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I had wanted to begin with dungeon the instant I heard I could have a chance to change my demerit skill, but I was working a part-time job five times a week. I couldn't suddenly quit on them, as that would've caused shortage of manpower to them and it would’ve been irresponsible. Besides, I also wanted to secure some savings for my adventuring. In the end, I continued my part-time job for one more month before calling it out.
It was April of my sophomore year, when I registered for my adventurer license, and started taking classes there. There was some handy information I got to know, and some of it even made me go 'huh, I didn't know there was such a thing?'
There was also some stuff that I had learned in school, and honestly, I had to slog through them since I couldn't skip them. Like what they'd taught in school, the history lessons were the same—the dungeons had appeared out of nowhere some 100 years ago all over the world.
Japan had dispatched its Self Defense Force to investigate the dungeons where they come to acquire a resource called Magic Stone which is dropped when defeating the monsters inside it. Every country moved to control them, and barricaded the entrance to the dungeon to secure the supply.
It was a decision to keep the monsters from breaking out.
Every country had different reasons to do that; some wanted to monopolise the new avenue of resources, while some did it to keep dangerous people like terrorists away from acquiring them. And in case the dungeons were impossible to be barricaded, they're sealed off.
But—this turned out to be the fatal mistake,
The tragedy struck some few years after the dungeon outbreak.
—Death Parade.
All of a sudden, monsters broke out of the dungeons like a muddy stream, trampling and killing every person they came across.
As far it concerned Japan, there were a total of 243 dungeons. Out of 243, only 25 were being controlled by the government, and the tragedy occurred in the rest of 218 locations.
It was soon apparent to the people that they couldn't rely on their country, and must protect their life and dear ones themselves. Women and elderly people were moved to the rear position, while men armed themselves to fend off the threat.
It was a disaster like never before, and at the dusk of the tragedy, the world population went down to 4.7 billion from the initial 7.8 billion.
In Japan alone, the tragedy reaped the life of 70 millions of its population out of the original 120 million. In particular, the male and adult demographic suffered heavy casualties.
Though the disaster had receded, the world was left with two glaring problems.
Needless to say, the first one was a dungeon. Unless the monsters were regularly pruned, the incident would repeat itself.
And the second was, the birth rate going ahead in the world that had lost nearly half of its population.
Of the 30 million male that were capable of reproduction in Japan, only 10%—3 millions—had made it alive. If nothing was done, the population would've reached the tipping end of no return.
There were several countermeasures launched to deal with both of the problems together, though as of now, only bigamy—aka Harem Law—was left as the relic of that time.
Had it been another time, the government buildings would've been long swarmed by crowds chanting shouts like "What kind of bullshit law is this?! There can, and only will be, Monogamy!", but that never happened. The people then were just that serious.
Though, to be precise, the government didn't outright abolish the "No Bigamy Allowed" law under Article 732 of the providence. Instead, they added a clause where the law wouldn't apply should the aforementioned person had fulfilled certain conditions.
The conditions were A. the person initiating harem must have 200 million yen in his total asset for each spouse, or B. if he's an adventurer, then the annual income must reach 10 million yen per spouse.
Furthermore, he must have a child with each spouse within five years of their marriage.
It was a means to increase the birth rate among wealthy people, and also to further motivate the citizens to take steps into the dungeon.
Well, whether it contributed to improvement of the situation could be argued, but one thing was for sure, the birth rate did indeed improve. So, it was at least a silver lining.
Though, now that the birth rate had picked its pace, and the danger looming due to monsters also thinned out, the conditions were further amended, now requiring a total asset to be at least of 400 million yen value for each spouse.
So to put it short, at least you had to have a total asset value of 800 million yen to even begin with the harem plan. Honestly, It's impressive how Daiki was seriously trying to achieve it as if it was something normal.
...Oh, also, the harem law applies both ways. So if a woman wanted to apply for it, they could do it too, though the reverse harems situation was too sparse even compared to male's pursuit for harem.
Of course, just this alone wouldn't have enticed the female demographic to throw hands against monsters, so there were also other benefits like tax exemption and so on for dungeon-goers.
These benefits also became non-existent when male to female ration got back to its feet, and monster pruning reached to a point where there was no need to maintain the initial countermeasures. Hence, only the harem law was the last remaining relic of the past.
Anyway, among other details, these topics were taught to us in the school too, so I half slept through them. However the particular details about dungeons was something they never taught in school and that'd hooked me more.
Before long, the tedious lessons were over, and it was time to move to practical.
Holding the weapons provided by Adventurer Union, I took my first step inside the dungeon alongside fellow beginners.