I stepped into the prefab building to find a row of service counters that were mostly deserted. It seemed the majority of explorers were still deep inside the dungeon, as only a few people were scattered across the waiting area.
We started by checking the directory posted near the entrance. The buyback counter was listed as Counter 7, tucked away at the far right end of the hall. We headed over and took our queue numbers from the ticket machine—numbers 5, 6, and 7. It appeared that very few people had concluded their expeditions for the day.
"Customer with ticket number five, please come to the buyback window."
I had barely set my gear down on a waiting chair when my number was called. With so few people around, there was no wait time at all. I grabbed the cloth bag containing the skill scroll and walked up to the counter.
"Thank you for waiting," the clerk said. "How can I help you today?"
"I'd like to sell a drop item."
"Certainly. First, please present your Explorer Card."
"Here you go."
Following the standard procedure, I handed my card to the woman. She slid it through a card reader.
"Next, please look at the red light on this camera."
She pointed to a lens mounted on the opposite side of the ticket machine. I knew the cards had IC chips, but I hadn't heard anything about them utilizing facial recognition. I turned toward the camera and held still for a few seconds.
"Thank you. Identity verification is complete. May I see the item intended for buyback?"
I pulled the skill scroll from the bag and placed it on the counter.
The clerk’s breath hitched, and her eyes widened slightly. As I suspected, it was rare for a skill scroll to be brought in for sale.
"This is... a skill scroll, isn't it?"
"Yeah. Just lucky, I guess."
"I see... I apologize, but the appraisal process for magic items requires a verification period. Since we cannot calculate a valuation on the spot, the Association will need to take custody of the item and notify you of the appraised value at a later date. Would that be acceptable?"
Well, I figured it would come to that.
But how did they verify it? I’d heard that once a skill scroll was opened, it granted the skill to the user and then turned into useless junk.
I decided to press her on it.
"That’s fine, but is it safe? I heard that once a skill scroll is opened, it becomes trash. I’d be in a tough spot if it’s ruined before I actually get paid for it."
"Please rest assured. While they are rare, the Association headquarters possesses magic items specifically for identifying other magic items."
"Magic items... for appraisal?"
"Yes. They are called Appraisal Glasses, magic items imbued with the appraisal skill. The Dungeon Association has secured a very small number of them. However, we currently lack the inventory to keep up with the volume of items arriving from across the country, which is why the process takes time."
I see. So besides the actual appraisal skill, there were items that provided the same function. I wondered if elite Self-Defense Forces teams had secured them from the deeper floors.
"The appraisal should be finished in about a week, and the valuation documents will be sent to you by mail. Once they arrive, please bring your custody receipt and the notification to your nearest Association branch to complete the buyback."
"A week, huh..."
To be honest, that felt like a long time. But there was no point in being difficult about it.
"Understood. I'll leave it in your hands."
"Yes, we will handle it. Now, these are the documents regarding the custody of the skill scroll. Please review the contents and sign at the bottom."
I took the papers from her... and found the text was incredibly tiny. Seriously, couldn't they use a larger font?
Grimacing at the microscopic print, I skimmed through the document. To summarize, it detailed the handling of magic items deemed "dangerous goods." It stated that if the appraisal determined an item was hazardous, the Association would dispose of it, and the explorer agreed to waive all rights to the find.
Wait a second. If an explorer didn't have the appraisal skill or an appraisal item of their own, wouldn't this allow the Association—or rather, the government—to just claim an item was dangerous and confiscate it for their own benefit? Since the average explorer had no way of knowing what the item actually was, they wouldn't be able to argue. They’d just have to comply... Hey, is this really okay?
"Excuse me, does this regulation apply to skill scrolls as well?"
"Yes. It appears there are some skills with high criminal potential, so the regulations mandate their disposal. In such an event, you will be notified by mail after the disposal is complete."
"I see..."
Her response was immediate and rehearsed. That meant this specific script had been circulated throughout the entire Association. It wouldn't be an issue if the system was operated fairly, but there would always be people looking to exploit these kinds of rules.
...Wait, hold on. Could this be a trap to flush out people who have the appraisal skill? Just as she said, appraisal items were scarce. Securing personnel who had used a scroll to gain the skill for themselves would be a high priority. Someone who protested the "dangerous goods" disposal would almost certainly be someone who knew exactly what the item was—an appraisal skill holder.
Considering the Association and the government were the type to set traps for minors buying weapons, it seemed like a distinct possibility.
Feeling a heavy sense of exhaustion at the theory, I signed the document.
"Verified. Please wait a moment while I issue the custody receipt."
After checking my signature, the clerk printed the receipt and prepared a storage box. She made a point of placing the scroll into the box right in front of me, sealed it with tamper-evident tape, and affixed a barcode sticker.
"Here is your custody receipt. You will need this to finalize the sale, so please keep it safe. Thank you for coming in today."
"Thank you."
I gave her a slight nod and stepped away from the window.
The procedure itself had been simple, yet I felt completely drained.
Once we had all finished our buyback procedures, we stepped out of the building and stretched.
Yuji’s copper ore had fetched a better price than expected—around 1,400 yen. At the very least, it covered his train fare. Hiiragi-san’s Core Crystal, on the other hand, only brought in about 500 yen.
"At this rate, it’s going to be hard to earn more than ten thousand yen in a day," Yuji remarked.
"Tell me about it. There are too many people competing, so the encounter rate is abysmal. And even when you do find a monster, the drop items don't sell for much."
"Unless you're lucky enough to find a magic item, you’re basically in the red, even though you’re risking your life," Hiiragi-san added.
Because so many explorers of similar levels were concentrated in the same area, the current economic balance of dungeon diving was broken. Ideally, explorers would be spread out across the floors. That would prevent the over-competition for monsters and allow for a stable income.
"Do you think the situation will get any better?" I asked.
"Doubt it," Yuji said. "The number of people becoming explorers and diving into the dungeon is only going to keep growing."
"He's right," Hiiragi-san agreed. "If anything, it's only going to get worse."
The mistake likely lay in not setting a capacity limit for the 1st Special Underground Structure Armed Exploration Permit Exam. If they had used the exam to throttle the number of people entering at once, they could have managed the level distribution more effectively.
"At this rate, it won't be long before trouble breaks out between the veterans and the newcomers," I noted.
"I agree," Hiiragi-san said. "We’re students, so this is just a hobby for us. But for people trying to make a living, the influx of casual explorers is a life-or-death issue. Everyone here has physical abilities far beyond a normal human. If a fight ever broke out between explorers..."
A shade of pale washed over Hiiragi-san’s face as she likely pictured the scene.
I doubted explorers who spent their time fighting monsters would know how to pull their punches against a person. A human can die from a single poorly placed blow, and that was without considering the enhanced strength that came with a level up.
"We just have to hope people aren't that stupid," Yuji muttered.
"Yeah. Let's hope."
As Yuji said, hoping for the best was all we could do. But humans were prone to acting on emotion without thinking. I could only pray I wouldn't see news reports of fatal brawls in the near future.
With a heavy sigh, we moved to the shuttle bus stop. The next bus wasn't due for another twenty minutes. We took our seats on the benches provided to wait. Leaning back and watching the clouds drift across the blue sky, I let out a soft murmur.
"...Looking up like this, it finally feels like it's over."
"Yeah," Yuji said. "We got some real experience under our belts, and we figured out where we’re falling short."
"That's true," Hiiragi-san added. "Though thanks to you, Kokonoe-kun, that was a highly irregular introduction to combat, don't you think?"
I glanced at them. "Well, it might have been unconventional, but didn't we gain the most important experience of all?"
"What do you mean?"
"The experience of killing a monster with your own hands. We got to do it safely. I only realized it once we were in there, but even though our stats were way higher than the monsters', our mental state was another story. I don't think we could have kept going deeper into the dungeon if we had to keep killing like that."
"...You're right. That's definitely true," Hiiragi-san admitted.
"Yeah... Daiki's right," Yuji muttered. "Even just landing that one blow was..."
Recalling the moments of the kill, we all went quiet, our expressions turning somber.
A level up didn't make you mentally stronger. Realizing that was our greatest takeaway. Dungeon diving meant a life of continuous killing. Without mental fortitude, we wouldn't survive the lower floors.
The fact that the monsters today looked like dogs and rabbits—familiar, living things—made the act of killing them much harder to stomach. Slimes were just amorphous blobs of jelly, so the psychological impact of destroying them was minimal. But the creatures we fought today spilled an immense amount of blood.
And that alone was enough to shake us.
"...I have a proposal," I said. "For a while, can we stick to this approach? Enter the dungeon for a bit, fight a monster, and then head home. I don't think we're ready to push deep into the dungeon in our current state."
"I'm on board with that," Yuji said. "I feel like pushing our luck right now would be a mistake."
"I agree as well, but..." Hiiragi-san trailed off.
"Is there something wrong?"
"The shop."
Ah, right. Hiiragi-san was diving to secure ingredients for the ramen shop her father owned. Her goal was the 10th floor, where orcs appeared.
But could a new recipe really be developed that quickly?
"My father has already started making me taste prototypes of ramen made with dungeon ingredients. At this rate, he’ll be putting the finished product on the menu soon. It's the kind of thing that will put us in the red every time we sell a bowl..."
Apparently, he could. Hiiragi-san’s father was clearly a master of his craft, though I had my reservations about him being the reason his daughter was risking her life in a dungeon.
Hiiragi-san let out a long sigh before meeting our eyes.
"But I won't force the issue. I agree that we should take our time to get used to the environment before heading deeper."
"Are you sure?" I asked.
"Yes. If I push myself too hard now, I'll regret it later. Today's experience made that very clear."
Seeing her resolve, Yuji and I shared a look.
"Got it."
"But let us know immediately if the situation changes," Yuji added.
It was all we could offer. Still, I resolved that once we were acclimated, we’d get her to the 10th floor as fast as possible. Yuji and I confirmed that sentiment with a silent nod to each other.
Just then, a massive crash echoed from the direction of the prefab shop. We whipped our heads around to see a boy in his late teens—about our age—clutching his stomach and coughing as he sprawled on top of a door that had been blown off its hinges.
Wait, what the hell just happened?