Chapter 8: Mega Treasure Get!
Have you ever wondered about something?
This <Beginner Dungeon> is a field-type dungeon.
And yet, only the boss room is inside a building.
No other dungeon is like that.
In cave-type dungeons, the boss is at the deepest part of the cave. In castle-type dungeons, the boss is in the innermost room of the castle.
Even in other field-type dungeons, the boss shows up out in the open.
But for some reason, only the <Beginner Dungeon> has its boss inside a building. It’s clearly out of place. Something feels off.
Back when I played the game, I immediately thought: there’s definitely something going on here.
But no matter how hard I looked, I never found anything.
The tutorial dungeon was used by tons of students, so of course, all the treasure chests were long gone. And all hidden rooms had already been thoroughly searched—supposedly.
There shouldn’t be anything left to find at this point.
But for gamers, that kind of thing doesn’t matter.
Of course I went in fully equipped with the 『Hidden Room Detection Lv 10』 skill and 『Intuition Lv 10』 and searched top to bottom.
But I never found what I expected to be there.
No way they’d put a door with a 『Hidden Room Detection Immunity』 skill this early on, right? Maybe the building was just there to make the dungeon feel a little special? That was the conclusion I started to lean toward.
For reference: a door with 『Hidden Room Detection Immunity』 shows up a lot in Advanced-level dungeons. You can’t find them using any skills, even 『Hidden Room Detection Lv 10』 won’t work.
So you’re probably thinking, then how the hell do you find them?
Good question. There’s exactly one countermeasure.
A unique skill that lets you see doors with 『Hidden Room Detection Immunity』:
『Nothing Escapes My Evil Eye』 From the 【Chuunibyou】 job.
By the way, the 【Chuunibyou】 job was infamous—loaded with nothing but garbage skills except for that one unique skill. It proudly held first place in the unofficial Worst Job Rankings. Total trash tier.
People on the forums would defend it like: "What’s wrong with being Chuunibyou!?" "Evil-Eye-chan is the best!" "She’s just not fully awakened yet!"
…But those voices were all completely ignored.
And to make it worse, once the walkthrough sites published a complete list of all the hidden doors in every dungeon, that one decent skill became totally useless too.
The ranking never dropped again. It couldn't get any lower.
Anyway, back to the story.
So yeah. Long story short, when I looked using 『Nothing Escapes My Evil Eye』—there it was. A hidden door.
I couldn’t believe it. There was really a door with 『Hidden Room Detection Immunity』 in the tutorial dungeon?! Of course no one would find it! That unique skill only unlocks at level 40!
I remember thinking, No wonder nobody ever found this thing.
Normally, you’d need a specific skill—or a key—to open a hidden door like that.
But this isn’t a game anymore. This is real.
So I thought: what if I just force it open?
I snuck around behind the pink glowing teleport circle and tapped on the wall. I heard a hollow, metallic sound. Bingo—no mistake.
"Is there something over here?"
"Yeah. When I touched the wall earlier, my 『Intuition』 whispered to me."
I just made that up. She’s not gonna check. As I replied, I drew my short sword from my waist.
Let’s see if this works…
"Why didn’t you report this to the teacher?"
"Just watch and you’ll see."
Hanna looked confused, probably wondering why I didn’t tell Professor Phyllis during class. Sorry, Hanna, but I can’t share what comes next.
"Hah! 『Brave Slash』!"
A blue flash flared as the unique skill of the 【Hero】 job activated—boom!—A blast of force blew the hidden door right open.
Man, that felt amazing.
Success!
"Whoa! What is this?!"
As the dust cleared, the full picture came into view.
In games, when you find a hidden door, there’s always a rare treasure chest behind it.
Same here—a big, glorious golden chest sat waiting.
"Zephyrus-kun! There’s a treasure chest! And it’s a <Gold Chest>!"
There are three types of treasure chests:
<Wooden Chest> <Silver Chest>, and <Gold Chest> The closer to gold, the rarer the loot.
In other words—if it’s a <Gold Chest>, it’s guaranteed to have some amazing stuff inside.
Hanna was totally hyped.
"Can I open it!?"
"Hell no. I found it, so obviously I’m opening it."
She tried to pounce on the <Gold Chest>, so I stopped her.
This girl, man… I’ve noticed she really has a thing for shiny, valuable stuff.
I kept an eye on her to make sure she didn’t snatch it and popped the chest open myself.
This is the <Beginner Dungeon>, after all—there shouldn’t be any traps.
Still, my heart was pounding. A real-life treasure chest. And a gold one at that.
Holy crap, I’m so pumped. Even though I already know what’s inside!
When I opened it, I found eight key items inside—stuff that’s gonna be important later.
This was my whole reason for coming back to the <Beginner Dungeon>.
Unlike monster drop chests, fixed-location chests always have predetermined contents.
Since I already knew what was in it, I had to come back and get this no matter what.
And inside was:
* <Sky Sword>
* <Sky Shield>
* <Sky Armor>
* <Item Bag Bag (Capacity: Large)>
* <Limit Break Gems> ×3
* <Advanced Job Change Ticket>
The first things that catch your eye are the <Sky Series>—sword, shield, and armor.
They’re not exclusive to the 【Hero】 job, but their design—pure white and stylish—makes them totally Hero-worthy.
Not only do they look awesome, but their performance is top-tier too. After all, this treasure chest was hidden behind a secret door that required a level 40 【Chuunibyou】 to find, and it was a <Gold Chest>.
Even as-is, this gear can hold its own in Intermediate Upper-tier dungeons. And if I enhance it, it’ll stay viable all the way through Advanced Mid-tier dungeons.
Truly the perfect gear for a 【Hero】 like me. Time to equip it right away.
Next up is the <Item Bag (Capacity: Large)>.
In <DanKatsu>, you don’t have unlimited inventory space. So anything unnecessary had to be stored at the guild home, and you had to carefully manage what you carried into the dungeon.
That’s why the <Item Bag (Capacity: Large)> is such a valuable item—it lets you carry more.
By the way, the academy provided us with a <Item Bag (Capacity: Small)>, and until now we’d been stuffing our loot into that.
Now I’m swapping it out.
Next, we’ve got the <Limit Break Gems>. These are used to enhance the stats of weapons and armor, even beyond their normal limits.
If, say, a <Short Sword +2> was maxed out, you could use this item to boost it to <Short Sword +3>.
These become super important in the later stages of the game.
I cheerfully stuffed them into the <Item Bag (Capacity: Large)>.
And now for the final item—
The main reason I came here in the first place:
The <Advanced Job Change Ticket>.
<DanKatsu>’s biggest selling point was the number of jobs available.
There were 1,021 total jobs.
These jobs were divided into two tiers: Basic and Advanced.
Of them, 409 were Basic Jobs.
Basic Jobs are the ones you can pick at the start. The 【Hero】 job is considered a Basic Job, too.
Even within the Basic tier, there were ranks: Low, Mid, and High.
With 409 jobs, of course, they needed ranking.
Naturally, 【Hero】 was at the top of the High-ranking.
Other high-ranking jobs included things like 【Great Swordmaster】, 【Arc Mage】, and 【High Priest】, but those were generally considered bottom of the high ranks.
For reference, 【Alchemist】 was considered Mid-rank—right in the middle, basically average.
But no matter how high-ranking a Basic Job like 【Hero】 is, it still doesn’t hold a candle to Advanced Jobs.
That’s how massive the gap is.
Eventually, switching to an Advanced Job becomes absolutely necessary.
And to do that, you need the <Advanced Job Change Ticket>.
Changing into an Advanced Job in <DanKatsu> was simple in theory.
Once you reached the required level, all you had to do was use an <Advanced Job Change Ticket> in front of the <Dragon Statue>.
Then the list of eligible Advanced Jobs you qualified for would appear, and you’d pick one to transition.
The catch? Getting an <Advanced Job Change Ticket> was insanely hard.
They only dropped from bosses.
And drop only from Intermediate-level dungeons and above, and even then, only as rare drops.
The drop rate was about 1% for Intermediate dungeons—once every 100 boss fights.
No wonder job advancement was so rare.
Sierra mentioned it too: this world hasn’t made much progress in clearing Advanced Dungeons, and now I totally get why.
To take on Advanced Dungeons, you need an Advanced Job.
Assuming we keep progressing smoothly, we’ll be challenging those dungeons soon.
That’s why I came to get this ticket early—before anyone else could.
The drop rate is 3% in Advanced Dungeons, so grinding there would’ve been more efficient. But this method is guaranteed.
"Alright, mission complete."
"Wow… Zephyrus-kun, that gear looks amazing!"
"Right?!"
Hanna was completely glued to my upgraded <Sky Series> gear.
The divine white armor covering me from head to toe, paired with the silver-glowing sword and shield—it’s just a chef’s kiss.
Absolutely amazing! I had to say it twice because it’s that good.
I even struck a pose with the 『Appeal』 skill out of sheer excitement.
Hanna clapped, clearly enjoying the moment. She’s fun to be around.
Even though I hogged all the rare loot this time, she didn’t complain once.
Hanna’s a good person.
As thanks, I gave her all the food ingredients we didn’t plan on selling.
It’s not much compared to rare drops, but I figured I’d give her a rare item that suits her if I find one later.
Once we were satisfied, we decided to do another dungeon run.
"I’m level 9 now. After one more loop, I should hit level 10, so we’ll call it a day then."
"Yup! Let’s bring back a bunch of ingredients!"
"Yeah, for sure."
Last time, with only the <Item Bag (Capacity: Small)>, we couldn’t carry all the materials from our second run and had to leave some behind.
But now with the <Item Bag (Capacity: Large)>, which holds about 100x more, Hanna was thrilled we could bring everything back.
She was super against leaving any materials behind, after all.
After returning to the entrance via the teleportation circle, we immediately jumped into our third round of dungeon crawling and gathered a ton of ingredients.
The <Wood> monsters on the third floor dropped fruits, while the <Kokekko> on the fourth floor dropped eggs, feathers, and chicken meat.
Since we still had time, we dedicated ourselves to hunting those chicks.
The debut job for my <Sky Series> gear: <Kokekko Hunting>.
Yeah... It was kind of like one of those annoying players in an MMO who’s decked out in top-tier gear but is out farming mobs in the beginner zone.
Maybe I changed into it a little too early...
Good thing no one besides Hanna saw me.
Well, thanks to that, both Hanna and I hit level 10, so we called it a day.
Mission complete! No more business with the <Beginner Dungeon>!
"O skies above! 『Brave Slash』!!"
"Gubbhyuh!?"
Upon entering the fifth-floor boss room, I activated 『Brave Slash』 with my <Sky Sword>, instantly turning a plain goblin into ashes, bringing today’s dungeon crawl to a dramatic end.
By the way, anything broken inside a dungeon repairs itself eventually, so the wall I had blasted open to reveal the hidden door was back to normal.
I smashed it again just to check, but... still no treasure chest.
What a shame.
Thus, our first dungeon expedition came to an end. We returned through the teleportation circle.
"Oi, isn’t that a first-year student?"
"Whoa, what’s that!? An upper-tier equipment set!?"
"Who's wearing it? Looks kinda familiar…"
"Idiot! That’s the ‘Hero Kid’ everyone’s been talking about! The rising star of the first years!"
"Ah!!"
Murmur, murmur…
On the way back from the dungeon, we were now getting a ton of attention.
Though most of the attention was really just on my divine-looking <Sky Series> equipment.
Its radiant glow was almost holy, like something literally blessed. People could easily mistake it for sacred armor.
So when someone suddenly appears wearing that, people naturally react with, Who the heck is that!?
Of course, I knew exactly what I was doing. Guilty as charged.
Thanks to that, this whole sacred-and-untouchable vibe was keeping away any recruiters or busybodies.
Perfect people-repellent. Just as planned. Mwahaha.
"Uuhhh… they’re all staring at us…"
Even though Hanna had been so confident and reliable in the dungeon, now that we were back, her usual timid self had returned.
She kept glancing nervously at me.
Honestly, if she didn’t like it, she should’ve just gone back ahead of me. But nooo—she got excited and said, I’ll go home with Zephyrus-kun! and now clearly regrets it.
That said, having Hanna with me was also helping to ward people off, so I wasn’t about to let her run off now.
She’s part of this now. Mwahaha.
As we walked through groups of students—likely just finishing up their classes and heading home—they kept a cautious distance while watching us curiously.
The key to not getting approached in situations like this? Walk confidently. Own it.
If you start looking nervous, someone will absolutely pounce with, Hey, need help with something? Or worse.
"Where do you think that gear is from?"
"Never seen it before. Custom-made, maybe?"
"But it looks like an upper-tier set. Isn’t it too early for him to have that?"
"Oh yeah, he only became a 【Hero】 recently. No way he had time to get it made."
"If it’s not custom-made, where’d he get it from?"
"Maybe he’s got some big corporation backing him?"
"Wouldn’t be surprising. He’s a 【Hero】, after all. Sponsors wouldn’t ignore that."
"Guess recruiting him for a party’s off the table. We’ve got nothing to offer in comparison."
"Damn, it really all comes down to money, huh?"
Listening in, I realized they were drawing all kinds of convenient (and flattering) conclusions.
Everyone in the academy already knew that I used to be just a regular villager before becoming a 【Hero】.
So when they see a guy like that suddenly rocking this kind of expensive-looking gear, they naturally assume someone powerful must be sponsoring him.
That misunderstanding works in my favor.
Now, as long as I wear this <Sky Series>, I can mostly avoid recruitment attempts.
Sure, being doted on by cute girls was fun, but not being able to move freely? That’s a pain.
Though I might still occasionally dive into the recruitment war zone on purpose. Not saying why, though. Let’s move on.
Eventually, we made it to our destination without anyone daring to talk to us—just stares from afar.
We were now at the <General Purchase Association>, commonly called the <GPA>, a building entirely run by the academy where dungeon resources are bought and sold.
Mostly students from the <Dungeon Commerce Department> worked here. They learn everything from evaluating resources and handling purchases to managing company finances.
Back in my gamer days, I used this place as a dumping ground—for junk I couldn’t sell anywhere else, failed production items, and unsellable leftovers from stock clearing.
Why? Because they bought everything.
If you wanted the best prices, you’d sell to specialty shops or other guilds. So coming here was pretty rare.
It's not like they're ripping us off, but they only buy at the lowest possible price here.
But right now, we don’t have any connections with shops or guilds.
It’s the kind of place that beginners like us are basically forced to use. I really want to expand my network soon.
"I'd like to sell some items~"
"Yes, welcome!"
Right in the entrance hall, there’s a buyback counter.
There are 32 windows total, and today, 8 of them were open.
Unless it’s a busy time or a holiday, this is pretty normal.
Since it wasn’t crowded, I walked up to one of the open windows, and an upperclassman lady—definitely the pretty older-sister type—took care of me.
"Wow, you're the hero everyone’s been talking about lately! I'm so glad I got to meet you!"
She started chatting right away, completely ignoring the work part. Well, we’re all just students anyway.
"I’m glad to meet you too, senpai."
But hey, I scored big time getting a pretty window clerk. I told her I was happy too.
According to the name tag on her chest, her name was Merina-san.
"Zephyrus-kun?"
Oh, right, I had Hanna with me today. Better not mess around too much.
Maybe I should’ve let Hanna go home first after all.
"Actually, today was my first time taking a dungeon class."
"Eh! That’s fast—you still had plenty of time before the deadline!"
"Well, you know, I am a 【Hero】 after all."
"Oh my! So you already went to the <Beginner Dungeon>? How’d it go?"
"Hehehe, of course I passed on the first try."
"Wow, you're really promising!"
I ended up chatting a lot with Merina-san and got along with her.
Seriously though, she’s definitely a sales student—super easy to talk to. I might’ve talked too much.
She’s a great listener. Was that service too?
Someone get me a grown-up drink and a glass.
Even while we were chatting, her hands never stopped processing the buyback.
Merina-san handled the work smoothly and skillfully.
Out of all the materials we got in today’s dungeon run, we sold off about half—stuff we couldn’t use, like rice, feathers, wheat with husks, and other things we clearly couldn’t eat.
Even though time stops in the <Item Bag (Capacity: Large)>, it doesn’t have infinite space. We wanted to keep some room in it.
This time, we made 34,000 Mirus.
"Oh, that's more than I expected."
Doing three laps and having the <Item Bag (Capacity: Large)> to carry more stuff really paid off.
We made more profit than I thought.
By the way, "Miru" is the currency used in <DanKatsu>. You can think of 1 Miru = 1 yen.
After splitting our first dungeon rewards between Hanna and me, we both headed home with big, satisfied grins.
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