Genghis Khan
Part 1
『Sherry』
『Current Character Levels & Equipment』:
Jobs:
Blacksmith Lv.3
Equipment:
Club
Backpack
Leather Helmet
Leather Jacket
Leather Gloves
Leather Boots
I do not believe that I have mentioned this before, but in the off chance that I
did, allow me to reiterate: Sex Maniac is a truly terrifying Job.
I have to admit that I might have vastly underestimated the power that
「Enhanced Vigor」 Skill is giving me, because whenever I have it equipped I
feel like I could go for having my fun with Roxanne and Sherry in the bed
practically every day, so the energizing effect of 「Enhanced Vigor」 is really
making me more energetic than I have ever been before. Not only that, but
the more I use it, the stronger its effects seem to be getting. Back when I did
not have the Sex Maniac Job unlocked, the maximum I could do was one
round of sex with Roxanne after which both of us felt so spent that we did not
really have the energy left for anything else than falling asleep in each other's
arms, but now that I have Sex Maniac Job and 「Enhanced Vigor」 Skill, it is
not a problem for me to be going for two or three rounds without ever feeling
tired or needing a prolonged period of time to "reload" myself. Today was
the first time ever when I noticed that I could go three times in a row, which
got me so pumped that that last third time I made sure to down on the two of
them especially hard, and now that it was all over, I kissed the exhausted
Sherry and Roxanne, exactly in that order. Normally that would have made
Roxanne sad since I ignored the order and went for a kiss with the second
slave first instead of giving it to Roxanne, the self-proclaimed Number One
Slave first, but today there were good reasons for her not being angry about
it. For once, she was too tired to really notice and/or care about such detail,
and secondly, because the kisses I was giving her when it was finally her turn
were especially long, hot and passionate so that we could both taste each
other for everything we were worth. It was only after I finished reveling in
the taste of her sweet mouth that I was finally able to lay down on the bed to
catch a breath myself. I laid on my back and wrapped my arms around
Roxanne's warm body again, hugging her tightly. Ahhh, the feeling of
Roxanne's warm and soft skin pressing against mine is the absolute best
sensation that I can never get tired off no matter how many times I get to
experience it.
As I was breathing slowly and calming myself down after all of that
strenuous physical activity I just went through, Sherry came back to the bed
on trembling legs after changing into her nightgown. She talked to Roxanne
in whispers for a bit and then came to lie down at my other side.
「You were amazing as always, both of you. After something like that, there
is no way that I am not going to have a good night's sleep.」
「I am glad to hear that. Knowing that master is going to have a good night's
sleep thanks to us is the best news to fall asleep to., since it is going to be the
same for me.」
I really hope that Roxanne truly meant what she said just now, and she was
not simply trying to make me feel better.
While I was still living on earth, I remember that I read in one magazine that
when having sex with a woman, foreplay and afterplay are just as important
as the main dish and only the one who has mastered the art of both of those
things can ever hope to be able to properly please his woman to a degree that
will guarantee that she will never want to leave you for other guys. That is
why I am always placing such an emphasis on kissing in the morning and
after sex before going to sleep as well as making sure that I hug Roxanne
throughout the entire night until the moment when I will wake up the next
morning. As long as I keep doing those things to Roxanne and Sherry, I hope
they will stay by my side and allow me to continue doing even more
pleasurable things to them.
「Is that so? That is good to know. Also, congratulations on pulling through
today with flying colors, Sherry. All of your hard work paid off
magnificently today, but how are you feeling? I hope that you are not too
exhausted after all that fighting in the Labyrinth?」
「Yes, today was definitely a lot of hard work. . . . . . . . . but to be honest, I
do not really hate it.」
She does not really hate the hard work that she went through today, huh?
Well, if that is what Sherry herself is saying, then I see no other problems
with it. After all, not disliking something is basically the same as liking
something, am I right? Yeah, it's equal to that. Most definitely equal, without
a shadow of a doubt.
「Is that so? Fufufu, that is definitely good to hear, Sherry.」
「Y-Yes, that is right, Miss Roxanne. Now that I learned how to hit more than
one opponent at a time properly, that ability is surely going to become very
useful in our fights against the monsters of the Labyrinths together. A-Also,
master really surprised me today. I. . . . . . I never would have expected that
he is going to be able to do it that many times with both of us without resting
even once.」
Due to Sherry's sudden compliment, I felt a little embarrassed, but also
pleasantly satisfied. It is sooo good to hear that she is appreciating what I am
doing to the two of them. It makes me want to try even harder than before in
order to meet their expectations of me.
「Oh, that is definitely right. I was not aware that master could be that
amazing as well. But I am even more amazed by the fact that you finally
managed to become the Master Smith like you always wanted, Sherry.」
「Took the words right out of my mouth. To be honest, I still cannot believe it
as well.」
「Ehh. Really? Well, even though you might feel like that, it remains a fact
that you were able to fuse that Rabbit Skill Crystal with that Copper sword,
so that should be enough of a proof for you.」
「You are right, master. It is just that. . . . . it still feels like a dream, to be
honest, but I should not doubt myself like that.」
So she still cannot fully believe it, despite all of the evidence that she saw
today? Well, I cannot say that I blame her, since she has spend the bigger part
of her current life believing that she should just give up on becoming a
Master Smith despite the small hope that she might be able to succeed hidden
somewhere deep down in her heart.
「And. . . . . . . . and I know I should not worry about it too much if there is no
good reason to, but I just cannot rid my mind of the thought that the Skill
Crystal Fusion fails so often, and that this successful one might have been
nothing but a fluke caused by beginners luck, and I cannot stop worrying
about what is going to happen when the next fusion I perform, or the next one
after that, or any other future fusions that I am going to attempt are going to
end up in failure.」
「So it is still eating away at you so much?」
「Yes, and I am ashamed for that, and I can only express my deepest
apologies. But. . . it is just that I have heard so much horrible stories. . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . … . . . 」
So Sherry is still lacking in the confidence department? I just hope that this
lack of confidence of hers is not going to evolve to become a much bigger
problem somewhere down the line.
「I see. You do not have to speak about it if you do not want to, but do you
know what exactly happens to Master Smiths who amass too many failures to
their names?」
If I learn some more about the punishments that Master Smith Slaves are
subjected to, then maybe I will be able to come up with countermeasures
against them.
Part 2
「I do not mind, master. If. . . . . . if the Master Smiths who became slaves
continue to fail their attempted fusions and waste the materials and
equipment provided to them by their masters, they can be kicked out of the
Party they belong to, face severe corporal punishment, or they can even be
resold if the master thinks that their attempts at fusing items cost him too
much of his money and resources. These punishments are not all of the ones
that failed Master Smiths can be subjected to, but they are definitely the most
popular ones.」
So they are even subjected to corporal punishment? Well, I cannot say that I
am surprised, since that would be pretty fitting for the times and the overall
setting of this world, but still. . . . . . . . . . . even if it would be fitting, I would
never have resulted to using something as barbaric as that against Sherry.
「It is all right, Sherry, you can rest assured that as your master, master will
never do any of those awful things to you, even if one of your fusions would
end up in a failure.」
「R-Really?」
「Yes, really.」
「See, Sherry, this just goes to show how great of a person master really is.」
Who, me?
「Y-Yes, that is definitely amazing off him. . . . if not a bit concerning as well.
But that. . . that is something that I am most definitely thankful for.」
As I was lying on the bed without the slightest intention (or strength left) to
move, Roxanne must have assumed that I have already fallen asleep, because
she lifted her head from the pillow and talked with Sherry over my body. As
for that bit about me being amazing because of my refusal to use corporal
punishment, or any form of punishment for that matter, on Sherry if she
ended up failing the fusion of equipment with Skill Crystals, I really do not
think that this should be something that I should be praised for, since such a
mindset is not anything all that peculiar, but rather commonplace for anyone
born in the twenty first century. But if both Sherry and Roxanne say that such
a mindset is something praiseworthy, then who am I to deny them their
praises. Moreover, it was wonderful to see the two of them interact with each
other in such a wholesome way. Normally they are spending the entire day
with me around and since they are always focusing on fulfilling my orders
before anything else, they do not really get all that many chances for them to
be talking with each other without any reservations. I mean, today they had a
nice chance to have a pretty long girl-on-girl talk while I was in the
Merchant's Guild and they were sent to the clothing store to do some
shopping, but I wonder if such an amount of interaction and conversation was
nearly enough for them, since as far as I know, girls in their teenage years are
all pretty chatty. That, and as far as I am concerned, it is always better to have
nice, long chats and get along with one another rather than be leaving
everything in the air without speaking your mind clearly, leaving the other
party with no other option but to start assuming what were your motives and
intentions behind every word or sentence you have spoken, and unlike men,
women will never run out of topics to talk about because they will always
have various stories and gossip to share among themselves.
Since it would be pretty rude to intrude upon Sherry's and Roxanne's girl
time with my male presence, I decided that now might be as good of a
moment as any to drift off into sleep, since everything indicated that the girls
would be talking for a good while longer.
When I woke up in the morning, I was hugging onto Roxanne, exactly as I
intended. I never talked about this before, but she makes for an excellent
hugging pillow, not only because her boobs are so pillowy soft and elastic,
just like the rest of her body, that your face might start sinking into them if
you bury your head between them, but also because the hair growing on her
back are extremely smooth and pleasant to the touch. Oh, and her hugs are so
blissfully calming that I feel like I could stay the way that I currently am
forever without moving an inch, and both my body and soul would have been
completely fine with that. And the best thing about my current situation is
that Roxanne's soft goodness was enveloping only one half of my body,
because the other one has been occupied by Sherry. Her limbs are thinner
than Roxanne's and she does not have hair on her back, but when it comes to
the body heat then she can easily rival Roxanne hands down. However, one
point of concern that I have in regards to her current position is how
unnaturally bent her body looked, by which I mean that she looked as if
someone took half of her body and twisted it, but since she did not look as if
she was hurt or uncomfortable, then that probably means that she did not hurt
any of her muscles, even if she ended up sleeping like that throughout the
entire night.
As I began moving around, Roxanne opened her eyes and lifted herself up in
the sheets so that she could give me my desired good morning kiss after she
checked up on me and noticed that I am no longer asleep. Even though it
should still be pretty early outside and I Was sure that I was the one who has
woken up first today, it looks like I was wrong, and Roxanne was the one
who actually woken up first. I do not know how exactly is she doing that, but
she seems to always wake up before me. Is it because of my order for her to
always give me a good morning kiss? Because if so, then that is truly some
serious dedication on her part. Or maybe she is simply someone was is very
easy to wake up? Either way, I am pretty sure that it is one of the two.
「Good morning, master.」
「Good morning, Roxanne」
We greeted each other after our night of a very pleasurable sleep, and then we
kissed each other and I got to enjoy the softness of her lips and the rich
elasticity of her chest at the same time once more. We tangled our tongues
together and allowed them to dance in our mouths. Roxanne was moving her
own in an especially aggressive manner today, so I had to put an effort to
keep up with her right from the get-go while making absolutely sure that not
even a single drop of her saliva is going to be wasted a and that I will
experience everything her mouth and tongue have to offer to their absolute
fullest.
「 . . . . . . . . . . . . hnnnngh. . . . . good morning, master, Miss Roxanne.」
It would seem that Sherry has awakened from her sleep as well. Freeing
myself from Roxanne's embrace for a bit, I made sure to hug her so that she
would not feel left out of the fun. Now that she has barely woken up, her
small and delicate figure were giving off a truly ephemeral impression. I had
a feeling that id I tried to hug her even tighter than how I was already doing it
then she would break in half like a dried-up branch of a tree, though of course
I was sincerely hoping that no such thing would ever happen to her. Still, in
her case, rather than acting as my hugging pillow, I would have very much
like it if she could lie next to my side again, because if I could feel her
warmth on my skin again, then there would be nothing else that I would need
to be a truly happy man.
Then, Sherry also gave me a good morning kiss, honoring the agreement that
she was to be doing that to me just like Roxanne was doing. Her tongue
awkwardly crawled into my mouth and needed a minute or two to properly
get her going, but once that happened, then she was also seeking the pleasure
of kissing in a more aggressive fashion than yesterday. Could this be the
aftereffect of what I have done to her yesterday? Is she acting bolder than
usual because of the mouth-to-mouth medicine I was forced to give her?
Because if so, then I should have done that sooner.
Part 3
As I continued to move it around in her mouth, she also continued to entwine
it around my tongue. Even when I was repeatedly inserting and removing it
from her mouth in order to maximize the pleasure that we both felt, she was
eagerly welcoming me back every time without a single word of complaint,
so I continued to move around in Sherry's mouth, squeezing it in every way
possible.
「Good morning, Sherry.」
After tasting Sherry's mouth to the fullest, I let go of her.
When it comes to the plans for today, I think it is finally time for us to
explore the eighth floors of the Labyrinths for real, starting with the
Labyrinth of Quratar, so once we got out of the bed and finished getting
dressed and preparing our equipment, we made our way to Quratar
Labyrinth's seventh floor so that Sherry could practice fighting against that
Floor Boss first.
「The Floor Boss we are about to fight is called Rapid Rabbit. You might
think that since the regular monsters on this floor are Slow Rabbits then this
guy is going to be as easy to defeat as they were, but you would make a great
mistake by thinking that. Rapid Rabbit is actually a really fast and, as a result
of that, incredibly annoying Floor Boss to be dealing with. In fact, its speed is
enough for it to avoid most of the magic attacks and Skill attacks, so you
should not rely on those methods of attack to much, master. The battle with it
is going to be a long and rather slow one, so be sure to prepare yourself for
that, okay?」
Sherry gave us the information about Rapid Rabbit and how we should fight,
which would be pretty useful. . . . . . . . . . . if it was not for the fact that we
have already fought against it a few times, so both Roxanne and I were well
aware of how we should proceed with it. But as I already said, since this is
the Floor Boss of the seventh floor and it is a little special, I thought that it
might be a good idea to have Sherry experience the battle with it at least
once. That is one thing. The other is that since I set her Job to be Master
Smith Lv.1, it is going to be better to start from the seventh than to jump right
into the eight floor right from the get-go.
「Thank you for the information, Sherry. Now that you have shared it with us,
we should be fine no matter what kind of dirty tricks this Rapid Rabbit tries
to use against us.」
「Yes, definitely. However, I think I am going to go with a spear for this
battle, since the attacks with a Club might be too slow, and therefore easy for
the Boss to avoid.」
Once we confirmed the plan for how we were going to proceed for now, we
left the room we have Warped into and proceeded to go towards the Boss
Room's waiting room. We looked inside to see if there was anyone there, but
luckily there was no one inside. As expected since it was still so early.
Honestly, it would have been way stranger if someone was already here this
early in the morning.
「Since there is nobody in the waiting room just yet, then let us hunt some
more Slow Rabbits around here first.」
「How many Rabbit Furs are we aiming for?」
「Let us aim for. . . . . about one hundred pieces or so. Once we obtain them,
we are going to take them and sell them in the clothing store in the Imperial
City.」
「Roger that, master! I promise to crush as many Slow Rabbits as possible!」
Roxanne answered while getting herself fired up. Now that it has been
decided that we will hunt some Slow Rabbits, Sherry is definitely going to
obtain a few levels for her Master Smith Job and it is going to be easy to
watch over her so that she is not going to get hurt too much. It would be too
much of a hassle to go back to the first floor and start over from there once
more and going onto the eighth floor would be too scary, but the seventh
floor, the one we have spent the most time on thus far, should be just right for
the purposes of levelling up. Also, since Roxanne handed the white negligee
over to Sherry, it would be good to go and have her buy herself another one
so that she could have some variety to it, and while we are at it, we might as
well get Sherry a second one as well, and collecting one hundred Rabbit Furs
should be enough to cover the cost of such a purchase, and it is also going to
be worth it to see Sherry's reaction when she sees the Imperial City for the
first time.
「Sherry, since you have just became a Master Smith, make sure not overdo it
and take things easy for a bit, you hear me?」
「Okay, master. I will be sure to be careful.」
「I do not think that that Slow Rabbits here on the seventh floor are going to
pose any kind of danger to you, but just to be on the safe side, be sure to tell
me right away if you would like to make a stop an rest for a bit or go down to
the lower floors if it proves too difficult for you after all.」
「Thank you for your consideration, master, but I think that I am going to be
okay here on this floor, just as long as I remain careful and cautious.」
If what Sherry told me yesterday when we were discussing Job's effects is
real, then those effects should work for all of the Party members, and not just
the person who owns the Job. Therefore her 「Increase STR (Medium)」and
「Increase DEX (Small)」should also work on Roxanne and myself, but that
should also mean that the effects of my Hero Job, a moderate increase to all
of the Stats: HP, MP, STR, STA, INT, SPI, DEX and AGI should also work
on Roxanne and Sherry, making them that much stronger, or in Sherry's case,
making her defense to be not as paper-thin as it would have been without
them. However, since I could defeat a Slow Rabbit even when I only had
Villager Lv.1 for a Job and only the Copper Sword for a weapon, then Sherry
should be able to pull her own weight against them as well, even though the
ones here on the seventh floor are Lv.7 and not Lv.1. With that pseudostrategy meeting in the Floor Boss's waiting room over, we went back and
hunted Slow Rabbits for a while with the intention of obtaining one hundred
Rabbit Furs for ourselves. During that short time and across a span of just a
few encounters, Sherry's level as a Master Smith got increased from Lv.1 to
Lv.2, so it might be entirely possible for her to reach Master Smith Lv.2
during the morning hours of our exploration alone. Although I think that she
was gaining levels somewhat slower in comparison to when she was still just
a Villager, which is admittedly pretty strange since we do not go back to the
first floor to slowly made our way up, instead choosing the option that should
be giving her a pretty generous amount of EXP right from the start. Maybe
this is one of the traits that is specific only to the race-specific Jobs, the trait
that they take more time to gain EXP needed to Level Up than regular Jobs?
Out of all the Jobs that I currently have available for myself, I noticed that the
one that accumulated EXP at the slowest rate out of all of them was the Hero
Job, most likely because that was the Job that is granting me the most
beneficial effects, so if we assume that this is indeed the rule that applies to
all of the Jobs, then it would stand to reason that a race-specific Job like
Master Smith, which has the second highest number of effects that it grants to
the user after the Hero's Job, would take longer to gain levels in comparison
to the Jobs that only had one or two beneficial effects on them. Well, in that
case, maybe expecting that Sherry would increase the level of her Master
Smith Job to Lv.3 today would be asking a bit too much off her?
「How are you holding up, Sherry? Think you can handle the attacks of the
monsters here?」
「Yes, master. I can deal with them without any problems.」
Part 4
「Compared to yesterday, are the battles today harder for you?」
「Yes, they are definitely harder than the ones yesterday when I was an
Explorer.」
Well, yeah, there is no reason for the battles today to be easier than the ones
you were engaging in yesterday, because yesterday you were not Explorer
Lv.10 as you think you were, but rather Villager Lv.3 who increased her level
to Villager Lv.5.
「Do you think you will be able to take on the Floor Boss like that?」
「Yes, I will do my best.」
As much as I want to say something along the lines of 「That's the spirit,
Sherry!」 or 「You are so brave, Sherry!」but when faced with Rapid Rabbit,
「the best」 of a character who has their Job only on Lv.2 might not be good
enough. Maybe this is too dangerous to allow Sherry to fight the Floor Boss
of the seventh floor while being a Master Smith? Maybe I should switch her
Job back to Explorer just for the course of the Boss battle? If this was a test
or an exam, then I could have allowed Sherry to try tackling the challenge
that was to come at us exactly as she was right now, but this is not a test, and
what we are doing now is not a drill. This is the Labyrinth, the real deal. If
she goes to challenge the Rapid Rabbit unprepared or too weak to pull her
own weight, then the only thing that is going to await her is going to be
certain death. Especially since Rapid Rabbit is deceptively fast, and that
speed of his makes it possible for him to attack its targets numerous times in
a row without them being able to react to its assault fast enough.
「Okay then, here is how we are going to proceed: we will go challenge the
Floor Boss now, but just to be on the safe side I am going to set Sherry's Job
back to Explorer Lv.10 so as to eliminate the risk of you fighting under too
big of a handicap, all right?」
「Turn my Job back to Explorer? You can do something like that, master?!」
「Of course.」
I opened the Party Job Settings, scrolled down to the list of Sherry's Jobs and
switched Master Smith Lv.2 for Explorer Lv.10. Up until now I have kept her
Job as a Villager so that she would not gain too much EXP as an Explorer,
because judging by the amount of battles we went through and the EXP we
obtained, she would have definitely achieved Lv.11 or Lv.12 as an Explorer,
and until I was sure what the conditions for obtaining Master Smith Job were
such a development was something that I absolutely could not allow to
happen. But now that Sherry got access to Master Smith, that is a concern
that I no longer have to worry about. Another issue I had to take into account
was her being aware of how many levels as an Explorer she had, which she
could have checked by looking at the size of her own Item Box. If at any
point in time she caught wind of the fact that she was unable to operate her
own Item Box despite believing that she has been an Explorer all this time, I
would have to deal with a whole lot of complicated explanations and a
possible loss of trust in me as her master and the leader of our Party, but since
I do not have to worry about her getting too many levels in Explorer's Job
anymore, I guess it means that I can allow her to level it up normally as she
would any other Job now.
After coming back to the waiting room in front of the Boss Room, I switched
my weapon from Wand to Durandal and walked right into the Boss Room
after Roxanne and Sherry finished their own preparations as well.
As soon as we walked through the door, Rapid Rabbit showed itself after
emerging from the gathered clouds of green smoke that filled the room. I
have no idea how Sherry is going to react to it, but since Roxanne and I have
fought against this guy before, we know that as long as you keep up with its
speed and not let it go on the offensive, then the victory is going to be easily
achievable, and in my case, the key to breezing through this encounter is the
Skill of my Hero's Job, 「Overwhelming」. Sherry was saying that we should
not rely on magic and Skills too much to defeat this guy, but at the current
moment I have no other, reliable way of defeating this guy. Well, maybe it
could be done if I tried using nothing but AoE magic against it so that it
would have nowhere left to run even with its supreme movement speed, but
since I have not tried that method before I do not know if it is going to be
successful or not.
Either way, now that the battle has begun, Rapid Rabbit started by darting
towards Sherry at top speed, and in response, she simply picked up her spear
and waited until it came closer to her. . . . . . . . . and the she thrust the blade
of the spear forward in an attempt to pierce it through, but the Rapid Rabbit
dodged her attack by jumping to the side at the last possible second. When
Sherry tried making a thrust towards it for the second time it dodged it again
by bouncing diagonally once, and after it finished evading Sherry's spear it
turned around and charged towards her again, taking advantage of her
stumbling forward after the thrusting attack she just made. I knew it. Since
this battle is a big difficulty spike in comparison to the ordinary Slow Rabbits
of this floor, replacing her Master Smith Lv.2 with Explorer Lv.10 was the
correct thing to do after all.
When the red monster noticed that its attempts at attacking Sherry did not
result in her immediate death, it decided to change its strategy, and instead of
targeting Sherry, it went towards me this time, so I made sure to greet it with
a barrage of slashes with 「Overwhelming」, which ended up blowing it away,
but not killing it with a single blow as I had hope. Looks like I will still need
to grow a stronger in order to defeat this guy with just one strike. I just hope
that it will not take too much time, or that the enemies we will be fighting in
the future will not be so tanky that even my Durandal will not be able to
swiftly deal with all of them.
The next time the Rapid Rabbit closed in on us to attack, it chose Roxanne as
its primary target, but as usual, she was able to avoid all of its attempts at
biting into her throat by swiftly dodging out of the harm's way. For me, it
was amazing how she was able to pull something like that off and be faster
than Rapid Rabbit with just her own agility alone, while I needed to slow the
Rapid Rabbit with 「Overwhelming」 if I even wanted to think about dodging
its attacks.
Roxanne blocked another of its attempts at attacking her with her shield, and
then slashed it with her Scimitar, sending it flying backwards just like I did
before, and Sherry was right there to follow that attack up with a thrust of her
spear, causing the rabbit to fly even farther back diagonally before it could
even touch the ground.
「I did it!」
「Yeah, you sure did, Sherry. That was amazing!」
「I was not sure if that attack was going to pay off, but now that it did I am
really glad that I decided to try it out.」
Certainly, no matter how powerful you might be, under normal circumstances
no one is going to be able to change the direction they are heading towards
after being sent flying, so Sherry's decision to attack the Rapid Rabbit while
it was still in the air was a pretty smart one. If we keep attacking it while it is
in the air where it is at its most vulnerable, we should be able to take it down
effortlessly. That is the strength of the attacks made with the long weapon
like the spear, and combined with Sherry's quick thinking it is going to bring
our Party the victory.
When it finally recovered from the shock of being sent flying, the Rapid
Rabbit started running again, coming towards me once more. Oh yeah, that is
right, come at me, monster. And once you do. . . . .
Part 5
「CHEST. . . . . . . . . .! ! ! ! !」
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I am going to slam my Durandal right into you when
you try jumping at me again. The Rapid Rabbit got sent flying backwards,
but this time it did not get up. Instead, it remained on the ground, where it
disappeared in a puff of green smoke. If two of my attacks while using
「Overwhelming」 were enough to bring it down, then maybe all I need to be
able to defeat it with just one 「Overwhelming」-infused attacks just a few
more levels for my Jobs so that my STR stat would increase even further? I
just hope that the day when I will be able to do that will come sooner rather
than later. In my case, it would not hurt me to become even stronger than I
already am as fast as possible.
「Master, if I may ask. . . . . . . . that thing that you shouted before dealing the
decisive blow to the Rapid Rabbit. . . . . . . this 「CHEST. . . . . . . .! ! ! ! !」. . . .
was that the name of a Skill that you possess? Because I do not remember
ever hearing about such a Skill.」
Sherry asked me that questing while she went to the place where the Rapid
Rabbit fell, picked up the Rabbit Meat that it left behind and brought it back
to me.
「Oh, that? No, no,no, it was nothing like that. It was simply something that I
have screamed during the heat of the moment to psych myself up. It is not the
name of a Skill.」
「But. . . . . . but it must have been a Skill, because after you shouted it you
moved so fast that I was unable to follow your movements with my eyes!」
「It is a Skill called「Overwhelming」. Have you ever heard of it?」
「Hmm. . . . . no, I cannot say that I do. But it just goes to show that you truly
have amazing Skills at your disposal, master.」
Now it felt like Sherry has given me an honest compliment that came straight
from her soul. My time as her master might have been short thus far, but I
can say one thing with absolute confidence: I have never been happier than I
am right now, and seeing Sherry looking at me with such genuine respect
instead of those ice-cold intellectual eyes of hers is bringing me an
unspeakable amount of pleasure, and it is a feeling that is probably not going
to be beaten by anything else in the world.
Oh boy, this is bad. I think I might actually get addicted to it if I see any more
of it!
「This is not something that I would like to share with other people, so please,
whatever you do, make sure you keep that information confidential, okay?」
I am saying that practically every time when I reveal some of my secrets to
the girls, so I am sure that they are used to it by now and that they would not
go around talking about those things with anyone else even if I did not tell
them to do so. However, there is one thing that got me incredibly curious:
Sherry said that she knew about the Hero Job and she also knew various
legends about this country's first Emperor, who was the only known
individual to wield the Hero's Job. But if she knew about all of those things,
then why did she say that she did not know what kind of Skill
「Overwhelming」 is? Could it be that it is something that the first Emperor
was not using? Or maybe that Skill is something that he did not even know he
had because he never had to use its incantation? Because it would not be all
that strange if he had a weapon or a piece of equipment that granted him
「Chant Omission」.
「Of course, master. And while we are at it, I have to say that Miss Roxanne,
who was able to sent the rapid Rabbit flying without using any Skills to do
so, was even more amazing!」
Sherry's respectful eyes turned towards Roxanne while she showered her in
praises as well. Is it just me, or is she respecting her more than me for being
able to go toe to toe against Rapid Rabbit without any tricks or gimmicks?
Well, since I really cannot do anything without my OP weapon and Skills,
then this should not be surprising that Sherry would be more captivated by
someone who could move like a dodging demigod with just her physical
abilities alone. Yeah, it cannot be helped, and I am not salty about it at all,
not in the slightest.
I want her to look up to me more!
After defeating the Floor Boss of the seventh floor we could finally proceed
to the eighth floor of the Labyrinth of Quratar and begin its exploration in
earnest.
「Sherry, do you know what monsters are inhabiting the eighth floor here?」
「Uhm. . . . . I do not know. And to be honest, I do not even know where we
are right now.」
「What do you mean you do not know where we are? We are obviously still in
the Labyrinth of Quratar.」
「Ahhh, so this is still the Labyrinth of Quratar?」
「Yeah, that is what I have said just now.」
Did Sherry though we have suddenly changed places or what?
「I see. I thought that we might have been someplace else, in a place that has a
similar floor and monster layout as the Labyrinth in Quratar, but it is good to
know that we are still in Quratar's Labyrinth.」
「Yeah, that is for certain, but why would you even think that we are actually
someplace else?」
「Because we never paid even a single entrance fee at the Quratar Labyrinth's
entrance. Oh, could it be because of master's Space-Time Magic? Because
that would have been a nice explanation for why we did not have to pay even
a single coin for entering the Labyrinth here despite being here a few times
already.」
Sherry mumbled that to herself. Well, certainly. There is a rule that states that
you have to pay a certain amount of Nars every time you want to enter the
Labyrinth of Quratar, but we did not need to pay any money for entering at
all, and it is all because of my Warp and the ability to teleport ourselves
straight inside of the Labyrinth proper that it gives us. But it was precisely
because of that why Sherry thought that we were no longer in Quratar's
Labyrinth, but in some different place altogether. If she noticed that by
herself without me or Roxanne dropping her any hints, then that has to mean
that she really is a genius.
「Do you think that it is bad that we are not paying for entering the Labyrinth
like the rest of the people who are using it?」
「No, I do not think like that at all. The only time when we would be legally
obliged to pay the entrance fee to the Labyrinth of Quratar is when we would
be walking into it through its main gate, but there are no rules that state that
we have to pay for being allowed to explore the Labyrinth once already
inside of it. As long as we are not using the main entrance to come here, not
paying the money for it is the smart thing to do. Or at least that is how I see
it.」
So Sherry does not have any objections against us not paying the money for
entering the Labyrinth here in Quratar, and moreover, she seems to be
encouraging us to keep doing so just as long as we would not need to be
entering through its main gate. Good, this is very good indeed.
「As expected of master. You are always so forward-thinking.」
Roxanne also praises me for my ingenuity, but to tell you the truth, I only
thought about using Warp to get inside of the Labyrinth without paying
because she was the one who initially suggested it.
「So, now that we have that out of the way, what can you tell us about the
monsters here on the eighth floor of Quratar's Labyrinth, Sherry?」
「Ah, yes, of course. If I remember correctly, then the monsters in here should
mainly be Needlewoods.」
Part 6
「Ah, yes, of course. The monsters native to the eight floor here are
Needlewoods, so we should have no problems in dealing with them since we
have already fought them in the Vale Labyrinth. As for their special
characteristics, they can occasionally use Water Magic, and are extremely
resistant to it as a result, so nom matter what you do, make sure that you are
not using water magic against them, master.」
Sherry gave me some more information about the Needlewoods. Do not use
Water Magic because they are highly resistant to it, huh? Duly noted. That
being said. . . . . . . . . . .
「Needlewoods can use magic as well? I have never seen any of them using it,
not even once.」
「It is because the Labyrinth of Vale is a low-level one. As a general rule of
thumb, only monsters with mid to high levels are capable of using magic,
while the low-leveled ones cannot do it. It is also unlikely for the monsters
that have Lv.1 or Lv.2 to be using it, since they are supposed to be the ones
on which most of the beginning Adventurers and Explorers tend to
accumulate battle experience.」
「Is that so?」
「Yes. As I said, monsters basically tend to be using magic and Skills mostly
when they begin appearing in the upper floors of the Labyrinths, but when it
comes to Needlewoods specifically, they are widely know to be a type of
monster that is not that smart, using simple physical attacks as their primary
method of attack, but since we are on the eighth floor, then I think there is a
chance that we are going to occasionally see some of them casting magic, so
make sure to be on the lookout for the signs of them preparing to cast it,
okay?」
Yeah, since this is the eighth floor in the Labyrinth of Quratar, then it should
be obvious that the Needlewoods in here are going to be different from the
Needlewoods I have encountered on the first floor of Vale's Labyrinth. The
ones over there were all Lv.1 and they were really only using physical attacks
like tackling and smacking their branches around, but the ones here in
Quratar are going to be Lv.8. Sherry said that the higher the floor, the more
Skills and magic monsters are going to be using. I just hope that neither I nor
Roxanne or Sherry are ever going to find ourselves at the receiving end of
their magic and Skills. Well, as long as we kill all of them fast enough, there
should be nothing for us to worry about.
「All right. Thank you for another bit of useful information, Sherry.」
「Thank you, master.」
「Please, do continue to support us with the precious information now, and in
the future as well. In the meantime. . . . . . . . Roxanne, as usual, please guide
us to a place where there are going to be as few of the enemies as possible.」
「Understood, master. It shall be done as you wish.」
Since there is a possibility that the enemies here are going to be using magic,
then should I switch back to Durandal so that I could prevent them from
using it? Then again, right now I do not know how often they are going to be
using it and how powerful is it going to be, so maybe now that we begin the
exploration of the eight floor it would be better to wait for a few encounters
and then decide based on the outcome of these battles? Yeah, that sounds like
a reasonable thing to do. As for Sherry, I think I am going to leave her at
Explorer Lv.10, because with Master Smith Lv.2 there is too big of a
possibility that she might end up getting herself one-shotted is some of the
enemies turn up to be using AoE magic attacks.
We then proceeded to hunt monsters on the eight floor, but, much to my
relief, so far none of the Lv.8 Needlewoods we have encountered have used
magic. The only one who sometimes had to resort to it was I, and only when
the situation was absolutely calling for it.
After a while when Sherry's Explorer Job has reached Lv.11, I decided that
this might be a good moment to switch it back to Master Smith. I had a
feeling that if I allowed her to keep fighting as an Explorer she should have
eventually reached Lv.12, but I decided against allowing her to do that,
because raising your level with one Job too much is not good, because it can
be quite troublesome if you get too caught up in it and neglect increasing the
levels of your other Jobs.
The first time ever where I saw a Needlewood use magic was when we had
encountered our very first group of enemies that consisted of nothing but
Needlewoods Lv.8. It happened right after I hit them up with the Fire Storm
and was waiting for it to go off cooldown. Three of the four Needlewoods
came up to the front while the last one of them went to the back, hiding
behind the living wall that the others have made for it. Initially I thought that
they have chosen such a formation because since they were plant-based
monsters that attacked mainly with their branches in wide swings, a group of
four simply did not have enough space for all of them to be performing their
attacks effectively because the Labyrinth's corridors were simply too small,
but my gut feeling was telling me that something was about to go down and
that we should prepare ourselves for it.
「Roxanne, take care of the two of them, and Sherry, you go for the other
one!」
By now, I have already launched three Fire Storms at the Needlewoods. And
now that Roxanne and Sherry rushed in to confront the three Needlewoods in
the front, I also launched a fourth one.
「Master, here it comes!」
As soon as I activated the fourth Fire Storm, Roxanne's warning reached my
ears. And in the very next moment, a blue magic circle has appeared under
the feet of the Needlewood that was taking cover behind its buddies.
Eventually, it managed to finish the chant, and a ball of water was formed
above its head. Is this something similar to my Water Ball?
Unfortunately, I had very little time to ponder about that some more, because
that Needlewood fired the spell at us almost immediately after it was done
forming it, and I have to admit that the damn thing was pretty fast.
It has been shot quickly and went forward in a straight line. My impression
was that it is somewhat slower in comparison to the magic that I am firing
whenever I am, using it, but at the same time it felt completely different to be
on the receiving end of the magic that someone was shooting at you, as
opposed to actually being the one raining down magic spells at your
opponents one after the other. It has that feeling of. . . . . . . . . . . intimidation,
like. . . . . . . like you know that you have to dodge it or else something really
bad is going to happen to you. Even now, I can feel that my legs are slightly
trembling, or that it is somewhat harder for me to move due to the uncertainty
of who this Water Ball is going to target.
As it turns out, that someone was Roxanne. And just as I expected it of her,
she avoided that fast Water Ball by doing something so simple as twisting her
body ever so slightly to the side, causing the spell to fly right past her without
even a single droplet of water landing on her. Instead, the only thing that this
magic attack managed to hit with a loud splash was the wall behind her. Heh,
I knew that Roxanne was a real goddess of dodging, but I thought that she
would only be able to do that with regular physical attacks. Who would have
thought that magic is going to not pose any kind of threat to her whatsoever
as well? If I was the one who was targeted by that Water Ball, I probably
would not have been able to dodge it at all due to how fast it was in my eyes.
But anyway, after regaining my composure after seeing yet another instance
of Roxanne's magnificent dodging abilities, I readied my wand and launched
the fifth Fire Storm at the Needlewoods. The sparks that it generated flew
right to where all four of them were and then engulfed them in a magnificent
fiery explosion that caused all of them to fall over and die.
Part 7
「That is our Roxanne for you, dodging magic like it is nothing.」
「Thank you for your kind words, master, but that really was nothing all that
praiseworthy. Since that attack has been shot at me from behind the other
three Needlewoods, it had to travel through such distance that my eyes had
more than enough time to adjust to the speed at which it has been flying, so
avoiding that was really not that big of a problem.」
No, no, no Roxanne, you are giving yourself far too little credit! I mean,
dodging magic? There is no way in hell that any regular person would have
been capable of pulling something like that off! I would have never been able
to do it even if you gave me an extensive tutorial. And besides, the distance
that this Water Ball travelled was not all that great either, certainly not big
enough to warrant Roxanne saying that it travelled long enough from her
eyes to get accustomed to its speed when it was actually in the blink of an
eye, so in my case, the only options for me would be to either tank it head on
or try slashing through it with Durandal, the biggest question being which of
these two options would be less harmful for me.
「Oh, I-I see. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .」
Therefore, that is the only thing that I can reply to her with.
「Also, that monster was not really trying to hit me for the purpose of
damaging me.」
「It. . . . it did not?」
「Yes, judging by the way it fired that spell, it was more for the purpose of
forcing me to change my position so that they could gain more control of the
battlefield.」
Really? That is what it was? Because it sure as hell did not look like that to
me.
In the meantime, Sherry picked up the Drop Items and handed it over to me. I
tried to silently ask her with my eyes if what Roxanne was saying was true or
not, and she just nodded her head, confirming it.
「So she is right after all?」
「Right about what after all?」
Roxanne asked, looking puzzled
「N-Nothing. . . . . 」
「I was right about thinking that Needlewood's branches are one of the items
needed for blacksmithing purposes, so it might be a good idea to hold onto
some of them instead of selling them all right off the bat.」
Sherry saved my ass with her explanation on branches. Nice follow-up,
Sherry!
I have defeated the four Needlewoods, so there are now four branches left in
the places where they fell down and became the puffs of green smoke. Is that
so? I have never heard of any blacksmithing item needing a branch in order
to be created.
「Is that so?」
I asked, because I genuinely had no idea about it at all.
「Yes. They are too thin to be used reliably as a fire-starting material because
they burn up too quickly, but they still have their fair share of uses in the
smithing industry.」
「Oh yeah? What are they used for then?」
「Branches are mainly used together with other materials when making metal
equipment such as swords and armor.」
「So they are necessary if you want to make items and equipment that are
made out of metal, huh? Well, I guess it is perfectly natural. But if that is the
case, then I wonder if. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Do you also need a furnace if you want to make equipment made out of
metal?」「No, that would be too costly of a purchase, so thankfully it is not
required. Actually, when it comes to smithing, there is no need for any kind
of specialized equipment or tools at all. Everything is carried out just by
using Skills, and that is it.」
「Hmm. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .」
So all you have to do is worry about preparing the right items, and the Skills
are going to take care of the rest. As expected of a game with Skills in it.
Such a user-friendly system. If only we had something so convenient in my
old world, then maybe life would have been even easier than it already was.
「Okay, so if we are finished here, then how about we go and move to the
eighth floor of the Labyrinth of Vale?」
My Item Box is already stuffed with quite an astonishing amount of branches,
and I have seen Needlewoods using magic, so for the time being, I guess
there is no reason for us to be staying here in Quratar's Labyrinth for much
longer.
「We could do that, but it is going to be morning soon, master.」
Roxanne gave me an advice.
It is already so late, huh? Well, I guess it should have been expected, since
we have spend quite a long while watching over Sherry until She became
Master Smith Lv.2, and apparently that took us even more time than I have
initially expected.
「Okay, in that case we are going to stay here for just a while longer.」
After that, we continued to fight against the monsters on the eighth floor of
Quratar's Labyrinth. For a number of next encounters, we did not come
across many more Needlewoods that would be using magic, but when we did,
I managed to notice something about them, mainly the fact that they could be
using their magic attacks not only when they were hiding behind the wall that
their buddies were making out of themselves for them. We faced two groups
made out of two Needlewoods and two Slow Rabbits in a row, and every
time the Needlewoods were attempting to cast their magic at us even though
they were standing in the middle of the corridor, not hiding behind other
monsters or natural terrain obstacles.
「Here it comes again, master!」
Roxanne issued me another warning when she saw that a blue magic circle
has begun to form under the feet of one of the two Needlewoods.
And, exactly as expected, that was exactly what happened. A blue magic
circle appeared under the Needlewood's feet, a Water Ball formed itself
above its head, and in the next moment it has been launched forward.
But this time, the target of that spell. . . . . . . . . . is me!
「Guh. . . . . . . . . . . ! ! ! ! ! !」
Oh shit, oh fuck, oh shit, oh fuck this is bad! I am going to die soon! I cannot
avoid that spell! It is impossible for me to avoid something so fast! Very
impossible! Absolutely impossible!
I knew that I had to avoid that Water Ball if I did not want to be definitively
done for, but my legs have been firmly stuck in the ground because of my
indecisiveness whether to try and duck to the left, or whether to try and duck
to the right.
Avoiding it was the obvious thing to do, but since I lack the reflexes needed
to dodge, I could not even afford to perform such a simple action like that.
I just cannot do it, even if my life depends on it.
That is why I decided to do the next best thing that came to my mind: tank
the hit head-on after casting 「Plating」 on myself in a hurry. Thanks to me
using it, the damage done to me when the Needlewood's Water Ball hit me is
not going to be enough to outright kill me with one shot, but the damage I
took was still quite intense, to the point where it felt as if my legs were going
to snap themselves in half the moment the spell blasted me right in the
middle of my chest. Another saving grace here was the fact that since the
thing that hit me was Water Ball, then it was quite literally a ordinary water
shaped into a ball and propelled forward, so it did not do much else aside
from making me wet from top to bottom. If instead of that I would have been
hit with a Fire Ball, then I think I would not be able to remain as calm and
composed as I was now, because let us be honest, who in their right mind
would remain perfectly calm after being set on fire? No one, that is who.
After the initial shock has passed, I smacked the Needlewoods with the fifth
serving of Fire Storm.
Part 8
However, even though I managed to kill every last one of the Needlewoods,
including the one who casted the spell that hit me, the water from its Water
Ball did not disappear. Back on the second floor of the Vale Labyrinth, when
I got hit wit the 「Thread Spit」 Skill of the Green Caterpillar, the thread itself
disappeared when the monster that used it got defeated, but this time the
water from the Needlewood's Water Ball attack did not disappear, so that
goes to show that my hypothesis that I came up with when testing Water
Wall spell for the first time: since water from the Water Magic is just that, an
ordinary water, it does not disappear when the caster of the spell is slain,
hence why the water from Water Ball remained on me right now. Also, I
mentioned that I was soaked from top to bottom, right? Right. So, because of
that it kinda looked as if I had just pissed my pants, so I really hope that we
are not going to run into any other Explorers or Adventurers in the near
future. Thankfully the natural light in the Labyrinths is pretty dim, so that is
my only salvation here: even if we did happen upon someone, I should be
fine just as long as I do not come too close to them and they are not going to
notice my soaked clothing.
Luckily for me, we did not run into any other people, most likely due to how
early it still was outside, and all of my clothes managed to dry up before we
started to backtrack towards the safe room to leave the Labyrinth (with just a
little help from my Fire Magic). Before using Warp to crate a portal for us, I
had Roxanne and Sherry pass all of the equipment and Magic Crystals to me.
The Magic Crystals are going to be worth a lot of money, so I would never
risk doing something as irresponsible as leaving them in my backpack where
they could easily get stolen, so I placed them in the Item Box along with the
rest of the equipment that the girls handed off to me.
「It looks like my clothes have finally managed to dry for real. Good. Walking
around in wet pants for much longer would have been straight up
unbearable.」
「The phenomena caused by magical power seem to disappear whenever the
source of the magic power that created them in the first place disappear as
well. That is the common belief, but it is not entirely true, because even if the
magical power disappears, the things created by it will not disappear
completely. For example, the bodies of monsters in the Labyrinth come to
life due to its magical power, but when they die they leave their Drop Items
behind because a part of them is not made entirely of magical power alone,
but with the materials gained from the material world as well.」
Sherry explained to me, but to be honest, I do not really understand it.
「Hmm. . . . . . . . . . . . . 」
「Ah. . . . . . . . . . !」
Sherry let out a silent scream as she saw me as I was about to place one of the
Magic Crystals into the Item Box.
「What is it, Sherry? Is something wrong?」
「Oh, i-it is nothing serious, it is just that I was surprised at master's Magic
Crystal. Did it already change its color from Purple Magic Crystal to Blue
Magic Crystal?!」
So that is what that was about? Sherry was surprised at how fast my Magic
Crystals changed their colors, but to me it was nothing to be excited about,
since I have already gotten used to the speed of their magic power
accumulation increased by my 「Crystal Acceleration」Bonus Skill. And since
my Purple Magic Crystal has turned into Blue Magic Crystal, then it must
mean that it has accumulated more than one thousand units of magical power.
「Here, master, I have the purple one.」
Roxanne hands over the Purple Magic Crystal to me. This is the one that I
used for the purpose of testing quite a while ago and gave it to Roxanne
afterwards. So she has been using it ever since then, and now it has turned
purple, huh? As for the Magic Crystal that I have given to Sherry, it has
already tuned into Red Magic Crystal.
「Huh? Did we not have one Purple Magic Crystal and two Black Magic
Crystals before? Then, how could this be that they have changed colors so
fast?」
「R-Right? Sometimes I wonder about that myself, actually. . . . .」
「When it comes to master, things like that tend to happen around him all the
time, so it would be best if you just accept it.」
Ooooh, what a nice follow-up, Roxanne!
Sherry still looked as if she was a little suspicious of that answer, but
thankfully she did not look at me with those cold eyes of hers that I dislike so
much.
After going back home from the Labyrinth and eating breakfast, our next stop
was the Imperial City.
「Haaaa. . . . . . . . . . . . . ! So this is the Imperial City?! It is even bigger than
what I have imagined!」
When we left the walls of the Adventurer's Guild's building and got out onto
the streets of the Imperial City, Sherry was looking around at all of the
buildings that surrounded us, clearly unable to hide her ever rising
excitement. Yeah, when I came here for the first time I was amazed at how
big the city and all of its buildings were as well, especially since no one
warned me what I should be expecting, so I made sure not to tell anything to
Sherry either, because I wanted her to have a similar surprise, and now I can
see that my decision has definitely paid off.
「Is this your first time visiting the Imperial City, Sherry?」
I asked her while we were walking down the street.
「Yes, it is!」
I thought as much. Since she said that she originally hailed from a Dwarven
village I had her figured for a country bumpkin, and now she has only
confirmed it with her words.
「Well, when Roxanne and I came here for the first time our reactions were
more or less the same, so we definitely can understand how you are feeling.」
「Yes, seeing the capital in all its grandeur was definitely quite a shock.」
Roxanne nodded vigorously when she turned her face back towards me and
Sherry.
「But if we do not have any particular business to attend to here, there is not
really any reason for us to be coming here, so we usually tend to stay in the
vicinity of Quratar with the occasional trips to the town of Vale.」
「Is that so?」
I never actually thought about it before, but it would seem that this world
does not have a developed tourism industry just yet, and people look like they
are not at all interested in visiting new places or travelling to the lands that
they have never seen before. Most of the common people would have
probably never came to visit the Imperial City just to have a ganger at the
sights it has to offer, only coming here if they had some business to attend to
here, just like Roxanne said. It is an entirely different story when you are an
Adventurer who has access to the 「Field Walker」Skill. They can go pretty
much everywhere in the world they want, provided that they have been to
that place before at least once and they have enough MP to last them
throughout the entire journey from one teleportation portal to the next.
However. . . , . . . . . . .
Ordinary people do not have access to 「Field Walker」so if they want to go
anywhere, they have to do so through the conventional means of
transportation. But if that is the case, then does that mean that the commoners
to not have the adventurous spirits at all?
「. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I used to want to come here in the past, but I never
got the chance to do so.」
Sherry muttered that in a small, barely audible voice.
「Hm? I am sorry, what was that? I did not hear you all that well.」
「Oh, n-no, it is nothing. Do not worry about it, master.」
Part 9
「No, no, no, let me hear about that. Was there something that you wanted to
do here in the Imperial City, but were unable to do so because of your
becoming a slave?」
I was curious about Sherry's aspirations and plans form before we met each
other, so I asked her about it. I wonder if the thing that she wanted to do here
was something she could only have done in the past and lost the opportunity
to do so now, or is it something that we will be able to help her with?
「Uhm, so. . . . . the thing is, that. . . . . here in the Imperial City. . . . . . it has
the largest library in the entire empire, so. . . . . so before I was a slave, I. . . . .
I used to dream about visiting it one day.」
「A library, huh?」
So all this time, she wanted to go to the library housed here in the Imperial
City? As expected of a member of an intellectual faction, her thirst for
knowledge is a truly admirable thing.
「Before you became a slave, did you have any books at your old home?」
「It was quite a while ago. . . . but I do remember that we have at least ten of
them. However, because it was a Dwarven household they were only the
books about blacksmithing and other things related to the smithing industry
and the process of item creation.」
Unfortunately, I am not able to determine if ten books in the house is a lot of
them or not. All that I know is that apparently genuine paper is a rare and
precious resource in this world, so normal people probably could not afford
to have as many books as they wanted to have. But if Sherry says that they
had ten books in her old home, then does that mean that she was actually a
rich lady from a rich household, or someone similar to that? But. . . but if that
would be the case. . . . . . . . then I really do not understand how she became a
slave in the first place. She said that visiting the library was a dream of hers
from the past, but that is the only hint she has given me. I wonder if she has
fallen from grace, or did her family perhaps went bankrupt and that s why
they had to sell their own daughter? For the time being those are only my
own speculations that have no ground in reality whatsoever, so the smart
thing to do here might actually be to not delve too deeply into that subject, at
least not until she was going to be willing to talk about that herself.
「You had a house with books in it? That is amazing!」
Since Roxanne has no idea about Sherry's past either, her reaction was
obvious and natural. But who would have though that this would be the detail
that she would be the most amazed by?
「Thank you, Miss Roxanne, but that is a story of a past long gone. When he
was still alive, my grandfather was a pretty influential person in our Dwarven
community so he sometimes used his connections to get things such as books
for his house.」
「I see. Did you become as smart as you are now by reading all of the books
he had at his disposal?」
Even though I want to know more about Sherry's past and how she was back
them it would be wiser to start steering the conversation away from such
heavy topics, because continuing to talk about them too much is only going
to do us more harm than good. Things like that should only be talked about
when the person themselves feels ready to do so, not simply because I wanted
to satiate my own curiosity.
「I did, because back then I used to stay home most of the time after. . . . . . . .
the obvious thing happened.」
「And your idea that you wanted to become a Master Smith came form those
books?」
「They certainly were part of my reasons for wanting to become one, yes. And
when I became an Explorer, I thought that I might try entering the Labyrinth
and giving my all to exploring its depths.」
So right now we have two possible scenarios regarding Sherry that do not
rule each other out: one is tat she was actually a wealthy rich lady, and the
other one pertaining to the fact that there was a period in her life where she
has become this world's version of a hikkikomori. That would also explain
why her level as a Villager was so low: because she never got a chance to
properly gain enough EXP to level it up.
「In other words, you liked books ever since you were little, and that caused
you to want to visit the Library of the Imperial City?」
「Yes.」
「And what about now? Do you still want to do it?」
I am afraid that our house in Quratar is missing heavily in the books
department, because we do not have a single one of those in there. . . . . . . . .
unless you would count a poorly-made booklet that contains the written maps
of all the known floors of the Labyrinth of Quratar as a proper book. In that
case, we would have one whole book, and at the end of the day, one book is
certainly better than no books at all.
「Uhm. . . . . . . . . . . . . now that I have become a slave, I do not know if I am
allowed to have such selfish wishes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .」
「So you do not want to go to the library simply because you became my
slave?」
「It is not that I do not want to do it, but because I have become a slave, there
are some things that I simply cannot do now, no matter how bad I would
want to do them.」
Is it really like that? Because it it is truly so, then if she cannot go there at all,
what was the point of her dreaming about going there in the first place? Is it
one of those 「unobtainable dreams are the best kind」 or 「even if you cannot
have something, no one can forbid you from dreaming about them」 kind of
scenarios? Is that what we are dealing with here?
「Okay, but. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . what exactly is the problem here, because I am
not seeing it so far. Is the library the kind of institution that slaves are
prohibited from entering?」
「No, it is nothing of the sort. The library is equally accessable to anyone who
pays the money for entering it, but cost wise it is pretty expensive.」
「Pretty expensive, you say? How expensive are we talking about, exactly?」
「There is a normal admission fee that needs to be paid by every person who
wishes to go inside, and there is also a deposit fee. You can get the deposit
back when you leave on the condition that you will not damage any books
that you have come into contact with, but the cost of admission fee and the
deposit is one gold coin per person.」
Ahh, so that might actually be the library's way of countering the possibility
of the valuable books getting damaged or stolen. In that case, I guess the
admission fee and a deposit are both justified. If you implement something
like that, you automatically decrease the possibility of thieves or any weird
people going to the library, because the costs of deposit and admission fees
are going to be too great for the regular masses to afford without sacrificing
the finances that could be spent on something else and much more essential,
like food or clothing. And even if something like theft happened or the books
somehow got damaged or even destroyed, then the cost of the deposit can be
used to more than make up for the loss that happened.
「I see now. So that is how it is. Well, in that case, maybe we could go to the
library sometime if that is what you truly want, Sherry.」
「. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . huh?」
Part 10
「No, I mean, look at it this way. You are in charge of supplying us the
information about the monsters that we can encounter in the Labyrinths, but
even you cannot know every little piece of information in the world. And
what do you so if you do not know something? You go and search so that you
can fill the blanks and holes in your knowledge. That is exactly what the
libraries were made for.」
The agreement that Sherry and I have both agreed on is that whenever I am
going to have some questions about monsters, Labyrinths, or anything related
to the life here in the empire, she is going to be my go-to in search of
answers, so knowing as many things as possible is going to greatly benefit
her, and it is going to be an even better development for me, since I will not
have to learn how to read and write the languages of this world myself. At the
beginning of my life together with Roxanne I tried to learn how to write the
letters of this world's main language, but that attempt did not end up too well,
mostly because Roxanne is. . . . . . . . . not exactly a good teacher, to put it
mildly.
At the very least I will not have to worry about being the only one in this
world who cannot read and write, because as I already learned and confirmed
it with Sherry and Roxanne, very few people can actually read and write,
most likely because the literacy percentage in this medieval setting has been
set to be quite low, most likely because people probably think that knowing
how to write and read will not be of that big of a benefit to them. Either way,
in my case, whenever there will be something that I will have to read or
write, I can always ask Roxanne to do it for me.
Back when I was still going to school in my old world, the only language I
was good at was Japanese, my mother tongue. As for English, I was not all
that good at it and I could never bother myself to learn it better in middle
school and throughout what little of high school that I attended, which left
my understanding of it at a pretty basic level, maybe even less than that. And
now, the story pretty much repeats itself, but this time with Brahim. Oh man,
how I envy Schliemann (TL Note: Heinrich Schliemann, a German
archeologist who came up with the Schliemann Language Learning
Method) and how fast and easy it was for him to learn any language he
wanted.
「Th-Thank you very much.」
「You are welcome. By the way, can you read Brahim, Sherry?」
「Yes, I can. I learned how to speak Brahim during my stay at the Slave Shop,
and the letters used in Brahim writing are the same as the words of the
Brahim language, so I know both how to speak and write in it.」
「I see.」
I guess the old saying that you can use French, English and German
languages, both spoken and written as long as you know the letters of the
Latin alphabet can also be applied to the Brahim language here as well. The
only problem that leaves now is the pronunciation. I wonder how is it with
Brahim? Is it also similar, or maybe slightly different after all?
「You learned Brahim at the Slave Shop? That is surprising. I thought that
since you said that you had books at home, you learned Brahim by reading
those and speaking the words you found in them.」
「I probably would have done that if these books were written in Brahim, but
that was not the case. Since I was living in a Dwarven household and the
books were all about smithing and smithing-related subjects, they were all
written in Dwarven language as well.」
「You are amazing, Sherry! When I was learning how to read and write, I had
to do it letter by letter.」
「While we are still relatively on the subject, is there anywhere you would like
to go, Roxanne?」
I asked her while we were walking side by side.
「No, not especially.」
「I see. Okay then.」
「Oh, uhm….. if I said that I wanted to go somewhere in particular, would
master take me there?」
Roxanne looked into my eyes.
「That is right. Wherever you want to go, I will take you there.」
「Uhm. . . . . . . . . The place where I want to go is wherever master wants to
go. So please, wherever we end up going, just take me there with you, and I
will need nothing else to be happy.」
What is this? How can she be so cute all the time?! Unable to resist the urge,
I stroked Roxanne's doggy ears. She is absolutely the best after all. No one
else can even begin to compare to her when it comes to her sheer cuteness
factor!
「I understand. Thank you.」
「Yes, of course.」
「I-I also want to go with master wherever he goes!」
Sherry also called out to me like that, which made me feel somewhat bad for
her, because that way it probably looks like I forced her to say it thanks to my
interaction with Roxanne just now, which caused her to not want to be
inferior to her in that regard.
After that, we made our way to the clothing store where we did that Rabbit
Meat commission for the Male Clerk, and also where I bought the negligees
that are now being used by Roxanne and Sherry.
「Okay, now I want you to go and pick two pieces of clothing each for
yourselves.」
「Of course, master. Thank you.」
Once I gave Roxanne my instructions and left her together with Sherry so
that they could pick their clothes in peace, I went towards the counter in order
to sell the Rabbit Fur first. I was hoping that by the time I will finish selling
them and return to the girl's side with the payment for the furs in hand, but
once again I have been thoroughly disappointed. When I walked back to
Roxanne, not only was she not done with making her choice, but it looked
like she has not even started for good, taking a long and thorough look at
each and every one of the camisoles and negligees that were placed on the
tables before her. She then picked them all up, spread the on the tables and
gave them another long and intense look when they were all spread out like
that, until her eyes stopped on a light-red negligee, the very same one that she
already has back home.
「Master, is that one going to be all right with you?」
「Yes, as long as it is the one that you have chosen, I do not see why I would
have anything against it.」
When Roxanne asked me if it was fine if she took the red negligee and I have
her a go-ahead, she smiled at me happily. And by the way, if memory serves
me correctly it was Roxanne herself who stated that the negligee of this color
was the one that she liked out of all of the ones available here when we were
shopping for them the last time. In that sense, it was Roxanne herself, not I,
who picked that negligee for her, but if she wants to believe that I was the
one who did that for her, then who am I to correct her? I will just keep quiet
and allow her to believe whatever she wants to believe.
「Yes, thank you. Sherry, you are going to be fine with the white one as well,
right?」
「Yes. As long as we keep them separated by their colors, we will not mistake
them with the others, so it is fine by me.」
Oh, that. . . . . . . . honestly, they dealt with it faster than I was expecting them
to this time. Which does not change the fact that they still ended up taking
their sweet time. In the end, Roxanne decided to take the light-red negligee
and Sherry went along with the white one. Unfortunately, it does not look
like there were any negligees that were children-sized, so sherry had to
compromise by taking the smallest adult-sized negligee possible that the store
had to sell. But even when we took that into consideration, it still looked a
little loose when she tried it on, and the lower half of it made it look like she
was wearing a normal skirt.
Part 11
However, since this is supposed to be a nightgown worn only during the
night hours, this should not be too much of a problem.
When we finished our visit to the clothing store, we made our way towards
our next destination: Quratar Merchant's Guild. As I stopped by the entrance,
a man different from the one I saw yesterday walked up to me and began
chatting me up.
「Good day to you, sir. What is your business with the Merchant's Guild
today?」
「I would like to inquire about the auctions for a little bit, if it is not a problem
of course.」
「The name is Luke, and I am one of the brokers who acts as a middleman for
those eager to participate in the auctions. If it is all right with you, sir, I will
gladly hear and answer any questions that you might have.」
[Luke Acid],
Male, 28 years old
Job: Armor Merchant Lv.2
Equipment & Accessories: Sacrificial Misanga
Oh, quite conveniently for us, this guy is an Armor Merchant. Could it be that
his level is low because he is still so young?
As for the Armor Merchant Job itself, I do not have it personally, and judging
by its name it is rather obvious that it is acquired through the means of
buying and selling armor for yourself. Who knows, as long as I keep doing
that and increase the level of my Merchant Job, maybe one day I will get may
hands on it as well?
「I see. . . . . . . . All right then, I will hear what you have to say to me.」
「Wonderful. Then please, follow me.」
I followed after the man, and he took me to the room similar to the one where
I had talked to the other broker yesterday. He sat at one side of the table in
the back of the room, so I took a seat at the other side, with Roxanne and
Sherry sitting at the either side of me.
「If I may ask this of you, sir, then what is your name?」
「Michio. Kaga Michio.」
「Michio-sama then. Forgive me if it sound too direct, but it would seem that
you have been here yesterday inquiring about the auctions, but were unable to
secure a suitable deal for yourself. Is that right?」
For someone who was meeting me for the first time, this guy has a surprising
amount of information about my visit here yesterday. Could it be that I was
spied on? Or maybe Laurent the Sex Maniac, the broker whose offer I have
refused yesterday told all of his colleagues and cohorts how our meeting
went? Yeah, that sounds like a more probable option.
「Yes, you are right about that.」
「I see. Very well then. You wanted to know about the auctions, correct?
Then allow me to give you a brief rundown of how they function here. On the
left side of the guild building, there is a waiting room that was made
specifically for those how are participating in the auctions. If you have made
the appointment earlier, then you are allowed to use it at your own leisure,
and it is also the place where the results of each auction are going to be
posted for all those who are interested in seeing them to see. Alternatively, if
you have your personal contracted broker and do not wish to mingle with the
rest of the auctioneers, you can always schedule a meeting with your broker
so that he or she could relay the news of the auction's results to you
personally. That is how the auctions generally work here.」
These are some pretty rigid rules. But now I fully see what Sherry meant by
saying that all of the brokers cooperate and have a strong bond of solidarity
with one another. Talking to the people who come visit the Merchants Guild
is always an occasion for the acquisition of new customers, so I guess it can
be called a kind of a concession between them, since the chances of acquiring
new clients are shared equally between all of them, since if one broker fails to
win a customer over, like it was with me and Laurel yesterday, there is
always a chance that another broker might achieve what the other failed to
do. On the other hand, if the customers were allowed to freely talk to
whoever they wanted, it would have lead to competition over getting the
customers, which could have directly lead to the reduction of overall fees,
and that in turn would mean that the Merchant's Guild would not make as
much of a profit as they could have made otherwise.
「Before we begin, let me ask you this: is the reason because I was
approached by brokers yesterday, and today as well, because I was standing
around looking all absent-minded, which prompted you to think that I am
going to make an easy target for manipulation of myself?」
「No, no, no, that is not the case at all.」
「Good. Also, yesterday I talked with a man named Laurel, but I found the
offer he presented me with to be lacking, so we did not strike a deal. Is that
okay, or is it going to be a factor in my talks with you today as well?」
「No, of course not. If you did not make a deal with him, then that means that
it was he who failed to appeal to a potential customer, so you have nothing to
worry about.」
I thought that my refusal to accept Laurel's proposal yesterday might end up
in considerably racking up the difficulty of finding out a potential
replacement for him, but thankfully it does not look like it is going to be as
difficult as I have initially thought. Well then, let me see what this guy will
have to offer, and if I do not like it, I will simply refuse him just like I did
with the other guy yesterday.
「Okay, in that case, I see no problems in talking with you.」
「Wonderful. Now, if I am to begin my explanation about auctions in more
detail, can you please tell me which kind of auctions interests you the most,
sir?」
「Both buying and selling auctions, since I know nothing about either of
them.」
「When it comes to buying, it is possible for you to take care of everything by
yourself, but in the most cases, potential clients tend to go about it by
cooperating with a broker and middleman like myself, or Laurel, whom you
had met yesterday. And that brings us to another important question: what
kind of goods do you want to buy, sir?」
Since I displayed interest in buying things through auctions, Luke the Broker
jumped at the opportunity that would allow his to earn some money off of
me, as expected.
Even a complete beginner should know that if you know next to nothing
about things like that, then managing and keeping an eye on the auctions is
going to be impossible for a complete layman, and that is why brokers and
middleman existed in the first place. With their assistance, the process of
taking part in an auction is not going to be as puzzlingly perilous as it would
have normally been.
「Kobold Skill Crystal.」
Just like with Laurel yesterday, I decided to be open about what I needed.
Lying about it now would not help me in the slightest.
「Kobold Skill Crystals? I see. The day before yesterday, one of them was
sold for five thousand two hundred Nars, and two days ago another one was
sold for five thousand four hundred Nars. As for the bidding of the current
auctions, it would seem that its current price once again averages at around
five thousand two hundred Nars. I am not going to lie, the price is already
expensive, but if you want to obtain it during the current auction and be
willing to invest a sum bigger than that, I could arrange to enter you as
another bidder with the same price as the one from the day before yesterday:
five thousand four hundred Nars.」
Luke the Broker replied without even looking at any kind of memos. Just
from that action alone, I could say that he is an excellent middleman, or at the
very least a better one than Laurel the Sex Maniac. If he would really arrange
it for me to become a bidder in the current auction and I managed to win it,
that would snatch me the Kobold Skill Crystal that Sherry could infuse into a
weapon in the same manner as she did with the Rabbit Skill Crystal and the
Copper Sword.
Part 12
What is also important here is that the information that Luke told me just now
were cross-checking themselves with the prices stated by Laurel, and since I
remember the amounts of Nars that he stated, I also know that Luke was not
lying about them in an attempt to set me up. Five thousand two hundred Nars,
that is the current price of the Kobold Skill Crystal.
「Okay, enough about buying for now. Let us assume that ow is not the best
time for buying and move on to the selling.」
「As you wish, sir. What would you be interested in selling?」
「A set of six Copper Swords of Obstruction.」
「Oh, was the young lady here responsible for making them?」
The broker looked at Sherry with a glint of curiosity in his eyes. So he is able
to tell that she is a Dwarf, and not just a young or young-looking human. I
thought that it will not be all that obvious, since she does not look all that
different from humans except for her short stature and thick hair, but
apparently these characteristics were enough of a giveaway.
「That is right. Her name is Sherry.」
Since he was already able to tell who sherry was there was no reason for me
to hide her, so I simply introduced Sherry to him. I thought that Sherry was
going to do that herself, but throughout this entire exchange she remained
silent, so I had to do it for her. Dis she not know how to greet people
properly? No, since she received her education at the Slave Shop that cannot
be the case. Maybe she thought that she should not be speaking herself when
I was in the room since she is my slave then?
「I see. Moving on, in case of the process of selling items via an auction, there
are two option you have available for you: sell the item that you want to get
rid off immediately, or leave it to me to inform you when will be the best
time to sell a particular item, a service that I will charge a small fee for.」
「Can you really do that for me?」
That is one of the things that I did not talk about with Laurel yesterday. Is it
going to be advantageous for me to leave the decision for the time of the
selling to a broker, or should I stick to deciding that for myself? If I do leave
it to him, then I will not be able to do anything with the items until the time is
going to be right. Also, what would bring me more money, a weapon with
「Chant Delay」or perhaps the one with 「Chant Interruption」? However, if I
end up being beaten in an auction, none of these things are going to matter
and I will lose the advantage that I could have gotten otherwise. Also, I
should not be expecting the items to be bought at the same rate and price as
the one present when the middleman puts the items on sale.
「I most definitely can, but do bear in mind that it will not always be possible
to determine the most opportune moment to sell every item, so if you want to
sell something in a hurry, you should not wait and go for the immediate sell
option.」
「Go for the immediate sell if I am in a hurry, huh?」
I guess that makes sense, since keeping an item on me and waiting for the
moment where I will be able to sell it for a really good price might not always
be possible. If I want to strengthen the equipment of all the members of my
Party as soon as possible, then I am going to need as much money as I can
get, as fast as I can get, so an early selling of the set of six 「Copper Swords
of Obstruction」would definitely be a good investment. Even if it would mean
selling for not as much money as I have originally intended, selling them
early would still be better than not selling them at all because I waited for a
good business opportunity that never came my way or holding onto them and
letting them collect dust in my Item Box.
「As you probably know, 「Copper Swords of Obstruction」are weapons that
are often used in the lower levels of the Labyrinths as a countermeasure
against the Skills used by the Floor Bosses on the lower floors. If you want to
sell a set of full six pieces of them, then you can be sure that the demand for
them is going to be high, because there are always going to be the people
who will be in need of them, like freshly made Explorers and Adventurers or
the Knight trainees.」
「The Knights? I thought that the Merchants Guild did not have such
connections?」
「But now you know that us brokers have our ways of establishing our
connections, which makes me wonder if it would not be a better idea to sell
the swords that you are offering right away? Because I would be more than
willing to buy them off of your hands.」
If what this broker is saying is true and he would really have connections to
the Knights who would be willing to buy 「Copper Swords of Obstruction」
right away, then there would really be no need to go through the process of
handing them off for an auction if he had someone who would be willing to
pay for them right away. But there was also one additional development that
this offer of his was proving: that he is aware that normally the Merchants
Guild has no connections to the Knights, and that the one he mentioned was
most likely his personal one, since he used the words 「us brokers have our
ways of establishing such connections」instead of 「The Guild has ways of
establishing such connections」. And by presenting me with such a relatively
risk-free offer, it was his way of appealing to me and showing his honesty.
After all, if he is someone who can establish a trade connection with the
Knights without the Merchants Guild officially having one, then that only
serves to prove how much of an excellent broker he is.
I glanced at Roxanne and Sherry, but neither of them looked like they had
any particular objections towards the idea of going along with the offer that
this guy was extending.
「So, if I was willing to sell the「Copper Swords of Obstruction」 to you, then
for how much would you be willing to buy them?」
「Let me think. . . . . . . . . . hmm, if you were selling them alone, then I would
offer fifteen thousand Nars per sword, but since you are offering to sell a full
set of six swords, then the price has to be increased accordingly. How does. .
. . . . . one hundred thousand Nars for all six of them sound?」
So he is offering the same price as the broker from yesterday. That would
mean that he wold be paying around sixteen thousand six hundred Nars per
sword. Could it be that this is their usual market price when you sell 「Copper
Swords of Obstruction」 as a set? That is definitely not a bad deal, but I
wonder if I could elevate it just a little bit higher?
「How about giving me eighteen thousand Nars per sword, one hundred and
eight thousand Nars for a full set?」
「I am afraid that I cannot pay that much for them.」
Figures. But it is okay, not all hope for a bigger profit is lost just yet. Let me
try lowering the price for a bit more. . . . . . . . . . . . .
「If eighteen thousand per sword is too much, then how about seventeen
thousand five hundred?」
「Better than your initial offer, sir, but if I am to buy those swords odd of you
in bulk, then the best I can do is seventeen thousand Nars per sword.」
So that is going to be his final offer, huh? Not too much of an improvement
over the initial one, but I guess one hundred and two thousand Nars is always
better than one hundred thousand Nars. I really wanted to try haggling some
more, but I guess it cannot be helped. I take what I managed to get for myself
and be happy that I managed to get it in the first place. The last thing that I
want to do is to get
needlessly greedy with a broker whom I just met.