Saitama Dungeon by Yamaguchi Yuuko

 

Episode 10: Earning My Dungeon License (Adventurer's License)

Although I had just entered Saitama High School my mental age was that of a 25 or 26 year old. I didn't feel like hanging out with my 15-year-old classmates and began the first year of my high school life mostly keeping to myself.

My grades continued to be sky-high as before and I achieved perfect scores in all subjects in the midterm and final exam of my first semester. Because of that, on my first report card in high school only physical education was rated a 9 out of 10, and everything else was rated a 10. My nine in PE was the result of cutting corners so that I didn’t stand out, so it couldn't be helped.

Getting all A's at a local middle school wasn't really that difficult for me but my mom and dad were both surprised and pleased with my high school grades, especially since it was actually quite a prestigious school.

Incidentally, over the past year, "Hayate", the number one adventuring team based in the Saitama dungeon, defeated the gatekeeper on the dungeon’s 21st floor and they had gone on to conquer the 22nd floor. However they had been reportedly challenging the gatekeeper on the 22nd floor for some months now and had yet to defeat them.

The gatekeeper of the 21st floor was a monster that resembled a large crocodile but Hayate had not revealed any information about the monster on the 22nd floor, and naturally the adventurer teams currently attempting to conquer the 22nd floor in other dungeons were not leaking any information either. It should be said that although all the dungeons are located in different places in Japan, the gatekeepers and monsters seem to be the same on a given floor in all the dungeons, so this level of secrecy is natural if you're competing against other teams working in other dungeons.

To become an adventurer, you need to purchase weapons at the weapon sales office, commonly known as the Weapon Shop, inside Saitama Dungeon Center. A license is required to enter the Dungeon Center and it is also required to purchase weapons, so I haven't purchased any yet, but I had already purchased armour at the Dungeon Worker Saitama store which is located near the Saitama Dungeon Center. The armour I bought included a helmet with a light, cut-resistant gloves, safety shoes, shoulder pads, a cut-resistant jacket with elbow pads, cut-resistant pants with knee pads, and a belt. I chose a belt that had two metal fittings, one on each side for hanging weapons like a sword belt. Another essential purchase was a backpack. This sort of gear would be fine up to about the fifth floor, according to the online guides.

Compared to my Hero-level abilities, the amount of defensive power provided by such clothing probably doesn't add up to much, but I decided to just consider it a necessary expense so that I wouldn't stand out from other newbie adventurers. The total cost for all that gear was 50,000 yen. Despite the special nature of the equipment and its high quality, it was actually quite affordable thanks to government subsidies. I paid for all of this using savings I had accumulated up to that point.

The long-awaited summer vacation finally came. Now was my chance to complete the dungeon adventurer course and get my dungeon license and Adventurer's Card!

The course training fee was 20,000 yen and my budget for weapons was 30,000 yen, a total of 50,000 yen. I begged my dad to lend me the money. Of course, I planned to pay it back with interest once I started making money from the dungeon, but I didn't tell him that I would be paying interest. That's just what a son should do for his father.

The training location was the Saitama Dungeon License Center, which is next door to the Saitama Dungeon Center. I made a reservation on my smartphone before the summer vacation, and on the designated day for the course, I walked to the License Center from home carrying my resident registration card and other necessary documents.

By 9am, when the class started, about 100 people had gathered. If this is just in Saitama, there must have been a considerable number of licence applicants nationwide. As the age to obtain an adventurer's license was lowered to sixteen this spring and it was summer vacation, there were many candidates who looked like high school students taking the course. However, there was no one I knew there.

First, there was the physical ability test. The passing standard is to complete a 50-meter sprint in under 10 seconds and do 40 or more side jumps in 20 seconds. Both challenges can be attempted twice. It may be a bit tough for older people, but it would be a breeze for most high school students. Anyone who fails the physical ability test is disqualified at this point and half of the course fees would be refunded as a consolation.

As you might expect, no one was disqualified during the physical ability test which was clearly not that much of an obstacle. I made sure not to stand out during the test of course. I'm used to doing that sort of thing because I always moderated my strength in gym classes in middle school and now in high school too.

The Adventurer lessons began in the afternoon. The course itself, which lasted a total of 10 hours over two days, was easy enough and I obtained my dungeon license upon completing it. The official name of the licence was Special Cavity Designated Worker Card A but it was more commonly known as the A-rank Adventurer Card. I received an IC smartcard with a light blue line on it, a card holder, and a light blue neck strap to wear it around my neck.

In addition, promotions from A rank to B rank, or from B rank to C rank, etc. are also processed at the License Center. There is no renewal fee for promotions, your old Adventurer's Card will simply be taken back and you will be issued a new Adventurer's Card, a neck strap, and a card holder. It makes sense that promotions are free given that Adventurers pay just over 20% of their earnings at source when they sell dungeon materials at the Dungeon Center.

Adventurers are also required to have a current bank account linked to their ID at the SC (Special Cavity) Bank, commonly known as the Dungeon Bank, which is operated by the Special Cavity Administration Agency which regulates all the dungeon operations in Japan. By having the Adventurer's Card include a credit payment function, anything adventurers discover in dungeons can be easily purchased by the Agency with just a swipe of the card.

That's about it for all the administrative stuff. Having received my A-Rank Card I started my life as an adventurer the next day.

Knowing the weapon shop opens at 9 a.m., next morning I ran all the way from home and arrived at Saitama Dungeon Center in time for the opening. Along the way I stopped at a convenience store and bought a bottle of green tea and two rice balls for lunch, which I put in my backpack. The backpack already contained a towel, my smartphone, helmet, gloves, and spare batteries for the helmet. The first floor, the only one A-Rank adventurers were permitted to explore, is a single large cavern where it's apparently bright all day. That's why I didn't need spare batteries for the helmet, but I left them in the backpack anyway.

I followed the stream of people from the Saitama Dungeon Center gate to the front of the main building, then held my brand new A-Rank Adventurer’s Card up to the card reader at the ticket gate to enter the main building.

When I passed through the entrance hall and took the escalator up to the second floor where the Weapon Shop was, several adventurers were already standing in front of the shutters impatiently waiting for the shop to open. They all looked like high school students like me who got their dungeon license yesterday.

They were mostly standing in groups of a few people so they probably intended to operate in the dungeon as teams. However the thought of beginners trying to fight as a team made me worry. They wouldn't be able to coordinate well with each other unless they had trained together beforehand, and since they would be brandishing weapons there would be a risk of injuring each other accidentally in a real fight, so-called “friendly fire”. Taking that sort of a risk is all part of being an adventurer though, I supposed. Nothing about adventuring in teams was covered in the brief License Center training course, but as a former Hero who spent six months in the other world being trained to fight individually and in teams, I can tell you it seems a quite dangerous thing to do.

As I was mulling over the situation, the shutters went up and the Weapon Shop opened for business. I had already decided what I was going to buy. Edged weapons like swords and knives are made using the latest technology and are apparently relatively easy to maintain, but they are still not maintenance-free, and upkeep of such weapons can be expensive.

My cost-cutting plan was to buy a nearly maintenance-free mace as my main weapon and a serrated survival knife that can cut through bone as a backup weapon as well as using it to dismember dungeon monsters when I needed to. A simple mace would work well against the slimes and the large insects called beetles that appear on the first floor.

The price of the maces on sale ranged in price from 15,000 yen to 100,000 yen and the knives ranged in price from 5,000 yen to 100,000 yen, depending on quality. If you wanted a weapon that wasn't in stock in the shop they would have to be specially ordered and collected from the shop later. Generally though, dungeon weapons are expensive.

With the remaining 30,000 yen of the 50,000 yen I had borrowed from my dad, I bought a mace for 20,000 yen and a survival-type knife for 10,000 yen. The mace I bought had a ceramic head and a carbon fibre handle. It felt a little light in my right hand but when I gave it a trial swing, it felt solid with a manageable center of gravity. I was a little unsure whether this 20,000 yen mace would withstand my efforts if I had to get serious with it, but there's no way I would encounter an opponent on the first floor that would provoke me to use all of my Hero-level strength so it would probably do me for now.

Each weapon has a serial number engraved inconspicuously which is linked to the Adventurer ID card presented at the time of purchase, so the owner can be identified.

After paying for my purchases I was left with just a few hundred yen in coins in my wallet. The locker fee for storing weapons is 500 yen per month so I was kinda uneasy about being able to pay the fee later that day but I was sure it would be okay. I hoped.

By the way, the Adventurer's Card also has a payment function, so you can make payments at affiliated stores in and around the Dungeon Center using just your Adventurer's Card. Since my Adventurer's Card was brand new I couldn't use it to buy anything right then, but if I sold something I brought back from the dungeon this afternoon at the Center’s purchase counter, the proceeds will be credited immediately to my Adventurer's Card account and then I would be able to use it to pay for things like the weapons locker storage fee afterwards. I could also transfer money from the Card to a registered bank by taking a photo of my Adventurer's ID with a special app on my smartphone.

I hung the mace from the hook on the left side of my belt and the sheath containing the knife was fastened to the hook on the right side of the belt. After a final check that my weapons were ready to hand, I left the Weapon Shop, took the escalator down to the first floor and finally headed towards the dungeon entrance.