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Chapter 21: Those Who Don't Know Their Place
Side: Koji Goda
“Haah, haah… Damn it! Why is a monster like this in the middle layer!?”
Shinjuku Dungeon, 30th Underground Floor — the so-called “Middle Layer Area.”
I, Koji Goda, was in the middle of a desperate escape through a dimly lit cave. My breath was ragged, and my entire body was covered in mud and my own blood.
Looking back, I could see a massive, reddish-black figure closing in with thundering footsteps. It wasn’t the mid-layer’s usual boss, an Ogre. This was a ferocious superior species—a ‘Blood Ogre’ with swollen muscles and four eyes. A monster equivalent to A-Rank that should only inhabit the deep layers.
“Eeeek! Stay away from me!”
The mage Tashiro, running a few meters behind me, screamed in near-madness.
The rumors on the guild’s back channels were true. Monsters from the deep layer were fleeing up to the middle layer as if escaping from something. Accepting the quest blinded by the special reward had completely backfired.
“Tashiro! Hold it off! Use magic!”
“I-I can’t! My magic power isn’t flowing at all!”
Tashiro turned his staff while running, but the magic stone at its tip only flickered weakly, failing to produce even a single fireball. Without Rin, our potion inventory management had fallen apart. Our means of recovery were already exhausted.
(Why… We were supposed to be lucky!)
The other day, that inexplicable black stone had sold online for 10,000 yen. We’d used that money to eat well, and full of confidence, we’d boasted that we could easily handle a mid-layer boss and descended into the dungeon. That “useless pack mule” and that “nagging woman” were gone. With my acclaimed swordsmanship alone, promotion to B-Rank should have been within reach.
And yet.
Ever since entering the dungeon, my beloved sword had been cutting like a dull blade. I couldn’t even properly cut through goblin skin, something I could normally slice with ease. Tashiro’s magic was also failing continuously.
“…! That bastard Soma! Did he curse my sword or something!?”
I directed my irrational anger at my former party member, who wasn’t even here anymore. The image of him creepily polishing my weapon with a cloth every day flashed through my mind. Ever since he left, my weapon’s condition had been obviously poor. Lack of maintenance? Its lifespan? That couldn’t be. My sword was a masterpiece I’d gone into debt to buy.
—GRROOOOAAAAARRRRR!!!
Behind me, the Blood Ogre let out a deafening roar. In that instant, its massive arm closed the distance with terrifying speed and swept Tashiro aside.
“Guhaa!?”
Tashiro’s body flew like a scrap of paper, crashing into the rock wall and going still.
“T-Tashiro!?”
I stopped, my hands shaking as I raised my greatsword. I couldn’t escape. I had to fight.
“Don’t underestimate me!! I’m the leader of ‘Brave Sword’!!”
Putting all my strength into it, I swung my greatsword down at the Blood Ogre’s tree-trunk-like arm.
Land. My strongest strike.
CLAAANG!!
A dull metallic sound echoed through the cave.
“…Huh?”
I couldn’t believe my eyes. There wasn’t a scratch on the Blood Ogre’s arm.
Not only that.
Crack… CRACK!!
My prized greatsword, the one that had cost several million yen—snapped and shattered pitifully, starting from the chipped part of the blade.
“Ah… my… sword…”
Clutching only the broken hilt, I collapsed on the spot. The Ogre looked down at me with its four bloodshot eyes. Its massive fist was raised.
I’m going to die. Here. I’m going to become fertilizer for the dungeon.
I squeezed my eyes shut, bracing for the pain.
That’s when it happened.
“—Hey! Someone’s being attacked over there!”
“Crap, isn’t that a Blood Ogre? Why is it in the middle layer!?”
“We’re helping! Don’t let him die!”
Young, unfamiliar voices echoed from deeper in the passage. I opened my eyes to see a three-person party of inexperienced-looking beginners, who seemed much younger than us, running toward us.
“Y-You idiots! Run! That thing is A-Rank! A weapon like yours won’t—”
As I tried to shout a warning—
The swordsman running at the front drew a ‘plain-looking longsword’ from his waist. It was a mass-produced sword like those sold at the guild shop, without any decoration. But the moment it was drawn, I distinctly felt the cave air tremble.
“HAAAAH!!”
The swordsman slid under the Ogre’s feet and unleashed an unremarkable horizontal slash.
—SWISH!!
It was an unbelievable sight. The Blood Ogre’s thick hide, which had deflected my full-powered strike and shattered my greatsword, was easily severed by the boy’s ordinary longsword, like cutting butter with a hot knife.
“Grr… GYEEEEEE!!?”
The Ogre screamed, spewing blood as it lost its balance. Seizing the opening, the female mage in the rear raised her staff. It, too, was a cheap-looking, worn-out wooden staff.
“Gooo! Flame Slash!!”
The magic she unleashed was an incredibly thick, compressed, searing blade slash—unexpected from a beginner. It struck the Ogre’s face directly, exploding. The massive body collapsed with a thud and lay still.
“W-We did it! We defeated a Blood Ogre!”
“Unbelievable! Those cheap weapons we bought online are ridiculously powerful!”
The kids cheered and hugged each other. I, still on the ground, just stared up at them in a daze.
“W-What… is that…?”
I asked the kid swordsman in a trembling voice.
“You… where did you get that weapon…?”
“Huh? Ah, are you okay, mister!”
The kid sheathed the sword, wiping off the Ogre’s blood with an innocent smile.
“This? I got it from the flea market section on ‘D-Market’ for a few thousand yen!”
The kid puffed out his chest proudly. Now that he mentioned it, it did look vaguely familiar. I’d dismissed it as a cheap weapon for weaklings…
“The listing said, ‘A B-grade item I fixed for practice. For beginners,’ but it cuts like crazy! I think the seller’s name was… ‘Master_Eye’!”
“…Master… Eye?”
I ground my teeth so hard it felt like they might shatter.
Master_Eye. That mysterious craftsman who’d been all over the news lately. The one likely behind that suspicious man in the gas mask who’d been putting on airs beside Seira Jinguji.
“Don’t… screw with me…”
A few-thousand-yen toy, made by some unknown nobody craftsman “for practice,” surpasses my multi-million-yen greatsword that I went into soul-crushing debt to buy!?
“Um, mister, you guys are hurt, we can escort you to the upper layer…”
“Don’t touch me!!”
I violently slapped away the offered hand and stood up, gripping the broken sword hilt.
“Mister?”
“I don’t need your pity! I’m an explorer on the verge of B-Rank! I don’t need charity from some hatchlings like you!”
I didn’t even have the energy to carry the unconscious Tashiro. Staggering, I turned my back on the beginners and walked deeper into the cave.
(I can’t let it end like this…! Rin ran away, trash like Soma is gone, I’ve even lost my weapon… On top of all that, I can’t go back empty-handed after being pitied by those beginner brats!)
I need something. Something valuable I can sell for a high price.
My bloodshot eyes scanned the surroundings and landed on something.
Further down the passage where the Blood Ogre had emerged. A massive, pulsating reddish-black crystal embedded in the rock wall. Its surface was etched with multiple layers of complex magic circles.
“Ah…!”
My instincts screamed. That thing was dangerous, connected to the dungeon’s very structure. That Ogre must have been guarding it, or drawn by its emitted magical power. But I could also sense it contained an incredible purity of magical power.
If I took that back and sold it to the guild—no, through a back channel—it could be worth tens of millions… no, possibly hundreds of millions! Then I could even buy equipment made by Master_Eye. I’d get the strongest gear and get back at everyone who’d made a fool of me!
“I am… the leader of ‘Brave Sword,’ Koji Goda!”
Screaming like a madman, I ran up to the massive crystal and struck it with all my might using the broken sword hilt.
CLANG!!
Crack… SNAP!
The crystal shattered effortlessly. In that moment—I felt as if I heard multiple hopeless roars from the depths of the earth, shaking the entire dungeon, echoing layered upon each other.
Koji Goda clutched the fragments of the broken stone, laughing vulgarly in the darkness.