Vol 3 Chapter 11 – “A Solo Challenge and a Decision”【Vol 3 – Graduating High School and Taking On the Dungeon 】

“Let’s eat.”

The words had barely left anyone’s mouth before laughter filled the table. Hiyori had come over again today — she’d been coming by a lot lately. With me gone most evenings for work, having her here meant more than I could put into words.

My younger brother, Itsuki — first year of middle school — and my little sister Aoi — sixth grade — had both completely taken to her. The two of them were already attacking tonight’s menu with zero hesitation: fried chicken and potato salad. I found myself reaching for the chopsticks without even thinking about it. She really was too good to us.

After dinner, while Itsuki and Aoi parked themselves in front of the TV, Hiyori and I cleaned up the kitchen together. Once things were winding down, I brought up something from the orientation.

“Hey — so the lecture today covered treasure chests, and I was thinking — even when there is something inside, it’s still a hit-or-miss on what you get, right?”

Hiyori nodded, drying a dish.

“Right. It’s probably not super relevant at your level yet, but — putting empty chests aside since those are obviously a loss — the consensus is that out of the three possible contents, tamed monsters are considered the worst pull. Equipment comes next. Treasure is the jackpot. That’s pretty much accepted wisdom at this point.”

“Treasure is the best? Huh. And monsters rank below equipment?” I paused. “That’s kind of the opposite of what I would’ve guessed.”

“It makes sense when you think about it. If your tamed monster lands the killing blow, the EXP goes to the monster instead of you — which slows down your own leveling. They’re tricky to manage for that reason alone. Most people prioritize leveling themselves first. And then by the time they reach the middle floors…” She set the dish aside. “The tamed monster hasn’t been leveled at all, so it’s basically useless in a real fight. It goes down fast. Ends up being used as a disposable shield, if anything. I know it probably sounds weird to feel bad for a monster, but… It’s a little sad, honestly.”

What a waste. But I understood the logic. As both a fighting asset and a leveling investment, it fell short on both ends.

“So nobody’s actually raising their tamed monsters?”

“Not that I’ve heard of. In a clan, you’ve got real teammates — there’s not much reason to invest in a tamed monster on top of that. Someone going solo might be doing it, but I’ve never come across that. And honestly, most of the high-ranking Hunters right now are conglomerate-backed, so there’s not a lot of visibility into what lower-ranked solos are actually doing.”

“The conglomerates again…”

Hiyori nodded.

“People who couldn’t get into the corporate track tend to band together and form their own clans — there’s only so much you can do alone. And when one of those independent clans starts doing well, the conglomerates often poach them outright. So most of the non-corporate clans out there are… I don’t want to be harsh about it, but they’re small-timers. The ones the big companies don’t bother with. Fully solo Hunters are rare, and they don’t get much attention. There are a few who pull it off, apparently, but they’re the exception.”

I let that sit for a moment, then moved on.

“On a different note — equipment comes in three types: boots, weapons, and armor. Can you get duplicates?”

“No one knows exactly why, but apparently, the first three will never repeat. The fourth, though, is guaranteed to be a duplicate — so if you pull a fourth piece of equipment, it’s basically worthless. Can’t be transferred to anyone else, and you can’t equip it yourself since you’re already maxed out.”

“Right, because you can only equip three pieces total. So for someone who already has all three slots filled, any extra chest they pull…”

“Most people just don’t open them at that point. Equipment past the third slot is useless to you, and you can’t pass it to someone else. And tamed monsters, as I said, are the bad draw. So once someone has a full set of three, they just sell the unopened chests for cash. Market rates are around twenty million yen right now for a gold chest. Corporate Hunters usually hand theirs over to the company and get a cut as a bonus — though whether some of them quietly sell on the side instead, I genuinely wouldn’t know.”

She set down the dish towel, and her expression shifted slightly — a small, apologetic look.

“This is all within the realm of general knowledge so that I can talk about it… But I’m sorry, there’s a lot more I can’t get into. Classified information is off-limits. Association rules.”

“No — this is more than enough. Half of what you’ve told me I wouldn’t have known otherwise.”

I meant that completely. The gap between the official manual and the actual lived reality of Hunter society — Hiyori was bridging that for me without being asked. That was worth more than any amount of formal instruction.

And it drove home something I was starting to feel more clearly every day.

The road I was choosing wouldn’t be easy.

I headed off to my shift with that thought following me out the door. Starting tomorrow, it would be Dungeons in the afternoon, and work through the night.

Vol 3 Chapter 12 – “First Dungeon Run — and the Start of the Game Trick”【Vol 3 – Graduating High School and Taking On the Dungeon 】

Today was the day — my first actual Dungeon run.

Saying I wasn’t nervous would be a lie. But I was ready.

Dungeons came in three types: Stamina-type, Speed-type, and Technique-type. Each one skewed toward a different kind of monster. I’d chosen a Stamina-type Dungeon — the one in Shinjuku, commonly called the Shinjuku Dungeon.

The enemies there moved slowly, but they were tough to wear down. Handle your concentration, and they were probably the most manageable of the three types to deal with. Safety first.

The shallow floors of a Stamina-type Dungeon hosted three main monster variants:

• • Strong Slime (primarily Floor 1)

• • Strong Goblin (primarily Floor 2)

• • Strong Bear (primarily Floor 3)

Of the three, Strong Slimes were the most common on Floor 1. My goal today was to rack up as many kills on them as possible.

Because I wanted to test something — a trick I’d learned back in my gaming days.

The hidden mechanic went like this: defeat ten thousand of the same monster at or above your own level within a single year, consecutively, and a gold chest drops as a guaranteed reward.

In other words, at Lv1, I needed ten thousand consecutive kills on any Lv1-or-higher enemy to trigger a guaranteed gold chest. Right now, any enemy would count.

I’d used this method to pull a few gold chests back in the game.

In the game, a gold chest costs around ten thousand yen to buy outright — so anyone with money just did that instead. And even people without money didn’t bother with a grind that inefficient, since staying on the same floor to stack kill counts meant falling behind on leveling.

But in the real world, a gold chest was worth twenty million yen. A little time investment started looking a lot more reasonable at that number.

I checked out a beginner’s weapon and armor set from the reception desk.

Surface-made equipment — not Dungeon drops, just standard gear the Association loaned to newcomers who didn’t have anything. You returned it on the way out. No level system, no stat bonuses. Just tools.

I stepped through the Dungeon entrance and felt the air change immediately. Cool and faintly damp against my face. The darkness wasn’t as thick as I expected — some kind of pale blue light filtered down from the ceiling, its source unknown.

Following what the orientation had covered, I pulled up my status. And it actually appeared. Dungeons are something else. In a game, it’s just normal. Seeing it materialize in front of me in reality hit differently.

Name: Yuuki Ren Lv1 Speed: 10 Stamina: 10 Technique: 10 EXP: 0

A few minutes in, I found one — a Strong Slime. A massive, gelatinous body was rocking slowly toward me.

“Alright —!”

I got into position. Combat.

I swung at the slime, but it was hard to tell if anything was connecting. Slimes usually had some kind of core, a weak point somewhere — but I couldn’t find it, so I just kept swinging.

Beginner gear wasn’t doing much. My form wasn’t there either — too much unfamiliar movement. And I could feel the slime chipping away at me in return, slow but steady.

After enough hits, the slime started looking slightly smaller.

Then — it stopped moving. It was down.

Barely. That took at least ten minutes. My stamina was burning. I needed a breather.

A small glowing stone rolled out from the slime’s remains—a magic stone.

Current market rate: ten yen each.

…Six hours of this and I’d hit maybe thirty kills a day. Three hundred yen. I can’t live on this.

But money wasn’t the point right now. EXP was. And stacking kills toward ten thousand consecutive on the same monster.

I checked my status.

Name: Yuuki Ren Lv1 Speed: 10 Stamina: 10 Technique: 10 EXP: 1

One point. It went up by one. Killing monsters earned EXP — confirmed, no question.

“…Nothing to do but keep going.”

This quiet, solitary grind — this was the path that was going to get me somewhere.

And if there was one thing I knew how to do from years of playing free-to-play without spending a yen, it was grinding through something slow and repetitive without flinching.

Today. Tomorrow. The day after that. Strong Slimes, one by one.

This was the beginning of my free-to-play Hunter fight. Time to show them what that looked like.