Otoko Nara Ikkokuichijou no Aruji o Mezasa Nakya, ne?

Year 7447, Month 2, Day 7

The fifth day since we entered the dungeon.
We"re testing out firing the net gun against the bosses of monster rooms on the 8th and 9th floors.
It"s the boring job of going over and solving the small problems that surfaced after actually trying to use it.

In regards to the gaps between the nets just as initially expected at 25 cm, quite a bit larger than a soccer goal, it was plenty in terms of size. However, we also learned that it would be best to increase the number of fish-hook like needles attached to there as well. Also, there was a bit of a trick needed in how the net was folded. We ended up failing a good number of times.

And then, in regards to the gun itself the largest problem we predicted was the weight of it but after all that ended up being a problem. After all the weight of a single piece is close to 10kg. It"s a gun which I essentially forced a two piece gun into one piece and I ended up making the chamber pretty thick as well so it can"t be helped.

I thought of having Bel use it but even with her high Strength value it was difficult to maintain a shooting posture for long periods. Though I say that, there was no problem for short periods of time so there"s no other choice than for her to endure it. When it comes to transportation we have Zulu when he"s around and if he"s not then it"s just a matter of Toris gasping for air. However, after all it"s difficult to place any trust in the various status values that can be seen with {Identify} themselves.

Of course they"re useful as somewhat of an indicator and just as is shown(It doesn"t even need to be mentioned that her proportions are good just like the average female Bunnyman race but compared to the time when we first met her she"s developed some decent muscles. Every time I touch her limbs and body to heal wounds I end up vaguely conflicted over the muscles I can feel under the fat layer. Even Miduchi has ripped abs.) Bel is reasonably strong in terms of power.

Other than running she also does strength training a bit. Also, it doesn"t even need to be said but she"s an adventurer, she doesn"t slack off in training with the bow or sword so let alone a normal girl, she can move considerably fast even among adventurers. I"m just repeating myself but even her strength is quite superior. Even if it"s not as high as the value shows..Even if it"s doesn"t reach the point of the Strength value, it"s fine to say she"s built up quite a bit of power.

If she were to arm wrestle against a random mob that hasn"t done any decent training I don"t think she would lose. However, I still think father from when I was a child has more power than Bel and Miduchi. Bel"s current {Strength} is 24. It"s about the same value as father"s Strength when I was a kid but no matter how favorably I look at it, I can"t help but think that father"s strength was greater. Just the same because of the problem of level while Giberuti has the lowest Strength value out of all of us but I guess because he"s always carrying things, he can display the greatest strength among the {Slaughterers} when it comes to carrying heavy things. Though that"s excluding me.

Most likely, the various status values that can be seen with {Identify} are the upper limit of "you can train up to this value".

Well, it can"t be helped since it was bothering me but there"s no point in thinking about status values anymore than this, and above all else right now we"re in the middle of testing the gun.

"I"ve already more or less gotten a feel for it. I"m pretty sure I can definitely entangle 5 or so of the Minotaur from the group at a distance of about 30-40 meters. Shall we go?"

The average size of the boss rooms are about 50 meters per wall in a square shape so it"s difficult to do tests based on the a.s.sumed distance. It"s not completely impossible if we fire it from the hall outside of the room but there"s no guarantee that the monsters will all be grouped together after all. Well, it"s possible to confirm how the net spreads out as it flies so that"s still plenty for the test.

"Alright, let"s go and try it. It"s already late afternoon today so let"s just do some decent earning for today and go to the center tomorrow."

After resolving on that and making my declaration I went back to guarding one of the halls while Ralpha, Gwine, and Basutral gathered the magic stones in the edge of my sight. This time Zulu and Angela are each leading the {Butchers} and {Exterminators}. There"s only 8 of us but as long as those strong minos aren"t mixed in there"s no problem.

Even if they are mixed in I"m sure we"ll be fine as long as we can restrain their actions and even if they don"t get caught in the net as long as we can all team up against it I"m sure we can win.

.......................

Year 7447, Month 2, Day 8

"Then, everyone, just as we planned. I"m going to confirm things once more. We"ll advance just like this then after the Minotaurs have noticed us and are 30 meters away Bel will shoot the net."

Bel nodded while releasing the chamber and loading the blank cartridge. The rod with the net attached to it still isn"t in the muzzle. It weighs a decent amount so Basutoral is carrying it. We"ll be taking it out now before carefully folding it with everyone and then loading it.

"Immediately after that Bel will change equipment to the bow. Miduchi will be guarding Bel. Miduchi, while you"re guardian shoot as many arrows as you can."

Miduchi takes the important role of support plus guarding. In the worst case if Bel"s net can"t entangle a bunch of the Minotaur, if she doesn"t have a bow then the degree of danger would greatly increase.

"Everyone else will charge in together with me. It"s expected that 7 of the Minotaur will have resp.a.w.ned. We"ll split up into two groups, Toris, Basutoral, and I will go from the right. Zenom, Ralpha, and Gwine will go from the left. The first targets are the ones that don"t end up captured in the net. We"ll finish off the ones captured in the net after the first targets are annihilated. Alright?"

After confirming everyone nodded, we immediately lowered the net from Basutoral"s back and after attaching the edges of it to the launching platform of the rod made from rarukku branches, we folded up the net like a hairpin. The trick to it is folding the edges a bit tight while the center is wide. In order for the hooks to not get caught it"s necessary to do it carefully. Furthermore, in order for the st.i.tches with the hooks attached to them to not interfere with each other, for the horizontal lines excluding the ones going up and down I made them all slightly slanted.

We finished up our preparations and started advancing.

It"s the formation {Arrowhead.One} with Zenom a nd I at the lead. Basutoral and Toris are behind me on the right while Ralpha and Gwine are behind Zenom on the left, then Bel and Miduchi are behind Zenom and I.

And then, at last we"re facing off against the Minotaurs.

The 7 Minotaur let out a war cry before furiously charging at us when the net gun Bel was aiming at the one in the center suddenly spit out flames along with a loud roar.

Out of the Minotaurs that were scattered as they charged ahead the net entangled the 5 in the center.

It worked!

The fish hooks that were attached to the net dug into the almost naked skin of the minos and the more they struggled the more other hooks would dig into them. They were trying to swing the axes in their hands but it"s not that easy to cut a net made from wire. Not just that but as they pulled the net it caused the hooks to eat further into the skin of the other mino. I thought it would be plenty if it could last 30 seconds or so but judging from this it seems it will last over 1 minute. A happy miscalculation.

I smiled to myself while charging at the mino on the right end with my bayonet at the ready.

I dodged the partizan that thrust at me with a growl at the last minute and after diving in towards the mino thrust my bayonet deeply into it"s open flank before prying it to the side and slicing through the back as I ran past just like that.

"Gooe!!"

The mino let out a shout in pain just as Toris shout "Emeron!" while cutting at it, followed by Basutoral making a wide thrust towards it"s heart.

The cooking finished in no time at all.

After stabbing the slowed mino entangled by the net like crazy with my bayonet, just look, we"ve already finished them all off.

"After actually trying it was a huge success."

"Mm. If it"s this then we can safely defeat them. Now we can relax and come here anytime we want."

Zenom replied to my words as he wiped the blood of the head of his axe.

"But, collecting the net seems like it"s going to be a pain.."
"They rolled around in a showy way after all."
"It seems to be torn a bit. They have quite a bit of power."

Ralpha, Gwine, and Miduchi said while observing the mino that died still entangled in the net.

Certainly they"re in a pretty bad condition on this end. There was one that tried to tear the net alone with the hooks embedded in it"s body and ones with small wounds all over it"s body. A portion of the net is all messed up and entangled, certainly like this it"ll take a lot of work to be able to use it again. Since we tested it against trolls and such I could already imagine it but as expected when it comes to entangling 5 at once maybe it would be best to give up on the net..No wait, it was pretty troublesome just to make this in the first place.

"Sorry but I want to recover as much as possible to reuse it. It was pretty troublesome making this.."

"It should be a bit easier if we use Ral"s  bracelet to change the corpses of the Minotaur to water all at once."

Bel said with a satisfied smile. I see.

"Certainly that"s true..Then I guess taking the magic stones out of them comes first."

Basutral took out his large knife for gathering magic stones and approached one of the Minotaur on the edge before cutting through the net to it"s chest. Seeing that the other members all took out their knives and started the work as well.

In the end it took all 8 of us close to 30 minutes to properly stretch the net out after changing the corpses to water and then fold it. Well, just this amount of time should be fine. Having to repair a portion of it that was cut can"t be helped.

.............................

Year 7447, Month 2, Day 9

The first day of our three days off, after finishing our combined training in the morning I was discussing our recent plans while eating with everyone.

"In regards to the next time we enter the dungeon, but we {Slaughterers} will spend over 2 weeks, or if possible this entire month inside the dungeon. Since I want to make it so we can somewhat safely reach the 10th floor by the replacement match in April. During that time, Zenom will go to the {Butchers} and to the {Exterminators} will be.."

"Yes~yes! I"ll go!"

"Nn~then Ralpha, you."

I"m sure it"s just because Ralpha is bored from endlessly fighting against the mino while we"re in the dungeon. Though everyone is sick of it including me...

Even though I finished the net gun, recovering the net and fixing it to a condition that can be used again is a pain so if possible I don"t want to do it. Also, it"s easier than using the net gun to just sneak attack them from behind the moment they show signs of resp.a.w.ning, and safer. That"s why we"re going to camp out in the teleport crystal room of the 9th floor but in order to use magic there we have to move quite a bit of distance, and as a realistic problem, just thinking about camping in the dungeon for a long time is extremely depressing. Of course, as a change of pace we intend on going to the 10th floor or monster rooms on the 9th floor between resp.a.w.ns though even then.

Even that gun I don"t think I can say it"s perfect. Above all if you miss there"s nothing more you can do after that. Though I say that, since it"s shooting a net which is a considerable size there"s no way to rapid-fire it. Even when it comes to a spare I would have to make once more net. Furthermore there"s still plenty of places with room for improvements so it"s necessary to continue with various tests. If you move more than 500 meters away from the center of the room on the 9th floor then you can use magic so there"s no choice other than to do it there.

"The {Butchers} and {Exterminators} should enter the dungeon the same as usual starting from the 12th. Since the {Slaughterers} have to secure consumables and food as well we"ll enter the dungeon one day later on the 13th. I"ll make preparations for the {Slaughterers} consumables for after the first week so we"re depending on everyone from the {Butchers} and {Exterminators} to transport them to the teleport room on the 6th floor."

After confirming everyone understood, I continued talking.

"If there"s anything you need to get into contact with us about or any worst case occurrences then leave a letter inside of that one pot in the teleport room on the 6th floor. I"ll contact you about our plans and such through that as well."

I said that before ending things.

Of course, I intend to have Miduchi using {Party-ization} over and over again this time. We can only get in contact through Miduchi but in the case that anything happens when we"re split up it"s hard to give up on such a convenient method of immediately contacting the other members. Thanks to that every time we enter the dungeon Miduchi"s always got her Unique Ability running so {Party-ization} is still only level 8(Reusing the ability to extend the duration of the effect doesn"t earn any experience for the ability. Also, even when it comes to using it consecutively, she doesn"t earn any experience unless there"s an interval of over 1 hour between uses).

Though she"s only 500 experience from reaching Max with it so if we a.s.sume she can earn 20 experience a day for it then it"s possible to level up in less than two months. Because of magic training and such it"s easy to forget about so  she"s only done it at those times. After we finish exploring the dungeon this time and things have calmed down it might not be bad to use the {Cantrip} {Reservation} or void magic and take time to get her to use it. The bonus to experience points and proficiency levels is appealing after all.

We all moved together on our way towards the center of Baldukku before splitting up into small groups. I started on my way towards the food shop together with Giberuti. After ordering and paying the money I need to go to the capital once with Miduchi to show my face in the company and give out the necessary instructions. After finishing up the instructions and office work tomorrow, we"ll return to Baldukk with some Baldoggie, then I need to check if there was anything missing from the orders of consumables and have Giberuti confirm and receive them...

...................................

"Oh, it"s been a while right."

When Giberuti and I arrived at the food shop the leader of {Black.Topaz}, Anderson, was there. Come to think of it, this sis was selling my information to the King along with Viruhaima from the {Verdure.Brotherhood} right...It"s not really a reason to criticize them but it"s not a very pleasant feeling either.

"Yeah, h.e.l.lo there. Hey, old man, I"ve got an order."

For the time being I made a sociable smile before a light bow and pa.s.sed by Anderson"s side to talk to the old man of the store. It seems that Anderson"s follower Kaku came along with her and the two them just kept talking about something without minding me as I pa.s.sed by them. Originally they never used things like combat slaves or porters, so they must buy their consumables on their own as well.

After being half-destroyed and losing 3 of their members the current {Black.Topaz} is at best a half first-rate adventurer party. I"ve heard that they were recently recruiting members but it seems that there was no one who met sis Anderson"s standards so they ended it after just pulling a magician out from the second-rate party {Prime Rose}.  驕れる者は久しからずや、盛者必衰か。 I feel a bit sorry for them as well.

"Greed-kun, do you have a moment?"

After finishing up our orders, I was called out to as we were about to leave the store.

"What is it?"

"It"s difficult to talk about here. I want to enter some place and talk."

Umm you know, I"m busy. I need to go to the capital after this. I have no time to be talking about recent events with you all.

"Well, I don"t think you"ll lose anything from hearing it. You went to the trouble of coming to Gary, Rotto, and Marin"s funeral after all."

About what?

"It"s about my little sisters."

Anderson suddenly whispered in a low voice.

"Giberuti, tell Miduchi that I"ll be a bit late."