arc03 · 073-ep67

Episode 67: 『Braver』 (2)

"No, no, no—hold on, huh? Wh-what about school?"

"I do go, you know. I did take time off when I got badly hurt, but other than that I should still have my no-tardies-no-absences streak."

"Th-that's insane…… Huh? You're not joking……?"

"Dead serious."

Apparently, this is a story that's utterly beyond belief, as far as they're concerned.

Granted, it's not what you'd call normal—but if you're aiming to be the strongest, even at that, shouldn't this much be fair game? If school didn't exist, I'd probably be diving fifteen hours a day. Well, I do attend school properly—proof that I'm a functioning member of society and all. That much is groundwork for becoming an upper-rank adventurer, too. Plus, I've somehow wound up with a place to belong called the Dungeon Research Club. It's a really comfortable spot, that room.

"Honestly, I don't get it—if diving a lot, fighting a lot, and training hard makes you stronger, why doesn't everybody just do it?"

"Um…… normally, that would get you killed. Diving while you're still worn out is dangerous."

"Huh……? Fatigue doesn't stick around once you go home and sleep, right……? We're still high schoolers, you know?"

"Uh……"

I was starting to feel like we weren't even operating on the same basic premises.

Is it me that's weird? But don't people who go all-in on sports end up running schedules pretty much like this……? Well, I never played sports in my past life, so I can't really say…… but I could swear everyone who ever made it big lived like this…… Maybe not?

"Well, I suppose everyone engages with the dungeon differently, so that's fine. But—this is purely my own research, zero hard evidence—but…… leveling up by grinding small fry weaker than yourselves isn't something I'd really recommend."

"What do you mean……?"

"My best guess? The level-up spec seems to have a combat evaluation factor built in. And fighting stronger enemies seems to score higher on that evaluation, which seems to raise your stat gains too. So at the very least, I can't exactly recommend farming small fry for experience points."

"That's true—I know the theory's out there, and it's a convincing line of reasoning…… but when you put risking your life and staying safe on a scale, wouldn't the vast majority still pick staying safe?"

"Could be. Which is exactly where the difference gets made, though."

"Mm…… tough call……"

If you ask me, adventurers these days put altogether too much stock in safety. Naturally, not dying is the number one priority. But letting chances to grow slip by over it means you stop moving forward. How much danger are you willing to accept—that, I'd say, is the question every adventurer has to face.

Knock knock.

『We've brought your order.』

"Oh, thanks~! Go ahead, you can come in~"

The food arrived at just the right break in things, so we put the talk on hold and made it mealtime.

◇

At first everyone ate in silence, but quiet chewing got more awkward by the minute, so—slightly bad manners though it may be—we switched to eating with a little conversation mixed in. That's probably better for the 『Braver』 crowd, too.

"Not to jump straight back into it, but what does exploring usually look like for 『Braver』? I've never been part of a party, so I know absolutely nothing about that side of things—happy to hear it if you don't mind."

"Our usual exploring? I mean, we don't really do anything that special, I think?"

"That's exactly what I want to know. I like to think I've got the 'normal' down from the net and what I've seen with my own eyes, but I've never heard it from people actually living it. What you do, what's hard, what you can't do. And on the flip side, what you're good at, and why. Holding that up against how I do things solo—I want an objective read on my own strengths and weaknesses."

"I see…… you really are a stoic one……"

"Right. Well, first—like I mentioned before, what we do on weekdays and what we do on days off are completely different kinds of exploring. Floor pushes are basically the job of our days-off expeditions. Unless it's an expedition, we simply can't clear the time a floor push takes. We keep monster fights to the bare minimum and cover ground instead. Then, once we've made it there, we take care of the fighting and gathering at that point and head home—that's the routine. So far, that's gotten us through Floor 8."

"Hmm…… so a single expedition got you as far as Floor 9?"

"That's right—though that was with spring break, a proper long holiday. No way on an ordinary weekend. That one took us a week."

"That long!? Distance-wise it's only about 72 km, right……? If you're ignoring the monsters, shouldn't it take less than a day, tops?"

This is the part that doesn't add up for me. If your adventurer level has climbed, that much should be flat-out doable. I know my 【Movement Arts】 is abnormal, but even back when I didn't have it, I made the trip in a day, easy—so a whole week for the travel alone is hard to picture.

"Huh? Kobayakawa-san, you don't stop to gather or rest along the way? You need to earn money too, and thinking ahead, the standard on an expedition is to push about one floor a day—conserve your strength, keep things safe. We manage two floors a day, and with the trip home that's the whole week, so we're honestly on the quick side."

"For real…… Is that because you're a party?"

"Hmm…… couldn't say. Parties are just the default assumption to begin with, so we've got no clue how solo folks manage it. If anything—Takeru-kun, you really move at that kind of pace……?"

"I mean, yeah. In combat, I skip most monsters too unless they're on my recommended floors. I don't especially need gathering or rest, so the money side is mostly covered by the magic stones and drop items that come out of fights. That earns plenty on its own."

"So how long does it take you to reach Floor 9?"

"Hmm, well—these days it's under thirty minutes even without the teleport circle…… Back when Floor 9 was in my recommended range, it was under two hours, if I remember right?"

"T-two hours? And that's not from working some special item or anything?"

"No—ah, I do use a perception-interference talisman and a presence-concealment talisman, but the movement itself is my own two legs."

"What are those talismans…… Actually, everything's just too different—I don't even know where to start asking……"

"Same here……"

We were all so different I was losing sight of whether we were even clearing the same dungeon. If a pace like this really is the norm, then the people leading the pack right now are ones I'd never catch in this lifetime. So have the clearing methods themselves really changed from back in the day? Research marches on, people play it safe, and the result: scraping together decent magic stones and materials from the shallow and middle floors, bit by bit, with plenty of hands—maybe that's actually the tastier deal, resource-collection-wise. And if so, maybe the way things stand now is exactly what the higher-ups wanted. It's true that with fewer deaths and injuries, things run steadier these days—and it probably plays better with the public, too.

"But yeah—I'm starting to get it. I'm probably just the odd one out, so don't mind me. Still, if 『Braver』 is aiming to be the strongest, you could probably stand to push yourselves a bit harder. No guarantees on the safety, though."

"……Yeah. Talking with you, we finally saw just how long we'd been soaking in lukewarm water. Today was supposed to be set up for OUR amends—and instead you went and taught us all this. Somehow I feel even worse now……"

"No, I got answers to everything I wanted to ask too. We're even."

"Somehow, you feel completely different from the other day—like we're talking to a different person altogether……"

"That day, there were just a lot of reasons I was irritated. Having my dungeon exploring interrupted out of the blue is bad enough, and seeing a guy with power threaten ordinary people put me in the worst mood."

"Well…… from the outside, I suppose that's all it could ever look like…… I swear we'll never pull anything like that again—and we won't let anyone else, either."

"Well then—let's both watch ourselves on that front and aim for the strongest together. It'd be pretty lame if the strongest beings out there were crude, thuggish brutes, no?"

"True enough. Yeah—I think so too."

That's 'the strongest' as I idealize it—but at least Yuya seemed to see it the same way. I'm sure they've got their own image of their 'strongest adventurer,' too, whatever it looks like.

There was still plenty more I wanted to talk about.

With not a single adventurer acquaintance to my name, chances like this are about the only time I ever get to talk shop.

So we kept the conversation going for a while over the café's good food, the air a fair bit friendlier than when we'd started.