Chapter 14 – Master of the Dungeon 【1】

The sixth floor is similar to the first floor—or rather, almost identical. Stone walls and floors, dark corridors, desolate rooms, and various traps and so on.

However, the cruelty of the traps and the types of wandering monsters are different. The sixth floor has no tentacles attacking Hanako or monsters biting her arms. The only things here are monsters that eat Hanako and dissolve her with gastric acid.

Since the final stage has neither potions nor a boss room key, we headed straight for the boss room. While walking, Mel and I talked.

“We finally made it to the sixth floor.”

“Yeah, that’s right. Hey, Sugar-san. What will you wish for after clearing the dungeon?”

“About the bonus… I want to escape from here.”

“Huh? Just that?”

“No, ‘just that’… isn’t that what we’ve been working toward this whole time?”

That’s right. The reason I’m aiming to clear this dungeon is because I believe the information Yamada told me—that “there’s a bonus for clearing this dungeon.” In this case, the most likely bonus is probably escape from this dungeon. Well, it’s just speculation, but I can’t think of any other bonus.

No wait, actually at that time, Yamada also said other things like “among the summoned beings, if someone clears the dungeon and shows the will to become the dungeon’s master, that being becomes a god of the new world and can have any wish granted” and “if multiple beings clear it, everyone’s wishes are granted,” but “any wish can be granted” and “everyone’s wishes are granted” is way too convenient, and “god of the new world” makes no sense at all, so I don’t believe it. It’s more reasonable to think Yamada lied to use me as bait.

By the way, surprisingly, it seems the information Yamada gave was actually true. Because Mel said the same thing. My beloved girlfriend said this:

“Of course that’s true, but being able to escape after clearing the dungeon is obvious, right? It’s such a waste to wish for only that when you can have any wish granted.”

Is that so? Sorry for doubting you, Yamada-san. I apologized to Yamada in my heart.

“Is that so? Looks like I’ve been completely mistaken this whole time. True, it would be wasteful to wish for just that after becoming a god of the new world.”

“Huh? God of the new world—what’s that? Don’t tell me Sugar-san wants to become a god?”

So that part was wrong information…

I take back what I said. Yamada is a hopeless guy after all. Because of him, I’ve become like someone who picked up a certain notebook.

Mel’s innocent question hurts. I’m so embarrassed I want to die. I need to somehow deflect this.

“No, that’s not it at all. It was just a joke. Still, a wish, huh… I haven’t thought about anything besides escaping.”

“Then think about it now! Apparently any number of wishes can be granted.”

“Huh? Any wish being granted aside, any number… Isn’t that way too convenient? Normally it’d be just one, right?”

“I think it’s suspicious too, but I have to believe it. Otherwise, there’s no meaning to me coming here.”

After a brief silence, Mel said something surprising.

“You know, Sugar-san. You said you woke up here, right? I’m different. I deliberately got hit by a truck and came here to get back my bro—brother and to revive my father and mother. I heard that clearing this dungeon grants any wish, any number of them.”

New information at this critical stage. According to Mel, she lost her parents and became separated from her brother because of her own weakness.

Well, I thought it wasn’t her fault, but even when I said so, Mel wouldn’t accept it. Apparently this was the reason Mel sometimes had a dark expression.

If that’s the case, once her wish is granted and she reunites with her family, will she be able to put down her burden and return to being an ordinary girl? Will Mel stop making sad faces?

If so, that alone is reason enough for me to clear the dungeon. I thought that, but Mel seems to think my wish is important too, so:

“So what’s Sugar-san’s wish in the end?”

“Let’s see…”

“Any wish can be granted,” huh.

In that case, I want to revive my parents too. I’m worried about how they’d react to seeing me as a high school student, but if any wish really can be granted, I could probably become an elementary student again too.

Then I’d be a kid in appearance but an adult in mind—wait, this feels like everywhere around me lots of people would end up dying.

Anyway, when Mel reunites with her family, I’ll also meet her parents. By the way, I’m currently a pervert wearing only a girl’s panties. No, I’m definitely not a pervert, but to people who don’t know the circumstances, I look like nothing but a pervert. No matter how tolerant Mel’s parents are, they’d absolutely never allow her to date a pervert.

…Okay, I’ve decided my wish.

“For now, I want proper clothes.”

“Y-Yeah. True, it would be troublesome staying like that…”

After that, we avoided traps and monsters and arrived in front of the sixth floor boss room. There we walked around for a while, checking items and HP for the final boss battle.

There’s no status screen in this world. However, if there were a status screen, our status would be something like this:

[Suzuki Sugar]
HP: More than half (can run but gets tired quickly)
Weapon: Gun-like something (Remaining bullets: 14)
Clothing: Middle school girl’s panties
Items: Potion ×3

[Mel Christopher]
HP: About 70% or more (can run to some degree)
Weapon: Gun-like something (Remaining bullets: 14)
Clothing: Sailor uniform (no panties)
Items: Potion ×3

The HP notation is vague because the original game has no HP bar, so the exact value can’t be determined.

There are two ways to check HP in the original. The first is trying to run. If HP is about 70% or above, Hanako can run to some degree, but below that she gets tired quickly after running just a little. Furthermore, at about below half, she becomes completely unable to run.

However, this method can’t determine HP once it drops below half. In this case, the second method estimates Hanako’s remaining HP.

That method is looking at Hanako’s face. When HP drops to about 20% or below, Hanako makes a dying face. Therefore, players need to use a potion when Hanako makes a dying face. No, sometimes they deliberately don’t use it to savor that expression.

The above information was obtained from analysis by a player with the nickname “Doctor” who took all attacks except instant-death patterns and analyzed the number of times each attack was received and the changes in Hanako’s condition.

Looking at his blog, there are experiments conducted for verification, results and considerations, summaries, etc. This is completely a research paper. Why on earth did he master this game to that extent? I, an ordinary person, can’t understand at all.

Back to the topic. As a result of determining current HP by feel, Mel’s HP wasn’t at max because she got kicked a bit by the first floor boss, but she seems able to run sufficiently. Meanwhile, my HP is about half due to damage received at the fourth floor boss stage, but I’m not in a state where I can’t run.

And the remaining number of bullets combined is 28, which is enough to defeat the demon. At this level there should be no problem.

Now then, shall I discuss the strategy with Mel? I explained the final stage strategy to her while recalling the demon’s patterns in the game.

The final boss battle occurs three times consecutively. In the first battle, the demon looks down on Hanako, so it doesn’t attack directly. It just uses skills.

At this point the demon is translucent and not materialized, so even if players attack, no damage is dealt. Therefore, there’s no choice but to keep avoiding the demon’s attacks until the first battle ends. The attacks at this point are all instant-death patterns, but they’re extremely simple, so avoiding them isn’t a problem as long as you know the patterns. The problem starts from the second battle.

When 30 seconds pass from the battle start, the first battle ends and the slightly irritated demon materializes. Well, even though I say materialized, the demon’s translucent sprite just becomes a bit clearer, and touching the demon doesn’t trigger death scenes, so it’s questionable whether it’s really materialized, but since the creator said it materializes, it must be something like that.

Back to the topic. After the demon materializes, the second battle begins and you can finally attack the demon. However, in this battle the demon generates clones.

The clones use the demon’s sprite as-is, so they look exactly like the main body, and the patterns and damage dealt to Hanako are exactly the same. Only the positions are opposite—they appear at set locations on the left and right sides of the room. However, which is the main body is completely random.

To clear this stage, you must shoot bullets and hit the demon’s “main body” five times. However, since the patterns and appearance are exactly the same, you can’t distinguish them.

To distinguish which is the main body, you either wait 30 seconds—the clone’s duration—while avoiding the demon’s attacks, or shoot bullets and watch the hit effect. If it disappears when hit by a bullet, it’s a clone; if it doesn’t disappear and regenerates a clone, it’s the main body.

When the clone’s duration expires, the clone disappears, and 0.5 seconds later the demon regenerates a new clone with an effect. Then when clone generation ends, the demon and clone reappear at set locations.

During these 30.5 seconds, as long as the main body isn’t hit, the demon doesn’t generate clones. Therefore, if you shoot the clone first to eliminate it, for about 30.5 seconds after that, only the demon remains in the room.

So you might think “shouldn’t I just eliminate the clone then shoot the demon?” but this game isn’t that lenient. If the clone is shot, the demon recovers HP.

No one knew how much HP was recovered. However, as a result of analysis by the aforementioned “Doctor,” assuming the demon’s MAX HP is 10, when the main body is shot 2 is reduced, and when a clone is shot 1 is recovered. This means if you only shoot the main body you can clear with 5 shots, but shooting clones increases bullet consumption.

Assuming the worst case, it becomes 10—clone 10—main body 8—clone 9—main body 7—clone 8—main body 6—clone 7—main body 5—clone 6—main body 4—clone 5—main body 3—clone 4—main body 2—clone 3—main body 1—clone 2—main body 0, consuming a total of 18 shots.

However, the maximum number of bullets you can have upon reaching the sixth floor is 15, and among those, 5 must be shot in the third battle. Ultimately, the number of bullets that can be shot in the second battle is up to 10.

So players decided to shoot a bullet at the battle start, and if it hit the main body shoot 3 more, if it hit the clone shoot 4 at the main body, then shoot randomly. With this method, even considering the worst case it becomes 10—clone 10—main body 8—main body 6—main body 4—main body 2—clone 3—main body 1—clone 2—main body 0, consuming a total of 9 shots and entering the third battle with 6 shots remaining.

In our case, even shooting 18 we’d have 5 bullets remaining each. Therefore, if Mel and I shoot the main body and clone simultaneously, the second round can be cleared easily. For us, the problem is the third round.

From the third round, bullet hell begins. Of course it’s not tight bullet hell like typical bullet hell shooters.

If it were, given the limitations of this game’s system where you can only avoid by crawling or crouching, it would become an impossible-to-clear kusoge. No, just from the difficulty so far it already feels like a kusoge…

There are two types of bullet hell. First, when the demon floats above the floor, round sphere bullet hell flying at Hanako from the upper left or upper right of the screen.

These spheres don’t kill you until the ninth hit. In other words, HP decreased per sphere is about 10%. At this level, anyone with potions can clear it.

What you need to be careful of here are geometric shapes appearing on the floor, translucent cubes appearing around Hanako’s body, and beams fired by the boss. Because if you get hit by even one of these patterns, you instantly die.

There are four types of shapes appearing on the floor: rectangles, squares, triangles, and circles. All shapes are transfer-type traps, and staying on them for more than 2 seconds transfers you somewhere in the dungeon.

Rectangle traps transfer Hanako to a room filled with eel-like monsters. According to the creator’s interview, these monsters enter any hole.

By the way, at this point Hanako is naked from the fourth floor boss. Having said this much, imagining the death scene that follows isn’t difficult. Incidentally, the creator calls this scene “Cave Exploration.”

Square traps transfer Hanako to a room filled with insect-like monsters. Hanako is gradually eaten all over her body and ultimately becomes a monster nest. The creator called it “Love Nest.”

Getting caught by triangle traps transfers you naked to a snowy mountain-like field. The highlight is watching Hanako struggle not to die.

Specifically, she masturbates to warm her body, or pours urine on her hands seeking momentary warmth. Well, the urine quickly freezes and she ends up freezing to death anyway. Incidentally, this scene is apparently called “Iced Lemon Tea.”

Getting caught by circle traps transfers you onto a heated iron plate. Hanako tries to jump to avoid stepping on the iron plate as much as possible, but jumping is disabled in this game. Eventually she runs barefoot desperately trying to reduce contact time with the iron plate even a little, but soon becomes unable to run due to stamina depletion and foot burns. Then exhausted Hanako…

This is called “Yakiniku.” I became unable to eat yakiniku after seeing that. No wait, actually if there’s yakiniku in front of me I can eat it normally, but I was transferred here before that, so it’s not really a lie.

Back to the topic. Meanwhile, if enclosed by cubes appearing around the body, after very fine lines are drawn all over the body, she’s cut into small cube shapes and collapses. The creator calls this scene “Mapo Tofu.”

As a result of searching this keyword on the search engine starting with “G,” I somehow understood, but this isn’t something normal people would associate. Really, what is that person thinking?

To avoid floor shape and surrounding cube traps, you must run to move to trap-free locations, but in this process you inevitably touch bullet hell. Therefore, with bad luck you end up seeing a death scene from bullet hell.

What’s more vicious is that sometimes the boss fires beams along with shape summons. Touching this beam causes that body part to vanish, so it must absolutely be avoided, but this can only be avoided by crawling. Touching it while standing makes everything above the waist vanish, and touching it while crouching makes the face vanish.

Therefore, Hanako must run, crawl, and walk to avoid instant-death attacks while continuing to touch bullet hell and hit the boss with 5 bullets. However, the instant the demon is hit by a bullet, it transfers to the ceiling and slowly moves to the opposite side while firing various shapes. This is the second bullet hell.

Since Hanako holds the weapon forward to fire bullets, she can’t attack the boss that transferred to the ceiling. Ultimately, to hit the next bullet, you must keep avoiding bullet hell until the boss completely moves to the opposite side and descends to the floor again. However, the speed at which the boss moves to the opposite side is extremely slow, requiring patience to shoot the next bullet.

Why can’t Hanako shoot the demon on the ceiling? Don’t tell me her arms only rise to shoulder height? Frozen shoulder at only 13 years old?

But according to the setting, she’s supposed to be an ordinary middle school girl. Are frozen shoulders normal for recent JCs? Makes no sense at all.

When I told Mel this story, she pointed out something I’d overlooked until now.

“No… That’s probably because of the curse. By the way, thinking about everything you’ve said, that girl named ‘Hanako’ is actually a super genius, isn’t she?”

“Huh? Why?”

“Because that girl didn’t know anything about this dungeon, right? Yet with that physical condition she avoided all traps, monsters, and boss instant-death attacks without dying and cleared it. I don’t think an ordinary girl could do that.”

I see. I hadn’t considered it until now, but that’s certainly true. An ordinary middle school girl couldn’t detect and avoid all traps on each floor, find boss strategies during battles and survive, and even defeat the demon. First, the very idea of putting tentacle earplugs in her ears on the second floor is impossible for an ordinary girl.

I—no, all players—were deceived by the creator. Actually, Hanako wasn’t an ordinary middle school girl.

In that case, frozen shoulder might not be strange. Since she’s not ordinary anyway.

But then what about horizontal bar class? Would she sit out?

No, whether Hanako’s physical age is actually in her 50s or her PE grades might be bad doesn’t matter. What’s important now is defeating the demon and clearing the dungeon.

Well, actually there is a proper method to clear it. A method unusable in the game, but this is reality, and Mel is by my side now.

I explained the strategy to Mel and conducted verification to confirm whether it’s actually possible. In the process I consumed one bullet, leaving me with 13 bullets, but there’s no problem.

Now then, shall we go? Ah, but there’s something I must do before that. I asked Mel:

“So Mel, could you take off your sailor uniform?”

“I don’t mind, but why?”

In the original, the reason I somehow managed to clear was because Hanako was completely naked. The sprite size of Hanako in sailor uniform is 108 pixels wide × 240 pixels tall, and naked Hanako’s sprite size is 102 pixels wide × 238 pixels tall. At first glance there doesn’t seem to be much difference, but considering area, there’s a total difference of 1,644 pixels.

Since this is a ryona game, you can’t avoid bullets by dodging just the core like in shooting games. The entire sprite area is the target for attacks. Until now it was fine without thinking that far, but to avoid the final boss battle’s bullet hell, we need to reduce sprite area as much as possible.

Fortunately, the naked area and underwear area are exactly the same, so as long as underwear remains there’s no need to be naked. Well, if things go as predicted I don’t think she needs to strip, and I don’t want to show Mel’s underwear-clad figure to the demon, but there’s always the worst case. For survival, I want to do everything possible in advance.

However, showing possessiveness when we’re not even in a relationship might lower affection. Let me answer safely here. Low-risk, low-return strategy.

I explained why she needs to take off her clothes.

“…So you need to take off clothes, but you don’t need to be naked. Underwear is enough. It’s not good for girls to show nakedness to others. Well, the demon isn’t human though.”

“…But I’ve shown it to Sugar-san a lot, haven’t I? Not just shown—you groped my body, and your th-th-th-that thing was pressed against me too, you know?”

Mel looks up at me with narrowed eyes. Cute. However, if possible I’d like her to say “penis” or “dick” instead of “that thing.”

Well, I’ll save that for future enjoyment, and thinking about it, what I said really wasn’t appropriate. The strategy failed. It became high-risk, no-return.

How should I recover? I’ll try distracting her for now.

“That’s right… So I think I need to properly take responsibility.”

“R-Responsibility!? H-h-h-how?”

“Yeah, about that…”

“Ba-dump, ba-dump.”

Mel’s cheeks flushed slightly red as she looked at me with somewhat expectant eyes. I smiled slyly and told her:

“I’ll tell you after we defeat the demon.”

“What’s that supposed to mean!”

Mel was obviously disappointed. I made a serious expression and said:

“So, let’s survive, Mel.”

“Haa… Right. Surviving is important now. Hmph. Fine. I’ll give up for now. But after we defeat the demon, I’m absolutely going to make you tell me! When that time comes, don’t run away, okay?”

I somehow succeeded in diverting her attention. Don’t worry, Mel. I’m not going anywhere. After the final boss battle ends, I’ll properly confess and take responsibility.

Wait? Thinking about it, if this were a movie or novel, this would be a proper death flag. Well, death flags don’t exist in reality though.

“Then, take it off. Ah, should I not look?”

Even if we’re used to each other’s nakedness—I’ll say it again—showing complete nakedness from the start and showing gradual undressing are completely different categories. Consideration is needed here.

However, Mel was unexpectedly okay with it.

“No. I’m a bit embarrassed, but it’s okay if it’s Sugar-san.”

Apparently the results of gradually training… no, raising trust and affection are showing. I’ll take her at her word and savor without restraint. Mel unfastens the blouse buttons one by one. However, she couldn’t completely remove it.

“Huh? Why won’t it come off?”

I pondered and found the answer.

True, among Hanako’s motions, there is a motion for removing panties. When attacked by fourth floor monsters, she removes panties to masturbate due to the aphrodisiac component.

There’s also a motion for unfastening blouse buttons and starting to remove the bra and playing with nipples. However, a motion for completely removing the blouse doesn’t exist in the original.

Is that so? Thinking about it, it was obvious.

In that case, she probably can’t remove knee-high socks either. Apparently Mel’s judgment that time wasn’t wrong. Sorry, Mel.

I told Mel this reasoning. Then Mel asked me to “undress her.”

So I went without restraint to close enough for my breath to reach, crouched down, and grabbed her skirt with both hands.

“Wait…!”

And the moment Mel started to say something, I swiftly lowered the skirt zipper and pulled it off in one motion. Then, defenseless pure white slit and small undeveloped clitoris exposed before my eyes. Come to think of it, she wasn’t wearing panties right now.

It was so beautiful I involuntarily let out a breath, and my breath touched the girl’s flesh, making the artwork before me twitch and convulse. I can see the tightly closed slit gradually becoming moist—at that moment:

“Kyaaaaaaa!”

Mel screamed while crouching on the spot. Mel’s face turned bright red as she glared at me with teary eyes.

“I-I can’t believe it! Why did you take off the skirt! Normally it’s the blouse first! Besides, I could take off the skirt myself, so there was no need for you to do it!”

I see. Apparently she prefers being undressed starting from the blouse. I’ll properly remember this for the future, and for now let me console Mel.

“No, sorry, sorry. I forgot a bit. But it was really beautiful. Your slit, Mel.”

“Wh-What are you saying, you pervert!”

Oh. The bright red Mel pushed me down.