Chapter 154

Let’s be an Adventurer! ~Defeating Dungeons with a Skill Board~ 154

Let’s Go Downstairs With Van!

The first one was a bull-like horn.

It felt quite heavy when picked up.

“Could this be used as a weapon material?”

He tapped it lightly, and felt some vibration from it.

It seemed to be of considerable rigidity.

The other one was an ax.

It looked exactly the same as the one the boss was using.

“And this… Yeah, it doesn’t seem that I can take it.”

He could take a hold of it, but couldn’t lift it off the ground.

It seemed that it required a certain Ax skill level.

“Is it a magic weapon?”

“Looks like it.”

Weapons obtained inside a dungeon were broadly regarded as “magic weapons”.

Weapons available in dungeons ranged from high-quality weapons that could be used deep into the dungeon to those that could only serve the purpose of being melted in a forge to retrieve their materials.

Therefore, some people prefer to only call “magic weapons” to those that are at the very least borderline usable.

The weapon he had obtained this time had a bit of a dull blade, but there was no rust on it. As far as Haruki could tell, it seems that it could be used for fighting.

“Should we take it with us and have Akane take a look at it?”

“Yeah.”

It would be basically impossible to equip a weapon type outside of one’s skills. And when trying to equip it, one wouldn’t even be able to pick it up from the ground.

However, there were ways one could pick it up as long as one wasn’t trying to equip it.

For example, a blacksmith.

They wouldn’t be able to pick up gear obtained from a dungeon, but by using a set of huge pliers, they could circumvent that restriction.

Also, store clerks.

They could use a special “magic hand” kind of tool to pick up the gear they had in order to put it up for sale.

In this way, the condition that “unsuitable armor cannot be equipped” would become “you can do whatever you want with it as long as you don’t equip it”.

Leaving that aside, Haruki took the magic bag and tried to force it to completely cover the ax so that it wouldn’t be considered as “trying to equip an unsuitable weapon”. (Unfortunately, Haruki and the others didn’t have a didn’t have any tools that would allow them to pick up and carry unsuitable gear.)

He started from the handle, but when he reached the ax’s head…

“–Ah.”

“Ah…”

The blade wouldn’t get past the magic bag’s mouth.

The maximum diameter of the bag was 20 cm, but it was quite flexible, so if pushed a bit, one could store and take out stuff up to nearly 25 cm wide.

However, the width of the ax’s head was about 50 cm.

With this size, there was no way it would go inside the magic bag.

If they couldn’t stuff it inside the magic bag, they wouldn’t be able to take an unsuitable weapon back to the surface.

There were several ways to take it home, but Haruki hadn’t considered it until now, because he had been convinced he would be able to just use the magic bag for that purpose.

“Oh, I give up…”

As they racked their brains, thinking what they were going to do…

“…Yo.”

“Huh, Van!?”

…Van showed up.

Haruki almost jumped as Van called out to him out of the blue.

He thought to himself, ”What is he doing here?”, but he had come to the dungeon to train. He had no other reason to be there.

But the timing had been just too good.

Haruki’s chest was flooded with concern.

Letting another adventurer defeat the boss and going to the next floor while there is no boss was a common practice in dungeon capture.

As long as the adventurer that did that wasn’t trying to steal experience or items from the defeated boss, there wouldn’t be any problems.

What Haruki was worried about was whether Van had been watching Haruki’s battle or not.

(Did he see Karen use magic?)

Kagemitsu knew about it, but it was too soon for Van to learn that Karen could use magic.

If he had watched her using magic, Haruki would have to ask him to keep quiet about it…

“When did you get here, Van?”

“…Just now. Right after the dungeon’s light.”

“Ah, I see…”

Haruki exhaled a sigh of relief.

Karen had already stopped using magic at that point.

But things could be different in the future.

It would be nice to have Van move onto the next floor too, but if he was on the same floor as Haruki, there would always be the possibility that he saw Karen use magic.

(Hmm…)

Haruki thought hard about it, but couldn’t decide right away.

He then decided to leave it for some other time.

“By the way, Van… Can you lift this ax?”

“Hmm…”

Van pulled his chin up and walked up to the ax.

He took it by the handle, and easily lifted it off the ground.

“Ooh!”

“Amazing!”

Since neither of them had been able to make the ax budge even a little, they opened their eyes in astonishment, as if Van had a tremendous amount of superhuman strength.

“…Y-You don’t have to be so surprised…”

“Ah, no, but we couldn’t even pick up that ax since it was so heavy.”

“Hmm… What are you going to do with this?”

“I was going to sell it at the Akane store. I’m sorry to bother you, but could you take this back to the surface with us?”

“Hmm… Ah.”

Van nodded, and then furrowed his brow as if thinking about something.

Still holding the ax, he lightly swung it up and down.

“…Could you let me use this?”

“Err, do you want to buy this from me?”

“I don’t have any money…”

“Ah, right.”

Van had no money since he had recently bought a house.

Besides, that ax would be quite expensive since it was a magic weapon.

Only an adventurer with abundant funds would be able to buy it right away.

Van was a well-known adventurer who had a connection with Kagemitsu.

So lending it to him didn’t sound like a bad idea, but he already had a high-end main weapon.

What does he want to do with this ax?

Haruki was confused.

“Are you going to start using an ax as your main weapon instead of a greatsword?”

“For… cutting trees.”

“Aah!”

Haruki unconsciously clapped his hands together.

Van had used Haruki’s wood to repair his house.

Because of that, he had agreed to cut down trees in the dungeon and return the same amount of wood to Haruki.

An ax would certainly be a better choice than a greatsword for cutting down trees.

Besides, it was a magical weapon, so he wouldn’t have to worry about wearing down its blade.

“Would that be okay?”

“Of course. We can’t use it anyway, so you can go ahead and use it.”

After all, a weapon was all about how one could use it.

So Haruki was perfectly okay with Van’s request.

But what to do with the question he had put on hold earlier…

Haruki pondered as he walked down the stairs to the 19th floor with Van.

It would be okay to tell Van that Karen could use magic.

He was a senior adventurer and a member of Team Aerial.

He wouldn’t be leaking another adventurer’s secrets. If he did, it would surely bounce back to him someday.

Revealing someone else’s secrets comes with its corresponding risk.

Haruki thought  it would be okay to let Van know.

However, Haruki didn’t know if Karen thought the same. He wondered whether he should take the liberty of speaking on her behalf or not.

“Listen, Van. I have something to tell you, just in case.”

“…?”

Haruki organized his thoughts and chose his words carefully.

“If at some point in the future, you end up watching us fight, no matter how we fight, I’d like you to not talk to anyone about it.”

“…Hmm, got it.”

“T-Thank you very much.”

Van’s immediate consent left Haruki with a bit of a bitter aftertaste.

He had expected Van to at least ask him why he was asking him to keep quiet.

(Well, I guess that’s how advanced adventurers operate…)

There was little information about the deepest section of the dungeons, which could be due to an implicit rule among advanced adventurers stating that “what you see in the dungeon should be kept secret.”

After agreeing with Air, a chill went down Van’s spine.

“No matter how we fight, I’d like you to not talk to anyone about it”

(Just how on earth does Air fight…?)

Van had already seen his fighting style during his practice duel with Masatsugu the other day.

But what if that was just a “human-friendly” way of fighting?

Van had also once witnessed Air fighting shortly after he had become an intermediate adventurer.

Even then, he was fighting in a completely different way than a normal adventurer.

Air had changed a lot since then.

The feathers on his neck had become bigger, and his body was covered in scales.

He had a white mask on his back, and tentacles hung down from his backpack.

In addition, he had a red centipede around his abdomen.

(Just how on earth does Air fight…?)

Van was very curious about how he would fight.

Still, he felt he shouldn’t delve too deep into the matter.

Would he even be able to keep his composure after seeing Air going serious…?

In my head, Van could picture a monster-like Air slashing through and throwing monsters left and right. Van’s spine shivered.

(…It’s okay. It’s okay.)

Air hadn’t told him to “not look”.

He had asked him to “turn a blind eye” if by some chance he ended up noticing anything.

–All I have to do is turn a blind eye!

Van walked down the stairs, almost praying.

All while desperately enduring the trembling of his knees.

Haruki activated the gate on the 19th floor while being concerned about Van, whose face had turned blue for some reason and had fallen completely silent.

They had finally reached the 19th floor, the floor of trials for advanced adventurers.

It was said that there was a wall between the 19th and 20th floors, just as there was a wall between the 9th and 10th floors.

Only 10% of the adventurers broke through the walls on the 9th floor.

And only about 10% of those adventurers broke through the wall on the 19th floor.

That meant only 1% of all adventurers.

That’s how thick the walls that separated advanced from intermediate adventurers.

However, not all intermediate adventurers were actually aiming to become advanced adventurers.

And the same applied to beginner adventurers, as not all of them aimed to become intermediate adventurers.

By becoming an intermediate adventurer, your profits from hunting would become more stable than that of a beginner.

For that reason, there would be more and more adventurers who continued their adventures at the intermediate level without aiming to become advanced, where they could easily lose their lives if they got careless.

Leaving that aside, Haruki took a careful look around as he arrived at the 19th floor.

This floor also was a forest stage, and the entire floor was covered with trees just as before.

The sky was still high and blue.

The dungeon walls seemed to tower around the surroundings, reaching such an altitude that seemed to over the dungeon’s sky.

It looked the same as the 18th floor.

However, the atmosphere was different.

There was a presence of a monster that could be felt from a distance.

It was so sharp that it seemed to coil viscously around them, as if it could suffocate them at any moment.

(This… What is this presence!?)

It was, undoubtedly, the gaze of monsters.

Haruki had been attracting attention from many monsters from the moment he arrived on the 19th floor!

“Damn it! What’s this!? This floor is heaven!!”

Yahoo!

Haruki spreaded his arms wide and threw himself at those gazes, just like a plant that seeks sunlight.

I did the right thing coming to the dungeon today!

“…Huh? What’s wrong, Air?”

“Don’t mind him, Van. He always gets like this.”

Behind the excited Haruki, Karen and Van seemed to be whispering something, but he paid no mind to them.

Piling up small successes would bring great results!

While getting the ax ready, Van walked past the delighted Haruki, and headed to the base of a tree.

He got the ax ready, then took a swing at the tree’s trunk.

The ax dug into the trunk, making a crunching noise.

“Ooh–!”

To Haruki, it hadn’t looked like Van had put a lot of effort into the swing.

However, the ax’s head was already halfway into the trunk.

That spoke a great deal of just how high that ax’s quality was.

“…With this, I should be able to return your wood in a few days.”

“Is that so? That’s great.”

It was a shame to be taking away from the precious training time that the advanced adventurer Van had so that he could return the wood.

Haruki was relieved to hear that it wouldn’t take him too much time.

At that moment…

“…Hmm?”

Van looked up, and quickly swung down vertically with the ax.

“–!?”

Van’s attack was quick, as if he didn’t feel the ax’s weight.

Even Haruki, who had developed his Strength skill to some extent, felt that he wouldn’t be able to handle the battle ax as lightly as Van (even if he could even equip the ax).

Just as one would expect from an advanced adventurer.

His physical strength was terrifying.

But what surprised Haruki hadn’t been Van’s impressive attack.

There was a monster where the attack landed.