3 bar menu

Over the Infinite – Chapter 10 (1)

 

---

Translator: mii

---

Chapter 10 – “Audience”

-1-

It was a room that looked like something in some kind of large apartment.

A man was standing still in that place, with his clothes ragged and blood all over his body, even if his wounds had been healed.

In front of him, there was another man who was making something that looked like cup ramen. …They were clearly mismatching.

“Eh?” “What?”

The development was too extreme, making us only could stare at each other.

Eh, what’s with this situation?

“Eh… Err, who are you? Y-you’re not a robber, right?”

The needles and knives that cat ears pierced all over my body had disappeared, but my clothes were tattered and bloody, complete with a handcuff on my left wrist.

I was basically screaming that I was a suspicious person.

“Ah, how should I explain this…? The development is too fast so I can’t really follow it…

I cleared the trial dungeon… and selected some kind of bonus…, …then I got an audience with the Dungeon Master?”

Eh, don’t tell me that this person was actually the dungeon master? He looked like a young man that normally walked on the road, though.

“…Err, so you are the Dungeon Master?”

“Ah, yes. I’m the Dungeon Master.”

「……」

… Seriously, what is this?

No matter how I saw it, the appearance of the Dungeon Master was a man who looked very ordinary.

He had a medium build and wore ordinary clothes. But his features were… yes, it was a very familiar Japanese face. He was in his twenties, thirty years old at maximum.

I was sure that the Dungeon Master didn’t reincarnate like us, but came here as a Japanese person.

I didn’t feel any aura that strong man would ooze out.

This might be the setting where the Dungeon Master was actually a weak person, but I didn’t think that it was possible.

Probably, I was too isolated that I just couldn’t understand the situation.

“Ah, err… Nice to meet you. I’m Kitsuki Shingo, the Dungeon Master.”

“Eh, I’m Tsuna. I registered as an adventurer today.”

…Ah, the ramen is stretching out, so you can eat first.”

“Today? Ah, I’m sorry. Then I’ll eat.”

His panicked appearance that seemed like he didn’t understand the situation was far from the figure in my imagination, where the Dungeon Master was some kind of king or the demon king. He didn’t look like an OP protagonist too.

Anyway, why was he eating cup noodles? Didn’t he have high authority here? He was also speaking politely to me for some reason.

“Then, why are you here? This place is my private room, and no one should be able to enter it.”

After I listened to him, it seemed like this place was the recreation of the 1K room where the Dungeon Master once lived on the Earth, and not even the people with a high rank in the Labyrinth City could enter this place.

Certainly, this level of reproduction made me have the illusion that I had accidentally come back to Earth. I never thought that I would see this place again.

“Even if you ask me that… I came here once I cleared the dungeon…”

“Is there something like that in the dungeon reward…”

The Dungeon Master opened the lid of his cup noodles and insert the condiments and sauce.

He was silent until he slurped the noodles.

“Anyway, your name is Tsuna?”

His first question was about my name, huh. I knew that my name was weird, though.

“Well, I’m aware that it’s a weird name…”

“No no, I didn’t mean that… ah, you are the former Japanese in that urgent report!!”

Ah, so he really received reports about me.

There was an inspection at the entrance of the city, so of course I would get reported after doing professional wrestling techniques.

“But even if I know your identity, I still don’t know why you’re here.

It’s your first day since you come to Labyrinth City, right? You said you cleared a dungeon, but it’s the trial dungeon, right?”

“Yes.”

“…Eh, so you cleared it on your first day?”

“Yes.”

“…Ah, don’t tell me, you defeated the hidden boss?”

Hidden boss…

When I heard that, what came to my mind was that cat ears.

In the end, that cat ears stopped using “nya”s in her speech and abandoned her identity.

“Yes, it’s a hidden event with a very bad taste, though. Can I hit you?”

“Ah, I see now… Eh, I’m not the one who thought of that event, okay. In the first place, there’s no challenger to that hidden event anyway.

Well, it was something they set up a very long time ago, so I forgot about such a bonus. …I couldn’t believe that there was someone who cleared that.”

Apparently, just like what that cat ears said, it seemed like that event only occurred when the rookie defeated the Minotaur in their first try with zero death.

I see, so they set it, and then forget about it!?

“Amazing. That means, you crushed the Minotaur and defeated your companion who is the hidden boss on your first day of registration, right? You should’ve experienced this already, but the difference of ability between rookie and intermediate level adventurer is like the earth and the sky.

Aside from the time when the trial dungeon was made, there should be a lot of growth factors after the adventurers’ debut these days… Did you clear the dungeon alone?”

“I challenged it with one more person. He’s Yuki, who is also a former Japanese. Both of us were alive when we captured the Minotaur.”

“Ah, now that you said it, the report also told me that there is one more person. So couldn’t break through the hidden event, eh. How unfortunate. I want to meet him once.”

“He was upset when he found out that cat ears was the hidden boss, ended up having his neck cut off.”

His last figure when he attacked the cat ears with his knife came to my mind.

If I didn’t see that figure, I definitely wouldn’t be here now.

There’s no doubt that I wouldn’t be able to win at the match against the Minotaur without him. I was also unsure about the match with the old man.

“Well, in any case, I planned the see both of you once you have settled down. This is just making our meeting faster.”

“Are there really only a little former Japanese out there?”

If I thought about it normally, the probability was in an astronomical number.

“Yeah. If I count on the people from Modern Japan, you are the second person other than me. There are some people who came from a different era even if they are from the same Japan, or Americans who can read Japanese.”

“But, there is the precedent, eh. Err, I’m interested in the person who is from Japan but came from a different era, but is it difficult for me to meet them?”

“No, there’s no problem. That person is on a local expedition now, so you can’t meet them right now. But let’s meet up together with that Yukito-kun after they’re back. You guys should have a lot of things to ask, right? I also want to talk about some matters.

By the way, is that “Tsuna” name given in this world? It’s not your name when you’re still Japanese, right?”

…Look, that question appeared.

“I’m Tsuna, the canned tuna.”

“…….Sorry. Ahh, there are people who have “Tsuna” in their names too, like Kamiizumi Nobutsuna. So it’s not that rare. I never heard anyone other than Watanabe Tsuna whose name is only “Tsuna”, though.”

“I’m a Watanabe in my previous life.”

“…Eh, you’re that person?”

“No no no, I just told you that I came from Modern Japan, right?”

There were neither tsuchigumo[1. People of ancient Japan who were not subjects of the Yamato court] or Ibaraki-doji[2. Oni (demon) featured in tales of the Heian period. Watanabe Tsuna kind of fought with this demon in his tales.] in Heisei Japan.

“Ah, of course you’re not. I said this just now, but there’s someone who came from a completely different era. I haven’t met anyone from the Heian era yet, but there’s someone who came from the Edo era.”

“This is the name that my parents gave to me after looking for a name from a great person.”

“Ahh, so it is like that? Do you have friends called Kintarou?”

This person asked the same thing as Yuki. They were really… Was this the template?

“I didn’t know anyone named Kintarou or Kintoki. By the way, there’s also no Yorimitsu.”

“Well, that’s only natural. Anyway, let’s move on from the name talk. By the way, what will we do about the special bonus? Do you have anything you want?”

“Eh, I can receive something?”

It was a sudden change of topic. So this “audience with the Dungeon Master” was not the reward?

---

 

---