Chapter 98.1

98 Part 1

Let’s be an Adventurer! ~Defeating Dungeons with a Skill Board~ 98

Let’s Set Foot In The Kamuikotan Dungeon!

After soaking in the hot springs and thoroughly washing away the sweat and tears he had shed that day, Haruki immediately crawled into the bed and fell asleep while dampening his pillow.

It was best to sleep his unpleasant memories away.

The next day, Haruki woke up with a different state of mind, and started to get ready.

He had gone all the way to Asahikawa.

He was planning to spend the next few days exploring the deepest parts of the dungeon in Asahikawa.

After finishing his preparations, he met with the others in front of the inn.

Karen and Esta seemed to be the same as usual, but Rhea looked a bit discouraged.

As an exact opposite, Chep was cheerfully talking to Rhea.

It wasn’t hard to guess what had happened.

Haruki ended up stuffing the noisy Chep inside one of the pockets on Karen’s robe, as she complained “I’m the Queen’s chamberlain, you know!? Please put me inside your backpack with her”.

— When did you become Rhea’s chamberlain…?

When Haruki put Chep inside the pocket, he saw Karen make a face he had never seen before.

It was an incredibly easy to understand face, which asked “Why me!?”

However, Haruki already had his hands full with Rhea and Esta.

— Sorry…

While apologizing inwardly, Haruki decided to not look at Karen’s complaining face anymore.

They held the IC card at the gate of Kamuikotan dungeon, and went down to the first floor.

There were some other adventurers already on the first floor.

They were probably some of those adventurers who participated in the Monster Hunting Contest the day before.

These passionate adventurers, not happy with just having participated in Team Aerial’s event, had come to the dungeon to continue hunting after the event.

“Ordinary monsters! There are ordinary monsters here!”

“I’m not scared. I’m not scared of these monsters!!”

“Whew. Looks I still got some fight left in me…”

Among them was a group fighting monsters as if they were possessed by an evil spirit.

Their eyes looked glittery, and some of them were even crying for some reason, so they were quite hard to get close to.

In Haruki’s eyes, they were by no means weak. But for some reason, they seemed fixated on fighting monsters on the first floor.

It was like rehabilitation through battles.

What could have happened to them?

Haruki wasn’t really sure, but he decided to go in a different direction, concluding they were better off not getting close to them.

Even if he were to go somewhere else, there were other adventurers everywhere.

Haruki wanted to take out the Skill Board to check on many things, but he couldn’t do it because there were people nearby.

Until they were somewhere a little bit farther and with less people around, using the Skill Board would have to be put on hold.

The Skill Board wasn’t the only thing that would have to wait until later.

The same went for Karen’s magic.

“Will you be okay, Karen?”

“Yes.”

She must have realized he was asking about her magic.

Karen had a bitter smile on her face.

“That way of attacking you taught me worked well during the contest, but I’m not used to it yet, so I’d like to practice it a little bit… Is that okay?”

“Of course.”

Haruki nodded.

If she were to attack with her staff while it was charged with magical power, wouldn’t that magical power make her attack more powerful?

That’s why he had whispered “Why don’t you try charging your staff with magical power and then striking a monster with it?” into Karen’s ear.

His suggestion came more as a rough idea, but Karen seemed to have been able to shape it well.

Without delay, Haruki expanded his Detection and searched for monsters.

His detection immediately picked up the sign of a monster.

“Karen. There’s a monster for you just ahead.”

“Got it!”

Nodding, Karen ran ahead of Haruki with a fluffy gait.

There was a monster just around the road’s corner.

It was a big mouse monster, about 30 centimeters tall.

As with any monster that appeared on the first floor of a dungeon, its strength was average.

It was a monster intended for beginners.

Karen casually approached the monster.

Then she raised her staff.

The air around the staff started to change as she began to pour magical power into its tip.

Haruki saw Karen swing her staff down.

The tip of the staff touched the mouse’s body.

At that moment…

*BAAAANG!!”

The mouse’s body was literally pulverized by Karen’s attack.

“Whoa…”

Haruki was shocked by the attack’s sheer power.

To completely pulverize a first floor monster like that…

Karen’s attack had exceeded all of Haruki’s expectations.

“It would be great if you could suppress its power a bit more…”

“Ah… Yes…”

Karen held her tongue and looked down after hearing Haruki’s observation.

With her current power, no materials could be obtained from the monsters she defeated.

Such power made it very easy to defeat monsters, but if no materials could be obtained from defeated monsters, it would be impossible to make a living as an adventurer.

When ordering custom armor, one would need to gather a reasonable amount of materials taken from lower-section monsters.

If Karen’s power were to be too high then, they wouldn’t be able to get any materials at all! Something like that would be quite the predicament.