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「Touma-kun. Yahoo.」
「Yahoo. Mikan-senpai.」
It’s Mikan-senpai whose smile is also cute today as usual.
And the club store of Adept Workers is also bustling with quietness as usual.
I think they offer good products at reasonable prices, but I wonder if I should do some advertising for them.
The other day, the sleepy-looking vice-prez, Rinko-senpai, I believe, was in charge of tending the store, but today it is the president herself.
「Did you come for equipment maintenance? Come on in, come on in.」
I take up on her offer and go inside the counter.
Yup the fancy, pinky interior doesn’t quite suit me.
There are about three senior girls inside, so I bow silently.
They stiffen as they see my figure, before then talking in a whisper, maybe they were having a member-only secret meeting.
I can hear words like strangle, bury, burn, and so on, so I wonder if they are making a beggar’s bird or something.
It was something that I used to eat long ago, when I was holed up in the mountains during my wild days.
I don’t know the official way of cooking it, but I used to catch wild pheasants, remove their intestines, suitably wrap them in leaves, bury them in the ground with clay, and then make a bonfire to steam the whole ground on top of it.
By the way, I also skewered and roasted the intestines and ate them.
I think I was quite the feral child back then.
「Are you fine with some oolong tea?」
「Don’t mind me.」
Bringing cups and a PET bottle from the refrigerator, with a plop, Mikan-senpai sits in front of the chabudai.
「Looks like you are by yourself today, Touma-kun.」
「Yes. They seem to have various things to do.」
While enjoying some sauce senbei as the tea-snack, we amuse ourselves with some chatting.
Dragging Saki away, it seems like Shizuka and the others need to have some discussion about tightening discipline or something.
Mai is down from a hangover, or rather, she is sleeping like a log.
Seiichi has also disappeared earlier in the afternoon on some minor business or something.
I think our party has a very good cohesiveness.
「All of your friends seem to be good people, don’t they, Touma-kun?」
「Speaking of whether they are good or bad, they’re all oddballs.」
Other than the new addition of occult lover-ish twin sisters, there’s an onani youtuber, a gluttony of sweets, a rotten masochist, and battle manic of a girl.
I can’t help but feel that I’m the only one with proper common sense.
At any rate, I’m going to give the souvenirs for Mikan-senpai.
「Wow. There’s so many of it
. Really, how did you collect all of these?」
「I hunted for a number of them while leveling up my comrades.」
I could just leave it at that, Seiichi said.
It seems that he has talked to Rinko-senpai the vice-prez about it.
As usual, he’s a man with a swift hand.
「Au~, I’m happy, but be sure not to overdo it, okay?」
「If you say that you want it, Mikan-senpai, it’s no trouble at all.」
「Huh
.」
It’s merely the difference between leaving and collecting these things, which are dropped like trash.
Somehow, Mikan-senpai stiffens with her face turning red, I wonder if she accidentally pisses herself a bit or something.
The discussion among the club members behind me also suddenly becomes lively, and I can hear the words of guilty, stinks and so on.
I’d like them to leave her alone.
「G, geez, you mustn’t make fun of your senpai, you know. I can’t let my guard down around you, Touma-kun.」
「Excuse me.」
「Ahem. Let me see it then. If it’s a simple sharpening, I’ll finish it by today.」
The smug Mikan-senpai is adorable, but the purpose of my intrusion today is not weapon maintenance.
「Actually, I got some equipment in the dungeon, but the size didn’t fit.」
「It’s not a weapon, but an armor? Yes, leave it to me. Size adjustment is where 『Craftsman』 show their might, after all.」
The same is true for weapons, but armor has a particularly strict restriction when it comes to its user’s constitution and gender.
For equipment that sticks tightly to your body such as armor, minute adjustment according to your height and three size measurement will be necessary.
I’ve heard that 『Craftsman』 class has skills that allow them to even modify the shape of items and adjust their weight.
「Could it be armor dropped by a goblin? Goblin that wear an armor is very rare, but if it’s dropped by it, without a doubt it’s magic armor.」
「I see. Now that you mention it, it was indeed the first time we’ve encountered a goblin with armor. We’ve only encountered goblins with weapons thus far, after all.」
I guess goblins are just right opponents for dungeon’s introductory monsters.
And the way they give us equipment we can use as is is very helpful.
「Are you going to be the one who use it, Touma-kun?」
「Yes.」
It’s a heavy armor that boasts a considerable weight, so Seiichi and Saki were like 「No, Thank you」.
Rather, if I won’t use it, why not just dispose of it? Even such careless words came about.
For better or worse, it’s named boss drop equipment, though.
「Hmm~, now then, it’s going to be double effort in various ways, so how about we go to the workshop together? Are you okay with time?」
Today is a free day, so there’s no problem.
Led by Mikan-senpai, we head to the special classroom building.
The building itself has been used for lectures on cartography and exploration, but this is the first time I’ve come to the 『Workshop』 on the underground floor.
It seems to be utilizing a pseudo-dungeon space where some skills can be used.
Mikan-senpai, who is giving me an explanation with patronizing air, is annoyingly cute.
She is about as Tee n’ Ee as the twin sisters, so the way she looks like a precocious young girl is exceedingly lovely.
I involuntarily come to wanting to pat her, but we’re being monitored by the ladies of Adept Workers members, who are tailing us with their gaze fixed on us, so I’m exercising prudence here.
Rather than observing and peeking at us, I think they should’ve just come together with us.
Her first errand, I wonder if they are cherishing their President in such a manner.
I can totally relate to their feelings.
As we enter the academy building and descend the stairs leading to the underground, I feel a tingling sense of discomfort as if I’ve passed through a layer of static electricity midway.
The faint drifting miasma that stirs my sense of smell.
The corridor of the windowless academy building is not particularly different from the special classroom building above ground.
I have a feeling that the pressure of the air, or rather the presence of space, is pretty similar to that in the dungeon.
The nameplate at the entrance to the training room read 『Workshop (Factory) Area』.
The door itself is unusually bulky.
It boasts a structure that can be locked with multiple locks from the outside.
It looks like something that often appears in movies, the one that can be used for level IV physical containment in a research facility dealing with hazardous materials.
I have a feeling that there were also several levels of emergency shutters along the stairs.
Mikan-senpai points to a bulky door with a smug look on her face.
「Come on, this is the 『Workshop (Factory)』.」
◇ ◇ ◇
The 『Workshop (Factory) Area』 was one of the fruits of the academy’s research institution.
It was a barrier that separated the area and kept the miasma inside the isolated space.
As long as they could maintain the miasma concentration at the level of the dungeon’s first stratum, even those who had lost their essence crystals would be able to use their skills.
The concept of the system was built based on the spatial realm ideology of Buddhism and Esoteric Buddhism, and the boundary of Shintoism.
However, it was not possible to construct a realm just anywhere, but was limited to places such as the discharge spots of dragon vein that had high concentration from the beginning, or spots that overlapped with the underworld, such as the illusory realm.
The reason it was located underground was because it was close to the largest overlapping spot of the underworlds in Japan, Yomotsu Hirasaka.
This distance was not a physical one, but an approximate difference in the concept of above and underground.
The wall that enclosed the barrier of the workshop area was inscribed with a variety of ideograms and art formulas, separating and isolating it from the outside world both physically and conceptually.
On the floor, which boasted the size of three regular classrooms connected together, there were several work spaces set up.
Each space, separated by a partition, was equipped with a workbench and provision tools, and overlapping circles of magic square about two meters in diameter were emitting a pale phosphorescence.
The miasma pressure employed in the workshop area was no more than about half that of the dungeon’s first stratum.
The skills could barely be used here, but not only were they unstable, their effects were also faint.
You could raise the pressure to a miasma level at which skills could practically be used through the two stages system with the use of the magic squares.
By activating the magic squares engraved in the work space, they’d be able to compress the miasma concentration inside the circle.
In order to activate the magic squares, it was necessary to burn the crystals collected from monsters.
The workshop itself was a facility open to the public, but the users had to prepare the crystals, which were consumable goods, on their own, which was often called as 『use fee』.