Pioneer Project 3
"You want to trade? So long as you pay a proper price, softies like you are always welcome!"
"The Goddess of Life? …Well, it's a hard story to swallow, but given the circumstances, I suppose I've got no choice but to believe it."
"That's a catalyst I made myself—hey, softie! Don't go touching merchandise that isn't for sale!"
The once-quiet underground city had erupted into a bustling clamor. All manner of humans were pouring up through the 40th-floor gate, winding through the caves of the 41st floor and flooding into the Stone Dwarves' underground city.
Unlike the 35th floor, the 40th floor was a place where undead spawned naturally—but the path from the entry gate all the way to the passage leading up to the 41st had already been cleared. Mages, working alongside hired mercenaries, had repeatedly widened the narrow dirt trail at regular intervals until it was practically a proper thoroughfare, effectively seizing control of a portion of the 40th floor.
No matter how terrifying the undead crawling out of the poison swamp might look, they were still just sluggish corpses dragging themselves through mud. With silver arrowheads consecrated in holy water and a barrage of magecraft, conquering the entire 40th floor might have been out of reach—but carving out a single road was more than doable.
And so the mages and merchants came swaggering into the city with their cargo wagons—or, more accurately, came scrambling in a breathless rush. Wild-eyed mages had even installed something resembling a freight elevator along the city's stairways, and they were pouring into the settlement in a frantic stream.
"You still plan to keep tunneling through, Elder Bobo?"
"We'll have to. This Tower seems to have stuck our cities right up against each other, so if we push far enough from Lili's city, we ought to reach that Pipi you mentioned. And while we've got softies around to help with the fighting, we need to find whatever turned our city into ruins, too."
Adventurers hired by the merchants, mages charging in red-eyed and desperate to open trade, and even Temple knights who claimed to know the Goddess of Life and were requesting a stone chapel be built—every last visitor was combat personnel. Bobo nodded along at the sight of them.
Just as they had handled rear support during the battles against the Demon King's forces, he seemed intent on using the influx of visitors to hunt down and kill whatever unidentified underground beast was out there.
Then again, after spending time among the Stone Dwarves in the city, it was clear they had no swordsmanship or archery to speak of—and no method of channeling mana into their stone bodies, either. They could handle mana-infused goods like alchemical products, but if they were a race incapable of reaching the upper grades, they simply weren't suited for combat.
In a modern world with firearms it might have been different, but in a world full of absurd monsters that packed mana into their flesh and wielded superhuman strength, non-combatants could never hope to match combat classes. Honestly speaking, if either Grace or Katie put her mind to it, she could wipe out the hundreds of Stone Dwarves in Bobo's city and still have strength to spare.
"Even if the world's changed, you softies still love the metals we forge—so that's what we'll trade. I don't know who it was, but whoever dared trample a city of craftsmen is going to pay the price."
"Are you going to start tunneling with the Vacuum Stone right away?"
"Five days. Come back in five days. We need to do some trading with the new softies first, and we need to make our own preparations. Here—I'll give you the Lava Stone now. Take it."
As though he had reached some great decision, Bobo stared at the crowds streaming in, then spun on his heel and strode off. We followed him to what looked like a warehouse, where he hauled out a dark-crimson lump of rock, set it down with a thud, and vanished into his own building, shutting the door behind him.
The Lava Stone looked for all the world like finely worked basalt. It was pitch-black, yet the pockmarked holes across its surface were spaced at such regular intervals and sizes that they seemed deliberately carved—and within those hollows, a seething red mana pulsed and shimmered.
And just like that, my party and I were left standing alone in the middle of the street beside a fifteen-kilogram boulder. Han Se-ah reached out to put the Lava Stone into her inventory—and suddenly let out a shriek.
"A-ah, hot!"
"H-Hanna!"
Apparently it wasn't just red for show—true to its name, the stone had heat condensed inside it. Han Se-ah clutched her palm and hopped around in a fluster, and a startled Irene came running over, taking both of Han Se-ah's hands in hers and gently rubbing them.
She held the wrist with her left hand and, with her right, soothed the palm in slow circles, channeling holy power as tenderly as if she were rubbing a child's belly—the very picture of maternal grace.
"H-Hanna? No matter how rushed you are, you can't just grab something of unknown origin with your bare hands…"
"She's right. In situations like this, maybe you should just leave it to Roland?"
Grace and Katie, watching Han Se-ah with worried eyes from Irene's side, each chimed in—and Han Se-ah's cheeks went scarlet as she hung her head. I couldn't help but laugh.
So this is why people call streamers professional clowns.
…She was trying to be funny, right? Probably.
"Hanna, open your inventory. I'll put it in for you."
"O-oh, uh, yeah. Thanks—but be careful, it's hot…"
Since the inventory worked by either shoving items into empty air or tapping larger objects to store them, the burned Han Se-ah dutifully opened hers, and I lifted the boulder and dropped it in.
Five days was a curiously ambiguous stretch of time—long enough to feel substantial, yet short enough to slip by before you knew it.
I politely redirected the mages who came flocking in hoping to network through their connections to Antenor or Charlotte, turned away the Temple knights who insisted that training with Manash had bulked them up and that I should join their athletic club, and cleared the side quests that had sprung up as the city came alive…
Fetch sample products made by the blacksmiths of the outside world. Collect every variety of mana stone from the lower floors, starting with goblin stones. Bring building materials—mostly lumber—for expanding an inn for the softies. Petty little quests for Stone Dwarves who refused to set foot outside their underground home no matter what.
They were far too humble for a world-saving hero to be clearing, but the rewards were generous enough that I spent Bobo's five days in high spirits.
"Right on time, softies. Should I be calling you Hero Softie now?"
"No, that's fine."
Five days later, the group assembled. Bobo had moved the Vacuum Stone launcher to the ruins of what had once been Lili's city, set up a battery of something that looked a lot like cannons, and greeted the hero softie Han Se-ah with a welcome.
He intended to use the Vacuum Stone once more to punch a tunnel from the ruins toward Pipi's city—but he clearly expected that whatever had destroyed this place might make an appearance.
Which was why we weren't the only adventurers hired this time.
"So this is the Vacuum Stone?"
"Miss Charlotte?"
"It's been a while, Miss Hanna."
Charlotte Cavendish, examining the Vacuum Stone—now a massive, vivid-red crystal—with keen interest, dipped her head in an elegant bow, her maid Mary following suit. And behind her, a throng of figures in hooded robes.
Thanks to her connection with Han Se-ah, Charlotte's influence in the Magic Tower had grown considerably—enough that dozens of intermediate-grade mages were milling about under her command. Then again, the underground beetles were absurdly slow, so warriors weren't really necessary.
When it came to fighting, the best approach had always been to hit the enemy from a distance while they couldn't hit back. And with that many intermediate-grade mages—even if none of them were upper-grade—even a giant underground beetle wouldn't get close. A dozen knights could take down an ogre; against a sluggish insect, fifty mages and six cannons was overkill.
"That's a lot of mages."
"They're ones I hired for research contracts. Thanks to my dealings with you, Miss Hanna, I've managed to extract quite a bit from the Magic Tower."
Han Se-ah was so terrified of Antenor's endless chatter that most of her Magic Tower transactions had gone through Charlotte. More precisely, it was thanks to Mary the maid handling all the tedious details—but as a result, Charlotte now commanded dozens of intermediate-grade mages of her own rank.
She had clung tightly to the rope named Han Se-ah, and that rope had turned into a golden lifeline labeled "Hero," completely cementing her foundation not as a Cavendish but as Charlotte the mage.
It wouldn't have been an exaggeration to say honey was dripping from her eyes—Charlotte seemed genuinely determined to trust and follow Han Se-ah. Not out of loyalty, exactly, but with the gaze of a merchant looking at a premium VVIP client.
"Miss Hanna, more than that, there's something I'd like to propose…"
"Hey, softies! If you're done talking, we're about to start—so get ready!"
"Ah, yes! I-I'll go take a look at those cannons!"
Something in Charlotte's slowly approaching eyes carried a madness of a slightly different flavor from Antenor's, and Han Se-ah had instinctively started sidestepping away—when Bobo's shout came to her rescue.