Chapter 1: Student and Teacher

“How is it?” I asked.

The man, who had a layer of stubble on his chin, gave himself a careful once-over. “I feel better,” he said eventually. “Dunno why, though. Still...thanks.”

Now that was a relief. The herbal infusion I’d fed him had been experimental, so I’d been worried something would go wrong. The recipe, which I’d learned from my herbalism mentor, Gharb, was a tried-and-true Hathara staple—or, well, almost. I’d made a few adjustments of my own.

See, while Gharb had taught me plenty about herbalism and creating natural infusions, her classes had never covered potioncraft. Partially because I just hadn’t been aware she was capable of it, but mainly it was because I’d had very little in the way of mana at the time.

It hadn’t been a cold calculation on Gharb’s part—far from it. It was just, why teach someone a craft they weren’t capable of practicing, right? And when it came to herbalism, she’d been as diligent a teacher as anyone could ask for, drilling into me the minutest of details.

Looking back, it just wasn’t possible to overstate how important that had been for me and my growth. My mana and spirit reserves had been truly minuscule back then, and I’d only managed to scrape by in my early adventuring career thanks to my skills as an herbalist.

Returning to the topic of what changes I’d made to the infusion, though, the short version was that I’d made it more powerful. Generally speaking, this fell under the purview of alchemy rather than herbalism, as it involved infusing the mixture with mana. That meant the end result was a true magic potion.

Lorraine was an expert in this field, and I was pretty sure Gharb was too. I, on the other hand, had never learned the principles of potioncraft, nor any of its recipes. Still, I hadn’t spent the last decade watching Lorraine work for nothing—I at least had a general understanding of the processes involved.

Basically, by infusing mana into a mixture, one could increase its efficacy. Of course, that was easier said than done. The process was fraught with difficulty—one example being that it was common for side effects to become more severe—so I had planned on taking the slow and steady route, learning from Gharb before dabbling in any potioncraft of my own.

Well, that had been my plan before I’d realized that mana wasn’t my only available resource. I had divinity now too. And that had made me ask myself: If I could create potions by infusing mana into my herbal mixtures, didn’t that mean I could create holy elixirs by infusing them with divinity?

Uh, the term for that type of potion was just something I’d come up on the spot, by the way. Divinity-infused potions didn’t really exist on the market, so there was no official name for them. Having said that, I doubted they didn’t exist at all—someone had to have come up with the idea before this, so they were probably out there somewhere.

Case in point, holy water. I couldn’t say for sure, but I suspected it was created using the same method as magic potions.

At any rate, there was a lot of circumstantial evidence that if I used divinity like mana, I could create more effective potions. And given the properties of divinity, I figured the chance of them having any harmful side effects was pretty low. There was only one catch: I needed a test subject. I couldn’t exactly ask an ordinary person off the street, after all.

I’d achieved proof of concept, having brewed several mixtures and infused them with divinity already, so it definitely could be done. I’d even tested them on injured animals and monsters with promising results. But I still didn’t know how they’d work on a human.

Well, until now, that is. In a highly convenient coincidence, this guy and his friends had tried to jump me for my valuables. I figured that, since he’d made an attempt on my life, he’d forfeited the right to complain about whatever I did to him next.

Did that make me sound too villainous?

In my defense, I’d already confirmed the recipe’s safety...to a reasonable extent. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t die, at least. Anyway, that was why I had decided I could go ahead with my experiment—and looking at the results, it seemed to have been a great success.

By my reckoning, the blow I’d landed on my test subject should’ve caused some internal damage, but he was looking hale and hearty after drinking my infusion. I could’ve patched him up with just divinity instead, but trying to heal damage that deep would’ve left me pretty exhausted. Good thing I’d had an alternative handy.

I would’ve still used my divinity if the infusion hadn’t worked, though. I swear.

“Bit too nice for your own good, aren’t you?” the man said, oblivious to my thoughts. “I attacked you. No getting around that. So...why heal me?”

I wasn’t exactly sure I qualified as “nice,” given I’d just used him as an unsuspecting test subject, but if he hadn’t realized he’d served as my guinea pig, I saw no point in enlightening him. “If I’d thought you were really rotten to the core, I would’ve handed you over to the authorities,” I explained. “But I didn’t get that impression. Your friends who woke up earlier—they didn’t seem all bad either. So what’s healing a few injuries here and there, right?”

Technically, I wasn’t lying. Technically. The man’s two henchmen—or whatever they were—had indeed woken up earlier. They’d explained that they’d only followed their friend because they’d been trying to stop him, and it had seemed like they were telling the truth.

Given how things had played out, I could understand why they’d felt like they couldn’t back out, even if they’d wanted to. They’d even claimed that they would’ve stopped their friend from dealing me a fatal blow if it had gotten to that point.

That didn’t excuse what they’d done, of course, but since I’d come out unharmed and planned to put them—and their friend—to work for me, I’d decided to let them off the hook.

The man scoffed. “Not rotten to the core? I wouldn’t be so sure about that. I tried to rob you for your coin, remember?”

I shrugged. “Yeah, but that’s fine.”

“What?”

“Just saying that any situation can be useful under the right conditions.”

He gave me a skeptical look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“What do you think is going to happen to you?” I asked.

The man pondered this for a while. “You’re gonna make me your slave, or sell me off to somebody else who will,” he said eventually, wringing the words out as if he were unwilling to say them. “That’s why you healed me, right? So that I’d fetch a higher price?”

“Wow, that’s pessimistic,” I remarked. Suddenly, a thought occurred to me. “Does that mean slavery is legal here in Ariana?”

“It is,” Diego confirmed. “There are a number of rules and regulations pertaining to the categories and uses of slaves, but fundamentally, it’s legal.”

“I see. I guess that opens it up as an eventual option, but no. What I have planned is different.”

The man who’d served as my test subject cocked his head. “And that is?”

“Simple. You—well, you and your friends—are going to come dungeon delving with me.”

His eyes flew open wide.

◆◇◆◇◆

The man’s initial surprise gradually morphed into an expression of self-derision. “Dungeon, huh?” he muttered.

I immediately understood how he must’ve been feeling. After all, I’d lived a very similar life to his until relatively recently. Right now, he was thinking that he wouldn’t be of any use anyway.

Not in the literal sense, of course. He was still an adventurer, so he’d get by just fine in the shallow levels of most dungeons out there—but that wasn’t what he’d meant.

“Well, my life belongs to you now, anyway,” he continued. “Guess I’d better give up and take my licks. Being a meat shield shouldn’t be too much for me to handle. Are you sure, though? At the levels you probably work in, guys like us won’t be good for much more than decoys that’ll buy a handful of seconds.”

It seemed my assumption had been right; he thought I’d be using them as fodder to save my own hide. “Again with the pessimism,” I said, shaking my head. “I can see how you’d get that impression, though.”

“You don’t understand anything.”

“Until recently, I was just like... Ah, never mind.”

I stopped myself. I could’ve told him that I’d been just like him not so very long ago, but I knew that would only fall on deaf ears. I remembered hearing all kinds of encouragement and advice from those around me back then, but I’d taken none of it to heart.

No, rather than words of sympathy, I needed to offer him something more practical—like explaining exactly what I’d be having him do.

“I won’t be using you as a meat shield,” I said. “That’d be pointless anyway, like you said.”

“Ouch. I know I was the one who said it first, but it’s not fun hearing that from someone else.”

Yeah, it definitely sucked to be told your efforts were pointless. It was almost like being told your whole existence was pointless, really. The truth hurt sometimes.

“But all you have to do is become useful,” I murmured. “It’s all about that first step...”

“Huh?” The man gave me a dubious look. “What’s that supposed to—”

He was interrupted by the sound of a bell—the door to Diego’s house. Well, Diego’s store, really. The ringing was loud enough to reach us here in his living space; no doubt that was intentional, to let him know when a customer entered.

From the audible footsteps, it was clear that they weren’t trying to be sneaky—and sure enough, a pair of men eventually appeared. One was relatively tall and lanky with a taciturn look to him, while the other was shorter, plumper, and seemingly cheerful. The former’s name was Gahedd, the latter Lukas, and they were the friends of Niedz, my dispirited test subject.

As for how I knew this, it was because they’d explained all of it to me and Diego earlier after they’d woken up. We’d then sent them to do some shopping for us, which was why they were only just getting back now. Speaking of, they were currently in the process of retrieving their purchases—and they’d made quite a lot—from their magic bag and placing them in the corner of the room. Their movements were so well practiced you’d think they’d done this before.

By the way, I was the one who’d lent the magic bag to them. Gahedd and Lukas didn’t own one, and neither did Niedz. That was normal for Bronze-class adventurers. The only reasons I’d had one back when I’d been in their shoes were steady saving, a stroke of good luck, and my own haggling skills.

Naturally, I’d lent them my old magic bag—not the one I’d purchased for several thousand platinum. It was still valuable enough that it might’ve been worth running off with, but all I’d have to do then was go to the authorities, and that’d be the end of it all.

Honestly, I would’ve rather avoided giving it to them at all, but practicality trumped caution here, since they’d been sent out for far more than two people could reasonably carry. Medicine, food, and even weaponry had been on the shopping list.

In the end, the deciding factor had simply been that they seemed the honest sort, deep down—though I supposed it did help that I also had Niedz as a kind of hostage. If they cared about him enough that they’d try to stop him from committing a crime, they probably wouldn’t just abandon him and run for the hills.

Given that they’d returned without a fuss, it seemed my judgment had been correct.

“Boss Rentt!” Lukas was smiling ear to ear. “We bought all the stuff you asked for!”

The man’s features were reminiscent of a particularly plump goblin, but in a way that was oddly endearing. Surprisingly, I’d found out that he had a decent, if spotty, knowledge of medicinal herbs and ingredients. After checking the breadth of his knowledge, I’d tasked him with purchasing several plants that were best examined with a discerning eye.

“Good work,” I said. “Yeah, this looks like everything. This one here, though—looks like you grabbed something that’s slightly lesser quality.” I pointed out one of the potted herbs.

“Huh? What? But...” Lukas seemed flustered. “Look! It’s fresh! You can tell by how the leaves are all taut and springy!”

“This plant only grows in mana-rich soil,” I explained, pinching some of the dirt and rubbing it between my fingers. “And it needs to stay in mana-rich soil to maintain its quality, which is why you also take the earth around it when harvesting. It’s a delicate job. Naturally, you’d want to use that soil when potting it—but this is the regular stuff, see? It does have some mana, but that’s because... Well, take a look.” I rifled around in the dirt and retrieved several tiny fragments of stone, placing them on my palm for Lukas to see.

“Are those...magic crystals?”

“You got it. This plant withers quickly when planted in regular soil, but by crushing a magic crystal and mixing it in, you can keep the leaves looking taut and fresh for around two days. But in reality, the plant’s in a weakened state, making a last-ditch effort to absorb whatever mana it can—hence the healthy appearance. It’s basically empty of nutrients, though, so while it might look like this today, it’ll probably be dead by tomorrow.”

“No way...” Lukas looked shocked.

I patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t let it get to you. It’s one of those things you need a lot of experience to spot. Next time, take a good look at the dirt. You might not be able to tell whether it’s mana-rich or not with the naked eye, but it shouldn’t be too hard to spot any magic crystal fragments.”

The depressed look in Lukas’s eyes quickly became an excited sparkle. “G-Got it, boss!” he said, nodding emphatically. “I’ll do just that!”

Niedz seemed taken aback to see his friend’s excitement. “Lukas...”

Lukas turned, surprised. “Oh, Niedz! You’re up!” he exclaimed, as he walked over. “You had me worried for a moment there. Gahedd and I recovered pretty fast, but you looked like you were sleeping pretty deeply.”

Gahedd finished retrieving the last of their shopping haul from the magic bag and ambled over to join his friends. “Rentt and Diego said you’d wake up soon, but we couldn’t help but worry,” he added. “You look as chipper as I’ve ever seen you, though. It’s good to see.”

“I’m good physically, sure,” Niedz said, with a bitter smile. “But we’ve landed ourselves in one hell of a mess, boys. Way I understand it is, we’re in for some dungeon delving. Isn’t that funny? Even though guys like us wouldn’t even make for a good trio of meat shields.”

◆◇◆◇◆

Niedz must have expected his friends to laugh with him. After all, they’d shared the hardships of being bottom-feeder adventurers together and knew that dungeon delving could be a quick one-way trip to the grave. I was all too familiar with how laughing at your own powerlessness was a common topic of conversation for those in the lower ranks.

Which was why Gahedd’s response must have taken Niedz by surprise.

“Oh, that? Sounds like you haven’t heard the full story yet. I get why you’d feel that way, but relax—I think we’ll be just fine.”

Niedz seemed to recognize that Gahedd—and probably Lukas too—had heard the deal from me already. He appeared puzzled, though, as if wondering why his friends weren’t viewing me with more suspicion. He probably knew that none of them were the type to trust others easily. They didn’t exactly seem like the type to treat anyone and everyone with total skepticism either, to be fair—but Niedz still had to be wondering why Gahedd and Lukas seemed so unbothered.

“Relax?” Niedz repeated, looking perplexed. “How can I? Didn’t you hear that we’re heading for a dungeon? None of the ones around here are any place for the likes of us. And since Rentt said ‘delving,’ that has to mean we’ll be going fairly deep...so there won’t even be anywhere for us to run.”

It appeared that Niedz’s plan was to flee the moment things went south. That would only work if you were being chased by something slower than you, though. Sure, people could outsmart your average dungeon beastie and escape them that way, but a big enough difference in strength would make everything else meaningless.

I couldn’t blame Niedz for assuming I’d be taking them to a level way deeper than their pay grade. That was what happened most of the time when someone forced a weaker adventurer to accompany them into a dungeon. Using your companions as meat shields was rare in Maalt, since basically everyone saw it as disgusting behavior, and word got around quickly, but I couldn’t say it never happened.

In a city like Lucaris, where both the population and adventurer count were orders of magnitude higher than Maalt’s, things like that had to happen fairly frequently, even if they weren’t openly condoned. So in that sense, Niedz was right to have misgivings. He had no way of knowing that I wasn’t going to be doing any such thing.

Fortunately, Gahedd was quick to explain. “I felt the same as you after I woke up and got the story,” he said. “But Rentt very patiently assured us that wasn’t his plan. It sounds too good to be true, but he actually intends to train us.”

Niedz paused. “What? Train?”

“Yeah. He said he didn’t know if we were talented enough to make it big or not, but he could at least teach us enough to get by day-to-day without any problems.”

“But...how?” Niedz’s expression showed a certain amount of self-deprecation, as if he was wondering how I could train them when their own efforts had amounted to nothing.

“You saw it just now, didn’t you?” Gahedd pointed out. “He was teaching Lukas some of the fundamentals of harvesting jobs.”

“Fundamentals? What fundamentals? They’re plants—all you’ve gotta do is pick them, don’t you...?”

“Sure, yeah...but I know even you still try to do it carefully, right? That kind of in-depth stuff is what he’s going to teach us.”

Niedz fell silent for a moment. “Carefully, huh?” he said, eventually. “So like harvesting them without damaging them, things like that?”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“But I do that already.”

Gahedd shrugged. “It’s not enough. You heard what he said earlier, right? About how the plant might look healthy, but it’ll wither unless you harvest the dirt with it? I had no idea you were supposed to look for magic crystals in the soil either. But if we learn more stuff like that, it’s gotta come in handy someday, right?”

“Yeah, I...think I see where you’re coming from. But...” Niedz paused. “What’s the point? How’s it going to help us make a living?”

“Well, Rentt says it might take some time, but enough steady effort will mean bigger payouts and direct commissions. Especially for a city as big as Lucaris—he mentioned something about it being likely that there are a lot of clients with an eye for quality here.”

“Really?”

“I asked Diego, and yeah. They show up from time to time. Apparently, they have low expectations of most adventurers since we’re so sloppy with the harvesting stuff, and always directly commission people they know can bring in high-quality hauls.”

“Huh. I’ve never heard of that before.”

“I mean, those adventurers are getting special treatment. It’s not like they’d go around letting everyone in on the secret of how they make their coin. Uh, unless they’re Rentt, I guess, but he’s not from around here anyway, so he said there’s no real downside for him if he teaches us the ropes.”

I had explained to Gahedd and Lukas that if I had been a Bronze-class living in Lucaris and earning my living from harvesting jobs, then teaching them would basically have been creating more competition for my own livelihood. But since I wasn’t, and had no plans to settle down here, it was fine.

The truth was, I wouldn’t have minded teaching them either way, but people didn’t believe you when you offered help that might cost you something. I knew that explaining it like this had been the best way to get through to them.

No matter where you went, most adventurers were the opposite of delicate. I could probably spend my whole life teaching people what I knew, and it still wouldn’t become widespread enough to create any real market competition. Even if it did, it would likely be localized to a single city, and even then, the increase in high-quality ingredients wouldn’t actually cause prices to fall by that much—the excess would just end up being exported elsewhere. All in all, I had nothing to lose by sharing my knowledge.

“And that’s not all...” Gahedd began.

As he continued to explain to his friend, I glanced out of the window and noticed that the sun was setting. I had to be at the adventurer’s guild soon.

I left the three friends to their conversation and turned to Diego. “I need to meet someone at the local guild,” I explained. “Can I come back tomorrow?”

He nodded. “Sure, that’s fine with me. It’s not like you can leave these guys out in the cold after all this, right?” He punctuated his words with a chuckle.

Diego would be putting the trio up for the night at his place. “Are you sure, though?” I asked. “If you’d rather not have them here, I’m sure they can sort themselves out for a single night.”

“It’s fine. They didn’t take any commissions today, so I doubt they’ve got the coin for lodgings. But, hey, you’re going to be training them from now on, right? Maybe I should start charging them for room and board once they’re making enough to stand on their own feet.”

Now that was terrifying. “And how much is that going to be?” I wondered. “All of a sudden, I feel bad for them. Well, it should be fine if you’re only charging standard rates. I’ll just have to get them to a point where they won’t even blink at paying prices like that.”

Diego made a noise of admiration. “All the more coin in my pocket, then. Best of luck.”

◆◇◆◇◆

The distinctive flaming red light of the setting sun grew larger as I—Capitan—ascended toward the water’s surface. It wasn’t glaringly bright, given the time of day, but it was a stark contrast to the dark abyss below me.

Not that it was impossible to see anything at all—by straining your eyes, it was just possible to make out an oddly shaped structure in the water: the Dungeon of the Sea God’s Daughters. Among all the dungeons around Lucaris, its depths were said to be the most difficult to brave.

It was also where I’d just spent my afternoon exploring, to no avail. Well, perhaps that was an exaggeration—I’d made some progress. Still, I hadn’t found what I’d come for.

I wasn’t going to give up anytime soon, of course, but my search today had made it obvious that my future prospects weren’t looking good. After multiple visits, I’d essentially scoured every nook and cranny of the shallower levels, so starting tomorrow, I’d have to go deeper.

The water’s surface was just above me now. The moment I broke through it, sticking my head into the evening air, I found myself unable to breathe. Knowing that I was in for a swift death by suffocation if I let things be, I quickly—but calmly—removed the cursed tool that the people of Lucaris called an air tube from my mouth.

Since it was a cursed tool, it took some time for the effects to recede, which did no favors for my unease. Nevertheless, after ten seconds or so, my lungs regained their usual function, allowing me to breathe in the seemingly infinite expanse of fresh air around me.

I exhaled, relaxing. “Sunset already, huh? Where’s that boat...”

As I trod the ocean water, I took a moment to look around. To get to the Dungeon of the Sea God’s Daughters, one needed a boat and a sailor to navigate it. Since I was no exception to this rule, I’d hired a skilled seaman and his decently sized vessel. Small boats could make the journey just fine, but were harder to spot after one surfaced. For real peace of mind, bigger was better.

Perhaps I was being overly cautious, since my proficiency with spirit let me detect life within a roughly one-kilometer radius, but given how much spirit I used within the dungeon, it was possible that I could finish a day’s search completely drained. If that ever happened, I didn’t want to stake my life on whether I could spot a tiny boat among the waves with my naked eye.

After some time, I caught sight of my ride. “There you are. Hey! Over here!” Using a hand mirror, I signaled the boat with the reflection of the setting sun. Soon enough, it began to approach.

I’d actually spotted the official dungeon ferry too, but I wouldn’t be using it. Its cheaper price and regular schedule made it a good choice for those seeking to brave the Dungeon of the Sea God’s Daughters, but it also came with the possibility of being left behind if one was late to surface—something I’d corroborated by asking people around the port.

The adventurer’s guild itself recommended the ferry, but I’d decided to contract a personal craft of my own in order to fulfill my needs. The high cost had been a sore point, but the flexibility made it more than worthwhile. With the ferry, one had to swim to it no matter how far away you ended up resurfacing, but since I was the only passenger on my hired boat apart from the man sailing, the vessel could make its way to me.

When the boat reached my location, the sailor tossed me a rope, which I used to haul myself aboard.

“Unscathed again, huh?” said the sailor, a man by the name of Mazlak. “That’s good. You don’t look too happy, though.”

“Not much reason to be—didn’t find what I’m looking for. Again. Don’t blame me for the long face.”

“You don’t look empty-handed, though...”

“Mmm. Magic crystals from monsters, magical trinkets, cursed items—found plenty of those. I’d better head to the guild and sell these off. Should give me enough to cover your pay, at least.”

He gave me a strange look. “My hiring fee isn’t that high.”

“We’ll spend the rest at the tavern. You’re coming, right?”

“You sure?”

“’Course. Drink your fill—so long as you’re not too hungover to work tomorrow. You’re the only vessel aside from the ferry who’ll hire out to me, and I heard something about the ferry not running tomorrow.”

“Hey, it’s what you’re paying me for. I’m happy to take your coin, but don’t feel like you need to sweeten the deal by—” Mazlak suddenly cut himself off, his expression becoming panicked.

I turned to follow his gaze and saw a number of silhouettes under the water, gliding toward us.

“Kelpie riders!” Mazlak shouted. “We’re getting out of here!” He seized the reins—which were connected to something below the water—and jerked us into motion. The boat quickly began to skim across the water’s surface, headed for Lucaris...and in the opposite direction that the wind was currently blowing.

This was what had surprised me the most when I’d first encountered Lucaris’s vessels. The city’s boats—especially the smaller ones—didn’t move using the power of wind or magic, but were pulled by living creatures, much like carriages. It was why vessels as large as Mazlak’s often only had a single sailor to crew them—and depending on that sailor’s skill, this type of ship could go anywhere one wished.

Even in Lucaris, Mazlak had made a name for himself as one of the best sailors around, and he’d proven his skill by getting us out of situations like this more times than I could count.

“Kelpie riders...” I mused. “Do you think they’re...”

Kelpie riders, as the name suggested, was the general term for monsters that rode upon monsters that resembled horses, albeit ones that could breathe underwater. I couldn’t make them out clearly from this distance, but I was fairly sure the riders in this instance were sea knights. Although they resembled humans, their silhouettes made clear that they had distinctive tapered heads, much like a squid’s.

Mazlak nodded. “Yeah. Lackeys of the demon lord. Don’t know what someone so high up the food chain wants with Lucaris, especially since we’ve never had trouble before. I hear that demon lords everywhere are starting to kick up a fuss, though, so maybe this is just a part of it.”

“Seems pretty small scale, in light of that,” I remarked. “I’m no expert, but aren’t demon lords supposed to have armies large enough to ravage entire countries?”

“I guess you’re right. Maybe this is just a show of strength or something? A mere seaman like me couldn’t hope to understand a demon lord’s mind. What I do know, though...”

“Yeah?”

“I know for sure I never want to be caught by one.”

“I can toast to that. Let’s get back to Lucaris, and we’ll share a drink.”

Mazlak nodded and increased our speed. Before long, we reached the port none the worse for wear. We had Mazlak’s skill to thank for that, of course, but it was also because the sea knights had given up on the chase halfway. It made me wonder what their true objective had been, but I had no way of finding out. I’d just have to avoid that particular patch of ocean from now on.

One couldn’t be too careful, after all.

◆◇◆◇◆

Unlike when I’d first visited Lucaris’s adventurer’s guild after coming to the city, I arrived to find it bustling with adventurers. Most of them were returning from the day’s work to hand in their commissions, which wasn’t a surprise—that routine was the same at all guilds.

The atmosphere was pretty close to Maalt’s as well, except for the fact that there was an air of refinement to the way the adventurers dressed. That was the difference between city and frontier folk, I supposed. I’d noticed the same thing when visiting the guild at Vistelya, Yaaran’s capital, but it was even more pronounced here.

While the adventurers of Maalt could easily be mistaken for ruffians, the adventurers of Lucaris even decorated their arms and armor—nothing that would impede their efficacy, obviously, but definitely enough to leave a fashionable impression.

Well, Lucaris was a busy port city in a nation with a thriving trade industry. A rural nation like Yaaran couldn’t hope to keep up with the latest trends in the same way the Ariana Maritime Republic could.

Anyway, my point was that I stood out. Granted, that likely wasn’t the fault of the two nations’ differing fashion trends—it was just how I looked. Masks and robes in and of themselves weren’t all that rare, but my mask was shaped like a skull, and any onlookers would be able to tell that my robe was good quality. Since the combination completely concealed my appearance, it probably gave the impression I was dangerous and unpredictable.

Which was why, as I waited in the refreshments hall next to the guild proper, sipping from the soup I’d ordered—which I’d mixed some of Lorraine’s blood into—and watching the reception area as adventurers handed in their commissions, I noticed myself getting no small share of suspicious glances.

Most of them seemed content to write me off as a wanderer, a new adventurer in town, or perhaps a rookie. Some came over to strike up a conversation, but while my appearance might have come off as highly suspicious, I hadn’t spent a decade as an adventurer for nothing. It seemed a bit pompous to call myself a veteran, but at the very least, I wasn’t some fresh-faced greenhorn—I knew perfectly well how to hold a casual conversation with another adventurer. That being the case, everyone who talked to me quickly seemed to realize that I was just a regular guy, despite how I looked.

In fact, only one interaction happened that could qualify as unusual.

“Hmm? What’s that seasoning you’ve got there? Looks tasty, but I haven’t seen it around these parts.”

That was the nation of trade for you—even the adventurers had a fondness for new discoveries. Some of the ones I’d spoken to earlier had explained that to me.

This particular adventurer and his companions seemed to think that the vial of Lorraine’s blood I’d left by my meal was some sort of unfamiliar spice. In fairness, it’d be easy to mistake it for some kind of liquid chili oil at first glance—and then when you realized its color was too dark for that, it would only be natural to be curious.

I gave the adventurer who’d asked the question a sinister grin. “Oh, this? It’s sheep’s blood,” I explained. “Couldn’t get any from a human, you see.”

I was joking, of course. I figured that if I could put them off with a little dark humor, maybe that’d convince them to stay clear of me in the future. It wasn’t because I was off-putting; I knew perfectly well how to mingle and read a room. Really.

From how the adventurers responded, however, it seemed that Lucaris’s rooms had a different language to them—one I was less than familiar with.

“Sheep’s blood, huh?” one said. “I’ve seen it hardened and made into sausages before, but never eaten raw. Is it a specialty from your hometown or something?”

“Human blood...” another mused. “Oh, were you cursed, perhaps? That’d explain why you have to drink it. I know how you feel, buddy. I found this cursed item in a dungeon the other day, and I figured, well, it’s from a shallower level, so the curse can’t be that bad, right? But when I used it—check this out—I grew these webs between my fingers. It used to be way worse too—the curse vendor told me it’d take another three days to go back to normal. We’ve both got it rough, huh?”

To my surprise, they seemed perfectly willing to take my words at face value. I supposed living in a country with thriving trade—and cursed items in common circulation—made you a lot more open-minded than living in a rural frontier town like Maalt. If no one had a problem with me sipping blood in broad daylight, maybe life here could be pretty comfortable for a guy like me.

Then again, it could’ve just been that only the adventurers were, well...adventurous like that.

As I ruminated on the surprising cultural differences, I noticed a familiar face walk into the guild’s entrance. “Sorry,” I told the adventurer in front of me as I stood up. “Looks like the guy I was waiting for just arrived.”

“No worries,” he replied, giving me a smile and a wave. “See you ’round.”

Huh. Maybe Niedz and his friends were actually the rarer kind in this city. Or had I just run into a particularly friendly bunch?

Whatever, I could think about it later. First...

“Capitan,” I called out.

“Hmm?” He turned, and his expression immediately became one of shock. “Whoa! Rentt?! What are you doing here in Lucaris?!”

While I knew Capitan’s mastery over spirit would’ve let him sense someone approaching from behind, it wasn’t like he could tell exactly who that person was. He could probably make a good guess, in ordinary circumstances, but this was probably the last place he’d have expected me to show up. After all, Lucaris was farther from Maalt than Hathara was. Hardly an easy weekend jaunt.

Well, given the travel method Capitan and I had access to, technically it could be. Just for us, though.

“A number of reasons, but mainly, I want you to train me from the ground up,” I explained.

Capitan cocked his head. “Train you?”

I gave him the story of how I’d come to be here. When I finished, he nodded.

“On your way to Silver-class, huh?” he said. “Good to see your adventuring career is going well. Looking at you now, it seems so long ago that you were all depressed about never making it out of Bronze.”

“It’s kind of a shame that I didn’t get here through my own skill, though,” I admitted. “A number of lucky coincidences lined up, is all.”

“A person can run into a lucky coincidence every day and still not get anywhere if they’re a lost cause to begin with. You got to where you are now because of all the steady effort and achievements you accumulated. It’s never good to get cocky, but you can’t be too humble either. You’ve gotta be able to objectively assess yourself.”

I wasn’t used to such direct praise, so his words caught me by surprise, slipping past my guard and landing like a heavy blow. “Yeah...” I said. “Yeah, you’re right. Thanks, Capitan.”

◆◇◆◇◆

“Still, while I don’t mind training you, I’ve got something I need to do right now,” Capitan said. “You’ll have to wait until I’m done.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I heard as much from Gharb. You’re searching for sea spirit herbs, right? In the Dungeon of the Sea God’s Daughters?”

“You know my usual harvesting grounds?” he asked, looking surprised. “I don’t think I ever mentioned that to her.”

When I’d first dropped by the Lucaris adventurer’s guild, the receptionist had explained the most common method of acquiring sea spirit herbs—just asking fish-folk to gather them for you. When she’d asked Capitan to gather some, Gharb had probably assumed that was what he’d be doing. I’d also heard that asking for a fish-folk’s help wasn’t as simple as it sounded, so I assumed my mentors had connections in that regard.

“The receptionist at the guild told me all about it,” I explained. “She recognized your name right away—sounds like you’ve got a pretty good reputation with them. It helped that the Dungeon of the Sea God’s Daughters seems to be famous around here too, since she had a decent idea of its usual products and harvestables. That’s about all the info I’ve managed to gather, though—I only got here today. I just figured finding you and asking you directly was the best way to save me some coin.”

“You’ve really got this whole adventuring thing down pat, huh? Really makes you seem dependable. I remember it taking me several days to find out that you could even harvest those herbs from the Dungeon of the Sea God’s Daughters...”

I didn’t take what he’d said as discrediting his skills or ability, mind you. Adventuring wasn’t Capitan’s main profession in the first place, whereas gathering information through bits and pieces of small talk was routine for me. A lot of the tidbits I picked up tended to sound insignificant at the time, but every now and again they’d pop back into my memory on the right occasion and prove themselves useful.

I reckoned that if Capitan dedicated himself to an adventuring career, he’d pick up the investigative chops to sniff out information on things like harvesting locations in no time. But at the end of the day, he was a hunter of Hathara, and that wouldn’t be changing anytime soon.

“It’s just a matter of practice.” I shrugged. “Like learning how to traverse a forest. Even if you know all the tricks, you still have to go out and do it every day for a while before you really get it down.”

“An experience gap, huh? Can’t argue with that. I definitely don’t leave Hathara enough to keep my skills sharp in that area.”

“The fact you made Bronze-class despite that is incredible enough. The way I see it, that’s pure talent, and I don’t know if I can ever measure up...”

“Hey, Bronze-class covers a pretty big range. Besides, the mischief they pull during the guild exams even gave me a headache. I basically just brute-forced my way through, but I’m betting you showed much more finesse, right?”

Perhaps it went without saying, but since Capitan held a Bronze-class adventurer’s license, he had to have passed the Bronze-class Ascension Exam. So although the actual content of the exam was different for everyone, we could both commiserate over the guild’s penchant for tricking candidates.

Of course, the point of the exam was to see if you qualified to be a Bronze-classer, so someone who was far beyond that level could simply plow through it on pure skill. Capitan was a master of spirit, and I’d bet on him in a fight against any ordinary Bronze-classer out there, so I couldn’t imagine he’d had too much trouble. I, on the other hand...

“It’s a real testament to your ability if you can brute-force your way through something like that,” I said. “I definitely couldn’t have managed it.”

“I think tackling it the proper way is more impressive, personally,” Capitan replied. “Guess we can chalk it up to people being cut out for different things. And for what it’s worth, I don’t think you’d have a problem with the Silver-class Ascension Exam—not with where you’re at right now, anyway.”

It seemed he was still overestimating me. “I’m glad you think that, but honestly, I don’t feel ready,” I said. “I’d like to spend every day until the exam improving what I can—especially spirit, since I’m still partway through my training in that. Picking up some new temporary stopgap for another skill would only hurt me in the long run—but with spirit, I’d be improving something I’ve already spent years building up bit by bit.”

“Makes sense. I suppose I’d better find those sea spirit herbs quick, then. If only there were fish-folk around...”

Oh, so he had intended to ask a fish-folk. “I take that to mean you couldn’t find any at all?” I said, questioningly.

“Yeah. Usually—well, the last time I came to Lucaris, anyway—there’s a number of them hanging around the city, but no such luck this time.”

This was my first time in Lucaris, so I didn’t know what was ordinary and what wasn’t, but there were a lot more beast-folk here than in other cities I’d been to. If there were any fish-folk around, though, I certainly hadn’t seen any yet.

“What happened?” I asked. “Did they all move away or something?”

While humans had a strong tendency to settle in one place, it was more common for other races to lead a more nomadic existence. There were a few who clung even more tightly to their homes than humans did, of course, but fish-folk were generally said to have some wanderlust in them. Lucaris’s whole fish-folk population very well could have just decided to move elsewhere on a whim.

“No, nothing like that,” Capitan said, before pausing. “Well, maybe a little like that, actually. See, there were never that many of them in Lucaris to begin with. They’ve got their own settlement off the coast, down under the water, and they make fairly frequent trips to the surface for trade. Some ended up relocating here permanently for work, sure, but right now, pretty much all of them have moved back to their underwater town—and they’re staying there.”

“Did something happen?” I asked. If an entire ethnic group had up and left, there had to be a reason. Lucaris looked peaceful on the surface, but perhaps things weren’t as tranquil as they seemed.

“Yeah,” Capitan said. “You know about the demon lords, right?”

“Of course—the apex of monsterkind. There are only four of them in the entire world.”

Demon lords, like dragons, were said to be beings of unparalleled strength, but the definition of the term was a little vague. There were a number of powerful monsters that didn’t qualify for the label—the Vampire Sovereign, for one.

I’d asked Lorraine why this was the case, but even she couldn’t tell me. It seemed that the term “demon lord” had been in use since ancient times, and the nuance of its original meaning was now lost to the people of the modern age. It made me wonder what made the demon lords so special.

But enough digression—Capitan was talking.

◆◇◆◇◆

“Yeah, those demon lords,” he said. “Apparently, one of them has been stirring up trouble in the area recently. That’s why the fish-folk retreated back underwater. There are hardly any in Lucaris right now.”

I chewed on that for a moment. “So they evacuated, then?”

“I wouldn’t put it like that, necessarily.”

“Why’s that?”

“They’re just being cautious—I think they wanted to keep their own settlement safe more than anything else. Monsters that might or might not be agents of the demon lord have been hanging around in the waters off of the coast, you see. Doesn’t seem like they’re gearing up for an attack on Lucaris itself, though.”

“What makes you think that?”

“I actually ran into them this afternoon. A unit of kelpie riders pursued me after I surfaced from the Dungeon of the Sea God’s Daughters.”

I blinked. “I’m surprised you made it out all right. Surely kelpie riders are faster than even you in the water.”

“I managed to secure myself a good vessel and a better sailor, so we got away safe. Though if it had come to a battle, I think I’d have managed. I had a decent bit of underwater equipment on me for exploring the dungeon, after all. I was more concerned that they’d destroy the boat—it would’ve taken me hours to make it back to land.”

I was impressed that he’d apparently been planning to just swim back if his boat had been sunk. That was definitely beyond me—the Dungeon of the Sea God’s Daughters was certainly far enough out that swimming was out of the question for most people.

Of course, I could just fly or walk along the sea floor, but it had been a while since anyone would have considered me “most people.”

“It must have been a fast boat, if it could escape kelpie riders,” I remarked. “It’s not the ferry I’ve heard about, is it?”

“No, I personally hired a skilled local sailor, for the flexibility. The ferry isn’t slow by any means, but all the adventurers on it make it a bit inconvenient for my purposes. Speaking of, I heard that the ferry won’t be running for a while because of all the hubbub with the demon lord.”

“No kidding!”

“Yeah. Anyway, those kelpie riders gave up pretty easily after we made enough distance.”

“So they didn’t chase you all the way to Lucaris?”

“No... You see the pattern here, right? It almost feels like they’ve decided to occupy a specific patch of ocean. Namely, the area around the Dungeon of the Sea God’s Daughters.”

“Do you think they have business of some kind there?”

“Who knows? It does look that way, but there’s nothing in the area except for the dungeon. I guess that suggests that’s where their business lies, but we could speculate all day and get nowhere. Getting back to my original point, though, that seems to be why the fish-folk have left Lucaris for the moment. And since I can’t ask them to help me gather the sea spirit herbs anymore, my only choice is to search the dungeon myself.”

“Turns out demon lords are a real pain, huh?”

Capitan nodded emphatically. “You can say that again.”

“By the way, how are your prospects looking for those herbs? You must’ve covered a pretty large chunk of the dungeon by now.” He’d mentioned that he hadn’t found any yet, but I figured he might be getting close.

Capitan’s expression clouded. “I heard from the local adventurers that sea spirit herbs appear in the upper strata sometimes, but I’ve essentially swept all of them to no success. It’s looking like I’ll have to delve a bit deeper. Didn’t expect for this to take so long, but that’s how it goes—especially when you’re working alone. Still, I’ve got the time, and I figure going out of my way to hire more hands would only be a waste of coin.”

All of this actually lined up pretty well with the situation I’d found myself in. “Oh, there’s an easy solution here,” I said.

“Hmm?”

“I’ll help you out with the search.”

“Yeah? Well, I suppose that means you’ll get to your training faster. Actually, there’s no reason we can’t do both at the same time—spirit’s a more hands-on kind of thing anyway.”

“I appreciate it. For my part, I can bring a few extra hands along to join us.”

“Really? That’d be a big help. They’ll have to know how to identify a sea spirit herb, but we can always drill them on it and do a final check ourselves. The more hands, the better, in this case.” Capitan frowned slightly. “Who are these helpers of yours, though? I don’t think I can pay all that much, so...”

I proceeded to explain everything that had happened with Niedz and his friends, including my promise to train them.

After I’d finished, Capitan nodded slowly. “I see. Sounds like you’re heaping a lot onto your plate there. Are you sure you have the time to be training others while you’re trying to do the same yourself?”

“Well, I didn’t intend for all this to happen... I just can’t really bring myself to leave them be, you know?”

“Because you see your past self in them?”

“Yeah. Besides, running into them has to be a sign of some kind, right? Just as I was wondering if you might need more help searching for the sea spirit herbs, they show up and try to rob me out of nowhere.”

“I suppose. I probably wouldn’t go as far as to call it fate, but it’s definitely a lucky coincidence. All right. In that case, I’ll help you out.”

“With what?”

“With—Niedz, you said? I’ll help you train Niedz and his friends. You’re planning on teaching them the basics of adventuring, correct?”

“Yeah, that’s about the size of it.”

I was going to drum into them all the necessary knowledge to make a living as an adventurer. Though I had spent years earning coin and improving myself in the upper levels of dungeons, it wasn’t a very efficient method if it was profit you were after. There were any number of other ways to make money that didn’t involve risking your life.

However, I wanted to become stronger, so that was what I’d prioritized—and because of my past experience, I knew that with the right methods, even a Bronze-classer could earn a decent living. After all, I had saved up enough at one point to purchase a magic bag. Hopefully, I’d be able to get Niedz and his friends to the same point.

“In that case, I can teach them how to fight better,” Capitan said. “We’re going dungeon delving, which means combat will be unavoidable. Training you all together would kill two birds with one stone. They might not pick up spirit usage right away, but I figure giving them a solid foundation with it can be my way of paying them for their help.”

◆◇◆◇◆

Eventually, I realized that Capitan and I had been talking for some time—probably because it had been a while since we’d last seen each other.

“It’s a bit late for me to be saying this, given how much of your time I’ve taken up, but shouldn’t you go report to a receptionist?” I asked.

“Ah. Well, the guild’s open at all hours, so it doesn’t matter that much, but you’re right that there’ll be fewer appraisers around the later it gets. I guess I should get it done earlier. Mind waiting for me? I’ll be right back. Oh, feel free to go to the tavern and grab a drink, even. I’m meeting the sailor I hired there later—I’ll introduce him to you. The tavern’s over by—”

“I suppose I should introduce Niedz and the others too, then,” I said, after Capitan had given me directions to the tavern. “If you don’t mind, that is.”

He nodded. “Sure. Then we’ll all meet up there. Invite that curse vendor too. Diego, was it? I owe him a drink for looking after my student.”

“Got it. I’ll see you later, then.”

I left the adventurer’s guild, finding that it was dark outside—the sun had already fully set. Nevertheless, Lucaris was a lot brighter than Maalt at night. The streetlamps were all illuminated, light shone through windows, and the entire city still seemed active and alive.

The foot traffic hadn’t lessened either, though its makeup had changed. Instead of housewives shopping for ingredients or daily necessities, I saw adventurers returning from their commissions and men headed to taverns for a drink after a long day’s work, accompanied by their business associates.

The atmosphere had gotten a bit rowdier, to the point where I wouldn’t have recommended a young girl go out alone, but that wouldn’t be a problem for people like Niedz and Diego. In fact, they seemed more the type to pick the fights rather than run into them. Hmm... On second thought, maybe that was a little rude to say of Diego.

“Diego?” I called out, having reached his store. “Niedz? Are you there?”

The door opened, and the beast-folk man popped his head out, looking puzzled. “Hmm? Rentt? Weren’t you going to come back tomorrow?”

“That was my plan, yeah. But—” I then told him about how I’d managed to find Capitan, what we’d talked about, and his invitation to go drinking.

“Oh? Well, far be it from me to turn down a free drink. I imagine Niedz and his friends are of much the same opinion. Hold on a moment—I’ll call them over.” Diego turned and headed back inside to his living quarters.

Part of me wondered whether Niedz was in any condition to drink alcohol, given the internal damage he’d suffered, but that was probably an unfounded fear. He’d seemed completely recovered earlier, and on the off chance something did go wrong, I could just heal him with my divinity.

Fortunately, I hadn’t gone out on a job today, so my reserves were topped up, so to speak. While my body made it difficult to get a good night’s sleep, my divinity would still fully recover in the time between an ordinary person going to bed and waking up in the morning.

The door opened again to reveal Diego with the three adventurers behind him.

“They’re here,” he said.

“Boss Rentt!” exclaimed Lukas, the shorter, plump adventurer. “Are you really treating us to drinks?!”

“Strictly speaking, it’s my mentor who’s going to be treating us,” I explained. “We’re not just meeting up to drink, though. Starting tomorrow—well, we haven’t actually decided on the day, but definitely some time soon—we’ll be having you work with us in the Dungeon of the Sea God’s Daughters. That means we’ll need a boat, but my mentor’s been kind enough to let us join him on the one he hired, so tonight’s about introducing everyone to each other. Don’t do anything too rude.”

If Niedz or his friends drank too much and angered the sailor enough for him to cancel his contract, I’d be depriving Capitan of his vessel—and to make up for it, I’d have to fly him to and from the dungeon each day. Giving out a strict warning was a small price to pay to avoid that.

“O-Of course, Boss!” Lukas turned to his friends. “We’ll be on our best behavior! Right, guys?”

Gahedd, the tall one, nodded. “This might not sound all that convincing, given we attacked you in that alley, but I promise to stop Niedz or Lukas if they look like they’re about to screw something up.”

“You promise you can manage that?” I asked.

It wasn’t that I was doubting Gahedd’s intentions. It was just that, by all appearances, the trio were at roughly the same skill level, so asking him to stop his friends by himself if they really went wild might have been a bit much to ask.

Surprisingly, it was Niedz who answered me. “Don’t know how it is for you, Rentt, but Lukas and me are the type to flop around like helpless fish when we’re drunk,” he said. “Gahedd’s got nothing against drinking himself, but when it’s the three of us, he always stays sober enough to knock our heads together if we get too rowdy.”

That made sense. If pressed, I would’ve said I was the type to avoid getting drunk in the first place. I enjoyed a drink or two, sure, but I preferred keeping a general eye on things and staying alert enough to defuse any quarrels that looked like they might break out. In that sense, I could understand where Gahedd was coming from.

Lorraine, who was my frequent drinking companion, had an incredible tolerance for alcohol, so she usually joined in for peacemaker duty. Of course, in Maalt’s taverns, the troublemakers were most often Iron-classers or the weaker Bronze-classers, either of whom I could handle on my own. Anyone stronger, and I got a little more leery about the idea of getting them to settle down with brute strength alone, but there were always other ways. Everyone had a weakness, after all.

When it came to booze, there would always be the type who drank themselves into a stupor and caused trouble for everyone else—but in the end, all it took was a little, ah, persuasion to smooth things over. Thankfully, it didn’t seem as though that would be necessary for Niedz and his friends.

“All right,” I told Gahedd. “I’ll count on you, then.”

Gahedd straightened, and his expression became equal parts grim and heroic. “Understood, boss,” he said, nodding. He was acting like I’d entrusted him with some kind of grave duty, but I supposed that just meant I’d got my point across loud and clear.

◆◇◆◇◆

We arrived at the tavern Capitan had told me about, finding it packed.

“Hey, Rentt!” a voice I recognized called out amid the din. “Over here!”

I turned to Diego, Niedz, and his friends. “Looks like that’s us,” I said. “Let’s go.”

I led them through the crowd to find a familiar face—and one not-so-familiar face—sitting at a table. The former was, of course, Capitan, my mentor and a hunter of Hathara.

“You must be Diego, Niedz, Gahedd, and Lukas,” he said. “I’m Capitan. Taught Rentt his swordsmanship, among other things, and I’m more of a hunter than an adventurer. And this is...” He turned to the other occupant of the table, an old man.

“Mazlak,” the old man said. “Sailor. I’ll get you to the Dungeon of the Sea God’s Daughters and back, don’t you worry.”

Evidently, Capitan had already explained the plan to him. That saved us some time.

“An old man?” Niedz muttered. He looked skeptical. “You’re kidding, right? We’re putting our lives in the hands of a senior citizen?”

I’d specifically warned him not to be rude. Before he could say anything else, I made to smack him on the back of the head.

Mazlak noticed and waved me off. “Don’t worry about it,” he said, seemingly unbothered. “He’s not wrong about my age—I wouldn’t trust me on the first meeting either. But do me a favor and save your judgment for after you’ve stepped onto my vessel and seen what I can do. As adventurers, you should know that age isn’t everything, eh?”

He wasn’t wrong. There were a decent number of older adventurers not only in Silver-class, but in Gold and Platinum too. Sure, some of them were simply sitting on their laurels after climbing the ranks in their younger years, but many of them still had the skill to back it up.

At Mithril-class, though, things got a bit more hazy since a lot of information about adventurers at that level was kept hush-hush. But while I couldn’t say anything for sure, it made sense to me that if Platinum—the class below—had older adventurers, then Mithril would too.

Additionally, while it wasn’t uncommon for martial artists or sword-wielders to decline with age, a lot of mages or people in otherwise magically inclined professions only became more formidable the more experience they’d accumulated. Being able to level an entire city without moving so much as a step sounded like something straight out of mythology, but there really were people out there who could manage that feat. And I would’ve bet good coin that nobody was dumb enough to look down on them for their age.

Niedz must have come to a similar conclusion, because he looked suitably chastened. “My bad,” he apologized. “Wasn’t thinking. You can’t judge just by looks, after all.”

He said those last words while looking at me, which was fair enough. After the situation he’d landed himself in, he probably didn’t need anyone to teach him that lesson again.

Mazlak looked surprised by the sincere apology. “Hrm. Honest lad, aren’t you? Took you to be more the type that’d bite back. That’s good, though. We get sailors like you now and then, and they always go far. Most others end up losing their spirit—they just give up and go through the motions. You can always spot the cynicism in their eyes.”

Niedz’s expression made it look like those were the last words he’d been expecting to hear—probably because he’d never heard anything like them before. After all, up until now, he’d been exactly the cynical type that Mazlak had been talking about.

It was a common story—an adventurer became disillusioned with their life for whatever reason, but rather than choosing another path, simply allowed inertia and force of habit to carry them along. The only reason Niedz had managed to break out of that cycle was because I’d beaten him up and he’d been forced to resign himself to whatever I had in store for him. I agreed with Mazlak, though—if Niedz could stay humble and willing to learn, he would grow.

While Niedz resembled my old self, he had far more latent talent. In my case, I truly would have gotten nowhere, no matter how hard I tried. Not that I’d ever given up, regardless, of course.

“Sorry about earlier,” Niedz said. “I’m Niedz. It’ll be good to have a sailor like you on our side, Mazlak. Ah, I mean... Sir.”

“Just Mazlak is fine. Or even ‘old man,’ if you’d like.” Mazlak turned to the rest of us. “And you would be...”

We each gave a brief introduction. “Rentt,” I said. “Capitan’s pupil, I suppose you could say.”

“Gahedd, adventurer. Known Niedz for a long time, and can’t seem to get rid of him. Sorry about his attitude.”

“Lukas. Niedz, Gahedd and me go way back.”

Diego, however, didn’t say anything. Mazlak gave him an inquisitive smile. “Not going to introduce yourself, Diego?”

“Come on, Mazlak. What would be the point?”

“I take it you two know each other?” I asked, curiously.

“We do,” Mazlak confirmed. He held his hand over the floor at about the height of the table. “Ever since he was only yea high. Knew his old man for even longer.”

“Makes sense.” So Mazlak had known Diego’s father, huh?

“I heard we’d be riding a contracted vessel, but I never imagined it’d be yours,” Diego said.

Mazlak shrugged. “With everything going on right now, who else would brave the waters but me?”

“I suppose you’re right. Pops would always tell me stories about what a daredevil you were.”

“I imagine he would’ve, being my number one customer.”

A question occurred to me. “Diego did mention that his father was an adventurer,” I said. “Does that mean he explored the Dungeon of the Sea God’s Daughters?” There were other dungeons that required you to hire a boat from Lucaris, but that one was the most famous.

Mazlak nodded. “That he did. Every day, at one point—though that was before Diego was born. As you can imagine, having a kid kept him pretty busy. Always had a good head on his shoulders, his father did—even helped him achieve his goal of saving up enough coin from adventuring to open up his own shop. Would’ve bet you anything that I’d have been gone before he was, but I guess these things take us all by surprise.”

◆◇◆◇◆

Mazlak’s words answered a question that had been needling at me for some time now. Whenever Diego talked about his father, he used the past tense. That could’ve simply meant he’d been out of town for a while, but if he’d spent a good chunk of his life working to get his curse vend—uh, general store—off the ground, it didn’t make much sense for him to go gallivanting off and leave it behind.

Diego likely would’ve mentioned if that had been the case, anyway. Since he hadn’t, I’d figured chances were high that his father was gone and definitely wasn’t coming back. Of course, it would’ve been rude to pry without a reason, so I’d let the matter be until Mazlak had essentially confirmed it for me. Though now, I was just curious about Diego’s mother...

“Pops was happy,” Diego said. “Lived a life doing what he loved.”

Mazlak nodded. “Certainly did. You could call him selfish, in a sense, but I suppose you could also say that’s what led to you being born. Still, after Mariana died, he...”

“My mother was...” Diego trailed off. Before he could continue, the sound of a harp played from farther back in the tavern. “Oh, there’s a minstrel here? The mood does take me, once in a while. I’ll be back later.” Cup in one hand and a piece of jerky in the other, he stood and moved to a seat closer to the musical performance.

“Hrm. Shouldn’t have opened my mouth, looks like,” Mazlak remarked. “Sorry, all. I’ve gone and chased our friend off.”

“No harm done,” Capitan said. “Diego didn’t look particularly upset either. We all have things we’d just rather not talk about, is all.”

He was right about that. In my case, a tavern wasn’t the kind of place I would’ve wanted to open up about my childhood, or my mother and father. I would’ve come away with the impression that Mazlak was a little insensitive if it wasn’t for what he said next.

“I hope you’re right,” the old sailor said, scrubbing his hand through his hair. “I’ll apologize to him later. It’s just been a while since we’ve run into each other, so I suppose I got a bit nostalgic. With that and the drink loosening my tongue... Well, I should’ve stuck to talking about the job.”

Everyone slipped up from time to time. If self-control was something people could constantly maintain, then there’d be no conflicts in this world of ours—and alcohol was the king of loosening your self-control. The fact that Diego had simply stood and left was a testament to his maturity. He’d likely accept Mazlak’s apology without any issue.

“Might as well, then,” Capitan said. “Not that your job will be changing much, all things considered. There’ll just be a few more passengers coming along.”

Mazlak nodded. “Mmm. Let’s see—you, Rentt, Niedz, Gahedd, and Lukas? So, five?”

“That’s the plan as I understand it, but...” Capitan said, turning to me.

“Works for me,” I agreed. Suddenly, a thought occurred. “Just one thing...”

“Yes?”

“What about Diego?”

Mazlak cocked his head. “What, does he plan on delving with you?” he asked, somewhat disbelievingly. “In the Dungeon of the Sea God’s Daughters? Are you sure?”

I was curious as to why Mazlak would react like that, but digging into Diego’s past seemed rather touchy at the moment, given what had just happened. I decided to let sleeping dogs lie and keep to the topic of the job. “I don’t know if he’ll be coming along, but I’ve promised to bring him any cursed items I find,” I explained. “And you know how strange some cursed items can be. With some, you wouldn’t even be able to figure out what they do unless you’ve studied the spot where you picked it up.”

The air tubes that the others would be using were one such example. Placing one in your mouth let you breathe underwater, but if you found one far away from the water, you’d be hard-pressed to figure out its purpose. You’d just wonder where this strange pipe had come from, and whether it was a component that had fallen out of some larger contraption. If you knew they were often found near the shore, though, you’d start thinking about how it might be used in the water, and then you’d eventually figure it out.

Unlike ordinary magical items, cursed items found in dungeons tended to have strong connections to the places they were found—which meant knowing that information was often crucial. So while I could bring Diego all the cursed items I came across, it seemed pretty likely that he’d want a better look at the locations where I’d found some of them—and Mazlak’s boat would be his only way to get there.

Mazlak nodded; he seemed to have picked up on my thought process. “So Diego’s gathering cursed items from the Dungeon of the Sea God’s Daughters, hmm?” he mused. “I suppose that would make him want to go delving himself, now and again. I think it’s best we leave him be right now, but we can ask him about it later. If he wants to come along, though, I’ve no problem with it. I’d say that’s your call, since you’ll be delving with him.”

“I don’t mind,” Capitan said. “The sea spirit herbs are all I’m after. If Diego needs cursed items, I’ll happily hand over any I find. Most are just useless knickknacks, anyway. Might set aside a few as souvenirs for Gharb, but that’s it. From what I could tell about the way he carried himself, I don’t think Diego’s going to slow us down, and an extra pair of eyes when searching for the herbs is always welcome.” He turned a sharp gaze over to Niedz and the others. “Honestly, Niedz and his friends might have a rougher time, but that’s why Rentt and I will be training them.”

“Better brace yourselves,” I told the trio of adventurers. “Capitan’s training is no joke.”

“What are you going to make us do?” Niedz asked, somewhat hesitantly.

“To start with? We’ll be building up your fitness and getting some experience under your belts. It’s tough, but don’t worry too much. If I managed to overcome it in the past, so can you.”

“I’m not sure if I believe that...”

Chapter 2: Dungeon Delving

“It’s a nice song,” I said, sitting down at the table.

Diego glanced at me, surprised. “Shouldn’t you be with them?” he asked, looking to where Capitan and the others were drinking merrily.

We’d finished our discussion about the dungeon job, so the rest of the evening was free for us to enjoy at our leisure. Though, I knew that Capitan would be subtly probing Niedz and his friends to get a better idea of who they were as people. After all, when you were training someone, knowing their personality could be just as important as knowing their skills.

People like Diego and me, who disliked talking about our pasts, would avoid the topic no matter how much alcohol we consumed—unless given a good reason. Niedz and the others, however, were simpler folk. The drunker they got, the more they’d tell Capitan.

The outcome of that conversation might as well have been preordained. Capitan had a wealth of experience handling ruffian types who often acted before they thought, because back in Hathara, where he was the lead hunter, everybody looked up to him the most. Niedz and his friends would be wrapped around his finger before long, so there was no need for me to hang around.

“They’ll be fine,” I told Diego. “It’s just nice to have a little peace and quiet while drinking every now and again. The minstrel’s a novel experience too. We hardly ever got any in the taverns where I’m from.”

Diego shrugged. “They do only go where the coin purses are fattest, though I know some eccentrics like to tour the sticks... Hmm. Maybe I should call them dedicated rather than eccentric.”

He was referring to the original duty of minstrels and why the gods encouraged their efforts. Giza, the deity of bards, desired for everything in existence to be represented in song, because it would allow information to spread far and wide across the world, shared between all. That was why bards journeyed across the lands, gathering stories and putting them to music. It was said that even Giza had walked that same path a long, long time ago.

These days, though, bards weren’t all that passionate about the old traditions. This might’ve gone without saying, but touring the remote countryside didn’t exactly earn them a lot of coin. They were always given warm welcomes when they did, since entertainment was hard to come by in such places, but it was no coincidence that they were more often seen singing in the taverns of big cities, where they could enjoy all the conveniences of modern life.

If pressed, I would’ve placed bards as the type who trended toward self-indulgence more than most. After all, their deity was also the god of pleasure. Still, in theory, they could serve their patron god quite well in big cities, where information and stories flowed with more regularity. Not to mention, even a bard might start feeling guilty if all they did was spend their time indulging in idle amusements.

Anyway, you did still see the more sober type of bard every once in a while, who took it upon themselves to make the arduous trek through the frontier, gathering stories from the far corners of society. Those were the types that Diego had been alluding to.

“Which type do you think she is?” I murmured.

“The song she’s singing is an old one, in this city,” he said. “So maybe the less pious type...”

I focused on the lyrics for a few moments. “A story about a doomed love?”

“Yes. Between a beautiful sea fairy and a man of the harbor. Tales like that are common around here.”

I listened along, finding that Diego’s description was right. The minstrel herself was rather beautiful, with long blonde hair, and she was surrounded by a decently sized crowd of men who were admiring her appearance just as much as the music. It was a situation that would’ve made your average woman nervous, if not outright afraid, but it was probably a daily occurrence in the minstrel’s line of work. Her singing was calm and clear, without a hint of wavering.

I sat back and enjoyed the song through to its end, and before the next one started, I turned to Diego. “By the way,” I began.

“Yes?”

“Will you be joining us in the dungeon?”

Understanding dawned in his expression. “Ah, so that’s why you came over here. Sorry for leaving before the discussion was over, then.”

“It’s all right—I prefer it here anyway. Mazlak said he would apologize to you later, for the record.”

“He doesn’t have to. It’s not his fault I’m still hung up on the past.”

I shrugged. “Everyone’s got something like that. There’s no shame in it.”

Diego hesitated for a moment, seemingly unsure whether it was acceptable to broach the topic. “Does that include you?” he asked, eventually.

I had brought it up first, so it was only fair that I gave him an answer. And if I wanted us to be open with each other, telling him about myself would be a sign of my sincerity.

I nodded. “Yeah. The reason I became an adventurer in the first place,” I said. “A long time ago, I knew a girl. She and I were best friends. One day, though, we were attacked by a monster—and she, her grandmother, and my birth parents were... Well. I don’t know why, but I was the only survivor. Honestly, I still don’t know if that was a good thing. Sometimes, I still wonder whether everything might’ve been easier if I’d just...died with them.”

Even condensed and summarized, it was a heavy story—not something to be dumped on another person casually. But when I glanced at Diego, expecting to see discomfort...

“Yeah? That can’t have been easy,” he said sincerely. “But you’re here now. That’s something to be thankful for, isn’t it?” His words then took on a more joking tone. “Besides, who else is going to rake in haul after haul of cursed items from the dungeon for me?”

I chuckled. It was nice of him to lighten the mood. “Heh. I guess you’re right.”

“Myself aside, though, if Niedz and his friends hadn’t run into you, it probably wouldn’t have been long before they’d ended up dead and forgotten in the wilderness somewhere. I see a lot of their type trying to make it as adventurers, only to end up floundering in the end. You can try to help them along, but it’s never easy. But you’re doing it anyway, aren’t you, Rentt? Trying to make them into fully fledged adventurers?”

“That’s the plan. I don’t know how well it’ll turn out, but I’m sure I can at least get them to the point where they won’t be dying in the middle of nowhere anytime soon.”

“In that case, I want to see how you do it firsthand. It might take me a while to pick it up, but I want to do the same thing for others like Niedz when I come across them in the future.”

“So you mean...”

“Yeah. I’ll join you in the Dungeon of the Sea God’s Daughters. I’ve still got my shop to run, so it won’t be every day, but I’ll be happy to come along if you’ll have me.”

◆◇◆◇◆

“They look paler than sheets...” Diego remarked.

It was the next morning, and I was in Diego’s shop in the residential quarter. Since we’d be dungeon delving today, preparations needed to be made. I’d finished my own back at my lodgings, but had come to help Niedz, Lukas, and Gahedd with theirs.

The trio had discussed the matter with Diego yesterday and had decided they would be staying at his store for a while. Naturally, they would be paying rent—albeit less than what they would’ve paid at an inn. In exchange, they’d also be helping Diego with his store. It seemed the curse vendor was doing his best to support the adventuring trio in his own way.

Either way, when I’d mentioned preparations, I hadn’t meant anything particularly grand, since we’d already gathered all the necessary tools and medicines yesterday. While they would’ve been easy to carry around in my magic pouch, our end goal here was to set Niedz and his friends up for independence, so I’d had them select what they needed for themselves and pack it into their knapsacks or waist pouches. Sorting one’s own equipment out daily was an indispensable skill for adventurers.

The optimal thing would have been purchasing a magic pouch of their own and cramming as many contingency plans into it as possible, but that was gated behind a high asking price. It had taken me several years of saving just to buy a small magic pouch, and if it hadn’t been for the eccentric generosity of a certain vampire hunter, I’d still be using that instead of the high-end one I was using now. Such lucky windfalls didn’t exactly grow on trees.

You could’ve argued that I had been unusually lucky, in that sense, but I figured that was balanced out by getting eaten by a dragon and stalked by a vampire hunter.

“You can’t blame them,” I said, shrugging. “I’m sure they’ve been dungeon delving before, but the Dungeon of the Sea God’s Daughters is another thing entirely. I can attest to how nerve-racking it can be to enter an unfamiliar dungeon.”

Diego nodded. “I guess the dungeon’s reputation doesn’t help either,” he said. “We have a few others around Lucaris, but the story goes that this dungeon’s the reason the city was built here in the first place.”

“Yeah? Why’s that? Are the resources you can extract from it really that worthwhile?” I knew sea spirit herbs could fetch a sizable pile of copper, but they weren’t exactly the kind of gold mine that would motivate the founding of an entire city.

“No, it’s not the resources. Long ago, the people who founded Lucaris passed by here after escaping a big war in the east,” Diego explained. “That’s when they heard voices coming from the sea, in the direction of the dungeon. The voices told them that if they built a port town here and braved the dungeon’s depths, they would prosper.”

“I feel like I’ve heard a lot of similar-sounding myths...”

“Can’t argue there,” Diego conceded. “Still, the reality is that the city’s here now, and the Dungeon of the Sea God’s Daughters is out there. As for how it got its name, it’s because of how beautiful the voices sounded. The settlers who heard them became convinced that they belonged to the daughters of the sea god who had made the dungeon their home.”

“That makes sense,” I said. “Explains why it’s plural.”

“So there you have it—the legend of how Lucaris was founded. Thanks to that, most see the dungeon as something bordering on sacred—enough that we have an annual festival dedicated to the sea god, where prayers are offered to the dungeon. Next one’s not for half a year, though. Anyway, my point is that the people here believe that the city’s prosperity is thanks to the Dungeon of the Sea God’s Daughters, so it holds a special place in their minds.”

“I didn’t think Niedz and his friends were particularly devout, though,” I remarked.

“That’s true. But then again... Deep down, their type tends to be believers in something, right?”

“What about you? Do you believe?”

“I’m... Let’s say I’m not particularly pious.”

“Didn’t you serve at a temple for the God of Appraisal?”

“I think the God of Appraisal would actually be pleased with my outlook. The philosophy there is that, since there is great value in the physical world, we’re encouraged to evaluate things using our own judgment, rather than spend all our time in dedicated prayer or whatnot.”

That made a great deal of sense, now that I thought about it. The act of appraisal was rooted in the tangible rather than the unseen—gods, deities, and the like. It seemed the God of Appraisal was more concerned with the congregation evaluating what was before their eyes. Given that that would also include a god, if one happened to show up, it wasn’t even a contradictory philosophy for a religion to hold. Still, it did make the God of Appraisal rather unique, as deities went.

“If only those three could be as pragmatic about it as you,” I remarked. “Maybe it’d put a bit of color back into their expressions. Should I go over and encourage them a bit, do you think?”

Diego nodded. “That’s probably a good idea.”

I walked over and put my hand on Niedz’s shoulder. “Niedz.”

He flinched and turned. “Oh,” he said. “It’s just you.”

“We’re the only ones in the store. Who else could it have been?” I shook my head. “You look pretty nervous.”

“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“And for all those nerves, your armor’s loose. Come on, tighten it up a bit. You too, Gahedd, Lukas.”

The trio hurriedly began checking over their armor. They’d bought it using the coin I’d given them, and while everything was secondhand, it was as decent quality as my budget had allowed for. Definitely an upgrade from what they had been wearing previously.

To be fair, though, that was a really low bar to clear. Their old armor had been so battered that I’d wondered how they were still alive, and when I’d asked, they’d said the last time they’d taken it in for maintenance had been over a year ago. That wouldn’t have been so bad if they’d cared for it themselves, but I highly doubted that was the case. At least that seemed to have been less out of laziness and more because they simply hadn’t known the proper maintenance methods. Knowing how to care for one’s armor was a basic among basics, but an unexpectedly large percentage of adventurers couldn’t manage it.

◆◇◆◇◆

In this world, there were always prodigies—the type of people who never needed much teaching to produce results far beyond those expected of them. The type of people who, if they were so inclined, would ascend swiftly up the adventuring ranks.

Everyone else either lost the will to continue and switched to another profession, or simply allowed inertia to carry them through the motions, even as they knew they were wasting away making no progress.

That, or they died.

That particular outcome could be seen as a mercy, in a way, but it was human nature to try to avoid having one’s lifespan cut short. That was why the clever ones, when they noticed they were approaching the limit of their skills, would throw their hands up, saying it was no longer worth the effort. However, adventurers who did that would cease to grow.

A person’s growth depended on whether they had the grit to actually confront their limitations, and then whether they had the capability to overcome them. The catch was that facing such a challenge alone often earned you nothing more than a one-way trip to the afterlife. You needed someone who could stop you just before you reached the edge of the abyss—a mentor.

Until now, Niedz, Lukas, and Gahedd had had no such person. That was why they’d been forced down the path of wasting away. But now, things were different.

Having said that, it wouldn’t do to have them too scared to internalize any of my lessons.

“Come on, it’s time to go,” I said. “Capitan and Mazlak are waiting for us at the harbor. Prepare yourselves.”

“Um, Boss Rentt?” Lukas asked.

“Yes?”

“Are we... Are we really going to the Dungeon of the Sea God’s Daughters today?”

I nodded. “We are.”

“B-But we’re just there to help you find sea spirit herbs, right?” he asked hopefully. “That’s all?”

“That’s the gist of it, but I’ll be having you do more than that. I mean, it’s a dungeon. There’ll be monsters we’ll have to fight, and ingredients other than sea spirit herbs to harvest.”

“S-So we are fighting, after all...”

Ah. So they’d been under the vague impression that they might not be doing any fighting, had they? That was probably partly my fault. I had told them I would be training them, but you usually wouldn’t expect that to take the form of throwing them into real combat. That had been what I’d meant when I said we’d be working on their fitness and helping them gain some experience, but I suppose the message hadn’t gotten across.

“Of course you will be,” I said. “I promised to train you. Where did you think I’d be doing it?”

This time, it was Gahedd who replied. “We thought you’d train us up a bit outside of the dungeon first, and that we’d only be delving to help with the sea spirit herbs...”

“That’d just be a waste of time. And this is a chance to have you experience live combat, so there’s no sense letting that go to waste either. You’re still adventurers, aren’t you? I’m sure you know how to fight.”

I’d been on the receiving end of their attacks myself. Two or three monsters—or ten or twenty—wouldn’t be a big deal to them, or so I thought. The trio exchanged looks before Niedz gave a resigned sigh.

“If it were any other place than the Dungeon of the Sea God’s Daughters, then sure,” he said. “But...”

“Is it really that terrifying?” I asked.

“We’ve never been there, since you need cursed equipment even to get close. But I’ve heard the monsters there are really powerful.”

“We’ll be sticking to the shallow levels, though,” I pointed out. “You don’t see strong monsters there. That goes for pretty much every dungeon—and this one’s no exception.”

“That’s what they say, but...”

Someone else might have accused them of being spineless, but I suppose it just went to show how distinct this dungeon’s reputation was among the residents of Lucaris. I wasn’t going to call this off no matter what they said, though.

“Look—we’re going,” I said firmly. “There’s no way out of this. You’ve got all your equipment, right? Come on, let’s go.” I slapped him on the back, urging him forward and out of the store. Lukas and Gahedd hastily followed after him.

There was a chance they’d simply make a break for it, but I didn’t think it was very high. I’d told them that I would report them to the guild for attacking me if they pulled any suspicious moves, and for better or worse, their membership with the guild was their lifeline. If they were kicked out, then like most failed Bronze-class adventurers, they’d likely be forced to return to crime to survive.

Of course, if I simply didn’t mention the truth about the attack, they’d have no issue finding employment as regular citizens and living out their lives that way. But I knew that if I was that soft on them, there was a chance they’d try something unwise without thinking again in the future. It was better to use a little tough love to build up some good foundations and ensure that they could make a living as adventurers.

“You’re being rather rough with them,” Diego remarked.

“They would’ve stayed holed up in your store forever otherwise,” I said.

“Can’t have that,” he agreed. “We’d better be going too, then. The harbor, right?”

“Yeah. They said they’d have the boat waiting for us.”

Thus, Diego and I left the store, bound for the harbor.

◆◇◆◇◆

When we arrived, I saw far more vessels docked than I’d been expecting. Sure, it was still early in the day, but the fishermen, at the very least, should have already departed by now.

“So that’s the ferry I’ve heard about, huh?” I murmured, looking at the large boat docked a distance away.

Diego nodded. “That’s the one. Drops you off and picks you up from the Dungeon of the Sea God’s Daughters once a day. Ordinarily, it would’ve already left, though. I guess the recent monster sightings in the waters really have changed things.”

I’d informed Diego about the rumors of a demon lord’s army that Capitan had told me about. Since Diego was a resident of Lucaris, the number of docked vessels at this hour had to seem even more unusual to him than it did to me.

“Here’s hoping Mazlak doesn’t change his mind about setting out,” I said.

Diego shook his head. “If he says he’ll sail, he’ll sail. Look, see?”

I turned to where Diego was looking and saw Mazlak and Capitan waiting for us on the deck of a medium-sized vessel. It seemed my concerns had been for naught—they looked ready and willing to depart.

Niedz, Lukas, and Gahedd were standing by the boat as well. Seemed like they hadn’t decided to run.

“Looks like we’re last,” Diego said. “Better hurry.”

He broke into a jog, and I followed.

◆◇◆◇◆

“Here we are!” Mazlak shouted out. “That’s my job done—all that’s left is for you to go ahead and dive right in!”

We’d traveled far enough from Lucaris that the city was no longer in sight, despite its size. All around me, all I could see was a wide expanse of blue ocean. Far up above in the unreachable sky, the sun—the natural enemy of all undead—shone brightly.

While it didn’t cause any harm to me, lower-ranked undead would find themselves reduced to ash if they stepped out under it, and even those powerful enough not to die instantly would suffer dulled movement and senses. Few were the denizens of the night who had managed to overcome the light of day—and for that, they were rightfully feared.

It was a curious twist of fate that I now had such a body myself, but in my case, I didn’t make the mistake of conflating that with being strong. Just like any ordinary human, a single moment of negligence could very well cause me to meet my end, and there was no guarantee that this undersea dungeon delve wouldn’t be my final adventure. So as I peered into the water, I braced myself for the challenge to come.

Mazlak had been quite confident that this was the place, but he must’ve known something I didn’t, because the few meters of water I could see into seemed no different from any other patch around us. Of course, the dungeon was much farther into the depths—we would need to dive down and make the rest of the journey under our own power.

In that regard, I would have it the hardest, relatively speaking, since I didn’t have much to weigh me down. The others wouldn’t have much of an issue diving, given the heavy armor they were wearing. Honestly, I wasn’t sure whether Niedz, Lukas, and Gahedd would be diving so much as they would be sinking, but I’d keep an eye on them to help them out if it looked like they were having trouble. There was no worry of them drowning, at least, since Diego had given them each air tubes of their own. As for the possibility of them being crushed by the water pressure, well... I’d just have to have faith in their sturdiness.

Capitan would be fine, since he could reinforce his body with spirit, while Diego was a beast-folk and had a sturdy body to begin with. Since Niedz and his friends were ordinary humans, however, relying on their raw physical durability might not work out so well. They could still manage the bare minimum as adventurers and enhance themselves with mana, of course—it was just a question of how well that would hold up.

“Regardless, we’ll be diving,” I muttered. “Capitan, can you go on ahead?”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. You have the best idea of where the dungeon actually is down there, so I’d appreciate it if you showed us the way. After you can be... Diego, then Niedz, Lukas, and Gahedd. I’ll take the rear.”

“Got it. I’ll see you down there, then.” With a grunt of exertion, Capitan flipped backward off the boat and into the water.

“Likewise,” Diego said, and followed after him.

Both of them had hardly made a splash as they’d slipped into the water. You could really tell that they were used to this. For the other three, however, it would be their first time.

I turned to the trio. “All right, your turn. You’d better be quick, or you’ll lose sight of them.”

This was one thing I definitely couldn’t be soft on them for, or they really would lose sight of Capitan and Diego. I wouldn’t have the same problem, since my eyes were better than the average person’s, and failing that, I could sense people’s body heat. But while I was fairly confident that I could follow Capitan even if the visibility got low, I still couldn’t say for sure that I wouldn’t lose my bearings. Strange things happened frequently around dungeons, and it wasn’t uncommon for the laws of nature to get somewhat malleable in ways you wouldn’t expect.

Niedz must have sensed my urgency. “Damn it! To hell with it, then!” he swore, and leaped into the water.

As you would’ve expected, he made a huge splash that would likely have attracted any nearby monsters, were any around. I had hoped he would be more careful, since I didn’t want a run-in with a unit of kelpie riders anytime soon, but at least he’d done it. We’d probably be fine, anyway—Capitan and Mazlak had mentioned that the kelpie riders mainly preferred the sunset hours to the morning.

There was still a small chance they’d show up, though, so I wouldn’t be relaxing my guard...but as far as I could see, we were alone out here. I didn’t sense the presence of any strong monsters in the water either.

“Your turn,” I said, approaching Gahedd and Lukas.

“G-Got it, Boss!”

“Right... Here goes...”

They dove in. While Lukas had made a splash like Niedz, Gahedd had clearly done his best to minimize the noise. It seemed my read of him as the most composed member of the trio was correct.

“All right, my turn,” I said. “For the trip back, you’ll be waiting around here for us to surface, right?”

Mazlak nodded. “That’s right. I’ll be here even if there are kelpie riders circling the area, so keep the time in mind. Stay safe down there.”

I nodded back, then dove into the water. I was pretty sure I’d made barely any noise too, though I was dressed much more lightly than the others. It seemed like my childhood diving practice in the lake by Hathara was finally paying off, though.

Well, it had probably been closer to play than practice. Although, given all the spear fishing and such I’d done, maybe it did count. Capitan was the one who’d made me do it, in case you were wondering. Being primarily a hunter, catching fish was a part of his area of expertise—though his reason for teaching me had been more to ensure that I’d be able to hunt and fend for myself no matter where I traveled in the world. And rather than an ordinary hunting education, it had felt closer to an in-depth survival course. Not that you’d catch me ever complaining, of course. It was only thanks to the skills he’d taught me that I was still alive today.

I looked through the water, wondering how far ahead my mentor had swum, only to realize that it wasn’t that far. I could still see his silhouette descending into the water, followed by Diego, then Niedz and the others. They were all diving straight down, which was a good indicator of where the dungeon was: the ocean floor.

Although I still couldn’t see it through the dark water, I followed after Capitan and the others, diving farther and farther down. Honestly, I was rather excited.

◆◇◆◇◆

How long had I been swimming?

The light filtering down from the water’s surface had faded to a faint glow, and my surroundings were as close to the dark of night as they could get without being pitch-black. A night on the surface under the stars would have provided much better visibility.

That we were able to navigate our way down at all was thanks to the sea lamps we each held, a type of magic—uh, I mean, cursed tool. Conveniently, it would remain lit underwater for an indefinite amount of time, with the caveat that if you tried to use it on the surface, it had a chance of literally exploding in your face. Hence why it was regarded as cursed.

Apparently, it had originally been considered an ordinary, if flawed, magical item until an eccentric had decided to randomly try it underwater one day and discovered its primary purpose. I couldn’t tell you how that person had come up with the idea of bringing a lamp underwater, but it was thanks to their efforts that we could operate in the depths with any efficacy at all, so I wouldn’t be complaining.

It occurred to me that there were a lot of things in this world that made you wonder how they came to be. Most foods, for example. I badly wanted to ask the population of a particular local region how they had come up with the idea of eating great winter frogs and curtis mants—a type of killer mantis.

In the end, it was probably the same story as all of humanity’s other achievements: constant, repeated failure until something strange slipped through that happened to work. That description kind of applied to me too. I was fairly certain that there weren’t many other adventurers out there who had been turned undead after being eaten by a dragon, and likely fewer still dreamed of reaching Mithril-class one day.

Hey, following that logic, I would count as a step forward on the path of human progress, wouldn’t I?

Such were the idle thoughts playing through my mind as I continued to swim downward. Before long, I noticed the light of the sea lamp in front came to a stop, then swayed side to side. That was the signal we’d decided on beforehand—it looked like Capitan had reached the dungeon.

One by one, the other lamps all gathered around the first. Mine was the last to join. As I got closer, I could see everyone’s faces by the lamplight—Capitan, Diego, Niedz, Gahedd, and Lukas.

It was a relief to see that we’d made it without losing anybody. I hadn’t been particularly worried for Capitan, Diego, or myself, but Niedz or the others could’ve easily gone astray. I’d kept a close eye on their lamps to ensure that didn’t happen, but it was nice to have confirmation. Depending on certain factors, the journey down to the dungeon could’ve been even more dangerous for them than the interior, since at least they wouldn’t get separated from us easily once we were inside.

Speaking of the dungeon, we had arrived. Our six sea lamps revealed its entrance—partially, anyway. It was too large for the light to reach it all. Niedz, Lukas, and Gahedd, having never seen it before, were staring with wide eyes.

The Dungeon of the Sea God’s Daughters, on the whole, appeared to be a gargantuan stone temple. Curiously, its pillars and roof were curiously wrapped in vine-like plants that resembled their surface counterparts. Coupled with the thickets of massive coral that clustered together in every available open space, it made for a magical sight indeed.

While there didn’t seem to be any aggressive-seeming monsters around, there was a fishlike behemoth swimming lazily around the dungeon’s vicinity, large enough to swallow all six of us up in one bite if it were so inclined.

Niedz sent me a look that said, “That thing isn’t going to attack us, is it?” but I couldn’t give him a definitive reply. Not all monsters were hostile toward humans, but like ordinary animals, it wasn’t unusual even for the friendly ones to suddenly bite the metaphorical hand that fed them out of nowhere. If that behemoth felt like it, we could very well end up as food in its stomach, just like that old folk tale of the giant fish that had swallowed a ship whole.

I could use Splintering or something to extricate myself, of course, but the others weren’t so fortunate. They’d have to cut themselves out the old-fashioned way.

Since it was preferable to avoid that problem altogether, it was best that we hurried into the dungeon. The others seemed to share my thoughts, because Capitan signaled us to follow after him and began moving again.

The reason we’d stopped to regroup lay in the coral and vegetation surrounding the temple. With how much there was, it made the path to the entrance a veritable maze. If we’d proceeded with the same distance between us as on the way down, we’d have lost sight of each other quickly. Additionally, it seemed that the giant fish was prone to aggression, if you irritated it enough. So if we wanted to spend the least amount of time getting into the dungeon as possible, we needed Capitan to guide us.

We followed him through the forests of coral and plants. The former I’d kind of expected, but the more I examined the latter, the more I realized they looked exactly like the greenery found on the surface. There were even flowers in full bloom.

Was this a case of a dungeon bending the rules of nature, or had these plants always been here? I couldn’t tell—while I considered myself quite knowledgeable about the medicinal uses of plants, I wasn’t much of a botanist when it came to everyday flora, let alone an undersea variety I’d never encountered before.

I saw Lukas pluck several of the flowers, though, so maybe they were relatively well-known in Lucaris. I made a mental note to ask him about it later—there had to be all kinds of things he knew that I didn’t. If we could share, it would benefit us both.

The six of us reached the dungeon’s entrance. Though not exactly small compared to us, it was small enough to seem mismatched against the sheer size of the dungeon. It also wasn’t located in the center, but in the far corner. I wondered why that was.

Since we were still in the water, however, there was no one capable of answering my question. Capitan gave us the signal to advance, and we followed after him.

◆◇◆◇◆

As we moved into the temple’s entrance, we found the space inside flooded with seawater. However, we all knew that this wouldn’t continue to be the case for long. If the dungeon had been entirely underwater, there was no way we would’ve brought Niedz, Lukas, or Gahedd here. They barely had a grasp on the fundamentals in the first place, so there was no point trying to turn them into underwater combat specialists right from the get-go.

Still, we’d have to stay in the water for a little while longer. According to Capitan, though, only the first floor was flooded, and it wouldn’t take us that long to get through it.

That wasn’t to say that we wouldn’t encounter any problems, of course. Diego was the first to notice. The water, which had been calm until now, filled with a sudden sense of menace. Something large was approaching.

It was actually easier to tell which direction it was coming from than it was on dry land—though that might have been because whatever was approaching was sticking to relatively simple movements. In other words, it was coming straight for us.

As one, Capitan, Diego, and I looked in the direction the presence was approaching from and drew our weapons. I had a one-handed sword, Capitan had his broad-bladed hunting knife, and Diego had a spear.

Recognizing from our combat stances that something was awry, Niedz, Lukas, and Gahedd drew their own weapons several moments later. Their movements were sluggish, weighed down by the water, but that was something they’d have to get used to on their own. Capitan seemed fine, having done this many times before, and Diego seemed used to it too. I’d participated in my own fair share of underwater combat during a decade and change of adventuring, so I knew how to handle my weapons in a way that would minimize drag in the water.

Of course, that didn’t change the simple physical truth that it was much harder to move down here. I would need to stay on my toes.

That was when the fish monster came into view. It was large, relative to us, but if you’d placed it next to the behemoth outside the temple, it would’ve seemed like a baby. Nothing that scary, basically—at best, it would only be able to swallow two or three adults whole in a single bite.

Which was...actually still pretty huge.

Since it had approached us as soon as we entered the temple, I wondered if it was a gatekeeper of sorts. It probably wasn’t all that strong, since we were still on the first floor, but the question was: How would we go about this?

Well, according to the usual dungeon delving best practices, the right answer would be to match our movements to Capitan’s, since he knew this place the best. When I looked in his direction, he returned a look of his own that said, “Just leave this to me.”

Or at least, that’s what I thought it meant, but I was probably right. The water might’ve robbed us of our ability to communicate with words, but our longtime mentor-student relationship wasn’t for nothing.

Assuming my read on his intentions was correct, Diego and I wouldn’t approach the monster with Capitan, but instead protect Niedz, Lukas, and Gahedd. I swam over, taking a defensive position in front of them. After motioning with hand signs for them to stay away from the monster lest they be swallowed up in one gulp, I turned my attention back to the fight that was soon to break out.

Diego, having watched me and Capitan move, seemed to have understood the plan. He positioned himself at the halfway point between us, ready to assist either of us as the need arose.

Since we’d known we’d be getting into underwater combat, we’d discussed several patterns and formations beforehand. Still, pulling them off this smoothly was a good sign, given the impromptu nature of our party.

Well, sign or not, there wasn’t going to be a future for us at all if we didn’t manage to defeat this fish monster. I wasn’t worried, though. After all, it was Capitan fighting—he was strong enough that I had no illusions over which way this fight would go.

The monster took in our positions, and Capitan—now its closest prey—waited for it calmly, knife at the ready. While ordinarily a fish’s swimming speed underwater far outstripped a human’s, the moment the monster opened its vast maw to swallow Capitan whole, he kicked the water and dodged upward, a little to the side.

The movement brought him above the fish’s head, and even at a distance we could tell that it put him in an advantageous position. Naturally, Capitan didn’t miss this fact himself and lifted his blade high. His movements were polished, exactly the same as they would have been on the surface—including their speed.

I wanted to ask why there suddenly seemed to be no resistance in the water, as well as how he’d manage that kick-off move, but right now, that was less important than the fight taking place before me. Without a sound, Capitan’s knife took the shortest path down toward the fish monster’s head. A moment later, the head separated entirely from the monster’s body.

Diego, Niedz, and the others looked on, wide-eyed. I understood why they were surprised; Capitan’s knife wasn’t a particularly long weapon—certainly not long enough to decapitate a fish of that size.

But the fish’s head had been parted from its body nonetheless.

I was certain Diego, Niedz, Lukas, and Gahedd had the kind of adventurer’s pragmatism that let them accept the truth before their eyes, but they still had to be wondering how Capitan had done it. The hunter, however, paid no heed to their surprise, simply signaling for us to continue forward.

If we lingered, it wouldn’t be long before other monsters—large and small—would wander over to feast on the fish’s corpse. It would be best if we got out of the water before that happened.

The others seemed to have realized this as well, because they wasted no time in swimming after Capitan. Niedz, Lukas, and Gahedd in particular reacted quicker than I’d normally have expected them to, perhaps because being in the dungeon itself had heightened their nerves—and that was a good thing, in this case.

Of course, it wouldn’t do for them to be too nervous, so I’d have to continue keeping an eye on them, giving them a nudge in the right direction here and there. For now, though, it looked like they’d be fine.

The question was how long that would remain true, since I would be testing them to see their limits in combat. I didn’t think it would be too harsh, since it wouldn’t be underwater combat, but nothing was ever certain.

There were a lot more things I had to think about for this dungeon delve, compared to the usual...

As we continued farther inside, light came into view, filtering down from the water’s surface. Obviously, since we were still in the temple, I didn’t mean the ocean’s surface, far up above. What lay ahead of us was only a continuation of the dungeon.

Capitan was the first to reach it, pulling himself out of the water. Diego followed after him, then Niedz, Lukas, and Gahedd. I was reaching up, on the verge of joining them, when suddenly, my vision went black.

Was I drowning?

Wait, no—I didn’t need to breathe.

So then, why...?

◆◇◆◇◆

It was pitch-black. Not in the sense that I’d fainted—I literally couldn’t see. I felt stranded, suspended in a void. Every attempt to reach my hands out or otherwise move my body was met with an almost total lack of sensation. Any less and I couldn’t have been certain that I had limbs at all.

What was happening to me?

I spent a while squirming around to no avail, puzzling over the situation I’d found myself in, before the darkness gradually began to fade into a hazy gray. I saw...some sort of ruin? A stone building? No, wait—this was the very temple I had been in a moment ago.

Yet, something wasn’t right. While I wouldn’t have said my memory was fantastic, the temple was definitely different somehow from the one I’d just entered. It was hard to say exactly how, though. It was just...better put together, overall? There was no sign of the wear and tear I’d noticed earlier.

As I wondered to myself what in the world was happening, my field of vision began to move independently of me. My surroundings began to brighten—likely because I was getting closer to the light source up above. I realized that I was underwater when the light rippled as it filtered down. It didn’t look like the sun, though.

Then, I broke the surface. The sound echoed strangely in my ears as my field of vision jerked suddenly, as if someone were dragging me along. When I was fully out of the water, a face popped into view, peering down at me.

It belonged to a young woman, and a rather beautiful one at that. And her face was still getting closer—enough that I began to wonder if she was going to kiss me.

Unfortunately, it seemed that I had no sense of touch. I couldn’t feel anything physical, for that matter. While part of me wondered how that even worked, it also made a strange sort of sense. After all, while I couldn’t say for sure, my instincts were telling me that this was probably a memory—and not one of mine.

The young woman repeated her efforts for a while, and before long, I heard the sound of someone violently coughing and spluttering. Water that had clearly been vomited up sprayed across my field of vision. Eventually, the coughing steadied into rough, but deep breaths, and my vision began to improve. Hazy grays gave way to color, and everything became brighter and sharper.

“Thank goodness,” came a voice that I realized belonged to the young woman. “I wasn’t sure I’d made it in time.”

“Ugh... Wh-Where...am I?” said the voice from my mouth. No—I supposed it was the mouth of the man whose memory I was seeing.

“Surely you know? This is the Dungeon of the Sea God’s Daughters. It seems like you misjudged the limit of your air tube. If I hadn’t saved you, you’d have drowned.”

There was a reproachful note to the young woman’s voice. If what she’d said was true, then I didn’t blame her for it. I’d learned from Diego that the air tubes could run out, so you had to keep a close eye on them if you didn’t want to end up sleeping with the fishes. That part you needed a curse vendor or someone with similar expertise for, since you couldn’t easily tell from the air tube’s exterior. Maybe the guy whom I’d...possessed? The guy whose memory I was seeing? Maybe he hadn’t done that. It was a dangerous risk to take.

“Really? But I made sure to have them checked. I did have a few, though, so maybe I accidentally picked the wrong one...”

Or not. It was worse than I’d thought—he was just a scatterbrain...

The young woman seemed as amazed as I was. “Quite careless of you, considering your life was on the line. You’d have become food for the fish if not for me. A rather large one almost had you before I got there.”

“Sounds like I owe you big time, then. Thanks. I’d love to pay you back, but I’ve got basically nothing to my name—coin included, as much as I wish it were otherwise.”

“I’m impressed you decided to come here, then.”

“It’s the reason I came. I’m going to strike it rich in this one delve, then use the coin to open my own shop.”

“A...shop? So you’re not an adventurer, but a merchant?”

“I’m both. Well, adventuring’s just a means to an end. I’m dedicated to being a merchant, but I won’t get anywhere without starting capital. And if you want to buy a shop in Lucaris, the fastest way is to trawl the dungeon for magic and cursed items that you can sell.”

“If you’re a merchant, couldn’t you make adventurers do that for you, then sell the spoils at a profit?”

“Sure, I guess. But there aren’t many adventurers willing to delve this dungeon. And the ones who do already have working relationships with other curse vendors, so they don’t send the juicy items my way often. I figured doing it myself would be faster.”

“You’re a reckless one, aren’t you? I suppose it’s your life on the line.” The young woman paused for a moment. “But in that case, you can be my assistant.”

“Huh?”

“This is your first time in this dungeon, isn’t it?”

“Well, yes...”

“I, on the other hand, know this place well. I should be able to show you around.”

“Like a ‘learn from your elders’ type of deal, huh?”

“Perhaps. Either way, I’d like you to accompany me in my search. I’ve grown rather weary of conducting it alone as of late.”

“You make it sound like you’re still pretty new to this place—even though you were lording over me about it just now.”

“I suppose so. But what does it matter? Will you be my assistant, or won’t you?”

“I don’t know... I came to gather as many magic and cursed items as I could. Joining you would cut that number by half, wouldn’t it?”

“They say miserly merchants will be their own undoing, you know. Don’t you know the story of Meely and his contract?”

“I know it, yes. I wouldn’t have expected you to, though. It’s so old.”

The story of Meely told of a merchant who fell victim to his own greed. It was said he’d come across a device with the potential to generate vast amounts of wealth, but he had misused it in his arrogance, bringing about his own downfall.

It was a rather old story, though, not commonly mentioned by the younger generations. The only reason I knew it was because Lorraine’s personal library was full of those kinds of fables and folktales.

“Then you know taking on some loss can be good for you,” the young woman said.

“Heh. All right. I guess that makes us a temporary party, then. Will this pay back the debt I owe you?”

“Of course. Now, let’s get to work. My name’s Mariana. What’s yours?”

“I’m Raul.”

Hmm? Where had I heard those names before?

Before I could consider the question any further, the memory seemed to shatter like glass, and I was seized by a strong pulling sensation as my vision went white.

◆◇◆◇◆

Had I...returned?

As the striking pain in my head slowly receded, I opened my eyes. My surroundings were dark, but I could still see.

Wait. Dark? I distinctly remembered swimming up after the others toward a bright light. I wasn’t sure what it was, but it had definitely been there. Given the current lack of light sources, it seemed safe to say I was somewhere else entirely—especially since Capitan and the others were nowhere to be seen.

The only reason I could see at all was because of my undead eyes. It was dark enough that an ordinary person would’ve only been able to make out shapes at best.

How had I ended up here?

“What a strange twist of fate, that we should be brought together again,” came a sudden voice from behind me.

The scary thing was, I couldn’t sense anyone behind me. It was as if the voice’s owner had no presence at all. Hesitantly, I turned and saw...

“Hello, Mister Thrall,” said the woman who was studying me as if I were some sort of curiosity. “Hmm. No, that’s no longer accurate, is it? This is a rarity indeed. It seems you didn’t become a vampire after all, though you’ve remained in the general family. I suppose that makes sense, given your circumstances. It’s rather impressive that you managed to keep your thirst for blood in check.”

Her words invited no response—she’d spoken them as though simply narrating her thoughts out loud. I would have taken her for just another dungeon wanderer—albeit an eccentric one—if not for the fact that I’d met her before.

Rather than an ordinary acquaintance, though, she was someone I owed a great deal to. After all, she had been the original owner of my robe, as well as the Map of Akasha, before she’d given both to me.

“You’re from...” I trailed off. “Why are you in the Dungeon of the Sea God’s Daughters?”

The woman had white hair, pale blue eyes, and, despite the gentle bearing with which she carried herself, an aura of terrifying pressure. But the last time I’d seen her, she had been in an unexplored area of the Water Moon Dungeon, and she had come close to killing me—for real. Instead, for reasons I still didn’t understand, she had decided to spare me, even granting me the powerful magic items in her possession before seeing me off.

Our previous meeting still felt like it was halfway a dream, but my robe and the map were physical proof it had indeed happened. I had never expected to meet her again. But the first question that had come to me was rather simple: Why was she here, of all places?

“Though I may seem to have much idle time on my hands, that could not be further from the truth,” she said. “I have many matters that demand my attention in many different places, so our meeting here is a mere coincidence. Or at least, that is what I would say if it weren’t so contrived. There must be a reason we’ve come across each other once again. I will admit, however, that I initially had no intention of making contact with you. My previous gifts to you were purely an apology—in general, I would prefer to see you progress along your journey by virtue of your own efforts.”

Apparently, she had expectations for me. I didn’t know what they were, exactly, but she didn’t seem to bear me any hostility at least. That didn’t mean I could outright trust her, but I supposed the trust of someone as insignificant as me didn’t make much of a difference to someone as powerful as her.

The last time we’d met, I’d been a thrall. I’d gotten quite a bit stronger since then, by my estimate, but I doubted it had increased my theoretical chances against her at all. It was a good thing she wasn’t directing that dangerous atmosphere of hers in my direction, because I suspected she could wipe out my very existence with a single twitch of her finger... Or perhaps without even moving at all.

That was what my instincts were telling me, anyway. Being around her felt just like the time I’d run into the dragon in the Water Moon Dungeon—primal fear, coupled with a sense of resignation in the face of an opponent I couldn’t ever possibly hope to defeat.

In short, I was completely powerless. From another perspective, though, that meant that I could act a bit cheeky. After all, I was so beneath her that she probably wouldn’t care.

“I do appreciate what you did for me,” I said. “But if that’s the case, why are we speaking now? I’m pretty busy too—I was going to explore this dungeon with some companions of mine.”

“Oh, I’m aware. I wouldn’t have acted if I hadn’t noticed that the dungeon was on the verge of absorbing you. If I had left you be, you would have become a part of it, never to leave again.”

“What...?”

“It seems you have a rather poor understanding of what dungeons truly are—though I suppose that’s only natural. It would not take long to count the number of individuals who still possess such knowledge.”

“Are you implying that you’re one of them?”

“In a fashion. Because of that knowledge, I judged you to be in danger. You saw something, didn’t you?”

“Yeah... A man and a woman talking.”

“That was one of the dungeon’s memories—or perhaps you could call them records. I am not especially familiar with this particular one myself, so I couldn’t say. Regardless, a fragment of what happened here in the past flowed into your mind. Such things are usually stored in a dungeon’s core, and— Ah. Are you aware of what a dungeon core is?”

“Well, more or less...”

“That makes this quick, then. A dungeon core is like the source of a fountain, connected to the entire dungeon and its contents. That includes the monsters that inhabit it. When a monster intrudes from the outside world, the core will extend a connection to it—and it is that connection you narrowly avoided falling prey to. It is also what allowed you to see into one of the memories stored in the core.”

“In other words... You saved my life?”

“To put it plainly, yes. However, you are still connected to the dungeon, so I would not recommend staying overlong. If you wish to explore its depths without being consumed, then you must ensure you leave once each day. Otherwise, the same thing will happen. Even if you don’t, you may still be granted more visions.”

“Hold on. So there’s no getting around that? At all?” I had to continue exploring with the others, but if doing so meant getting sucked into the dungeon...

“Maintain a strong will,” the woman suggested. “While you may be drawn into the dungeon’s memories, you should be able to pull away if you are determined enough.”

“Are you...sure?” Just as I was thinking about how that didn’t sound so hard, a thought suddenly occurred to me. “Wait—if dungeons try to absorb monsters that come in from the outside, why didn’t anything happen to me in the Water Moon Dungeon? Or the New Moon Dungeon? Or all the others I’ve been in?”

“That would be because this dungeon is... Ah, it seems I am out of time. I must leave you here, lest I miss the window to attend to my business. Incidentally, there is a chance that those who were near you saw the same vision. You may have some explaining to do. Finally, if I were to give you a word of advice...”

“Yes?”

“There is a place here whose entrance only you may discover. Now, I really must be going. Farewell.” The woman gave me a polite wave as my surroundings began to shift and warp.

“Wait!”

There was still so much I wanted to ask her—but it was too late. The center of my vision swirled, compressing into a vortex, and everything began to darken. Finally, I was once again bodily launched into what felt like a suspended void.

◆◇◆◇◆

Splash!

All of a sudden, I felt the sensation of being plunged into a mass of liquid. Normally, that would be a cause for panic, but in this case, I actually felt relieved. It seemed like I’d finally made it back.

Only living humans panicked in the water anyway, since they needed to breathe. Motivated by their fear of death, they would thrash about for any way to get out of their situation.

Things were different for me. Since I didn’t actually need air, I could’ve spent an entire day meditating underwater, if I felt so inclined. That’s why instead of panicking, I was able to calmly assess my current position.

Upon looking around, I realized that I was exactly back where I’d started, which was a relief. I wasn’t sure what I would’ve done if I’d been dropped into yet another unfamiliar locale.

Still, it seemed that a decent amount of time had passed—Capitan and the others must have been worried. But while the average party might have already given up on me, assuming I was dead, Capitan knew that it would take a lot more than that to make me kick the bucket. He’d wait—for a while, at least.

Either way, I needed to get out of the water. Figuring that the light filtering into the water showed which direction was up, I began to swim toward it. There wasn’t much distance to cover, and slowly but steadily I began to ascend.

And then, something suddenly plunged into the water from above. For a brief moment, I thought it might’ve been a monster or something like that, but I quickly realized that it was someone’s hand—one I knew quite well, in fact.

After reaching out and grabbing the familiar hand, I was hauled powerfully out of the water with an audible splash. I was also soaked through, but I knew it wouldn’t last long—the robe that woman had gifted to me was always quick to dry.

You might’ve assumed that my mask would rust, since it was made of something vaguely metallic, but no matter how much water it was exposed to, it always remained the same pristine, ominous skull. It was a shame, since a bit of rusting might’ve weakened it enough for me to break it. I could only assume that whatever mechanism made it impossible for me to remove also made it impossible to damage.

“Rentt! You’re okay!” came Capitan’s voice, dragging me away from my idle thoughts and back into reality. It was his hand that had pulled me out of the water.

“Yeah, somehow,” I said. “Sorry I lost you guys. You must’ve been waiting for a while, right?”

“Not that long—hasn’t even been twenty minutes. You gave us a fright when you suddenly up and vanished, though. We tried searching for you in the water, but no luck. Even started wondering if you came across some other passage and decided to take it for some reason.”

“Twenty minutes?” I paused. “I’d thought it was much longer.” That was about how long I’d been talking to that woman. The vision I’d had—one of the dungeon’s memories, according to her—had been much longer.

“Why?” Capitan asked curiously. “Did something happen?”

“Yeah, just... A lot, actually. You didn’t see anything strange, did you?” The woman had mentioned there was a chance the others might’ve seen the vision too.

Capitan’s eyes widened. “No, not me.”

The way he phrased that made it sound like...

“So someone else did?” I asked.

“Diego,” he confirmed. “He passed out earlier—not for long. Says he saw a strange vision. Waved it off as his thoughts playing tricks on him, but from what you’re saying, I’m guessing that’s not the case, huh?”

So Diego had seen it too? That sort of made sense. It seemed like Capitan and the trio hadn’t seen the vision at all. I was no expert in these things, so could only think of a few theories as to why that had been the case, but it seemed safe to assume it was because the people in the vision had been Diego’s parents.

This dungeon had a long history—it had been around since before Lucaris even existed. The number of people who’d delved into it over the generations must’ve been uncountable, and the same went for the number of memories it must’ve accumulated. The inner mechanisms of dungeons were beyond me, but it seemed natural to conclude that Diego was the reason I had seen that vision in particular.

I’d have liked to meet that woman again so I could’ve asked her, but I knew that was just wishful thinking. She definitely wasn’t the kind of person you ran into every day. If I ever did get another chance, though, I had a very long list of questions for her.

That aside, the first thing I needed to do right now was...

“I’d like to ask him about it,” I said. “Where is everyone?” Capitan was the only one around—I couldn’t see Diego, Niedz, or the others anywhere.

“They’re scouting out the area up ahead,” Capitan answered. “This is usually a safe area, but there’s no guarantee nothing is going to show up. Since we don’t have all day, I thought it best to get Niedz and his friends accustomed to the dungeon.”

“Will they be okay?”

“They have Diego with them, so they should be fine. The monsters that show up around here aren’t that strong, anyway—just lesser sahagin and the like. Five or so would probably be enough to get Niedz, Lukas, and Gahedd in trouble, but Diego could handle ten on his own, and they never show up in such numbers anyway.”

It seemed Capitan thought of Diego quite highly. To be fair, so did I—the way he’d moved during our first encounter had been enough to tell me that the beast-folk possessed a great deal of inherent skill. He hadn’t revealed all of his cards, obviously, but at the bare minimum, I knew he could handle himself.

As for Capitan, he didn’t need to have seen Diego fight to reach the same conclusion—he could’ve simply picked it up from the way the man moved. That was a master for you. My judgment wasn’t nearly as good, so my quick reads on people’s skill levels weren’t always quite that accurate.

“All right,” I said. “Will they be back soon? Or should we follow them?”

“They’ll be back soon. I told them not to go too far, ’cause I knew you’d come back.”

Any number of things could’ve happened to me, but it seemed that Capitan had chosen to have faith I’d pull through regardless. I was lucky to have him as my mentor. “Sorry,” I said.

“It was no problem, really. What happened, though? Diego didn’t vanish, so there must’ve been more going on than just the vision you had. Where’d you go, anyway?”

“Honestly, I’m not completely sure myself. But—”

I proceeded to give Capitan a summary of what’d happened to me—including my conversation with the woman. There was little I needed to hide from him... Well, actually, there wasn’t a single thing I couldn’t tell him, in fact.

“Strange...” Capitan mused, when I’d finished. “This incredibly powerful woman—you said she isn’t an enemy? Hmm. Still, I’m not sure just pondering the topic will turn up any answers for us.”

That was a rather blunt way of putting it, but I couldn’t disagree. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

“It’s the same in the forest. Sometimes, you’ll run into a real scary monster out in the backwoods, but they tend not to have any interest in tiny humans like us. The woman you mentioned is probably the same. And if they ever do show an interest in you? Not much you can do besides try and fight back, even knowing it’s futile. That sound like an accurate description of her?”

“Pretty much,” I agreed. Capitan wasn’t just spouting empty platitudes—he was speaking from the experience he’d gained over a lifetime spent as a hunter. Sometimes, there really were forces beyond a human’s ability to resist. “I guess I’ll set the matter aside for now, then. The dungeon comes first.”

Capitan nodded. “Yeah. We’ve been talking a while, so Diego and the others should be returning soon...”

Suddenly, a chill ran down my spine. I exchanged a look with Capitan, realizing that he’d gotten that same sensation.

“Did you feel that?!”

“What was that?!”

Whatever had struck such terror in us, I sensed that it was far up above. The next moment, an immense mana signature flooded the dungeon, and the entire structure began to tremble.

◆◇◆◇◆

What is a ruler?

There were probably as many answers to this question as there were people. The simple would say it was a king. The greedy would say it was money. The wise would say it was the natural law of the world. A clergyman would say it was their god, while a philosopher would say to seek the answer within. A practical man would say his wife, while a man who believed in nothing would say no such thing existed.

But if all of those people were asked if they would then bend the knee before that which they had named, their answers might be more uncertain.

By contrast, all knew that there were some powers before whom no sane man would not kneel.

The demon lords. The apex entities of monsterkind, of whom only four were known to exist. Transcendent beings who would warp the laws of nature with a single gesture. Those who struck fear into the hearts of kings, no matter how great their kingdoms, robbing them of sleep well into the night.

There were too many tales of the demon lords to count. Villages, towns, even entire countries were left destroyed in their wake. Entire races wiped out. Clashes against the gods on equal footing. Would a human ever be able to oppose such a being?

No, for it was impossible. Yet, there were those who insisted on trying. That, after all, was why nations existed in this world, as well as races of all colors and creeds—and why there was not one demon lord, but four.

Recalling what had happened to the last person he’d seen ask a demon lord why that was the case, K’rik the lizardman shivered atop the back of his kelpie mount. After all, there was no telling if he would meet the same fate one day.

K’rik was currently bound for the Dungeon of the Sea God’s Daughters off the coast of the human city of Lucaris, at the command of his lord. Recently, he and his compatriots had been patrolling the area, attacking human adventurers and searching their belongings, but unfortunately, they had not yet managed to find their objective.

They were all starting to doubt they would ever find what their lord sought at all, but voicing any such suspicions would only get them reduced to cinders. K’rik and his compatriots truly had it rough.

K’rik and his unit were of a branch of the lizardman race that resembled sea serpents, and they were well adapted to the ocean. Given that he had been appointed captain of his unit, each of whom had been given their own kelpie mount, it was clear that their lord had...perhaps not high, but reasonable expectations of them.

However, for as much as strength determined authority in the world of monsters, being told to continue an indefinite, possibly pointless search would wear on anyone. Still, with little choice otherwise, K’rik’s unit had been working for a month now, to no avail.

It wouldn’t be long before their superior—or perhaps their lord herself—would show up and kill a number of them in a tantrum. The thought of it had put a significant damper on K’rik’s mood over the past several days.

“Any sign?” K’rik asked his subordinates. They were on the lookout for any ships approaching the Dungeon of the Sea God’s Daughters from Lucaris.

All three of the other lizardmen shook their heads glumly. As K’rik looked up to the sky, he knew that his own expression was a mirror of theirs—just as he knew that he couldn’t bring himself to give the order to return for the day empty-handed.

“I see,” he said regretfully. “I suppose there’s not much to be done, given the lack of ships lately.”

One of his subordinates timidly raised a hand. “Um...”

While lizardmen were capable of using human language, they were currently communicating using their race’s native tongue, meaning certain sounds were spoken at a register only they could perceive. It allowed them to hear each other clearly across significant stretches of open ocean. His people’s branch of the lizardman family, in particular, were noted for their proficiency with such communication, which was why they had been given this duty.

K’rik turned to his subordinate and nodded, granting them permission to speak.

“While we saw no sign of the large ship that regularly carries adventurers from the city, I did spot one medium-sized vessel. But it fled quickly before I could approach it, so I was unable to count its passengers. It could have simply been a scout ship.”

A scout ship. In other words, the humans might have come to confirm the recent attacks K’rik’s unit had made on ships in the area. Not so surprising, given that they’d been at it for a month already. If it had been humans stirring up trouble near K’rik’s home, his people would have taken similar measures.

However, there was also the possibility that it had been a transport vessel to convey adventurers to the dungeon. If that was the case, then the boat was of great interest to their mission: stealing a particular item from delving adventurers. Strictly speaking, they had a second objective beyond that, but that was predicated on seizing possession of this item.

“A mid-sized vessel...” K’rik mused. “It wouldn’t be able to carry many adventurers, then. The regular ship would be more efficient for our purposes—it carries over twenty.”

“That’s true, sir, but we haven’t seen spine nor scale of it recently. Perhaps we should target this mid-sized vessel, I think. It should return in the evening, and it’s not as if our goal is to kill them...”

Ordinarily, when the forces of a demon lord encountered humans, it would immediately result in a fight to the death. However, on this occasion, K’rik’s unit had a different objective—one that would not be furthered by pointless slaughter. In fact, it would be actively detrimental to their goal, as leaving as many adventurers as possible alive to delve the dungeon again would increase their chances of finding what they needed.

In any case, K’rik and his compatriots were a new addition to the demon lord’s army. Until only a few years prior, they had been living quiet lives like any other dragonfolk. Then, the nearby human populations had begun to attack them, with the justification that they were simply protecting themselves against dangerous nonhumans. Thus, K’rik’s clan had gone to the nearest demon lord for protection, and they had ended up in her service as a result.

For K’rik, as the clan’s chieftain, that meant occasionally venturing out into the world to fulfill his new liege lord’s orders. He was still plagued with guilt over drawing his people into such a circumstance, but there really had been no other choice at the time.

And while his new mistress could seem quite severe, she was quite mild-mannered compared to the other demon lords and tended to treat her subordinates fairly. She also harbored no particularly strong antipathy toward humans, which was why she had allowed the relatively nonlethal methods K’rik’s unit were using.

Of course, none of that mattered when she became angry, and predicting her temper was impossible. Deep down, K’rik was terrified of her—not out of a sense of self-preservation, but out of the fear that she might wipe out his people in a tantrum. Demon lords, after all, were easily capable of such things.

K’rik breathed another sigh before replying to his subordinate. “All right. We’ll try waiting until evening. If they don’t have what we need, we’ll set them free when we’re done.”

Just as his subordinates were nodding their acknowledgment, an unfamiliar voice spoke up from behind him.

“I’m afraid I can’t have that.”

◆◇◆◇◆

K’rik was surprised. After all, they were in the middle of the ocean, with no land in sight. A stranger talking to him from behind was the last thing he’d been expecting—especially since he and his subordinates had kept an eye on their surroundings during their debriefing, to ensure no humans were around to hear it.

Aside from possessing all the ordinary detection methods, lizardmen had eyes that allowed them to see heat signatures, even in total darkness. Right now they were on the water’s surface with nothing around to obstruct their keen vision. It should have been impossible for someone to hide from them, and yet it seemed as though the voice’s owner had appeared out of nowhere. It was no wonder they were surprised.

K’rik whirled around, getting his first good look at the sudden intruder. She didn’t appear particularly strange—a human or an elf, or perhaps something in-between. But one couldn’t make assumptions based solely on appearance. K’rik’s mistress, for example, looked like nothing more than an ordinary human. It was possible that this stranger was also hiding her true form somehow.

Still, what K’rik saw was a white-haired woman with pale blue eyes. She stood on the surface of the water—no, she was hovering slightly above it. Some manner of levitation spell?

Did that mean she was a mage? But what would a human mage be doing here? Had she come to destroy him? That would make sense—the people of Lucaris would have more than enough motivation. Yet, if they’d possessed someone capable enough to sneak up on K’rik’s entire unit without them noticing, why had it taken them so long to send her?

K’rik hadn’t the faintest idea what was happening. Still, starting out with negotiation was always a safe option. Fortunately, she seemed willing to talk—after all, she’d initiated the conversation. That was a sign that she didn’t want things to devolve into hostilities immediately, at least. And if she did opt for bloodshed, that would make this simple, in its own way. All he would have to do then was fight with his life on the line.

“Who are you?” K’rik said. “Why are you here?”

Rather blunt questions, all told, but they belied no schemes or tricks. K’rik genuinely just wanted to know. Perhaps something she said would give him an idea of her objective, or at least a hint that would point him toward some theory.

However, the woman’s answer was something K’rik never could have foreseen.

“Well. I thought Canhel was nearby, so I came to chat, but it seems you’re just her errand boy—one who’s drawn a rather short straw, from the look of it. I suppose she wouldn’t have expected me to show up here, though.”

Canhel. That was the name of K’rik’s mistress.

The demon lord Canhel Avara, queen of scales and sky. Her name was no particular secret, so it wasn’t surprising that the stranger knew it. What was surprising was her sheer bravado—most people feared the demon lord and refused to even utter her name. That was only more true the more familiar one was with her—K’rik, at least, would never dare. The times he was forced to address her, he stuck to titles of respect, such as “Your Majesty” or “Empress.” Perhaps something else equally as lofty, but never her name.

Yet, the woman before him, despite seemingly being familiar with the demon lord, spoke it with no hesitation. That alone was enough to make her terrifying. It was unfathomable.

But K’rik could not allow himself to be intimidated. His mistress had charged him with a duty to fulfill. He might have been a new addition to the demon lord’s army, and an insignificant one at that, but it would be a stain on his mistress’s name if he fled with his tail between his legs from a single human woman. Not to mention, what would await him upon his return would be equally as terrifying.

K’rik drew his spear from his back holster and held it at the ready. “Do not dare to utter her name so lightly,” he growled.

The woman smiled. “Not a trace of visible confusion despite the fact that I appeared out of nowhere. I’d expect no less of dragonfolk. Still, a lizardman does not a dragon make—which is not to say you don’t seem to bear some promise, though your strength pales in comparison to theirs. Why not delve the Dungeon of the Sea God’s Daughters yourself? I’ll overlook you, if you do. I cannot speak for those other three, but you should be able to leave before even a decade has passed.”

“Don’t play games with us,” K’rik spat. “We could not last over a day in that dungeon, lest we risk becoming its puppets.”

“But with enough iterations of Existential Evolution, you should be able to break free of its influence and escape...one day, anyway. You should be more than capable. All lizardmen, really.”

“Now you’re just telling fairy tales. No lizardman has ever undergone Existential Evolution.”

Existential Evolution. It was a possibility granted unto monsters—but lizardmen were generally considered to be a demi-human race. To the best of K’rik’s knowledge, there had never been a lizardman who’d experienced Existential Evolution. As a child, he’d asked the elders of his clan, but even they had not heard of such a thing.

After all, lizardmen were not monsters, and thus were barred from the potential monsters possessed. Even those such as K’rik, who served under a demon lord.

The strange thing, though, was that lizardmen would be subsumed by a dungeon if they dallied within one for too long—a phenomenon said only to happen to monsters. The information seemed contradictory—were lizardmen monsters or not? Alas, nobody existed who could tell them.

The woman must have had some idea of K’rik’s anguished thoughts. “It seems you’ve lost much, haven’t you?” she said. “Though I suppose that isn’t particularly relevant to me.”

K’rik gave her an uncomprehending look.

“Leave,” she said plainly. “Begone. I would appreciate it if you did not approach this area for some time.”

“Don’t be ridicu—” K’rik, on the verge of scoffing, cut himself off. The woman had, in an instant, gathered a frightening amount of mana. K’rik gripped his spear and brought it to bear, but it was already too late.

“Thus I command the silver moon upon its seat in the heavens,” she chanted. “Accept my power, accept my person, accept my plea. For weak waters cannot cleanse a thousand years of dishonor. Tidal Wave.”

K’rik had never heard such an incantation before, nor had he ever heard one delivered with such speed. He had never seen a spell performed with so much mana, and he didn’t even recognize the language the woman was using. Little wonder, then, that the spell’s results came as such a shock to him.

There was a low, deafening roar, loud enough that K’rik felt it in his core. Behind the woman was a wall—one that reached up to the sky and had not been there even a moment ago.

No, it wasn’t a wall. He knew what it was—a wave. One larger than any he’d ever seen. And it was currently rushing toward K’rik and his unit with startling speed.

“R-Retreat!” he yelled. “Retreeeat!”

K’rik grabbed his subordinates, who were gawping at the wave in dumbfounded shock, and spurred their mounts to flee in the opposite direction—even though he knew it would prove futile. The wave was simply too fast, and far too large. Once it engulfed them, it would be all over.

He chanced a look back as he fled, only to catch one last glimpse of nothing but an unending wall of blue.

◆◇◆◇◆

Eventually, the water settled and became calm again. The cry of a seagull could be heard in the distance. Hovering above the water, a solitary woman muttered to herself contemplatively.

“A decent effort, I suppose. And I did hold back, so chances are they’ll survive. Either way, this will have bought enough time for him to see to his business. Now then, I suppose I must see to my own...”

And then, all of a sudden, she was gone. Nothing remained but a stretch of a tranquil ocean and the gentle sound of lapping waves. So peaceful was the scene that it was almost as if the tumultuous events of a moment ago had never occurred at all.

Chapter 3: Searching the Dungeon

Naturally, Rentt and his companions had no way of knowing what was happening far up above the Dungeon of the Sea God’s Daughters. However, the battle was such that... Well, perhaps “battle” was not the correct term. The strength of the freak tidal wave was such that its aftereffects reached Rentt and the others down below, inspiring them to proceed with heightened vigilance.

◆◇◆◇◆

After the scarcely believable accumulation of magic, I immediately noticed a disturbance so heavy that it shook the dungeon itself, all the way down here on the sea floor. I figured something must have happened on the surface—and it seemed Capitan had the same thought.

What it had been, exactly, neither of us could begin to guess. A powerful monster? A natural disaster of some kind? Or something else entirely?

“Either way, the shaking’s stopped now...” Capitan said, exhaling the breath he’d been holding as he watched the rubble around us finally settle. Some parts of the walls nearby seemed to be on their last legs, so they’d fully collapsed during the tremor.

He was right, though—at least the shaking had stopped. Not only that...

“The massive mana signature’s gone too,” I commented. “Any idea what that was about?”

Despite its oppressive, looming presence only moments before, the mana had vanished so completely that I could sense no trace of it left. In fact, the mana balance of the surrounding area felt far more stable than it had been before the strange quake. As a monster, I was sensitive to such things.

Capitan seemed to realize this as well. “Couldn’t say what it was,” he said. “But it doesn’t look like we’re in for any more nasty surprises, at least. I couldn’t tell you how, but it feels something like the calm that settles over a forest after a large monster’s rampage. As if all the tension in the air has dispersed.”

Now that he’d mentioned it, I could kind of get what he was talking about. Of course, that didn’t mean we were safe—some new phenomenon could crop up to threaten us just as suddenly as that mana surge had. Still...

“No sense worrying about it anyway,” Capitan said philosophically. “If something happens, it happens. That’s how these things are.”

He had a point. Anybody who made a living as an adventurer was practically guaranteed to run into at least one unpleasant surprise during their career. Whether they survived it or not was usually down to simple luck. I was a perfect example—and in my case, I doubted that a dash of extra caution would have changed the outcome at all.

“I take it we’re continuing the search, then?” I asked.

Capitan nodded. “Yeah. It should be fine.” He glanced farther down the stone hallway. “Ah, looks like they’re back.”

Four figures appeared in the distance—none other than the rest of our party. While Diego appeared calm, Niedz, Lukas, and Gahedd were clearly uneasy. When they noticed us, they quickened their pace.

“Boss Rentt!” Lukas exclaimed as he rushed over. “What was that, just now?!”

They must have felt the same thing Capitan and I had just a moment ago. “How would I know?” I said. “Looks like it’s settled down, though. We’ll probably be fine.”

My answer had been a purely honest one—from the heart, as it were—but apparently Lukas had taken it as flippant. “B-But how can you be sure?” he said. “We should leave! Leave and, uh, go for drinks! Yeah! I don’t think I’ll be able to calm down otherwise. Wait... Don’t tell me you’re planning on continuing the delve!”

“Lukas,” Diego said, giving the plump adventurer a look that contained not a drop of mercy.

“Yes?”

“Do Rentt or Capitan look like they’re about to call it off for the day? If I had to guess, I’d say their expressions are saying that there’s no point worrying about what we can’t control. Am I wrong, Rentt? Capitan?”

“Huh?! Y-You’re joking...” Lukas turned his head toward us jerkily, like a metal doll that hadn’t been properly greased.

I looked him straight in the eye. “We’re not leaving,” I said clearly. “It’ll take more than that to drive us off.”

If asked what would actually do the trick, well... I figured something in the vein of an encounter with a dragon would qualify—not that that would give us much of a chance of getting out alive, mind you.

Still, maybe I was coming off as reckless. I decided to give a more practical reason. “Mazlak won’t be back with the boat until evening anyway,” I pointed out. “Better to get some searching done, then, rather than waste time doing nothing.”

“I guess you’re right...” Lukas said. “It’s just... What do we do if it happens again?”

“Give it up, Lukas,” Niedz said, smiling. “Might sound hypocritical, coming from me, but by all rights we should be dead anyway, given what we did. What’s it matter where we end up being buried, then, right?”

Lukas chuckled ruefully. “Heh. No good ever comes of being around you, does it? I guess it could be worse, though. Don’t think I ever would’ve set foot into this dungeon without you, for one.”

“There. You get it.”

Fortunately, it seemed the pair had come to terms with their situation without needing me to step in. Lukas looked a great deal calmer too.

Suddenly, I recalled a question I had for Diego. “Come to think of it,” I said, turning to him. “I heard from Capitan that you saw some kind of strange vision.”

“Hmm? Well, yes. But I think it was just my own thoughts playing tricks on me. My family’s got history with this dungeon, you see. As pathetic as it sounds, it seems being here had a bit of an emotional effect on me.”

It sounded like Diego had already reached his own conclusion on what had happened. While I felt somewhat guilty about the idea of dredging it back up, I also couldn’t leave things be. After all, there was a chance we’d see similar visions again.

◆◇◆◇◆

“Actually, that’s not why you started seeing things,” I said.

Diego cocked his head. “What do you mean?”

“You know how I vanished earlier? Turns out, I was transported somewhere else.”

I proceeded to explain my encounter with the mysterious woman. Not all of it, of course—I kept the fact that I was a monster hidden, as well as any information that might have led to someone figuring out that little fact. In the new version of the story, the woman had noticed that I was seeing a vision in the water, and she had saved me from drowning. It wasn’t all that different from the truth, and I was pretty sure I hadn’t introduced any contradictions into the tale.

Still, Diego wasn’t an idiot. His expression made it clear that he knew I was hiding something, but fortunately, he was tolerant enough to overlook it. Besides, the most central part—the vision—had been the same for both of us, so he would know that part wasn’t a lie, at least.

After I’d finished my story, Diego nodded. “So you’re saying what I saw really happened?”

“Apparently. And she told me that if we continue with our delves, we might experience more visions. We’ll have to be careful.”

“I’ll say. Suddenly losing consciousness isn’t exactly the safest thing that can happen to you out here.”

He could say that again. Actually, if it were just Diego and me, Capitan would be able to cover for us, but the woman had made it sound like we all might see visions. If we all blacked out at once, we could all very well end up as monster food.

“Well, he only lost consciousness for a moment,” Capitan pointed out. “A few seconds, at best. I suppose that’s still enough to be the difference between life and death...”

A few seconds, huh? That was indeed short compared to the length of the vision I’d seen, but it would feel like an eternity in the middle of a fight. If you blacked out for a few seconds while a sword was coming at you, for example, then that would be that.

It seemed the whole vision thing might have been a harsher drawback than I’d anticipated. Not for me, particularly, since I could recover from physical injuries quite easily. I figured I could stay passed out for ten seconds or so and still come out of the average fight mostly fine. But as for the others...

“If we let this get to us, we might as well give up on the dungeon entirely,” Diego reasoned. “So perhaps it’s simply a matter of courage. And I’m sorry to say that I have no intention of giving up just yet.”

I’d known that Diego had his reasons for wanting to come here, but his resolve was even firmer than I’d expected—not that I had any objections. That just left Capitan...

“One way or the other, I need those sea spirit herbs,” Capitan said. “Maybe it’d be a different story if there were other parties delving this dungeon, but right now, those are few and far between. Took a lot of effort finding and securing Mazlak’s boat, even, so I’m not about to quit that easily. Still, we can’t just ignore the danger, so we’ll need to be a little prudent about this. We’ll see how we fare on the shallower levels for a while and only head farther down if things look promising. How does that sound?”

It seemed Capitan was in favor of continuing onward too. Though, he knew about my true nature, so maybe that was why he didn’t seem particularly worried—especially since he probably had his own way of counteracting the visions if need be. I’d heard that masters of spirit could even maintain their channeling while they were sleeping. Capitan was probably confident that he could keep his defenses up for the few seconds that we were knocked out.

I nodded. “I’m with you two,” I said. “We’ll have to keep a close eye on Niedz and the others, though. I brought them here to atone for attacking me, not to consign them to their deaths. It’s my responsibility to see them through this.”

It would’ve been easy to abandon Niedz, Lukas, and Gahedd, saying they’d only reaped what they’d sown, but I’d become rather attached to them. Besides, I’d promised to help them improve, so the idea of pointlessly sending them to their deaths didn’t sit right with me. Diego and Capitan seemed to share a similar opinion.

“At the very least, we need to get them to a point where they could make it back here on their own power,” the beast-folk said.

Capitan picked up where he left off. “This is a safe area, more or less,” he agreed. “And Mazlak will be waiting above come evening. So long as they don’t aggravate the behemoth swimming outside, they should be able to handle the journey back even if we’re not around. So overall, they need to be strong enough to handle the shallower levels, and quick enough on their feet to get away from any stronger monsters lurking in the depths.”

It was no guarantee, of course, but monsters were often unable to catch up to a human who was sufficiently dedicated to making a run for it. Partly that was because of a simple difference in speed, but people also had the smarts necessary to hide somewhere or shake the monster off their tail by rounding a series of corners. Once in a while, you did get the persistent type of monster that would try to sniff you out, or a quick type that would catch up to you, but there were fewer of both than one might’ve expected.

If an adventurer and a monster were fairly evenly matched, running away wasn’t a foolish move—in fact, it was perhaps the greatest, most indispensable survival technique one could master. I couldn’t even count the number of times I’d run from monsters myself.

After all, the adventurer that got away in one piece was the adventurer that lived to dungeon delve another day. Some adventurers ridiculed their fleeing colleagues when they crossed paths in a dungeon, but I figured dignity didn’t do you any good if you were dead. It sounded simple, but knowing when to run away before a monster could do you in really was the key to survival.

“The question is whether we’ll be able to train them up to that point,” I said. “To start off, we’ll need to see how well they can fight—their general skill level, and any habits they might have.”

Diego and Capitan both nodded.

“In that case, let’s start out in the shallower levels,” the latter said, glancing at Niedz and the others, who were a short distance away. “We’ll see if we can’t find them their first fight.”

The trio looked like they were enjoying themselves sightseeing, gawking at the dungeon’s interior like country bumpkins freshly arrived in the big city. It seemed they had no idea what they were in for. We’d just have to hope they mustered their courage and put their backs into it, because it seemed we’d be putting them through a tougher training gauntlet than even we’d expected.

◆◇◆◇◆

I—Lukas Zeiyu, Bronze-class adventurer—was pretty sure I’d discovered a whole new kind of hell.

Why, you ask? Well the answer was simple. Up until now, the most that Niedz, Gahedd, and I had been able to take on in a fight was an ordinary goblin or two—and that was when the three of us were fighting together. Yet somehow we’d found ourselves in the Dungeon of the Sea God’s Daughters, where even Lucaris’s veteran adventurers hesitate to delve.

If that was all, maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad—but there was more.

See, the folks who’d brought us here as porters—that being Boss Rentt, Boss Capitan, and Boss Diego—were just as strong as Lucaris’s veterans. Maybe even stronger, honestly. If all we’d needed to do was follow them around, we wouldn’t have been in much danger.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.

I was currently face-to-face with five lesser sahagin holding small harpoons and chirping threateningly at us—meaning me, Niedz Labra, and Gahedd Odan. We were all Bronze-class adventurers and had been companions for so long that we couldn’t have gotten rid of each other if we tried. Niedz and Gahedd were my closest friends, and I’d lost count of the number of jobs we’d taken together as a party.

When it came to their skill level, though, I couldn’t exactly call them reliable. After all, they were only about as strong as I was. And sure, we had good days and bad ones, but I could pretty confidently say that trying to fight anything stronger than a pair of goblins would be biting off more than we could chew.

None of which changed the fact that we were currently staring down five lesser sahagin.

Of course, Rentt, Capitan, and Diego were behind us, so you might think that everything would turn out okay in the end. The thing was, this was what they’d said to us earlier:

“Until you’re truly at the end of your rope, all we’ll do is watch.”

“So don’t expect us to help you.”

Running back to them and insisting we were at our limit wouldn’t achieve anything either—the decision to intervene lay entirely with them. I knew that because I’d run to them half crying the moment these five sahagin had shown up, and the only reply I’d gotten was a cold stare. It looked like there was no way out of this except to fight.

But while I was thinking about how a single fatal blow would be the end of me, Niedz and Gahedd looked determined as they drew their weapons.

“Lukas. Let’s do this.”

“This is a good opportunity, if you think about it. If we die, we can share a drink in the afterlife together.”

And as much as I wanted to protest—as much as I was a coward—I wasn’t far gone enough that I’d give up and let my friends fight on their own. Like they had, I drew my weapon and steeled myself for the fight to come.

Once I was focused, it became easy to see what I had to do. When it came to combat, Niedz fought on instinct, while Gahedd was the stalwart rock. In contrast, I was the type who always thought things through, which was why other adventurers had always treated me like a half-wit.

I couldn’t really blame them. I was always slow to act, and it often took me longer than necessary to slay monsters that most adventurers would charge at and finish off in a single strike. I’d long since chalked it up as a bad habit of mine, and I’d tried to fix it time and time again. I really had.

But usually when I’d charged in and left everything to my instincts, I’d just ended up with more injuries, and then that would slow me down anyway. On occasion I’d landed a lucky strike and killed a monster in one hit, but I couldn’t attribute that to anything more than the whims of fortune.

Still, for the longest time, I’d thought that was the right way to fight. I was convinced my outlook needed to change.

Then, the other day, Boss Rentt had said something to me. Well, it had actually sounded more like he was thinking to himself aloud, but I’d still taken the words to heart.

“Hmm. So Lukas is the final anchor point for these three, huh? Niedz charges in, Gahedd adapts to the situation, and Lukas keeps an eye on the overall fight as he considers the enemy’s weak points. Looks like they’ve naturally settled into a pretty solid formation...albeit one that’s still got some glaring holes.”

He’d said all that after we’d had a quick spar to break in the new gear he’d bought us. It had been three against one, and needless to say we hadn’t stood a chance—it had basically been a repeat of our first encounter, with the only difference being that we had attacked him as a trio instead of Niedz charging in first alone. Not that any of that had actually changed the outcome, mind.

Still, it seemed that Boss Rentt had been analyzing our combat roles during the spar. I’d never thought about it in detail before, but once he’d put the idea into my head, I’d realized he was right. That was how we fought.

Well... Kind of, anyway. Most of the time we were probably just flailing about recklessly. It was hard not to, when we were so weak—it always felt like that extra desperation was the only edge we ever had.

But Boss Rentt’s words had made me wonder if we didn’t have that entirely backward. Maybe winning was only hard for us because we were fighting so inefficiently. Maybe if we took the time to think and strategize, we’d be a lot more successful.

It was probably stupid of me to be thinking about this stuff now. Five lesser sahagin were about as strong as ten goblins. In a straight up fight, we’d lose in seconds.

But at the same time, maybe that was exactly why we needed to be deliberate. I hadn’t known Boss Rentt for long, but I figured I understood him well enough to trust that while he might ask for the unreasonable, he wouldn’t ask for the truly impossible.

So maybe, just maybe, there was a way we could beat five lesser sahagin. We just had to find it. For starters, my role was probably...

“Niedz!” I called out.

“Yeah?”

“Do your best to take them out one by one!”

“Right. Got it.”

“Gahedd! Don’t worry about finishing them off! Just keep the others away while Niedz is fighting one-on-one!”

He glanced around. “Good idea. This hallway’s so narrow that it just might work.”

Niedz was our strongest fighter; he wouldn’t lose to just one lesser sahagin. The only problem was that we were facing way more than just one, but if Gahedd and I did our jobs right, we could use the tight confines of the dungeon hallway to ensure Niedz never had to fight more than a single opponent at once.

And if keeping the other sahagin at a distance was all we had to do, I was confident Gahedd and I could manage it. From there, we just had to take them all out one by one. It was still a gamble, since I didn’t know if our stamina would hold out for that long, but—

“Here they come!” Niedz shouted.

We dove into the fight.

◆◇◆◇◆

I watched as Niedz, Lukas, and Gahedd battled the lesser sahagin. As monsters went, lesser sahagin were a little stronger than goblins, and five of them would definitely give most Bronze-classers trouble. If I’d run into that many before I’d become undead, I probably would’ve elected to run.

But if you had two other Bronze-classers with you? That was a different story. All the more so if you were fighting in a narrow hallway like this one.

Although lesser sahagin were, as the name implied, smaller than their standard sahagin brethren, they would give any goblin a run for its money. Despite that, even if five of them came after you at once, it was more than possible to avoid letting all of them get a shot at you simultaneously. You’d still have to fend off a couple at a time, but with three Bronze-classers? Niedz and his friends had more than the numbers to avoid being overwhelmed.

That meant it only came down to whether they had the decision-making skills to figure all that out, the strength to put up a fight, and the stamina to outlast five monsters. After all, lesser sahagin bodies were covered in a tough layer of scales that could repel bladed weapons. You needed to land a strong enough blow to cut all the way through, or you would get nowhere—and I wasn’t sure if Niedz and the others knew that.

“Lukas’s battlefield awareness is decent,” Capitan muttered as he watched.

I agreed with him. The trio had almost seemed like they were going to freeze up before Lukas had assessed the situation and barked out orders to get them moving.

From the way they were positioning themselves, I could get a vague sense of their strategy. It was pretty textbook—they were trying to use the narrowness of the hallway to reduce the number of monsters they had to fight at any given time.

“Gahedd’s not bad either,” Diego remarked. “He kept the lesser sahagin at bay with his spear until the others regained their composure.”

Since Diego used a spear as well, he probably had greater insight into Gahedd’s movements. There was a significant difference in their ability, but maybe he felt a sort of kinship with a fellow spearman.

“Compared to them, Niedz might be a bit too impulsive,” I contributed. “He probably would’ve charged straight in if Lukas hadn’t said anything.”

Capitan and Diego nodded in agreement, but it seemed Capitan had something to add. “You could also say he’s the bravest of the three, depending upon how you look at it,” he said. “Sure, he froze up for a second, but he’s quick to shake it off. That’s something Gahedd and Lukas can’t seem to manage. The former’s too focused on safety and hesitates to take the initiative, while the latter’s... Well, he’s just plain scared.”

“In that sense, Niedz is a real adventurer,” Diego said. “Though often that’s what leads those types to an early grave. Still, his impulsiveness is the reason you two crossed paths, isn’t it, Rentt?”

I couldn’t argue there. Niedz was lucky that he’d jumped an exceedingly nice adventurer. He probably wouldn’t be with us right now otherwise—or at least not all of him. Who knows how he would’ve ended up if I were more easily offended?

Adventurers in general were rough around the edges and quick to anger—saying so wasn’t prejudice so much as it was the simple truth. After all, you had to be a certain kind of person to take up this career. Not everyone was capable of risking their lives for a chance to strike it rich.

“So what do you two think?” I asked Capitan and Diego as I observed the ongoing fight. “Have they got a chance?” From what I could see, their strategy consisted of having Niedz focus on a single sahagin while Gahedd and Lukas drew the attention of the others. It wasn’t a bad plan, but...

“This is probably the best they can manage, given their current skill level,” Diego said contemplatively. “And it’s not as if their strategy is wrong, per se. It’s just... Well...”

Although he trailed off, I was pretty sure I knew what he’d been about to say.

“I think you’ve got the right of it,” Capitan agreed. “They need to work on their decision-making. I guess that’s where their lack of experience really shows. Oh, look—they got one.”

Indeed, Niedz had just managed to slay one of the lesser sahagin. He looked surprised for a second, as if he hadn’t expected his blade to actually cut through its hardy scales, but the moment quickly passed as he readied his weapon and turned to face his next foe.

I suspected that, ordinarily, Niedz wasn’t strong enough to pierce a lesser sahagin’s natural armor. But with the pressure of us watching and preventing his escape, he must’ve tapped into that extra bit of subconscious strength that all people could draw from in times of crisis. It was a common occurrence in combat.

The thing about that, though, was that it wasn’t an unlimited resource. Sure enough, as he was exchanging strikes with the second lesser sahagin, the monster immediately began to gain the upper hand.

“He must’ve run out of mana...” I muttered.

Generally speaking, humans could only get a vague sense of another person’s mana levels. You could do more if you had magic eyes like Lorraine, but few people were born with those, and even fewer developed enough skill to get truly precise readings.

I, however, was a monster—an entity with a deep connection to mana. Gauging another’s mana levels was second nature to me, hence my muttered comment.

Having made it to Bronze-class, it was a given that Niedz had a certain amount of mana at his disposal. And as a matter of fact, his reserves were several times larger than my past self’s—enough that if he used them wisely, he’d easily be able to keep his weapon and body strong enough to slay a handful of lesser sahagin. Nevertheless...

“He wastes too much mana,” Capitan observed. “Works out well for me, though. I was hoping to see him run out of mana.”

“Why’s that?” Diego asked. “That won’t do anything but get him killed, right?”

“I’m hoping to teach them how to use spirit,” Capitan explained. “Which means any mana in their bodies would just get in the way. It wouldn’t make it impossible for them to learn, but it’d take more time for them to get a feel for it.”

Diego looked surprised. “Really? I once tried to learn how to use spirit myself, but the priest of the war god I went to never told me anything like that.”

“Is that right? Did you manage it, then?”

“No... In the end, it was determined I had no talent for it.”

“Looks like you had a bad teacher, then. Because as far as I can see, you do.”

◆◇◆◇◆

“Wh-What?!”

It was rare for Diego to have such an exaggerated reaction. Capitan, in contrast, seemed entirely calm.

“In the first place, spirit is a power everyone has,” he said. “So there’s no such thing as having no talent for it. I suppose there might be a handful of unfortunate exceptions out there somewhere, but you’re definitely not one of them.”

“So you’re saying...I can use spirit?”

“Yes. That much, I can say for sure. As for how well you can master it, well, that’s when talent comes in. And even then, it’s mostly a question of patience and diligent training. Of course, I suppose we have an exception here who can tell us that’s not always the case...” Capitan glanced in my direction.

“What do you mean?” Diego asked. “I thought Rentt could use spirit?”

For the record, I’d told Diego that I could use mana, spirit, and divinity. I’d figured it was just good information to share, since we’d be dungeon delving together. I hadn’t told Niedz, Lukas, or Gahedd, though. Overloading them with information they didn’t need would probably just confuse them. With Diego, I didn’t have that worry.

The curse vendor had only been a little bit surprised that I could use divinity. As a former priest, he had likely been around people like me all the time.

“He can now, yes, but that wasn’t always the case,” Capitan answered. “More accurately, he could use it, way back when, but his reserves never grew, no matter how much effort he put in. A real shame, since he’s one of the rare people with a real knack for diligence. But he just had a unique constitution that prevented his spirit from growing—something I only learned about because of him.”

Capitan’s words were a little disheartening to hear, but I could tell from his tone that he didn’t consider it a failure on my part, but rather a lesson he’d learned about his own limits as a teacher. Personally, I felt that he shouldn’t have been disappointed with himself—teaching me how to use spirit had been a great achievement on its own, not to mention that he’d taught me swordsmanship and survival skills too. Without him, I never would’ve been able to become an adventurer at all.

“That’s a surprise—he looks more than capable, I think.” Diego looked over at me. “So spirit’s a weakness of yours, then?”

“No, not anymore,” I said truthfully. “My reserves have increased since then. At least, I think they have...”

The reason I wasn’t a hundred percent confident about this was that I wasn’t sure if I ought to trust my instincts. I felt like I’d been getting stronger ever since I’d been turned into a skeleton, but when all was said and done, I just didn’t have a good understanding of what spirit was or how it worked. It wasn’t as if I always had access to a teacher who could answer my questions, after all. That being said, I currently did have access to an expert, so it was best if I got all the answers I could.

Capitan seemed to understand my hesitation. “They definitely have—and by quite a lot too.” His tone became a little less serious. “Honestly, seeing how fast you’ve grown has made me question everything I thought I knew.”

“What caused the sudden change, then?” Diego asked. “Is that just the nature of spirit? Long periods of stagnation followed by rapid growth?”

“It might be that way for some, but Rentt’s case is unique. I won’t get into the details, though, since they’re personal. I guess you could say he experienced a sudden change in constitution.”

I knew Capitan was being vague out of consideration for me, but that was one heck of a roundabout way to put it. But just as I was thinking it was rather unfair to expect Diego to understand what that was supposed to mean, the curse vendor surprised me.

“I see. I think I know what you’re getting at,” he said. “Once in a blue moon, a saint would undergo a similar change. One day, they have barely any divinity to speak of, and then some strange medicinal infusion or secret miracle drug would alter their physical constitution so drastically that they were overflowing with divinity the next day.”

Huh. That was a former priest for you, I suppose. It seemed he knew a lot about the various goings-on in the church, and he was probably acquainted with quite a few saints too. At the very least, it meant he had context to compare my situation to.

Still, I’d had no idea that members of the clergy used such methods to try to augment their divinity. It felt like I’d just learned a trade secret. But I supposed I was the last person who could point any fingers when it came to using backdoor methods to improve mana, spirit, or divinity.

I was curious about the medicinal infusions and secret miracle drugs that Diego had mentioned, though. They did sound pretty useful. I wondered if they’d work on me...

“Those methods you mentioned—are they easy to get a hold of?” I asked.

Diego shook his head. “Of course not. Medicinal infusions are one thing, but there’s a reason they’re called secret miracle drugs. Only the church’s apothecaries know the recipe. At least, that’s how it worked at the God of Appraisal’s temple. We were especially strict in that regard, given the nature of our religion.”

That made sense—a temple full of appraisers would probably be able to deduce the recipe if they so much as just saw a shopping list of the ingredients. The rest would just be trial and error until they found the right brewing method. Research was a lot easier when you knew for a fact that there was a working end product you could reach, instead of just fumbling toward an abstract goal.

“Right, makes sense,” I conceded. “I’ll forget about the miracle drug, then. But what about the infusions?”

“They give them out to believers sometimes, and on occasion even put certain brews up for sale,” Diego said. “But there are ones they keep to themselves too. You sound like you’re in the market for one, Rentt.”

“Yeah. I told you I can use divinity, right? If there’s a way for me to get stronger, I’d like to at least test it.”

“I suppose I can understand that. You know, you’re more power hungry than you look... Well, maybe ‘seem’ is a better word than ‘look.’”

Yeah, the skull mask and dark robe did sort of lean into the power-hungry image. My behavior, though? Sure, maybe I didn’t outright strut around looking for any way I could find to get stronger, but... “I’m aiming to become Mithril-class one day,” I said. “So I do need power. As much as I can get.”

“Ah. That, I can understand. After all, if I want to accomplish my goal, I’m going to need strength too.” Diego turned. “Capitan.”

“Yes?”

“Could you teach me how to use spirit?”

◆◇◆◇◆

“All right. I don’t mind. I’m going to be teaching Rentt, Niedz, and the others anyway. Not much of a difference between four students and five.”

Diego looked surprised that Capitan had so readily accepted his request. “Not to argue against my own interests or anything, but are you sure?” he said. “Spirit, magic spells, any kind of useful skills—those sorts of things are usually kept close to one’s chest, aren’t they?”

Diego wasn’t wrong. Most mages and scholars hated sharing the secrets of their research with others. A close disciple was fine—you needed to leave a legacy, after all—but that was a far cry from letting the whole world know. Of course, tunes often changed when fame or fortune were added to the equation...but even then, it was common to hide the juiciest bits.

This mentality derived from the belief that sharing what made you special was basically a form of self-sabotage, and in a certain sense, that was correct—especially in the fields of magic and martial arts. After all, if nobody knew how your spells worked, how could they defend against them? It was harsh, but the reality was that the world was a harsh place.

Still, there were plenty of people out there who didn’t think that way. Capitan was one such example.

“I can understand why others would do that, but it’s a bit extreme for my taste,” he said. “I wouldn’t teach just anybody, of course, but for the people who’ve earned a degree of my trust—why not? We’re in a party together, so what makes you stronger helps me out too.”

“I can’t argue against that...”

“Besides, like I said, everyone has spirit. That means that with enough training, anyone can learn to use it. But at the same time, you need diligence—it’s not something you can pick up from a lecture. So it’s no disadvantage to me if I spread my knowledge around a little.”

Capitan sounded confident, and for good reason. Even if Diego started learning how to use spirit today, he couldn’t possibly catch up to Capitan. I mean, I’d been at it for a decade, and I still didn’t even come close to my mentor’s skill with it. Part of that was because he hadn’t taught me about the finer details yet, but the biggest reason was obviously just time. When the person at the front of the race was running just like you, catching up to them was no easy task.

Diego looked convinced by Capitan’s reasoning. “In that case, I look forward to your instruction,” he said. “Thank you. For the record, I don’t plan on spreading it around.”

“Really?” Capitan said. “I’d say feel free to teach whoever you’d like. It’s no skin off my nose.”

“Are you sure?” Diego paused. “Well, you did say that diligence is the most important thing, so I doubt I’ll come across many promising students anyway. I suppose I’ll think about it when the time comes—I’m getting a bit ahead of myself here.”

“True enough. First, we’ll have to make sure you can do it at all.”

Just as Capitan finished saying that, I noticed the ongoing fight was beginning to wrap up. “They’ve done well,” I murmured. “But it’s probably about time.”

Capitan nodded. “They’ve killed...two, it looks like. That leaves...”

“Three,” Diego finished, nodding as well. “But it’ll be rough. Lukas and Gahedd look like they can hold out a while longer, but Niedz is close to exhaustion. And without him to land the finishing blows, the other two won’t get anywhere.”

Diego had basically said my exact thoughts out loud. The trio were still managing to fend off the attacks of the lesser sahagin, but there was no more strength behind their strikes—as evidenced by the fact they were no longer penetrating the monsters’ scales.

“I’m going to back them up,” I announced.

Diego and Capitan nodded in acknowledgment, but neither followed me as I moved to cut in between our Bronze-class companions and the lesser sahagin. They knew just as well as I did that the narrow hallway meant just one of us joining the fight would be better than all three of us jumping in.

That only left the question of who would go, but Capitan seemed to want to observe his would-be students’ movements more thoroughly, while Diego’s spear would be difficult to maneuver in the crowded fight. By a process of elimination, that left me.

Lukas noticed me as soon as I joined them from behind. “Boss Rentt!” he exclaimed. “Have you come to help us?!”

“Something like that,” I said. “You two hold your ground for a little longer. I’m backing Niedz up first.”

Up in front, Niedz was already looking shaky on his feet. I was genuinely impressed at his efforts—even if we’d technically forced him into it. He was still parrying the attacks of the lesser sahagin, but it looked like he’d drop his sword at any moment. Then, just as his concentration lapsed for a split second, one of the fish monsters used the opening to step forward and thrust its harpoon at Niedz.

It never connected. Naturally, that was because I’d intercepted it.

“R-Rentt?” Niedz said, between gasping breaths. “Didn’t you say...you weren’t...going to help?” He was drenched in sweat, and there was a look in his eyes that suggested he was close to passing out completely. The fact he still had the grit to say those words with a smile was something else.

“If you’re feeling confident enough to say that, maybe you don’t even need my help,” I joked. “Should I let you keep at it, then?”

“Gimme...a break...”

No surprises there; it seemed even Niedz wasn’t foolish enough to pull out the tough guy act at a time like this.

I nodded, then brandished my sword and channeled spirit into it. Mana would improve its slicing ability, but this would be a surer bet against the tough scales, not to mention easier. Spirit could slice too, but I could skip all of that and just transfer the force of my strikes straight into the monsters’ innards.

I swung my blade at the lesser sahagin, and it sliced through its body with smooth ease, the wound rupturing apart in its wake.

Niedz stared at me, looking alarmed. “Now that’s freakin’ terrifying,” he said.

◆◇◆◇◆

I quickly decided that using spirit to slice through—well, rupture apart—the lesser sahagin wasn’t a good idea. As for why, well... That was because when its body burst, its hard scales had shot everywhere. Niedz, Lukas, and Gahedd were thankfully unharmed, since I’d deflected the ones that had flown in our direction, but in a crowded fight like this, doing that again might end up harming my allies more than it helped them.

Hmm. I was going to have to think about this one.

There were close to no lesser sahagin near Maalt, where I had been based for most of my adventuring career, so I had little experience fighting them. I took this as a reminder that I needed to keep up my studies.

Still, I had a general idea of the right way to go about it.

The lesser sahagin Niedz had been fighting wouldn’t be bothering anyone anymore, so I dashed over to help Lukas and Gahedd. Honestly, this next part should have been even easier, since I’d be approaching the fish monsters from behind. And since the Bronze-classer trio were roughly about as strong as the lesser sahagin, that meant the latter wouldn’t have the leeway to watch their backs.

The first one was so focused on the fight in front of it that it didn’t even notice when my mana-charged sword decapitated it, and the second met nearly the same fate. Two lesser sahagin heads went flying through the air—but that didn’t mean we could let our guards down yet.

Lukas, who seemed to think the fight was over when he saw the heads go flying, looked over at me. “Boss Rentt! You saved— Whoa!”

Thankfully, the reprimanding glare I’d shot him had gotten the message across, and he reacted in time. To what, you may ask? Well, to the harpoon that had been thrust in his direction by the decapitated body of the one of the lesser sahagin.

This might have been a bit ironic coming from me, but if you assumed that a monster would completely drop dead if you cut its head off, then you were asking for trouble. Lesser sahagin were no exception—they had enough vitality in them to cling on for a few more moments, at least. Of course, as they weren’t undead like me, they’d experience a severe drop in bodily function and would be truly dead fairly soon...but that was still far longer than it would take for a human to go down.

Lukas, who’d barely managed to dodge out of the way of the lesser sahagin’s thrust, stabbed his sword into its body.

A monster owed much of its durability to the mana it possessed and while the scales of a lesser sahagin maintained their hardness even after their mana supply was cut off, the way their scales fit tightly together was actually a physiological function maintained by the monster’s own mana reserves. In other words, since I’d cut its head off, Lukas’s sword had no trouble finding a gap to plunge into its body.

Of course, given what had just happened, Lukas wasn’t about to let his guard down again. He tore his blade out of the creature’s body and brought it back at the ready. “You want some more?!” he shouted. “C-Come and get it, then!”

Lesser sahagin weren’t built quite that durable, however. In spite of Lukas’s challenge, the fish monster’s body slowly collapsed to the floor. It was still twitching, but that’s just how monsters were. Unsettling to the end—and then a bit longer for good measure.

Lukas seemed to be aware of that as well, because he didn’t look particularly bothered. While the sight might have scared an ordinary person, it was an everyday occurrence for adventurers.

For a moment there, I’d thought he hadn’t noticed my gaze and that I would have to intervene, but it seemed that he was already showing signs of growth. That was probably because his opponents had been of a similar skill level. Hopefully, he’d be able to keep this up.

As for Gahedd, it seemed he’d never let his guard down in the first place, unlike his more nervous friend. He was definitely the best of the trio at maintaining his composure in a fight. I chalked it up to a difference in mental fortitude. I hadn’t given him a signal of any kind, but was still standing ready before the other headless sahagin. He safely avoided its final attempt at an attack, then thrust his spear straight in between its now loosened scales—right into its heart, no less. Even when its corpse crumpled to the floor, he made sure to watch it carefully for a while longer, poking it with his spear from a safe distance.

Yeah, he was definitely the most cautious of the trio.

“All’s well that ends well, I guess,” I muttered to myself. “Still, this is pretty tiring...”

While my undead body hardly knew the concept of fatigue, the fight had been draining in a different sense. Fighting alone without any allies around me to worry about? Sure. But fighting while constantly having to keep an eye on Niedz and the others at the same time? Much harder.

If they’d been far weaker—Iron-classers, for example—it would’ve been a lot simpler. I’d had plenty of experience drilling the basics into rookies, after all. But with Bronze-classers, there was a whole lot more to keep in mind. For one thing, I was constantly worried that they would die if I took my eyes off them for even a moment. It made me wonder if Capitan had ever felt the same kind of stress when teaching me, and that in turn summoned a profound sense of gratitude from the bottom of my heart.

Speaking of Capitan, though, I definitely wasn’t alone in my observations. I looked in his direction—hopefully he’d have some advice for my teaching methods—and saw him give me a firm nod.

I breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed our Bronze-class students had managed to barely scrape by with a passing mark.

◆◇◆◇◆

One thing was for sure: Teaching Niedz and his friends was a good learning opportunity for me too. It allowed me to review my fundamentals, and to my surprise some of the potential improvements I saw in their movements made me rethink my own.

Still, I couldn’t just stand back and pick at their faults. While the trio knew that Diego and I could handle ourselves, since we’d beaten them so thoroughly in a fight, they could be forgiven for thinking we were simply using them to clear out the chaff as we advanced deeper into the dungeon.

That wasn’t entirely wrong, but if that was all we were doing, they’d gradually come to feel resentful. Even though they knew we didn’t have ill intentions, as the trio grew more tired, they’d inevitably begin to wonder if we considered them no better than our slaves. Suspicions like that were entirely natural.

“We can’t have that,” Capitan said as we stood before a massive stone door. “So I suppose it’s about time we do some fighting. I doubt they’d be able to manage on their own from this point on anyway.”

“This is the boss chamber between the upper and middle layers,” Diego observed, nodding. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen it. Still, between us three, we should be fine.”

“So you have been here before?” I asked.

“A long time ago. Back then, though, I...” Diego trailed off. “Well, It doesn’t matter. Let’s just focus on what’s in front of us. You know what the monster in that chamber is, right?”

Diego was obviously avoiding the topic, but I let it slide. Everyone had things they’d rather not talk about. If someone had asked me if I was human, I’d have had to hem and haw my way out of the conversation too. The idea of scaring the daylights out of people by pretending to be a sideshow act who could rotate all his joints around was amusing to toy with, but unfortunately that also came with the possibility that I’d be marked for extermination on the spot.

“Yeah. I’ve done some info gathering,” I answered. “Capitan?”

“I know it. Opened this door once to take a peek inside. I think I could handle it on my own, but I wanted to wait until I’d searched all of the upper levels for the herbs first. Guess that makes this good timing.”

“Is that right?” Diego said. “Let’s head in then, I suppose. The door will close itself behind us, right?”

“It will,” Capitan confirmed. “So the trainees will have to come in with us. We could also have them wait here, but as I’m sure you know, we’re a long way from the last safe area.”

Leaving Niedz and the others out here alone would be a death sentence. Given how exhausted they were, they wouldn’t be able to make it back to the safe area, especially since some of the lesser sahagin they’d killed would have respawned by now.

“Hey, hey—don’t even think about it!” Niedz yelled, panicked. “We’re coming with you, all right?! Just, uh, don’t expect us to be much help in the fight or anything...”

As alarmed as he sounded, it seemed he was rational enough to recognize the situation at hand. It hadn’t been that long ago that he would’ve swaggered about trying to insist he’d be fine. Now, I was fairly confident he’d be able to stay alert and keep out of our way as Capitan, Diego, and I handled the more dangerous areas ahead.

What’s that? What would I have done if he hadn’t seemed capable of that? Well, I’d have left him behind as we headed farther in.

Just kidding. If I hadn’t thought Niedz capable of maintaining his calm, I would’ve called it quits for the day. We weren’t in that much of a hurry, so turning back was always an option. I did have the Silver-class Ascension Exam on the horizon, but a day or two wouldn’t make much of a difference, so I could easily spare a handful of extra days making sure the trio were up to snuff.

I didn’t think the exam was going to be easy by any means, but all things considered, I already felt pretty decent about my chances. Augurey had called my skills Silver-class back when we’d worked together in the capital. I’d come here for additional training, sure, but only to be thorough—it wouldn’t be too big of a blow if I didn’t achieve everything I wanted.

“Niedz, Lukas, Gahedd—once we’re inside, you should try to stay at the chamber’s edges as much as possible,” Diego said. “The boss will periodically summon lesser sahagin, so focus on them. Rentt, Capitan and I will deal with the boss itself, so don’t let it distract you. Understood?”

The trainees nodded obediently. Once Capitan was confident that everyone was on the same page, he placed his hand on the door. It creaked loudly as it shifted aside, creating a gap large enough for several people to pass through.

My instinctual reaction was to grumble that he should’ve opened the door the whole way, since a high-firepower mage like Lorraine could’ve blasted the boss with a potent spell from outside. Sure, the hallways between boss chambers and their doors usually had invisible antimagic barriers to prevent that, but they weren’t impenetrable. They became more durable the deeper you went, but I was confident the barrier of an upper-level boss chamber in the Dungeon of the Sea God’s Daughters would be nothing to a mage of Lorraine’s caliber.

I’d never seen her do it before, but it seemed likely that she’d at least tried it. I’d have to remember to ask her.

I followed after Capitan as he went inside, and Diego led the trainees in after me. We all had our weapons out, ready for a surprise attack, but it seemed that this wasn’t one of those kinds of boss chambers. Instead, there was a massive creature floating in the chamber’s center, its presence overwhelming as it quietly watched us.

The Greater Armorfish, as it was called, was a monster true to its name, measuring at around five meters tall with its body covered entirely in metallic scales. While it was originally an aquatic monster and thus required water to even survive, much less move about, dungeons breaking the laws of nature weren’t anything new. Evidently there was something about the space in this chamber that allowed the monster to “swim” in midair.

That, or perhaps the dungeon had granted the Greater Armorfish—and it was definitely a Greater Armorfish, given how many times it had been hunted in the past—the ability to levitate and breathe oxygen. No organs that would grant it those abilities had ever been discovered inside it, but it might have been achievable with mana.

Still, according to the information we’d gathered, it wouldn’t be much different from just fighting it in the water, so I was confident about our chances. It wasn’t all that powerful to begin with.

Of course, I was speaking from the perspective of my current self. A Greater Armorfish would have been able to crush the old Rentt in two seconds flat, so I couldn’t let my guard down.

Capitan bellowed the signal. “Right, let’s do this!”

Diego and I split up across the room.

◆◇◆◇◆

Since our target was so large, I probably didn’t have to worry too much about accuracy. For the same reason, it seemed better to hit it with one powerful blow rather than try to grind it down with a whole lot of small wounds.

Evidently Capitan and Diego were thinking the same thing, because they charged straight at the Greater Armorfish from different directions, hunting knife and spear aimed at its scales. Both were fast, but as a master of spirit, Capitan was faster. He had to have been using a technique I didn’t recognize, because while spirit was well suited to physical enhancement, the speed at which he was moving couldn’t be explained by that alone.

“Graaahhh!”

When he reached the point where he was below the Greater Armorfish, Capitan leaped up and swung his hunting knife at its massive body. The keen blade sliced through the air, and...

Clang!

...bounced back with a high-pitched ring.

“Hmm.”

While he must’ve been surprised, Capitan was no ordinary fighter. He flipped, regaining his balance midair, and landed perfectly on his feet.

That didn’t mean he was safe, though. The moment he’d attacked the Greater Armorfish, its glassy eyes had jerked around like a clockwork puppet’s, and its tail had started to beat the air vigorously. But while one might naturally assume that such a movement would be pointless, given that we weren’t underwater, everybody present knew better. If it could float in the air, then it could swim in it too.

Sure enough, the Greater Armorfish shot forward far faster than you’d expect from a creature of its size, its sheer bulk creating a pressure wave in its wake. As it moved, a noise rumbled out of its throat that was halfway between screeching roar and the sound of metal grinding on metal, and ten magic circles lit up on the ground.

“This is what you mentioned earlier, right?!” I shouted at Diego.

“Yeah!” came his reply from a distance. “Niedz, Lukas, Gahedd! Lesser sahagin incoming! They’re all yours—but don’t be reckless!”

“Got it!”

Their yelled exchange spanned enough time for the lesser sahagin to manifest. There were ten of them, just like the magic circles they had appeared from—too many for the trainees to handle alone. They could handle one at a time, but if even two sahagin ganged up on them, it could prove fatal. Given that, Capitan, Diego, and I would have to keep an eye on them and help out to prevent them from being cornered.

Still, the Greater Armorfish was proving to be stronger than I’d thought. Or, more accurately, harder than I’d thought. I’d struck it once, but my blow had bounced off ineffectively. It seemed like this was going to be difficult if I channeled mana or spirit alone...

“You’re telling me this is an upper-level boss?” Capitan said. “Suppose I can’t expect any less from the famous Dungeon of the Sea God’s Daughters!”

“No, something’s wrong!” Diego called out. “My spear pierced its scales last time! If it was always this strong, there wouldn’t be any adventurers left in Lucaris!”

That took me by surprise. “So it’s usually weaker?” I asked.

“Of course it is!”

“Now that you mention it, it’s a lot larger than the one I spotted in the distance last time,” Capitan said, irritation bleeding into his tone. “Has more of a presence too. Damn... A unique spawn?!”

Unique spawns were rare occurrences that broke the usual dungeon rules. The kinds of monsters that showed up in boss chambers were supposed to be the same every time, with only marginal differences in their strength and size. The chance of running into a unique spawn was so low that it only happened to the extremely unlucky.

Only the unlucky, huh? I was beginning to get the feeling that this was my fault, somehow. My luck was definitely the worst out of everyone here...

Capitan and Diego were still looking for a way to pierce the Greater Armorfish’s defenses when an idea occurred to me. “I’ll make an opening in its scales!” I shouted. “Both of you, strike there!”

Well, really, it was the only option we had. I wasn’t as seasoned as Capitan or as precise as Diego, but if all we needed to do was blow a hole in the enemy’s defenses? That was where my mana-spirit fusion came in handy. Adding divinity to the mix would make it more certain to succeed, but I wasn’t sure whether my weapon would hold up, and we no doubt had more fighting ahead of us.

Capitan seemed to realize what I was thinking. “Got it! Countin’ on you, Rentt!” he shouted as he began drawing the Greater Armorfish’s attention away from me.

Diego had no way of knowing what I was about to do, but it seemed he’d decided to put his trust in me—like Capitan, he switched up his strategy. With expert spearwork, he began herding all the lesser sahagin in the area away.

Thanks to both of their efforts, I had plenty of breathing room. I focused on channeling mana and spirit into my sword, and when I saw an opening...

“Here I go!” I shouted. “Both of you, stay clear!”

The Greater Armorfish was quick in the air, but not that much quicker than the other monsters we’d faced in the upper floors. Keeping up with it was simple; it was getting through the armor that was the hard part. On the other hand, if we could manage that, our victory would be assured.

When I was directly below the boss monster, I leaped, using my momentum to carry my sword into an upward slash.

Bam!

I hit my mark, and a section of the Greater Armorfish’s scales exploded outward from the inside—exactly what mana-spirit fusion was meant to achieve.

As I began to plummet to the ground, Capitan and Diego shot up past me, having leaped up slightly after I had. They aimed their weapons at the gap in the monster’s scales, and...

“That’s that,” I said.

I shouldn’t have relaxed, though, because that was the exact moment that the Greater Armorfish’s lifeless corpse began to fall from the air. I barely managed to land and scramble out of the way before it came crashing down onto the ground.

“Couldn’t you have put a little more thought into the landing?” I grumbled as we cleaned up the rest of the lesser sahagin.

“Got the feeling things might’ve gotten hairy if we’d missed that opportunity,” Capitan said.

“I’ve heard that it can grow its scales back in under a minute,” Diego added. “We didn’t really have a choice.”

If that was the case, I supposed I didn’t have any reason to complain. Still, Diego knowing that was one thing, but had Capitan just sensed it? That was impressive.

◆◇◆◇◆

“Heh. There’s the treasure chest,” Capitan said cheerily.

No matter what dungeon you were in, defeating the monster in the boss chamber would always cause a treasure chest to appear. But despite the name, it didn’t always come in the shape of a box. Just as often, the item would be bundled in cloth, inside a simple pot—or if you were unlucky, wrapped in jagged, twisted metal.

What was inside the container could be just as varied, ranging from very helpful to completely useless. Still, as you’d expect, the former was much more common from boss rooms, especially when compared to the junk magic items you tended to pick up throughout the dungeon.

The sheer variety of loot seemed almost endless. Sometimes you’d get simple raw materials, while other times you’d find a magic item with such complex internal mechanisms that modern technology couldn’t replicate it. The deeper you went into the dungeon, the better the reward was—a phenomenon attributed to the fact that the objects were fabricated by the dungeon’s mana. From what I’d heard, it wasn’t unusual for things like powerful magic swords to start showing up when you delved deep enough.

If you were extremely lucky, you could come across such items on higher levels, but I suspected that wasn’t why Capitan was so excited.

“Let’s hope it’s sea spirit herbs,” I remarked.

He nodded in response. That was what he’d come here for, after all. If we picked them up here and now, we could leave this place behind, and he could spend the rest of his time helping me train. I’d be taking time away from his usual job as a hunter, but he’d set that aside for quite a while due to the sea spirit herbs anyway, and his apprentices would be able to handle his duties back in the village while he was gone.

I planned on paying him for his time too, but I knew he’d probably refuse. Still, my point was that the sooner we found the sea spirit herbs, the better.

“There are no records of this boss ever dropping sea spirit herbs,” Diego said apologetically.

Ignoring Capitan and me, who were feeling rather dejected by the news, Lukas piped up. “L-Let’s open it already!” he said, approaching it. Despite how exhausted he must’ve been from the fight, he had a twinkle in his eye.

For the record, the treasure chest was in the form of a barnacle-encrusted octopus pot with a wooden lid, fastened in place by some manner of string.

Hmm. Promising, at first glance, but would it live up to our expectations?

Lukas undid the string and opened the lid, revealing...

“A...wooden tag?” Lukas said incredulously. “What is this thing?” In his hand was, true to his words, an object that looked like nothing more than a chunk of wood.

Diego, however, seemed to think otherwise. “Oh? That’s a pretty good find.”

“What’s so good about it?” I asked.

Diego took the wooden tag from Lukas. “Look. See how there are fine patterns etched into the surface?”

Now that I was examining it up close, I could indeed see what he was talking about. Nevertheless... “What about them?” I asked. “Do they have artistic value or something?”

“No, nothing like that. This...”—here, he paused slightly for effect—“is a cursed item.”

Lukas, Gahedd, and Niedz immediately began to back away.

Chuckling, Diego continued. “That being said, it’s nothing to be afraid of. On its own, it does nothing whatsoever. But if you combine it with the weapons you can find in this dungeon, it can grant them special attributes or effects.”

“You don’t say? That sounds pretty useful.”

“Yes. The only drawback is that it only works with weapons from this dungeon. And since weapons can only be found in treasure chests from the middle strata and lower, it might be rather useless to us. We won’t even know its effects unless we can try it out, or wait until I get back to land so I can check its pattern against a reference book.”

“It does seem pretty complex,” I agreed. “Are these markings what give cursed items their power?”

“Not necessarily,” Diego said. “Some have no patterns at all. You’d have to ask a scholar specializing in curses to get a more thorough explanation, though. They can distinguish them from regular magical items with special barriers that don’t allow cursed objects through—not that some cursed items don’t prove to be exceptions from time to time. Honestly, even the definition of what constitutes a ‘cursed item’ is vague. Aside from the ones that are already well-documented, it’s always a difficult task to draw the distinction.”

Lorraine had said something along those lines too. She wasn’t a curse specialist by any means, but all mana-related phenomena were her wheelhouse. Yaaran didn’t have much in the way of cursed items, so she hadn’t put much effort into researching them, but I was sure that if she’d focused on it, she’d match a specialist’s level of knowledge in no time.

Hmm... Maybe I should have brought her along. She was probably quite pleased to stay right where she was, though, with how much she had to be learning from Gharb and my old man. By the time I returned to Hathara, the gap between us would probably be even wider. What a scary thought.

“Discuss it all you’d like, but do it when we’re back in town,” Capitan interrupted.

“We’re going back?” I asked. “Already?”

“Once we reach the middle levels, yes,” he confirmed. “From what I understand, there’s a special teleportation device there.”

“Teleportation device?” I repeated. “That’s rare.” Ordinarily, those were only found at the deeper levels of a dungeon. Modern technology hadn’t gotten to a point where it could replicate them either. The Water Moon Dungeon had one as well, but that too was a rare exception.

“Yes. It’ll make this a lot easier,” Capitan said. “I’ve even heard that once you’ve used it, you can skip straight to the middle levels from the entrance during future delves. That’s why I figure it should be our goal for today. I don’t think Niedz and the others have much left in them anyway.”

I saw that he was right; the trio were breathing heavily, clearly exhausted. They wouldn’t be able to manage much more exploring.

“All right,” I said. “That’s where we’ll finish, then. Niedz, Lukas, Gahedd—hang in there a little longer. We’re almost done for the day.”

The trio, despite their obvious fatigue, nodded very emphatically.

Chapter 4: The Return and a New Find

“So this is the teleportation device,” Capitan muttered, a strange look on his face. “Hmm...”

He was studying the large purple crystal floating in the center of the small stone temple we’d just entered. I was pretty sure I knew why he had that look on his face: The crystal looked quite different from the teleportation devices that Capitan was used to.

I thought it was a bit strange myself. Since this was a dungeon, I’d expected a magic circle just like the one that connected Hathara with Good King Felt’s massive underground dungeon. Was there a reason this one took a different form? Or did it actually run on the same underlying mechanism and we were just too ignorant to understand?

Maybe Lorraine could’ve made some headway toward an answer, but unfortunately, she wasn’t here. Everyone present had made their living off of their brawn rather than their brains, myself included. Diego was the only possible exception, having been a priest in the past, but he looked to me like the type of guy who would, at the end of the day, put more faith in the strength of his arm than anything else. Was that a biased thing to say? I guess it didn’t matter.

“So we just have to touch it, and it’ll teleport us?” I asked Diego. He seemed to know the most about the dungeon.

“Yes. It’ll take us back to the entrance,” he confirmed, nodding. “And in the future, we can come back here by thinking of this place while touching the one there.”

“Hmm? Was there a crystal like this at the entrance?”

“Only those who have touched this one can see it. Since I was the only person in the party who had, I didn’t bother bringing it up.”

“Oh, right. That wasn’t the first time you’d slain that Greater Armorfish. Of course you’ve been here before.”

“Indeed. I’ve never been farther than this point, though. The group I was partied with were satisfied making it this far, and I wasn’t skilled enough back then to go any deeper by myself. It’s likely I could handle myself a little better now, but I still doubt I’m good enough to make it to the next teleportation device.”

“The next one?” Capitan repeated, as he studied the device. “So there’s another one just like this farther down?”

“Yes. I’m not sure how far it is, but there’s one on every stratum in the middle layers,” Diego explained. “It might be the same for the lower layers too, but I haven’t purchased any information on them—too expensive. It’s not even publicly known how many adventurers have made it that far. Regardless, I’d suggest leaving a large margin for safety beyond this point. Not to point out the obvious, but the monsters are a lot stronger than the ones in the upper layers.”

“I see. That’s good to know—I only purchased the information on the upper levels myself,” Capitan said. “Are you sure you should have told us all that, though?”

Diego nodded. “I don’t see a problem. Figured it was better to share, since we’re partied together. Niedz, Lukas, Gahedd—make sure you remember it too, all right? But don’t go spreading it around. I don’t want the guild or any information brokers holding a grudge against me.”

The trainees, who had been listening in on the conversation from the back of our group, visibly flinched. It seemed as if they had actually been planning to sell the information later.

“H-Huh? Why would they hold a grudge?” Niedz asked.

“The reason they restrict the information in the first place is to prevent cocky lower-class adventurers from thinking that’s all they need to make it down here,” Diego explained. “This goes for every country and city, but most information brokers work with the guild to make sure the relevant know-how only gets into the hands of adventurers with the appropriate skill level. Some brokers work outside the system, sure, but they tend to be the ones involved in the shadier side of society, which makes them dangerous. I’m not saying you absolutely can’t spread what I told you—just make sure you don’t tell the wrong person, or you might find yourselves in danger.”

“R-Right.” Niedz nodded, looking slightly alarmed. “Got it.”

Diego nodded, satisfied, then jerked his head toward the teleportation device. “All right. Shall we, then?”

Naturally, none of us had any objections. We touched the crystal, causing it to glow faintly, and then everything went white.

◆◇◆◇◆

“Oh. Is this...?”

Looking around, I saw that we were at the dungeon’s entrance—more precisely, the first area that wasn’t underwater. I was relieved that the teleportation device wasn’t sadistic enough to dump us at the bottom of the ocean—though Diego probably would’ve warned us if that was going to be the case.

Speaking of Diego, I saw that he was right—there was a large floating crystal nearby. It was just like the one deeper down, albeit green instead of purple. It was even housed within the same small temple-like building.

I wondered if the difference in color was because the crystals were made of different minerals, or whether it was somehow related to its mana. When it came to complex mechanisms, it was always hard to glean anything just by looking at them; I wished I could take the time to study it properly.

Diego seemed to have noticed my curious gaze. “If you’re thinking of taking it back with you to study it, don’t bother,” he said.

“Why’s that?” I asked.

“The dungeon will teleport a horde of monsters here to keep it safe. There’s a record of it happening before.”

I considered that for a moment. “I guess that makes sense. Otherwise a teleportation device wouldn’t be just lying out in the open like this.”

“Indeed. The last adventuring party that tried it had a scholar who got too curious for their own good. The monsters all disappeared once the party had made enough distance, though. Probably teleported back to their original places in the dungeon.”

“It’s a little frightening that it has its own defense mechanism,” I remarked. “Convenient, though. And it does explain a lot.”

“Better that than someone making off with it,” Diego agreed. “Shall we be on our way, then? The way back up is the same as the way down. Rentt, Capitan—I imagine you’ll have no problem, but... Niedz, Lukas, Gahedd—will you be all right?”

The trio nodded vigorously. It seemed they were somewhat intimidated by Diego. I kinda got where they were coming from—he did feel kind of like a stern older brother sometimes.

We lowered ourselves into the water and made the tiring journey back. Fortunately, the behemoth of a fish we’d seen on the way in was nowhere to be found, and we made it safely to Mazlak’s boat on the surface.

◆◇◆◇◆

“So, think you can figure out what that wooden tag does?” I asked Diego.

After the delve, we’d returned to his house, which we’d decided to use as our base of operations. Capitan had rented his own room in an inn, but was currently in the process of packing his things and moving them here.

We’d decided to headquarter ourselves at Diego’s because we had partied together for the duration of the dungeon delves, and because we shared the common goal of training Niedz and his friends. In simple terms, it would just make things a whole lot easier if we were all in the same place. There’d be no need to go to the trouble of getting messages to each other across the city. Fortunately, Diego had a few spare rooms left over, so there weren’t any space issues.

Currently, the curse vendor was poring over a bulky reference book, looking between it and the wooden tag on the table beside it as he grumbled to himself. I was curious if he’d made any progress, but...

“It’s no use,” he answered, throwing his hands up. “I have no idea. The pattern’s not in the book. It resembles the ones for ‘barrier’ and ‘anchoring,’ but the details are different.”

“So there’s no way to check what it does?” I asked.

“Pretty much. We’ve no way of knowing unless we can get our hands on a dungeon weapon. And depending upon the effect, we might not be able to figure it out even then.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll give you an example. One of these wooden tags can grant increased endurance. But if you bestow that effect onto a weapon, nothing visibly changes, right? In those cases, you’ve no way of knowing what to even begin testing to figure out what it does.”

“Ah, I see what you mean. You’d probably eventually notice that the weapon seems particularly durable, though.”

“There you have it. The endurance tag would be simple, since it’s been discovered before and is in the book—someone must’ve gone through the exact process you described, then tested it thoroughly. But that’s the product of repeated study. Here, look at all these pages in the back.”

Diego held out the reference tome, flipping through the pages until he revealed a long list of recorded patterns with the same words next to them: “effect unknown.” There were other comments too, descriptions of suspected effects and behavior exhibited under certain conditions, but none of the information seemed certain. Evidently, we’d found another wooden tag that would go into this list.

“Still, there’s always the chance that its effect will be obvious once it’s bestowed,” Diego remarked optimistically.

“Oh? What kinds of effects might it have in that case?” I asked.

He thought about it for a moment. “It could change the weapon’s color, for one thing,” he said. “There are quite a few cursed objects that alter color or pattern. Almost too many, in fact—there are still some that definitely haven’t been discovered yet. Here, look at this section.”

Diego flipped to a series of pages with illustrations of weapons before and after the tag alterations. Some simply changed color, while others adopted flame patterns, polka dots, or became etched with entire works of art. He was right about the amount of variation, but it all seemed rather useless, in my opinion. I had no desire to deck myself out in flashy designs; all black was good enough for me.

I did get worried that my skull mask and robe made me look too much like a villain sometimes, but I was hardly in a minority among adventurers. A lot of us went with dark colors. Part of that was simply because they hid wear and tear better—after all, no matter how well you cared for your arms and armor, a certain amount of degradation was unavoidable. Hence, if you could conceal it, all the better.

If you looked shabby, you ran the risk of leaving your client with a bad impression, which could lead to them giving you an equally bad evaluation for the commission. That was why it was common for skilled adventurers to dress rather plainly, while newbies preferred flashier getups. Not that there weren’t exceptions—some extremely famous adventurers dressed in a way that made their identities obvious even at a glance, since that could invite more commissions—not to mention ward off anyone who might’ve wanted to pick a fight, among other benefits.

“I imagine the prices attached to those effects aren’t all that high, right?” I asked.

“Yes,” Diego confirmed. “After all, you could simply have your weapon painted instead. A tag enchantment is slightly more convenient, since the color will never chip, but that’s a rather unimportant consideration. And needless to say, tags with unknown effects barely sell for anything, given the chance of getting something dangerous.”

“Ah, right. Cursed objects. Makes sense that there’d be negative effects too.”

“Indeed. Stamina reduction, mana reduction, headaches, and stomachaches, just to name a few. Just plain old curses. With all the trouble it takes to get your hands on a dungeon weapon, who’d want to enchant it with something like that?”

“You’ve got that right. But I guess without a weapon from the dungeon, we’ll never know to begin with, huh?”

“We might come across a weapon or two while we’re delving that we can test it on. The chance of finding items like that increases in the middle strata and lower. The best odds are at the bottom, of course, but I doubt we’re strong enough to handle the monsters down there.”

“Just for reference, how strong do you think you’d need to be?”

“You’d need three or more Gold-classes, I suspect.”

“Ah. Definitely not doable for us, then.”

Both Capitan and I were Bronze-class, while Diego was probably good enough to be called Silver-class—not that it made a difference in this regard. Well, Capitan could probably make it to Gold-class if he went for it, honestly.

It didn’t matter, though, since we didn’t need to delve that deep. There was no point in dwelling on it any further.

◆◇◆◇◆

The next day, we decided to rest, deciding that delving on consecutive days would be too harsh on our bodies. That didn’t apply to me, since I didn’t experience physical fatigue, but I couldn’t say the same about the others.

Niedz, Lukas, and Gahedd in particular were in a state of total exhaustion. If we took them into the dungeon like this, there was no doubt they’d get seriously injured—or worse. While dragging them along served partially as a form of punishment for what they’d done, that didn’t mean I wished serious harm on them.

Still, the effort they’d put into working themselves to the bone yesterday had paid off—according to Capitan, they were beginning to show the signs of a budding ability to use spirit. Ordinarily, that required constant, intense training to achieve. That had been the case for me, and probably for Capitan as well.

However, everything had exceptions and shortcuts, and it seemed that Niedz, Lukas, and Gahedd fell into that category.

Like me, the trio had stagnated at Bronze-class for the majority of their careers, unable to surpass their own limitations. Recognizing that their future prospects looked bleak, they’d grown cynical, continuing to fight monsters just so they could barely earn enough to eke out a living. It was a common story, one that no one would bat an eye at. In the end, they would hit a wall—whether that be a decline in physical ability as they got older or a serious injury suffered during a commission—and be forced to retire.

But something different had happened to Niedz and his friends: They’d met Capitan, a master of spirit. By recklessly picking a fight with me, their path in life had changed dramatically.

According to Capitan, those whose growth had plateaued were better positioned to awaken their spirit. This was because defeating monsters caused a person to absorb a tiny fraction—or much more, if you were a monster like me—of its power, and that included spirit. After all, it was the energy of life and physical strength. Many monsters were living creatures and thus possessed it inherently.

Of course, there were also undead monsters, who had no spirit at all, or monsters that came in the form of intangible phantoms composed entirely of mana. But the monsters like goblins and slimes that the majority of adventurers fought—especially the lower-class adventurers—were alive.

Skeletons were lower-rank monsters too, but dungeons like the Water Moon Dungeon, which had upper levels full of them, were actually quite rare. It was far more common for skeletons and the like to be found in the deeper levels of a dungeon, summoned as pawns of a higher-ranked undead.

In that sense, you could say that the Water Moon Dungeon was rather peculiar. Yet for some reason, most scholars had overlooked it. In hindsight, maybe that was because of the special circumstances surrounding the place. I couldn’t pin down one obvious reason for it, but the Water Moon Dungeon was where I’d met the mysterious woman who’d given me my robe, for one thing. For another, the closest town was Maalt, where Laura was based. Maybe the area itself was special in some way.

Ah, but I was getting sidetracked. My point was that it seemed that Niedz, Lukas, and Gahedd’s training would progress relatively quickly. Capitan had mentioned that after they were done resting today, the goal was to get them to the point where they could use the bare minimum amount of spirit tomorrow. Part of me had wondered if they could really get that far so quickly, but I trusted my mentor’s judgment. If he said it was possible, then it likely was.

As for Diego, since he’d gotten grounding in spirit from a different teacher, Capitan had said that he’d be able to pick it up in no time. They were actually going to take today to work on it while Niedz and the others rested, so they wouldn’t be getting much time to relax...but maybe it still counted as a break. It wasn’t like they’d be fighting monsters, after all, and unlike the adventurer trio, Capitan and Diego had more than enough stamina to handle a little extra training.

Given their plans, they wouldn’t be able to go out into town. However, someone still needed to shop for the supplies we’d need for our next delve the day after. That role had fallen to me, which was why I was currently walking through the city, running through the mental checklist of the items everyone had asked for to make sure I didn’t forget.

The street I was on—a main avenue near Diego’s house—was packed and noisy with people going about their day. Since most of the things I needed would be in the shops that lined the main street, I planned on wandering the area for a while, but I made sure to keep my wits about me. Diego had warned me that Lucaris, being a port city, had people from all over, and some of those people could be rather unsavory types. Apparently, there were a lot of them on main streets in particular.

I’d felt somewhat like a child being fussed over by their mother before their first outing alone, but given that I’d first met Diego after being attacked by Niedz and his friends, I couldn’t exactly refute his point. Still...

“It’s not as if something like that’s going to happen to me again,” I said idly, to myself.

No sooner had the words left my mouth than—

Thud!

—someone bumped into me. Specifically, into my waist area.

I’d actually noticed them approaching and had attempted to get out of the way, but that had been impossible with how crowded the street was—plus, if I’d gone much farther out of their way, I would’ve bumped into a pregnant woman. Fortunately, since I’d braced myself for the impact, I’d managed to avoid colliding with her. Less fortunately, though...

“They got me...”

I’d felt the distinct sensation of my coin pouch being pulled from my belt. I’d secured it fairly tightly with string, but this pickpocket was evidently quite the veteran. They’d used a knife—and rather adeptly at that, given how short the window of opportunity must have been. If I’d reached out, they probably would have cut me across the hand or arm.

That wouldn’t have actually been a problem for me, but I’d been worried for a moment about how it might look to the people around us if I’d gotten sliced up with a knife and just shrugged it off entirely. It seemed all that overthinking had been my downfall.

Luckily, however, I could still see the pickpocket scampering away. I slipped through the gaps in the crowd, pursuing their retreating silhouette.

◆◇◆◇◆

For the time being, I pursued the pickpocket at a leisurely pace. Dashing after them would only get me noticed, and there were still too many people on the main street for that anyway. Rather than lose the trail, I decided to wait until we were in a more open area to catch up.

Fortunately, the pickpocket didn’t seem to have noticed me. The way they were moving was more indicative of a desire to flee from the scene of the crime than to lose a pursuer. It seemed like this wasn’t their first time either—they made sure to keep their pace at a brisk walk so as to not attract attention. Fortunately, that made it pretty easy for me to keep up.

Before long, the crowd began to thin out. Just as the pickpocket glanced around furtively and made to slip into a back alley...

Grab!

“Wha—”

“I think you know why I want to talk to you,” I said, gripping the pickpocket’s arm firmly. “Come on. In here.”

I dragged the pickpocket into the alley. I couldn’t have them kicking up a big fuss and making people think I was the bad guy here. A lot of petty criminals were cunning like that—I knew because Maalt had its fair share of them.

That being the case, I didn’t stop dragging the pickpocket along until we were far enough away that no authority figures or kindhearted strangers would come poking their noses in. The unfortunate criminal definitely didn’t come quietly, though, shouting and struggling in an attempt to get away. Several people nearby noticed, but it seemed Lucaris’s general populace was rather lacking in individuals brave enough to challenge a black-robed, skull-masked, sword-toting stranger as he dragged someone into a back alley.

Someone would likely call for the city guard eventually, but I’d made sure to be quick about heading deep into the alley. Even if I was questioned later on, there’d be no evidence of wrongdoing, so I could get away with a vague, perfunctory answer.

Uh, was it just me, or were my thoughts going in a really villainous direction lately? Well, I wasn’t planning on harming the pickpocket or anything, so I was probably fine.

Once we’d gotten deep enough into the alley, the pickpocket went silent, allowing themselves to be dragged along. It seemed they’d realized there was no way out of this, because they’d also gone very pale. Maybe they thought this was the end of the road for them, since I seemed so practiced with dragging people into dark alleys.

It wasn’t an unreasonable leap of logic, to be fair. If an adventurer did something like this to you, it was usually safe to assume you would be killed.

“First things first,” I said. “Think you could return my coin pouch?”

“I-I don’t know what you’re...”

“Hey, come on. Playing dumb’s obviously not going to work here. You and I both know it’s pointless, right?”

I’d meant that in the sense that the pickpocket shouldn’t bother wasting our time, since we both knew they were guilty, but evidently, they were interpreting it quite differently.

“You’re...right...” they said, their voice resigned. “You could just kill me and search my corpse for it, anyway. Here—take it.”

I accepted my coin pouch, feeling all of a sudden like a rather heinous villain as I tucked it away. How had we gotten here, again? Wasn’t I just getting my purse back from a pickpocket?

“So?” the pickpocket asked. “What are you going to do to me? Hand me over to the guard? Kill me here? Just get it over with, then...”

I shook my head. “Nothing of the sort. It’s just that I’d heard your people went back to your home in the ocean. Didn’t expect to see one of you still in Lucaris.”

Indeed, the pickpocket’s appearance alone made it obvious that she—for I could now see that she was a young girl—wasn’t a human like you or me. Or, well...like you, anyway. Sometimes it slipped my mind that I didn’t count anymore.

While the girl was humanoid in the general sense, the skin on her neck and arms was rough like scales, her ears were shaped like a fish’s fins, and the irises of her eyes were much brighter than a human’s. All of these were attributes of the race known as fish-folk.

Of course, like “beast-folk,” the word “fish-folk” was a very generalized term for a wide array of races. Much like wolf-folk and cat-folk differed in many ways, no two ethnicities of fish-folk were the same either. Maalt’s lack of demi-human races meant that I wasn’t exactly an expert on the topic, but I knew at least that much.

I couldn’t tell what kind of fish-folk the pickpocket was, though. Whale-folk and shark-folk were easy to spot, given the size of their bodies and jaggedness of their teeth respectively, but she lacked any such distinctive feature—or at least, any that were readily visible at a glance. If not for her scales and ears, I wouldn’t have been able to tell she was a fish-folk at all, which gave me a new perspective on the sheer amount of diversity out there.

The girl, however, seemed to misinterpret the genuine curiosity in my gaze for something else. “Yeah, pretty much everyone went back,” she said. “But don’t think that means they won’t get revenge if you sell me off as a slave!”

Okay, I couldn’t deny that I was dressed like a slaver. But that still kind of hurt. “I’m not going to do anything like that,” I said patiently. “I just wanted to tell you not to do this kind of thing anymore. Don’t fish-folk earn a decent living here in Lucaris anyway? I heard that even kids your age can harvest rare materials on the sea floor, where humans can’t reach.”

That was the part I couldn’t understand. If she could do that, why go to the trouble of pickpocketing?

◆◇◆◇◆

“You can’t even go into the water right now,” the fish-folk girl said, between gritted teeth. “I was too late. I missed out on going back.”

“Can’t go into the water?” I repeated. “Why not?”

“You knew about the fish-folk returning to the ocean, didn’t you?” she said, with a sour expression. “So you should know that the demon lord’s goons have been hanging around the area too.”

As a matter of fact, I had heard about that. It was why all of the city’s vessels were idling in the port right now. “Yeah, I’m aware,” I said. “So they’re stopping you from returning, huh?”

“Mm-hmm. Demon Lord Canhel’s minions—a lot of them—have claimed the waters. Not just the surface either—they’re prowling around our city on the sea floor. By the time I figured I should get out of here, it was already too late. They’ll catch and kill me if I try.”

As far as Lucaris was concerned, the demon lord’s minions didn’t represent that big of an issue. It had put a squeeze on the marine industries, certainly, but technically speaking there had been no serious harm done yet. The fact that the townsfolk were still treating the topic like simple gossip was a testament to that. However, it seemed matters were a lot more grave for the fish-folk.

“That’s...” I began, then trailed off. “My condolences. Still, you can’t be the only fish-folk still in Lucaris, right? Why not rely on the others, just for the time being? I heard you stick together something fierce.”

Well, rather than fish-folk having particularly strong bonds, perhaps it was more accurate to say that humans had weak ones. It was quite common among demi-human races to look out for their brethren in general, whereas it was a whole lot more up in the air with humans. Given that, it seemed strange that humans had entire religions that believed in human supremacy and rejected other races. I suppose we are just foolish like that—foolish and beyond salvation.

The girl gave me a suspicious look. “You sure know a lot about fish-folk. You’re right, but if I went to them for help, I’d only worry them. I...”

“Yes?”

The girl shook her head. “Forget it. More importantly, what are you going to do with me? I gave your coin pouch back. Can I go now?”

I considered it for a moment. It was no big deal to me to let her go scampering off, but given what she’d told me of her circumstances, I suspected she’d just go right back to pickpocketing.

At the same time, I didn’t want to hand her over to the authorities either. I’d witnessed the kind of discrimination that demi-humans could be subjected to in Lucaris, and I wasn’t convinced that the city guard would treat her fairly.

That pretty much led me to a single conclusion: It was probably best to ask advice from someone who knew the city better—specifically, Diego.

“I can’t let you go yet,” I said. “I can promise that I don’t mean you any harm, though. Follow me for a while, would you?”

The girl gave me a puzzled look. “So you are going to make me a slave?”

“Again, no. And just making sure, but if the demon lord’s minions clear out, you can go back home and get by without having to resort to pickpocketing, right?”

She nodded, albeit hesitantly, as if not sure why I was asking. “I mean, yeah. I used to earn coin just like how you said—by diving. Once I couldn’t do that anymore, I went around looking for other work, but...”

“Couldn’t find any, huh?”

I wouldn’t have been surprised if there had been discrimination at work there—but she’d likely been unlucky in her search as well. It wasn’t like everyone in Lucaris had something against demi-humans. Diego managed just fine, and there were plenty of other demi-humans like him with their own businesses. That being said, they were all in out-of-the-way places, so it was probably hard to find them unless you knew the city well.

“So without any other options, you resorted to stealing?” I said.

“Yeah. I just figured it would work out somehow. Then you caught my attention by smelling like the ocean and all... But you’re not a fish-folk, right?”

“Hmm? I smell like the ocean?” I was puzzled for a moment, before realizing. “Oh. I went diving yesterday. I guess the scent hasn’t faded yet.”

I hadn’t realized I smelled. Then again, demi-human senses often perceived things differently than humans. Some had senses of smell that were thousands of times superior, for example. That wasn’t necessarily a good thing, since it could easily be used against them—but regardless, it seemed the girl was telling the truth about smelling the ocean on me.

For the record, I bathed regularly, so it wasn’t like this was the fault of poor hygiene or anything. After how long we’d been down there yesterday, I supposed it was only natural for some of the scent to stick.

“You went diving?” the fish-folk girl asked.

“Yeah, in the Dungeon of the Sea God’s Daughters,” I explained. “I’m an adventurer.”

She made a noise of appreciation. “A pretty good one, sounds like. That’s exactly where the demon lord’s goons are hanging around.”

“Really? There weren’t any inside.”

“But they were around, weren’t they? The surface is full of kelpie riders in that area.”

“Maybe we just got lucky, then, because we didn’t run into any. I’ll keep that in mind, though, and stay on guard next time.”

The girl cocked her head in an exaggerated manner. “You didn’t see any at all...?”

“Is it that strange?” I asked, as I set off at a walk.

She shook her head, then made to follow along. “Maybe not. I guess you did just get lucky. More importantly, where are we going?”

“To meet an acquaintance of mine. He should be at the guild’s training ground right now.” Last I’d heard, Diego planned on training with Capitan. I could’ve waited for him at his store, but it seemed best to get this over with sooner rather than later.

“Are you going to beat me up...?”

“You really need to do something about that paranoia of yours. Not that I don’t get where you’re coming from, I guess, but... Oh, right. What’s your name?”

“Me? Pherousa. Child of the old sea.”

“Is that right? Well, I’m Rentt, Bronze-class adventurer. Nice to meet you.” I extended my hand in as affable a manner as I could manage.

Pherousa gave me a strange look, but eventually took my hand, shaking it. “You’re kind of strange, aren’t you?” she mumbled. “Whatever. Lead the way. Not like I have much choice anyway.”

◆◇◆◇◆

No matter where you went, whether it was a small village or a large city, guilds almost always came with their own training grounds. And while they differed from guild to guild, they tended to take the form of a built-up arena for general use. Of course, if your particular branch of the guild had a tight budget, it wasn’t uncommon for a training ground to be little more than an empty lot marked off with a wooden fence.

The one in Lucaris, however, really spoke to the local guild’s relative affluence. Not only was it a proper stone building, it had also been magically treated to withstand spells of some potency. Without such facilities, you’d have to head out into the wild and find an open space to practice your spellwork. And with that, there was every chance of a monster stumbling across you and giving you a good deal more “practice” than you’d bargained for. Thankfully, it seemed that wasn’t a concern in Lucaris.

I surveyed the training ground. There were adventurers everywhere—from what I could tell at a glance, though, most were Bronze-classers or thereabouts. I didn’t see anyone stronger.

That was probably because of the whole thing with the demon lord’s minions hanging around. Silver-classers and above, who received more personal commissions and had better connections with the authorities, were more likely in the know, while the lower-ranked adventurers would find it more difficult to pick up general commissions even if they wanted to.

I spotted Capitan and Diego easily—their movements were a cut above everyone else’s. Good enough to be Silver-class, for sure. Pulling Pherousa along behind me, I approached, stopping at a distance.

“You aren’t going to call out to them?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “They’re still sparring. I don’t want to break their concentration.”

“Would that really be a big deal?”

“Well, I don’t think they’d care, but I’d still rather not. Besides, it doesn’t look like they’ll be that long. We can wait. Unless you have a problem with that, of course.”

I expected Pherousa to consider this a waste of time, since I figured she wanted me to let her go as soon as possible, but her answer surprised me.

“Not really. Watching’s fun. They’re both pretty good.”

“Huh. You can tell?” I recalled her deft movements when she’d pickpocketed me. They’d seemed quite practiced, but maybe it wasn’t just the agility of a thief. Maybe she’d trained in some martial art or other.

Pherousa nodded. “Most fish-folk learn how to use a spear, myself included. Some choose the sword, of course. That old guy, though... What’s he using?”

She had to be referring to Capitan. It was rather mean of her to call him “old guy” without an ounce of hesitation, but I couldn’t exactly say she was wrong.

“It’s a hunting knife,” I explained. “You don’t see many people use one, but it’s a decent weapon. Has a lot of uses outside of combat, as well. That ‘old guy’ is a hunter by trade, so he’s better with that than with a sword.”

A hunting knife was excellently suited for cutting through long grass and overhanging branches. It was durable enough that it could take some pretty rough handling too. It was inferior to a sword in sheer cutting power and functionality as a weapon, but you could compensate for that with skill. Capitan certainly did.

“Hunter?” Pherousa cocked her head. “Why’s a hunter doing the whole adventuring thing?”

That was a perfectly natural question to have. After all, most hunters didn’t go gallivanting away from their villages or towns to play at being an adventurer. Most were at least registered with the guild, but few actively accepted commissions on a regular basis. They had hunter duties to attend, and adventuring wasn’t exactly the kind of job that you could do in your spare time. Their earnings would generally be much better if they focused on one or the other, so there was little point in trying to do both at once.

That is, unless you were a special case like Capitan. He didn’t much care about his earnings to begin with—he was a hunter of Hathara because that was what suited him. The only reason he was even in Lucaris at all was because Gharb had asked him to pick up some materials. Once he found the sea spirit herbs, he’d return to his daily routine without a second thought.

Well, after I’d gotten him to train me, anyway.

“It’s a long story,” I said. “Oh—looks like Capitan’s seized the upper hand on Diego.”

Pherousa nodded. “So that beast-folk man with the black fur is called Diego? I wanna root for him, but yeah. He’s being pushed back.”

It made sense why she’d want to cheer for a fellow spear user. Myself, I was pulling for Capitan.

Unfortunately for the curse vendor, there was a significant gap in their technique. While Diego was fighting with what appeared to be only basic magical enhancement, Capitan had spirit, and it seemed his mastery over it was too much for Diego to handle.

And Capitan could do a lot more with spirit than just enhance himself physically.

“Huh?! You’re kidding!” Pherousa exclaimed. “That spear stab totally connected! How did it just bounce off the old guy?! Is his skin made of steel or something?!”

Diego had used some excellent footwork and taken advantage of his spear’s reach to land a precise blow on Capitan, but it had appeared to simply bounce off the old hunter’s skin. I knew better, though—with my eyes, I’d been able to see the spear’s tip with crystal clarity. It hadn’t bounced off Capitan’s skin, but the invisible layer of spirit coating it.

He’d shown me the technique before—it involved basically layering spirit across your body like armor. Still, seeing it again had done nothing to diminish its sheer absurdity.

◆◇◆◇◆

“Didn’t know you could do that with spirit,” Diego said, sounding equal parts disgusted and impressed.

“Just takes some getting used to,” Capitan said, still maintaining his fighting stance. “That was an excellent thrust, though. I hadn’t planned on having to deflect it with spirit.”

“Really? Looks to me like I’m not giving you much of a challenge.”

“On the contrary. If anything, I’m the one slipping. Haven’t fought anyone worth their salt in a while, so it looks like I’ve grown rusty. Figure it’s time for me to get serious.”

“What, you weren’t before?”

“Well, we’re here to teach you how to use spirit, so I had to see what you were capable of. Couldn’t have you knocked out cold from the get-go, could I?”

“Hah! Bold words! Looks like I’ll have to get serious too, then!”

“That’s it! Give me everything you’ve got!”

No sooner had the words left Capitan’s mouth than the pair dashed straight at each other. But while it looked simultaneous, I could tell Capitan had been slightly faster. That went for his weapon too—his hunting knife was closing the distance quicker than Diego’s spear.

But while that single exchange would have decided the fight for any ordinary warrior, Diego avoided Capitan’s knife by jerking his head to the side. It was a feat that most humans would have found difficult to pull off, but as a beast-folk—and one from a cat lineage, no less—Diego’s body could be particularly flexible when the situation called for it.

I could do something similar, but in my case, I did it by dislocating my joints entirely. It felt kind of unfair to compare that to the capabilities of a living creature. I tried not to make a habit of it, since I planned on regaining my humanity one day, but I couldn’t avoid it sometimes. It was just so useful...

While I was having those idle thoughts, Capitan’s hand kept moving. He must have expected Diego to dodge—that, or he’d crafted his strike in such a way that it would connect regardless.

My money was on the latter. Capitan was usually the type who didn’t sweat the small stuff, but when it came to hunting and combat, he was a creature of precise logic. It was rare that he ever left anything to chance, and it showed in his fighting style.

In contrast, Diego seemed to mostly rely on his instincts. Definitely not in a negative sense, though—he was moving like he had an intuitive understanding of Capitan’s attacks. The way he’d jerked his head aside just now was a perfect example.

The thing was, those wild, natural movements were exactly the kind of thing Capitan was used to dealing with while hunting his prey, whether monster or animal. The knowledge of how to handle them was etched into his bones. And there were some attacks that even if you knew they were coming—or sometimes, precisely because you knew they were coming—were hard to avoid. In that regard, Capitan was an expert. Case in point, what he did next could only be described as shocking.

As Diego made to pull his spear back for a thrust, Capitan tossed his hunting knife at the curse vendor’s feet without a shred of hesitation. Caught off guard, Diego’s balance crumbled. His spear tilted up slightly, his grip weakening for an instant—and that was exactly what Capitan had been waiting for. The old hunter kicked Diego’s arm, causing him to drop his weapon, then grabbed that same arm and, in one smooth movement, threw the beast-folk to the ground, putting him in an armlock.

At first, Diego looked unbothered, likely because he expected his flexibility would save him once again. However, as he found himself unable to escape Capitan’s grasp, his expression morphed into one of surprise. It seemed the joints he could usually count on weren’t obeying him.

“Wh-Why...” he muttered.

Capitan chuckled. “Ready to admit defeat?”

It took Diego a moment to respond, but he seemed to realize that no amount of struggling would do him any good. “Doesn’t matter, does it?” he said. “You’ve obviously got me beat, regardless. Good fight.”

◆◇◆◇◆

“Capitan! Diego!” I called out, approaching with Pherousa in tow.

They looked over at me as they stood up. “Rentt,” Capitan said. “Finished shopping already?”

Rather than me, though, he was looking at Pherousa. I could sense the question he wanted to ask: What have you gone and picked up now? Though he knew me well enough that he probably already had a good guess.

“Yeah, the shopping’s done,” I said. “As for the girl, this is Pherousa. It’s a bit of a long story...”

“You don’t say,” Capitan muttered, scratching his chin. “And unless my eyes have failed me, she’s a fish-folk, right?”

“I am,” the girl confirmed. “Like Rentt said, I’m Pherousa. Child of the old sea.”

“Oh? I’m Capitan. Pleasure.”

Circumstances aside, it was only polite to give your name to someone who’d given theirs. The two extended their hands, exchanging a handshake.

Diego, however, looked surprised to hear the girl’s name.

“Diego? Is something the matter?” I asked.

“Rentt...” he said slowly. “Do you know who she is?”

“A fish-folk girl, right?” Nothing else about her seemed particularly noteworthy to me. I supposed, if I was pressed to say, I also could have described her as a pickpocket. But I could tell that Diego was getting at more than just a physical description.

The curse vendor shook his head incredulously. “I mean, yes, obviously. But that’s not the problem. See, when fish-folk name themselves ‘child of the old sea,’ that’s the equivalent of a human saying they’re royalty.”

There was a moment of silence before I spoke. “Huh? But...she tried to pickpocket me. Why would...” If she was royalty, shouldn’t the other fish-folk in Lucaris have been falling over themselves to help her? Why had she said she couldn’t rely on them?

Pherousa herself provided the answer to my question. “You’re the first person in this city I’ve given my proper name to, Rentt,” she said.

“Why? If you’d just told the other fish-folk...”

“They would’ve only thought I was an imposter. People barely even know what I look like back home. You aren’t one of us, though, so I thought that wouldn’t matter.”

◆◇◆◇◆

“Okay, I think I get it now,” I said, before a hint of complaint entered my voice. “You could’ve told me earlier, you know.”

Pherousa smiled. “Sorry. I was going to explain later. I didn’t think your friend would know so much about fish-folk.”

To be fair, it didn’t seem like she’d intended to surprise me like that. But now that she’d mentioned it...

“She’s right,” Capitan said. “Why do you know so much, Diego? General details, I’d understand, but knowing the titles of fish-folk royalty seems rather specific.”

This was true of beast-folk as well, but fish-folk tended to be quite secretive—though the biggest reason they weren’t common knowledge was probably just that they often lived in places like the underwater city Pherousa had mentioned, which humans couldn’t reach by ordinary means.

Nevertheless, Diego seemed to be rather knowledgeable. Perhaps it wasn’t all that strange, since there were some ethnicities of beast-folk that also lived underwater, but I didn’t think that was the major reason.

“Simple,” Diego said. “My mother was a fish-folk. She told me some things about her people. That’s all.”

“What? But you’re clearly a beast-folk,” I pointed out.

The reason for my confusion was that when members of different races produced children, said offspring tended to inherit the characteristics of both parents. The child of a rabbit-folk and fish-folk, for example, was likely to have both scales and long ears. I supposed Diego could have had fish-folk features somewhere beneath his clothes, where I couldn’t see them, but...

“If you’ve got answers, I’d like to know too,” Diego said, shrugging. “But I’m essentially all beast-folk. The spitting image of my pops when he was younger, apparently.”

“So you’ve got no fish-folk features at all?” I asked.

Diego shook his head. “None. Doesn’t really cause me any trouble, so I’m not bothered. I might even stand a decent chance of having children.”

“Ah, yeah. I’ve heard that children can be a difficult prospect for mixed-race couples. I don’t know how difficult, though.”

“It’s possible, albeit very unlikely,” Diego explained. “And many children that are born end up having reduced lifespans. It’s why you don’t see many mixed-race people around. The strange thing is that we can have children with humans, no problem. Mysterious, isn’t it?”

He was speaking the truth; there was a reason reproductive compatibility was cited as a specific characteristic of humans when compared to other races.

“When it comes to race, there are probably more questions than will ever be answered,” I agreed. Case in point: me. But while I used to think that I was the only person who went through life without knowing who I really was, talking with Diego had made me realize that other races also had their share of inexplicable mysteries. Maybe I didn’t need to feel so lonely after all.

“No wonder Rentt smelled like the ocean,” Pherousa said. “I didn’t expect one of his friends to be part fish-folk.”

“And here I was convinced it was because we’d gone to the Dungeon of the Sea God’s Daughters,” I said.

“I guess both could be true. It doesn’t really matter.” She paused. “More importantly, can we get to why we’re here? What are you going to do with me?”

“Ah, right. Diego?” I said, turning to him.

It seemed he’d guessed what I wanted to ask, because his expression became somewhat resigned. “Let me guess. You want to put her up at my place?” he said.

“I won’t go quite that far,” I said. “I just wanted to know if you could hire her on, at least temporarily. From what she’s told me, she can’t go back home right now. She doesn’t have a way to earn her keep in this city either, which is why she turned to pickpocketing. She doesn’t seem like a bad kid, so...”

The curse vendor sighed. “Not like I can turn her away after hearing all that, can I? I’m already putting up Niedz and the others, so what’s one more, right? Besides, she’ll come in handy on days like today when those three are too exhausted from delving.” He turned. “Pherousa, right? Are you okay with that?”

“Okay with what?” she asked. “Are you hiring me? But I’m a fish-folk, and a pickpocket besides.”

“Well, Rentt here’s a bleeding heart who likes to take in ruffians who try to rob him just because he feels bad for them. Compared to that, a pickpocket who only steals out of desperation is nothing. And I do kinda like that side of him, you know? As for the fish-folk thing, I’m a beast-folk myself, with fish-folk blood. You’ll get no prejudice from me.”

“I-In that case... I’d be glad to work for you. I promise I’ll be useful!”

“It’s just watching the store, so it shouldn’t be too difficult. Just don’t slack off, and you’ll be fine.”

While the pair were talking, Capitan came over and muttered in a low voice. “So? Is this really just because you have a bleeding heart?”

“I won’t deny that’s a part of it,” I said. “But since she’s a fish-folk, I figured she had connections to their underwater city, so I thought she could serve as insurance in case we didn’t find any sea spirit herbs in the dungeon. Now that I know she’s royalty, though, it seems like she was quite the valuable catch.”

“I can’t tell if you’re a good guy or a villain, with a line like that,” Capitan said incredulously. “But I suppose it doesn’t matter. You would’ve done the same for her even if she hadn’t turned out to be royalty, right?”

“I’d like to think so. Oh, and I wanted to ask. How does that joint-locking technique you used on Diego work? Why couldn’t he move?” The technique had been impressive, especially since it had worked on a cat lineage beast-folk like Diego.

“I used spirit, of course,” Capitan said. “By making contact with an opponent, you can manipulate their own spirit and lock it in place. With enough practice, you can do a lot more than that too.”

“Such as?”

“Make it explode.”

“You say that so casually...”

Chapter 5: Lorraine’s Monster Tamer Training

“Right, then,” Ingo said. “We’ll start with the fundamentals. Are you ready, Lorraine?”

Although we’d gone quite deep into the woods near Rentt’s home village of Hathara, this posed no particular issue to me or Ingo. I had my artifices as a mage for defending myself, while he was accompanied by one of his tamed monsters.

In this case, the creature at his side was not the lindblum I so closely associated with him, but a large species of slime known as a gran slime. They were roughly the size of an adult human and, in what no longer came as a surprise to me at this point, had never been recorded as being tameable. The common consensus was that slimes were only trainable up to the medium-sized varieties that stood about the height of an adult’s waist.

Nevertheless, as if to refute that assumption, the gran slime obediently heeded Ingo’s every order. The sight was exceedingly strange—and it was yet further proof that Ingo’s instruction would be priceless.

I nodded. “Yes, I’m ready. But if we’re starting with the fundamentals, wouldn’t it have been better to do this indoors?”

As a general rule, the foundational knowledge for most magical disciplines was learned from lectures or books, methods of study safe enough to do indoors. Even if Ingo’s style of monster taming was a special case, I had still assumed we’d be starting with a lecture.

“You already have the necessary taming knowledge, don’t you?” Ingo said. “Monster varieties, their unique traits and weaknesses, all that?”

“Well, yes, I suppose. That sort of knowledge is indispensable for adventuring, after all.”

“Hmm? You don’t say? The Bronze-class adventurer who came to our village the other day seemed rather lacking in that regard.”

“I...can’t speak to that individual’s skill, having never met them, but that’s unfortunately not all that rare for Bronze-classers. There are quite a few who believe they can get by with only the knowledge of the monsters in their regular hunting grounds.”

Of course, all Bronze-classers had some degree of know-how—they never would’ve passed the Ascension Exam otherwise—but for many, the bare minimum was enough. I would’ve even gone so far as to say that was the case for the majority. Rather than acquire new knowledge, they preferred to focus on their physical training.

But while that might allow one to squeak through the Bronze-class Ascension Exam, one would hit a wall when it came time to ascend to Silver. Still, it wasn’t impossible to pass the Silver-class exam based on the strength of one’s arm alone, and that meant you could occasionally run into highly capable individuals who were nevertheless somewhat lacking in the knowledge department.

In light of that, Rentt was quite the special case, as Bronze-classers went, both his learning and his technique were already at the Silver level. The former was likely due to all the time he spent with me, picking up niche trivia. I’d frequently catch him flipping through one of the many books in my home that covered some extremely specific topic or other.

“Such a waste, that is,” Ingo lamented. “There’s some merit to only acquiring the bare minimum, certainly, but if that’s all an adventurer does, I get the feeling they’d plateau rather quickly.”

I nodded. “Yes. It’s often those sorts of careless adventurers who suddenly turn up dead. Of course, dedicating too much time and resources to superfluous matters can be harmful in its own right. Striking the right balance can be quite difficult.”

“I suppose that’s true. Well, regardless, unlike those adventurers, you have the requisite knowledge already. That was why I figured we could skip the lectures.”

“I see...” I trailed off. “But are you certain it will not have an adverse effect on my learning?”

“It should be fine,” Ingo assured. “I might have concerns if it wasn’t for your magic eyes—but with those at your disposal, you should be able to pick it up quite quickly.” He paused. “At least, that’s my hope.”

“I’m...surprised you knew about that,” I said. I’d revealed my eyes to Rentt a long time ago, and I didn’t make any particular effort to keep them a secret in Maalt, but neither did I go out of my way to tell people. I doubted Rentt would’ve told Ingo without asking me first, even if Ingo was his foster father, so I was rather curious as to how the village mayor had found out.

“I didn’t hear it from Rentt, but from Gharb,” Ingo said, smiling. “Her powers of observation are quite astute.”

“Ah, her? I suppose I’m not surprised.”

“I know, right?”

“That aside, what do you mean when you say using my magic eyes will help me learn faster?”

“Well, I’m no expert on how other monster tamers do things, but do you recall that I said my method involves intricate mana manipulation?”

“I do... Ah. I suppose the ability to observe mana as it moves will prove important?”

“Exactly. It’s especially vital that you see how it flows into the monster. Once you know that, the rest is all about putting it into practice. Since this is my first time teaching anybody, I can’t guarantee that this method is foolproof, but I was taught that this is the fastest way.”

“All right. I look forward to your instruction!”

◆◇◆◇◆

When it came to monster taming, there was no singular defining method. There were, after all, as many ways to go about it as there were practitioners of the art.

Just as one could raise a monster as a pet from a young age, building a natural bond with it over the years, one could also force a monster to obey by defeating it in battle and establishing a hierarchy. There was also the simple option of feeding a monster its favorite food on the regular, using that as an incentive to convince the creature to obey commands.

Throwing magic into the mix, there also existed magical tools that would cause the monster pain if it disobeyed, and that was just one method. There was a nigh-endless variety of manners in which a monster tamer could practice their craft, and no one individual could claim to know them all. And as it happened, Ingo’s method differed from any I’d ever researched or heard of before.

He led me a short distance farther into the forest before coming to a stop. “That slime should do nicely,” he said happily, pointing out one the size of a small cat or dog. “I’m going to tame it and make it my familiar, so watch closely with your magic eyes.”

“Why that slime in particular?” I asked.

“Honestly, any small monster would do as an example, but if it’s a slime, I can have it meld into this fellow when we’re done,” Ingo explained, indicating the gran slime at his side. “I’ve already got quite a few familiars, so I’d rather not take on the additional effort of caring for more.”

I thought that sounded quite practical. Nevertheless... “You’re going to force them to meld, you said?”

“Yes, but I can only do that with slimes as a general rule.”

“General rule, meaning... There are exceptions?”

“I suppose. But it’s quite an advanced technique, and failures can be catastrophic. At your stage, it’s best not to try.”

“I see. Well, the fundamentals are called that for a reason.” It was the same with alchemy—there were more stories than I could list of hasty practitioners biting off more than they could chew and accidentally blowing up a town as a result. It made sense that monster taming could have similarly disastrous results, especially with Ingo’s method, which could tame monsters such as gran slimes.

“Very sensible of you,” Ingo said. “You’re a good student, Lorraine. I might worry about a lack of curiosity, but something tells me that won’t be a problem for you.”

“I am a scholar, after all. Where knowledge exists, I seek to find it. Perhaps not at the cost of my own ruin, though.”

“All things in moderation,” Ingo agreed. “Right, I’m going to begin the taming process.”

“I’ll watch carefully, then.”

Ingo retrieved a small knife from his belt and used it to prick his own index finger. Just as I was wondering what he was up to, I saw his internal mana begin to coalesce in his finger—no, in his blood.

“I could have done this part at home,” Ingo explained. “But it only lasts about a day, and its efficacy drops as time passes. Besides, each monster requires its own specific concentration of mana.”

After verifying my observation that he’d infused the blood with enough mana, he used his free hand to retrieve a small test tube, into which he tapped a single, scarlet drop. It seemed the tube itself was specially constructed, because it completely trapped the mana inside. That caught my interest, and a number of possible materials it could be made from came to mind before Ingo seemed to catch on to the direction of my thoughts.

“I’ll tell you how to make one of these later,” he said, chuckling. “It’s a method I inherited. That said, I actually get most of mine from Gharb.”

“Thank you. I must say, you’re a treasure trove of knowledge.”

“It’s all just passed down to me by my predecessors. I think the other villages around here used to inherit similar knowledge, but I don’t know if that’s the case anymore. We might be the only ones left—but then again, we might not. Who knows?”

It actually wasn’t unusual for people of the modern age to stumble across knowledge or technology from long-lost times. A village like Hathara that inherited age-old techniques in secret, quietly guarding a nearby ancient ruin, probably wasn’t all that unique in the grand scheme of things.

Nevertheless, I thought it was quite extraordinary that I had been given the chance to learn that knowledge. After all, it was the kind of opportunity that came once in a lifetime, if it even came at all.

“I would like to study it more, if I have the time,” I admitted. “But right now, learning your taming technique takes priority.”

“That it does,” Ingo agreed. “Now, I’ll approach the monster alone. Stay next to my gran slime and be as quiet as possible, all right?”

The familiar in question was pressing itself against the ground, as if making its best attempt to hide. That was likely why the small wild slime hadn’t noticed us yet.

“Okay,” I acknowledged. “How are you going to use that test tube?”

“I’m going to throw it. Once it lands, my mana will pour into the slime using my blood as a medium. For monsters as weak as slimes, I usually just drop my blood directly onto it from my finger—and with how proficient you are with mana control, you likely won’t need to go through these individual steps either. But I figured I’d make it as clear as possible how the process works.”

“That makes sense.”

“All right. Here I go,” Ingo said. He began to approach the slime, moving carefully in order to avoid notice.

◆◇◆◇◆

The way Ingo moved was nothing like what one would expect from the mayor of a small village. Despite his constant claims that he wasn’t particularly capable in combat, he must have had some degree of physical ability, since being a tamer necessitated that he make close contact with monsters.

Of course, he could have stuck to taming weak monsters and guiding them through Existential Evolution, but even then, the number of people killed by slimes each year was no laughing matter. It seemed obvious that he was strong enough to defeat the monsters he tamed—or at least skilled enough to escape them, if matters turned south.

The wild slime seemed not to notice Ingo as he approached, no doubt because he was limiting the amount of mana that his body naturally emitted. It seemed that the fine mana control required by his method of monster taming came with many advantages.

Although the types of sensory organs a monster possessed depended on its species, most had the ability to sense mana—it was often the method they used to find their prey. Thus, if one wanted to conceal oneself from a monster, one usually had to dampen one’s own mana signature. From his careful movements alone, I could clearly see that Ingo was well-versed in monster behavior, as well as in how to use it to his advantage when taming them.

Once he’d gotten close enough, Ingo took aim at the wild slime and tossed the small test tube filled with his blood. The monster, still unaware of his presence, naturally failed to dodge. By the time the test tube struck the slime, I saw that Ingo was already working his internal mana, channeling it in the slime’s direction.

A magic circle appeared on the ground beneath the monster. At first glance, it resembled those used for contractual magic in trade deals, but a closer look revealed numerous differences.

Ingo extended his mana like a thread, connecting to the place where his test tube had struck the slime. Although I wondered briefly what his goal was, it soon became clear: To my surprise, his mana thread slipped straight into the slime’s body.

Ordinarily, channeling mana into another living creature’s body was exceedingly difficult—especially if it was involuntary or forced. A living organism’s mana system would naturally reject the foreign mana, dispersing or repulsing it outright in a matter of seconds. It was still possible, but it would require close proximity—direct contact was best—a large quantity of mana, and intricate control.

Of course, it was a different story for certain tested and completed spells—support magic, for example. Those were highly technical constructs, though, and a far cry from simply channeling one’s mana into a foreign creature.

Given that, one might have been tempted to think that Ingo’s mana thread was a similar kind of highly developed spell, but my magic eyes told me otherwise. To me, it was plain as day that Ingo’s mana thread was no prepared spell, but a pure mana construct.

If I had witnessed this out of the blue, I likely would’ve been exclaiming in shock right now. However, Ingo had taken a number of steps that had clued me in. After all, I knew that his mana thread was connected to the point where the test tube had struck the slime. That suggested to me that he had used his blood and mana to open a gate of sorts into the monster’s body.

By passing his mana through this “gate” he’d created, would he face no resistance when channeling his mana into the body of another creature?

I suspected I was onto something there. Admittedly, no other ideas had occurred to me at the moment, but as I considered the question further, an example came to mind that seemed to lend credence to my theory.

This method—it bore a striking resemblance to how vampiric monsters created familiars. It was known that the process involved a vampire injecting their own blood into a human via biting them, but the exact process behind how it worked remained unknown.

However, Ingo was using his blood as a medium to break the boundary between his mana and that of another creature’s, redefining said creature as part of himself and taking command of its very soul. What if that was exactly how vampires did it too? The similarities were too obvious to ignore.

I watched as Ingo’s mana spread throughout the slime’s body along a path that resembled that of a human’s capillaries. As it did so, the magic circle underfoot—not that a slime actually had feet, but regardless—began to change shape.

The way its lines and patterns shifted seemed to be in conjunction with Ingo’s mana rather than any natural catalyst, and the process didn’t seem to be smooth. In fact, it seemed to involve a great deal of trial and error.

By the time the magic circle turned from red to blue, becoming three-dimensional and connected to the mana threads in the slime’s body, I’d lost count of how many times it had changed.

“Yes! I’ve made the connection!” Ingo cried in delight.

As he continued channeling his mana through the thread, the magic cylinder around the slime gradually contracted, becoming smaller and smaller until it finally vanished into the monster’s body.

“This contract I make with my blood and mana as sacrifice,” Ingo chanted. “Thou shalt live for me, and I shall live for thee. Contractus de Origo.”

The magic circle flashed, causing me to reflexively close my eyes. Immediately, I was worried I’d missed the critical moment; I should have brought something to shade my vision. Sure enough, by the time I opened my eyes, it seemed I was too late.

“As you can see, Lorraine,” Ingo said, glancing down at the slime by his feet. It was bouncing around happily, rubbing itself against his feet with the kind of affection that no wild creature would have shown. “This slime is now my familiar.”

Once again, I was struck by how priceless this opportunity to learn from him was.

◆◇◆◇◆

I launched into a rapid succession of questions. “How obedient is the slime? Are there any further steps you need to take? Is it possible for it to cease being your familiar?”

I couldn’t really help my curiosity. After all, it wasn’t every day that one was able to witness the exact moment a monster tamer obtained a familiar. What was more, Ingo’s technique differed on a fundamental level from the other methods I was aware of. Getting the chance to question him directly was more than I could have hoped for, and as a scholar, I was thrilled.

When conducting research that required interviewing the people on the ground, one first had to begin by establishing a rapport. Otherwise, there was a chance they’d refuse to talk to you at all. There was a time when I had not properly understood that, basing all of my judgments on the words I saw in books and written reports, but it turned out that was a good way to miss the reality of a situation. I’d learned that from Rentt.

In any case, my point was that I couldn’t be more grateful that Ingo was teaching me with such patience and attention.

“And here I’d thought you were the eternally composed type,” Ingo said, smiling ruefully. “It seems you’ve got a childish side I wasn’t expecting to see.”

The way he’d said that reminded me strongly of Rentt. I could really see the connection between foster father and son. “Rentt tells me that too,” I admitted. “Sorry. I tend to get carried away in the face of new discoveries.”

Ingo shook his head. “It’s nothing to apologize for. Rather, I’m grateful to have such an inquisitive student. You’ll pick things up quicker that way. Now, as for your questions. What was the first one again?”

“How obedient is the slime?” I prompted.

“Ah, right. First, I must establish that the slime and I are now connected by a bond—though that’s just the word I’ve chosen to use. A more technical description would be a permanent, mana-based connection. I imagine you’ve used contract magic before, so you would know how it feels to be bound by it, correct?”

“Yes, I do. I did notice that the magic circle resembled those used in contract magic. But it was unlike any known modern examples.” The circle Ingo had manifested had lacked the patterns and designs necessary for ordinary contract magic. That should have resulted in his mana dispersing—and yet, it hadn’t.

“Good observation,” Ingo said. “I’ve done my own research into modern contract magic, and the conclusion I’ve reached is that the concept behind its design is different on a fundamental level from my own technique. In other words—”

He proceeded to go into the specifics of how it differed. And not to sound conceited, but I doubted any other mage would have understood him. I, however, was recognized by the Empire for my scholarly contributions and had spent the better part of my life ceaselessly conducting my research into monsters. My magic eyes had also afforded me countless opportunities to analyze the composition of magic circles. All together, it meant I was well equipped to follow along with Ingo’s explanation. Nevertheless...

“I believe I’ve grasped the essence of it,” I said. “However, there are several points I’m still not clear on. For example—”

After listening to the questions I’d raised, Ingo nodded. “There’s no shame in that. As I’m sure you understood, this is only a tentative hypothesis of mine. There’s much I’ve yet to fully analyze, and my own understanding of it is often just ‘it works because it works.’ Honestly, that means this is a rather dangerous technique. I won’t blame you if you decide to back out now.”

Invoking magic you didn’t understand was a rather nerve-racking prospect. After all, if you didn’t know how it worked, you didn’t know what it was capable of. But did that mean I, an adventurer, was afraid? No. The very idea was laughable.

Adventurers made use of tools they didn’t fully grasp on a regular basis. The magical items acquired from dungeons were often poorly understood, with thoroughly analyzed examples being rare exceptions. Nevertheless, they were put to use anyway. If it allowed you to achieve a desired end, what did it matter that you didn’t understand how it got you there?

Realistically, though, each usage of such an object carried with it the risk of catastrophe. There were folk tales and actual historical examples of magical dungeon items destroying entire cities due to their wielder’s recklessness. That they continued to be used was only a testament to how indispensable they were. After all, humans were weak. In the face of the threat represented by monsters, we had to make use of whatever we could get our hands on.

At the end of the day, when the choice was between humanity’s extinction and the occasional disastrous accident, there was only one real option.

Of course, monster taming probably didn’t fall into that category. Humanity would likely get by just fine without it.

The thing was, I’d sensed possibility in Ingo’s technique—the possibility that I’d deepen my understanding of monsters...and of Rentt.

And even though I knew it would come with the possibility of disaster as well, if I were asked to choose between that and remaining ignorant? Well, I’d pick the same path. That was just the kind of person I was.

There was a reason I considered being a scholar my calling in life.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” I told Ingo. “If anything, the prospect of so much being unknown only excites me more. And besides, I think it would stand to benefit Rentt if I learned more too.”

Ingo hummed knowingly. “Something tells me that the second reason carries a lot more weight.”

“I can’t argue with that. So, may I count on your continued instruction?”

“But of course. Moving on, then...”

◆◇◆◇◆

“Regarding the mana-based connection I was talking about earlier,” Ingo continued. “It’s through this ‘bond’ that I can issue commands to the slime. For example: Circle around me three times.”

The slime proceeded to do just that, its gelatinous body bobbling across the ground and occasionally hopping into the air. It had seemingly heard the command loud and clear.

“Does it understand your words?” I asked.

“Not precisely, no,” Ingo said. “There are monsters that can understand language like a pet cat or dog might, but such comprehension is far from universal. Some monsters, like spirits, aren’t reliant on auditory perception in the first place. Ah, and as you can imagine, some are simply difficult to issue commands to verbally. Marine varieties, for example.”

“Are you saying that spirit type monsters possess no sensory organs?”

Spirit type monsters were another kind of undead, similar to Rentt except that they lacked corporeal forms. Despite their name, the question of whether they were truly the souls of the departed remained unanswered. They certainly acted like they were, but it was also theorized that they were nothing but residual thought impressions left after an individual’s death or lingering sentiment given form by mana.

Of course, if one didn’t wish to look too deeply into it, they did seem to simply be ghosts. Only a scholar who specialized in monsters would bother to delineate the difference. After all, who was the layman going to believe: The spirit that looked and spoke exactly like their dead acquaintance, or the academic who was rambling on about technicalities? As fields of study went, ghosts and spirits were not easy territory.

“That’s right,” Ingo said. “Although they behave like they can hear human speech, they’re actually ‘listening’ to a person’s thoughts via their mana. So when taming them, you’ll find that they often can’t comprehend commands in plain speech.”

“That’s surprising. I’ve always understood them to be capable of conversation.”

“It’s still very possible to communicate, of course. But don’t you often find yourself thinking that there’s dissonance in your conversation, as if their responses don’t quite match up with what you’re saying? That happens because the words we humans speak come out slightly different than how we imagine them in our thoughts.”

“I see. That makes a great deal of sense. What about marine monsters, then?”

“That’s much simpler. It’s just harder for sound to travel through water, so you can’t issue verbal orders, let alone hold a conversation. Not unless you had the right spell or a magic tool, anyway.”

“Right, of course.” It was obvious now that he’d pointed it out.

“They can always surface to receive your commands, but that’s limited to the minority of marine monsters that can remain above water for more than a brief period. It excludes almost all fish species, for example. And while turtles and the like can walk onto land, they’re often much less useful there. That leaves giving them commands in the water, which is difficult to do verbally.”

“How would you do it, then?” I asked.

“That’s where the ‘bond’ comes in,” Ingo explained. “We tamers can use that connection to convey our thoughts to the monsters. It takes some practice, though, and I don’t have a better explanation for the method other than ‘focus your thoughts in the monster’s direction,’ so you’ll have to work it out yourself via trial and error.”

“In short, there’s essentially no need to issue commands verbally.”

“Correct. My command to the slime earlier was just for ease of demonstration. Voicing your commands also has the added benefit of signaling your familiar’s actions to any of your companions that are nearby. Otherwise, you’d give them quite a shock, no?”

“That’s a good point,” I said. Ingo’s lindblum was a good example—if he’d silently ordered it to ascend while we’d been on its back, I might’ve actually fallen off in surprise. Vocalizing his commands was a good way to avoid any unfortunate mishaps like that.

“That about covers the topic of commanding the monster,” he said. “Your next question was about what to do with the monster after the taming, correct?”

“Yes. How to care for it, whether it needs to eat, and if it does, what to feed it—that sort of thing.”

“In that respect, monsters aren’t much different from regular animals. Slimes are omnivorous, so feed them whatever you wish. There are special cases, though, such as the spirit types we discussed earlier. They don’t consume food, so you’ll need to feed them mana. For other special cases, you’ll have to do your research on an individual basis. Starting out with a slime is probably best.”

“They do seem easy to handle,” I agreed. “Spirit types seem appealing in their own right, though.”

The lack of a corporeal body would make it easy for them to gain access to any place they wished. They could also conceal their presence and become invisible to the naked eye, so it wasn’t hard to see how well suited they could be for reconnaissance. Additionally, while I would never do something like this, they’d be highly useful for performing assassinations.

It was a good thing that Ingo’s taming method wasn’t widespread. I didn’t want to live in a world where assassinations by ghost familiar were commonplace.

“They have their uses,” Ingo said. “But it’s difficult to manage them. They’ll vanish after continued exposure to strong light, for one. That’s connected to your third question—a monster dying is one way it can cease to be your familiar. Though, as the tamer, you’ll be able to sense the loss of the bond.”

“What does it feel like?”

“Like...a hole suddenly opening up in your mind. You can get used to the feeling, but it’s quite the mental shock at first, so it’s best to take good care of your familiars. One tends to grow attached to them anyway, even something like a zombie.”

“Have you...tamed a zombie before?”

“Just once, out of curiosity. I even started thinking the easygoing way it shambled about was rather cute. The smell was awful, though, and it wasn’t exactly hygienic. There’s the whole desecration of a corpse thing too, so I quickly came to my senses, tossed holy water on it, and buried it.”

“I’m...sure that was the right decision,” I said, for lack of anything better to say.

Like foster father, like son, it seemed. Both of them appeared sensible, but dig a little deeper and you’d find something a bit off lying just under the surface...

◆◇◆◇◆

Ingo had explained the fundamentals, as well as given me a demonstration. All that was left was to try it myself—but that proved more difficult than I’d anticipated.

“Infusing one’s blood with mana sounds simple in theory,” I muttered, concentrating on the crimson droplet on my index finger. “I hadn’t expected it to be this much of a struggle.”

“Well, you’ve managed it,” Ingo said. “Looks like your alchemy experience came in handy. It usually takes months—even years—to get the hang of it. I took about a year, myself. All just to achieve this simple step.”

“Like you said, my alchemy’s given me an advantage,” I acknowledged. “I’ve used similar techniques before. But maintaining the amount of mana—as well as its potency and density within the blood—at a fixed level is quite the task.”

Indeed, the act of infusing my blood with mana was something I was familiar with. In fact, one could even call it easy for me. However, Ingo’s taming technique demanded a freakish amount of precision. I hadn’t fully appreciated the degree of control he’d been exhibiting earlier—he’d made it look so casual. Meanwhile, I could barely manage it at all, despite his detailed instructions.

It was incredible that he could repeat the process and produce a consistent, mana-infused blood sample each time, with no deviations. While talent had to play a part, I knew it primarily required a degree of stubborn repetition that bordered on ludicrous.

However, I didn’t have the time for that. I was all right with dedicating a decent chunk of my remaining lifespan toward learning the technique, but I wasn’t the only part of this equation. Ingo was the village’s mayor, and he no doubt had much business to attend to on the daily. Even if I made regular trips to Hathara, I couldn’t possibly justify monopolizing so much of his time.

Given that, I needed to master this technique as quickly as possible.

“Well, you can leave it there for today,” Ingo said, clearly recognizing that I was making little progress. “You don’t need to perfect it in one sitting.”

“You don’t think that will be a problem?” I asked. I had assumed that overcoming this hurdle was the requirement to tame my first monster.

Ingo shook his head. “Your control is already good enough to tame a slime. It’s not perfect, so you’ll be in for a little more work after the fact, but finer control is only necessary for higher orders of monster.”

“I see. In that case, may we move on to the next step? I’ll practice the mana infusion in my own time.”

“Usually when a student says that, it’s cause for suspicion, but I don’t think I need to worry about you slacking off. Actually, I’m a little concerned that you might overdo it.”

“I...” I trailed off. He wasn’t wrong. I knew myself well enough to realize that once I returned to Maalt, I could very well pull a string of all-nighters until I’d mastered it to my satisfaction. Ingo hadn’t known me for very long, but it seemed he’d already gained a decent understanding of my personality.

He smiled ruefully. “I suppose I can leave that to Rentt, though. I’ll tell him to make sure you get enough rest and don’t overwork yourself.”

“I doubt you’ll even need to ask,” I said. “He does that for me all the time anyway.”

“Does he now? I’m surprised. He tends to keep people at a distance.”

“Is that so?”

“He’s friendly and polite with everyone, of course, but also finds it difficult to bridge that final gap,” Ingo explained. “People sense that, so they treat him the same way. It’s not something you’d notice unless you watched him closely.”

I couldn’t argue with that—in fact, I’d felt it myself in the past. It wasn’t ordinarily an issue, but when it came to certain topics, such as his goal of becoming a Mithril-class adventurer, it took a lot to get him to open up. In fact, you could definitely interpret it as active rejection. No matter what anyone else might say, once he’d made up his mind, he’d devote himself to his goal with single-minded purpose.

That was the kind of man Rentt Faina was.

“I know,” I said, nodding at Ingo’s words. “But...”

“Yes?”

“It’s not like that with me. He doesn’t hesitate to step in or speak his mind.”

Ingo’s expression grew relieved. “Sounds like he found himself a wonderful partner in Maalt. Take good care of my son, will you, Lorraine?”

I dwelled on that for a moment, wondering if he’d meant anything deeper by it, but there was only one answer I could give. “Of course,” I said. “I consider Rentt to be a wonderful partner myself.”

◆◇◆◇◆

“There’s one,” I said.

“You’re right,” Ingo replied, his voice low. “As ordinary a slime as one could ever find.”

We hid in the long grass, watching the common slime bobble along the forest floor. It was about as big as a medium-sized dog, colored a light blue, and transparent enough to see through to the other side. It neither moved particularly fast nor particularly slow. It was an everyday, run-of-the-mill common slime that most adventurers would’ve strolled by without a second glance.

Ingo and I, however, were delighted to find it. After all, according to him, it was the easiest monster to tame.

Slimes, as their appearance suggested, were composed of fluid—the bare minimum of what would pass as internal organs, a core, and a magic stone visible from the outside. Since that was all there was to them, the process of injecting them with your own mana and turning them into your familiar was exceedingly simple.

This was not universally true, as variant species like poison slimes with impurities in their bodies could make the work harder. The same went for a slime that had recently fed on something, as the leftover residue floating around inside their gelatinous forms would impair the flow of mana.

For a master monster tamer like Ingo, that wasn’t an issue. I, however, was an amateur who’d never had a familiar before. Given that, the plan had been to start me off with a specimen that would give me the least difficulty. Nevertheless, I’d failed with every common slime we’d come across so far. Each of them had possessed impurities which had halted the flow of my mana into their bodies.

This one, however, seemed highly promising, given how transparent its body was.

“All right, Lorraine,” Ingo said. “You know what to do. Don’t worry; I’m sure you’ll get it this time. And if you don’t, all we have to do is find another one.”

He spoke kindly, so as to avoid putting any pressure on me. Although his method of monster taming wasn’t a common branch of magic, it was still magic—and it still used mana, which meant that the caster’s mental state had a significant impact on the outcome.

However, his encouragement only served to strengthen my resolve to succeed this time. Not out of any sort of prideful need to live up to my reputation as a prodigy, of course, but I would’ve been lying if I said that my ego wasn’t a little bruised. I’d never encountered a mana control technique that had given me so much trouble before.

I can do this.

Of course, I knew quite well that overthinking it could end up hindering my chances, so in the back of my mind, I reassured myself that it wouldn’t matter even if I failed. It wouldn’t cost me much.

I nodded at Ingo, then crawled out of the tall grass toward the slime. I waited for an opportune moment, and when it came, I threw the test tube containing my mana-infused blood. It struck the gelatinous monster right in the central part of its body.

To be fair, I would’ve been an embarrassment of a Silver-class adventurer if I had missed after all that care and preparation...

When I’d confirmed that the glass tube had made contact, I channeled my mana, creating a magic circle beneath the slime. According to Ingo, this was properly called a familiar contracting circle. Its exact design was rather loose, as sections needed to be altered depending on the monster, which made it surprisingly difficult to control. However, I’d practiced it on a number of slimes by this point, so I swiftly worked through the alterations with little trouble.

I began releasing my internal mana, extending it toward my blood inside the slime’s body. Soon enough...

“It’s connected!” I exclaimed.

“Good job,” Ingo praised. “Stay calm and finish the job!”

I used the sound of his voice to compose myself. I still couldn’t help but feel a slight sense of joy at how smoothly it had gone so far, but the feeling was soon stifled by the worry that getting carried away would lead to failure.

All that was left was to channel my mana through the slime’s body and connect to the magic circle below it. I could do this!

The slime writhed and jiggled as if trying to resist my magic, but its movements gradually began to weaken as my mana took control. Then, I made contact with the magic circle. It immediately began to expand, becoming a three-dimensional cylinder that engulfed the slime’s body.

I increased the amount of mana I was pouring into the monster, and the cylinder began to contract. It became smaller and smaller, finally disappearing into the slime entirely.

“The chant,” Ingo prompted.

I recited the words he’d taught me earlier. “This contract I make with my blood and mana as sacrifice. Thou shalt live for me, and I shall live for thee. Contractus de Origo!”

The magic circle flashed brilliantly, just as Ingo’s had earlier. This time though, I was ready, squinting through the glare.

I watched as the magic circle slowly fused with the slime’s core. When the two were fully merged, the light died out, leaving nothing but a slime happily bouncing in place.

As I studied the slime, a sensation tickled at the edge of my consciousness, as if it were trying to tell me something. Instinctively, I realized this was my bond with the gelatinous monster—and that it was telling me it was in a good mood. Perhaps this was similar to how Rentt’s connection to Edel felt.

“Well done, Lorraine!” Ingo said. “How does it feel?”

“Strange,” I replied. “Almost like I’m outside of my own body...”

Ingo made an affirming noise. “Looks like you’ve done it properly, then,” he said, surprise bleeding into his tone. “I must admit, I hadn’t expected you to achieve success so quickly.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Yes. It’s not uncommon for the mana-infusing stage to take a year on its own, and it can take just as long to achieve success with the contracting process, if not longer. That’s how it was, at any rate.” A contemplative note entered his voice. “But I suppose some people truly are born talented.”

He said the words with such sincerity that I felt a small swell of pride—pride I thought I’d long since discarded.

◆◇◆◇◆

“Now then, shall we finish here for today and head back to the village?” Ingo asked.

I nodded, but then something occurred to me. “I probably shouldn’t take this slime back with me,” I said.

“Certainly not,” Ingo agreed. “Which is why we’ll be making a brief detour along the way.”

“Where to?” I asked curiously.

He grinned. “Telling you would spoil the surprise.”

◆◇◆◇◆

After a while of trudging through the forest and passing through several barriers, we arrived at a destination that flabbergasted me.

“Incredible!” I breathed.

As for why I was so surprised, it was because I doubted I’d be able to see a similar scene anywhere else in the world. It was a glade among the trees, spacious enough that it probably covered an area larger than Hathara. However, rather than rows of houses and buildings, there were only a number of fence-lined enclosures and a decently sized cabin at the far end.

And within the enclosures were monsters of every size, shape, and color—including the lindblum I’d once ridden.

“Calm down, everyone, calm down,” Ingo said soothingly. “No need to get too excited, now. Lorraine’s just as surprised as you, see?”

The monsters crept, walked, and bounded over to us in droves. I recognized slimes, the lindblum, a griffon, a hellhound, and many other monsters whose habitats did not include a forested area like this. A good number of them were of species that had a reputation for ferocity, attacking any humans on sight. Despite that, there was nothing but affection in their eyes as they gathered around Ingo, nudging him with their heads or rubbing against him in an attempt to gain his attention.

It seemed their friendliness wasn’t reserved just for him. Though they were more cautious with me, some still came over and pushed their heads forward as if asking for scratches. They were so cute that I couldn’t help but oblige—the way they rolled on the grass reminded me so much of cats and dogs that I could scarcely believe I was actually surrounded by a pack of monsters.

Ingo chuckled. “What do you think? Incredible, aren’t they?”

It was rare for him to take on such a bragging tone, but I couldn’t fault him for it—if these were all my familiars, I’d want to show off too. Not even the most powerful of kings or the richest of merchants would ever have possessed such a diverse gathering of monsters.

“They are,” I agreed. “I’m still somewhat in shock. I suppose this is a monster...ranch, of some kind?”

“Something like that,” Ingo said. “Though, there are some I’m raising out in the woods, living as wild a life as they can get. Only the ones people wouldn’t blink twice at, though, since the villagers travel through the forest too. It’s unlikely they’d ever run into my familiars, but imagine if they did, and it turned out to be a hellhound or a griffon... What a fuss that would stir up.”

“You’re right. A nasty shock would be the least of it.”

Both hellhounds and griffons were powerful monsters. It was one thing if you encountered them in a dungeon, but if it happened while you were out hunting? It would be a disaster. To make matters worse, this was far from their natural habitat. Any stray encounter brought with it the risk of a panicked villager sending out a request for adventurers or knights to come survey the area.

While that might have been fine if Ingo were a known monster tamer, the number of people in on that secret was small indeed. If a chance griffon encounter caused an unsuspecting villager to ask Ingo to put out a call for adventurers or knights, he’d be in a real bind. That had to be this ranch’s purpose—to prevent such events from happening in the first place.

“Well, I have a bond with all of them, so it’s not like they’d attack the villagers,” Ingo said.

“A chance encounter would be cause enough for a ruckus, though,” I mused. “That explains the barriers we passed through on the way in.”

“Gharb helps me keep those up,” Ingo explained. “Unless you follow the prescribed entry sequence, or you’re an exceptional enough mage to dispel the barriers outright, you won’t be able to get here. The latter would likely be possible for you, though, Lorraine.”

“No, barriers sturdy as those would take a great deal of time to dismantle,” I said. “Regardless, once dispelled, you’d need a catalyst and a considerable amount of time to get them up again. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

I chuckled. “So, as for the reason you’ve brought me here...”

“It’s just as you’ve guessed. We can’t exactly bring your new familiar back to the village, so it can stay here in the meantime.”

“Are you sure it will be all right?” I asked.

“Hmm? What do you mean?”

“I’m worried my familiar might fight with yours.”

“Ah. That’s a valid concern. Familiars each have their own temperaments, and get along—or don’t—much like humans do with each other. You can give them strict orders not to fight, but restricting them too much can cause stress.”

“Does that mean...”

“No, it should be fine in this case. Your familiar seems like it will fit right in. Look.”

I looked down and saw my slime approach the fence, extending a part of its gelatinous body to touch the griffon’s foot. The larger monster allowed the contact without showing any particular sign of distaste. A number of the other creatures studied my slime curiously, but it wasn’t so much suspicion in their eyes as simple inquisitiveness.

“I see. I suppose they’ll be fine, then.”

Ingo hummed in agreement before seemingly coming to a realization. “Ah, right. About your slime.”

“Yes?”

“I have a number of slimes here, so it might get mixed up with them. You could distinguish it using your bond, of course, but just calling it ‘slime’ all the time seems rather dull, no?”

“Are you suggesting...?”

“That you name it, yes. I name all of my monsters. If you need a practical reason, it makes triggering Existential Evolution easier too.”

“Really?! That’s fascinating!”

“There are a number of theories as to why, but we can go into them later. So, how about it?”

“I don’t see why not. In that case... Loren. I’ll call it Loren.”

“Oh?” Ingo smiled ruefully. “I’d ask you where that comes from, but, well... I don’t think I need to.”

I felt a twinge of embarrassment...but that was the name I’d stick with.

Afterword

Hello, it’s Yu Okano. Long time no see.

As always, thank you very much for purchasing this volume. While some of you have been reading along with these novels or following the manga, I imagine there are also some among you who decided to pick up this series for the first time after seeing the anime. To each and every one of you, I extend my deepest gratitude.

Honestly, part of me still can’t believe this series got an anime adaptation. The fact that so many new people are learning about The Unwanted Undead Adventurer because of it feels like nothing short of a dream.

What’s more, you may have already seen this on the advertising strip that came with this book, but it’s been decided that the anime is getting a second season. Needless to say, this is entirely thanks to all of you who’ve been following along with this series this whole time.

Thank you very much. I hope to be able to count on your support going forward as well. The only contribution I’m able to make is to keep writing, so I’ll strive to do my best.

Recently, even though my schedule isn’t particularly busy, I often find myself feeling overwhelmed. I dearly hope I can develop the mental strength to calmly get along with my work.

When thinking about what the most important factor for that is, motivation is the first one that leaps to mind. But I looked into it more, and it seems that motivation is difficult to define and doesn’t come to you unless you actually start something. Once you get going, there’s no problem, but if you never get started, it never comes. Apparently, that’s just how it is.

So, since it’d be unreasonable to expect it to come to you before you got started, what’s a person to do? Well, someone smart on TV said that getting over that first hump was the key—even just committing five minutes would do.

Despite not being the type who can really do anything perfectly, I’m a perfectionist in some ways, so I often find myself deciding “I’m going to do ten hours!” and in the end not even doing a single minute. However, my mistake was aiming for such a long time in the first place.

So based on my personality and past experience, the “just get started” idea made a lot of sense to me. If you could do five minutes, you could do ten, then thirty, then an hour. But first, all you have to do is start with five. I’ve been trying to internalize this mentality and apply it to my daily life as of late.

I say this every time, but I’m awful with afterwords, and am particularly bad at filling the requisite character count. I always end up finishing what I’d like to say in the first three hundred characters, then wondering what in the world I’m going to do for the remaining nine hundred out of the twelve hundred requirement. If only it was a fictional novel. I can write as many characters for those as you please...

Anyway, thank you very much for accompanying my ramblings. I look forward to seeing you in the next volume.

“Rentt! You did it!”