I didn’t get any sleep. Looking at my bank balance on my smartphone made me dance with joy all night.
Twenty million and fifteen thousand yen. If I didn’t get that money, I would’ve been eating bean sprouts starting tomorrow. I’m so glad I avoided that.
Hn? Look at yourself? Eat some frost?
I can’t argue with that.
That’s why today, I’m eating yakiniku.
So what if I’m fat!? I’m healthy, that’s what matters! I’m going to eat meat even if I get fatter!!
Kalbi, roast, beef tongue, entrails, all with a beer in hand. Even if this paints the picture of an ugly pig, all I care about is filling my stomach.
I wipe my drool, and go get some exercise in the dungeon to make the meat taste even better.
◇ ◇ ◇
The thirteenth floor of the dungeon.
I’ve noticed something recently. Isn’t the dungeon the perfect place to exercise?
You might be wondering how I can say that when I’ve gotten fat, but hear me out.
Normally, exercising is hard.
People play sports or train their muscles as a hobby, and they incorporate it into their daily routines. Their bodies can’t relax if they don’t do it.
That’s why they don’t find it hard. Even if they do, they don’t try to stop. It’s just a natural part of their lives.
So how do people who don’t normally exercise work their bodies? You give them a reward.
If you beat monsters in the dungeon, you get money. You need to take parts of monsters with you, but you do get money.
And that’s not all, you level up and get special abilities called skills.
Get stronger, and the body of your dreams. It’s full of positives.
When I tell that to the old man party I’ve never met before, they snicker at me like I’m an idiot.
They say it’d be one thing if you weren’t risking your life, but who’d do this for fun when one wrong move can lead to death even on the lower floors? I don’t have a counterargument.
I watch the old man party as they leave, thinking my seniors in life really think about stuff.
Let’s pull myself together and get going.
My goal today is to find the staircase to the fourteenth floor.
A mix of a rock wolf, a rock worm, a big ant, and a goblin appears.
Whenever a variety of monsters like this appears, I start wondering if they’ll start fighting each other like when there’s a numbing moth, and get both nostalgic and expectant.
But things aren’t that easy for me, and all four attack me.
I use only my sword this time.
First, I trust it at the rock wolf as it approaches, and put it down.
Then I crush the big ant’s head, and kill the goblin with another thrust.
The rock worm tries its best to camouflage itself, but I slowly approach it and crush it.
Come to think of it, I took them all out with sword thrusts. It’s fast, simple, and carries force.
Let’s look for other monsters to try out other stuff.
◇ ◇ ◇
I don’t know if it’s punishment for getting all bloodthirsty or just bad luck, but I should be more careful.
There’s a kind of sweet smell coming from somewhere.
I don’t know what it is, but it’s too light to be incense, and doesn’t necessarily smell good. It’s a strange smell that I can’t quite describe that’s permeating.
I keep going, watching out for some sort of trap, until I reach a big area.
The smell is light here too, and I don’t feel anything particularly unpleasant. But then suddenly, I feel a lot of presences approaching.
There are four entrances to this place, and I feel monsters approaching from all of them.
What arrives is a whole bunch of rock wolves.
They get together into a repulsively large pack, and come at me.
I create a bunch of earth thorns in front of them and slow down their advance.
Big ants broke the thorns as they advanced, but the rock wolves jump into the rock thorns from behind and into their deaths.
Still, one gets over, and I send its head flying with my greatsword as it gets close.
Two more jump over, and I slash them both.
I set a lot of earth bullets on the ground, just as the earth thorns are finally broken and the rock wolves rush towards me.
I spin like a spinning top, and start slashing them.
After a good amount goes down, I stop because I’m dizzy.
This leaves me wide open for the merciless rock wolves, but I deal with them with the earth bullets I set.
I shake my head to reset my semicircular canals, and exterminate the rock wolves with my greatsword and Earth Magic.
◇ ◇ ◇
What just happened? I wonder on top of a bunch of rock wolf corpses.
There were over five hundred of them, and the whole place stinks of blood.
One would think this many rock wolves would overpower me soon enough, but I managed to stay cool and take them down as if it wasn’t a big deal.
I was ready to die back when the big ants attacked, and managed to turn it around by taking advantage of an opportunity, but I was never in that much danger against the rock wolves.
I just took them down like it was work.
The monsters were strange too, so that played a big part.
Rock wolves are monsters that usually attack in coordination with others, but not these ones. It’s like they abandoned their strongest weapon.
Because of that, they couldn’t make proper use of their numbers, and I took them all out without suffering a scratch.
Were they manipulated by something? If so, what?
Was there something like the big ant queen? I look around, but don’t see anything.
Wait, having a commander wouldn’t make them weaker.
…
I don’t know, so I stop thinking and get ready to work.
After all, I have to harvest materials from all these rock wolves.
I only have so much time, so let’s get started.
◇ ◇ ◇
Yakiniku is tasty…
I’m putting meat I got for half price at the supermarket on a hot plate. Drinking beer, putting sauce on the meat, and bringing it to my mouth.
I haven’t had yakiniku in a while. I was still working for that company the last time I did.
That time, I was drinking while grumbling on and on about the company with my coworker.
Fufu.
Now I’m alone.
…
I’ve decided that this will be my last yakiniku.
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Haruto Tanaka (24)
Level: 12
Skills: Earth Magic, Trace, Healing Magic, Spatial Grasp, Toughness, Magic Energy Control, Physical Strengthening, Poison Resistance, Storage Space, See Through
Equipment: Agility bracelet, greatsword of fortitude
Status: Fat (All abilities boosted)
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