Chapter 39. Addicted to Spicy Things
The place where we were now was the vast and complicated sewer system beneath the capital of the Viesse Empire, a brilliant empire where beautiful civilization shone brightly.
It had not always been like this.
But as the sewer had grown older, its nature had gradually changed, and now it had become one enormous dungeon.
“Why? Why is it like this? This is under the capital, right? The capital of the empire? So why is something like this here?”
“They say it is also used to train trainees, and completely cleaning it would cost too much because the structure is so complicated.”
“So they think it’s cheaper to just give adventurers a little money to deal with it?”
“That’s right.”
“But they’ll have to keep doing that for ten or twenty years.”
“Yes.”
“But if they start a proper cleaning project, the national treasury will become empty.”
“…Oh, really?”
“Then, well, I guess there’s no choice.”
If there was one thing I thought this game had done really well since its testing period, it was minimizing the disgusting parts.
For example, the appearance of slaughtered goblins.
Considering how brutally they had been killed, the final result was surprisingly clean.
Just imagine if the goblins I had roughly hacked apart had remained exactly like that.
Ugh.
I didn’t even want to think about it.
The sewer smelled so horrible that even Iyen and the village chief had taken deep breaths before entering.
They had brought clean handkerchiefs and even kept asking whether there was some kind of magic that could block the smell.
Even after all that preparation, their first reaction was still pure disgust.
Even now, after getting used to it, they sometimes suffered whenever a new disgusting smell reached their noses.
I wasn’t particularly weak to bad smells.
But if the game hadn’t dulled my senses, I would have suffered badly too.
In fact, several status abnormalities had already appeared.
“If Uncle wasn’t connected to madness, we could have brought a priest with us.”
“Indeed.
If a priest were here, the smell of this place probably wouldn’t feel this disgusting either.”
Unlike the Labyrinth Forest, where monsters constantly appeared around every corner like some romance-game heroine crashing into the protagonist while carrying a loaf of bread, we didn’t encounter monsters that often here.
But there were giant rats and twisted Nether cockroaches.
Mentally, it was almost just as exhausting.
Rats were strange.
From far away, they looked kind of cute.
But once you actually came face-to-face with one, your entire body would get goosebumps.
Why was that?
“Stepping into places everyone avoids before anyone else does. Isn’t that what makes someone a hero?”
“That depends on what kind of place you step into first.”
“You’re so picky.”
The way Iyen looked at me wasn’t as gentle as Pie’s.
Her gaze was quite sharp.
But unlike Pie, the things she actually said were surprisingly gentle.
If it had been Pie, she probably would have said something like,
’There you go again, talking nonsense.
Why do you keep saying things you don’t even mean?
And then you say you’re going to keep your promises?
Are you insane? You definitely are.’
Fortunately, Pie wasn’t the type to swear.
If she had filled those words with curses, I probably couldn’t have liked her at all.
Not that I particularly liked her now.
“Aigo, aigo, my back…”
*“Chief, I told you to exercise while I was gone.
Did you?”*
The village chief was already over eighty years old.
His body was so weak that even walking a little tired him out.
Carrying anything slightly heavy would leave him exhausted.
That’s why I had told him to exercise.
If walking a little made him tired, he could build his stamina.
If carrying something heavy exhausted him, he could build his strength.
…Because this was a game!
I knew it was a game!
And I knew he was an NPC!
I wouldn’t look at an actual eighty-year-old grandfather and think like that in real life!
“Hohoho.
Just how much are you expecting from this old man?”
“No! Chief, you can do it!”
Because he was a game character.
“Your potential is limitless!”
Because he was an NPC.
“I decided to travel with you because I saw that potential!”
That was a lie.
Could this be considered part of my character concept too?
I was deliberately taking a weak companion with me and enjoying an extreme hardcore playthrough.
And who knew?
Maybe if I trained this weak character like crazy, I would receive some kind of reward later.
Of course, at this stage, there was a much higher chance that I would eventually say,
‘Forget this! I can’t do this anymore! Ptooey, ptooey!’
and run away.
The important thing was finding the right balance between the carrot and the stick.
Simply forcing someone forward and dragging them along was dictatorship.
It would only create resistance.
Unless they were people like the badger beastman or Pie, who would follow whatever I said without question, it couldn’t be considered a good method.
“I will… follow you as best as I can.”
“Yes! Let’s go!”
“Was Uncle always like this?
You’re completely different from how you were at the training center.”
“The place changes the person.”
“The place I’m standing in now is a place I created.”
“So I’ll do whatever I want.”
I was the type of person who lost energy when surrounded by too many people.
Places like the training center were difficult for me.
On top of that, I had superiors there, so it was hard to do whatever I wanted.
And because everyone had initially seen me as a timid person who flinched at everything, it was even harder.
Even when I wanted to act freely, my previous actions made me conscious of people’s eyes.
It felt like everyone was watching me.
“Goodness!
What in the world is in this sewer that there are so many twisted creatures here?”
“Come to think of it, that’s true.
They couldn’t have suddenly appeared for no reason.”
The Labyrinth Forest, humans, and even monsters hadn’t simply appeared out of nowhere because of the game’s settings.
There were clear reasons behind their existence, even if those reasons were difficult to discover.
“Hmm.
I’ve heard rumors that there’s a secret organization hiding somewhere in here.
They supposedly create things that shouldn’t be created, and these monsters are failed experiments produced by them.”
“Ohhh.”
So they had created chimeras and released them underground?
I didn’t know anything about the events before or after that, so I couldn’t understand why they would do such a thing.
Still, it seemed like a reasonable explanation for the current situation.
Come to think of it, there were movies like that too.
Movies where terrifying monsters created by humans escaped and caused trouble everywhere.
Actually, there were way too many movies like that.
“But Chief, didn’t you level up?”
“Yes.
Hoho.
I never imagined that I would be doing something this much like an adventurer while still alive.”
“Something like an adventurer? Chief, you ARE an adventurer now!”
“Hohoho!
That’s right!
Hoho!”
After that, we didn’t say much.
We fought.
And fought again.
Killed.
Then killed some more.
The Labyrinth Forest at least had different environments, so it was interesting to look around.
This place was dark and gloomy enough to make me feel dizzy.
We repeatedly and mechanically killed monsters.
At some point, there was so much loot that Iyen practically became our pack mule.
I didn’t have a single coin to my name, so I couldn’t afford to throw away the loot.
I had hoped that even if the monsters themselves were disgusting, they would at least drop decent items.
But there was even less than I expected.
If we left the monsters alone, their items dropped naturally.
If we dismantled them, we could obtain both materials and dropped items.
But there was no one here who could properly dismantle monsters except me.
We had killed so many monsters that I simply couldn’t keep up.
As a result, both the quantity and quality of our loot were disappointing.
“…Huh?
Did I sleep a lot?”
“When did you sleep?”
“…I didn’t?”
“I guess you were fighting while sleeping.”
I was so bored that I had apparently dozed off for a moment.
When I opened my eyes again, I saw cockroaches melting in the flames of my chains.
It was horrifying.
By the time my patience was almost completely gone, the village chief had reached level 10.
I had somehow reached level 3.
I had played plenty of games that required this kind of grinding, so I thought I’d be fine.
But watching everyone else level up quickly while I crawled upward one tiny level at a time was incredibly frustrating.
An event.
I needed an event!
I didn’t know whether the fact that this was an online game prevented events that gave benefits to specific characters.
But I needed one!
An event!
Please.
I’m begging you.
I’m sick of fighting bugs.
At least let me meet a bug that could talk.
I’d become friends with it and fight alongside it!
“How many hours has it been?”
“Six hours.
Should we start heading out?”
“Ugh… why?”
“Why isn’t my level increasing?”
“There has to be some limit!”
“Even with my special advantage, isn’t this too much?!”
We had spent six entire hours wandering through the sewer without taking even one step outside.
And absolutely nothing had happened.
Of course, yes.
I understood that games didn’t have to throw a flashy event at you every time you did something.
Still!
After six hours, shouldn’t another quest appear?
Something like,
Hidden Quest Discovered!
There had to be hidden jobs.
There had to be special classes that only certain characters could obtain after meeting specific conditions.
