To Another World... with Land Mines! Volume 9 E-Book

Mizuho Itsuki

• Herausgeber: J-Novel Club
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Serie: To Another World... with Land Mines!
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 502

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Nao’s party continues exploring the dungeon they discovered in order to train Mary and Metea. There they find all sorts of different fruits and other ingredients waiting for them on each new floor. Their diet soon expands to include high-quality milk, fresh jam, ice cream, tempura, and more. There’s plenty of food in this ninth volume, but that’s not all! A quest from Viscount Nernas with a surprising reward makes its way to Nao’s party. More adventures await them in a land beyond Laffan!

Leseprobe

Prologue

The Adventurers’ Guild in Laffan was usually a calm enough place outside of its busiest hours during the morning and evening. Today, I was peacefully sitting behind my receptionist desk as usual. Over the last few years, the routine I’d become accustomed to was killing time with office work until the evening, but recently, a breath of fresh air had arrived in the form of Nao-san’s party.

About a year ago, Nao-san’s party had begun their careers as adventurers in Laffan, and their accomplishments in the short time since had vaulted them into the position of one of the guild’s top moneymakers. The branch master would often complain that adventurers left Laffan the minute they were skilled enough to earn decent money, but his mood had been better recently thanks to Nao-san’s party. I was very grateful too. After all, the pay that a branch master and a vice-branch master received was dependent on the performance of the guild branch. Rising through the ranks granted one power and authority, but that wouldn’t necessarily result in increased pay. In fact, the branch master whom I worked under had been transferred here after working as vice-branch master at Kelg. There were many more adventurers in Kelg than in Laffan, so he must have suffered a considerable pay cut, but that was now a thing of the past. He was probably receiving more pay now than he had back in Kelg thanks to Nao-san’s party.

And they seemed to have no intention of leaving Laffan in the near future, so I was guaranteed a stable source of high income. I’m glad that I acted as a middleman and helped them purchase a plot of land! I’m so proud of that achievement! I’ve helped them with all sorts of other things too, so surely I deserve a raise, right? Well, it’s nothing I can’t handle, and the guild branch in Laffan isn’t very busy, so I don’t really mind, although it’s rather unfair that the branch master gets paid more even though he hasn’t done anything. Hmm, yeah, I’ll either make him deal with whatever problem comes up next—or request bonus pay.

There were other benefits to dealing with Nao-san’s party, however, such as the gifts they would sometimes share with me. Dindel season was coming soon, so I was curious if they would head out to gather dindels once again this year. It would no longer be a very profitable endeavor for them, but they seemed to like the taste of dindels as much as I did, so there was hope. If other rookie adventurers showed up in town who happened to be elves, I could rely on my usual plan, but such adventurers were very rare in Laffan. In fact, there were many more veteran adventurers who came here just for dindels around this time of the year. Unfortunately, those veterans would only gather dindels for themselves to eat, so there wouldn’t be any spare for me. I could ask for a favor if Nao-san showed up, but...

“Now that I think about it, I haven’t seen them in a while.”

It hadn’t been too long ago that Nao-san’s party had been absent from the guild for an extended period while exploring a dungeon. I had been anxious at the time, but they’d eventually returned as if nothing had happened, like I had been worried for no reason. Still, it sounded like they’d gotten themselves into a situation that most adventurers wouldn’t have been able to escape alive, so my concerns hadn’t been unfounded. They had been gone for quite a while this time as well, but there was probably no need to worry considering the fact that they had ultimately been fine last time.

While I was lost in thought, one of my colleagues brought me a letter.

“A letter has arrived for you, Vice-Branch Master.”

“Oh, thank you,” I said.

The Adventurers’ Guild offered letter delivery through its own transport network. The service was available to the general public, but it was far from cheap, so few people made use of it. Letters for me were usually business correspondence or messages from my mom. Let’s see what it is this time.

“A letter from mom, huh? Or rather, a letter from my uncle,” I said.

The first message was indeed from my mom, but the more important one was a letter from my aunt that had been bundled with it, and the actual content of that letter was from my aunt’s husband, Viscount Nernas. It would attract the wrong kind of attention if a lord were to send a letter directly to an employee of the Adventurers’ Guild, so we had resorted to this convoluted method in order to avoid giving rise to rumors unnecessarily. However, my uncle paid the associated fees, so my mom seemed quite happy about the fact that she could, in essence, send me letters for free. She would usually ask after my health and tell me about recent events in her own life, so I set aside that letter and started to read the letter from my aunt, which was likely more important.

“Hmm. These are some really unreasonable demands,” I said. “I suppose I should have expected as much from my uncle.”

The “favors” that my uncle asked for were usually very difficult to deal with, and this time was no exception. The requests that Nao-san’s party brought to me were extremely easy in comparison. There were cases in which I would ask for my uncle’s cooperation—like the other day, when he’d purchased the swords that Nao-san’s party had discovered—so we did have a mutually beneficial relationship of a kind, but on the other hand, the relationship between the family I had been born into and my uncle was a major reason that it was hard for me to turn down his demands.

However, it wasn’t as if my uncle would use his position as the viscount to exert undue pressure on my family. It was more that my own position in the family was complicated.

I was the firstborn child of Baron Meredith, but my mother was one of the baron’s concubines. Had I been the child of the baron’s lawful wife, or had I been born male, then I probably would have been accepted as the family heir by the time I became an adult. However, that hadn’t been the case, and the baron’s lawful wife had been unwilling to accept me as his heir. In addition, the noble family of the baron’s lawful wife was higher in rank than the baron himself, which made things even more complicated. My father had no choice but to obey the will of his wife’s family, and as a result, I still hadn’t been appointed as the heir to his title even though his wife was now too old to bear another child.

The title of Baron Meredith wasn’t important to me in the slightest, so I would have had no objection to marrying into another family, but that wasn’t an option either, since I was the baron’s only child. That was why I was still single at my age. Even setting aside the issue of succession, marriage wasn’t a realistic option for me at this point, but neither was finding a job to become independent. Most of the children of nobles became bureaucrats, but if I accomplished something significant, I would become the heir to my father’s title, so that was unacceptable to my father’s legal wife. On the other hand, my father considered any job that was open to commoners to be unfit for a noble, and he had been fiercely opposed to me following that path even though he himself had never worked a real job in his life.

When I came of age, I had despaired for my future, but my aunt, who had married into the House of Nernas, had lent me a helping hand. After surmising that neither my mother nor I had any idea what to do, she consulted Viscount Nernas, and the viscount arranged a job for me at the Adventurers’ Guild. It was impossible for a mere baron to bend the will of a viscount, and that was how I had been able to work here at the guild without any trouble so far. Thus, whenever my uncle asked me for a favor, it was very difficult for me not to oblige him, but...

“Surely he’s expecting too much from a rural branch of the Adventurers’ Guild?”

There were two primary concerns in the letter. The first was a question about whether I had anything suitable in mind for a noble’s wedding gift, the intended recipient being the heir of Baron Dias, who ruled over the territory adjacent to this viscounty. The barony was more powerful economically, so Baron Dias was not someone that the viscount could afford to treat lightly, even if he was lower in rank. With all of that in mind, the viscount was probably looking for the kind of curio that could be found at the Adventurers’ Guild.

“I’d normally reply, ‘Just send some of the high-end furniture that Laffan is famous for,’ but...”

If a territory had a famous specialty, then the standard choice would be to send that as a gift. But my uncle had brought the matter up in a letter, so he must have been looking for something else entirely. However, it wasn’t easy to find rare and unusual things at a remote guild branch like this one. There was a chance that Nao-san’s party could find something that met those criteria as they were exploring a dungeon, but it was highly unlikely that they would be able to find anything suitable as a gift for a noble.

“Well, I guess it wouldn’t hurt to ask Nao-san’s party once they return,” I said. “The next thing in this letter is sort of relevant to them as well.”

Apparently my uncle wanted to hire strong and trustworthy adventurers for cheap. Oh please, there’s no way you could possibly hire anyone good for the kind of money you’re talking about. And on top of that, you want trustworthiness? Impossible! In the past, I would usually have written a reply like “Just to be clear, the Adventurers’ Guild isn’t an organization of handymen,” as there hadn’t been any strong adventurers in Laffan. However, things had changed now due to the arrival of Nao-san’s party, Meikyo Shisui. My uncle probably had them specifically in mind, having met them before, but I couldn’t exactly use my position as an employee of the guild to order them to accept a quest for so little. I would normally have turned down this particular favor, but I could understand why he had asked due to family circumstances.

My cousin, Illias, had apparently been appointed to attend the wedding of Baron Dias in my uncle’s place. However, the highway that led to the barony was a somewhat perilous one that passed through the mountains and forests, and the chances of encountering monsters and bandits along the way were very high. Viscount Nernas and Baron Dias were both responsible for the situation due to the fact that neither had been able to deal with problems of that kind, but even so, I couldn’t simply pretend indifference. Illias was like a cute little sister to me, so I worried for her. The troops who served in the local army under the viscount’s authority were supposed to act as bodyguards in situations like this, but most of them were occupied with the reconstruction of Kelg, and their area of expertise was also rather different from an adventurer’s. Troops could handle bandits just fine, but adventurers were better at handling monsters, especially in settings like forests. In addition, the members of Meikyo Shisui were much stronger than the troops who served under the viscount, so I would feel at ease if I could leave Illias in their hands.

“It would be great if I could convince Nao-san’s party to accept this escort quest, but what should the reward be? Hmm...”

The House of Nernas wasn’t exactly wealthy, besides which the timing was bad. Kelg was in the middle of recovering from the mayhem that the Holy Satomi Sect had caused, and money was required for a wedding gift to hand over to Baron Dias, so it was likely that the viscount couldn’t afford to spend too much. There was a chance that Nao-san’s party would be willing to take on an escort quest for less than the going rate if I pleaded with them, but they were already Rank 5 adventurers, so taking advantage of their trust in me was not an option, as far as I was concerned. In addition, the consequences for failing an escort quest were much more severe if the party being escorted was a noble rather than, say, a merchant. Nobles were much more difficult to deal with as clients; a lot of them would toss out unreasonable demands. Moreover, there was no real reason for Nao-san’s party to take on an escort quest when they had a myriad of other options for earning a lot of money. Ugh, just thinking about some of the clients I had to deal with in the past makes me mad! There were so many times when I wanted to just ignore my position as an employee of the guild and punch them! Illias was a good girl, but she wasn’t acquainted with Nao-san’s party, so...

“It needs to be something other than a monetary reward from the House of Nernas, and it also needs to be something that’ll make the escort quest attractive in the eyes of Nao-san’s party. Hmm...”

Would something like a rare work of art do? Nah, there probably aren’t any good ones left. After the mithril incident, the House of Nernas was forced to let go of the majority of the art in its possession. It was also forced to pare down its standard of living in every way it could while maintaining the bare minimum necessary to keep up appearances as a noble. My aunt seems to be struggling to this day as a result.

What if the House of Nernas makes a promise to become the patron of Meikyo Shisui? Hmm. A promise like that would be far from worthless, but neither would having a poor viscountcy household as a patron be very useful. It could benefit Nao-san’s party within this viscounty, but it wouldn’t mean anything if they ever had to contend with other nobles.

“Oh, now that I think about it, Nao-san’s party seems to be fond of meals.”

Nao-san’s party were unbelievably frugal for their age, but meals were one thing that they did splurge on. Some of the dishes they’d presented after inviting me to their house had been quite luxurious, and whenever they acquired delicacies like dindels and monster meat, they seemed to keep most of it for themselves and their friends instead of selling it. Hmm, yes, for Nao-san’s party, things related to food might be a much more attractive reward than money.

“As for something my uncle could potentially provide...it’d be either alcohol or the nearby dungeon.”

I had received news the other day that the House of Nernas had purchased two breweries. The first was a long-established brewery that had suffered serious losses due to its bad business model, while the second was newer. I had no idea as to why my uncle had decided to purchase the latter. It seemed that my uncle had managed to purchase both at bargain prices, so he probably wouldn’t be opposed to using them as a reward to save money. The only downside was that Nao-san’s party didn’t consume alcohol regularly. The ale they had offered me at their house during the welcome party for Mary and Metea was from the same long-established brewery my uncle had just purchased, so they must have liked the taste. However, although they had provided ale for their guests, they had only drunk a little themselves.

The other option was the rights to the dungeon that Nao-san’s party had named the Summer Resort Dungeon. It seemed to me there was a very high chance that would be satisfactory. Dungeons were usually managed by the Adventurers’ Guild, but the actual ownership of the dungeon devolved to the lord who ruled over the surrounding lands. If the dungeon was located on private property, then the owner of that property would own the dungeon, but in practice those rights were usually confiscated by the lord. However, that also meant it was possible for a lord to grant the rights to anyone of his choosing. A normal person wouldn’t have been able to make use of something like the Summer Resort Dungeon, but Nao-san’s party were fond of the meat they could obtain there, and they seemed to regard it as worthwhile, considering they continued to explore it.

Conversely, the House of Nernas considered the dungeon to be something of a cursed place. The events of the past had made the area difficult to develop, and in fact, if Nao-san’s party hadn’t entered the dungeon, it wouldn’t have generated any profit at all, so the House of Nernas had nothing to lose by granting the rights to Nao-san’s party. In fact, if the result was that Nao-san’s party became more motivated to explore the dungeon, the Adventurers’ Guild would profit by purchasing the loot that they retrieved, and the House of Nernas would also benefit via the taxes it received from the guild.

“No one would have to spend any money; in fact, everyone would earn money this way,” I mused aloud. “Excellent adventurers capable of exploring that dungeon and returning safely might appear here in Laffan in the future, but...”

In that event, it would be necessary either to ask Nao-san’s party to allow other adventurers into the dungeon or to purchase back the rights. However, the chances of that happening were quite low. If it were really that easy to raise excellent adventurers, then the supply of precious wood would never have dried up for a matter of years.

“Mm, let’s go with the dungeon as the main plan. It would probably be best for me to head out and seal the deal in person, however.”

Nao-san’s party were the ones who would be negatively affected by any conflicts or misunderstandings, after all. It would be a lot of work to juggle considering that I also had my responsibilities as the vice-branch master to handle, but trust was one of the most important assets a person could have, so I started to work on everything that was necessary to keep the guild functioning even if I was gone for some time.

Chapter 1—Garden Paradise?

The first thing we saw on the eleventh floor of the dungeon was breathtaking nature beyond anything I’d expected. There was an expanse of grassy plains that seemed to stretch on forever, forests scattered all over the place, and bodies of water that looked a bit too large to be classified as ponds. I looked up and saw a bright blue sky with clouds as well as a source of light shining down like the sun; it made the entire level as bright as noon outside the dungeon.

“So this is the scenery that was described in the books, huh? I kind of underestimated what it would actually look like,” I said.

According to the books about dungeons that we owned, about a tenth of the dungeons that had been discovered thus far had floors that exactly resembled the landscapes outside of the dungeons. Those landscapes could be forests, grassy plains, rivers, snow-covered mountains, volcanoes, and even seas, which was pretty amazing. The skies and seas in a dungeon weren’t endless, however. Apparently you would eventually bump into a transparent wall after traversing a certain distance, which would prevent you from advancing further, so there was a limit to how much of the world a dungeon could recreate.

However, the seas that had been discovered inside of dungeons were habitats in which normal fish could be found along with monsters. The whole thing sounded amazing, and it was particularly interesting to me. Man, I really want some saltwater fish. It’s been so long since I last had sashimi. Swimming probably wouldn’t be safe, but access to the sea would be extremely valuable even just as a source of new cooking ingredients.

“Whoa, we’re outside!” Metea yelled, stamping her feet in place as if she was trying to hold herself back from dashing forward.

When Mary noticed that, she hastily grabbed Metea’s hand. Mm, I know how you feel, Metea. We’ve been walking through dark and narrow dungeon floors, so seeing something this vast makes me want to run freely too, but we are inside a dungeon.

“We’re definitely still inside of a dungeon,” said Haruka. She turned around and looked up at the rock walls behind us. They reached up all the way into the sky—their summit wasn’t visible—but there was a hole at the base, and the stairs that we had walked down were visible within.

“If it weren’t for those stairs, we’d just think we got teleported outside,” said Yuki.

“Mm. Dungeons do contain things like return devices, after all,” said Natsuki. “The sky looks very natural, so it’s possible that Metea-chan was actually correct.”

“Um, what do you mean, Natsuki-san?” Mary asked.

Natsuki nodded in response to Mary’s question before answering. “I’m talking about Metea’s answer to my question sometime ago—why the sky looks blue. Can we be sure that the sky we see outside is the real sky?”

At the time, Metea had answered Natsuki’s question with “There’s a blue ceiling,” and we had thought she must be wrong based on our own common sense, but...

“That makes it sound like we’re in a self-contained world, like in the old Chinese legend of ‘heaven and earth in a pot’—it just looks real enough to be indistinguishable from reality,” said Haruka.

“Does that mean the places we think of as outdoors are actually still inside the ‘pot’?” I asked. “Hmm...”

Is virtual reality really “virtual” if you can’t even tell the difference? I don’t think there’s a clear answer to that question.

“Well, if we’re going to talk about this kind of thing, then there are other questions to consider,” I said. “Like, there’s the question of whether we’re actually alive or not, so—”

“Please don’t say scary stuff like that, Nao!” Yuki interrupted me, slapping me across the face before pointing at a faraway pond as if to change the topic. “M-More importantly, do you think it’ll rain on this floor of the dungeon?”

“If you think about it logically, plants can’t grow without rain,” I said. “Ponds can’t form without rain either, but...”

I tore some grass from the ground. It looked to be the same kind of grass that grew around Laffan. However, monsters in dungeons were able to survive without consuming food, so it seemed equally plausible that the grass inside of dungeons could grow without water.

“There’s wind blowing here, a sun in the sky, and heat as well,” said Natsuki. “Convection currents cause wind, and they also cause the formation of clouds, but there needs to be enough space, so—”

Natsuki had started to ponder the issue from a scientific perspective, but Yuki interrupted her before she could truly lose herself in thought. “There’s no need to think that much about it, Natsuki. The word ‘fantasy’ is enough of an explanation.”

Yuki’s conclusion was a bit simplistic, but she was completely right. There was a lot about dungeons that was impossible to explain from a scientific perspective, so there was no way you’d be able to figure out the right answer from just one floor.

“Mm, I suppose there’s no point thinking about it too deeply,” said Natsuki.

“Yeah, just accept things as they are,” said Yuki. “We’re in a different world, after all.”

“Indeed,” said Haruka. “We can use magic too—that’s another thing science can’t explain.”

“Tee hee. That’s definitely true,” said Natsuki. “I wouldn’t be able to explain what mana is even if someone were to ask me.”

Scientific knowledge was useful even in this world, but there was a lot of stuff it wasn’t applicable to—mana, magic, and so forth. Mana was a type of energy that existed in our bodies, and magic was the phenomenon that could be produced by that mana. Prana permeated the air and atmosphere and was believed to be responsible for spawning monsters. Magicites could be obtained from monsters, mana could be obtained from those magicites, and magical devices consumed the mana from magicites.

However, all of the definitions for those terms were quite vague, and they weren’t commonly used by ordinary people, just as laypeople on Earth would lump together things like radiation, radioactivity, and radioactive materials all under the one word “radioactivity.”

There were a lot of conflicting theories among people who specialized in magic—for example, about the question of whether or not the effects of magical devices counted as magic. That debate was still ongoing, but apparently the yeas had the upper hand right now. Of course, the majority of people didn’t care one way or another as long as the devices worked.

The consensus among my party was that the effects of magical devices weren’t magic. If you defined magic as a variety of phenomena that could be caused by the consumption of mana, then the main issue (according to the girls) was that the numbers didn’t add up. That is, magical devices seemed to have higher mana output than input.

The hypothesis that the girls had come up with was that it had something to do with prana. However, that hypothesis in itself invited other questions, such as whether the use of prana would count as magic. Then there was the basic mystery of what exactly prana was. Overall, it was something that I could only describe as too confusing to understand.

“Well, even if we can’t come up with an explanation, it’s still a fact that mana exists, and so do the phenomena that it causes,” I said.

“Mm. It’s no different for civilizations without magic,” said Haruka. “For example, gravity still exists even if gravitons are never discovered, and mass remains constant regardless of whether there’s a Higgs boson.”

There was a possibility that something like magic particles would be discovered a few thousand years in the future, but it wouldn’t change the fact that magic worked just fine in the present, so the best way to approach this environment would be to accept it on its own terms.

“Okay, let’s put aside the science talk for now,” said Touya. “More importantly, what should we do next? Honestly, I’m having a hard time restraining my desire to explore this floor...”

I noticed that Metea was nodding at Touya’s words, so she must’ve wanted to explore too. Her ears were twitching, and her tail was standing up straight, so she was definitely excited.

“Please don’t go wild, Touya,” I said. “I get why you’re excited, but still.”

The grassy plains ahead of us looked so vast that even I felt an urge to run around freely. In fact, if I had felt nothing upon seeing something like this inside of a dungeon, then I would have retired from the adventuring life right away.

“Yeah, there’s definitely a lot of stuff that I’d like to explore and investigate too,” said Yuki. “Our next move depends on our physical conditions, though.”

“I’m fairly sure that the five of us are fine,” said Natsuki. “Mary-chan, Metea-chan, what about the two of you? Do you feel all right?”

The sisters smiled and nodded.

“Yes, I feel fine as well,” Mary replied. “Our meals and sleep have been the same as usual even though we’re inside a dungeon.”

“I’m good to go too!” Metea replied. “I’m full of energy!”

They weren’t as accustomed to exploring dungeons as we were, but they were quite tough due to the environment they’d grown up in. In fact, they appeared perfectly healthy, so there weren’t any problems.

“Hmm. All right, let’s continue exploring for a bit,” said Haruka. “But where should we start?”

We were surrounded by grassy plains, and with the walls behind us, we could head anywhere within a 180-degree arc. However, we had no idea where the stairs that led to the next floor were located. The path directly in front of us would have been the logical answer, but...

“Is your Scout skill picking up any foes, Nao?” Yuki asked.

“Yeah, there are some, but they don’t seem very strong,” I replied. “There’s nothing to block our view, and we should be able to see them considering my Scout skill says they’re not too far away, but...”

Hawk’s Eye! Well, this is a passive skill, so it’s always active—I don’t actually have to activate it. The ability to see was different from the ability to actually discover where our foes were located. When I looked again more carefully, I noticed some movements at the spots that my Scout skill had identified.

“Hmm? Oh, that’s where they are?!” I exclaimed. “Whoa, that’s really good camouflage...”

Everyone else tilted their heads in confusion.

“Huh? What’s wrong?” Yuki asked.

“The foes ahead look like smallish wolves,” I replied. “They have green fur, and they’re approaching us slowly. See them?”

I pointed at the wolf that was closest to us, but the only person who could find it was Yuki, probably because she also had the Scout and Hawk’s Eye skills. “Oh, you’re right, I see them now,” she said. “Gosh, they’re really hard to make out.”

The wolves weren’t too far away, so they technically should’ve been visible to the others too. However, their green fur blended in with the surrounding grass very well, so it was probably very difficult to notice the wolves unless you were aware of their positions and observed carefully until you found them. I wonder if their fur is similar to the ghillie suits used by military personnel on Earth. The wolves’ black noses were hidden within the grass, and they moved with the grass as the wind passed through it.

The next person to find the wolf was Haruka, probably because, as an archer, she had good eyes. “Oh, I found them,” she said. “There!”

Even as she announced that she’d found it, she drew her bow and swiftly loosed an arrow at it. There were about forty meters between us and the wolf, and Haruka’s arrow flew straight at its target, but the distance proved to be too great; the wolf noticed the attack and leaped into the air to dodge it.

When its leap revealed it to the rest of my party, they all sounded shocked.

“Huh?! It was there the whole time?!” said Mary.

“A dog suddenly jumped out of nowhere!” yelled Metea.

“That foe would be intimidating for people without the Scout skill,” said Natsuki.

“It’s really the exact same color as the grass!” said Touya. “It’s hard to notice even when you know where they are!”

Those of my companions who also had the Scout skill had a rough idea of where the wolves were, but apparently they hadn’t been able to see through their camouflage.

“The camouflage was very impressive, and it’s very nimble, but I didn’t expect it to look so skinny,” I said.

I hadn’t been able to tell when it was hidden in the grass, but when the wolf leaped into the air, it looked a lot skinnier than I had assumed. In fact, it looked quite a bit smaller than the howling wolves we had encountered on the seventh floor of the dungeon.

“Let’s slay this one first—wait, they’re all coming at us, and fast!” I yelled.

As a result of Haruka’s attack, the wolves seemed to have realized that we’d noticed them, and all of the hostile signals that I’d detected were rushing toward us.

“I-It’s really hard to tell them apart!” yelled Touya. “How many of them are there?!”

“Twelve, or no, thirteen,” I said. “It looks like we’ve been surrounded in a semicircle.”

The wolves had surrounded us on all sides except from behind, where the walls were. I was aware that we were surrounded thanks to my Scout skill, but it was still really hard to see them with my naked eyes.

“This isn’t a great situation!” said Haruka. “Maybe I should level up my Scout skill too.”

Despite her words, none of Haruka’s arrows had missed after the first one, and she was already racking up quite a kill count. Touya, Natsuki, and Yuki all had the Scout skill, and they, too, were slaying wolves without any issues, but Mary and Metea were struggling a bit. The two of them kept in constant communication during combat.

“Ugh, I can’t see them well!” said Metea.

“Don’t leave my side, Metea!” Mary exclaimed. “Another one’s coming from that direction!”

I constantly kept track of their situation as I fought, but they seemed to be fine. The wolves were quite nimble, but so was Metea. Metea handled the wolves that got close to them, and Mary handled the ones that were a bit farther away. There were some close calls, but the excellent synergy that the sisters had was more than enough to keep them out of danger.

“I think that should be it, so— Wait, there’re more coming? Watch out!” yelled Touya.

I expanded the search radius of my Scout skill after I heard Touya’s warning. There were only a few wolves remaining out of the initial thirteen, but I noticed that there were over twenty hostile signals approaching us from farther away. The signals weren’t very strong, so I wasn’t worried, but...

“Hey, can I charge in by myself?” Touya asked.

“We’re fine here, so go ahead,” I replied.

“Hell yeah!”

Touya happily dashed off. Passively fighting back against foes must have bored him. Once he’d departed, I changed my weapon from a spear to a kodachi. Haruka had already put away her bow, and Yuki had switched to using her kodachi as well.

“If we just stay alert against the possibility of ambushes, then these wolves are only slightly annoying to deal with,” said Haruka.

“You can find them if you pay attention to the sound they make!” said Metea.

“I’m pretty sure even the two of us can handle foes like these just fine,” said Mary.

Once we’d gotten used to the wolves, we didn’t even need magic to deal with them. Still, we continued to battle the wolves so Mary and Metea could gain experience, and in less than ten minutes, a pile of about forty wolves had been scattered across our surroundings.

“This is the last carcass, right? It looks like we’ve gathered them all,” I said.

About a third of the dead wolves had been scattered far and wide when Touya had charged them. We split into groups to gather the carcasses into our magic bags. However, the wolves that we’d slain with magic were a complete mess, so we only retrieved the magicites from those. The wolves that had died in better shape were the ones that Haruka had slain with her arrows and the ones that Touya and Mary had beaten to death with their swords, and their fur was actually close to undamaged.

“It has a very beautiful color,” said Haruka. “I’m surprised something like this exists.”

“Now that I think about it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen an animal with fur this color back on Earth,” I said.

It was a bit coarse, but it had a beautiful grassy green color. I’d never seen anything like this back in Laffan either, so it was possible that it would sell for a decent amount of money.

“I’m fairly certain that this color is only possible as a result of mutation,” said Natsuki. “It’s a different story with birds, of course.”

“Oh, yeah, birds have all kinds of different colors,” said Touya, sounding a bit confused as he thought aloud. “There are even birds that have multiple colors. Why is that?”

I hadn’t thought about that myself. “Yeah, it’s quite strange,” I said. “Other animals are usually brown, white, or black, and that’s about it.”

Compared to the variation that could be found among birds, those three colors were extremely plain. It was probably protective coloration, but there were colorful birds that had survived harsh environments, so I felt like it wouldn’t be too strange for colorful mammals to exist as well.

“That seems to be a result of evolution,” said Natsuki. “Colors that stand out would make it hard for herbivores to avoid being detected by their predators, and they would also make it hard for carnivores to hunt their prey.”

“Is it different for birds?” Yuki asked. “Don’t birds have predators too?”

“Birds can fly, and most of them have a wider variety of food sources, like fruit and insects. Those are probably some of the reasons it’s different for them,” Natsuki replied. “On the other hand, I’m fairly sure that only a few predatory birds are colorful... I hope that makes sense.”

Yuki nodded to herself as she listened to Natsuki’s explanation. “I see. Yeah, your explanation made perfect sense. I knew I could count on you to be knowledgeable, Natsuki.”

Natsuki chuckled and shrugged. “I’m just guessing—I don’t know whether I’m actually correct or not. Monsters seem to be completely different from normal animals, so that’s presumably why they can have fur this color.”

According to Natsuki, monsters didn’t require food to survive, so monsters inside of dungeons wouldn’t fight each other, and even outside of dungeons, cases of monsters attacking in search of food were apparently quite rare. However, monsters outside of dungeons would fight each other to establish their own territories, so they weren’t exactly social creatures.

“By the way, Touya, can you tell us anything about these monsters?” I asked.

Touya looked in the air and then read the information he could see. “They’re called grass coyotes. They can be found in grassy plains, and they’re not very strong, but they attack their foes as a pack. Their fur is valuable, but their meat doesn’t sell well. Each of their magicites is worth about a thousand Rea. That’s not much money at all, huh?”

He had already read the entirety of the monster encyclopedia that we owned, so his Appraisal skill could provide answers about any monster that had been listed in that encyclopedia, which was quite useful. Touya was essentially a walking encyclopedia that my party could access at any time. I had read through the monster encyclopedia myself, but I hadn’t bothered to memorize the contents since I could count on Touya.

“Grass coyotes aren’t a bad source of money when you factor in how many we can slay per hour, but it’s not like they spawn infinitely, so they’re not really a good option,” I said.

“Yeah. There don’t seem to be any left as far as I can detect,” said Touya.

My Scout skill’s range of detection was wider than Touya’s, and I could detect a few that were quite far away, but there were no foes within our vicinity, so apparently grass coyotes only hunted in large packs.

“Well, on the bright side, we can explore this floor for a while without having to worry about monsters,” said Haruka.

“Yeah, good point,” I said. “I’m in the mood for exploring right now. Where should we go?”

“The only options available to us are the grassy plains or the forest,” said Natsuki. “There are some bodies of water that are quite far away, but...”

Treating our left as 0 degrees and our right as 180, there was a forest ahead of us at 120 degrees. Everything else was grassland, and we could actually see the horizon due to the fact that it was mostly flat. Man, I never imagined I’d be able to see the horizon inside of a dungeon. I mean, sure—considering what the previous floors have been like, it isn’t that weird for a dungeon floor to be large enough that the horizon is visible, but still...

“How can a space this large exist without pillars or something to hold it up? What if it can collapse on—”

I had started to wonder aloud exactly how the floor could logically exist, but Yuki interrupted my thoughts with a smile and thumbs-up. “Fantasy, Nao!”

“...Oh, right, there’s no point in thinking too much about this stuff,” I said.

“Yep! There’s no answer, after all!” said Yuki. “All right, then. Does anyone have a suggestion?”

“I wanna go to the forests!” said Metea. “I feel like destiny is calling me there!”

Yuki chuckled and nodded. “Destiny, huh? Tee hee. Sure, I’m down for that. I don’t think the grassy plains will be fun to explore, anyway.”

Touya nodded as well. “It’ll just be a hassle to deal with more grass coyotes. They’re a bit too easy for us.”

Touya was completely right. Mary and Metea could gain some decent experience fighting grass coyotes, but the rest of us had no real reason to waste our time that way.

“Don’t let your guard down, however,” said Haruka. “Even grass coyotes can kill us if they get an opening to bite our necks.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” I said. “Their camouflage is very good.”

There was a chance that we would have been caught by surprise without the Scout skill, and it was possible that there were other similar monsters here. We paid close attention to our surroundings as we headed toward the forest, but when we finally arrived, we were greeted by an unexpected sight.

Yuki pointed. “Whoa, look at that! There’s fruit growing on the trees!”

I looked in the direction she was pointing and saw some round fruit, each about the size of a fist. The fruit was light green in color, but I had no idea if that was because it wasn’t ripe yet or if that was its natural color. Wait, hold on. Isn’t it still winter right now?

“Is that a green apple? Actually, no, based on the shape, I believe it’s a pear,” said Natsuki.

“A pear? That doesn’t sound very exciting,” I said. “Also, is that fruit actually ripe?”

“Fruit doesn’t have to be exciting,” said Touya. “I actually like pears.”

“I’ll go harvest it right now!” Before anyone could stop her, Yuki shimmied up the tree, plucked two fruits, and rejoined the rest of us.

Haruka took one of the fruits from her and rolled it around in her hands before nodding to herself. “Mm, this is definitely a pear. My Help Guide displayed the information, so it must be a common fruit.”

Metea approached Haruka and sniffed the pear in her hands. “It smells really good!” she said, sounding happy. “Destiny really was calling me!”

Mary tried to calm Metea down by patting her head, but she was smiling as well. “Now, now, Metea,” she said. “It does have a somewhat sweet smell, though.”

I couldn’t smell anything even though there wasn’t that much distance between Haruka and me. It seemed unlikely that Metea had been able to smell the pears before we had even entered the forests, but in a sense, it was true that Metea had been able to “sniff” them out, so I was impressed in a lot of ways.

“It doesn’t look like it’s ripe,” I said. “Is it actually okay to eat?”

Back on Earth, Asian pears were green, so there was a possibility that the light-green pears here were edible too, but...

“We’ll find out after we eat one,” said Touya. “Let’s peel them.”

“Gotcha,” said Yuki. She and Haruka peeled the pears they were holding, and juice dripped over their hands. “Whoa, it’s full of juice!”

Metea stared at the pear juice with her mouth half-open, and Yuki chuckled when she noticed that, then sliced off a small piece of pear and tossed it into Metea’s mouth.

Metea blinked a couple of times as she chewed the pear slice. She seemed pleasantly surprised. “It’s sweet and a bit sour, but it’s delicious!”

“Oh, really?” Right after I nodded at Metea’s words, a pear slice landed in my mouth. “Mmmph. Yeah, this definitely tastes like an Asian pear.”

Haruka seemed to be the one who had tossed it. When I glanced at her, she laughed, and I chewed the pear without any objections. It had a nice crunch to it. It was somewhat on the small side, but it would probably taste about the same as an Asian pear if you sliced one up. However, I wasn’t exactly knowledgeable about pears, so any type of pear that tasted a bit sour seemed the same as an Asian pear to me.

“The sourness and freshness are perfect!” said Touya. “I actually really like how these pears taste!”

“They’re not too sweet, so I think they’d be perfect as something cold to eat on hot days,” said Haruka.

“Eating fruit like these feels like a wonderful treat,” said Mary. “And there are so many growing here.”

“Mm, we should definitely harvest more and bring them back with us,” said Yuki.

“If we can harvest pears that taste this good regardless of what season it is outside of the dungeon, they’ll definitely sell well,” said Natsuki.

Everyone had now taken a bite, and they all seemed to enjoy the pears. They might not sell for as much as dindels, but they would probably still sell for a decent amount of money. However, the profitability of the pears would depend on how many trees we could find and how often the trees bore fruit.

“The temperature inside of dungeons is stable, right?” Mary asked, sounding a bit curious. “I wonder if there’s any specific season for these pears.”

Mary was apparently thinking along the same lines I was, and Haruka nodded. “We’ll have to test and confirm things like that ourselves. For now, let’s pick the ones that are ripe.”

“Yeah, it would be a waste not to,” I said. “Oh, it looks like we have company to deal with first. There are three of them, and they’re getting close to us.”

“All right, let’s finish things as quick as we can and enjoy a pear-gathering party right after that!” said Yuki.

“I’m not sure if party is the right word for it, but we can definitely eat as many as we want free of charge,” said Natsuki.

“I’m real motivated now!” said Touya.

“All we can eat!” said Metea. “I’ll slay monsters as fast as I can!”

Yuki and Metea both smiled as they held up their weapons, and a few seconds later, our foes appeared. They looked like huge locusts, about fifty centimeters long, and they made use of both their legs and wings to hop from tree to tree as they approached us. Their flying speed was somewhat slow, but the speed at which they leaped between trees was quite fast.

“These are called forest hoppers!” said Touya. “Nothing in particular to note about them! Leave one to me!”

“In that case, I’ll handle another myself,” said Natsuki.

The two of them moved into position before provoking their respective forest hoppers, and the remaining forest hopper leaped toward the rest of us. However...

“Leaping in a straight line was a mistake,” I said.

Their leaps were quite fast, but the forest hoppers moved in a straight line. The way it moved its mouth parts was totally disgusting, but all I had to do was place my spear where its mouth was going to end up, and the forest hopper impaled itself without any real effort on my part. It flailed its hind legs around in an attempt to break free, but that was pointless. Soon it stopped moving, and I swung my spear to fling its dead body to the forest floor.

“Big bro Nao slew it so easily...” said Metea.

“If it’s this easy to slay forest hoppers, then I don’t think they should be too scary to deal with as long as we don’t get surrounded by a lot of them,” said Haruka.

“Don’t jinx us like that, Haruka,” I said. “What if that actually happens?”

“Each one is huge, so I highly doubt that a swarm of them will appear out of nowhere,” said Haruka. “Hmm. The carapace is a bit hard, but that’s probably not an issue.”

She nodded to herself as she poked the carcass of the forest hopper with her kodachi. My spear had pierced it easily due to the fact that I had aimed at the inside of its mouth, but it was possible that attacks would bounce off its carapace depending on what your weapon was. On top of that, I wouldn’t be able to use my spear like this if we were attacked by a large number at the same time; under those circumstances, my spear would become unusable for a while.

“Hm? I smashed mine to death no problem,” said Touya. He’d returned, bringing a forest hopper with its head severed from its body. The head was almost completely destroyed, so he must have smashed it before chopping it off.

“It’s possible to slice through the carapace as well,” said Natsuki.

The forest hopper that Natsuki had slain was beheaded too, but its body had been sliced into two even parts. It looked a lot cleaner than Touya’s. I was amazed by how skillfully Natsuki had slain her forest hopper, especially considering it would have been much easier to slay an insect like this by aiming for its joints. However, I had impaled a forest hopper myself, so I had no good reason to comment on the best way to slay one.

“The forest hopper that died in the best shape was the one that Nao slew,” said Yuki. “What parts of them are worth money, Touya?”

“Well, if you mean parts other than the magicites, just their hind legs,” said Touya.

“Hind legs? You mean these long ones here?” Yuki asked.

“Yeah.”

The hind legs looked like they were about thirty centimeters long when bent. They were quite large, and probably had to be due to the fact that the forest hoppers used them to hop around, but I had no idea what anyone would want them for.

“By the way, they are edible.”

All of us fell silent after we heard Touya’s words. Locusts were technically edible, so it wasn’t that weird, but I wasn’t sure how to feel about this. Do these hind legs even taste good? I’m assuming they’ll just taste crunchy, so I don’t think that’ll be enjoyable at all.

“Apparently you can eat them the same way you eat crab legs,” said Touya. “You know, by squeezing the meat out.”

“When you put it that way, it sounds like they really could be edible,” said Haruka. “I don’t want to try them out myself, however.”

The legs were quite thick, so they probably had more meat inside than crab legs, but I also preferred to pass on trying them myself.

“I’m actually kind of curious,” said Metea. “Food is very important.”

Metea had struggled to get adequate nutrition in the past, and food was necessary to survive, so she was completely right. However, everyone else had doubtful looks on their faces, including Mary.

“...Let’s retrieve the hind legs just in case,” said Haruka. “Fortunately for us, all of the legs are in good condition, so we can sell them.”

“I guess there was no point in me slaying a forest hopper without making a mess,” I said. “Well, it was a coincidence, but still.”

We temporarily set aside the topic of food and stuffed the carcasses of the forest hoppers into our magic bags. Luckily for us, the other monsters that I could detect with my Scout skill hadn’t moved much even though we had just finished a battle, so we were free to resume what we had been doing before.

Yuki changed the subject. “All right, let’s forget about forest hoppers for now. There’s pear harvesting to do!”

Metea beamed when she heard that. “Pears! That’s more important!” She seemed very excited as she looked up at the rest of us to see our reactions.

“You sure seem excited, Yuki,” said Haruka.

“Of course I am! Dindels are delicious, but I also like other kinds of fruit! It’s been a while since we’ve been able to eat fresh fruit, you know?”

“Mm, you’re right about that,” said Haruka. “We end up drying most of the fruit we find.”

Ripe fruit would spoil very quickly. Back in modern-day Japan, a lot of fruit was imported via airplane, but the fruit imported via ships had to be sprayed with fungicide, harvested while they were hard and green, and placed inside of reefer containers or something similar for temperature control, so transporting fresh fruit around the world took a lot of work. In this world, however, there were special means of transportation such as magic bags, but that was an additional cost on top of the high price of the fruit itself and would make them too expensive for most people. There weren’t many people in a rural town like Laffan who could purchase expensive luxury goods like fresh fruit, so they were a risky product to stock up on, and the only ones available on the market in Laffan were dried fruit and fruit that grew in the nearby forests.

“Well, I enjoy fruit as well, so I understand,” said Haruka. “Besides, it looks like Metea can’t wait any longer, so let’s get started harvesting pears. The pear tree doesn’t look too big, so I think just the two of us will be enough for this, Yuki.”

“Yeah!” said Yuki. “Let’s do this!”

It was true that the tree wasn’t very big, but that was only in comparison to dindel trees and the trees that produced precious wood. In fact, when I looked up into the air, the tree appeared to be at least six meters tall. Pear trees weren’t that big back on Earth, were they? Is it because they were pruned to be smaller, or are pear trees in this world just big? Hmm.

Haruka and Yuki climbed up the pear tree, and the rest of us caught the pears that they tossed down and stowed them in our magic bags. Touya remained on alert, but there didn’t seem to be any monsters approaching us, so it was possible that monsters inside of dungeons had discrete territories.

The total number of pears that we ended up harvesting was easily over one hundred. Yuki sounded like she was about to sing a song of joy as she hopped down from the tree. “Tee hee, we managed to harvest a lot! I’m so happy!”

Metea was dancing around with one pear in each hand. “They all look delicious! Can I start eating? Can I eat as many as I want?”

Mary wasn’t dancing, but she was holding pears in her hands as if they were treasures. Man, Metea and Mary are so cute.

“We can eat them right now, but let’s chill them first,” said Touya. “Nao, use your Cool spell!”

“Sure, I’ll get on it right away,” I said. “One pear per person should be enough for now, right?”

We were free to eat as many pears as we wanted, but even Metea probably wouldn’t be able to eat a lot at once. I used my magic to chill one pear per person for a total of seven pears, and Yuki peeled them before handing them out to everyone.

“All right, time to try one out,” I said. I bit into the whole pear and was greeted with its unique texture as a lot of juice burst into my mouth. “Oh, yeah, it definitely tastes better and fresher than before.”

The sweetness of dindels was nice, but the cold juice of a pear felt much better as a way to pour liquid down my throat after exercising.

“Mm, pears definitely taste best when cold!” said Yuki.

“A whole pear is a bit too much for me,” said Haruka. “Do you want to eat half of mine, Metea?”

“Yeah!”

“In that case, I’ll share mine with Mary-chan,” said Natsuki. “Would you like to eat half of my pear, Mary-chan?”

“Um, okay. Thank you very much.”

Metea was beaming as she received one half of a pear from Haruka. Mary seemed a bit hesitant at first, but when Natsuki shared with her, she looked happy as well. Touya was our party’s biggest eater, and he had already finished eating his pear, but...

“Are you sure just one pear will be enough for you, Touya?”

“Hm? Is one too much for you too, Nao?” Touya asked. “Wanna share?”

“Nah, that’s not it,” I replied. “I’m just saying that I can chill another one if you want more.”

He shook his head. “I’m fine for now. There’s also a good chance that we’ll find another kind of fruit soon, so I don’t want to stuff myself right away.”

Mary and Metea were happily chewing their pears, but they froze in place when they heard Touya’s words and stared at what remained in their hands.

“Metea-chan, would you like to toss your pear into our magic bags for later?” Natsuki asked.

“...N-No, I can eat the rest,” Metea replied. “I just have to do my best!”

“I-I’m sure it’ll be fine once we get some exercise from moving around a bit,” said Mary.

After a few seconds, the sisters resumed chewing their pears, so they must have been hesitant about tossing half-eaten food into our magic bags. There was no guarantee that we would actually find more fruit, but...

“Well, I guess Touya is right—there’s a chance we can find other fruit on this floor of the dungeon,” I said. “There was a floor where we were able to get a lot of meat, so it wouldn’t be weird for there to be a lot of fruit for the taking on this floor.”

“Yeah, exactly. Just pears wouldn’t make for enough variety, so I’d like to find other fruits,” said Yuki. “They make good gifts for Diola-san, Aera-san, and Riva too, so let’s do our best to find some.”

“We can’t find something that isn’t there, but I’m good with searching,” said Haruka. “I’d like to find different fruits as well. Besides, I think it’ll be worth it to explore every nook and cranny of this floor.”

“Mm. I like sweet things too, so I approve of that idea,” said Natsuki.

Haruka and Natsuki both had smiles on their faces as they agreed with Yuki’s proposal, so it seemed our party had a plan to follow.

“In that case, let’s get started right away! Nothing’s going to stop me in my search for delicious fruit, especially since Touya will deal with anything that tries to stop me!” Yuki said, pointing at Touya’s back.

“Me?! I mean, yeah, I’ll work hard too, but really?” Touya jabbed back.

But he led the way as usual, and the rest of us followed his dependable back as we started our hunt for fruit.

In the end, we didn’t discover any other fruit trees in that first forest. We did find some more pear trees among the non-fruit trees, so we built up quite a stockpile of pears, but that was all.

However, Touya’s prediction hadn’t been completely wrong. After we’d explored the eleventh floor completely, we learned it was laid out in a square, with each side being roughly ten kilometers. The wall from which we’d emerged was one side of that square, and there was a wall ahead of us that looked the same and had stairs leading to the next floor. The left and right sides of the eleventh floor were blocked off by invisible walls, and we hadn’t been able to advance past those walls, even though the scenery ahead had been visible.