Hidden Dungeon Chapter 14

Chapter 14 - Even receptionists must fight for survival

The morning after purifying the dungeon's ghosts I decided to bring up a certain topic at my family's dinner table.

"Say, don't you all think that House Stalgia is a little lacking in affection?"

Father, mother and Alice all dropped their bread and made the same face, probably thinking 'what are you saying all of a sudden?'

"Sorry for bringing this up out of nowhere, but I believe family bonds are something extremely precious; wouldn't it be nice for us to express that?"

"I think I've already said it many times before, but Noir, I certainly love you and Alice."

"Wait, didn't you forget someone? Hey?"

Mother displayed a heartwarming smile as she ignored father, who was desperately pointing to himself.
A most appropriate way of handling him. One wrong word and father's tension would just skyrocket again.

"But mother, don't you believe there are things that words can't convey? Let's express ourselves through action."

"Brother! You wouldn't be suggesting to step upon the path of the most forbidden love!?"

"No-no, you got it wrong."

What I was proposing was something much less precarious. Yes, I was actually talking about hugs.

"Let's make sure to hug each other every morning. Here, please stand up."

I spread my arms wide open and gave Mother a tight hug. Same with Alice, although she was blushing terribly.

――And it worked as expected.
Nice, with this my LP went up again.
Happy with how it went I was about to sit down again, but then Father spoke in a bashful voice.

"Mhm, yes. Family's something very important. Same with body language, very important indeed."

"Why the red face?"

"O-of course I'd get flustered about the idea of hugging my son like that."

"Well don't worry, we won't."

"Whyyy!?"

"I'm not sure I'd want to do the same with another guy. It's kind of, well, you know."

"Such discrimination! I'm also part of the family!"

Father received quite the shock and, as if he were close to tears, clung to Mother, but after being consoled a little his face turned love-struck right away and he buried himself in her ample chest.

"Father, please mind the time and place."

"I won't be listening to such a heartless son! You're not the only one that can be discriminating, hmph."

It appeared I made Father sulk.
Oh well, surely his mood would recover by evening.

I finished breakfast and headed to the park next to the clock tower, a newly bought shovel in hand.

"Somewhere around here maybe?"

According to the ghost I purified last, there was a weapon buried below this park's largest tree.
Fortunately there was no one else in the vicinity, so I should be able to freely dig around.
And so I began.

However, a good hour of digging and sweating later, I realized that I barely made any progress.

"This'll take the entire day like this, oi."

Even if the weapon was buried below the tree, that didn't narrow it down any further than 360 degrees around it, so I had no clue where to dig exactly.
'Fine,' I thought and decided to create a skill.

「Excavation   100 LP」

Not too bad. Since it might come in handy in the future as well I decided to gamble on it, hoping it would turn the digging into a breeze.
And indeed, after getting it I could tell the difference immediately, sweeping away earth with ease.

Both the ground and shovel were still of the same material, but digging suddenly felt five times easier.
With admiration for the power of skills in my heart I spent another hour looking for the weapon.

dig
dig
clank

Oh? Ooh?

There was the sound of the shovel bumping into something other than dirt and after increasing my pace and digging some more―― 'There it is!'
A heavy iron chest, rectangular in shape, had been completely buried below the earth.
As one would expect from a 300 year old chest, it wasn't exactly in prime condition anymore, but it didn't seem bad enough for the contents to have been damaged. Probably.

The lock had turned so shabby I could easily tear it off, so I did exactly that and then removed the heavy lid.

"A sword..."

For three long centuries, a sword had slumbered within the chest.
The scabbard was jet black and covered in fine golden ornamentation; the contrast was breathtaking.
The grip, too, was of kinglike gold. A single look was enough to tell that it was a high-class item.
With awe in my movements I went to grab the sword―― but stopped myself just before I touched it.
Let's perform an appraisal first.

「The Two-Edged Sword   Rank B   Skills: Fierce Edge   Bad Luck」

When a particularly well-crafted blade or a special weapon had been named, one could see that name through appraisal.
B rank was pretty good, and nicely enough it even had a skill. 「Fierce Blade」 had the power of greatly improving a weapon's sharpness, as well as decreasing its likelihood of going blunt or even breaking.
However, the problem was that 「Bad Luck」.〈Has a chance of causing misfortune.〉

No surprise that that one adventurer had been troubled by bad luck during his possession of it.
Seemed like one of those cases where luck was sacrificed in return for power.

I assume usually one would sell the blade to some weapons trader, or request someone capable of lifting cursed skills to fix it.
However, that only went for people without 「Skill Edit」.

「Bad → Good」 Edit cost:   200 LP,   「Bad Luck」 → 「Good Luck」

Let's go――!
I performed the edit and its stats transformed right away.

「The Two-Edged Sword   Rank A   Skill: Fierce Blade   Good Luck」

And it turned into an amazing weapon!
Even though its name was still Two-Edged Sword, only good things should be happening from now on. That was probably why its rank went up.

In the future I could add even more skills to it, thanks to skill creation and bestowal, but that was something for another day; my LP were low and I decided to go meet up with Emma instead.


　◇　◆　◇


"Congratulations on reaching D Rank!"

At the guild of Odin, Lola was currently ringing her hand bell.

"Yo, as promising as ever, our rookie! Thanks again for the meat last time."

Seeing all the present guild members stand up to clap made me a little flustered, I just rubbed the back of my head while receiving their praise.
Turns out I finally acquired enough points for a rank up after spending the whole day on a quest. A little slower than I'd hoped, but still a pretty fast pace.
The next day was the start of the school year, so it was just in time.

While on the topic, today's job was to gather ten goblin wrists. Emma had some things to do at home, so I did the quest on my own.

"Now that you're D rank, there's a new system I should introduce. First, please look over there."

Lola addressed me as she pointed at the bar chart put up on the wall.
I did wonder what that was for a while now.
All the receptionists' names were on it, including Lola's.

"When they first rank up, adventurers can pick a receptionist to be designated to. This is also known as the 'Cheering System.'"

"Hm. Something like the receptionists tracking their adventurers' completed quests and adding them to their own results?"

"Quick as always. The points aren't just written up as is, but yes, that's basically it."

"My, is there a possibility it's related to your salary?"

"There certainly is."

Ahh, that explains why all the receptionists are so good-looking.
People decide who they want, and as such who they don't want. If someone isn't interested in a receptionist, nor feels any obligation to her, then they won't pick her.

The name 'Cheering System' probably came from the adventurers' mindset of wanting to turn their chosen receptionist into number one.
Whoever came up with this system sure understands business; all the doting adventurers probably put in extra effort to make their receptionist win.

"Is there anything in it for the adventurers themselves?"

"Most of the receptionists give the one that gained the most points that month some kind of special reward. Me as well, incidentally. Back-rub coupons, handshake coupons, coupons for shopping together, and so on."

"So you sell your bodies."

"Phrasing, hey! Please watch your phrasing. The competition among receptionists isn't as tame as you think, okay?"

"S-slip of the tongue."

"I don't want to hear about any misunderstandings later, so just you know, I'm a virgin."

Lola lowered her voice to a whisper on the power word, but she still said it clearly enough for me to hear.

"That's a little further than I was think――... Ohh, I see."

There must have been receptionists that also handed out more risque rewards.
Lola meant to ascertain that she was competing without relying on such methods.

"Bad results can quickly lead to getting fired, so everyone's working desperately. There's also a lot of receptionists that go around trying to seduce successful adventurers that don't yet have anyone assigned to them."

Hm, I can see that.
'Take it easy tonight~, but make sure to nominate me, alright~?'

"Take the one with the highest score for example, Sara."

"Whoah, she's pretty far ahead."

"She's big-breasted and hands out a 'boob touch' ticket each day."

"I'll be going with Ms. Sara, thank you very much."

"You're the worst! In the end you don't have eyes for anything other than breasts either, typical!"

It was supposed to be a joke, but Lola looked like she was seriously close to crying.
'Sure, they aren't huge like hers, but I've definitely got some decent ones myself, and my feet and buttocks aren't bad either――,' she was appealing pretty earnestly.

Of course, I told her I was just joking.
After all, I intended to go with Lola from the start.
And just like that, her teary eyes turned happy in an instant and her mouth changed into a satisfied smile ―― I've been had.

"Looking forward to working with you in the future as well! Who knows, in your case I might hand out a very special coupon?"

So she spoke as she showed off her long eyelashes, blinking a lot and looking at me with up-turned eyes.
Where did she even learn to act like that?
It's not something you're born with... right?
At any rate, such was the life of adventurers and their receptionists; or receptionists and their adventurers.


'Making a living, earning an income ―― it sure is rough.'
A most genuine thought.

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Thanks for reading. Next two weeks will be slow, apologies for the delay. Special thanks to everyone pointing out typos and mistakes.