The next day.
Alex came downstairs to the first floor with Leo, a sword at his waist.
"Please look after Leo today."
"Of course."
"Have a good trip, Uncle!"
"Have a safe trip!"
Seen off by Leo and Sophia, Alex mounted Max and headed north.
He was going to the dungeon in the north.
[This time it'll be a real lowest-grade dungeon, right?]
"That's right. Perfect for swordsmanship training."
CLOP— CLOP—
Beyond the northern gate, grassland stretched out. Since it was close to where the dungeons lay, it had never been cleared for farming.
"Come to think of it...."
[What is it?]
Alex slowed Max down and looked around.
"In the future, buildings go up here too."
[Ah.]
[So it's a development zone.]
"It's less development than... a dungeon appears here. In a few months."
[A dungeon?]
"A lower-middle-grade one. You could gather materials there that are needed to make potions, so the domain prospered."
Because of it, there had been rumors in the 'future' that House Kaldis might be elevated from viscount to count.
"That was when the lord's castle expanded its territory, taller buildings went up, and the mercenary guild building got much bigger too."
That was the developed lord's castle that 'Hero Leo' and the ghost Alex had seen.
"But then demonkind appeared and everything fell into chaos, so I heard it just stayed a viscountcy."
With the world in such disorder, no one would have had the presence of mind for elevations of rank and the like.
"And people fleeing demonkind gathered here as well."
[Ah.]
[Did refugees come to our village too?]
"They did. Not that many, though."
Alex spoke while recalling the 'future'.
"A lot of people were killed by demonkind or monsters before they could even flee."
Those who sensed something was wrong and ran quickly at least escaped with their lives, but those who could not abandon the land and homes their ancestors had lived on for generations fell to the monsters and demonkind where they stood.
"Well, flee or not, they all died in the end anyway."
When they fought the Demon King, the Last City still remained, but with 'Hero Leo' dead, the Last City could not have survived either.
[Uwaah....]
[That really is hopeless.]
The memory of 'Hero Leo' grieving when he heard that Bello Village had been wiped out in the 'future' came back to Alex, and a bitter expression crossed his face before he knew it.
Alex had wept together with 'Hero Leo', of course. Though 'Hero Leo' had never known it.
[Cheer up! If you take down the Demon King, none of that will happen!]
[House Kaldis might even become a count's house.]
"Maybe so."
[They ought to be grateful to you. Saving the young lord and making them counts.]
[Well, they'll never know about the second one.]
Two Hundred chuckled. Alex laughed too.
Yes. Just as Two Hundred said, all he had to do was defeat the Demon King.
[But what happens after the young lord dies?]
[From what you've told me, nothing much happened to the domain.]
When an heir died, all sorts of things tended to follow.
"He had a younger brother, so I heard there was no succession problem. And the Viscount was still alive and well at that point."
Even with the eldest son dead, there would have been no great trouble.
Though the Viscount, as his father, must have grieved terribly.
[Less impact than I'd have expected.]
"Ah, there was one thing."
Alex spoke as though something had come back to him.
Once one memory surfaced, others seemed to follow.
"The young lord had a fiancée, and because he died, she married into another noble house."
[Isn't that only natural?]
[She can't spend her whole life thinking about a dead young lord.]
[Besides, don't nobles marry for politics?]
Nodding as if Two Hundred were right, Alex opened his mouth.
"The thing is, that noble was a marquis, and I heard he was extremely old. She was young enough to be his granddaughter."
[That's crazy!]
[And it probably wasn't his first marriage either?]
"Right. His third or fourth, I think. That's why I heard there wasn't even a wedding ceremony."
[That's insane!]
Alex shared Two Hundred's fierce reaction.
It had been the same in the 'future'.
Everyone who remembered the young lord, Ethan Kaldis, had felt sorry for her.
And House Kaldis was a noble family respected by the people of the domain.
[Good thing she gets to marry the young lord this time.]
"Indeed."
He had no idea whether the young lord and his fiancée got along well or badly, but it had to be better than marrying a man old enough to be her grandfather.
[The fiancée ought to be grateful to you too.]
"Well, that isn't why I saved him."
Honestly speaking, he had been trying to save Kane, not the young lord.
[Still, an invitation to dinner suggests they'll offer some compensation. Have you thought about what you want?]
There were people who ignored a man who had saved their life, but the young lord did not seem the type.
[What do they usually give here?]
Alex thought for a moment at Two Hundred's question.
"I've often seen swordsmen made knights. I've almost never seen a mage become a retainer. Though there are mages who'll do it if the money's good enough."
[Steady employment matters.]
"Some nobles give money or land."
[Then we'll take money.]
[The more money the better!]
By then they had reached the dungeon district.
It was fairly noisy with merchants, mercenaries, and the soldiers managing the place.
[It's much the same here as back home.]
Being lowest-grade dungeons, there were no high-level mercenaries in sight, but with two dungeons close together there was a decent amount of demand.
Where people gathered, merchants chasing money gathered too. Voices hawking potions and weapons came from every direction.
Watching the scene, Alex asked quietly.
"Two Hundred. Don't you think land might be better than money?"
[Land? We're going to be traveling all over. What do we need land for?]
"We buy that spot in advance."
Alex turned his head and looked back at the grassland they had passed.
"Once the dungeon appears, a lot of people will come."
[Oh. Can an individual own a dungeon here?]
"No. A dungeon belongs to the lord. But there's land beside it."
Alex looked again at the dungeon district bustling with people. And he recalled the Kaldis domain of the 'future'.
"Just collecting rent from buildings and stalls would be enormous, don't you think?"
[Ooh! Not bad!]
[Regression really is all about real estate!]
Alex laughed lightly at Two Hundred's fierce reaction.
[Come to think of it, we could buy up places where dungeons appear later on, too!]
"We'd need the money for it."
Two Hundred, who had been getting excited, deflated at Alex's words.
[That's true.]
[And the landowner might not sell.]
"Besides, depending on the noble, some places confiscate the land around a dungeon outright."
[Behold, the class system!]
[Not that things are any different where I'm from.]
[When a good spot opens up, thugs come and cause trouble, or a guild digs up your weak point and blackmails you.]
Worlds seemed to be much alike wherever you went.
"And also...."
Alex said evenly.
"If it's privately owned and closed off in advance, nobody will get sucked in when the dungeon forms."
[Ooh! Spoken like the Hero's uncle!]
Two Hundred snickered. Alex tugged one corner of his mouth up.
[Do you know exactly where the dungeon appears?]
"I'll take a careful look on the way back."
If he could not remember precisely, he would just have to ask for as wide an area as possible.
"Assuming they give me land at all."
[True.]
[Guess I drank my fill of kimchi broth over nothing.]
[Ah, talking about kimchi makes me want kimchi. Kimchi fried rice, and kkakdugi, and cabbage kimchi....]
Letting the sound of Two Hundred rapturously listing the foods of another world go in one ear and out the other, Alex headed for the soldier managing entry to the dungeon.
He presented his mercenary tag and paid the entrance fee. He also paid a little to have Max looked after.
[They charge money too?]
"A dungeon management fee, you could call it. At least they don't take the monster byproducts here."
There were nobles elsewhere who charged an enormous entrance fee and took more than half the byproducts besides.
[Wow.]
[Even with the world ending, there are wretches like that.]
Listening to Two Hundred marvel, Alex looked at the dungeon entrance.
The small entrance, wide enough for perhaps three people abreast, marked it as a lowest-grade dungeon.
[You're not forming a party?]
"Hmm. I think I'll be fine alone in a lowest-grade one."
Alex thought for a moment and looked around. Various mercenaries were in sight.
[No mages, though.]
That went without saying.
The mercenaries here were nearly all beginners. The sort who did not even know which weapon they handled best.
And around them stood Kaldis soldiers and a knight, all of them sharply on edge. They must have been showing extra thoroughness because of the corrupted dungeon two days ago.
[Looks well managed.]
"It does. I don't see any swindlers or the sort of wretches who'd stab you in the back. Though you never really know until it happens."
It seemed safe enough to go in alone.
At the very worst, he would at least be able to run.
"Let's go in, then."
Alex took up his sword and the wooden shield he had bought on the way, and stepped into the dungeon.
He felt a slight strangeness, and then a new landscape appeared.
A forest.
[A forest here too.]
"It's the most common terrain."
Lava or glaciers turning up in a lowest-grade dungeon would have been the strange thing.
Alex drew his sword and moved forward.
What lived in this dungeon were slimes, which attacked by spraying a mildly acidic fluid.
[Do you stab the core on the slimes here too?]
"That's right."
He had to pierce the slime's squishy outer membrane and stab the core inside. Then he could put the slime's fluid into the leather pouch he had brought.
"The fluid is acidic too, so you have to be careful."
[Goblins were the same, but slimes are identical to the monsters back home too.]
Two Hundred, who had been finding it all fascinating, spotted something and asked,
[What's that?]
There stood two soldiers, apparently guarding a wooden cage. And inside that wooden cage was a slime.
"I told you a dungeon vanishes if all the monsters inside it are gone. It'd be a disaster if people thoughtlessly hunted every last one, so they leave some like that."
Alex explained.
[Oh. Back in my world, you clear a dungeon by destroying its core. Fascinating.]
[So if that slime dies by accident, the dungeon gets cleared?]
At that, Alex smiled and walked a little way to the side.
There stood two more wooden cages, hidden behind trees where he had not seen them before. With two slimes shut inside, naturally.
"Of course they keep spares."
[Bwahaha!]
Two Hundred cracked up. Alex laughed too.
The two soldiers turned wary eyes on Alex as he approached the slimes. Alex bowed his head slightly, then turned and moved away.
"They've probably got more spare slimes hidden somewhere."
[Fair enough, those were out in the open.]
Lowest-grade or not, it was a source of income for the domain. They would not manage it carelessly.
Alex moved deeper in.
From here and there came the Boing, boing! of slimes on the move, along with the sounds of novice mercenaries attacking clumsily.
"Aagh!! My clothes are melting!"
And the sounds of people suffering from acid.
[Have you ever actually fought a monster?]
[You took down the goblin shaman, but that was half out of your mind, firing magic from a distance.]
Just as Two Hundred said, this was his first time fighting directly.
In the future he had been a ghost and could not fight, and before the regression he had been an ordinary farmer.
"That's why I have to be careful."
Alex focused his mind and sensed the mana.