Chapter 112: Classic Adventurer’s Guild Fanservice

The new [ Dungeon Remodeling ] option came with four major functions.

The first was storage, which let her pack away anything her dungeon contained, from individual buildings to entire zones. The luxurious chamber, for example, or even the labyrinth she had built with Aria right at the beginning.

The only thing that couldn’t be stored, but could still be moved thanks to a dedicated option, was the dungeon core itself.

Next came floor creation, which was simple enough to grasp. For a mana cost determined by the size of the area, Freya could mark out a space and register it as a floor of her dungeon.

Which then allowed the third option to fill them in.

Dungeon configuration, by far the most mana-hungry of the lot, let her set a specific parameter and a biome for each floor. And the list it contained was so long that the possibilities were all but endless.

And finally, the fourth option was the icing on the cake.

Assigning a floor administrator. Or, as she preferred to call it, a floor boss. Which granted the chosen individual a whole range of bonuses inside that floor, along with a live map of it and a number of readouts.

That was what [ Dungeon Remodeling ] offered a Dungeon Lord, and it was obviously an incredible option for them.

After several hours of thought, on top of everything she had already turned over in the preceding days, Freya had finally settled on how to remodel and lay out her dungeon.

She had done her utmost to make it as optimised as possible. But she knew one thing, and she had known it since her old life.

There was a difference between imagining it and trying it.

So what better than passing myself off as an adventurer and trying it out myself~!

And when Freya said herself, she of course meant her replica, while her real body stayed nice and warm inside the dungeon.

Well, "nice and warm" wasn’t quite the term. Because in her replica’s absence, she was the one turning into the bookworm, all while running the dungeon.

But even so, through her replica’s senses, she could feel that atmosphere so specific to every adventure novel.

That of an adventurers’ guild.

Two figures in full armour, helms included, forged from metal set with jewels here and trimmed with silk there, pushed open the great doors of the building.

The premises had only just been bought up, a former merchant hall across three floors with the expansion work not even finished, so that you could still hear the carpenters’ hammers in the east wing.

The smell hit them first. Spilled beer long since soaked into the wood, fresh sawdust, stew simmering somewhere at the back, and over all of it the sweat of a hundred bodies packed in since dawn.

Coarse laughter rose from the table at the far end, where four men were already drinking despite the hour. Further off, in front of the great board covering the entire wall, thirty or so people crowded in silence, fingers raised to a line, copying information onto scraps of paper.

The two women crossed the room to the counter.

Nobody looked at them, everyone far too busy with their own business.

Freya, on the other hand, was taking in everything, as she always did.

There were a great many people here. Outside too, the street was full of groups checking their equipment even though the day had barely broken, all of them ready to set off.

Looks like even in this little time, everyone’s already rushing toward my dungeon~!

"Good morning, ladies, what can I do for you?"

The woman at the counter had leaned forward to greet them, both hands flat on the wood, which pressed a generous chest heavily against it, a chest the guild uniform clearly wasn’t making much effort to contain, the round curves flattening under the pressure.

Freya looked at her for a moment without saying anything.

Ah. This one too.

She had seen the exact same thing in every story she’d read in her old life, and apparently this world wasn’t about to break with tradition.

Well, cliché or not, they’re the shop window of the guilds. It’s always worked that way, and it’ll keep working that way for a long while yet.

Which is still a bit sad to see. But then... another world, another era, and above all cliché obliges, I suppose...

And while she was mulling all that over, her eyes hadn’t shifted a single inch.

It was the woman beside her who pulled her out of it, and there was a distinct irritation in her voice as she answered in her place.

"We’re here to register as adventurers."

"Ah, more newcomers! It really doesn’t stop these days. Fill out these forms and I’ll take care of the rest."

She bent down beneath the counter to grab the sheets, and everything that had been resting on the wood swung forward at once, her heavy chest compressing and bouncing softly before settling back into place as she straightened up.

And the floorboard under the foot of the woman accompanying Freya creaked, almost imperceptibly.

Freya, who had no idea about any of that, lost in her own thoughts, was wondering whether their armour was striking enough that the receptionist hadn’t even asked if they could write, which wasn’t all that common in this world.

Maybe we overdid it with the ornamentation? Although Laïa did think we looked so pretty...

On that thought, she filled out the form anyway without a word.

Once it was done, the woman took the sheets back and started reading.

"So... Frelja and Arielle?" she said with a smile.

"That’s correct," Arielle answered, rather coldly.

"Lovely~ Lovely~ Welcome to you both! But before that, there’s one more step."

She bent down beneath the counter again, lower this time, reaching for something right at the back.

The movement rolled her chest along the edge of the unit, which lifted it and then released it all at once in a full, heavy bounce.

BOING~

And this time, the floorboard under Arielle’s foot creaked considerably louder.

Frelja heard it, and laid a hand on her shoulder.

Easy. Easy, Aria!

When the receptionist finally straightened up, everything came up with her, her chest swaying for a moment before settling back into place.

BOOOING~~

Frelja took the opportunity to step in front of Arielle, officially to see what she’d pulled out, and incidentally to put herself as squarely as she could between the two women, for fear a head might go flying.

And then she saw it.

A crystal ball, sitting in the middle of the counter.

Her eyes lit up beneath her helm, which thankfully hid the expression that came with it.

Don’t tell me that’s the famous orb from the start of every adventure?!!

"An appraisal orb! Place your hand on it, it’ll measure your mana and your strength, so we can determine your rank, if you would."

Frelja didn’t think about it for another second and slapped her hand down on it.

The light went off all at once.

A deep violet burst out of the crystal and filled the entire hall in one motion, lighting up the beams all the way to the third floor, the faces, the great board at the back.

Every single person in the room turned and stared.

Really?! Really?! This is happening to me?! The moment where I’m the chosen one?!

Frelja was letting herself get completely swept up in it, the excitement going straight to her head, when the stone cracked.

"Huh?"

She lifted her eyes to the woman in front of her without understanding.

But it was the cheering of the entire guild that caught her off guard.

"A RANK S!"

"ANOTHER RANK S?!"

"To the new girl!"

A dozen glasses went up at once at the far table, and the four men who had already been drinking finally found a legitimate reason to keep going. Hands clapped her on the back. Someone shouted a name at her that wasn’t hers. An old adventurer grabbed her forearm and hauled it up in the air, laughing, saying something she didn’t catch.

Frelja was laughing too, carried along by all of it.

Then, once things had settled, everyone turned to the next one.

The slightly taller woman, in armour just as extravagant, who hadn’t said a word since the beginning.

Arielle stepped forward and laid her hand on the new crystal, which the receptionist had fetched in a hurry.

Golden light flooded the entire hall.

Not a deep violet this time. Gold, everywhere, on every wall, in every corner, right across the stunned faces rising from their benches.

The shouting redoubled behind her. Someone knocked over a tankard. Somewhere, a chair went down.

But Frelja wasn’t hearing any of it anymore.

She was looking at the woman in armour, standing in the middle of that golden light running along the metal of her pauldrons and climbing up her helm.

You really are the most beautiful thing in either world, Aria~

So she crossed through the adventurers who had gathered closer, without bumping into a single one, without taking her eyes off that golden silhouette in the middle of the hall.

And she came and pressed herself against her.

She took hold of her arm the way a lover would, entirely naturally, the cheek of her helm coming to rest against the pauldron, and through the metal she felt the exact moment Arielle’s body eased.

The gloved hand came to rest over hers in the same motion, without a moment’s hesitation, and the fingers closed gently around it.

Then Arielle tilted her head toward her, just slightly, and nothing else moved.

They stayed like that a second too long in the middle of that guild still roaring around them, without saying anything, because there was nothing to say.

And here I was thinking you were going to kill that receptionist for me~

Arielle’s thumb ran slowly across the back of her hand, once, which meant roughly whatever do you mean, madam? That wouldn’t be like me at all.

Freya smiled beneath her helm.

Then Frelja turned her head toward the woman at the counter.

"Could we have our badges, then~?"

"O-Of... of course!"

She hurried off toward the back counter, and everything she had came along a beat behind her, her chest bouncing heavily in the wake of the movement.

BOING~

But this time, the floor didn’t creak. Freya could feel it, under her helm, Aria was thoroughly happy, practically humming now that she’d been reassured.

For her part, she was just as happy, though for an entirely different reason.

She had finally got her hands on the famous guild registration fanservice, complete with the receptionist, the appraisal orb, and all the madness that came with it.

It was incredible~! A little stressful because of Aria, admittedly... But incredible!

~~

Later that evening, Elise, the guild’s receptionist, came home and collapsed onto her bed.

She looked down at her own cleavage, stayed quiet for a few seconds, then slowly raised her eyes to the white ceiling.

"Aaaaah..."

She let out a long breath.

"Why did I take this job again...?"