Chapter 43.2

“I see.”

So, they had come here to use the garage dungeon while Haruki just happened to be Sapporo.

The dungeons were managed by the country.

Even if it was on your own property, you couldn’t claim ownership of it.

That being said, if it was on your property, you could prevent people from going inside.

But Haruki had no intention of doing that.

There would be no real benefit for him if he tried to keep it to himself.

“You’re free to use the dungeon. That being said, I’d prefer it if you didn’t come in the middle of the night.”

“Of course. We actually have jobs to do. And so we wouldn’t come at night, as it would affect us the next day.”

Hahaha.

So you figured out I was unemployed!

In fact, Haruki was able to make a living as an Adventurer, and so he wasn’t exactly unemployed.

However, there were very few people who were full-time Adventurers.

Most of them had a stable job and went adventuring during their spare time.

“By the way, how far have you gone, Mister Karaboshi?”

“I’ve reached the 5th floor. What about you guys?”

“We’re still on the first. The house centipedes are really hard…and our armor…”

“…Right. Well, keep trying.”

The house centipedes weren’t lethal.

And so they were great for people who wanted to learn how to deal with enemy attacks.

On the other hand, their scratching attacks tended to wear down your armor.

But these men were carrying greatswords and bows.

And they were part of the self-defense group.

On top of that, they had defeated a stampede once.

There was no way that they were so weak that they couldn’t beat the house centipedes.

The reason that they were staying on the 1st floor was because they wanted to continue to hunt without taking any damage.

That being said, their job was to put themselves in danger in order to stop the monsters.

And that wasn’t a good fit for the house centipedes.

It might be better for them to fight Black Racoons instead.

While he thought all of this, Haruki didn’t think to give them any advice.

He wasn’t strong or important enough to make suggestions to other people.

“Well, we’ll be going in now.”

“If we meet inside the dungeon, don’t attack me by accident, okay?”

“…Yes. We’ll be careful.”

Haruki had meant it as a joke, but the men nodded with sober expressions.

Why had they become so serious?

Did they mean to actually attack him inside of the dungeon?

Haruki had been attacked by Shikama and his men just recently.

And so he couldn’t help but feel uneasy about them.

＊

Once they went into the dungeon and could no longer feel Haruki’s eyes on them, the men let out a deep sigh.

“I’ll never get used to seeing that mask. I feel like I’ll get cursed too.”

“Yeah. Why does it look like its floating in the air?”

“He must be really good at erasing his presence.”

“What would be the point in doing that if he’s wearing that mask?”

“Uh…what if that mask is his body?”

“That’s possible!”

“That’s possible!”

Sasamori, Takakua, and Ina had formed a team after the stampede.

All three of them had Adventurer licenses, but up until now, they weren’t very active in the dungeons.

The reason was simple. There was no dungeon that was close enough to them.

They went to Chikaho once in a while, but it was still far and it cost money to travel there and back.

Of course, there were some Adventurers who didn’t mind spending money to go on such expeditions.

However, not all Adventurers were that passionate.

Some people had only become Adventurers as a way of passing the time. In fact, such people were the majority.

And these three were in that category.

But now that a new dungeon had been created, and a stampede had occurred, they had decided to form a team.

They would level up in the dungeon and hopefully gain enough power to be able to protect the town.

However…

They were currently struggling against the house centipedes on the 1st floor.

That didn’t mean they were incapable of killing them.

It just meant they couldn’t kill them without taking any damage.

The house centipedes had long antennae and legs. And they were also very fast.

And while the men fought with greatswords and bows, they still got scratched.

And when that happened, it wore out their armor.

“Maybe I should change to a shortsword…”

Sasamori muttered as he looked at his own greatsword.

“Why’s that? What’s wrong with the greatsword?”

“Everything. Do you know that it basically has the same reach as the house centipede? You get scratched right when you swing.”

“But at least you can do damage. Most of my arrows bounce off.”

“Well, you don’t get scratched in the process, at least.”

“You’ll still get scratched if you use a shortsword!”

That was true.

Sasamori pouted.

“Still… That…uh…what’s his name?”

“Mister Mask.”

“Yes! Mister Mask. Doesn’t he hunt with daggers? Maybe it’s more effective when fighting against house centipedes.”

“You want to use a shortsword just for dealing with the house centipedes? That’s a bad idea. Don’t you know that it will be hard to level up with a new weapon later on when you’ve already leveled up a lot?”

“Also, I heard that once you reach the mid-range class, you can’t change your weapon no matter how hard you try.”

Weapons that were made from dungeon materials were able to choose who wielded them.

The first thing you needed to be chosen was the right level.

The second was proficiency.

It didn’t matter how high your level was, you couldn’t use weapon types that you had never used before.

In that case, you might think that raising your proficiency would solve everything. But it was apparently difficult to raise once you were a mid-ranking Adventurer.

There was one possible reason for this.

Unless you fought monsters that were stronger than you, you couldn’t raise your proficiency enough to be chosen by the weapon.

But when it came to monsters that were equally as strong as mid-rank Adventurers, weapons that were made of earth materials, that anyone could use, did no damage.

This was the reason that you couldn’t change weapons after leveling up.

Well, such were the rumors on the message boards.

And so beginners were very careful when selecting their main weapon.

They studied the experiences of their predecessors and chose weapons that were the most efficient.

It was very apparent when you looked at the population of weapon wielders.

“What will you do if you reach the mid-rank and decide that you can’t use the shortsword anymore? You’ll be done for, you know?”

“Yes, yes. We chose greatswords and bows in order to avoid that.”

“That’s true, but…”

But when Sasamori looked at Mister Mask, he couldn’t help but wonder.

“Maybe it’s just me. Mister Mask must be special. Perhaps he’s not the kind of person you should try and emulate.”

“Exactly. We should definitely aspire to be like Masatsugu or Shigure instead.”

The dungeon wasn’t so kind as to create loopholes for them.

That was their conclusion. And with that, Sasamori, Takakua, and Ina started to hunt the house centipedes.

Now, how many pieces of armor would break today…