Chapter 42: Second Private Dungeon Investigation ③
“Assuming this is Manamin’s room… I wonder if we have rooms too?” Manamin mused.
“Shall we look for them?” I suggested.
As it happened, in what appeared to be Manamin’s room, there was a fusuma sliding door leading to an adjacent room.
“I’ll check that one next, okay?” Otama-chan declared.
“Yeah.”
Otama-chan placed her hand on the fusuma and slid it open smoothly.
And then…
“Woah…” Otama-chan breathed.
Next door, a Japanese-style room of the same size as Manamin’s spread out before us.
However, the items inside were different.
There was a desk with a single rose in a vase.
A bookshelf stretched nearly to the ceiling.
It had a slightly intellectual atmosphere.
“Is this… Shi-chan’s room?” I wondered aloud.
“But… there’s nothing in the bookshelf…” Shi-chan murmured, her voice tinged with disappointment.
The bookshelf was completely empty, its back panel visible all over.
“Uu… Am I… not welcome here after all…?” Shi-chan lamented, her shoulders slumping.
“Th-That can’t be true…” Manamin tried to reassure her.
“Yeah, I think so too,” I added.
Since she could open the dungeon entrance door, Shi-chan’s presence had to be influencing this place somehow. For there to be nothing… that just couldn’t be right.
“Eh? This is a great room!” Otama-chan exclaimed, looking around cheerfully.
“Oi, Tamama, are you picking on Shi-chan?” Manamin snapped.
“N-No, I’m not!” Otama-chan yelped, shaking her head vigorously and turning to Shi-chan.
“…You know,” she began, “I was thinking, with this, you can put as many books as you want in the room!”
“Ah…” Shi-chan uttered, a flicker of understanding in her eyes.
“…That’s true,” I realized.
The dungeon might not have given Shi-chan the books themselves, but rather an environment where she could read books.
Otama-chan smiled at Shi-chan.
“Hey, Shi-chan. Why don’t we come again next time, put your books here, and make it Shi-chan’s room?”
“Y-Yeah!” Shi-chan agreed, her face lighting up with happiness.
“That’s pretty good, coming from you, Tamama,” Manamin commented with a smirk. “Perhaps it’s the kind of idea only an airhead could come up with.”
“Wh-What?! If anything, Manamin’s room was the textbook example of an empty head!” Otama-chan retorted, puffing her cheeks.
“Alright, alright, that’s enough, you two,” I said, stepping in between them.
“Muuu, Ko-chan!” Otama-chan pouted.
“There, there.”
Remembering my childhood, I patted her head to soothe her.
And then.
“H-Hamya!?”
Otama-chan flinched and backed away.
“Ah, s-sorry…”
I did it out of old habit, but it might not have been something to do to an adult, especially one of the opposite sex.
My bad.
Otama-chan’s face was flushed red.
“Sorry, Otama-chan. I just…”
“Eh, ah, no! Th-that’s not it! I was just a little surprised…”
“Yeah, my bad…”
“U-ugh, um, it’s not that I disliked it, rather, it’s just…”
“…Hey, Tamama. Can’t help it if you got surprised. Just be careful next time.”
“Tama-chan, hang in there!”
“U-uhm… Thanks, both of you…”
“…?”
I don’t really get it, but it seems like things have settled down.
☆★☆
When we left Shi-chan’s room and went into the hallway, there was a fusuma sliding door on the opposite side.
“I wonder if this is our room…?”
“Shall we open it?”
“Excuse us…”
Otama-chan smoothly slid open the fusuma,
—Pishan!!
and immediately slammed it shut.
“Huh? Why’d you close it?”
This isn’t much of an investigation.
“Tama-chan, was something in there?”
Then, Otama-chan, flustered, said.
“Ah, ahaha! This place is fine, I reckon!! It didn’t seem dangerous at all!!”
“Hey, we came to investigate that, didn’t we? Tamama, just open it.”
“B-but… Ugh…”
Then, Shi-chan said,
“Well then, how about just the two of us go in? Is that still no good?”
“If it’s with Shi-chan…”
“Hey, Tamama, are you discriminating against me?”
“N-no! That’s not it, it’s just…”
“…Me?”
Does this mean she doesn’t want me to see…?
“I-I do trust you, Ko-chan! But, this time…”
“I don’t really get it, but okay. I just need to wait out here, right?”
“Y-yeah. Sorry…”
“Ah, it’s fine.”
If it’s a girls’ room, it’d be weird for a guy to just barge in.
I turned around and waited quietly.
After a short while.
“Sorry, Ko-chan.”
The three of them came out of the room.
“That was quick. Were there any problems?”
“Yeah, there wasn’t anything dangerous. Just a desk, and some sneakers, that’s about it.”
“Y-Yeah! That’s right!!”
“Sneakers, huh…”
I wonder if that’s equipment for Otama-chan?
Then, Manamin added.
“Yeah, yeah, nothing worth making a fuss about. Other than that, there was just a pair of teddy bears holding hands. One of them was wearing Tamama’s clothes…”
“W-What?! Are you an idiot?! So that’s what it looked like to you, Manamin, huhー!!”
“…? Was that something you didn’t want seen?”
Is it that she’s embarrassed about her girly hobbies, I wonder.
I don’t really get it.
“Well, whatever. Shall we go to the next room? I hope it’s my room.”
“Y-Yeah! Then, let’s go quickly! This is exciting, isn’t itー!”
Otama-chan hurriedly moved in front of the fusuma (sliding door) next to us.
“Okay, I’ll open it right away!”
“Ah, yeah…”
Before I could even prepare myself mentally, Otama-chan opened the fusuma.
Inside, as expected, was a Japanese-style room.
“…The size is the same as everyone else’s room.”
In the Japanese-style room, there was a desk, and in a corner, a shovel was placed.
“A shovel…?”
Is that supposed to be my equipment?
…I’m supposed to fight with that?
“Natsume, there’s something on the desk too, you know?”
“Hm…?”
On the desk, there was a rolled-up piece of paper.
“What’s this…?”
I tried opening it.
“A hand-drawn map… is it?”
It was a hand-drawn map, sketched with crude illustrations.
Considering there was a shrine, a river, and a building that seemed to be this Home, it looked like a drawing of the Private Dungeon.
“This is information I already know…”
Although there were some blank areas, like inside the forest, it was basically already mapped out.
This is probably for places I’ve already been to.
“An auto-mapping item…? Can I use it in other dungeons too…?”
The scale is all over the place, so it seems pretty inconvenient to use as a map.
For now, I’ll reserve judgment.
Shi-chan popped her head up from beside me to take a peek.
“Natsume, this… isn’t it a set with the shovel?”
“Combinations…? Ah.”
…I see.
“A treasure map, huh?”
Come to think of it, I used to play a game like that a long time ago…
Back then, I’d put marbles and stuff into an empty cookie tin that I pretended was a treasure chest.
“Yeah. It doesn’t look like there are any marks on it yet, but I think something will change once we’ve finished mapping, or when a treasure appears, or some other trigger. For now, how about we leave it here?”
“Good idea.”
In the Tokyo dungeons, things like books that can increase your skills and weapons with magical effects have been discovered in treasure chests.
All of them have a market price of several hundred million yen.
Furthermore, there are even rare items, like medicinal herbs effective against all sorts of illnesses outside the dungeon, that are traded for over a billion yen, depending on the item.
…Yeah, I’m starting to get pretty excited.
“Ko-chan, you look like you’re having fun,” Otama-chan said, looking happy too.
“Well, yeah. There are so many things I want to do, there’s just not enough time.”
“Ehehe, that’s a happy problem to have, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it is…”
Back when I was working at the company, I was forced to do nothing but things I didn’t want to, and I had absolutely no time for myself.
Now, every day is fun, and I have friends too.
I’d be too embarrassed to say it to their faces, but well, I guess you could say this environment is the best.
“Ko-chan, you’ve got a good look on your face.”
“R-Really?”
It was embarrassing, like she’d seen right through my thoughts.
Otama-chan energetically raised her hand.
“Alright, let’s keep this up! Time to explore the rest of the Home!”
☆★☆
And so, we checked the entire interior of the building.
Other than the rooms for the four of us, it was mostly Japanese-style rooms separated by fusuma sliding doors.
The roles of each separated room were probably “living room,” “guest room,” and “bedroom.”
Next to the living room, there was a “kitchen” with a floral-patterned cushion floor.
Besides those, there was an empty oshiire closet, a bathroom, and beyond the engawa veranda where we were now, there was a toilet.
“Surprisingly, it’s a Western-style toilet…”
When Otama-chan tried pulling the lever, water flushed with a whoosh.
“Strange… I wonder where the water is coming from…?”
“A magical system, perhaps…”
It seems Shi-chan doesn’t understand the principle behind it either.
It really is like a normal Home.
“But, it seems there’s no danger here either, huh?”
“With this, the general investigation is finished, right?”
I confirm with Otama-chan.
“…So, it’s alright, right? Shi-chan.”
Otama-chan asks Shi-chan.
“Yeah. I was also sketching a simple blueprint, and I think it’s fine.”
“When did she even do that…?”
As expected of a capable bureaucrat.
“Well then, with this…”
“Yeah!”
Otama-chan looks at us and declares.
“With this, we conclude the 2nd Private Dungeon internal investigation! Since there was no danger, the certification will remain as No. 5!!”
“Alright!”
Although I kind of already knew it, I feel happy somehow.
Or rather, completing the same mission together with everyone was fun.
“Good work, Tama-chan.”
Shi-chan smiled at Otama-chan.
“Thank you, Shi-chan!”
As they were having such an exchange.
“Keh keh… Well then, let’s celebrate!”
Before anyone knew it, Manamin had brought over four bottles of ramune.
“Huh? Manamin. Where did you get those…?”
When Otama-chan asked, Manamin replied.
“They were in the kitchen fridge, weren’t they? Come on, let’s all have some. They’re ice-cold!”