Saitama Dungeon by Yamaguchi Yuuko
Episode 12: My First Time in the Saitama Dungeon Part 2
After killing the two slimes and the beetle, I continued moving around using my detection sense to search for any further targets but unfortunately the only signs of life I could detect were people. There's nothing I could do about this, naturally.
In the other world my companion Sage Oswald could see about a kilometer ahead with his magic but my detection range wasn't conveniently limited to a specific distance. If the presence was large I could detect it from quite far away but if the presence was small enough I might not be able to detect it even if it was close by. It was an understandable but inconvenient limit to my ability.
I detected the two slimes I had defeated earlier from 150 meters away but I only detected the beetle when I got closer to it. However the cores of both slimes were larger than I had expected and they were clearly different colours compared to a normal black core from regular slimes according to what I had read online. The two cores were probably from special varieties of slimes. I wasn’t that knowledgeable about such things but the bigger issue was whether I could sell their cores for a high price. I wouldn’t find out how much they were worth until I got back to the Dungeon Center, of course.
I decided to rest up for a moment so I took out a bottle of green tea from my backpack and took a sip. After putting the plastic bottle back into backpack I decided to just run around at random like the other adventurers.
After wandering aimlessly for about 30 minutes without detecting anything I heard several people up ahead arguing loudly. From the sound of it they were disputing who had the right to a monster kill or something like that. I decided to be a curious bystander and watch the show. Of course, being just a curious bystander, I had no intention of interfering or trying to mediate.
At the scene, several adventurers were surrounding two groups of men and women, taking pictures of the dispute with their smartphones. People photograph everything with their smartphones in this world. It seems a bit intrusive and impolite to me but I supposed it might act as a deterrent to crime.
In the middle of the circle of spectators were two adventurer teams, one of three girls the other of three boys arguing loudly. Both teams looked like high school students. Between them there were traces of water on the ground, likely the result of a slime being defeated.
One of the girls was shouting at the leader of the boy’s team. "Like I said, we found the slime first, so don't steal its core from us!"
"What are you talking about?” The boy retorted. “I’m sure we found the slime first and followed it all the way here!"
“Enough already. Give us back our core!"
The three boys had probably defeated the slime and retrieved the core by the sound of it. It may seem immature, but high school students are still children. If they had enough time to waste arguing about something like this, they should have just gone off and tried to find another monster. Of course I was just standing around and watching them rather than actually looking for monsters myself, so maybe I shouldn’t be thinking that sort of thing.
Of course finding monsters isn't that easy and even a single marble-sized core that can be obtained from a regular monster on the first floor is worth several thousand yen. Unless you're the child of wealthy people, that's a significant amount of money for a high school student. I can understand their feelings.
During the dungeon license training course we were taught how to respond in this sort of conflict situation. The lesson was typically Japanese: "Let's not be stubborn and show a spirit of compromise." Yeah, right. That wasn't going to solve anything in this case.
The audience eventually started to get bored and gradually thinned out but the arguing continued. I was getting bored too so I decided to go somewhere else.
As I was walking away I heard one of the three girls say, "Hey you, wait a minute." I stopped and turned as one of the girls came running up. Was she calling me?
"You're Hasegawa-kun, right?" she asked.
"My family name is Hasegawa, yeah?” I replied.
"Don't you remember me?" she asked, looking somehow a bit disappointed.
I took a closer look at the girl’s face and I realized she was Saito-san, a classmate from junior high school. Since they were dressed like adventurers I didn't recognise her right away while they were arguing. I didn't remember her first name though.
Saito-san had braids hanging down on both sides of her head in junior high school but she now had short hair. Did she cut her hair short to become an adventurer or when she made her high school debut? As someone who likes long hair on girls I think it was a bit of a waste. Saito-san was holding a long staff that matched her height. It was a pitch black rod, probably carbon fiber, with metal ends.
"You became an adventurer, it looks like."
"Yeah. I took the license course earlier this summer and we started exploring here the day before yesterday." Oh, that meant she was my senpai by a day.
"Hey, Hasegawa-kun, you were watching too, weren't you?” She pointed back at the boys. “Say something to those guys."
"I saw the argument, but I didn't see what happened with the slime." I demurred. When I said that in a dismissive tone, Saito-san looked up at me with a dissatisfied look on her face. The angle looking up was 45 degrees. My height now is 175cm. Saito-san is about 160 cm tall. In other words, our faces were quite close.
"So you're not going to help me?"
"I don't know why I have to help you, but wouldn't it be better to just give it to them rather than arguing and feeling bad about it? There's no point in wasting time here, it would be more constructive to go find another monster, right?”
"But it's so frustrating." She looked down, clearly disappointed. I gave up, feeling I had no choice. I decided to do my best for my former classmate.
"Well, if I find another monster I'll give it to you guys."
"Hasegawa-kun, it's easy to say, but finding monsters is not easy. That's why we're arguing with those guys."
"It's a bit of a challenge, but I found one within about five minutes of coming in here." Five minutes is an exaggeration though.
"I'm not lying." It was ‘five minutes’ or thereabouts, sort of. After trying to convince myself that it wasn't a lie, I took the beetle's marble-sized core out of my backpack and showed it to Saito-san. “See?”
"You really will help us find a monster?" Saito asked as she looked between my face and the beetle core in my hand. I nodded.
Saito returned to her two companions who were still arguing with the boys. Perhaps my suggestion worked or perhaps they had just given up but the argument seemed to end there and the three girls came over to me. The boys walked away saying something rude which I carefully pretended not to hear.
Whatever it is, I needed to find a monster quickly. If I couldn't find any monsters after searching for an hour, I'll give them my beetle core. That should deal with any complaints.
The three of them arrived and I introduced myself. "I'm Hasegawa, a classmate of Saito-san's from middle school."
"I’m Saito’s classmate, Hidaka. Nice to meet you." Hidaka-san was the tallest of the three, standing at nearly 170 cm. She had a mace hanging from her waist, just like me.
"I'm Nakagawa. Nice to meet you." Nakagawa-san was the shortest member of the team and had a dagger on her waist belt. Given her size this may have been the safest choice of weapon for her.
"Hasegawa-kun, do you have any plans for what to do now?" Saito-san asked.
"Yes I do." In fact I had no idea where to go right then. I couldn't possibly say something like "I don't have a destination, but don't worry," which sounds like a line from the Showa era “irresponsible man” films so I just answered vaguely. Before you ask how a modern high-school student would know about comedy movies from the 1960s it’s because I watched several of them on a DVD my father borrowed a long time ago.
"Just follow me." With that I walked off in a random direction. The three of them followed behind me, chatting away. Well, that's fine.
After walking for about five minutes I detected what appeared to be a monster in the bushes nearby. That seemed too lucky. As a former Hero, if I also had primo stats like luck, wouldn't I be way over the top? Never mind, I had to concentrate.
"Shhhh!" I whispered to the three people behind me and they stopped chattering. If I took these three into the bushes there's no way the monster would be able to escape. I paused for a moment to consider my options. Even if the monster did somehow escape, it would be an achievement that I found the monster, so that would fulfill my obligation to help them this one time, right? But I wanted them to kill the monster. If it's a slime, it probably can't run away that fast, so we'll surround it and kill it.
"There's a monster about five meters away in the bushes. Let's all go in and deal with it quickly.” The three of them nodded. "We’ll go in at 1, 2, 3, okay?" I whispered to them. The three nodded again as they all took their weapons in hand and got ready. I unhooked my own mace from my belt and quietly counted "One, two, three."
I took the lead as we forced our way through the thick bushes. Once I got a clear line of sight I saw a slime on the ground. I could have defeated it myself of course but I gave the opportunity to Saito-san who was following closely behind me while I went around to the other side of the bushes to make sure the slime didn't escape.
"Saito-san, you can defeat the slime if you hit it with your staff as hard as you can."
"Okay, I understand." Before the slime could escape Saito-san slammed her stick into it. However the slime’s body recoiled and pushed the staff away. Were slimes really that tough? I had no problems one-hitting the two slimes I had defeated earlier.
Just then Hidaka and Nakagawa who had followed Saito single-file through the thick bushes surrounded the slime and the three of them beat it up until it was finally crushed. The slime liquefied and the moisture soaked into the ground. The core that remained on the ground was the size of a marble. The three of them held hands and jumped up and down in joy in a very childish manner that in no way resembled my own dignified feelings of quiet satisfaction over my own first monster conquest. Honest. Anyway, that’s all and good and my obligation to help them was successfully achieved.
"Is this enough?" I asked but Saito-san looked at me with a puzzled expression.
"Thank you, Hasegawa-kun. Right then, where do we go next?" she said. Huh? I thought this would be the end of it?
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