After escaping the Dungeon, Yukitaka and the woman adventurer Iris stepped into a den that reeked of beasts and rotting meat.
Yukitaka pulled a mask over his face at once, shutting out the stench.
Iris, being an adventurer, was used to that kind of smell. She only wrinkled her face a little.
Iris lifted a hand, and pale light flooded the cave. "Light," she said.
Then a vicious monster appeared right in front of them: the Gray Six-Legged Demon Bear.
Iris jerked backward and screamed without thinking. "Aaah!"
Yukitaka swung his bag down over the monster, drawing it into storage, and grinned. "Oh, it's okay! That thing is already dead."
"Mr. Goto, who in the world are you?" Iris looked him over slowly, top to bottom. "You're dressed strangely. And more than that, you took down a Dungeon monster that our team couldn't beat and could only run from, in one hit."
Iris had assumed Yukitaka was a high-ranking adventurer, but his reaction killed that guess, and now she was more confused than before.
"Can we talk about me later?" Yukitaka held up a hand. "More importantly, why was Ms. Iris alone in a place like that? From what you just said, it sounds like you were diving into the Dungeon with your team, right?"
Yukitaka thought he could not tell someone he had just met that he was a Rare Visitor, a person from outside this world entirely who had almost been killed by this country's king, so he changed the subject instead.
"Yes. We're an adventurer team called Platinum Fang," Iris gave a small nod. "Pretty well known."
Iris trailed off and went silent.
"Did everyone except you die?" Kiyotaka's voice dropped. "If so, I'm sorry for asking something so rude."
Iris shook her head quickly. "Oh, no. If that were it, I could still accept it."
"Huh? What do you mean?" Kiyotaka blinked.
"I was used as bait for that monster Mr. Goto killed."
Iris's voice was almost fading away.
What she told him was this.
In other words, she had been betrayed by her own comrades.
Iris was a member of the Silver Rank adventurer team Platinum Fang, and she was the only Gold Rank adventurer on the team. Gold Rank was one of the strongest classes an adventurer could hold, which made her valuable as a fighter and made her the obvious sacrifice.
So she was valued as an excellent comrade.
But because of her good-natured personality, she was often used conveniently by her comrades.
Even so, she kept working hard for the team, thinking they would all come this far together, but then the leader, Adam, pushed her to become his lover.
When she refused, everything flipped.
A story spread through the group that Iris had seduced the leader, Adam, and the mood in the party curdled.
Iris decided to quit, since she could not stay in this team anymore.
Right at that timing, they found an unexplored Dungeon.
Adam, who had been making the team's mood bad to drive Iris out, flipped his attitude the moment they found the unexplored Dungeon. Suddenly she was needed on the team again.
Iris refused once, but he strongly begged her to help conquer the unexplored Dungeon.
So she made them promise this would be the last time, and they dove in.
As they went deeper into the Dungeon, the enemies got stronger. They also discovered that the transfer devices, the stone circles that carry you from one floor down to the next, moved people at random, and none of them could think straight anymore.
Iris and the Platinum Fang group could no longer focus on conquering. They switched to escaping.
But then they ran into that monster.
Platinum Fang was a pretty strong team as adventurers, but even so, they found they could do nothing at all against that monster, and they ran.
But the monster used the transfer devices to chase them.
Facing a monster that was strong and smart, the leader Adam felt the danger and ordered Iris to hold it off.
Iris naturally tried to refuse, but all her comrades supported the idea.
They said Iris was the only Gold Rank fighter they had, so she was the one suited to hold it off.
Even good-natured Iris wanted to flatly refuse this, but her comrades were right. As the only Gold Rank adventurer, she had the highest chance of survival on the team of anyone there.
Iris, crushed by despair, became the bait and ran from the monster, and that was when Yukitaka saved her. That was the story up to now.
"What awful comrades," Yukitaka's fury was immediate.
"No, they're not even worth calling comrades. I'm getting angry. Looking back now, maybe in the worst case, they had all decided to sacrifice me. I was about to quit anyway, so they probably figured it was fine if she died."
Iris remembered the despair from earlier, and her eyes teared up again.
Yukitaka, without thinking, hugged the frail-looking Iris and rubbed her back.
Iris flinched a little, but she leaned into Yukitaka's kindness, and in his chest, with relief, she started to cry.
"...Mr. Goto, thank you," Iris pulled back just enough to meet his eyes. "I feel a little better."
Iris pulled away from Yukitaka's chest and wiped her tears, and Yukitaka shook his head. "No, this was a betrayal that involved your life. Even I would want to cry."
Yukitaka felt sympathy from the bottom of his heart.
He himself had been cast out of the Royal Capital to the Frontier, the wild, barely-settled borderlands where the Kingdom sends people it no longer wants, and as a Skillless person he had been nearly killed there. He felt like he understood.
Both of them had been thrown away as useless. He felt like they could get along.
And now it was Yukitaka's turn.
Yukitaka told Iris everything that had happened to him up to now, including the fact that he was a Rare Visitor.
"The Hero Summoning in the Royal Capital did reach this Frontier as information," Yukitaka spread his hands, "but I was that person."
Hearing "Rare Visitor," Iris looked Yukitaka up and down, and he gave a small shrug. "In my case, I'm just a regular person who got caught up in that Hero Summoning," Yukitaka lifted his empty hands. "Because of that, I'm Skillless, so I'm treated as useless."
Yukitaka smiled bitterly, remembering how he had been treated in the Royal Capital.
"Skillless?" Iris frowned. "But Mr. Goto, you defeated a powerful monster and saved me. I don't think that's possible without a Skill."
Iris stared at Yukitaka, who did not look Skillless in the slightest.
"I don't really understand it either," Yukitaka scratched the back of his neck. "In the Royal Capital, they used expensive Magic Tools to run Person Appraisal on me over and over. And it was proven that I have no Skill. But it seems like there's a secret hidden in my belongings."
Yukitaka held up the bag and the umbrella in both hands to show her.
"So in other words, Mr. Goto, even if you're Skillless, the things you own have abilities?" Iris leaned forward.
"I think so," Yukitaka nodded. "It also explains why my Level reached the cap so fast."
"What? Mr. Goto, your Level is at the cap?" Iris stared at him.
Iris was honestly surprised by a story she had never heard before.
And then she realized something.
It was that the Experience Points from the bear Yukitaka had defeated had gone to her.
Because Yukitaka's Level was capped out, she, not his comrade but someone who had been fighting right up until that moment, must have gotten all the Experience Points.
That explained why her own Level had gone up so much.
=== SYSTEM TERMS ===
Level cap ........the point where a Level can no longer rise
Skillless ........a person with no Skill, judged worthless
Experience Points . the value a defeated monster hands out
=============================
"Yes," Yukitaka confirmed it. "For a person without a Skill, reaching the cap happens in no time."
Yukitaka could only smile bitterly at himself.
"Mr. Goto, I'm sorry!" Iris shot upright. "The Experience Points from the monster you defeated all went to me. Actually, I..."
Iris honestly told him about the Experience Points.
"Huh, so that's how it works," Yukitaka rubbed the back of his neck and laughed it off. "But it seems like I don't need Experience Points anymore, so it's no problem. In fact, why don't we form a party? Then you could take the Experience Points without feeling guilty, right? Ahaha."
Yukitaka, having gotten a bit closer to her, offered Iris the chance to become his comrade.
"...I'm sorry," Iris shook her head quickly. "For a while, I don't think I can form a party with anyone."
Iris, who was good-natured, seemed to have lost trust in people because of what had happened.
Ugh. He got rejected.
Yukitaka, having mustered up some courage for the offer, was turned down, and inside he was hurt.
Trivia:
- Iris being the team's only Gold-rank adventurer means she was both their most valuable asset and the easiest one to sacrifice, since her high survival odds made the betrayal seem logical to the others.
- The random transfer devices in the unexplored Dungeon turned a conquest mission into a death trap, which is likely why the Dungeon was unexplored in the first place.
- Adam's sudden change from driving Iris out to begging her to stay shows he only valued her as a tool, and the team's unanimous support for using her as bait confirms the betrayal was a group decision, not just his.
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.
• Iris - A Gold-rank adventurer. She is used to butchering monsters and pulling out magic stones. She explains the adventurer rank system to Yukitaka and hesitates at first to eat monster meat, but ends up enjoying it. Carries salt and a plate, and owns a magic storage. A Gold-rank woman adventurer. She was saved by Yukitaka from a dangerous situation and now travels with him. She has a magic storage and knows about the world. She is calm but gets flustered in close contact. She has not been able to wash her gear properly for half a month. She wears light armor that hides a soft build. A female adventurer who spends the night in the den with Yukitaka. She is honest and sincere, and she warns Yukitaka to keep his Divine Artifacts a secret. She has lost trust in people because her comrades betrayed her. She is good-natured and pure-hearted. The only Gold-rank adventurer of the Silver-rank team 'Platinum Fang.' Good-natured and hardworking, but often used by her comrades. Betrayed and left as bait for a monster, then saved by Yukitaka. Left distrustful of people.
• 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.