arc01 · 010-ep10

Episode 10: Weekends Are the Best

Home from school, I changed clothes to head for the dungeon.

In the dungeon I prioritize ease of movement, so it's the track-suit look for me, always. Defense? Crap.

"Come to think of it, this helmet's about to be meaningless too. Against floor 4 enemies, one hit and it'd probably shatter. It's just in the way at this point."

So off came the helmet and the cut-resistant gloves, and I decided to go in an extremely casual getup. Honestly, this is about the limit of ordinary store-bought gear.

It's easier to move without helmet or gloves, and at the end of the day, if it doesn't hit you, it doesn't matter.

I hopped on the train toward my local dungeon.

The nearest dungeon is the Akabane Dungeon over in Tokyo. My current apartment and school are in Saitama, so it's fairly close—about a fifteen-minute train ride. Pretty blessed, honestly. It'd take way longer from my parents' house.

Well, I started living alone in the first place so I could hit the dungeon, and I only picked a high school near that, so of course. Didn't expect anyone from my middle school to be there, though. Why did Ogi pick that school? Is its track team strong or something?

Now then—the dungeon.

Every dungeon in Japan comes with a guild attached. It's a whole industry these days, but they must have grinded hard these past fifty years. The Akabane Dungeon's guild has been around a good while, so the outside looks a bit dated. The inside is seriously clean, though—must be well kept.

And that guild was fairly bustling, what with it being the weekend. The second floor has a reference room and café space and such, so some people use it for breaks.

Among the people heading up to the second floor, I spotted a girl in my school's uniform.

"Ohh, so they do exist—classmates who come to the dungeon."

The senpai made me sound like a lunatic, but there are a few classmates hitting the dungeon too. Recruit properly and the club might just survive.

Still, going to the dungeon in your uniform—what a bold one.

◇

Anyway, club matters can sit in the corner for now.

Another day of dungeon exploration—let's give it our all, shall we?

Judging by yesterday's results, I might as well clear floor 4 today and take on floor 5.

Floors 4–6, just like floors 1–3, have a fixed monster lineup—the same four species I fought yesterday. Nothing changes but the level. Also—and this doesn't concern me—the items you can harvest apparently change floor by floor. The miners from yesterday must switch floors depending on the day. I full-skip all that stuff, so it doesn't matter to me.

"Level-wise, floor 4 is still my proper fit… but with my stats, there's a lot of headroom. For leveling, fighting the stronger ones is better anyway."

So today I blazed straight through floor 4 as well and on to floor 5.

Maybe because the enemy levels went up, they're a bit tougher than yesterday. The time spent per kill isn't much different, but the tension and fatigue are another story.

After about five hours of exploring, I plopped down on a turtle's shell for a break.

Somewhere along the way I'd noticed this: other monsters apparently don't spawn wherever a giant land turtle is hanging out. Also, a turtle can't reach anything on its own back, so the top of its shell is a safe zone. While you're riding it, the turtle doesn't move either, so it's safe—you can genuinely take a leisurely rest up there. A life hack that never made it onto the net, this one.

On break with nothing better to do, I stared at my stats.

　************************

　【Name】 Kobayakawa Takeru

　【Level】 14

　【Status】

　・HP: 360 / 360

　・MP: 46 / 46

　・STR: 70

　・VIT: 68

　・AGI: 106

　・DEX: 69

　・INT: 63

　・LUK: 4

　【Held Skills】

　・Plunder

　・Martial Arts (Lv. 2)

　【SP】 8

　************************

Get this: I'd gone up two whole levels. My leveling speed is straight-up abnormal. And AGI finally broke 100.

Also—enemies from floor 4 onward give way more experience than floors 1–3 did. Party play really must be the baseline, huh.

And 【Martial Arts】-sensei leveled up.

What happened to "hard to level"? Or is the suffering scheduled for later?

The effect is simply the same kind as level 1's, but the output changed considerably. I can move faster and hit harder, and my core strength itself improved dramatically. Honestly, I could probably walk a circus tightrope right now with zero practice. Can't imagine falling even if I were bouncing around.

Thinking all that over, I ate the bento I'd pulled from my backpack.

Over spring break, I used to carry meals in like this and dive for hours on end, but since high school started I'd been wrapping up early with the next day in mind. So today, being a weekend, I planned to dive hard for the first time in a while.

That said, I don't want my sleep schedule wrecked, so I'll aim to head home around the last train.

Another three or four hours should be doable.

I'm coming back first thing tomorrow morning anyway, so there's no need to rush.

Ideally, though, I want to clear through floor 6 this weekend and reach floor 7.

Because on floors 7–9, weapon-carrying monsters finally appear!

At last, 【Plunder】-kun's time to shine!

The enemy: goblins. In fantasy works, they're regularly nominated—alongside slimes—for weakest monster. Incidentally, slimes show up here too besides goblins, so these floors suddenly crank up the fantasy vibes. It's been nothing but beast- and bug-looking things until now, after all. I could not be happier about it.

So I'd love to rush floors 4–6 and be done with them. Sure, if I just sprinted through, I'd reach floor 7 in no time, but doing that leaves my level too low to keep a safety margin. High stats or not, for a first encounter with a new enemy, I obviously want to face them with some cushion. Once I've fought something once and know its patterns, I can afford to get a little reckless.

Bento finished, I bid the turtle farewell and threw myself back into the grind.

Alrighty then—time to get after it!