SWNOVELXO Chapter 20: - This is Exactly What We Were Rounding Up
The 10th day of my reincarnation marked a day for dungeon exploration. There were no thieves around the inn, no suspicious figures.
Anneliese and I, with our hoods pulled low, left the inn. Ideally, we didn’t want the inn’s location to be known. We didn’t want our sleep interrupted.
As we headed towards the dungeon with vigilance (using detailed appraisal), I noticed a shady character monitoring the people passing by from the shadows of a building. A level 12 thief. He hadn’t noticed me yet.
However, his suspicious behavior made it clear that he was a thief. Being level 12, he was fairly high-level. At the very least, he was skilled as a thief.
Was he doing this intentionally? If not, I wondered about his purpose. Was he after me? Did he want me to discover him?
What were the guards doing? They shouldn’t just leave such a suspicious person alone. They should question him.
I wanted to sneak around and slit his throat with a dagger, but that wasn’t an option. Doing something like that in such a crowded place would only draw attention. If I were to do it, I’d have to do it discreetly, in the shadows, without anyone knowing. The body could be stored in my item box. If I discarded it in the dungeon, it would be a cover-up.
I’d think about it if I encountered the thief on the way back from the dungeon. Yes, that’s what I’ll do.
“The guy in the shadow of that building is a thief. Let’s take a detour,” I told Anneliese.
“Okay,” she agreed.
We moved discreetly to avoid the thief’s line of sight.
I knew this couldn’t go on forever. But I didn’t know the scale or strength of the thieves. For now, my priority was to train myself.
I had been pondering why it became known that I had killed a thief since yesterday.
Had someone seen me kill the thief, or did they find out because I had brought the record card to the government office, or was it due to something else? Even the detailed appraisal didn’t provide that information.
There were many thieves in front of the dungeon. Both adventurers and thieves didn’t stand out in their attire, so they moved about openly.
People in town had a suspicious appearance, their demeanor and behavior raising questions. Compared to them, I appeared more relaxed and natural with my hood pulled low.
With our hoods covering our faces, we entered the dungeon. I was confident that my face hadn’t been seen, so even if they found us suspicious, they couldn’t be certain it was me.
“Is there anyone nearby?” I asked.
“No, there isn’t,” she replied.
We used the dungeon move skill to reach the third floor. Now, even if the thieves decided to follow us into the dungeon, they couldn’t track us.
I’d been thinking about how it became known that I had killed a thief since yesterday.
One characteristic of thieves was that they could naturally change jobs without visiting the temple. The job transition condition was committing theft five times or committing a crime worse than robbery.
Another characteristic was that they could inherit half of the abilities of their previous job right before becoming a thief. If they had an STR of 10, they’d inherit 5 points. If their previous job was swordsman level 10, they’d be quite powerful as a thief level 1. Moreover, they inherited all the skills, making them quite formidable. However, even as thieves leveled up, their abilities grew slowly, so pure combat jobs would ultimately be stronger.
The third characteristic was that thieves naturally transitioned into jobs derived from thieves by accumulating crimes. While other jobs could transition to higher-level jobs naturally, thieves were known to do so more frequently. It was a cumbersome system. I hoped they would refrain from transitioning to dangerous jobs.
Now, on the third floor, we encountered spider-like monsters called Thread Spiders. Unlike the monsters we’d encountered before, they had a ranged attack where they spit out threads.
“Thread Spiders can shoot threads up to the length of about five people,” Anneliese explained.
The range of their thread attack was around 10 meters, give or take.
Getting hit by the thread attack supposedly reduced your AGI stat by 5 points for about 5 minutes. It didn’t restrain you, but it was still dangerous because Thread Spiders were swift.
And sure enough, one of these Thread Spiders appeared. It was about a meter in size with black and yellow stripes. Its appearance resembled a Japanese orb-weaving spider, but its body was plump and its legs were short. Either way, it was creepy.
I swung my Mithril two-handed sword, closing the distance between us and the Thread Spider.
It opened its mouth. Was it going for a biting attack?
“Wait!?”
Instead, it spat out threads from its mouth. A mesh-like substance spread out like a net and came flying toward me.
“What!? From its butt!? Seriously, this is bizarre!”
I had assumed it would shoot a straight thread from its rear, but the threads came from its mouth and attached to my body. Strangely, the threads didn’t disappear.
With my AGI stat clearly reduced, the Thread Spider pounced on me.
“Take this!”
My AGI had dropped by 5 points. For a villager, that would be a fatal blow, but thanks to the +10 AGI boost from my physical enhancement, it wasn’t life-threatening.
I swung my Mithril two-handed sword, slicing the Thread Spider, and it vanished with a metallic sound.
“I never expected it to shoot threads from its mouth,” I commented.
“It can also shoot threads from its rear,” Anneliese added.
“Seriously?”
Shooting threads from both its mouth and rear, these spider-like monsters from another world were not to be underestimated.
“We obtained spider silk.”
I felt like complaining to the gods of this other world about the fact that spider silk dropped from these creatures.
“And seriously, it’s not just thread; it’s a net. Why does something like that suddenly appear? It’s defying the laws of physics too much!”
I wanted to complain endlessly. One complaint after another. Let’s hold back a bit, another world!
I spent about 10 minutes complaining to the wall. It was a bit embarrassing.
“…I apologize for causing trouble, Anneliese.”
“No need to apologize. I understand your feelings, my lord. Please feel free to express them.”
Hearing her say that made me even more embarrassed.
“But with this spider silk, we can weave it into clothing for us.”
At times like these, changing the subject was the best option. I changed the topic while avoiding eye contact.
In truth, there were two types of normal drops on the third floor.
In the case of Thread Spiders, the normal drops were this spider silk or a G-rank magic stone. I had seen magic stones at Mr. Gorteo’s shop; they served as the energy source to power magic items.
Even the water in the inn’s bathroom, supplied by a magic item, required these magic stones.
Anneliese informed me that inns with such bathrooms were considered good, if not luxurious. Most likely, staying at an inn like that would cost less than 15,000 gold (around 150,000 yen).
“Do you cultivate cotton?”
“We do cultivate cotton, but the amount cultivated shouldn’t be very large. There should be dungeon-sourced spider silk, so we limit our cotton cultivation to accommodate explorers.”
“Why would you accommodate explorers?”
“When the exchange rate for spider silk drops, it demotivates explorers. When that happens, the number of explorers entering the dungeon decreases. As a result, the dungeon becomes infested with monsters, and they start overflowing. Therefore, policies are in place to prevent a decrease in the number of explorers who thin out the monsters,” Anneliese explained.
So, explorers were necessary to prevent monsters from overflowing out of the dungeon. I had no idea there was such an insider story.
It depended on what the rulers prioritized and how much consumers were willing to tolerate. High clothing prices might be bad for consumers, but explorers would want the guild’s exchange rate to remain high, especially on the third floor, where monsters used special attacks to reduce AGI. Lowering item values would be hell.
However, there were times when the drop was a magic stone, so even if the price of the silk dropped, the damage might not be that severe.
“But you know,” I said.
“What’s that?”
Her tilting head was adorable!
“There aren’t any treasure hunters here, so even if there were hidden passages, no one would know.”
“I see… Then, how about recruiting party members?”
“Explorers have strict admission requirements, so it’s not that easy.”
The requirements for a dual-wield sword hero like me were even more stringent, though.
“What if you buy a slave who has never entered a dungeon and lend them the Mithril two-handed sword?”
“I see…”
With a slave, there wouldn’t be any worries about them stealing, and I could form the party I wanted. It might be a good idea.
The issue was the term “slave.” I couldn’t really warm up to the idea of slavery. Criminals getting a chance at redemption was better than execution, but voluntary slavery (debt slavery) was a different matter; it made me uncomfortable.
“Buying a slave is for their sake. If they aren’t bought, they’ll end up working in terrible conditions. Most of the time, even voluntary slaves don’t live long in such circumstances.”
“Helping people, huh?”
Anneliese tried to paint buying a slave as helping someone, but it wasn’t that easy to shift my feelings. I guess I just didn’t like the word “slave.”
Putting the issue of slavery aside, let’s move on. It’s not something I can sort out in my head right now.