subordinates and increase their individual strength. Afterwards, Ricklent, the genie of time and magic, used his secret magic to turn them into places that humans could use to train and obtain materials.

The basic principle behind their appearance was that when a certain place was corrupted with a certain amount of magic, there was a corresponding probability that a Dungeon would form. Their shape, size and degree of danger varied greatly, and some of the first Dungeons that had appeared over a hundred thousand years ago still hadn't been discovered yet.

There were Dungeons that only consisted of one floor that couldn't be distinguished from a normal cave, home to only weak monsters like Goblins, but there were also enormous fortress-like Dungeons with over a hundred floors, crawling with high-rank monsters that even A-class adventurers would have a tough time getting through.

And as the requirement for the formation of a Dungeon was for magical power to contaminate the earth, most Dungeons existed only in Devil's Nests...

「Is this place a Devil's Nest?」

『Probably not. If this were a Devil's Nest, we would be seeing a lot more monsters coming out. This is likely a rare Dungeon that has appeared outside a Devil's Nest.』

As Darcia said, Dungeons forming in normal forests and fields were rare, but not unheard of. But in such cases, the Dungeons were often not very dangerous.

But if left alone for too long, the monsters multiplying inside the Dungeon would eventually emerge from it and turn the surrounding area into a Devil's Nest.

There were apparently continents in Lambda whose entire land surface and surrounding oceans had become Devil's Nests due to this process repeating numerous times.

「So then there should be a lot of monsters in here that aren't too strong. Judging from the grass growing thickly in front of the gate, it seems that adventurers haven't been here in a while... Alright, let's stop by and go inside.」

Dungeons. The fantasy-like sound to the word and the sense of adventure excited Vandalieu.

Though the ones who would actually do the adventuring and fighting the monsters would be Bone Man and the other Undead.

That couldn't be helped, since he was still only fifteen months old.

Around the time that Vandalieu was preparing to enter his first Dungeon, Degan, the guildmaster of the Adventurers' Guild in the town of Terow was watching three adventurers glaring at each other with a troubled look on his face.

The three people here were each a leader of an adventurer party that was well known here in Terow.

Cashew, the leader of the D-class adventurers' party, the『Wind Chasers.』Barn, the leader of a similar party called the『Steel Wings.』And Miranda, the leader of the『White Stars.』

It was safe to say that none of them were famous on the national level in the country of Mirg, and none of their abilities surpassed the D-class level. However, in this modestly-sized commercial town of Terow where there were no Devil's Nests nearby, they were top-class adventurers.

In fact, they had repelled bandit attacks numerous times and overcome the explosive increase in the Kobold population. They were known as heroes here in Terow.

They had accepted a request to exterminate a lost Ogre together and searched the forest near Terow, and had discovered a Dungeon on the way back.

Only the members here, the town's feudal lord and his aide knew about this, but Degan was ecstatic as this was a big opportunity to develop the town.

Indeed, the Dungeon was dangerous. If left alone, monsters might emerge from it and advance onto the town.

But if adventurers were to venture into it from time to time to thin out the monster numbers, it was essentially a chicken that laid an unlimited amount of golden eggs. The fact that monsters spawned without limit meant that there was a limitless amount of raw materials to be obtained from them, as well as precious plants and ores that could only be found inside Dungeons. Not to mention the treasure chests that appeared in Dungeons that could yield valuable magic items.

Adventurers seeking this Dungeon would gather in the town, and in turn, merchants seeking the gold that the adventurers would spend would also gather here, and thus the town would develop.

And if the Dungeon was cleared in this way, it would become a resource with greater returns than the risk.

With that said, there were also Dungeons in Lambda with only monsters such as Goblins that yielded only small amounts of raw materials and treasure boxes with poor contents, the kind of Dungeons that only caused trouble just by existing.

Would this be one of those failures, or a great success? Most importantly, adventurers would need to be deployed into the Dungeon to determine how dangerous it is, and there was an unspoken understanding that the adventurers who had discovered the Dungeon would have the first rights to it.

Of course, in cases where adventurers that were not hunters or otherwise not confident in their abilities discovered the Dungeon, they could sell the rights to explore the Dungeon first through the Adventurers' Guild.

In cases where multiple adventurer parties discovered the Dungeon together, they often negotiated with money or performed the first exploration together.

「We『Wind Chasers』will explore the Dungeon first!」(Cashew)

「What are you saying! We『Steel Wings』are more suitable for the task!」(Barn)

「Leave it to us, the『White Stars!』The rest of you can go and collect some Goblin ears or something!」(Miranda)

However, it seemed that these adventurers had no intention of coming to a compromise, and expecting them to join forces seemed hopeless.

「This is a problem. Though I suppose that they were competing against each other since the very start...」(Degan)

For a long time, these three adventurer parties had been competing with one another for the title of the best adventurer group in the town. However, they had a proper sense of morals as adventurers, so they had worked together to overcome the Kobold population problem in the past, but that was all.

The Dungeon that had been discovered had no evidence that any monsters had wandered outside from within, so there was no hurry to explore it. Also, Dungeons that appeared outside of Devil's Nests were generally not very dangerous and small in size.

Therefore, there was no need to cooperate; any one party could take the Dungeon on without a problem.

In fact, if the first exploration of the Dungeon was successful, the party that completed it would be viewed favorably by the Adventurers' Guild and may even be able to increase their rank to C-class. It was a chance for one party to surpass the other two.

「We『Wind Chasers』have members that are good at disarming traps! The best your party's Thieves can do is conceal their presence and scout, hardly suitable for exploring a Dungeon!」(Cashew)

「What the hell are you saying, Cashew?! Your party has no Healers; exploring a Dungeon relying only on potions is too dangerous! In that regard, we『Steel Wings』have two Healers who can heal injuries, remove poison and cure diseases on the spot!」(Barn)

「What are you talking about? It seems that in short, you have a bad balance in members. I'll tell you this, we『White Stars』are a perfectly balanced party with one person on attack and one on defense, an Archer and a Thief, an offensive Mage and a Healer! You should leave the first exploration of the Dungeon to us!」(Miranda)

Seeing these three giving each other angry looks, with a fistfight that could break out at any moment, Degan pressed his fingertips against his eyebrows.

「You three... we've been having this conversation for three days now.」(Degan)

Perhaps this would be settled faster if a fistfight really did break out. It took everything in Degan to resist the temptation to suggest this.

TLN: No stats page in this chapter.