Oh. Uh...

　The adventurer, a young man, sat there.

'What's the matter?　Did you get hit somewhere?
'Oh?　Oh no, I'm just tired. I've been on a late-night hunt for a while now on my boss's orders.
"Midnight hunts?
'There are fewer adventurers late at night, and there's less competition for monsters.
Oh, I see.

　A young adventurer tells me this makes sense.

　There is a limit to the number of monsters in a dungeon - or rather a maximum number that can exist at the same time.

　If you get hit by one of them, the dungeon will spawn a new monster, but it will never spawn more than the limit. There is never a limit to the number of monsters that exist.
　And when the number of adventurers exceeds the limit, some adventurers will not be able to hunt the monsters, of course.
　So they will fight each other, and the Dungeon Association will ban side-swipes to prevent them.

　I guess one of the ways to avoid this is to hunt late at night.
　Of course, adventurers are human, and late night is the time when most of us go to sleep.
　It's no surprise that there's less competition if you go into a dungeon late at night.

"You're all alone?
Yeah, the bosses are in the daytime and I'm in charge of the night. He's the same as me, but everyone else is old and weak at night. That's just the way it is.
Is that what you want?
I wouldn't do it if I didn't have to.

　The man shrugged, palms up. He also wore a ludicrous smile.
　If you look closely at the man's malaise, he reminded me of a late night part-time worker's one-man operation, but if he's convinced, it can't be helped, I thought.

　　　　　☆

　The next morning, I used the transporter room to come to Aulum's room.
　The spirit of this dungeon, Aulum, with horns on his head, wings on his back, and a gothic loli outfit on his head, was the spirit of this dungeon.
　The spirit, which still has a juvenile look to it, welcomed me with a smile.

''Lyota!　We're going to be okay today, okay?　I don't see anything like that in the dungeon.
'Well. Thank you so much, Aulum saved my life.
No, no, you said it.　I didn't do much.
Thanks nonetheless. ...... Did you say there's nothing like that in the dungeon right now?
Yeah, they're gone. The ones we have now - yes, all the faces we know, the ones who usually only fight monsters.
Okay. Maybe I should go somewhere else to thank you.
Really!　I want to go to Lyota's house. I know you've moved into a new house.
'Well, I don't remember you being here before.　All right, let's go then.
Yeah!

　I pull my gun out and I put it back in.

What's going on?
No, I just think it's better this way.

　Instead, I held up my hand.
　Taking out Aulum requires the procedure of taking her out, taking her down once and hatching her into a haglemono outside, which is why I've been taking her out after shooting her with a gun.

　It's a necessary procedure, and he doesn't mind it, but I'm sure holding a gun to her is not a very favorable picture.
　So I decided to use magic instead of a gun.

"Repetition.

　Chanting magic, magic that instantly kills an opponent once defeated.
　The moment Aulum turned into a metre cubic lump of gold, as usual - the moment.

　I was stunned, I felt so dizzy that I couldn't stand still.
　I know this feeling, I'm out of MP.

　Repetitions consume different amounts of MP depending on your opponent's strength, or rank, or something like that.
　The real master of the dungeon, the spirit Aulum.
　The MP needed to kill her instantly is so much more than a full SS that it goes from full to 0 in an instant.
　It was the most MP consumed I've ever been forced to consume.

'That makes sense, though.'

　Muttering, I put the muzzle to the base of my elbow and fired a series of infinite recovery rounds to recover my MP.
　This one wasn't a bad picture, partly because it's a recovery, and partly because it's a gun but it doesn't look like an injection.

　After I had fully developed my MP, I carried the awlum (1 cubic meter of gold) and returned to the mansion through the transfer gate.

　　　　　☆

　The saloon in the mansion, Aulum was lounging there in the setting sun.
　He was sitting deep on the sofa, looking riddled with a look he hadn't seen in the dungeon at all.

'It's nice here, it's very restful,'
Yeah. It's all because of Emily.
I'm too peaceful-- oh, my God, Lyota!

　Aulum gives him a troubled look.

'What's the matter,'
I don't want to leave this place.

　Aurum complains about it with an impatient look.
　He looks and speaks like a man trapped in a kotatsu.

　...... Well, I get it.
　The warmth of the house Emily is tending has a magical power to captivate people.
　It's no longer a kettle of fish.

"Would you rather live here?　There's plenty of room.
'No!　--No, that's a bad idea.
No?
'Yeah, it's fine to go out and play, but I'm going to sleep outside - I won't be dungeon dropping if I have to stay out or something.
'Yeah, that's a problem: ......
Bring him back with you. You can go out in the daytime.
No problem. What can I do for you every day... hmm?
What's going on?

　Aulum relaxed on the couch, craning her neck to look at me.
　I ruminated on her lines.

　I'll sleep outside - if I stay out or something, I won't dungeon drop.

　That line repeated in my head.

'Hey, what's really going on?　I mean, it doesn't have to be every day, you know?　Occasionally. I'm a genie, so I have a different sense of time than you humans do.
Auldurm!
Wha-what? ......

　Aulum drew back as he crowded in.

'Is that true now?'
What was that?
'I've heard that if you stay out of the house, you don't get a drop.
Yeah, ......, which technically means unconsciousness outside the dungeon, but ......

　What does it matter?　He looks at me with a look that says, "You know what?

　I've thought about it.
　I've been thinking.
　As an adventurer.
　As the head of the dungeon society.
　And as a former employee.

　I thought about it from many, many angles.

"Aw Lum, why don't you come live with me? I'll pick you up every morning.
So if I fall asleep outside, that's when the drop--
It's a good night at home.　Emily's coming back, and everyone else - oh yeah, and Bonbon, too.
Bonbon?
I know he's with Alice, but I'm sure he and Aulum would be on the same page.

　Because I was born in Aurum.

　After being persuaded, Aulum felt depressed and looked up at me.

"Are you sure?
Yeah.
Thank you, Lyota.

　He said with a sly smile.
　Thus, the spirit of the Aurum Dungeon, Aurum, came to live in our mansion.

　　　　　☆

　The next day, the village of Indor.
　I issued a public announcement in the name of the head of the Indor Dungeon Association.

　It was a public announcement that Aulum would not drop after midnight.

　Adventurers were standing in front of the notice and discussing this and that.

It's going to be inconvenient not to drop at midnight.
No, people are asleep at night, it's not that different without it.
Some people don't, do they?
'I know it's not mentioned here, but has there been an increase in drops?　I've had an increase before, and it looks like there's another one?

　I looked at the arguing adventurers out of the corner of my eye.
　At a glance, there are a few people who complain about it, but most of them just think that it's not going to change anything.
　Most of them are sleeping late at night anyway.

　That's just how it is, isn't it?
　When I saw the news that a family restaurant might stop operating late at night, I was thinking the same thing.

Hey.
Hmm?

　I was approached from the side.
　When I turned around, I saw a young adventurer standing there.
　It was the young adventurer I had saved late night before last.

'It's you, isn't it?'
No, it's a genie's whim. Spirits like to sleep at night.
'Well, ...... then, tell the genie, please.'
Hmm?
Thank you. Now I can sleep at night.
Yeah, I'll tell him.
Thank you so much.

　The young adventurer looked me straight in the eye and told me so.
　I hoped that the next time I saw him, he would be a little more jaded, I thought.