Chapter 5.4
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Translator: Einbedo
Editor: Weasalopes
「How about we start getting a move on?」
「Aye, no point in dilly dallyin’ much longer.」
It had already been two hours since the man eaters got completely demolished by Hiroshi’s experimental plant type. Once Artiem received her new and improved gear, Tatsuya urged the remaining party members into action. The timing wasn’t ideal as lunch was only an hour away but if their departure was to be delayed any further it would already be too late into the day to be strategically wise to do so.
「How long’s the journey going to be?」
「Around thirty minutes give or take, so long as we don’t run into anything along the way.」
「I think it’s fair to assume that even in the best case scenario we’ll be running into something and so long as that something isn’t a dungeon it’ll take us maybe an extra thirty or so minutes to make it there.」
「Just in time for lunch as well, so long as it’s not a dungeon.」
「Artiem’s rough estimate was made slightly less rough via a reality check. They were almost completely certain that some form of danger was around the corner, whether they liked it or not.」
「If we’re to assume there’s gonna be some dungeon delvin’ involved me thinks it’d be appropriate to fill up our stomachs while we still can.」
「No successful dungeon run can be done on an empty stomach.」
Makoto nodded to Hiroshi’s and Mio’s suggestion. Taking one’s sweet time to chow down in a dungeon simply wasn’t a plausible feat due to monster respawns which made it so that even if they were to clear out a suitable area from a campsite it wouldn’t stay that way for long enough to enjoy a fully-fledged, stomach-pleasing meal. At best a light snack would be all they could reasonably spare the time for.
There was a substantially high probability that they were walking into a dungeon which meant that lunch might very well be the last proper meal they get to enjoy until the whole ordeal came to a close. They were more fortunate than the average adventurer in the sense that they had access to a compact source of portable nutrition but compared to the lavish meals they were used to eating on a regular basis they were lacking in a sense.
「Some final checks are in order.」
「Haruna proclaimed just as everyone had finished packing their stuff.」
「Have you placed your potions on the quickbar?」
「Naturally.」
「Have you packed rope, kukris, sickles, ice axes and regular axes in case of emergency?」
「Aye, got that end covered.」
「Have you stocked up on pomey’s?」
「Yup.」
Haruna inspected each member individually. This whole procedure might come off as one big joke, especially considering how oddly worded one of the answers was, but it was those fine little details that could trip up even the most experienced of adventurers due to a simple lack of orderliness.
「And last but not least, have you all remembered to pack consumables?」
「As if we’d ever forget.」
「That settles that then. Hope you’re all mentally prepared because we’re heading off.」
They finally took off after all the preliminary inspection had been taken care of. Artiem’s initial thirty minute estimate proved to be far off as the path to the temple was teeming with monsters. All of the encounters did prove useful for Artiem to get a feel for the group dynamic so they weren’t much of an issue, what did stunt their progress was the overgrown plant life that wasn’t feeling all too cooperative.
「We’ve been trudgin’ along for quite some time now and we’ve got little ta show for it.」
「That’s to be expected from a path that’s been untrecked for thirty years now.」
The tedium inducing trudge through the grass that was moving along at a snail’s pace, finally got some of the party members to grumble about their state of affairs. If it wasn’t for either Artiem leading the way or Hiroshi and Mio discovering the remnants of a path long forsaken they’d have much more pressing issues to complain about.
「How far have we made it?」
「About three fourths of the way there.」
「We were this close, if only the dungeon had waited a bit longer before barging in uninvited.」
「Eh?」
Artiem, in reaction to Makoto’s words, began to frantically scan through the area. Makoto let a slight grin slip past her for a moment but immediately switched back into serious mode and began explaining.
「See that space over there? If you look closely enough you’ll notice that it’s slightly distorted.」
「Eh?」
「If I and Tatsuya were able to take notice you, an elf, with your much more developed sensory organs, should be able to pick it up.」
Artiem began intently focusing on the general area pointed out by Makoto. After about thirty seconds she noticed a barely visible spatial contortion just as it happened and kept focusing on that exact same spot for a little while.
「I-t’s distorting!」
「Told you.」
「How did you manage to spot such a minor contortion with such accuracy in such a short span of time?」
「Luck mostly. Knowing that there was most likely a dungeon around I was sort of trying to probe around for proof of its existence and I just happened to come upon it.」
「I also had that preconceived notion but didn’t catch on…」
「You’ve never even been in a dungeon, not to mention the type that’s capable of bending reality to this extent.」
Artiem nodded to Makoto’s observation. It wasn’t just an Artiem thing either, neither of the races residing around the area had any dungeon experience to speak of.
「You make it sound like you have experience in such dungeons.」
「I do, but it was a one-time thing. The dungeon was still fresh so neither the bosses nor the trash posed any real threat. Despite this the payout was rather juicy and the quest reward items weren’t half bad either, which was real nice considering how broke I was at the time.」
「Makes sense.」
Tatsuya was left convinced by Makoto’s answer. In reality, although she did make a convincing case, her picking up on the abnormality was a stroke of pure luck. If she hadn’t know that they might be heading head first into a dungeon she likely would have never taken notice. Tatsuya’s case was also similar but his perception stat just barely edged out Haruna’s, which put him at the top of the pecking order.
「Welp, now that we’ve come across the dungeon entrance I propose another refueling session.」
「Seconded.」
「Not like it could hurt.」
Since they’ve managed to locate the dungeon without any hitches it only made sense to stop and have one last meal so that the run would go as smoothly as possible.
「I think we should make some distance between us and the whole spatial distortion before we think about anything else.」
「Aye, god knows what might ‘appen while we’re peacefully chowin’ down on our food.」
The remaining members agreed to Makoto’s proposal and made ample distance between themselves and the dungeon entrance, so that even if Artiem were to pull one of her signature physics defying maneuvers they wouldn’t accidentally zone into the dungeon, and began getting to work. The work involved cutting the grass, which towered well above any of their heights, down to an acceptable size to make room for a picnic blanket. Nothing too complicated all in all.
「How does this look?」
「That’ll do just fine.」
「I’ve already sort of come to terms with this reality of an adventurer’s life but it’s still surreal how it’s played up to be this chain of never ending thrill and excitement when most if it is just, well, this.」
「Aye, what lousy fantasy work would have their characters tediously and uneventfully make their way towards a dungeon situated smack-dab in the middle of some forest.」
「Exactly, although someone’s got to do it, it would be too much to ask the state to deal with these kinds of dungeons as they pop up from a logistical viewpoint.」
Tatsuya and Makoto found Haruna’s accurate remark rather humorous. Someone certainly had to take care of it as these types of dungeons would pop up at seemingly random and, if left uncleared, would continue to expand indefinitely. Needless to say nobody wanted things to get too out of hand so someone would just eventually deal with them.
In-game these randomly spawning dungeons would come in the form of limited time events. The conditions for them to end were varied but on the whole they either ended once a certain amount of time has passed or when the instance has been cleared by a large enough amount of players.
Although there were cases, like the stairway to hell event which was, well, pretty hellish, where all the players server wide had to work together towards unlocking the final boss by seizing certain areas and clearing all the dungeon quests. After all of that hard work the final boss would be unlocked and as soon as a group clears it the event would be officially over. It was so grueling, however, that it took the player base three months from the usual two to fully clear it.
Then there are the cases where certain dungeons only become available through quest chains in that the entrance was unavailable to anyone who wasn’t on that part of the chain or wasn’t in a party with at least one person who had it active. In their case it was the exact opposite where a quest became available through the random spawning of a dungeon.
「Well it’s not like every single one of them gets dealt with eventually, some slip through the cracks.」
「Kind of like the one in Woldeus’ capital?」
「Don’t forget the one in Forre as well. Oh and there’s also the sweltering tower in Darl which isn’t as large as the last two but still requires the state to tend to it.」
「Most of those century old dungeons were just fortunate enough to spawn in a really awkward, out of place spot.」
They nodded to Tatsuya’s addendum and decided to push all dungeon related conversation aside for a while. There wasn’t any deeper meaning behind that, they just wanted to get to their grub, which came in the form of a bento fit for a king, as soon as possible. It had its fair share of odd ingredients thrown into the mix but as a whole it looked aesthetically pleasing and, most of all, appetizing. The one thing it was missing was salmon which can be explained by what they had for breakfast that morning.
「Did you manage to find any active buddies or get in a guild before all this, Haruna?」
Asked Tatsuya as his chopsticks reached for a well-seasoned piece of boiled shiitake mushroom.
「There were some guys I was in a party with on a semi-regular basis but that’s about it. As for guilds I was in one for a little while, but then entrance exams came along and I got booted and never really got back into the guild game ever since. I didn’t care much for hardcore group content progression to begin with so I just went solo.」
「I’d imagine many guilds were trying to entice you to join for, obvious reasons.」
「Well yes, the invitations were certainly plentiful. After all my avatar did and still does resemble pre-puberty late bloomer elementary school me, asides from the natural increase in height, of course.」
They mulled over Haruna’s statement and voiced some points of interest.
「Wouldn’t that mean that current your in-game character would give Makoto a good run for her money appearance wise?」
「I’d go as far as to say that she’d be the one taking the money back home in the end.」
They were poking light hearted fun at Makoto’s lack of curvature around the chest area. Things weren’t all that bleak for her as she made up for it with curves in other places that mattered, primarily the bodyline. Although she didn’t tick out all the boxes for conventional female beauty her tallness combined with the underperforming bust made for some aesthetically pleasing proportions according to outside sources.
「I’m surprised you weren’t scouted out by the fashion industry with the exquisite figure/looks combo you had going on.」
「Well actually I did. In my second year of middle school I was already pretty tall for my age, so some tried their luck.」
Back before the whole craftsman debacle there used to be certain players who engaged in model-like activities such as transmog competitions, which were held a total of two times before the incident.
Transmog competitions were technically held another two times after the incident but without the participation of craftsmen all the players only had randomly dropped gear to show off, which made the whole point of the competition mute and audiences generally weren’t impressed due to the lack of originality, which was their main selling point to begin with. All of this because of the incident.
It was still possible to modify the look of one’s armor through in game purchasable items, otherwise known as microtransactions, but by using them there was a risk of coming off as a craftsman which was not something anyone wanted if we’re going off of the harassment received by the few select individuals who were brave enough to take the gamble.
「I also got the chance to participate in a single play which went by the name of ‘Edith’s notion of love’」
「Were you the main lead by any chance?」
「Yes, I took up drama just for this one role.」
「So that’s why you looked familiar.」
They were reminded of the in-game play that took place sometime last year. It was performed a total of four times. Its recording was uploaded to the official game site, where it was met with overwhelmingly positive reception. The script was of a professional quality, it interspersed some comedic scenes between all of the serious action without any tonal inconsistencies, the game’s mechanics were pushed to the absolute creative limit but above all the performances were outstanding, it was as if the characters weren’t acting but just being. All of these factors combined were enough for Tatsuya and Mio, who were attending it live, to give out a standing ovation.
「We’ve derailed for far too long, let’s get back to the matter at hand.」
「Okay.」
「Unless I’m mistaken you’ve ran dungeons before, right?」
「I’ve ran them solo, in a party you name it.」
「Then I think we’ll be off just fine, everyone here’s got dungeon experience after all.」
Haruna nodded to Tatsuya’s words. While she wasn’t as bonkers as Mio when it came to the trap department she could fully carry her weight without inconveniencing the party in any way, although that’s not really saying much since most players who were serious about their dungeon runs would develop that sort of skill out of necessity.
「This type of dungeon is insidious in its own right, be sure to stay on guard at all times」.
「We’re hopping in blind, how could we not?」
And so they carried on discussing their game plan while enjoying a meal on the side. Most of the points flew over Artiem’s head but the ones that were integral to a successful run she made sure to note down in her mental rolodex and if some of them were too confusing she would ask to explain it in simpler terms. The exchange of ideas got more and more heated as their meal came closer and closer to a close.
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