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A Harem in the Fantasy World Dungeon Volume 4 Chapter 1 Part 14

Translator: DarkHeartedAlchemist

After all, ever since Roxanne became my slave, we wiped each other’s bodies with wet warm towels, and recently we even began o take regular baths, now with the addition of soap! So if Roxanne was able to become such a beauty simply by taking proper care of her hygiene, just imagine what kind of cutie Sherry would become if the same could be done for her! But that is the talk for the possible future. Let me get back to the matter at hand for the time being.

「Would you mind if I asked you something in regards to that problem of yours?」

「N-No, not at all. Please, go ahead.」

「Then, why is it that you supposedly cannot become a Master Smith after you reach Lv.10 as Explorer? Is it absolutely impossible for you to acquire this Job now that you have already reached that level without obtaining it beforehand?」

If she knew that there are other ways of obtaining Jobs other then possessing the innate talent to do so, she would definitely not be so depressed about not being talented enough.

「In order to join the Master Smith’s Guild you have to obtain the Master Smith Job before reaching Lv.10 as Explorer, otherwise you will not get accepted, but it is not like there are no precedents of allowing Job Changes past that point.」

That is what she said.

「I see.」

It is just as I have suspected. There must be another condition to unlock the Job of a Master Smith. It really would have been strange if something as vague as 「talent」 would be a legitimate requirement for unlocking a Job, so instead, the word talent is probably used in place of some obscure, unknown condition that has to be fulfilled, but if I could just figure out what that condition is, it should be possible to enable Sherry to become a Master Smith.

Of course, after thinking about it some more, that other requirement has to be something different than simply having eighty points put into STR, because that would have been too obvious and pretty much every Dwarf would be able to become Master Smith and we would not be in need of having this discussion and all this thinking. If I were to hazard a wild guess, then I would say that the conditions for unlocking the Job of a Master Smith are a little bit stricter than that, but even despite that, even if Sherry does not have it at this point, she should be able to get her hands on the Master Smith Job as long as she would be able to meet the mysterious other requirement. Of course, there is always a possibility that she will not be able to get it even if we do discover what that requirement is and she manages to fulfill it, so the question that I need to ask myself now is: how probable that possibility is? Should I estimate that an attempt at getting it will end in failure, or will it be a striking success?

Let me see: first thing’s first, buying a Dwarven Master Smith slave is a very difficult endeavor, and the one in which Identify will not do me any good, since it is practically impossible to determine if a slave was a Master Smith or not, and there is also a risk of someone pretending to be a Master Smith while in reality they are not.

 However, if I end up buying Sherry and she does not end up obtaining the Master Smith Job, it is going to be fine as well, because we will still fulfill our initial objective: obtaining another Party member who will fight alongside us in the Labyrinths, so this is the amount of potential risk that I am more than willing to take. If that would come to pass, she would fight together with Roxanne in the vanguard while I would have focused on using magic from the safety of the back row, and outside of the Labyrinths I would have her help with household chores if she could not do smithing. Besides, I cannot quite put my finger on it, but Sherry seems to have that unique appeal to her that makes me think that it would be a huge waste to allow her to pass us by simply because she does not have a Job that I was searching for.

Initially I thought that maybe the requirements for unlocking the Master Smith Job will be to attain Lv.10 as an Explorer and have your STR stat at eighty points or higher, but maybe it is actually that you have to get those eighty points of STR specifically before reaching Lv.10 as an Explorer. If that was to be the case, then no matter how strong you got afterwards, i.e no matter how many points you would invest in increasing the value of your STR stat, you would never be able to become a Master Smith no matter how hard you tried. Looking at it from such an angle, I guess it could be argued that talent does play a role here: talent to get your STR stat to a desired value before reaching the threshold of the natural barrier that is reaching Lv.10 as an Explorer. But if all of that proved to be a wrong assumption and STR stat does not have anything to do with becoming a Master Smith, then there was still hope left for Sherry, even though she already reached Lv.10 as an explorer.

「Uhm, I know that it will probably not mean much, but back in my village, before I was made to be a slave, I was one of its strongest inhabitants! In terms of comparing myself to the other Dwarves, I also think that both my strength and height can be said to be well above average! I am also willing to enter the Labyrinths with you to earn money for my own upkeep, and I swear I will never do anything that would hinder your actions, Mr. Customer! So once again, thank you sincerely for considering me!」

Sherry bowed her head deeply before me. It was a touching gesture, but a part of me began to think that perhaps she was trying a little bit too hard to appeal to me. Is she doing that of her own accord, or perhaps she was commanded to do so by Alan-san? Either way, I began to feel suspicious, because no matter how you would look at it, it is quite unusual for a slave to be promoting herself like that to a potential customer.

My suspicions must have been written all over my face, because when Alan-san looked at me, he cleared his throat with an *Ekhem!* sound and said:

「Michio-sama, would you like to have a moment for yourself so that you could make your decision regarding Sherry’s purchase?」

Yeah, he definitely read the subtle reactions from my face and tried to urge me to make a decision as fast as possible.

「Sure, why not?」

「Well then. . . 」

When I expressed my willingness to consider whether to buy Sherry or not, Alan-san nodded at me, placed his hand on Sherry’s shoulder and escorted her out of the room, leaving me alone with Roxanne so we could talk about what we would like to do next.

「*Sigh* You know what, Roxanne? I just do not understand why this Sherry girl was so proactive. . . no, proactive does not even begin to describe it. It would be way better to say that she was really aggressive in her attempts to try and appeal to me. I really do not get it.」

Now that there was just the two of us here, I could finally allow myself to talk openly without being careful with literally each and every word that would be leaving my mouth. What I meant by what I said to Roxanne was that I cannot understand why would Sherry go to such lengths to get on my good side, when all the other slaves offered by this shop displayed attitudes towards me that were vastly different from hers. The other female slaves from the time of my first visit here had a straight up bad attitude towards me or appeared to be utterly disinterested in my person, and the male ones from my trip upstairs today. . . well, I would not say that their attitude was bad, more like they did not have any attitude at all, just standing there all menacingly without saying as much as a word, and those criminal mug of their certainly did not help them to advertise themselves in any positive way.

If I was a kid in Sherry’s position, I definitely would have done everything I could to improve my situation, so maybe she was doing it for exactly that reason?