A short while after slaughtering those three goblins, I discovered a group of four.
It was the worst possible combination: one Thief, one Warrior, and two Swordmen. Before I had leveled up, the presence of two Swordmen would have made them opponents I’d never dream of challenging.
But this time, I decided to take them on.
If I fled from every monster I encountered, my leveling efficiency would never improve. Unless I could easily dispatch every monster on this floor, my time-to-experience ratio would remain abysmal.
I activated Fighting Spirit and Berserk before charging into the pack.
First, I kicked the Warrior, sent him flying, and took the tank out of commission. In the opening that created, I buried the annoying, skittish Thief with a single strike.
The Swordmen lunged at me from the rear and side simultaneously. If I had committed to attacking one of them right then, I would have taken a hit from the other. Instead, I rolled across the ground, putting some distance between myself and the blades.
The Warrior was already picking himself up, trying to return to the fray. I had to hurry.
I lunged at the closer Swordman. He managed to guard my first strike with his blade, but I leaned in and shoved, breaking his stance. Since our Strength stats were roughly twofold apart, his posture collapsed completely, leaving his torso wide open.
I swung my sword and slaughtered him.
Just as the second Swordman swung at me, the Warrior circled around toward my back. Disliking the idea of being sandwiched, I parried the Swordman’s strike and retreated.
From there, it became mere routine.
First, I rushed the Warrior and slammed my sword against his shield to blow him back. While he was reeling, I finished the Swordman in two strikes. There was no way I would struggle against a lone Warrior. I attacked to break his guard, then slammed my sword down on the return stroke to end it.
I had consumed 6 HP.
It seemed more than ten seconds had passed by the time I finished the four of them. Even so, I was now able to defeat a pack of four without taking a single scratch.
The experience points gained from that one battle were 540. Wonderful!
"This is starting to get fuuuuuun!! —Oh, hello."
Finally, it felt like I could engage in proper leveling. Nothing could make me happier. I spotted another explorer party peeking around a corner, so I offered a greeting. I felt bad for being so noisy. The explorers looked away, gave a stiff nod, and then retreated back the way they had come.
I fought the goblins about two more times after that. Once my HP reached the danger zone, I decided to call it a day.
●◯●
March 24th.
Naturally, I returned to the Shinjuku Dungeon today as well.
I moved immediately to Floor 3 and began the hunt. I didn't feel the same surging murderous intent toward the Goblins as I had before. Now that I could reliably defeat even packs of four, they weren't enemies—they were just experience points.
Still, due to the HP drain from Fighting Spirit, I had to stick to a cycle: one hour of exploring followed by one hour of rest.
I averaged roughly six encounters per hour. After each active block, I would head back to the stairs to rest. However, since I wasn't taking any physical damage and was taking more than enough breaks, I didn't hit my physical limit around 4:00 PM like I used to.
I explored until about 6:00 PM, then returned to Floor 1 to recover my HP for an hour, finally exiting the Japan Explorer Association a bit after 7:30 PM.
The items I sold to the Association that day were all magic stones. The count was equal to the number of monsters I defeated:
Level 1 Slime x 2 = 400 yen Level 1 Goblin x 3 = 1,500 yen Level 2 Slime x 2 = 600 yen Level 3 Slime x 1 = 400 yen Level 2 Goblin x 2 = 1,500 yen Level 3 Goblin x 2 = 2,000 yen Level 4 Thief x 20 = 50,000 yen Level 4 Warrior x 12 = 45,000 yen Level 4 Swordman x 8 = 30,000 yen Level 5 Thief x 12 = 36,000 yen Level 5 Warrior x 8 = 36,000 yen Level 5 Swordman x 4 = 18,000 yen
From the total of 221,400 yen, after withholding taxes, my take-home pay for the day was 198,796 yen.
...This is insane.
Aren't explorers making way too much money?
I'm only on Floor 3. It's truly a mystery why people on the internet claim you can't earn a living doing this. I wonder why. Maybe I'll try asking on the Explorer Bulletin Board sometime.
Oh, and as for why all the items I sold were magic stones—it wasn't because nothing else dropped. Other things dropped regularly: "Goblin Thief's Knife," "Goblin Warrior's one-handed sword," "Goblin Warrior's round shield," and "Goblin Swordman's longsword."
These can be recycled into metallic materials, but since they're inferior iron products, the buyback price is dirt cheap. They're also too poor as weapons or armor to be usable; they'd likely break mid-combat.
In other words, they were even worse trash drops than clubs or loincloths. For the record, everything except the knives and shields sells for more than a loincloth, but they're just so heavy.
At one point, researchers looked into whether there was any use for them, but unlike clubs and loincloths—which are at least biological materials—the conclusion was that they were just junk iron. Therefore, because they were heavy, bulky, and cheap, no explorer ever picked them up. Of course, I threw them away on the spot, too.
As for my level, I didn't level up today. Even so, I didn't feel the frustration I had before. My efficiency was far better than it had ever been.
[Level] 10 | Experience Points until next level: 2,380
I earned over 7,000 experience points today alone. That's nearly three times the experience points I got when I was Level 9. At this pace, I should be able to level up tomorrow.
●◯●
March 25th.
Needless to say, I went back to the Shinjuku Dungeon today.
By now, I had the path to Floor 3 completely memorized. I headed for the stairs via the shortest route while running lightly; perhaps because my Agility stat exceeded 30, it only took me about an hour to reach the floor.
I began hunting immediately. During the morning, I finally leveled up.
"Nggibodyiiiiii!!"
I shouted at the top of my lungs while leaning back extravagantly, as per usual.
It didn't quite reach the heights of that very first level-up, but I was certain of it nonetheless: the pleasure of leveling up at Level 10 and above was even more intense than it had been before. Perhaps it was because of the increase in Status Points I received.
If I raise my level even more, what's going to happen to me...?
With my heart pounding from a mix of anticipation and anxiety, I continued hunting until my HP reached the danger zone, at which point I decided to take an early lunch break.
I returned to the stairs and sat down. I washed down ten onigiri and two pastries from the convenience store with some tea.
...Actually, I've been getting unusually hungry ever since I became an explorer. I suppose I can just chalk it up to all the daily activity.
Anyway.
After finishing my lunch, I took out my smartphone to kill time until my HP recovered. I opened Yo!Tube and decided to browse through some random short videos.
And then—a few minutes after I started scrolling—I encountered it.
I didn't know whose channel it was, but the video showed someone playing an insanely difficult rhythm game without a single mistake. The notes hit perfectly in time with the music in a way that was satisfying to watch. Eventually, the player finished with a perfect run, and the word "PERFECT!!" appeared in large letters on the screen—and then, in the next instant:
"Nggibodyiiiiii!!"
The screen suddenly cut away to a young man dressed like an explorer. He was shouting something while doing an Ina Bauer with a face that should never be shown to the public.
"...Huh?"
What is this?
I was stunned, bewildered by the sight of a young man who looked exactly like me.
Doubtfully, I scrolled to the next video. Shortly after, I hit a clip of a maternal Big Sister VTuber doing an ASMR stream. The woman, with a sweet and gentle voice, was counting down in a whispering, oddly erotic tone.
"Five, four, three, two, one, zero—"
"Nggibodyiiiiii!!"
"...Huh?"
Again? What? What's happening...?
I kept scrolling through the videos. My bewilderment deepened with every strange short that appeared.
A foreign guy holding a basketball facing away from a hoop threw the ball behind him, and the moment it went in:
"Nggibodyiiiiii!!"
Someone flicked a playing card with their finger, and the moment it sliced a cucumber in half:
"Nggibodyiiiiii!!"
The moment a team won in an FPS:
"Nggibodyiiiiii!!"
The moment a game streamer successfully defeated a hidden boss in a challenge run:
"Nggibodyiiiiii!!"
For some reason, footage of a young man being called "Inabauer Bro" in the comments was being played over and over again across a wide variety of videos.
...It seemed that while I had been a bit too absorbed in the dungeon, a new internet meme had been born.
Wait, that's totally me.
"Y-You've gotta be kidding me...!"
I trembled with rage. My appearance, caught on Bourgeois Guy's stream, was spreading with terrifying momentum as a versatile MAD material.
I don't mind making people laugh, but I absolutely hate being laughed at...!
I sent a message to Bourgeois Guy—or rather, Survivor Tachikawa-san—on LUINE. We had exchanged contact info on the day of the interview.
[It seems a video of me is spreading as MAD material (angry face). Please take responsibility and do something about this (angry face).]
The reply came back immediately.
[I am truly sorry. Samejima-san, your anger is perfectly justified. However, now that it has spread across the internet like this, I hope you can understand that it is simply beyond my control. I humbly ask for your understanding m(_ _)m]
I immediately sent a message back.
[Lawsuit lawsuit lawsuit lawsuit lawsuit lawsuit lawsuit lawsuit lawsuit lawsuit lawsuit lawsuit lawsuit lawsuit lawsuit lawsuit death penalty death penalty lawsuit lawsuit lawsuit lawsuit lawsuit lawsuit lawsuit lawsuit death penalty!!!]
No reply. The bastard was leaving me on read.
Now, what should I do...?
That said, I knew without even thinking about it that suing every third party who used footage of me without permission was realistically impossible. There were simply too many of them. As much as it frustrated me, I had no choice but to take it lying down.
...Well, truth be told, I wasn't actually that angry. I was sure Tachikawa-san didn't intend for this to happen. It was just a force of nature as far as he was concerned.
Besides, I was wearing a helmet in the footage, it was dim inside Floor 1, and my expression was... like that. There was no way anyone would recognize me as the "Inabauer Bro" while I was walking around town.
I decided to forgive him.
[Just kidding ♡ I'm not actually that mad (^-^)]
Ping!
[Wait, that sudden change in attitude is way too scary... but thank you, thank you so much!!]