Chapter 13 - The Treasure House of Dreams
"Okay, I'm gonna sneak in. ――Anyway, aren't the guards here too unmotivated? There's no one here. ...... This is just a normal way to go."
"The demons of the lower classes might come up ......"
"They are all wage thieves. ...... Human are still foolish."
"Well, let's just go through this like it's convenient for us. ――You might seriously die from here on, so stay close to me."
The three of us were whispering by the one and only staircase to the lower level.
There was no one else around, and we had no reason to sneak around at all, but we read the mood.
In a dungeon, there is always one place to go down to the lower levels.
Every time you go down, the number of demons and their threat level increases.
Mars proceeded slowly forward, hitting the ground with his sword.
The dark stairs seemed to be trying to suck Mars and the others into the depths of the earth.
"Are you worried?"
"A little ......, but if Master says it's okay, then it must be okay. I know you well enough to know that you're not a someone who do reckless things."
Mars, as Lilia knows him, is the type to cross a stone bridge. She knows that he looks like a proper person, but he is quite detail-oriented.
"Oh, um, if Mars-san is a conqueror, are you very rich?"
At Hazuki's words, both Mars and Lilia had a "Whoa!" expression on their faces.
Mars was slightly taken aback by Hazuki's boldness to ask something that even Lilia, who was accompanying him, had not asked.
"No? I've donated quite a bit of money. There are many places that don't benefit from the dungeon economy. The village where I grew up is one of them. I donated it to those places. There's nothing I can do with it. ――Are you disappointed?"
"N-no."
Hazuki gives him a look of disappointment.
――This girl really has no ...... restraint. I'm going to fuck you, you know?
"I like that about you, Master. In the first place, there is no need to indulge in luxury. Just receiving the blessings of the forest and spending time peacefully with the one you love is more than enough in life.
"Be poor and pure. ――But I still buy clothes. I like to dress Lilia. It's a hobby now."
Mars donated most of his money, leaving only a little.
Not necessarily in cash, but much of it was exchanged for food and clothes and sent directly to those who needed help. Otherwise, it was certain that the middleman would be cut out. He figured that if this is the case even in the modern world, it would be even more so in this world.
When he's buying something, He did not go to the big merchants, but directly to the economically weaker areas, paying more than the market price.
Many of the families engaged in agricultural work were poor. Mars was born and raised in a family that was poor, and he knew the hardships they faced.
He thought it was a hypocritical activity, but it seemed like he's better use of his money than he had thought.
Donations used to be something that he would make fun of, but now Mars doesn't make fun of it.
The gap between the rich and the poor is unusually large in this world.
The haves and have-nots live in different worlds.
We were walking by torchlight, but halfway through, Lilia used her magic to light the way.
Mars could also use it, but he was relying on his tools to save his energy.
"Y-You have no greed, aren't you?. ......I thought ...... [Dungeon Adventurers] would be more lustful than that. ...... Everyone was screaming for money, money, money."
"――I'm bare with Lilia, though. That's what I want."
"I-Is this mating, ......?"
――It's too straightforward. ...... I guess, She's a pervert after all
Hazuki was blushing sullenly, but her gaze was a little lower, glancing at Mars' crotch.
――What can I say? ...... She's so true to his various instincts, this gir .......
Aren't you more erotic than me?
"Hazuki-chan. You're lewd. You're a dirty girl. Even though you look so innocent."
"T-t-t-that's not true!? I'm not interested in those hard things at all!"
――She says, while looking at Mars crotch. ...... Is hard an important factor for women?
Lilia often says she likes it hard, too. ...... Thank goodness, his thing surprisingly hard.
「Didn't you ranted 'I want to mate with you too' ?, It was miserable, and supremely hapless.――Even after that, Master made love to me very much, you know? I was so happy and felt so good, you know? He told me he loved me, and I felt the most exquisite sexual sensations as my brain was melted. Humans, for example, should be able to shallowly pick at their genitals like that."
Mars was a little surprised by Lilia's sarcastic remark.
――I'm feeling a little more possessive than I thought I would, you know?
"Li-Lilia? Do you hate human too much?"
"Th-that's nice....I would love to have someone do that to me while telling me they love me. ......"
"You like cock too much, Hazuki-chan. If you say too much, I'll have to force it in you, you know?"
It was a declaration of rape, but Hazuki didn't look disgusted.
Mars had been defending Hazuki, but now he realized how appropriate Lilia's word "Pervert" was.
"――Cock? What's a cock?"
"It's a male organ. A man's is called a cock or dick, and a woman's is called a pussy. Don't you know anything about that? You're a lascivious woman, but you're stupid. No, you are stupid because you are a lascivious woman."
"I know about the pussy because I heard about it yesterday! You can't b-blame me for not knowing anything about it. ......!
――Sorry, both of you. ......!
It's my hobby, so it's not necessarily common, or maybe no one in this world knows about it. ......!
I mean, Lilia, you're a casual know-it-all: ......!
"Now that I've revealed myself, I'll show you both what's inside the [Treasure House of Dreams]. If there's anything you want, you can take it. There are some things that aren't mine, so I'll take those. I also want you to tell me what kind of things are in there."
"It-it's your magic, but there are things that aren't yours?"
"Yeah. Maybe, but it was used by someone else before. So it's a hand-me-down."
"He. heee~……? I don't understand it?"
Hazuki put a finger to her lips and tilted her head.
The magic that Mars has acquired, the [Treasure House of Dream], is a cloud storage that anyone with the access key of magic can access freely, Mars believes.
At present, he is the only one using it. There are no signs of anyone else having been in or out in the last few days.
There were mainly weapons and armor, but there were also some medicines.
The chemicals were more creepy than anything else, so they were mostly left there.
Also, the charge of embezzlement of found property came to Mars' mind.
He felt guilty about the contents of the treasure room, which clearly belonged to someone else, though he felt that he shouldn't have cared now that he had brought the dungeon's treasure with him.
Lilia looked at Mars and said in an uncharacteristically serious and cool tone of voice.
"The "dungeon" itself is a mystery. It's obviously an artifice of someone. I've heard that they've been around for a long time. What the elves mean by long ago is really long ago. The fact that the treasure is on the lowest level is also very lowly. It's as if they're trying to lure people in."
"I'm sure you're right, Lilia. I'm sorry to tell you this about [Ganymede], but the party that was supposed to have gone down before me was nowhere to be found. I'm sure they're dead, but there were no bodies. I think I was eaten by a dungeon, not a demon. I don't know how to put it, but I think it's a creature called a dungeon, here."
As far as Mars is concerned, it is like a giant butterflyfish.
Using treasure as bait, they lure people in and eat them. Mars thought that demons were like parasites in a symbiotic relationship.
"W-what's that, scary ......, then Xerius and the others are ......?"
"If they were dead, they would have been eaten. The raw material for the treasure could be dead people. Normally, I'd say it's a possession of the person who came in."
"I think it would be better that way. The treasure will be appreciated. It would be more meaningful than having those termites alive."
"Y-You don't have to go so far as to say that ...... Xerius has some good points, too."
"Where exactly?"
"Let's see... ...... his face. ......or something like that?"
――I wonder……。
I thought Xerius was pretty unlikable, but this .......
No. Is this what love is like for girls this age?
Is it unavoidable for high school students to focus more on looks than substance?
As for the female mind, He still doesn't understand it even after being reincarnated.
It seems unsympathetic, but maybe that's just the way it is, and Mars stops thinking about it.
He's a little bit like that himself. He can't help but notice cute and sexy girls, and even if there is nothing wrong with them, He want to help them.
"I mean, you can find a faces like him anywhere."
Lilia did not remember Xerius' face well. She didn't even look at him. She wasn't interested in him at all.
"Y-You know, he's looked cool at first. Now I'm not so sure, but his ...... other negative factors are too great."
"I like your face best, Master. You're so cute that it's still a little young. I especially like your face when we're having sex, when he's clinging to me, and when he's all throbbing.
Ah, I know what you mean. Mars has a cute face, right?."
"――It's complicated, so don't do it. For now, let's go inside the [Treasure House of Dream]."
Cool is nice, but cute is subtle.
It's true that his face looks younger because he have an adult's perspective, but it's embarrassing when a third party says it.
Mars opened the [Treasure House of Dreams] and led them inside.
It's a vague black hole, so Hazuki looks fearful, but Lilia enters easily. The difference in their level of trust in the person of Mars had come to the surface.
"This is amazing……"
"――Master. If we had a place like this, we wouldn't have needed to take lodgings before."
What both Lilia and Hazuki saw was a calm, square space with the appearance of a library.
It was the size of a large mansion, and except for three doors, there were no visible walls of shelves. There were things lined up everywhere.
The thing that caught Lilia's attention the most was the clothes lined up like a store in the middle of the room. There was almost nothing that belonged to Mars, but there was a mountain of clothes that belonged to Lilia. There were also many things she had never seen before.
The other things were neatly organized as well.
Swords were neatly placed one by one on the shelves, and armor was placed on a sort of torso.
All of this had been done by Mars.
He cleaned up the miscellaneous things that the original owner had put in the corners of the room.
The basic base of Mars' personality is the one he had when he was in Japan. The person was meticulous.
Instead of being cautious at first, Hazuki began to explore like a child entering a toy store.
She was apparently curious about many things.
Lilia's attitude was like that of a wife questioning his wasteful spending. People didn't change when they encountered the unknown.
"It doesn't work that way, Lilia. If you spend a total of half a day in a day, you get kicked out. After a full day in the real world, though, time resets. For some reason, This space have a bathroom and a toilet, but I don't even know where the water comes from or where it goes. I'm afraid it's going to flow back ...... sooner or later."
"Kicked out ......? ――for what? If that story is true, it's exquisitely useful. ...... Ah, but wouldn't it be very useful if you suddenly wanted to get naughty in a dungeon? I was wondering what I would do in the lower levels where there was no accommodation."
"That's what I thought, too. It's a great alternative to a love hotel. It's got a big bed. The one I bought. No one can see us here. I don't know what to say. ...... This thing kick me out, I mean, I'm outside without knowing it. Suddenly."
Since acquiring this magic, Mars has been experimenting and testing it in various ways.
The conclusion he came to was that it was useful but subtle. It's itchy, but not too itchy.
The bottleneck is the time limit.
He've been kicked out for oversleeping and ended up in the middle of a crowded street.
It's good that there is no cost or labor involved in storage and transportation. However, the restrictions are also reasonably strict.
"What's also scary is that in this space, time doesn't move forward. Or to be more precise, things don't move forward in time. It's good that food doesn't deteriorate. But only my own time is moving forward. For example, I go outside after a nap. But when I go outside, not a second has passed. At first I'm happy that I'm in the mind/time room, but then I start to get scared. It's not scary because it's historic, but it's scary because it's so mysterious. And there are even signs that someone has been using it."
"W-when you put it that way, there is an unfathomable fear ...... that you will be alone in the world. You will be kicked out of the circle of time that is supposed to be given equally to everyone. A fundamental ostracism. ......"
At first he was pleased, but as he used it, he became afraid of the strange feeling that only his time was progressing.
As Lilia said, he felt a sense of loss, as if he was being removed from the circle of the world.
――As long as you can get in and out, you're good. What if I can't?
The more he thought about it, the scarier he felt.
He was even more scared because he had experienced being kicked out of that world in the form of reincarnation.
Moreover, since he had experienced being kicked out of the treasury, he was realistic about not being able to leave. ――Wouldn't it be the other way around? He wondered.
"But you won't be lonely if it's just you and me. Worst comes to worst, we'll both rot in here."
"Are you sure? We don't have to die together, you know. Besides, in that case, we'll die of starvation. It would be painful."
"Yes. Still, I think it's a better end than surviving alone."
"Then I'll take your word for it. ――I'm happy. I never thought I can be happy. ...... I'm going to cry."
――It's no use being scared, huh?
He has even been reincarnated. Maybe nothing will change.
And even if he die, he won't be alone this time.
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