Otoko Nara Ikkokuichijou no Aruji o Mezasa Nakya, ne? Vol 1 Chapter 109

Year 7443, Month 8, Day 22

Just now we teleported from the 2nd floor of the dungeon in Baldukk to the 3rd floor.
We just finished eating lunch and taking a break for about an hour in the teleport crystal room of the 2nd floor. Since it's summer right now, we've been exploring since a bit before 6 am. The time has just pa.s.sed noon or so. I'd say 12:15. I guess I'll get to checking the number on the crystal rod right away. 84 huh? Since it's an early number I'm sure we've come before.

I tried confirming with Gwine and "It's true we've come before. I can remember this place." is what she said. Just from a glance it feels like being in the center of a pa.s.sage made of stone and you can't tell it apart from other places on the 3rd floor. However, I guess her Unique Ability can tell the vague differences in the width of the pa.s.sage, the unevenness of the walls, floor, and the ceiling. If while using her Unique Ability she says "We've come here before" then that's a place we've visited before. She hasn't been mistaken about it even once up to now.

It's a frightening level of memorization in regards to terrain. And her ability to call up those memories and create an accurate map, has in some ways become an staggering force in battle. She doesn't things like the direction or where each area of the dungeon connects together but at the very least Ralpha can accurately determine the direction. By combining their two abilities together up until now our party has reached the point where when exploring a new area we only have to be careful of the traps.

Today we had already referenced our map and after determining that there was roughly five hours to the teleport crystal room on the 3rd floor, we started walking. It's necessary to pa.s.s through five rooms to get to the small room with the teleport crystal. I want to quickly pa.s.s through and secure our rest spot on the 3rd floor before evening.

It's already mostly become an operation, I freeze the lower bodies of monsters we meet on the way and then we kill them. If it's on the level of gnolls then for the sake of practicing our coordination we try fighting normally as well. In regards to the powerful monsters in the rooms we use magic to kill them all at once without pushing ourselves. We gather the magic stones almost like a machine and after double-checking the map we continue further into the dungeon. When killing monsters if we have some leeway then Bel and Ralpha will use attack magic to damage them as well.

We're winning easily and aren't struggling either. It's still the 3rd floor and the monsters have only increased in type by a few from the monsters on the 1st and 2nd floors. It's fine as long as I use magic to create ice, observe the battle(ma.s.sacre), and remember to be cautious of our surroundings. Honestly speaking, as long as I don't let my guard down we can manage just about anything. Of course, there's not a single fool who would openly let their guard down in the dungeon.

Just as planned we arrived at the small room with the teleport crystal rod by evening. It's open today. Other than us there's two parties, a total of 17 people here before us. I'm already acquaintances with them. I create some dirt in the Northeast corner of the room that's gradually become our fixed place and after evening out the surface we start preparing to camp. In order to quickly get some rest and prepare for the 4th floor tomorrow, everyone moves quickly.

I put some hot water into the portable stove magic tool and while I was at it put some hot water in the 40 cm diameter bucket that Zulu was carrying as well. I took m

y shoes and shocks off before putting my feet in that bucket and start ma.s.saging them. Zulu is a master of the foot ma.s.sage. Angela isn't bad at it but there's no one who exceeds Zulu in in putting in just the right amount of power. After washing my feet and having him ma.s.sage them for about 10 minutes, I exchange the water in the bucket. We all feel like we're going to melt from Zulu's ma.s.sage but it's heavy labor for Zulu.

During that time Angela puts vegetables or dried meat into a pot with hot water and stirs them up. At the same time she thinly cuts some bread and puts ham and mayonnaise on them to prepare simple sandwiches. We eat in the order after we've had our feet ma.s.sages and finally Zulu and Angela eat until they're full. I put some dirt into the empty bucket. If you have to go to the bathroom you take this bucket to an appropriate place outside of the room and after taking care of your business you cover it with dirt. Since monsters won't come within 100 m of the room as long as you don't go too far away you can relax and take care of your business.

Excretions are absorbed by the dungeon in a period of about one month as far as I can tell. Corpses as well other than the bones and magic stone feel like they're decomposed and absorbed in about a month. Even leather armor at most lasts around two to three months. Dirt and water that's been create with magic and lasts permanently (water evaporates), equipment, and things which have a lot of metal will remain there until someone cleans them up. Also, cotton, hemp, and articles of clothing remain over quite a long period of time as well.

It seems that lumber remains for a number of years but it's hard to determine if this is just because the amount of time it takes for it to rot is too long and it's being absorbed or just rotting away. Since there's not much moisture on the 1st and 3rd floors it seems a lot of it maintains it's original form for quite a while.

I've talked with Bel and Ralpha about this a number of times in the past. Since it seems Toris and Gwine are interested as well they asked various questions but Zenom, Zulu, and Angela don't have much interest at all and if I try to point the conversation in their direction it's, "I don't know" if I keep asking then it finally reaches "is there some kind of meaning in knowing that?". I think this is probably the normal way of thinking for the average person on Orth.

If it's not something that has direct relation to yourself then it's quickly removed as a target of interest. Well it's true that in the dungeon there's a lot more things than that you should be paying attention to and those things directly have relation to your safety and life so it's not unreasonable. In our past lives we may have thought about the mysteries of the universe at some point but rather than something like that the weight of interest ends up leaning towards worries about our job tomorrow and reviewing for the next test at school.

Things like whether or not Pluto is a planet of the solar system or about a new type of deep-sea fish that's been discovered were unrelated to our lives. Even when it comes to how many people are dying in a war on the other side of the planet, or how many tens of thousands of children are starving it just ends up as fund-raiser, and just being satisfied or basking in that for a short while is plenty to erase it from your memory a short while afterwards. Even if a new insulation material has been developed and it comes to putting it in the walls of your house, if your wallet doesn't seem like it can manage it then you'll just remain satisfied with your current living environment and almost no one will try to gather more information than that. Things like the new carbon shaft of a new model of driver that sends the ball flying, without having your heart pulled towards that, unless it's a person with a certain amount of interest in golf they would overlook that news. In essence it's the same thing as that.

If it has no direct relation to your body recently then it won't arouse your interest. The moment you think "it has no relation me right now" your interest in it will largely be reduced. I'm sure that since reincarnated people have a high standard of education the degree at which interest is reduced is just smaller. I guess even more than that since they have a large combat potential like myself here it's lowered their sense of crisis enough that they have the composure to hold interest in trivial things? It's hard to decide if this composure is a good thing or a bad thing.

I was thinking about unstoppable things like that with my eyes closed wrapped up in my qiviut blanket as I fell asleep. However, all of the small teleport crystal rooms in the dungeon have a temperature which feels like it's in the early 10 degrees C all year around. It's nice in the summer because it's not hot but it's painful that you can't let go of your blanket.

.............

"I'm very sorry, since the value of yen has suddenly dropped.."

I apologize to the person on the other side of the phone while pushing my seal down on a sales slip that's come from the desk next to mine. It's busy a whirl of busyness since the start of this week until this weekend. The value of yen suddenly dropped in price after the president of something or other FRB in America made a statement at the end of last week. About half of the goods that our company deals in we rely on imports from overseas. In order to maintain our profits whenever we get the chance to negotiate for a higher price we have to raise the price like this. Particularly foodstuff the majority of it were forwarding through FOB so the fare we pay to second party (transportation company) is influenced by the change in currency values.

Of course they other party is a child of man as well. If we start bringing up a price hike, there's no way they'll casually abide by what we say and say "Yes, I see.". They'll think of this or that method to haggle the supply price down. Occasionally it's necessary to handle those negotiations with pity and occasionally with a strong att.i.tude. Among the imported foodstuff that our company deals in if you were to ask a lot of it is high quality and there's few fresh food items. Though there is a small amount of vegetables other fresh food items we stock up on from inside the country.

We sell the fresh food items we stock up on with in the country and in exchange we request to hike the price of the imported foodstuffs, we sometimes even discount the price of the imported foodstuffs from the items we stock up on within the country while adjusting for the price hike. There's countless methods of negotiation depending on the other party.

"Excuse me. It's already at the very limit with this price. In exchange for the next three months on your side, we'll make sure the supply of kyo-yasai produced in Toyama doesn't run out, so this time just once.."

Huh? Isn't it old man Isobe? Why's he here? Even though he should have quite several years back...

"..Yeah, this is the **** foodstuffs new product. With no additives, it's canned so it preserves well. Of course it's place of origin is all within the country.."

And over here is Onishi. He should have quit quite a while back as well...

Ah, I'm seeing a dream. These two weren't around during the same period. Just when I was thinking I had seen a dream of my past life for the first time in a while it's of work...If you're going to then...

(....to......tsu....ta..)

　？

..................

I was shaken awake. I guess it's time to switch lookouts. Thanks to my habit of many years it's still not painful to wake up in the middle of the night. Unexpectedly, just that I was surprised by my own bad awakening. I rub my sleepy eyes and stretch out. After confirming that I was awake Toris crawls into his own blanket. Next to me it was just as Gwine was waking up Ralpha. We take sleep shifts in groups of two for two hours each. The ones who are on the first shift is fixed to the two slaves. After that we often change places. The reason the two slaves are fixed is because they build up quite a bit of fatigue from the ma.s.sages and preparing the meals, it would be best to let them time their sleeping time all at once and the rest of us do it in rotations to avoid trouble.

When we first started with eight members we tried to keep lookout for one hour each with one person but putting aside if we had a fewer number of people, having someone to talk with makes keeping lookout easier so before realizing it had ended up like this.

I put my back to the wall of the dungeon while crossing my legs and just dazed out as I stared around the inside of the room. Before I notice it the population of the teleportation room of the 3rd floor had increased by quite a bit. At first I had difficult sleeping because of the fear and caution of being attacked by other adventurers in my sleep but since I'm already used to it recently even if there's a bit of noise I can just sleep right through it.

While we're doing this other parties that started resting before us are already putting together their belongings and heading to challenge the 4th floor. I'm sure they'll end up repeating to teleport countless times until they can get to a good location on their map as well.

After Ralpha woke up she put some tea leaves into a flask handed it to me. I'm sure she's saying to put in some hot water. I poured hot water into the flask.

"Hn, thanks."

Ralpha said that and sat down next to me, leaning her back on the wall just like I am. Since my throat isn't particularly dry I don't need any tea. The two of just sat there staring at the adventurers teleporting over and over again for a short while.

"I wonder why both j.a.panese and English are written there.."

Ralpha whispered.

"No clue~ Maybe it was made in the past by a j.a.panese person like us or someone who can speak English."

I whisper a reply.

"For what reason?"

"No idea...If we were to go off our common knowledge then, I can't help but think of it as a facility constructed to protect something from illegal digging like the pyramids though.."

"Right~ Bel said it as well but there's one in Devas Kingdom as well right, a dungeon.."

"Ah, what was it again? Ah, Benkelish. I wonder if that one has the same feel as this place?"

"Who knows..At the very least since it seems like people gather from all over to make it rich, so there's no mistake there's treasures there though.."

"I wonder if they exist in other countries as well? Dungeons like this place."

"I wonder? Since they say Krakuto Kingdom is a country made by adventurers like us about 100 years ago? That's why aren't they all over the place?"

"Right~ When it comes to underground dungeons you know, in old games something like an evil wizard steals a Magic Seal and makes it in order to hide, or like the island of Crete's legendary Minotaur was made to lock something inside, it's usually stupid but they're made for some type of objective like that right. I wonder what the objective of this dungeon of Baldukk is?"

"That's true right. If they didn't have some kind of objective they wouldn't make it right..but you know, if it was a large building? then you can usually tell the objective of the person who made it right? There's nothing like that in the dungeon. Since it seems to have been around in the past before Rombert Kingdom, I'm sure nothing accurate has been handed down but even then I think it's strange nothing has been told about them at all."

"That's certainly true..It would be fine even if it was mistaken information but, in the past..Urashima Taro constructed it, or things like that, it's strange that there's not even anything like that."

"It seems like it was investigate a number of times but they weren't able to figure anything out right.."

"Right, it might be different if they were to send in an elite unit of the first knight group but if they were to die it would be a huge loss after all..Even then since it might have some value it seems they send a number of investigation units in, in the past. But doesn't everyone get split up when moving between floors. The deeper the floors they went the number of people gradually decreased, accord to record after the founding King there were several investigation units that made it to the 7th floor as well. During that time they sent in 100 elite members of the knight group and only half of those returned. Since the damage was too much they had to end up giving up it seems. Ah, this, was a secret I heard from sister don't talk to anyone about it."

"Yeah, I won't sayi t. But, even half of them died..But since half of them were still remaining why didn't they go a bit further?"

"No idea. What remained in the records is that there was an investigation unit that made it to the 7th floor and what's been made to the public is up to the 5th floor after all. It seems that the state of the 6th floor is only open to the public in the form of the legends of Rombert the First, so I'm sure the investigation unit just peeked into the 7th floor before coming back. In the first place you know, for them to continue going even after having their numbers reduced to half, unless they had some serious confidence, or were a total idiot there's no way they'd do that. In military terms if you take damage of over 40% it's judged as annihilation. Well in this era I doubt it's annihilation but even then there's no doubt it's a huge loss. If the elites were reduced to half all then it means that same at the ones who mange the army in the king were reduced to half as well. After that, didn't they go through quite a bit of trouble to reorganize their war potential?"

"If something like that happened, unless something huge happened you wouldn't think of investigating one more time right.."

"That's only obvious. If I was the King I wouldn't want to do something as pointless as that and even if my subordinates wanted to do it I'd force them stop."

"I think I would as well.."

"Yeah, even if you leave it alone idiots like us will explore it all on their own. It's fine as long as you know the result and if it's delicious you can activate the power of the state and take all the good parts of it."

"That's true~"

"Oh?"

It was when we were whispering about pointless things as usual in j.a.panese. A new party entered the teleport room we were resting in...That is, the party of that one elf named Rozwela. I've seen his face a number of times in the dungeon. It seems he's still surrounded by combat slaves as usual. As far as I know other than Rozwela himself he has 7 fixed members who are combat slaves with a reasonable level of ability. The remaining ones are pretty fluid and at longest it seems they die in about half a year.

The two of us watched Rozwela's party quickly make preparations to rest. Since they don't have an excessive amount of mana like me they're sleeping directly on the rough and hard stone. Only Rozwela is sleeping on several blankets that are overlapped. There's water inside of the large bucket that one of his slaves was carrying. After opening the lid of the bucket they scooped out some water and started making soup in a portable stove magic tool.

Even though it's a huge bucket they have that many people. I wonder if it was close to becoming empty, one of the slaves seems to be using magic to put more water into the bucket. After finishing their meal they all laid down in groups of two or three before starting to get some rest. Rozwela isn't all that harsh to nor does he say unreasonable things or treat his slaves particularly bad. It's true that he's caring for his slaves reasonably in his own way. Most of the rumors I heard at the start were just envy and even when I've talked directly with him I didn't feel anything strange.

Rather, all of the parties which are called the top teams are mostly oddb.a.l.l.s. The {Verdure Brotherhood} certainly makes a lot of money but a lot of them get too arrogant over that and show it in their behavior. Well if you think of it as a behavior backed by true ability then it's not as annoying so this is fine. Rather there are no oddb.a.l.l.s among them. They're the ones who find the largest number of expensive magic items and since they've already earned plenty of money it's  said they might retire pretty soon.

A human man in his prime of life is the leader of {Bright Blade} but there's a variety of dark rumors about them as well. A rumor that when they encounter other parties in the dungeon they attack them and steal all of their equipment before killing them all to erase the evidence. Honestly speaking, I wondered why such horrible things were said about them. But, every single one of them has an atrocious appearance and their normal behavior is rough as well. Since there's no evidence it's no more than at the level of rumors but just from looking at them I'm sure they're at a loss. It seems that there are people who have a serious grudge against them though. They're the ones who have the next highest rate of obtaining magic items after {Verdure Brotherhood}.

The leader of {Gehenna Flare} is a middle-aged Dwarf. They have 9 party members and they're all dwarves. At that point it already gives off an exclusive impression. I've only met them a handful of times in the dungeon but if Zenom wasn't in my party they probably wouldn't even have talked to us, or at least I'm tired of them declaring that. It seems they're having a drinking party every time they take a rest. Even that last time we met them the conversation started from "Do you have any alcohol? If you do we'll buy it." My impression of them is strongest that they're bringing back gems and things of that type.

We've made {Black Topaz} a number of times. A softhearted human woman is the leader. She's so softhearted you might wonder if she's an idiot. It's a complete rumor that one she might be cursed or take on some huge damage because of that. No clue waht the karma relation between being softhearted and taking some huge damage is though. Most parties, "She acts like a senior to people who she has no relation to and gives out advice or rather preaches." say stuff like that out of annoyance but only the person herself doesn't know. By the time, it seems that her party members know about this matter but they've given up on it. Since the leader is a daughter of a high ranking n.o.ble the majority of the members are squires that serve that n.o.ble so they can't say anything. The obtain various types of treasures. It sounds good to say they're active on multiple levels but it feels like they're lacking in a deciding factor.

{Sun Ray} is an usual group of people and I don't really get who is the leader of them. It's a common rumor that they're donating almost all of their earnings from the dungeon to the temple. It's also said that they're all people who wanted to work at the temple but were rejected. It seems that there's a total of 15 of them but I guess they're switching out in rotation or something, I get the impression the members they have in the dungeon are changing places all the time. They're often bringing back a steady number of gold and silver nuggets.

There's no way we can rival them in terms of magic items but in terms of magic stones and old equipment we've collected from the dungeon we rival the lower top teams in terms of earnings so we the Slaughterers have gained a decent amount of attention as well. One of the factors of why we gather attention is because excluding Zenom all of the other members including the slaves are reasonably young. It's know that a human brad with plate-mail dyed black and a strange short spear is the leader. If it's outside of the dungeon then in most cases I have my sword in it's scabbard at my waist so they really ever realize that I'm the leader of the slaughterers as well.

Rozwela's party fell asleep right away. Right now the lookout is just the human man alone.

"Hey, Al"

Ralpha started whispering to me again.

"Yeah?"

"About magic but I wonder what it is?"

"Eh?"

"I don't really get it. Doesn't it create something from nothing? If you say it's being created from mana then that's true but you know"

I guess she thought about it while watching the magician of Rozwela's party making water? I'm often doing it and Bel does it pretty often as well so I didn't think she would question it at this point.

"Ah, about that..I thought about it in the past as well but even now I still don't really get it myself...I gave up since it can't really be helped thinking about it."

"Al have you ever, since you have a lot of mana thanks to your Unique Ability Magic Acquisition, though I think you've thought about it but don't both magic and Unique Abilities use mana?"

"Yeah."

"Can you not reproduce a Unique Ability with magic?"

"Hmn, I wonder? For example, you mean me becoming able to use Spatial Understanding?"

"That's right. Well even if it's not exactly the same, can't you do something similar?"

"I wonder about that~ for the time being all of the Unique Abilities we know are, Magic Acquisition, Spatial Understanding, Shooting Intuition, Scale, Mapping, after that is just the names we've heard from Bel, Identify and Predictable Evasion. Well I don't think you would know but as a matter of there's two more, Resistance (Poison) and Charm as well. Resistance (Poison) is just as the name sounds, it's an ability which gives resistance to poison. It seems that Charm lets the user make the opposite s.e.x of their same race into their slave. Since I haven't seen it used I don't know for sure though."

"He~ I wonder what else there is?"

I don't know that far. However, I can somewhat guess. There's several common points about all of the names that have come out so far. The people of this world, well not the former Earthlings, it's like an expansion of the abilities of the people of Orth."

Ralpha looks at me with a confused face. I continue my words.

"For example Magic Acquisition. It's an ability where mana grows a lot and makes magic easier to learn. However, while this ability is weak there are a lot of people who have it. It's the same for you as well right? If you use Spatial Understand it makes your senses sharper and you understand the direction. This seems abnormal but while it's to a lower extent everyone has a sense of direction built into them. Haven't you heard it in the past, feel the presence? It's the same for Shooting Intuition as well.
Since I was in the SDF I get it well but there's actually people who have a superior intuition for shooting. No matter what the person they can shoot based off of intuition. Even when it comes to Scale it could be considered an expansion of sharpened senses. Even Identify, it's just my prediction but it's probably an ability like an expansion to Status Open. Even when it comes to Charm, you know about pheromones right? If you think of that as something that's been strengthened to an abnormal level, then it works as an explanation."

Even the Gift of Natural Talent, I'm sure that normally it's an ability to increase the efficiency with which you can learn things by up to three times. It's not hearing one thing and learning ten but it truly could be considered the source of genius. 

"I see..if you put it like that then it does sound true. Even when it comes to Mapping we can do it on a simple level. Of course there's a difference that it's stupid to even try comparing them  though. Even Predictable Evasion you can somehow imagine it, and Resistance (Poison) we already have some resistance to poison from the start right."

"That's right. If you predict from things up to there, then it could be thought that Unique Abilities are things that creates already possess in order to live on Orth just made tremendously sharp. However, there's no way to know for sure. It's a weird comparison but I wouldn't even be surprised if there was an ability which shoots destructive lasers from the eyes. If it comes to that then it's just a matter of my prediction being wrong."

"Well, that's fine. Since there's no way we can figure it out right? But, is there a relation between that and reproducing it with magic?"

"Not directly. But, there's special skills right? Like Bel's Super Sense of Hearing, or the Infrared Vision, Super Sense of Smell, Night Vision, and Instant Speed most non-humans have. Putting aside Unique Abilities, I think it has some relation to why these sorts of special skills that have been known since the past haven't been reproduced with magic. Well paralysis and skills that certain monsters have can be reproduced somewhat so the foundation is weak though."

"I see.."

"And, since you've already become able to use magic as well so I think you somewhat know as well but I think making a spell yourself is considerably difficult. Even I've never made a spell that is completely my original."

"Eh? But doesn't Al's {Flamer Thrower} have a bunch of different varieties?"

"That's just pouring an extra amount of mana into a normal {Flame Thrower} and raising the intensity, or forming it like a snake. It's not my original. Just the same all of the magic we used when making rubber products have origins elsewhere as well. I've just modified those. As proof of that, isn't the special skill that I would try to reproduce first have been ignored right?
There's not a single spell which strengthens the abilities of the body. All there is a bit of healing magic. This might look like it's strengthening the bodies ability to regenerate itself but it's probably different. It's not using magic to improve the abilities of the body but rather giving birth to ingredients for the body and forcibly connecting those together.
That's why pain remains relative to the degree of injury. I actually think there might not actually be a spell to cure diseases. Either there's no magic which can strengthen the abilities of the body or even if they do exist they're in an area where they can't be explained to others."

Ralpha is listening with a difficult face.

"I think the reason that there's no magic to increase defense for a short period, move faster for a short period, increase jump height, get stronger, be able to see farther, or hear better is because of that.
Ralpha can use fire and earth magic but do you think you could make a new magic that uses a combination of those? I think it's impossible. Well even if it's the exact same combination depending on your image the effect will differ so I won't say it's absolutely impossible though. With the same combination you use for {Fire Arrow} you can do simple healing as well right? Of course you can also do simple healing with the same combination as {Stone Arrow} as well.
But, I think this is something you can do because you have the image after hearing before hand that it's possible to do. As a matter of fact in the past I tried it quite a bit. In the end I wasn't able to reproduce Infrared Vision. The same for others."

"I see."

Ralpha said that and smiled. Is this the place to smile? Here?