Worthless Skill Escape (WN)

Here’s the chapter. Enjoy~

TL: ALT

Chapter 15 – Lawless Zone

“What is this place…?”

In front of my stunned eyes, there was an old red-painted torii gate that reminded me of the passage of time.

Countless torii gates along the stone steps like a tunnel.

I had heard that there was such a shrine in Kyoto…

Next to the torii gate was a stone monument with the words “Danjioo Jinja Shrine” carved on it. [T/n: Let me know if anyone knows the exact translation for this “断時世於神社”].

…What does it say, anyway?

“Come to think of it; it’s in the unconfirmed information on the wiki. When you moved through the dungeon floors, you were transported to a place that looked like a shrine.”

It was treated as a hoax on the wiki, but I never thought it really existed.

“It’s a normal shrine, except it’s in a dungeon, and the exit portal is in the back… I think.”

I could only go on, so I walked up the stone stairs.

I wondered how long it would take me to walk through the torii corridor.

I felt as if I had climbed hundreds of steps, but with my status as an explorer, I do not feel exhausted at this level.

After climbing the stone stairs, I found an old shrine.

Unlike the magnificent stone staircase that resembled a thousand torii gates, the shrine building was rather small.

However, its old-fashioned appearance, without any ostentatious charm, is something that touches people’s hearts.

“I don’t really understand it… but I think I’ll at least pay my respects.”

As I approached the shrine, I selected “Cash Mana Coins” from the “Dungeon Go Pro” menu.

Mana Coins, which are dropped when monsters are killed, are considered cash in modern times.

The reason for this is that releasing the mana stored in mana coins has proven to be an easier and safer way to obtain energy than nuclear power.

Somehow, DGP keeps track of the market price of mana coins, and mana coins collected in dungeons are converted to the local currency (yen in Japan) and placed in a wallet in the application.

From this wallet, mana coins can be retrieved in yen.

…The more you think about it, the stranger it gets, but the mechanism remains a complete mystery.

“Speaking of money, is this five yen? No, since I’m here. Let’s do something extravagant.”

I cashed in all the mana coins in my wallet.

Then I threw all the money I had into the money box.

I rang the bell and bowed twice, clapped twice, and bowed again.

…What should I pray for?

Well, whatever.

“Thank you for making this world the way it is.”

It may be inappropriate, but I don’t care.

In fact, I’m grateful.

If it weren’t for dungeons, I’d still be a shut-in.

And I would have wasted an irreversible amount of time.

Unaware of the feelings of the people around me――.

When I prayed at a silent shrine, my mind was somehow refreshed.

But that was the only benefit.

It seemed that nothing special would happen to me just because I was praying.

Well, I didn’t pray for any benefit.

I did not put my money in the temple out of devotion.

As long as I use ‘Escape,’ I lose about 50% of my money every time.

If I were going to lose money, it wouldn’t be too bad if I made a donation.

I went around to the back of the shrine and found a portal to the next floor.

After a short detour to the shrine, I went to the fourth floor.

Three types of monsters appeared: Treasure Hobbit Lv. 29, Rock Golem Lv. 30, and Imp Lv. 27.

But none of them are the kind of opponent that would be a problem for me right now.

I hunt the Treasure Hobbit and ‘escape’ from the others.

That’s about it.

Along the way, I acquired ‘Confusion Resistance’ and ‘Silence Resistance’ to protect myself from Imps.

Normally, they say that special accessories are used to deal with status abnormalities, but in my case, I can get the skills with 100 SP.

My Mental Strength is high enough that even without the resistance, I probably wouldn’t be affected by an Imp’s anomalies, but I don’t want to take that risk every time I encounter one.

As I made my way through the fourth floor without any problems, I noticed a sign that I had never seen before.

“Red light spots and one blue light spot…?”

There were six reds and one blue.

The reds seemed to surround the blues, preventing any chance of escape.

Also,

“…All of them are human presence.”

The red, however, was not the sign of a monster.

The blue one seems somewhat familiar…?

In modern Japan, the inside of a dungeon is a lawless zone.

I don’t mean that figuratively.

Once, the government tried to tax the income of explorers.

There was a reporting system for going in and out of dungeons, and income was tracked.

By making it a tax for dungeon disaster relief, the government hoped to keep the movements of the explorers under government surveillance while rallying public opinion on their side.

However, the explorers rejected this idea and stormed the National Diet building.

They overpowered the riot police and destroyed an armored vehicle belonging to the Self-Defense Forces.

With this momentum, they occupied the floor of the Diet and forced the tax on explorers to be repealed.

It sounds absurd, but the explorers have their own arguments.

The effective control of the state, including the police power, does not extend to the inside of the dungeon.

Legally, of course, it is still in the country, whether in a dungeon or not, and the police can catch criminals.

However, crimes committed in dungeons are difficult to detect, and even if they are detected, they are difficult to prove.

In addition, if an explorer who has committed a crime escapes into a dungeon, the police have no way of catching him.

Therefore, even if an explorer who was the victim of a crime asked the police for protection or investigation, the police could not take effective action.

In the end, the only way to solve the problem of what happened in the dungeon is for the explorers themselves to solve the problem.

From the explorer’s point of view, that means, “The government isn’t going to protect the explorer, but I’m just going to get taxed!” This is what happened in the dungeon.

For this reason, security in the dungeons is mainly maintained by the Association of Explorers, which works in cooperation with the police.

However, it is difficult to say that the Association, which suffers from a lack of personnel, is able to adequately deal with crimes in the dungeons.

Many of the crimes committed in the dungeons are believed to be undetected. Their number is said to be tens or even hundreds of times greater than the number of crimes that have been exposed.

“So it really is a lawless zone where Japanese laws do not apply.”

Even if this ‘Search’ response was one of those incidents, there is no reason for me to get involved.

The principle of an explorer is self-defense.

It is a fool’s errand to neglect one’s own self-defense in order to help those who fail to do so.

However, I used ‘Stealth’ and went to the seven dots of light.

Even though I knew their location through ‘Search,’ I could not go in a straight line because of the intricate dungeon walls between the seven dots.

However, my experience in conquering up to the third floor had given me a vague idea of the tendencies of this dungeon’s corridor formation.

After a few minutes, I reached a corner a short distance from the light spot.

I crouched down and peered out of the corner, maintaining my ‘Stealth.’

“――No way! So you lied to me about getting the elixir!”

I couldn’t help but sigh at the one word I heard.

…I didn’t think it was possible.

There she was, a student wearing my old junior high school uniform and a casquette cap.

It was the girl I saw yesterday at the shopping mall item store.

And those around her were,

“I’m not lying, you know? There is information that the dungeon bosses here occasionally drop elixirs.”

“Yes, yes. We, Ultimate Freedom, have inside information about it.”

“But you know, obtaining elixirs is a job worth tens or even hundreds of millions of yen. Of course, there would have to be a price for it, right?”

“Don’t worry about it. We’ll be nice to you.”

“That’s right. We’ll love you very, very much.”

“Well, I’ll record the whole thing and have the yakuza I know to buy. You are a very pretty girl, so it should be possible to collect tens of millions of yen.”

The men with dyed hair looked at the girl with lustful eyes.

“Th-there is no way I can do such a thing! My mother would scold me!”

“Who cares? You’re the one who said you’d do anything to help your mother.”

“Yes, yes. You came all this way because you said you’d do anything.”

“Come on, let’s get on with it. The part where you make a fuss will be the highlight of the video.”

The men laughed at each other.

The girl looked at the men with a pensive look on her face,

“…..I-if I put up with this, will you get me… the elixir?”

When the girl bit her lip as she said this, the men opened their mouths.

The men looked at each other――and burst out laughing.

“You still don’t get it, do you? We’re setting you up!”

“Hey, hey, you’re about to get fucked, you know?”

“Gyahahaha, no shit!”

“W-what do you mean?”

“Did you really think a bunch of bad adults like us would tell you the truth?”

“Of course, everything is a lie!”

“No matter what you do now, I won’t give you a single potion, let alone an elixir!”

Gyahahaha! The men laughed again.

――Sure.

This is someone else’s business.

Can you fight a group of reasonably skilled explorers for the sake of a girl you’ve only seen once?

Common sense says no.

The girl will get hurt, but I don’t have the right to get involved.

But… but, you know.

If I escape after being shown something like that, I will spend the rest of my life blaming myself for being the one who escapes at the most important moment.

If I could help, I would.

I have the power to do so.

But I don’t know how strong the men are right now.

I can see them if I use ‘Appraisal,’ but then they will know that I used ‘Appraisal’ or ‘Simple Appraisal.’

Since they made it this far in this dungeon while protecting the girl who was slowing them down, it is safe to say that these six men are very strong.

Most importantly, they seem to be used to fighting with other people.

They do not hesitate to use violence.

That is much more frightening than the level of their status.

And the ‘Search’ light is also red.

“I-I will report you! I definitely won’t keep quiet about this!”

“You’re a fool; you know that? This is a dungeon. Nobody cares if one person disappears.”

“That’s right. No one will know if there is no victim.”

“B-but isn’t killing someone supposed to make your name red…?”

Red names.

The name of an explorer who kills another explorer in a dungeon will be displayed in red letters during the Simple Appraisal and the Appraisal.

Recently, more and more courts have treated red names as evidence of guilt.

In some cases, death sentences have been upheld based on circumstantial evidence and red names, even though no bodies were found in the dungeon.

However, there are some loopholes in the red names.

“If we kill you directly, that is. But what do you think would happen if, after all the fun we had with you, we threw you naked in front of a monster?”

“Wha…!”

The girl exclaimed.

“It doesn’t matter if you have a red name or not. So enough with the talk, let’s get down to the fun stuff…!”

“N-no…!”

One of the guys twisted the girl’s arm.

I’ve already made up my mind.

I’ve always hated scum like that, who think nothing of stepping on other people’s feet.

“――What are you doing in there?”

My voice echoed through the dungeon, causing the men to turn around in shock.