Saitama Dungeon by Yamaguchi Yuuko
Episode 19: The Third Floor
I had let out a rather embarrassing squeal when I saw the amount I had earned from selling the rainbow slime core. Thankfully the staff member at the purchasing counter was polite enough to pretend my outburst never happened. I was still feeling excited as I went to the weapon storage counter and returned my weapons. I then stopped by the Dungeon Worker store on the first floor where I splurged and bought a leather case to store monster cores in. The case had two rows of pouches, forty in total, and each pouch could hold a monster core about 4cm in diameter. This was the maximum size of cores from monsters adventurers would encounter up to the tenth floor, at least according to the dungeon authorities. Only S-rank adventurers were permitted to go past the tenth floor so it would some time before I needed another case to store larger cores in. After paying for the case with my shiny new B-rank licence ID card, I hurried home.
"I'm home." I loudly announced to my mother as I opened the front door.
"Welcome back.” My mother’s voice came from the kitchen. “You sound full of energy, did something good happen?”
"Ichiro, you being an adventurer is nice, but don’t overdo it, you hear me?"
"I won’t, Mom." With that, I hurried up the stairs and entered my room. I changed into my regular clothes then I retrieved the dirty towel from my backpack and went back down to the first floor.
"Mom, wash this towel for me, please?" I said.
“Just put it in the washing machine as usual. If it's really dirty, put it in the basket in front of the washing machine and I’ll soak it first.” The towel didn't seem particularly messed up so I just threw it into the washing machine.
"Mom, do you have any clean towels?"
"I put some towels in the usual place in the drawer in your closet, next to your underwear."
Since my mom has been doing my laundry for me I decided to give her a present. Dad might get jealous if I just treated Mom, so I needed to gift him something too. Oh, that's right! My Mom and Dad's wedding anniversary was coming up soon, in September if I recalled correctly so I decided to give them something like a travel voucher as a gift. I'll look them up online later. As an interim gift I thought about offering Mom a shoulder massage. If I did that while casting a healing spell, any stiffness in her shoulders would evaporate instantly. Yosh, I’d do that once she was out of the bath.
After having my own bath, eating dinner and tidying up, I passed on watching TV and instead I went back to my room upstairs to start planning for the next day, doing stuff like using my smartphone to research the sorts of monsters that appear on the dungeon’s third floor. First though, what about the golden core? How much was it worth? The price I had received for the rainbow slime’s core had me excited to find out but… After searching everywhere online I could think of I couldn't find any information on golden cores or indeed the existence of golden slimes. Hmm. The complete lack of information meant the golden slimes were extremely rare and the golden core might sell for a ridiculously high price. After giving it some thought I decided I didn’t want to stand out too much so I decided to wait a little longer and see how things went before trying to sell it.
I stopped looking for information on the golden core and started checking out what the internet knew about the monsters that appeared on the third floor. The results left me a bit puzzled.
The online reports were clear -- slimes, centipedes, giant rats, and spiders appeared on the third floor but all four types of monster appeared individually, not in groups. However the same sources said that monsters on the second floor only ever appeared individually too, but today I had fought a group of six giant rats on the second floor and the other team of adventurers I had encountered there had faced off against a group of three giant rats. It seemed that things had changed and the threats in the dungeon were increasing. If that was true, I might be able to fight even larger groups of monsters on the third floor tomorrow. The more the merrier!
A quick search resulted in suggestions on how to fight each type of monster, but if the reports were true the monsters I’d face off against on the third floor didn’t pose any real threat to me, even if they appeared in groups. As I closed my phone, I heard the sound of a hair dryer. It seemed like Mom just got out of the bath. When I went downstairs a short while later I found my mother sitting on the sofa in the living room, relaxing and watching TV.
"I'll give you a shoulder massage, Mom."
I went around to the back of the sofa and massaged my mother's shoulders while casting a healing spell on her.
I don't consider my magical skills to be that great so my healing magic can only heal small wounds. Still, Mom kept praising my massage so it seemed the spell helped her stiff shoulders. Come to think of it, Saint Mariana could regenerate missing body parts and heal serious wounds and dangerous diseases with her healing prayers, and Sage Oswald could do much the same with his magical spells, Heal All and Cure All. If they were present in this world there's no doubt they would cause a huge uproar. Of course, I can't use Heal All or Cure All and my prayers to the gods of the other world would be similarly useless.
After massaging my mother's shoulders for about five minutes, she had her eyes closed, looking very relaxed and then she opened them. "Phew. Ichiro, it seems like my stiff shoulders have really gotten better. Thank you."
"That was good. If your shoulders get stiff again, I'll massage them for you."
"Yeah." I'm glad you're happy, Mom. From my perspective, I've been away from my parents for over 10 years so I want to show my gratitude to them while I can.
I returned to my room upstairs and downloaded a map of the third floor onto my smartphone for the next day just as my dad came home from work. I heard him say he was going to take a bath and then eat dinner, so Katamomi would probably be there soon.
Come to think of it, tomorrow is Saturday so Dad has the day off. I'll give Dad a massage tomorrow when he gets out of the bath.
The next day we had breakfast together as a family, not something that usually happened during the week since Dad had to leave early on his commute to work.
"Ichiro massaged my shoulders yesterday. It was like magic.” Mom said. “My stiff shoulders were gone."
"Dad. I'll give you a massage when you get out of the bath this evening." I added.
"Oh! That sounds enjoyable." Dad said.
"Somehow, Ichiro has changed a little." Mom said kindly.
After finishing my breakfast and taking a short rest, I got equipped and headed for the Saitama Dungeon. I intended to go down to the third floor on this visit, of course. I arrived at the Dungeon Center at 8 o'clock. I didn't stop on the way because I was planning to shop for food at the Dungeon Worker convenience store at the Center rather than at one of the konbinis on the way.
Since this time of day is like commuting time for adventurers, there were quite a few customers (adventurers) inside the store. Some of them stared at me, probably because of the unusual sight of an adventurer who looked like a high school student wearing a dark blue neck strap indicating that he was supposedly Rank B. I walked around the grocery section, trying to ignore the curious looks.
Onigiri, onigiri… There were individually wrapped rice balls like the ones I usually bought from regular convenience stores, but there was also a rice ball set that came with two smaller rice balls and pickled radish. It's a moist type wrapped in high-quality black seaweed. It looked really delicious. I put two rice ball sets, two bottles of green tea, and two chocolate bars in my basket and lined up at the register.
I paid with my Adventurer ID card. It's quite convenient, you just have to hold it over the card reader at the till. By the way, the Dungeon Worker store only accepts Adventurer Cards and cash.
After finishing my shopping at the store, I went directly from the store to the main dungeon center building, went to the weapon locker and picked up my mace and a knife, equipped them on the spot, and put on my helmet. I didn’t put on my gloves because I needed to show my Adventurer ID at the ticket gate.
The helmet I was wearing was a bit like a bicycle helmet, leaving my face completely visible. I was starting to think it would be better for me to wear something like a motorcycle rider helmet that concealed my face, hiding my youthful features. I was clearly attracting a lot of attention as a B-rank badge holder who looked like a high school student, so maybe a disguise of sorts was a good idea.
When I started out I had to buy this cheap helmet due to budgetary constraints but now I had earned a good sum as an adventurer I wasn’t short on cash any more. I decided I’d stop by the Dungeon Worker store on my way home in the evening and buy a replacement helmet. Upgrading from my current helmet was a bit of a waste but it wasn’t any kind of hardship financially speaking.
Yosh, let's do our best today too! Hoping that hordes of monsters would appear, I entered the dungeon's vortex.
