What Do You Mean, Enjoy the Pain?!
The amount of mithril we'd obtained from the dungeon came to about sixty pieces.
After splitting half with Ceryll, my share was thirty — enough to make six hundred arrows.
Of course.
"You mined a full sixty pieces? In a single run?"
From anyone else's perspective, it was an achievement worth gawking at. Two students who weren't even professional miners had pulled out sixty pieces in one go — and in just five hours, no less. That alone made the reaction inevitable.
Mine-type dungeons were managed without being fully cleared, specifically so their resources could be harvested. And the manager of this one was standing right in front of me, staring in utter disbelief.
"Sometimes people bring back things that aren't mithril, so I'll need to inspect them."
Any ore mined inside a dungeon had to be examined by the manager in full. As he looked over what we'd brought, he let out a sound of pure admiration.
"It's all mithril. And the pieces this student mined are in particularly excellent condition — not a single mark of damage."
This student.
That was Ceryll, of course — not me.
Well, a pickaxe does count as a melee weapon... technically.
Ceryll had talent in swordsmanship and spearplay. At least, that was true for now. But I knew better. Later on, she would handle every melee weapon as if it were an extension of her own limbs.
She hasn't formally contracted with a god yet, so her other talents haven't blossomed... but she's still well ahead of most people.
"I was the one who mined them, but Reina is the one who found the mithril."
Ceryll grabbed both of my shoulders as she continued.
"Reina is truly incredible. The way she just keeps finding them, one after another. She may look adorable, but she's a real powerhouse, you know?"
The manager's eyes lit up at Ceryll's words.
"If that's true... Ha. Students, have you two ever considered joining a mining corps? From what I can see, both of you have real talent for locating and extracting ore!"
I didn't hesitate.
"I'll think about it."
A polite way of saying no. The reason was simple.
Once I graduate, better offers are going to come anyway. There's no point...
Mining corps paid out differently depending on the ore you extracted. Mithril wasn't cheap, but the world had plenty of more expensive minerals — diamonds, for instance. And the places that held those were exclusive to the royal mining corps.
Sorry, mister manager, but if I'm going anywhere, it'd better be somewhere better.
Honestly, I preferred a desk job where I could sit still over anything that involved physical labor anyway.
That was why I'd turned him down. But then—
"I'm afraid you'll have to give up on that. This child is a talent who needs a much bigger pond to thrash around in."
Anin started speaking out of nowhere, ruffling my hair as she did.
I have no intention of thrashing around, thank you.
I just want to live peacefully!
"...That's a real shame. Hrrngh. Well then, I'll settle the accounts for now. You'll be selling the mithril, I assume?"
The manager asked. Ceryll nodded. I shook my head.
"No."
"Hmm? You're not selling?"
Anin asked, looking puzzled.
"No. I have a use for it."
I needed it for making arrows. Selling it would have brought in a decent sum, so it was a little painful to pass up.
...I don't know when I'll be able to come back to a dungeon like this.
So the right move was to turn the mithril into arrows and use them as sparingly as possible.
"You have that many uses for mithril?"
Anin asked, and I nodded.
"I do need quite a lot."
"Is that so."
Anin said that, then suddenly started tracing her finger through the air in quick flicks.
Crack.
Space split open just a little, and a fat pouch tumbled out from within.
Thud.
Anin set it on the table and opened it to show us the inside. An enormous pile of glittering gold coins sat nestled within.
...I'm jealous.
Ceryll next to me. Anin too. Everyone was rich except me!
It's not fair!
If I was going to get isekai'd, I wanted to be rich too!
"I will purchase the ownership rights to this mine dungeon."
Dungeon ownership was obscenely expensive as a rule. But to Anin of the Strauss family, it apparently meant nothing at all.
"I'll sell!"
The manager took one look at the gold and nodded immediately. Even in a novel, money was all-powerful.
"With this, I am now the owner of this dungeon."
Anin said, looking at me.
"Yes. Congratulations."
I answered halfheartedly. Whether Anin owned the dungeon or not had nothing to do with me.
"So if you want to use it, feel free."
Until she said that.
"...Pardon?"
What did she just...?
"I'll issue you an access pass for the dungeon. With that, you'll be able to enter whenever you like. However — you're still a student, so don't go in alone."
I closed my eyes, then opened them again.
"Is that... really okay?"
"And any mithril you obtain, you can simply take all of it."
If I could come and go from this dungeon freely, the problem of obtaining mithril would be solved. And I could just take all of it...?
...Isn't this way too good for me alone?
"I've heard there's no such thing as a free lunch."
I said, narrowing my eyes.
"Of course it isn't free."
As expected.
"You are my precious student. Helping that student grow is a teacher's job. Think of this as one of a teacher's duties."
It sounded nice on the surface... but I still couldn't drop my suspicions.
What is she really after?
I stared hard at Anin, and she suddenly opened her mouth as if flustered.
"It's not as though I'm playing favorites with you alone. I'll make it so the other kids can enter as well, if they want."
It sounded a little like an excuse, but...
If that's the case, then fine.
If it wasn't a privilege granted only to me, but something extended to every student — then I could write it off as a teacher simply cherishing her students, couldn't I?
"Thank you, Teacher."
After parting ways with Reina and Ceryll, Anin headed home for the evening.
The one waiting to greet her was none other than her father.
"I hear you bought a dungeon."
"Yes."
"A C-rank dungeon. A mine that produces mithril, at that."
"That's correct."
Anin's father let out a sigh. He had never been able to fully understand what went on in his daughter's head, but this was even further beyond him.
"For the same price, you could have bought a dungeon with better ore deposits... You would have made far more money that way."
"I have no particular interest in money."
Her father paused at that.
"Then why on earth did you buy a mine?"
"Because that child needed it."
"That child...?"
"The child I'm interested in right now."
Anin — who had gone years without so much as a smile — beamed. The sight sent her father reeling with shock.
S-she smiled...? M-more importantly, interested?
Whether her father reacted or not, Anin pressed on.
"Whatever that child wants, I'll support it all. Liver, gallbladder — the whole lot."
Anin went straight to her room, leaving her father alone in the grip of a far greater shock.
"W-what bastard has bewitched my daughter... Go find out right now who seduced Anin! Immediately!"
"My ears are burning."
Was someone talking trash about me?
Either way, I was in a good mood right now.
"I've got a whole pile of mithril arrows."
Six hundred wasn't exactly a mountain, but it was enough that I wouldn't have to worry for a while.
If I run out, I can just go back to the mine and dig more.
I looked at the mine access pass Anin had given me and smiled. It had been completely unexpected, but it was a good unexpected — so I was glad.
"About a week left now..."
I checked the calendar. Next Saturday had a red circle drawn around it. That day was extremely important. Not because it was anyone's birthday or anything like that...
"It's the day of the Reina Kidnapping Incident."
An original story episode — the first time the protagonist and an Apostle of Evil properly clashed. In Zen's case, he wasn't even an Apostle of Evil. Just some low-rent noble.
According to the original, the protagonist should have already obtained the sacred bow relic by now and been on speaking terms with Ceryll. Of course, things had gone wildly off-script, and a lot had changed. But either way, there was no way that version of the protagonist could properly fight an Apostle of Evil. He didn't have the sacred relic, and right now he was an awkward mess who could only swing a bat.
"...There's no way I'll actually get kidnapped."
I looked at the bow resting on my bed. The sacred relic I'd received from the goddess Eru. Anyone who possessed it was immune to an Apostle of Evil's mental interference.
I got it as insurance, but even without it, it probably wouldn't have been a big problem.
In the first place, the original Reina had been kidnapped because she was in a mentally vulnerable state. According to the original story, the protagonist and Ceryll should have grown quite close by now. He might not have copied her talent yet, but they should at least have been having plenty of conversations. Watching the two of them grow closer, Reina would feel fear and jealousy at the thought of the protagonist being taken from her. And the Apostle of Evil would dig into that crack and abduct her.
The protagonist didn't move to save Reina — he moved to kill the Apostle of Evil.
In the end he did rescue her, and that only made Reina cling to him even harder... but still.
...There's no chance of me getting kidnapped.
I didn't have that kind of psychological weak point right now. And more than anything, I had the sacred relic. Even so, the thought that things might still play out as they had in the original was enough to keep me cautious.
Even as the day of the Reina Kidnapping Incident drew closer, I continued to enjoy ordinary school life.
No — actually, I didn't enjoy it at all.
"Can you feel the flow of mana?"
"N-no."
"Then I'll force it to move. Try to feel it."
"Ow, oww — Teacher!"
It was because of Anin. The after-school special training was still going strong. After we'd come back from the dungeon, Anin had suddenly announced:
"We're going to do special training for mana reinforcement."
Hearing that, I'd relaxed. I couldn't use mana reinforcement. So I'd taken it to mean she was going to give me focused instruction on it. But...
"I-it really hurts. A-aaaagh."
That wasn't it. Anin was helping me awaken mana reinforcement — by forcibly inflating and moving the mana inside my body. And that process hurt like absolute hell.
"C-can't we just... not do this?"
"Learning mana reinforcement will help you a great deal."
"N-no, I don't need— aaaagh!"
I knew learning mana reinforcement would be useful. But there was a reason I'd never been proactive about it. This mana reinforcement thing — the process of awakening it was ridiculously painful.
Either you had some kind of trigger that made it bloom all at once, or you awakened it through continuous training. Those were the only two ways to acquire mana reinforcement. The former was basically the equivalent of dying and coming back to life. The latter was something only people who enjoyed pain would put themselves through.
That was also why I hadn't coveted the mana reinforcement stone I'd received from the goddess Eru.
Ah, come to think of it. I'd given that reinforcement stone to Ceryll.
Ceryll had already awakened mana reinforcement. But if she ate the reinforcement stone, she would gain stronger, more vast mana in exchange for intense pain. More than anything, the duration would become something else entirely. Of course, she'd have to endure the pain to get there. Even if she'd already experienced dying and coming back once, pain was still pain. There was no way she'd gotten used to it.
"C-Ceryll."
"Hm?"
"Th-that reinforcement stone I gave you before... you haven't eaten it yet, have you?"
Maybe Ceryll hadn't eaten it yet either, because of the pain. That was what I thought, but—
"I ate it the day you gave it to me."
What?
"Y-you ate it?"
You were perfectly fine the next day.
"Yeah. It was from Reina, so I treasured it while I ate it."
"...Didn't it hurt?"
"It hurt."
Right. Of course it did. So Ceryll had simply toughed it out.
"But it was from Reina. Once I thought of it as Reina giving me pain, I could endure it. Halfway through, it started feeling like Reina was hitting me, so I even felt pleasure, you know?"
Pleasure?
How do you even feel pleasure from pain?!
"Try enjoying the pain like Ceryll does. You'll improve by a whole level. I was the same way."
Anin piled on as well.
"H-how am I supposed to enjoy pain?"
"Doesn't it feel thrilling when you think of the pain as something that makes you grow further?"
Are all the people who've learned mana reinforcement just perverts?
Somehow, the time of suffering eventually passed. In exchange for the pain, I had acquired an enormous quantity of sweat. Sticky and clammy, I headed back to the dormitory to wash up.
Each room in the dormitory came with its own shower. There was a large communal bath for students as well, but...
How am I supposed to go into a place like that?
Embarrassment made it impossible. So I always washed in the private shower. At least it had a bathtub, which was a relief.
Rattle.
I opened the bathroom door to fill the tub with water.
"Ah, Reina. Welcome back."
And found myself face-to-face with Jinny, already sitting inside the bathtub.