Saitama Dungeon by Yamaguchi Yuuko

 

Episode 17: 2nd Floor Part 3, A Woman Adventurer

When I was in university, I joined the Adventurer Club and obtained my adventurer qualifications. Even after graduating and entering the workforce, I never missed a day off work, diving into the dungeon and steadily building up my achievements. I continued living like that for about six years, but a year ago a problem arose at the company I worked at. I had just been promoted to manager but I was made to take responsibility for the error and I was officially reprimanded.

I was fed up with that job so I quit and became a full-time adventurer instead. I really wasn't confident about doing it alone so I contacted some of my old friends from my university club, and two of them, Oda Yuji and Kimura Kazuya, said they wanted to join me.

The three of us continued our activities on the first floor of the Saitama Dungeon and although there were some ups and downs, all of us were promoted to B rank about three months ago.

I used a mace on the dungeon’s first floor, but I wasn't very good with it due to my lack of arm strength. After I was promoted to B rank I decided to change weapons to a crossbow. It seemed to suit me well, and I quickly became accustomed to shooting it. Of course I still can't hit monsters 100% of the time but I can hit my target maybe 90% of the time at a range of ten metres or so, even if it is moving.

The three of us were once again diving on the second floor of the Saitama Dungeon, searching for monsters in a tunnel that looked to be deserted with no other adventurers around. Suddenly, I heard the footsteps of monsters ahead, multiple monsters in fact. It was common knowledge that only individual monsters appeared on the second floor. That had been our experience ever since we became B-rank adventurers, but now a group of monsters had appeared in front of us and we had to accept this new reality.

The only monsters that appear on the second floor are slimes, giant centipedes, and giant rats, so the clear sound of footsteps meant that giant rats were approaching us.

While Yuji and Kazuya readied their spears, I quickly loaded a bolt onto my crossbow and we waited for the giant rats to get closer. Six red eyes reflected the light from my helmet lamp, meaning there were three giant rats. I pulled the trigger of my crossbow, aiming at the first giant rat when it got to within ten meters, the distance that was my best chance to accurately hit my target. Unfortunately the bolt only grazed the giant rat’s side and didn’t wound it. I quickly tried to load my next bolt but the three giant rats were suddenly right in our faces. Yuji stood in front of me since I was essentially unarmed, requiring his protection while Kazuya was left to deal with all of the giant rats by himself. I panicked a little and fumbled while trying to load my next bolt into the crossbow. I finally succeeded and fired at the leading giant rat but it was moving quickly and it had got too close for me to hit it.

 

After Kazuya somehow managed to defeat the first giant rat, Yuji helped him by engaging one of the other two with his spear and they were finally able to defeat both monsters working together. After this fierce battle, Kazuya collapsed on the spot, breathing heavily. I took a water bottle from my backpack, unscrewed the lid and handed it to Kazuya who gulped at it thirstily.

Just as the three of us were starting to recover, we were suddenly illuminated by a helmet lamp as an adventurer approached our location. I hadn't noticed their presernce earlier which was strange since I should have heard their footsteps even over the sounds of the fighting.

The adventurer had turned down their lamp’s brightness so the light wasn't too dazzling and his facial features were clearly visible. He looked like a young boy in his first or second year of high school.

"A high school student? A B-rank high school student…?" I muttered. As I spoke he took one look our way and then walked past us, not saying anything.

As I watched he suddenly took off running, his mace at the ready. What? As I was wondering what he was doing, his figure literally blurred before I heard strange crunching noises. I saw the young adventurer put his mace back on his waist belt and crouch down before he started working on something.

I squinted to see but he was some distance away down the dimly-lit tunnel. It looked like he was extracting the core from a giant rat’s carcass. He then tossed the carcass to the side of the tunnel. That seemed like a waste, I thought to myself since a giant rat's body could be sold for 5,000 yen even without the core. I only realised he had defeated more than one giant rat when he bent down again. I watched in amazement as the high school adventurer continued working on another giant rat. In the end, it turned out he had defeated six giant rats all by himself. Six!

Yuuji and Kazuya had also been watching the high school adventurer in disbelief.

"So he killed six giant rats in an instant?"

"I guess so."

"But he looks like a high school student, right?"

"Maybe he’s a high-ranking adventurer that just looks young?" Kazuya had been exhausted and slumped over and hadn't gotten a good look at the adventurer’s face when he hurried past us.

"Well no, he’s clearly of high school age.” Yuji said.

"Aside from his face, just seeing how fast he moved, you could tell he's a top-notch adventurer. Wasn't he more amazing than the S-rank adventurers we’ve seen in the videos? I couldn't even follow his movements, he was just a blur."

"I didn't see that myself, but I saw a blue strap around his neck, so I'm sure he's the same B-rank as us."

"To reach B rank you need to earn ten million yen just hunting slimes and beetles on the first floor. It takes a long time to earn that much." I had spent nearly all my spare time for the last ten years, grinding low-level monsters on the Saitama Dungeon's first floor to earn my B-rank badge. "No matter how amazing they are, is it really possible for a high school student to earn ten million yen so quickly?"

"It wouldn't normally be possible. But the way he moved just now was not normal either." Yuji said.

"Absolutely." Kazuya agreed.

"It's a big world out there." I sighed. "I wasn't much use in this fight so maybe I shouldn't be the one to say it, but let's try our best too."

"We're a team," Yuji said, "Don't worry about it." Kazuya nodded in agreement.

"Thank you both." I said then I pointed to the three dead rats at our feet. "It's time to dismantle our giant rats."

"That's right."

"What about the giant rats that adventurer discarded?"

"The way I see it, he has thrown them away so I think it's okay to take them for ourselves.” I wondered why he hadn’t bothered to pack up at least some of the carcasses to take back to the purchasing counter. A single individual wouldn’t be able to carry all six giant rats by himself, but deciding to leave all of them behind? That was puzzling.

“Let's take as many of them as we can fit in our backpacks and then we'll return upstairs to sell them."

 

"Yeah, let’s do that." We started processing the three giant rats we had defeated. We extracted the cores before we individually wrapped them in cloth and put them in away in our backpacks. As for the giant rat carcasses, we cut off the heads, drained the blood, skinned them and stuffed the bodies into plastic bags. We then stowed the bagged meat in our backpacks. It was a bit gory but we had done it many times before over the past few months.

We then moved down the tunnel to the place where the high school adventurer had defeated several giant rats. We found the corpses of six giant rats lying against the dungeon's wall, all with their skulls smashed and split open. The only other damage to the bodies was where he had cut into their chests to extract the cores.

"He killed all these rats so fast. Whoosh, whoosh, it was all over..." I said with wonder in my voice. In comparison the bodies of the three giant rats Yuji and Kazuya had defeated with their spears were covered in multiple stab wounds and cuts inflicted during the gruelling battle.

"That's amazing. Did he really kill all of them with a single hit each?”

"There’s water splashed around on the floor, maybe there was a slime there too?"

 

"Maybe he washed up with water he brought in his backpack?" There were no sources of water in the dungeon, you had what you brought with you and nothing else. "But would adventurers carry water with them just to wash their hands? Water is kinda heavy after all."

"It's not something that we would do but the way he acted wasn’t normal."

"That's true. There's no point in thinking about it."

 

A giant rat’s carcass weighs about 20 kilograms when it's been beheaded and skinned and such. Only two of them would fit in each of our backpacks with little room to spare. We again set to work, processing three of the giant rats left behind by the mysterious high school-age adventurer before loading them into our backpacks. We had to leave the last three carcasses behind which was a shame but there was nothing else for it. For a moment I thought about coming back later to collect them but I knew the dungeon would absorb the dead bodies before we could return.

"Let's go back." The others agreed and with our backpacks loaded to capacity with the giant rat carcasses, we walked towards the stairs to the first floor. Kazuya was exhausted after the fight and we couldn’t carry any more, so it was time to return to the Dungeon Center’s purchasing counters and cash in our loot.

On the way back I said "I think I should carry a melee weapon in future as well as my crossbow."

"Sounds like a good idea." Kazuya nodded.

"A mace would probably be best, since I used one before." A mace had a shorter fighting range than the spears Kazuya and Yuji carried but I’d be using it mostly for self-defence. A shortsword or a dagger was another possibility but I’d really need to get trained up to be able to use something like that proficiently.

 

"I agree, it definitely seems like the smart thing to do." Yuji said. That settles it, I'll buy myself a mace and carry it along with my crossbow next time we dive on the second floor.

But who was that high school adventurer? I couldn't stop wondering about him. Another thing, the three giant rats we fought might have been a one-off anomaly, but I've never heard of six giant rats appearing together on the second floor. When I get home, maybe I'll post about what happened today and what we saw on the Saitama Dungeon adventurers bulletin board.