Three weeks after joining the Familia, I was going down into the Dungeon today. Of course, with one of the senior members accompanying me.
Falna granted the most Excelia when you killed monsters, so going into the Dungeon was essential if I wanted to level up.
As for a weapon... I didn't properly know how to use a sword or spear, so I should bring a blunt weapon.
Let's see... What I'd made last time was... Ah!
I picked up 'that thing,' which I had propped up in one corner of the room assigned to me.
"All right, time to go crack some skulls with a bat~!"
That's right. The weapon I'd made for my personal use was a "bat."
Not a club—a "bat."
But unlike the ones back on Earth, the difference was its weight.
Normally, you hollow one out and roll a sheet of steel into a cylinder to make a bat, but since I'd gotten stronger here anyway—even at Level 1, you had several times an ordinary person's strength. And I was a blacksmith, famous for their strength—I made it out of a solid block of iron. It weighed around thirty to forty kilograms, maybe?
Whoops, my senior must be waiting.
I'm coming, goblins! [The only good goblin is a dead goblin!]
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"All right, recite the three things you need to keep in mind before entering the Dungeon."
"First, only go as deep as the floors I can handle.
Second, if it seems dangerous, run away.
Third, when I'm in the Dungeon with a superior, I obey their orders without question unless they put my life in danger."
"Right, right. So long as you follow those three, you won't die in the Dungeon. There's no shortage of adventurers who went down farther because they stubbornly wanted to give it a try, then died challenging something they couldn't handle. And when a superior tells you something, there's a reason for it. At the very least, they've spent longer in the Dungeon than you have, right?"
The one explaining Dungeon safety rules to me was Bilbo, a Pallum senior whose height I doubted even reached my solar plexus.
...He reminded me of a certain someone who had carried a ring and gone looking for a dragon, but he absolutely wasn't that person.
His hair was brown, and his face somehow resembled Watson's, but he absolutely wasn't that person!
"For reference, I've also got a Skill that makes my sword shine brightly when monsters come nearby, so you don't need to worry about getting suddenly ambushed."
...It sounded like the elven sword from the novel had become a Skill, but it absolutely wasn't!
"I look forward to working with you today."
"Sure, sure. Today, we'll go down to the third floor for now. Beyond that... well, whenever you feel like it? Up to the fifth floor is the appropriate range for Level 1s, after all. But are you really okay with a weapon like that? It's too long to be a club and too thin to be a bat."
"It may not look like much, but it's a weapon I made myself, and where I used to live, it was the weapon everyone carried whenever there was a gang fight. A blunt weapon steeped in history and tradition!"
"...I don't think anything with a modifier like that has ever turned out properly."
"...Ahem. Shall we go now?"
...Honestly, even I thought it was a cheap line.
That aside, this was the first bat I'd made, but I thought it had turned out pretty well. I'd probably keep using it from now on.
"Smith, monsters are coming nearby. Going by the brightness of the light... there are about three of them."
Startled by his words, I looked over and saw that the shortsword Bilbo was holding really was giving off a faint blue glow.
"You can handle three first-floor monsters by yourself if you take them one at a time. They'll probably come from the left, so get ready."
My heart pounded. For the first time in my life, I was about to inflict violence on a living creature. I was going to kill something with a beating heart and blood flowing through its veins.
As the sound of my heartbeat grew louder, I felt my vision narrowing and cold sweat running down me. In exchange for my narrowed vision, every other sense became sharper.
My ears picked up the sound of monsters approaching, sounds I ordinarily would not have been able to hear.
My nose caught a foul stench drifting from somewhere, presumably belonging to the monsters.
Step.
Step.
Step.
They're coming, they're coming, they're coming!
My vision had narrowed, but I focused all my remaining senses on where the monsters were coming from.
And the instant a monster's head—probably a goblin's—came into view beyond the wall, I launched myself forward, putting all my strength into my legs.
With a burst of speed unlike anything I'd ever felt before, I closed the distance to the goblin in an instant. Gripping the bat low on the right with both hands, I swung it from below, upward!
For an instant, everything seemed to slow down.
The goblin's eyes, which appeared startled. Myself reflected in those eyes.
The chilling sensation of a forty-kilogram lump of iron striking the goblin's right arm at a terrifying speed, smashing its bone and pulping its flesh at an angle—and as the goblin was sent flying, my slowed thoughts returned to normal.
"Kieeeeeeeek!"
The moment I heard the shriek, I spun around. A goblin was charging at me from behind. What it held in its hand was... a dagger? Was it a keepsake from a dead adventurer?
There was enough distance between us, and my reach was longer. Then I'd bring it... down!
I imitated a kendo scene I'd vaguely seen in my previous life.
My feet formed a V, the weapon in my hands was held straight, and as I stepped forward, I brought it down!
Crunch.
The goblin collapsed along with the chilling sensation of its skull breaking.
I turned my head away from the sight of its shattered head and brains spilling out, then looked for the remaining one. He'd said there were definitely three...?
"Hey, finished?"
It seemed my senior had taken care of it...
"That was good for your first time. Those who get nervous either freeze up and can't do anything, or their tension explodes and they become berserkers. Looks like you're the latter."
As the tension left me, my narrowed vision began to return.
The goblin I'd struck first was lying where it had hit the wall. One lay before me with its head smashed in, while the last one had been decapitated behind Bilbo.
Once I confirmed that all the monsters were dead, the strength drained from my tense body and I slumped to the floor.
"Haha... Does that make me an [Adventurer] now?"
"Yeah, you're an [Adventurer] now. Can you stand?"
I steadied my trembling body and stood. If I collapsed here, I would never be able to walk forward from now on.
I had to walk on resolutely.
I had to press onward like a rhinoceros horn.
"I'm fine. If I can't get up over something like this, I ought to throw away my hammer."
"Is that so? Then that's a relief. Come here, and I'll show you how to remove magic stones. You know that a monster's corpse turns to ash and disappears when you take out its magic stone, right? Usually, the magic stone is here..."
Bilbo cut open the area around its abdomen with a dagger and took a purple gem out. The goblin's corpse turned to ash and vanished.
"If you cut around the heart, you'll find it almost every time. If you hire a supporter, you probably won't need to do this very often, but if you're solo, you need to know it."
As he spoke, my senior approached the goblin lying near the wall.
"Let's see... Since it didn't turn to ash, I guess the magic stone wasn't affected much. Be careful when you use a blunt weapon as your main weapon. If you accidentally strike near the magic stone, it'll disappear, and all your hard work will be for nothing."
My senior deftly removed this goblin's magic stone as well, and this time it too turned to ash and disappeared.
"Try the goblin over there. You remember where it is, right?"
"Yes."
Carefully, I picked up the dagger the goblin had dropped, plunged it into its chest, and pulled.
The sensation of cutting through hide and flesh, something I had never experienced before, traveled through my hand. Suppressing the nausea that rose in me, I reached inside and pulled out the magic stone. The corpse turned to ash and vanished... while the blood on my hand remained.
"Why does the corpse disappear, but not the blood on my hand...?"
"Hmm... The gods say, [The Dungeon is being the Dungeon. What do you expect from the Dungeon?] But don't rack your brain over it... I wondered about that too when I was younger, but now I just accept it."
"...Is that so?"
"You've got a rough feel for killing monsters now, right? Full☆Speed☆Ahead!"
That day, I kept descending from the first floor to the third, killing goblins, kobolds, dungeon lizards, and more... Fortunately, after a while I stopped entering that hyper-tense berserker state and was able to hunt more rationally, but...
"Looks like you're out of stamina now, so we should start heading back up."
"Huff... huff..."
"Hmm... Did I work you too hard?"
For reference, I earned 3,000 valis that day. Considering that novice adventurers usually earned 2,000 valis in a day, you could tell just how hard I'd been worked...
...Save me.