The Dangerously Cute Dungeon [A Dungeon Core LitRPG]

1.79 Big Sale

After Avorn and Camellia left, Violet spent her mana on two stamina potions and two tins of black tea. Then she went to her new pond room to relax until more people showed up in the dungeon.

With Matthias gone, their party had to mostly rely on the local tavern for their meals. The rest of them could cook alright, but it was certainly nothing to write home about. Mostly, they could just throw together some campfire stew, but they weren't talented enough to make much else. As such, they had stopped by the local tavern to have breakfast before heading to Violet's dungeon, bringing a few hoecakes as tribute. Hoecakes were similar to pancakes, which they had given as a tribute previously, but these used cornmeal rather than being a sweet, fluffy, pan bread.

Noticing there was a new puzzle to try out, Tobias's party decided to spend their time checking it out today. The sliding ball maze was a new puzzle to their party, but it still seemed simple enough. The balls slid with little resistance, but still required one to bend slightly over and push them with both hands due to their size. After confirming this fact, Tobias turned to the others and said

"Alright, so, it seems like this one should be doable enough. From what my system message is telling me, it looks like we just need to arrange these balls in a specific order and get them to the middle-most endpoint. I'm not sure what the "order of the rainbow" means, but it shouldn't be that difficult to rearrange the seven colors until we get it right.

It'll be difficult for all of us to work on this puzzle at the same time, but we all get the reward if we all participate and complete it. So, why don't you two work on moving the colors we don't need out of the way? I will move a single color to the endpoint before moving on to the next. This way we can complete the puzzle more easily without tripping over each other."

Violet noticed right away when Tobias's group entered the dungeon. However, she decided to give them some time to themselves first before trying to sell her wares. When she noticed they were remaining in one room for quite a while, she determined they were likely working on a puzzle of some sort. That was likely to take a while, but there was no point in interrupting them unless she planned to help or hinder their progress. She wasn't interested in doing either, so she just moved to the wildflower meadow room to wait for them instead. They'd have to pass through it to leave her dungeon anyway.

It took a bit longer than Tobias was expecting to complete the rainbow ball maze puzzle. Several hours had passed by the time they got the notification that the puzzle had been completed correctly and, even then, Tobias got the feeling that they were lucky to complete it so easily. He was starting to get the feeling that the flower hunt puzzle would end up taking them more than a year to complete, if they could ever complete it. They'd more than likely just have to report the information on the puzzle without being able to solve it. That would reduce their pay, but there was simply no helping it.

Since they had already spent so much time in the dungeon, their group started to make their way to the exit. However, Violet caught them as soon as they entered the wildflower room. She smiled happily as she greeted

"Hi! How are you all today?"

Tobias's group had met Violet several times now, so they were much less nervous than they had been the first time they had met her. As the party leader, Tobias stepped forward to answer

"Greetings mistress Violet. We are alright, but is there something we can help you with?"

Violet nodded happily as she replied

"I was wondering if you all would be interested in trading some [Items] with me? I've decided to try out being a merchant and have several [Items] available for sale."

Tobias had never heard of a Dungeon Master playing the role of a merchant before. Yet another peculiar thing he would have to report to the guild. However, he decided to play along. As he reached for his coin purse, he asked