9. Let's Do It Ourselves
"Orabeoni, welcome back!"
"Yeah. Nothing strange happen while I was out?"
"Nope. Go wash your hands—dinner's ready."
"Meat."
When I got home after finishing my day's work, Yellow, Black, and White had already laid out the meal. The round trip took a while, but having a place to come back to put my heart at ease. More than anything, I loved the warmth that washed over me the moment I opened the front door.
All three of them were naturally diligent, so the house was always spotless and we never once ran out of water. Outside, on the other hand, they had woven grass together until the place looked like a forward outpost bunker, perfectly camouflaged. Call it an instinct for combat, maybe—they were thorough.
"How's the taste? We made it together."
Black asked. When I glanced over at White, she was fidgeting nervously. I gave a light nod, and she broke into a shy smile. Black looked satisfied too.
"Your cooking skill's improving fast. The seasoning on the meat has real depth, and the sous-vide style is just right."
"I procured the meat."
Yellow puffed her cheeks out proudly and bragged about her accomplishments. Her swordsmanship improved by the day, and she'd long since surpassed anything I could teach her.
"Would it be all right if we studied again after dinner tonight?"
"Ah, if it's no trouble, may I join too?"
We'd set aside time in the evenings for Black and White. They wanted to read more books, so I was teaching them their letters.
Four seasons had turned since I'd started living with the three of them—Yellow, Black, and White. All of them must have been starved of nutrition during their days as slaves. Since they were still small back then, they were now shooting up like weeds.
All the while, I'd kept up my steady work as a dungeon merchant. The income was far better than what I'd made as an adventurer, and I was genuinely considering switching over to it full-time. Thanks to brisk trading, my merchant job level would probably hit 3 soon—and since the slave merchant skills were linked and had unlocked as well, I could now perform contract terminations.
There was, however, an incident.
At some point, all three of them—Yellow, Black, and White—had secretly registered with the guild as adventurers and were taking on jobs behind my back.
It was an extremely dangerous thing to do, so I scolded them thoroughly at first. But when I actually checked their abilities, it turned out they'd already climbed to a higher level of mastery than my own.
They were C-rank adventurers now, running around resolving every request that came their way.
Well, I mean, look at who they are.
Who exactly would be teaching whom here?
Instead, I gave each of them an artifact so they could call for me in an emergency.
"That's it for today. Anything you're curious about?"
"There are still way too many letters I don't know. At this rate, when will I ever be able to read this book?"
Black grumbled and showed me a thick old tome—where she'd dug it up, I had no idea. To me, its contents were completely unreadable; it was an advanced grimoire.
"Hmm, if it's a grimoire, the Magic Tower would be the place to go."
"Are there a lot of people good at magic at the Magic Tower?"
"Loads. All the Grand Sorcerers are there."
"Mmm."
Black pushed back her chair and rose from her seat.
"I'm going to stop here and wash up. Yuri, want to come in with me?"
"Ah, yes. B-but before that…."
White reached behind the notebook she'd been studying from, pulled out a crumpled sheet of paper, and handed it to me.
"What's this?"
"I-I tried writing you a letter, Orabeoni…. Did it upset you?"
"No, not at all. I'll read it now."
Once the children had grown a little, I'd stopped bathing them directly like I used to. The letter White handed me was covered in crooked, wobbly handwriting, filled with words of thanks.
I couldn't help but smile.
I had no idea what exactly White was thankful for, but it was proof, at least, that she held no hostility or resentment toward me.
In the beginning, I'd taken them in half out of fear and half out of pity—but now, the satisfaction of having someone waiting for me at a place to come home to was far, far greater.
Of course, that didn't mean I could drag these three around with me forever. Compared to a mere slave merchant like me, they were children brimming with limitless potential.
If history flowed back onto its original course and they ultimately became the Demon King's army someday, it would be a little sad—but it was also true that I had no power to change that.
So I do what I can.
First things first: freeing these three from slavery comes before everything else.
"Full company—HALT!"
At the knight commander's barked order, the soldiers stopped in perfect unison.
Deep in dense forest, before them loomed a dungeon entrance like the ruins of some colossal monument, its black maw gaping wide as if to welcome its victims.
"What's going on?"
"That banner… it's the Imperial Capital Knights?"
"What business could they have all the way out in the boonies?"
The adventurers camped near the dungeon stirred at the sight of them.
The knight commander unrolled a tightly wound parchment and confirmed its contents.
"This is the place, no mistake."
"Correct, sir. According to the report, it was a dungeon surveyed down to the fifth floor."
"And now a passage leading to the sixth floor has appeared. Is that it?"
At the word sixth floor, an uneasy tension began to ripple through the adventurers as well.
"You're telling me this dungeon was never just five floors?"
"We've been exploring a place this dangerous this whole time? Dear gods."
Elend was a region where relatively inexperienced adventurers tended to gather. One rookie who couldn't make sense of the situation turned to a veteran party member with a question.
"But what's the big deal about a sixth floor?"
"You've tagged along this far without even knowing basic dungeon lore? Most dungeons end at five floors. At that scale, B-rank adventurers can clear them just fine."
"From the sixth floor down, the mana gets so dense that monsters grow drastically stronger. That's when you need the Imperial Capital Knights or A-rank and above adventurers, like we have now."
"Normally they measure a dungeon's depth with an artifact right after it's discovered. Looks like there was an error this time."
The knight commander folded up the orders and took command of his troops.
"Effective immediately, the main force advances into the dungeon's sixth floor! Ready for combat!"
A resounding war cry echoed through the forest. Thirty-odd knights in high-grade armor fell into formation and began marching into the belly of the pitch-black monstrosity.
"Haah!"
KA-BOOM!
With a satisfying crash, great golems shattered and burst apart. White shook out her over-swung fist and let out a pleasant breath.
"Feels good. Still, don't push yourself too hard, Yuri."
Black said as she deftly traced out a magic circle.
"Thank you for worrying, but this style seems to suit me best of all."
"Monk, was it?"
"Yes. The books from the East say that true healing means removing the wound at its very source. Now that I think about it, isn't that exactly right?"
"Fair point."
Yellow affirmed it from the vanguard, swinging her sword.
Around Elend, where beginner adventurers tended to gather, there were no longer any monsters that could stand against the three of them. It had been a long while since they'd limited themselves to dungeon exploration alone.
The most convenient thing about dungeons was that the deeper you descended, the stronger the monsters became—which meant no wasted effort on searching.
"There's the next staircase."
"What floor are we on now?"
"Ten."
"A milestone number. Let's hurry."
"You want to go down? It's getting late, and Orabeoni always tells us dungeons are dangerous and to be careful."
White was frightened, but Black and Yellow were drunk on the thrill of adventure.
"So what? Nothing's gone wrong so far, has it? Worst case, we just take a quick look and head back."
"Agreed. Curious."
Seeing the two of them with their eyes sparkling, White finally fell in behind.
The three of them descended toward the tenth floor.
Up until now, every dungeon had followed the same layout: a maze of winding, snaking passages, with one staircase up and one staircase down hidden somewhere along the way.
They had noticed that each floor grew progressively shorter as they went deeper, hinting that the end was drawing near—but with their limited experience, none of them had anticipated what that would mean.
Compared to the first and second floors, each sprawling wider than a decent academy training ground, the ninth floor had required less than a hundred meters of walking.
And the tenth floor—
"This is it?"
A single room. That was all there was.
"We're leaving."
Yellow, with the sharpest instincts of the three, felt an ominous prickle of dread and immediately turned to go.
But—
"—Hk."
A short gasp of pure terror escaped White before she could stop it.
The staircase they'd descended.
The only exit to the surface—already, a monstrous horror had clogged it, baring sharp fangs in a posture that declared it would not let its prey escape.
"Yuri!"
Black reacted instantly, hurling out a spell. In the blink of an eye, the monster's fangs closed the distance, snapping at Yuri's arm to tear it away.
Yuri responded on raw animal instinct, but the creature was faster. Flesh and fresh blood went spinning through the air.
FWOOSH!
The monster casually shook off Black's detonated flames. And as the haze cleared, all three of them saw what it truly was.
A body like a colossal lion, two mouths packed tight with a wolf's teeth—and where hair and mane should have been, a dense writhing mass of serpents, every single one dripping with deadly venom.
"A Chimera…!"
A disaster-class monster, the kind of which a single appearance could wipe out an entire city overnight.
Black remembered reading about it, clear as day, in the books she'd studied while learning her letters.
"Yuri!"
Yellow stepped in front of her and knocked away the monster's claws with her sword. Black, who had fallen into seamless rhythm with them all this time, immediately moved into support.
"Yuri, you okay?"
"Hah… hnn…. I can still manage first aid. Tia… that monster, it's really strong, isn't it…?"
Black nodded slowly. Then she drew a necklace from her bodice and clutched it tight.
The expensive artifact Wicker had given them, telling them to contact him the moment anything went wrong.
It's my fault Yuri's in danger. We have to get out of here, now!
But White stopped Black's hand. White shook her head.
"Orabeoni would worry himself sick."
"But—"
CHAENG!
Yellow, trading blows with the Chimera, chimed in.
"Let's take it on ourselves."
Something kindled in her eyes.
"We've taken more than enough from that old man."
Black nodded too.
The three of them gripped their weapons, hard.