I Told You Not to Do It That Way

“H-haah..! How’s that!?! Feeling pumped..!?!?”

ㅡClack!!

The golem soldiers and Minyum, overwhelmed by the cheer-up dance I had practiced so hard before, were kneeling and bawling their eyes out. I thought they'd piled up material crates and the like right next to the gate entrance to make a platform, but it turned out to be a crude stage built so I could go up and dance on it.

Yeah, our golems work hard every single day, so I can do this much. By sacrificing myself and all..!

“Cheer-up power ㅡ!”

After the spirited cheering dance ended, applause erupted.

ㅡClap clap clap!!!

“Princess, well done.”

“Ueeehhh....”

When Ophelia's stage ended, she stretched out her arms, slipped her hands under my armpits, grabbed me, and set me down on the floor. Honestly, it felt like something inside me had broken.

Still, seeing Minyum and the soldiers kneeling and sobbing their hearts out made me feel a little proud..?

‘Maybe dancing on stage is more fun than I thought....’

Once it was over, I could feel something like endorphins surging through me. Still, I'm never doing it again. You veteran soldiers should count yourselves incredibly lucky, you know.

ㅡBeep-beep!!

“Oh? Hehe, really? Did I do well?”

Doggo was thrilled too, spinning around and around like crazy. It was a whole scene.

“And Suri? How was Suri!”

ㅡKiiit....

“Heh-heh, right? Gotta give credit where it's due!”

ㅡKiiit..!

Even picky, ultra-sensitive boss Suri had to admit it. Ophelia clapped for me too, saying I did well.

[You boosted battlefield morale. The Powerless Princess's rank is increasing. Powerless Princess: C -> C+]

“Eh?”

“Congratulations. Your skill rank has gone up.”

“Eh, no... With this..?”

“Did you think I had you do something like this for no reason, Princess?”

“W-well, not exactly, but....”

Of course, everything Ophelia does must have some reason behind it, but honestly this one was a little strange. Suddenly making me put on a cheerleader outfit and dance. I never dreamed it would be this effective, though. It was practically a battlefield idol or something.

It even said I boosted battlefield morale, and it wasn't even during combat. At this point I think the status window itself is a little off too.

“Sigh, good is good....”

Anyway, if it worked, then okay.

“It would be best to hold a morale-boosting performance again next time.”

“Gek.”

Next time? There is no next time..! If there were about a thousand golem soldiers, maybe I could consider it, but honestly that seems impossible.

After I sat on the carrier for a bit to rest, the golem soldiers started lining up in front of me. Naturally, Minyum was first in line.

“Hm? What is it?”

ㅡClack!

“Eeh..? Do I really have to...? Well, okay.”

When I held out my right hand, Minyum knelt on one knee and bowed its head to kiss the back of my hand. To be honest, it doesn't actually have a mouth, so what touched me was just more of a clanging helmet feeling.

“Satisfied?”

ㅡClack!!

Minyum backed away with a 5,000-times backflip moonwalk. Behind it, five more golem soldiers were lined up in a row.

“You guys want one too..?”

ㅡNod nod

“Well.... It wouldn't be good to do it for only one person....”

And so, that strange event that I couldn't tell was a fan meeting or an audience session continued for the other five too.

“Hey! Minyum, you! Don't go line up again in the back!”

ㅡClack..!

What an extreme superfan.

* * * * *

“Whew, I'm completely exhausted.”

“Good work, Princess.”

“I think doing it for real is harder than practicing....”

“The human body accumulates fatigue differently even with movements of the same intensity, depending on psychological tension.”

Now the weather had fully warmed up too, and when the sunlight was out it felt like spring, so it wasn't especially cold while dancing. But once we were done and my sweat started to dry, I felt a little chilly. I should hurry home and lie on the electric mat.

“Oh, right, Ophelia. Are we making money from the gate?”

“Entry-type gates keep generating indirect revenue. Rather than selling the raw materials collected inside the gate for cash, we're processing them into usable materials, which reduces the extra money that would otherwise leak out.”

“Ah, I see.”

What I realized on the way home was this: why can't Minyum talk yet? It seems to understand things somehow, but from when it was first made until now, it has only ever clanked around and never really spoken properly.

“It could even type in chat during the broadcast, so doesn't that mean it can at least speak? Come to think of it, it understands everything I say, and everything Ophelia says too.”

“Ophelia. Why can't Minyum talk yet?”

“Hmm.”

Ophelia, who was driving, seemed to pause to think about my question.

“Because Minyum is still unfinished.”

“Huh. Minyum?”

“That's right. Minyum is only about 10 percent complete overall at its current level.”

“Eh..? If it's one-tenth... 10 percent? You mean not even a tenth is finished?”

“That's correct.”

Eee, no way. Minyum is already so strong. Besides, it cost a ton of money to make, and there was even some upgrade wait time or something once, wasn't there?

“Then is Grandpa Galahad finished?”

“Lord Galahad also cannot be said to be in a perfect state.”

“Even though he speaks so well?”

“However, compared to Minyum, his overall completion is higher. Lord Galahad's most urgent task at present is also his own completion.”

“Whoa, I can't believe Grandpa is still unfinished. That's totally unbelievable. Then he's like, what, 80 percent?”

“About 30 percent.”

“Eek.”

Even Grandpa was only about one-third complete. Then could Ophelia too...?

“Then Ophelia isn't finished yet either?”

“My body is about 70 percent complete.”

“No, if I'd known that, I would've finished Ophelia first. I thought Ophelia had already finished all her upgrades.”

“My completion is not a very important matter. I can carry out many tasks in my current state.”

“Still, it feels a little off, doesn't it? Just a little more and it's complete, but leaving it alone because it's good enough.”

I hadn't thought about that at all. Then just how much money would we have to pour in for everyone to be completed?

“At present estimates, the amount required to complete Lord Galahad appears to be around 13.2 billion won.”

“B-b, 13.2 billion.... That's more than one-tenth of all the money we have..?”

“That estimate takes into account the average labor costs for technicians in South Korea and time-proportional opportunity costs, so the actual amount spent in cash will be less.”

Still, at least now I knew Grandpa Galahad would cost a ridiculous amount. And if Minyum is still only ten percent complete, I honestly don't know how it's supposed to get any stronger from here.

What, is it planning to cut the sky in half someday or something? Minyum was originally made from aluminum, so it never gave off that kind of image, but it's way more of a money sink than I expected.

But since it also brings in a lot, it's fine. That's just how the original members are, I guess.

* * * * *

“Alright then, let's do one quick sweep, get a rough read on the problems, and call it a day.”

This was one of Nova's entry-type gates. The difficulty was around C; an A-rank gate would only be a bit of light warm-up if you went solo.

There were twelve people in the main assault team, but when entering the gate for a preliminary survey, we had to escort about eight inspection-team members, so we also needed a few people to fill the inspection-team role.

“Eve! How've you been?! How's school!?”

“I-it's pretty fun, I guess.”

“Really?! I'm so glad you're going to school! I want to see you in your school uniform too!”

“Hehe....”

“You're not getting into fights with the other kids, right?”

“N-no..? I'm a good kid, so I get along fine....”

Then there was Dosyungjwak, Chae-ah noona, four other strangers I didn't know, and one inspector uncle from the Dungeon Management Association. The inspection team usually has more non-awakened people, but there's no real need to drag non-awakened people along even for practice.

There are eight inspection-team members, so why were only seven people called?

“Now, Eve is on the inspection team too.”

“Waaah.”

I was, surprisingly, a non-awakened person proudly included in the assault team—that is, an awakened person with the physical abilities of a non-awakened person—so I knew for sure that I shouldn't fight so violently that I'd get hurt.

“Of course, the inspection team also wears expensive protective gear. You can think of it as having the durability of a typical C-rank hunter.”

But the problem is that the expensive inspection equipment is delicate. Whatever happens, we have to fight carefully so there are no problems for the people we're escorting.

Nova's veteran-looking hunters traded tips while chatting about this and that. Being chosen for a dungeon preliminary survey didn't happen as often as you'd think, so even people who've been hunters for 10 or 20 years had only done it three or four times at most.

Some people had apparently never done it even once.

“Kid, you okay?”

“Ah, yes! I'm fine!”

“If walking gets hard, tell us.”

“Yep.”

After everyone had gotten equipped to some degree, the supervisor's briefing began.

“For now, you can think of the minimum as B+ rank. Taking into account that the Orders Guild's main assault team took a beating, we set it higher than average. Of course, we're only going to the fifth floor, and according to the information we got from the previous survey team, the lower floors seem fairly quiet.”

The method is basically this: weaklings who would die if veteran hunters just snapped their fingers show up, but in the setting they're actually the super-strong trash mobs that appear in a B+ dungeon structure.

So basically, it means we should attack with enough power to kill monsters of that level while fighting carefully so the inspection team doesn't get hurt?

“Eve, want your big sister to hug you?”

“N-no! I'm fine....”

Chae-ah noona, whom I hadn't seen in a long time, had gone into full pampering mode and kept patting me, touching my cheeks, and all sorts of things.

“Eve's too famous now, so I can't even call you little sis anymore, sniff.”

“It's fine if you just call me that....”

“Really? For real? Then should I come hang out this weekend?”

“On the weekend..? I might be a little busy.... I'll ask Ophelia.”

“Okay, I'll have to ask too.”

Anyway, the assault began. The assault team formed a ring around the team serving as the inspection team, and that team huddled together in the center, carrying light wooden boxes around.

If these boxes get smashed, it would feel like very expensive equipment was destroyed. I was carrying one too, and it felt slightly lighter than I expected.

“O-Ophelia, fighting..!”

When I silently mouthed my support to Ophelia, she nodded vigorously.

Ophelia stayed in the rear, and Minyum stood in the front line. We decided to call Grandpa Galahad and Suri only if things got urgent, so for now it was just those two.

ㅡBeep!

“Ah, right. Doggo's here too.”

If need be, I'll also mana-boost Doggo and have it fight.

And one more thing I was looking forward to was seeing upgraded Minyum in battle for the first time today..!

“Minyum! Do your best!”

ㅡClack!

Thumbs-Up Minyum stood in the front line, looked back, and nodded repeatedly. I could see the other hunters beside it finding it fascinating, but Minyum didn't care at all. Minyum was unexpectedly 2.3 meters tall, so it was much bigger than the other hunters.

“The front line should keep a 40-meter distance, and the rear line should keep a 20-meter distance while carefully watching the rear.”

And so began the mock preliminary survey operation.

But....

ㅡCaw!

“Oh, it's a flying monster.”

“It seems there are flying monsters on the lower floors of the Silence Laboratory too. So—”

Before the supervisor uncle could even finish speaking.

ㅡBOOM!!

“Huh?!”

Minyum shot up into the sky, blasting tremendous wind down onto the ground. Powerful gusts burst out in a circle, as if a helicopter were taking off.

ㅡRoll-roll

“Aaagh.”

Thanks to that, I rolled around too even though I had been standing fine, and then Minyum, having split the flying monster in half in an instant, landed back in its original spot with a heroic thud.

ㅡCrash!

The wooden box in my hands got smashed when a stone kicked up by my rolling around and Minyum's landing hit it.

“Ah, the equipment's broken.”

ㅡClack!

“Thanks, Thumbs-Up Minyum. Not.”