Yukitaka was inside a large nest hole underground, lighting up the walls around him with his phone, because he had already found out that this was the nest of the 'Gray Six-Legged Demon Bear' he had killed with his umbrella, and the beast had clearly gone on digging hole after hole even after that.
"Was this one not enough, so it was trying to make it bigger?"
He poked the hole lightly with the tip of the umbrella in his hand. Then, with a strong shake, the hole dropped straight down about two feet. "Whoa!"
For such a light push, the feedback was way too big. He tried opening the umbrella gently, just to see, but nothing happened, which was not what he expected at all. It was just an umbrella. "...Nothing. Well, that means it is not always on. Maybe back then it felt how much danger I was in and turned itself on?"
Yukitaka thought about the conditions for using it, and carefully put the umbrella through every test he could think of. What he found was that this umbrella, which he had splurged on, was light and strong. He drove the tip into the ground hard enough to chew through stone, and there was not one scratch on the metal cap at the end, the part that takes the worst of the abuse. It also held his full weight when he leaned on it like a cane, and even though it was light, the feel of it in his hand was as steady as a sword.
"Could this count as a weapon? I remember playing with umbrellas as a kid, pretending they were swords..."
He tried swinging it as a test. Swing something that hard and the handle can snap clean off at the bottom, because all the force goes down there, but this one did not so much as creak. "This could be a real weapon. When I was sent to the Dungeon in the Royal Capital for Leveling Up, the fancy-looking sword they had given me never felt right in my hand. Let me try a bit more."
He readied the umbrella and stabbed it further into the hole he had dug out earlier. This time it was different. Where before he had felt a light tap even when he smashed it against rock, now a heavy shock ran up through his hand, like he was driving into something genuinely hard. "I hit something!?"
Surprised, Yukitaka pointed his phone light down into the deep hole he had opened, and an object that had clearly been made by human hands came into view. It was cracked, and light was leaking out through the gaps. When he leaned in to look, he could see that the inside was hollowed out into a room. "There is a room built down here!?"
He was startled for a second, then it turned to joy. This was exactly what he needed, because he had to find a way out of the bottom of that cliff. Someone had dug this room by hand, so other people lived down here, and if they had a way out, then so did he.
Yukitaka stabbed the cracked wall again and broke through it, then looked into the bright room inside, and a woman's scream came out of the hole. Taking courage from the fact that the umbrella had not let him down once already, he jumped in.
The room was bright, with light coming off the walls themselves, and since Yukitaka's eyes had already adjusted to the dark, the brightness washed out his vision for a few seconds. Before him stood a black-furred monster like a wolf that must have been nearly ten meters long, and a single woman being attacked by it.
The woman, her long blonde hair in a mess, had fallen to the ground. Yukitaka did not think he had a moment to spare, so with the umbrella in his hand he jumped in between the monster and the woman. The giant wolf did not seem surprised by the intruder, and it bared its fangs to bite, but Yukitaka put the tip of the umbrella against the tip of its nose.
A spinning drill formed at the tip, and it cut through and blew the monster's head off. "...Did I do that? With its head gone, it has to be dead, right? Are you okay!?"
He turned toward her. "Yes," she said. "I am all right. Thank you."
The woman seemed to be an adventurer. She was bleeding from her head and clearly not unhurt, but from what he could see the wound was not deep. At her feet, a battered hat and the contents of a backpack that had been cut clean in two were spilling out and scattered around.
Yukitaka had seen adventurers who looked just like her among the guards in the Dungeon he had been forced into for Leveling Up, so he knew right away that she had to be a healer. "Is your head going to be all right?"
"Yes. It is not deep. I have just enough magic left to close it."
Saying that, the woman closed the wound in an instant with her own healing magic, and Yukitaka, who had been watching the whole thing, greeted her again. "My name is Yukitaka Goto. If it is all right with you, could you tell me your name?"
When Yukitaka introduced himself, the woman adventurer lifted her face and looked at him, and it was only then that he could see her face properly. Long blonde hair, red eyes, a straight nose, and the kind of face you would notice even in a crowd.
"My name is Iristrana Falone Steinlancer."
"Eh?"
It was long, and none of the names in it were ones he knew, so he asked again without thinking. "Iristrana Falone Steinlancer."
"Sorry, it is long, so I cannot remember all of it. But is Iris all right?"
Yukitaka awkwardly offered a shorter name. "Yes. Please do that. And thank you for saving me. Um, if you have water, could I have a little?"
The woman gave Yukitaka, who was standing there in strange clothes, a tired but friendly smile. "Yes. It should be in my canteen. Ah, but it has been a month at least. Please wait a moment, all right?"
Yukitaka grabbed the canteen from his backpack and worked the lid off carefully, because the lid unscrewed and doubled as a cup. He poured the water into it and smelled it. "It smells fine, but it has been a month, so I do not want to be the one drinking it and getting sick."
He could not make Iris drink water that had gone bad, so he took a sip himself. "...Huh? It is cold, and it is good!?"
Yukitaka drank the rest of the cup without thinking and then poured more from the canteen into it, but when he noticed that Iris was watching him from beside him, he snapped to and held the cup out to her. Iris must have been badly thirsty, because she drank all of it in one go.
He poured more water into the cup in her hand. Now that she had calmed down, Iris drank the second cup slowly, as if she was making it last, and then her shoulders dropped and the tears came, falling one after another. Yukitaka had no idea what those tears meant, so he decided to wait quietly and let her finish the water.
Trivia:
- The umbrella only activates when Yukitaka feels real danger, which is why it did nothing when he opened it casually but triggered a gust during the wolf attack.
- The "ferrule" of the umbrella is completely unscratchable even when boring through rock, hinting it is a divine artifact rather than normal commuter gear.
- Iris calling the woman a healer is based on Yukitaka recognizing her gear from adventurers in the Royal Capital Dungeon, showing his past there was recent enough to remember details.
Notes:
• Yukitaka - First given name of Yukitaka Goto. He is a twenty-five-year-old salaryman summoned to another world without receiving a skill, who maxed out his level at 99 in half a day without gaining meaningful power, spent about three months at the royal palace before being pushed toward the frontier, and discovered that his black-rimmed glasses let him appraise objects.
• Goto - First given name of Yukitaka Goto. He is a twenty-five-year-old salaryman summoned to another world without receiving a skill, who maxed out his level at 99 in half a day without gaining meaningful power, spent about three months at the royal palace before being pushed toward the frontier, and discovered that his black-rimmed glasses let him appraise objects.