WE CAME BACK OUT FROM THE DUNGEON
We decided to team up with Pecora’s party to complete the dungeon.
The paths weren’t big enough for all eight of us to walk abreast, so we went in a double-file line. Vania and Flatorte were at the very front, and Pecora and I were behind them.
Pecora and I were holding hands, like little kids crossing the street.
“Perhaps I should take this as a date with you, Elder Sister?”
“Absolutely not. We’re pretty deep inside this dungeon, you know. I think any couples coming down here for a date would probably end up singles. They’d die before they got this far.”
“But I wonder what these used to be. They’ve gone completely unchecked, even by the demons.”
Pecora placed a finger from her free hand onto her lips. It was a gesture that suited her well.
From behind us, Fatla added, “Yes, there was no documentation on these ruins in the castle archives.”
“Then that would make this place the site of some kind of ancient civilization, right? That alone makes it pretty interesting. Amazing—there might be some kind of treasure here!”
Not only was our party large, but it was insanely strong, so our strategy was to find our fun in treasure hunting and things like that.
“It would be nice if it is as you say, Elder Sister, but none of the items we’ve discovered so far has been a relic or anything like that.”
“That’s right—you were opening the chests, weren’t you?”
“Yes. Most of them contained tea sets and daily necessities and the sort. Nothing cheap, but nothing you wouldn’t see for sale in town somewhere.”
That gave me a bad feeling.
“Don’t tell me they’ve faked strange underground ruins to generate interest in the abandoned countryside… And they’re putting whatever items in them that they feel like…?”
“That is unlikely, Miss Azusa. It would be incredibly difficult to do up the inside of a dungeon this far underground. The worms have gotten quite strong, and they would have to hire a lot of trained adventurers to get through it. An event calling on adventurers would only expose the plan, since rumors would spread from the hired adventurers,” Vania said as she walked ahead of us, stabbing another worm.
“Phew, I’m glad. You’re right—I guess normal people would have a tough time getting this far.”
I almost forgot about stuff like that because of how OP I was.
“But I did get the impression from the items in the chests that they were generally things people didn’t need and just left in storage. Like, we found a plate with a weird pattern on it and stuff. I wonder what’s up with all that?” In a carefree manner, Vania picked up the magic stone that appeared. There was no sense of tension at all.
“That part might be a mystery, but we’ll solve it as long as we keep adventuring, right? Solving mysteries is an adventurer’s job, after all.”
I thought that was pretty slick, but no one reacted to it. I was a little sad.
“That was such a cool line, Elder Sister.”
“You said that after such a long pause that now I’m embarrassed! Stop it!”
We went down the stairs and headed down to the next floor. We were now on the thirty-fifth floor underground.
There were drain channels running along either side of the paths on this floor. It was like a subway station.
The dungeon was already damp, but there was now enough water flowing that they needed drains.
On the other hand, the doors on this floor had something written on them:
STORAGE ROOM FOR THINGS SENSITIVE TO MOISTURE
We peeked in and saw framed paintings and other things that would be ruined if they got wet. In a word, it was storage.
“This definitely isn’t from an ancient civilization…”
“Indeed. This is starting to dampen my spirits, too.”
There was nothing there to challenge my understanding of the world. It felt like I was just looking into the basement at a friend’s house.
Then, as we proceeded, something unexpected happened. At the end of the path was a stream of faint light.
“Huh? We’re deep inside a dungeon—what’s happening?”
“Let us go, Mistress!”
“As a representative of Her Majesty’s party, I will go, too!”
Flatorte and Vania ran off. I chased after them, but since I was still holding Pecora’s hand, I couldn’t go very fast.
“It would be an egregious violation of etiquette to let go of your little sister’s hand. You will lose your right to be my elder sister!”
“Yeah, I know…”
Our hands still joined, we went toward the light—
—and out onto the surface.
This spot looked to be at the bottom of a deep ravine, and when I looked up, I saw a faint stream of light coming from way above the cliffs.
Water was dripping from the rocks, and various types of ferns were growing; the spring water must have flowed to the cave. This was the kind of place that would have a lot of negative ions. There were even trickles of water that I would call small waterfalls.
“Ah, I see now. I thought this would happen.” Laika immediately took out a map of the area and nodded.
Our cartographer seemed to understand what was going on, but I didn’t. “Laika, explain.”
“I saw something that said there was a deep ravine a short distance away from Bugabee. A deep ravine means that as long as we proceed through the dungeon, we will encounter the ravine and come back up to the surface.”
“Then this marks the end, I guess.” I gazed at the water trickling down. I was disappointed that there wasn’t a boss or anything, but adventures were adventures. And somehow, I was feeling very nostalgic.
Why is that? I never went to places like this back in Japan.
No. It wasn’t as vague as my memories from my past life. I had been to this place before.
“What’s going on? I’m having a strong case of déjà vu right now.”
“Have you been here before, Lady Azusa?” Laika asked curiously.
“That can’t be. It’s rare that I leave the house in the highlands at all. But still…I remember this view.”
What does this mean? Seriously, why do I feel like this?
Still unsure where this odd, wistful feeling was coming from, I walked even farther in.
“Oh, Lady Azusa, you will get separated from us if you stray too far from everyone!”
“I’m fine—I’m smart enough not to get myself lost. I can’t sit still. I can’t go home until I figure out what’s going on!”
Indeed—I was an adventurer right now. I wouldn’t let this mystery go unsolved.
I will find an answer for this weird feeling!
My steps were unsteady. The rock floor was wet with dripping water, so if I lost concentration for a moment, I’d slip and fall over. But I paid that no mind and kept moving forward.
The dungeon might be over, but the road kept going. I would scour every last inch of the bottom of this ravine.
And then, I finally arrived at my answer.
We came across the spirit of droplets, Yufufu—also known as Momma Yufufu—as she pulled out the vegetables she had cooling in a spring.
“Oh my, why are you here, Azusa?”
And behind her was the house I’d stayed in.
“Yes! I knew I’d seen this before! I was here not too long ago!”
Water was dripping all around. It was the perfect place for a droplet spirit to live.
“Oh, have you come from the dungeon? Don’t take too much from the dungeon now. But I suppose it’s all things I don’t need, so perhaps you’ll have a more practical use for it.”
Wait, that means…
“That whole underground-ruins part is yours, Momma Yufufu…?”
“I’m on the executive committee of the World Spirit Summit, remember? We once held the summit around here. And so I thought it would be best for there to be a place to stay, so I did renovations in the ground to create rooms. I’m using some of them as storage now, though.”
So that’s what those were!
“I’m not sure when it happened, but it eventually ended up connecting with the dungeon somewhere, I suppose~”
“But if you built that whole thing, then there would have been a lot of workers on the construction, right? So why did word never spread?”
“I gained the cooperation of the stone spirits for the construction, so it wasn’t that much trouble.”
So only spirits worked on it.
The mystery was solved. The Bugabee Underground Ruins were just the ruins of some lodgings for spirits.
But from a human’s point of view, it was still an outrageous-enough discovery.
After that, I introduced Momma Yufufu to everyone.
“I appreciate you always looking after Azusa for me.”
“That’s something a real mom would say, too… But…I guess that’s fine…”
There were times I felt like she really was my own mother, so I couldn’t complain.
“Wow! You even look like my elder sister!”
You’re just making that up, Pecora. We’re not related by blood at all.
It would be rude to go straight home, so we reminisced about our dungeon crawl as we feasted on deluxe pancakes at Momma Yufufu’s house.
“It was a dungeon full of nothing but worms and slugs, wasn’t it?”
Despite being the demon of flies, Beelzebub seemed repulsed. Well, it would be unreasonable to tell her to get over it just because she was a fly herself.
“This means they weren’t underground ruins in the end. They were ruins, yes, but they weren’t that far underground, and I believe that an adventurer will get all the way through sooner or later,” Laika said as she spread open the map she’d so diligently made.
By the way, there was also a floor plan of the “underground ruins” in Momma Yufufu’s house.
Of course there was, since she designed it.
And so our conquest came to an end with but one unresolved issue.
“Guess that means the little village of Bugabee lost one of its hopes for revival…”
The moment someone made it through the whole dungeon, adventurers would stop coming. They wouldn’t get any new treasure, either.
We didn’t have to stick our noses into their business, but this was a difficult one. This kind of problem couldn’t be solved just by working hard.
If I lacked strength, then I could do strength training or take other personal measures to manage somehow.
But if someone told me to do something about a desolate, abandoned town, there was nothing I could do.
It was just part of nature; sometimes things were abandoned and fell to ruin.
“Azusa, the people of the town just have a one-sided misunderstanding, so there’s not much for you to worry yourself about. Everyone and everything in this world has their own troubles,” Beelzebub told me with an annoyed expression. She wasn’t saying this to be cruel; she was trying to console me. She herself had a fussy personality.
“But I really got the feeling that they were trying to get back on their feet with tourism… You know, like how it’s really hard to just ignore someone passed out in front of you?”
“I understand, but there is no more reason for people to come to this abandoned mine…”
We were silent for a while.
Oh no. I made the mood worse.
Everyone looked like they were trying to think of something, but the answer wasn’t coming so easily.
If anything could’ve helped, we would’ve been acting on it already.
“I have an idea!” Fighsly’s voice echoed throughout the empty room.
“What is it? It’s a bad idea, isn’t it?”
“Please have a little more faith in me, Master Beelzebub.”
This sure was a difficult teacher-student relationship…
“They should keep doing these underground exploration events over and over. Like annual fighting tournaments—something like that!”
Well then. That wasn’t a terrible idea.
People were invited to functions like that in Japan, too.
“Oh, a better idea than I thought.”
“Master Beelzebub, you know you didn’t have to put it that way, right…?”
These two were somehow on the same page.
“If they offer a great sum of prize money, fighters will come from all over the world. Everyone would prefer money over three square meals a day.”
I think that’s just you… But I guess adding some extra punch with prize money was the right way to do it.
“I see, I see~ But my thought is that a village of this size economically might only be able to offer a set of locally cultivated vegetables as a prize.” Pecora stated her very clear opinion.
“Oh, I wouldn’t participate for that prize.”
“That one-eighty was too fast, Fighsly!”
“But when you join a tournament, you get punched and kicked and it hurts. I would not be happy if all I got after all that pain were vegetables! Money, money! Give me the goods!”
She has a point…
We weren’t coming to any sort of conclusion of what to do about the village of Bugabee.
“Man, if only there were some kind of scenery, like real underground ruins. Then everyone would come to sightsee…”
But that was crying for the moon. There was nothing like that here, so the town would just continue to decay.
There were apparently some waterfalls near Bugabee, but they probably weren’t a big deal. If they were, then they’d be more well-known.
“Hmm, scenery, you say? Then what about…”
Momma Yufufu seemed to be hinting that she knew something.
“What about what?”
“There are quite a lot of waterfalls around here, including a very nice one. I call it the Great Falls of the Abyss.”
There was even a waterfall right next to Momma Yufufu’s house. Water must seep out from the ground easily here, thanks to the geography.
I wondered if we could reach a breakthrough with just a nice-looking waterfall…
Wait, I can’t make any judgments before we see it. Let’s take a look first.
“Momma Yufufu, do you think you could take us to that waterfall?”
“Of course, my darling Azusa. I’ll go make some sandwiches, so bring those with you.”
Are we seriously going out for a picnic? I thought, but we were going to see the waterfall, after all.
As we waited in a different room while she was getting ready, Laika hesitantly came up to me. “I see you met a very maternal person, Lady Azusa…”
“Oh yeah… It was when I was with Falfa and Shalsha, because they’re all spirits…”
Laika’s expression then softened a little. “I’ve never seen you rely on someone like that before. I’m relieved to know you have a bit of a childish side, too, Lady Azusa.”
“What do you mean by ‘relieved’…? And I-I’m not relying on her that much… This is just normal…”
“I believe this might be the first time I’ve seen you in such a huff, as well.” Laika smiled at me even wider. I had no more dignity as her teacher.
We weren’t really much of a teacher and apprentice anyway.
The sandwiches were done, so we followed Momma Yufufu to see the waterfall.
We walked straight through areas where the groundwater was dripping between the rocks.
It was quite a distance, considering where we came out from the cave. And the path was awful.
“Even if the waterfall is great, it’s way too inconvenient—I don’t think this will be good for sightseeing…” Vania said what everyone was probably thinking, but she shouldn’t have said it out loud.
“Let’s just keep going… It might be something really unusual…”
All the odds were against us, but we had nothing to lose.
By the way, of all the waterfalls I’ve seen, the worst one was back in Japan. It was only, like, a foot tall. It might’ve even been a foot and a half, but either way, that was just margin of error.
It was awful, just awful. It looked like a part of the river. I can’t believe they got away with calling it a waterfall…
“Judging by the geography, this place does seem likely to have a waterfall nearby. There’s even some water dribbling down here. It’s not terrible.” Fatla slowly observed her surroundings as she walked.
“Oh, this moss is valuable.” Vania plucked something off the wall and put it in her bag.
“Are you a moss collector?!”
“Yes. If you examine it closely, moss is rather cute in a calming sort of way.”
Takes all types, I suppose. I didn’t really get it.
“Look up, Miss Azusa. It’s positively magical!”
Fatla’s gaze lifted. Water trickled from between the towering cliffs and sent up mist to create a unique sight.
I understood why she called it magical.
“…Yeah, this isn’t bad. This could be a tourist attraction.”
The only way to see this view was by walking along the depths of the earth itself.
“Miss Azusa, please be sure to watch your step,” Fatla cautioned me, immediately before Vania slipped on the wet rock face. I certainly would be more careful…
We walked another ten minutes. Along the way, we passed through a space between two boulders—
“Heh-heh, we’re finally here. This is the Great Falls of the Abyss.”
Ahead of the rest of us, Momma Yufufu stopped.
There was a stone face in front of us, so my field of view wouldn’t open up until I turned right.
Beelzebub and Laika were in front of me, and their jaws dropped in surprise. “This is incredible!”
I hurried forward and rounded the corner.
And there I saw a magnificent vista—there were no other words for it.
Dozens—no, hundreds of tiny waterfalls leaped off both sides of the stone wall like a weeping willow. Each waterfall itself was tiny, but since there were so many of them, it created something I had never seen before.
There was a slight ray of sunshine, and it was incredibly amazing.
“Whoa…” I stood still, awestruck.
When she’d said waterfall, I was expecting one whole magnificent one, but this was something else entirely.
It was like countless showers of water were playing in an orchestra. I guess you could call it a “cluster falls.”
The whole group of us silently watched the falls.
“Isn’t it lovely? This is my absolute favorite view.” Momma Yufufu didn’t seem boastful at all; she simply smiled. “And yet no one knows about it. I might be the only one with a voice who knows of this place, unfortunately.”
“Erm… Why does no one know about something as marvelous as this…?” Laika asked. She had been enraptured watching it, but when Momma Yufufu spoke, it looked like her brain finally started working again.
“It’s simple. There were no paths that came all the way down here. It appears it was only recently that this area connected with the part that I made, so not a single adventurer has arrived here yet.”
Right—we only first came here by going through the dungeon. And our discovery was this waterfall.
Fighsly was still staring at the cluster falls with clear eyes.
Then she murmured, “People would pay to see this.” Her heart was paved with money.
Still, it wasn’t a bad idea. Charging people to see it, I mean. This could be a sightseeing destination!
“Momma Yufufu, can I ask you something?” I was rather timid about it, because our request might sully such a special place. “We want to spread word of this waterfall as a sightseeing spot. Is that okay?”
If word got out that the Bugabee Underground Ruins were a passage to a legendary waterfall, then the town could call in visitors.
This waterfall existed only here. Even if there wasn’t much else worth seeing, this was the only place to come to see it.
Of course, regular people couldn’t get here, but we’d set that aside for now.
“Sure. There’s a path to it anyway, and someone will inevitably find their way here even if we leave it alone.”
Momma Yufufu gave her permission without a hint of offense on her face.
Maybe spirits were fairly broad-minded—or maybe they just didn’t sweat the small stuff.
“Thank you. I think this could save a village.”
I held Momma Yufufu tight in an embrace. Well, more like by the time I realized it, I was already hugging her.
She really was like a momma.
I felt my tension melting away against her bosom…
Clinging to the spirit of water droplets left some of me soaking wet… I guess it was like a side effect, and I’d just have to deal with it…
We went back up the caves, freezing all the worms we met along the way (for a change of pace on our way back—no more running), and returned to the guild. It was already dark out.
The staff receptionist was giving sightseeing information to other adventurers again, so we went up to her once she was finished.
“We merged our two parties together and cleared the entirety of the underground ruins.”
We spilled our map of the inside of the ruins and the loot we had gathered in the dungeon (all just things Momma Yufufu said she didn’t need anymore) onto the desk.
“…………I-I’m sorry? You…cleared it…?”
The receptionist was taken aback for a moment.
Clearing the ruins was basically razing their tourist spot. Of course she wouldn’t be happy about it.
“Yes. After setting the new record, we came out to the surface from a relatively high floor.”
“O-oh… I suppose you made it to the Bugabee Fissure, then? It’s a massive ravine rather well-known among geology enthusiasts.”
“I believe so. Since we’ve cleared the dungeon, are we eligible to receive some sort of grand prize?”
“I completed the stamp rally as well, so I’d like something for that, too.” Beside me, Beelzebub produced the page filled with stamps.
She sure likes these little collectibles. I was the kind of person who’d get bored before I could finish.
“Yes, please wait a moment. Oh dear… What should we do about our dungeon project next year…?” She wasn’t happy for our victory at all. It was kind of sad.
When she returned, the receptionist was staggering under the weight of our prize—
“These are the Bugabee long carrots and yellow radishes! They’re famously sweet, almost like fruit!”
She actually brought back specialty produce!
I think it was a good thing that we were the ones to clear it. An adventurer hoping for rare items or money would cause a riot if they got this…
After she handed us the box filled with carrots and radishes, her excitement instantly dissipated.
“But the underground ruins were much shallower than I expected… Once we learned of the ancient civilization, we were planning on turning ourselves around and being reborn as Bugabee, the village home to the secrets of the cosmos…”
That was less of a plan and more like a dream…
“I’m sorry, but do you think you could call the president of the tourism association?”
The receptionist’s expression tensed. “Is it another complaint…?”
“Another”?
“We’ve had so many complaints. ‘It’s too dull in there,’ ‘I came all this way, and it wasn’t what I expected,’ ‘There’s too many worms,’ ‘There’s nothing but worms…’ At this rate, we won’t be having any repeat customers. I don’t know what to do…”
Either way, things would have just dwindled and died off…
“It isn’t a bad thing, so please don’t worry.”
When the president of the association came over, I explained the incredible waterfall.
The president seemed to be excited in response to the story at first but only ended up gloomy again.
“I’m very thankful you told us, but…I don’t believe it will be a good tourist spot, since only outstanding adventurers like you can reach it…”
“Well, about that—if you dig a tunnel out around floor fifteen, you’ll reach the cliffs. And once you reach the cliffs, you can go down by hugging the cliff.”
Indeed—the floors of the abandoned mine weren’t stacked neatly on top of one another but were offset toward the cliffs, so by the fifteenth floor, it was running very close to the Bugabee Fissure.
And once you reached the cliffs, monsters like the worms and slugs wouldn’t appear that often. They still might pop up, but anyone could hire an adventurer to deal with them.
The president was starting to perk up again as I talked.
“I see! We will certainly give it a shot!”
“I’m glad we could be of some help.”
“Truly, thank you so much, demons and dragons!”
I was startled when I heard that. I placed my hand on my head, and my horned headband was still there.
Oh yeah, I gave myself horns so they wouldn’t know I’m the Witch of the Highlands.
“You helped us a lot, Miss Azuzard the Dragon!”
This disguise sure is effective…
Days later, the town of Bugabee started promoting the waterfall on a wide scale.
They sent visitor information on the waterfall to our house, along with a bunch of special local produce.
On the front, it said in big letters, BUGABEE: NATURE, EXCITEMENT, AND WATERFALLS! What’s so exciting about it?
Well, they let me get through the first dungeon of my life, so they could have that one. If I could go back, I would’ve defeated more monsters during our expedition…
But the story on the guide was a little odd:
Everything was exaggerated!
Not just exaggerated—everything besides us telling them the location of the waterfall was an outright lie!
The lie didn’t hurt anyone, though, so I thought I’d just let it slide…
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