“Let me introduce myself. I’m Miki, the branch manager of the 525 branch of the dungeon association. Since you have been looking after my two daughters, I was going to say hello anyway, Amachi. But I didn’t expect it to be under these circumstances.
So you weren’t satisfied with just Aki, and want Maki as your exclusive too…”
I’m still feeling the shock from before, and feel a heavy sense of pressure from the branch manager.
I’ve heard that most branch managers are former adventurers, and the pressure I get from her feels like she might be a seasoned veteran.
At this point, I can’t tell her under any circumstances that it was a joke. I’ve never experienced a mood like this before, and I can’t even speak, so I just nod.
“I see… Aki is actually excellent despite how she seems, and she’s working as both receptionist and branch manager of 777. She has her own discretion, so I wasn’t concerned about her becoming someone’s exclusive. But then you add Maki to this…”
“Manager, I want to be his exclusive! And not because my sister is his exclusive, it’s because I think I can trust him!”
“…I see, so you’re serious.”
Says the manager while staring at me.
…What is this feeling? It’s like she’s seeing right through me.
But I can’t back down here.
Even if there are some problems at the start of a double contract, I need to brace myself after Maki has said all that too.
I stare right back at the branch manager.
“Fufu… I see. No wonder my daughters fell for you at first sight.”
“…?”
What?
The mood around the branch manager suddenly softens, and I feel strength leaving my tense body.
“But I have one condition, if Maki is to be your exclusive. Amachi, you hunted a rare monster yesterday and found a skill. And then you asked Maki to put it up for auction. Am I right so far?”
“Ah, yes.”
“It will be held tomorrow, but because you put up Super Strength for auction, it’s looking to be a very animated one. Rumors bequeath rumors, so it seems we will be having all sorts of guests. And since a precious skill is going to be on the market through this branch, that will raise the branch’s value too. I want to sincerely thank you for that.”
“…Ah, so the condition is…”
“Yes, you catch on quickly. I want you to bring another high level skill to be put up for auction. You have two weeks. If you can do that, I can entrust my daughters to you.”
“M-mom!? That’s crazy!”
Maki stands up, unable to hide her bewilderment, and approaches the branch manager.
“Maki, I’m your manager here. And I have no intention to change my condition. Don’t worry Amachi, there won’t be any penalty if you fail. Even if she doesn’t become your exclusive, Maki will still give you preferential treatment as a proxy. What do you think?”
Get another skill… I don’t think that will be a problem.
First, there are hobgoblins like the one I fought yesterday. I can’t imagine myself losing to one. I’ve seen through their attack patterns, and the condition to make one spawn is easy to achieve.
Not to mention that by the time I fight another one, I will have rolled the gacha again and gained higher stats, so it should be even easier.
Then there’s the drop rate of skill orbs, but I can’t say for sure what it is, because I haven’t investigated it, and I don’t think anyone else has poured as many points into Luck either. And yet, there are a lot of skills on the market around the world.
Most other people can’t reliably make a rare monster spawn, or have as much Luck as me. Not to mention that most people who come across skill orbs use them on themselves.
Even though I’m probably pretty high up there in terms of Luck, I’ll probably have to do a few test runs because I have to be able to summon a rare monster. Furthermore, every time I roll the gacha, I level up again and pour more SP into Luck, so I should be increasing the drop rates of items and spawn rate of monsters.
The real problem is the possibility that something else might spawn after the hobgoblin.
I looked into it yesterday, and found a few monsters that might be connected to it. Their names are general goblin, ogre, and goblin king. I wasn’t able to get information on them, so I don’t know how strong they are, but the king’s name alone leads me to believe it’s dangerous.
But this is a low level dungeon for beginners, that shouldn’t have strong enemies…
No, it wasn’t the dungeon that decided that, it was us humans who assigned that label. I can’t say for sure that things like that won’t spawn.
I really have to be careful when I go for it…
“Shouta? Shouta!”
“Ueh?”
Maki’s face is right in front of mine.
T-too close!!
“Hum, you can say no if you don’t think you can do it. I appreciate the thought of you wanting me to be your exclusive.”
Ah, oh no.
I got lost in my thoughts as always.
“I’m sorry Maki, I’m fine. Hum, branch manager, it doesn’t have to be Super Strength, right?”
“Yes. In fact, people would be less excited about the same one again. But you can bring another Super Strength orb. It’s still a useful and rare skill.”
“Understood. I accept.”
“Shouta…”
“Wonderful. Then I will send information about all the rare monsters found in this dungeon and their skills to your tablet. And I will mark the more valuable ones, so take that into consideration. Excuse me.”
The branch manager says as she leaves with a smile on her face.
She was ready with a lot of materials, despite this being a sudden condition to add. It’s almost like she saw this coming. I guess she’s just competent?
◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇
Afterwards, Maki apologizes and thanks me, and after declaring my resolve, I leave the conference room. And then, since all of this left me tired, I go to the cafe here in the association to take a break.
My order is black tea with plenty of sugar.
It’s really sweet, but it makes me settle down.
“I wanted to talk about what to do with the stuff that I can’t carry in my bag, but it all went in a weird direction. That branch manager kind of felt like a combination of Aki and Maki.”
Her demeanor is soft like Maki’s, but she has an unseen and strange pressure to her like Aki. And those eyes. They looked exactly like Aki’s when she was having fun messing with me.
Like mother like daughter.
“Well, I guess it’s more like twenty percent Maki and eighty percent Aki.”
I’m sure she was also half joking with that condition, but that means she was also serious too. I feel like I saw it in her eyes that she had hopes for me.
I can’t really read her, but one thing that came in loud and clear is that she cares about Maki. And since I’m the one who brought it up, I need to take full responsibility for it.
“All right.”
I open the dungeon communication application to kind of clear my head.
The files the branch manager told me about are already being downloaded. They’re more detailed than the information Maki gave me yesterday, and there’s information about hobgoblins too.
There are holes in the information, like how some floors say the rare monster spawns are unknown or ‘???’, and some rare monsters are listed as having unknown drops. Still, this looks like it will be very useful to formulate a plan going forward.
And it says only hobgoblins spawn on the first floor…
I go through the materials carefully, but I can’t find anything that appears on this dungeon that looks like it might come after a hobgoblin, or after killer rabbits.
Leaving hobgoblins aside, it’s pretty much impossible to investigate what rare monsters might come after killer rabbits, because their spawn rate is so low, and it will fail if I beat a goblin along the way.
Thankfully, there are also killer rabbits on the second floor, so I guess I could hunt them there…
“But there’s always the chance that different rare monsters spawn on different floors…”
Ah, no good. I can’t help but be curious.
I have to dive into the dungeon and check for myself!
I gulp down the black tea, and make my way to the dungeon full of energy.
And I don’t even notice that a few adventurers are looking at me as I go.
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Well, that certainly escalated quickly.