Reborn as a Vending Machine, I Now Wander the Dungeon, Vol. 1

by Hirukuma,

  According to Lammis, she’s a person filled with wanderlust. If she goes missing, nobody worries about her, and it’s quite possible nobody even notices she’s missing. I shouldn’t expect anyone to come looking for her.

  But they’ve probably realized I’m gone, so I can only pray Director Bear sends out a search party for me. I just hope Lammis isn’t so worried that she does something reckless.

  Lammis has obviously been contributing a lot to the settlement’s reconstruction, but I think I have been, too. My disappearing is a loss for the settlement, one that will delay the reconstruction efforts… At least, that’s how I hope they interpret it. That would certainly help my situation.

  As I mull it over, I hear a soft click through the midnight room veiled in silence. When I look over to where I heard it, I see the doorknob turn and the door slowly open. I thought they’d come.

  “Hey, we actually doing this?”

  “You guys are pent up, too, aren’t you? You can leave if you don’t want to do it.”

  “W-well, I mean, no curves, spindly, and filthy. And not a damned bit of sexiness.”

  “Makes no difference to me.”

  “Didn’t the boss tell us not to do anything to her?”

  “She’ll keep quiet if we show her a blade and threaten her.”

  They’re whispering to one another, speaking of vulgar things. Three of them. The low-life peon Gugoyle isn’t with them. He’s probably being prudent after their boss threatened him so much today.

  I could announce “Welcome” at maximum volume to cause a stir, but underground rooms usually have good soundproofing, so I’m frankly not sure it would make a difference. Especially since I get the feeling this is a repurposed jail cell.

  And by surprising them, they might accidentally hurt Hulemy in the confusion. It’s even possible they’ll try to destroy me out of desperation to keep me quiet.

  In that case, what do I do? They’re inching closer to her, evaluating her, their eyes crawling up and down her body.

  There’s no time. I’ll try this.

  “H-hey, wait. The magic-item box is glowing.”

  Right before they touch her skin, one of them gets flustered, hits the other two on the back, and stares in my direction.

  “W-wait, what? Is it changing its products…? No, it’s changing shape.”

  “Th-this… This is incredible! Look at these detailed drawings of naked women. This one is tempting me with sexy underwear. That is one erotic body.”

  The three of them cling to me, staring at the magazines through the glass—the porno mags, as they’re colloquially known.

  You don’t see vending machines carrying porno mags very much now that the Internet has gotten popular, but I’m aware they still survive quietly in certain places.

  All right, here’s the critical moment. I drop six specially chosen magazines into my compartment.

  “Hey, they’re falling out!”

  “Really? Let me see.”

  “Me too, me too!”

  Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha! They’re hooked. The amount of effort Japan puts into eroticism is nothing to scoff at. Especially when vending machines sell them—you can’t see what’s inside, so the important part is how you grab customers by using only the front cover.

  All the poses and angles are calculated down to the finest details. What will happen if people from another world, where sexual culture hasn’t advanced as far, see them?

  Also, the magazines I’ve given them are ones I chose from all those that I’ve bought—ones where I’m confident in the contents. A lot of these tend to be awful on the inside. How many times have I been fooled?

  Ah, well. I’m a vending machine maniac, so it’s not like I have an interest in this stuff—I only bought them as part of my collection. I certainly was not sneaking out of the house at night and only buying them after making sure nobody was around.

  We have the Internet now, so people can fulfill their sexual urges without laboring for it. I used it, too, so I might not have the right to say one thing or another about it, but there is one thing I’d like to set the record straight on anyway.

  Porn you worked to obtain has a different value than porn you get from a single click! Even if the contents are cheap and completely different from the cover, no matter how many times they betray your expectations, you always remember them—they live on inside you!

  …This is one of the countermeasures I thought of while consulting with Shirley before, who runs the sex business. Still, back then, I didn’t end up in this mode. After all, it would kind of seem like I was spreading my own inclinations to the settlement.

  “Whoa, how are these pictures so detailed? These are crazy. I’m overwhelmed.”

  “H-how are her boobs so big? Wait, you can do that?!”

  “Seriously, seriously, seriously?!”

  They’re all so absorbed that even middle school kids just awakening to their own sexuality would be weirded out. They bury themselves in “reading” and forget all about Hulemy’s existence.

  It’s gone according to my predictions thus far. What happens next is the problem.

  “I…I’m not going to do it. I just remembered I have something to do.”

  “What…a coincidence. My stomach hurts, so I’m calling it quits.”

  “A-all right, then… I’ll get going, too.”

  For some reason, all three hunch over and leave the room, each with a magazine in both hands. I considered the possibility they would excite the men into assaulting Hulemy, but it looks like their sexual curiosity got the best of them.

  They must have decided it would be better to fulfill their desires with these instead of risking it and assaulting her. The seductive women they’d never seen before, their sexually provocative clothing, the pictures of people entangled—were these alone that much of a shock?

  The subjects in these magazines all have abnormally good-looking bodies, and their faces are beautiful, too. I mustn’t give voice to opinions about photo-editing software being great lately, or my becoming disillusioned by it.

  As long as they have some way to release, violence will fall by the wayside.

  If things had taken a turn for the worse and they assaulted her, I was ready to do something about it with noise and my Force Field. But I’m glad things worked out.

  The door closed, and they disappeared. Hulemy is still snoring away, oblivious to the fact that she was almost attacked. If this will put them on good behavior for a while, though, we won’t have any conflicts we can’t afford.

  I can’t escape on my own, and my options are severely limited. She obviously can’t carry me out of here. Without Lammis, it’s impossible for any one person to lift me.

  I realize how important she is only now that she’s gone— Well, that kind of sounds like we’re lovers who just broke up, doesn’t it?

  In the end, buying time and getting in the way is about all I can do. I don’t have anywhere near enough points for another Blessing. That means I have to rely on my features. Maybe I’ll go through the list again.

  A decent chunk of time passes while I’m comparing how many remaining points I have to what I should be getting, and Hulemy wakes up.

  She gives a great big yawn. “Man, I slept like a rock. Mornin’, Boxxo,” she says, lifting a hand toward me as she casually scratches her disheveled hair. Her clothes are messy from her sleep, but it makes her look far more sloppy than sexy.

  She leans back to stretch her joints, but even bent like that, there’s nothing protruding from her chest area. This isn’t the kind of thing where she’s actually a guy, right? Because the way she talks is perfectly masculine.

  “Anyway, what should I do today? I’d like to research your features, but…”

  In the middle of her sentence, her stomach makes a loud noise. Hulemy scratches her cheek with a finger.

  “Sorry. I’m always careful about them putting strange stuff in my food, so I’ve only been eating bits and pieces. I’m seriously hungry.�
��

  I see. I’ll treat you to some food, then. She’s probably cold, since she’s been rubbing her arms and legs since she got up. I’d like to suggest cup ramen, but if she’s that hungry, then I’ll give her a can of oden first, since she can eat it right away.

  I drop her a can. After she takes that, I offer cup ramen.

  “This is real warm. Is this container completely airtight…? If I twist this and pull it… Whoa! This is incredible. It smells great.”

  She greedily devours the oden in one go. After drinking up the broth, she goes for the cup ramen. At first she isn’t sure how to use the hot water, but once she manages to pour it in, she sits cross-legged on the table and whistles to herself as she waits for it to be done. She opens the lid several times to prod the noodles and check how they’re doing, then closes it and repeats the process, like a little kid. She easily puts away the entire cup, too, and she still looks hungry, so I decide to have her test a new product—bread in a can.

  “The fluffy stuff in this tube… It’s bread! Boy, you could put cafeterias out of business with all this. And this bread is great, too. It’s so soft!”

  Her table manners aren’t polite by any stretch, but watching her enjoy the food so much makes me happy.

  With that, it seems she’s full. She lounges on the table as she scratches the bulge in her belly, using her fork as a toothpick.

  Just then, the door clacks open, and the stern-faced man they were calling “boss” shows up.

  “Looks like you’re awake. Figure out anything about that box?”

  “Eh? And why should I have to follow your instructions, hmm?!”

  Despite being the one kidnapped, Hulemy glares daggers at the large, frightening man. She must have a lot of nerve—and she’s not letting an inch of fear show. I wouldn’t be surprised if her heart is made out of steel.

  “You’ve got guts, I’ll give you that. If you join our gang, we’d treat you a lot better, you know.”

  “Unfortunately for you, I’m not about to obey villains, or leave myself in your care.”

  “Hey, careful with the tough talk. You want to meet the same fate as your friends?”

  “Friends?” She spits. “They’re not friends. They’re just hired bodyguards.”

  She hired bodyguards? I guess that makes sense. Clearly, she isn’t physically trained; a girl like her wouldn’t go exploring a stratum on her own with all the monsters crawling about.

  “But listen here. I may have hired them with money, but that doesn’t mean I’ll forgive you bastards for killing them!”

  “Ha. What can a weak woman like you do on her own? I’m not a very patient man. How about this? Either fix that box or get the gold coins out within the next two days. Understand?”

  The boss leaves it at that and exits the room.

  Hulemy drags a thumb across her neck and sticks out her tongue.

  We have two days. We have to come up with a plan before then, because if we don’t have anything, they’ll either kill her or put her through a hell worse than death. I have to do something.

  A Place to Belong

  Unable to come up with any particular breakthroughs, we’ve come to the second night since I arrived here. Those guys seem to think I’m broken; none of them have ever tried to buy something from me.

  The three people I gave porno mags to showed up just one time after that. They appeared to be paying attention to me, glancing my way every now and again, but it didn’t look like any of them told the others about how I changed shape or that they got magazines for free. If they did, the fact that they tried to assault Hulemy would reach their boss’s ears, and they don’t want that.

  Or maybe they were afraid of the magazines being confiscated.

  Hulemy continues talking with me, doing her analysis at her own pace—not to tell their ringleader about me but purely out of academic interest.

  They do bring her food in the morning and evening, but she’s been tossing it all into a barrel in the corner of the room and closing the lid. Foodwise, she’s getting by entirely on what I’m providing her, so she doesn’t need to eat that gross-looking stuff.

  As a side note, her dinner tonight was two different varieties of cup ramen and some pressed potato chips. I considered stocking a new product, but points are too valuable in this dire situation. I decided I should save up as much of them as possible to prepare for the worst.

  Hulemy exhales noisily. “Thanks again for the food. Man, your cooking is crazy. I can’t even come close to this stuff. I’m always too busy doing research.”

  I’m not the amazing one—it’s how good the manufacturers are.

  Her skin looks a lot better now, probably after two days of gorging herself on food. I think her cheeks might have even filled out a bit. She’s still skinny, but it makes her look more attractive than before.

  Her once-disheveled hair is now silky smooth, back to its ideal state. This is the result of me giving her bottled water, which I warm up, since it normally comes out of me cold, in addition to the shampoo and hair treatment you might see in a vending machine in a hotel or deluxe public bath. I gave her a towel, too, of course.

  “Phew. That was refreshing.”

  Without caring one bit about the vending machine in the room, Hulemy, having exposed her upper body, washes her face, wipes herself down, and downs a bottle of coffee milk with a look of satisfaction.

  Coffee milk is what you drink after a bath. I’m not budging on that. I look at her body again, without the blackened clothing, and while her upper body is rather unfortunate, her lower body is overflowing with feminine charm. She has child-rearing hips… Not that the observation denotes any lewd thoughts.

  At this point, a normal man would probably be turned on, but after becoming a vending machine, I think such feelings have weakened for me. I’d have no way to release them anyway, so it works out.

  Hulemy is making a good show of being relaxed, but our time runs out tomorrow morning. If we’re going to escape, tonight will most likely be our last chance. I’ll draw their attention while she escapes. That’s the best plan, I think, but I have no way to tell her.

  This stupid automatic-communication disorder. Now that it’s come to this, I think we could force a siege, too… If she can somehow carry me over to the door, it should make it fairly hard to open. I can give her food, so we can hold out for about a week.

  If that’s what we’re going to do, though, her carrying me to the door is the impossible obstacle.

  “Well, I guess what will be, will be. Boxxo, don’t worry too much about it! I’ll explain how valuable you are. If I can convince them that I can repair you if I have more time, I’m sure they’ll believe me. They’re idiots, after all!”

  Now that she’s refreshed and finished wiping herself down, she takes off the clothes she’s been wearing and puts on a pair of underwear and a men’s-size T-shirt that I gave her.

  Ah, the underwear plus a baggy T-shirt. I always wanted to be in this situation just once back in Japan—to think that I’d experience it in another world, of all places. Reincarnating was worth it.

  The underwear and T-shirt are both, of course, things I’ve bought at vending machines. Oh, and I’d like to emphasize that the women’s underwear was something I bought as a mistake. A mistake, understand?

  “This is going to be too cold, so I’ll put this on.”

  Now that she’s refreshed, she’s going to put on those worn, blackened clothes? I have experience purchasing underwear and shirts at vending machines, but unfortunately, I’ve never seen pajamas. I think they’re probably out there if you search for them—it goes to show how inexperienced I was as an enthusiast.

  I’ve never seen blanket or futon vending machines, and even if I had, they would have been too big for an impulse buy. Instead, I’ll give her a bunch of bath towels. You can frequently see this item at deluxe public baths and hotels.

  “I’m ashamed to use something so clean and white.”

  Please go
ahead and use it. You’ll catch a cold like that. We don’t know what will happen in the future. We can’t give up—we need to prepare for any situation.

  “Boxxo, mind if I get serious for a second?”

  “Welcome.”

  She comes up to me, then lays a bath towel on the ground and takes a seat on it cross-legged. In that position, her panties are fully exposed, but it doesn’t matter. I suppose it would be stranger if she was embarrassed about it in front of a vending machine.

  “If you’re thinking about letting me escape by sacrificing yourself, let me stop you right there. Even if I get outside, the region is crawling with monsters. You think I can survive out there when I have no combat abilities?”

  She knew what I was thinking? I can only display my intent by answering yes-or-no questions, but I’ve talked to her quite a bit in these two days. She’s naturally smart, so I suppose my simple brain circuits are easy for her to read.

  “Too bad.”

  “Right? So it doesn’t do me any good to escape. We have to somehow stall for time and wait for a golden opportunity. I must seem like a pretty foolish woman to you, eh, Boxxo? I’m not very strong at all, but I act like a huge, reckless idiot. I’m not really scared of dying. Actually, I guess it’s more like those emotions are numb for me now… Ah, what am I saying? Anyway, I’m going to sleep! Good night!”

  “Please come again.”

  She lies down on the spot, covers herself with bath towels, and falls asleep within moments. Her ability to doze off in record time can only be called a special skill.

  She was getting to some serious stuff. Something must have happened that she can’t tell other people. I don’t have any way to pry into her affairs, nor do I want to dig up her hidden past anyway.

  Which brings us to midnight. Even the regulars here probably aren’t awake, save for the lookouts outside the door and the abandoned fortress. Now is the time to act, but what do you want a vending machine to do? I literally don’t have a leg to stand on.

  The only thing I can do is protect her with my Force Field from those idiots, since they might come to attack her again thinking they’ll dispose of her anyway.