Chapter 03

"Why were you trying to rush in through the entrance?"

"Because I'm trapped in this mini dungeon."

"Mini dungeon?"

"Yes, a mini dungeon. It's a dungeon with a single room. And that single room is the boss room."

"So you're the boss of this dungeon."

"Yes, but it's not because I want to be the boss."

"Then how did you become trapped in here?"

"I was just sealed off."

"By whom?"

"The government."

"Why?"

"Because I'm a weapon."

[A moment, please.]

I momentarily stopped speaking with the wolf and started paying attention to Shadow.

"Yes, what is it?"

[A techno wolf is supposed to have an artificial intelligence, but this guy doesn't behave like any normal A.I.]

"Yeah, I guess he sounds a tad bit much more emotional than your regular A.I."

"Hey, who are you talking to right now? Are you talking to yourself? Are you perhaps crazy?"

"No, I'm talking to my status window."

"A status window? You're telling me this world has such a thing?"

"Wait, are you not from this world?"

"No, I'm not from this freaking world. I was somehow teleported into this body. At first it was nice since I didn't need to defecate or eat, but after a while I started getting lonely. I tried different methods to leave this cave, but all my attempts have ended in failures."

"That's pretty sad. If you want I can keep you company. You know, I'm in a similar situation myself."

"Oh, really? Nice to meet you then. My name's Kunaigai. You can call me Kunai. What's your name?"

"..."

"Aren't you going to tell me your name?"

"Author!?"

"Wait, there's only one person who calls me that. Narrator!?"

*

"So how did you get here, author?"

"It's Kunaigai or Kunai. I won't respond to anything else."

"Okay, Kunai, how did you get here?"

"While I was looking for you I saw a bright light in my closet. Thinking you were there I opened it up, but all I saw was a portal instead. I tried to run away from it, but it sucked me in effortlessly."

[That seems to answer how you got into this world.]

"That's true."

"So you are talking with a status window?"

"Yes, in fact..."

I then proceeded to tell him about Shadow being inside my status window.

"I see."

"Wait, you believed it that easily?"

"Don't you see I have turned into a wolf?"

"Oh, right. Wait I see the wolf, but I don't see the techno part of the name."

In front of me I just saw a wolf with crimson fur. It didn't look mechanical no matter how much I saw it.

"It's because my body is made up of nanomachines. From a distance I might look like an actual wolf who just has crimson fur, but if you look closely, my body is clearly mechanical."

"Can I touch your fur?"

"Just must on my head. Anywhere else and I'll bite your hand off."

"Okay."

I patted Kunai's head only to find that the fur felt real. I then checked close, like he told me, and saw that his body was completely mechanical. Somehow, even the fur that was realistic was also mechanical.

After patting him for a bit Shadow spoke to me.

[It seems you can make a contract with him.]

I immediately told Kunai and he responded almost immediately.

"Accept it."

"So quickly!?"

"It might be my last chance to exit this place."

"What if by contracting with you I also get trapped in this place?"

"Then try outside of the cave."

"What if the goblins attack me?"

"Then check if it's safe outside, and then you do it."

"Okay."

I walked outside and checked the surroundings. I checked carefully and there seemed to be no goblins that were out in the open or hidden.

I stood in front of the cave's entrance.

"I accept the contract."

[You need to choose a name.]

"For Kunai?"

[No, for yourself.]

I pondered for a moment. I then came up with an answer. Since I am starting my life again and I'm a nobody at the moment I thought of a name.

"I'll call myself Zero."

Immediately after a bright light was emitted from the status window. I was then able to see my stats.

Name: Zero (age 8)

Gender: Male

Race: Human

Skill(s): Electro shock, Crimson loadout

Contracted: Kunaigai

The status window was extremely minimalistic, but it gave me enough information.

So I'm eight years old.

I also noticed the new skill that originally wasn't mentioned by Shadow.

It must be something related with Kunai.

In that moment Kunai spoke up.

[Yo]

"Now you're inside the status window."

[Yeah, but it seems you can summon me whenever you please. I think I can even get out myself.]

Kunai then proceeded to summon himself. I then asked him about the new skill I got.

"It is one of two skills I have."

"Two?"

"The first, Crimson loadout, lets you transform me into any weapon already available in the skill. The seconds is only available to me. This one let's me add another weapon to the loadout by scanning it. It's obviously called Scan."

"Which weapons can I summon?"

"Any from swords to fire arms. In fact, even I don't know which exactly you can summon, but through trying it myself I was able to summon everything I could think of."

"Then how do I summon weapons?"

Kunai explained how to summon the weapons from the crimson loadout.

I don't want to summon weapons anymore. Every sort of skill involves saying anything out loud.

"Cr-Crimson loadout: Crimson katana."

A crimson colored katana was formed from Kunaigai's body.

"Were you embarrassed by saying a skill name out loud?"

"Yes."

"I've got a fix for that, but we can do that later. Let's first start by hunting some goblins."

Just like that we started hunting goblins. I also made sure to keep the katana summoned so that I wouldn't have to mutter anything cringey for now.