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Volume 1 Chapter 6-2: Lose Myself

「Now then, since we have time and you seem awake I have several things to explain. Since we entered town I was a bit careless and did not take the opportunity to say this so I must apologize, but I will explain it now…」

Since we had a chance to relax and eat Sistina spoke up with an apologetic look on her face.

「Fumu…it’s about the tower.」

Hotaru-san said with conviction as she downed her third cup of alcohol (while ignoring her food).

「Yes. I knew there was a transfer formation for the Tower in this town, but because I was preoccupied with how to get us into the town without having any money I forgot something.」
「Umm…forgot what?」

As before I had no idea what the Tower or transfer formation was, but first I wanted to know what she had forgotten.

「Well, if the Master of a contracted Acolyte wants to enter a town, their social position allows them to be exempt from the entrance tax. However, in the situation where the town is one that manages the Tower and furthermore has a Tower Transfer Formation and they avail themselves of free entry they are obligated to enter the Tower.」

According to Sistina, there were 10 towers in this world called Master Towers. However, amongst them three had been destroyed through the hard work of their predecessors so there were 7 remaining towers at present.

No one knew who had built these towers, however even in the oldest records the Towers already existed, so many thought that instead of ‘someone building them’ they had 『spontaneously appeared』. It was extremely unnatural for a building to suddenly appear, but in this world magic did exist so it was a possibility.

As proof of this theory, smaller towers called Servant Towers would randomly emerge. Compared to the Master Towers, these Servant Towers were much lesser in quality but the most hated part about them is that you never knew when or where they would emerge.

Well then, in the first place what was a Tower? The answer that scholars of this world came up with was 『a device to birth monsters』.

This was because the method of monster creation had never once been clarified. Their breeding methods and locations were completely unknown outside of one place…the Towers.

It was within these Towers that monsters could be seen to bubble forth endlessly. This became the basis of a scholarly hypothesis…

『The Tower continues to birth monsters, once the Tower reaches maximum capacity, the monsters will be released outside.』

This explanation solved almost all issues with the, until then, unknown source of the monsters. Furthermore, a single piece of powerful evidence appeared to support this theory…

The subjugation of a Master Tower.

Once the Master Tower was destroyed, the appearance of new monsters in the area slowed until it stopped. After a long time most of the monsters were hunted and the area became stable and secure. It was prospering even until today.

Once this was revealed, the subjugation of Towers became one of humanity’s main driving forces. Even if they were not able to enter the deepest levels of the Tower and hunt the boss, they could reduce the number of monsters emerging by killing them within the tower.

On the other hand, if no one entered the Towers to brave the danger then daily life would become progressively more dangerous as monsters ran amok. For that reason the capable people who Acolytes contract with were given various privileges, but also were given the duty to enter the Towers.

There were various privileges and duties, but one of them was that town entry was free if you were to enter the Tower. If the town did not have a Tower nearby or if it did not have a method to get to a Tower, then the entrance would be free without strings attached.

If you wished to bypass the obligatory duty, then you could also simply pay the entry fee and visit the town.

However, in Sistina’s haste and desire to sell our goods and the carriage for as high a price as possible, she forgot that because we had entered into a contract we would be obligated to enter the Tower.

「The Tower is a dangerous place. We will be able to select the degree of difficulty to some degree, but please keep in mind that there is a constant threat. To think that I made such a blunder that we have to enter such a place…I truly don’t know how I should apologize….but I am truly sorry for my actions.」

Sistina apologized while bowing low.

Well, I had no intention of getting angry. I couldn’t really blame her for wanting to be a good person. She had wanted to help those left behind by the deceased and did her best…I couldn’t chastise her for that.

「Such a conscientious young lady ja~」

She’s a katana yet she managed to get drunk? Hotaru-san giggled happily and looked to be in a great mood.

「It’s fine, raise your head Sistina. In the first place we didn’t have anything to do so exploring the Tower might be good too.」

After all, I was being taught sword arts by Hotaru-san and I needed someplace to utilize them.

Of course, since I didn’t know what kind of monsters I’d be facing or how powerful they were, I was a bit scared.

But there was no way bandits would pop out so conveniently so I could subjugate them and make my living. In that case I could use the place that spawns monsters to hunt and maybe get drops? We could then sell those and secure our living expenses, honestly I felt like this kind of activity was well suited to us.

「Indeed, if there’s a place like that then it would be perfect for Soujirou’s training. Don’t worry about the danger and such. I’ll train you two properly and you’ll get good real combat experience zo~」

Hotaru-san said confidently as she took a gulp from the alcohol bottle she held. I could see the white skin of her chest had a bit of a pink tint to it now. Truly sexy. It was like she was the condensation of adult womanly charm. It was probably because she was in human form that she could get drunk. If that was the case then I hoped what she just said was a drunken outburst and that she’d forget about it tomorrow when she sobered up.

「It was truly thoughtless, I apologize. But…honestly I had a feeling you might have said such things so I didn’t think there was much to worry about.」

Sistina said with a mischievous smile as she raised her head, but I could tell she had put faith in us and our characters. Somehow it felt pretty nice.

With that we continued to eat peacefully and went to drop off our luggage before we went to the bathing area.

By the way we had called Hotaru-san when we were going to bathing area but apparently she wanted to drink some more.

She had already drank more than a silver’s worth of alcohol, but she said she wouldn’t be having breakfast or lunch tomorrow so to let her have that portion right now. We just gave her one more silver and let her keep going. It looked like she really enjoyed alcohol.

She had always been watching enviously as her owners carried on with their drinking and merrymaking and now she had the opportunity to let loose.

Somehow it felt like Hotaru-san was living more true to herself right now than I was.