61. There Are No Poor Dungeons in the World (3)
61. There Are No Poor Dungeons in the World (3)
"...Th-this... hurts... so much..."
"No wonder the back of my head had been prickling."
I clutched my stomach and looked down at the rug—no, the cat beastkin sprawled on the floor.
What had her name been again? Surf? Sif? I vaguely remembered it was something like that. I would just call her Sif. Anyway, this bitch was a monster—no, an NPC—that randomly appeared while you were running dungeons in Survival Academy.
According to the lore, she was a dungeon robber and bandit who had a chance of appearing in front of a treasure room. If she won, she stole the treasure, making her thoroughly infamous.
On the other hand, defeating her several times triggered a quest. Once you cleared it, she became a merchant NPC who sold surprisingly rare items.
Whether that held true in reality, I had no idea, but that wasn't my problem.
My problem was that this bitch had tried to steal my treasure. I slowly pressed my foot down on the thief's wrist. When I put enough force into it to threaten a break, she let out an agonized groan. Something snapped beneath my foot. Just as I thought—she had a hidden weapon strapped to her wrist.
If I'd shaken her hand, she would have stabbed my palm with that poisoned hidden blade. It was an infamous event in the game, which was why I still remembered it.
"H-how... did you..."
"That's far too obvious. If you wanted to stab me in the back, you should've been more subtle. Collapse the dungeon entrance and threaten me, pile monsters into a mountain to intimidate me, or bring in a Medusa from somewhere and threaten to turn me to stone if I refused to deal—something like that."
"If I could do any of that, why would I need to stab you in the back?!"
Was that so? No, wasn't this the kind of setting where you had to go at least that far to backstab someone? Destroying the dungeon entrance had definitely been one of the ways this bitch tormented players.
Was this still the early game, so she had crap gear?
Not that it mattered to me. What mattered was how I could use her. There were more ways to use this bitch than I'd expected.
"Anyway, you tried to stab me in the back and got caught, so you've gotta pay the price."
At my words, Sif recoiled in terror and struggled. Before long, she started wheezing as if she could barely breathe and spat blood from the corner of her mouth. Had I hit her that hard? I had launched her with enough force to burst a goblin in one blow, but Sif was supposed to be fairly tough. She should have been able to take that much. It seemed I had done more damage than expected.
Even so, it was better to remove every possible means of resistance, just in case.
I ground my foot into Sif's wrist. Her agonized scream grated on my ears. I didn't want to do this either, but survival meant reducing as many variables as possible.
"Don't be dramatic."
"I'm not being dramatic! I-it... really... hurts..."
I stripped off Sif's backpack and coat. Once the layers covering her were gone, they revealed thin clothes and a slender frame. The pale skin showing between the fabric gleamed under the dungeon lights. I wasn't particularly interested. It wasn't that I lacked a sex drive, but the idea felt wrong. I wasn't desperate enough to try anything weird.
"My bag!"
I opened the backpack as though opening a treasure chest. It contained several things: a few changes of clothes, several pairs of underwear, a bottle that appeared to hold a potion, and a little money.
"You're poor."
"If I had money, there's no way I'd be going in and out of dungeons..."
She had a point. It'd be better to register as a mercenary, hunt low-grade monsters wandering through forests to build experience, and eventually switch jobs to bodyguard work. Few people would choose dungeon exploration instead. Raiding a dungeon was no easy matter when you never knew what danger awaited you and clearing it was difficult in itself.
I was forcing my way through only because of my experience with the game and ten years of surviving on the island. Under normal circumstances, anyone entering alone would be treated as having a death wish. That was probably why this bitch had hidden and followed me. After seeing me fight, she must have decided she couldn't beat me normally.
Even in the game, this bitch was less a strong fighter than someone who harassed players with assorted tools, stole their items, and ran. She was an NPC specialized in stealing loot. That was why players used to call her an X-ru bitch.
What was I supposed to do with her? Letting her go left me open to a backstab, but killing her felt unpleasant. Even if she was a rug, killing a sentient being still bothered me. Heretics were the exception. Those bastards were sentient in name only; they were just lunatics.
"P-please... spare me..."
"What's your name?"
"S-Sif..."
"Right, Sif. Give me a reason why I should let you live."
I already knew roughly what this bitch had been doing, but nothing else came to mind. Was this what ten years without human contact had done to me? Perhaps I needed to practice talking to people.
Talking to people was so hard.
"I-I'm a great pack mule!"
"What else?"
"I-I also know a l-lot about dungeons..."
"Nothing else?"
I toyed with the shovel blade as I looked down at Sif. Her eyes widened like a real cat's as she met my gaze. Was she trying to play cute just to live up to being a cat? I pressed the blade against her throat and said,
"Doesn't seem like there's any particular reason I should spare you."
"W-wait! I-in that case... m-my body, at least..."
"Forget it."
I swung the shovel into the side of Sif's head. The impact knocked her unconscious, and her body went limp. Once I confirmed that she was out, I wrapped her in her coat and slung her over my shoulder. Killing her and disposing of the evidence would have been easiest, but she had her uses. I intended to put her to work while I looted dungeons.
"The next dungeon... that place would be good..."
-------------------
"Wake up."
"..."
"Wake up."
When I nudged her side with my foot, Sif shrieked and bolted upright. The blow to her stomach still seemed to hurt.
Well, it had left a conspicuously large blue bruise.
"Eep! W-where is this?!"
"A dungeon."
"What?"
"A dungeon."
I tossed Sif, who had pulled herself up, a pouch containing jerky, then sat on a suitable rock and looked down at the small village visible below the hill. Goblins were bustling around the village, preparing for battle.
"Uh, um. Why a dungeon?"
"To loot the treasure."
"Uh, did... several days pass, by any chance..."
"Three hours."
"What kind of lunatic enters another dungeon only three hours later?! Do you have a death wish?!"
What's the big deal? In the game, there were guys who ran twenty dungeons in half a day.
Oh, right. That was a game, so perhaps it did not count. I ignored Sif's stare as though I were insane and studied the goblin village. Dropping vertically into the boss area had worked, but annoyingly, the final room was arranged in a way I couldn't clear easily by myself.
A goblin village surrounded the boss room, and the boss room itself held the hobgoblin and its subordinates. I'd originally planned to skip this dungeon and raid another one, but Sif's sudden appearance changed my plans. It was a dungeon populated only by goblins, yet the rewards were fairly generous.
If I looted this dungeon's treasure chest, it would cut down the time needed to complete Operation Gather Academy Tuition.
So I intended to make proper use of Sif and clear this dungeon.
"Anyway, you're going to help me clear this dungeon."
"D-don't tell me you're planning to toss a delicate beauty like me among goblins...?"
"Your mind is in the gutter."
I quietly picked up my shovel. Sif flinched and stared at it in terror. How had someone with so little nerve planned to make a living as a bandit?
Perhaps she had only recently begun robbing people. From the fragments I remembered of her Character Quest, she probably hadn't been entering dungeons for long. Something about supporting her family came to mind, but that wasn't my concern.
I had no reason to care about an enemy's circumstances.
"But! Goblins are those kinds of bastards! Those fuckers go into heat and charge the moment they see a woman, I'm telling you!"
"Ah, is that so?"
"Y-you're not really going to toss me in, right?"
"Works out nicely."
"I-I've got emergency savings hidden away! I'll give you all of it, just spare me! I don't wanna die! I've got little sisters at home too! If I die, my sisters starve to death, you get that?!"
"Then you should've lived honestly."
"But with just odd jobs... the money to feed my sisters..."
"That's not my problem."
It really wasn't. She wasn't someone close to me; she was the bitch who'd tried to rob me.
Surviving alone in this world was difficult enough. Why should I care about someone else's circumstances? I put a strip of jerky in my mouth and rose. It was time to move.
"If you perform your role as bait well, I'll make you an offer you can't refuse."
"And the right to refuse?"
"Look at your wrist."
"Th-this is..."
At my words, Sif stared at the heavy bracelet around her wrist. Startled, she reached for it. I spoke before she could touch it.
"It is a custom-made bracelet. If you run away or fail to do your job..."
I deliberately trailed off to heighten her fear.
Terror filled Sif's eyes. I gave her a deliberately sinister smile and said,
"If you do well, I'll take it off."
"I-I'll work hard!"
Like a fresh recruit reporting to a new unit, Sif answered in a crisp, energetic voice.
...I just had to make sure she didn't catch on to my bullshit until we cleared the dungeon.