Newspaper And Status

――The next day.

――Pleasant cohabitation with the vampire, Day 3.

The day after I defeated the Goblin Lord and recruited him.

I visited the Adventurer’s Guild today to look for a casual quest, and the receptionist Emily called out to me.

“Mr. Sid—I have a favor to ask that takes your abilities into account.”

“Me…?”

“Yes, a personal quest request for you has come from the Adventurer’s Guild.”

“(What the hell…?)”

“(There aren’t many adventurers who solo Minotaurs or Goblin Lords. It means your skills are being recognized. Why not accept it?)”

When I heard the details from Emily, she said they wanted me to clear one of the numerous dungeons around the capital—the B-Rank Dungeon【Black Neck Mound】.

“That dungeon is the furthest managed by the capital, and because its Rank is fairly high at B, it has been left uncleared for half a year. According to the Guild investigators, there are signs the dungeon may collapse soon.”

Dungeon collapse—the phenomenon where, literally, a dungeon disappears.

The troublesome part is that when a dungeon collapses, the monsters inside spill out into the world.

To stop that, you must clear the dungeon beforehand—specifically, you need to defeat the boss in the deepest part and extract a special Magic Stone called the Dungeon Core.

Then the dungeon will disappear, and after some time a new dungeon will appear in its place.

Unpopular dungeons—like the one Emily mentioned, which are high-ranked or hard to access from the capital and thus neglected—are given out as quests by the Guild, using rewards as bait to get adventurers to clear them.

But—even after issuing the quest, no adventurers showed up to clear the B-Rank Dungeon【Black Neck Mound】, so the call has come around to me.

“Normally, dungeons showing signs of collapse are handled first by the S-Rank Adventurer Almugard Eldorado, but he’s currently away on a request from another province, and there are no other reliable adventurers.”

Emily clasped her hands together and looked at me pleadingly.

Judging by her face, it seemed pretty tense.

“Understood. If that’s the case, I’ll take it.”

“Ah! Really? Thank you!”

Emily beamed and grabbed my hand, saying, “Please!”

Maybe because blood no longer circulates in my body, her hand felt very warm.

＊＊＊

――And so…

I was rocked in a shared adventurer’s carriage that makes rounds to the dungeons around the capital.

Since I had some money to spare, I bought a newspaper to kill time during the carriage ride and read it.

“Hero Party Sylvan succeeds in clearing Floor 20 of the S-Rank Dungeon 【Crimson Night Moon】! Through brilliant coordination, they defeat the Minotaur!”

The Adventurer’s Guild in the capital had many adventurers, and the exploits of famous parties were the focus of public attention.

The front page reported that a hero party defeated a Minotaur—what a blatant lie.

I was the one who defeated the Minotaur (technically it was Ekarraat, though).

Damn, they stole the credit for themselves.

Sylvan is royalty; if the paper is told to write a favorable article, they’d have no choice.

Nobody wants to lose their job.

In a bad mood, I crumpled the paper and tossed it out of the carriage.

“Not arriving yet…? I’m bored…”

“(You can’t earn money while traveling—no wonder distant dungeons remain uncleared.)”

I yawned along with Ekarraat.

All the other adventurers in the carriage were in parties, chatting with their comrades to pass the time, so solo me felt out of place.

Throwing away the newspaper was a mistake.

“(I’m bored—might as well double-check my status.)”

When I willed it, a board that only I could see appeared.

Ekarraat called it the Status Window.

I read through the text on that Status Window.

I gained three more Levels after becoming Undead.

Compared to the status I had just after returning from an S-rank dungeon as an Undead, it looked like this.

The stat increases didn’t seem bad.

With my Undead body plus the fighting strength of the Shadow I had subordinated, revenge right now wouldn’t be impossible.

However—just killing them would be boring.

I wanted to make them suffer a humiliating defeat as much as possible, to inflict such pain they’d think dying would be preferable.

For that, an overwhelming gap in strength is necessary.

I need to raise my Level more and gather more Shadow.

“(I should check the abilities of the Shadows, too.)”

I closed my Status Window and ordered the Status Window for the Shadows to appear.

The Shadow’s stats were considerably simplified…

Well, even if detailed stats for every Shadow were displayed, I couldn’t remember them all, so it’s nice they show a concise overall combat power.

While I was at it, I asked for my overall Combat Power—and it was 2700.

Slightly lower than the Goblin Lord.

The reason I beat the Goblin Lord last night was thanks to my Undead ability.

If it had been a simple strength contest, I would have lost, so the number made sense.

“(By the way, what about Ekarraat?)”

…She’s off the charts on her own.

It might as well just be her alone.

“In the end, you must become stronger than I am, or there will be no honor as a master—you must train.”

She sure says that easily…