You can tell what a chapter is going to be about when either 1. it contains the words "thinking" or "consideration" in it. Or 2. when it"s written in words I can"t translate. Next chapter in 3-6 hours.
Year 7445, Month 2, Day 9
We start entering the dungeon again tomorrow. It was after we finished running and everyone was eating breakfast together. A face I knew appeared in the restaurant. It"s a man in his 30s who is a part of {Sun Ray} and uses the round shield and battle mace in the front line, Harukein.Fumizu.
Fumizu slowly looked around inside and while I was protecting my food from Ralpha who already finished hers, he came up to my side and started talking to me. Can"t you tell just from looking~ I"m busy right now.
"Umm, Greed-san. Would it be alright if I could speak with you for a bit?"
"Ah, Yeah, what is it?"
It"s already fine, you can have it...That, since it"s some sort of specialty egg with red yolks that are from something-or-other village in the North of the capital which gives chickens a special kind of feed, I wanted to eat it but it"s too embarra.s.sing to be seen going so far to protect just a single egg in front of strangers so I gave it up to Ralpha.
"That is, I"ll get right to the point and ask. I"ve heard that the {Slaughterers} are looking for a combat slave who can use the shield. I"m not a slave but could I be of any use to you?"
Since this guys level is 17, it"s possible the spell {Charm.Person} would fail. It"s probably impossible to ask his true intentions.
"We"re already fumph"
Before I could reply Ralpha replied. What are you doing replying on all your own this stink bug. I smacked Ralpha a good one in the back of her head with my right hand and the egg that was in his mouth flew out. I caught that with my left hand after placing that on the plate in front of her I started to reply. So it wasn"t soft-boiled. I prefer soft-boiled thought.
"Umm, you"re a member of {Sun Ray} right? I"d prefer not to get involved in any disputes."
The glutton that is Ralpha is putting the half eaten egg back that flew out back into her mouth again.
"Ah, please excuse me. I"m Harukein.Fumizu from {Sun Ray}. If you"re willing to make use of me then I"ll notify {Sun Ray} that I"m quitting from today on."
These guys {Sun Ray} don"t use rude tones of speech while looking down on us thinking we"re brats. On that end it"s something that can"t be seen very often among the crude people of Orth so I think it"s good point I can honestly praise them over. Well, we did find and save two of their allies and we"re letting them use the shower room on the 5th floor so I"m sure even then they can"t treat us so easily.
"You"ll quit..Is that so...However, it would be a problem if we were to be criticized for stealing members so you already understand that we can"t just accept that right?"
It"s only obvious but there"s no regulations or penalties for stealing other party members between adventurers in Baldukk. However, while it"s only obvious people still hold interest in it. Particularly when it"s members of the top teams or when members of those end up switching to a different party it"s a topic that is popular among adventurers right away. Forcibly stealing members is technically possible but there"s no way it would look good in terms of reputation.
"Of course I already know that. A number of our younger members in {Sun Ray} admire the {Slaughterers}. I can"t exactly be called young but even then I want to enter the dungeon with a party that can earn more. It"s weird saying this myself but I still won"t lose to the average person around there."
I"m sure that"s the case. Even though you"re a lot younger than Zenom your level is already at 17. And there"s no way someone lacking in skill would be able to manage the front line of a party in one of the top teams. In the first place, even if {Sun Ray} puts most of their money towards offerings, you"re still receiving a considerably amount of compensation right?
"However you know. We"ve already reached the limit with our number of members. Well before even something like that, it"s necessary for Rindobel-san to officially recognize your withdrawal. If that"s not the case then I have no intention of discussing this at all."
Everyone has stopped eating and is concentrating on Fumizu and I. Everyone clearly has the expression, "This guy, he"s suspicious" on their face. Yeah, I already get that. I think he"s suspicious as well.
"In regards to the methods for splitting up our portions, we had some differences in opinion over it around two years ago. It"s been about three years since I entered {Sun Ray} as well. I"ve already gained the necessary level of skill to earn in the dungeon, it would have been fine to go off on my own as well though...Somehow I don"t have any confidence, that"s why I put my eyes on the {Slaughterers} who are rumored to be the ones earning the most right now."
Honestly speaking in some meanings I get a favorable impression from the things he"s saying. However, if he"s come to investigate our internal situation or intends to try and collapse us from inside then I"d prefer to just finish up the conversation with this guy and forget already. But, if he intended to slip into our group then I think he would use a reason that"s more like that but...I wonder if it"s camouflage?
"..I have no interest in what methods {Sun Ray} uses to split up their compensation. Even if you were more skilled than any of us, we have our own rules and I have no intention of treating just you specially as well...If you don"t first finish talking about things with Rindobel-san then I have no intention of taking your entry into consideration and honestly speaking, even if you were to suddenly try to join our group right now I can"t give you an immediate response."
Even after hearing my response Fumizu didn"t show any sort of disappointment on his face. I"m sure he predicted it to some extent.
"I understand. I"ll take my leave for today. Please excuse me while you were in the middle of your meal."
He said that, turned around and left the restaurant.
"So they came to attack from head on.."
Zenom said while eating some cabbage (since there"s no proper seasoning it"s extremely disgusting. However Zenom prefers to eat it).
"Attack..There"s no way anyone would let them in like that right.."
Bel said while dipping her egg into a small dish of mayonnaise. Eat it with salt.
I wonder if the oil from the mayonnaise will be absorbed by her b.r.e.a.s.t.s?
"For starters I guess they were testing if we"d happily let them join at that level."
Miduchi added while putting some dried meineiji on bread with mayonnaise. I should have picked that menu this morning as well. It looks delicious.
"I guess that means, another second and third hopeful will come to join us from {Sun Ray} then?"
Toris said like cutting up the egg with a knife and putting it on bread with some mayonnaise. No matter how I look it they"re all even slices. Couldn"t this guy make it in the restaurant business? Rather~ use your MP in more useful ways. Well it"s fine though.
"Well, it"s probably a trap so wouldn"t it be fine to just refuse and ignore them all?"
It seems Gwine doesn"t have any interest. She"s busy moving cooked beans from the large plate on to her small plate.
"I don"t really get it, so I"ll leave it to you all."
Basutoral abandoned thinking about it in the first place. Rather than that, I want to tell him to stop crying from how moved he is every time we eat. We"ve already been eating like this for over a month right?
"Hey, that bacon, if you"re not going to eat it then give it to me."
Before even waiting for my reply she reaches for the thick cut bacon on the plate in front of me. I won"t hand it over. Rather~ learn from Zulu and Angela a bit. They"re properly eating without a single complaint on way less wages than you. Though it"s also a fact that I"m handing over more than plenty an amount to just eat. If you want to eat then order more yourself, seriously...
"Why are you such a glutton? I want to see the face of your paren.."
Zenom was looking apologetically at the edge of the table. I didn"t say it with that sort of intention.
It"s a figure of speech.
From the other side of Ralpha who is next to me, Miduchi placed a sandwich with meineiji on it in front of Ralpha. She made a slightly surprised face but soon after took a bite and made a meaningful smile.
Stop being such a glutton already.
Can"t you at least say a single word of grat.i.tude?
And also that Dyurou over there.
You need to stop spoiling her so much as well.
Come to think of it, we haven"t even tried it lately but I wonder if she was able to use {Party-ization} on her yet? It doesn"t particularly matter even if she can"t though.
.............
Afternoon, after Miduchi and I finished our magic training, on our way through the town of Baldukk towards the inn, we caught sight of Giberuti buying food for when we enter the dungeon tomorrow. Since I also give Giberuti money for buying ingredients and seasonings together with his wages we occasionally catch sight of him like this.
It seems he"s buying pork and chicken at the butcher. Suddenly I glanced at the butcher and they were selling meat from the Matte Turtle as well. The Matte Turtle is not quite the size of a giant tortoise but a considerably large turtle. It seems if you go a bit further to the North then they"re wandering around in the fields. They"re delicious regardless of whether you boil or bake them. I"ve eaten snapping turtle a number of times in my previous live but it might be easier to say it"s like that if you reduce the gelatin texture from it.
In any case, since it requires a reasonable amount of preparation they cost a considerable amount. It seems they also eat them occasionally in large caravans by packing a couple of them in the back of a carriage. Since they can stay alive even without eating for a long period of time they"re considered good portable food for a source of fresh meat at anytime.
It seems there"s been many who challenged turning them into livestock since the distant past but in the end they"re reptiles. It seems they bite off the fingers of their breeders, they have no idea what to feed them, so they"re basically treated as bonus characters that you can occasionally catch off guard wandering around in fields and capture.
Regardless they"re unusual to find lined up in a butcher of Baldukk...And also, while we"re exploring the dungeon this time we reincarnated people have our birthday coming up. This should be where I splurge a bit.
"Ah, master. I thought of buying a bit of extra meat this time.."
"Yeah, I guess so. Giberuti, the pork is fine this time so buy Matte Turtle instead for that portion...Here, it"s fine even if you buy a bit more than usual."
I said that while handing Giberuti a bit of money and had him change the order.
"Oh~ I wanted to try using this once! Please look forward to the meals this time."
"Ah, I guess so..Yeah, I"m looking forward to it. Let me eat something delicious."
"Yeah, of course. Since everyone says they only have meals to look forward to in the dungeon. It"s worthwhile showing my skill."
Well, I guess so. I guess that is true. About the only other enjoyable things to do other than eat is calculating what the magic stones will sell for when we get our hands on a magic tool or something and rather than calling that something that is enjoyable it"s more something that feels enjoyable. Well if I just leave the meals to Giberuti then there"s nothing to worry about.
We split up from Giberuti and started towards the inn again.
A familiar face is walking towards us from the front. It"s Faruergaz, Hirosukol and their two slaves. It seems they"re out shopping as well. Come to think of it when I talked to them the other day, they said they were entering the dungeon once more at the start of this month.
And even though I say that when they entered that time it seems they only made 240,000 Z and after paying the guide fees they were in the red(100,000 for the guide, 70,000 for the entry tax, then 10,000 for the guide"s share and splitting up the remaining amount between the four of them it"s a mere 15,000. Since I"m sure they have to pay the wages for their slaves as well, they must have been deep in the red), so they were saying they wouldn"t hire a guide anymore.
When they noticed us they nodded so we nodded back as well.
Well give it your best experiencing some hardship without dying. Learn with what kind of feelings the adventurers of Baldukk are earning their money, how they"re trying to avoid danger, and why it"s difficult to earn money through magic stones by feeling it directly. In addition, I think it would be best if you learn that a cool word like adventurer is just another name for crude vagabonds as well. I don"t really get why but it seems like the two of you have some sort of admiration for the word adventurer.
Putting aside financially, I didn"t have enough mental leeway to afford failing in the dungeon. I think you all have a pretty good starting environment for entering Baldukk as adventurers.
For starters, it might be the biggest advantage that you have someone like me who can give you advice. Give it your best.
We returned to Boil Manor and after taking a shower, changing, and relaxing for a bit we went to eat dinner.
..................
Year 7445, Month 2, Day 10
After the night pa.s.sed the sky of the next day had an unpleasant light rain to it. The light rain falls almost like fog and it"s extremely unpleasant. It"s best to just quickly escape into the dungeon during times like these, and just like that we {Slaughterers} headed towards the entrance plaza at a quick pace. It was when we were walking through the plaza towards the building that covers the entrance of the dungeon.
"Hn?"Gun"?"
While the {Slaughterers} were walking in the so-called top team arrangement pa.s.sing through as we do, I heard a surprised voice. I reflexively turned over there and Faruergaz, Hirosukol and their slaves were all fully equipped. I guess they"re waiting for k.u.miru and Ruttsu. I can"t find them.
"Hey, is that a "Gun"? Ah, no, it"s not. Please excuse my rudeness."
Hirosukol stared at the bayonet strapped on my shoulder with his eyes opened wide in surprise.
"It"s just shaped like that. I"m just using it while remembering the time I was in the SDF."
"U..Ah, I see. So you were in the SDF.."
"In the past, it was for just a few years though. Well then.."
I said that and faced back to the front, then stepped foot into the dungeon.
..............
That night, when it came time to sleep in the teleport room on the 3rd floor, I thought about the nostalgic and surprised face Hirosukol and Faruergaz made when they saw my Type-64 rifle and probably remembered j.a.pan from before we reincarnated.
I wonder why they looked up to something like being an adventurer? Is it because they"re mentally young? Of course I can"t deny that but there might be some other reason as well. They received invest.i.ture as knights in County Faruergaz"s territory, the so-called elites of Orth. If you think about it with common sense adventurers...particularly picking the job of an adventurer who enters the dungeon isn"t really normal.
It"s certainly true that the adventurers of Baldukk occasionally make a huge profit but fundamentally they"re always running out of money. They drink cheap alcohol in cheap bars, sleep with prost.i.tutes who are either way too young or old in brothels that only cost 1-2 large copper coins a night. The tip of the iceberg is that more than half of the adventurers will one day die to monsters deep in the dungeon. It"s a harsh world where only a handful of those could be thought to have succeeded.
If you just want to live normally then rather than something like entering the dungeon, you could say living as the usual handyman adventurer is far better.
The adventurers who challenge the dungeon in Baldukk usually either have some sort of reason they need to get their hands on a fortune, they"re young and reckless, or while these make up the majority and regardless of whether they actually meet up to it, they have confidence in their abilities. Even in my case, though I"m a reincarnated person if I were to learn reality and didn"t have as much mana as I do then I probably would have lost interest in challenging it as well. I probably would have just taken the long and plain route of saving up and earning through doing business.
However, reincarnated people have the knowledge they"re born with, the thought process which uses that as a foundation, and an excellent growth rate to their physical body. Having knowledge is a tremendous weapon. First off, since we have the thought process backed up by our knowledge our imagination is like comparing heaven and earth to the normal people on Orth. Even if we just had this it"s enough to say we"ve already won in our new lives.
There should have been times when all of the people around us looked like idiots and fools. It"s only obvious. We reincarnated people know a variety of convenient tools and we also have the knowledge we"ve learned on the theories of how those work. Since we lived lives in an advanced civilization and culture among those. Ah, putting aside civilization, I guess I can"t say all of culture was advanced huh?
Also, we"ve received a high level of education that is not even worth comparing to that of Orth and we can naturally make that our own. We should have even learned a lot about the history of Earth in the past. Precisely because we have the knowledge we can imagine things and that makes it possible to challenge new things with some level of confidence. In a society with civilization and culture at the level of the 10th century you could say our thought processes and ways of thinking are certainly a foreign body.
If you maintain yourself without being pulled along into the drift and patiently continue without giving up then it would be stranger not to succeed. I mean everyone around us hasn"t even received an education on the level of elementary schoolers after all. Occasionally there"s some abnormally superior people who come along are called heroes and found countries.
However, if a modern day j.a.panese high schooler or university student were to be reincarnated as an eldest son from the Kamisugi or Takeda families during the warring states era then I"m sure they "were willing" to do it then it might even be possible for them to exceed Oda n.o.bunaga who was said to be a child prodigy. Rather, they would probably just try to wipe him out first before he has a chance to stand out. Ah, I guess this is different. It"s a matter of whether or not you know history.
Well, even if you don"t know if you remain reasonably cautious and gather information, then they should eventually be able to figure out they"re in the same era as the individual called Oda n.o.bunaga who introduces a number of advanced policies. When it comes to that time, if they have a firm objective then they could try to negotiate with him to gain him as a subordinate faster than others or if that"s impossible use any method possible to a.s.sa.s.sinate or try to wage war on and wipe him out. If that isn"t the case then I"m sure it would just be a matter of honestly obeying.
If it"s just a hundred years or so there might not be all that much of a difference but when the gap spreads out to hundreds or thousands of years then the difference in knowledge and thought process becomes huge. Luckily this Orth has a lot of similarities to Earth in the past. Also, on the other hand it unfortunately resembles it in so many ways that just the same as Earth in the past it places importance on the strength of individuals. For better or for worse it"s still an uncivilized world. Luckily I wasn"t a part of the slave standing and was born with some amount of leeway so I was able to start off with pushing forward and advancing my own individual abilities.
It"s not like I was easily able to get my hands on my current strength but I do feel a bit like I"m cheating. However, there"s no mistake that even this cheating is a part of my strength as well. It"s just a matter of mind over feelings on whether or not I make effective use of it and I didn"t think of anything more than making as effective use of it as possible. It"s clearly cheating in comparison to the people of Orth but I don"t feel any sort of reservation towards other reincarnated people.
The differences in our births are just a matter of luck and if we were to start saying that then there"s no doubt there"s other people who are even luckier than me. Faruergaz is like the most obvious example of that. If you have to make use of the cards you"re born with in the match then it"s a required ability to make the most skilled use of the cards you"re given.
Since Hirosukol seems to have been an elder when he died in his previous life, so he should probably know something of that level but for some reason he seems to look at me like I"m cheating. He doesn"t really show that portion when we"re casually talking but it might just be my complex that I can"t help but think that way. Though even if that is the case I still don"t think I need to change anything about my way of doing things from here on out.
Starting with them, the reincarnated people who have culture and morals based on that sort of j.a.panese background, when the definite differences start to appear between them and my goal supported by my own desires, I wonder how many will actually end up coming with me?
I"m sure I don"t have anything like the characteristic charm that the heroes of the past had to attract people. Though I don"t think I have absolutely zero either but it would probably be better to suppose it"s closer to zero. That"s why, in order to attract people I definitely need some sort of compensation. What that is depends on the individual so I can"t say anything but I can"t forget that there"s nothing that can be expected from work people were made to do for free. It"s necessary to engrave it into my mind.
Eh? Just like the branch families of daimyo Ralpha, Bel and them are different. The five of them and Miduchi are special cases. I mean..That is..Don"t make me say it, it"s embarra.s.sing.