Nah, that couldn't be it. There was no way a girl would ask someone out on a date. Well, they could—but that also meant asking the guy to pay for lunch and so forth. I refused to partake in such a robbery. Other simps were welcome to waste their money, but not me. I wouldn't become a simp.
"Yo!" Yuuno greeted me outside the dungeon. Beside her stood a bombastic pink-haired girl holding a spear. I gaped for a second when I noticed her chest. They were humongous! it was like a watermelon! How could something like that even exist?
"Um… hi… I'm Noelle. Yuuno's teammate for today," she said, bowing slightly. Just that slight bow sent a ripple through her watermelons.
"I'm Makoto." I forced my eyes toward Yuuno, the greedy one. That cleared my mind a little. Yuuno wasn't bad either, but her figure leaned toward youthful beauty, not as overtly provocative as Noelle's. "Does she have any special skills?"
"Yes! Noelle is quick on her feet. We've known each other for a year now."
"Um… yes," Noelle added.
"I see. Did you join a guild, Noelle?" I asked, wondering whether all guilds were black companies like Yuuno's.
"Um… yes. But my guild was busy, so they just gave me a spear and told me to dungeon dive on my own. I became an adventurer just three months ago."
"I see."
"Alright! That's enough for introductions. We have goblins to kill! Let's go in! As your senior, I'll lead the way!" Yuuno said.
"Yes, Master!" Noelle pumped her fist the jiggling pudding was very enticing. It took all my strength to look away. This dungeon raid was going to be hard in a very different way than I'd imagined.
An hour later.
It turned out none of that mattered. When your life was at risk, those perverted thoughts vanished. My mind recalled how terrifying goblins were, and Noelle's curves and melons disappeared from my thoughts entirely. I just saw her as a pawn in our fights against goblins. As we descended, we encountered a group of goblins on the second floor. It was easy. Just like yesterday, I snuck up behind them and stabbed from the back. Noelle lunged forward with her spear and skewered them in one clean motion.
"Makoto, Noelle, I'll lead. The third floor is different. They won't be so easily distracted. Most will still come after me, but you must at least deal with one goblin yourself. Noelle, try to support Makoto first. He only became an adventurer a week ago," Yuuno said.
"Understood." Noelle nodded. She had changed too. Earlier, she'd been shy, always conscious of people's stares. But when a goblin appeared, her body tensed. She threw her shyness out the window and lunged forward. I was quite amazed. Noelle was as fast as a bullet. I noticed that she couldn't turn or retreat once she accelerated, but that sudden lunge was almost guaranteed to kill a goblin.
The third floor was unlike the previous ones. It didn't take long for us to encounter another group of five goblins. Yuuno explained that the deeper you went, the faster monsters respawned. The goblins noticed us first and charged.
Yuuno rushed ahead, drawing their attention, while Noelle lunged at the leftmost goblin, killing it with a single thrust. I loitered behind Yuuno. With her skills active, the goblins focused on her. When I saw an opening, I slipped in and backstabbed one of them. Now it was three on three.
Noelle lunged again in my direction, killing the goblin I was engaging. Not wanting to fall behind, I steeled myself and stabbed another goblin in the head.
After Yuuno killed the last goblin, we collected the stones and packed them into our backpacks.
"Good work," Yuuno said.
"Um… we don't have any AoE attacks, do we? I'm a bit worried. I heard that starting from the third floor, goblins can appear in rather large groups—more than ten at once…" Noelle said, her voice tinged with worry.
"It's fine! I can kite them, and you'll start killing them from behind. No pain, no gain!"
Yuuno—that was a death flag, you know. I began to worry about her mindset. She was ambitious, and dungeon diving was never one hundred percent safe—I knew that. But she seemed to belittle the danger. Was this confidence born of experience, or was it carelessness?
Then, just as I was worrying about it, my fear became reality. Ten goblins poured out of the wall. We killed three of them immediately—it was the perfect chance to ambush them. But the next five minutes were hell. Yuuno had to deal with more than five goblins by herself, while Noelle and I struggled just to handle the ones engaged with us.
"Argh!" I grimaced as a goblin lacerated my wrist with its filthy sword. I'd taken too much risk trying to kill it as quickly as possible and its death throes, it managed to scracth me with its sword. We struggled—but we survived.
"Are you okay? Here, let me treat you."
"Do you think we're pushing a bit too far?" I complained asYuuno brought out a first-aid kit—a normal one you could buy at a pharmacy, of course. A magical one would cost millions, far beyond the budget of a beginner adventurer party. After wrapping my arm with an antiseptic and a bandaid, we mached further.
"No. This is perfect. This is how a battle should be," Yuuno said. She was right. On TV—or even in recorded dungeon footage—adventuring always looked this hard. But experiencing it in real life was far more terrifying. I respected adventurers even more now, knowing they dealt with this kind of danger every day.
"Um… that group of goblins spawned from the wall led to a new chamber. Should we go there?" Noelle pointed toward the narrow corridor.
"Of course! We might even find a treasure chest there!" Yuuno snapped her head toward the newly formed passage.
"It won't go anywhere. Let's take a break," I said.
"Ah, of course. Let's take a twenty-minute break. Did you guys bring lunch?"
"Of course." I pulled out my lunch. I'd skipped school for this dungeon dive, hoping it would be worth it. Yuuno was aiming for a hundred stones today. If she succeeded, that meant I'd get about twenty stones—or roughly a hundred dollars.
"Oh! Three treasure chests! We hit the jackpot!" Yuuno muttered. Our excitement went through the roof. Three treasure chests meant we'd each get one.
"W-w-w-wait a minute!" Noelle stammered. Her reaction was so unlike her that Yuuno and I both turned to her.
"What is it, Noelle?" Yuuno asked.
"Um… my senpai said that if something is too good to be true, it might be a trap… so… um… sorry." Noelle bowed deeply. Her warning shook me to the core—I'd been blinded by greed. I'd become just like Yuuno. That was shameful.
"Ah. You're right. Sorry—we got too excited. So… should we just abandon the chests?" I stepped back. Now that I knew these chests could be trapped, I no longer wanted them. I valued my life. There was still so much I wanted to do with Sakura's body!
"Of course not! Just because it's booby-trapped doesn't mean it's empty. In fact, it might be trapped because there's something precious inside! We must open them!" Yuuno said, her eyes locked onto the three treasure chests.
"But we don't have anyone with trap detection. I'd need to level up more to get that skill."
"Yeah. I need more stones to buy skills too. But I know several ways to open chests without trap detection! We just need to open them from afar!" Yuuno said. "Let me borrow your spear, Noelle."
"Where did you learn that? You shouldn't trust the internet so readily," I voiced my concern, but I let Yuuno do her thing. She was more experienced than I was. Noelle and I both backed away. Yuuno tapped the three treasure chests with the spear. One of them sprang open.
"Watch out!" Yuuno dropped to the ground. I reacted before her words reached my ear and ducked Several arrows shot out of the chest.
It really was booby-trapped. Thank God Noelle warned us. I owed that watermelon girl my life—it could've been me standing there.
"Alright! One down!" Yuuno peeked inside the opened chest. "It's a longsword! Do you want it, Noelle?"
"I think Makoto should have it. I'm already training with spears…"
"Really? I can have it?"
"But the second and third chests are ours, alright?"
"…Okay." I nodded. Having my own sword felt great. I finally felt like a proper adventurer.
"Understood. Now, let's open the second and third ones. Listen—just because it didn't spring open doesn't mean it doesn't have booby traps," Yuuno said. Using Noelle's spear, she began tapping the next chest from afar and pried it open.
The second chest wasn't trapped. Inside lay an arcane stone.
"A C-rank fire arcane stone! This one's mine!" Yuuno the greedy snatched it up before she even talked it out.
"Really? Shouldn't you share that with Noelle?" I argued. I wasn't speaking for myself—I could see Noelle eyeing it. Yuuno needed money and she did said that her blessing could only grow with arcane stones, so her greed was understandable, but that didn't justify taking everything from her teammates.
"I level up with arcane stones. I need this one," Yuuno said. "Noelle can have whatever's in the third chest—unless that one also has an arcane stone. In that case, we'll negotiate."
The third chest had no traps. Inside was a bow. If it had been a spear, that would've been perfect. We all looked at Noelle, a bit awkwardly.
"…Sorry," Yuuno said. "Maybe you can trade this with your guild."
I eyed the bow. Archery sounded fun, but I had no experience with it—and there was no ammunition. Bows and guns were among the least desired weapons in dungeons. They were powerful, but both the weapon and the ammunition had to be system-registered.
"I guess it's just my luck. I'm sure the guild will reward me if I bring this back," Noelle said.
"You can call first dibs on the next chest we find!" Yuuno said. "Alright! Let's keep exploring!"
And so, we continued our adventure. We passed the stairs leading to the fourth floor—we knew our limits. Yuuno was overexcited, and we didn't get out until almost midnight. That was a mistake.
Still, we did collect over a hundred stones. My mind wandered, wondering whether we could dive deeper in the future.
But that was a problem for another time. First, I needed to level up—by doing lewd things to Sakura.