EPILOGUE

I wound my way through the city’s chaotic nighttime streets. Having finished some errands, I was on the hunt for someone. I checked at the inn, but they told me their guest had stepped out, so out I went in search as well. In the end, I found him at the same bar as always.

“Evening, Souya. It’s rare to see you here at night.”

“Yeah, I had some things to do,” I briefly greeted the boss, then headed toward a corner of the bar. There sat Arvin, slowly sipping a drink. “Mind if I sit here?”

“I have no authority to deny you that.” True enough. I sat down.

“Oh, meow, Souya. What’ll it be?”

“Fruit juice and stewed beans.”

“Okaaay.” Tutu took my order, swished her tail back and forth, and disappeared into the kitchen.

“Apologies. I didn’t make it to your wedding,” said Arvin. I rested my hand on the longsword hanging from my hip. It had rustic embellishments and a blade made of surprisingly high-quality steel. Though it still felt a bit heavy for me, I’d need to learn to swing around something that weighed at least this much if I wanted to be a real adventurer.

“You know, the strangest thing happened. The morning after the reception, I woke up and found this tied around my waist. I can understand losing something, but what do you make of gaining a new item when you’re passed out?”

“I couldn’t tell you.”

“I looked into it, and apparently the Central Continent has a custom where you give the newlyweds their presents when they least expect it.” Lana had received a shortsword as well.

“Do we? Sorry, I’ve forgotten,” he deflected, playing dumb. Pushing him any harder on the subject would be tasteless, so I let it drop.

“Anyway, Arvin. How’s it going in the dungeon?”

“We still haven’t found a new leader. We did try teaming up with an adept adventurer, but he turned out to be a fraud. It ended well, as we walked out of that with more money, but we’ve made no progress.” I’d also heard a rumor of a retired adept adventurer who’d gotten stripped of all his possessions and beaten to a pulp. Actually, that happened all the time.

“After that, we tried working with another guy of a similar standing, but he mistook Shuna for a girl, and they went at each other’s throats. Shuna pummeled him until his ryvius ran out. We had to pay a small fortune for his medical expenses.” That’s frickin’ awful.

“Arvin, did you tell Shuna off?”

“No, I’m not cut out for scolding children. What am I supposed to do if I reprimand him but he refuses to obey? I don’t know how to pull my punches in a fight.”

Well, that helps exactly no one. I’m pretty sure Shuna’s the kind of kid who’ll listen to what you say, but he’s at that age where you have to be straight with him for his own good.

“We didn’t have much other choice, so I tried leading an expedition……and got lost. Truly lost. We spent two days wandering around in between the seventh and eighth floors. Shuna wouldn’t stop yelling, Bel cried all the time, and Zenobia started talking to the walls. Then we ran out of food and water, and this terrible anxiety took over the whole party. If Pops hadn’t shown up and saved us, our adventure might have ended then and there.”

Yeah, I was the one who asked Pops to go in after you.

Adventurers almost always descended into the dungeon for two or three days at a time. However, the provisions Arvin had bought stood no chance of lasting more than a day. When they still hadn’t come out by the second day, I panicked. They could all fight on an intermediate level, but they woefully lacked any survival skills they’d need to make it down there. Plus, they hadn’t learned the value of retreating. That was on me. I’d led them to victory in our first-ever battle, and it had set in as a bad habit. As the final nail in the coffin, Arvin evidently had zero sense of direction. He couldn’t read a map at all, and neither could any of the other members.

The Guild did offer survival lessons for initiate adventurers, but they were all the kind of people who jumped right past tutorials. If they had time to waste on the lessons, they’d use it to explore the dungeon instead. It cost money to take those classes, too, so I could understand where they came from.

But I still had to wonder, Why are they so completely ignorant about this stuff? The way Machina put it, the answer lay in the standards of our respective civilizations and in the fundamental knowledge I picked up about roaming around dungeons in the period video games I used to play.

Good adventurers caught onto this stuff instinctively. Those who didn’t get it just had to get those who did on their team. That’s what parties were all about: complementing one another’s skills. Faced with all this, Arvin—

“I’m drinking away my insecurities about what’ll happen to us going forward.”

—chose to escape from reality.

“That sounds like a lot.”

“How about you, Souya?”

“We added another party member, but it’ll still take us a while before we actually explore any of the dungeon.”

“Don’t tell me. It’s not another elf, is it?”

“It’s another elf.”

Éa’s wound had healed, but I wouldn’t call it a miracle. Machina and Isolla had made it happen. They’d taken the bullet out and extracted the lead from her bloodstream, then removed any damaged tissue. Within two days, her health had stabilized. By the third day, she’d regained all her energy. We’d overcome the problem of her wounds, but we still didn’t know how her body would react to anesthesia or modern medicines, so we were very carefully observing her for any side effects. Éa, however, refused to sit still and caused Machina and Isolla all kinds of grief.

“I simply can’t tolerate elves. They keep stealing the people I need from me right and left.”

My order arrived. With very low expectations for how they would taste, I started nibbling on the beans while Arvin spoke of his past.

“You remember the great-uncle I told you about. Well, I owed him a deep debt. I was an illegitimate child, but he pulled me out of the lowest depths of society and raised me as a knight. If he hadn’t helped me, I’d have spent my life stealing and murdering in the slums of Ellusion, doomed to drown and rot in its gutters full of mire. My service as a knight didn’t last very long, but it was an invaluable honor. I truly felt I had found my path in life……only for it to end like that. And then they took you, too.”

The heartthrob revealed his painful past. Ladies two tables over gazed longingly at his deeply troubled countenance. It taught me a bit about when and why women fell for men. “Elves and I truly do not mix.”

“Well, that happens.” Whether due to luck or fate or history, some races simply did not get along. No amount of flowery thinking could convince me that even humanity could one day come to live in peace.

“I’ve burdened you with enough idle talk. How about you tell me why you really came already?” Arvin had some really incredible powers of perception.

“I have a proposal.” I placed Isolla Pot, disguised as a lantern, onto the table. “Isolla, say hello.”

“Hello, Lord Knight. My name is Isolla, and I am Squad Member Souya’s partner.”

“You sure have some strange equipment. Is this a hidden treasure from the dungeon?” Even the people of this world reacted with surprise at a talking lantern.

“Isolla came with me from my world. I won’t lie; she’s amazing. She can read maps and give you directions, so you’ll never have to worry about getting lost and stuck in the dungeon. She also has a somewhat rudimentary ability to detect enemies approaching. And as long as we’re within two floors of each other, she should be able to put you in touch with me through my glasses. I’d like to lend her to you.”

“What does this mean?” Arvin proceeded very cautiously with his relationships. He never jumped at tempting bait, perhaps a lesson he had learned through experience.

“I have one condition. Everyone in my party, myself included, are rearguards. If a monster takes us by surprise, we’d all be wiped out with a single hit. We need a shield.”

“I cannot accept your condition. I would need to obtain special permission from the popes of Ellusion to form a party with an elf. My country is currently at war with a gang called the Dark Elves from the Left Continent. Some have gone so far as to call their leader the new king of beasts. Even assuming I could abandon my own personal aversion to elves, I would never be able to acquire that permission,” Arvin rattled on and on without stopping.

“Calm down, calm down. I’m not asking to join your party. I’m not even asking to form an alliance with yours. Your party and mine will proceed independently of each other.”

“Hmm? Meaning? What are you trying to say?”

Explaining this was kind of a pain.

“I’ll go through this in order. First, you and your party descend into the dungeon. My party just happens to go in after you. We won’t get too close or stay too far. If we come across an unrelated party, mine will disappear from sight. We’ll rely on Éa and Isolla’s detection abilities to avoid battles as much as possible but will leave you to handle any that we cannot escape. You may notice some arrows or spells come flying from behind you, but don’t pay them any attention. You and your party can take all the monster resources for yourselves. We’ll make money in other ways.”

This proposal took both Arvin’s situation and my own into consideration. It would clearly prove beneficial for both of us.

“You really think we can fool anyone that easily?”

“Arvin, I impulsively unleashed an arrow on the prince of this country, then used deception and strategy to twist that crime into a beautiful story. Lady Mythlanica is not called the Malevolent for nothing. I promise you now that no foreigners or elves will play a part in any anecdotes, tales of glory, or honor due to Arvin Forths Gassim. What do you say?”

My goddess’s cunning plans worked. She had given Lana the advice that led to her drastic move. However, Lana had apparently put her own spin on the plan and added the “marriage” element to it.

“I see…… Understood. I have one condition as well.”

“Anything you like.”

“We split the resources down the middle. You have close ties to two trade groups, right? We’ll store our items there for a while first and then divide the money after.”

“Got it.” I tightly gripped the hand Arvin extended to me.

“I guess I’ll have to get Shuna and the others up to speed on this, huh?”

“Well, actually, you’re the last person I spoke to. Everyone else already agreed.” I felt bad putting him in a difficult position, but I’d gone around him and told everyone else ahead of time. They’d all gladly agreed.

Arvin gave me one of his refreshing smiles. “So if I’d said no, I’d have been out on my own, right? The others would have abandoned this incompetent leader, wouldn’t they?”

“No, I don’t think they…would? Oh, yeah, they totally would…… O-ow! Arvin, my hand! My hand! It hurts! My bones are cracking! They’re gonna break!”

Friendship in this dimension hurt so much it almost made me cry.

[31ST DAY]

In the morning, I excitedly prepared for our adventure. Thirty-one days had passed since I’d first arrived in this realm, and I had still only made it down to the fifth floor. Time flew by as I watched over my sister-in-law’s recovery. Éa complained that I had been too cautious, but I couldn’t help it—I was worried.

Now fully recovered, she ate and ate some more. “Looks like we left a hole in your stomach when we opened you up,” Isolla darkly joked. Are we sure she wasn’t actually made in England?

I knew Lana would also have whatever I made, so I put my heart into it.

I’d also decided to make the lunch we’d take into the dungeon with us myself. The food they sold at the Guild left me at a loss for words. Lumps of flour and butter did not count as food. Those were ingredients! Who could dive into the dungeon on a stomach full of something that gross?!

Anyway.

This would be our first time exploring the dungeon as a joint party. In a way, it was my first genuine attempt to take on the dungeon. However, we’d agreed to take absolutely no undue risks. We planned to descend down to the seventh floor, map the shortest way back, and get out. And just in case, I prepared a bunch of extra provisions.

Those included flour so we could grill some chapati in the dungeon, bacon and dried fish, cheese, and homemade potato chips. I also packed two bottles of the mayonnaise I’d longed for, which Machina had made for me, a bottle of, in this world, incredibly precious honey, a bottle of herb garlic butter, a jar of salt, onions, garlic, herbs, olive oil, and several loaves of deathly hard brown bread to feed a few people in only the most extreme of emergencies. The dungeon apparently had its own water sources, but I also brought water fortified with minerals for several people. I didn’t forget to take more than I might expect to need, as well as some strong liquor for cooking and first aid, cooking utensils, and—

“Mr. Souya, that’s enough,” Machina cut me off. “You could feed seven people for four days with what you have. It’s a waste of energy.”

“Food is never a waste, you know?!”

“Pardon me. I was entirely at fault, so please calm down. Your entire personality changes when it comes to food,” she noted, delivering a shocking dose of truth.

“S-seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“Sorry, I’ll be careful.”

“Thank you.”

Begrudgingly, I gave up on the cabbage. I’d wanted to use it to make okonomiyaki-style chapati, but I guessed that would have to wait for another time. The condiments and cooking utensils I would carry, and the rest I planned to divide into four and leave with the Zavah Night Owl Trade Group for Arvin to pick up.

“I guess the rest is all set.”

“Yes. You have your food and equipment, and breakfast is ready. I really challenged myself today and made miso soup, rice balls, fried eggs, and lots of mini sausages!”

What is this, a cram student’s midnight snack? She should be able to make so much more, so why did she go with this lineup?

“Then I guess I’ll go wake up my wife and my sister-in-law.”

Waking them up was my favorite part of the day. I got to look at two elves in unbecoming states of rest, and nobody would come to arrest me. I didn’t even have to pay for it.

“Before you do, Mr. Souya, I’d like to discuss something with you.”

“Hmm?”

“The truth is, I’ve been writing a memoir. Adventures like this are inherently dangerous, and I never know when you may lose your life, so I would like to make sure I get everything down in record.”

“That sounds like a great idea.” Even if I died, that record would remain to tell someone else in the future about my visit here and the days I’d spent suffering like an absolute idiot. As long as I could pass that information on, none of it would have been in vain.

“I thought about naming it Record of the Other Dimension File 01, but Isolla rejected that idea. She said I needed to make it something that would catch people’s interest more, or they wouldn’t read it even if they came upon it.”

“Makes sense.”

“Herein lies the problem. Isolla has suggested naming it The Mythlanica Witch Project, or Cloverfield 2, or REC: Attack of the Elves, after documentaries with altogether horrible endings, and I’m at my wit’s end. The copyright issues could get tricky, too.”

“Yeah, most likely.” Though I’d kinda want to watch those.

“I would prefer to not expend any more resources on this. Mr. Souya, please come out and decide on a title! Isolla and I will give up and accept any title you propose!”

So they never trusted my sense to begin with, huh? Well, probably best that way. I don’t plan on spending too long thinking about it. I’ve got a difficult adventure waiting for me, so I don’t want to waste any mental energy on this.

I just need something random but easy to understand. A title that gets straight to the point.

I taste-tested the miso soup and murmured:

“The Otherworlder, Exploring the Dungeon.”

THE END