Estimated reading time: 7–9 minutes
Chapter 6
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The first dungeon we challenged was the Mirror Dungeon.
And this is the story of the night before our final assault on the deepest part of the Mirror Dungeon.
The moonlight shining through the window was annoying.
It was a sleepless night.
No matter how many times I tossed and turned, I couldn’t get tomorrow’s anxiety out of my head.
Just as I was lazing around like that, there was a knock at the door and Mika’s voice asking, 「Are you awake?」
I reply that I’m awake and invite Mika into the room.
「What’s up?」
I ask.
「…… I can’t sleep.」
She answers, puffing out her cheeks a little.
「So even Mika has times like that, huh.」
「What do you take me for?」
「The flawless Saint.」
She sits down next to me on the bed and slaps my shoulder, saying, 「Geez.」
By this point, Mika and I have become close enough to exchange banter like this.
「Just kidding. I get it now.
Mika has an insanely strong sense of responsibility, infinite magic power, and the best healing magic. But she’s also just a normal girl who likes sweets and, it turns out, loves to chat.」
「What’s that supposed to mean?」
She usually has a stiff expression, so her face doesn’t change much. But that’s enough for me.
When her eyebrows furrow just a little, it means she’s a bit miffed.
Ever since her time at the royal castle, the nobles would gossip behind her back, saying things like 「She lacks expression」 and 「You can’t tell what she’s thinking.」
But I can tell.
When she’s eating something sweet.
When she’s listening intently to stories about my world.
When she casts healing magic on me in the dungeon.
I could go on and on.
Each one is different, and each one is charming.
She’s just an ordinary girl who has a hard time expressing herself a little.
I’m hopelessly drawn to Mika.
Having Mika next to me in the middle of the night like this, my heart is pounding like crazy. I’m trying not to let it show in my demeanor, but I’m flustered as hell.
「Calm your mind, and tell me a story about your country – Japan – so I can sleep well.」
Mika urges me, far from my usual composure.
「I guess I have no choice. Just this once.」
I say, hiding my true feelings and telling her a parable.
I wish I could redo my choice of story, that’s how much I regret it.
○○○
「『Ah, you saw me, didn’t you? By law, I can no longer be with you.』 The crane told the young man and flew off into the sky. The young man spent the rest of his life regretting why he had looked, became a monk, and lived. And they lived happily ever after.」
You’re right if you feel déjà vu.
Why did I choose this story?
「That’s a tragic love story…… The crane woman probably regretted it more than the young man who became a monk, don’t you think?
She finally got to live with the person she admired and realized she could be useful to him, but being seen by the person she liked triggered their separation. She must have wished she had insisted more strongly to him.」
She looks down and murmurs,
「Don’t you think she would have regretted it like that?」
Revealed in a small voice.
I had already fallen for Mika.
But at that moment, against my will, something else crossed my mind.
Come to think of it, I told this story to Puffy too.
I wonder what she’s doing now?
I hope she’s doing well.
The vague, disjointed thoughts still brought back that shocking moment in an instant.
Puffy running up to us, out of breath.
She threw herself into Ryūgūin’s arms, of all things.
「…… What’s wrong?」
I…
「Are you crying?」
I…
「Don’t hide it. At least not in front of me.」
Mika wipes my tears with her finger.
「It’s okay. I’m here with you.」
Puffy, fear of monsters, the time limit until the dungeon fully develops.
The things piling up in front of me were too much.
So until now, I had been turning a blind eye to it all, pretending not to notice, and getting by.
「It’s all right, I promise as the Saint.
Ichiro, I believe you can – no, the two of us together can conquer the dungeon.」
I clung to her, crying without shame or reserve, as if everything I had been holding back was pouring out.
「It’s okay,」 she stayed by my side until I stopped crying.
Come to think of it, this might have been the first time I showed weakness since being summoned to this other world.
After I calmed down, Mika told me,
「When we conquer the dungeon tomorrow, there’s something I want to tell you.」
Then she left the room.
○○○
The next day, in front of the boss room, Mika and I steeled ourselves and nodded to each other.
Brushing off Ryūgūin’s jokes like 「It’s our first boss room. Do you know what we need to be careful about? That’s a given. My safety. Because I’m the chosen hero,」 with a 「Yeah, yeah,」 I opened the door to the boss room on the lowest floor.
At the same time, the room was enveloped in light, and when I opened my eyes, there was a humanoid monster about the same height as us, made of crystal-like ore with enormous magical power.
○○○
It was a battle truly deserving of the term 「mortal combat.」
The true nature of the Mirror Dungeon was revealed at the very end of the dungeon.
The master of the dungeon was a humanoid monster with a body made of crystal. From now on, I’d like to refer to this monster as the 「Crystal Humanoid.」
It had an incredibly troublesome property. It reflected all magic without exception.
An ordinary party might not notice anything, unleash their maximum magic from the start, have it reflected, and get wiped out. That could happen.
But as luck would have it, the compatibility between the Crystal Humanoid and me wasn’t necessarily bad.
This is because, if you think about it in terms of 「magic reflection,」 you’ll understand.
Since I’m the only attacker in the party, if you ignore the fact that Mika’s debuff magic doesn’t work on the enemy, for me, who only uses physical attacks, it’s just an insanely hard and insanely powerful monster.
But that doesn’t mean it was a boss monster that could be easily defeated.
Both its attack power and defense – each of those was so ferocious that the Deadly Series and other monsters that appeared on the lower levels couldn’t even come close.
The battle was truly a battle of attrition that made my head spin.
The Crystal Humanoid’s attack power was so brutal that almost every hit was a fatal blow. Mika had to heal me, which was a big burden on her, but that was the only way we could even fight.
Even so, that was just the starting point.
No matter how much I slashed it with my sword, it was barely a scratch, let alone damage. Of course, after a few attacks, the sword was wrecked.
This was just a few minutes after the battle started.
I hesitated for a moment about what to do, but without hesitation, I snatched the holy sword from Ryūgūin, who was standing still in a daze behind me.
That choice was absolutely correct.
By slashing the same spot over and over with the holy sword, I was finally able to deal damage.
So, while taking fatal blows, I aimed to accumulate damage by dealing even a little damage to the enemy, adopting a strategy of cutting my own flesh to break the enemy’s bones.
For an hour or two, or maybe half a day, for such a long time that I lost all sense of time, I kept slashing away, so many times that it was tiresome to count, and we finally succeeded in defeating the Crystal Humanoid.
○○○
Upon returning, we quickly finished reporting to the guild, declined the guild’s and nation’s offer to throw a grand party, and the three of us gathered at a renowned restaurant in town.
We had sufficiently praised each other’s efforts in the dungeon and filled our stomachs, so I suggested we call it a night.
「Wait!」
Mika stopped me.
「I have something I must tell you both.」
No way, here of all places?
「Shouldn’t we change the location?」
「It’s fine. I want everyone to know.」
Mika rejected my opinion and continued.
「I – Saint Mika – admire you!」
Saying that, Mika embraced him.
Ryūgūin.
………Ryūgūin?
Arghh (cardiac arrest).
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