arc01 · 018-ep18

Episode 18: Time to Go Buy It

I sprint flat-out for the 42 km to floor 7. Even while being careful not to run into monsters or other adventurers, it took about an hour to arrive. Thanks to the 【light orb】, other adventurers would sometimes spot me from a distance and step aside for me. The 【light orb】 really is a godsend.

Now then—from here on, it's mission time: hunt down club-wielding goblins and plunder their weapons.

I can't let other adventurers catch on to 【Plunder】, so caution is a must. I jog over toward the stretches with nobody around and hunt for goblins.

"Yep—from this floor on, monsters really do come out moving in packs."

Up through floor 6, other monsters only showed up as reinforcements when they noticed my fights, but on floor 7 I'd clearly been running into two-plus at a time right from the start, over and over.

Yesterday I naturally skipped every slime, but with goblins, money was on the line, so I managed to handle it even when they came at me two-plus strong. I'm an AGI-specialized build, so if I throw my speed around and snatch the weapon in my very first move, one of them drops to complete trash-tier small fry—which lets me come out of it without a scratch.

No idea whether it's a goblin thing or a monster thing, but they apparently don't give a damn about friendly fire. Use a trash-tier goblin as a shield, and the others will attack me straight through it. Which means: while the one attacking my shield goblin is shrieking and flailing about together with the trash-tier chump it just smacked, I get my opening to strike.

Goblins are genuine idiots.

But they hand me weapons that sell high, so I love them.

"There we go, spotted! Ready up, boys!"

I 【Plunder】 only the club-carriers, and instant-kill the rest with the steel pipe.

Partway through, I tried swinging one of the plundered clubs—and going by the feel of it, it seemed sturdier than the steel pipe.

"Huh, seriously? The wooden one's tougher?"

Shocking news, but well—considering it's technically a dungeon-made weapon, I suppose it tracks.

My bad—total blind spot. Guess I'll fight with a club while I'm lining my pockets.

◇

About two hours of exploring got me seven clubs. The big backpack just barely swallowed them—this might be a good target number to aim for per dive.

So, with the hour a decent one anyway, I headed back.

Had the guild cash me out like yesterday—and the total came to a whopping 140,000 yen.

The clubs sell for 20,000 apiece, so it added up to quite the sum. At this pace, one week is plenty to reach 1.8 million.

Grinning like an idiot at the 【Iron Demon】 photos on my phone the whole way home.

◇

From the next day on, the money grind continued for a while.

Nothing worth writing home about—just days of sprinting back and forth to floor 7, on repeat.

Even on school days I can just barely manage two round trips, so Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday brought in a shade under 300,000 yen a day—and over the weekend, going back and forth from morning till night, I made 1.5 million in two days.

Thanks to all that, I've already hit my target amount.

Today after school: off to 『Takumi Arms』 to go buy the 【Iron Demon】.

By the way—last week at school, lunch breaks were spent on idle chatter in the club room with the president and Aizawa, and I heard a mildly interesting story there.

It didn't have much to do with dungeons—I asked why the president had joined the Dungeon Research Club in the first place.

"Well, this is embarrassing to admit, but… the senpai who recruited me back in first year was totally my type."

"You mean one of that four-person party that graduated?"

"Yep, yep. A beautiful older-sister type with a bit of a strong-willed air—struck me dead center. …Got turned down, though."

"Oh my. That's too bad."

"Mmm—apparently the plan is no dating anyone while adventuring. The other three seemed to feel the same way."

"Aah… well, you never know when any of you might die, after all."

"Geez, grim much? But every one of the senpai was such a good person. Somewhere along the way, I found myself loving the Dungeon Research Club~"

"And you don't dive dungeons yourself, senpai?"

"No way, no way, no way! I'm scared of monsters, and I'm scared of the dark! Besides, my family's naturalist."

"Eh? Then didn't your family take it badly?"

"Kind of… but I was completely smitten by her cuteness. I'm a man who lives for love."

"I-is that so. I hope you meet someone nice, then…"

That's how it went.

Setting the president's love life aside—there's a real divide between adventurers and non-adventurers.

Anyone can become an adventurer, but a certain share of people apparently feel deep aversion to gaining a mysterious power that remains unexplained to this day. Those folks get called naturalists, or the natural faction, among other things. Sports, for instance, are designed with fair competition in mind and are entirely for the naturalists. To be sure, no-holds-barred sports limited to adventurers do exist… but the gaps in individual ability are simply too extreme, so they can't really be called proper competition. They've largely become entertainment spectacle.

Dungeons really do cause all sorts of problems just by existing.

Either way, all I want is to become the strongest and live out my 'I'm so OP' power fantasy, so I'll leave this stuff to the bigwigs at the guild and in politics.

◇

And so, here I am at 『Takumi Arms』.

It's been less than a week since then, but the money's ready, so I've come straight away to buy the 【Iron Demon】.

"Hey, mister! I'm here to buy the 【Iron Demon】!"

"Oh, it's you! You've got it ready already? That's quite a sum, isn't it?"

"Well, I found a good money-maker, so I managed."

"You look young for it, but… my, you seem to have a promising future. In that case, why stop at the discount—I'll throw in some care supplies too, and earn myself a little goodwill."

"Whoa, for real?! Thank you! Once I get famous, I'll advertise the heck out of your shop!"

"Hahahaha, I might just take you up on that."

The friendly old shopkeeper said all this while opening the glass case for me.

Being counted on like that feels pretty great, honestly.

"Here you are—this. The 【Iron Demon】. A work by Master Sakuma Gantetsu. Without a doubt, it'll be a real asset to you."

"Thank you! Hah, still so cool! I'll pay with my guild card."

"Certainly—let me just hold on to your guild card for a moment. Mm, all good. Now then, I'll bag up these care supplies for you."

"Seriously, thank you for everything. I'm gonna work hard and get famous with this thing—so keep rooting for me!"

"Hahaha, you're a rare one. Do your best—for the sake of my shop's advertising too."

"Anyway, I'm heading straight to the dungeon! Thanks a lot!"

"You be careful out there~"

And with that heartwarming exchange with the shopkeeper done, I hurried off to the dungeon, 【Iron Demon】 in hand, ready to give it its first test.