Tamer 19
Chapter 19: Information Warfare?
TL : Cnine
ED/PF :
Part 1
「Oh? Bargain Girl. Are you on the front end again today?」
「PIIIIIIIIIIIII!」
「Wow, look at you. So motivated.」
Being placed at the very tip of a 20-PixWhip meant she had to endure brutal damage.
Monsters were not uniform creatures. Their endurance varied, even slightly. If the role fell to anyone other than the Bargain Girl, another pixie perhaps, a single mistake in HP management could spell death.
That would mean wasted MP, and worse, reduced efficiency in EXP grinding.
In a time when the Dungeon Association might strike at any moment, that was the worse situation.
「Bargain Girl. I’ll grant you a special bonus. One grain of rice.」
「PIIIIIIIIIIIII!」
She beams over a single grain of rice. Truly lived up to her name as Bargain Girl.
And yet, right now, that cheapness was strangely comforting.
I mean, I recalled back in high school, I once gave my ex a winning lottery ticket worth thirty thousand yen for her birthday. She cried and went, “Kikyo, you really don’t get girls at all.”
Oi, that was Thirty thousand yen. A winning ticket. Smile a bit. What a headache.
Well, I guess present-day me actually gets it now.
「Compared to that...」
Starting with the Bargain Girl, the pixies find happiness in the smallest scraps of fortune. When I think about it, even the goblins celebrate over nothing more than a humble rice ball.
They were low-tier creatures, yet they know their place. And somehow, that makes them… Charming.
「Since you’re all so adorable, I’ll give you a little bonus.」
I plucked grains of rice from the rice ball and handed out one to each of them.
The reaction was far beyond what I’d imagined. Every last one of them was hopping about in pure delight.
「Heh. Guess I’m feeling generous today.」
Guess I’ll grind a bit longer than usual.
◇◇◇
「…Wait, it’s already this late?」
A glance at the clock showed it was seven in the evening.
I’d been grinding endlessly, chaining magic-circle resummons and whipping ghouls over and over with the 20-PixWhip. Somewhere along the way, the Bargain Girl looked ready to give up, so I tossed her a single grain of rice. She forced a strained smile and signalled she could keep going, so I continued using her as the whip’s tip without hesitation.
Had she been human, I might have admired her resolve. But she was only a pixie, and all I felt was mild irritation at the time I’d lost.
Well. A few seconds tops. No big deal.
「Status」
===
Status
Name：Sakura Kikyo
Occupation： Monster Tamer
Lv：151 ↑21
HP：692 ↑107
MP：923 ↑131
SP：85
Skill
Monster Taming54 Monster Recovery7 Monster Enhancement7 Monster Fusion Monster Reborn
Monster Evolution
Tamed Monster
GoblinLv151x15 SlimeLｖ151x4
PixieLv149×35
EXP to next level: 35336
===
Honestly, pulling this much off in one day was pretty impressive. But then the other half of my brain went, Wait, I explored longer than yesterday and this is it?
「Yeah… I probably need something more, uh, groundbreaking.」
At my current level, even if I got jumped outside the dungeon, I could just bolt back inside.
Sure, I’d waste a bit of time, but brainstorming sounded better than grinding harder.
「Alright, let’s mess around and see what happens.”」
I took out three ogre magic stones and fed all three into a single magic circle at once.
I’d expected that, if the experiment succeeded, a monster worth three ogres’ EXP would appear. Instead, the magic circle summoned a single ogre.
Only one magic stone had been consumed. The remaining two rolled quietly on the magic circle.
「Alright, die.」
The 20-PixWhip struck, erasing the ogre from existence.
「…So the magic stone decides the monster, huh?」
And apparently tossing in extra magic stones didn’t stack power either. Figures.
Curious, I ran a series of experiments and gradually discerned a pattern.
Throw in an ogre magic stone, and an ogre appears; a goblin stone summons a goblin.
The magic circle clearly summons monsters keyed to the magic stones used.
「Now that I think about it, the goblins only ever threw ghoul stones.」
Whenever I defeated a ghoul from the resummon combo, the goblins would toss the magic stone back into the magic circle, like somesort of assembly line worker.
I didn’t care too much, no time lost. But apparently, they’d accidentally figured out a trick to summon only ghouls. Lucky them, I guess.
「Alright, easy then. I just need a monster core from something tough that I can still one-shot.」
If I used an even nastier monster for this resummon combo, levelling would be stupidly fast.
But yeah, it’s already this late. That matter should wait until tomorrow.
Still… Miss receptionist truly outdo herself today.
「She actually tried to hug me...」
You could practically hear her inner voice screaming, "Tell me your secrets".
Even for a honey trap, that was way too forward. The Dungeon Association must be pretty much convinced by now that I’ve become ridiculously strong by now.
◇◇◇
「Kikyo! Are you alright!?」
The receptionist hurried over the moment I stepped out of the dungeon, worry written all over her face.
「You’re not hurt, are you!?」
「Eh? Ah, no, I’m fine.」
「You were so late. I was really scared, you know!?」
I see.
It was already eight in the evening. By this hour, most adventurers would have returned home, their day long over.
When I failed to appear at my usual time, she must have imagined the worst.
That one’s on me.
「Why are you so quiet? Don’t tell me… you went to the 4th floor!?」
「Nope」
「That’s the danger zone! Right when people think they’re hot stuff and clear the 3rd floor, they go "Hey, this isn’t so bad," and then casually stroll into the 4th floor! I’ve seen tons of people do that before I got transferred!」
Oooh.
This was a proper receptionist lecture. No escaping this time.
「The 4th floor has traps! It’s dangerous! Please, seriously, find a party and stop soloing everything!」
「trap?」
I hadn’t seen any. Could it be that I walked straight through them without noticing?
There hadn’t been any online information about the Aomori Dungeon’s 4th floor either. Local dungeons really are information black holes. Scary ones.
「Huh? Oh! Kikyou wait. You were just late, right? You didn’t actually go to the 4th floor?」
「Yes.」
In reality, I was already active on the 6th floor, with plans to push further tomorrow.
Naturally, I kept that to myself.
Still, the mention of traps bothered me. I decided to chat with her a bit, partly to gather information.
She did seem genuinely worried about me, and ignoring her or responding in a monotone would have looked pretty bad.
「What do you mean by traps?」
「Haa… If you don’t even know about them, then you really haven’t been to the 4th floor, have you? Thank goodness…」
She let out a deep breath and pressed a hand to her chest, genuine relief written across her face. For a moment, doubt crept in. Maybe she wasn’t an agent of the Dungeon Association after all.
Then again, it could just be an act...
Maybe I should start talking to her more proactively, see if I could draw out some information.
I mean, if there’s dungeon stuff I couldn’t find online, talking to a pretty receptionist was basically mandatory, right?
Worst case? She’s an agent of the Dungeon Association. Fine. I’ll just feed her bad info and call it a day.
Yep. This was an information warfare.
「So, uh… What is this trap you're talking about?」
「Eh? Oh! Right, right. I’ll explain properly. You know how dungeons usually treat the first two floors as a beginner tutorial, don’t you, Kikyo?」
「Yes.」
「Once you clear the beginner tutorial on the first two floors, traps start appearing as early as the 4th floor. In the Aomori Dungeon, traps have already been confirmed there.」
Man, for real!?
So it really was just dumb luck that I hadn’t noticed them.
「Kikyo, please, explore in a party. Some traps actually nullify your job. If you get caught in one, every job skill in your status becomes unusable for a while.」
What kind of nonsense trap was that?
If this were a game, players would riot.