Chapter 4

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Just thinking about Puffy is agonizing.

It's a cliché expression, but my chest hurts so much I feel like I could die.

Tears flow uncontrollably, and since I can't let anyone see me like this, I hide away and cry even more.

Of course, I haven't been able to ask Ryūgūin anything.

Will time really heal all wounds?

I was naive enough to think so.

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Now then, I'd like to change the subject and talk about the Saint.

I've been calling her the Saint all this time, but of course she has a name too.

The observant among you may have already noticed, but her name is Mika.

However, I feel it would be rude to call her by the name Mika without her permission. At least, that's what I think.

「Hey Mika! Got any snacks?」

Ryūgūin's hot guy voice as always reverberates through the carriage.

Since it's a carriage with a barrier, we don't encounter any battles and smoothly arrive at the town near our destination – the newly constructed, most challenging dungeon.

But during the carriage ride, Ryūgūin acts arrogant the whole time.

「Hey Yamada! Tell me an interesting story!」

That's the kind of prompt most likely to make people hate you.

Three weeks pass like this.

It was just a short journey, but there was one thing I gained from it.

I got a vague sense of Saint Mika's personality.

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There's something I realized during the carriage ride.

Saint Mika has an unexpectedly big appetite.

She may be a saint dispatched by the church that advocates austerity, but there was one time her ears perked up during our idle chatter in the carriage.

The topic was, you guessed it, sweets.

Thinking it might have just been a coincidence, I started telling Ryūgūin and Saint Mika about the most delicious apple pie I've ever eaten.

Freshly baked apple pie is always tasty, but the expensive kind uses different butter. They also get creative with the seasonings for the apples, using liquor.

As I was rambling on about this,

「I'm in the mood for something salty rather than sweet right now. Don't you have anything more interesting to talk about than apple pie?」

As usual, he tells people 「Tell me an interesting story!」 and then shamelessly urges me to change the subject.

But I didn't miss it. The moment Ryūgūin told me to change the subject, Saint Mika gave a small shake of her head.

When I stared at her, she noticed my gaze.

「I don't mind if you continue the current topic.」

Saint Mika said, prompting me to go on with the story about sweets.

「You like apple pie?」

She hesitated for a moment before answering.

「Okay, I got it.

Next time we get a chance to settle down, I'll bake an apple pie for you. As long as I can get the ingredients, that is.」

At my casual offer, she nodded vigorously.

「Please do.」

「You got it.」

She may be a girl of few words, but she has emotions too.

It goes without saying, but I was able to reconfirm that.

When I first arrived in this world, I muttered things like 「Is she a robot or what?」 but now I can't see her that way at all.

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Naturally, even though I said I studied about dungeons at the castle, I don't actually know what they're like in reality, so I'm basically an amateur.

The King and the others took that into consideration, of course.

Once we arrived in town, arrangements had been made for the Guildmaster of the town to take care of us.

And so, after arriving in town, I found myself in discussions with the Guildmaster (an elf, no less!) and steadily made progress towards conquering the dungeon.

Ryūgūin the Hero is our vanguard.

I, Yamada Ichiro, am the tank and guerrilla in the middle.

Saint Mika is our healer in the rear.

We're lacking in manpower. Severely lacking.

In fact, this party composition is completely non-functional!

The reason is obvious.

Our vanguard Ryūgūin is a total figurehead.

I mean, he keeps saying stuff like 「It's fine, it's fine, just leave it to me,」 but he struggles just to hold his sword in a fighting stance!

This is bad! Really bad!

Our main attacker is dead weight, so it's basically a party of just a tank and a healer. We're sitting ducks waiting to be tortured to death!

I hold my head in despair, overcome with anxiety.

「Saint, how much healing magic can you use?」

Saint Mika replies expressionlessly.

「I can use it any number of times. I've never run out of magical power. Whether an arm is torn off, the stomach is pierced, or the skull is crushed, I can heal it.」

My jaw drops.

Her abilities are absurdly exceptional.

She's not revered as a saint for nothing.

「Well, I guess I've got no choice! Saint, I'll have to put you in a little danger, but I promise I'll protect you.

So when I get hurt, I'm counting on you!」

I make up my mind for the umpteenth time since coming to this world.

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The plan was simple.

I'm the main attacker and main shield.

Saint Mika is the healer.

We don't even have a scout.

This was not a sane plan by any means.

But if the healer can use healing magic almost infinitely, it might not be impossible to pull off.

The important thing is that I'm the only one who needs resolve, and it all depends on whether I follow through.

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Conquering the dungeon with just the two of us (+Ryūgūin) was a grueling ordeal.

When you think of dungeons, the first thing that comes to mind is traps. It's no exaggeration to say that you're only at the starting line once you've gotten past the traps.

Now, let's take a moment to look back at my party.

We don't have a hint of a scout or trap specialist.

So what are we supposed to do?

The answer is that there's nothing we can do.

After agonizing over it, I made up my mind and said, 「I'm counting on you, Saint,」 and I walked straight into every trap we encountered.

There were times when poisonous mist rained down, blistering my skin.

There were times I was skewered by spears shooting out from the walls.

And of course, I fell into spiked pits and got impaled.

But sadly, even with all these threats, traps in dungeon exploration are like just a snack compared to the main course.

The main feature of a dungeon is, of course, the monsters.

We were exploring the "Newly Constructed Most Challenging Dungeon", not an ordinary dungeon.

It was inevitable that we would have a tough fight against the extraordinarily strong monsters that appeared one after another before us.

But I had abilities honed through hellish training, albeit for a short period, and above all, I had the Saint who could use healing magic almost without limit.

I gritted my teeth and endured all the damage to myself.

And I cut down all the enemies that stood in our way.

Of course, I got pummeled by monsters, torn apart, my bones shattered, thrown around, slammed into walls, my internal organs ruptured, and I coughed up blood more times than I can count.

Yeah, it's obvious even without thinking about it.

This plan was definitely a mistake.

Why didn't I have Ryūgūin train and use him as a proper fighting force? Was it because I had given up on entrusting combat to Ryūgūin?

That was certainly part of it.

But I couldn't come up with any good ideas on how to persuade or convince that smooth-talking Ryūgūin to take things seriously.

Then why didn't I just leave him at the royal castle, you ask?

The pathetic truth is, I was feeling lonely with no one else from my world besides Ryūgūin.

Moreover, thinking about it later, I realized that somewhere in my heart, I was afraid that leaving Ryūgūin at the royal castle would further his relationship with the Princess.

Uncontrollable emotions like jealousy, loneliness, and resentment swirled in my heart, and I made the bizarre, half-baked choice of dragging along a narcissistic deadweight who acted high and mighty despite not even being counted as a fighting force.

But this was definitely a mistake.

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Among the tools we borrowed from the guild, there's something called a portal.

If you set up a portal in a dungeon, you can start exploring from there next time. It's a nifty tool.

I thought it might be able to be used for spatial teleportation magic, but apparently it runs on the dungeon's own magical power, so it can't be activated outside the dungeon.

The Saint and I kept fighting, steadily and surely advancing our exploration deeper and deeper, setting up portals, retreating, training, and repeating the process day after day.

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In the lower levels of the dungeon, there were monsters designated as forbidden species.

And not just one or two of them.

There were "Forbidden Dragon" like the Ash White Dragon and Rebel Dragon, and "Deadly Series" like the Greedy Ant.

Even a single one of these monsters attacking a city would be enough to utterly destroy it.

We challenged these formidable foes over and over again, retreating and challenging them again, repeating this life-or-death trial and error until we finally defeated them.

By the time we reached the deepest part after overcoming all of them through desperate measures and mind-breaking training, half a year had already passed.