The day after Reinforce’s first battle. It was rather soon, but our group was headed to the dungeon that had Empty Knights. With the blackened windows shut tight, nothing but hot air passed through the wide corridor we were walking on. I wouldn’t say that this was an ideal place to fight, but we haven’t had any problems so far in our exploration.
“Ha”
The corridor was wide enough for 2 lanes, allowing myself and Reinforce to fight side by side. This really made it sink in how beneficial it was to have 2 people at the vanguard.
Two Empty Knights had appeared and charged at us head-on. The two split up to the left and right. Reinforce and I took one on each. However, a one-on-one against these guys wasn’t a close fight at all. When I smashed an enemy’s helm along with its raised shield, Reinforce beside me caught the other enemy’s spear with one hand and then smashed that enemy’s knee with the sword on her other hand. And right when the Empty Knight she faced lost balance, she tackled it and sent it flying.
“[Ice Fang]”
Without any delay, a spear of ice flew out and pierced the monster in the head. The hollow knight stopped moving and simply dropped to the stone floor with a loud clang.
I watched the two monster turn into particles as I studied our surroundings. Empty Knights had loud footsteps, so as long as it was only telling whether there were some of them nearby—instead of also knowing their numbers and where exactly where they were coming from—even I was enough for the job.
As soon as I confirmed that we were safe, I moved to check if there was any Item Drops. And there it was, an unblemished torso armor piece that had rolled on the ground. I promptly picked it up and stuffed it into my Item Bag.
It has been an hour and a half since we started our exploration and we had been lucky enough to both get this torso piece and a helmet earlier. Just a little more and we would have a complete set.
“Good work, you three. Once we find the gate, let’s use it. We can go again after we had a lunch.”
“Ok!”
“Sounds good”
“Understood”
In terms of stamina and the like, we still had plenty left in the tank. However, we had no reason at all to push ourselves, so it was better to play it safe. Besides, having been involved with the Crete Dungeon incident and the Dragon Nest incident, I could confidently say I had enough of ‘adventures’.
“Still, with two vanguards, I must say I feel incredibly safe. So much so that I feel like I no longer have a role to play.”
While hiding her mouth with the sleeve of her kimono, Yukine said so and laughed melodically. I sympathized with her because that was exactly how I felt yesterday.
I thought that we would simply be increasing our tanks to two, but it was deeper than that in practice. Our new composition not only allowed me to focus on the enemy in front me but also made it easier to force the enemy force to split their numbers between us. In my defense, I was late in realizing this because back when I was in a party with my Kumai-kun and Uoyama-kun, the passageway had been too narrow for us to have 2 front-liners.
“I mean, if for nothing else, you and Layla, who’ll provide support anytime and watch over the entire battlefield, just being there is enough. You two reassure us that everything’s going to be fine. I mean it.”
Those truly were my thoughts on the matter. If anyone was going to be out of a job, I feared it would be me because of the overlap in roles between me and Reinforce. Even in the height of celebration of having 2 front-liners, I truly thought that.
After all, the girls could take on C rank dungeons all by themselves. Yes, without me. Heck, if I wanted to, I could dress down to my tracksuit, lie down on the ground, and let the girls handle the monsters. Obviously, I wouldn’t actually do that. I wasn’t that much of freeloader.
“Thank you, master. If I may though, now that we have increased our fighting strength in the form of Reinforce, I think it would be best if you didn’t enter the battlefield anymore…”
“Oh, Layla’s right, dear. It would be the worst if something were to happen to you, after all.”
“Actually, according to the law, I kind of have to.”
I learned this back in the training seminar, but basically, once familiars are summoned, they must always be within a certain distance from you. There were exceptions, of course, like emergencies or if the two of you are within your private property.
Well, let’s set aside the matter of how many people followed that law. Even if they wanted to break it, between the fact that dungeon exploration required video recordings and that one must go through a place managed by a government body to enter and leave a dungeon, it was basically impossible to do so openly, at least in places near dungeons.
As such, no adventurer could send in only their familiars and Golems into the dungeon while they themselves killed time in a cafe outside.
“In that case, won’t you consider switching to a rear position instead?”
“Nope, out of the question. Or rather, let’s have that kind of talk for when we get out of the dungeon. It’s not safe here, after all.”
“Apologies. Yes, it’s as you say.”
Layla had been asking me to take on a rear position ever since last night.
At any rate, we resumed our exploration, got into a few fights, and then used the Dungeon Gate to go back. As I ate Yukine’s [Beloved♡Wife♡Lunch♡Box] in the Store’s break room, I recalled what Layla said during our morning exploration session.
I could understand her reasons for wanting me take on a safer position. After all, our party would be over in lots of ways if I died.
Layla, being my Guardian Spirit, goes without saying. Yukine, due to her nature as a Yuki-onna, would be unable to make a contract with another person, which meant she would either simply disappear or be subjugated because she has fallen to become just another, mindless monster. As for Reinforce, she uses the juice of my Silver Apple as material for her fuel, so without me to supply that, she would eventually stop functioning.
Unexpectedly, the other two held the same opinion as Layla. Yukine’s words were: ‘I’ll support you even if you become a total sponger!’. And Reinforce said: ‘Meister’s life and well-being have been designated as this unit’s absolute top priority, so I wholly support the Doctor’s proposal’.
Again, I understood the logic for it. However, to be just an ornament…and, thinking about it logically, I still was of the opinion that me going into battle wasn’t wrong.
Frankly, as long as a dungeon was C rank or below, it was very unlikely for me to die there. I wasn’t being conceited here either. I was stating a fact. If I had anything to fear from such dungeons, it would actually be the Slimes’ surprise attacks. As such, it was just more efficient for me to fight, especially in the front.
And if I were to be caught up in at least a B rank dungeon’s overflow incident, we conversely couldn’t afford to have me in the rear. I would definitely say the 3 girls were strong, but in an environment with a great number of enemies as strong or stronger than them, our survival just couldn’t be guaranteed. And in my experience, there were indeed abundance of monsters in dungeon overflows.
I considered these arguments without cutting my memory sharing link with Layla.
But, well, as great as these arguments were, they were only part of my ‘official stance’. My real reason for persuading the girls to let me fight was simply because I didn’t want to be a sponger. It would probably be a different story if I didn’t have any power to fight or if my very death meant the end of the world. Maybe another one would be if it was for a girl.
I also don’t like the idea of hiding behind my girls. I know that sounds awful, but it’s just my delicate male heart at play. Still though, if I could use magic, maybe being in the rear isn’t so bad.
According to what I heard at least, there were some magic that could be learned and used even without the corresponding Superpower. But then again, I also heard that it would require years of training.
But, man, magic! It’s just so full of adventure, of romance! Even if it’s just little by little over time, maybe I should study how to use it. Ah, but that doesn’t mean I’m automatically going to take up a rear position afterward. That’s a separate matter. Magic just fascinates me.
I imagined myself as a mage while I stuffed my mouth with some nicely salted but already-cold omelet.
* * *
There was nothing worth noting about our dungeon exploration during the afternoon. It went swimmingly…actually, too swimmingly. After all, we managed to complete a full set of armor on just 2 full days’ worth of dungeon exploration.
We also found another duplicate armor piece, this time one for the right arm. We could just melt it down and use it for size adjustments to the other pieces, so it was more than welcome.
…but now, I have to…talk to ‘that guy’, huh…
At any rate, I began heading home and rode a bus. As I held my IC card over the device though, I unintentionally looked into the distance.
Despite this dungeon being popular, or maybe precisely because it was so popular, only a few people were coming back at 3 in the afternoon. The bus back was almost empty. I sat by the window and as I placed my bag between my legs, I looked at the scenery outside and breathed a sigh.
Even at this point, I was deliberating whether to ask Togo-san if he could introduce me to ‘someone who can tamper with magical equipment’. But, well, Togo-san was always busy and that alone gave me pause. More importantly though, people who fit the bill were few, so the demand for them was staggering. Even if I asked and Togo-san were kind enough to agree, I likely would have to wait for quite a while.
If so, then that guy…Aihara Kensuke was my best option.
“Haaa….”
Man, this is making me feel down.
He wasn’t an evil guy or anything. But he was a pervert and an annoying one at that. He was actually a bigger pervert than even Kumai-kun; he was just good at hiding that fact from the rest of the class. He still couldn’t measure up against Uoyama-kun in that regard though.
Honestly, in my pervert rankings, Uoyama reigned supreme at the top. Tied to the second place were Hanazono-san and Aihara-kun. And just a little bit less of a pervert of them was Kumai-kun. When asked to name four perverts, their faces would come to mind immediately.
What’s that? Just because Kumai-kun like muscles, it doesn’t mean he’s a pervert? I mean, he secretly took a photo of the person he likes like despite never having spoken to her. And then, he proceeded to carry around that picture everywhere. Do you really think such a person is not a pervert? Haa…I haven’t heard anything happening with Kuru…Kurumatani, is that her name? Anyway, I haven’t heard anything, so maybe he’s still looking for the dungeon she goes most often. Which is yet another proof he’s a pervert, I should point out. The kind to be take the somewhat boorish approach too.
As a person of common sense, it fell to me to ensure my friend’s pursuit of his love was within legal boundaries.
Anyway, the bus ride to the train station was awfully long. So, to shift gears a bit, I grinded on the social network game titled ‘the Great Decisive battle of the Big Boobs Warring States Period’. There was an ongoing event where they gave away some nice material drops.
Still, for this ‘June Bride Big Boobs Wedding’ event, which started at the end of June, I didn’t think they’d include Akane Michuko, the big boobed president with a distinctive forehead.
On the screen of my phone—which was in silent mode of course—was a blushing beautiful girl with a Japanese sword. Moreover, her appearance at the moment could be described as that ‘shameful wedding dress’ thing. I found it nice, but could a micro-bikini with some frilly stuff still be called a dress? I had been thinking of making the girls wear gyaru-styled uniforms with cardigans, but this might be great as well…
Which one should I go for though? It’s so hard to choose…ack, no, I was just thinking of cutting back on the spending, and now this? But wait, this is a recreational activity that helps deepen our bonds, so isn’t this one of those necessary expenses? …err, on second thought, that’s a bad idea. No one should think like that. I’m scum for even thinking that. I mean, if I insist on it, what, will I write it in my income tax return? There’s no fucking way I’ll do that.
As I thought of those things, I continued tapping at Michuko’s boobs on the screen and filled up her special move gauge. Before I knew it, the bus had arrived in town. Time flies whenever I thought of lewd stuff.
Heh, I feel like that’s a trope nowadays.
I reached a nice stopping point in my grinding and locked my phone. Just when I put pocketed my phone, I saw familiar faces passing by in the edge of my vision.
That was also when the bus had just entered the right turn lane. The familiar faces were in a bulky car in the next lane. The one driving was a black man and the one in the passenger’s seat was a Spanish-looking woman.
Thanks to my Magic Eye, my field of vision was wider and my kinetic vision was much better. As such, my eyes could notice and follow stuff that normal vision wouldn’t allow.
I can see them just fine, but, well, who are they again? Ahh, I remember now. They were in that party in the dungeon with the Salamanders. If I remember right, the man’s name is…I think Arthur-san?
In any case, they looked well. That was great news. I couldn’t help but wonder if they were still adventurers or have taken up more normal jobs.
In lots of ways, it was harder for Awakened Ones to get jobs nowadays. Non-Awakened Ones feared that the coworker in the seat beside them would have a sudden whim and decide to kill them…that was what I heard at least on the TV.
However, Minister Arikawa has been employing Awakened Ones in each prefectural office as government employees. And under the management of the Dungeon Countermeasures division, these Awakened Ones were expected to search for undiscovered dungeons in rural areas and also to provide assistance in places where not much or any thinning at all of monster populations has been carried out.
That guy, Minister Arikawa, was pushed back and beaten badly by the opposition nine times out of ten. However, that also meant he won one in ten tries. Moreover, that one in ten also seemed to be his main objective, which made him all the more impressive to me. Still, he looked shady. In fact, he was so widely regarded as shady by the Japanese that if you googled shady person in kanji, his face would pop up in the first page.
But even though he was such a shady person that no one else could compare to the shady smile he always had, well, he was also the person who constantly worked to get Awakened Ones employed and the one who also worked to combat dungeon overflows. As such, I truly hoped he would keep persevering.
With those thoughts playing in my head, I realized that I was only about 2 or 3 traffic lights away from the station I was headed to. I moved to take take out the IC card from my wallet, but at that moment, I saw another familiar thing in the edge of my vision.
I looked through the window of the bus which has stopped because of a red traffic light and saw it standing right next to a convenience store’s automatic door. I saw something that looked like an anatomic model of the human skeleton. In one of its hands was an old sword and in the other was a wooden shield.
Its lightless eye sockets were trained on some elementary-looking children who passed through the automatic door.
It was a Skeleton. Something that shouldn’t have been anywhere in this area. And yet, there it was, raising its old, rusted sword up.
RPGNovels 
Leave a comment