Chapter 9

(A/N: I'll call them monster stones instead of crystals)

I continued on killing monsters on the first floor, only using my sword to do so. I encountered a few adventurers like me, but they were all in groups of 2-5 people. I ignored them and they ignored me in return. I kept killing and refining my sword skills until all of my pockets and small bags were full of monster stones, then returned to the surface to sell them. I quickly returned to the guild building and sold my 20 or so stones for a grand total of 6,000 Valis. It wasn't much, especially since we are missions in debt, but progress is progress.

After making my money I decided to give to Miach 3/4th of my earnings and then keep the rest for myself. That left me with a little bit of money for myself, but nowhere near enough to do much with. I made my way back to the house just as the sun was setting. On the way back I almost got mugged three separate times, but Haki was enough to deal with them. None of them were actually adventurers, probably just some rejects that failed to find a god to allow them into their familia.

Eventually, I arrived and walked in, handing Miach the money, "Miach, I'll take 1/4th of the money I make from the dungeon and keep it for myself to use on weapons and armor, the rest I'll give to you to help pay off our debt," I said casually.

Miach looked surprised for a moment, probably knowing how expansive being an adventurer is, "You don't need to give me that much, at least split it 50-50 or you take the majority,"

I shook my head as he spoke, "Trust me Miach, you take the majority I am fine with what I have,"

"Thank you, Augustus," he said quietly, head down slightly

"No problem Miach," I said, patting the man on the back as I walked to the corner of the room near the stairs and sat down.

After a moment Naaza approached and groaned in pain as she sat on the stairs beside me. She looked over at me sitting on the floor and asked the obvious question.

"What are you doing,"

"Trying to make an underground room for me to sleep in and act as both a storage and safehouse for us," I said, concentrating on an Art that would allow me to compress dirt as much as possible.

I would also need an Art to liquefy and soften rock and earth, but I figured that a simple compression spell would be easier than a liquefication spell. Naaza and Miach watched as I repeated the process of forming the spell circle, breaking it, then filling in more of it the next time I try. By this point I was much faster than when I had first started, but it still took about another hour to finally complete the circle and officially gain the Art.

I stood up and drew my sword, carving a square section out of the floor. After the shape was cut out I used my sword to pry up the wooden floorboard, exposing the earth below. Then I pointed at the exposed earth and used my new Art, Compress Earth. Luckily there weren't many rocks in the dirt below the house, allowing me to compress the dirt down about 2.44 meters down (~8 feet). I was pleasantly surprised by how effective my Art was, tapping the compressed dirt below my feet with a finger, the dirt felt more like concrete at this point.

Since it was so effective I cleared out a 3x3 meter area by compressing the dirt into the walls. I gave the dirt walls a quick inspection and they too felt more like metal than dirt. For the finishing touch to the structure of the room, I compressed some dirt to the underside of the wooden floorboards of the shop so that they wouldn't bend and squeak. Now I had a comfortable room that nobody other than Naaza, Miach, and I knew about.

The room wasn't exactly comfortable, but nothing in this new house was. Having forgotten to buy a mattress of bed today I sighed as laid down on the hard floor and quickly fell asleep. Even though the dungeon hadn't been physically challenging it had been mentally draining, leading me to have a deep sleep despite my less-than-ideal sleeping situation.

I awoke to Miach shaking me. I looked up at him, only able to make him out from the light streaming through the opening in the floor above us.

"It's almost time for the shop to open, and I assume you don't really want people to know about this underground room, right?" He asked with a smile.

I simply nodded and climbed the small ladder I had compressed into the dirt until I was at ground level. I waited for Miach to climb up before thinking about how best to cover this up. I ended up creating a small lip of highly compressed dirt for the cut wooden floorboards to rest on that wouldn't break unless someone like Ottar jumped up and down on it a few times.

With my secret room complete I walked upstairs and sat on the highest step before the landing of the second floor. Here I was well out of the way of sight of any customers that might stop by. Next, I began to practice spatial magic, more specifically the specific Art, Spatial Storage. This Art works a bit like Rimuru's stomach, allowing me to store things in a different space. This would be incredibly useful, but probably best not to be too open using.

I worked on the extremely complicated magic circle for the majority of the day, only fully mastering it around dinner time. Remembering my poor sleeping situation I made my way out of the shop and toward the fancier, but affordable side of the city where I planned to buy my new bed. As I walked I glanced to the side and stopped dead in my tracks. Off in the distance, I could see the church that Bell and Hestia would eventually live in. I was surprised to see the familiar building, but moved on quickly, after all, it will still be a few years at least until Hestia descends and Bell becomes a member of her familia.

Eventually, I found a spot to buy a relatively high-end bed that cost me nearly half of my money. I wanted to just directly store it in my new subspace, but that would draw way too much attention especially since I am a very recognizable person in this body. That meant I had to order a wagon to take the bed back to the house, leading me to take another long wagon ride back to the house. Only after he dropped me off and only when I was sure nobody else was around did I store the bed and walk inside.

I greeted Naaza and Miach as usual and walked to the hidden entrance to my room and climbed down, releasing my bed from the subspace. I compressed a few holes into the wall and used Flame to light some candles to stick into said holes, providing the room with some light. I reached up and dragged the floorboards back into place before falling back into my new, comfortable bed. I decided that I would have to go to some deeper floors in the dungeon tomorrow to try and earn enough money to have a nice proper meal for the first time since coming to this world.

Not that the food Miach provided was bad, it was just cheap and bland. I wanted to have at least one night at the Hostess of Fertility to celebrate becoming an Adventurer the cliche way. It was practically a right of passage for anyone reincarnated into the world of Danmachi to go at least once. I didn't plan on eating there too often, but I needed to at least once.

As I lay in bed I decided to attain one more Art before going to bed that would be critical for me and could be used in everyday life as well to speed things up. It only took me a few minutes of trying to successfully unlock the Art due to its simplicity and accessibility for many people with only a low mastery of magic. The Art is question is Clean Wash, it cleanses the user's body and also removes any body odor. If you ask me this was probably the most useful Art that I have attained so far.

It will be especially useful for long trips in the dungeon where you get bloody and smelly after a while. This would completely negate the negatives of being inside the dungeon and not having access to a bath or shower. After using the Art once experimentally I smiled in contentment and climbed beneath the covers of my bed, falling asleep quickly.

- - - Chapter End - - -

The story will be more about the MC exploring the dungeon and meeting characters from the series from here on out.

MC's Current Status:

[Arts:

- Magic Aura Sword

- Magic Aura Slash

- Magic Aura Shield

+ Magic

~ Elemental Magic

*Fire Magic

- Fire

- Fireball

*Earth Magic

- Compress Earth

*Life Magic

- Clean Wash

*Spatial Magic

- Spatial Storage

~ Summoning Magic

- None

~ Holy Magic

- Recovery (closes wounds and reattaches severed limbs)

- Healing (Blood and stamina)

Common Skills:

- None

Extra Skills:

- Magic Aura

- Haki

Unique Skills:

+Rule Breaker

- Remove Racial Limits

- Indefinite Growth

- Unreadable mind and soul

- Chant annulment

- Removed Maximum Magicule Capacity

- Improved Skill Acquisition