Worthless Skill Escape (WN)

Enjoy~

TL: ALT

Chapter 29 – Dungeon Shrine Again

The next day.

I came back to Tengumine Shrine.

After that yesterday, I went to the shrine’s hot spring to wash off my sweat, visited Honoka, and then took a bus down the mountain and a local train back home.

At home, I studied the wiki and couldn’t find a more efficient way to earn more than the level 52 Red Oni in the Tengumine Shrine dungeon.

The issue of returning the elixir to Serika remains unresolved, but it’s not something that was easy to get in the first place.

It drops from a monster, but even with my extraordinary Luck stat, I’ve only gotten to the second item in the drop quota so far.

I wish there were some kind of skill that would increase the drop rate, but unfortunately, I can’t find it on the wiki.

I do know that the Black Swan Forest Water Park dungeon boss (Gigant Rock Golem) has an elixir in the third drop slot.

What a frustrating story.

Serika said she had some elixirs, and I guess she doesn’t really need them since she gave them up so easily.

But Honoka and Haruka’s case is a story I got involved in myself.

Haruka-san promised to pay for it, but I would like to return the actual elixir to Serika as soon as possible if I can get it without any trouble.

Besides, there is a possibility that Haruka-san will need the elixir regularly in the future.

It would be very good for my mental health if I could find a stable way to obtain it.

Well, even if I only gave her one elixir, she would have made such a big deal out of it.

If I gave her elixirs on a regular basis, it could become a story on the level of asking Honoka to be my wife.

It would be more difficult to find an excuse to get her to accept the elixir than to get it.

Accept the offer honestly and take Haruka and Honoka as my wives together?

It sounded tempting, but how would I explain it to Serika, my parents, or the world at large?

Although I could see my future as an explorer, a man who was a shut-in until a few days ago would not have the courage to make the world accept his bigamous marriage. It is impossible.

I don’t have the Showa-era values to call such a thing worthy of a man.

This time, in anticipation of a long journey, I secured lodging at a shrine.

I had little money with me because I lost money every time I escaped, but I could make money by selling the dropped items.

It seems to be the season when there are few tourists, and I was able to get a reservation for tonight by phone this morning.

Today, I entered the dungeon in the morning and went to the fourth floor, relying on the map while hunting Red Oni.

Unlike yesterday, I only hunted the Red Oni from the beginning.

The plan was to continue without killing any other monsters.

When I reached the end of the fourth floor, I entered the black portal, which I did not enter yesterday, and descended to the fifth floor.

The fifth floor is pretty much the same, with only a slight increase in the level of the enemies.

From the sixth floor, Will O’ Wisp level 53 started to mix in with the monsters, but today I ignored them all except for the Red Oni.

While steadily accumulating SP, I broke through the fifth and sixth floors.

After diving through the portal from the sixth to the seventh floor, I found myself in an unexpected place.

Stone steps lined with peeling, vermilion-painted torii gates.

It was the same place I had come to before, the Danjio Shrine.

As usual, I had no idea how to read it.

Is it “Danjio”?

Or should I read “Dungeon”?

I carefully observed the Torii gate, the stone monument, and the stone steps,

“I see that this is the same shrine as the one in the Water Park Dungeon.”

It seems that this shrine is exactly the same, even though it appeared in the middle of a different dungeon.

I don’t know if it’s really the same shrine or if it’s a copy of the same shrine.

I muttered to myself as I climbed the stone stairs.

“Tengumine Shrine is also a historical shrine, but… it’s just not as impressive.”

Tengumine Shrine is a tourist attraction, and even the old shrine pavilions have been remodeled and brightly painted.

I took a look yesterday while waiting for the bus and was told that modern craftsmen have used the pigments and techniques of the time to recreate the appearance of the shrine as it was built.

It is a magnificent sight and well worth seeing.

On the other hand, the Danjio Jinja has been left to fade with time.

But this does not mean that it has fallen into disrepair.

There is no doubt that it has been constantly touched by human hands.

It is not beautifully made, but it is clear that it has been touched for a period of time slightly longer than a human lifetime.

It is difficult for modern people to imagine the kind of devoted faith that makes such things possible.

The lack of decoration, on the other hand, conveys that spirit in an honest way.

Even I, who have no religious background, can understand it.

…But who on earth maintains a shrine in a place like this is a mystery to me.

“Now that I’m here let’s pay our respects.”

Anyway, I lose money every time I escape.

It would be nice to make a donation to some kind of shrine.

I cashed in my money with the Dungeons Go Pro and threw it into the money box, mixed in with about 10,000 bills.

I rang the bell, and then,

“Shouldn’t I make a wish when I visit the temple?”

Thank you, God, please continue to watch over me; I thought I heard that it is good to make such a wish of thanksgiving―or so I thought.

No, was this a local rule in spiritual circles?

I wonder what the official shrine etiquette is.

First of all, there are objections to the number of times one bow and claps, and I heard that the so-called “two bows, two claps, and a third bow” is not certain whether it predates the Meiji era…

“…But it’s a shrine that looks like it’s in a dungeon. It is possible that making a wish itself has some meaning…”

I was the one who threw the money, not making a wish and worrying about something unimportant.

That delayed my reaction.

Or rather, even if it hadn’t been there, I might not have been able to react.

“Hohoho…”

I turned around quickly at the sound of laughter coming from behind me.

“Oh, sorry. You were worried about something cute.”

I looked back and saw no one.

“You’re looking too high. Look down.”

I looked down.

There was a little girl with fox ears.

She was only about the height of my waist, and she was wearing a black kimono with gold leaf sprinkled on it.

Her hair was cut in a bun, just touching her shoulders, and it was pure white.

With hair so pure white that it did not match her age and eyes that shone like gold, it is hard to believe that she is human.

No, it was obvious from the beginning that she was not human, just by looking at her fluffy fox ears and the fox tail sticking out from the back of her waist.

First of all, there was no presence of the little girl.

There was no response to the Enemy Search skill.

According to the skill, there should have been no one there, but there she was.

“You have your own eyes, right? Why would you need to rely on the other world’s hot-tempered sleight of hand?”

“Sleight of hand…? You mean skills?”

“You people of today have a tendency to use the crossword for anything and everything. If you lose sight of the word, you will lose your soul next time.”

A pompous and outdated phrase that does not suit a little girl.

Yet it is also oddly appropriate.

What is this little girl?

I have a pretty good guess.

“No way, are you a god? The God of this place?”

“You got it all figured out. Well, not exactly this place.”

“Which one, then?”

“The land of the emperor’s majesty.”

“That’s a pretty big statement.”

“It can’t be helped since it’s a fact.”

“There are many gods. Which one are you?”

“The names are nothing but human inventions. There is no one who has counted all the names of the eight million gods. You can say that each name refers to me, or you can say that according to the name, a different me appears. Myths are nothing but an after-the-fact creation. It is an unconscious attempt to approach God in human terms in order to understand God in one’s own dimension. It is a sad fact that the more wisdom we apply, the further we are from the reality of God.”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“Is that so? It is a waste of time. Even though there are only five people who have heard God speak about God since the creation of the world.”

Contrary to her words, the little girl doesn’t seem to care.

She speaks because she wants to speak and does not care whether the other person understands or not.

That’s my impression.

“Anyway, that means you are a great god, doesn’t it?”

“Hmm. Well, great wisdom is like great stupidity. It’s crude, but it doesn’t miss the point.”

“And what does this God want from me? Is it to thank me for the money I gave you?”

“No, what? The world has become a strange place, but I found someone interesting.”

“You mean me?”

“Who else?”

“What’s so interesting about me?”

“At first, I thought you were just an eccentric who threw all his money into a money offer without reservation. You’ve noticed how the world has changed, haven’t you?”

“Even kindergartners today know that the world went crazy when dungeons appeared.”

“That is not true. When ordinary people say that the world has changed, they only mean that a great catastrophe has changed the world or that a great war has changed the times.”

“Ah, so that’s what it means.”

For example, 9/11.

The terrorist hijacked a plane in New York and crashed it into a building, which led to a change in U.S. national security policy.

Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq continued for many years, and the situation in the Middle East changed dramatically.

It is possible to see that day as a turning point, but that only means that the world “changed,” not that the world “went crazy.”

Or the Great East Japan Earthquake.

The earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster caused many things that had been taken for granted to be reconsidered.

In this sense, March 11 can be seen as a turning point, but again, this does not mean that the world has gone “crazy.

The occurrence of earthquakes and tsunamis are phenomena in accordance with the providence of the world.

It is also quite possible that a nuclear reactor with a faulty design could have been endangered as a result.

More recently, a new type of coronavirus infection.

The global pandemic of an unknown virus has forced drastic changes in the distance between people and even the way they work.

Again, this does not mean that the world has “gone crazy,” as the infectious disease pandemic itself could have happened at any time, although 2019 can be seen as a landmark year.

But the dungeon did not.

The media talks about “with dungeons” and other slogans, but the appearance of dungeons around the world is a qualitatively different phenomenon from wars, disasters, and pandemics.

It is not supposed to happen.

Given all the laws of the world, there is no explanation for why dungeons occur.

No, dungeons are in direct opposition to all the laws of the world.

This is clearly wrong.

And yet no one has pointed out the strangeness of it.

Not my father, not my mother, not even Serika.

Not even Haruka-san, who came from another world.

“I thought it was me who had gone mad.”

“Indeed. Your senses are the true ones.”

“Then why?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know!”

“I’m telling you that something has happened that even God can’t understand.”

“But you do know that something is wrong with the world, don’t you?”

“Roughly speaking, yes, I would say so. You can think of it as the turmoil among the sons of men caused by the advent of the dungeon, which brought back to life the gods who had almost been forgotten.”

“If such things as dungeons are allowed, then there’s plenty of room for gods.”

“Hohoho… you’re right.”

“So, what did you want to see me about? You just came here to check it out for fun?”

“I wish I could give you one of my blessings. Unfortunately, I have no such power.”

“What then?”

“What, you ask? You seemed desperate. I have nothing to do anyway, so I thought I would give you some advice.”