arc01 · 030-ep30

Episode 30: Total Blind Spot

"Broad strokes, I get your situation now. Doesn't look like there's much I can actually do for you, but—keeping you company, that much I can manage."

"Thank you. Just hearing that is a big help on its own."

"Are the people around you really that untrustworthy?"

"It's not that they're untrustworthy, it's more… right up until today, I half suspected everyone might be NPCs… But another reincarnator? That, I can believe is a real human. Something like that."

"You were that deep in paranoia, huh…"

"I've always been a pessimist."

"You've got drive, though."

"I was desperate…"

I might have gotten a slightly better read on what makes this Azuma Mio woman tick. I can't sympathize—but I can understand.

"Me, on the other hand? I straight-up danced for joy over reincarnating into a world with dungeons."

"You like dungeons that much?"

"Well, I was a fantasy-loving otaku back in my past life. Not doing otaku activities anymore, though."

"Right—most of that stuff you'd already seen once, huh. Dungeons have the freshness cornered."

"Exactly. That's why I've been training nonstop since I was little. Finally got my adventurer registration this year, and honestly? Life's never been more fulfilling."

"Wait, hold on? You're a first-year in high school? No way?"

"Not a lie. Huh? Do I really look that old?"

"Not old, exactly… I had you pegged as a university student."

"Well, I am on the tall side."

"All that nervousness for nothing."

"The heck's that about."

"Hehe."

Sobered up now, and with both our secrets out on the table, her mind's apparently settled quite a bit—she's laughing.

"You know, actually—I've dived in a dungeon before myself. Even registered as an adventurer and everything."

"Really? You're absolutely built for the wrong job, though."

"Yeah. Wasn't built for it. Got sent flying by a rabbit, couldn't get anywhere near the centipedes—too gross. Couldn't do a thing."

"Relax. That's most people."

"If anything, I don't get how you can keep on fighting in a place like that. Did you do something in your past life?"

"Nope. Plain old civilian. The kind of indoor kid who didn't even do sports."

"Ehh…… and yet you can take on a dungeon, just like that."

"My mental's on the sturdy side."

"Ahaha, yeah, you do sound sturdy."

Who'd have thought Azuma had actually been inside a dungeon. She didn't need to go to find that out, though. Wrong fit—completely.

"I thought, maybe in a dungeon I could meet some god-like being. Maybe there's a key to the whole mystery down there. That's what got me, you know?"

"Ah… well, fair. It's not impossible. The place is basically a solid lump of the paranormal."

"But I folded right away. That place and I are not compatible."

"Everybody's got their thing and their not-thing. Can't be helped."

"Right?"

The mystery of the dungeons. True, I'd never thought much about it before, but that thing is a big deal. If some being reincarnated us, it would be no surprise for it to be involved. If anything, assuming it is involved is the natural take.

"Oh, right—you entered a dungeon, so you got a starting skill, yeah? What was it?"

"……【Plunder】. Looked it up back then—turns out this one is a colossal dud of a skill."

"Wait. 【Plunder】? Seriously?"

"Huh? Yeah. That's right. That's part of why I folded so fast, too."

"…………Truth is, mine's 【Plunder】 too."

"……Huh?"

"……Do all reincarnators get 【Plunder】? No—with a sample size of two, there's no saying…"

"You too!? How are you still an adventurer with that!?"

"……Well, I had the body I'd spent years training up. After that? Spite and stubbornness."

"Ugeh, just how dungeon-crazy are you…?"

Never thought I'd run into a 【Plunder】 holder besides myself.

【Plunder】 is a fairly rare skill. Although—anyone granted 【Plunder】 as their starting skill would keep it secret as a rule, so for all I know it isn't actually rare.

Online, holders do talk about it in threads, hiding behind that anonymity, so I figured a certain number of other holders were out there… but now that she's turned out to be one, I can't help wondering if those posters are reincarnators too.

Well. Not really my problem, is it.

"Hey, hey—have you ever used 【Plunder】? Did it work?"

"Hm? Well, I've only ever used it to rip weapons out of goblins' hands… but yeah. Used it."

"What about skills? Could you steal those?"

"No. No open skill slots, so it's a no-go. Actually gave it a try once—not so much as a twitch."

"You know what I've been wondering, though——"

"Hm?"

"What happens if you 【Plunder】 someone's 【Plunder】?"

"That's…………"

What would happen, come to think of it?

Wait a second? Wait, wait, wait—this might actually work?

It's true I don't have an open slot.

But if the skill's the same name—wouldn't it just stack?

"Hold up. Let me look it up. Somebody might've tested this already."

"No need. There's no reason to go digging through the net for this."

"Huh?"

"It's not like I need 【Plunder】 or anything. If you can take it—take it."

Sure enough—I'm clearly in a different league than her, and she recognizes herself as a 【Plunder】 holder, so the activation condition is met.

If same-name skills stack, there's no way this fails.

"……You sure?"

"Yes, yes. It's a garbage skill anyway."

"Alright. Here I go, then—touching you."

"Okay."

I reach out and touch her offered hand. A handshake.

"Plunder."

For the first time ever, I activated it with my voice.

The instant I do, a torrent of power comes flooding in. Unmistakably, it worked.

『Successfully plundered the target's skill』

The same sort of announcement as with weapons comes through, too.

"It worked. You okay over there? Anything feel off with your body?"

"For a second it felt like something drained out of me, but nothing's wrong. If anything, I feel a little lighter."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Might just be in my head."

"Well—if you're fine, that's all that matters."

"Aren't you a softie."

"Don't tease. Even I only realized after the fact—anything could've gone wrong back there."

"True. That was maybe a touch reckless."

"But thanks to it, I've learned all sorts of things."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah."

Nothing's visibly changed on my status screen, but 【Plunder】 most definitely succeeded. Which is to say—it must have stacked onto the same-name skill.

What that means, in practice: it presumably got added on as proficiency.

Easy to picture with leveled skills like 【Martial Arts】. But just because a skill doesn't display a level doesn't mean there's no proficiency underneath it, either.

It's rare, but there are known cases of skills changing—or even evolving—into different skills after long enough use.

With that in mind, the natural conclusion is that even skills without level displays carry proficiency.

Nothing's changed yet, but if I can keep making other people's 【Plunder】 mine, it might evolve somewhere down the line.

And there ought to be plenty of 【Plunder】 holders out there who gave up at level 1, just like she did.

"Somehow, this feels like it turned out to be a pretty good outcome?"

"Well, maybe so."

"I see. Then I'm glad."

"All's well that ends well—we both walked away with something today."

"Yeah. Thank you, truly."

"Yeah. Same here."

A reincarnator, Azuma Mio. I figured I'd been snagged by a handful of a woman, but there was an unexpected windfall in it.

She seems to believe there's a god in the dungeon, so if I ever do run into some such thing, I'll let her know.

I'm heading for the depths aiming at the top either way.

No telling whether it has anything to do with us, but sooner or later, something will come to light.

That's the feeling I got.