Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?, Vol. 8

by Fujino Omori

  Copyright

  IS IT WRONG TO TRY TO PICK UP GIRLS IN A DUNGEON?, Volume 8

  FUJINO OMORI

  Translation by Andrew Gaippe

  Cover art by Suzuhito Yasuda

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  DUNGEON NI DEAI WO MOTOMERU NO WA MACHIGATTEIRUDAROUKA vol. 8

  Copyright © 2015 Fujino Omori

  Illustrations copyright © 2015 Suzuhito Yasuda

  All rights reserved.

  Original Japanese edition published in 2015 by SB Creative Corp.

  This English edition is published by arrangement with SB Creative Corp., Tokyo, in care of Tuttle-Mori Agency, Inc., Tokyo.

  English translation © 2017 by Yen Press, LLC

  Yen Press, LLC supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact the publisher. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Ō–mori, Fujino, author. | Yasuda, Suzuhito, illustrator.

  Title: Is it wrong to try to pick up girls in a dungeon? / Fujino Omori ; illustrated by Suzuhito Yasuda.

  Other titles: Danjon ni deai o motomeru nowa machigatte iru darōka. English.

  Description: New York : Yen ON, 2015– | Series: Is it wrong to try to pick up girls in a dungeon? ; 8

  Identifiers: LCCN 2015029144 | ISBN 9780316339155 (v. 1 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316340144 (v. 2 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316340151 (v. 3 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316340168 (v. 4 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316314794 (v. 5 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316394161 (v. 6 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316394178 (v. 7 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316394185 (v. 8 : pbk)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Fantasy. | BISAC: FICTION / Fantasy / General. | FICTION / Science Fiction / Adventure.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.O54 Du 2015 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015029144

  ISBNs: 978-0-316-39418-5 (paperback) 978-0-316-39423-9 (ebook)

  E3-20170328-JV-PC

  PROLOGUE

  ATTACK OF THE WAR GOD

  —The Kingdom of Rakia’s army is advancing.

  That news spread like wildfire through neighboring nations.

  Warriors clad in thick metal plates, as well as thousands of armored horses, traveled beneath partly cloudy skies, ranks of spearheads glinting. Many merchants and travelers caught a glimpse of them in long columns as they passed beyond the outer limits of their territory.

  The Kingdom of Rakia.

  A monarchy that was situated on the western side of the main continent. It was said that at least 600,000 people currently lived under its rule. A large castle loomed at the center of its largest settlement, complete with its own castle town surrounding it. Lush and green, Rakia possessed a great deal of fertile land but very little culture, its people living under constant martial law.

  Everything went according to their king’s wishes, which were one and the same as their only god’s divine will.

  Ares, the God of War. He sat at the very top of Rakia and controlled every part of the country.

  Ultimately, the Kingdom of Rakia was actually much like the many other familias but on a completely different scale of size and complexity, operating as its own country.

  Every Rakian soldier had been blessed with Ares’s Falna. The subjects of Rakia who were tasked with running the industries of the kingdom were the equivalent of noncombatant members of other familias. Being the one and only deity, Ares had chosen its king—the leader of the familia—throughout the country’s history.

  A familia that started with Ares and only a handful of followers had overcome many struggles to become its own country and now stood as a powerful nation with a rich history.

  Due to their god’s love for war, the Kingdom of Rakia had been the aggressor in many wars over the centuries. But the idea that this conflict was caused by Ares’s warmongering was solely the opinion of the other nations watching these events from the outside.

  The advancing troops numbered around 30,000.

  This army was once called invincible when armed with a certain type of magic sword, and now their target lay even farther to the west, on the periphery of the continent. A city that held the world’s only Dungeon and had therefore come to be known as the “Center of the World”: Orario.

  High walls and a white tower that looked tall enough to pierce the heavens appeared on the horizon. The heavy footsteps of fully armored warriors drew ever closer. The plate armor that encompassed their bodies was decorated with an extravagant, larger-than-life emblem as crimson-red flags rippled in the air.

  It wasn’t long before the army advancing straight west entered the lands surrounding the city.

  Rakia’s army arrived unannounced on their doorstep, but inside the city itself—.

  “You won’t believe your eyes! An entire dodobass for only two thousand valis! That’s right, two thousand valis!”

  “From weapon repairs to custom orders, we do it all!”

  “Would someone please join my familiaaaaaaaaaa?!”

  “Excuse me, young elf maiden. I see you’re an adventurer. Please accept this potion as a gift from me. It would be tragic for your beautiful face to be burdened with a scar.”

  “Th-thank you…!”

  “Miach’s making girls fall for him without realizing it again…!”

  “““It’s Miach, what do you expect?”””

  —Nothing was different.

  No citizen of Orario showed even the slightest concern. The sky over the city was bright and clear, as opposed to the dark clouds approaching from the east.

  Amid their normally busy days, there was one thought that they all shared during the time before Rakia’s arrival:

  Ahh, it’s happening again…

  While the citizens were going about their daily lives inside the city walls, yells echoing from outside the wall signaled that the battle had begun.

  The cries of horses were thunderous.

  But that sound was drowned out almost immediately by thousands of hooves slamming into the dirt as they charged across the plains.

  The open grassy field expanded thirty kirlos east of Orario. Thousands of red flags whipped about in the air as the soldiers carrying them raced forward.

  It’s said that knights are the roses of the battlefield. Armed with lances and shining armor, mounted on horses as heavily armored as their riders, the knights charged forward, trampling everything in their path. The tips of their weapons thrust forward, their formation could carve a path through any battlefield.

  A wall of silver lances raced
across the plain, the weapons glistening in the sunlight.

  It was a sight that would make any foot soldier on the same battlefield weak in the knees. But—this particular unit of cavalry was shaking in terror.

  The color drained from their faces beneath their helmets.

  Every set of eyes was wide open and locked on the single dwarf who stood in their path. Every muscle in his stout figure bulged beneath layers of thick armor. A cape hung from his shoulders.

  His helmet sat low over his eyes. An incredibly large battle-ax rested on his shoulder, just waiting for action.

  The dwarf swung the ax into position the moment echoes of the horses’ hooves reached his ears. Then, as soon as the cavalrymen came within ten meders of his position, he charged out to meet them head-on.

  Holding the ax out to his right, the dwarf tensed every muscle in his body to bring it forward.

  “Ngahhh!”

  A moment later, the “invincible cavalry” was launched skyward.

  “GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

  Airborne knights and horses dotted the horizon. The unbelievable spectacle could be seen from all around the open plain.

  Tears fell from the knights’ eyes as their helmets and pieces of their armor fell away from their bodies in midair. What’s worse, the expressions on their now-exposed faces revealed they knew full well this was going to happen. Screams of agony filled the air as they fell to the ground, crashing down one by one next to their horses and scraps of broken metal.

  The next wave of knights halted their charge in the face of the thrashing, but the group farther back didn’t notice in time and plowed straight into them. Both the second and third ranks of knights fell off from their mounts into stunned disarray.

  The dwarf—Loki Familia’s Gareth Landrock—watched the opposing soldiers fall over one another and sighed to himself.

  “Dammit, Finn…pushin’ this job on me.”

  Two more companies of knights arrived on the battlefield but hadn’t learned from their allies’ mistake. Gareth didn’t even bother to sigh again as he lifted his battle-ax back onto his shoulder. The new arrivals charged in, only to meet the same fate. Once again, the bodies of horses and people alike decorated the skyline, their tears sparkling in their wake.

  Orario’s top-tier adventurer Gareth Landrock.

  Having reached Level 6, his prowess and skill with an ax were known the world over.

  Facing him in battle were companies of mostly Level 1 knights from the Kingdom of Rakia. Their captains might have been Level 2 but no higher.

  In terms of experience in strength, tactics, techniques, and the difference in Level, Gareth was too powerful for them to overcome.

  The Knights of Rakia now knew exactly how reckless their attack had been.

  —The days when overwhelming numbers could win in war, especially in battles between people, were coming to an end.

  In the current Divine Era, “quality over quantity” reigned supreme.

  The presence of one incredibly strong individual—a warrior who carried the Blessing of a deity—had the ability to turn the tide of any battle. It had been said that a small group of warriors with a leveled-up Status could take on hundreds, even thousands of enemy troops and come out victorious.

  Should a Blessed person’s Status reach Level 6 in today’s world, they would be on par with, or even exceed, the ferocious monsters that had rampaged through the world during the Ancient Times.

  In other words, this dwarf—at least in the eyes of Rakia’s Knights—was no different from a dragon in the days of old.

  It was also true that an army that lacked a hero could never hope to slay a dragon.

  The battle that unfolded was not much different from what happened to those armies in stories of heroes or fairy tales: The lone dwarf mowed down the hapless knights with little resistance. There was no way for the mounted soldiers to continue the battle.

  “Tione, sound the gong. The retreating battalion is a feint. Circle around so that it’s trapped between friendly forces.”

  “You got it!”

  “Also, that hill over there…There’s a squad of magic users firing on top of it. Tiona, tell Ganesha Familia to surround and take them out without being seen.”

  “Sure, sure…Delivering messages is such a drag.”

  Screams of pain reached all corners of the battlefield, even to the clearing a good distance away from the nightmarish scene unfolding at the hands of Gareth Landrock.

  The prum Finn Deimne, field general of Loki Familia, had a spear in his grasp as he kept a keen eye on several unfolding battles from well behind the front lines. He was quick to issue orders.

  Orario had no choice but to meet Rakia’s invading army of 30,000 on the battlefield. The Guild had issued a mission—a sweeping order for specific familias residing in the city to stop the Rakian advance before it reached the city wall.

  Their enemy had chosen to overwhelm them with numbers from the start. Therefore, this makeshift alliance of Orario’s forces had chosen Finn as its commander. As someone who was in charge of the familia that led the way in clearing the Dungeon, someone who possessed the insight and ingenuity to deal with unexpected Irregular monsters and who was famous for his leadership skills, Finn was ideal for the position on this battlefield. Even now, he was analyzing enemy movements and guiding the flow of battle.

  “General, some familias aren’t listening to us…especially Freya Familia.”

  “Our forces are just a loosely bound coalition of many smaller groups, but we don’t have to be the most efficient of shepherds. Just give them a direction and let them be. I highly doubt Freya Familia is worth worrying about.”

  “Finn, there are reports that more enemy reinforcements are arriving from the east. What are your orders?”

  “Hmm…I’m a bit more concerned about the forest to the north. Riveria, I hate to ask you, but would you take Aiz and that group up in that direction? It’s probably the main army.”

  The prum issued orders to his slightly dejected subordinate and a high elf magic user. A quick lick of his right thumb let Finn predict what was about to happen next and provided clues to the enemy’s strategy.

  Many different familias, not just Loki Familia, were busy engaging Rakia’s forces on several different fronts around the battlefield. Orario’s adventurers were making quick work of their opponents. It was as if the mythical Hydra were standing in the clearing, with each of its many heads working independently as Orario’s Alliance tore through Rakia’s advancing ranks.

  “How very boring…”

  “Yeah, an’ there’s so much waitin’ for me to do back home…”

  Farther back from Finn’s command station, the gods and goddesses of the summoned familias watched from the top of a hill as the battle unfolded.

  A tent and chair had been prepared for each of them. Sitting beneath the most elaborate canvas and drinking wine in her equally fancy chair was Freya. Meanwhile, Loki sat cross-legged in her own chair under the next tent over. Both of them watched the incredibly one-sided battle while complaining that they had nothing to do.

  “It was over the moment they mounted their horses, don’t you agree?”

  “The kiddos with higher Statuses are still faster anyway. Don’t know if they’re tryin’ to look cool or somethin’, but it’s like tellin’ everyone their Statuses have a lot of growin’ left to do.”

  There wasn’t even a hint of tension among the deities sitting under the tents. Their thoughts on this battle were similar to their followers’.

  The only other beings around the gods and goddesses were a few members serving as a private guard. The flags of each familia waved in the breeze next to the tents of their god. Loki Familia’s and Freya Familia’s flags—which also had a strong presence on the battlefield and among the adventurers—particularly stood out. The sight of Loki’s Trickster and Freya’s Warrior Maiden emblems sent waves of fear through Rakia’s soldiers.

  As a result,
the soldiers’ coordinated movements became sluggish as their will to fight vanished. Even their charges lacked enthusiasm. The very presence of those symbols dealt a serious blow to the invading army’s morale.

  “Puttin’ it another way, us not bein’ here would put a li’l more pep in their step…Haa! Havin’ the title of ‘best’ is such a pain in the ass.”

  “It’s too late to complain now.”

  Loki leaned back in her chair with her arms crossed behind her head. Freya watched her out of the corner of her eye, chuckling to herself.

  “Oh, and by the way…Did you hear there hasn’t been one casualty among Rakia’s forces? How is that possible?”

  “Ain’t got much choice, not with all the merchants tellin’ ’em not to kill their payday.”

  Loki sounded vaguely annoyed while answering Freya’s question.

  Looking out across the plain and hearing the pandemonium of shrieks and groans, it was obvious that Orario’s adventurers had been striking with the blunt edges of their weapons.

  “That and I don’t want the kiddos in my familia dirtyin’ their hands with this pretend ‘war.’”

  “That’s true as well.”

  Loki fought back a yawn as the two goddesses made light of the farce unfolding before them.

  “Ares, ya idiot, don’t attack an opponent ya know you can’t beat. You’re gonna lose a lot more than ya bargained for,” mumbled the vermilion-haired goddess as her line of sight moved from battle to battle.

  “Hey there, fine soldier! If you buy right now, a potion brewed right here in Orario can be yours for just a thousand valis!”

  Injured soldiers were carried into Rakia’s forward camp one after another, and business was booming.

  Countless tents had been raised in straight rows. The cries of the injured were relentless as they lay on their backs in shade the tents provided. At the same time, noncombatant demi-humans and deities were strutting around the camp.

  Orario’s mercantile familias saw an amazing business opportunity and swooped in to sell their wares.

  “Doesn’t that hurt? Isn’t the pain unbearable? Don’t you want to heal that wound right away?”

  “Y-yes, I do…”