It’s the first day of the Dungeon Investigation commission.
With the group who left the Guild after making a commotion, we arrived at the entrance to a cave after half of the day had passed.
Well, the journey itself was quite serious in its own way. Mainly due to Clad. It seems he has the king-of-the-mountain trait, not liking anyone taking the lead other than himself; he just charged ahead each and every time. I was surprised that he would even talk back to the examiner: Cruz.
If he really wants to raise to D Rank, he couldn’t seriously think that leaving a bad impression is the way to go, right? Or is he thinking that ‘I have to be assertive!’ = ‘I’m the type to make decisions proactively!’ and ‘I’m not scared of my superiors!’ = ‘I have courage!’…?
I don’t see the appeal.
Well, the thoughts of one person doesn’t amount to much in the end.
Anyways, because Amanda is quite strong-willed, standoffs between the two continued to occur regularly. Because Clad always ended up losing to Amanda’s vigor, he really should have stopped opposing her from the start.
Frion stayed uninvolved with any disputes, taking the position of a complete bystander. However, it could also be said that he was unwilling to lend a hand in quelling the arguments, too. Because of this, mediation between the two whenever a dispute occurred was left entirely to Cruz. Is it just my imagination, or does he seem strangely fatigued even though only half a day has passed? Everyone should really pitch in to help with these sorts of things.
What about Fran, you ask? Well, everyone has strong points and weak points.
That all aside, it was interesting to see Amanda battling along the way. Not only was her use of the whip amazing, but her use of wind-type Magic seemed incredibly useful. Unlike fire-type magics, using them in the middle of a woodland is fine.
After everything that occurred, we arrived a bit behind schedule. While we should have arrived at the Dungeon in the evening, it’s already night.
「Erm… Originally we should have gone inside on the first day and traveled through two layers of the Dungeon, capturing the rest tomorrow, but… Because we’re a little behind schedule, we’ll stop and camp here today and head into the Dungeon early tomorrow. Sound good?」
「What d’you mean ‘camp’! We should just hurry up and start conquering the Dungeon immediately, right? Conquering this Dungeon’ll be easy; there’re only small fries inside, y’know?」
「The Ranks of the Demonic Beasts within are indeed low, but it’s dangerous to go in with a tired body. And so, we’ll be camping here today.」
「I agree.」
「Me too.」
「Sounds good.」
「Tsk! Cowards!」
Even after saying so, Clad doesn’t stand up and go in by himself. Even he should understand that it’s dangerous to go into the Dungeon after walking for half a day. Cruz seems a bit unsatisfied with his reaction, but he doesn’t say anything else.
To be honest, Clad’s the type of person I inherently dislike. He’s just the sort of person to start throwing in weird suggestions and quibble when an agenda is about to be finalized in class. Even though the surroundings are thinking「Geez, it doesn’t matter. I just want this to be finished so I can go home, so be quiet already.」he’d continue to oppose the popular opinion endlessly.
「Fran! Would you like to sleep in my Tent? It’d be fine to leave the watch to the men.」
「Decline.」
「Aーhh, so coーld.」
「I’ll leave the first watch to you, miss Fran. After that, my group, Clad’s group, and Frion’s group will take over in that order.」
Oho, he pushed the Midnight watch — the most difficult time — to Clad, huh. You shouldn’t do that, Cruz. Even if it’s only a little, don’t retaliate.
「The A Rank won’t be keeping watch?」
「Amanda is acting as a spectator. Besides, if I asked her to help then it wouldn’t be a proper test for you guys. If she participated, it’d take less than an hour to traverse the Dungeon on foot, and we’d be able to leave for home before the day ends. As for the results of the examination in that case: you’d all fail.」
Even non-standard opponents would be easily finished off by an A Rank. In fact, they’d only be at the level of a nuisance. With that, it’d be better to look at Amanda as insurance in case of an emergency.
「Ke. Is that so.」