Strongest Gamer Lets Play in Aother World Volume 1 Chapter 1

Strongest Gamer Lets Play in Aother World Volume 1 Chapter 1

When you boiled down my profile, it was comprised of about one or two lines: Aoi Kousaka, Age 22; fresh out of some minor science university, and hardcore gamer.

Pretty straightforward, don’t you think? So straightforward it hurts, though. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say I had spent more than half my life so far playing games. Ever since I touched my first game at the age of three, I’d become completely obsessed, and dedicated my life to playing them. Although games were my lifeblood, I still worked hard to maximize the amount of time I had to play.


When I was a kid, I would set a time limit for playing games on the television because it wasn’t good for eye development. Instead, I would either play card or board games. Both my parents liked games and were very understanding, but I knew they wouldn’t be so understanding if my test scores dropped as a result. And so I did my best to keep all my grades above average in every subject.

When I got to middle school, there weren’t too many jobs available to someone my age, but I managed to find part-time work as a newspaper delivery boy, and saved money to buy the computer I’d so badly wanted—and games too, of course. When I finally bought the computer, I discovered that foreign PC games were cheap, so then I put all my efforts into learning English. In about a year’s time, I was able to understand all the English games I wasn’t able to get in Japanese. I had seriously lived to game my whole life thus far, but I came face-to-face with the harsh realities of life not too long ago.

Job hunting had started pretty early in the summer for third years at my university. There weren’t that many jobs that would let me secure not only a decent salary, but also enough time to still dedicate to playing games. The whole ‘large companies and corporations were life-sucking leeches’ wasn’t a joke. What good was earning loads of money if I couldn’t play games? Nevertheless, I managed to get a job offer from a nearby facility as Location Management and Security. The pay wasn’t great, but at least I had a lot of free time for my hobbies. I lamented not being able to play a certain MMORPG that came out around the time due to taking certain qualification courses that would benefit said job, too.

Unfortunately, at the end of March, I received news that there was an accidental fire that had occured at one of the facilities managed by the head company I was working for. As a result, the management staff was held liable, and subsequently downscaled. I was told that after my training period was up I was going to be let go as well since I was just a temporary contractor.

And so, I kept job hunting from the end of March, all the way until our graduation ceremony. Unable to find anything that met my criteria, I became a jobless university graduate.

Life’s ‘hardcore mode’ was so hard that I couldn’t even muster a laugh.

I resumed job hunting the next spring, but still struggled with a lack of offers for two whole months post graduation. By then, the rainy season had begun.

One day I came across a random leaflet that had gotten caught in one of the newspapers I usually got at home. It was really small—smaller than the normal advertisements for the supermarket itself, but there looked to be a job offer on that leaflet that said...


Work Details :
- Facility Management position
- Salary: Starting from ¥140,000/mo
- Prior experience not required
- Traveling expenses covered
- Note: People with high stamina and proficient with games will have priority.


The details checked all the boxes I was looking for. The salary was a bit low compared to ones typically offered to graduate students, but it was definitely not low enough that I couldn’t live off it. I understood why they would want to hire healthy people, but people with an affinity for games? What did that have to do with managing facilities? Either way, I couldn’t have hoped for a better job than one I could use my love of games for, so I immediately got in touch and agreed to have an interview.

◇

“I trust you’re familiar with our institution?”

The briefing and interview took place in an office building across the street from the train station closest to my house. I wondered if the person interviewing me had foreign parents. She had seemingly beautiful blonde hair that didn’t look to be bleached or colored at all, but also black-colored eyes. Her facial features seemed more like those of a Japanese beauty than not.

“Yeah, it’s an institution that’s aimed at building public projects,” I replied.

I was wearing my business suit that I had grown so used to wearing. The institution in question built community buildings, libraries, and even auditoriums for events. They used tax money to do so though, and it resulted in fighting over who was going to pay for maintenance costs.

“Yes, that’s right. We are generally in charge of the management and property maintenance in regards to the community projects our company develops.”

—I see. They would even manage a community building despite problems related to its use and maintenance costs. Interesting.

“So I was wondering... What does this have to do with preferring people with stamina, or those good at games?” I asked.

“Well, since there are a good amount of properties in remote places, having good stamina is beneficial in being able to reach their locations. Now, in relation to games, our company doesn’t just go out to perform general maintenance; we carry out managerial duties as well. We’re well aware that hiring management experts for our projects won’t improve some aspects of our business, though. That’s where the proficiency with games comes in. Wouldn’t a person who is good at games be more adept at improving our management? That’s the idea the company’s President came up with, at least.”

—Remote places? I guess it was dumb of me to assume it would be something more local just because it was in the advertisement stuck in the middle of the newspaper. Nonetheless, if there’s internet and home delivery you can still play all the same.

“I don’t have really anything to lose by giving management a try, but would I be able to move beyond that if things went well?”

“Yes. At the end of the day, the job you’ll be performing is maintenance and management of the location you’re assigned to. If you think maintaining the status quo management-wise is too difficult, then you can change things around as you see fit. And if the situation of the operation improves, you can expect it to be reflected in your salary.”

It wasn’t a bad offer. The fact that I’d be in charge of administration duties on top of the management was surprising, but I wouldn’t mind a salary raise if it went well. Although... it may be a bit presumptuous of me to expect much since they weren’t hiring a professional.

“The trial period before official employment is three months. Salary will be paid out as per the exhibited conditions, but please think of this as your trial period.”

The employment conditions weren’t bad, and it seemed like the interview was a success after some easy questions, so I decided to sign the contract on the spot. As far as formal employment went, this seemed a bit easy to get in, but since they had this trial period thing to test people, I guess that’s how they truly verified applicants.

“There, my signature... and my stamp. Is this the last document?”

“Yes, that’s fine. We’ll be colleagues from here on out. Let me introduce myself, I’m Karumi. We’ll be counting on you, Kousaka-san.”

—Ah, getting hired means we’re colleagues now. That makes sense.

My first condition with people was that they were gamers as well, so I never had this kind of opportunity before. But it wouldn’t be so bad to share a workplace with a beauty like her, even if it meant I needed to cut out any untoward feelings. Her last name was the same as the company name. Maybe it was a family-run management business. That was rather common among smaller companies.

“Thank you very much. Let’s get along together.”

I shook her hand and returned her smile.

Gamers generally had a bad image as far as personal relations went, and to be honest, I was like that too a long time ago. But there was a vast amount of multiplayer games with player-to-player interaction nowadays; not to mention all the clan or guild events that happened inside them, so I did my best to improve my communication skills.

I hadn’t really read any of those how-to books or anything about it. I just had a lifetime of experience meeting and talking to a lot of people. It really came in handy for job hunting and everyday life, so I figured it was a nice skill worth having, even if you didn’t like it. But, well, it still didn’t help much to overcome the hurdle of dealing with a pretty lady as a healthy young man.

“Well, then. Let’s introduce you to your workplace at once.”

Karumi-san led the way and we walked to the door opposite the room we were just now.

—Was that the entrance on the other side? Maybe it leads to the parking lot, the stairs, or even to an elevator. 

The door squeaked as she opened it, and in came an unusual wind from the other side. It smelled of overflowing vegetation that reminded me of a time I had traveled to the mountains. A second ago I had been walking over hard ceramic tiles, but all of a sudden it felt like I was stepping on soft soil.

—Huh...?

Before I had even noticed, I was met with an awe-inspiring view from the bottom of the ravine.

“It looks like you’ve been assigned to Labyrinth #228, Kousaka-san. The conditions may prove to be somewhat harsh, but please do your best. Well then, we’ll meet again when your training period is over.”

“Eh? Labyrinth? Excuse me, can you repeat that?”

When I turned around, the only thing I managed to catch was the door getting slammed shut behind me. Upon closer inspection, all that was left in its place was a rugged wall of solid gray rock. There weren’t any traces of the door or the office I had come from mere seconds ago.

◇

—And that’s how it went.

“Hard mode, huh...” I sighed.

I recalled everything that had happened so far while I checked the pickaxe and the shovel that fell on the floor. You could say I was trying to escape reality as well.

“Wait. A community building labyrinth? Could this be a...”

I walked into the log cabin-style house nearby me. The metal hinges on the door were difficult to budge, probably because it hadn’t seen much use. The interior seemed to be about 20 square meters wide. There was a simple bed, a cabinet, and a round wooden table which stood in the middle of the room. The interior somehow managed to look even cheaper than the cheapest hotel, in the cheapest city, in the cheapest country.

I noticed a brown A4-sized envelope on top of the wooden table.

“Ah, right. They’re a management company, so there should be things to manage.”

If Karumi-san’s words were to be believed, then my training period would last three months. She said we would meet again after the training is over, so the pickup should be in three months at best. I didn’t really have any guarantee that she was gonna keep her word, but I guess thinking positively would make it a little more bearable.

From the look of things, it didn’t seem like I was going to be able to just waltz back home, so I guess I should be grateful my merciful employers had the decency to provide me a room to stay in. There was nothing man-made around here aside from the cabin. But if this place was a labyrinth, it wouldn’t surprise me to find a huge structure sprawling out underground.

I opened the envelope and took out the contents; I found a stiff and seemingly old starchy paper with official looking information handwritten with a fountain pen. It read:


<Labyrinth #228> 
Purpose : Foster an environment to ensure inter-clan engagement, collection of military goods, and deposit base. This structure is also designated as the neighbor residents’ evacuation point.
Scheduled Completion : Mid-scale Labyrinth — Class 3.


I supposed this wasn’t that much different from a building. Rather, a labyrinth being classified as a ‘community building’ wasn’t too unrealistic a proposition.


Total Construction Status : 2% — Construction of cabin for worker completed.

Current Construction Progress : 100% completed.
Interior Design Progress : 100% completed.
Facility Equipment Installation Progress : 100% completed.
Deployment of Golems for Facility Protection : Completed. 
Awaiting for manager to take up their post...


—Hmm? There’s two progress sheets here, but their contents are completely reversed.


Additional Notes : Person in charge of the labyrinth’s construction, Barald Gain (49), has been arrested under suspicion of corporate embezzlement.


“Hahaha... This sure happens a lot with public projects, huh?”

So he hadn’t even started working, and pocketed all the money intended for the construction. If I’m unlucky, he might have even stolen the money for management and maintenance costs; which meant the company thought they needed a management administrator because it was completed on paper, but in reality it was actually incomplete—I had nothing to manage.

I was at a loss for words. Managing a facility like this seemed more and more like a punishment game. I wanted to break down and cry, but attempting to escape my reality wouldn’t get me anywhere, as unfortunate as it was.

“Did we need the embezzlement feature!?”

My scream echoed out into in the ravine.


Screaming helped me calm down a little bit. This was unbecoming of someone as tempered a gamer as I, who had experienced countless RPG challenge runs. You know, challenges like 40-hour time limits, or game overs meant you had to start over with no resets or data backup. They were masochistic challenges that pushed even the most ruthless of frame-timed, auto-save limited experts to their limits.

I felt pleasure every time I got wiped out towards the end. The only truly masochistic thing were the challenges themselves. The games were innocent and magnificent pieces of work on their own... I wasn’t playing because I’m a masochist or anything, if that’s what you were thinking. All that aside, I wasn’t particularly pessimistic despite the actual lack of a building to manage, or the obvious corruption.

Couldn’t I make my own labyrinth if there wasn’t one to begin with? They said they would raise my salary depending on how well I improved the place, so I figured it was pretty safe to say whatever I did would be an improvement over this shabby cabin. Besides, the idea of making my own labyrinth seemed like fun. Fortunately for me, the house was already kinda furnished... But I think I would have to give up on the dream of living in a comfy room with water service, gas, or heaters of any kind.

“So what am I supposed to do about food...?”

First of all, that translucent window that floated over my hand made me doubt whether or not this world was the same as the one I came from.

—There may be squirrels, mice, or even birds for all I know around here. It may not be much but it can make for a decent meal.

I looked in and around the cabin for about half an hour, but didn’t manage to find even a trace of any of those.

—This is quite a problem, there’s no fruits or anything either... I guess it’s time to eat grass and leaves.

I did find some butterflies with glassy-looking wings, and I may be able to find some worms if I turned over some rocks or dug a little, but I’d rather not have to resort to doing so if I could help it. There was also the concern of hygiene as well, but there were a lot of ponds and little rivers nearby, so getting water wouldn’t be that hard.

There were no fish shadows in any of the ponds or streams, though. The ponds themselves were several meters deep, and so transparent you could see all the way to the bottom with no problem. Maybe the water was too clean for fish to live. It didn’t look like it could be dangerous to drink. With an environment with so many bodies of water, but no fish in sight, it was gonna be hard to get anything in the way of food.

I may have to give up on the hope of surviving by normal means. This seemed like one of those survival games where civilization collapsed and aimed way too hard for realism—they were so overused a setting that no one really liked them anymore.

“Throw away your dignity as a person in order to survive...”

Or so it went with those sorts of games. The only thing I learned about them was that you could postpone the time to starving if you focused on just surviving, but you’d lose something important as a human being.

To be specific, I was talking about a technique which involved cutting out the waste of nutrients by recycling and ingesting your own... Yeah. Let’s be clear here though, that was truly the last of last resorts. That feature was in a game developed with the help of professionals with real-life survival skills they had hired for reference, but I think that was the very same reason the genre didn’t really kick off to begin with.

I looked around inside the cabin in hopes of finding some kind of stash of any kind, when I found something unusual hidden in a corner.

There was a complex pattern drawn on the surface of the floor—I wondered if they were letters or something. I also found some kind of box that looked big enough to fit two people inside. And there was what seemed to be a porcelain piggy bank standing on top of it, as if it was enshrined there on purpose.

When I tried touching it, a translucent window popped up. It displayed ‘Delivery and Payment Box’ on it. The separate window that appeared looked like something out of an online catalog. The title of it said “Regional World eShop Catalog: Tundra”. I wondered if the person who made this thought the end users would be able to read English right away.

The catalog itself was written in English and had illustrations all over. When I operated it a little bit, the display changed to ‘Foods > Seasonings > Salt... 1 kg Salt == 120 DL’.

—Ah, so it is an eshop catalog. This DL thing seems to be a form of currency, but I’ve never heard of it before.

But I couldn’t be called a gamer if I let something like that confuse me. The fact this catalog popped up as soon as I touched the delivery box probably meant that if I put something of value inside the box... I might be able to get some currency. And if I put in currency, I could get goods... It was a pretty typical system in games.

As typical as it may be, with the <Dungeon Management Tool> thing I had, it was kind of hard to really piece it all together properly. Plus, there was this vague ‘Willpower’ stat thing that got consumed to make the shovel and pickaxe appear earlier. It was amazing and whatnot, but... how did all this stuff tie together?

—I really want to try it out, but what should I put inside?

The rocks and fallen leaves scattered about around here didn’t look like they held much value to them. I tried to fish something out of my suit pockets, and found a piece of mint bubble gum I normally used to keep myself awake. Now that I thought about it, it was still unopened. I put the bubble gum inside the delivery box, and a metallic sound resounded from within it, almost like the sound of coins dropping.

When I opened the box again there was no bubble gum to be seen; in its place were two metallic looking yellow-minted coins. They appeared to be worth 100 DL and 5 DL respectively. They weren’t quite gold; they seemed to be made of some kind of yellow-metallic material, maybe some kind of brass? On the other side of the coins was a demon-like face motif carved out into it. Under that it read “100 DarkLord Coin”.

DarkLord... As in a big bad demon? Did this mean it was the currency of demon lord? I didn’t really know how they appraised the value of the gum, but it was good news regardless. Now I could use the delivery box thing to get money. If only the <Dungeon Management Tool> itself was even as remotely decipherable as the delivery box was.

I opened the translucent window again and chose the ‘Natural Salt’ that was listed with a price of 50 grams for 55 DL. When I had confirmed the order in the eshop, a popup which said “Please Insert Fee” appeared, so I put the two coins I had inside the piggy bank. Right as I did, a 50 DL coin dropped from below the piggy bank, and at the same time a slot suddenly appeared in what was a seemingly empty gap, and bursted open. An unusually heavy looking A4-sized paper envelope fell to the ground with a sonorous plop.

“Thank you for your purchase!”

A strangely high-pitched voice came out from the box, followed by another bursting sound, to which the opened slot unceremoniously closed back up. The word “Tundra” was printed on the envelope, and under it was decorated with what I assumed was their logo.

—Tundra? As in the biome?

There was also a note, which seemed to have been written with magic pen that stated the “Administrator of Labyrinth #228” as the recipient’s name.

—How can this thing be so convenient, yet the <Dungeon Management Tool> wants me to do literal manual labor!?

I needed to report this. There came a time in a man’s life where he must report broken features.

◇

—I need to calm down, come on. Look at the bright side...

I managed to regain my composure in less than a minute. There was this one time I had stayed with some university friends, and we marathoned a bunch of games that were listed on a site called “The Worst of the Worst”, which aggregated all of the worst games in the history of humanity. We played them one after another for God knows how long, so I should be able to cope in these kinds of situations.

Freezing after every battle in an RPG... Freezing while saving... Saved games disappearing just because... Final bosses that didn’t spawn in the last area because of bugged scripts... Compared to that hell, this was still pretty tame. I had been living my life for games this whole time, and it had been of real use ever since I came to this place, at least.

After opening the A4 envelope, I found about 50 grams worth of salt inside a plastic bag, which was cushioned by a material similar to cardboard.

—So I can order food from this Tundra thing, huh? So the objective is use this box to get DL coins, and use those get food to subsist...

Nevertheless, there weren’t many things around here that looked like they’d be worth much. My pickup was approximately three months out. Even if I’d sold everything I had on me, namely my suit, wallet, and shoes, I doubt I’d be able to get by more than one month at best.

“Valuable stuff, eh? Can’t I use that thing...”

I looked around the room, and my eyes went straight towards pickaxe I’d created a while ago with the <Dungeon Management Tool>.

—Depends on if I can even sell it to begin with...

I tried putting it inside the delivery box, but instead of turning into coins, a message in red letters popped up which said “Cannot Be Exchanged”.

—What a shame. It’s never that easy, is it?

It consumed a stat called Willpower, but it was also common in games to make it so you were unable to resell equipment you could create as many times as you wanted, or at the very least, make it sellable, but only for incredibly cheap.

“Let’s try with a stone next.”

I took my suit jacket off and headed out, pickaxe in hand.

You may not know this if you didn’t live in Japan, but stone was often used as a building and interior material. The prices went up and down depending on the type and rarity, but they were always quite pricey to buy.

Once, I got addicted to this one game called “Moss Decoration Meister”, in which putting moss on stones was considered a decoration of the highest order. I’d participated in a contest sponsored by the developer and won the silver medal in the ‘Free-sized Garden’ category. I even wanted to make some moss decorations in real life as well, but the cheapest stone bases would go over four figures a piece. I would be hard-pressed to find a memory more bitter than that one. Even if what I could find around here wasn’t some fancy stone used for decorations, I could crush it and turn it into gravel. There was a lot of demand and uses for that as well.

I went to the closest rock to the cabin and held the pickaxe I’d created using the <Dungeon Management Tool> with both hands... And pierced the rock! It made a satisfying sound. In its wake was a clean cross-shaped crack in the stone.

“Ohhh...”

I unintentionally dropped the pickaxe. My hands went numb due to shock. I’d never taken up one of those part-time jobs that had you doing heavy manual labor, like making holes in asphalt, so it was the first time in my life I had used a pickaxe. I figured I had a knack for it, but was kind of hesitant due to the resulting muscle pain. I tried using a bit less strength and struck the rock again... and again... and again. It had slowly become easier on my hands. The cross-shaped crack expanded as I continued to strike the stone. Along with the sound of my strikes came perfectly cut square-shaped pieces of rock.

—Huh? Pickaxes don’t normally cut into stuff like that, right? Why are they all so square?

When I pulled apart the perfectly cut pieces, a heavy gray-colored stone cube covered with dark spots fell out. It was exactly 10 cubic centimeters. They would be easy to pile up as building material in this shape, but the fact that they could be cut up with such precise symmetry with just a pickaxe was downright bizarre. Rocks normally were supposed to crumble apart and break down into irregular shapes when struck with a pickaxe.

—The whole ravine is littered with regular rocks. Is this related to the pickaxe I have?

What was with the mysterious pickaxe that ate up my Willpower? I wanted to try the <Appraisal> skill I first saw back on my status screen.

—This UI is really easy to use. I haven’t seen this kind of polish even in overseas games.

I was impressed by my handiwork as I maneuvered around the translucent window to enter the Skill Menu. I’d customized the UI to be like my favorite all-purpose internet browser for smartphones and touchscreen computers, “WaterRacoon”. The only thing that I didn’t seem to need to change to be more user-friendly was the simple character information screen from before. The UI screen which displayed a player’s various information, and reflected their every action, needed to be perfect. It heavily influenced the amount of enjoyment one would derive while playing.

Usability played a huge part, but I found the most important thing was to make it intuitive enough so one could understand everything at a glance. Something that made you go “Whoa, this is easy”. The translucent UI window was perfect from the get-go. It was easy to use, and I could manage everything without any kind of explanation. Presumably, if you could use it as a computer to send emails and browse the internet, it would be a piece of cake, too.

I registered the <Appraisal> skill to a vocal shortcut, and set the trigger keyword to “Execute Appraisal”, while I pointed towards a target with my finger. In an actual game, it would be pretty difficult to setup, but in such a fine-tuned place like this, it was child’s play.

I turned my right finger towards the pickaxe and said “Execute Appraisal”. The sound of an electronic buzzer went off in my head, and a translucent window popped up near my index finger.


Name : Novice Iron Cube Pickaxe
Creator : Aoi Kousaka
Durability : 498/500
Special Effect : Effective against inorganic matter. Turns target into cubes.


Oh, it sure looked like a real appraisal. It consumed some Willpower because it was a skill, but I would say one point was pretty reasonable, all things considered.

—I see, so the pickaxe effect is what’s cutting down the rocks into cubes. They seem like they’ll fetch a higher price like that, instead of just crushing them, so that’s a plus.

I kept digging afterwards and managed to gather up 20 stone pieces with the pickaxe. The fatigue of manual work was not something I was used to. After a while, my hands started to ache from the constant shock of digging into the rocks with the pickaxe. Seeing the 20 pieces of rock made me feel a sense of accomplishment, though. But there remained another problem.
 
—The cabin is 20 meters away or so. It’s not that far away... But carrying 20 of these is gonna be a little...

Don’t underestimate these mere 20 meters. To carry so many pieces of stone without a wheelbarrow or a backpack of some kind was going to be painful. True to that thought, I was out of breath and sweating bullets by the time I was done carrying them. I had left the suit jacket back in the cabin, but I still felt manual labor was twice as tiring wearing formal clothes like I was.

—Alright then, I hope these things actually fetch some sort of price.

Even if they didn’t fetch a good price, I could make a furnace or a workbench with them. There were a bunch of ways to use them, so there wasn’t really any loss.

I placed one of the stones inside the delivery box and closed the lid. The metallic sound didn’t take long to follow. There were several coins inside. The total amount summed up to 802 DL. That was quite the price compared to normal stuff like gravel and rocks. It seemed like being turned into cubes was beneficial after all.

I sold the other 19 rocks.

The price didn’t change even if I sold two or three at the same time. The estimated value for each was always 802 DL. The total amount for the 20 of them was 16040 DL. I would have gotten the same amount selling 150 pieces of bubblegum. The thought of that made me happy, for some reason. I couldn’t help but be concerned as I saw the mountain of coins piling up. There didn’t seem to be any sort of paper currency here.

“First, food. Then, some light. And finally, some blankets. I’ll be happy as long as I have those.”

Fortunately, it seemed like summer was right around the corner here. Despite there being a bunch of water nearby, I didn’t feel all that cold right now. It would get cold from here all the way into tomorrow morning though, so it would be nice to have at least one blanket. I also figured it’d be safe to expect that one could see the moon and stars in a nature-filled place like this, so it wouldn’t hurt to have a lantern and some candles.

I operated the translucent window and opened the catalog.

There was nothing in the eshop like magazines, games, or anything that reminded me of the civilization I came from—but it was full of fantasy-like stuff. There were cast iron swords starting from 30000 DL. There was also a seemingly old introductory book to summoning evil spirits for 280000 DL. I also found an ‘Automated Defense (Golem)’ that looked like a plain piece of armor, for the special bargain price of 300000 DL...

“Y-Yeah... There’s a lot of fantasy items, alright.”

Although, I was awfully curious about whether the book for summoning evil spirits was the real deal or not. My motivation to get it slowly dissipated when I thought about how many stone pieces I had to carry here to get the money.

—Let’s see, food... A set of ‘Hard-baked Barley Bread and Beef Jerky (Adult Male, Std. 5 Meal Set)’ is 3000 DL. That seems pretty reasonable, all things considered.

Preserved meals like this usually didn’t need to be cooked and could last for a long while, but 600 DL per serving was kinda high. Even if it was the cost of just one piece of stone, I needed a lot of stuff besides food, so I’d like to reduce expenses as much as possible.

“Hmm... Are there buyer reviews? It would be nice if they had impressions of the taste.”

The display switched immediately as I touched the ‘Review’ button.


Rating : ★★★★☆
Reviewer : Manager, Labyrinth #112
- Water is a must, but the taste isn’t bad. The hard barley bread is pretty hard, but does last for a long while. That, coupled with the salty pork taste of the jerky, will really make you want some water to go with it. You can eat it as is, but it’s kind of difficult. You can get some vegetables and make a stew to make it really delicious.

Rating : ★★★★★
Reviewer : Manager’s Family, Labyrinth #48
- The meat is yummy~ The meat was delicious~! ♥
I definitely would eat it again~

Rating : ★★☆☆☆
Reviewer : Manager, Labyrinth #28
- the cold district sux. the climate around here makes the bread so hard i think i could break my teeth if i tried. be careful if ur in a cold place like me. u wont be able to eat it without heating it up 1st.


“They actually have buyer reviews!?”

After having lost my composure for a second, my shoulders dropped with a sigh.

—What’s with this halfway point between reality and fantasy... Oh well, it’s always convenient to get the impressions from people who have tried it if you haven’t.

In the end, I got five meals, a pitcher and cup, and a piece of animal fur, since that was cheaper than the blankets—also a lamp with oil, and about 10 matches to light it up. The total for all that ended up being 15120 DL, which meant I had used up almost all of my budget. The blanket was really pricey. I almost didn’t have enough to buy a piece of fur big enough to work as a blanket. When you were in a survival setting like this, the first thing you needed to put on your list was to improve your bedding situation.

I kept putting coin after coin inside the piggy bank, but the large amount of coins made it a slow and tedious process. If you cashed in all the stuff you had at once, you’d get more high-value coins, so I resolved to try to putting it all together the next time I used the delivery box.
 

“Thank you for choosing us!”

There went the mysterious home delivery again. Everything I had ordered came in a single cardboard box. I wondered if that was because I ordered it all at once.

—Oh? Couldn’t I put together a makeshift blanket of sorts if I took apart this box?

I opened up Tundra again and hurriedly ordered a utility knife, and promptly used it to dismantle the box. The cardboard was a bit stiff, but you could use it as a mattress, as well as a blanket, so it was rather convenient.

◇

—“What a beautiful sunset...” Is what I would say if I could actually see it from here.

After I took apart the cardboard, I placed it on the wooden bed. I chose a nearby pond to use as my water source, and dug a hole near the attached downstream river to set up a simple bathroom. Before I knew it, it was already evening. I managed to secure food, clothing, and a place to stay... But I guess that was kind of the standard procedure for survival games. By all accounts, I had made it for the night.

Typically around nightfall, there would be dangerous spawns like zombies or dinosaurs, but that depended on the level of realism the games aimed for. That said, anything could end up difficult if the development teams put some real thought into it. Nowadays, survival games aimed more towards putting players into scripted events, and not so much into random variety in way of dangerous creatures roaming around. The environments weren’t even harsh snowing mountains or deserts. It was kind of ironic that real life was easier than the games themselves.

As I sat on a rock, I saw the reflection of the sunset hit the ravine’s stone walls, which dyed the whole area in an orange hue. There might be nocturnal carnivores, so I kept my eyes and ears peeled, but there didn’t seem to be even the slightest hint of any sort of animals around, big or small.

“Wow, the reviews weren’t joking, eh...”

I tried eating some of the food I’d bought from Tundra. The bread was so hard I could barely make a dent in it with my teeth, and the jerky didn’t fare much better either. I could only muster putting a little bit in my mouth to consume slowly. I guess preserved foods really were this salty. I wasn’t expecting the damn bread to be salty too, though. They were right when they wrote I would need water for this. It wasn’t inedible, but it was trying really hard to be. The unappetizing nature of the food made me crave for fruit or a chocolate bar.

I tried to think about my work while I chewed for dear life. First of all, what was with that door in the office building that brought me all the way here? I couldn’t think of a good explanation for it aside from it being some sort of hypnotism trick.

I was sure I’d remember if such a breathtaking ravine like this place was part of a list of natural wonders; but I didn’t recall any television shows, documentaries, or videos on the net about it. Between the ravine and the eshop with its delivery box, it didn’t seem likely I was in the same world as I came from.

There was also the possibility that I was drugged out of my mind and was actually being tied down in a basement somewhere inside the office, or that this was some sort of fever dream. Somehow, I figured being transported to another world still made the most sense. With that in mind, I needed to figure out why they would bring me here in the first place. If I could sort out some sort of goal, it would be easier to work towards it.

So, let’s assume this was all real and was part of the training Karumi-san had mentioned. The training period itself would last approximately three months, and it would be safe to assume that a typical Japanese person, who was well-versed in games, would find it difficult to last long in such a natural setting. There weren’t many people who were able to survive in this kind of harsh environment, let alone seek out a job for one. Even if their purpose was to kidnap or kill me, it wasn’t like I was rich or had good insurance policies, or anything. There was nothing to gain from doing either to me.

If it was just for the thrill of killing, then I would think there would be more effort put into doing so. If I went by those Tundra reviews, there were at least a hundred people out here who lived normally. Which meant there wasn’t any sort of conspiracy behind this, and it was truly just backed by a normal company. Realistically then, I really was just stuck in the middle of an evaluation period to see if I could adapt to the labyrinth manager life or not.

Now, if this training was to see if I was fit to be a labyrinth manager in another world, then the survival setting clashed with that. But if I could unravel the true meaning behind all of this, then the whole situation would fall into place.

Then there was the two documents I found today. One with a truthful report which stated there was nothing but a beat up cabin here, and a false one which listed the labyrinth as completed and fully operational. Was that not what caused this confusion in the first place? Which meant the labyrinth was indeed truly finished, according to the documents Karumi-san and the company had. If I went off that, then putting a newbie like me on a three month trial period, with nothing to go off of but a crappy cabin to live in, didn’t seem too strange a proposal—like I was expected to do well enough given the circumstance.

This place being located at the bottom of a ravine was pretty poor as far as transportation was concerned. It was like this labyrinth was made to lure in travellers and surprise them with demons and traps. It was safe to say that the possibility of this place being even remotely convenient to travel to, or even find in the first place, was low. It made no sense. All in all, the possibility that Karumi-san sent me here in the first place, under the impression I wouldn’t have any difficulty for three months, seemed high. And so, this wasn’t really any sort of trial to see if I could become a master of the labyrinth, or a special event to see if I could actually live in another world—I just got unlucky. It would seem that having to survive was the result of a bunch of misfortunes piled up one on top of another. The end goal of this whole ordeal was to just stick it out until the end of the three months.

—Hah, were you expecting a manager sim? Well, too bad, it’s actually a survival sim! Talk about switching to hard mode...

And so I continued to grind my teeth away on the bread and jerky.

—My first survival gameplay, eh? If I was recording everything I did, it would be like one of those ultra-realistic let’s play runs people do sometimes.

Although I had seen them before, I’d never actually streamed one myself. I couldn’t figure out how to have the viewers only listen to my commentary, especially when I played them in a multiplayer setting. And if I stopped talking altogether, then it wouldn’t be a game stream, but just a normal gameplay video.

Despite all the gripes and concerns I had, this type of living wasn’t so bad. It was more challenging that I could have hoped for, too. If this was my training, then managing the facilities would be rather fun, in the end.

The nighttime darkness had finally started to settle in by the time I was done eating the hard bread and smelly jerky, so I put some oil in the lamp, and took out the matches to have them on standby. The ravine quickly went from orange to red as night crept in slowly, but surely.

“Wow...”

The soft evening glow bathed the bottom of the ravine for about five minutes before night finally took over. The night scenery had a phosphorescent tinge of white and blue. The gentle cobalt blue glow seemed as if it were emitted by some sort of creature, and was spread out across the ravine.

—Are those glowing things some sort of moss... or weed? There so much of it.

When I tried looking for the source of the light, I found it was from moss which stuck to stones, and tiny weeds which sprouted from the soil, that emitted the dim glow. The light wasn’t that strong, though. Like you probably couldn’t read a book with it, for example. But it was bright enough to walk around, or scoop water out of the pond or some do light work.

—I guess I’ll just use the lamp indoors. I don’t wanna ruin this natural view with it. 

After I got my fill of the magical view that was the naturally lit ravine, accompanied by the soothing sound of the flowing river, I headed back inside the cabin and fell asleep on top of the cardboard I had placed previously, and covered myself up with the fur blanket.

◇

—Preparing a good place to sleep was the right choice. It’s pretty humid around here, so the mornings are pretty cold.

I awake as the cool breeze of the early morning entered through the gaps in the cabin and across my skin. When I went outside to gaze upon the sky from the bottom of the ravine, I found the left side to be mad with red, while the right was dyed in blue.

My head was clear now, so I thought about the time. If I assumed this world’s day lasted 24 hours, and I was at the same latitude as Japan, then sunset started around 6 to 7PM, and I watched the local scenery for about two hours and went to sleep around 9PM. If this place really was another world, then I wasn’t sure how far a normal Earth’s calendar would go by comparison, but the hands on my wristwatch told me it was 5AM right now, so I would have slept about eight hours in total.

“Ah, if only I could use some of that excess sleep to play games instead...”

A game I recently downloaded for the PC back at home came to mind. It was set in a post-apocalyptic desert world, and you had to explore the desolate land and scrap for materials to craft your own weapons; all this while looking for the remnants of humanity which were said to be below the ruins of the desert, and held a giant stash of weapons and vehicles. There were Non-Player Characters (NPCs) that were people that had survived the collapse of civilization and cooperated with the player, but could also be hostile depending on various parameters. It was a pretty lonely game if you wanted some sort of online multiplayer interaction.

It was said that the average playtime before actually getting the hang of the game’s systems was 80 hours, but I had ‘played’ here for about 12, and I was already having fun. Despite being in what I presumed to be a fantasy world survival game, you could say I was already set for life at this point, but that was all a matter of perspective.

—If the sun rises in the same way it does on Earth, that means the ravine goes from north to south, and the entrance of the cabin is facing the south.

I vaguely predicted my position while I looked up at the sky.

Then again, if this really was a natural environment, then one might be able to discern the same information at this depth using the way the surrounding vegetation and trees turned towards sunlight. But it was kind of hard to calculate the direct angle of said sunlight since it bounced so many times across the walls of the ravine.

“I want to take a look around the ravine today, better get some weapons first...”

I saw medieval swords, lances, maces, and some metal armor in the Tundra catalog. I didn’t really feel the presence of dangerous animals yesterday or anything, but if they sold them in this world, then it was because there was something dangerous you might need protection for.

—Alright, let’s use the morning to search the same rock I got the stones from yesterday, then buy up the metal weapons, and go exploring.

After I repeated the task of digging up 20 pieces of stone, I sold them to the delivery box four times, and bought a wooden wheelbarrow, a lance with an iron top, and a cast iron dagger from Tundra. By then, the sun had peaked at one side of the ravine, so it must have been close to noon. I looked over the valley while I gnawed on some of my hard lunch. With my cabin as the center, the ravine extended about 700 to 800 meters, north and south respectively. If my calculations were correct, then that was approximately 15 kilometers. The steepness of the cliff didn’t diminish at all across the length of the ravine, and there didn’t seem to be an easy way to descend down here from the surface.

The width of the precipice looked to be consistently 30 meters across, although it seemed to expand up to at least 50 meters high in the few spots where the cliff went down slightly. It looked like I didn’t have to worry about dangerous animals, or a surprise attack from enemies inside the ravine, but escape was also impossible.

Before I went to work in the morning, I used the <Dungeon Management Tool> to get some info on the pickaxe. I found that my Willpower had been restored when I checked the status screen. Somehow it seemed to refill over time. The rate of recovery for Willpower was such that it filled one point per hour if I moved around or worked, two if I was resting. A full recovery was made if I slept for at least seven hours.

Aside from conducting experiments with Willpower’s restoration rates, I tried using the <Appraisal> skill on the various plants around the ravine, and found two promising varieties of plant-life.


Name : Waterdry Tree
Description : A tree that grows in lands of plentiful water. A natural bag is said to be used for storing water inside its trunk, and no moisture is found within its branches. Removing the water results in withering of the tree. Useful for processing as firewood. Reaches maturity quickly. If a branch or seed is planted, it can reach a few meters in height within one week.


Was what I got when I appraised one of the shrubs with thin, twisted trunks near the cabin. Apparently it stored water inside, so it was pretty useful for when you needed clean water, and it could be used for firewood as well.

—But the trunk itself is twisted and thin, so wouldn’t it be hard to use for construction?

I gathered up about 30 branches and planted them close to the cabin. With this, I should be able to secure firewood, provided things went well.


Name : Bluelight Moss
Description : Moss which grows in lands of abundantly clear water. Capable of growing in some environments without sunlight so long as there is a supply of water. Can emit a pale light. Will not wither in places without water and will continue to emit its characteristic light, but will not propagate.


The other thing I appraised was this moss. It seemed like the magical view of the whole ravine was due to countless amounts of these growing all over the place. If one put a piece inside a glass container, it would become an easy source of light. I wasn’t really mining underground, but if I were to make a labyrinth, then I would plant them at set intervals to provide better lighting than any exhaustible torch would.

Even if the light was a bit on the weak side, it was bright enough to illuminate the area in which it grew. That made it a strong contender as a light source compared to the sort of lightmoss one would find on Earth. Since it wasn’t uncommon in the valley, the fact that it was easy to obtain was a real godsend. As for the appraisals, I was expecting that it wouldn’t be necessary to reappraise the same type of item if it was done before, but it looked like that wasn’t the case. You had to use the skill every single time regardless.

I planted some of the waterdry tree branches I’d picked up earlier around the cabin, and dug out more stone with the time I had left. It was already evening by the time I was done selling them to the delivery box. It was a bit hard to move the wheelbarrow around as the wheels were made of wood, but it sure beat carrying stone pieces back and forth by hand. The usefulness of tools could not be underestimated.

I felt as if the days here went by faster than those on Earth. Although, it may have just seemed that way because I moved around constantly, compelled by the sheer enjoyment of the ‘gameplay’.

“Hmm... Farm work sure seems tough...”

After dinner, I took a look at Tundra’s catalog. While I sat there in front of the cabin, the sun went down and was replaced by the bluish glow of the moss. I still gnawed away at my jerky and bread, but remembered that relying solely on preserved food was not only bad for the economy, but also for overall health. Tundra sold fresh vegetables, but the price made you think twice, and they sold out fast despite that.

As I calmly perused the eshop, I noticed something. While the actual process of collection and delivery of Tundra was still very much a mystery, the quantity of goods sold through the service were basically updated in real-time as people bought from, and sold goods to, Tundra. I could tell because the stone cubes I sold were in the ‘Stone’ category.


Black Shadow Stone - Building Stone (10x3 m.) == 1300 DL 
  Seller : Manager, Labyrinth #228

Rating : ★★★☆☆
Reviewer : Manager, Labyrinth #172
- Good quality stone, although the amount for sale is too low. It’s a high quality black shadow stone, so it’s suitable for building interiors. You can also give it a good luster with a little bit of polishing. I wanted to make a stone wall, but the amount available for purchase was too little so I gave up. I expect an increase in production output in the future. You could also make stone pavings if they were a little smaller.


In Tundra’s system you didn’t gain additional remuneration even if your item sold after it was placed in the catalog. But seeing someone had bought the stone I sold, and left a review, made me feel kinda happy. Before I noticed, I was grinning like an idiot.

I resolved to keep that comment about increasing production in mind. I checked up on food ingredients next. I could tell vegetables were a popular product from the reviews. It seemed like it constantly sold out right after it was put up in the catalog. And with so much demand, meant an increase in price.

I searched for seeds and saplings to see if I could raise the crops myself, but from the outset, proper agriculture still seemed difficult in this world. I tried to find more specific examples of fruits and crop seeds in the catalog.


Ice Fruit Seedling == 800 DL
Seller : Manager, Labyrinth #28

Rating : ★★☆☆☆
Reviewer : Manager, Labyrinth #35
- impossible to use in the desert. I thought it would be okay if I planted it underground deep enough since it’s cold, but it withered out by the 10th day, it might have something to do with water quality here

Rating : ★★★★★
  Reviewer : Manager, Labyrinth #785
Environment : Permafrost
- Sweet, delicious! - After about 40 days from planting it you can get get about 10 fruits so big they won’t fit in your hand, per harvest. The skin is kinda hard, but it’s sweet and delicious. The fact it doesn’t freeze even in my environment is the best!


Dry Land Rice Seedling == 3000 DL
Brand : ~Devilish Glance~
  Seller : Manager, Labyrinth #421

Rating : ★★★★★
Reviewer : Manager’s Family, Labyrinth #48
  Environment : Savanna...ish?
- Everything excellent besides the brand name - It took 80 days to harvest after planting. I’m happy it’s resistant to dryness. The harvest amount wasn’t bad and neither was the taste. I shared some of it around the nearby village and it became pretty popular, but couldn’t answer when they asked me about the brand’s name...

Rating : ★★★☆☆
Reviewer : Manager, Labyrinth #601
Environment : Temperate humid climate - plateau
- It’s resistant to dryness but weak against cold? - Harvested after 65 days from planting. I raised them in a prototype field. The fact they don’t need much time for watering is a plus. The same day winter started was the same day they became out of season, and some of them froze and withered, so I had to wipe my tears as I harvested while most were still not ripe. The taste was nice but my climate might be too harsh for them.


As you could see, it looked like there was nothing fantasy-esque with regards to the growth of crops. There were lots of games aimed at casual players in which crops could be harvested in about one to five days after planting. But here? It took a while for them to grow. It was useful when the reviewers would put the climate and time to harvest in their comments, though. My training period would be over before I had time to harvest some of these crops with long periods of growth. I didn’t really have the luxury to grow and harvest them with my current time allotment.

Raw meat and fish were cheap, but sold out. Items of luxury and processed goods remained in stock, though... From what I had gathered, managers with labyrinths located in places like meadows or other calmer climates were the ones participating in agriculture. There didn’t seem to be any type of greenhouse cultivation, so the seasonal influence affected everyone. We were in the early part of summer right now, so edible wild plants were rather abundant, but most of them were bitter when compared to normal vegetables. And most of all, it took more time and effort to process said plants to remove the astringent tastes.

“Hm? Maybe this one might be good for me, eh?”

My hand stopped upon one of the seasonal items as I checked the catalog.


Lantern Pumpkin Seed == 150 DL
Left in Stock : 3 remaining

Rating : ★★★★★
Reviewer : Manager’s Family, Labyrinth #601
- For seasonal interior use. Careful you don’t leave anything raw inside! It sprouts as soon as you plant it and you can pluck off a pumpkin big enough to make a lantern in about a day. Their skin is pretty hard so you’ll have to have a tool ready to process these. They’re also packed full inside so you’ll have to take it all out. I repeat, be careful not to leave anything raw inside the lanterns you make, there’ll be bugs and mold if you‘re not!

Rating : ★★★★☆
  Reviewer : Manager’s Family, Labyrinth #48
- i had a blast making them with my mom but theyre kinda scary when theyre done!!!


Like the ones found during Halloween, right? Those seemed to be in a lot of online games.

—Yeah, the ones they implemented for seasonal events and didn’t bother deleting the data so they can use it next year too, hah.

Surely they must have felt lonely being ditched like that. There sure seemed to be a lot of comments suggesting to throw away the insides of pumpkins used for lanterns. They all said it wasn’t tasty. Not like it was poisonous or anything, though. They almost seemed like event items. You could even plant them and have it ready the next day.

I ordered the remaining three in stock, and used the light of the moss to help me put the money into the piggy bank.

“Thank you very much!”

—You know... Hearing that voice every time really ruins my immersion.

◇

“Whoa, these sure are big.”

When I opened the envelope that was delivered, I found seeds as big as an eraser inside. I figured I should try to plant one for now. I thought that actual soil would be better for this, so I used the <Dungeon Management Tool> and selected the ‘Soil Improvement Tool’ from the Terrain Improvement System.

—And that’s it.

If this was a dungeon creation game, I could maybe create designated plots of land and switch up the field’s soil. But instead, what fell in front of me, like that shovel and pickaxe before, was a simple metal-edged hoe. I didn’t mind actually cultivating a big plot of land, but how long would it take to ‘improve soil’ with a single cheap hoe like this?

I chose a patch of ground near the cabin, used the hoe to till a bit of it, and planted the lantern pumpkin seed inside. I grabbed the remaining water I had from dinner earlier and sprinkled it onto the ground.

—I hope it’s actually edible. Not expecting much since it was so cheap, but still, that would be nice.

I patted the soil I planted the seeds in and prayed for a good harvest. With a loud yawn, I headed to bed afterwards. I’d been moving non-stop ever since this morning so I was pretty beat. The next day I woke up to find an enormous pumpkin was born in front of the cabin.
 

“Nice.”

Boring remark, I know. It looked like it was about 50 centimeters across and 25 centimeters tall. I was surprised it grew this much overnight. It looked more and more like a game’s seasonal event item with each passing second.

“I have to see if I can eat it or not... Umm... I don’t really have a pot to cook it in. Maybe I can just grill it?”

I selected the <Dungeon Management Tool> and chose the ‘Forest Processing Tool’ from the Terrain Improvement System. As I expected, a hatchet then fell right in front of me. The waterdry trees that grew around were pretty thin, so the hatchet should be enough to cut some down.

I cut down three tree trunks, snapped off the branches, and stuck them in the soil. Although it was just out of consideration to prevent running out of resources, I still felt a level of reverence for what nature had provided me. Very much a Japanese-type thing to feel.

I easily sawed a bunch of pieces of firewood to about 20 centimeters long, then I took one and chopped it into finer pieces. With the smaller pieces surrounded by the longer ones, I lit them both together using matches I had bought from Tundra.

Waterdry trees really were useful, as they were easy to make into firewood without having to dry them first. Normally a tree wouldn’t catch fire so easily, let alone smoke out. I remembered one time I played a game where humanity had collapsed due to a zombie outbreak, and if you tried to set a live tree on fire, you would fail pretty quick. Should you have managed to even light one though, the amount of smoke that billowed out would draw the attention of the zombies, and even other players. So me and my friends would carry a bunch of wood into a big church on the map, dry it out, then waited for another player to come by and we’d go...

“Welcome, would you like to worship the wood?”

Ah, the memories brought a tear to my eye. Being the crazy heretics we were, we would beat up anyone who wouldn’t submit to the sacred wood.

Cooking the pumpkin proved to be very simple. I tossed the whole thing, skin and all, into the open air fire. With a moderate flame, it should be edible if you peeled off the scorched outside bits... I think. It would save time from having to crack it open since I didn’t have a frying pan or wire mesh handy. Anyway, I roasted it directly on the fire for about 30 minutes before I peeled off the skin with the hatchet, awaiting the hot yellow-colored insides to come out.
 

“Welp... Nothing inedible in here, but...”

There was practically no sweetness to it. Maybe a slight amount, but the overwhelming vegetable smell completely drowned it out. The texture and subsequent feeling of it going down your throat was also anything but pleasant. It felt grainy and rough, almost like a sand pear, and it left an awful aftertaste that was reminiscent of sawdust in my mouth. While it was edible, it was also far from tasty.

—I’m glad it’s kind of edible... But I think I’ll pass.

While every passing meal of consuming this wretched pumpkin might prevent you from starving, you’d slowly edge more and more towards just wanted to be starved.

—Now that I think about it, characters in survival games don’t care about the flavor of anything, do they?

Among all the survival games I’d played so far, it was commonplace to eat stuff like canned sardines or cold ameba cells for every meal. But when you became the affected party, then of course you’d want a change in meal types even if it wasn’t lobster or caviar. That all aside, at least there was still a lot to eat... So I guess I didn’t have to worry about running out food...

◇

The days went by as I continued to dig out stones, plant more waterdry trees for firewood, and pondered purchases while browsing Tundra.

When I looked at the various reviews, it dawned on me that many of the labyrinth managers were Japanese or lived in Japan. Among the typical things that were manufactured by them, the ones which stood out more conspicuously were things like modern underwear, cat ear accessories, and soft-looking robes. Of course, the fact that they were hand-made meant there was little stock to go around, and what little there was sold out almost immediately.

Strangely enough though, there was still lots of stock for convenient and reasonably priced items. Presumably all of them were provided up by local denizens of the world, which seemed to imply that their level of civilization wasn’t all that modern.

Most clothes seemed to be made out of linen, sometimes cotton. There were simple dyed shirts, and even some with some sort of detailed designs, too. There was a level of regional disparity; everything looked like it came out of middle-aged European society, than not. A period of time you’d be all too familiar with if you played a lot of fantasy-themed games before.

Right as I had started to settle into the groove of waking up everyday to gather stones and any other valuable items, and buying food and clothes from Tundra with my profit... an incident occurred. Maybe it was because I had gotten fed up with my newfound lifestyle, but one morning I found myself oversleeping, only to be awoken by the sound of something rolling across the ravine, followed by a big bang.


“Wha... Did some rocks fall, or something?”

I ran out of the cabin while rubbing the drowsiness from my eyes. About three of four meters out were some waterdry trees I had planted. I thought they were about the age to be cut down, but were now shredded to pieces.

“Well, I guess that saves me the trouble of cutting them down... What the hell happened here?”

I made out what looked to a person’s silhouette among the mess of broken trunks and twigs that were the waterdry trees.

“Is that a person? Don’t tell me someone fell down all the way down here!”

I looked up, but all I could see was the usual steep cliff and the unreachable sky. I couldn’t imagine falling from that high up straight into the ground would be anything but dangerous to one’s life.

—A girl...? Wait a minute. A girl falling from the sky is a game scenario flag for a new character introduction. But what's the point of that if the person died from the fall!?

A young girl with chestnut-colored hair and a dress, covered in dust and soil, was collapsed amongst the wreckage of waterdry trees...

“Ah...”

I was unexpectedly captivated by the girl that I had forgotten the gravity of the situation for a moment.

She was like a budding rose. Her innocent face was a captivating combination of a young girl’s cuteness and a grown woman’s beauty. Although her clothes were dirty, she didn’t seem like a doll or one of those smutty 3D game models. No amount of dirt and grime could obscure the fact that she was a spunky cute girl full of life. I wouldn’t keep my composure even if you had told me this was just a game event, so I rushed to her side.

—I don’t care if you’re an illusion or if I’ve finally lost my mind thanks to those pumpkins. I don’t care what happens afterwards, just please be alive...!

I reached out to her as gently as I could, and touched her soft-looking cheeks. I felt the warm and soft, yet somewhat rough, sensation of her skin.

“Thank goodness, she’s still alive.”

The warmth of life in the girl which ran through my fingers relieved me from the bottom of my heart.

—But I still need to treat her. If we were in Japan, I would carry her to a hospital so they can take a good look at her, but...

There were no such things as hospitals in this fantasy ravine that I didn’t even know how to get out of. But first aid from a rookie like me was better than no treatment at all.

—Did the fragile waterdry tree branches cushion her fall? Well, it’s good that the soil where she fell is also close to the wet, marshy part of the valley.

The waterdry tree trunks were scattered all over the damp ground. They might be useless as firewood now, but it was a cheap price to pay for saving the girl’s life. Though... Wouldn’t it be rude to say the poor trees were cheap?

“Oh, she’s pretty light.”

I placed my hands on her back and her legs to hold her up and looked back at the broken waterdry trees.

—Thank you for saving her. I’ll be sure to come back and dry all of you off. No one’s life will be lost in vain while I’m around.

I thanked the broken waterdry trees before I carried the girl back to the cabin. I had raised the trees to be used as firewood, so it wasn’t like they were going to thank me or respond in any way, but I didn’t want to seem ungrateful. Maybe I was being a little too Japanese, but I liked being this way.

◇

—Right, I want you to live, and I did say I wouldn’t mind whatever came after, but...

My strength was dissipating quickly. I felt my legs were on the verge of collapse and soon I would find myself on the ground, too. Did this world have to throw me a curveball every time?

I placed the girl on top of a table in front of the cabin that I had cobbled together from piled up stone. I had to clean the dirt off her before I did anything else, so I went inside to fetch a towel from the cabin. I dipped it into water and wrang it out. When I returned, the girl I had placed on the table was nowhere to be found. In her place was a tawny, fluffy dog-looking thing!

It wasn’t possible that they switched places. The dog-looking thing was wearing the same dress as the girl had. How could this furball of a pet be such a cute-looking girl? I almost wanted to drop to my knees and cry out “Why!?” at the top of my lungs. Maybe I just was so tired that this was a hallucination.

—A... god? No, it’s more like a human...

The tawny dress-wearing ball of fur was about 130 centimeters long. The palm of her hand seemed to have a paw pad, but she still had five long fingers. There were also a lot of joints, so I suppose she could use tools like a normal person. Her bone structure from her spine down to her legs looked more like a human’s instead of an animal too, so she must be able to stand on two legs and walk around. Nothing about it really made any sense to me, but there wasn’t any time to process what had happened. I had more pressing matters to deal with.

“Maybe I really haven’t gotten used to this life after all...”

Why did this doggy look like a cute girl? I couldn’t believe it myself.

—Wait... I don’t remember ever having a preference for furry things, could it be that I—

From all the games with heroines that I had encountered so far in life... I was confident that human companions always beat out furry ones, according to me that is.

—No! Now’s not the time to be thinking about that!

The girl turned dog didn’t change the fact that she needed treatment. She just looks a little... No, it would be terrible of me to change my attitude just because her appearance was different. After I slapped some sense into myself I cleaned the parts of her which were dirty, while I checked out the condition of the rest of her body. There were severe cuts and bruises, but there didn’t seem to be any fractures or heavy bleeding. I was glad there was nothing that needed to be sewn or operated on.

—She looks okay, at least. 

“Execute Appraisal.”

Ann

Half-Kobold

Vitality : 4/18     Strength : 5/28     Willpower : 8/25

Kobolds were a pretty famous monster race in fantasy games, right? It had decreased a lot, but she still had some Vitality left, and it didn’t seem like she had any severe injuries as it wasn’t decreasing. What a relief. According to my fantasy knowledge, kobolds were monsters, but this girl had such a gentle look to her, and her fangs weren’t even sharp. She also seemed to groom her claws as they weren’t really long. If anything, she looked like a gentle herbivore than a carnivorous beast to me.

She was also wearing clothes, so it was safe to assume her species was intelligent enough to talk, at the very least. I felt like this would be one of those game events in which a window popped up and I would need to choose between “End Her Misery” or “Save Her”. But the thought of ending the life of a fluffy creature in pain seemed too much for me.

I wasn’t sure what kind of higher being this labyrinth had, if any at all, but after seeing her as a normal cute girl, the consequence of choosing “End Her Misery” would be too much for me to bear. She didn’t seem that strong status-wise, and I probably could manage even if I got attacked, so let’s choose “Save Her”.

I took her inside so I could treat her easier. There was something I noticed as I held up her fluffy kobold body. If this was a normal RPG then just placing her on the bed would be more than enough to restore her Vitality, but in this case I would have to take her clothes off in order to wipe down her whole body with the cloth.

—She smells like an unwashed dog...

You may think I was being rather harsh, but I was having second thoughts about putting her on the bed. I took off the dusty dress and wiped her fur down with a cloth until the dirt started to come off. Eventually the cloth would become pitch black with soot, so I rinsed it out and pressed onward. By the end of it, her fur seemed to be more glossy than before. Once she was clean, I carried her to the bed and laid her down, and continued to monitor her situation.

◇
“Execute Appraisal...” 

—Her Vitality’s still four, huh? The fact that it’s been a few hours since I found her, yet has shown no signs of recovering, is worrying. Even if we are in a fantasy RPG-like world, isn’t it bad that she isn’t recovering over time?

I had been watching her the whole time since I laid her down on the bed, but her condition remained the same. The only thing I had heard come out of her were strained gasps. If you discounted old game systems, it was very strange she wasn’t recovering with rest here. Even if they wanted to take a more realistic approach to recovery time, it just didn’t make sense not to regain anything after all these hours.

The only possibility I could think of was... Maybe some of her internal organs were damaged? If so, then the amount of Vitality she regained and lost would be almost the same over time. Should I rely on Tundra again? It didn’t seem like something I could solve with just first aid. Next time, I’d like to get a book on herbalism and memorize it. In the end, I opened up the catalog and looked for something that would be useful.

—Hm, I see magic potions, vitality potions, and revive potions in the Medicine category here.

Amazing, they sold potions right next to the usual stuff like compresses and disinfectant, as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

“The simplest Grade 9 Vitality potions costs 20000 DL. It’s a pretty hefty price, but I don’t think I can do much about it. The cheapest Grade 10 Revive potions go for 45000 DL. Good Dark Lord...”

The price made me spout out something pretty weird just now. It wasn’t like I couldn’t pay it, but my savings would melt after getting both.

—Dang it. It’ll hurt my wallet, but I’d feel bad later if she dies like this.

As I looked at her fluffy fur getting cold... The only thing that went through my mind was how I wanted to avoid having to bury it into the ground if it got any colder. I could save money again, but I couldn’t do anything but face regret when it came to an actual living being.

“It’s better to to regret what you’ve done, than not doing anything at all, I guess.”

If it was all about the money, I could always dig out more stone and sell it again. It was better to try and help now, rather than living on wondering if I could have—should have—done something. Rather than missing out on a limited availability game and regretting it, isn’t it better to laugh all the way home after finding out it’s shovelware?

I ordered the vitality and revive potions from Tundra. Both of them came inside separate blue and green pots, with a dubious smell. Well, I wasn’t expecting less for magical medicine.

From the reviews, it was the sort of medicine you drank that had lasting effects, so it would be pointless to drink it all in one go. It also said you could apply the potion to an affected area, but ingesting it had a stronger effect.

So there was one problem now.

The potion was like a normal medicine, and she wasn’t conscious... How can I have her drink it? I could just pour it into her mouth, but if she choked or spit out something this expensive I think I would just cry. The traditional method to get unconscious people to drink medicine was doing it mouth-to-mouth, but she had a dog muzzle... And I had no experience with kissing at all. Do you understand my dilemma, now?

—My first kiss will be with a dog... No, this doesn’t count, right? I’m just closing her mouth with mine so she doesn’t spit the medicine out!

If you compared mouth-to-mouth between humans and someone with a long and thin dog muzzle like her, I think I would have to give her a very deep kiss to make her drink the medicine.

—This sure is hardcore... No! This is where a gamer has to be brave!

I remembered the words I learned in a certain guild of a war-themed online game I was part of for many years. “When the going gets tough, the tough get going!” So I got a mouthful of both potions. Despite the dubious smell, they tasted like mint. When I placed my lips against her muzzle and poured the liquid right into her throat, she tried to spit it back out. But I still forced it in... Yeah, the hurdle to have had such a passionate kiss was high even for lovers.

—Hehe... I did it, I really did! I got over the difficult challenge!

After I was finished making her drink both potions, the mental fatigue was so great I ended up with my hands on the floor. But I still wanted to praise myself for doing it well. I never thought I would have to overcome giving medicine mouth-to-mouth to a dog-faced girl. Cross-species communication sure sounded like it was gonna be hard... I just prayed this kobold was really a female; I didn’t want my first kiss being with a boy.

I didn’t know if it was a hallucination or something, but I was sure she seemed like a normal girl at first. I wanted to believe she was a female since she wore a dress at first, but then I realized our cultures might be different. Maybe I got a little careless. If it turned out to be a male... Then I guess I would just seal away the memories of the past hour.

“If she really turned out just to be a cute trap, I don’t think I could laugh it off. I really don’t!”
 
I felt as if some sort of flag had gone off as a pretty nasty word had come out of my mouth, unintentionally.

—Oh, right. I need to order some clothes, don’t I? I can’t really put those dirty clothes back on her without washing them first, can I?

The clothes she was wearing at first were torn off in a corner and were dirty, so I didn’t really want to put them on her again. I opened Tundra yet again, and used nearly all of my remaining savings, after the potions, to order a simple children-sized linen dress for her to put on.

—I guess I’ll be eating grilled pumpkin for a while longer...

I started to notice the effects of the potion as my mental fatigue wore off.

Two hours later and her Vitality had gone up past 10, and her Strength and Willpower had recovered considerably as well. I sat on a simple wooden chair I had made using the trunk of a waterdry tree and watched over her now restful sleep while I flipped through a book.
 

I entered the <Dungeon Management Tool>, opened the ‘Monster Management’ menu, and chose the <Monster Translation Tool> under the ‘Japanese to Monster Language’ dropdown... And out popped a dictionary and a practice textbook. I wasn’t even surprised anymore. I thought it would be really convenient if it translated everything for me with a magic tool or something, but of course it would just be a dictionary.

The monster language seemed easy enough to understand, so at least that was good, I guess. There were some sort of dialects in different places, but it was almost like modern Japanese. They even had the same characters and all that. I can only assume this monster language used Japanese as a base, but who in the heck spread it into this world? Whatever, it was convenient to say the least.

◇

The kobold finally woke up right as sunset began to turn into night.

“Wh-Where... am I?”

Her voice was cute, and you could sense the intelligence behind her words. If we were talking voice only, there wasn’t much difference between her and a normal Japanese girl. The kind of cute I like... Now that I thought about it, it was pretty close to one of those cute anime voices. 

My chest was filled with relief. If she had that kind of voice then the chance of her being a female was high. My whole rescue act wouldn’t become something I’d want to pretend never happened. I was pretty secular myself, being Japanese, but I’d like to offer a prayer of thanks right now.

“Good morning, this is Labyrinth #228. I’m the manager. I think you fell down from above. Would you happen to remember anything about that?”
 
It was important to be polite in every first meeting; just common sense as a working adult.

“Labyrinth... Fell... down...”

She seemed a little confused. Might be because of the shock of the fall. But the fact she could communicate at all, and and wasn’t hostile, made me happy.

“You still look kind of tired. Take it easy and sleep a little more, please.”

I gently patted her head until she finally closed her eyes. She seemed pretty pleased and fell asleep right away. I prepared grilled pumpkin for dinner, if you could call that dinner, but the kobold didn’t wake up again that night.

Since she occupied the only bed, I worried about what to do for a moment, but I figured it would be like sleeping with a dog, so I slipped into the bed as well. Maybe it was because I dedicated my whole life to play, but I had never owned a cat or a dog myself. I’d always wanted to sleep with a pet, though. That night I fell soundly asleep while wrapped in the soft blanket, with the warm and fluffy kobold as a body pillow. Having lived a completely solitary life in the bottom of a ravine for a week, the sensation of having someone close by was really appreciated.

◇

I was awoken by a pleasant shake—I wondered if it was morning outside already. I could feel the gentle sunlight pouring onto me from the gaps of the closed window. The one shaking me awake was yesterday’s kobold. The soft feeling of her paws on my shoulder was pretty comfy.

“Hey, hey! Wake up, Mister. It’s morning already!”

Being woken up by such a sweet voice sure was nice. I wasn’t really interested in the actual goods, but I kind of understood how the guys that bought alarm clocks that woke them up with the voice of game heroines felt like.

“Hgnh...!”

I got up and stretched out. I felt like I slept a thousand times better than every night since I arrived here, thanks to the blanket and furry body pillow.

“Good morning. You’re looking better now.”

I greeted her with a smile on my face. Smiling while greeting was an important part of communication.

“Good morning. Say, where are we? Heaven?” she asked.

Something felt kinda off when such a cute anime girl voice was let out by this furry little thing. There were lots of talking animals in shows aimed at kids, but actually seeing it in real life felt more uncomfortable than exciting.

“This place is called Labyrinth #228. I’m the manager here, my name’s Aoi.”

It might not be my fault, but l felt kinda embarrassed to call this place, with nothing but this shabby cabin, a labyrinth.

“I think you probably fell down here from above around midday yesterday. Do you remember anything about it?”

I wanted to say “Boss, a girl fell from the sky!”, but I doubt a girl from a completely different species, in another world, would catch the reference. Man, I wanted someone around that understood my jokes.

“Fell down... Huh...? So I’m alive even though I fell down the Great Saredo Rift bridge? And in a labyrinth? Are you one of the Dark Lord’s subordinates!?”

Now that was quite the info dump. The only thing I caught of that for now was that this ravine was apparently called Great Saredo Rift.

“Maybe we should slow down a little. Would you tell me your name first?” I asked.

“Huh? Oh, okay... I’m Ann, from the Kobold clan. I forgot to say it, but thank you so much for saving me, Mister!”

“You’re such a polite nice girl, aren’t you?”

Ann’s polite but friendly words made me smile unexpectedly. Ann let out a strange sound, almost like an “Awoo!?” all of a sudden when I did. I wondered if human smiles were creepy for kobolds... Interspecies communication sure was difficult.

“I am the manager of Labyrinth #228, but I started pretty recently, so I don’t know much about this world. Do you think you could tell me what you know about this place, Ann?”

“Yes! I can tell you everything I know, leave it to me!”

As a person that couldn’t get enough of fluffy animals, I was unable to resist from patting Ann’s head after she replied with so much energy.

“Let’s see... There’s a lot of clans in this world, like mine, the Kobolds...”
 

According to what Ann told me, this area was called the “Berkud Border Dominion”. And there apparently was a land route that continued east into the continent, but we also were surrounded by sea in the remaining three directions. I assumed it was something like a peninsula, but Ann told me she didn’t really know its shape since she hadn't traveled very much. It seemed like this country’s leader was a certain Mister Dark Lord, and they had various races living together in this world, including humans like me and kobolds like Ann.

There were familiar fantasy game races like elves and dwarfs living in harmony with races that would normally get classified as monsters like ogres, cyclops, and even goblins. It was a multi-ethnic land with many races, but since the Dark Lord united them together, all the races and cultures joined under the new demonic banner of the country of Daemon. It seemed that any differences between the clans got resolved in not so amicable terms by the Elingald clan that was composed of cyclops from the north. I guess it was easy to understand why they ended up all together that way.

There were various races living peacefully even in the pioneering village Ann was from. It was kinda surprising to me since the Earth I came from couldn’t seem to get out of conflict because of cultural differences or history. The political system seemed to be a feudal system made up by the Dark Lord as the King, and the nobility. They valued power higher than bloodline around here, so that meant nobles were beings that showed outstanding physical or mental prowess to claim their pedigree, and were considered special from the common citizens.

It seemed the Berkud Border Dominion was governed by a Feudal Lord named Spirit King that ruled the land. That Spirit King was one of the Demon Lord’s vassals, but it seemed that the Demon Lord also took orders from the Great Dark Lord. The power structure went something like this: Great Dark Lord -> Demon Lord -> Nobility -> Town Mayor -> Commoners.

Pretty straightforward, huh? The Great Dark Lord being higher than the Demon Lord wasn’t that strange in fantasy settings, but I wondered what that was like in reality. When I asked Ann, the only thing she had to say was that the Great Demon Lord was “The person above the Demon Lords”, so I guess I could only imagine. So maybe Demon Lords were like Governors and the Great Dark Lord was more like a Prime Minister. The village where Ann lived was in a remote spot to the west side of this Berkud Border Dominion. Since the area around here was still being pioneered, there were small villages just like hers scattered about.

If you went even further west, you’d find the “Polaris Channel” and the “Polaris Fort” standing in between. And west of that was a nation of humans with a different type of culture than the other races, yet still looked like a region of just human tribes. And then there were the labyrinths, like #228, that I was supposedly running, and were also under the direct control of the Great Dark Lord; making the managers running them also belongings of the Great Dark Lord, and as such they were given special treatment by the people of Daemon.

I kinda overlooked it because a bunch of cool words like Great Dark Lord and Demon Lord came up, but the ideology of using the country’s budget to create community buildings and tend to the people by the person in charge was a pretty Japanese thing to do... The tension kinda wore off once you noticed that.

“I see, then by that classification I think it’s safe to assume this ‘Labyrinth #228’ is under the Great Dark Lord’s jurisdiction... Ah, you seem more relaxed now.”

“Huh? Yeah. I don’t think you’re a bad guy or anything anymore, so it’s okay,” Ann replied.

“I was hired not too long ago. You said this is the Great Saredo Rift, right? I’m the apprentice manager of Labyrinth #228, located at the bottom of this ravine.”

I wasn’t sure they had any concept of company training with their level of civilization, so I thought that apprenticeship was a better term for it.

“Oh, there’s a rumor that there was a labyrinth around here, but the manager wasn’t anywhere to be found.”

“I saw everything I could from down here, but I don’t really know anything about what’s up there. Do you know anything about that, Ann?”

“Um... A long time ago they were building something at the bottom of the Sareno Rift, like a giant scaffold. But I haven’t heard anything about them aside from none of them are around anymore, and that no one returned after they fell apart, so I don’t think it’s possible for anyone to know...”

“Right, so you need to build a scaffold or a staircase to go up at least, huh? Ann, do you wanna live here until we find a way to go up?”

“Really!? Umm... You don’t mind?”

“No need to be stiff. I’m still an apprentice, even if I’m supposed to be a manager. It would be stupid to kick you out of here when there’s not even an exit from the ravine, don’t you think? It’s the first time I’ve met someone that’s not human, so I don’t really know much about kobolds, but you’re still a girl, I’m sure of that.” 

And she’s pretty soft, too. It would be a shame to lose my body pillow.

“Thank you, Mister!”

I embraced Ann as she jumped into my arms. She’s so small it felt like I was hugging the little sister I never had. Although, she looked more like a large dog right now.

“Let’s eat first. I take it you’re hungry, right?”

I took Ann with me and lit the fire. I started heating up the grilled pumpkin, and threw in some salt and pepper, for breakfast. Even though there was a lot of it, it was still pretty bad. Yet, Ann just happily ate it, and let me know how tasty it was. She was such a cute girl. After seeing her eat it up so happily, I couldn’t tell her how tired I was of eating them.

“Well then, I should get to work. What are you gonna do, Ann?”

I asked her while she drank water after finishing her meal. The water quality in this ravine was pretty good so it must have been tasty, huh?

“I’ll help too! Um, what are doing?”

“Well, I say work... but it’s really just digging out stone. Oh yeah... The village you live in is to the east, right?”

“Yes, Milt Village. It’s about an hour from here on foot.”

“Then how about I dig up stone in the east wall and make a stairway? We’ll need a way to go up first, anyway.”

It would be really nice to make something like the stairs of a mansion, but I didn’t really have any experience, besides games, in making something like a multi-storied cavern. It seemed like all I had to do was dig up a staircase pattern on the wall, easy enough.

“Are you sure? You helped so much and I haven’t even done anything...”

“No need to worry. I can do business if I get to the village as well.”

Not a very childish thing to worry about, so I patted her head to reassure her. Now that I thought about it, how old was she anyway? She seemed more like a girl than a woman, so I guess I could treat her like a little sister. Besides, I wasn’t lying when I said I want to connect with the village as well. They should have crops and peddlers around there. It was my chance to break away from the pumpkin diet.

“By the way, you’re a half-kobold, right, Ann?”

“Y-Yeah... I am.”

I wondered why she looked so nervous all of a sudden.

“I don’t even know about the Kobold clan to begin with, can you tell me about it?”

“Well... Our clan is said to be filled with dog demons. We don’t grow very tall even when we become adults. We’re not usually very strong, but there’s a lot of us who are very good with our hands, so I guess that’s our best trait? We can even see when we’re in dark places. I’ve heard that’s really useful when making stuff like basements or other things in the dark.”

“I see, are half-kobolds different from normal kobolds?”

“Erm... maybe I’m a little weaker than a normal kobold.”

So she’s delicate, huh? I guess it depended on which race you were a half of.

“I’m kinda good with my hands too, but nothing compared to a real kobold.” 

Looks like kobolds specialized in dexterity. Watered down traits was natural for a half breed.

“Ah, but I seem to be smarter than normal kobolds. I can calculate and read and write stuff that’s too difficult for the rest of the villagers.”

“You can do all that? That’s amazing.”

Being able to deal with numbers and read and write in a fantasy world that went “Literacy, is that tasty?” was pretty good. Although it won’t help much for the problem we have currently.

“How about your stamina?”

“Normal kobolds have more stamina... and I’m kind of a female, so...”

Oh, yeah, I guess it made sense for males to have more stamina. 

Well, what should I have Ann help with then? Your first helper having lackluster stats in games was pretty much cliché at this point, but I didn’t think it would worry me as much as it did. But I couldn’t tell her to not do anything when she looked at me with such eager eyes. They practically screamed “I’ll do anything!” at me.

“Let’s see, this labyrinth’s special product is stone. Maybe I can show you how to deliver it... Come with me.”

I took her into the cabin and showed her the delivery box in the back.

“This is the delivery box. The materials you put inside of here will get converted to money.”

I put one of the stones I’d left beside the box to show her how the conversion worked.

“You put the materials inside the box like this, close the lid, and there’ll be money next time you open it. One piece of stone is worth 802 DL.”

“Amazing, I’ve never seen anything like this before. This is really the Great Dark Lord’s labyrinth!”

So this box was rare even by this world’s standards, huh?

“I have something I’d like you to do with this. Do you think you could polish the stones that I bring here?”

“Polish?”

“Yeah, it seems like they get a nice luster when you do. I think the selling price will go up a little bit if we polished them properly. Wanna give it a try?”

“Yes, I’ll do my best!”

I gave Ann a cheap cloth I bought via Tundra. I had been digging west this whole time, but I went the opposite way this time and started digging a 20x20 meter staircase in the east wall of the ravine. I’d like to leave the stone carrying to Ann, but the whole kobold thing aside, I couldn’t really let a girl that was injured recently do physical labor all of a sudden. Assuming this ravine’s depth was of about 100 meters, I calculated I’d roughly get at least 200,000 stones from making it to the top.

—Let’s take it easy, I’ll lose the drive to work if I think too hard about it.

“Mister, look at how pretty it looks after I polish it!”

Ann waved her paws at me while I carried the stones I’d dug out of the wall closer to the delivery box. Yeah, not being alone is really nice, after all.

“Ann, what happened to the stone?”

“Look, it's sparkling so much!”

I looked at Ann’s paws while pushing the wheelbarrow closer to where she was.

“So they get that pretty when you polish them... Now that’s a surprise.”

The stone Ann was holding looked so smooth and brilliant. It was somewhat darkish. Compared to stuff from my world, I’d say it was close to the granite they use for tombstones. It took about two or three hours to dig out the stones and carry them back. I was amazed she got them all polished up in that time. Despite being only half-kobold, I was in awe of the race’s skill.

“You’re amazing!”

Patting Ann’s head to praise her had a really relaxing effect.

“Let’s try putting one in the delivery box. I wonder how much your effort adds to the price... Ah, why don’t you keep the first one?”

“Umm... Well, I want to put it in the delivery box now. I want to know how hard I worked.”

“I see, let’s try it out then.”

So soft... Yes, the sweet and fluffy creature right in front of me was so nice. When Ann put the stone in the delivery box and closed the lid, the clanky sound of coins was louder than usual. Upon opening the lid, there were obviously more coins than I used to get when selling the stones before.

The numbers added up to 5800 DL, seven times higher than the normal stones.

“This is amazing, this sells for way more than normal stone.”

“Eheheh~”

Ann was so happy her smile hooked me right in. Before I noticed, I was smiling as well.

“Oh, right.”

I started up the <Dungeon Management Tool> and accessed the ‘Tundra Manager > Purchase Authority’ options and gave permissions to Ann. I also opened up Tundra’s catalog and purchased a leather purse with a cord to strap around your neck, and put all the money from Ann’s first sale in it.

“Ann, this is a memento of the first time you came here and worked. So you have something to remember it by. Use it carefully if there’s anything you want.”

“Eh... Ah... Huh?”

I could see the surprise on her face as her eyes went between the leather purse hung around her neck and to my face repeatedly.

“I... Uh... Mister...!”

She suddenly hugged me, crying, while burying the tip of her nose in my clothes.

“Wh-What’s wrong, Ann? Did I say something bad?”

“A’m sho japy... Wai ar shu sho goot me...?”

—Erm... “I’m so happy, why are you so good to me?”, maybe?

“W-Well... I-I didn’t really mean to. I just... Oh yeah! I-I just did what I would if I had a little sister... That’s all.”

She was like a human, even if she was a little dog-ish. I wasn’t really used to girls, and even less so to other species. That was why I couldn’t shake away the feeling that she was kind of like a pet. Really, the only reasonable route for me was to treat her as if she were my little sister.

“A-Awooo!”

—Oh man, she is really crying.

She might have had a lot of sad memories in this fantasy world. I enjoyed the fluffy feeling as I stroked her head until she calmed down. And that same time, I found Ann trying to sleep on a bunch of cardboard pieces that happened to be on the floor as I was about to go to bed.

“Hey, Ann. Isn’t that a little hard?”

“Yes...”

“I bet it’s cold without a blanket.”

“Y-Yes...”

“Well, I know you might feel a bit embarrassed, but it would be bad if you got a cold.”

“Huh? Wai— Mister!?”

I held the sulky Ann in my arms and carried her from the cardboard to the bed, and embraced her the same way I did yesterday.

“We’re different races, so it shouldn’t be that big of a deal, right...? Ah, so soft.”

I yawned right after hugging her.

“U-Uuuh...!”

Ann seemed like she was about to complain for a moment, but it took less than 10 minutes for the both of us to depart to the land of dreams. The softness of blankets, and the warmth of another person’s skin—or fur in this case—was truly a fiendish thing...

I suddenly woke up in the middle of the night. This soft and warm thing was... Ann? It seemed like she was hugging me back, but she was just sleeping while burying her face into my chest. 

“Auntie, it’s still sour... Sara... the wind feels so nice today...”

Ann’s sleep talk made its way into my ears. I wondered if she was dreaming about when she was still on the surface... Her sleep talking voice had a pretty funny tone. Seemed like she was having a good dream.

—I have to return Ann to her home...

I stroked her fluffy head while she murmured. Although I would be happy if she stayed with me forever, I didn’t want to make her feel lonely from losing her family and everyone she’s known all of a sudden. Even if she ended up going home... It was way better than carrying the sin of keeping her from everything she loved. I tightly embraced the softness within my arms and thought about working as hard as I could to build that staircase tomorrow.

◇

The next day I started making the staircase with more conviction than ever. First, I used the stone I dug out already to pave the wet ground connecting the entrance of the cabin to the stairway. It was hard to move around when the wheel of the wheelbarrow got stuck in the mud thanks to exposed soil. I couldn’t really afford to keep all the stone lying wherever since the valley of the labyrinth wasn’t all that big to begin with. And even if I could do that, I needed to turn this stuff in to make money. Ann still took care of polishing the stone. Since her injuries had healed completely, I got her a wheelbarrow from Tundra, and was having her help carry the stone as well.

Anyway, my training would be over in three months. I didn’t think I would be able to build these stairs all the way up by myself in that time, and if I waited for Ann to finish polishing each and every one of them, the terrain around the cabin would be completely filled with stones before we could even finish. Ann’s strength and stamina might have made the job a tad difficult, but I didn’t want to leave Ann alone down here without a way out when they came to pick me up in three months. The deadline might be a bit tight, but I’d like to complete the stairs.

“Munch, munch... This is tasty, delicious!”

Ann’s eyes sparkled as she bit into a big sandwich. After three days of starting the stair digging in earnest, our muscle pain was too much to stomach, despite our best efforts to try and keep going. I decided to splurge a bit and bought some white bread and bacon from Tundra. I also managed to nab a lettuce-like vegetable and made something akin to a sandwich.

I used a whole 20 centimeter diameter piece of bread to make the sandwich, and observed as the tiny Ann wolfed it down, with a smile on my face. 

Even though they were simple dishes, the ingredients made up for most of the taste. I felt some kind of joy as a chef... No, more like a househusband. Yeah, there was this one game about a housewife taking care of her husband and children. This was like the gender-swapped version of that... Man, my head is really hardwired to games, huh?

“Hmm... Yeah, it’s really tasty.”

I was hungry after a hard day of work, so I ate a sandwich the same size as Ann’s. Albeit, at a much slower pace.

“Oh...?”

As the number of people increased, so did the amount of wood we used. On a certain day, when I was gathering firewood to prepare today’s breakfast early in the morning, I found a clear, pale amber stone in the ever-growing plot of land I used to plant waterdry trees I used for wood.

“It’s quite pretty, but I wonder what it is... Execute Appraisal.”


Name : Waterdry Amber
  Description : The solid state of waterdry tree sap. It’s rarely produced when raising waterdry trees with abundantly clear water. The higher the water quality is, the higher the transparency of the amber and the rarity of the same will be.


So it was some kind of amber. I was surprised when a jewel fell out of a tree all of a sudden. Ambers on Earth were fossils of tree sap, but the fact it was produced inside the tree made it something more akin to a pearl. Or like kidney stones, if you wanted to think of it that way. They were really pretty, so I added collecting waterdry amber to the daily ritual of gathering firewood.

Since we had been selling tremendous amounts of stone every single day, we were kind of well off money-wise, so I bought a glass container that looked very much like a goldfish tank, and decide to decorate the room with them. Maintaining peace of mind with interior decoration was important, too.

◇

It nighttime after work was done for the day.

When we had started working on the stairs, both Ann and I would almost pass out in the bed each night, as we had spent up all our stamina in the day. But as we repeated the same routine everyday, my body gradually adapted, and the effort needed became less and less. And with more time to spare, my lifelong craving came to surface.

In other words: I wanted to play games.

There were many games you could make in places where tools and materials are limited, but playing those said games by yourself was kinda restricting. Fortunately, I wasn’t alone. I had my trusty Ann with me. At first we played tic-tac-toe using the bluelight moss and branches to draw symbols in the soil.

“Umm... A circle around here... Ah, I lost!”

“It was a good call, but you’re rushing to win too much.”

I bought a parchment from Tundra and drew a 8x8 grid on it, cut out circles out of a piece of thick leather, and coated half of them black to make a makeshift othello board.

“I got you now, Mister! The four corners are mine. Heheh! Huh? Why are you doing that when you have no place to move? No! Don’t!”

“You’re smart, Ann, but you’re too upfront as well. You have to match your movement to your rival’s.”

Unsatisfied by only board games, I created my own primitive RPG that only needed paper and pen to play, no need for computers. If I wanted to play with someone, said person would need to be able to read and calculate, but Ann was qualified enough for that.

“I take two steps ahead and attack the thieves. Umm... I attack for eight points. It’s a critical hit!”

Ann absorbed things like a sponge. She familiarized herself with the game I made from scratch, and got hooked right away. 

“Man, you’re amazing, Ann. You have the qualities to make a genius gamer. World tournaments aren’t just a dream if you keep up this pace.”

“I don’t really know what a gamer is, but I’m happy when you praise me! Hey, hey, Mister! We still have some time before bed, right? I wanna play that ‘Labyrinths and Dragon’s Feast’ thing again!” 

“I see, but it’ll take a while, okay? It’s not good for your eyes at your age to create characters with only the lamp’s light.”

“Yeah, I know. Let’s hurry, then!”

I hadn't realized it at first, but at the time, the main factor in retaining my sanity in this unfamiliar environment, where I worked myself to the bone everyday, was that I had Ann as my Player 2.

◇

It hadn’t crossed my mind initially, but after overworking my body every single day for one month to build the stairs in this unfamiliar, nature-filled environment, I felt my technique and my strength had improved a lot compared to the first day. It wasn’t like I had huge muscles or a six-pack all of a sudden, but my body felt strangely light. At first, I could only dig out one stone at a time, and had to hit the stone with the pickaxe several times. But now, if I put some strength into it I could dig out eight at a time, and my hands didn’t even get numb from the shock, like the very first time.

Ann’s limit at first was five or six trips back and forth of carrying stone back to the delivery box, but she carried so much stone now that the wheelbarrow was the one screaming for help.

—I’m not imagining this, am I...? Oh, I forgot I have an easy way to check myself.

It had been a long while since I brought up the translucent menu and checked on my status screen.

Aoi Kousaka

<Apprentice Labyrinth Manager>

Vitality : 1‌2‌1‌/‌1‌2‌1     Stamina : 6‌4‌0‌/‌8‌72     Willpower : 60‌/‌80

Skills : <Dungeon Management Tool>  <Appraisal> 

The reason I was able to spend my time well and keep my sanity was due to having Ann as my game partner. Yes, our daily efforts were being rewarded. My Stamina increased so much it was almost scary. My stats, which looked like a stamina-specialized tank in an RPG game, was not what came to mind when you considered I was supposed to be a labyrinth manager. I wonder if I’m the only one who thought like this... My mental image of a labyrinth manager was more like an intellectual, or a magic user, or something... I felt like all of that was crumbling inside my head. 

“I wonder if Ann’s the same. Execute Appraisal.”

She was on her sixth wheelbarrow replacement by now. They became broken right away if they got overused since they were made purely out of wood. We didn’t have the means to repair them ourselves, so we would just get a new one from Tundra. I got a really sturdy one this most recent time. It even had a load-carrying tray which Ann made good use of to load the stone.

Ann
Half-Kobold
Vitality : 42‌/‌42     Stamina : 2‌0‌6/‌2‌2‌6     Willpower : 28‌/‌28

Ann’s gotten pretty strong, huh? Seems like her race’s tendency was to lack in the power department, but as far as I could see, she was way stronger than I was just a month ago. I continued to dig up the staircase afterwards as Ann kept carrying the stones back to the new stone storehouse near the delivery box. She cashed out some stone when there was no room in the storehouse, and so our days continued.


It had been about a month and half since we first started building the stairs, and by the second month since I’d first come to this labyrinth, we finally reached the surface.