Saitama Dungeon - Chapter 7
Episode 7: Dungeon (2)
I gathered general knowledge about dungeons on my smartphone.
An important point to note is that neither magic nor potions have been discovered.
If magic existed, it would require a fundamental reconsideration of current crime investigation and evidence capabilities. Additionally, if universal potions were found, it would mean that life could be easily bought with money, so perhaps it’s a good thing they haven’t been discovered.
It may sound strange coming from someone like me, who is currently keeping magic-related matters under wraps, but there’s still a possibility that adventurers are keeping them hidden on a personal basis, so it’s unclear what the reality is.
In lieu of such items, it seems that physical abilities greatly improve when one is active in dungeons.
As a result, holders of dungeon licenses are generally prohibited from participating in sports competitions.
Once, there was a friendly match between a soccer team selected from the Self-Defense Forces dungeon exploration team and a J1 winning team. The Self-Defense Forces team overwhelmingly defeated the J1 team.
Afterward, such attempts were discontinued due to fan disinterest and decreased motivation on the professional side. I can understand the sentiment.
Hmm, I see.
In the world I was summoned to, there were no dungeons. Instead, there were ancient ruins scattered everywhere, often inhabited by monsters. There were also such ruins underground, so while they could be called dungeons, they were not structured with overlapping layers, remaining essentially flat.
It’s meaningless to me now, and the experiences at that time are unlikely to be directly useful.
As a former hero, I’m not sure how far I can go, but perhaps I can handle things solo?
Is it better to attend a dungeon high school or a regular high school?
This is a point to consider as I face the career survey form.
Graduating from a dungeon high school grants a C-Rank license, allowing exploration up to the fifth floor. In contrast, a general license (A-Rank) only allows exploration of one floor.
Each dungeon’s first floor is a circular field with a diameter of about 10 kilometers, inhabited only by monsters like slimes and insect types.
To earn money there, adventurers collect cores from monsters, which are valuable materials for advanced technology and fetch a considerable price. However, since the first floor is crowded with beginners and holiday adventurers, the encounter rate is extremely low, and there are many interpersonal troubles, such as theft.
Furthermore, the size of the cores obtained from monsters on the first floor is about the size of a marble. Even so, they fetch around 3,000 to 5,000 yen each.
It might seem like a paltry amount.
Given these factors, earning 10 million yen on the first floor is said to take at least two years of daily dungeon exploration, totaling 700 days at the shortest.
However, I wonder.
If I spend my free time exploring dungeons from my first year of high school and add four years of university, that’s seven years.
With my ability to sense presence, I feel like I could somehow manage to earn around 10 million yen in that time.
I don’t like interpersonal troubles, but as a former hero, I don’t think it would be too much of a problem.
It might get boring to keep defeating slimes and insects, but if I think of it as a part-time job, it’s not so bad.
While attending a dungeon high school might make it impossible to attend university, it’s quite difficult, at least.
In that case, after graduating from high school, becoming a full-time adventurer is the only option.
Personally, I’m not sure what I want to do in the future, but I still want to go to university.
So maybe a regular high school is the way to go.
Any high school within commuting distance of my home would be fine. If it’s within biking distance, I can easily reach the Saitama Dungeon, and there would be no problem running there either.
As for university, it depends on my grades in high school, so it wouldn’t be too late to think about it then.
While researching dungeons, I came across footage of the top team “Hayate” defeating the Gatekeeper on the 20th floor.
The location was a fairly large cavern, with a ceiling height of about 10 meters.
The members of Hayate were all wearing matching armor, adorned with the logos of manufacturers like F1 racers.
It’s likely that as a top team, they receive significant advertising fees from sponsors, and they probably earn substantial rewards from the views on such footage.
Setting that aside, the appearance of the Gatekeeper illuminated by the lights of the two crawler carriers was that of a black wolf.
The size of the black wolf was about the height of a person from toe to shoulder, and about twice that from nose to tail base.
It was really huge.
The black wolf was being attacked by six adventurers.
Despite its appearance, the black wolf moved with incredible agility, dodging the adventurers’ attacks and counter attacking when it found an opening with its mouth and forelegs.
However, it wasn’t as agile or invincible as it seemed.
The adventurers’ formation consisted of three front-line members with shields and longswords, guarding two spear wielders in the middle and one archer in the rear.
In terms of firepower, if we say the archer’s arrows are 10, then the two spears combined are also 10, while the three front-line members contribute mostly to defense rather than firepower.
It’s a solid team that sticks to the basics.
The reason the spears’ firepower isn’t very high is that the black wolf skillfully dodges the thrusting spears, resulting in few effective hits.
On the other hand, the arrows released by the archer don’t give the black wolf any chance to dodge and consistently hit their mark.
In this way, only the black wolf accumulated damage, and after about 30 minutes of fighting, it fell.
The attacking team suffered minimal damage, with only two front-line members bleeding from their arms.
It’s likely that these three front-line members, who endured for 30 minutes, will be praised for their achievements.
Looking at this battle from the perspective of the black wolf, it should have utilized its large size to charge.
That way, it would have inflicted damage on all three front-line members at once and also reached the rear, causing damage to the backline.
However, the black wolf didn’t attempt such attacks at all.
Perhaps it feared being overwhelmed until it could regain its posture if it were intercepted. Its attacks seemed quite hesitant.
For a monster on the 20th floor, such tactical aspects and morale weren’t anything remarkable.
The footage was taken by cameras attached to each person’s helmet, edited, and mostly filmed from the archer’s perspective.
After the defeat, the footage showed the core extracted from the black wolf’s body. The softball-sized core gleamed black.
It seems the dismantling of the black wolf had already been completed, as two crawler carriers were loaded with bulging green vinyl bags.
Even though they’re called the top team, in the world over there, they’re at best a mid-tier team.
While there are no professions like adventurers in that world, a few trained warriors could easily deal with a wolf like that in a matter of minutes.
Of course, if I had a greatsword, I think I could have defeated it with one swing.
I feel a bit relieved.
However, I don’t have a holy sword or armor now.
Moreover, there’s currently no guarantee that my body will move as it did when I was in that world, so even if I say confident things, it might just be empty words.
Upon further investigation, I found that the staircases connecting the floors are usually located in large chambers at the end of tunnels, and Gatekeepers never leave those chambers to guard the stairs.
Therefore, the theory is to fight near the exit of the chamber if you plan to retreat.
If there is no healing magic or healing potions, it’s common sense to retreat no matter how good a situation you’ve reached.
[Additional Information]
The deeper you delve into the dungeon, the higher the likelihood of obtaining rare dungeon resources, but the round trip takes time.
From an individual perspective, deeper exploration leads to higher profits, but from the government’s point of view, it’s more beneficial for numerous adventurers to bring resources back from the 4th or 5th floors, as the total amount and value of resources brought back are greater.
Therefore, the government does not encourage conquest of lower levels and maintains a policy of not allowing firearms to be used even if adventurers struggle against Gatekeepers at lower floors.