Episode 26 – The Kukri Knife II
That day as well, Nada was delving into a dungeon.
It was Podie.
For equipment, he wore simple leather armor. Nothing expensive.
It was made from the tanned hide of Haposa, a weak monster that appeared in the shallow layers of the dungeon. Haposa resembled a fox, about a meter long—large, quick, but not particularly powerful.
They were ideal prey for beginners, and their leather armor was light and cheap. It was a recommended starter piece for fledgling archers, and in Inferno, it was mass-produced at low cost.
Nada wore such gear.
For someone like him who fought on the front lines with a spear, the armor felt unreliable, but with so little money, he figured it was better than going in half-naked. So he bought it at a beginner’s gear shop.
His weapons were the Green Dragon Crescent Blade and Solideum.
But he did not have a kukri knife.
He had managed to prepare the money, but his usual shop, Astuto Breza, told him the knives hadn’t been restocked yet.
The kukri knife was small, but within the category of “knives,” it counted as large. Compared to a weapon of similar size, the kukri was less user-friendly, and short swords, far easier to handle, were normally more popular. So getting a kukri used to be easy. Until recently.
Now the kukri knife was extremely popular, and in the dungeon city of Inferno, stock shortages persisted.
The reason was Iris.
Her main weapon was a rapier, but she carried a kukri knife as a secondary blade.
Iris was one of the academy’s strongest adventurers, and her popularity was immense. Many aspiring adventurers admired her—not male students, but mostly lower-grade female students who imitated her clothing, her weapons, her combat style, even her lifestyle.
Because of that, anything she favored became scarce throughout Inferno.
Nada felt like complaining about it, but since he himself used a kukri knife, thanks in part to her influence, he kept quiet.
“Hah… so you’re next, huh—”
Nada spoke to the monster that appeared before him.
Its name was Macaco.
A monster with a humanoid shape—closer to a beast that had approached humanity.
It wore no clothes; instead, its entire body was covered in thick, supple black fur that could probably deflect blades like armor.
Macaco wielded no weapons, but it had powerful jaws and razor-sharp claws.
Its posture was strange.
Its spine bent forward like an old man’s, giving it a hunched back. Its rear was swollen and hardened. Its physique was small, about 120 centimeters, but the swift movements from its short legs marked it clearly as a monster.
Still, the Macaco before him was one that appeared in the shallow layers of Podie. Even Nada—deemed a failure at the academy—had hunted such monsters to the point of boredom years ago.
It wasn’t an enemy worth worrying about.
The Macaco closed in with quick movements, but Nada had seen that pattern dozens—no, hundreds of times.
He swung the Green Dragon Crescent Blade. The blade severed the Macaco’s torso as it rushed in.
Immediately, Nada used Solideum to dismantle the corpse, extracting the Calvaon he was after.
“Whew—”
He placed the Calvaon into the pouch at his waist and took a small break. There were already more than a dozen Calvaon inside—all small pieces, harvested from monsters in the shallow layers.
Nada’s true adventuring style wasn’t to dive deep and hunt big game. Instead, he safely hunted weak monsters in the upper floors to collect Calvaon.
So he never expected to fight big game—what people called strays. Monsters so dangerous that no amount of lives would be enough; that even if you won, you’d barely survive and pay a steep price.
For someone like Nada, fighting such creatures was unthinkable. He was the sort of adventurer who, under normal circumstances, would avoid such fights entirely.
They didn’t need the massive Calvaon those creatures carried, nor did they want the equipment made from their carcasses. They weren’t after the treasure tools said to lie beyond special “strays,” and they certainly didn’t care about earning fame as an adventurer.
To Nada, “strays” weren’t dazzling gold that stirred the heart—they were calamities.
Yet back in the Agiya days, Iris’s terrible luck had dragged him into fighting several strays, and recently he’d ended up battling two more—a gargoyle and a dragon. Neither had yielded any worthwhile rewards, leaving him with nothing but losses in the end.
Compared to that, today’s adventure was unbelievably normal. As he steadily hunted low-rank monsters, Nada almost felt moved by how bland and uneventful the whole thing was.
Today had been especially trouble-free. He hadn’t run into any strong monsters, nor had he suffered the misfortune of stumbling into a monster house. Not once had the dungeon undergone an internal shift. The lack of battles that risked his life filled Nada with deep relief.
But Nada was a seasoned adventurer.
He didn’t lower his guard over something like that. He kept moving steadily, cautiously, defeating the monsters on this floor one by one. Every creature here went down in one or two strikes of his crescent blade, each killed before they even managed to get close.
It felt like simple labor—an adventure so dull it was almost painful. Yet the absence of danger made him want to smile despite himself.
Today was also his first adventure since killing that “dragon,” and without his kukri knife, he’d chosen to stick to the safer, shallower floors. Maybe he’d finally gotten used to adventuring alone, because things felt easier than usual.
Once his pouch was full of small Calvaon, Nada put his waterskin to his lips and decided to call it a day.
But an adventure wasn’t over until you were safely out of the dungeon.
He had once fallen to a deeper floor during an internal shift, and another time he’d been suddenly snatched from above by a dragon that burst through the ceiling. Because of that experience, he never let his guard down on the way back. Staying alert in all directions—front, back, left, right, up, down—he headed for the exit with meticulous care.
And this time, he reached the surface without incident. Nada relaxed a little and reported the end of his adventure to the usual brown-haired receptionist.
What he got back, however, was a puzzled expression.
“Excuse me? What’s with that face? With a sloppy grin like that, something good must’ve happened, right?”
“Oh? So I’m smiling.”
Nada didn’t change his expression. For a fifth-year student who had spent the day clearing an absurdly shallow floor, that smile was… unusual.
A normal fifth-year student would look at least a bit disappointed.
So the receptionist assumed he must’ve had some unrelated stroke of luck.
“…This is none of my business, but please be careful of honey traps, alright? I hear more people have been scamming adventurers lately.”
“Yeah. Got it—”
But even her warning didn’t wipe Nada’s grin, and he practically skipped out of the building. Her chilly stare followed him long after he’d left.
◆◆◆
After leaving the reception desk, Nada stepped into the open air as bright sunlight poured down from above.
Compared to the enclosed dungeon, where flowers and rocks had served as the only sources of light, the sky felt overwhelmingly vast.
How wide the heavens were.
Having survived another day safely, Nada felt relaxed enough to enjoy the fading evening sunlight.
He dropped his equipment off in his room, exchanged his Calvaon for cash, and found himself thinking maybe he would skip the usual oatmeal and treat himself to something nicer tonight.
What should he get? Probably meat, right?
As he walked, mulling over his options, someone called out from behind him.
“Oh? What a coincidence, Nada—”
Stopping by a smooth, alluring voice, he turned around slowly.
She wore simple jeans and a white shirt, casual and plain, yet her figure made the outfit irresistible. If anything, the shirt emphasized her chest even more, making her look outright seductive.
Her wavy golden hair was tied loosely at the back, and light makeup highlighted her already beautiful features.
—It was Iris.
She was his senior.
A group of hangers-on—mostly female adventurers, though a few men—stood around her.
Her popularity at the academy was clearly as overwhelming as ever.
“…It’s been a while,” he said.
“Yes. It has. Do you have a moment?”
“…Yeah.”
Nada didn’t want to agree, but he couldn’t bring himself to refuse her.
For some reason, he could hear the footsteps of calamity approaching. He hoped—desperately—that it was just his imagination.
Previous Chapter - TOC - Next Chapter
Comments
Post a Comment