Insufficient Value
Drip... drip...
The luminous lamp lying on the floor was half-submerged in a pool of blood.
Filling the dome-shaped chamber was webbing, pure white.
And the 'prey' caught in that web.
Most of them were monster corpses.
The way creatures resembling giant ants and beetles hung there like ornaments suggested that even this underground space had an ecosystem of its own.
"……"
And among that 'prey',
one lump of meat was mixed in — one terribly familiar to Lian.
(I'm your first customer! You saved my life! Thank you so much!)
He'd thought it vaguely at the time. She was someone who had nearly died once already. She'd already made it past her greatest crisis.
With a potion and a luminous lamp, she would make it home safe and sound.
It wasn't as if a dungeon got any safer just because someone had crawled back from the brink of death — and yet Lian had believed no further danger would come to his customer.
He wasn't an idiot.
"Why are you here."
The woman who had chattered so brightly in front of the hapless merchant.
Hung upside down in the pure-white webbing, she looked quite at ease.
No need to fret over when she might die.
No being dragged into a dungeon against her will.
No body torn apart on a pane of glass.
No left arm ripped off and devoured by a monster.
She had slipped clean past even the promise that they would meet again alive,
and now she looked down at Lian with unfocused violet eyes.
Thud...
Lian dropped the luminous lamp clutched in his right hand.
The two lamps came to rest, touching, inside the pool of blood.
"Why."
He repeated the same question.
He half expected his customer to flash that bright grin and chatter away as before.
...No answer came back.
Of course not.
(『Insufficient Value』)
The dungeon merchant's first customer.
The 'jeweled necklace' handed over without a second thought had dragged Lian into this dungeon.
The potion and luminous lamp he had clumsily shared had failed to protect her life.
Insufficient value.
What value had any of their actions held?
If the customer had been fated to die anyway,
why did he have to be dragged down here and lose his left arm?
He couldn't know.
Skitter—.
A spider monster crawling along the ceiling took an interest in Lian.
It descended the wall on long legs and worked its fangs together.
Its body stood roughly as tall as Lian himself, and its eight eyeballs gleamed like jewels.
Apparently it had no intention of pouncing right away.
The spider monster studied the prey before it with care.
A human missing one arm.
The scent of something else clung to his body.
Prey already marked as claimed territory.
Meat it could not eat.
Skitter—.
As if losing interest in Lian, the spider monster turned its body and went back up to the ceiling.
Lian, clutching his left shoulder, stared blankly after it.
"……"
It hadn't attacked him.
Not because it thought of him as a companion, nor out of fear —
it simply carried an air of: I won't touch you, so let's each go our own way.
Was it the lingering scent of the Tall Woman,
or the dark grey particles mending the stump of his left arm,
or was there some other reason entirely?
Nothing was certain.
"Insufficient value..."
Lian — who couldn't even serve as a monster's meal — simply murmured the Tall Woman's words with a smile on his face.
Splash—.
He trampled through the pool of blood and pressed forward.
The spider monster was busy devouring another monster's corpse, its plump rump wiggling.
A spider enjoying a peaceful meal.
For whatever reason, it showed no interest whatsoever so long as no one struck first.
Then he wouldn't stand on ceremony.
Splash—.
Crossing the blood, he approached the customer's corpse hanging from one wall.
"...What was it we lacked?"
The customer's face, seen upside down, looked truly at peace.
Unfocused violet eyes, blood welling out of the hollow punched through her chest.
And,
even in death, gripped with all her strength... a single sword.
(I have a big sister, you see. I snuck this weapon out without telling her, so... I have to give it back. When I'm alive.)
He understood a little now.
That 'longsword' was the thing of true value to the woman.
Worthy of a life — unlike the jeweled necklace she had let slip from her hand so lightly.
All he had to do was take that and return to the Back Window.
Then he would live.
He, at least.
Click.
He picked up one of the lamps he had dropped on the floor.
The two lamps that had been touching drifted apart, leaving only one behind in the blood.
Fzzt...
The abandoned lamp flickered precariously, then went out completely.
Turning away from the darkened lamp, Lian lit the corpse with the glow curled in his right hand.
"No matter how I look at it, it's an ordinary sword. Is this really worth more than a jeweled necklace?"
Skitter—.
"What is this thing, that you can't let go of it even in death."
Tap, tap—.
He touched the longsword's hilt.
The spider monster did not move.
"Did the potion I gave you help at all?"
Tap, tap—.
This time he rapped his knuckles against the corpse's forehead.
Screech!
Sensing the vibration in the webbing, the spider monster whipped around.
It fixed a ferocious glare on Lian, who had dared touch its 'prey'.
So it reacted whenever the corpse was touched?
He saw a way to survive.
Leave the corpse alone, take only the 'longsword'.
Because to the dead, it was a thing of no value at all.
Lian reached out.
"……"
He froze.
The fingertips he extended stopped in midair,
as though snared in the webbing themselves, refusing to move.
"……"
All he had to do was take it,
and yet that worthless blade looked... far too heavy.
As if something invisible had fastened itself to the steel, something he couldn't bring himself to touch.
Was it really alright for him to take it?
"...The living have to live."
How long had he deliberated?
Lian put on a smile.
Take it.
Clack.
His left arm had not yet recovered.
So he jammed the lamp in his hand carelessly into his pocket,
strained his trembling arm out with everything he had... and seized the longsword's hilt.
Shhk—.
And then something strange happened.
The corpse, hanging upside down in the webbing yet gripping the longsword with all her strength —
the instant her fingers brushed the tips of Lian's —
her grip loosened of its own accord, and she let her longsword slip free of her embrace.
As though handing over her treasure.
As though wishing to pass it on.
Clank—.
He raised the sword.
The longsword the departed one had passed to him was heavy enough to make his fingertips tremble.
"……"
And so, Lian —
a merchant holding a sword for the very first time —
"...There's writing."
past the customer's shoulder, where the longsword had been covering it,
spied an 'inscription'.
Drip...
It was the same inscription he had seen on the cave wall earlier.
Something someone passing through before him had shyly scrawled there.
Drip... drip...
Oubliette.
A place forgotten by the world.
Drip... drip...
A place where those fading from memory leave their last trace.
[To the merchant, I wanted to do something for you. Anything at all.]
A last will. Words left behind.
The inscriptions scrawled down here were the lingering regrets of the departed.
The dungeon merchant only now understood that fact.
Drip... drip...
A droplet ran down his cheek.
Perhaps it was blood flowing from the corpse.
The drop that fell into the pool struck the broken luminous lamp,
washing its caked blood cleanly away.
"……"
Lian turned his back on the corpse.
On the ceiling, the spider monster.
Ahead, the passage he had come in through.
In his right hand, the heavy longsword.
"……"
Splash—.
He bent down.
He picked up the luminous lamp left behind in the pool of blood.
A thing that had already lost its light.
A piece of junk with its mana spent, worthless now.
Lian stuffed it carefully into his pocket.
The two lamps touched each other once more.
"Whew..."
He lifted his head against the weight in his chest.
On the ceiling, the spider monster was wiping its face with its forelegs.
No danger.
All he had to do was walk out through the passage.
"……"
And yet — why was it?
Lian, staring up at the ceiling, —
perhaps because the spider monster's habit of treating him like a nobody rubbed him the wrong way —
"...Hey."
muttered with a cold face.
The corner of his mouth trembled, then curled downward.
Skitter?
"Why are your eyes open like that."
He wiped off the commercial smile.
Because this one was not a customer.
Shing—.
Clumsily drawing the sword from its scabbard,
he cut through the webbing that bound the customer's corpse.
Shraaaang!!
Robbed of its prey, the monster leapt down at Lian's head.
…….
…….
……Splash!
He didn't like the way it looked down at him.
BOOM—!
Crushed beneath the giant spider, Lian twisted his body with all his might.
Sticky webbing clung to his limbs, strangling his movements.
Crunch! Shlkk!
He didn't like the sticky webbing, either.
Impaled through the abdomen on sharp forelegs, Lian vomited blood.
"Gkkh...! Close your eyes, you bastard!!"
He didn't like that he had no left arm while this thing got eight legs all to itself.
Crunch!
Thick fangs bit into the back of his neck and tore.
Lian jabbed the longsword's hilt straight into one of the spider's eyes.
"Why! Do! I! Have! To! Be! Doing! This! Here!"
Misdirected venting.
Crunch-scrape!
A leg pierced by a spider's leg was wrenched away from the thigh.
It was fine. He wouldn't die.
He was a human not even worth killing.
"AAARGH!!"
Pain passes, if you endure it.
"Don't rip off my leg! I was gonna buy more lamps with this!"
Crack! Crack!
Dark grey particles seeping from the wound locked his dangling neck back into place.
Lian ground the spider's glaring eyeball between his teeth.
Splatter...
Blood pooled on the floor.
Human entrails and blood rained down onto it.
It could hardly be called a fight... just a human being torn apart by a monster.
And this flailing held no meaning, no value whatsoever —
and yet Lian chose to think of it positively.
When had his life ever been worth anything?
"Close your eyes! Won't you close them?!"
He simply didn't like the spider in front of him. That was all.
Lian believed that was the only reason he had thrown himself at the monster.
…….
『…….』
How much time had passed?
The spot where he had first set foot in this place... before the Back Window, the Tall Woman stood guard in silence.
That thing, which had been staring blankly at the passage Lian had vanished down,
turned its attention to a faint noise drifting out of the darkness.
Screech...!
The sound of a terrified monster fleeing down a side passage.
"Where do you think you're going...! You're not dead yet!!"
Screech... screech...!
"Don't you leave me behind!!"
Someone's deranged bellowing.
Then the monster's skittering wails rapidly faded into the distance.
Silence again.
The sound of someone giving chase and toppling into a puddle with a splash!
Wretched retching echoed out, pitifully thin.
『…….』
The Tall Woman waited quietly.
About ten more minutes slipped by.
Shuffle... shuffle...
From a darkness where nothing at all could be heard,
footsteps as faint as a candle's last breath began to drift closer.
Shuffle... shuffle...
Heavy footsteps. A dragging sound.
Falling now and then, catching his breath, rising again.
Flicker.
At last, a dim glow leaked from the far end of the passage —
"Haa...! Haah......! Worthless little...!"
Lian emerged, gripping the blood-soaked longsword in his right hand.
Splatter...
Entrails spilled from his mangled abdomen.
He had forced the leg the spider monster had ripped off back into place and staggered the whole way here.
Not a single unbroken patch of skin on his body.
And still, he had not let go of the longsword he'd been given, and the two lamps crammed in by force bulged in his pocket.
Grrk... grrk...
And finally, dangling from the webbing knotted around his waist,
a certain woman's body dragged along the ground behind him.
Her eyes, as if sleeping peacefully, were gently closed.
"Haah...! Haah...!"
The light spilling from the Back Window lit the road ahead of Lian.
The trail of blood following his footprints glinted like red jewels.
Jewel-like drops of blood, huh...
That expensive-looking jeweled necklace — there were this many of them now.
『…….』
The Tall Woman barred Lian's path.
A long shadow fell over him, but Lian glared up at it, spitting blood.
...Heh.
And he put on his commercial smile.
Because it was a customer.
"How much for this one?"
He raised the longsword with trembling hands.
The price of a life.
It was secondhand goods stained with blood — had the value gone down?
『…….』
Shhk—.
As if there were no need to set a price at all,
the Tall Woman bowed its head and stepped aside.
So a bloodstained blade was worth more than jewels.
Truly a monster that ate people's arms.
"Hmph."
Lian gave a light snort and approached the window.
The place he had to return to.
『Meat.』
Then, the Tall Woman pointed one long finger at the corpse.
Did it want to eat her?
Fwoosh!
Lian swung his sword at it.
The blade, swung wildly and without aim, only grazed the Tall Woman's wrist — but the outstretched hand drew back as if cowed.
Bubbling...
Dark grey particles surged from the Tall Woman's wound.
The severed skin fused back together in an instant, the healing complete.
Even its regeneration was monstrous.
But he could wound it normally, at least. Good to know.
"It's not for sale."
Rustle—.
At Lian's resolute voice, the Tall Woman took a step back.
Then it stretched out its long arms and built a stair before the window.
Did it want him to step on its palms?
Lian looked back at the body he had dragged all this way.
"……"
It wasn't for sale.
Then why on earth had he brought it?
It was heavy, and nothing but a hindrance.
Nothing here but things he couldn't understand.
"...Miss Longlegs, you just watch yourself."
『…….』
"Don't even think about returns or refunds."
Having barked his ultimatum at the Tall Woman, Lian turned around, gathered up the longsword and one corpse,
and tried to step up onto the monster's palm... only to pitch forward, strength failing him at last.
Only after he clung to the window frame, whimpering for a while — while the Tall Woman quietly looked on — did it lift both the corpse and Lian upward,
and only then was he able to slip out through the window, into the flood of bright light.
"Haa..."
CRASH!
He was back at the shop.
Lian keeled over, his forehead striking the floor beside the counter.
Entrails and blood fouled the wooden floor.
The fishy sting of iron...
And yet warm air brushed against his cheek.
"Ah. The shop's a write-off."
Over his blood-soaked body,
onto Lian's smiling face,
the light of the shop settled, soft as a feather.