Chapter 1: Dungeon System Activation

Dungeon Busters — LNCrawler · All chapters

Chapter 1: Dungeon System Activation

Of the Twenty-Three Special Wards of Tokyo, Edogawa City — the wards called themselves “cities” — ranked pretty much at the top, right next to Adachi City for being “the least desirable city to live in.” The general image held by those not living there was that it was a place that, due to being frequented by delinquents even in this day and age, had very bad public order. The truth of the matter, however, was that it was an extremely liveable city. This was especially true of the area alongside the Toei Shinjuku Line between Funabori Station and Mizue Station, a neighborhood within which could be found multiple supermarkets and no shortage of public facilities, like parks and sports centers. To top it off, rent here was extremely reasonable. Because of all these reasons, there was even a certain percentage of the population who were born here, worked here, and planned to die here as well. In a way, I, too, was one of them.

I, Ezoe Kazuhiko, am a resident of Edogawa City and am turning forty this year. If asked what I did for a living, I’d say management consulting. It was ten years ago that I obtained my Small and Medium Enterprise Management Consultant license and quit my job. Now, I make my living taking on jobs related to social insurance from small and medium companies in the area around Edogawa City, Koto City, and Chiba Prefecture, with the occasional lecturer gig at a training course. It might sound like I do a lot, but my annual income never really exceeded the six-million mark.

Having no intention of getting married, I had bought a modest, thirty-year-old house located in the Shishibone neighborhood, a place so lonely — even for Edogawa City — that it had earned the nickname of “Landbound Solitary Island.” Out of the seven days of the week, I would work two days, rest a day, work two more days, then rest the remaining two days. Mine was a laid-back lifestyle with three days off weekly..

I had no siblings, and both my parents had already passed away. I did have a few slightly removed relatives living not too far away who would come over every once in a while, but that was about it. I knew quite a few people in the area, but there were only a small handful who I considered close friends. There was no one to order me about and no one that I had to always be considerate towards. Despite not being all that affluent, life was still enjoyable and stress free.

“Hey there, Ezoe-san. How you doin’? You feel like dropping by tonight?”

One of the advantages of the bachelor lifestyle was the freedom to go drink wherever and whenever without having to mind anyone else. Not too far away from the northern entrance of Mizue Station was one of my favorite lounges, ROCO. It was one of the staff members, Mochizuki, who had called out to me.

“Who’s there tonight, Mocchii?”

“It’s Yuzu-san tonight.”

“Sure, count me in, then.”

In this way, I would drop by this place about once every week. As a self-employed bachelor, weekdays and weekends were all the same to me. When I felt like drinking, I drank; when I felt like sleeping, I slept. What I had attained after being freed from the bindings of company life was overwhelming freedom. After drinking for about two hours, I took a taxi home.

Shishibone, the area where I lived, was a large “railway blindspot” sandwiched between Mizue Station on the Toei Shinjuku Line and Koiwa Station of the Sobu Line. The distance from where I lived to either of those stations was roughly a thirty minutes’ walk. My fifty-square-meter plot of land had a second-hand, detached house and a small yard. Here was where I planned to live out the rest of my quiet, modest life.

I took off my jacket and retrieved a beer from the fridge. As I was also feeling a bit peckish, I poured hot water in one of the cup noodles that I had in stock. It was already past midnight, but tomorrow was one of my planned days off, so it didn’t matter if I stayed up late. Lately, I had been growing a bit of a belly, and my blood pressure levels were starting to climb a little. But what was one more night? I felt a slight tremor or wobble, probably because of all the alcohol in me. After kicking my slacks off as well — which reduced me to my trunks — I then added super-spicy sauce to my favorite flavor of seafood noodles and ate it. In the end, it was way past 2 a.m. when I finally went to bed.

In my own way, I was happy with my routine-like life of basically a stable sameness sprinkled with the occasional bit of excitement.

“What...is this hole...?”

Or at least, I was happy, up until that fateful day at the end of June, when the name of Japan’s new era had only just been ushered in.

◇ ◇ ◇

The slight tremor that I had felt last night had already completely left my mind. After waking up at 9 a.m., I started the washing machine and ate a simple breakfast while waiting. When I went outside afterwards to hang out the freshly washed load, I noticed a square hole in a corner of my yard that looked roughly one meter long on each side. I tilted my head in puzzlement. Wondering what it was, I lit it up with a flashlight and discovered a flight of stone steps that led underground.

“An underground room? I don’t remember hearing about this when I bought the house.”

My wristwatch indicated that it was 9:55 a.m. Both today and tomorrow were days off on my schedule, which meant I had nothing planned. With a flashlight and an oil lighter in hand, I gingerly descended the stairs. Judging by the direction, it led underneath the neighboring plot. As much as possible, I wanted to avoid trouble with my neighbors. While considering whether I should seal this hole with two-by-fours, I carefully continued down. The lighter in my hand remained lit, from which I gathered that I didn’t have to worry about oxygen.

“...This is really deep. How far does it go?”

By feel, I determined that I had descended roughly the height of a ten-story apartment building by the time I finally reached the bottom. I heaved a small sigh of relief at the sensation of my feet on flat ground again, then turned around to look at the flight of stairs that I’d just come down. It was a lot steeper than I’d thought. Just thinking about having to climb all the way back up to get out was enough to make me feel down.

“This underground area is pretty spacious. If I put in a bit of time and effort, I might be able to use it for something.”

Pointing my flashlight in all four directions and up and down, I gauged the space to be about fifteen meters on each of the four sides with a clearance of more than three meters. The floor was paved with stone but with absolutely no gaps whatsoever between the paving. As I continued looking around, I noticed the wall in front of me reflecting the light of my flashlight.

“A...door?”

There before my eyes were sturdy-looking double doors with a metallic sheen that towered more than two meters high. I hadn’t noticed it earlier due to its black coating.

“A bomb shelter? Or an abandoned military facility from WWII?”

There were no weld marks between the metallic doorknob and the door, almost as if it was all one, single piece. Thinking that it would probably be a good idea to check out the inside first before reporting this to my local government office, I grabbed the doorknob. That instant, a voice suddenly rang out.

“Wh-What?! Where did that voice come from?!”

The cold, robotic voice was surprisingly loud, causing me to clasp my hands over my ears. However, that did nothing to decrease its volume. It was almost as if the voice was speaking directly inside my head.

“Huh? Kunoichi as in a female ninja? Card? What card?”

The strange voice cut off as suddenly as it had started. Before my eyes was a single, glowing card floating in midair.

“What...is this?”

The mysterious underground room that had appeared all of a sudden, the strange doors, and the voice that had almost given me a headache and its incomprehensible message had left me so bewildered that I did not have the mental capacity to worry about the impossibility of something floating in midair by itself. As the card was glowing on its own, I didn’t even have to direct my flashlight at it.

Before reaching out for it, I carefully studied the card. On its surface was such a realistic depiction of a person that it almost looked like a photograph. A black-haired woman in what appeared to be a ninja outfit was posing with a kunai — that’s what those small ninja daggers are called, right? — in hand. My general impression was that this looked like a card from a card game.

Slowly, I reached forward and grasped the card. It felt rather strange to the touch. Despite being as hard as a plate of metal, the surface felt matte. I flipped it over and found words written on the back. It was in Japanese.

Name: Akane

Title: Glamorous Kunoichi

Rank: F

Rarity: Legend Rare

Skills: Kunai Mastery (Lvl. 1), Enemy Detection (Lvl. 1), Sex Technique (Lvl. 1)

“Akane...Glamorous Kunoichi? Let’s see. What’s this bottom part say? ‘An all-rounder character capable of close quarters combat using a kunai or dagger, long-range combat using projectiles like the shuriken, and other ninja techniques such as enemy detection. Also proficient at sex techniques to provide enjoyment while resting.’ Height of 163 centimeters, Bust 99, Waist 57, Hips 87...”

As I continued reading out loud, the light of the card continued growing stronger until it got so bright that I had to let the card go and turn my face away. Several moments later, the light subsided, leaving me in darkness.

“Oh my. Are you my Master?”

“UWAAAH!”

A voice suddenly addressed me from within the darkness. It wasn’t a voice inside my head but a real voice. When I pointed my flashlight in the direction of the voice, I found a black-haired beauty with a bewitching smile on her face.

“What a crude thing to point at a woman.”

In a split second, the woman had snatched away my flashlight and turned it off. The room became entirely enveloped in darkness.

“Don’t worry. The Safety Zone of Floor 1 should be activating soon.”

“Just who are you...?” I asked nervously towards the part of the darkness where I thought the woman was. There was a faint fragrance of flowers in the air. After a short while, my eyes gradually got used to the darkness, allowing me to once again make out the figure of my companion. Then it struck me: the floor, ceiling, and walls were luminescing. Before long, the room became brightly lit with a soft light. The beauty bowed gracefully.

“It is my pleasure meeting you, my Master. I am the kunoichi Akane.”

“Akane-...san. Oh, sorry, I’m Ezoe Kazuhiko. Honestly, I still haven’t the faintest idea what’s going on, and my head’s a jumble.”

Even while answering, my eyes were glued to the woman’s body. The upper part of her body was covered by what looked like chainmail with very fine mesh, on top of which she also had on jet-black clothing. On her lower half, she was wearing something similar to a Chinese-style dress — for ease of movement, maybe? — the kind with slits on both sides that revealed her slender and voluptuous bare legs. What caught my attention the most was her chest. With the chainmail sticking close, her two very shapely breasts stood out like gigantic meat buns.

She giggled sexily. “I sense a lascivious gaze.”

“S-Sorry,” I replied while turning my face away. The very pleasant aroma emanating from the glamorous woman tickled my nose.

“I don’t mind. I am, after all, your servant. Every single inch of this body is yours, Master. I also possess knowledge of how to pleasure men. Feel free to do whatever you wish to me.”

“Uh, that’s not quite...”

Abruptly, I felt a breath blown into my ear. I jumped backwards in a fluster as my head whipped around. There stood Akane-san with a graceful smile on her face.

“Have you calmed down yet?”

Finally, I realized that she had been teasing me. I heaved a huge sigh. To her credit, however, I had indeed calmed down. When someone’s mind is locked in a state of confusion, making them think about something else is an effective way to bring them out of it. Having regained my presence of mind, I proceeded to sort out the information I had on hand.

“I’m sorry, but give me a minute.”

My footsteps rang out as I paced around the stone-paved room. I combed through the little bit of information that I already knew to determine what I was still missing and consolidate my preliminary analysis of what this place was.

This underground space that appeared out of the blue, the strange voice and the incomprehensible things it said, the shining card, and the woman before me... What I should draw from all of that is...

Roughly sixty seconds later, my feet stopped.

“You...no, Akane-san. I have a question. Exactly what is the Dungeon System?”

The beautiful woman licked her lips with her pale-pink tongue.

◇ ◇ ◇

I, Akane, am one of the 108 Stars of Destiny incorporated into the Dungeon System. If I were to be honest, when I first laid eyes on Master, I had felt disappointment welling inside. His middle-aged and slightly chubby appearance did not look strong at all, and neither did I feel the attractiveness of a man from him. On top of all that, he had sent a lewd look towards my breasts almost the moment he laid eyes on me. If he had assaulted me at that moment, I would have summarily beheaded him. Us Stars of Destiny had the special right to choose our Masters.

“S-Sorry,” he said while turning around. As it turned out, he wasn’t someone who would act solely based on desire. He looked very confused, and so I decided to lend a hand helping him calm down. I was willing to comfort him with my hands, but apparently I did not need to go so far.

“I’m sorry, but give me a minute.”

After being ordered so, I fell silent and observed my new Master. Having calmed down, the light of intelligence gleamed in his eyes. I could tell that he was furiously sorting through information inside his head. In other words, on top of possessing the reasoning to suppress his instincts, he also had the acumen to analyze a situation. Though he seemed a bit lacking in ardor, at the very least, he didn’t seem like a bad Master. With the Dungeon System having been activated, this world had begun the march towards obliteration. If he displayed the will and determination to stand up in the face of this hopeless future, then I was willing to consider offering him my body. Oh, it looks like he’s finished his contemplation. Well then, what will his first question be?

◇ ◇ ◇

I was aware that I was not dreaming. The situation was incomprehensible, and so I had to start by sorting through what I did comprehend. At times like these, wondering “why” was not helpful, as there usually wasn’t an answer. While recalling the robotic voice from earlier, I mapped out the pieces of information inside my head and determined their respective priority levels. After all this, the most important-sounding keyword naturally floated to the top.

“Exactly what is the Dungeon System?”

“The Dungeon System is a part of the natural law of this universe, which also goes by the name of ‘World Order.’ No one knows the reason for the System’s existence nor its aim. Please just think of it as a natural phenomenon, just as how water flows from high to low.”

To sum up what Akane-san then said, these spaces called “dungeons” that existed in a different space or dimension had begun appearing in our world for an unknown reason.

“In the next year, an additional 665 dungeons will gradually appear, spread out over ten waves of sixty-five or sixty-six each. As dungeons are drawn to people, all of them should be appearing in places where large numbers of people are gathered.”

“Right, so that’s why the voice mentioned ‘one revolution.’ Moving on. I will now go over what my understanding is. If any part of it is wrong or if you are able to elaborate in any way, then please let me know. When I hear ‘dungeon,’ I think of a gigantic cave filled with ferocious monsters that assault humans. Is this the case here?”

Even though I did not play computer games, I wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with the word “dungeon” in the gaming sense. At the very least, I knew that this was a word commonly associated with the fantasy genre, with one example being the “Something Quest” game that had been a huge hit around thirty years ago.

Akane-san nodded in response to my question. “That is correct. The only difference is that these are not caves but other dimensions.”

“I see. Leaving the thing about other dimensions aside for now, please tell me what you know about these dungeons. For example, if I killed one of the monsters inside, would I get anything? It’s the characteristics and rules of the dungeons that I want to know most right now.”

“As you wish, Master.” Akane-san bowed. “Then allow me to share my knowledge. First, I shall go over the difficulty ranking of the dungeons. The lowest difficulty is D, and the highest is S. There are only seven Rank S dungeons. The next difficulty, A, takes up around 10% of the total number, which means there are anywhere from sixty to seventy of them. B and C make up the bulk of the dungeons at around 70% of the total, leaving the last rank, D, at around 20%. Each dungeon’s ranking is determined by its number of floors and the strength of the monsters that appear inside. However, not all dungeons within the same tier are alike. For example, there are Rank B dungeons closer to being Rank A, Rank C dungeons closer to being Rank B, and so on. Additionally, a dungeon’s ranking is also greatly affected by the kinds of rewards that it generates.”

“I want to hear more about specifically what kinds of rewards there are. Would they be ‘magic stones’ or ‘monster materials’ like the genre commonly posits, or are they something else entirely?”

“There are indeed such cases, but for civilized societies, the most common reward would be money.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

Money? If I defeat a monster, a Yukichi would appear? For a split second, my mind ground to a halt.

“The general criteria that dungeons use when deciding rewards is ‘something that is of value to the world that they have appeared in.’ In some worlds, that would be food, water, air, or any other number of things. However, for civilizations that have progressed to the point where they understand the concept of ‘money,’ that becomes the default reward most of the time. That said, there are exceptions, too, of course.”

The development often described in light novels, where the fact that killing monsters yields money leaks and incites mobs of civilians to flood into the dungeons to strike it rich, was very much not what I was imagining. If a cash-generating dungeon appeared, the government would definitely step in. Currency issuance was an economic policy. How much money was printed would affect employment rates, the prices of commodities, and exchange rates. There was no way that a country would just open up a dungeon that would be pumping unknown amounts of cash into the economy.

“If the Dungeon System thinks that it could attract people to enter the dungeons by generating money, then it is a defective system. There is no way that countries would leave these dungeons be. Without a doubt, countries would move to clamp down on them, instead sending their police force or their armies inside to shut them down. Not that I know how effective automatic rifles would be against monsters...”

“The Dungeon System grants autonomous control to the dungeons, such that it could be said that each dungeon is an entity with the ability to think for itself, decide what kinds of monsters it contains, and what rewards it generates. As such, it is very possible for rewards other than money to be dropped. However, what you mentioned about sending in armies to shut down the dungeons would most likely not work. After all, it is impossible to bring outside weapons into a dungeon.”

“Hm? What do you mean? Weapons can’t be brought in?”

“Yes, that is correct. So now we get to the most important part of the System. I shall now explain about the cards.”

Akane-san drew one of the kunai from her waist, then showed it to me. Abruptly, the kunai turned into a card. It looked like a sleight of hand trick.

“This is no trickery. It is a part of the Dungeon System. When I said that it is impossible to bring weapons into a dungeon, it is because anything that the dungeon determines to be a weapon would be converted into a card just like so. In order to restore a cardified weapon, it needs to be brought back to the ‘Safety Zone’ that is located at the entrance at Floor 1.”

“If weapons can’t be brought in, then how are we supposed to fight inside the dungeons?”

“There are two ways. One way is for you to acquire weapons inside the dungeon and fight in person. The other way is to order servants — such as myself — to fight on your behalf. There is no other way. If you choose the first, you will have to first start out fighting with only your bare fists, gradually proceeding deeper in until you find a weapon. The only weapons that can be brought into a dungeon are ‘dungeon-made’ ones.”

“I see. And the ‘servant’ that you mentioned as the other way?”

“When monsters in a dungeon are defeated, there is a chance for them to turn into a card that can then be picked up. These are ‘servants.’ Servants can be summoned only inside of dungeons. Once summoned, they can be ordered to fight on their Master’s behalf. There are a few other ways of obtaining cards, such as by freeing spirits that had been sealed away or by dealing with Peddler, an otherworldly merchant who wanders throughout the dungeons.”

“I see. So it’s basically a choice between becoming a fighter or a summoner. So then, what about you? Why are you here, even though I haven’t done any fighting yet?”

“Master, you are the first person who has come into contact with the Dungeon System. As the reward for being the First Contacter, I believe you must have received several perks. Please say ‘Status Open’ out loud.”

“Uh... Status Open.”

Abruptly, a black screen roughly fifty centimeters tall and thirty centimeters wide appeared before my eyes. There were white words on the screen.

Name: Ezoe Kazuhiko

Title: First Contacter

Rank: F

Possession Limit: 0 / ∞

Skills: Card Gacha, ______, ______, ______, ______, ______

Akane-san giggled. “As expected of the First Contacter. Your possession limit is infinite, and you have six skill slots.”

“You can see this? And by ‘possession limit,’ you mean card possession limit? Your surprise at me having six skill slots means...?”

“First, this is the Status screen. You can only call it out when inside a dungeon. It is indeed visible to everyone else, so be careful about checking it when there are others around. Next, the possession limit. This is the maximum number of cards that you can have in your possession while inside a dungeon. For normal people, this is capped around twenty to thirty. Due to the reward you received, this limit has effectively been lifted for you. Then lastly, about the skill slots. Normal people only have two or three slots, whereas you have six. This skill that you already possess, ‘Card Gacha,’ is not something that I am familiar with...”

“Uhhh...‘gacha’ refers to a loot box system — I think that’s what the kids call it nowadays? — inside video games where things like items and characters can be obtained through a random selec— You know what, don’t worry about it. I think I have a pretty good idea what it is. Back to the possession limit. My Status is showing ‘0’ at the moment. Are you not being counted?”

“That is because I am currently materialized and also due to the fact that I am a Legend Rare card, the very rarest kind. When you enter the dungeon, you will attain monster cards. Do you wish to try entering now?”

“No, I will need to make preparations first. I’ll listen to the rest of what you have to say in my house. Let’s go up for now,” I said while turning towards the stairs.

However, Akane-san made no move to follow me. When I turned around, she sighed softly and said apologetically, “As I have just mentioned, servants can only be summoned within dungeons. As soon as I attempt to leave, I will become cardified. You will be able to converse with me only when down here.”

“I see. Is there any penalty or cost for summoning you?”

“Not particularly, no...”

“Then I’m sorry, but can you turn back into a card for me? I want to put down everything that’s happened on paper. And more importantly, I’ve been wanting to go to the toilet for a while now.”

“As you wish. And one last thing: please call me ‘Akane’ without any honorifics. You are my Master, and I am your servant, so you adding ‘-san’ to my name confounds me.”

“Very well. Then you can also stop calling me ‘Master.’ Call me by my last name or first name. Being called ‘Master’ confounds me.”

“Your wish is my command, Kazuhiko-sama.”

Right when I was about to object to the ‘-sama’ suffix, Akane turned into a card with a small ‘poof.’ This time, her card fell straight to the ground without floating in midair. I picked it up in a fluster, then put it away in my chest pocket.

◇ ◇ ◇

It was after I had finished my business in the toilet and was enjoying a puff under the ventilation fan that a realization hit me. According to my smartphone, the time was only just past 10 a.m. Feeling puzzled, I checked my wristwatch. By my rough estimate, I had spent around twenty minutes checking out the dungeon and talking to Akane. And true enough, the wristwatch that I had been wearing when going down there was indicating 10:30 a.m.

“What does this mean? Is my watch broken? Or could it be...” I unconsciously brought a hand over my mouth. “...that the flow of time is different?”

Without further ado, I immediately proceeded to test my theory. I prepared two quartz watches, put one of them on, and tied the other to a spool of kite string. After confirming that the two were synchronized, I lowered the latter while observing from aboveground. As I had half expected, the second hand started spinning as if out of control. I quickly pulled it back up and once again reset the time. This time, I lowered it even deeper and waited a full minute before retrieving it once more. Lo and behold, despite having started off at 0:00, the watch was now off by about two hours. Through this experiment, I was now fully convinced that time inside the dungeon passed faster than outside.

“I’m going to need to ask Akane about this, just in case.”

Resolving myself to the fate of muscle soreness, I once again descended the stairs that led underground.

◇ ◇ ◇

“Within a dungeon — which also includes being inside the Safety Zone on Floor 1 — time flows 144 times faster than outside. In other words, one hour outside equates to six days inside.”

With Akane’s words, how I would be spending my two off days became set in stone. The entrance to this dungeon had appeared in the yard of my house. In other words, this dungeon was mine. Even if I did six days of work inside the dungeon, only an hour would have gone by aboveground. That being the case, I had plenty of time. A remodeled Safety Zone would surely also be a big contribution to any dungeon exploration efforts. Having decided on this, I immediately started planning out a DIY project.

“First of all, to keep everything out of sight of my neighbors, I’ll need a fence around my yard. In order to prevent rainwater from getting in, I’ll also need to install a firm lid on the entrance. Next would be the stairs and Safety Zone. The stairs are steep, so I’ll be installing handrails on the sides and rubber mats on the steps. Right, an unloader would probably also be a good idea. As for the Safety Zone, I’ll put in flooring and wallpaper, and confirm whether or not I can bring electricity in from outside. If I can’t, then there’ll be no choice but to prepare a few household batteries.”

My plan was to convert this Safety Zone into a work room. Installing appliances that would require a constant supply of electricity — such as a fridge — would probably be impossible, and I did not hold out much hope of getting an internet connection down here. Even so, doing normal work on a laptop shouldn’t be much of a problem. I could even put in a sofa for when I felt like taking a nap. And so without further ado, I went to start my car.

The home center happened to have the perfect thing for blocking prying eyes: fence slats 180 centimeters high and 90 centimeters wide that also came with all the associated nails and parts. Ten of these kits should be enough. Let’s also grab a bunch of artificial vines to block up the gaps.

Next, I proceeded to renovate my yard. I pulled out all the clumps of weeds, flattened the ground with a shovel, and then laid down tiles. As this would also serve to block out sunlight, I did not have to worry about the weeds growing back.

The dungeon entrance I surrounded with concrete bricks, before throwing a blue tarp over the whole thing. All this work took up pretty much the whole day.

“Never would I have imagined that my very first task would be to give a leg massage.”

After having brought a beach chair down to the Safety Zone, I then materialized Akane and had her massage my thighs and calves. Despite her complaint, she still obeyed my order. Probably thanks to her Sex Technique skill, she proved to be very good at it. She seemed to know just the perfect way to relieve my sore muscles.

“Would you like me to do something that feels even better for you, Kazuhiko-sama? I can help provide relief to something even hotter and harder. You can have your pick of my hands or chest. Or would you prefer my mouth...?”

Smiling seductively, Akane reached for my lower body with her white, slender hand. However, I made no noise of protest. She lifted her face, then sighed. The massage had felt so good that I had already fallen asleep.

◇ ◇ ◇

When I checked my watch, I realized that two hours had gone by. It was a bit strange thinking about how that only equated to a minute aboveground. It seemed like Akane had continued the massage even after I fell asleep, judging by how much better my legs felt.

“As for our immediate goal, I’m thinking of first focusing on setting everything up properly.”

As I began going over my remodeling plans in detail while still lying on my beach chair, Akane gave me a look of amazement mixed with bewilderment.

“This dungeon appeared in my yard. In other words, no one else will be able to come in. Therefore, I will be remodeling it as I please.”

“If that is the case, then I suppose there wouldn’t be a problem, but...”

“Hm? You have misgivings?”

“No, that is not the case. It’s just that there is still something I haven’t told you about the Dungeon System, and I’ve been thinking about how to bring it up.”

“Don’t tell me...the monsters can come out of the dungeon?”

“No, they cannot. At least, not at the moment. There are two ways for monsters to appear outside a dungeon. First is when someone with the Dungeon Buster title — attained by clearing a dungeon — materializes a cardified monster outside. The specific rewards granted to someone who clears a dungeon vary depending on the rank of the dungeon, but the Card Materialization ability is always included. As can be guessed from this name, this ability enables someone to materialize cards aboveground, albeit for a limited amount of time.”

“So if I conquer this dungeon, I would be able to bring you outside?”

“That is correct. When the time comes, please feel free to do whatev—”

“Ahem, well, I’ll look forward to it. So, the second way?” I prompted with a smile. Akane indeed had an appearance so voluptuous and beautiful so as to put even gravure idols and top entries in “actresses men would love to have as lovers” lists to shame, but she had a bad habit of slipping in sexually provocative language every once in a while when speaking. That said, she seemed to know where the limits were, seeing as how she immediately returned to the topic at hand.

“The second way is when humanity loses to the dungeons.”

The shocking words wiped the smile off my face.

“One revolution — meaning a year — later, the Dungeon System will become fully active with all 666 dungeons fully appearing throughout this world. If humanity cannot conquer them all within the following ten revolutions, a phenomenon called ‘Monster Stampede’ will take place. In short, all the monsters from the uncleared dungeons will rush out all at once in a never-ending tide. Let alone humans, all life on this planet — even animals and vegetation — would be thoroughly consumed.”

“Hold on a — Hold on a moment. So you mean to say that if we don’t destroy all the dungeons within the next eleven years, monsters will spill out and obliterate this world?”

“As my memories have been erased, I do not recall seeing this happen myself. However, I know that countless numbers of civilizations have already perished because of this.”

I brought my hand to my mouth as my mind whirred. Up until this moment, I had only been thinking about spicing up my life with the dungeon. If the world was going to end in roughly ten years, then that changed everything. As the person who had activated the Dungeon System, this was now very much my responsibility. I could feel my heart rate spiking.

Calm down. Okay, what should I do...? Running away is not an option. If these dungeons are going to appear everywhere on Earth, then there is nowhere to run. That leaves actually taking these head on. But how? Should I inform the police or the government? Would they believe me, though? Even if they believed me, that would probably mean a lot of different people coming in and out of this dungeon and learning the fact of the world’s approaching doom. If that information gets out, society would be thrown into chaos. What if I just use this dungeon to enjoy the rest of my life...? No, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy anything at all. If I tried to live while ignoring the fact that I was the person who triggered the whole phenomenon, I think I would be crushed by all the stress and guilt. Then that leaves...

“For now, I need to avoid being exposed as the First Contacter. And I should probably go look for the other dungeons. Not that I expect to find them all, but...”

“I would actually recommend that you focus on this dungeon, Abyss, for the moment. As a Rank A dungeon, it should supply you with plenty of Enhancement Element, helping you to become quite strong.”

“Oh right, that reminds me. I haven’t heard you explain ‘Enhancement Element’ yet. Is it like the ‘XP’ that comes up so often in RPG games?”

While speaking, I pulled up my Status window yet again.

Name: Ezoe Kazuhiko

Title: First Contacter

Rank: F

Possession Limit: 0 / ∞

Skills: Card Gacha, ______, ______, ______, ______, ______

“And is this ‘Rank’ field what would normally be called ‘levels’ in those games? Would my rank go up from absorbing more Enhancement Element?”

“I am not familiar with the ‘RPG games’ that you speak of, but rank is an indication of strength. F is the lowest, and this is where the average person is at. From there, it goes up to E, D, C, and so on, all the way to SSS at the very top.”

“And this rank will go up as I kill monsters and obtain more Enhancement Element, yes?”

“That is not the case. It goes up when you become stronger.”

Our conversation seemed to be at odds with each other somehow, so I decided to probe a bit deeper.

“Hold on. I defeat a monster, and I gain Enhancement Element. My rank goes up. I get stronger. Is this not correct?”

“Ah, the cause and effect are the other way around. It’s not that you become stronger when your rank goes up; your rank goes up when you become stronger. When you kill a monster, your body absorbs the Enhancement Element it leaves behind. When you train in that state, your body improves much faster. To be more specific, that means the quality of your muscles going up, your reaction speed going up, recovery from illnesses, and youthening of your cells. Depending on the person, they might even discover magical circuits within themselves and become capable of using magic. Rank is nothing more than an indication of how strong you’ve become.”

After having things broken down in this way, I finally caught on. So in short, the mechanism was exactly like how reality worked. In games and light novels, characters would get stronger with stat buffs from level ups. But that was not how things were in the real world. Instead of “stat points” being accumulated inside someone’s body, it was only through slow and steady effort that someone got stronger. Then when they pass a certain standard, that becomes reflected in their rank. Enhancement Element was pretty much the same thing as a protein shake after a strength training session.

“In other words, the only path to getting stronger is through persistent effort?”

“I shall also help you to the best of my ability. I can teach you how to fight.”

“Thank you. But first, preparations. Not only do I need to remodel this room, but I also need to gather equipment for entering the dungeon.”

After reverting Akane to a card, I then went back aboveground.

◇ ◇ ◇

In the end, it took me a whole week to finish all my preparations. I attached handrails along the stairs using industrial-strength instant glue and carried the flooring with an electric stair-climbing trolley. I did attempt to run an electric line from my house, but it didn’t work out, and so I resigned myself to purchasing several household batteries with large capacities. Anything that I brought inside the dungeon would be undergoing a whole year for each month aboveground, so I needed to carefully decide what to bring. Precision equipment was probably a bad idea, but things like furniture, flooring, and wallpaper shouldn’t be much of a problem.

“I’ve attached the handrails with industrial-strength instant glue, so they should be fine. I decided to go with white for the wallpaper. The flooring is oak. Nobody counts service life for flooring in the first place, so I don’t expect any problems with it. The sofa and chairs are real leather, as they can last several decades if properly maintained with leather conditioner. Same for the desk. I’ll only be using it to work on my laptop or go over documents, so that’s why I didn’t go for a particularly fancy one. For illumination, it looks bright enough with the desk lights and floor lamps, don’t you think? It’s a bit of a bother having to bring in replacement household batteries every time I come down here, but at least I can do it in one trip, thanks to the electric trolley.”

Finally, the space had turned into somewhere I could relax. Before the doors leading to the dungeon was a large mud mat in expectation of whoever it was coming through to be tracking dirt and clots of blood. One week aboveground was two and a half years down here. As such, giving the floor a wax and the chairs and sofa some maintenance once per week seemed a reasonable schedule to maintain. If I got Akane to help, then it would make things that much quicker.

“You...actually went and remodeled the Safety Zone. This sofa also feels great to sit on,” exclaimed Akane. With a sensual chuckle, she then coquettishly leaned into me. “Kazuhiko-sama, do you wish for a...passionate time with me? I can give you service so good as to throw your back out.”

I loved women, and Akane was top tier as far as women went. I was not averse to losing myself in her glamorous body, but there were things I needed to finish up first before doing so. It might have been a different story if I was a young man in my twenties, but I was almost forty. I was no longer so young that I would put off what I needed to do in order to satisfy a momentary burst of desire.

“Ahhh, sorry, I have work to do, so please turn back into a card for now. I can’t concentrate with other people around.”

“My!”

Akane made an aggrieved face, but then immediately cardified the next instant. I picked her card up and put it away in a plastic card case, the kind used to store rare cards (I think?) from card games.

“This concept is probably going to be a huge hit with the Japanese populace. I can just see all the card collectors showing up in droves. Well then, how does this ‘Card Gacha’ work? Nothing happens regardless of how many times I press it in the Status window. Hmm, never mind for now. I suppose I will find out soon enough.”

The sound of my slippers echoed throughout the room that was now empty save for myself. I sat down on one of the chairs, turned on my laptop, started up a spreadsheet program, and then began planning out what I’d be doing going forward.

If things were left to run their course, the world would end with a Monster Stampede. Simply accepting that I only had ten years left and living it out was not something I could bring myself to do. As such, there was no other choice but to fight. The only guaranteed way to stop the Monster Stampede was to destroy all 666 dungeons.

However, getting around to all 666 dungeons by myself is impossible. I’m going to need to find companions with whom I can share the burden. However, notifying the public at large about the Monster Stampede is going to cause mayhem on a societal level. If more and more dungeons are going to continue appearing going forward, humanity as a whole is going to feel a sense of crisis, and there will be chaos enough. I can reach out and gather companions when that happens.

All the way until my battery ran out, I sat there, deeply pondering what was going to happen in the near future.

◇ ◇ ◇

Starting the next day, I had three consecutive off days, having previously finished all the work I had pending. Once again, I was back inside the dungeon. Together with Akane, I performed one last check of all the equipment I had prepared.

“Cut-resistant vest. Long-sleeve shirt. Cut-resistant trousers. Goggles. Army gloves. Dustproof mask. Safety boots. Helmet. Flashlight, just in case. Shockproof wristwatch. Waterproof travel backpack. Two two-liter bottles of water. Eight servings of calorie bars. Oil lighter. Three thick towels. Disinfectant gel. Athletic tape. Gauze. Bandages. Toilet paper. Plastic bags. And lastly, notebook and pen.”

“Indeed, nothing that could serve as a weapon. I don’t think you’ll need that light-emitting item though.”

“It’s just in case. I actually also wanted to bring a gas mask, but apparently, I can’t do so without knowing exactly what gas it would be.”

“There’s no need to worry about that. The air inside of dungeons is generally non-poisonous. There are traps that use poison gas, but the gas will naturally dissipate if you simply wait a while.”

Having finished checking all my equipment one last time, I pulled my goggles down and put on my dustproof mask.

“Well then, let’s do this.”

I stood in front of the metallic doors and grabbed the doorknobs. To my surprise, the doors then opened all on their own.

◇ ◇ ◇

“The place is a lot brighter than I’d imagined. And the air is pretty fresh, too. Guess I don’t need to keep this mask on, then.”

After having stepped into the dungeon, Akane and I were slowly making our way forward, with her in the lead. Every step she took, her plump buttocks jiggled sensuously right before my eyes. What would happen if I asked her to wear heels...?

“I sense your lascivious gaze, Kazuhiko-sama. I take that to mean you’ve lost most of your nervousness regarding the dungeon?”

“Uhhhh, I was...yeah. To be honest, it feels a bit anticlimactic due to how closely it matches what my expectations had been.”

“In most cases, the monsters that appear on Floor 1 are weak enough for humans to defeat with their bare hands. That said, this is a Rank A dungeon. There is no telling what might occur.”

“Thanks for the reminder; I’ll keep my guard up. Ah, I need to map the place, too.”

Just when I was about to put pen to paper, Akane turned back and took both away from me.

“Please do not underestimate me, all right? I will not lose my way on a floor like this. More importantly, I feel monsters drawing close. Instead of looking at your paper, please pay more attention to your surroundings.”

When we proceeded a little more, Akane abruptly backed herself against the wall, prompting me to follow suit.

“When we turn this corner, we will have our first monster encounter. There are...two of them. They’re most likely goblins,” she whispered, before quietly inching forward along the wall. Right before the corner, she raised three fingers as a signal. Three...two...one! She jumped out, and I quickly followed.

“...Huh?”

The scene that leaped into my eyes was that of a glamorous beauty standing, with kunai in hand, over two small, dirty, grey-brown figures that had lost their heads. The monsters’ bodies crumbled and turned into smoke.

“This smoke is the Enhancement Element that I had mentioned. Because we are fighting together, both of our bodies are absorbing it. The more fighting we do, the more our muscles and bones will become strengthened, until our rank eventually rises. Also...”

Akane bent over to pick up something from the ground.

“This is the monster’s ‘drops,’ the term for the reward that can be obtained from killing monsters in this dungeon. It appears to be money after all.”

She flicked the item in her hand at me with a soft clink. I raised one eyebrow when I looked at what was in my hand: a shiny, new five hundred yen coin.

◇ ◇ ◇

“When I first heard ‘monster,’ I was worried what kind of frightening enemy it would be. But turns out, it’s just goblins who only know how to bite with their teeth. Seeing as how this was the twentiethone that you’ve finished, clearly they don’t even pose a challenge to you.”

As Akane calmly finished off another goblin, I bent to pick up the five hundred yen coin that fell to the ground.

“Kazuhiko-sama, you should probably also fight yourself. Just absorbing Enhancement Element alone does not make you strong. Without moving your body and fighting yourself, your rank will never go up.”

“Hmm, be that as it may, fighting isn’t really my strong suit. After all, I’ve always used my brain, not brawn, to earn my living.”

Akane shook her head in slight exasperation. With a quick swing, she finished off yet another five hundred yen co— I meant, another goblin.

“This makes the thirtieth coin... Hm?”

Hearing gibbering from behind me, I turned around, only to find a goblin standing right before my eyes.

“UWAHHH!”

It leaped at me, so I instinctively raised my left arm in an attempt to protect myself. Pain ran through the arm. I looked and saw the goblin trying to dig its sharp teeth in even deeper. I cried out for help in a loud voice. “Akane! Help!”

“There are goblins coming from my side as well. Please handle that one on your own, Kazuhiko-sama!” she replied, letting me know that she was also in the middle of a fight.

Throughout our exchange, my opponent had been gnawing on my arm the entire time. Its sharp, jagged teeth, pupilless black eyes, and unbearable stench threw me into such a state of fear that my knees gave out. About five seconds later, however, I came to a realization. Wait...this guy is really weak, isn’t it?

“Take this!”

When I planted a kick in its abdomen, the goblin got blown away. I was indeed feeling pain, but it was only to the degree of a dog bite. In the first place, I was wearing a long-sleeve, cut-resistant shirt, so it had only left bite marks, not even having broken skin.

“I see. Now that I think about this calmly, the goblin is also empty-handed, which means I’m basically facing a one-meter-tall child. That’s what? A five-year-old?”

Having suddenly grown bolder, I used all my strength to punch the face of the goblin that had once again approached me.

“This...actually feels quite good. It’s my first time hitting someone. Well, it’s a goblin, so maybe the word ‘someone’ doesn’t apply, but still.”

I followed up my punch with a kick. After letting out a squeal, the goblin was reduced to smoke.

“How was your first experience killing a monster?” asked Akane from beside me.

Caught by surprise, I whirled around and found no other goblin corpses nor wisps of smoke. So she had been lying just now as a way to get me to fight.

“Not as hard as I’d imagined. I think I can do this.”

“In most dungeons, Floor 1 is basically bait in order to attract more intruders. Normally, that means bugs or slimes that can be killed with a single stomp, but this dungeon is very much living up to its ranking by already throwing goblins at us. On a side note, you are stronger than I’d given you credit for, Kazuhiko-sama. That was quite the punch you gave the goblin just now.”

“Oh, that? Well...”

Akane tilted her head in puzzlement at my inarticulate answer. She placed her right hand over the fist that I was holding out, then nodded understandingly. My smile deepened as I said in a cheeky tone, “This is merely a work tool for protecting my fingers. And it seems like the dungeon agrees with me as well.”

“How crafty. I’d have expected no less from my Master.”

Underneath my army gloves, I was clutching steel knuckle dusters.

◇ ◇ ◇

From that moment onwards, I proactively took to “goblin hunting.” Even without offing their heads like Akane had been doing, they would turn to smoke after taking a certain amount of damage. This part, I thought, was very RPG-like. Thanks to there pretty much being an endless stream of goblins, I had killed more than a hundred of them in three full hours of hunting.

“What do you think, Kazuhiko-sama? I believe we’ve already gone over most of Floor 1 by now, so would you like to go back to get some rest?”

“Hmm, I don’t mind going back, but what do you think about taking a peek at Floor 2 first? Thanks to the layout being pretty much a grid, things were quite a lot easier than I’d originally feared.”

Floor 1 of the Rank A dungeon Abyss was basically a square — roughly eight hundred meters on each side — broken up into a grid-like pattern. There was absolutely no worry about getting lost. The two of us headed deeper into the floor, summarily finishing off all the goblins that showed up. Soon enough, we discovered the staircase that led downwards to Floor 2. Unlike the narrow one at the entrance of the dungeon, this one was as wide as one of the staircases leading up to train platforms in stations in Tokyo.

“If I may, Kazuhiko-sama, I wish to dissuade you from attempting Floor 2 at the moment. As I had said earlier, Floor 1 is akin to bait. Many dungeons use Floor 1 to attract invaders, get them off guard, and then feed on them by suddenly raising the difficulty on Floor 2. How about continuing to fight here until you reach Rank E at least?”

“Very well. Then let’s head back, doing a bit more fighting along the way. After resting up in the Safety Zone, we’ll come back again.”

“I believe that to be the wise thing to do.”

Before I knew it, I had already taken the leading position in our procession.

◇ ◇ ◇

My Master, Ezoe Kazuhiko-sama, was a bit of an eccentric person. After fighting with goblins for several hours, he then wrote something down on paper. I took a peek, and it turned out to be the number that he had killed and the amount of time spent. As it turned out, he had a very methodical personality.

“Interesting. So this is a ‘Goblin Card.’ Not that I have any need for it though.”

When a monster was killed, there was a certain probability that it would become cardified. According to Kazuhiko-sama’s records, killing a hundred goblins had yielded, on average, two such cards. When he had collected ten of them, he then brought up his Status window.

Name: Ezoe Kazuhiko

Title: First Contacter

Rank: F

Possession Limit: 10 / ∞

Skills: Card Gacha (1), ______, ______, ______, ______, ______

“Hm? A ‘1’ got added behind the Card Gacha skill. Does that mean I can activate it once for every ten cards I collect? What would happen if I used Akane for a roll?”

Did I hear that incorrectly? Did my Master just equate me, one of the 108 Stars of Destiny who stand at the very top of the Dungeon System, with the likes of mere goblins?! Depending on his reply, I might wring him out to the point where he turns into a paraplegic!

“Kazuhiko-sama...surely you are not thinking of sacrificing me in exchange for some unknown skill, are you?”

“I’m sorry. It was my bad for wording it in an easily misunderstood way. Don’t worry, I will never let you go. Not until I either die or until every last dungeon has been cleared. In any case, the fact that this ‘1’ appeared with the tenth Goblin Card probably means that you aren’t counted while materialized, right?”

“Separated only in death...ehehe...”

Kazuhiko-sama’s unexpected words caused my chest to grow warm. I was not such a child that my heart would be moved by a man’s superficial words. That said, we had been fighting together in the dungeon for several days already by this point, having also eaten and slept together during that time. It was not at all strange that I had begun developing an affection for him.

During this period of time, Kazuhiko-sama’s appearance had also started to show changes. His protruding belly and bulging chin had both shrunken noticeably. From merely having lost only a bit of weight, he was already starting to gain a rather desirable image. I couldn’t wait to see how attractive a gentleman he would become if he kept on fighting.

Oh my. It appears that Kazuhiko-sama has discovered something. Whatever could it be?

◇ ◇ ◇

Akane looked delighted with my superficial words. Although I was nearing forty, I was still very much a man. I had not dried up so much as to indefinitely keep on rejecting a woman’s advances, especially that coming from a woman with such outstanding looks and such a perfect body. It’s probably about time that I make a move, isn’t it? But before that, let’s take a look at this skill first.

The window before my eyes changed from the Status screen to a stereotypical screen associated with mention of an in-game gacha or loot box system. What I didn’t understand previously was what “in-game money” I was supposed to use to roll the gacha. At first, I had thought it to be the five hundred yen coins dropped by the slain goblins, but the system showed absolutely no reaction to them whatsoever. It was the same when I tried giving it my first card drop. Now, though, I finally understood. It was with ten cards that I would get one gacha roll.

“On average, the drop rate for cards is about 2%-3%, right? Which means in order to gather ten cards, I would need to kill about...five hundred goblins. The cost-performance doesn’t seem all that great. So then, what should I do with this? Do I just push these ten cards against the screen?”

When I touched the screen with the stack of Goblin Cards, the cards disappeared like bubbles. Then the screen changed to show four gacha capsule machines like the kind that small-time candy stores used to have. Above each machine was a label, reading “Character Gacha,” “Weapon Gacha,” “Equipment Gacha,” and “Item Gacha.” The first one, “Character Gacha,” most likely yielded monsters to “summon to fight for you.” “Weapon,” “Equipment,” and “Item” all seemed quite self-explanatory.

“Akane, take a look at this.”

Akane drew near, pressing her breasts against my left arm. Needless to say, I didn’t mind it. But leaving that aside...

“Just confirming, but can weapons, equipment, and items obtained within a dungeon be used aboveground as well?”

“Yes, they can. However, they need to be first materialized within a dungeon and directly brought out. The same holds true for returning them to card form,” answered Akane while asserting her very bountiful breasts.

I almost lost all self-control. Although I was doing my best to keep a level head, I was a man, and one with a rather strong sexual drive at that. After swallowing my saliva, I reached out to touch the Item Gacha machine with a finger. The lever on the right side of the machine turned by itself, then a card came out with a mechanic whirr. The card floated up and flew out of the screen into real life.

“...Was there any need to make it this elaborate?” I muttered while grabbing the card that had just appeared. On the front was the depiction of a vial filled with some sort of red liquid. Just one look was enough for me to guess what it was, but just in case, I flipped the card over to check out the back as well.

Name: Potion

Rarity: Common

Description: A common tasteless and odorless potion. Can be drunk to heal colds or applied as a salve.

“It’s a potion,” commented Akane. “It can be drunk in lieu of cold medicine, and it can also heal scratches and bruises in the blink of an eye. However, it has no effect on bone fractures or severe wounds that reach all the way to internal organs.”

“‘Common’ is ‘C,’ right? So does that mean that there is ‘Uncommon (UC),’ ‘Rare (R),’ ‘Super Rare (SR),’ ‘Ultra Rare (UR),’ and ‘Legend Rare (LR)’ above this? This really is a gacha.”

“Kazuhiko-sama, please do not be discouraged. You do not need potions for scratches; you merely have to ask, and I would be glad to lick it for you.”

Akane leaned into me, with both arms circling around behind my neck. The soft smell of a woman wafted up and filled my nostrils. Uh-oh, I don’t think I can hold myself back any longer.

“Kazuhiko-sama...I have been feeling your raging desire ever since a while ago. Come now, don’t hold yourself back. Please unleash the carnivorous beast inside you, and devour every inch of my body!”

“............”

I placed a hand on the tight waist of the glamorous woman looking at me with moist eyes and pulled her off me. Phew, that was close.

“My rank is still F. When I fight, I’m still using my bare hands. We’re going to have to postpone this until I get stronger.”

“In that case, then at least as a reservation...”

My lips were enveloped in a wonderful softness.

◇ ◇ ◇

Even if I were to spend a whole aboveground day fighting in the dungeon, I still needed to come back up every once in a while to grab food, take showers, and sleep. As a result, one aboveground day equated to only a few days inside the dungeon. Within that period of time, I had killed more than five hundred goblins in total.

“So the number of five hundred yen coins I picked up is...553, which makes ¥276,500. Problem is, if I report this as part of my income, what’s going to happen to my tax return? Should I just convert this to bills at a bank and keep it at home?”

For the near future, I still needed to continue doing my current work. Office work I could take care of inside the dungeon, but the actual consulting visitations still required quite a bit of time.

“Well, there’s no other way but to just stop accepting new gigs and redirect that time to dungeon delving. That aside, I really have slimmed up. Both my belt and my shirts are all loose now.”

When I stepped onto a scale, I discovered that I had lost about fifty kilograms. Considering all the muscle that I had gained thanks to all the Enhancement Element, my body fat percentage had probably also dropped by a lot.

“Well, that’s a bit of a problem. How am I supposed to maintain the dignity of a consultant if I become so thin?” I joked self-deprecatingly to myself as I cheerfully tied my tie.

◇ ◇ ◇

“Kazu-chan, you sure have slimmed up.”

“I guess. I kind of started exercising lately.”

My childhood friend, Iwamoto, was the president of a medium-sized enterprise that owned pachinko parlor and business hotel chains inside Chiba Prefecture. He was a former Zainichi Woorian who had become a naturalized Japanese citizen at twenty years old, but I had never been bothered by the fact. Back when I first went independent, he had been the first person who came to me as a client. Therefore, he was every bit as much a close friend to me as he was an important client. As such, we had maintained a relationship of going out and grabbing a drink together about once per year all these years.

“Here are the training programs and sets of associated job training subsidy application forms. I’m almost 100% sure that you will get your subsidy with this. In addition, I’ve also consolidated all the interviews with those part-timers of yours whose employment has just passed the one-month mark. Just as you had expected, there were a lot of comments about all the tobacco smoke. If you ask me, I think you really should start thinking about separating smoking and non-smoking areas inside your establishments.”

Iwamoto’s face color slowly changed as he flipped through the stack of documents that I had handed him, most likely due to the sheer amount of work that I had accomplished in “one week.”

“This is incredible work. I can bring this up for discussion at our next store manager meeting. Kazu-chan, are you sure you don’t want to take up an executive position with us? I know for a fact that I can entrust you with management without any worries whatsoever.”

“Thanks for saying so, but you know how much I like being a freelancer. Although I do take requests from clients, I don’t have to listen to orders from a superior. Being a lone wolf suits me best.”

Afterwards, the two of us discussed how to separate smoking and non-smoking areas and hashed out an issue he was having in relation to real estate.

◇ ◇ ◇

When I returned home after going through all the client meetings I had scheduled for the day, the first thing I did was take a shower and change into some comfortable clothes. Then I stuffed my laptop and the documents I needed into my backpack and headed down into the dungeon. After recording everything that had been decided in today’s meetings and finishing up the analysis reports that had been asked of me, I turned to work on my dungeon-delving records. With my most recent data, I inferred the amount of time that I would need to kill one hundred goblins and wrote that down. In the real world with no XP system, this kind of detailed recording was the only way to figure out the workings towards the next rank up.

“Should I put a bed here after all? If it’s one of those simpler types with a mattress on top of a frame, then it should last quite a while. But then the sheets become a problem. Having to carry in new ones every time would be such a bother. If only there was a spell or an item like the ‘item box’ or ‘inventory’ trope that comes up so often in light nov—”

“There is though.”

“UWAH!”

The sudden voice from behind caused me to jump up in surprise. Apparently, Akane had materialized once again without me knowing.

“I also love it when you look surprised, Kazuhiko-sama,” she said while circling around to my front, straddling my legs, and sitting on my lap. Her well-developed snow-white thighs were visible all the way up, very close to their base.

“Look here, if you seduce me so much, I really might just push you over, you know?”

“My!” she exclaimed while beginning to grind the lower half of her body against me. “Nothing would make me happier. I’ve been aching this whole time, absolutely starving for your affection...”

I sighed in slight exasperation and gave her thigh a small slap. “Get off. I’ve just finished with my work, so I’m going to call it a day.”

Akane turned into a card while still straddling me.

◇ ◇ ◇

“Apparently, the gacha trope that is frequently used in light novels commonly gives one extra roll when ten consecutive rolls are done. In order to test whether that applies to this skill as well, I’m going to accumulate enough Goblin Cards to roll the gacha ten times.”

“Obtaining one hundred cards means killing five thousand goblins though...”

“Now, I’m capable of killing one hundred goblins within two hours. In other words, killing five thousand goblins will take one hundred hours. If I add a thirty-minute break to each four-hour block, I can complete four reps in an eighteen-hour period and then grab eight hours of sleep. That comes up to sixteen hours of fighting in one cycle, so I’ll do that six times. Each cycle of fighting and sleeping sums up to twenty-six hours, which means five times that plus one more eighteen-hour block of fighting for a total of 148 dungeon hours. Even including a buffer for going up aboveground for showers and swapping out the household batteries, I should still be done within four aboveground hours.”

“You mean to say that you plan on killing goblins for the entirety of all the time you mentioned?”

Akane’s face was a mixture of worry and disbelief, but I ignored it. This card thing, as well as the matter of how long it would take to rank up, were both things that I had to experiment, using myself as a guinea pig. I had prepared plenty of towels for wiping myself down and also brought in an inflatable air mattress.

“Well then, here I go.”

With Akane in tow, I once again stepped inside the dungeon.

◇ ◇ ◇

I gazed at my Master from behind as disbelief and amazement whirled inside my chest. Kazuhiko-sama was someone who often brought up words like “efficiency” and “productivity.” “What can be done so that more monsters can be killed within a given period of time?” was where his heart always was. While dashing throughout the grid-like layout of Floor 1, he would immediately lunge at any goblin that came into view. If I had to guess, he was also maintaining this pace with the intention of training up his stamina.

“Run, kick, and punch. Is this truly the fastest way? Well, let’s do this for four sets and then examine the results.”

The way Kazuhiko-sama explained to me what he was doing was “I’m using the PDCA cycle.” Apparently, the letters stood for “Planning a change towards a goal,” “Doing or carrying out the change,” “Checking the gathered data and results,” and “Acting on what was learned throughout the process.” I was almost sure that he was the very first person who had taken such a theoretical and methodical approach to dungeon delving.

“The previous one hundred goblins took me about 110 minutes...which is a slight improvement. I also got two more cards, and my rank is still the same. Just how many more do I need to kill to rank up?”

After noting down his time for the previous “rep” on the piece of paper that he kept in his chest pocket, Kazuhiko-sama then took off again. After he had confirmed that he could kill a goblin with two hits, our default formation for this “simultaneous training and card gathering” became Kazuhiko-sama running up front and me bringing up the rear while picking up all the five hundred yen coins on the ground. At times, there were goblins approaching us from behind, but it was easy for me because I only had to swing my kunai once to finish them off. Kazuhiko-sama, on the other hand, looked like he was having a hard time. That said, there should be changes occurring inside his body from all the Enhancement Element that he is absorbing, so let’s give him a good massage during the next break.

◇ ◇ ◇

As a country of natural disasters, Japan had an extremely advanced survival foods industry. All of the five hundred yen coins that I had earned during my previous dungeon dive had gone towards purchasing survival foods, now leaving me two whole weeks’ worth of non-perishables like emergency-ration curry and canned bread. As for water, I had brought in enough for four liters per person per day. Excrement — both number one and number two — the dungeon just automatically absorbed, for which we were extremely thankful.

“This is very good! To think that I would get to enjoy such extravagant fare inside a dungeon...”

Akane’s face broke into a smile as she brought another spoonful of hayashi rice to her mouth. The package had even come with an exothermic pack, meaning that we could enjoy it hot without having to start a fire. All hail Japanese industry developers.

Every four hours, Akane and I would return to the Safety Room, where we would drop off all the coins and Goblin Cards that we had picked up. In enough numbers, both of those items would rack up to quite the burden, and so having a room that we could use as storage really was a huge help.

That said, it wasn’t as if we weren’t without complaints. One, we still had to bring all the food wrappings and plastic bags out of the dungeon to throw away. Two, there was no shower room in the Safety Zone. Three, the household batteries were our only source of electricity. So at the end of the day, we could not just stay down here indefinitely.

“If you clear this dungeon, however, you might be able to resolve those problems you mentioned, Kazuhiko-sama.”

“Hm? What do you mean?”

While rubbing my shoulders, Akane offered a possible solution. “When a dungeon is fully cleared, the person who clears it is offered two options: to completely erase the dungeon or to claim ownership over the dungeon and become its Dungeon Master.”

“Ownership? So you mean, I could make this dungeon mine?”

“Speaking in a general sense, it is more common to choose the erase option. The main reason for this is because in most cases, a lot of people have to be involved to clear a dungeon. As only one person can claim ownership, the other cooperators would surely protest. However, if Kazuhiko-sama remains the only person to ever come into this dungeon...then there would be no one to protest you taking this dungeon for yourself.”

“If I own the dungeon, would I be able to dial up the drop rewards as much as I want?”

How wonderful it would be if I could do that? I could literally make it rain Yukichis. And I would also have an unlimited supply of otherworldly items like the potion that I got the other day.

“Unfortunately, you wouldn’t be able to do anything you wanted. I am not clear on the exact details, but I believe that dungeons produce monsters using power drawn from another dimension. In other words, their access to power is limited. That aside, Dungeon Masters do have the authority to change the interior layout of the dungeon however they wish. You might be able to take advantage of that ability to create the bath and toilet and all the other facilities that you desire.”

“Really? Then we have to clear this place as soon as possible. Well then, let’s get going. After this last rep is eight hours of sleep. I’ll nip aboveground to grab a shower and then come right back.”

“As you wish, Kazuhiko-sama.”

After putting on a fresh pair of army gloves, I once again dashed off together with Akane right behind.

◇ ◇ ◇

“Hm?”

After punching a goblin to death, I stopped in perplexion. Amidst the wafting Enhancement Element, I gazed at my own fist.

“What is the matter, Kazuhiko-sama?”

“That goblin just now... Didn’t I kill it with a single punch? I’ve always needed to get two hits in this whole time... Could it be?!”

I called out my Status window.

Name: Ezoe Kazuhiko

Title: First Contacter

Rank: E

Possession Limit: 24 / ∞

Skills: Card Gacha (2), (Empty), ______, ______, ______, ______

“Hey, my rank has gone up! And something new has been added to my skill slots. What is this ‘(Empty)’ part?”

I turned to look towards Akane, but she simply shook her head. Apparently she didn’t know what it was, either.

“From my knowledge, skills are only gained through ‘Skill Orbs’ that can be obtained within dungeons or from long years of experience gaining mastery in something. In rare cases, there are people who gain new skills when they rank up, but it’s my first time seeing ‘(Empty)’. I had expected you to gain something along the lines of ‘Striking,’ actually.”

“Hmm... Well, we can inspect it at a later time. Now that I’ve become Rank E, I’m going to need to re-do all my calculations. First thing to do: time how long it’ll take me now to kill one hundred goblins.”

I reset the timer on the shockproof wristwatch on my left wrist.

◇ ◇ ◇

Once I’d finished my meal and shower, I went back down into the dungeon, bringing with me more water, food, clothing, and batteries to replace what had been used up. After changing into a sweatshirt, I then laid down on the leather sofa that had been set up in the Safety Zone.

Akane, who was wearing a silk one piece lingerie bodysuit instead of her usual ninja costume, chuckled seductively. “Today is the night when I will finally share Kazuhiko-sama’s pillow, is it not? Please partake of me as much as you desire. I promise to make you feel so good that you won’t be able to get up afterwards.”

“That’s fine and all, but examining this new skill comes first. Whatever could ‘(Empty)’ mean?”

I felt my head being lifted and Akane slipping in and sliding her legs underneath. While enjoying her lap pillow, I continued gazing at the black screen. The breasts that suddenly jutted into my field of vision got in the way, so I had no choice but to turn to my side. At this, Akane rested her breasts on my head. It felt good, so I let her be.

“‘(Empty)’...hm?”

When I touched the ‘(Empty)’ word itself, the screen changed into one filled with cells like a spreadsheet program, with words inside each of the cells.

“‘Sword Mastery,’ ‘Spear Mastery,’ ‘Unarmed Mastery’... These are skill names, aren’t they? I see. So I’m to select from among these? The <???> ones probably require certain conditions that I haven’t yet met, be it rank or title or something else. Interesting. A small description even pops up when I touch these cells. It’s almost like a video game.”

“If that is the case, then how about taking Unarmed Mastery? All of your methods of attack so far have been centered around strikes without using a weapon. I believe you would be able to use all the experience that you’ve accumulated to great effect with the synergy of this skill.”

“Fair point. But no.”

“May I ask why?”

I slowly got up, thinking about how I could vocalize my thoughts. It might be a good idea to get a whiteboard down here.

“If this were the only dungeon, then I would agree with your suggestion. However, one year later will see 666 dungeons in total. There is no way that I can clear all of them by myself. In other words, I will need the power of an organization. The kind of skills that I want are ones that would be useful for gathering and managing a whole group of people.”

“You have already thought that far ahead?! I am in awe once again, Kazuhiko-sama.”

I stood up and fetched my notebook and pen. As Akane read each skill’s description out loud, I transcribed everything.

“I’ll input all this into my spreadsheet at a later time. Each one of these should have their own characteristics. Hmm, the ones that immediately jump out at me are...”

The ability to control other people and make them completely subservient to you. You need the other party’s permission to apply this skill on them, but with sufficient proficiency with this skill, this condition can eventually be removed.

The ability to analyze items and other people’s Statuses. Increasing proficiency with this skill will yield successively more information.

The ability to induce someone else’s will to your desired direction through conversation. Increasing proficiency with the skill can enable you to make the other party agree to increasingly unreasonable demands.

Different from Holy Magic, this is a magical skill that specializes in recovery. Able to restore stamina, heal injuries, and remove debuffs. Increasing proficiency with this skill can enable you to heal multiple targets at once and even regenerate lost limbs.

“These four seem the most helpful to me, I believe. As there are still a lot of <???>’s, not taking a skill right now is also open for consideration.”

If I really was to pick one at this moment in time, Recovery Magic was the obvious choice. Servitude could be helpful for when I began gathering companions, but that would be a bit farther in the future. As for Analyze, there wasn’t anything that I wanted Analyzed. Inducement could also be helpful in my consultant work but just like Servitude, would probably be more useful for gathering companions. As such, the only skill with immediate benefit to me was Recovery Magic. Dungeon delving was always a life-threatening endeavor. Who knows, perhaps I might end up suffering a fatal wound on Floor 2.

“Guess it has to be Recovery Magic then. Let’s grab it now,” I said before touching my Status window.

◇ ◇ ◇

Continuing the cycle of returning aboveground to shower and sleeping down in the dungeon soon threw my internal sense of time into disarray. It was of little wonder, as I would spend several days underground and come up to find that only a few hours had passed. Therefore, I also made it a point to confirm the specific day of the week and time of day whenever I went back up.

“I suppose there’s no choice but to simply get used to this kind of time management. Also, considering how long I’m spending out of the sun, I’ll probably need to start thinking about my nutritional balance.”

Just when I had finished changing and was about to head down into the dungeon again, my intercom rang. The only people who would come to my house were home delivery and my relatives. I checked my monitor, and sure enough, it turned out to be a relative.

“Ehhh? Um, you’re Kazu-san...right?”

“Do I not look like me?”

My relative, Kinouchi Mari, goggled at my change in appearance. Although it had not been that long in aboveground time, I had done quite a bit of moving about in the dungeon. It wasn’t to the point where I looked like someone else entirely, but I was seeing improvement to my chin and stomach. In short, I’d gotten a bit thinner.

“Sudden diets aren’t good for you, I hear,” she said while coming into my house. Kinouchi Mari’s mother, Kinouchi Shiori, was my second cousin. After going through a divorce three years ago, Shiori-san had returned to her parent’s home here in Edogawa City, bringing Mari with her. The two of them were in quite difficult financial straits, which was why I had Mari come to my house once per week to do some housecleaning for me as a part-time job. As payment for her help, I paid her a daily wage of ¥8,000. The high school that she was attending prohibited part-time jobs, which was why she was earning living expenses under the pretext of this being her just helping out a relative.

“Eh? Isn’t there a lot more trash than usual? And all these opened packages for instant food...” murmured Mari while tilting her head in puzzlement. Naturally, she did not know about the dungeon that had appeared in my yard. I would have to tell her eventually, but now was not the time.

“Certain circumstances have come up. I’ll tell you eventually, so please don’t ask for now. Also, there’s a bit more leeway in my own finances now as I got new work coming in, so I’ll raise your daily wage.”

I didn’t exactly mean it as hush money, but when I told her that I would be bumping her salary up to ¥10,000, she immediately got to taking care of the large amount of trash and laundry without asking anything. The sight of her puttering about made me imagine what it would’ve been like if I had also gotten married and had children of my own. Mari’s appearance drew heavily from her mother’s, which even I, as her second cousin, thought very highly of. This year, Mari had turned sixteen and had just entered high school, but from what I’d heard, she had already become the idol of her year. Several years later, and she would surely turn into quite the beauty indeed.

However, this is quite a problem. With Mari here, I can’t go down into the dungeon. Guess I have no choice but to take a break from it today...

“My school is going to have a field trip in October. We have to pay the school for it, so I’m thankful that you’ve increased my salary.”

“How is your grandmother doing these days?”

As there was too much laundry to hang out in the yard, everything had gone into the dryer instead. While waiting for the machine, Mari got a small break. She had noticed the renovation in my yard, but of course had yet to find out anything about the dungeon itself.

What I was drinking was not coffee but black tea. As someone of the black tea faction, I was quite particular about my tea leaves, purchasing them from a store in Nishi-Kasai that imported directly from India. I took another sip of my masala chai as I asked after Mari’s grandmother’s recent condition.

“Mm...not that good, to be honest. Grandma probably needs to be hospitalized, but she keeps refusing, because it would cost money. Mom also seems like she’s having a tough time with everything, so I’ve been considering dropping out of school to get a job...”

“Out of the question. You need to properly finish high school and go to university. If money is the problem, I’ll do something about it.”

“Mom mentioned that she didn’t want that, either. She said that it pains her and how sorry she feels about only receiving help all the time.”

“...Guess I’ll need to have a talk with Shiori-san as well. I can’t go into details yet, but I’m thinking about having you help me with my new work. It’s something that won’t take up too much time but would give a pretty good payout. Tell that to your mom to give her some peace of mind.”

“It’s...not something shady, is it? Like, something indecent...?”

“Silly, who do you think I am?”

As a middle-aged old man, I had no recourse but to smile wryly in response to the young girl’s upturned eyes. Even so, I could not tell her what. At the very least, it definitely wasn’t going to be a “wholesome” job, after all.

By the time Mari finished with all the housework, the sun had begun to set. I handed her an envelope with ¥10,000 inside. Eventually, I might have to renovate this entire house. That’s probably when I’ll explain things to her, I thought while watching the receding figure of the girl who I almost thought of as my own daughter.

◇ ◇ ◇

After Mari had left, I was free to resume my dungeon delving. In order to gather one hundred Goblin Cards, I estimated that I would need to kill roughly five thousand goblins. My fighting style had become quite streamlined by this point. Whereas it used to take me two hours to kill one hundred goblins at the start, now I had gotten it down to under one and a half hours. In addition, I had noticed certain changes after my rank went up. In short, it seemed like the drop rate had gone up slightly.

“Previously, killing one hundred goblins yielded about two or three Goblin Cards. This time, we got four. Is it just coincidence? Or has the drop rate really gone up? I need more data.”

After that, I killed two thousand goblins and plotted out the number of cards gained for each one hundred. When I compared the data to when I was still Rank F, my suspicions were confirmed.

“Before the rank up, the average was just under 2.5%. After the rank up, the average rose to under 3.5%. With twenty sample points for each, the confidence level is pretty high. This is proof that rank ups do affect drop rates.”

“I have never before heard of this effect from rank ups...” said Akane while tilting her head in bewilderment.

However, there was no doubt in my mind. Unlike in games, where one would get stronger by ranking up, here in reality, one’s rank went up as a result of one getting stronger. In that case, then why does the ranking system even exist? Within the context of a company, factors like years of service and evaluations would affect things like salary. While considering it this way, it made absolute sense for the Dungeon System to reflect one’s rank through the drop rates.

“When I reach Rank D, I’ll come back to this again. Then things should become even clearer.”

By this time, I had already gathered more than eighty Goblin Cards, all stored within plastic card cases carefully labeled with sticky notes. During the ten years I was independent, this kind of detailed admin work had already become second nature to me.

“That...is a really methodical way of going about this. The majority of male warriors usually don’t pay attention to such details...”

“I am not a warrior, and neither am I aiming to be one. If I had to put a name to it, what I’m aiming to be is a ‘Clan Head,’ I suppose? I’m going to gather companions and start an organization that numerous dungeon clearing teams are going to be affiliated with.”

Though still indistinct, a general outline was slowly starting to take shape in my mind.

◇ ◇ ◇

Around the time when my time in the dungeon had just passed 120 hours, the number of Goblin Cards in my hand finally exceeded one hundred.

Upon returning to the Safety Zone, the first thing that Akane did was declare, “I’ve already had my fill of goblins. I don’t want to see another one for a long, long time.” It appeared that the monotonous fighting had caused quite the mental burden on her, and so I apologized sincerely.

“I’m sorry for having made you go along with my unreasonableness. However, I just had to test this theory out. When we go in again, we’ll head straight for Floor 2.”

I, too, also did not want to fight goblins anymore for a while. Even with the increased drop rate halfway through, I still ended up having to kill more than four thousand goblins. In addition, my rank had then stalled at E. The stress on my body had been monotonous, and so I had stopped getting stronger no matter how much Enhancement Element I absorbed.

“This makes a total of 102 Goblin Cards. All right, Status Open!”

Name: Ezoe Kazuhiko

Title: First Contacter

Rank: E

Possession Limit: 102 / ∞

Skills: Card Gacha (11), Recovery Magic (Lvl. 1), ______, ______, ______, ______

“It’s actually become an eleven-roll gacha! The entity who designed this system has definitely played video games before!”

I could not help but to make a retort when I looked at my screen. The entity that had designed the Dungeon System was probably a transcendent being on a higher level of existence than us intelligent life. On the other hand, there were glimpses of worldliness here and there in small details like these.

“Congratulations, Kazuhiko-sama. However, it’s quite strange. I’m something else entirely, but even the Potion Card that you obtained before does not seem to be in the count.”

“Oh, that? I’m guessing that this Card Gacha skill only counts the cards that are on me in person. The other day, when I came back to the dungeon after having left all the cards behind down here, I noticed that the number had gone down to ‘0.’ With this Card Gacha skill, I’ll be able to get rid of monster cards and item cards that I don’t need.”

“I see. Normally, monster cards are only good for summoning monsters as servants to fight with or for trading with the merchant who wanders throughout the dungeons. This skill of yours is only going to be more and more instrumental going forward.”

“‘Peddler,’ was it? But you also mentioned that this Peddler would appear only after the Dungeon System becomes fully activated, so that’s going to be something to worry about another day.”

I activated the Gacha Card skill. Once again, the screen with “Character Gacha,” “Weapon Gacha,” “Equipment Gacha,” and “Item Gacha” lined up next to each other showed up in front of me. Thinking about going for an item first, I reached out a finger...then suddenly froze.

“Hold on. Does eleven consecutive rolls mean that I’ll be rolling the Item Gacha eleven times in a row? I don’t need that many of them. Equipment I can set aside for another day, but I need a weapon now.”

“I also believe that a weapon will be extremely important for entering Floor 2. Floor 1 was easy, but this is a Rank A dungeon. The difficulty at the next floor would surely be markedly higher.”

I rubbed my chin. “Character Gacha” also seemed kind of interesting, but what I wanted most at the moment was a weapon. But considering that I would be entering Floor 2 next, I could also see items coming in handy. After hesitating for a while, I finally decided to go with order of priority.

“First, I’ll roll Weapon Gacha five times. If I get a good weapon from that, then I’ll spend the rest of the rolls on Item Gacha.”

I pressed the gacha screen.

Name: Club

Rarity: Common

Description: A club made of oak wood.

Name: Dagger

Rarity: Common

Description: Common knife. Has not been sharpened.

Name: Dagger

Rarity: Common

Description: Common knife. Has not been sharpened.

Name: Kunai

Rarity: Common

Description: Can be used for close-quarters combat or thrown as a projectile.

Name: Steel Spear

Rarity: Uncommon

Description: A three-meter-long spear made of steel. Is sturdy, but also a bit heavy.

“............”

With all five cards laid out in front of me, I could not help but to heave a sigh. After five rolls — which meant using up fifty Goblin Cards — what I had gotten were four Cs and one UC. To make matters worse, I had even gotten a repeat.

“Calculating with a 3% drop rate, fifty Goblin Cards means 1,666 goblins. It takes me one and a half hours to kill one hundred goblins, which equates fifty Goblin Cards to twenty-four hours of labor. In exchange for all the food expenses, clothing expenses, electricity expenses, and depreciation cost of all the remodeling I did to the Safety Zone...this is what I get?”

“Kazuhiko-sama, calculating everything out to such details might not be what you would want to do at a time like this...” chided Akane gently, but I ignored her. I was a management consultant. Cost versus result was always at the forefront of my mind. In any case, I had now come to the conclusion that gathering cards for the sake of rolling the Card Gacha skill was a terribly inefficient endeavor. It was just not worth it. Just when I was about to close the screen, however, I froze once again.

“No, hold on...”

As I dive deeper into the dungeon, I would surely obtain cards from monsters of even higher ranks. If I assumed a Goblin Card to have the value of F and a, say, Dragon Card to have the value of S, it did not make sense for a Rank F card to have the same value as a Rank S card. The entity who designed this dungeon knew video games, and thus surely understood the progression that would make players obsessed and coming back for more.

“It is because Goblin Cards are of little value that the cost return is bad. If I think about it that way, then it makes logical sense. In fact, if it was me, that would be exactly how I would design it. That said, 11 times is still small enough for chance to significantly affect the results.”

In order to verify my hypothesis, I needed a bigger sample size. Therefore, I then proceeded to roll the Item Gacha. Apparently, it didn’t matter which gacha I was rolling as long as I did all eleven times consecutively. Thanks to this, I was able to spend all remaining six rolls on items.

Name: Potion

Rarity: Common

Description: A common tasteless and odorless potion. Can be drunk to heal colds or applied as a salve.

Name: Magi Potion

Rarity: Common

Description: A common tasteless and odorless mana potion. Can be drunk to recover a small amount of mana.

Name: Magical Water Bottle

Rarity: Uncommon

Description: Can be filled with a lot more water than its appearance suggests. However, the weight of the water inside remains unmitigated.

Name: Fashionable Ring

Rarity: Common

Description: A ring made by a jewel craftsman in his spare time. Looks nice, but does not possess any effects.

Name: Antidote

Rarity: Common

Description: Effective against snake bites. Does not work for all poisons.

Name: Time Stop Barrier

Rarity: Uncommon

Description: Can be used to stop time inside a Safety Zone by sticking these talismans in all eight corners and the entrance. Effect is dispelled when someone walks in.

“Six rolls, for which I get four Cs and two UCs. Rough estimate would be 80% C and 20% UC then. Next time, let’s do an eleven-roll with monster cards from Floor 2. If the distribution is still the same, then it can be concluded that Card Gacha’s cost return is just bad, period. If not, then my hypothesis becomes substantiated. That aside, what’s this last item?”

I materialized the last item that I’d gotten from Item Gacha, the “Time Stop Barrier.” When I turned to Akane, it turned out that she was familiar with it.

“This is an item used by knight orders and armies as they clear dungeons. You stick these small talismans all over the Safety Zone, then also stick this activation talisman when you leave. When this barrier is activated, time inside the Safety Zone is stopped. This helps prevent water and foodstuffs from getting stale or going bad.”

“How wonderful! This would be enormously helpful. But then why is such a useful item only ranked as UC?”

“Kazuhiko-sama, who do you imagine would be able to take advantage of this item?”

It was from Akane’s reminder that it occurred to me: stopping time inside a Safety Zone means monopolizing the dungeon. On the other hand, the general dungeon would usually see an unspecified number of people coming and going. In other words, this item can only be used by someone with complete control over a dungeon.

“Aside from organizations such as knight orders and armies who are clearing a dungeon, say, based on an imperial edict from their emperor, this item is useless to most everyone else. That is likely why its rarity is so low.”

This dungeon, however, was different. As its entrance was in my yard, I already had sole control over it by default. I decided to test this item out immediately.

“So I first stick these little pieces of parchment in the corners of the room...then above the entrance that leads aboveground, right there. Using extra-strong adhesive to weather the faster time progression down here...”

As soon as I had finished putting all the talismans up, I tried activating it immediately. Right before stepping out, I had Akane flip a five hundred yen coin. Then I quickly moved my foot away and activated the barrier. From the stairs, I saw both Akane and the coin frozen like a painting.

“It worked. Let’s go back in.”

I immediately turned around and reentered the Safety Zone, at which the five hundred yen coin landed on the ground normally as if nothing had happened. Akane asked me how it went.

“It was a success. Thanks to this, I can now remodel the Safety Zone even further. First would be a bed. Let’s get a luxury mattress, the one used by sports athletes. While I’m at it, I could also consider getting batteries with even higher capacities. I think I remember seeing portable five-thousand-watt ones before.”

“So finally you will be bringing proper bedding down! My first night with Kazuhiko-sama...rather than the flimsy one over there, I would much prefer doing it on proper sheets!”

As Akane sidled up with me with a blush on her cheeks, I responded with a vague “Mm, eventually.” Then I turned back towards the cards that were still laid out over the desk.

“I will need to use a weapon on Floor 2. I suppose the spear makes the most sense. Are there any of these that you want, Akane?”

“If I may, I would like the kunai and one of the daggers. What I had on hand was sufficient for Floor 1, but I will very likely need spare weapons for what’s coming.”

“That makes sense. All right then, I’ll be taking this spear. And as a backup, the remaining dagger. The leftover club...well, I’ll just put it away for now.”

When I handed the Kunai Card and one of the Dagger Cards to Akane, she materialized both of them with small poofs, examined them closely, then nodded in satisfaction. I materialized the steel spear to test out how it felt. Just as the description had mentioned, it did feel a bit heavy. Around five kilograms, I think?

“I see, so the handle part is hollow inside. Well, if the whole thing was a solid steel pipe, then it would be too heavy to use.”

“When you reach Rank D, you will become capable of brandishing even heavier weapons without any issue, so the weight is not so much an issue. What I believe to be more important, rather, is learning how to wield the spear.”

“Ahhh, good point. Guess I’ll pull something up from a video-hosting site. However — and I don’t mean to underestimate the importance of technique — strengthening my body takes higher priority for now. I’ve gotten quite a lot thinner...”

“You look wonderful, Kazuhiko-sama.”

My chin, which had been quite flabby half a month ago, was now very sharp. Much of the extra fat on my cheeks, back, and around my stomach had also fallen off. If I flexed my arm, my biceps would show, and my abdomen was starting to get slightly defined.

“When I look at myself in the mirror, it almost feels like I’m looking at someone else entirely. I need to swap out all my shirts and suits, too...”

“Do you intend to continue with your work aboveground? The dungeon by itself should be more than sufficient to allay all of your financial burdens, should it not?”

Akane’s words were reasonable. Unfortunately, that view was a bit too simplistic.

“For better or for worse, this world is an information society. If I suddenly own a large amount of money, the country would ask where I’d gotten that money. Small amounts for everyday use is fine, but large amounts are much harder to spend. In order to use the money that I earn from the dungeon, continuing my job aboveground is a necessity.”

This dungeon dropped cold, hard cash. Small amounts wouldn’t raise any eyebrows. The number of five hundred yen coins I currently owned was about four thousand, but that was still fine; I could still take it to the bank and exchange them for bills without much issue. The problem would be when that number climbed even higher. When it reached the millions, however, money without a clear origin became really hard to use.

“Should I try asking Iwa-chan for advice? If I remember correctly, real estate can be purchased with a lump sum of cash without having to provide income proof. I’ll ask if he could introduce me to a lawyer, a tax counselor, and a realtor. I’m sure he’s previously needed similar services while opening his pachinko parlors.”

I took out my notebook and jotted down what had just come to mind. I now knew what I needed to do next.

◇ ◇ ◇

“I’m going to kill one hundred goblins to familiarize myself with the spear first. Then we’ll go down to Floor 2.”

I walked out into (onto?) Floor 1, holding the UC steel spear that I had obtained through gacha. The moment a goblin spawned, I stabbed it in its forehand or chest and promptly reduced it to smoke. I practiced brandishing the spear, both using one hand and using two hands. Before too long, I had finished off the intended hundred.

“Well then, let’s hit Floor 2. Akane, take the front.”

“As you wish, Kazuhiko-sama.”

With the Glamorous Kunoichi taking the lead, we descended the stairs at the far end of Floor 1. When we had gone down what roughly felt like twenty meters, we arrived at a space that seemed like Floor 2.

“So there isn’t a Safety Zone on this floor?”

“I’m sure there is one, but it’s likely somewhere else. There should be a teleportation circle inside that is connected to the Safety Zone on Floor 1.”

“...What a light-novel-like device.”

As we continued our exchange, the two of us proceeded into Floor 2. At first glance, the interior looked the same as Floor 1, but the layout was no longer grid-like.

“For Floor 2 to already be a labyrinth layout... This dungeon definitely lives up to its ranking. That said, it’s absolutely meaningless before me. Ah, I feel a monster coming close.”

The bewitching smile on Akane’s face quickly turned into a grim look as the monster came into sight. The extremely muscular build with gray-brown skin that towered two meters high and walked on two legs was the spitting image of an orc.

“An orc?! A Rank D monster on Floor 2?!”

“MUUUAAAARRRRR!”

The instant the monster laid eyes on Akane, it charged forward with both arms outstretched. It did not possess a weapon, but the bulge below its waist was undoubtedly a weapon in a different sense.

“How filthy!”

Akane leaped up from the ground and kicked off of the walls. She reached the air above the orc almost instantaneously, then plunged a kunai straight into its head without hesitation. The orc’s eyes rolled back even as it vanished into a puff of smoke. Even so, Akane’s expression remained dark despite the fight being over.

“Kazuhiko-sama, this is an unexpected turn of events. With Floor 1 being occupied by Rank F goblins, I had expected to encounter Rank E monsters on Floor 2. For Rank D orcs to come out instead and skip over Rank E entirely is just...”

“It’s fine. This works as well. If I gacha with Rank D monster cards, the difference, if there’s any, should become all the more obvious. I’ll try taking on the next orc that we encounter.”

“Please hold on, Kazuhiko-sama! It’s too dangerous. Orcs possess such superior strength that they can easily beat a human to death. To make matters worse, they do possess some measure of intelligence. The reason why they do not wield weapons is because they have no need to.”

Akane attempted to stop me, but I had no intention of listening to her warning, as I had laid eyes on what had been dropped by the orc that had just been turned to smoke. Slowly, a one thousand yen bill floated down to the stone-paved ground.

“It appears that these orcs drop one thousand yen bills. Killing one hundred of them yields ¥100,000. The more I fight, the stronger I become as well. I can probably also look forward to the gacha rewards. We’ll be pressing on. I’ll take the next one.”

Reluctantly, Akane nodded in acquiescence. Soon enough, another orc showed up. I stepped forward, bringing my three-meter spear to bear. First, I would stab its stomach, then aim for its forehead. So thinking, I lunged with the spear. However...

“MUAR!”

The orc easily slapped away my spear, then threw a fist at me with incredible speed. I barely managed to block it in time, but still ended up being blown away. I slammed against the far wall, suffering what was likely a cerebral concussion.

“Kazuhiko-sama!”

Akane’s voice was the last thing that registered before I lost consciousness.

◇ ◇ ◇

I felt myself being made to drink something. Soon enough, I registered a voice calling out my name. When I slowly opened my eyes, Akane’s worried face loomed into view. So I’m still in the dungeon.

“Kazuhiko-sama! Are you all right?!”

“I... Yeah, I’m fine. You gave me a potion?”

The pain from when I had slammed against the wall was gone. A quick check, and I realized that my wounds were gone, too.

“Please forgive me. I ended up using two of them.”

“No, no, you saved me. That was a good call.”

Akane was on her knees and prostrating herself in apology, so I patted her head and placed a hand on her cheek. Her shapely face abruptly flushed red, but we couldn’t very well continue this romantic moment forever. There was no telling when the next orc would turn the corner. I stood up and returned the steel spear to card form.

“My weapon choice was a mistake. This long and spindly thing isn’t suitable here. For orcs, this is what I need.”

With a poof, I materialized the Club Card.

◇ ◇ ◇

“MUUUAAARRRRR!”

I ducked underneath the orc’s punch, then slammed my club into its knee, shattering it. The monster crumpled to the ground, and I brought my weapon down onto its head. It wouldn’t die with one or two strikes, so I swung down again and again while half in a trance. Eventually, the orc disappeared and turned into cash.

“Yep, this really is the correct way to fight these guys. As they don’t hold any weapons, they have a strong tendency to throw big punches while relying on their superior strength. The most important thing when throwing a punch is the legs, especially how the big toe is planted. With one knee gone, these orcs’ punches can’t even hurt a fly. However, there are times when they start with a kick instead of a punch, so further testing is still needed.”

Several days after I switched to using a club, I was still in the middle of working out the best way to kill orcs by continuing to pit myself against them one at a time. One, go through the physical experience. Two, mull over it and understand it. Lastly, derive laws and lessons from the whole process. This commonly adopted process for learning something in the business world was proving useful here in the dungeon as well. As I was now focusing more on improving my fighting style instead of meeting a quota, I took all the time I needed with each fight.

“This is extraordinary progress, Kazuhiko-sama! At this rate, we might be able to move on to Floor 3 soon!”

Akane and I were in the middle of reflecting over today’s fights while spooning curry rice into our mouths. This place was not a game. This world did not have forgiving mechanics like getting stronger through level ups from accumulating XP. As so, we needed to set out clear and achievable goals, always keep efficiency and quality in mind during the enactment phase, and then make time for a proper reflection at the end of the process. This was something done by pretty much every single businessman who was worth his salt.

“No, I plan on remaining on Floor 2 for a while longer. We’ll stay here at least until I reach Rank D.”

“So the next goal is to reach human limits, I see. I shall do all I can to support you.”

Of the ranks, F, E, and D were considered within human limits. F was a common person, E was an athlete, and D was the rare martial arts grandmaster or legendary warrior. To put things into perspective, this meant that Lü Bu and Tsukahara Bokuden were probably both Rank D.

After cleaning off my third plate of curry rice, I reached out for my bottle of supplements. Although Enhancement Element induced bodily strengthening, it alone was not sufficient to make me strong. Nutrients like protein, calcium, and vitamins were also crucial to the process. It was nigh impossible to maintain a healthy diet down in the dungeon, which was why I was taking supplements to make up for what I was missing.

“As for you, you’ve already reached Rank D.”

Name: Akane

Title: Glamorous Kunoichi

Rank: D

Rarity: Legend Rare

Skills: Kunai Mastery (Lvl. 4), Enemy Detection (Lvl. 4), Sex Technique (Lvl. 4)

The reason why Sex Technique had gone up was, well, you know, “adult reasons.” I had had no intention of rejecting the advances of such a glamorous and stunningly beautiful woman forever; I wasn’t that old yet. I guess it could also be said that my survival instinct had been kicked into gear by my life-and-death fights against the orcs. As for how the experience went...“it was wonderful” is the only thing I will say.

“I am a character card that’s inherently part of the Dungeon System. I naturally get stronger just by absorbing Enhancement Element. When I’m by your side, I feel like SSS is not just a dream but an eventuality.”

Akane was a Legend Rare card, the highest rarity ranking among all the cards. There were only a total of 108 LR cards, and apparently they were all character cards. Exactly where they could be obtained was entirely uncertain. Supposedly, some could be traded for with the Peddler who would be appearing after the Dungeon System became fully activated, whereas there were others that could be found by chance inside unexplored dungeons.

“As for the current card drop rate of these Rank D orcs, it’s roughly around 1%, which leads me to guess that this number is also affected by the monster’s rank and my rank. In this case, because the orcs’ rank is higher than mine, the drop rate is lower than it’s supposed to be.”

“However, Kazuhiko-sama, you are growing stronger at an accelerated rate. Surely it won’t be that long until you rise up to Rank D. And now you look much younger again, almost as if you haven’t aged a day past thirty.”

Instead of getting all bulky like a bodybuilder, I could feel that my muscles had gotten incredibly dense. It was almost as if my body had been rebuilt from the most fundamental building blocks.

“Well then, let’s go for another round. As always, it’ll be one hundred goblins first, then Floor 2.”

“As you command.”

I shouldered my club, signaling the end of our break.

◇ ◇ ◇

One hour aboveground was 144 hours — which equated to six days — inside the dungeon. Adding in the time that I needed to come back up for showers and to restock, the time conversion that I was aiming for was more like three aboveground hours for six dungeon days. As a management consultant, I still had to visit my clients at their places of business. Therefore, on my work days, I would only dive into the dungeon for about three to four hours, and then spend the rest of the day at home. Thanks to me doing all my work inside the dungeon, I had plenty of free time.

“The drop rewards that I am now earning from six dungeon days ranges between ¥1.6 million to ¥1.7 million. That’s a daily profit of ¥1.5 million after subtracting ¥100,000 for costs like energy and food. Even if I was to take the occasional day off, I could still easily exceed ¥50 million in a month. The question, however, is how I can actually use this money. If I really brought hundreds of thousands to exchange at the bank week after week, that’s definitely going to set alarm bells off. Considering the denomination of the bills, I’d have to declare it as income from a store, but I don’t actually have a store.”

Chances were high that this world was going to be obliterated in eleven years’ time. Putting things in that perspective, the idea of properly paying my taxes ended up seeming quite inconsequential. Even so, I still had to come up with a way that I could use all this money. In order to prevent world destruction, I needed to gather companions. There was no way that I could clear all 666 dungeons by myself. Capital was necessary both for gathering companions and for setting up a base of operations.

“Once I reach Rank D, I’ll pick up the Inducement skill. With the help of this skill, I’ll go around buying up all the homes nearby. Then I’ll have all of them razed, including my own, and build a huge facility that will also include residential living spaces. There, I will set up a company that specializes in dungeon delving, and use the power of that company to ensure that every single dungeon all over the world gets cleared.”

For the moment, the exchange machines at banks could still suffice. Another option was to ask Iwamoto to exchange the bills for me. He ran pachinko parlors, and I’ve heard tell that five hundred yen coins and one thousand yen bills are the most frequently used denomination at those kinds of establishments. It would be a deal that would both save me trouble and work out to his benefit. If need be, I was even willing to pay a handling charge.

“What I need to focus on now is securing a way to convert my dungeon income into ‘clean money’ and set up a company specializing in clearing dungeons. When my rank goes up, I believe my income will go up as well.”

I placed one thousand yen bills worth a total of ¥3 million into the safe, then headed off for my bedroom.

◇ ◇ ◇

“Sure, we can exchange the cash for you. It’d save us the trouble and processing fees from getting our own small denomination bills. And as for the realtor...there is one that we work with who even helps negotiate the purchase price and all that, but they do charge quite a bit of commission. That okay with you?”

“Sure, that works. As long as I can make all the purchases with a single cash payment.”

“I’m asking just in case, but that cash isn’t dirty money, right?”

“It’s not money from doing anything illegal. Hmm... What would you do if you discovered a cave that spits out an endless stream of money like the magic mallet Uchide-no-Kozuchi?”

“Now that’s an unexpected question coming from you. It almost sounds like the premise of an anime. Well...if it happened to me, I would first confirm whether that cash was real or not. Then, regardless of whether it’s real or counterfeit, I’d report it to the police.”

I smiled faintly while shrugging my shoulders. This friend of mine, Iwamoto, had an honest and upright personality. I had expected him to answer along those lines. However, apparently he still had more to say.

“If there were circumstances which made it impossible to report this to the police or let the public know, then I’d ignore said cave. If that cave cannot be ignored, I cannot simply discard the money, and I’m bound or compelled to use that money in some way... Well, there aren’t a lot of options, really. The worst thing to do would be to report it as taxable income as is. It would depend on the amount, but that’s basically just asking to be discovered. Money that’s just flowing out can’t be treated as lost property, so you wouldn’t be able to legally lay claim to it three months later. In that case, then the best thing would be to just use it. If it’s just several tens of thousands, no one would probably notice. If it’s in the millions, however...using that much cash isn’t going to be easy.”

Iwamoto’s words prompted me to heave a sigh. Guess it’s going to be difficult after all. Just as I was about to give up and resign myself to using my money bit by bit, my friend looked away and started muttering to himself.

“If I ever find myself in such a situation, I’d probably hire a professional money launderer. After the money is rendered untraceable after being bounced around thousands of times between private banks and cryptocurrency markets, it can then be deposited into my bank account as consulting fees. I do, after all, know several such professionals currently residing in Japan.”

To the very end, Iwamoto kept up the pretense of talking to himself even as he threw out keywords indicating that he would introduce me to one such professional and hashed out the smaller details like names and contact information. As someone who managed pachinko parlors, he had probably ended up with such underground connections even without seeking them. Iwamoto himself disliked using such methods and had been actively phasing them out of his company through the hotel side of things ever since he assumed his post. I was sure that if we hadn’t been friends of over thirty years, he wouldn’t have made such a risk. I simply lowered my head without saying anything.

◇ ◇ ◇

The meetup location turned out to be the parking lot of a building unrelated to Iwamoto’s establishments. I entered the way I had been instructed to. There was only one specific parking space that was in a blind spot of the security cameras. I got into the back of the car parked in that spot. A slightly shrill voice — clearly altered with a voice changer — addressed me from the driver’s seat.

“For amounts over ¥100 million, we keep 10% as commission. We’ll launder the rest, and transfer it into your specified account as consulting fees from various companies. Online banks like Japan Web Bank are best for this kind of thing. Prepare one.”

“As I’ll be declaring this as taxable income, there is a possibility that shell corporations might get exposed. Are you all covered on that front?”

“Not a problem. All our corporations are real companies with healthy records. You don’t have to know what our relationship with those companies is, and neither do you need to know what we’ll be doing with the commission.”

In all likelihood, it’d be going towards missile tests being conducted in a certain country. After mulling over it for a while, I decided to sign the contract after all. As things stood, humanity was going to be wiped out ten years from now. If being complicit with “evil” was the only way to avoid the worst-case scenario, then I had no choice...or at least, that was what I told myself. I promised to get in touch after setting up an account with an online bank, then made my exit.

◇ ◇ ◇

Almost a whole month had gone by since I first stepped foot inside Abyss. The number of orcs that I had killed was now only slightly shy of twenty thousand, which meant I had gathered more than one hundred Orc Cards. Therefore, it was about time for me to confirm how these would perform in the Card Gacha.

“Well then, here goes. Status Open.”

Name: Ezoe Kazuhiko

Title: First Contacter

Rank: E

Possession Limit: 200 / ∞

Skills: Card Gacha (22), Recovery Magic (Lvl. 2), ______, ______, ______, ______

The plan was to first roll with one hundred Goblin Cards, then one hundred Orc Cards. The purpose of this experiment was to verify whether the rarity of the cards used would affect the rewards that came out.

“Starting with the Goblin Cards now.”

“You plan to spend all eleven rolls on the Item Gacha?”

Naturally, Item Gacha was the only way to go. At this point in time, I felt no need to change my weapon nor equipment, and neither did I plan on getting a monster servant. During the past month, it was item cards such as Potion Cards that I had ended up consuming the most. Potions had also proved helpful in helping me gauge the effect of my Recovery Magic.

I selected “Item Gacha” on my Status screen and rolled it eleven consecutive times. As expected, I got a lot of Commons, but there were a few Uncommons mixed in as well. The UCs were all repeats, though, so I’m only introducing them once.

Name: High Potion

Rarity: Uncommon

Description: A highly potent potion that is effective even against bone-deep wounds and brain damage.

“From the eleven rolls, I got three UCs and eight Cs. Considering the margin of error, the distribution seems to be unchanged from last time. Well then, time for the Orc Cards. We’re talking Rank F against Rank D here; there’s got to be a difference.”

Secretly, there was quite a bit of expectation in my heart. It quickly crossed my mind that perhaps it was this expectation that kept so many people addicted to gacha and loot boxes in video games. I almost felt like I was about to buy a lottery ticket.

The result of the rolls turned out to be just as I had predicted. Below are the cards with a rarity of UC and higher that we were seeing for the first time.

Name: High Magi Potion

Rarity: Uncommon

Description: Recovers more mana than a magi potion. Tasteless and odorless.

Name: Single Use Barrier

Rarity: Uncommon

Description: Can be used to erect a barrier within a dungeon that keeps monsters out. Single use only.

Name: Jointly Sealed Covenant

Rarity: Uncommon

Description: A covenant that binds both signed parties to the terms of one specific promise. Impossible to defy. Cannot be subverted by signing with an alias, as this item’s effect is applied to the signers themselves.

Name: Magic Pouch

Rarity: Uncommon

Description: A leather pouch with a storage capacity of ten cubic meters. Time inside the storage flows the same as outside.

Name: Lucky Ring

Rarity: Uncommon

Description: Increases the wearer’s luck by just a little bit. Possibly effective on drop rates.

Name: Ufufu Lotion

Rarity: Uncommon

Description: Lotion for use by adult men and women. Very effective healing effect. Single use.

Name: Drop-Rate Up Band

Rarity: Rare

Description: Increases drop rate of monster cards by 10%. Effective just from having it on your person.

“As I had thought! Akane, look at this. The difference between the rewards from using Goblin Cards and Orc Cards is plain as day!” I cried, elated both from my hypothesis having been proven and from the unexpectedly great returns. “For Rank F cards, the reward distribution is 80% C and 20% UC. For Rank D cards, it seems to be 20% C, 70% UC, and 10% R. By inference, that means the distribution for Rank E cards is probably roughly half and half between C and UC. Perhaps Rank C cards would be half and half between UC and R.”

I delightedly turned to input the results of the experiment into my spreadsheet software. Akane had surreptitiously slipped one card away, but I pretended like I hadn’t seen it. It’s been a while; guess I should get the air mattress ready.

◇ ◇ ◇

It was now almost a month in aboveground time since I had been first summoned. My Master, Kazuhiko-sama, had been very proactively diving into the dungeon. Thanks to this, he had quickly reached Rank E, after which he finally became receptive to my advances.

Kazuhiko-sama was someone who attached great importance to plans and calculations. He was now doing four-hour blocks of fighting, where he would kill one hundred goblins first — which he could manage under an hour now — and then tally up how many orcs he could kill in the remaining time. Whereas he had started out extremely cautious while fighting against the orcs, as he gradually got used to the task, in this, too, he had begun to place emphasis on speed. After around thirteen hours of fighting, he would then take a shower and rest up together with me in the Safety Zone on Floor 1.

For every 144 hours in the dungeon, Kazuhiko-sama would return to his work aboveground. In order to maintain his sense of time, he also made a point to get rest up there as well. With his spreadsheet program, he was constantly managing his time and his results, attempting to unlock secrets about the workings of the Dungeon System that even I did not know. The most overt example of this was, of course, his examination of the Card Gacha skill.

Although my memories had been wiped clean, as a character card of Legend Rare rarity, I held certain knowledge about the Dungeon System. Even so, I knew nothing about the existence of such a skill. At first glance, a skill that could exchange monster cards would seem extremely useful, but after all the effort spent gathering so many cards, the reward turned out to be a common potion. Even Kazuhiko-sama despaired at the outcome.

“The rarity of the cards used for Card Gacha should affect the rewards!”

This theory that Kazuhiko-sama touted did indeed seem likely. I was not privy to the details, but I knew that the Dungeon System was autonomous and self-learning. It was very likely listening even to every word exchanged between me and Kazuhiko-sama. Through this, it sought to understand the world that it had appeared in, all so that it could create the features and skills to match. A brand new skill created in this way would never be hackneyed and simplistic.

After defeating ten thousand orcs, Kazuhiko-sama used his Card Gacha skill once again. The rewards this time surprised me greatly. A High Potion was an extremely effective item. There were also items that I had never seen before, one of which immediately drew my eye. Thinking of how useful it would be for giving pleasure to Kazuhiko-sama, I surreptitiously sneaked the card into my pocket. It appeared that he had noticed, but said nothing. I took that to mean that he had given his permission. Master, I am a bad kunoichi who can’t keep my fingers to myself. As atonement, please allow me to give you the best time ever with this UC card tonight!

◇ ◇ ◇

Slightly more than a month after the first dungeon had appeared in Shishibone, Edogawa City, Tokyo, or to be more precise, 3,155,760 seconds after the activation of the Rank A dungeon Abyss, a total of sixty-seven caves large enough for people to walk into appeared in large metropolitan hubs all over the world, including London, Paris, New York, Chicago, Osaka, Sydney, Seoul, and Beijing. This was the start to what would later be named the “Worldwide Synchronized Dungeon Outbreak Phenomenon.”

The exact locations of the dungeons varied greatly, ranging from underground parking lots to smack-dab in the middle of intersections. Fearing the ensuing chaos, each country’s government swiftly moved to keep a lid on the matter. However, in this information age, if a dungeon had appeared in the middle of the street, hiding its existence was an exercise in futility. It took less than a week before news of the “so-called dungeons” spread throughout the world. With the advent of the fantastical in this world built upon science, many went wild with enthusiasm, but even more were simply apprehensive.

What was going to become of this world going forward? At this point in time, there was but a single man who had even the slightest inkling.