After leaving the mountain, we grabbed a late lunch at a nearby family restaurant and headed back to Kiritani Real Estate. We were there to select conditions for potential development sites based on the data we’d gathered during the day’s development verification meeting.
If we didn't put that information to good use, today would have been nothing more than a day spent digging holes and chopping down trees.
"Thank you all for your hard work today," Yuta-san said as he led us to the reception area. "We did quite a few things out of the ordinary. Was it exhausting?"
"Physically, we didn't really push ourselves," Yuji replied. "But doing something new like that is a different kind of mental strain. Still, it was fun to step outside our comfort zone."
"I never imagined I'd actually end up digging a tunnel, though," Hiiragi-san added. "I ended up completely covered in dust."
"I’d never felled trees before, either," I said. "It was surprisingly interesting."
Yuta-san kept up the small talk as he guided us to our seats.
"Haha, I’m glad to hear that. Well, I’ll go fetch the President. Please wait just a moment."
"Sure."
With a polite nod, Yuta-san left the shop area and headed for the upstairs office.
Once the door closed and we heard his footsteps receding up the stairs, we all let out a breath and relaxed.
"Whew. I wasn't sure what to expect from the development verification, but the results were basically what I anticipated," I said.
"Yeah," Yuji nodded. "I felt a bit bad for Takarada-san and the others, but it’s crucial to know exactly what we’re capable of. It would be a disaster to buy land for development and then realize we have no idea how to actually clear it."
"I agree," Hiiragi-san said. "Experience is everything. I never knew that using green wood as-is makes it useless as building material. If we hadn't heard that today, we might have built something only for it to collapse for no apparent reason later."
I hadn't expected to create a literal tunnel just by getting into a rhythm and digging mechanically, but proving that such feats were possible even without using skills was a major breakthrough.
If we combined our physical specs with magic skills, we could probably revolutionize development work.
"Exactly. Once we decide on the land for our training ground, we’ll have to study how to file skill usage applications on private property and building confirmation applications."
"You're right," I said. "Even with mountain development, you can't just cut down whatever you want. Realizing that there are so many mandatory applications was probably the most important thing we learned today."
"Yes," Hiiragi-san added. "We might have gone ahead and developed our own land only to be told it was unauthorized and ordered to restore it to its original state. I'm so glad we found out now."
If we’d been ignorant of the legal requirements, we might have ended up in a pointless, exhausting battle with the local government, as Hiiragi-san suggested. We would have lost eventually, of course, but it's the kind of thing that makes you want to rebel on principle.
Since we knew better now, though, it was just a matter of filing the right paperwork.
"Well, we definitely got a lot out of today's tests," I summarized.
"True. It really highlighted how much I still have to learn," Yuji admitted.
"But knowing what we're missing means we can fix it. Let's do our best so nobody can call our work 'illegal construction' or 'unauthorized development.'"
We sat there for a while, conducting our own small review meeting while waiting for Yuta-san to return.
Eventually, Yuta-san came back into the shop with Kiritani-san, carrying several documents and tea for everyone. I tried to tell myself that the slight twitch in Kiritani-san’s expression was just my imagination.
He’d likely received a brief summary of the day from Yuta-san. He’d probably tried to steel himself before coming down, but a bit of the shock had managed to leak out anyway.
"Thank you all for your hard work today," Kiritani-san said, forced smile firmly in place as he tried to sound lighthearted. "Yuta-kun gave me a quick rundown. It sounds like you all went quite wild out there..."
Yuji gave a wry smile and replied in a calm tone.
"Went wild? Well, I suppose we did. Even we didn't expect to end up finishing a tunnel."
"When Yuta-kun told me about the tunnel, I thought I’d misheard him. Then he showed me the video evidence. Honestly, I didn't believe my own eyes."
"We were in the same boat," I said. "We were just mindlessly digging, and then we broke through... our first thought was just, 'Wait, what?'"
"That single ray of light piercing the darkness..." Yuji muttered, his gaze drifting as if he were reliving the moment.
Watching Yuji space out, Kiritani-san’s cheek twitched again as he processed the description.
That whole scene felt like it belonged in a movie. Even those of us doing the work had been shocked back to our senses when it happened.
"Yes, it was a very rare and valuable experience," Yuji added.
"I... bet it was."
"But because of it, I feel like there's nothing we can't do if we set our minds to it."
"No... I really don't think ordinary people can dig a tunnel that fast, you know?"
Kiritani-san let out an exasperated laugh, clearly at a loss for how to handle Yuji’s "optimistic" takeaway.
Once Kiritani-san and Yuta-san were settled and the tea was served, the formal review meeting began.
"First, let's go over the sequence of the development verification meeting," Yuta-san said, his tone turning professional. "The goal was to see how much an explorer’s strength could be utilized in development work. We started with load capacity. We actually ran out of sandbags, so we couldn't find the absolute limit, but it’s confirmed that you can easily carry over one ton."
"Seeing it in black and white is a bit overwhelming," Yuji remarked. "The units jumped from kilograms to tons."
"I'm not sure about a full car, but based on these numbers, you could carry a light vehicle on your backs," Yuta-san noted. "As long as the equipment is reasonably sized, you could carry it in without an issue—things like generators or power tools for processing lumber."
"If we can transport that much gear, we can develop land beyond where any road leads," Kiritani-san said, an ambitious glint appearing in his eyes. "The biggest hurdle for uncultivated land is always logistics. You can use helicopters, but the cost is astronomical and you need a landing zone. Usually, the initial base has to be established by manual labor. If explorers can solve that, we could develop difficult terrain that was previously considered worthless."
Kiritani-san was clearly smelling a business opportunity. If development costs plummeted, land that was currently a "dead asset" would suddenly have immense value.
Basically, if he snapped up "worthless" land before using explorers for development became mainstream, he could make a killing. Until now, he’d been acting on our word alone, but having hard numbers was the catalyst he needed to turn it into a real business.
"Exactly," Yuta-san agreed. "In terms of transport capacity alone, explorers are literally on a different scale than ordinary workers. Reducing the number of trips saves on labor costs, and the ability to bring in heavy machinery manually boosts efficiency and shortens the construction timeline."
"Low-cost, short-term development makes even the most ignored land valuable. Yes, these results are more than promising."
Kiritani-san nodded to himself, a faint smile on his lips as he ran the numbers in his head.
I hoped he wasn't counting his chickens before they hatched, but Yuji was already a step ahead, ready to ground him.
"Kiritani-san, keep in mind these results are specifically for us. We aren't exactly 'average' explorers, so you should gather data from others before drawing a final conclusion. High-level explorers make more money in dungeons than they ever would doing manual labor, so your main workforce will likely be low-to-mid-level explorers. If you move forward without their data, you might find their capacity is much lower than you expected."
"Oh! Right. Yes, you're right. We're still short on data; it's too early to call it. Thank you—I think I was getting a bit carried away."
Snapped out of his reverie by Yuji's pragmatism, Kiritani-san began to look at Yuta-san’s data with a more critical eye.
"Hirose-kun, what kind of numbers would a newcomer or a mid-level explorer produce?"
"Newcomers would struggle, but I think someone firmly in the mid-level range could manage about half of what we did. I remember hearing about a mid-level explorer at an event who lifted a heavy motorcycle by himself."
When Yuji cited the example I’d told him about, Kiritani-san looked a bit disappointed by the "half" figure. We all exchanged slightly awkward looks.
Kiritani-san, even 'half' is 500 kilograms. Your sense of reality is warped because of us, but compared to a normal person, that's an insane amount of weight.
"...I see. It definitely seems like we need to get data from a variety of level ranges."
"Please do," Yuji said. "If you start a development business, you should set recruitment standards based on explorer levels. The Dungeon Association can provide official level measurements."
"Establishing clear standards would certainly help ensure the quality of the workforce..."
"And," I added, "when people retire as explorers, they usually look for jobs where they can use their strengths. I think you'd have plenty of applicants."
The number of explorers would only grow, and with them, the number of people who drop out due to injuries or reaching their limit. If there were jobs in other sectors that valued their unique skills, there would be no shortage of interest.
A former explorer tired of the cutthroat dungeon life moving to the countryside for a quiet life of land development... actually, that sounded like it might be surprisingly popular.
"Since we can't poach active explorers, we have to look at that demographic anyway," Kiritani-san mused. "Setting a required level might even encourage explorers to reach that rank as a safety net before they transition to a new career."
"Exactly," I said. "If you tell someone their dungeon experience is useless in the real world, they'll lose all motivation. But if there’s a clear qualification they meet, they'll feel confident that their strength is a real asset."
A motivated former explorer was infinitely better than a discouraged one.
"I see. Perhaps focusing on creating those standards is our first step."
"I agree," Yuji said. "As I said, our data shouldn't be the baseline for your average hire."
"...I'm starting to realize that."
Kiritani-san let out a soft sigh and glanced at Yuta-san to move the discussion along.
Yuta-san nodded, his expression becoming serious.
"Understood. The next verification was excavation power using a rock face. We wanted to see if we could tunnel through mountains or cliffs that act as obstacles for road construction. The result... a tunnel large enough for a person to pass through was completed in a very short amount of time."
"And I assume a newcomer explorer couldn't do that?" Kiritani-san asked.
"Forget newcomers—I don't think mid-level explorers could do it through physical strength alone," Yuji explained. "We didn't use skills today since the land wasn't cleared for them, but if someone has the right magic skill, even a newcomer or mid-level explorer could probably do it even faster than we did."
Doing it without skills would take time for a mid-leveler, but they could probably manage it eventually. However, Yuji’s mention of skills made Kiritani-san and Yuta-san freeze.
"Wait... if they use skills, even newcomers can do that?"
"I think so. With the right magic skill, couldn't they basically blast a short tunnel in an instant?"
"..." "..."
Kiritani-san and Yuta-san sat there in stunned silence, completely motionless.
Well, newcomers who can use that level of magic are rare, so he probably didn't need to worry about it too much.
The three of us had abstained from skills today mostly because using them in front of outside experts on land without a permit would have been asking for trouble.