Chapter 78 - A Date With Amy? (1/2)
And so came the day of the Stampede announcement. All of the journalistic publishers, from the common to the Dungeon-focused ones, disclosed in their morning newspapers the information regarding the coming Stampede. None stated that there would be monsters on the level of the Fire Dragon, but it was indeed predicted that it would be of a much larger scale than before.
People were optimistic, however. The Stampede was a special event that happened only twice a year, and the people were confident that Dungeon City’s fighting power would be able to handle it just fine. Moreover, there had already been several reports of potential Stampede escalations over the past few years, but Dungeon City had yet to be in any danger.
“Man, are the Labyrinth Conquerors slacking off again?”
“How many times’ has it been now? They really gotta get their shit together…”
One of the people who picked up the newspaper let out an exasperated sigh when they saw the words ‘Increased Stampede Intensity’.
The ruling class of Dungeon City had always mobilized soldiers to thin out the Dungeons outside of town, but Labyrinth Conquerors also played a role. In recent years, the intervals between Stampedes have been getting shorter and shorter, and the townspeople have been criticizing the Labyrinth Conquerors for such increases in frequency and intensity.
While the Labyrinth Conquerors were highly praised in villages and towns under frequent threat of Stampedes, they did not have the same reputation among those within the safe confines of Dungeon City. Instead, the residents of Dungeon City have been treating Stampedes as festivals of sorts for the past ten or so years now.
Hearing people speaking ill of the Labyrinth Conquerors practically everywhere in town, Tsutomu felt sorry for them, but he had to focus on his training. He had never ridden a horse before, so he was stuck patting the rented horse fearfully before the brawny instructor carried him up and put him on the horse’s back.
Over the following month, Tsutomu would spend half of each day practicing his riding, and the rest of the time spectating around the Monitors.
In the meantime, Ealdred Crow had gotten past the Bolseyer after three attempts, and was getting closer and closer to Scarlet Devil Squad in terms of progress. Currently, Scarlet Devil Squad was making their way through layer sixty-nine, while Ealdred Crow was making good progress on layer sixty-seven. It was only a matter of time before Ealdred Crow caught up.
As for Silver Beast, they had successfully defeated the Fire Dragon. Their winning battle had been quite a long one, with four of the party’s members being dead toward the end; the last one remaining, Misil, had to clash head-on against the Fire Dragon, claiming victory by the skin of his teeth. Still, the fight and victory had drawn quite a lot of excitement from the spectating crowd all throughout, what with there being no mid-tier Clans that had defeated a Fire Dragon before.
The members of Silver Beast themselves were not happy with the result, however. From the audience’s point of view, the final minutes of the battle had been pure hype, but for the ones fighting, it had been a sloppy mess, with Lorena resorting to the classic move of sacrificing herself with <<Raise>> – generated aggro.
After the battle, Lorena had gone all the way to Tsutomu’s inn to apologize to the latter. Tsutomu himself had been watching the Fire Dragon fight as well, and contrary to Lorena’s expectations, he celebrated, saying that she had done quite well. Tsutomu’s reaction was thanks to his emotional attachment to Silver Beast and his prior expectations, namely the point that they had defeated the Fire Dragon before Golden Tune did.
Tsutomu even shook Lorena’s hands and gifted her an assortment of Magic Stones, confusing the latter quite a lot. And days later, when Lorena was interviewed by some journalists, Stephanie and Eunice became aware of her as the one Tsutomu had taught to be a Healer before them.
Golden Tune, the one late-arrival among the major Dungeon-exploring Clans, had now been overtaken by a mid-tier Clan; by this point, the audience was not quite as hot about them while spectating their no-hurry attempts at the Fire Dragon. Although they had since moved away from their old Leon-reliant party dynamics, it was apparent that they still needed some time to get used to all the changes.
And today, half a month since he had started learning to ride, as Tsutomu was in the middle of practicing when a certain girl visited him at the facility — Amy, with her white hair in a new shoulder-length cut, waved to him as he rode along the tracks,
“There you are! Hey, Tsutomu~~!”
Today was Amy’s day off, so she and Tsutomu had made an appointment to explore the Dungeon together.
One would typically worry that Amy’s exploring the Dungeon on her days off would tire her out, but most of her work involved sitting in an office and appraising items. As such, she had to be more active on rest days, so as to keep in shape.
Tsutomu replied to Amy’s greeting while keeping his focus on his horse and reins. Although he had gotten better over the past two weeks, his skill was not yet on a usable level.
Once Tsutomu got off his horse, he let out a sigh of relief and looked at Amy, puzzled as to why she was not equipped for combat.
“Why the casual clothes, Amy? Weren’t we going to the Dungeon today?”
Amy, seeing that Tsutomu’s white robes had become his normal attire these days, shrugged her shoulders in slight annoyance before saying,
“Oh, you Dungeon-sexual little… You do remember that the exploration isn’t until the afternoon, right?”
“Ahaha… right. So why come here now?”
“So I heard you’ve been learning to ride, you see — thought I’d help teach you!”
“…Thanks, but I’m just about to wrap up for the day now. Have to save some energy for Dungeon exploration, after all.”
“What? And I just came all this way, too. Boo…”
Tsutomu laughed back at Amy’s reaction before leaving the training facility with her, leaving his rented horse with the attendant.
Back when Tsutomu had been learning to use <<Fly>>, Amy had also given him advice… but in terms of whooshing noises and abstract imagery, so he hadn’t been able to understand anything. She was one to learn things by feeling rather than theory; despite wanting to teach, it was clear how unfitting it was for her to do so.
“Looks like we have some time. Why don’t we stop by the market on our way?”
“Huh– ah, yeah! Let’s go, let’s go!”
Amy, having expected him to tell her to head to the Guild immediately, hurriedly nodded in agreement. Now in a good mood, she walked next to Tsutomu… for about ten minutes before her enthusiasm fell apart.
“You know, today’s the release date of a new magic tool. Looks like it’ll be helpful for defending against the Fire Dragon’s breath attacks.”
“Uh, right…”
The marketplace that Tsutomu dropped by was the one where Dungeon-related tools were sold. While Tsutomu’s eyes glittered as he window-shopped around, Amy only looked at him from a distance.
“These Ice Magic Stones are so expensive… Makes sense, since they’re so rare, I suppose.”
“Right.”
[We’ll rake in quite a lot of profit if we were to reach layer seventy-one first.]
From the seventy-first layer onward, the Dungeon’s environment changed from the volcanic biome to a snowy one. Ice Magic Stones commonly dropped there; it was currently rare and considered highly precious in the market, so the first Clan to reach it would find themselves with many opportunities to make huge profits.
“Your current project at work has you going to the Volcanoes, right? Why not use this to stave off the heat? It consumes Water Magic Stones as fuel, but it works great!”
“But it’s not cute…” Amy shook her head upon seeing the boring-looking backpack-like device.
“Well, it isn’t, yes.”
Amy had not refused the tool because of her personal preferences, however; with her being something on an idol and a good part of her earnings being from sponsorships, it was only natural for her to care about the looks of what she carried and wore.
For the next hour or so, Amy followed Tsutomu as the latter browsed around for Dungeon tools. Tsutomu being a frequent visitor and buyer, many shopkeepers here knew him. As he chatted with the merchants and craftsmen, Any was left merely staring at him.
After Tsutomu had taken his usual route through the market, he turned to a nearby Monitor to check the time.
“Ah, it’s almost time. Let’s get going to the Guild–“
“Tsutomu, man? Now’s my turn to go shopping, doncha think?”
Amy firmly grabbed Tsutomu’s wrist and stared him down.
“But the time…”
“C’mon, just come along!”
And so Amy pulled Tsutomu along to the clothes and accessories market. Since Tsutomu had no interest in things not related to the Dungeon, he had never been there — or any other market, for that matter.
Though he felt awkward to be in an unfamiliar part of town, especially one full of women, he followed Amy as the latter went around to various stores and tried on clothes and accessories.
“How’s this look? Cute, right?”
“It looks fine.”
“Hmm… flat reaction. I’ll take that as a ‘no’.”