“Notebook?”
What kind of event was this now?
I stared incredulously at the notebook nestled so naturally among the dropped items.
In this place, written records were almost impossible to find.
There were words carved into stone walls, records left on old pieces of leather, and books that anyone could tell had come from outside—and even those had only ever been Skill Books.
Yet here was a notebook.
“Even if I have one, I cannot use it.”
Unless I intended to write in blood like what I had seen during the previous run.
I did not know why it existed, but that only made it more pointless, since there was a high chance it would disappear once the run changed.
Despite thinking that, my hands were already flipping through the notebook on instinct.
At the same time, I found myself calculating how many [Maru Stones] I might get if I handed it over to the old man.
“Run 0…….”
Had whoever written this challenged the Boss Room multiple times?
But the farther I read, the more I realized that was not the case.
And at the same time…….
“What?”
I did not remember absolutely everything that had happened since I fell into this place, but the contents of the notebook were remarkably similar to my own circumstances.
Not merely similar, either.
It felt as though someone had watched what happened to me and written it all down.
“What is this?”
This whole situation.
Was this really a game?
Or had I been hit in the head so many times that I had finally lost my mind?
“…….”
Wondering whether my future might be written inside, I rapidly flipped through the notebook, but there was nothing after the entry that appeared to describe my previous run.
“Tsk.”
I was disappointed, but if it really had contained my future, I might have found it so disturbing that I burned the entire thing.
“What am I supposed to do with this?”
It seemed to be nothing more than an item that automatically recorded the past, but the fact that it contained all the information about the dungeon I had discovered made it extraordinarily valuable.
“I do not think I can sell this.”
If someone other than me could read the contents of this notebook, they might pay a high price for it, but items like this were usually designed so that no one except their owner could use them.
And even if someone else could use it, the contents would be useless to an old man who never wanted to leave his shop.
“Half of it is me insulting the old man anyway. He probably would not buy it.”
No, maybe he would?
Had all the things I sold until now been things that scrawny old man personally needed?
The value he assigned them might have been different from what I expected, but in the end, had I not sold everything simply because I wanted to get rid of it?
“Good.”
Once I thought of it that way, I felt better.
Only then did I notice the other items I had neglected while my attention was consumed by the notebook.
“Oh.”
There were quite a few things that looked remarkably good, as though they were making up for all the items that had failed to drop on the previous floors.
“Let us sort everything out first.”
Once I finished organizing them, it looked like I would have plenty of things to sell off to the old man.
“…….”
A black backdrop and yellow candle flames.
The familiar ceiling.
“Fuck.”
A trap that activated no matter where I stepped in the room?
Games were made to be cleared, so there had to be some way through it.
Was it really an instant-death trap?
Or was it simply a trap that dealt so much Damage that it might as well have been instant death?
“Inventory.”
[Notebook]
[Worn Dagger]
“Why is that still here?”
[Notebook]
There was no modifier of any kind attached to the front of its name.
And somehow, that made it feel even more out of place.
I took out the [Notebook] and opened it. The contents were the same as before, but after the final entry, there was now another passage describing the previous run.
『……I had a lot of things to sell off to the old man.』
“…….”
Not only had it recorded everything I did during the previous run, it had even recorded my thoughts.
It was deeply unsettling.
I already knew it did that because I had seen it once before, but reading something I did not remember was entirely different from reading something I remembered thinking myself.
“Haah…….”
Could I even sell this thing?
What was I supposed to do if I could not?
‘Should I throw it away?’
The thought came to me impulsively.
But if simply throwing it away could make it disappear, it probably would have disappeared along with everything else when I died.
Like the [Candle of Life] the old man sold.
“And it takes up space for no reason.”
[Maru Stones] and [Mana Stones] took up Inventory space too.
At least those were useful at the shop.
Sighing repeatedly, I put the [Notebook] back into my Inventory.
“Maybe I should use it as kindling…….”
I had a feeling I needed to get rid of that notebook somehow.
The instant I took the [Notebook] out of my Inventory, the old man frowned without even touching it.
“This is not an item I can buy.”
What nonsense was that coming from a man who would probably buy food scraps destined straight for the garbage?
Granted, when something disgusted him that badly, he made his displeasure painfully obvious and barely offered me [Mana Stones] for it instead of [Maru Stones].
I had passed a campfire before coming to the shop, but I had brought the notebook here intact anyway in case I could sell it.
“Were there items you could not buy?”
“There were not before. Now there are.”
“…….”
If he did not want to buy it, he could have simply said so.
But did shop NPCs ever refuse transactions?
Was this simply the game's way of representing an Untradeable Item?
Normally, unless it was a Bound Item or a Quest Item that was not supposed to be sold…….
‘Quest Item?’
Did this game even have Quests?
“Quest. Quest Window.”
“Quest?”
I ignored the strange look the old man gave me and continued trying.
But whether I said it aloud or only thought it, every attempt failed.
That meant there probably was no separate Quest system.
“It should not be a Bound Item either.”
If not for the Starting Room bug, this was a game where every item disappeared upon death in the first place.
There was no reason for Bound Items to exist.
If anything like that did exist, it would probably be a Cash Shop Item, and it was not as though I could buy Cash Shop Items now.
“Why do you keep muttering to yourself like that?”
“I was wondering why you would not buy my item.”
Apparently realizing I had been complaining about him, the old man furrowed his brow, then sighed and pointed at the [Notebook].
“That belongs to you, so I cannot touch it.”
What was this old man talking about?
Everything he bought from me belonged to me.
“What do you mean?”
Instead of explaining further, the old man simply reached toward the [Notebook].
CRACKLE.
The moment his hand touched the [Notebook], sparks of electricity appeared—something I had never seen even once in this place.
“That just……”
It was not merely a tiny shock from static electricity.
The sparks were bright enough to be clearly visible.
“How could I buy something I cannot even touch?”
“……But how did you know without trying?”
“If I could not tell that much, all my years as a merchant would have been for nothing.”
Was that really something he could dismiss so casually?
Still, thanks to the old man demonstrating it himself, I now knew for certain that the System made the item impossible to trade.
It was frustrating that nothing appeared alongside its name to explain why.
“So, is that all you have?”
I immediately nodded.
As though he had been waiting for that answer, the old man swept away the other items I had laid out and pulled a basket filled with [Maru Stones] and [Mana Stones] from beneath the counter.
“Do you have no intention of buying anything?”
“No.”
“The deeper you go, the more items you will need…….”
“I will be fine.”
As I pocketed the currency from the basket, I mechanically brushed aside the old man's scripted sales pitch.
Despite being interrupted again and again, he showed no annoyance. His face remained blank, as though he felt nothing at all.
“Goodbye.”
At my farewell, the old man, who had remained seated behind the counter throughout the entire transaction, stood up.
At the same moment, every candle burning throughout the shop went out at once.
“Farewell.”
At the old man's words, cloth dropped from the walls and covered the merchandise on display.
Then, once I had completely left the shop, the door closed by itself.
“What?”
Why did he not say anything this time?
It bothered me that the old man, who always said something strange just before closing the door, had remained silent.
Had the door somehow failed to close properly?
Like someone checking the door after leaving home, I grabbed the handle firmly and pulled.
RATTLE.
“It is properly locked.”
That meant I could no longer use the shop on this floor.
If I had said, ‘I will come again next time.’, the door would simply have closed.
It would not have locked like this.
“Is the old man about to die or something?”
The only thing different from before was that an item he could not trade had appeared.
“Do not tell me talking about the notebook counted toward his quota.”
There was definitely something unusual about the [Notebook].
Yet I, its actual owner, knew absolutely nothing about it.
“It is not as though I can open this place again just to ask him.”
Once a shop opened, its inventory did not change until I moved to another floor, and the next shop would not open unless the previous one had closed.
Because of that, it was only natural for me to close a shop once there was nothing left I wanted to buy.
Unfortunately, that habit had become a problem this time.
“I never thought I would have something I actually wanted to ask that old man.”
There were only two ways to obtain information here: the old man's words and the writings scattered throughout the dungeon.
And if I wanted to ask specifically about something, the old man was the only NPC I could actually converse with.
I did not know whether I would keep carrying the [Notebook], but if I had the opportunity, I decided I would ask him about it first.
I failed to destroy the [Notebook].
I deliberately tore out a mixture of pages with writing and pages without writing and threw them into a campfire, but the paper did not burn at all.
Instead, blue sparks crackled and snapped from it just as they had when the old man touched it, until my eyes hurt from looking at them.
“Ha…….”
Worse, when I opened the [Notebook] again to put it away, I nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw that the contents I had torn out had returned to their original places.
They were not even jumbled up, which somehow made it worse.
“Automatic Recording and Indestructible, huh.”
If only the Indestructible property were attached to my equipment instead.
Then I could ignore durability entirely and judge things based only on performance.
“It has nothing but pointlessly useful functions.”
Just like the place I had named the Starting Room, this item was probably a ‘bug.’
Or…….
‘Something outside the specifications of the game System.’
That would explain why sparks appeared when the old man touched it and when I threw it into the campfire.
But unlike the Starting Room, whose purpose was obvious, I had absolutely no idea how I was supposed to use the [Notebook].
Its purpose was unclear, yet it still took up a slot in my Inventory.
“So even a bug counts as an item?”
Would it be better to leave it in the Starting Room beginning with the next run?
But I had no idea what might happen if I put one bug together with another, so I could not bring myself to try it.
On top of that, the instincts I had developed over countless runs were warning me that I should never leave this thing behind.
But I could hardly carry it around in my hand just because I disliked having it take up Inventory space.
“It feels creepy, but…….”
I sighed yet again and put the [Notebook] back into my Inventory.
“I will probably find a use for it someday.”
I had already memorized nearly all of the useful information it contained, excluding the miscellaneous rambling.
Strictly speaking, there was no real need for me to have a written record like this.
Even so, there was a considerable difference between having one and not having one.
And it might become necessary later as I progressed farther through the dungeon.
“The more thoroughly prepared I am, the better.”
That was how I decided to think of it.