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Chapter 153: Phantom Castle

Everyone’s reactions were different when the floor supervisors and assistants were announced.

Drake and Shinku were full of motivation, Kinu and Nelfie immediately started thinking about how to create their floors, while Quereble and Yaou smiled boldly even while seeming surprised.

I had Irs be Drake’s assistant, but with regard to Irs, he also has the task of expanding the Plainevelt dungeon. As mentioned the day before yesterday, the Plainevelt Dungeon is also included in the renovation plan.

The Plainevelt dungeon currently has 30 floors, and Yaou is the boss on the top floor.

However, it seems that Yaou has been training magic barrier under Quereble’s guidance for the past few months. Through this, not only did he learn the magic barrier, but a few days before we returned from the Ibrudia Empire, he had evolved into a race called [Bushiki].

It is, of course, a race which is not listed in the monster encyclopedia. So I had a mock battle one-on-one to test his combat power. I estimate his abilities to be mid to high SS rank, surpassing even the Arch Chimera.

If we were both to fight at full strength, I only have a 50% chance of winning at the moment.

Currently, none of the adventurers belonging to Arto Kingdom can break through the 30th floor! As a result, it was decided that Yaou would be reassigned, and that he would take on the role of both the floor boss and the assistant to the 4th floor of the Phantom Castle under the supervision of Quereble.

We are planning to create up to 50 floors for the Plainevelt dungeon. If we call ours the most difficult dungeon on the continent, we will naturally need that many. I’ve heard that the highest floor in the Wislo Dungeon is the 48th floor. Just a vague recollection, though…

However, the difficulty adjustment up to the 29th floor is generally good, and the lower areas from the 2nd to the 9th floor can be explored by E and D rank adventurers. The 10th to 20th floors are for intermediate C to B ranks, and the 21st to 29th floors are for A to S ranks.

To recap, the current floors of the Plainevelt dungeon are laid out like this.

〈Plainvelt Dungeon〉

[Floor 1]

Beastfolk Village (Plainevelt Village)

[Floor 2-8]

Maze-type Floor (F-D rank monsters)

[Floor 9]

Safety Area

[Floor 10]

Boss Room (Lower B rank: Ricanto)

[Floor 11-18]

Plains Area (D-C rank monsters)

[Floor 19]

Safety Area

[Floor 20]

Boss Room (Higher B rank: Horse-Oni/Cow-Oni)

[Floor 21-23]

Swamp Area (Lower C-B rank monsters)

[Floor 24]

Safety Area

[Floor 25]

Boss/Swamp Area (Lower S rank: Hydra)

[Floor 26-28]

Forest Area (Lower C-B rank monsters)

[Floor 29]

Safety Area

The 30th floor was a Forest Area with an army of monkey-type monsters using traps in the forest to act as a diversion, and Yaou would take advantage of that opportunity to annihilate the challengers. However, since Yaou has evolved and has been reassigned, the floor 30 boss will be summoned anew.

I’ll leave the adjustments to Irs. While continuing to earn more dungeon points, the plan is to gradually place more troublesome traps and monsters on floors from the 30th onwards.

With that out of the way, I have something to do with Ars from now on.

「Aun, what will we be working on?」

「Let’s start working on the exterior of the Phantom Castle right away!」

「Hmm? You don’t want to create a defense mechanism first?」

「Even if you say a defense mechanism, the floor we are supervising is the highest level, no? And we haven’t even decided on a specific theme yet. Once the exterior is completed, it will be easier to imagine the theme, right?」

「What is your true intention?」

「I want to quickly build the castle and raise the excitement…」

「I thought so…. That sounds exactly like you.」

「Haha, so you already guessed it. Well, let’s just have fun!」

And so, we started making the exterior of the Phantom Castle!

First we need to decide on the approximate size, but this has already been decided. It is an extra-large size that occupies about 25% of the Forest of Eternal Darkness. For comparison, it’s about the size of the royal capital Alraine.

There’s a reason why it’s this size. The deepest part of the Forest of Eternal Darkness is a precipitous cliff, and beyond that lies a sea with raging waves. I wanted to use this terrain and incorporate it into a natural defense mechanism, but I couldn’t change the location of the dungeon significantly due to the disrupting the balance of magic essence absorption. So I simply thought that it would be better to expand the size until the cliffs instead.

Dungeon points are also proportional to the size of the building, but if we’re going to do it anyway, might as well make it flashy! So I immediately surrounded the determined area with a huge outer wall, and thinned out the trees inside to some extent. The terrain and the monsters that used to live there are left as they are, but they are all F and E rank monsters, so they shouldn’t pose a threat to the adventurers who have reached this far. Well, I just wanted to preserve the atmosphere of the Forest of Eternal Darkness.

Next is the main body of the Phantom Castle. When I was thinking about this idea, I actually gathered reference materials from all over the Arto Kingdom and worked out a concept. Among them was a painting that grabbed my heart.

The painting, titled “Imaginary Castle”, was painted over 200 years ago by a painter named Simon. The beauty of the silhouette and the intimidating feeling that overwhelmed the viewer easily surpassed all existing castles. Phantom Castle is created by rearranging the painting in my own way.

First, a large “U” shaped building, and 10 spires of different heights erected with bilateral symmetry around it. Add 11 huge spires built in the center back of the U-shaped building. And connect all the spires in a semicircular shape as an aerial cloister.

As a result, when viewed from a distance, the overall balance is triangular, but the beauty of the circle stands out, and the sharpness of the interwoven spires adds an exquisite spice.

For the building materials, the walls are made of black and gray bricks, and the roof is made of dark reddish-brown bricks.

Finally, a huge magic circle is placed in the sky above the castle as a special feature of the dungeon. This is just a decoration with no effect, but it should be able to plant the illusion that people can’t invade the Phantom Castle due to the effect of this magic circle.

「Okay, we will make the finer decorations and the central fountain square later, but the general exterior is done for now!」

「This building is more fantastic than I imagined…」

「Coupled with its size, it’s amazing how intimidating it looks. Or rather, it’s much bigger than the Arto Castle. …Well, it’s fine!」

「At this size, even an ogre can walk around normally. But what about the interior?」

「We will create private areas such as clan members’ bedrooms and baths, dwarves’ workshops, dining room, library, meeting rooms, etc. The ceiling has become a bit too high, but.. It should be fine.

The dungeon points allocated to the elves and dwarves will be used to create the interior. Also, since the building is excluded from dungeons we will be making, there is no way for anyone other than those who have a subordinate contract with me to enter. That’s why it’s firmly secured in the sense of a “safe base”.」

「Oh, so that means that the huge spires behind it will be part of the dungeon, right?」

「That’s right. I plan to set up a teleportation magic circle to enter the dungeon in the fountain square.」

「Fumufumu. I have a general idea now. We will set up a floor in each of those spires, and each floor will be created by the floor supervisor…」

「Exactly. I’m gonna go check on the progress of each floor for a moment. Ars, you arrange the composition of monsters that will protect the highest floor.」

「How many dungeon points can I use?」

「Don’t be shy about it.」

「Understood!」

A few days later, an adventurer discovered a gigantic castle that suddenly appeared in the Forest of Eternal Darkness, and later engulfed dungeon researchers across the Sphin Continent in a vortex of madness and confusion.