The next 10~20 chapters has a lot of cliffhangers and long chapters. Going to try and do them as best as possible without long periods between them but still only probably 1-2 chapters a day. I plan to do about 3-5 more until tomorrow morning though. Expect many cliffhangers after that this week though, more plots and stuff incoming.
Once Again to the Fairy Village 1
Year 7444, Month 2, Day 14
Somehow or other, we ended up going past our original plans, we spent from February 1st until the 5th inside of the dungeon, after that we took 3 consecutive days off, then from the 9th until yesterday the 13th we explored again. The conclusion we arrived at from adventuring during that time was that after all the teleportation on the 6th floor is a type of trap. If you throw a rock while walking it"s actually pretty simple to discover them. The width of the pa.s.sage is about 9m but on the walls of both sides of that there"s a fixed stone with a strange symbol carved into it. In between those two stones there"s a s.p.a.ce of about 6m that"s the starting point for the teleportation.
After testing out throwing a number of rocks inside we confirmed it. In other words, you can pa.s.s through about 1.5m from the stone. Even if you throw a rock in from the other side it seems to teleport. Other than that, there were still the same arrow and pitfall traps as well. It"s actually more troublesome to discover those. That"s why we haven"t advanced much at all with exploring the 6th floor so far.
Furthermore, the stone with a symbol carved into it seems to be part of a large boulder sticking out so we gave up on digging it up. Also, the symbol isn"t uniform. Just guessing but the symbol is probably different for each teleport destination? is the best opinion we could come up with. Even when we tried to carve off the symbol, the stone, or rather boulder was too hard so it was impossible. Well even if we were able to shave it off considering the recovery ability of the dungeon I feel like it would restore to normal after a short while so I don"t think it has much meaning. Since we don"t know where we"ll teleport to on the 6th floor it"s not like we"re often pa.s.sing by the same spot after all.
We still haven"t tried going inside of one of the teleport traps. There was the far too reckless proposal of Ralpha to go all out and try jumping in but it was immediately rejected by everyone.
Incidentally, we were able to confirm that nothing happens when just sticking the end of a pole inside. If you throw it in it teleports. After carefully observing and it seems that when more half of the object pa.s.ses the teleport trap it activates. We weren"t able to confirm if that"s the same for living creatures. If there was a goblin wandering around we could tie one up and kick it in but unfortunately the only thing we"ve seen is the wild boards {Cave Wild Boar}. As expected capturing a wild boar of this size alive is a bit unreasonable. Even if we were able to I don"t think it would budge even we kick it.
In any case, just like this we"ve predicted that exploring the 6th floor is going to take an extremely long amount of time. There"s already no choice but to firmly sit down and make an effort on it over time. The things to be gained are big. After all, even though we"ve only entered rooms on the 6th floor twice so far but the first time there was about 10 wild boars and no problem at all but the second time, there was an altar like the ones on the 5th floor and what was summoned was a {Cave Great Boar}, after we defeated that an idiotically huge ore of gold came out.
A large ore of gold that was two times the size of an adult"s head was immensely heavy and according to Toris it has the weight of above 50 times that of a liter of water so it should have weighed about 50kg. I"m sure the purity of the ore must have been high as well, since it seemed that it would have amounted to 20kg or so of gold after being tempered and if that"s true then it seems it will sell for over 60,000,000 Z.
Since it seems that this is the first time this large of a gold ore was brought back in Baldukk in several decades the adventurers were all excited. Since we reported that we found this ore on the 5th floor we succeeded in pulling the top teams to the 5th floor. Particularly {Sun Ray} jumped at this information, today they"ve even split their party in two and are clearing it at the same time.
Just like we do every year exchanged birthday presents all five of us celebrated that we were safely able to reach our 16th birthday and the fact that it seems one week later the tempering will be done so we"ll get our hands on a huge sum of money as well. Everyone got into the spirit and drank a lot. Since as expected things were pretty painful the next day I seriously started to think about using {Neutralize Poison}.
All five of us reincarnated people had an increase in ability values thanks to the increase in age. Everyone"s levels increased as well, the lowest Gwine is already level 12, and even though she"s in one of the top teams it"s no problem at all.
..........
Year 7444, Month 4, Day 25
After returning to the Boil Manor from the dungeon and brother and the others were there. It seems that brother and the others arrived on the night of the day before yesterday and instead of going to make deliveries to the knight group without me, they waited. I mean, I did get a letter saying they would arrive tonight after all..so I relaxed thought it would be just right. The caravan from Bakuddo this time brought along a huge load. Starting from this month for roughly two years, the Ryogu family of squires from Bakuddo will be living in Rombertia after all, I"m sure it"s their luggage as well. After all, there"s only two carriages, other than the goods for delivery the carriages packed with their belongings are piled up like a mountain.
That"s why it seems they left the village about a week early. Well in the end they were slowed down for two days in Baldukk so it was canceled out but if I think about it, it"s only obvious they got here faster.
I thought for a bit and then said to everyone.
"Ah..Sorry but the next time we were supposed to enter the dungeon was April 29, but since there"s some conveniences for the company as well I think we"ll have a slightly early {Golden Week}. Starting from May the 3rd. That"s why I"ll make the 7 days until May the 2nd into days off. I know it"s a bit abrupt but someone tell Zulu and Angela about it as well..Ah, I guess I"ll tell them when we eat dinner."
Since the start of February for this roughly three month period, we"ve been vigorously continuing to explore the 6th floor but because of caution towards the traps, the exploration is barely progressing at all, it"s just our guess but we think we"ve only proceeded through about 10% or so of it so far. We haven"t found any magic items but we have found a total of 4 ores and raw rems, a rate of 1-2 per month, so we"re finding them at a quick pace and the fact that it"s satisfying is our greatest salvation.
I"m glad I was able to remember at the last moment. May 1st is the day I can try going to Karl"s place again. I don"t know if I can make it there or not but there"s plenty of worth in trying it for almost an entire day. This time I intend to bring along a lot of fish.
Well in any case, for right now let"s just focus on our meal in celebration of our reunion. I said to brother and the others "please wait just a moment I"ll go and change" and immediately went inside, removed my protectors, took a quick shower, and changed into neat clothes. Incidentally when I went to the shower room both of them were already in use (probably Bel and Ralpha), so I returned to my room and pulled out my bucket for cooling in the summer to use as a shower.
I put my sword band on my waist as I head towards the lobby where brother and the others are waiting and after hugging Rozual and Wendy who I hadn"t seen in a while, I smiled to their daughter Dianne and said, "I"ve prepared a good place so look forward to it. Ralpha and Gwine came along as I was greeting the other squires escorting this time. So the first ones showering were these two huh?
Brother started talking to me displeased for some reason.
"Al, I"ve heard about you from the people of the inn, it seems that you"re said to be the number one adventurer in Baldukk already. That"s quite something. As expected, you"re doing well."
I"m being praised right?
That"s right, Al-sama. We heard rumors about you during dinner the other night, it seems you"re called the {Slaughterers}, and you even managed to wipe out a group of adventurers that attacked you the other day! It seems that it was a crime committed because they were jealous of Al-sama"s progress or something..However, as expected of Al-sama. To defeat them instead is quite something."
In comparison Sean is in an extremely good mood. Rozual and Wendy are smiling as they praised me.
There I was pulled into a corner of the lobby by brother and he started whispering to me.
"Al, I have a bit of something to talk about. What"s the meaning of {Slaughterers}? It better not be a name given because you"re attacking adventurers or something right?"
Brother is looking at me with a stern look. Ah, I see, he was displeased over the name {Slaughterers}. It"s not surprising since brother hates crooked things. Since he doesn"t come to Baldukk all that often it"s only obvious he didn"t know.
"Yeah, please rest easy. The name {Slaughterers} is a nickname given to us because we"re killing almost all of the monsters we encounter in the dungeon and bringing their magic stones back. Other adventurers normally try to avoid combat as much as possible while progressing further into the dungeon. However, we don"t go out of our way to avoid monsters. We"re defeat them all and proceeding even further. I"ve definitely not done anything that would dirty the honor of our name."
I properly looked at brother"s eyes while saying that.
"..I see, I feel a bit relieved hearing that...I thought my heart would stop for a moment when I heard you were being called the {Slaughterers} the other night. Of course I had faith in you. The other squires believed in you as well. But, since adventurers are exploring the dungeon..It wouldn"t be strange if anything happened. Sorry for doubting you. Forgive me. However, the {Slaughterers} is quite a dangerous nickname. I was surprised. And, if you had changed, I was worried that I wouldn"t be able to agree with your objective anymore."
Brother put both of his hands on my shoulders while saying that and lowered his head. I,
"Please raise your hand. But for you to doubt me is mean. I won"t do anything that would make father angry. I don"t like the name {Slaughterers} all that much either but it"s a nickname that comes in handy. It"s not all that bad."
I laughed while saying that and separated. Brother,
"Nn..I"m sure. It"s a nickname that"s hard to look down on. Since there"s young girls in your party as well...It"s true if I think about it like that it"s not that bad huh? But I would have preferred you being called {Justice Blade} or {Royalty Wolves}."
said that and laughed. {Justice Blade} and {Royalty Wolves} are the names of legendary parties from several hundred years ago. They"re the subjects for a number of fairy-tales. {Justice Blade} challenged a dragon when it was raging around in the Dirt Plains in order to protect the surrounding villages, and while they were wiped out, they managed to injure the dragon forcing it to retreat. The {Royalty Wolves} were a party of Wolf-people race that existed during the era of the second King and acted as volunteer soldiers during the war with Gulanan Empire, their leader was a direct subordinate of the founder and first King. Since the first King saved the the Wolf-people race during his adventuring days they weren"t able to forget that debt and acted as shortstops when he was invading other kingdoms to expand his territory, it seems they played quite a big role in those wars. Since they weren"t a.s.sociated with the army but rather treated as a shortstop organization of volunteer soldiers so they aren"t treated as soldiers but rather adventurers.
They"re both extremely famous examples of adventurers but not to my taste. If you were to ask me I prefer the ones where they focus not on the group of adventurers but the individuals, like Rombert the First or the adventurer who founded Kanbitt King, King Rogmokk.Za.Pitviper, so that"s what I"m aiming for. Since it"s a foreign kingdom that"s quite far away I don"t know the details but it seems that even though he was just an individual adventurer, he took over Kanbitt Kingdom that was a trashy small country at the time and raised it up into a large power in just one generation. He did such a sudden expansion of the country that it could almost be considered founding it new, so it"s got quite a few stories about it. Unfortunately he wasn"t blessed in children so it seems that he had no heirs but even then it"s amazing he raised up a single country. I can honestly respect him.
"But don"t misunderstand me. I"m not aiming to be a top-cla.s.s adventurer...It"s not like I want to be praised by someone. If it"s necessary than I"ll ambush people or even trick them. As a result I might even end up attacking some adventurers. It just wasn"t necessary until now so I didn"t do it"Yeah, I"m sure. I"ve already come to terms with that. Since the world isn"t that easy. I just, was worried that you were killing just to kill. I mean if you hear that you"re being called a name like {Slaughterers}, it"s not unreasonable to think that right?"
Brother grinned while saying that. And,
"Ambushing is only obvious. During wars I"m always thinking how to outsmart the opponents as well. Intentionally letting the opponent get full of themselves and after getting nearby, things like tricking them I"ll do as many chances as I get. I just haven"t done it because I didn"t have the chance. I already know that there was nothing like what I was worrying about so that"s fine."
said that and patted my head.
"You"ve gotten big, Al. I"ll be overtaken pretty soon."
Brother isn"t as much as Zulu but quite tall. Around 185 cm or so? I"ve already pa.s.sed 170 cm but it"s probably a matter of whether I can even hit 180 cm by the time my growth stops and I doubt I"ll pa.s.s brother. I,
"One day."
Said that and laughed.
"Farne-san, it"s been a while."
Bel and Toris came out after changing.
"Yo~ it"s been a while. I"m glad to see the two of your are doing well, if Al does anything crazy just tell me anytime and I"ll scold him for you."
Brother said that joke and after laughing with Toris and Bel about something walked towards everyone else.
I wonder where we should eat for today? I guess "Dorureon" is good. I told Ralpha, "Let"s go to Doruleon. I"ll tell Zulu and Angela. So go ahead." and then walked towards the inn my two slaves are using "Shuni".
...............
Year 7444, Month 4, Day 26
After finishing deliveries to the knight group, and explaining that all repairs and deliveries can be checked with at the headquarters of Greed Company from now on, I introduced the Ryogu family that would be staying there, and accompanied by everyone from Bakuddo we started towards the company head quarters.
Yotlen and her family have already finished moving to a cozy house in a location a bit of distance away. Since I"ve already given her permission to bring her youngest child, the eldest son Kamunal together to work, she has no need to leave a young child alone while she"s working. I introduce them to the Ryogu family and introduce the Ryogu family to Yotlen and her family. Yotlen and her family are quite reserved but the Ryog family was about equally reserved in manners as they greeted each other.
The only Free People in Bakuddo other than old woman Shaymi was the Doksh family of hunters. Since both of them were talents we couldn"t do without there was not feelings of awareness between the social stands when it came to them in a remote place like that. It"s different when it comes to slaves though. And if you look at it from the Ryogu"s point of view, they"re the only people they have to depend on in the large city where they don"t know left from right, so it"s only natural for them to watch their manners. I guess I"ll put some final emphasis on things.
"Rozural, Wendy, Dianne, they"re formal employees of Greed Company. That makes them your seniors. Also, Layla, Anna, Hanna, they"re employees of Greed Company right now but normally they"re squires of Bakuddo. Make sure you"re not rude."
This should be fine. Brother is nodding as well.
It seems that every corner of the company headquarters has been properly cleaned and just as I ordered there"s a signboard that says "Greed Company" hanging at the entrance. The Ryogu family carries their luggage up to the second floor and after putting a bit of armor on the displays in the storefront, they intend to go out and buy the necessary things for today. Since the shelves are still remaining they just put various samples like rubber sandals, boots, cushions, and such without adding a price tag yet.
"Dianne, use this carriage for deliveries. Properly look after the horses."
I said that and left the carriage I bought from Gwine in their care.
Seeing brother said,
"Wait just a minute. Obviously we intend to return to Bakuddo once but we"ll be back pretty soon. We need to bring the stock for selling as well. I would like to use that carriage as well."
and said that. Ah, I see. I guess we can"t leave it until now summer. It"s true that in order to carry things all at once having more carriages would be good.
"Eh? Ah, I see. Then, feel free to use it."
I said that and called out to Dianne who was about to bring the carriage around to the back.
It seems they"re going to start setting up tools, and the barrels with latex, sulfur, charcoal, and wood acid in the workshop tomorrow.
After we finished shopping and closing up, we all went to dinner together as a party to get to know each other better. I"m sure it"s fine not to go to an ultra high-cla.s.s restaurant. A place that is just a bit nicer than usual where it"s easier for everyone to talk casually is better. Ah, that"s right, I need to properly tell Rozural about presenting, or rather selling the condoms to the royal family. Thinking that when I was about to teach Rozural about manners, brother said,
"Al, it"s your company so you can do as you please, but as expected shouldn"t you do the deliveries to the royal family yourself?"
and gave me that advice. Hmn, it"s not like the King and Queens come out every time so it should be fine if I just give them instructions, and I thought it wasn"t necessary for me to do it though. Well it"s true that visiting the castle is considered an honor after all. It would be bad if they thought, "you looking down on us" after sending a normal commoner in. It would already be bad after something happens and it"s not too bad to occasionally come to the capital. However, it"s not good for the organization if I"m always the one standing on the surface..I see, I couldn"t help but think about it in terms of companies from my past life but the economy and business aren"t developed as much in this world.
Even if we mention a huge store it"s nothing more than a large individual shop after all. It"s not unreasonable. Thinks like branch stores and offices is a concept that only developed more recently on Earth as well. I"m sure it"s quite a hard to understand a lot of things if there"s no technological advancement to methods of communication as well. Ah, come to think of Keel"s Jabb, otherwise known as Haritaid, I wonder if he"s doing well~ Well, there"s no need to force myself to do it for right now. It should be fine if I teach them about things over time.
In any case I made reservations for a restaurant for tonight and I need to take care of deliveries tomorrow. After that, there"s a number of things I need to discuss with the Ryogu family and take care of this month in the capital, including teaching them common sense. After all it"s almost the day I might be able to meet Karl.
.................
Year 7444, Month 4, Day 30
For the time being I"ve finished teaching the Ryogu family the common sense of a large city and left Rombertia just before evening. I return to Baldukk in a hurry and I need to take care of some things. First off I have to buy a large amount of dried fish, a handful of magic stones. I can"t forget my portable stove and clock magic stools either. After that is some sandwiches for myself as well.
If I remember correctly Karl said, "In order to teleport to here from the 1st floor, it won"t work just through coincidence. Once in every four months, in other words January, May, and September, it"s only a matter of if you get lucky when you teleport on the first day of those months." I"ll immediately enter the dungeon starting tonight and kill some time in the teleport room on the 1st floor until midnight, then just after the date changes there"s no choice but to repeat teleporting inside. Since I"m still technically supposed to be in the capital until the day after tomorrow, if I quickly buy everything I need and enter the dungeon, I"m sure I"ll be able to enter the dungeon without the loud Zulu and Angela noticing. Even if I"m not in luck and can"t make it to that area..I don"t want to think about it.
Since I made until the day after tomorrow into days off I feel like something can be done about it if I spend the entire time teleporting over and over. Ah, come to think of it he also said, "and if you don"t press the switches that are in the bottoms of the pitfalls in the correct order the door won"t appear as well." I feel like there"s no other choice than testing that out a number of times. That time, what order did I bury the pitfalls again? Well, if I go I"m sure I"ll remember. Even if I don"t bury them I can go to the bottom of the pitfall and investigate searching for the switch as well.
In any case, it"s definitely necessary to meet and talk with Karl once more. Of course, it"s also important to have him teach me spells but before that there"s something I need to ask, confirm with him first.
I increase the speed my war horse is running as my feelings get a bit more impatient.
Just before 9 pm at night I was able to reach the teleport room on the 1st floor. Of course I sent the monsters along the way flying with magic and just ignored the magic stones. It"s a bit of a waste but I can"t afford to waste time. Since it"s suspicious to just sit alone dazing out in the room, I sat down in an appropriate pa.s.sage while occasionally confirming my clock magic tool.
I don"t know if it"s from yesterday or this morning, but a party of 7 just entered from a different pa.s.sage that seem quite exhausted, they might have been inside since quite a while ago but they"re resting now. Once the number of people increases a bit more it might be possible to pretend to be tired as I sneak into one of the groups. In order to avoid standing out I"ve taken off the helmet of my protectors and covered my face in a baggy hood. I didn"t bring my bayonet along either. I just removed the sword and put that into it"s scabbard and have it on my waist so it should be difficult to tell it"s me from a glance.
Oh~ from a different pa.s.sage there"s another person wearing a coat with a hood that appeared alone as well. They occasionally appear right, these sorts of people putting on airs of isolation. Since they"re exploring in Baldukk alone they probably have some decent level of skill but there"s a limit to how far you can go alone. Oh my~ they teleported to the 2nd floor without even taking a break. Well, feel free to go die in a gutter somewhere at your own convenience
I bite into the sandwiches I bought quite a few of for dinner and meals tomorrow while glancing at the foolish adventurer who"s teleporting alone, and continue observing other adventurer groups that are coming from different pa.s.sages. This time is..a full party of 10 huh? Ah, they"re the group that of 6 that came to Baldukk several months ago. It seems they"re properly increasing their members. They"re taking breaks as well so it gives me a good impression of them. However, even though they"re weak right now they"re certainly my rivals. It would be great if they charge in recklessly and end up as a bonus for us.
I"m making sure to always pay attention to the pa.s.sage behind me. If someone approaches then I intend to stand up and move quickly into the room. It seems that another group of adventurers is coming from a bit over 10m behind me. I"m sure they can"t see me but I can see them from the brightness increase of my Identify. After shifting my vision it seems to be a party of 8.
I lift my heavy waist and enter the teleport room, then lowered my waist against the wall with my head looking down.