Saitama Dungeon by Yamaguchi Yuuko
Episode 18: Second Floor Part 4. Bulletin Board.
I managed to collect seven monster cores in just my first hour on the second floor, a really good start to the day. It seemed my luck was in. I already considered myself fortunate being returned to Japan after I was summoned to another world to be a Hero, but now it seemed my luck stat had really skyrocketed.
Come to think of it, I chickened out yesterday and didn't try to sell my golden slime core at the purchasing counter. I didn't think I would get 10 million yen for it like I did for the rainbow slime’s core, but given its size, 3 million or even 5 million yen was a possibility. I should have checked the market price for all types of cores, not just the cores from the first-floor’s beetles and slimes. When I got home, I’d use my smartphone to look up the prices for all sorts of monster cores.
The thought of how much I could earn made me grin and I even laughed out loud before I could stop myself. That was wrong of me, laughing in the dungeon is the sort of thing I imagine is strictly prohibited. I wiped the avaricious smile off my face when an adventurer's helmet lamp appeared in the distance and I moved off in the opposite direction, not wanting to meet up with other adventurers right now.
I travelled through tunnels at random, letting my feelings and guesswork determine which way I should turn. I confirmed my actual position every time I came across a fork or a crossroads with a signpost, but my innate sense of direction and location always matched up with what the signs and my map told me. That was good, it meant I didn't need to keep checking the location on my map as I moved around.
While I was just wandering around like that, I came across two slimes and retrieved their cores, making a total of nine cores. Both slime cores were slightly larger than the slime cores I had found on the first floor, about the same size as a giant rat core so they were probably worth the same price.
When I moved further away
from the stairs leading
up to the first floor I encountered my first giant centipede.
It
was clinging
to the tunnel’s
ceiling
about three
meters above
my
head.
I
jumped up
with my mace in my
hand and knocked it down. Jumping
that high took very little effort on my part, by the way. Even
I would be shocked if I were to walk underneath a centipede stuck to
the ceiling without noticing it and it fell on my
head,
but I had detected
its presence quite some time earlier.
The centipede fell to the tunnel floor and started writhing around at my feet. I took careful aim and hit it with my mace at the point where its head joined its body, trying to not crush the centipede's head which contained its core, according to what I had learned in my adventurer training. I may have used too much force though, as the centipede’s head was torn from its body by my blow. The centipede's headless torso thrashed around like something from a horror movie but after ten seconds or so it finally stopped moving.
The protective shell covering the centipede's head looked tough but I penetrated it easily with a single stab from my knife. I widened the hole with the knifeblade, stuck my gloved hand in to feel around inside and I quickly located the monster’s core. I kicked the centipede's body and head over to the side of the tunnel but the body split open as I did so. I made a mental note, pick them up and throw them next time even though it's an awkward shape to get hold of.
I washed my boots and my gloves with water I made with my water magic, then I rinsed off the centipede's core before put I it away in my backpack. I decided it might be a good idea to buy a special bag to put the cores in as they could break or get chipped if they banged together in my backpack. I had seen pocketed bags meant for transporting cores in the Dungeon Worker store earlier, something like that was just what I needed.
This morning’s tally was currently ten cores -- seven giant rat cores, two slime cores and the giant centipede core so I decided it was a good time to take my lunch break. I moved down the tunnel away from the gory remains of the centipede and put my mace and backpack on the floor before I sat down next to them, leaving my knife in its belt sheath. I kept my detection sense engaged in case more monsters appeared while I was taking it easy. Unlike dungeons in computer games and online novels, real dungeons like this one didn't have safe zones where monsters couldn't attack adventurers, so I had to be ready to defend myself at any time.
I took out a bottle of tea and the rice balls from my backpack then bit into an onigiri with pickled plum in its centre. MMMmmm! Rice balls after hard work are especially delicious! I quickly finished the umeboshi onigiri and then ate the mentaiko onigiri and ended my snack lunch with the Hidaka soy-boiled kelp onigiri.
I drank the last of my bottled tea and then I used my water magic to fill the empty plastic bottles with water. It would be handy to have bottles of water with me if I encountered other adventurers in the dungeon. Water magic is extremely useful but I can’t let anyone else see me using it.
I wrapped the cores rattling around loose in my backpack in a towel before putting them back. I'd store any more cores I got today in the outside pockets of my backpack so they wouldn't get damaged by banging into each other.
After quickly packing everything away, I stood up, put on my backpack, hung my mace from my waist, and began my afternoon's work. It's only my second day on the job, but I was starting to think that being a full-time adventurer might be my calling. Would I encounter hardships and suffering in the future? Maybe, but I found it difficult to believe it given how easy I was finding adventuring to be.
Around 3 o'clock I decided to call it a day after collecting seven more cores. I reckoned a total of seventeen cores on my first day's exploring on the second floor was a good start. I headed back towards the stairs to the first floor, relying only on my sense of direction and location and not bothering with the map. I arrived at my destination without getting lost even once.
It was about 3:40 when I emerged from the dungeon vortex and passed through the ticket gate at the Dungeon Center. From there I went to the purchasing booths, tapped my Adventurer's ID on the card reader and placed my collection of cores on a tray on the counter. A staff member tossed them into the core appraisal machine one by one. The appraisal was quickly completed and a receipt was returned to me. It said I had received 195,000 yen for the seventeen cores I had just sold, about 11,500 yen on average, but what really surprised me was my total dungeon earnings which was printed underneath today's amount.
35,204,500 yen!! Reading the details on the receipt, the rainbow slime core I sold to the Dungeon Center yesterday had been purchased for a total of 35 million yen after appraisal, 25 million yen more than the provisional price of 10 million yen that had qualified me for my B-rank promotion! Wow! I'd get promoted to C-rank when I earned a total of 50 million yen so I did some quick mental arithmetic. If I earned, say, 100,000 yen each day I spent in the dungeon I'd reach C-rank in ummm, 150 days.
What about the golden core I had collected from a slime on my first day as an adventurer? If I sold it right now, I might earn enough to reach the 50 million yen mark immediately if the rainbow slime core’s purchase price was anything to go by. However becoming a C-rank adventurer too quickly would likely cause me problems down the line so I decided to hold on to the golden slime core for a little longer.
I considered if I should just quit high school and become a full-time adventurer? It was clear I could earn a good living if I did that but I decided instead that I should graduate from high school and then experience life at college afterwards. I was confident my high school grades would get me accepted into a good university three years from now. I didn't need to make a decision like that right now, of course.
Saitama Dungeon B-Rank Adventurer Information Thread No. 3 (48). Please observe proper etiquette. Whoever reaches >>950, please create the next thread!
>>1. Good job on starting the thread
July XX, 20XX, 21:15
5. Anonymous
>>1. GJGJGJ!
I saw a B-rank adventurer today who looked like he was in high school, has anyone else seen him?
I saw him too. I saw an adventurer who looked like a high school student wearing a blue strap around his neck. He was walking across the first floor towards the stairs.
>>44. Wasn't that just someone showing off?
>>45. I saw him on the second floor. He had a mace hanging from his waist. He looked like a middle school student or a high school freshman. He was grinning in a kind of creepy way.
>>46. That's right. He looked like he was only 15 or 16 years old.
It's true that the minimum age for dungeon licenses was lowered to 16 from April so even a high school freshman can get a license these days, but can you really earn 10 million yen just between April and July to get promoted? An A-ranker can only earn on the first floor after all.
Sounds impossible, but if he was seen on the second floor, he must be B-ranked. It's not a game, so it's not like he could cheat to get promoted.
>>49. No, maybe he had an S-rank relative who gave him several valuable cores.
But that high school adventurer, right in front of us, defeated six giant rats in an instant.
>>52. There's no way six big rats would be in a group on the second floor!
Believe it or not, six of them did appear together. Just before that, we managed to defeat three giant rats that ganged up on us.
>>54. The maximum number of rats anyone has seen on the second floor together has been two and those two rats met by chance according to the eye-witnesses. I can't believe that three rats appeared together.
>>55. It's certainly an unbelievable story. But is it true?
If it is true, it means that there are some incredible high school adventurers out there and that the giant rats have started forming groups. Has anyone seen more than three giant rats?
The adventurer is Sanda. Just kidding.
