Chapter 3
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“Um... how many is that now?”
A few hours later.
Deciding it was too early to call it a day, Kagami accepted a new quest that had been posted as an emergency request at the Quest Guild, then headed to the entrance of the dungeon known as 【The Ancient Cave】.
The Ancient Cave was said to be a dungeon where even four Level 70 adventurers would face constant danger of death. That was because the monsters living there averaged over Level 80.
On top of that, there were more monsters inside the dungeon than outside. Monsters in the wild were born through mating, but inside a dungeon, substances called spawn blocks lay scattered throughout the place, absorbing the faint magic drifting through the air and producing monsters.
The number of monsters that appeared depended on the concentration of magic in the dungeon, but dungeons were generally teeming with monsters and considered extremely dangerous places.
Furthermore, spawn blocks continued to produce monsters without limit, and eventually they would spread out from the cramped dungeon into the surrounding area.
The emergency quest had been issued because monsters from the Ancient Cave had appeared in the forest surrounding it—a forest everyone traveling from the capital to the city of Valman had to pass through.
The quest was to slay thirty Blue Devils.
The Blue Devils living in the Ancient Cave were strong, at Level 92. If left alone, they would claim the lives of many adventurers and traveling merchants.
“Each Blue Devil drops 34 silver... thirty of them makes 1,020 silver. And I get 1 gold for completing the quest... What a haul! That means sushi for sure today... No, crab!”
But for someone as overwhelmingly strong as Kagami, this was nothing but good news.
He wasn’t satisfied with sushi—now he was going to eat crab, too.
To Kagami, a Blue Devil was about as threatening as a Green Slime was to an ordinary Warrior. No, it was probably more like a dog—maybe a small dog, like a Pomeranian.
“Gyaaaah!”
And so Kagami hunted Blue Devils as casually as if he were smashing a piggy bank. A target people normally hoped never to encounter became one Kagami wanted to hurry up and show itself. That was just how vast the difference in strength between Kagami and the Blue Devils was.
A Blue Devil would appear and let out a scream full of horrifying hostility, but before long, that scream would turn into a death cry. For Kagami, it was an everyday sight.
“Th-this is a rare drop! I could sell it for 700 silver... Black Wagyu is definitely on the menu!”
Besides money, monsters sometimes dropped items when their bodies disappeared. These were commonly called drop items, and rare items unique to a particular monster—items it seldom dropped—were known as rare drops.
“A Blue Devil horn, huh... I can’t imagine this thing’s worth much.”
Muttering that, Kagami checked the total number of monsters defeated, which was automatically added to his quest document.
“Fifteen left... It’s easy enough to kill them, but finding them is a pain...”
Muttering to himself, Kagami walked through the dim, ruin-like dungeon built of earth and rubble.
Perhaps because he had killed too many of them, Kagami had stopped running into Blue Devils altogether. Bored, he yawned and looked around the dungeon.
Just then, he spotted several human-shaped figures writhing at the far end of the passage ahead.
Few people ever visited this dungeon, given how dangerous it was. The only ones who came were either reckless fools or people as strong as Kagami.
And the only human-shaped monsters in this dungeon were Blue Devils.
“This is... a whole group of Blue Devils!”
At the sight of his long-awaited prey, Kagami got excited and dashed toward them. The closer he got, the clearer the blurry human-shaped silhouettes became.
The moment he spotted something that looked like blond hair on the head of the figure at the front, Kagami’s expression turned as if the world were ending. He abruptly slowed down and veered into a side passage.
“It’s the Hero’s party... Seriously? I couldn’t care less... This feels just like finding dog food lying on the side of the road. That same weird disappointment.”
Embarrassed by how excited he’d gotten, Kagami resumed exploring the dungeon. He didn’t even bother wondering why the Hero’s party was in the Ancient Cave; he simply didn’t care.
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“Um... Hero-sama, wasn’t something just coming toward us at an incredible speed?”
Meanwhile, in the Hero’s party, a Priest girl with yellow-green twin tails murmured.
“Hm? Ah... A monster that feared us ran away partway through.”
“I-is that so?”
Unlike the Priest girl, who watched the silhouette disappear with an uneasy look, the Hero calmly assured her there was nothing to worry about. He held a Blue Devil scale—the drop item they had obtained from the one they’d defeated—in one hand.
“Anyway, Rex... was it? You’re pretty good. I’ve never seen anyone defeat a Blue Devil so easily.”
“Of course. I’m a Hero, after all. Even a Blue Devil is easy to beat when I have three capable people with me.”
Next, a voluptuous Mage in a pointed hat and mage’s robes spoke to the blond Hero, Rex, with evident admiration. She had wavy, pale purple hair and an indescribable, mature allure.
“We can’t afford to struggle against an opponent of this caliber. Our goal is to defeat the Demon King and restore peace to this world, after all.”
A long-haired woman with indigo hair stepped between the two and declared this in a dignified tone.
“Well, well, Princess, you’re really fired up, aren’t you? Quite a change from earlier... I thought you were the quiet type.”
“Please don’t call me that. Right now, I stand on equal footing with all of you. I am no more than a warrior. As I said before, please call me Kannazuki=Kururu Hexaldoria.”
“That’s too long, so I’ll call you Kuu-chan. You can call me Parnah, too—no need to be formal.”
Mage Parnah Biore said this with an air of exasperation. For some reason, Kururu’s dignified expression melted, and she murmured “...Kuu-chan” with a hint of delight.
“U-um! May I call you Kururu-san, too? O-of course, you can call me Tina!”
Then the Priest, Tina Birus, asked Kururu shyly, her cheeks turning red.
Kururu’s expression softened a little again, and she gladly nodded. Tina, in turn, beamed at her just as brightly.
“There, that expression suits you better, Kuu-chan. You’re cuter that way. Loosen up a little.”
“I-I can’t! My father ordered me to prepare to defeat the Demon King from the time I was little! This journey isn’t for fun!”
Perhaps to steel her resolve, Kururu puffed out her cheeks slightly and looked away from Parnah.
“Um... why did you decide to aim to defeat the Demon King from such a young age?”
Seeing Kururu like that, Tina suddenly asked the question that had just occurred to her.
Kururu’s expression darkened for a moment, but she quickly resumed her dignified, resolute look.
“Long ago, this world, Earthclear, was said to have had over 196 countries. But since the Demon King and the monsters appeared, only three countries remain—including Hexaldoria, the country that was once called Japan. Do you understand what that means?”
“The places where people can live have shrunk, huh?”
Kururu spoke with an urgent expression as if she were telling them something they didn’t know, though every human living in this world knew it. Parnah answered with a snort.
“Exactly. It’s because the Demon King led the monsters and took away the places where we lived. We have to take them back... the world we once had, where people didn’t live in fear of monsters! This may surprise you, but the world was originally one where monsters didn’t exist at all.”
Kururu had grown up in the palace and spent all her time studying and training to defeat the Demon King, so she was a little sheltered. Parnah, who had a big-sister streak, caught on during this exchange. Imagining how much fun the journey might turn out to be, she flashed a sly grin.
“Well, I get that. But why is this dungeon our first destination? It’s in the opposite direction from the Demon King’s castle, isn’t it?”
“Oh, I was wondering that, too!”
Parnah and Tina had followed Rex wherever he led them. Now that they’d grown a little more comfortable, they looked at him and asked about what had been bothering them.
Rex, who had been quietly examining the dungeon walls until then, looked back at them and beckoned them over to the wall.
“Take a look at this.”
With that, Rex shone a torch on the dim dungeon wall and pointed to a pattern giving off a faint orange glow. But nothing about it seemed unusual, so the two women tilted their heads.
The dungeon, built of earth and rubble, was covered in these patterns and moss. Nothing about it seemed particularly unusual.
Without the monsters, it might have looked mystical, but here, where high-level monsters like Blue Devils lived, it seemed like nothing more than decoration meant to inspire fear.
“Is there something special about this pattern?”
Tina couldn’t tell how the pattern Rex was pointing to differed from the others, and she let out a troubled “Hmm?”
“There’s a hidden chamber in this dungeon, a secret passed down only within the royal family. You can reach it by following the path marked by this pattern.”
At Rex’s words, they looked again. The pattern he’d pointed out was just a little different from the others, appearing here and there along the path they’d taken and the one ahead, as if guiding them somewhere.
“Huh... So there’s a secret like that in this dungeon. What’s in there?”
“A legendary holy sword that only a Hero at Level 90 or higher can equip... It lies dormant there. No Hero has ever gotten their hands on it... It’s undoubtedly the strongest weapon.”
Parnah had expected there to be something or other inside, but the revelation that something so extraordinary was hidden there caught her off guard.
“No Hero has ever gotten their hands on it? Why did the royal family keep something that powerful to themselves? If they had it, they might’ve been able to defeat the Demon King, right?”
Faced with a perfectly reasonable question, Rex gave a wry smile.
“As you know, the role of Hero is rare, but there isn’t only one Hero in existence. They probably kept it for the day someone of royal blood became a Hero. They had no guarantee that a Hero would defeat the Demon King, so they must’ve felt uneasy entrusting it to someone outside the family.”
“Then how do you know about it, Rex?”
“I told you, Kururu is a princess of this country. The king didn’t want his beloved daughter to die. He told me willingly.”
Parnah turned to Kururu to confirm, and Kururu gave a small nod.
“This time, defeating the Demon King is certain. A Hero and a Sage... and a legendary weapon. Let’s do it... let’s achieve the one great wish no one has ever fulfilled!”
Confident he could defeat the Demon King with his own hands, Rex smiled as he followed the patterns on the dungeon wall and pressed on.
Kururu followed behind the Hero.
“Maybe we really did join an incredible party, Parnah-san.”
Overwhelmed by the possibility of defeating the Demon King, Tina murmured.
“Well, it looks like this’ll be an interesting journey. Hehe... I’m already looking forward to it.”
Convinced that this party would be even less boring than she’d expected, Parnah smiled and followed Rex, coming up alongside him.
“By the way, Rex, we were deciding what to call each other earlier. Is Rex all right for you? What’s your full name, anyway?”
“My name is Rex... and nothing else.”
But even as Parnah walked beside him, Rex hurried down the passage as though trying to get away from her.
Nicknames didn’t matter. What truly mattered was defeating the Demon King and gaining fame and status. Repeating that to himself, Rex Chikubiboy headed for the room where the holy sword lay.