I got another message from Ai, but I don’t want to get involved anymore, so I’m ignoring it.
It might be an explanation about yesterday’s attack, but I’m not interested anymore.
I check the mail and see a response from a company I sent my resume to the other day.
It says they’ll pray for my future endeavors.
So that’s a no.
I’ll start working on my resume again.
I spend my morning on it, and then mail it out. This one’s going out to a big company in the prime market of the Tokyo stock exchange.
If I can get in this one, I can look down on Honto.
◇ ◇ ◇
I’m on the fourteenth floor of the dungeon.
I came here in kind of a hurry, but it took longer than I thought. Floors from the eleventh onward are twice the size of what came before them.
I’ve been coming to the dungeon and leaving on the same day, but one or two more floors, and I’ll need to start staying here for the night.
Should I stop here? Keep going?
If we’re thinking about income, I should keep going, but it’s not like I’m hard up for money, so I don’t need to go too far.
A single rock wolf on the thirteenth floor is worth an average of three thousand yen. If I take down five or six, I’ll earn more than I would at a part-time job.
There’s no reason to keep advancing.
…
As I ponder what to do, I strike a poison slime that jumps past me, and crush its core.
It melts, and I collect the purple slime ball next to it.
This is a new monster that appears on the fourteenth floor. It’s mostly the same as regular slimes, but it’s light purple and expels poison.
I dodged the poison, but that’s no reason to let my guard down. The smoke coming from the fallen poison has adverse effects on the body.
If someone’s fighting a lot of poison slimes, they have to have a countermeasure for the poison, or it’s going to get in their bodies and kill them.
That’s why a lot of seekers wear gas masks from this floor forward.
I don’t have one.
I don’t have to when I have the Poison Resistance skill.
Also, like any other slime, poison slimes have acid in their bodies, so if you touch them, you’ll get burned. And if your weapon isn’t ready for acid, every time you finish off one, it degrades a little more until it’s useless.
My greatsword of fortitude is ready for that, so I can hunt poison slimes without a care.
◇ ◇ ◇
I keep going forward without much worry.
When I reach a dead end, I turn around and take a different path.
This keeps repeating, and as I’m about to start singing, I find a girl on the ground.
…
I’ve seen you before.
Aren’t your friends with you?
Why are you here alone?
I pass by her, and hurry forward.
But then, she’s suddenly holding onto my back.
Kyah!?
I scream in surprise.
I try to shake her off me, but she puts me in a headlock.
“Why did you walk right past me?”
She asks near my ear, but that just makes me more scared.
What’s with this girl!? Why can’t I shake her off!?
She’s abnormally strong! Is she human!?
Ah! This is a youkai! What does a youkai want with me?
…
Let’s kill it.
I regain my composure, grip my greatsword, and get ready to slash behind me.
The girl panics and jumps off me.
Mu, she’s in a position where I can easily slash her, so this will be easy.
I want to at least minimize her pain, so let’s use Physical Strengthening and…
She starts waving her arms to stop me. And then bowing again and again. Is she apologizing?
She’s thrown her weapon, and looks to be surrendering completely.
…Fine.
I’ll overlook it this one time.
I say that and try to leave, but she gets in front of me.
What, you still want something?
…
Maybe I should kill her.
As I grab my sword and hesitate, she starts explaining why she was there on the ground alone.
Her group came to the dungeon this morning, and was lucky enough to find a treasure chest.
They opened it full of hope, but it was a trap that sprung when they retrieved the item.
Next thing she knew, she was alone.
She was wondering why she collapsed, and if there was a kind soul that would help her look for her comrades.
It looks like she reached that conclusion after figuring she wouldn’t be able to go around the fourteenth floor alone.
And she didn’t expect the first person to come through here to walk right past her.
After hearing all that, I tell her to hang in there until someone nice comes along, and get up to leave.
Eh? What? I’m cold-hearted?
No no, I can’t walk around with someone who will be a burden. This is my first time on the fourteenth floor, and I don’t want to shoulder more than I have to.
I explain that, but she won’t back down.
Oh well, I tell her she can come along, but I won’t be looking for her friends or anything.
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