Isekai Tensei: Recruited to Another World Volume 3 E-Book

Kenichi

• Herausgeber: J-Novel Club
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Serie: Isekai Tensei: Recruited to Another World
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 400

Beschreibung

Reincarnated adventurer Tenma’s new “slow life” begins in the city of Sagan, where he explores his first dungeon and encounters the city’s strongest party of adventurers. His journey becomes even livelier when a new heroine and her followers join Tenma’s party, but it’s no longer fun and games when the duke’s son gets kidnapped! Will Tenma be able to save him?

Follow Tenma in the next phase of his journey, exploring dungeons and making new friends!

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

Prologue

Chapter 3

Extra Story: Jeanne’s New Daily Routine

Extra Story: Amy Yearns for the Sky

Afterword

Color Illustrations

About J-Novel Club

Copyright

Landmarks

Color Images

Table of Contents

Prologue

I wonder if Tenma has reached Dungeon City yet, I thought as I worked. Just then, I heard a commotion from the library.

“Flute! There’s trouble!”

“What is it?”

The guild worker in charge of the library rushed over to me in a panic. It seemed as though there was some sort of emergency, but since there were adventurers present, I tried to be cautious about what was said. However, it was too late.

“The books in which we keep the maps are all messed up!”

“What did you say?!” I screamed, despite myself. And it was no wonder I reacted that way, for many of the maps we kept here at the guild were top secret. If the information contained in them was leaked to another country or to criminals, it would most certainly be used for evil purposes.

“Come over here. Now—was anything stolen? Or was it merely damaged?” Even though I was secretly imagining the worst, as the vice-guildmaster these were questions I still had to ask.

However, the worker replied, “No, nothing was stolen.”

“Huh? So then why are you in such a panic?” I was relieved to hear their answer, but at the same time rather angry that they’d put up such a fuss, which made my words come out harsher than I’d intended.

“They’re all out of order now. It’s like whoever did it took all the maps out, then put them back inside the books in a big hurry.”

“So the maps could have been copied...”

“I think it’s possible. Someone must’ve snuck into the library and quickly put things back after they’d finished copying the maps. I did make sure to check and see if the maps had been replaced altogether, but that didn’t seem to be what happened.”

Having heard the worker’s hypothesis, it suddenly felt as though my vision went black for a moment.

“I think the reason they didn’t steal anything was to buy themselves time after copying the maps. Don’t speak a word about this to anyone. I’m going to notify the guildmaster about this right away. You haven’t told anyone else about this, have you?”

“Of course not.”

“Make sure it stays that way. Get back to work and make sure no other workers find out.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

I swore the worker to secrecy, then headed to go see the guildmaster.

“Guildmaster, I have to talk to you!” As I spoke, my gaze swung around the room to make sure that he was the only one present.

“You seem like you’re in quite a panic! Is there some kind of problem?” Although it didn’t show on his face, the guildmaster seemed clearly annoyed as he spoke to me in a businesslike tone.

“We think an intruder entered the library and copied the maps.”

“What?” He frowned, seeming slightly on edge. The strangeness of his reaction nagged at me a bit, but I continued with my report.

“One of the library workers came to me and said it seemed like the book we keep the maps in had been tampered with.” I filled him in on what the worker had told me, and the longer I spoke, the more color drained from his face. By the time I was finished he looked positively sick. “Guildmaster? Do you have any idea who’s behind this?”

“Urgh!”

That was it. At that moment, I became certain that the culprit was the guildmaster himself.

“To be honest, I was in the library not too long ago and accidentally dropped the book of maps on the floor. They scattered all over the place. Then, while I was picking them up I heard someone else come in, so I hastily put them away, but...I couldn’t remember what order they were supposed to go in. I’m sorry.”

“You need to tell me these things! It’s not great that you forgot, but it’s a given that everyone makes mistakes.”

“I’m sorry. I was just afraid of getting scolded,” he said.

I was so beside myself to have learned that not only had it been an inside job, but the culprit hadn’t meant any harm at all, that I thought I would collapse to the floor on the spot. “By the way,” I asked, “when did this happen?”

“Hrm, let’s see... About a week ago? Oh, I remember! It was the morning before Tenma left!”

“I see... The morning before Tenma left... Wait a minute!” I had a bad feeling about this. I ran all the way to the library to retrieve the book of maps, then called over the worker who had reported the incident to me, as well as the worker who had given Tenma his maps.

“Is something the matter?” said one.

“D-Did I make some kind of mistake?” asked the other.

When they were called over, they both realized something else must have occurred, and the worker who had drawn the map for Tenma (one who had just been hired, to boot) was terrified they’d made some kind of mistake and would be punished for it.

“First of all—there’s no problem with the maps. The culprit of that incident was the guildmaster himself, and he meant no harm by it. And something else that’s important for you both to know is that no mistakes were made. In fact, I’d like to applaud you for your careful work.”

“Phew,” both of them said in unison. Now that they knew they weren’t in trouble, they breathed deep sighs of relief.

“The reason I called you here is because I wanted to ask you something. First of all, when you went to check the maps, which map was placed on page ten?”

“Um, let’s see... Yes, it was this one here.” He took out a map which was precisely the one I’d expected it to be.

“Is this the map you made a copy of for Tenma?”

“Ah, yes. This is it,” the worker confirmed.

My bad feeling had been right on the money. I didn’t want to believe it, but... “Thank you. You can get back to work now.”

“Thank you...” Though they both seemed a bit bewildered by my sudden downturn in mood, they returned to their duties.

I, on the other hand, was trying desperately to suppress the anger that boiled up inside me as I stomped off towards the guildmaster’s office once more. “Guildmaster!”

“Wh-What may I help you with, Flute?” The moment he saw how angry I was, he shrank back in his chair and spoke to me in a deferential tone.

I leaned over his desk and said, “Because of you, many people have died! And even more might follow!” I thrust two maps before his eyes. “This was the map we were supposed to give Tenma, and this was the one which was copied for him. But because of you, he received a copy of the entirely wrong map! It’s partly my responsibility for not checking, but if you had just come clean about your blunder in the library, none of this would have happened! I’m going to have to notify Duke Sanga about this!”

“Wha—?!” The color drained from the guildmaster’s face and he looked positively aghast, which was unusual even for him.

“Don’t worry, though. I’m not an evil person.”

A look of relief came over his face—he seemed optimistic about what I would say next.

“Since I’m partly to blame, we can go and get scolded together.”

“That’s it?!” he exclaimed, slumping back over his desk.

I sent an urgent message on horseback to the duke, and a few days later we were both scolded together. As for the newly hired worker who’d copied the maps, and the person in charge of her, neither of them could ever have guessed this would happen, so they were both let off with a warning. In the first place, I’d assigned that task to her in order to let her gain more experience. We all grew a few more wrinkles over the incident, although about ninety percent of them went to the guildmaster.

The duke was quite angry about things, and scarier than I ever could have imagined him based on his usual demeanor.

Chapter Three

Part One

Almost a week had passed since I’d left Gunjo City, yet strangely, I was lost. “How odd... I should have spotted the first village on the way to Dungeon City by now...”

I’d been traveling fairly slowly ever since I’d left, but if this map was correct, then I should have been more than halfway to my destination by now. And that meant I should already have arrived at the village that lay between Gunjo City and Dungeon City.

During this past week, I’d stopped by a forest I found, got some food at a river, and temporarily lost Shiromaru when he was swept away by the current.

Including Shiromaru’s unfortunate incident—apparently when he’d been swept away, water got into his nose and he couldn’t use his sense of smell to get back to me, so I had to use Detection to find him instead—various detours, and going down bad roads, I had traveled an average of about twenty kilometers per day. So by that calculation, I should have reached the village today.

I started to panic since the sun was about to set, and the village was nowhere in sight. I needed to stop my carriage in a place where I could rest and start making camp for the night. All I needed to do was cast a protective barrier around my carriage and fix some dinner, though.

I was using the same carriage I’d used before when I went hunting for boars (bandits, actually) with the triplets, but I had made a lot of modifications and improvements to it.

First of all, I’d reinforced the main part of the carriage with sheets of steel that I had used Boost magic on. I’d used the same kind of Time-Space magic on the interior as I would on a dimension bag. So although it looked as though it was only about the size of three tatami mats (about two meters wide and three meters deep) with a height of 1.8 meters (though taking the wheels into account actually made it 2.5 meters tall) the floor plan had been expanded by about four times that, and the height to about three meters.

The modifications had cost about 300,000G. Most of that went towards purchasing the steel. Because it was now made of steel, it would have taken several normal horses to pull it. Of course, I used Boost magic and other magic to lighten it, but I had to charge up a whole day’s worth of mana for that. So that meant it was now a carriage which could only be used by a magician. And of course I registered it to protect against theft, so in any case, I was the only one who could use it.

Anyway, I’d refitted it to my comfort, so that meant I didn’t have to stay in any sketchy inns. I was currently trying to add a bathroom to the interior so it would be even more comfortable, though.

As I looked around, I reflected on my journey so far. All of a sudden, though, I heard someone yell, “Bandits!”

I used Detection in the area where I’d heard the voice and got a ping about a hundred meters up ahead, over a hill. It seemed there was a group of sixteen people being attacked by twenty bandits.

“That’s not good...”

The bandits had launched a surprise attack on the group, and they were completely surrounded. I put away my carriage, took off Shiromaru’s collar, and ordered him to attack from the opposite side. Meanwhile, I instructed Valley Wind to take me over the hill.

The group under attack comprised six adventurers, three hired merchants, and seven slaves.

While I confirmed the situation, I heard Shiromaru howling from the opposite side. I shot a Fireball off into the sky in response.

“What was that?” one of the bandits screamed, cautiously looking all around.

“Waaaah!”

“It’s a wolf mons— Cough!”

“It’s huge and— Argh!”

Before they could even finish their sentences, Shiromaru attacked, completely confusing them. I charged in with Valley Wind so I could finish them off.

“I’ll back you up! Strengthen your defenses!” The bandits weren’t the only ones who were confused, but the adventurers quickly followed my instructions and assumed defensive stances. “Also, the wolf’s with me! Don’t lay a hand on him unless you’ve got a death wish!” I added. Shiromaru couldn’t tell enemies apart from allies. If one of the adventurers attacked him, he’d kill them without a doubt.

The bandits who attacked us were killed in a flash by me riding Valley Wind as well as Shiromaru.

“Whoa, that was amazing! Who is he?”

“We can ask questions later! He’s our ally, so we need to close in our ranks!”

“But there are only three bandits left. Wait, no—they’re all dead!”

The bandits were in the middle of launching coordinated attacks, but they hadn’t been prepared to handle an ambush of their own, so it was easy for me to defeat them.

“Come back, Shiromaru!” I called, and he came galloping towards me, tail wagging. I petted him on the head.

“Thanks for saving us, but are you really sure you’re on our side?” one of the adventurers asked from a short distance away.

“Well, I guess that depends on you. If you choose to fight me, I won’t go easy on you,” I said with hostility.

The adventurers looked hesitant but then threw down their weapons and held up their hands. “We don’t mean you any harm. As we said, we’re grateful.”

I had Shiromaru hang back as I approached the men. “Those guys were bandits, without a doubt. Since I defeated, let’s see...well, all of them, do you mind if I take them?”

“Of course we don’t mind. You and your wolf defeated them, after all.”

I instructed Shiromaru to recover the bandits’ bodies. I’d told him beforehand not to rip them into pieces, so all of them were cleanly beheaded. I put the corpses into my bag.

“Thanks so much for saving us.” A man who appeared to be a merchant came up to me. “I’m a slave trader. My name’s Jaiman.”

Name: JaimanAge: 43Class: HumanTitle: Slave Trader

I frowned slightly at the mention of his profession.

“You need not be alarmed,” the man went on. “I only go through perfectly legal routes. But I suppose just saying that isn’t proof. Please take a look at this.” The man produced a piece of paper which said “License to Buy and Sell Slaves” which, after a bunch of contract jargon, had the man’s name and then the words “Approved by Duke Alsace von Sanga.”

“I don’t know if this is authentic or not...but if this is truly the duke’s signature, then I suppose I’ll trust you.”

“Oh? Well, thank you! You can just call me Jaiman. Also, please pardon me, but—would you mind removing your mask so I can see your face?”

I only just remembered I was wearing a mask to disguise the bottom half of my face. I took it off, showing him and the other adventurers what I looked like, and they all seemed shocked.

“I had no idea you were so young! I mean, I knew you were a young man, but I didn’t think you’d be this young! Your name isn’t Tenma by any chance, is it?” Jaiman’s question raised my suspicions. “I’m sorry, I didn’t intend to startle you. Actually, I’m the one dealing with a slave named Guise, and I heard about you from the duke!”

Jaiman proceeded to tell me what he and the duke had discussed. This included the details of the contract I’d made with the duke, and what happened with the duel, so I relaxed, realizing that Jaiman must be telling the truth.

“But what are you doing out here, Tenma? I mean, of course we’re grateful you came along when you did, but I heard you were heading for Dungeon City. This isn’t the way there!”

I was surprised to hear that, and so I showed him the hand-drawn map I had received from the guild. “I just followed the map here, but apparently I must’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere...”

Once Jaiman saw the map, he said something shocking. “It certainly does look familiar, but I’m afraid this is a map of another domain. Whoever copied this for you must’ve confused your destination with someplace else.”

I let out a deep sigh. It seemed no matter how long I traveled, I wouldn’t be reaching the village after all.

“But you’re not too far off course out here. If you get out onto the correct road, you’ll reach your destination. Actually, we happen to be headed to the same village that you are.”

I could already tell what he was getting at. “All right. I’ll go with you to your destination, but only if you give me information about Dungeon City. The only things I can offer you as payment are how I just defeated those bandits, and my protection until we get to the village. Do you agree?”

“You’ve got a deal! Thank you so much!” Jaiman stuck out his hand and we exchanged a hearty handshake. “We’ll get to the village in a few hours if we keep going from here. We’d really like to arrive there by the end of the day. Is that all right with you?”

“It’s fine, but aren’t there some among you who are injured?” I asked one of the men behind Jaiman.

“There are, but luckily their wounds are shallow. We’ll be fine with light Recovery magic and potions.”

All they had to do was finish an inspection of their carriage and they were ready to depart. I didn’t get my own carriage out, but instead pulled myself onto Valley Wind and instructed Shiromaru to stay fairly close, letting him scout up ahead and ward off monsters.

The adventurers looked surprised to see Valley Wind, but for some reason Jaiman wasn’t. Apparently the duke had already told him about both Shiromaru and Valley Wind. Since Shiromaru had been covered in blood earlier, it took him some time to realize that we were working together.

Jaiman was right: we reached the village in about three hours. There were some monsters along the way, but Shiromaru took care of all of them, so we arrived at the village without incident.

“We’re here. Thanks to you, we made it here safely.” The adventurers Jaiman had hired got difficult looks on their faces as he said that, but it seemed they were prepared to accept any criticism after the incident. Thankfully I’d showed up just in time to provide backup so no one had been seriously injured, including their client, but if Jaiman had been injured they might have had to suffer a very severe penalty. So a harsh word or two was letting them off easily.

“I’m sorry we got you into such a dangerous situation, Jaiman...” The leader of the adventurers apologized to him.

“No, it’s partly my fault as well. You warned me of the dangers before we left, but I’m the one who made the ultimate decision for us to leave. The payment isn’t much, but I can offer a little extra.” Now it seemed Jaiman was the one apologizing to them. “And of course I should thank you once again as well, Tenma. You really saved us back there.”

I sensed a little reserve in his voice, but he did seem to genuinely mean it. “It’s fine. It wasn’t much trouble for me and I’m glad nothing happened to you all. I’ve received enough payment,” I said casually.

“Ha ha ha! Yes, we certainly managed to come out of that unscathed. But if we’d been alone, several people would have died, I’m sure of it! The only reason we’re all still here is because of you.” He smiled at me. “Tenma, would you join us at the inn we’re staying at tonight? It’s too dangerous to set off again tonight. And I can give you your remaining compensation by tomorrow afternoon.”

“All right. I’d appreciate that.” I put Valley Wind away in my bag and followed behind Jaiman. It would have been generous to say the inn in question was top-notch, but for a mid-tier inn it was fairly clean. Jaiman was courteous enough to arrange for me to have a private room, so I was able to comfortably relax.

Unfortunately, it was raining the next day. I was sitting by the window watching the rain fall from the sky when I heard a knock at my door. “Come in.”

“Excuse me,” Jaiman said as he entered. “Tenma, I’ve obtained a map to Dungeon City for you.” He unrolled the piece of parchment he held in his hand and showed me, explaining the drawing. “Please accept it.”

He handed me a separate piece of parchment, which was an even more detailed map.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, of course. It’s the same map, and although it’s not an exact copy, it’s still very accurate. So I don’t think you’ll have any problems getting to your destination.”

“Thank you.” I went ahead and put it in my bag.

“If you do happen to get lost again, wait until just after sunset. The first two stars you see will be in the direction heading straight for Dungeon City.”

“I see... Thank you.”

“Unfortunately it’s cloudy today... When do you think you’ll leave? As long as you stay in the village, you’re under contract with us, so we can take care of your lodging fees.”

I thought about it for a moment. “That’s generous of you, but I think I’ll be fine in the rain. I’ll leave a little after noon.” According to the map he’d given me, from here on out it was mostly plains, which shouldn’t be a problem for my carriage.

“Is that so? Well, you can still use this room until sunset, so if you change your mind please let me know,” Jaiman said, and then left the room.

I had a light breakfast and then asked the innkeeper where the nearest guild was. I borrowed an umbrella from him and then set out. It was about a fifteen-minute walk from the inn. The building was much smaller than the one in Gunjo City.

“I defeated some bandits and I’d like to get paid for it,” I told the lady sitting at the front desk. The man in charge came out and showed me to a back room.

“So you have twenty corpses in your bag? Could you please take them out and show me?”

I did as he said, placing the bodies of the bandits in the designated spot.

The man didn’t seem to have much of a reaction when he saw the bodies. He said, “Hm, let’s see... These three had bounties on their heads. This one’s is 100,000G, and these two’s are 80,000G. None of the others have bounties on them. But since you defeated all of them, and that task just happened to be on our job listing, I’ll count this as mission completed.”

He transferred the corpses over to a magic bag belonging to the guild, took me back to the front desk, and then gave me my payment. “The payment for the bounties is 260,000G. The commission for the completed job is 150,000G, for a grand total of 410,000G. Please go ahead and confirm the amount.”

I looked through the money and put it in my bag. Then I asked where the nearest shop was, because I wanted to see if there was anything there I’d be interested in. As soon as I arrived, I looked around to see if anything caught my interest, but nothing did. I proceeded to the shopkeeper and inquired about the specific item I was after.

“You want a large cask? Wait right here,” she said, and brought me back a cask that was about fifty centimeters tall. “If you’re going to use it for storage, this one ought to be big enough.”

“Oh... I think that’s a bit on the small side. I need something much bigger,” I said.

The shopkeeper pondered this. “Oh! I know just the thing!” She took me around to a storage room outside. “How about this? It’s a wine cask. Surely this will be big enough?”

This one was about 1.2 meters high, with a diameter of a meter. “Yes, that’s exactly what I’m looking for. How much is it?”

“Oh, I’ll just charge you a restocking fee for it.”

The fee turned out to be 500G. I paid, put the cask in my bag, and left the shop in high spirits.

Obtained the essential item for this former Japanese person, Substitute Wooden Bathtub!

I was so incredibly excited I forgot to use my umbrella on the way back to the inn, so by the time I got there I was completely soaked. Not only that, but I didn’t realize this until I stepped into the inn and received a stern glare from the innkeeper.

◊◊◊

“All right, time to leave!”

Since I’d taken care of all my errands, I visited Jaiman’s room and told him I was leaving.

“Oh? Well, I often go to Dungeon City for my business, so we might meet again someday. Until then, safe travels!” We shook hands and promised to meet again. At first I wasn’t too sure about the guy when I’d heard he was a slave trader, but once I got used to him it didn’t bother me too much. The adventurers who were accompanying him as bodyguards told me that although Jaiman was a licensed slave trader, he also did other kinds of business, and he never treated anyone poorly. They said he was a highly trustworthy slave trader. I suppose now that I thought about it, the duke wouldn’t give someone a license if they were a bad guy.

Speaking of slaves, Guise and the others had become slaves, but at this point I told myself it was foolish to care about it too much.

And so I set out, this time determined not to get lost.

◊◊◊

I soon got my first chance to use what was perhaps my greatest find so far on my journey: the wooden cask, aka my new bathtub. “Let’s try this baby out!”

I put the cask in the space I’d cleared for it inside the carriage and removed the lid. I was so excited, but what awaited me was...

“Ughh! Disgusting! What is that stench?!” The moment I lifted the lid, a smell so foul it burned my eyes wafted upwards. I quickly put the lid back on it, returned it to my bag, then went about ventilating the carriage.

“Damn it—they tricked me. I should’ve known the inside would be rotten!” For a moment, I was about to give up on the idea of having a bath, at least until I reached Dungeon City. But I had been craving one so much! After all, as a Japanese person—formerly, at least—it was basically an instinct, so I just couldn’t let this one go.

“Didn’t somebody famous once say, ‘If you don’t have a bath, you should just build one,’ or something like that?” Maybe that rotten smell had momentarily rotted my brain. Now that I thought about it, of course no one had actually said such a thing, but I had imagined some fictional Roman character making that declaration.

Putting that matter aside, I set the barrel down some ways from my carriage, opened the lid, and then bolted. I created a golem and instructed him to wash it out from afar. However, golems weren’t very good at precise tasks, so I had to use magic from a distance to manipulate it.

First, I discarded the leftover wine that was inside. Next, I used Water magic to rinse out the interior. After I’d repeated this process several times, the water finally ran clear. After that, I took a rag from my bag and rubbed soap on it, scrubbing the inside of the barrel.

Finally, I filled it with boiling water to sanitize it. Just in case, I let that water sit in there for an hour. And then...

“All right! The smell’s not bad anymore!” I did it! Now I could take my long-awaited bath inside the carriage. I quickly brought it back in and filled it up.

“Ahhh, this is paradise.” I submerged myself in the steamy water up to my shoulders and enjoyed the first bath I’d had in quite some time. I stayed in there for a while, so I just lay around in a towel afterwards to cool off.

Honestly, I wanted to go completely naked, but the towel kind of added to the experience. “Time for post-bath relaxation!” I took out some ice-cold milk from my dimension bag. I’d used magic to chill it and stored it in there. “Here we go!” I put a hand on my hip, puffed out my chest, and drank the milk. “Wowee! That’s the stuff!”

Some people liked an ice-cold beer after a bath, but in my opinion there was nothing better than milk. I’d drink beer if I had it, of course, but my abnormal constitution meant I probably couldn’t get drunk anyway. Most of all, since I knew how beer tasted in the other world, all the beer in this world, which was technically called ale, tasted gross to me.

The ale itself wasn’t gross—it just seemed that way to me. Ale was quite popular in this world. On the other hand, I thought that milk tasted way better here than it did in my old world, since it didn’t have to be sterilized with heat. Most of the milk sold there had to be heated to 130 degrees Celsius to be sterilized. That, along with being stored in plastic jugs, took away a lot of its taste. Here, they either purified it with magic to kill the bacteria or heated it at a lower temperature. Either way, it was delicious. And if anything did happen, there was Recovery magic in this world, so there was very little risk of dying from bad milk. Besides, if you were so far gone that not even Recovery magic could help, you’d just have to prepare yourself to die.

Anyway, I digress. That was all a very long way of explaining why I loved a glass of ice-cold milk after a bath. However, there was just one problem. I was starting to run out of milk. I needed to hurry to Dungeon City! I had to protect the enjoyment of my beloved baths!

I spent the rest of the night having ridiculous thoughts like these.

Part Two

I finally arrived at Dungeon City five days after I parted ways with Jaiman. Sagan, which was the formal name of the city, had seen rapid growth since the dungeon was first discovered twenty years ago. Its population was roughly 160,000, with a third of those being adventurers or guild members.

Since most of the time, adventurers were the catalyst for the expansion of dungeon cities, high-ranking adventurers had a lot of influence and were greatly respected. On the flip side, weaker adventurers were disrespected and even taunted by children. This sort of thing also happened in Sagan. Like everywhere else, if you were strong you could gain money and power; if you were weak you would be ridiculed. That was Dungeon City.

The city of Sagan was surrounded by a wall. There were gates on all four sides of the city, with guards stationed there twenty-four seven. I arrived at the city’s southern gate. There were about a hundred people waiting in line to complete paperwork in order to enter.

If I just got in line, it would take me forever to get in. Still, I had a trick up my sleeve as an adventurer. “Excuse me, guard. Here’s my adventurers’ guild card.”

“Let’s see here... Rank C Adventurer Tenma. Looks legit to me. This way, please.”

Everyone around me looked annoyed to see me jumping the line, but hearing I was a Rank C adventurer shut them up. In fact, I even caught some cheers. Rank C adventurers and above had priority admittance to dungeon cities. I could also skip the paperwork and just give a brief rundown of the missions I’d completed thus far. I told them about slaying the ogres and the various groups of bandits I’d defeated, including Banza and his cronies. The Sagan guild confirmed both of my stories and so my admittance into the city went very smoothly.

Once that was finished, I received citizenship in the town for a limited time. This was a system held in lieu of adventurers paying taxes—it cost 10,000G every six months to renew your citizenship card. If you didn’t pay, you would get thrown out of town, and in the worst-case scenario, you could even be made a slave.

You had to pay 10,000G on the spot for the card, but those who couldn’t afford it could get a loan at the guild. The loan was low interest, but if you skipped out on paying it you’d be making an enemy out of all the guilds on the continent, so not many people did that.

By the way, the only ones eligible for this service were adventurers. I paid my 10,000G and then received my identification paperwork.

“Welcome to Dungeon City Sagan!”

And so I stepped foot into a dungeon city for the very first time in my life. The structure of Sagan resembled that of Place Charles de Gaulle in Paris. The entrance of the dungeon was in the city center, with roads coming out of it. The city stretched about thirty kilometers across at its widest point; it was a fairly large city. Since the city was designed in this way, there were natural divisions in residential areas. Most of the affluent residents lived in the northern part of Sagan. Citizens with average incomes lived to the south. The west was where you could find the slums, and it wasn’t a very safe place to be. The east was where people who worked in factories and the like generally lived. All the most expensive shops were located in the northern part of the city.

The knights’ headquarters, adventurers’ guild, regular shops, inns, and restaurants were mainly located in the central part of the city near the entrance to the dungeon.

First off, I decided to go check out the entrance to the dungeon. It was surrounded by a high wall, with no large buildings around it.

“I guess that makes sense,” I said to myself. “It would be too dangerous if there was a cave-in.” There were many examples of cave-ins and collapses of smaller dungeons. But when a dungeon was this large, the dungeon itself was said to be a monster, and like its own little world. That was because the dungeon’s core absorbed all the mana emitted by monsters and adventurers inside to boost and regenerate the dungeon. That was what made large dungeons strong. And the monsters that existed within could survive without sustenance from the outside, and would even breed. Because of that, they would sometimes overflow to the outside world, causing great casualties and calamities.

Many scholars had studied the nature of dungeons over the years, but none had ever been able to explain their existence.

“I’ll have to ask the gods next time,” I said, but I didn’t actually mean that. I was certain they knew something, but just as certain that they wouldn’t tell me. If they did, surely other people who had gotten reincarnated would’ve leaked that information by now.

There were people outside the dungeon recruiting party members or looking for jobs, and some who offered healing services for money. But the ones who stood out to me the most were the children, who certainly didn’t seem like they belonged there.

I asked another adventurer nearby about them.

“What, this your first time coming to a dungeon? They’re slum kids. You can hire them to haul around your equipment. Pretty common sight in a dungeon city.”

In other cities, these children would be out hunting, but apparently here in Sagan you could hire them to do work for you inside dungeons. The reason for this was that the hunting locations outside Dungeon City were used solely by adventurers who were unable to make a living in the dungeons, and those kinds of adventurers tended to be violent people who had no qualms about doing things that were illegal. They didn’t want children going out and earning money with those people, so instead they were hired to help inside the dungeons. It was surprisingly cheap to hire them, but if they got lucky with a kindhearted adventurer who was willing to take pity on them, they usually made a lot more and were fed as well. Anyway, it was good for them to get used to the dungeons now, because in the long run, once they got registered with the adventurers’ guild they could make more money.

I thanked the adventurer, tipping him a silver coin for his information. “Thanks!” the man said, and headed towards the entrance himself. After I watched him leave, the children all scrambled after him, but he entered the building without them. Apparently the children weren’t allowed inside.

The building’s interior was fairly plain. There was a large bulletin board where jobs and other notices were posted. There were five reception desks where one could register to enter the dungeon, a rest area, and a service desk where one could ask for advice. I approached the service desk and told them I wanted to use the dungeon. The person told me there would be a 1,000G registration fee.

After that, they explained that I would bear personal responsibility for whatever happened inside the dungeon, and that I had to notify them if I wanted to take a party larger than ten inside. I was allowed to hire the children waiting outside, but I had to also take responsibility for them. I signed a contract agreeing to all these things.

Then they recommended I buy a special item.

“What is it?” I asked.

“This is a warp card you may use inside this dungeon.”

To put it simply, it was an item with a save function. There were paths inside the dungeon that led directly outside. Before they had these cards, if you accidentally went down one of these paths and ended up outside, you’d have to return to the entrance and start over from the beginning, no matter how far you’d previously made it in the dungeon.

But ever since this item had been developed, it would record the places that led outside, so they were no longer one-way paths. It reminded me of the Anywhere Door, used by a certain blue cat robot.

There were no rules about the warp points within the dungeon; some floors might have many, and some might have zero. However, all warp points returned you to the one at the entrance. So if you wanted to travel to a different warp point inside the dungeon, you had to first return to the entrance, then use the reentry warp point.

“But doesn’t this just make it easier for people to get down to the bottom floor?” I asked.

The answer they gave me was that it didn’t prevent that from happening, but adventurers who did things like that were ostracized by other adventurers. Most importantly, when it came time for those adventurers to depend on their actual abilities elsewhere, some ended up losing their lives. Also, in order to use this easy way out, you had to have some part of your body pressed against your party members’ bodies to travel through the warp spots. Most people held hands, but some people got trauma just from seeing big, tough adventurers holding hands.

The warp card cost 100,000G, which was pretty pricey, but also worth it. I wasn’t short on money, so I decided to just buy it. Each warp card had to be registered to the owner to prevent theft, so a spell was cast on it. I thought this was a pretty fancy magical item, but after I bought it I found out it could only be used in the Sagan dungeon, and if you went to another dungeon you had to buy a separate warp card there.

After that, I checked the notices and the jobs posted on the board, and then headed to the guild. It was about a five-hundred-meter walk straight from the gate. This guild was several times larger than the one in Gunjo City.

I decided to go inside to gather information, but...

“This is no place for a kid! Go home!”

...it looked like trouble was already starting. The man who accosted me seemed to be fairly drunk. Just your typical adventurer. I didn’t feel like dealing with a drunk right now, so I ignored him.

“Hey, did you hear me, ya brat? I’m a Rank C adventurer, so you’d better listen to me!” he clamored.

“Oh, you’re a Rank C adventurer? Since you’re drunk at this hour, I figured you were a Rank D and out of work!” I yelled, trying to sound surprised. I heard laughter around us. Not only was this guy bragging that he was a Rank C, but he was also making fun of a kid.

“You little brat!” The man grabbed for the axe that hung from his hip.

“Watch out. That’s dangerous.” Before the man could swing it, I held a knife to his throat. “Don’t move. If I see even your finger twitch, you’ll be in trouble.”

The man didn’t seem to understand what had happened at first, so when he moved slightly, I pressed the knife into his neck—once he felt the pain of it cutting into his flesh he got the point.

“Good. Now that you understand, how ’bout you let go of your axe? Because if you don’t, I’m gonna slit your throat.”

The man lifted up both hands.

“I’m glad you got the point. Now try not to drink too much in the future.” Having said this, I went up to the desk. Most of the adventurers around us looked stunned by what had happened, but a few didn’t look surprised at all. In fact, they seemed as if this kind of thing happened all the time, which made me curious.

“Excuse me. I’d like information about the dungeon.”

“Information about the dungeon, correct? Maps are only public down to the tenth floor. After that, please refer to the above examples for the sorts of monsters you’ll encounter.”

Apparently, from floors one through ten, most of the monsters were the same. There were goblins, slimes, skeletons, and the occasional orc. But starting at floor eleven, more bug-type monsters appeared. Most people formed parties at this point. A lot of bug-type monsters were pretty stubborn. They weren’t suitable for eating, but their materials could be used for weapons and armor.

Starting at level twenty, most of the monsters were Rank C, and that was all the information they gave me. That wasn’t their being stingy—it was just that after that point, the types of monsters which would appear were irregular. So giving the public inaccurate information would just be putting them in danger. Because of this, more adventurers who were challenging themselves by venturing to the twentieth level came back alive than adventurers who were used to it.

Plus, the guild would receive complaints from adventurers about the maps, and if they released too much information, people would be reckless. Therefore, it was safer to only publicize information until the tenth floor.

When I told the person at the gate about Shiromaru and Rocket and asked what I could get to prove that they were my followers, I was told all I needed to do was register them at the guild and that nothing else was needed. But if I did need to prove they belonged to me at any point, I needed to produce evidence for each follower. In other words, I could just use the collars that they always wore.

Finally, I asked for recommendations on a good inn and restaurant around here, and then I left the guild. As expected, several men followed me as soon as I left the guild. They seemed to be the buddies of the Rank C drunkard from before. I went down a back alley to lure them in...

“Hey! Where’d the kid go? Is he hidin’ somewhere?”

And I hid. Well, to be more specific, I used my Fly magic to jump up on top of the roof. Although they figured I was a pretty strong kid, they probably had no idea I could fly. While they started searching every nook and cranny for me, I traveled from rooftop to rooftop looking for the inn they’d told me about at the guild.

“I’m sorry, but we’ve been all booked up for several days now.” The first stop was a bust. I had a feeling that would happen. On to the next one!

“I apologize, but our last room was just booked.”

Second one was also a bust. Seemed like I’d missed my chance by just a hair. Time to try the next one!

“We’re booked up solid for quite a while.”

The third one was a bust. Things were starting to get hairy. Surely the next one would work!

“Oh, are you a cute little boy? If you don’t mind, you could stay in my own private bedroom...”

I wasn’t getting anywhere near the fourth one! That innkeeper definitely wasn’t my cup of tea, nor would I be staying in his bedroom with him! Why would the guild even have this on their list?! Next, next!

“Unfortunately, we only allow female guests to stay here.”

The fifth one was also a bust. Seriously, why even tell me about that one?! There was only one place left on the list. Please, gods—er, well, never mind. They were never that helpful anyway.

“Sorry, but you gotta try somewhere else.”

And...the last one didn’t work either. Sigh, now what am I gonna do?

Every single inn on the list was full. Well, despite the two weird options mixed into the lot that were never a possibility anyway. Worst-case scenario, I’d have to find some empty space to park my carriage and sleep in there. That seemed like it would just be asking for trouble, though.

“Ow!” All of a sudden I felt someone run into my back, a yelp in a cute little voice, and then the sound of something rolling.

I quickly turned around to see a little girl younger than I was rolling on the ground along with some firewood.

“You okay?” I held my hand out to her.

“I-I’m so sorry! I wasn’t paying attention and I ran right into you!” She looked pretty scared as she apologized. “Are you angry?” she asked as she hesitantly held out her hand. I gently grabbed hold of it so as not to scare her, and helped her up.

“It takes a lot more than that to get me angry. Also, it’s my fault for just standing in the middle of the road spacing out,” I said as I picked up her firewood.

“I’m sorry! I’ll pick that up!” But by the time she said that, I’d picked up most of it already, and the only thing left to do was bundle it back together. “Ahhh, I’m sorry! I caused you so much trouble...” She seemed down, but perked up a bit once I handed her the bundle of firewood.

“Well, be careful,” I said.

The little girl started walking in the opposite direction.

“Found him! There’s the brat!” Those guys really were stubborn. What a pain, I thought as I turned around. “Get outta the way!” one of them yelled.

“Eeeek!”

And I saw one of the men push the little girl out of his way.

“You bastard! How dare y— Oof!” I landed a hard punch right in the man’s gut before he could finish his sentence.

“What are y—? Argh!” The man next to him got to eat my right uppercut.

“That’s my line! What the hell are you doing, raising a hand against an innocent little girl?!”

I heard screams from the people around me who had witnessed the whole scene unfold. There were two other men who were friends of the drunk, but they were so bewildered from the pressure of the crowd that they started to run away. But...

“If you two call yourselves adventurers, then you need to take responsibility for this!” a large, muscular man appeared from behind them suddenly and yelled.

“Hey! That’s Rank A Jin! Jin Geed!”

“Oh, yeah! I heard rumors he might reach Rank S soon!”

I heard several voices from the crowd around me. It seemed like this guy was pretty well-known in Sagan.

Name: Jin GeedAge: 32Class: HumanTitle: Honorary Baronet, First-Class Adventurer

HP: 25000MP: 10000Strength: A+Defense: A+Agility: B+Magic: C+ Mind: B-Growth: BLuck: B+