ch121-ch140 · 137-ch137

Chapter 137: Mia-san's Past Part 4

SIDE: Akashiya Miyako (【Blacksmith】 Mia)

Kasumi-san—a beauty, and kind even to a piece of work like me.

There was a time I thought the woman had no flaws at all, but Kasumi-san was a perfectly ordinary problem child.

How should I put it—a self-appointed hall monitor, maybe...

Watching people die as they chased Floor 30, Kasumi-san's... condition, it just kept getting worse and worse...

Whether she was working the Association in uniform or holding a spear as an adventurer, she'd get in adventurers' faces.

Don't do that. Don't do this.

Don't do anything dangerous.

Don't go any deeper...

For a bottom-rung adventurer like me, that was welcome advice.

But to top-tier adventurers—the kind aiming to break through Floor 30—it was a plain nuisance.

They were competing, lives on the line, over who would break Floor 30 first, and here she was trying to make them stop...

'It is not something worth staking your life on, is it?'

She wasn't wrong, and the fact that the one saying it was an Association employee made it all the worse.

Adventurers couldn't lay a hand on her no matter how mad she made them.

'To them, it is something worth staking their lives on!'

She and Anego got into it plenty too.

Apparently her approach didn't sit well with the Association brass either, and she got official warnings over it.

More and more often she'd be shrunken into a corner of my workshop in the middle of the day, still in uniform.

(The one who'd come collect her was her 【Healer】 cohort-mate, if I remember right...)

The clincher was this: the party led by a 【Swordsman】 who got along with Kasumi-san worst of all became the very first to break through Floor 30.

Those guys announced they were taking on Floor 30 at lower levels than any of the ones who'd never come back...

They got into a shouting match with Kasumi-san in front of the Floor 1 counter, then headed for Floor 30 as if to shrug her off.

They came back gloriously transformed into high-rank job holders.

Plenty of adventurers had witnessed that shouting match before the departure.

(And from then on, nobody listened to a word Kasumi-san said...)

Even so, Kasumi-san never stopped warning adventurers—but far from producing results, the death toll only climbed.

The job the breakthrough party's leader had gained was 【Sword Saint】.

Facing that overwhelming power, everyone wanted a high-rank job.

Everyone wanted one.

'Once somebody breaks through Floor 30, this reckless challenge will end.'

That was what the Association figured—but contrary to all their hopes, nobody gave up on Floor 30.

People were already dying every single day, and still these idiots kept hurling themselves at Floor 30 like something in them had snapped.

A few more did break through in time, but the jobs they wanted never came...

Eventually the mountain of dead had the public looking at adventurers sideways, and the gateway into the profession narrowed.

The end of the First Dungeon Boom.

Almost at the same time, Kasumi-san's transfer to the Chiba Dungeon was decided.

Kasumi-san looked pretty hollowed out, I thought.

Maybe that was what I looked like back when I stopped going to school...

A few weeks later, Kasumi-san came by my shop for the first time in a while and said:

"Let's recommend spears to beginners and cut down on the injuries."

She's STILL at it!?

This woman did not get discouraged.

Rather than the top-tier adventurers who wouldn't listen, she'd apparently decided to narrow her target to beginners and save more people that way.

Seeing Kasumi-san somewhat back to her old self put me at ease.

Come the weekend she was still at headquarters, diligently grinding levels.

She'd stopped forcing herself onto adventurers, but when it came to not overlooking someone in trouble, she hadn't changed a bit.

(This woman is something else. I want to be like her...)

Salvation for beginners.

I had myself a vague goal.

Kasumi-san saved me when I was struggling—now it was my turn to save the beginners who were.

A year was about to pass, and the weapons I made were still lousy.

At the end of the day, weapons made by ordinary production jobs lose to weapons made with the latest modern technology.

But that only goes for weapons made within the bounds of common sense.

A stupidly heavy weapon like the hammer I swing—nobody sells anything like that anywhere.

But there really are people who want one.

Every made-to-order weapon shop charges an arm and a leg. Out of reach.

That's where my shop comes in.

Can't make anything that good, but you can buy cheap, weird weapons.

I built a giant kitchen knife for a 【Chef】 and a giant needle for a 【Tailor】.

The production-job crowd started networking with each other too, and business was booming pure and simple.

"If it won't enhance, that's that. I'll take it back here at the shop. No charge, of course."

Taking a beginner's money for something unusable goes against my principles, so unusable weapons are returnable.

The 【Staff User】 who wanted a three-section staff—the one I built for him—got returned to me because he could only enhance the section he was touching...

And so the weapons that failed testing came rolling back, and before I knew it, the shelves were lined with nothing but weird weapons.

I meant to build a shop for beginners, but somewhere along the way it got known—and famous—as a shop for pros that sold nothing but weird weapons.

Even the ten-meter long spear I made for Kasumi-san—the one that went through Anego's butt and got sealed away—is on display.

To advertise, I started uploading reference videos online and going by 'Mia,' and the shop became 'Mia Weapon Shop.'

"I came on a referral from an Association employee."

Troubled beginners still kept coming, sent over by Kasumi-san's 【Healer】 cohort-mate.

Since the introductions come from the 【Healer】 who's become the most popular receptionist at headquarters, the count has grown even beyond Kasumi-san's day—not that I'm telling her that.

Smooth sailing, smooth sailing.

"Congrats on your Dungeon Clear—cheers!"

That day was a celebration of Tan-san's Dungeon Clear—the very first person I ever partied with.

Once year three rolled around, Dungeon Clearers had started popping up one after another.

'Dungeon Clear' is the code word among graduates of the freelance women's party scene.

Marrying and quitting adventuring...

I'd gotten completely chummy with the freelance crowd—these days I'm in on the drinking parties.

I'd turned 20, so I could drink now.

For the record, Fluffy-san was there too.

Fluffy-san had joined a fixed party and married one of its adventurers, but she kept adventuring, so no Dungeon Clear for her.

At drinking parties like this one, Anego goes wild and drinks herself under the table.

That day I drank too much myself—happy and sad all at once.

The next morning...

"Pyeee—"

An unfamiliar room, and there was Anego—asleep right next to me.

Naked, at that...

When somebody Dungeon Clears, this kind of thing is a rarely-frequent occurrence.

I would like it on the record that I, for one, was fully dressed.