Saitama Dungeon by Yamaguchi Yuuko

 

 Episode 15: B-Rank Adventurer, Second Floor

When I got home it was almost 5 o'clock. As I opened the door and said, "I'm back," my mother came from the kitchen and asked, "Welcome home. So how was the dungeon?"

"It was fun." I answered nonchalantly. I didn’t bother giving details. My parents would never imagine that their son might earn ten million yen on his first day diving in the dungeon, and even if I told them that I had, they probably wouldn't believe me.

By using a banking app on my smartphone connected to my Special Cavity Bank account I could check my current balance and the total amount I had earned from selling materials to the Special Cavity Administration Agency. I think showing that to my parents would have convinced them but I didn’t think there was any need to go that far. Besides, I don't know how much my father earns a year but he might feel bad if it's less than 10 million yen and he discovered his son earned that amount in a single day doing what amounts to a summer vacation part-time job.

"Dinner is at 6 o'clock. Dad will be late home today so you should take a bath first." Mom said as she returned to the kitchen.

"Gotcha." I headed upstairs to get changed out of my adventurer’s gear.

Later, after getting out of the bath I had dinner with Mom and told her mostly made-up stories about what happened to me in the dungeon that day. At the end I added "I made more money than I expected, so I won't need any pocket money next month."

"Oh. Ichiro, you don't have to push yourself too hard."

"It's perfectly okay, Mom."

"Hmm. Ichiro, not only are your grades amazing, but you've really become a good kid. Mom is happy for you." Making my parents proud of me was a good feeling.

After finishing dinner, I was lying on my bed in my room, smiling as I remembered what had happened that day when I got a call on my smartphone from an unknown number.

"Hello, Hasegawa-kun? It's Saito." This was probably the first time I'd received a call from Saito-san. I didn't give her my phone number at the Dungeon Center but thinking about it, my phone number was listed in my middle school class roster so any of my old classmates would have it.

"Yes, this is Hasegawa. What’s up?"

"Hasegawa-kun, sorry for calling so late."

"That's fine."

"Good. I didn’t really realise until I got home, but you have been promoted to B rank, Hasegawa-kun. That’s right, isn’t it?”

"I’m not a B-rank yet but I will be one tomorrow after I complete the promotion procedure."

"So I discussed it with Hidaka and Nakagawa, and we think it would be a hassle for you to hang out with us in the dungeon. You said you'd dive with us sometimes but don't worry about it, Hasegawa-kun, you don’t really need to. I just called to tell you that.”

“I wasn’t really worrying about that.” I thought for a moment. “How about we dive together maybe once a week during summer vacation?"

"Really?" There was a pause. "Isn't that going to be a nuisance for you, hanging around A-ranks like us on the first floor?"

"It's not a bother for me at all."

"Thank you, Hasegawa-kun." A happy voice came over the phone.

"Well then, today is Thursday, so let's dive together next Thursday. Is that okay with you?”

"Yeah. I'll let both of them know." Saito-san agreed.

"Okay then, let’s meet up next Thursday at 9am at the ticket gate in front of the dungeon vortex."

"Yeah. I'll look forward to it." Saito-san seemed enthused.

We said bye to each other and ended the call. As I stared at the ceiling, thinking about agreeing to go into the dungeon with them next week and every week after that during the summer holidays. I decided it wouldn’t impact my plans that much and besides it had been kinda fun hanging out with the Akigase Warriors.

Since I had my smartphone to hand I downloaded the map for the second floor of the Saitama dungeon. This allows people to look up the maps of various floors even when they’re offline in a dungeon where there was no phone signal. I worried that my smartphone alone wouldn't be enough if it got damaged or lost for some reason while I was diving, so I decided to buy a paper map of the second floor at the Dungeon Center's store before I went into the dungeon again.

The next day I left home early so that I would arrive promptly at the license center when it opened at 9:00 a.m. As I planned to enter the dungeon as soon as the formalities were complete I was fully equipped and wearing my backpack, just missing my weapons.

I bought three onigiri and two bottles of green tea at a convenience store the way to the Dungeon Center. I also bought some spare batteries for my helmet lamp since I intended to use it today. I can actually create light using magic but doing something like that in this world where no magic of any kind is known to exist would definitely cause me major problems if I was spotted using it, so I needed to use a lamp like everyone else.

The convenience store accepted my Adventurer ID card for payment for my purchases. I had thought that the card might only be useable in the shops in the immediate area around the Dungeon Center but the payment card readers at regular konbinis were apparently set up to recognise the Adventurer ID cards. I supposed dungeons had been around long enough in this world for such a feature to have been widely implemented.

After leaving the convenience store, I walked and ran to adjust my arrival time and reached at the Adventurer license center at exactly 9:05. Anyone intending to take the training and exam for a licence that day had already entered the building and there was no one in front of the doors. There was also no one in line at the promotion processing counter which wasn’t really a surprise, after all rank promotions weren’t a common event. I handed my A-rank card with its light blue stripe to the clerk at the counter.

“Here you are.” I said.

"Promotion from A rank to B rank, right?" the clerk said as he scrutinised the card.

"Yes that’s correct." I nodded. The clerk looked surprised when he saw my birth date and license acquisition date printed on it.

"It only took you two days, no, actually just one day to earn ten million yen?"

"I got lucky." I said, giving him my standard explanation.

"You are probably the only 16-year-old B-rank adventurer in the entire country, Hasegawa-san. Congratulations." Making 10 million yen on my first day in the dungeon was clearly an unusual feat. Moreover, 16-year-olds had only been able to get a dungeon license since the age eligibility rules were changed earlier this year, so very few people my age would have had been able to earn the necessary qualifying amount for promotion to B-rank even if they had been hunting monsters on the first floor every day for the past three months.

The staff member took my photo on the spot and my new Adventurer's ID was ready in about five minutes. "Sorry to keep you waiting," they said, handing over my new ID.

"Thank you." I answered politely.

The B-rank adventurer badge in my hand had a single dark blue line on it. I also received a new card holder and a blue neckstrap. The dark blue strap looked really smart. I assembled my ID card into its holder and hung it around my neck. I was now a B-rank adventurer.

I hurried out of the license office and headed for the main building of the Dungeon Center. Oops, my face reflected in the glass at the entrance was looking at me with a smug grin. I need to act cool. Coooool. I first headed to the weapon locker to get my mace and knife, intending to immediately dive into the dungeon’s second floor but I stopped short as I remembered that I wanted to buy a paper map first.

I needed to go into the large convenience store next to the main Dungeon Center building where they sold maps and other dungeon-specific essentials. There are no ticket gates at the shop’s entrance so even non-adventurers can go in and buy items. Because of that, carrying weapons in the store is prohibited and besides you can’t leave the main building with your weapons anyway.

I went to the map section in the store where I picked up a map for the second level. There was a similar map for the third level next to it so I bought that one too. I picked up two boxes of C******mate nutrition bars in the grocery section of the convenience store as emergency rations and then paid for everything with my Adventurer ID card at the checkout.

After leaving the shop and passing through the ticket gate to re-enter the main building I took the escalator up to the second floor and presented my Adventurer ID card to the card reader at the weapon locker counter. Within five minutes, an attendant handed my mace and knife to me. I don't know how many weapons are stored in the warehouse but it must be a considerable number. The fact that my personal weapons could be located and handed to me in just five minutes is quite amazing, isn't it?

Impressed, I went down to the first floor, passed through the ticket gate and entered the large cavern on the first floor of the Saitama Dungeon through the mysterious black vortex.

Just past the other side of the vortex on the first floor there was a sign pointing to the stairs leading to the second floor. An adventurer was headed in that direction so I followed him. After walking half a kilometre we arrived at a single-story concrete building standing incongruously among the grass and bushes of the first floor. There was an automatic ticket gate inside the building with two attendants standing beside it.

In the dungeon Special Cavity Administration Agency staff members were easily identifiable as they wear a uniform, black tops and bottoms with red piping on the arms and legs. They have a card commonly known as an R-rank Adventurer's licence marked with a red line hanging around their necks so that it can be clearly seen.

I tapped my B-rank Adventurer's licence on the card reader, passed through the barrier and headed down the stairs beyond.

According to information I had read on the internet, each stair between floors has sixty steps. The steps are about 20 centimeters apart vertically so the calculated difference in height between floors should only be 12 meters but when SCAA investigators dug down from the first floor they were never able to reach the second floor no matter how far they went. This weirdness is a common feature of all dungeons, apparently. The only way to travel up and down between dungeon floors is via the stairs.

　

As a newly-minted B-rank adventurer, I was now permitted to dive to the third floor but I decided that today the second floor would be enough for me.

From the second floor onwards, the dungeon looks like a hand-dug tunnel in some primitive underground mine, making it feel like the sort of dungeon you’d read about in fantasy novels. The surface of the rock inside the tunnel gives off a faint glow providing a certain degree of illumination but this isn’t enough to see clearly so adventurers use head-mounted lamps, flashlights and lanterns. Yesterday I didn't put batteries in my helmet lamp since I stayed on the first floor where it is always bright, but today I put the batteries in. I switched my lamp on before going down the stairs resulting in a very bright white light illuminating my way. It was stronger than I expected so I turned it down to about half its brightness.

1, 2, 3, 4… I counted the steps as I went down but then I started thinking about something else and lost track of the number. The internet said that every staircase in all the dungeons nationwide had 60 steps. That felt about right to me, and it didn't really matter if my own personal count was off by one or two.

At the bottom of the stairs was a fairly large cavern with many dark holes in the walls, each hole the entrance to a separate tunnel. There were signs indicating the route to the stairs leading down to the third floor since that was a common destination for adventurers.

There are no radio beacons on the second and subsequent floors of the dungeon for the smartphone locator app to connect to. That app only works on the wide-open first floor where the SCAA has installed beacons. It’s easy to get lost if you stray away from the main tunnels in the lower floors. In the more popular dungeons such as the ones in Saitama and Tokyo which are frequented by many adventurers, most corners and tunnel intersections have stone markers with coordinates based on the location of the stairs leading up to the previous floor. Even if you do get disorientated, it's not that difficult to find your way back to the stairs leading up to the previous floor by following the markers. Rhese route markers are only in place up to the tenth floor though since only elite S-rank adventurers can go beyond that point in any dungeon. Right then, which way should I go...