"They've got to be dungeon-related potions, or that's the impression I get?  We're going past my direct knowledge here, but I'm not sure it'd work if, instead of explosives, you were brewing a dexterity booster that you gave to a smith who forged an awl that carved a rune on a piece of armor an adventurer used, even if you did all that fast enough."

"Weird! Uh, the reason I started this line of questioning was having leveled up in horse, or whatever it's called - that would have taken longer if I were riding the horse somewhere other than a dungeon?"

"Uh, I don't think we're near enough for the dungeon for that to have counted at all?  I would guess that your, uh, Haste spell or whatever, got you good enough at horse-riding for you to get Lv. 1 in the skill, in just the very normal way."

"And there's no particular way I should be riding the horse, or trying to ride the horse, which will make the next level come faster? - do skillups slow down as the level numbers increase?"

"Probably, but I don't know what it is!  I didn't think it would be worth slowing down and talking to the Skillbook merchants about that before we left.  Or I didn't think of it at all, to be honest.  And yeah, the earlier Skillups come faster - I'd expect you to get another level or two in horseback riding by the time we're at the dungeon, if you got the first one that fast.  You, uh, might or might not have special circumstances beyond your DEX boost - I'm not sure how things work for, uh, somebody like you."  Empty countryside or not, there's no reason for Haroun to get any more explicit than he has to; it's a bad habit to form.

"Knowing how it usually works still tells me how to talk about it," she points out.

"I don't actually remember how long it takes to get horse-riding Lv. 0-1, or the usual ratio of the time between that and 1-2 or 2-3, is the problem.  I was way too young at the time."

"I suppose that figures since they're major transportation. Or, well, relatively self-directed major transportation, you can't get a license to drive a vehicle of the sort that hit me till you're sixteen."

Haroun asks about Bella-hitting-vehicle-licenses.  Bella answers.

More horse-riding.  Occasional conversation.  Bella tries to write in her saddle, and finds that if she wants one hand to hold her book perfectly steady while her other hand writes, that works just like she imagines it working; Bella's fingers do what they are told.

Bella's horse-riding skill goes up one additional time, when they're about a third of the way there.

Eventually they arrive at a minor dungeon.  This minor dungeon has a very impressive name in some language that is not Lictic; Bella will hear this name as 'Ordinary Cave'.

There's a couple of bored-looking, heavily armored guards right outside the entrance.  Showing their respective permits gets a couple of raised eyebrows; it is not usually the course of wisdom for a non-combat-specialized person to be escorted by somebody with only a learner's provisional guild permit.  Still, their job is ultimately to prevent people from leaving with untaxed loot, not to forbid entry to suicidal idiots.

Haroun asks if there's any special things they ought to know about this dungeon.  (He probably should have asked at the Guild, but was too worried about whether Bella would get through the Guild process to think of it at the time.)  The guard counters by asking what Bella and Haroun plan on doing exactly.  Haroun says they plan to stay on the first floor only and collect enough loot to get Bella her non-provisional license.  The guard reminds Haroun that sticking around on the first floor for a long time and easily slaughtering monsters there is liable to get second-floor monsters coming up to say hi, which is the Dungeon's polite way of telling you to go lower, and that if this happens they need to either go to the second floor or get out.  This is especially likely to happen fast if Bella mocks the monsters she kills, says anything about the Dungeon being too easy, or otherwise shows off how much better she is than the current floor's challenge level.

Aside from that, the guard says that it's mainly plant-based monsters on the first floor - Walking Sticks, Ambush Bushes, Pineapple Surprises, and the like.  As with most dungeons on the first floor, the floor tends to slope down as you get closer to the boss room, and navigating upward will get you back out of the first floor without much problem.  Following the right-hand rule (keeping your right hand on the wall) will circumnavigate the whole first floor with no omissions, if you skip the boss room gates when you come to them.  First-floor bathrooms are in the safe area next to the boss room.

Maybe Bella's perfect control over her movements will allow her to conceal any microexpressions of surprise that the DUNGEON ITSELF cares if you MOCK the MONSTERS.

The guards don't notice a thing!  That could be because Bella controlled her expression successfully, or it could be because the guards are relying on Social Skills and Bella has Inviolable Mind; who knows.

Does Bella have any other questions before they enter?  She could always show a notebook-note to Haroun if she has a question where she's not sure whether it's safe to ask the guards.

"Are we likely to run into other people in there?"

The guard replies that the morning rush is already past.  None of those Adventurers were the kind to stick around on the first floor.  They may get some Adventurers passing them on the way back up, come the afternoon; or earlier if somebody gets unexpectedly wounded or hits on an unexpectedly large haul.

The other guard sternly notifies the two that they are not allowed to kill other Adventurers and loot them.  Relis isn't that kind of town.

"That's good to hear, thanks."

In she goes. Unless immediately Surprised by a Pineapple, she does have a couple things she wants to say to Haroun only!

You are in a dark cavern lit by patches of glowing moss on the walls.  The air here smells of fresh-cut plants, and ever so faintly of blood.

There are stairs behind you to the south.
There is a tunnel to the west.
There is a tunnel to the east.
There is a Haroun here.

"The dungeon," she says to the Haroun who is here, "cares if people mock its dead monsters? - also it's very considerate of the dungeon to have bathrooms, games abstract the need for bathrooms away, are those installed or is the dungeon being considerate."

"It has never in my life occurred to me that a dungeon would not have bathrooms.  I need to think about this a little so I can get a grasp on your perspective."

Haroun thinks.

"Uh, dungeons have - at least chicken-level instincts as appropriate to dungeons, or something?  They - do things that it would make sense for a dungeon to do, even though there's never been one known that would talk?  They don't set off 『Qualia』 but a lot of spells don't work well on or around dungeon cores so that's not very conclusive.  You can't talk to them, you can't conduct reasonable trades with them - it would revolutionize the entire world if a dungeon ever woke up far enough that you could, I don't know, offer it criminals in exchange for it crafting magic items, but that's never happened so far as I know - but they seem to understand tones of voices or something well enough to know when you're laughing about how easy its monsters are to slaughter.  They - follow instinctive rules, sort of, and one of those rules is that monsters stay on their floors unless the adventurers are breaking other rules.  Another of those rules is that they have bathrooms on every floor and the bathrooms are almost never trapped.  You can see how that rule makes sense, right?  People wouldn't go into a dungeon that didn't have bathrooms."

"Don't get me wrong, I'm glad it has bathrooms. But it is weird."

"Your 'Video Games' are weird!  They're based on an abstraction where nobody goes to the bathroom!"

"When you read a novel does it mention the characters going to the bathroom if it isn't a plot point somehow?"

"We aren't in a story!  This is real life!"

"I know! But the games are fiction so I had no specific bathroom related expectations and would not have been more surprised if being in a dungeon suppressed one's metabolism or something!"

"That sounds way more complicated than installing a couple of toilets, especially if you are a dungeon and can install pipes as easily as we breathe."

"I don't know what things are easy for dungeons!" Sigh. "Is it necessary to literally put a hand on the wall -"

"No, he just meant that the local maze topography has no islands and doesn't move around, which implies that if you did put your right hand on the wall and walk, you would eventually return to your starting room after traversing all intervening spaces."