An Old Man Restaurant Owner Is Unparalleled by Relying on His Old Tricks. It Turns Out, He’s the Legendary Dungeon Conqueror. - 90

Chapter 90: Please Don’t Ask Me That

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Masako Hojo stood ready, her naginata poised. Meanwhile, the man had a large saber in his hand. 

“I’ll kill you!”

“And yet, I’ve already told you—I’m already dead.”

Kicking off the ground, the man charged at her head-on. For someone who was drunk, his footwork was surprisingly steady. However, the saber he swung with great force was effortlessly blocked by Masako’s naginata.

“Hah! There’s no way a frail arm like yours can handle my attack!”

Even so, the man tried to overpower her with brute force.

“Wha-… What the hell? She-She’s not budging at all…!?”

“Oh my. You seemed so confident in your strength earlier, but… Surely this isn’t all you’ve got, is it?”

“Yo-You!! Don’t mock me! AAAAAAAAAARGHHH!!”

With an enraged shout, veins bulged in the man’s arms as he poured all his strength into the saber. And yet, the naginata didn’t move an inch.

“I-Impossible! How come this frail woman could…”

“You rely far too much on brute strength. You might want to focus a bit more on honing your technique. For example… Like this.”

“Wha—!?”

Before the man could comprehend what happened, Masako took a light step backward. In the very next moment, his body was hurled through the air and slammed into the barrier wall.

“Gah… Wh-what did you…?”

“Well then, I suppose it’s my turn now.”

Masako said so calmly while the man staggered to his feet in confusion. True to her word, she closed the distance in an instant, launching a flurry of strikes with her naginata.

“D-dammit… Ugh… Gah…”

The man barely managed to parry the attacks with his saber, but unlike Masako, who remained perfectly composed—perhaps due to being a Heroic Spirit—he looked frantic, his face contorted in desperation.

“…Now then. Surely you understand by now? Continuing this fight is pointless.”

By the time she stopped her strikes, the man was drenched in sweat.

“I-I’m not done yet! I haven’t lost!”

The customers began booing, shouting things like, “You’ve already lost!” “Just go home!” and “You’re not even worth Manager-san’s time!” But the man stubbornly refused to back down.

“Shut up, all of you! For the record, I haven’t taken a single hit! Look! I’m completely unharmed!”

He loudly proclaimed. True to his words, he bore no visible injuries.

“…Foolish, aren’t you? If you insist on continuing, that’s fine. Just know that you’ll be exposing yourself to even greater humiliation in front of all these people…”

“Shut up! The real fight starts now! I won’t hold back!”

The saber in his hands began to glisten with a venomous liquid.

“Poison, is it? Do you honestly think that would work on someone who’s already dead?”

Masako murmured in exasperation, but the enraged man, blind to her words, lunged at her. Within the next second, the man’s clothes exploded into shreds.

“…Huh?”

The man was now completely naked. Even his underwear was gone—he stood there as bare as the day he was born.

“I did warn you, didn’t I? That you’d end up exposing yourself to greater humiliation.”

“Kyaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!”

Screaming like a young woman, the man hastily covered his private parts.

“No, no. It should be the other way around.”

“Right. Normally, the woman should be the one screaming after being subjected to something this gross.”

“Tiny… Hahaha!”

“…Man, I wish I could flash Masako-sama like that. Haaah…”

“Wait… Don’t tell me, that guy is the legendary Naked Guy?!”

As the customers chimed in with jabs and snide remarks…

“Y-you’ll regret thissssssss!”

The man shouted a cliché parting line and bolted out of the establishment.

◇　◇　◇

That night, I was catching up with some old friends via online chat for the first time in a while.

『Hey, I heard about it! Sounds like things were pretty rough for you, huh?』

『But still, as expected of Ken-chan. I heard you handled most of it by yourself, right?』

『Glad everything worked out in the end!』

Kawakita, Higashiguchi, and Minamino—three friends I had known since college.

“Wait a second. Which event are you guys even talking about? Honestly, so much has happened lately that I have no idea what you’re referring to.”

When I asked, they each explained in turn.

『Obviously about the false accusation incident, right? I heard you had to take a break from work for a while because of some mysterious foreign beauty.』

『No, no, of course it’s about how you joined Aoi Kadoyama’s rescue team and dove into the Kabukicho Dungeon in Shinjuku.』

『Wait, I thought we’re talking how one of your part-time workers quit and that new guy Tanaka joined?』

As expected, none of them were on the same page. 

“Thought so. Alright, starting with Kawakita’s. It was resolved pretty quickly, so no worries there. We even found out that the culprit was Nana Tendou’s colleague from France. As for Higashiguchi’s, that incident is not published to the public, but yeah, that’s true. There was a massive, mysterious flower monster on the 45th floor of the dungeon and that flower was the cause. Apparently, it’s an evolved form of a creature called the ‘Floral Dominance,’ but they still don’t know why such a sudden mutation occurred.”

Thinking back, Aoi Kadoyama’s office did say they’d lend me a hand anytime as thanks. That said, I couldn’t think of anything I particularly needed help with at the moment. If I had to say, maybe hiring someone for part-time work, but… There’s no way I could ask for something that audacious from them. Having someone work for me as a part-time worker was too much. 

“As for Minamino’s part-time worker thing, how do you even know about that? I don’t think I went into that much detail during my streams…”

『Oh, I keep a close eye on your thread on Channel 7, Ken-chan!』

“Wait, there’s a thread about me?”

『Of course you do. It’s actually one of the most active threads right now.』

Apparently, I was a hot topic somewhere without even knowing it.

『But why did the previous worker quit? She was working almost daily for a while, wasn’t she? And she was an A-rank explorer, so it’s not like she couldn’t keep up with the pace of the job, right?』

“Th-that’s something I’d rather not talk about.”

There was no way I could admit that I fired her because she had broken into my house, immobilized me, and nearly assaulted me.

“Anyway, I’m really thankful for Tanaka-kun. But since he’s a college student, he can’t come every day.”

And after he graduated, he would probably start focusing on his career as an explorer, so I couldn’t rely on him as a part-timer forever.

『So that’s why you went with summoning a Heroic Spirit, huh?』

『That’s such an amazing skill.』

『Wait, is that from the Kabukicho Dungeon’s reward?』

“Bingo.”

The first Heroic Spirit I contracted with, Masako Hojo, had proven herself as a highly valuable asset right from the start. 

“Not only that, but she can fight too. I think she’s as strong as an A-rank explorer.”

『Haha, normally the first thing that comes to mind would be to use her for combat, right?』

『Right?』

『But only Ken-chan would think of using Heroic Spirit summoning to boost his part-time workforce.』

“Really?”

That said, her working as a part-timer had brought about a new issue. A staggering number of customers started coming to my restaurant specifically to see Masako Hojo. 

“So in the end, I’m still short-staffed.”

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