Previous Chapter

Next Chapter

---

I picked up my phone and typed in my reply.

<<Do we need to?>>

<<Pretty much. I think this is better for each of us.>>

I thought on it a little and then moved my fingers again.

<<I can see that, but do we have to do it right away?>>

<<I think we do.>>

<<Is that so…>>

<<Why are you guys talking like a couple in the middle of a breakup?>>

<<Seems fitting.>>

<<We just went with the flow.>>

I swear it wasn’t intentional.

<<Anyway, watching Low-tier Knight’s video made me realize how great the gap between our overall strength is.>>

<<Kyotarou, your recommended dungeon rank is very different from ours. When it’s time to rank up, we might end up leeching off of you.>>

<<We don’t have to disband right away though, do we? Can’t we stick together in challenging D rank dungeons? Like, we’re still all rookies, so we could leave going solo for when we’re mid-level adventurers or even when we’re veterans, right?>>

<<No, it’ll be too late by then because we’ve become too dependent on you. Pretty sure we can’t maintain what we have right now if we let that happen.>>

<<We want to remain friends with you, dude. That’s not up for debate.>>

“Ghh…”

I groaned as I held my phone in front of me. With both of them saying such things, it was hard to object.

<<I’m the only going solo, wouldn’t I? You two will still be together, right?>>

<<Yeah. We have the same recommended level, plus one’s a vanguard while the other’s a rearguard so it works out.>>

<<Kinda feels like I’m being cast out. Feels lonely, man.>>

<<You’re creeping me out.>>

<<Eww.>>

<<Aren’t you guys being too mean?>>

<<Listen, you have Layla with you, don’t you?>>

<<That’s not the same, is it?>>

I was of the opinion that hanging out with my male friends and spending time with the girl I like were very different things.

…that almost sounded like what a normie would say. Wow.

<<Don’t worry too much about it. I’ll party with you once I get an ultra muscle girl monster as a familiar.>>

<<And I’ll bring along my ideal tentacle harem…!>>

<<Uhh, you don’t have to, really.>>

In the end, I was forced to become a solo adventurer.

By the way, not that what I wished mattered, but I wished Kumai-kun would at least try to go for a human girl. Like, don’t give up on love before you even try.

* * *

May came and so did golden week. This year, we had 9 consecutive day offs.

Not for my dad though. He had a faraway look as he left for work in the mornings, but I wished he still gave it his all. The pay was good, after all.

Incidentally, I went to work as well.

The dungeon I was going to today was the one that destroyed my dad’s former place of work. This D rank dungeon was about 3 kilometers away from my home, so I decided to walk there unhurried. I didn’t encounter a lot of people on my way. Not even when I reached what was previously shopping district.

Moreover, the further I went, the more the scenery changed. There were two-story houses that were likely burned down given the scorch marks plus the fact that only its skeletal frame remained. Some shops had large holes in them. I also saw a fallen utility pole left to the wayside for who knows how long, and near it was a lone car that had gone dirty.

People used to live here, yet not a soul was nearby right now. Being here, in what almost seemed like a post-apocalyptic world, made me feel cold.

“…Layla.”

“Yes. How may I be of service, master?”

I summoned Layla and she appeared beside me with a smile on her face.

“Sorry, it’s just…”

“It’s alright. Here, please hold my hand.”

“…thanks.”

Although I felt a bit shy about it, I went to grab her hand. Her affectionate smile deepened, and then she tightened her grasp around my hand and pulled me closer to her shoulder.

“Please don’t worry; I won’t let any harm come to you. I’ll give my all to ensure you’re safe.”

“…I feel like I heard that line from an anime before.”

“But of course. After all, I know only what you know yourself.”

Intoxicated by her giggle, I found myself giggling myself.

At any rate, this was the result of the dungeon overflowing back then.

When I watched the event that happened all over the world including Shinjuku at the end of October last year, I was terrified…but it was only in the vague sense.

In here though, the terror was given form. A place where I could see the damage that was done. To think that this was so close to my home, yet it was the first I was seeing any of this. This kind of thing was still happening all over Japan, so news of something of this scale weren’t getting as much coverage in TV anymore, if they were getting featured at all.

Visiting this place today gave me a better glimpse of the dangers of dungeons overflowing.

“Adventurers really are necessary…”

“Yes. In at least present times, there can be no doubt of that.”

In today’s society, someone had to thin out dungeons. Otherwise, another disaster, another place like this was bound to happen.

It might be out of character for me, but even just a little bit, I felt a sense of duty spread through my chest.

* * *

“Being an adventurer sucks.”

30 minutes after that sense of duty arose in my chest and it was gone already.

A pitch-black surface was zigzagging on the ground, and there were protrusions here and there as though this place was some limestone cave. Moreover, for some reason, there were several slopes that you could tell even with a single glance were surrounded by lava. That all made for a horribly crooked path.

And yes, lava. The walls and the ceiling of this place were making bubbling sounds on top of shining brightly.

The city had assigned this dungeon the placeholder name “lava dungeon”, and it was exactly what that suggested.

A floor here was about the size of many gymnasiums, partitioned by a number of walls. The area I was in was but a small portion of it.

Moreover, this place was hot. Like hella hot.

The lava wasn’t actually, physically the real thing, so the air was safe to breathe and the camera was working just fine. It was still so hot though. A regular person, that is someone who wasn’t an Awakened One, might have fallen unconscious already and that was before the concentration of magic power in the air was factored in.

“Hang in there, master! This is all to make us stronger!”

“Yeah…”

I responded like that to Layla while sweating buckets under my bucket helm.

I went to this dungeon not exclusively to fulfill my sense of duty of culling dungeons. It was that, plus the fact that it was close to my house, and more significantly because of the potential item drops here.

“Err, they don’t waste anytime.”

I wielded my sword with both hands as I stepped forward. I then swung it at where my Magic Eye told me the enemy would be.

With a splash of the lava rather than water, something strange-looking leapt out with force. The closest existing creature I could compare it to was probably a komodo dragon. Based on its outline though, it felt like it resembled a Japanese salamander too.

Its head was about as high as a person’s waist, and its overall length including its tail was probably over 5 meters. Its body was covered with red scales and its tail even had a flame on it.

This monsters was simply called Salamander. They were one of the variety of monsters that appeared in this dungeon.

After jumping out of the lava, its opened jaw was quickly just a short distance above my head. If I didn’t do anything, I was sure I would be swallowed whole from above.

But, well, I “saw” that already.

“Hraaaahhh!”

The pathways in this dungeon weren’t strictly defined by the walls. The ceilings and walls were so far away, in fact, that my sword couldn’t touch them accidentally. It was like a two-lane street. In other words, the restrictions I had on swinging my zweihander weren’t present here.

And so, I slammed my blade to the side of the Salamander’s head. That produced a thud and sent the approximately 300-Kg Salamander flying a few meters away. Although it hit the ground hard, the Salamander quickly got back on its feet. Still, the right side of its head was a mess and a large amount of blood was gushing from the wound.

And then, just as I realized it was looking our way with its inhuman yellow eyes, it turned tail and fled at a great speed.

“What!?”

“[Earth]”

Unlike me who was too stunned to move, Layla from behind cast a spell. A lance formed from the black ground and flew to skewer the Salamander. The monster writhed as it issued a peculiar dying cry. After several seconds of that, it died and turned into particles.

“Wait, what, huh? That monster just tried to run, didn’t it?”

“It did. Some species possess enough intelligence to do so. But you learned this in the training course, you know.”

“Sorry, I forgot about that part.”

Layla had a troubled smile when I replied so and scratched my head through my helmet.

Oh yeah…some monsters flee when they feel they’re in mortal danger, was it?

I had wondered why there was almost no people in this dungeon, but I had a better idea why that was the case now. I initially thought it was simply because the dungeon was one stone’s throw away from the boonies, but that didn’t seem to be the only reason.

It would seem the three primary concerns were rather: the heat, the lava, and the possibility that the monsters would escape.

The heat went without saying.

Although the lava along with the dungeon itself was made up of magic power, it was “real” enough to burn any person who would jump into them.

Worse yet, the lava was the likely where the monsters escaping from adventurers were headed.

Definitely could see how someone wouldn’t want to explore a place like this.

…shoot, if no one comes here, doesn’t that mean I have to come here pretty regularly to cull the dungeon? Never mind the peace in the area, I don’t want my family’s way of life to be affected, much less destroyed.

“And it dropped…nothing.”

“Seems so.”

“It would have been nice if a Magic Stone dropped right away though.”

A Magic Stone was basically crystallized magic power. Skeletons and such didn’t drop it, but it would seem fairy-like and spirit-like monsters did. Salamanders were among those that dropped it from time to time.

It was Layla who wanted it. Her Nature Magic after all didn’t offer a great degree of flexibility. It was a superpower that could produce various effects to be sure, but the effects in question was dependent on her surroundings. This dungeon was a great example.

By the way Layla had transformed the spear back into the ground, otherwise it would have made the path narrower which in turn would make exploring harder.

Going back on topic, this dungeon only had “fire” in addition to the ground. Salamanders had low resistance against magic, but the sole exception to that was their resistance to fire. In such cases, Layla just couldn’t make use of her Nature Magic’s full potential.

…or so Layla said. I didn’t really know anything about magic and spells after all.

And so, she was going to make a magic tool to make up for that shortcoming. We came here this time to gather the materials for it. It was possible to buy Magic Stones, but one went for about five to six hundred thousand yen. On the other hand, if we were to sell one, we could get about 300,000 yen. It was a lot of money, but considering this magic tool as an investment, it would be better to keep it.

“But these Salamanders are more troublesome than I expected.”

Even if the impact of my last attack was somehow lessened by the monster being in air, I thought it was still a solid hit. And yet, the fact remains that the monster survived. I figured it would probably take me two hits to guarantee a kill. Or maybe I could kill them in one hit if I hit them with my all while they were on the ground.

Unless I could kill them in a single clash, they would always have the option of fleeing. Needless to say, that was quite a hassle.

Salamanders were totally different from Skeletons. I didn’t think a single rank could mean this much of a difference.

“Then, I guess I should use my Magic Power Discharge?”

“No, that’ll give you too much power and destroy much of our surroundings, including our footholds.”

“Yeah…”

I had to do it the good old-fashioned way, it seemed.

At any rate, I resumed walking with my sword resting at my shoulder.

Seriously though, it’s so hot here.

Being an Awakened One, I should have been less affected by changes in the temperature, yet I still couldn’t stop sweating in this place. Sweat would occasionally get into my eye even. My Magic Eye was the kind that would still activate even if I had my eyes closed, but I nonetheless would prefer to not have my vision blocked as we explored.

My helmet, chain mail, and gauntlets were all so hot. And because even my boots were iron plated, it too built up in heat.

Fortunately, it didn’t made me any more tired, so I had no problems stamina-wise when climbing a suddenly steep slope. I still made sure to hydrate myself afterwards though.

Upon reaching the top, I foresaw another Salamander jumping at me, this time from lava that was falling down like a waterfall at my side.

 

“Ha!”

Having foreseen the attack, I was able to swing my sword down at the monster. The tip of my sword directly hit the enemy’s head, gouging its scales and flesh as it slammed into the ground. It naturally resisted being pinned down, but before it could do anything, I adjusted the angle of my sword and then impaled the enemy. That let me break its skull and then destroy its brain.

It soon turned into particles and vanished, but as could be expected, there was no drop. The chances for an item drop was said to be 1%, so it was perhaps only natural that we didn’t get anything on the second try. Understanding that didn’t make me feel less depressed though.

And so, I once again placed my sword on my shoulder and walked on. Layla wasn’t the type to chat while dungeon exploring, so we continued in silence.

In the span of about 10 minutes, we encountered more Salamanders. They jumped at us almost one after the other, in fact. Just as soon as I was finishing off one, the next would emerge. And we had walked about only 50 meters in the dungeon at that point.

Before long, I was stomping on the back and then thrusting my sword at the 30th Salamander. I twisted the sword to ensure I destroyed the heart. A moment later, it too was vanishing without dropping anything behind. I couldn’t help but sigh under my helmet.

…there were so many monsters. It was almost like the dungeon was just moments away from overflowing.

As I was thinking that, Layla tapped me on my shoulder.

“Master. There was a voice just now.”

“A voice?”

Alarmed, I surveyed our surroundings. My vision was narrowed due to my helmet, but my Magic Eye compensated by letting me see further than usual. After a while of turning my head, I noticed something about a hundred meters ahead.

In a space that was like a suspension bridge were 4 figures. I mistakenly thought there were only 3 people at first though. But as I stared at the group, I noticed something unusual: 1 of them looked languid as they were carried by another member. Hence, my wrong initial assumption.

The group was going as fast as they could. They were, after all, being chased by 3 Salamanders crawling on the grounding.

They’re being chased? In a D rank dungeon? They are adventurers, right?

I was confused but then I noticed that the party in question looked like foreigners. My jaw dropped at that realization.

…wait, so, aren’t they in serious trouble right now?

“How should we proceed, master?”

“We have to help! So, wait, what!?”

Layla’s voice brought me back from my thoughts. I immediately scanned the surroundings, but following the path that led to them would take me too long. I wouldn’t make it in time like that. Especially after I caught sight of a warrior-looking person slashing with his sword but end up getting their sword destroyed instead.

Like, seriously!? And are they under some strange curse or debuff? Their movements looks so slow!

“We’re going to help?”

“Yeah! But how…Layla! Make a ramp! I’m going to jump!”

“Very well!”

I asked so to the ever-smiling girl, and she responded by making an incline from where we were to where the party was. However, it was only about 20 meters long; it wasn’t long enough. And she couldn’t make it any longer or else we would lose the footing we currently had.

But, well, it was enough for what I had in mind.

“Ooooh!”

I didn’t have enough time to sheathe my sword, so I simply threw it nearby and began running. Just as I was about to jump off, I activated my Magic Power Discharge.

I can make it, I was strangely confident of that. Just as I was convinced I could jump over any reasonably high fence, I believed I could jump over a river of lava that was a hundred meters wide.

Just a little more and…wait, no, I’ve jump too much!

“Nuoooooo!?”

No, no, calm down! I just need to use Magic Power Discharge again!

I discharged it from my feet and altered my trajectory mid-air. That resulted in me heading straight for the ground.

…how to land didn’t even cross my mind.

“Ack!”

“““!?”””

I quickly covered my head and tried to land with my shoulders instead.

Ouch!

With tears in my eyes, I tried to stand up as soon as I could. And when I did, I found a Salamander had already launched a fireball at me from its mouth.

“Eek”

As it got dissipated before me, I let out a little shriek.

My Status Screen indicated that I had a Resistance stat of B. As for what the Resistance stat meant, it was the power to resist magic and superpowers. So, between fireball the Salamander launched and me, it was I who won.

That was to be expected though. I mean, I knew before I entered the dungeon that I wouldn’t be hurt by the Salamander’s attacks.

“Ooooh!”

I knew but still, that scared me. Stupid lizard!

It was unfortunate that my sword was still in the middle of reconstructing itself, so I used the dagger in the right side of my waist instead. I drew it with a reverse grip and charged at one of the Salamanders.

My dagger’s enough for all of you anyway!

All three Salamanders launched fireballs at me again, but it was no issue. All the fireballs hit was the film-like thing that entirely covered me and they dissipated just like the other one.

I plunged the dagger down, twisted it, and then pulled it out of the closest Salamander. I then grabbed that Salamander’s jaw with my left hand and threw it up. The target was of course another Salamander.

I ignored the pinned-down Salamander for the moment, and went for the last one. The last Salamander was heading for the lava, so I leapt at it, grabbed its tail, and lifted it up.

The first Salamander had died and was turning into particles, so the second Salamander was just about crawl its way out. I aimed for it again with my throw. The second and the third Salamanders’ heads collided, and they both collapsed.

The one I threw using its tail seemed to still be breathing, so I plunged my dagger at it while it was overturned. It was only then that I noticed that the scales on a Salamander’s belly or rather underside were rather frail. It was a good thing to keep in mind from now on.

At any rate, there wasn’t any enemy left. My Magic Eye wasn’t reacting anymore, so it seemed safe enough to assume there were no reinforcements for now.

“Are you alright!? Anyone hurt!?”

I turned to the 4-person party. I hoped I made it in time.

They were staring at me, almost like they were dumbfounded, but none of them offered any reply.

Is it because they don’t understand Japanese?

Regardless, 3 of them seemed more concerned about me, and although the one who was being carried seemed to be in pain, they were still breathing.

Thank goodness…

I let out a deep breath. I was worried for a while there.

That aside, aren’t they too far away? I’m fairly sure I landed near them.

When I took a step toward them to examine the one being carried, the group took a step back for some reason.

Why though???

---

Taroppe-sensei(author)’s Q&A corner

Thank you for reading!

Also, please consider leaving some of your thoughts, a review, and bookmark the title over at the narou site (https://ncode.syosetu.com/n7336ie/)

Your support is appreciated and I hope you continue doing so.

Q: Did the protagonist buy sushi for his family with his first pay? Or did it all went to buying costumes?

A: Don’t worry, the money he used for the costumes was from the pay of his second item drop.

Moreover, his parents were delighted by their only son’s display of filial piety. However, when their only son told them after dinner about his relationship with Layla and then suggested to them to “give up on having grandchildren!”, the air froze. The parents quickly thought though that “those who say that are also the ones who get married and have children as soon as they become a working adult” .

---

Please consider supporting me. You can do this either by turning off adblock for this blog, buying me a ko-fi, or via my Patreon page (link here). Thank you.

---

Previous Chapter

Next Chapter