by Hirukuma
Actually, it would be more accurate to say that I was brought against my will into a tent she’s been squatting in. By Lammis.
The sun has set below the horizon, and 80 percent of the settlement’s residents are asleep at this hour.
The culprit who carried me here is sitting in bed, hugging a cushion, swaying unsteadily. She must be ready to pass out, herself.
“There’s only one reason I called you here. I wanted to do some investigating. First off, you can’t have a conversation unless someone knows you well, right? I’ll only be asking yes-or-no questions, so they’ll be easy. You can consider this overtime from when we were captive.”
So that’s how it is. I’m genuinely pleased she’s trying to learn more about me.
Bring it on. Ask me anything you want. I’ll answer everything I can—
—is how I feel initially, but then she comes at me with several questions I can’t help but think aren’t really that important.
“Can you feel pain? Do you have senses like humans?”
I get where she’s coming from with those sorts of questions, but as things dragged on to the second half, they started getting weird.
“Do you have a lover?”
Is that present tense, or is she referring to my past life? If she means now, then of course I don’t. I’m a vending machine.
Still, someone who chased only vending machines in his life, and was constantly broke because of it, would never have a girlfriend. Just give her an answer… Either one is fine, really…
“Too bad.”
“Hmm. You don’t, huh?”
Why is she smiling? Why does she look happy? Does she feel like her strong-minded personality keeps men away despite her physical beauty, and now she’s found a friend? Maybe she thinks I’m a comrade in misery.
“Then, I have to ask. You’re good friends with Lammis, so, well… Do you, uh, like her?”
She helps me out all the time, so if I had to say one way or another, then of course I do. She’s a nice person, and without her, I wouldn’t even be able to move.
“Welcome.”
“Huh, I see. Makes sense. She’s bright and fun to be around. She might be a little clumsy, but men think that kind of thing is cute, right?”
She’s complimenting her childhood friend, but for some reason she looks a little unhappy.
“Hey, and this isn’t really related, but I figured I’d ask, just to get your opinion. Your soul is male, right?”
“Welcome.” I may look like a vending machine, but I’m still a man inside. Probably.
“So, ah, again, this is just so I know, and there’s no downside to having as much information as possible. That’s my motto, after all. Well…Boxxo, do I seem like a charming person to you?”
I understand the importance of having information. Why is she talking so fast? She’s asking a vending machine—is she still embarrassed anyway?
Hulemy is a little obstinate and bullheaded, but she gives the impression of an older sister always looking out for her younger siblings. And at her core, she’s a kind, beautiful person. My answer is obvious.
“Welcome.”
“O-oh, I see. I’m grateful for that, even if it was flattery. Thanks, Boxxo.”
She scratches at her nose with a finger, her cheeks reddening in a blush. It’s unimaginably cuter than her normal face. I think my machinery might start groaning in a second. She’d be more popular with guys if she made faces like that more often.
“Ack, that question wasn’t like me at all. I’m a little bad when it comes to that stuff. I just figured you’d listen and not make fun of me—that’s all. Sorry.”
There’s no need to apologize. I don’t have very many good memories involving women, but if you have any worries or anything you want to discuss with me, I’ll hear you out. Of course, I can’t exactly give my own opinion.
“All right. Back to the subject.”
Hulemy goes back to her old self after that, inquiring after every little detail about me, like what I can do and what happens to the money. I’ll add that in the meantime, Lammis has long since drifted off into a dream world during our conversation.
Hulemy began buying things from me every day after that.
One day, she comes to me like she always does but asks me not to make the bottle disappear after she’s done drinking from it. She seems to want to research the plastic bottle’s materials.
I don’t have any reason to refuse, so I agree, and she grins happily, saying “I’ll make something you’ll find useful as thanks,” and leaves.
Come to think of it, Hulemy is a famous magic-item engineer, isn’t she? According to Lammis, she’s invented a lot, and makes quite a bit from it. I know firsthand how insightful and smart she is, so when I hear her say that, I can easily accept it. She’s going to develop a magic item for me as thanks, is she? I look forward to it.
A few days later, Hulemy walks to me with such a light step I almost expect her to start skipping.
“Boxxo, I brought what I promised.”
That’s a dubious way of putting it, but she must be talking about the magic item she mentioned.
She holds it out. It closely resembles the portable, egg-shaped game that was a fad some time ago. It’s a handy size, small enough to hide in your palm.
What could it be? It has what looks like a little screen on it, which is solidifying the handheld video-game image for me even more.
“This magic item has a translation function for your soul. Considering you say you’re a soul inside a magic item, but you can’t talk, I decided I should just go through your soul and ask your mind directly. That’s what I developed it for.”
That’s amazing—if it’s true. But even in this world, filled with mysterious and incomprehensible powers like magic and Blessings, that can’t be possible. Maybe it would be if it were a Blessing, but I don’t think you can do something like that with a tool.
“Heh, Boxxo, you’re dubious, aren’t you?”
“Welcome.”
“How honest of you. Well, I don’t hate that kind of thing. I’ll explain, then. There’s a certain monster with the Blessing to read someone’s thoughts. It’s infamous as a tricky monster to beat, but rarely, it will drop a dark-red gemstone. Basically, I embedded one of those gems in a tool, then drew a magic circle on the inside to amplify its mana. And you can’t just draw any old thing. Its size, pattern, and even its coloration are all related. Anyway, that’s entirely a secret, but there’s a lot of magic-item engineers who would try to steal that stuff. They don’t write down rules and technology for it, so I’ve got everything hammered into my head.”
Whenever Hulemy talks about magic items, her expression gets livelier. She does it when she’s researching me, too. She must really like this sort of thing. You do much better work when you love what you do, after all.
“Sorry, I’m off topic again. Whenever I talk about my technical knowledge, I start rambling on and on. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that with this thing, I can listen to what your mind is saying. It’s still a prototype, so this will just be a test run.”
If this is true, then it’s an unheard-of invention. Sh-she can hear my mind’s voice… If I think anything strange, she might start to think I’m a pervert. Clear your mind. Clear your mind… Wait, if I do that, will she be able to hear anything at all?
“So can I try it out? I mean, I might hear something you don’t want other people to know, so…”
H-hmm. I’m a bit scared, but it’s more important that I have a chance to communicate with her. My worldly passions have waned ever since becoming a vending machine, so it should be fine.
“Welcome.”
“Oh, you’re okay with it? Thanks a bunch! Let’s get right to the testing. The way it works is, when I press this button, I’ll be able to hear nearby souls speaking through this magic item. I’m pressing it now.”
She seems nervous, too, but I’m so nervous my body might freeze solid. Though I guess I’m
already a solid object.
Hulemy’s slender finger presses the switch. If I think something now, will it turn into words? Actually, would these words I’m thinking now replay for her?
“Ahh, I want her.”
I hear a more mechanical, synthetic voice than mine from the magic item.
Huh? N-no, I wasn’t thinking anything like that!
Hulemy looks at me, eyes narrowed. N-no! I wasn’t thinking that. How could a vending machine want her like that?!
“Boxxo, you’re more vulgar than I thought.”
“Too bad. Too bad.” Wait, repeating too bad makes it sound like I’m talking about myself!
“What are you doing, Boxxo? Oh, Hulemy’s here, too, eh?”
Karios walks up, his hair cleanly shaven, his shining bald head his trademark.
“Hey, it’s Karios, the gatekeeper. You headed to work?”
“Yeah. Gorth decided not to wake me up today and went up by himself, the bastard. I’m headed to the gate now. Boxxo, can I get the usual? I’d like that revitalizing water today.”
Revitalizing water—he must mean the sports drink. And his usual set is the pressed potato chips plus a can of oden.
“Thank you.”
“No problem. All right, I’ve got to hurry over now.”
Just as Karios raises a hand to say good-bye and turns around to head to the gate, the magic item responds again.
“Such a pretty face. Shame about her breasts and personality. Talk about a waste.”
Hulemy’s look is getting much more dangerous.
No, no, it wasn’t me! I didn’t think that just now! And actually, that just had to be Karios’s mind! Which is how I want to plead my case to clear up this misunderstanding, but I can’t talk!
Hulemy, who has gotten this completely wrong, steadily glares at me through narrowed eyes. Crap. I have to do something to tell her that Karios is the culprit.
I drop a can of juice into my compartment, then use Force Field to launch it toward him.
It doesn’t end up hitting him, but it rolls to a stop in front of him. He notices it, picks it up, and then brings it back to me. “Hey, Boxxo. This came flying out. I’ll just leave it here.”
“Thank you.”
Hopefully, now Hulemy will realize those words came from his mind.
“She’s got a nice butt, though.”
“Huh?” mutters Karios, responding to the voice he heard from the magic item.
Hulemy’s gaze turns, with slow, twitching motions, to Karios, piercing him with her laser-like glare.
“I, you, what?!” cries Karios, completely bewildered, a bead of sweat trickling down his brow.
“Ah, I see. Karios thinks my breasts and personality are no good, now, does he? Heh. I see how it is.”
She’s…scaring me. Beneath her low, intimidating voice and narrowed eyes is a smile, but her eyes are cold and menacing.
“H-how did you know what I was think— Ack!”
Oh, now you’ve done it, Karios. You just admitted to it.
He’s still confused, but he likely senses a threat to his well-being. He pounds a fist into his hand, says “Oh, right, my job” as though he’s just remembered, then runs away like a fleeing hare.
“Bastard… Sorry, Boxxo. I misunderstood. I apologize.”
“Welcome.”
I’m saved. Somehow. But when I think about it calmly, that magic item is incredible. For some reason, it couldn’t pick up my mind’s voice, but it definitely transmitted every bit of Karios’s inner thoughts.
“I can’t hear you from this, Boxxo, but technically it worked, since it heard his mind. It has room for improvement.”
I’m both excited and terrified to have her finish this. If she can hear people’s thoughts with it, disasters similar to Karios’s slipup may occur.
“Anyway, I’ll fiddle with it some more, and—”
“So it wasn’t Boxxo who said I had a nice butt, huh? Hmm. Damn.”
Hmm? Wait, was that voice I just heard from the magic item…?
“Heh, I…I…I see— Uwaaahhhh!”
Hulemy’s face goes beet-red as she slams the magic item into the ground and starts stomping it to little pieces before I have a chance to stop her.
Um, Hulemy?
“Allll righty, then! Looks like it doesn’t work after all. I’ll have to redo the whole thing. Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. See ya!”
She spins around, but not before I catch a glimpse of her bright-red face in profile. Then she runs off just as fast as Karios did.
This day has been full of ups and downs, but I got one good thing out of it: getting to see a few different sides of Hulemy that I hadn’t expected. At least, that’s how I’ve decided to look at it.
Incidentally, Hulemy did try to remake the device once more after that, but she never did complete a mind-reading magic item.
Marvels
There are four wall-mounted candlesticks in the room.
A large, round table lies in the dimly lit room’s center, and thirteen figures sit around it.
Silence envelops the room. No one opens their mouth—until one woman rises abruptly.
“Thank you all for coming. Let’s begin our regular meeting. I’m sure everyone knows the agenda for today.”
The suspicious words cause a stir among the others at the table.
“I never believed they’d get this far.”
“Indeed. We let our guard down.”
“Without a plan, they will wipe us out in the blink of an eye.”
Words of concern left the attendees’ mouths one after the other, their voices strained and sorrowful.
The low illumination on their faces revealed dark, lifeless masks.
“Order. I’ve summarized the information we have thus far… If you would.”
Seated next to the speaker, a woman in clothing resembling a maid’s outfit rises at the request and opens the folder of documents in front of her. “They have seventy percent of the opened dungeon stratums under their control. Now, they’ve reached us. We must spare no effort to come together as a unified group and eliminate them. For that purpose, I’ve invited someone who is to be our trump card. A few words, if you please.”
“Welcome.”
That’s the only thing I can say, having been forced into a meeting between those authoritative eateries in the Clearflow Lake stratum’s settlement.
This meeting is held three times a year on the same days, and sometimes they have serious discussions, but they generally just trade information and end it with idle chatter.
This one, however, was announced in a hurry as an exception, and no one appears relaxed. They look like cornered rats, and that honestly makes me uncomfortable.
“If you have any opinion on the matter, Mr. Boxxo, you may speak at your discretion.”
It creeps me out when Munami adds “Mr.” to my name. So she’s the type to completely immerse herself in a given role, is she? She’s the spitting image of a talented secretary.
“Allow me to continue. Currently, a large number of people are moving into this settlement. Our population has increased by approximately one hundred, and there are rumors that our residence now numbers close to five hundred.”
“Well, it has been a lot livelier lately.”
“Normally, that would be cause for celebration.”
No matter how many hands they have for the settlement’s reconstruction, it won’t be enough, so people have been coming and going rapidly as we try to, at the very least, get the outer wall repaired for the winter. We’ve managed to procure just enough logs to get the job done, which has apparently set everyone’s minds at ease.
“It would normally be a very joyous occasion for the food industry to have more potential customers…but the sudden increase in people has also led to them making a move. You know them—their goal is to control all food in the dungeon. The ultimate evil in eateries—the Chains Restaurant!”
“Damn. Without them here, I thought I would be able
to make some money!”
“I was doing business on another stratum when those buar-headed merchants stole that settlement’s whole food demand!”
As I watch the eatery owners act like the protagonists of a tragedy, I summarize it in my mind.
Each stratum in this dungeon has a settlement where people gather, and this massive restaurant business has a location in each settlement. In other words, a true labyrinth “chain” restaurant.
With the population at around only a hundred before now, they hadn’t bothered with us, since they didn’t think we’d be very profitable. With the recent uptick in people, however, they must have decided now was a good time to come.
This big chain’s name seems to be a reference to literal chains. Their locations are so big, you wouldn’t think they were eating establishments. Not only do they have food and drink, they also have a wide variety of preserved foodstuffs and take-home ingredients to support their catchphrase: The Chains Restaurant, for all your food needs.
They have connections with the workers of the transfer circle as well, and they can use it at a discount, so they don’t incur transportation costs for foods. That leads to a pricing and quality normal eateries can’t match.
And for any settlement the Chains Restaurant moves into, there’s really only one outcome the local food industry can expect: total defeat.
This stuff happens a lot in modern Japan, too. There are plenty of examples of big stores built in an area that crush smaller shops and dominate entire streets, leading to rows and rows of shuttered-up stalls.
“They must have been waiting for a time like this. Winter rolls in, and we’ve been trading for food at high prices—and with how cheaply they sell theirs, there won’t be any reason to worry. They possess many magic items that make it possible to keep food fresh, so they’ll be able to provide the same meals even in the wintertime.”
I wonder if those tools are like big refrigerators. Eighty percent of the eateries here are open-air, so they obviously wouldn’t have anything like that. They can’t stock ingredients, so they would have closed up today.