I gulp down soda mixed with queen ant honey.
Kuihhh!?”
This high energy yell is an omen of how my day will go.
Yes, I’m in top form again today!
As I go through the usual routine, I hear the sound that tells me someone’s at the door this early in the morning.
Is it a complaint? I’ve been letting out these weird sounds practically every day, so I thought it might happen eventually.
I feel bad thinking the day is finally here.
I’ll just apologize, and start yelling into a bucket starting tomorrow.
I open the door with an apologetic expression, but what I see is Ai Honda of the Honto corporation.
…I shouldn’t have opened it.
I try to close the door, but Ai stops me with her foot
Hn? Stop?
No, you got the wrong house.
Eh? Your business is with me?
But I don’t have any with you.
Why did I ignore your calls?
Because I didn’t want to be involved anymore.
Just listen to you?
No, that’s a bit…
As this back and forth is going on, another resident of this building looks this way with a suspicious expression. This probably looks like a scene of jealous love or something. How embarrassing.
Any more noise might get the cops called, so I give up and invite her in.
◇ ◇ ◇
It’s just water, I say as I place it in front of her and listen.
She hands me her business card, and I see she went from vice-president to president.
She says the chairman was taken to the hospital right after I treated him.
He was pretty out of it at first, but regained his consciousness as tests were being performed. And he had more vitality than ever.
They got him to settle down and checked the results of the tests, and the attending physician was surprised to find no traces of his terminal disease.
But just as the chairman announced he was recovering and would be back to work soon, her uncle collapsed for unknown reasons.
He was taken to the hospital, but after being unconscious for two days, he woke up with no memory of recent events.
The company suspected overworking, but some say it was the weight the death of his ex-wife placed on his heart.
Also, his son, Ai’s cousin, went missing.
It was known that he put together a seeker clan and had been working in the dungeon. But none of them could be found in the place they called their base, despite their things still being there.
They waited for a few days, but no one ever came back. And when they asked the seeker association about them, they said some of their mementos had been delivered.
Apparently her cousin’s ID was in there too.
The truth is shrouded in mystery, which Ai can’t accept. She wants to at least know a little about what happened, so she’s been running around looking for information.
First, she looked for the person who delivered those mementos.
She asked the seeker association, but they were obligated to maintain that information confidential.
But as she kept looking, it did not take her long to find him. Someone who delivered so much equipment just days before would surely leave an impression.
Said adventurer was very fat, and had an ugly body you would think would not befit a seeker.
That was enough for Ai to connect the dots. It had to be me.
…You have the wrong guy, please continue.
Ah, can I ask you who told you?
It’s okay, I won’t get mad.
After all, you have the wrong person.
Then she tried to contact me, but I didn’t answer.
She resigned herself to asking her uncle, but found he really had no memory of that time when they had a dispute going on.
As this was going on, the police visited their company. They were investigating her cousin.
She asked why, and was told he was a suspect in a murder case. Of his mother of all people.
She told them her cousin had suddenly gone missing, and where his base was.
Ai told her uncle about this series of events, and after pondering it for a while, he decided he would resign when the chairman returned.
This went down the other day. Her father, the chairman, returned, and the president resigned.
And Ai was promoted to president without any issues.
And after all that, she came here to talk to me.
Hum, you have the wrong guy, I don’t know a thing.
Nope, there’s plenty of fat people out there, it wasn’t me.
Eh? But not fat seekers?
That can’t be right! What about me!?
Hn? I’m the only one? Ah, I see…
Yes, I did deliver their mementos.
I’m confessing. I tell her about how they attacked me, I beat them back and left them wounded, and monsters killed them.
And that they attacked me as payback for helping her.
When I’m done, she bows and apologizes.
I don’t care, so if you’re done, can you go? I say with a displeased tone.
Ai apologizes again, and gets up. She tells me to drop by her company again if I have the time, because the chairman wants to meet me, and then she leaves.
I look at the time, and it’s almost noon.
◇ ◇ ◇
The fifteenth floor.
I keep taking down monsters as I advance.
I’ve only been on the fifteenth floor for an hour, but I’ve fought three times already.
Since each group has a lot of monsters, a new one comes while I’m still fighting. Thankfully, they’re still at a level where I can deal with them without much trouble, but it’s hindering my progress.
I only have about a couple of hours of exploration left.
I’m not going to be able to investigate much in the time I have. I need to start staying the night in the dungeon, or I’m not going to make much progress.
I need to have a concrete plan going forward.
Take down monsters, collect parts, take down monsters. It keeps repeating without any changes, until I find a square box much like the one I found yesterday.
It’s a treasure chest.
Another treasure chest.
Even though there was one yesterday.
What if another dangerous monster appears?
This equipment was expensive. If it also gets ruined, I’m gonna be sad.
But that said, leaving it be isn’t an option.
I approach the treasure chest in the middle of the room, and open it.
I hear a click, and Spatial Detection detects several things.
I turn around to block them with my shield, and dodge something attacking my feet.
They change direction to come at me again, but I smack them down with my greatsword.
Once I land, I get a good look at them.
They’re bug monsters with pointed lips. They’re only about five centimeters long, and since they died from me blocking them with my shield, they couldn’t have been that strong.
I take a necklace from the treasure chest, and head back.
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Haruto Tanaka (24)
Level: 14
Skills: Earth Magic, Trace, Healing Magic, Spatial Grasp, Toughness, Magic Energy Control, Physical Strengthening, Poison Resistance, Storage Space, See Through, Parallel Thinking
Equipment: Agility bracelet, great sword of fortitude, divine bird boots, detox necklace
Status: Fat (All abilities boosted)
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