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Maou no Hajimekata Volume 3 Chapter 1 Part 4

Translator: DarkHeartedAlchemist

Chapter 1: Let’s wake up in a new Dungeon, Part 4

「The World Wall?」

Being able to understand an unknown language was quite a strange sensation, different from connecting his soul to the other person to communicate with them.

He didn’t know the nuances behind those words, but at the same time he felt that they held a similar meaning to the words {World} and {Wall} that he was familiar with, but the exact meaning was still shrouded with a veil of mystery to him.

「First things first, what is this place? And where…」

He wanted to say 「where is this Dungeon?」 but he was unable to do so. Apparently the word that would work as the equivalent of the word {Dungeon} does not exist in this new language that he learned, but it did contain the words for {underground} and {Labyrinth}.

「Let’s try it this way: do you know what is outside of here?」

Aur changed the question that he initially wanted to ask.

「Outside? What is this {outside} that you speak of?」

Froro asked him, wandering what he was talking about.

「The place above the top layer, where there are no walls like this one.」

To emphasize on his words, Aur struck the stone wall with his fist, making a dull sound.

He had no doubts that they were underground. The reverberation of sound, the temperature, humidity and  movement of the air all seem to be pointing towards it. If he, an expert on Dungeon were to make a wrong call about this, then the sun might actually be rising in the west and set in the east.

「A place without… walls?」

However, Froro seemed to be deeply shocked by Aur’s words.

「Such a place should not exist. Where would people even live if there was no wall? If there is no wall… then wouldn’t that mean that you could go anywhere?」

Aur nodded his head.

「Yes, that’s right. The outside is a place where you can go anywhere you want for as long as you want.」

「I… I find it hard to believe that such a place can even exist.」

Froro just shook her head. Well, it was an answer that Aur had more or less expected.

So the current situation is as follows: Aur is currently at the very bottom of some unknown Dungeon, and Froro, his first ally, knows nothing of the world outside of it, and cannot even begin to imagine it.

The words of the language the inhabitants of this Dungeon are using do not contain such words as {sky}, {sun} or {ground}, and its wall are equivalent with the ends of the world itself.

Is the existence of such a world even possible?

No, Aur concluded that such a thing could not be possible. No matter how advanced it would be or how great the skills of its creator, no Dungeon could ever be maintained as a closed and independent space.

People eat beasts. Beasts eat smaller animals, and animals eat grass. In order to grow, plants need both water and sunlight. That is the cycle of life. There are exceptions to it, of course. Some plants are like moss, meaning that they can continue to grow even when there is no sunlight, but such species need a nutrient-rich soil or carcasses of animals, or an astoundingly large amount of water.

Anyway, the point is that in order for life to flourish, the natural resources have to be replenished from the 『outside』. Without them, the 『contents』 of this Dungeon will slowly diminish until there will be nothing left to sustain those living inside of it. That is why Aur’s Dungeon has multiple entrances to it to allow for the intrusion form the outside world.

However, in case of this particular Dungeon, the exit has to be located so far away that none of the inhabitants even know of its existence. That would also explain Aur’s sudden loss of magical power.

The magical power flowing in the atmosphere is extremely thin. It’d be another story entirely if the Dungeon itself was located on top of the Dragon Vein like Aur’s Labyrinth. Normally some amount of magical power is always contained in the air, however, as a result of being dispersed into an extremely depleted space, the magical power inside of Aur’s body is being released to the surroundings and consumed by them.

「Well, whether you choose to believe it or not, that’s none of my business, so I won’t waste my breath trying to convince you.」

A story about aiming for the sky in a world that knows no sky. If the hero of this story was anyone else but Aur, a tale like that might have unfold. But since he is a Dungeon maniac, chances of that happening as even less than zero. Besides, even if he managed to get out, that wouldn’t solve one fundamental problem that he might still have to deal with.

What if he won’t be able to return to his old world?

How long has he been in this Dungeon anyway? He didn’t know the exact time he was lying unconscious, but judging by his physical condition it should have been roughly four hours, just enough time for the moon to set and the sun to rise.

In case the there was no contact with him for a prolonged period of time and with nobody knowing where he went, Yunis will definitely try to teleport to him by using her Metastasis. If that were to happen, there are two best scenarios of how that can go down: the best one where she won’t try to teleport to him at all, and the second best one where she tries to do so but won’t be able to. As for the worst case scenarios, it will be the one where Yunis will teleport but won’t be able to reach him here, and ends up trapped between time and space.

He didn’t even want to think about it, but he cannot dismiss such a possibility. Judging by her character, there chances of her trying to teleport to him are about fifty-fifty. If that happens, will Lilu and Spina be able to stop her? In any case, all that Aur can do right now is to pray for her safety and find a way to return home.

「Aur… are you from outside the wall?」

「Indeed I am.」

To be precise he came here from the moon, but there was no point in explaining that to someone who doesn’t even know what a sky is.

「So… you don’t know about skills?」

「As I said before, what the hell are those skills even?」

He could understand that he was able to understand Froro’s speech thanks to the effect of that stone he consumed. The word itself seemed to be a cross between 「technology」 and 「ability」, but that was not the only way to pronounce it.

「It will be faster to show you. Follow me.」

And Froro left the room just like that. Aur followed her for a while through a myriad of corridors until they ended up in a certain hall-like room.

「Hmm? This is our destination?」

It was a really strange place. It was 30 square feet wide, but there was no equipment or furniture of any kind, or even the signs that it was being used by any humans at all. If Aur ever created a room like that in his own Dungeon, he would have either filled it with demons or placed massive magical traps over every surface.

As he was scanning the room with his eyes in search, something unbelievably bizarre has happened right in front of him. There was a popping noise, and then, a beast appeared before him seemingly out of nowhere.

It was a strange beast that was about the height of Aur’s knees that looked like a cross between a rat and the rabbit. It had a sharp horn on its forehead and it was rushing straight at Froro.

「Ha!」

In response, Froro took out a piece of iron from the hem of her clothes that was about as big as her palm, and then it extended itself into a metal rod about seven feet tall. She wielded it with both hands and smacked the beast through the head. With a pitiful cry, the beast slammed against the wall and died on the spot. Then it disappeared without a trace, leaving behind some blue stones, fur and… a loaf of bread?

「Wha…」

「This is a Skill.」

Taking the bread from the ground and tying it up with the fur, Froro presented the blue stone to Aur. 

「The Skill dropped by the Horned Rabbit is called {Rush}. It’s not very useful, but…」

「Wait. What happened just now?」

Aur asked, with his eyes almost popping out of his eye sockets.

「Where did that beast come from, and where did it go just now? And what is up with that fur and bread lying on the ground?!」

「What are you talking about, isn’t that obvious? It materialized from the void, and it dropped it’s items because I killed it.」

Aur’s mind was in a state of utter confusion. What was happening in front of him right now was far more incomprehensible than all that talk about {Skills}, but Froro does not seem to be showing any signs of doubt or discomfort.

「In other words… those beasts emerge from the void, and when you kill them, they… uhm… disappear, leaving raw materials, or items behind, is that correct? Because it didn’t look like you did anything special to make that happen.」

「Yes… they are Monsters after all. Are they different from those that exist where you came from?」

「Monster?」

In the language that Aur speaks there is a word like that, but in his case its meaning is closer to a 「Beast」 rather than 「Demon」. But that’s not important right now. The important thing is that this new language possesses words meant to describe extraordinary creatures, and that made Aur a little relieved.

「A creature that emerges from the void, leaves no corpse behind when it dies and loses its raw materials and skills. That is what a Monster is.」

For Aur, this was an unbelievable story. But if that’s truly how it is, then it would explain this whole 『The World without the Outside』 business. If the resources are created from the void, there would be no problems even if this Dungeon really was a closed space separated from the rest of the world.

…. Yeah, right, of course that would still be a problem. How would that even work, exactly? Let’s use bread as an example. Bread is something that you have to make by grinding wheat into flour, adding yeast and fermenting it etc. , not a thing that you obtain by simply killing some random monster.

While Aur suffered dizziness after dizziness and headache after headache trying to make heads or tails out of it, Froro continued to slay the beasts she called Horned Rabbits and pick up the materials they were leaving behind. It looked like it could leave either a blue crystal or some meat or fur upon death, but those items did not drop all at once, or even with the same frequency, making it all unnecessarily random. Also, more often then not there was no drops at all.

「Any skill that makes it possible to create something out of raw materials, like your ability to cook is extremely valuable, because it is something that cannot be obtained from Monsters.」

「If you cannot get it from Monsters, then how do you obtain it?」

Aur thought that he already knew the answer to that question, but he still asked it nonetheless.

「By taking it away from other people.」