Chapter 17 — It All Feels as If We Are Being Looked Down Upon Just for Being Monsters
Even if she looked like a young girl, Tomochika wasn’t sure it would be possible to bring a dragon into Base Town. However, they were able to pass through the gate with no problem, so it seemed the restrictions were pretty lax.
“So this is the human’s adventurer’s guild!” Atila seemed rather taken in by the sight of the bar from her spot atop Yogiri’s shoulders. Tomochika now held Dai’s leash.
“You sound less like a dragon and more like a country bumpkin, getting so excited over a normal bar.” Edelgart had arrived through the gate a short time after the rest of them. She had been on a different quest from Yogiri and Tomochika, so her gate had been somewhere else.
“Say what you will.” Apparently in a good mood, Atila was unfazed by Edelgart’s clear animosity.
“The herbs we had disappeared, so I guess that counts as delivered?” Before stepping through the gate, Yogiri had been holding five of the medicinal plants they had found. The ones in Tomochika’s item box had also disappeared, so it seemed she didn’t need to bother pulling them out.
“We don’t need to report to the reception desk or anything?”
“We can just check our DP,” Yogiri said, taking Atila off his shoulders.
Tomochika checked her DP crystal.
Quest reward: 5 DP
Befriended a dragon: 500 DP
It seemed the quest was completed the moment they stepped back into town.
“The quest reward is as expected, but we got 500 DP just for bringing Atila with us?”
“Let me check too.” Tomochika handed the crystal over to Yogiri. “I’ve got some too, but...it’s not quite the same.”
Quest reward: 5 DP
Befriended a dragon: 500 DP
Added a second harem member: 100 DP
“I guess Atila coming with us means she joined our party. And since I’m the only guy in the group, it’s treating it as a harem?”
“Sounds like an unsatisfying explanation to me,” Tomochika complained.
“Then let’s try this and see what happens. Hey, Edelgart.”
“What is it?”
“Would you like to join our group?”
“Hmm. Why not? Goblins are no issue for me, but that was only a level one quest. There is no telling what the future holds, so there is no harm in having more companions.”
“Thanks.”
Tomochika peaked at the crystal as Yogiri checked his DP again.
Added a third harem member: 200 DP
“The more members you add, the more each is worth?! Also, hold on, I don’t like being treated as the first member of this harem!”
“Does Dai not count as a member of our group?” Yogiri asked.
“He’s probably treated as a pet, right?” If Dai was treated as a companion, he would need to earn DP and pay the Life Tax like the rest of them. Tomochika felt like that was asking too much of an animal.
“By the way, what are you going to do, Atila? You’re a member of the monster guild, right?”
“True; however, I have heard no rule barring me from joining both. Reception is over there?” Atila immediately walked over to the reception counter. After a short discussion with the receptionist, she put her hand on the crystal offered to her and then made her way back. “Now I have registered. That makes me an adventurer!” She sounded awfully proud despite having done nothing but put her hand on a crystal.
“I’m starting to get the feeling this Cavern Quest was put together pretty sloppily...” Tomochika said.
“They probably never expected a monster to make it here and register.”
“So, what do we do now?”
“It’s getting pretty dark out. Maybe we should call it a day.”
Though they were underground, they could see through the windows of the guild hall that it was sunset.
◇ ◇ ◇
After sitting down for a meal, the group headed to find a place to stay for the night. There was a wide variety in the quality of available lodgings, but in the end they decided to go for the lowest rank. Though it was the cheapest available, it wasn’t the kind of shack Tomochika had expected and was actually pretty comfortable. It seemed Cavern Quest was happy to provide the basic necessities to everyone effectively for free, as the cheapest equipment available all cost 1 DP, food cost 1 DP, and the cheapest accommodations were the same. Yogiri and Dai took one room, Tomochika and Atila another, and Edelgart took a third by herself.
“Are you really okay here, Atila? What about the other dragons?” Tomochika asked as she sat down on her bed.
“The majority of them are incapable of speech and would not be able to make it into Cavern Quest in the first place,” Atila said, jumping on her bed. Just like at the bar, she was totally unfamiliar with human culture, so everything she saw was a new experience.
“Is that a fact?”
“I imagine you saw a similar thing on your side as well. Even among the few of us capable of speech, many doubted the words of the Sage. And besides, I have almost no subordinates anymore. Those killed by Takatou did not return to life, remember?”
“Uh...” Tomochika gave a brief explanation of her understanding of the restart caused by the Great Sage.
“I see. Though if that is the case, would it not be more accurate to call this part three?”
“Did something like this happen before?”
“I suspect that it did, though it is little more than a hunch. If your speculation is correct, as time passes, our memories of previous parts fade like dreams, correct? There is no way to be sure anymore.”
“So you’re pretty old, then?”
“Indeed. Old enough that I cannot recall my own age.”
“Are you a pretty big deal among dragons?”
“Who knows? I spent my entire life living in that canyon, and all the dragons living in that area were under my control, so I suppose in a manner of speaking I was. But really that only applies within the canyon itself.”
“You said you wanted to be a Knight’s Attendant, right? Isn’t that a demotion from being the boss of the dragons?” Tomochika thought she remembered Atila saying that when they first met, but now it sounded like a rather strange thing to wish for.
“I was bored. What fun is there in sitting in an empty canyon, lording over lizards who cannot even speak? I wished to boldly stride into human society.”
“If you can transform into a human, couldn’t you have gone any time you wanted?”
“You fool! That would be terrifying! I know nothing about the human world. I would be discovered and driven out immediately! However, were I the attendant of a Knight of the Divine King, I would only need to follow said Knight! No matter what blunders I made, the Knight would be able to take responsibility in my stead!”
“That’s a pretty proud declaration for something so pathetic!”
“Regardless, that is why I endorsed you for the trial. Though if that was all but a dream, there is no need to do so again. This situation is interesting in and of itself.”
“So you plan on being an adventurer for real now?”
“Of course! I cannot say I know how they will treat my current quest of killing humans, though.”
“That’s a good question. You can’t take more than one quest at a time, so I wonder if they’ll treat you as being stuck in the middle of one.”
“Hmm. In that case, I suppose I would need to cancel my previous quest. Either way, I will have to test it out tomorrow!”
“Out of curiosity, how are things on the monsters’ side?”
“It is difficult to describe. It feels like we are being insulted.”
“Insulted?”
“We were given a small branching cavern to live in and told to just pick a spot!”
“And the monster guild? Does it have a building?”
“Of course not. The cave we were provided has a large tree in it. That tree is used to register for the guild and provide quests. As for the gate, there is a large puddle. We must jump in it to get to the fields to perform our quests. It all feels as if we are being looked down upon just for being monsters!”
“So it’s pretty sloppy over there too, huh?”
“There is one group that built a castle for themselves, and that alone feels different. But of course, it is work the group took upon themselves. If I had not made it here, I likely would have attempted to join them.”
“So there are different factions among the monsters too?”
“Perhaps. There are many monsters who are far simpler in mind than humans, so they will not act in a way that could form a proper society.”
Though monsters like goblins seemed simple-minded enough, there were highly intelligent monsters as well. Atila herself was capable of thinking like a human, so there were likely those who could predict what the humans would be doing.
“Well, I’m sure things will work out with Takatou around...though I don’t want to rely on him too much.”
They couldn’t just leave everything to Yogiri. Tomochika resolved to do as much as she could herself.
◇ ◇ ◇
A week had passed since everyone’s arrival to Cavern Quest. By the seventh day, the automatically collected daily Life Tax had increased to 177 DP. It was still at a manageable level, but if it continued to increase at the same rate, it would eventually be impossible to afford. That said, the players were still optimistic. They expected the elites would deal with the last boss soon enough. Under normal circumstances, the last boss would be defeated within a month of the season starting. Even Yogiri’s group wasn’t putting much thought into defeating the last boss, just performing their ordinary quests day in and day out.
They learned a number of things over the course of that week. The first was that Atila was able to take quests and get rewards like normal. They didn’t know what was going on with her monster quest, but it didn’t matter if she could get rewards for her adventurer quests.
In addition, they found that any monster killed by Yogiri’s power wouldn’t count towards their quest completion. It seemed the system was observing their actions, and being unable to draw a causal connection between Yogiri and the monsters’ deaths, it would treat their enemies as having died of natural causes. Even if he used his power to kill parts of the monsters, the system would treat such unexpected behavior as an error and fail to reward anyone for dispatching them. It seemed the system didn’t just check the life and death status of the monsters, but also who killed them and who contributed to the kill. In short, if they didn’t fight properly, they couldn’t get any rewards for extermination quests, so things weren’t that easy for them.
“Even so, it still feels like you’re cheating. If this were a real game, I wouldn’t see the fun in it.” The pigman, also known as an orc, swung its axe down. Tomochika blocked the strike with her left arm, delivering a swift kick to the bottom of its jaw, which crumpled, spilling uneven teeth everywhere. The impact of the kick must have made it to the creature’s brain, as the orc collapsed motionless to the ground.
“But our lives are on the line here.” One of the two orcs that had gone for Yogiri suddenly dropped to the ground. It had swung a sword, and Yogiri wasn’t able to dodge it. Seeing its companion suddenly fall, the last orc hesitated, an opening that Yogiri used to deliver a swift chop with his sword to the orc’s neck. The wound wasn’t fatal, though. As the orc moved to counterattack, one of Tomochika’s knives sank into its skull.
Atila and Edelgart cleaned up the remaining orcs in the area. The dog, Dai, wasn’t participating in the fight, lounging on the ground nearby. They were in a set of ruins, so run-down that nothing but lonely support pillars remained, where they had a quest to hunt ten orcs.
“So you were the ones who killed those thugs in the alley back then, weren’t you? You said they just collapsed.” Edelgart seemed unhappy. They had told her about Yogiri’s power. Though she didn’t believe it at first, after seeing enemies die of their own accord over and over, she wasn’t able to deny it for long. It seemed she had finally accepted it as the truth. Of course, that made her want to complain about what had happened back in part one.
“You wouldn’t have believed me if I told you the truth, right?”
Yogiri fought without actively using his power, letting his automatic defenses protect him. He could read the killing intent from his enemies, so he dodged when he could and blocked if he thought it was possible. If it ever appeared he might lose, the enemy would die on its own, so he was able to fight from perfect safety. Even landing a single blow counted as contributing to the kill, so out of the 100 DP awarded for defeating each orc, Yogiri would receive about 20.
I would have expected fighting under such lax conditions to be useless for training, but it seems you are making considerable progress. Mokomoko was surprised. Without fear of enemy attacks, Yogiri was able to fully concentrate on what he was doing. And since there was no fear to cloud his judgment, he could accurately gauge their actions. In short, he was learning to fight quite quickly.
“I can get stronger in this game, so it seems worth it to try,” Yogiri said. In Cavern Quest, equipment was extremely important. A significant portion of a player’s strength came from their items. Though it still required skill to use the equipment properly, it meant that even without the Gift, Yogiri was capable of reaching a level of strength comparable to the other players.
“You haven’t killed that many of them, though. Are you doing okay?”
“I’m fine for now. I’ve hit enough of them that it shouldn’t be an issue, and if I don’t get enough DP, I can just do some egg collecting. I can make quite a bit from those quests.”
“That also feels like cheating.”
The egg-collecting quest only required you to bring eggs back to the gate. Naturally, the parents of those eggs were monsters who would try to attack and take them back, but Yogiri could kill them without issue. There was no reward for killing monsters on collection quests.
“That makes ten.”
After confirming the orcs were dead, they gathered the monsters’ equipment, which could be used as-is or to strengthen their own equipment. It was standard practice to collect as much of it as possible. Since Tomochika had the item box ability, she took everything to divide up later.
“Okay, let’s head back,” Yogiri suggested now that their objective was complete.
But Tomochika seemed interested in searching the area a bit more. “There could be some refining materials in the ruins. Maybe we should take a look first.” Though they hadn’t known at the start, they found that if you paid close attention, you could find refining materials lying around everywhere.
“I do not believe we should be wasting any time here,” Edelgart disagreed. Fields were home to powerful monsters besides the ones present in their quests. It was standard practice to return to town as soon as possible after completing one’s quest.
Dai barked happily, eager to have something to do. He was particularly good at sniffing out specific materials they were searching for.
“It appears something has arrived before we’ll have a chance to waste any of our time,” Atila said, prompting Yogiri to follow her gaze. She was looking at the entrance of the ruins. Though the buildings had lost all of their form, the front door was still recognizable. With no walls or ceiling, one could come and go from wherever they pleased, but it still felt proper to call that the entrance. Four adventurers had arrived.
One of them seems far above the rest, though I suspect you do not need my expertise to spot that.
Mokomoko was likely describing the large man at the front of the group. He wore metal armor, though he walked as if it weighed nothing at all. He had a sword so large, it was impossible to hide it, even behind his considerable bulk. At a glance, Yogiri thought he looked fairly strong.
“Hm. I cannot imagine someone who brings others around in chains is a good person,” Atila observed.
Behind the first man were two others who appeared to be his companions. Their wicked sneers gave the impression of them being little more than lackeys. Their final companion was an elven girl with pointed ears and a collar. A chain was connected to her collar, the other end of which was being held by the lead man.
“Oh! She’s one of the people we saw at the guild!” Yogiri remembered her. She was one of the six Van had shown them who had Philosopher’s Stones buried inside them.
“Yo. My name is Volf. Things’ll be a lot quicker if you already know me,” the man said, stopping a few steps away from them.
“I don’t, but I get the feeling I won’t like where this is going.” Yogiri stepped forward to speak for their group. For some reason, he had been designated the unofficial leader of their party.
“Let me get straight to the point. Hand over the dog. And the women too.”
“I don’t know if you can get more obviously evil than that!” Tomochika cried out instinctively.
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