And so came the day of the Stampede announcement. All of the journalistic publishers, from the common to the Dungeon-focused ones, disclosed in their morning newspapers the information regarding the coming Stampede. None stated that there would be monsters on the level of the Fire Dragon, but it was indeed predicted that it would be of a much larger scale than before.
People were optimistic, however. The Stampede was a special event that happened only twice a year, and the people were confident that Dungeon City’s fighting power would be able to handle it just fine. Moreover, there had already been several reports of potential Stampede escalations over the past few years, but Dungeon City had yet to be in any danger.
“Man, are the Labyrinth Conquerors slacking off again?”
“How many times’ has it been now? They really gotta get their shit together…”
One of the people who picked up the newspaper let out an exasperated sigh when they saw the words ‘Increased Stampede Intensity’.
The ruling class of Dungeon City had always mobilized soldiers to thin out the Dungeons outside of town, but Labyrinth Conquerors also played a role. In recent years, the intervals between Stampedes have been getting shorter and shorter, and the townspeople have been criticizing the Labyrinth Conquerors for such increases in frequency and intensity.
While the Labyrinth Conquerors were highly praised in villages and towns under frequent threat of Stampedes, they did not have the same reputation among those within the safe confines of Dungeon City. Instead, the residents of Dungeon City have been treating Stampedes as festivals of sorts for the past ten or so years now.
Hearing people speaking ill of the Labyrinth Conquerors practically everywhere in town, Tsutomu felt sorry for them, but he had to focus on his training. He had never ridden a horse before, so he was stuck patting the rented horse fearfully before the brawny instructor carried him up and put him on the horse’s back.
Over the following month, Tsutomu would spend half of each day practicing his riding, and the rest of the time spectating around the Monitors.
In the meantime, Ealdred Crow had gotten past the Bolseyer after three attempts, and was getting closer and closer to Scarlet Devil Squad in terms of progress. Currently, Scarlet Devil Squad was making their way through layer sixty-nine, while Ealdred Crow was making good progress on layer sixty-seven. It was only a matter of time before Ealdred Crow caught up.
As for Silver Beast, they had successfully defeated the Fire Dragon. Their winning battle had been quite a long one, with four of the party’s members being dead toward the end; the last one remaining, Misil, had to clash head-on against the Fire Dragon, claiming victory by the skin of his teeth. Still, the fight and victory had drawn quite a lot of excitement from the spectating crowd all throughout, what with there being no mid-tier Clans that had defeated a Fire Dragon before.
The members of Silver Beast themselves were not happy with the result, however. From the audience’s point of view, the final minutes of the battle had been pure hype, but for the ones fighting, it had been a sloppy mess, with Lorena resorting to the classic move of sacrificing herself with <<Raise>> – generated aggro.
After the battle, Lorena had gone all the way to Tsutomu’s inn to apologize to the latter. Tsutomu himself had been watching the Fire Dragon fight as well, and contrary to Lorena’s expectations, he celebrated, saying that she had done quite well. Tsutomu’s reaction was thanks to his emotional attachment to Silver Beast and his prior expectations, namely the point that they had defeated the Fire Dragon before Golden Tune did.
Tsutomu even shook Lorena’s hands and gifted her an assortment of Magic Stones, confusing the latter quite a lot. And days later, when Lorena was interviewed by some journalists, Stephanie and Eunice became aware of her as the one Tsutomu had taught to be a Healer before them.
Golden Tune, the one late-arrival among the major Dungeon-exploring Clans, had now been overtaken by a mid-tier Clan; by this point, the audience was not quite as hot about them while spectating their no-hurry attempts at the Fire Dragon. Although they had since moved away from their old Leon-reliant party dynamics, it was apparent that they still needed some time to get used to all the changes.
And today, half a month since he had started learning to ride, as Tsutomu was in the middle of practicing when a certain girl visited him at the facility — Amy, with her white hair in a new shoulder-length cut, waved to him as he rode along the tracks,
“There you are! Hey, Tsutomu~~!”
Today was Amy’s day off, so she and Tsutomu had made an appointment to explore the Dungeon together.
One would typically worry that Amy’s exploring the Dungeon on her days off would tire her out, but most of her work involved sitting in an office and appraising items. As such, she had to be more active on rest days, so as to keep in shape.
Tsutomu replied to Amy’s greeting while keeping his focus on his horse and reins. Although he had gotten better over the past two weeks, his skill was not yet on a usable level.
Once Tsutomu got off his horse, he let out a sigh of relief and looked at Amy, puzzled as to why she was not equipped for combat.
“Why the casual clothes, Amy? Weren’t we going to the Dungeon today?”
Amy, seeing that Tsutomu’s white robes had become his normal attire these days, shrugged her shoulders in slight annoyance before saying,
“Oh, you Dungeon-sexual little… You do remember that the exploration isn’t until the afternoon, right?”
“Ahaha… right. So why come here now?”
“So I heard you’ve been learning to ride, you see — thought I’d help teach you!”
“…Thanks, but I’m just about to wrap up for the day now. Have to save some energy for Dungeon exploration, after all.”
“What? And I just came all this way, too. Boo…”
Tsutomu laughed back at Amy’s reaction before leaving the training facility with her, leaving his rented horse with the attendant.
Back when Tsutomu had been learning to use <<Fly>>, Amy had also given him advice… but in terms of whooshing noises and abstract imagery, so he hadn’t been able to understand anything. She was one to learn things by feeling rather than theory; despite wanting to teach, it was clear how unfitting it was for her to do so.
“Looks like we have some time. Why don’t we stop by the market on our way?”
“Huh– ah, yeah! Let’s go, let’s go!”
Amy, having expected him to tell her to head to the Guild immediately, hurriedly nodded in agreement. Now in a good mood, she walked next to Tsutomu… for about ten minutes before her enthusiasm fell apart.
“You know, today’s the release date of a new magic tool. Looks like it’ll be helpful for defending against the Fire Dragon’s breath attacks.”
“Uh, right…”
The marketplace that Tsutomu dropped by was the one where Dungeon-related tools were sold. While Tsutomu’s eyes glittered as he window-shopped around, Amy only looked at him from a distance.
“These Ice Magic Stones are so expensive… Makes sense, since they’re so rare, I suppose.”
“Right.”
[We’ll rake in quite a lot of profit if we were to reach layer seventy-one first.]
From the seventy-first layer onward, the Dungeon’s environment changed from the volcanic biome to a snowy one. Ice Magic Stones commonly dropped there; it was currently rare and considered highly precious in the market, so the first Clan to reach it would find themselves with many opportunities to make huge profits.
“Your current project at work has you going to the Volcanoes, right? Why not use this to stave off the heat? It consumes Water Magic Stones as fuel, but it works great!”
“But it’s not cute…” Amy shook her head upon seeing the boring-looking backpack-like device.
“Well, it isn’t, yes.”
Amy had not refused the tool because of her personal preferences, however; with her being something on an idol and a good part of her earnings being from sponsorships, it was only natural for her to care about the looks of what she carried and wore.
For the next hour or so, Amy followed Tsutomu as the latter browsed around for Dungeon tools. Tsutomu being a frequent visitor and buyer, many shopkeepers here knew him. As he chatted with the merchants and craftsmen, Any was left merely staring at him.
After Tsutomu had taken his usual route through the market, he turned to a nearby Monitor to check the time.
“Ah, it’s almost time. Let’s get going to the Guild–“
“Tsutomu, man? Now’s my turn to go shopping, doncha think?”
Amy firmly grabbed Tsutomu’s wrist and stared him down.
“But the time…”
“C’mon, just come along!”
And so Amy pulled Tsutomu along to the clothes and accessories market. Since Tsutomu had no interest in things not related to the Dungeon, he had never been there — or any other market, for that matter.
Though he felt awkward to be in an unfamiliar part of town, especially one full of women, he followed Amy as the latter went around to various stores and tried on clothes and accessories.
“How’s this look? Cute, right?”
“It looks fine.”
“Hmm… flat reaction. I’ll take that as a ‘no’.”
Amy put the flower-shaped hair clip back where she had taken it from, then proceeded to try on other hair accessories. Tsutomu, if he were to be honest, did not want to be asked such things so much, because he could only give inoffensive answers — the same thought he had back when he had gone shopping with Camille.
Moreover, Amy seemed quite easily attracted by so many shops on the way, so this detour looked to be taking a long time. As they went around the women-filled marketplace, Tsutomu apologized in his mind to Garm, who must be waiting for them at the Guild by now.
“Well, it’s about time we got going.”
“Huh? You haven’t bought anything yet, though?”
“Yeah. Nothing good ’round here~~”
[Then why’d you even come here in the first place…?]
Tsutomu, being one to always do research about what he would like to buy, was tempted to call out Amy’s tendency, but ultimately swallowed it down and headed for the Guild.
“I’ll go get changed first, so you go on ahead,” Amy said and went toward the Dormitory next to the Guild building.
“All right.”
Tsutomu saw Amy off and entered the Guild to look for Garm, first in front of the Monitors where they had originally agreed to meet up at.
Not finding him there, Tsutomu went around the Guild to see if he had sat down somewhere, and eventually found Daryl and Garm at the Dining Hall, eating some pasta at a table.
“Sorry for running late, Garm.”
“…An hour late, to be precise — that’s quite unusual, Tsutomu. I was about to go check if you were still at your inn, in fact.”
“Really, I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right. Things happen — I can understand that.”
Garm kept on eating quietly. Daryl, perhaps because of Tsutomu’s arrival, hurried to finish the Doria that he had just ordered as an extra dish, stuffing his cheeks like a squirrel.
Around the time Daryl finished eating the piping hot Doria, Amy finally arrived at the Guild with her gear ready.
“Amy hath arrived~~!”
“Took you long enough…”
“What, wasn’t Tsutomu late, too? Either scold us both or no one at all, pupper!”
“I already gave him a scolding. And here I thought you’d gotten your discipline straight by now, seeing that you’re no longer late for work…”
[He really didn’t scold me, though…] Tsutomu thought to himself while looking at Garm as the latter started preaching.
Then he turned to look at Daryl; the latter promptly bent down his tall body and bowed, with his distinctive black ears flopping down as well.
The young man, fitting for his age, was well-built; although smaller than Garm, he was larger than Tsutomu. Tsutomu, while thinking the chair he sat in looked small in comparison, proceeded to greet him,
“Let’s see what you can do today, Daryl.”
“Of course! By the way, you’ve been working with the major Clans as of late, yes? I’ve seen you on the Monitors sometimes!”
“Ah, I have been, yes,” Tsutomu answered; although he questioned Daryl’s choice of words in saying ‘working with’ he did not see any ill intent in the latter’s youthful face, and as such did not take any offense to it.
“Say, I’ve seen that Garm has been putting you through some heavy training, Daryl. Are you keeping up well?”
“Yes… Sir Garm is indeed very strict… but I’m doing all right!”
Garm’s training program was akin to a lion knocking its child off a cliff… then dropping boulders down as the child climbed back up. Even from an outside perspective, one would consider it excessively severe; as such, Tsutomu was worried about Daryl’s mental state, what with himself initially failing his attempt at training Stephanie. Daryl seemed to have every shred of his enthusiasm intact, however.
“I’ll do my best, Sir Tsutomu — so that I’m worthy of joining your Clan!”
“I’m glad to hear that; just remember not to overwork yourself. If there’s anything you need, do let me know — I can talk to Garm as well, at least to some degree.”
“Yes, of course!” Daryl replied briskly, to which Tsutomu nodded.
Once Garm was done laying out his lecture, the team proceeded to enter the Dungeon, with Amy still sulking all the while. Today’s destination was layer fifty-one, where they intended to take things at a relatively leisurely pace and evaluate Daryl’s performance.
“Hah!”
Daryl thrust out his tower shield and knocked away a Verdant Wolf. His general performance was decent, and a significant improvement from before thanks to Garm’s training.
“Looking good. Now, it sure would be nice if we had an Attacker…” Tsutomu muttered casually to himself while keeping an eye on Daryl.
Haring Tsutomu while standing next to him, Amy responded, “Hmm? You’re looking for an Attacker, Tsutomu?”
“I am, yes. Haven’t found anyone I’d like to invite yet.”
“Why don’t you try asking Dini, then? Attackers’ been in lower demand lately, so she’s starting to consider changing places, you know?”
“Dini…?”
“Huh? Didn’t you meet her at the Golden Tune’s place? Dini — you know, Diniel.”
“…Oh! The blonde Elf?”
“Yup. <<Dual Wave Slash>>.”
As another Verdant Wolf appeared, Amy quickly killed it, turning its body into a Magic Stone.
“You know her?”
“Nya-huh. We’re friends — must’ve been for six years now, I think? I could ask her over, if you’d like. She actually bought you up when we talked before, too, and it didn’t look like she had a bad opinion of you, at least.”
“…Yes, please do, then,” Tsutomu replied with a super-serious face, out of sheer surprise that his search might at last go somewhere.
“Uh, you’re looking pretty scary there, Tsutomu. I’ll go talk to her later, so turn your face back to normal already!” Amy said, startled. She then chuckled as if trying to regain her composure, then continued, “But it’s not like she’ll definitely agree, you know?”
“Yes, I know. Still wouldn’t hurt to ask, I’d say.”
“And then I’ll join you eventually — Don’t worry; you’ll do fine either way!”
“Thank you so much, Lady Amy.”
“‘Lady’!?”
“You see, I’ve been looking for Attackers over at Ealdred Crow as well, but haven’t found anyone so far. This is a great help, really — I know! I’ll gift-wrap my reward money and send it over to you!”
“NONONO–!? DON’T DO THAT! REALLY!”
As Tsutomu continued to bow his head in worship, Amy panicked and patted him on the shoulder to make him look up. And then Garm saw them, but only the last part… which got him to assume that Amy had done something bad again, which led to yet another lecture.
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