Rapid GrowthYear 7447, Month 8, Day 17
The entrance plaza of the dungeon.
After finishing our morning run and having breakfast it"s around nine in the morning.
There"s already no one that seems to be an adventurer left in the surroundings.
All that"s left are the stalls trying to do business with people who walk past them.
Obviously, everyone else from the {Slaughterers} has long since gone inside as well.
Furthermore, I finished taking care of Kuro and Mary"s contract yesterday.
..The same one as Basutoral is fine I guess.
1% of the earning from magic stones during their period as apprentices and other than that a fixed salary of just 200,000 Z per month.
I guess it"s because they heard the average amount Basutoral was earning but the two of them signed the contract without a single complaint.
"Did you confirm the condition of your weapons?"
"I did."
"It"s fine."
Of course.
"What about a knife?"
"I have one."
"On my waist."
Having a knife is extremely convenient for gathering magic stones, making a marking somewhere, or in the worst case if you have nothing else on you so it"s something adventurers should always have on hand.
"What about the emergency pack?"
"I properly have it."
"I"ve brought it."
From just a glance I can tell that they have the emergency use pack we bought yesterday with a rope, potions, and hard biscuits in it on them but it"s a necessary confirmation.
"What about the condition of your armor?"
"It"s fine."
"There"s no problem."
The two of them are wearing leather armor that isn"t very well made.
It seems they were made fun of quite a bit in the knight group but it seems after learning the two of them were Free People there were those who courteously taught them how to maintain it as well.
"Did you confirm the contents of your bags?"
"Of course."
"I just confirmed it twice."
It"s in the worst when you"re missing this and that when you need them.
"Then here, take this."
I handed them the lunch Giberuti prepared.
"Oh, a bento is it. But.."
"I prepared some as well."
It seems they prepared some bento for themselves.
The fact that they didn"t give me one is..Well, that is, fine.
"Alright, the two of you. Are you ready?"
"Yeah."
"Yes."
Kuro and Mary replied with a dispirited expression.
As a result of 14 days of combined training, it seems the two of them have some thoughts so they"ve been partic.i.p.ating in the running since the morning of the day before yesterday. Obviously enough there"s no way you can suddenly start running 20 km. Though I say that because they"re reincarnated people they have a deep understanding about training.
That"s why even in the knight group it seems the two of them went running everyday.
But, according to what they said it was just running 5 km a day without any equipment on after all~ They knew about how I would run around wearing my rubber armor when I was in Kiru so at least try and do that much. If it"s without any equipment on then even in the normal departments of the SDF the serious members would run it everyday so running 5 km naked everyday was nothing more than a warmup.
But it"s still much better than nothing. In the knight groups they carry out sword and spear form training and the always promised sparring matches which are normally done while wearing armor so they build up a decent amount of stamina but running is far more efficient for obtaining endurance.
I don"t really get why but it seems after seeing Kuro and Mary"s growth rate Knight Leader Sendhel started to include running in the training of the knight group since a year or so ago. Come to think of it when I was in Kiru I met with the knight leader when I was in the middle of running as well. I think I said it was because I can train(swinging a wooden sword and doing forms doesn"t cost any money but when it comes to sparring matches the pain from those tools is fast so just in case it costs some money) without it costing any money at that time was it?
And while I was thinking about things like that we arrived at the teleport crystal.
"Zabuhodoku!"
After chanting the teleport incantation we teleported into the 1st floor.
"Uwa! Amazing!"
"So it ends in an instant.."
It"s their first time so it can"t be helped but it"s possible for there to be monsters right nearby so don"t let your guard down. I said it that many times so let"s raise our awareness~
But, was I like this at the start as well...
Well, I didn"t know about things like this at that time so, just cut me some slack.
"Don"t let your guard down."
I opened up the map and taught them how to confirm the number.
"Then, this way. Since it"s the first time I"ll lead but after proceeding for a bit I"ll hand you the map and you two lead the way."
"N."
"Got it."
................................
""...""
After I cleaned up over 20 goblins the two of them were speechless.
I told them to watch over my blind spots before charging in so I defeated almost all of the goblins this time.
"The value of magic stones from goblins is low after all. They"re about 1,000 Z each so it"s a waste of time and there"s no need to gather them."
"Al, you.."
"Amazing.."
"Hey now~ putting aside Mary, you"ve fought against Goblins before right Kuro? These guys are the weakest monsters that use weapons. If it"s just this much then any of our members can.."
Probably not.
As a matter of fact I"m saying this and acting cool but something like 1v20 with just close combat was really pushing myself.
Though I had them watch my blind spots, it"s close to a miracle that I ended up not taking a single hit.
Honestly speaking I challenged them expecting to take a few hits.
"Well, in any case you can say goblins are the weakest individual monster in this dungeon of Baldukk. Though because there"s a lot of them they aren"t exactly the easiest either."
I let Kuro and Mary each experience standing at the lead during an a.s.sault.
I"m sure they"ll get injured and it"ll take some time.
However, freezing things will come after that.
.................................
Just around lunchtime.
We started having our meals in the middle of a hallway with a clear view.
Their bento was sandwiches that Mary made using bread and ham they purchased yesterday.
No matter how you look at it the hotdog(cold) lettuce(more expensive than cabbage), cuc.u.mber, cut carrot-like vegetable, along with diced crunchy bacon salad with a dressing the reincarnated people had Giberuti make based on rapeseed oil is better. Of course it includes soup as well.
Well, they"re still young so I"m sure it"s fine to overeat a bit.
In the afternoon I don"t have any intention of letting them partic.i.p.ate directly in combat after all.
"After all sausages are delicious right."
"Yeah, really."
"You"re supposed to call them Baldoggie there. The naming was done by Basutoral though."
They were moved to tears after eating them the other day but right now they"re challenging a sausage that"s over 30 cm long made from the large intestine of a cow. If this is completed then it"ll be possible to supply more at a lower price than ham which takes some time to make. There"s no mistake it"ll become popular.
"By the way, about that contract but"
A short while after having some after meal tea Mary started talking with a bit of restraint.
Hn? Is there something she"s not satisfied about?
"Ah, I don"t want you to misunderstand but it"s not that I"m unsatisfied you know? But you know, I really have to wonder about that 1%?"
"It"s the apprenticeship period after all. I said that after your apprenticeship ends and you enter one of the three parties it"ll be different right?"
"Things like that, did no one make any complaints about it?"
I see, so what Mary wants to say is that sort thing?
It seems Kuro heard about this matter from Mary last night and is just silently looking at me.
"There weren"t any. I"ve heard that when it"s newbies who have just come from the countryside they"ll sometimes split things up equally based on the number of heads. But, well, when it comes to about second-rate parties it"s normal for the leader to foot the bill for the entry tax into the dungeon and the consumables for the entire party. They also need to buy a map and such so there"s various expenses."
"But the danger is the same right?"
Mary said as if she was a bit unsatisfied.
"Eh? Like they"re the same. The weight of the responsibility is different. The leader holds responsibility for everything that happens in the party. There"s no time to discuss things while in the dungeon. The leader has to quickly decide everything and give out orders or it just gets that much more dangerous. That"s why there"s a lot of adventurers who want to be together with a leader that makes quick judgements and can earn well while preventing injuries. It"s precisely because the leader receives the biggest share that they can make proper decisions."
"But you know, if you think about it with common sense wouldn"t it be best to take a portion out for the expenses then split up evenly and make the amount taken out at that time just a bit extra to create a pool of funds just in case?"
Finally Kuro started joining in as well. Kuro said he spent a lot of time playing games and such in his previous life. Mary nodded at that opinion as well.
Also, when it comes to the average adventurer who doesn"t enter the dungeon in most cases their compensation amount per person is decided before hand. When it comes to escorting caravans with a lot of people then it seems the leader receives quite a bit more but that"s just the employer adding a bit more the compensation amount.
However these guys, they really don"t understand dungeon adventurers at all.
Different from normal adventurers the ones in the dungeon have tendency to focus on exploration and combat so there"s a high probably that they"ll fall into life or death situations. On top of that depending on the case you might even come across an amount of money that could change the rest of your life. Things like, try to get a bit more creative with your imagination.
"Yeah, it"s not as if there"s parts about what Kuro is saying that I don"t understand. But, in the end that"s just a game right? It doesn"t have any relation to real money or your life, it"s just for play. That"s why it"s fine as long as everyone is okay with it. However, in reality things aren"t that easy."
In regards to splitting things up you could say I"m already doing that there"s just a lot of people to split it between.
Even for normal parties above second-rate it"s normal for them to split it up between over 20 to 25 people.
In my case, we have more people than others and it"s just a matter of splitting it between 50 or 100 people.
That"s why in terms of percentage per person it"s less than half of other parties though.
Though that"s just a matter of the {Saviors} and the others are splitting up their portions to the point where you"d have to question if they can really do maths.
When it comes to the half first-rate parties the leader decides the shares.
You do a good job so you get 7% this time, you get injured right away and barely did any work so you get 2%, and such, it depends on the number of people in the party but as a general standard it seems each person gets about 4~7% every time they enter the dungeon and some places give out bonuses as well.
Otherwise every month they give out a certain amount in wages and depending on the earnings for that month there will be plus alpha as a bonus, there"s quite a few places like that.
"Why?"
"Why?"
"Hey now, just think about it for a bit. You two, in the morning we only fought against goblins but how many did you defeat?"
"U.."
"That is.."
Kuro defeated 3 and Mary defeated 4.
And even that was where they probably would have died if I wasn"t covering their blind spots.
Well, if it was just the two of them and I wasn"t around they probably wouldn"t have been fighting them in the first place though.
Also, in the case that we discovered a group of goblins or such on a T shaped hall, we"d wait for them to pa.s.s before attack them from behind, or next time starting from the one on the right, pay attention to the left, endurance while focusing on defense, keep an eye for an opening on the left, thrust with your sword now, using heal spells is a waste of mana so don"t use it, the one giving out all the orders was me.
"In the first place do you get that while splitting things up equally based on the number of people may look fair it"s actually not? In that sort of way my way is unfair as well though."
I said with a bitter smile.
"Then, since the front line are always getting hurt wouldn"t it be fine for them to get a larger share? Also, those who have to spend more on equipment and such."
"You can"t consider people who can use magic and who can"t use it the same right..Though it also depends on how proficient they are with it."
That"s a reasonable opinion.
However, it"s the leaders job to decide by what standard to evaluate them right.
In my case, I originally started by hiring Zenom and Ralpha with a fixed salary with added bonuses and then we came along to here with it slightly distorted.
It"s because I didn"t want to set any differences between the father daughter relationship they had. Because I thought that Ralpha would be able to do a better job than Zenom early on since she was a reincarnated person. Though in reality I just didn"t want to pay Ralpha more than her adopted father. But as expected now Zenom holds an immobile position as a super first-rate front line fighter. Also, several days after we arrived at Baldukk we met up with Bel so I hesitated a bit to put any differences in how much I give everyone.
After that when we met up with Toris and Gwine I gave them the same treatment just like that so it was hard to change at that point, even then I feel like I can boast that I was able to pay everyone plenty of compensation for them to be satisfied.
When Basutoral joined us I tried to somehow put a difference in the treatment but it still ended up at the same place.
Also, things like it costing money for equipment or being a part of the front line might be worth taking into consideration but in the end sooner or later it"s normal for everyone to fight monsters on the front line so paying any one person extra for a high cla.s.s item like armor or pooling money to purchase would just be a reason to cause conflicts.
Everyone wants equipment that costs more money and if it"s capable of increasing their survival rate then they want to use it.
In the first place, if that person were to die and you have to retreat before you can collect it you"d suffer a heavy loss though.
"You know, I don"t know what kind of dreams you"re seeing in adventurers but you should trying about it a bit more realistically. First off, about pooling money. What would you do if someone takes and it runs away? It"s fine even if that"s the leader. If a reasonable amount of money builds up I think there are a good number of people who would be blinded by the money."
"That"s why you should gather together allies you can trust.."
"..Wait just a minute Kuro. That"s certainly true."
"How will you decide that someone is a trustworthy ally? If it was a parent, sibling, or relative then they"re probably fine. Though it"s strange saying this but even between reincarnated people it "might" be considered another standard as well. But, even among reincarnated people you never know? In the past Bel was tricked, almost raped, and about to be killed because of that."
Hearing that their eyes opened wide in shock.
"And you know, Kuro. Think about yourself. Before you met Mary, what about the you when you were teamed up with Begulu? Let"s a.s.sume that the you from that time were in my current party. And, everyone month we were pooling together a considerable amount of money. Since I"m softhearted I reported the amount without withholding anything and even borrowed a shared locker at the government office. The lockers at the government office are cheaper than the shrine and for the most part you can relax so normally that"s plenty after all. It"s fine even if it"s not you. Do you really think no one would try to steal it?"
"..Gu."
"It"s the same even for Mary. What would you do if your family needed a bunch of money? Even if you discuss the reasons they might reject loaning it to you because, "this is everyone"s money". It"s a bad example but listen without getting angry. It"s fine if it"s the previous Mary and you"re being hounded by the yakuza or it"s fine if your little brother gets abducted and they"re demanding a ransom as well. Though something that"s even more likely would be the restaurant burning down in a fire or something. No, I don"t want you to reply to it. But, if I were in that sort of situation then I"d have stolen the money and disappeared."
Come to think of it, Zenom and our reincarnated members were all sharing a locker in the shrine.
..No matter how I think about it everyone"s already considerably rich so I can"t imagine anyone stealing the money and disappearing at this point.
Also, they might be afraid of me as well.
After all if anyone were to betray us and run off they probably think I"d chase them down and kill them...
And it wouldn"t be strange for them to think I"m capable of doing that after all~
..Well, someone who is unable to trust others is unfortunate.
Though I say that previously I wasn"t able to trust other people very much.
Because it was necessary to worry about all of the risks after all.
But, now it"s different.
I can trust my current allies.
Even if they betray me, haven"t I changed to just honestly think it was my own fault?
Come to think of it, in my previous life I think I used to trust people like this.
No, or maybe it would be more correct to say my hurdle for trusting people was low?
..Hm, I guess~ I"ve grown up a bit myself?
Kuro and Mary seem to have accepted what I was saying at least on the surface.
"You need to think of all possible risks and how to deal with them right.."
"It seems that being a leader has a lot of things to worry about."
"But, it"s true that we know about Al and feel a debt towards you..However, when it"s put like that I don"t think we could leave our money in the care of other people after all.."
"I guess so..There"s things more important than money, or at least I"ve heard that only people who are really rich can say that."
Yeah, there"s no you would leave your entire fortune in the care of some random person you"re just going into the dungeon with.
It"s difficult to make even a relative co-sign for a loan right?
Since you"re entrusting your life which is more important than money with them so anyone who says to trust them just because of that is begging to be preyed on.
"Well, it"s still normal for people who have spent several years together to build up a decent amount of trust. Even then there"s times when new members join like you guys this time. At times like that the leader has to set terms that both the original members and the new ones can accept. If a lot of the members don"t accept it then they"ll be dragged down for their position and thrown out of the party. If it"s just a few of the members then they might split off from the party and make a new one or just join a different party. In either case the combat strength of the remaining party will definitely drop."
Just like how outsiders saw our party during the {Sun.Ray} incident a few years back.
..............................
"Then this time it"s Kuro"s turn. Finish it off in a single hit. It"ll be hard to sleep if you cause it more suffering right?"
I froze the lower halves of monsters for them to defeat almost as if mowing down gra.s.s.
At first they were saying things like, "no matter what this is too pitiful" and throwing up when it came time to take out the magic stones.
However, while forcing them to do it over and over they"ve completely gotten numb to it I guess as the two of them are silently working away now.
Just like this my first day with Kuro and Mary ended after dragging them around until seven in the afternoon.
Both of them were completely exhausted and devoured dinner as if they were starving.
Today we didn"t go up against any room bosses but even then I had them finish of a decent number of orks and hobgoblins so they earned about 4,500 experience points in just today. After all, it was 9 orks and even 13 hobgoblins. Even just that adds up to over 3,000 experience points per person.
After that is the portion earned from killing goblins and gnolls.
Kuro"s level went up and Mary"s level should go up tomorrow.
The earnings from the magic stones was only a bit but was still over 1,000,000 Z.
The last time I earned this much on the 1st floor was several years back when I would go into the dungeon with Zulu or Angela on our days off.
Well, it"s a good start right.
We rarely encountered this many orks and hobgoblins after all.
..........................................
Year 7447, Month 8, Day 18
Starting today we"ll be fighting against room bosses as well.
They already don"t need an example.
Just the first time, when they were having trouble with a {Gargantuan Spider} I supported them using magic but they properly defeated it using close combat.
After that was freezing in the ice the same as usual.
Starting today we don"t have Giberuti"s bento so we"re having hot dogs with baldoggie that are sold by Murowa. It seems Mary"s energy ran out as she didn"t have any leeway to make the bento herself. Well, I did say that I"d be taking care of all the meals in the dungeon so there"s that as well.
Today I dragged them around until 7:30 pm.
The experience points were less than yesterday as we only earned just below 3,000 but Mary was still safely able to level up.
Now then, with this they"ve graduated from the 1st floor.
Let"s try going to the 2nd floor tomorrow.
..Hn? In just two days, three days since they"ve started entering the dungeon, going to the 2nd floor might be some kind of record in Baldukk.
...Though if I think carefully about it we suddenly brought Basutoral deep into the dungeon right from his first day.
....................................
Year 7447, Month 8, Day 19
The 2nd floor isn"t all that different from the 1st floor so we should quickly just clear through.
Just today should be plenty.
If we continue at this pace then the 3rd floor should be the same so it might be correct to copy the {Verdure.Brotherhood}(now they"re still giving it their best as a first-rate party with Basu as the leader) and {Black.Topaz} when they were training those young ladies by camping on the 3rd or 4th floors.
It seems Kuro and Mary aren"t as exhausted for the portion that we slowly walk through the dungeon so tomorrow maybe we should try going all the way to the teleport crystal on the 4th floor.
After say that, since the two of them don"t have much knowledge about the dungeon they happily nodded.
"I want to hurry and return the favor after all."
"I want to be useful."
Being clueless sure is scary.
Starting tomorrow whether it"s the room bosses or the monsters in the halls they"re all getting frozen.
There"s no point in gathering magic stones from gnolls either.
Orks and hobgoblins..I guess it"s fine.
Let"s just gather them from the bosses.
........................................
Year 7447, Month 8, Day 20
"We"ll spend today going to the 4th floor. You"ve brought along food right?"
"I brought quite a bit."
"Just as you said, we properly split it up and brought it along."
The only adventurers who bring along daily necessities to camp in the teleport crystal room on the 4th floor are the {Verdure.Brotherhood}, {Black.Topaz}, {Gehenna.Flare}, and several other half first-rate parties who are trying to switch to first-rate. Among them, we {Slaughterers} have all graduated from camping on the 4th floor while the {Verdure.Brotherhood} and {Gehenna.Flare} are often spending long periods camping on the 5th and 6th floors.
That"s why, there"s not very many people camping on the 4th floor.
There"s bedding so as long as you can solve the problem of food other than when you"re sleeping you always remain in that area earning experience.
If things go smoothly then it"s just a matter of going to the 7th floor and continuing against ogres.
Against ogres if I let my mana speak for me and freeze them to where they can"t get out then it"s possible to earn over 5,000 and maybe even 10,000 experience points in a single day.
This time I"m acting under the pretense of teaching Kuro and Mary how to act in the dungeon and intend to continue with them like this until the end of this month.
The {Saviors}, {Butchers}, and {Exterminators} are all moving according to this schedule.
The {Exterminators} should be in the teleport crystal room on the 5th floor while the {Saviors} and {Butchers} should be in the teleport crystal room on the 6th floor.
I thought we wouldn"t be able to meet up this time but if we continue like this then might be better to meet up and camp together with them.