The Ogre Soldier’s corpse began to turn into particles, dissolving into the air with a quiet finality while the Ogre boss stood by, looking like he had burned out into a ghost-white husk. The start of particleization meant the Soldier was officially dead. Well, considering his head had been lopped off, his death would have been a certainty unless he belonged to some incredibly bizarre species of monster.
Watching the Soldier vanish seemed to snap the Ogre back to his senses. He raised his club toward us, though he looked like he was on the verge of either bursting into tears or bolting for the exit.
“…This feels a bit awkward,” Yuji muttered.
“Yeah. But we can’t exactly move past this point without defeating him,” I replied.
“What are you two saying?” Hiiragi-san chimed in. “We should just finish him off like we always do. It’s probably for the best for the Ogre, too.”
While Yuji and I hesitated, wondering if it was really right to cut down an enemy that looked so tragically resigned to his fate, Hiiragi-san argued that dragging it out was just cruel. She suggested we do him a favor and make it quick.
Either way, we had to clear the room to move forward. Swallowing a strange sense of guilt, Yuji leveled his weapon at the Ogre.
“Well, uh… Better luck in the next life.”
“!?”
Upon hearing Yuji’s parting words, the Ogre’s expression shifted from despair to a look of frantic agitation, as if he wanted to shout an indignant protest.
However, no protest—nor a Roar—ever left his throat. Before the Ogre could make a sound, Yuji closed the distance and decapitated him in a single, fluid motion, just as he had done with the Ogre Soldier.
“““…”””
At the very last second, as his head tumbled across the stone floor, our eyes met. It might have been my imagination, but it felt like he was glaring at me with a look that screamed: Don’t ever come back!
Actually, it probably wasn’t my imagination.
“That left a bit of a bad aftertaste,” I said.
“Tell me about it. But what were we supposed to do? As long as he’s standing in our way, we have to beat him to progress.”
“True,” Hiiragi-san added. “If only he’d left an apology gift like last time, we could have just walked past without a fight…”
As we stood there in that uncomfortable silence, the Ogre began to dissolve into particles as well.
A dozen seconds later, a single drop item sat on the floor where he had stood. I used Appraisal Analysis, confirming it was the usual high-grade recovery potion.
“Yep, exactly what I expected.”
“I see,” Yuji said. “Since he showed up with an Ogre Soldier this time, I wondered if the drop might change, but I guess it’s business as usual for the boss.”
“Which means this whole incident might have been a punitive measure—farming countermeasures against high-level explorers,” Hiiragi-san suggested.
I nodded, her theory sounding plausible. I’d heard that some games implemented similar systems to prevent high-level players from monopolizing rare drops. Perhaps the dungeon itself viewed these high-grade recovery potions as incentives to encourage further exploration and took offense when veteran parties hoarded them on the lower floors.
“Well, we don’t know the truth for sure, but do you think we should report this to the Dungeon Association?” I asked.
“I’d rather not stand out, but it’s probably for the best,” Yuji replied. “We handled it fine, but if some other party tried to farm this floor and got hit with an Ogre Soldier… they could get wiped out. A team that vastly outclasses the Ogre might be okay, but a party that’s only just strong enough to clear this floor would be in serious trouble, both tactically and mentally, if a superior variant suddenly crashed the party.”
“I agree,” Hiiragi-san said. “If a monster even stronger than the boss appears without warning, very few parties would be able to react instantly. A total wipe is a very real possibility. Even if the chances are low, simply knowing that this can happen makes a huge difference. We should report it. Whether they believe us is another story, but fulfilling our duty will certainly lighten our psychological burden.”
She was right. I didn't want to find myself regretting it later if something terrible happened. By reporting it, we’d have fulfilled our obligations as explorers, regardless of whether the Association chose to alert others. If a tragedy occurred later, I could at least tell myself that I’d tried to warn them.
“Fair enough. Once we get out, we’ll report the Ogre Soldier. Even if they think we’re making it up…”
“Yeah. I wish we had some solid proof, though… I really don't want to show them the footage of this fight.”
Yuji lightly tapped the action camera mounted on his helmet. He kept a record of our dungeon runs for verification purposes, and the Ogre Soldier was clearly visible in the frame. However, the way Yuji had basically one-shotted it was so far beyond the norm for a typical explorer that showing the video might actually make the Association more suspicious.
An explorer decapitating an Ogre Soldier before it could even react? Most people would assume the video was faked.
“We might be okay on the proof front, you two. Look at that.”
While Yuji and I were debating how to handle the report without using the camera, Hiiragi-san pointed toward the spot where the Ogre Soldier had vanished.
Following her finger, we saw a small drop item reflecting the light with a pale, silver-white glow.
“Wait… is that the Ogre Soldier’s drop?”
“Oh, right. We hadn’t picked it up yet. What is it?”
We walked over to inspect the item. It was quite small—a rectangular metal lump that fit easily into the palm of my hand. At first glance, it looked like aluminum or stainless steel. It had a bit of weight to it, though it was probably lighter than a D-cell battery.
Considering it came from a high-ranking species that accompanied a boss, it had to be valuable. To find out for sure, I used Appraisal Analysis and—
I froze.
“What’s the matter, Daiki? You’ve gone stiff. Did you find out what it is?”
“Uh, yeah… This might be a bit too hot to handle.”
“Too hot to handle? Is it dangerous?”
Seeing my grimace, Yuji and Hiiragi-san leaned in to look at the metal in my hand. To the naked eye, it was just a nondescript block of metal, but its true identity was certainly fitting for a superior variant drop.
I steeled myself and told them the truth.
“Apparently, this is a mithril ingot.”
“Huh? Mithril?”
“Mithril? Are you serious?”
Both of them looked completely floored. It was a natural reaction; we’d just stumbled upon the rarest of rare drops.
Mithril was a member of the fantasy metal category. While it appeared on the Association’s official Confirmed Drop Item List, I’d never heard of it being traded on the open market. The general consensus was that the only mithril in circulation came from a few first drops during the early days of the dungeons. The only reason the public even knew about it was because the civilians who found it had posted pictures online before the government could swoop in to regulate or confiscate it. It wasn't that the authorities wanted the information out there; they just couldn't hide it in time.
“What do we do with this? This is just as much of a headache as that alchemy skill scroll we found in the mountains,” I said, clutching my head.
“Seriously? Actual mithril dropped? Man, this is bad…”
“Mithril…” Hiiragi-san murmured. “I’ve never heard of a confirmed drop outside of the initial discovery period. Of course, it’s possible the data is being classified, much like those other items recently.”
We had been worried about proving the Ogre Soldier’s existence, but now we were saddled with a problem on par with the alchemy scroll. If we submitted this alongside the report, they’d definitely believe us, but handing this over at a standard purchase counter would cause a massive scene.
We wanted to keep things quiet, which meant we needed the Association to handle this with extreme discretion.
“Maybe I should reach out to that high-ranking official we met—Miyashita-san?” I mused. “He was the division head in charge of the magic bag exchange. He seemed like he could handle high-stakes stuff.”
“Either way, we’ve got a real mess on our hands,” I continued. “We could try to swap it for a different rare item before reporting, but I don’t want to risk that. If this Ogre Soldier thing has happened before and we report a different drop, it’ll look suspicious.”
“True,” Yuji agreed. “From a civilian explorer’s perspective, this might be a first, but government explorers like the Self-Defense Forces might have seen this before. If they have, and we report a different drop item, they’ll wonder why our result was different. That’s assuming the Ogre Soldier always drops the same thing, though.”
“Given how consistent the Ogre’s potion drop is, it’s highly likely the Soldier’s drop is fixed too,” Hiiragi-san added. “And since high-grade recovery potions are clearly in circulation, government teams must be hunting Ogres regularly. It wouldn’t be surprising if they’ve triggered the Ogre Soldier a few times already.”
If every one of those encounters resulted in a mithril ingot, and we tried to report something else… yeah, that would lead to even more trouble. It was probably safer to just be honest.
Which meant our report was going to cause either a significant stir or a total localized earthquake.
“I think we should just be straightforward and turn in the mithril with the report. Hiding it will just lead to more complications later.”
“Yeah,” Yuji sighed. “We could just keep our mouths shut, but I’d hate to be the reason someone else gets hurt. Let’s report it.”
“I agree,” Hiiragi-san said. “But we’ll have to demand a private room and the presence of the person in charge. It’ll still be a mess, but it’s better than causing a riot at the front desk.”
We all looked at each other and let out a long, synchronized sigh. We’d come here to blow off steam from the stress of building the training ground, so why were we walking away with even more problems? Had I done something to offend the universe?
I tucked the mithril into my Spatial Storage and looked at the others with a weary expression.
“We were going to explore the 30th floor today, but honestly? Let’s just call it and head back up. The reporting process is probably going to take forever.”
“Good call. If we stay and finish our run, we won’t get home until middle of the night.”
“It’s a shame, but we should definitely head back now,” Hiiragi-san agreed. “I doubt they’ll let us leave quickly once we show them that metal.”
We started gathering our things, picking up the glow sticks we’d placed. Since we’d intended to start our real work from the 30th floor, we hadn’t actually gathered many drops today. I had no idea what a fantasy metal was worth, but surely mithril wouldn’t sell for peanuts… at least, I hoped not. We really needed the cash for the training ground’s construction.
“Alright, everything’s packed. You two ready? Didn’t leave anything behind?”
“I’m good.”
“Ready. My heart is heavy, but I’m ready.”
We turned away from the stairs leading deeper into the dungeon and headed back through the boss door, making our way toward the surface.
I can only hope the Association overlooks the fact that, on the way back, we took a few detours to vent our frustrations on every monster we could find.
I guess the Ogre Soldier really did leave behind a parting shot after all.