Year 7447, Month 2, Day 9Invited by Anderson the two of us entered a random restaurant. We sat down across from each other at a table in the back of the place and the two of us ordered some tea. Until our drinks came out we killed time be discussing things that happened in Baldukku when she wasn"t around.
"And then, what was it about your little sisters?"
After taking a sip of bean tea I asked Anderson. This "little sister" isn"t a little sister of the Viscount Anderson family. I"m sure it"s the little sister from a different mother with just the same father. Yorire-sama, the daughter of Baron Refaisu flashed through my mind. Come to think of it, they may sort of resemble each other.
"You already know my real father right? Then that"s fine. Then you should already know that I have 13 younger brothers and sisters over 8 years younger than me."
8 legitimate children.
Richard of the Prince Ronbarudo territory who"s 25 years old and the eldest son of her highness Molail is at the top and at the bottom is the youngest son her highness Marinen gave birth to who should have just turned 8 years old last summer. I knew about it since I heard from Rodrick. If I remember correctly excluding the ones that started to appear in ma.s.s a few years back that child should be the youngest.
Other than that, there"s 5 illegitimate children that are known.
These ones are just the comparatively older children. Misseru.Beirun who was executed two years back should have been somewhere in the middle. If he was still alive then it"d be 6 of them.
After confirming that I nodded Anderson continued talking.
"Among them there"s only one child that I was acquainted with. Ah, the other children shouldn"t know about my existence. Eh? I can"t say that. But, I"ll just tell you this."
After taking a sip of tea to wet her throat Anderson continued in a lower voice.
"Though I just found out about it last year. It seems they"ve already started moving so there should have been movements on your end as well right Greed-kun? That child never told me the reason either so I don"t know everything but of the illegitimate children just the females, three of them were made to enter the knight group several years ago."
Ah, I"ve heard about that before...
"It seems they"re being worked hard by the knight group but what"s strange is it even exceeds the hedges of the knight group and they"re even being taught by the eldest son. It seems the content is limited to combat training against small groups."
He~ I guess that means his highness Richard is also a bit involved in it.
Ah, the thing the King and them were talking about last summer, so it was this? He confirmed if the training was being done properly...
However, it seems it"d be best to avoid mentioning any names.
"That face says you knew about it. Then I"ll stop the talk here already. It doesn"t seem it"s necessary to say everything after all...A considerable bait may have been thrown before my three little sisters..whether that"s the case or not as expected I don"t know but whatever the case it seems they"re being trained pretty hard."
That does seem to be the case. Though the only one who directly showed their face to me was the middle one Yorire-ojosama. Of Anderson"s little sisters that are illegitimate children, from the oldest there"s Noirura.Jibekuto, 22 years old. The middle child Yorire.Refaisu, 19 years old. And the youngest daughter Mimairu.Fokein, 16 years old. They"re each 3 years apart in age. Even when it comes to the oldest one Noirura, she"s only 4, no, 3 years different from me in another few days so you could say there"s no problem in terms of age difference.
However, they"re being pushed pretty hard, huh?
After all...
Last summer, after talking with Yorire-ojosama I tried investigating it a bit but I couldn"t find out that much. I could only investigate the things on the surface. Though I was able to guess it to some extent, the only basis I had was the short conversation from that time. Well, I guess I"ll try asking a bit huh?
"How are things from your opinion Anderson-san? Out of the three of them, which one receives the deepest affection from your father?"
Since it seems like she originally intended to say various things, it should be fine if I ask from my end as well.
Anderson looked me in the eyes before lightly smiling and said.
"The one with green eyes."
Gu..I have no clue. I didn"t investigate as far as hair or eye color. Yorire-ojosama"s eye color was..What was it again? I feel like it might have been green as well but I can"t remember...
"Her hair color is..blue."
Anderson said it with a bit of a grin.
Ku...I don"t know that either. But, I think it should be fine to exclude Yorire-ojosama right? She had blue hair the last time we met but I think she mentioned that she was dying it to match up to my interests.
Rather~ this sis, she"s enjoying herself knowing that I don"t know their hair or eye color.
"Really~ don"t make that sort of face. It"s the youngest child. I was a bit acquainted with her mother in the past..That old man..with Farun-san who"s only 4 years apart from me..s.h.i.t."
Hmn. I"ll pretend not to have heard the latter part.
However, I guess that means the time when she was in the second knight group?
Sis Anderson is 34 years old this year.
If I remember correctly I heard she entered the second knight group at the same time as she reached adulthood.
If she has a child that"s 16 now then going from the ages I think it would be around then.
I properly heard those words.
"And, what I wanted to talk about today wasn"t something like that. Well it is related though."
Yes?
"Greed-kun, what in the world did you do? Even if my father is..umm.. Even if you were an excellent adventurer that has quite literally made an unbelievable achievement, I don"t think just that would be enough for that person to urge his daughters on."
Anderson suddenly asked me with an intense stare. It"s not particularly like I"m announcing it everywhere but I"ve told a number of people about my dream to create my own country. In the {Slaughterers} including the former {Sun.Ray} members there"s no one who doesn"t know about it.
When I was talking about it there were a variety of reactions like surprise, laughing, and understanding.
But, I see, so it wasn"t being mentioned lightly huh?
If it was being discussed then there"s no way Anderson wouldn"t know about it at this point. After all together with Viruhaima the two of them were selling my information to the King. There"s no way they would overlook it right. Ah, no, I also feel like there"s a high possibility of already knowing but thinking "it"s unrealistic to create your own country" so tying that together with sending an illegitimate child as a bride might be difficult as well.
Otherwise, it wouldn"t be strange to not believe it thinking "A dream-like tale like that. I"m sure it"s just for just laughs from the start right." as well. Rather this way of thinking might be closer to the truth.
Of course, it"s not amusing from my point of view but anyone who wants to laugh can. Even then I have no intention of putting in the effort towards it.
"That"s something that I would like to ask though.."
After hearing my words Anderson looked up into the air. And then,
"I guess that"s true right...That"s why you don"t really know..That child seemed like she knew something but didn"t say that far.."
said with a vague tone of voice.
"Putting that aside, Rokkuwaizu-san was it? You"re new magician. How is she?"
"Ah, Mimu? Nn~ Decent I guess...But, it"s somewhat hard to find attackers..."
After trying to ask about the magician they just invited into {Black.Topaz} the other day and it wasn"t a very good reply. They did pull her out of a second-rate party that was barely able to make it to the 4th floor after all. If I remember correctly, her former party {Prime Rose} is one I"ve seen camping in the teleport room of the 3rd floor a number of times. I don"t remember their levels but just because a single magician of that level joins their party there"s no way there would be something so convenient as {Black.Topaz} returning to their prior standard.
"Well, for the time being, there"s no other choice than for her to get used to the 4th and 5th floor. Ah, that"s right. Greed-kun, would you lend me your combat slaves for a short while?"
"No thank you"
"Right..Maybe I"ll buy some combat slaves.."
Well, there"s no other choice than that for immediately increasing your combat strength.
..............................
Year 7447, Month 2, Day 14
The second day since we entered the dungeon of Baldukk. After opening my eyes in the teleport room on the 3rd floor, all of the reincarnated people including myself were 19 years old. The hyumu race had an increase to the upper limit(?) of just 1 point but the members of other races are vaguely different.
But, we"re already 19 years old huh? It"s unpleasant how every year older you get they feel shorter..In my mind one year doesn"t even make up 2% of the time of my entire life. In my past life, when I was still a child it felt a lot longer...Of course, this is just my sentiment and I understand that everyone of any age has the same length of a year but I can"t help but feel like time pa.s.ses so quickly in no time at all.
I"ve already experienced over 60 birthdays so they don"t seem new or anything else. Rather, my feelings of it being a slightly not good day that reminds me of the pa.s.sage of time are stronger.
Giberuti showed some consideration in using slightly higher quality ingredients for our meals. The other day when we were shopping for ingredients we also purchased the ingredients for some sweets so we"ll be able to have something sweet tonight. Well, just like this it"s a day which is good to have slight changes in the food.
When we ran into Ralpha while camping in this teleport room she shouted, "Ah! Someone switch places with me in looking after the {Exterminators}?" as if she just remembered but no one reacted to it. I"m sure Zulu and Angela already realized we"d have some slightly good food while entering the dungeon this time because they carried it. In the first place we had planned to spend a while inside so I prepared even just a bit better ingredients to reduce the amount of stress. Also, the one who volunteered was you.
"It"s a bit regretful but it can"t be helped right, Ral-san. Now, let"s go. We have to return to the surface once the day after tomorrow to transport the supplies after all. Here"
After being called out like that by Rodrick, Ralpha was dragged along and disappeared into the 4th floor.
Then I guess it"s about time for us to go as well.
I hope we can make it to the 6th floor safely again today.
..................................
Year 7447, Month 2, Day 16
We arrived at the teleport room on the 9th floor just before noon. Of course the 7 guardians were in the care of the net gun once again as we finished them off. If you"re wondering why we didn"t come this far by yesterday, it"s because it took some time to pack up the various luggage in related to gun production on the 8th floor.
After this, we"ll take a bit of a break to have lunch and then leave Giberuti behind to start preparing dinner while the 8 of us go to the 10th floor. Either way the mino will resp.a.w.n 18 hours later, which is early morning tomorrow.
I intend to properly start producing guns tomorrow. It"s been proven that the net gun is effective so I intend to go outside of the Anti-Magic area on the 9th floor to make improvements and work on making the guns. First it"s necessary to make a spare net gun but I just wanted to forget about the troublesome gun improvements for at least the first day after we arrived on the 9th floor.
By the way, this time we don"t have Zenom or Ralpha so I don"t intend on going into any monster rooms on the 10th floor. I"ve already said this to everyone. As expected if we don"t have those two then the front line is difficult unless I join in. Up until now we"ve just been fighting against monsters we"ve fought a number of times so it was fine just thinking of that as an extension of training but as expected if I leave the back support it"s scary against opponents we"re seeing for the first time.
"Then shall we go?"
After finishing lunch and taking a short break, we departed for the 10th floor.
We"ve come to it before but the state of the 10th floor wasn"t all that much different from the 8th and 9th floors. The width of the halls and the state of the walls were both the same. Additionally, there"s teleport crystals at the end of each place and it"s not hard to imagine that they most likely lead to areas we haven"t been to before.
We wandered around until the evening killing all of the random monsters we encountered and taking their magic stones before withdrawing.
Several days pa.s.sed with this sort of start.
..............................
Year 7447, Month 2, Day 30
As expected it"s about time.
After all it"s the 15th day since we started camping out in the teleport room of this 9th floor, that"s two and a half weeks.
This time entering the dungeon we"ve killed the mino group a total of 20 times including the first time. A total of 140 of them. Matching that up with our previous results and..how many has it been again? In any case we"ve killed a lot of them. We went to resupply on food six times. Staying in the dungeon and staring at the ceilings for such a long period as this is extremely bad for mental health. In the first place, I"ve run out of the cotton needed for making gunpowder to make any further improvements to the guns.
Thanks to that in regards to the guns I was able to obtain somewhat satisfying results for the net gun. I decided to leave one of them on top of a random board in the teleport room of the 8th floor. I have to digress a bit in order to explain the reason. Previously, it"s something we knew since making the shower rooms and such but inside of the dungeon if you leave crafted items around without being used they break at a speed far faster than on the surface.
Something like the shower room if it"s not used at all for around two weeks the ropes will start to come loose. It"s to the point where if it reaches one month the ropes will completely break apart. However, if you just use it with a few days apart there"s no wear other than normal aging. When it comes to buckets made from plants, simple leather armor, and bags that don"t use any metal parts if you just leave them on the ground without touching them for a period of time they start to break in the same amount of time, or rather the various parts the items are made up of us start to scatter.
We were able to figure out that if no one touches them and they aren"t used for roughly 3-4 days they started to loosen. But, strangely enough if you just leave some water inside of the buckets it seems they"re considered being used so as long as the water doesn"t evaporate there were no problems. It"s fine even if you put something like dried meat inside of it.
Also, there"s no problem like that with magic tools like the stove or clock. There"s no problem at all with tableware like ones carved from wood or ceramic either.
Obviously it"s the same for knives and forks whether they have wooden handles or just ornaments there"s problem at all.
What"s even better is that as long as the bucket is a properly made one with a metal ring around it then even if it doesn"t have water inside it"ll last quite a long time to where you can"t see a difference even after two weeks.
We couldn"t see any problems with knives or ladles either.
In other words, simple things that aren"t made up of parts, things that have metal parts included in their production, magic tools, and things that are believed to be in use only deteriorate at the same speed as the surface but manufactured goods which are only made up of fibers or leather and just organic materials deteriorate at an abnormal speed.
Even if I say deteriorate it"s not a deteriorate of the quality of the materials but the object itself can"t maintain it"s form anymore, would be a more appropriate way of putting it. For example, if you were to put a bucket with a hoop made from rattan inside of another proper bucket or tub made with a metal hoop then it"s fine even after one month.
Our harvest this time was of course the large amount of mino we killed but also the fact that I was able to seriously start tests on a gun with proper rifling that can fire bullets. It"s not as if I hadn"t done it at all so far but it was just at the level of exchanging the barrels of the net guns, so it"s not like I made all of the parts exclusively for it.
Just the same as the net gun, I still can"t manage a complex structure, it"s a completely single-shot gun that isn"t even bolt action. However, just as expected because of it"s simple structure there"s not much need to worry about it misfiring and I ended up with a gun with considerably high precision.
In regards to guns this is the third one in total.
I"ve left the older net gun and the normal single-shot gun in the teleport room on the 9th floor and since the newly improved net gun is a bit slighter and easier to carry, I"ve decided to store it in the teleport room on the 8th floor.
Obviously in the bullets and blank cartridges are just lined up in an appropriate bucket for now but I think it"s necessary to make an exclusive storage box for them eventually. I want to make it so we can easily pa.s.s through the 9th floor by mid-April when the subst.i.tution matches start. With the middle of next month as the goal I guess I"ll order some exclusive wooden boxes for each size. I"m sure some portable ammunition cases will be necessary as well.
Recently Zulu and Angela seem to have gotten quite a bit used to the firing sound of the guns as they don"t appear afraid at all. Particularly when test firing the gun that fires real bullets, they"ve seen it a number of times and were interested in it"s destructive power that"s incomparable to a bow. It"s close to obvious knowledge for reincarnated people but Zenom, who isn"t here, and them seem to have quite a bit of interest in it.
However, excluding the reincarnated members not a single one of them has said "let me try firing it" yet. I"m sure it"s big that they saw the initial accidents when making the bullets. Also, another big part of it may be that I did enough nagging about dealing with the bullets and gunpowder to the point of a sour taste in my mouth.
Miduchi, Toris, Gwine, and Basutoral who found it new at first have recently seemed to be bored with it and are just acting as a.s.sistants to Bel and I as we continue test firing.
It"s true that it"s started to get difficult for that Bel and I as well.
"As expected I"ve started to miss the surface. Shall we return once?"
""Once!?""
That"s right. We"re going to come back and camp out for the same amount of time again. I was able to build up quite a bit of confidence from my tests with the guns this time. I intend on making a prototype bolt action rifle next time. It"s necessary to prepare the materials and I need to go and buy the yellow dye and cotton as well. Ah, putting aside the yellow dye, the cotton should have already arrived at Boil Manor I guess?
On our way back returning to the surface, when I saw the Trent lumber we hadn"t taken to the surface still packed in a corner of the 8th floor, I started thinking about various things.