Sewer Dungeon (D)

Rewards ought to be intuitive.

I didn't come up with that one. I picked it up somewhere, but it fit this so cleanly, and it stuck with me hard enough, that I went ahead and borrowed it.

Whatever the reward, however good it looks, it only holds value as a reward if the person receiving it can actually use it.

The same rule showed up all over Farming World, and plenty of users had said as much. Some quests undeniably paid out rewards that were worth something. Scroll the questions that went up on the community—"Is this any good?"—and most of the time the reward was good enough that even the veterans could tell at a glance. Judged on the value of the thing alone, there were plenty of cases where the old-timers themselves would start to drool. The map was enormous, and the quests were built in so many different ways, that anything appearing under the banner of a hidden quest was practically required to come with an extremely generous reward.

And still the newbies walked away unsatisfied.

Even when they'd only asked because they couldn't tell, looking at it themselves, whether the reward was good or not. What does it matter if everyone else says it's great? Tell them that yes, judged by its value, it really is a good reward, and the newbies come right back with this:

In Farming World, most resources can be turned into Farm through an NPC. There are NPCs who trade them for other resources, too. Not every resource could be converted, though. Some things have hardly any worth as they are and only get recognized once you process or refine them for sale, and most of the items that drop as rare rewards are exactly that sort—items even the veterans don't know how to process. You might have overheard that somebody worked one into an item with this or that ability, but the method is so complicated, and copying it devours so many resources and Farming stat points, that the only answer you can give is this:

Then it doesn't matter whether you're a newbie or a veteran. Take a reward as valuable as you like, and that quest has stopped being a quest worth the trouble.

Which is why I liked the D-rank sub-dungeon quest far too much. Isn't it obvious the instant you look at it?

Sewer Purification meant that once the sewers were cleansed, you could draw off the water running through them and cut channels around the house, and that water came in very handy for farming. The sewers were a place you had to visit, no exceptions. Originally it hadn't even been an F-rank dungeon—more of an instant dungeon you stepped into lightly—but sure enough, this one was D-rank, and it looked to have a fair bit of difficulty to it.

For starters, the floor dropped a long way down before there was anything to stand on, and in the stench something halfway between polluted water and mud rose to my ankles and held them in a clammy grip.

I could still stand it.

"If two quests like this get me an SSS+ Rank skill, I'd be a fucking idiot not to run them."

Of course, the Leap Slash I'd learned had cost 10 points all by itself, and learning anything better would take still more. Even so, that was something. There were a few more SSS+ Rank skills sitting at 10 points.

So what if the sewer held a full fifty-one Big Rats.

In an ordinary rat sewer, a Big Rat ought to have been the boss. Here a Big Rat Mom had spawned instead—a B- rank monstrosity so insane for a Level 0 Biome that you could spend a good long while cursing out whoever decided to shove a thing like that in here, and nobody would find it strange. A boss monster like that, and even then.

I wasn't afraid.

"I'm the bigger cheat."

Honestly, in my current state the only opening that could actually kill me was the lack of armor. If even that hole hadn't been there, I'd have been wandering D-rank dungeons like this with no tension at all, picking my nose. Not that I hadn't walked in with exactly that attitude anyway.

They'd handed me one SSS+ Rank ability right at the start, so Strength, Agility, and Endurance opened at S-rank. The base difficulty had been pushed up, and that was why the place was a D-rank dungeon—but was a thing like that really going to catch my eye? I couldn't even begin to measure how many ranks lay between us.

D+, C−, C, C+, B−, B, B+, A−, A, A+, S−.

The higher the rank climbs, the effort and the points it takes to raise a stat multiply several times over, and even a glance at that list shows a gap of ten ranks. The armor was just something I'd scrounged so I'd at least look equipped. Get bitten by a Big Rat a few times, smear on some Recovery Herb, and I'd probably be healing on my own in no time. And even if I dozed off and died with my nape in something's teeth, I had a one-time resurrection.

This was nothing if not a thoroughly pleasant dungeon dive. At least through the Level 0 Biome—maybe even Biomes 1 and 2—I could think of it as running a farm-management game on cheat mode, with hardly any tension to speak of.

The B- rank Big Rat Mom was no different.

"Ah. I should've filmed this."

Once I had a little slack, the regrets started coming to me. If I could bring things from Earth into the Rift Dimension, I could have brought a camera or a phone and recorded it. A live stream was out of the question, but film it and carry the footage back out, and I'd probably draw a lot of eyes. Hunters really do stream a lot when they go into dungeons. I don't know how that works—whether satellites reach inside a dungeon or what. Some places won't carry a live stream, but most of them get a decent signal, and people chat just fine.

I was going to have to show a properly attention-hungry side of myself as an SSS+ Rank hunter. Put this up as that first video, and it might have been my chance to burn my name into a whole lot of heads.

Fretting over what you don't have doesn't change a thing.

I took out one of the torches I'd brought, lit it, and pushed the dark back. The inside of the sewer was fairly wide, and it ran long in both directions. The Big Rats were the size they were; if they were going to come and go freely, it had to be about this broad.

Chitter-chitter-chitter—

Nasty sounds rang through the cave of a sewer, and far off, splash, splash, the sound of something stepping through reached me from ahead and from behind.

Ruru must have been frightened. She sat on my shoulder and clutched my clothes tight.

"What does an ancient fairy even do? You flinch at the sound of some worthless little rat bastards crawling around?"

"Eugh. But the rats are so big and gross, Master."

"Want to wait here, then? I'll go and come back on my own."

"Eek! No!"

Ruru shook her head for dear life and seized my collar with the determination never to let go. At least I wouldn't have to go around holding her in one hand. That was nice.

Torch out front, I moved ahead. A sewer was a sewer; being in the Rift Dimension didn't look like it would change much. The rats must have found the arrogant human who'd walked into their territory beneath them, because once I'd gone a certain distance they showed themselves ahead and behind and threatened me. About a dozen, just ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠counting the ones I could see.

I drew the wooden sword ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and brooded with a grave face.

"Cut from ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the front. Or cut from the back."

On the way to the sewer I'd practiced, roughly, so I could get a feel for Leap Slash, and by the time I arrived I understood a little of how it worked. To really apply it and use it well, I'd need more experiments, and I'd have to try it from every angle—but for cutting down this many rats, right now, it was already enough.

"Going."

I dropped low and kicked off the ground. I didn't need to coil every muscle and slam the earth with all my strength.

A skill is will, made manifest. Calling out a command is a crutch, something to stand in for a will that's still thin. So if my will is unmistakably a movement for the sake of using Leap Slash, the motion manifests cleanly even on a small push of force. What supplies the strength I don't have when the skill fires isn't my muscle or my movement. It's mana.

The first time I used Leap Slash, I thought a stretch of nearly a hundred meters simply tore past in a flash. Use it a few more times, though, and I found I could control it.

At SSS+ Rank, that word—instantly—held a tremendous meaning. Think about wanting to cross the maximum distance as fast as possible, and it truly blinks the distance, close enough to teleportation to call it that. It didn't take even one second. A tree standing in the way, and it simply jumped the distance anyway. So as I see it, it's fair to read that instantly as something in the family of teleportation.

I'll have to experiment a little more.

And if I concentrated on swinging the sword in the middle of the leap, the scenery still rushed past, but I could slow the time I myself perceived. Five swings during a leap—swing it that way, and I could do it without strain. I could even slow the time I felt, swing five times fast in a single spot, and deal damage as if five attacks left on one stroke of the sword. Swing only the blade I needed, once each, only where I needed it, and this became possible too.

Pap-pap-pap-pap—!

Big Rats standing in different places, so long as they were inside a hundred meters, lost their heads as if they'd all been cut in a single stroke.

It was time to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠hunt.