Earth-san Level Up Volume 2 Chapter 23 (Patreon)

Dungeon Clear Reward

The Dragon Boss dropped a large magic stone the size of a clenched fist, a large hide that was probably two meters square with scales on it, and two 30-centimeter-long fangs.

After everyone rounded up the large skins, they went back to the bottom of the backpacks they had placed near the entrance.

"Well, well, do you think we got a good shot?"

"I think it's a little wobbly, it might have moved."

"Oh, I think mine is facing up."

As Meiko and the others said, to tell the truth, they were filming the battle earlier with their smartphones.

The value of information is immeasurable when it comes to boss battles, so we decided to record it.

However, they did not have a tripod or anything like that, so they did not film it well.

Meiko and Ruru had a case for their phones on the shoulder straps of their backpacks, so they set them there and took pictures.

Sasara adjusted hers by stuffing a piece of rabbit fur into the side pocket and tucking it in.

Since there was not enough time, we were unable to adjust the position in detail.

She pressed the shoot button on her smartphone, which she had set in her backpack in advance, and roughly decided on a direction, then relied on luck to do the rest.

In addition, the Dragon Boss had attacked with an earthquake on the way, so it would have been no surprise if the backpack had rolled over. In fact, Sasara's backpack was rolling with his phone pointing heavenward.

For now, he picked up his phone and saved it.

We'll check the results later.

With backpacks on their backs, the three of them started walking.

Even after defeating the boss, they could not return to the way they came.

Seeing this, Meiko wondered if the boss rooms were separated by individual server-like things.

Due to the specifications of this dungeon, excessive passage of time means death. The difficulty level changes at night, so we were unable to wait for the boss room for too long. To begin with, the single path leading to this point was lost in a sea of clouds, and what would happen to those who were walking there?

Well, we had to leave the verification to others.

The path we had come on was not restored, but instead, a new stairway was built exactly on the opposite side of the entrance.

At the top of the 30 or so steps, there was a 10-meter square platform surrounded by a cobblestone fence.

Meiko and the others headed there with great anticipation, as it was a place that had not been there before.

The three of them proceeded, bypassing the cobblestone pavement that Dragon Boss had detonated.

After climbing the stairs, there it was.

"A treasure chest!"

Meiko's fatigue gauge was blown away.

She leaps with a pounce on the treasure chest.

Sasara and Ruru, carrying the dragon's skin, follow with a wry smile.

"Come on, you two, hurry up, hurry up!"

She was a terrible woman to rush her friend carrying a huge skin.

The magic of the treasure chest had made the word "care" disappear from Meiko's mind.

Well, I'm not the kind of person to be offended by such a thing.

"Meiko-san, the treasure chest is nice, but look at that."

"Hmm?"

Behind the treasure chest was a sparkling golden gate.

It was a crazy Stand Out gate, but Meiko's eyes didn't see it.

"Oh! Is that a clear gate, not a return gate?"

The possibility of a gate to a back dungeon flashed through her mind, but it quickly flew away. Meiko wanted to open the treasure chest as soon as possible.

Waiting for the two of them was at least their conscience.

There were two treasure chests.

On top of each box, there was a letter floating on the surface, indicating the origin of the treasure chest.

According to the text, they were a dungeon-clearing reward and the world's first dungeon-clearing reward.

The dungeon-clear reward was a gorgeous red and gold-rimmed construction, while the world's first dungeon-clear reward was a premier box with seven shining colors.

"I heard we were the first in the world to clear a dungeon!"

"Fufufu...as expected of us!"

"Nyahaha! We are the three strongest people in the world!"

"Hahahaha!"

Everyone laughed at Ruru's words.

After laughing a bit, we decided to open the dungeon-clearing reward first.

Inside were three jade-colored balls, a bag containing 30 guineas, and a few sheets of parchment that appeared to be a recipe.

Finally, for some reason, there was a booklet with a picture of Meiko and her friends.

At any rate, Meiko picked up the jade-colored ball, but it didn't really catch her attention.

It needs to be appraised.

The guinea coins were for 1,000 guineas each. She knew this because she had seen them when she sold some things at a cat store.

Thirty thousand guineas is a lot of money, enough for two sets of equipment for three Meiko and her friends.

Parchment is probably a recipe.

However, this also needs to be appraised.

And on the cover of the booklet depicting Meiko and her friends, it says

[Infinite Torii Dungeon Inn Spring Issue].

When they opened it, they found Meiko and three others wearing clothes they did not remember wearing at all. However, the equipment itself was familiar. It was all beginner-level equipment.

Apparently, some mysterious force had somehow turned them into models.

Meiko remembered that.

[I'll take it in exchange for the information fee.]

said the cat fairy.

They had forgotten about the deal when the Cat Fairy mentioned the danger of the dungeon at night.

This is probably in lieu of the information fee.

In other words, the booklet lent out at the Fairy Store would also be placed in this same spot.

"You're working hard, Cat Dairy. Well, it's okay, though, heh."

At least Meiko and her team dominated the spring issue of the booklet.

This is great.

Everyone will be looking at this and choosing their equipment.

That's Meiko's model kimono! Did you go to the Infinity Torii? 

Well, it was hard work, but the Cat Fairy Model had chosen Meiko and the others as models because they managed to clear the dungeon.

Conversations like this were going on among the participants.

"Well, this Ruru-san is so cute!"

"This Shaara is cute too!"

While Meiko is imagining such a future, the two naturals are cackling with delight at the sight of themselves wearing clothes they have never worn before.

They collected them for now and moved on to the world's first dungeon-clearing rewards.

Suddenly, they looked and saw that the treasure chest for the next dungeon-clearing reward had softly disappeared.

The treasure chests in the dungeon did not disappear even after Meiko slept inside for about six hours, but it seemed that the treasure chests for the clear rewards were disappearing.

If she had been able to take it home with her, it would have been a splendid loot.

They shifted their gaze again to a very luxurious treasure chest.

The whole thing was shiny, and it made them feel a sense of expectation.

Incidentally, this moment was also captured on video.

When Meiko opened the rainbow-colored box, there was one item inside.

A globe.

When Meiko held the globe in her hand, the notification noise came.

Meiko, who had not heard the notification in a long time, learned the details of this item.

----

Earth-san Premium Figure with Magnifier

An elaborate figure of everyone's favorite Earth-san.

It shows the location of dungeons around the world.

The size can be changed, with the smallest spherical part being 30 cm in diameter and the largest being 9 meters in diameter.

Once placed, it cannot be moved from its location. It can only be placed outside the dungeon.

It will never break, but excessive rough handling will reduce karma. Using this as a weapon is outrageous! 

----

"Wow!"

Meiko rejoiced.

It wasn't because Earth-san was a seriously dangerous being or anything. She was just happy.

To be honest, the contents were not that important to Meiko's treasure chest fever.

The most important thing was the joy of finding and opening it.

Of course, they would appreciate it if the contents were great, but even if they weren't, she wouldn't be upset.

She was a bit of a strange girl.

When she taught them about the effects of the globe, they were delighted as well.

They were usually natural.

"Well, it's an Earth-san figure, isn't it? I wonder if we're around here somewhere."

"Kismia is here. Nippon is here, so we've moved so much on top of Earth-san."

Listening to such a blurry conversation, Meiko wondered what to do with this thing.

To be honest, carrying that was a heavy burden.

Meiko was even thinking throwing it away.

Meiko thought that the world's first dungeon-clearer was probably obtained by a human. If an animal managed to clear the dungeon, that animal would have gotten something useful in the animal kingdom as well.

Meiko and her team then decided what to do with the globe.

After doing so, they will now appraise the dungeon-clearing rewards that did not give them a notification.

Using one of the three remaining appraisal balls, we will take a look at them.

First, the jade-colored jade was a "magic treasure" that increased the maximum amount of magic by 20.

It seems that only the dungeon-clearer could use it.

Meiko received 10 points of magic power as a bonus for blessing Earth-san.

At first, they were not sure if 10 was too much, but now they know that it is great to get an extra 10 points in the beginning.

If they were to earn it just from level advancement, they would need about 10 times the time to build it up, and without an efficient way to consume magic power, they would have no way to train on their own.

Furthermore, you can take more than 10 just to get a job. If you are not careful, there is a good chance that you will not be able to use [martial arts] or [magic] even if you get a job.

Therefore, Meiko thought that this item, which gives you 20 points of magic power, was very impressive.

Next, the parchment.

Parchment is also a recipe, and it appears to be able to make weapons, armor, and accessories.

All the parchments seemed to have multiple recipes on one sheet.

Basically, it's the [Beginner's Equipment, Japanese Spring] series. It would be the ones sold at the Cat's Inn.

There were other items with names such as [Armor of Phantom Dragon], and Meiko guessed that they could be made from boss drops.

In all, we do not know the required materials or the production method itself, as we do not have [recipe reading comprehension].

Finally, there is the boss drop.

It appeared to be the skin and fangs of a Yamata-no-Orochi phantom body.

"What? Is that boss Yamata no Orochi?"

Meiko said, and the appraisal ball disappeared in her hand.

"Yamata no Orochi desu?"

"Huh, then it's Yamada-san's Orochi."

Sasara giggled at Ruru's comment.

It was not a joke.

"Yamata-no-Orochi is, you know, a very powerful eight-headed snake or dragon from Japanese mythology."

As Meiko explained, she thought of the eight rocks lining the plaza.

"So, do you think we can fight the main body at night?"

"No, the main body is in the true dungeon, right? But it might really have eight heads."

Sasara and Meiko were discussing this.

Ruru then interjected.

"Earth-san said Japan is the corpse of a big dragon."

"Oh, that's right. Will it fly up someday?"

"Please don't say that. If that happens, we'll all die."

" No, no, no. Earth-san said that it was a corpse, so it wouldn't fly. But maybe many dungeon bosses here would be dragon-like."

Since all we could do here was speculate, Meiko and the others cut the conversation short and split up what they got.

First, they split the money evenly, getting 10,000 guineas each.

We finished by having the money sucked into the fairy cards we made at the cat's all-you-can-eat shop.

Next, everyone used a magic treasure ball to increase their magical power by 20.

After doing so, we checked the status and found that most of the items had changed dramatically, not just the magic power.

The three of us cackle, thinking that the greatly changed status is also a kind of reward for clearing the dungeon.

The rainbow-colored treasure chest disappeared, leaving only a golden vortex in the small space.

Entering there would be the goal, but Meiko and the others took a break for now.

They did not feel like taking a break in the plaza where they had fought the boss, so they finally took a rest here.

From the top of the cobblestone pavement in the sea of clouds, we looked at the mountain where we had adventured.

It is a beautiful mountain with vermilion Torii gates and life breathing out of it.

Unfortunately, we could not see the first mountain from here, but it seemed to represent the length of the path we had taken.

I bet adults would drink in a place like this, Meiko thought as she recalled a certain manga.

"I'm amazed we made it this far alive."

Meiko said with deep emotion.

"It's thanks to Meiko-san."

"Meow, if it weren't for Meiko, we never would have made it."

The two said and praised Meiko.

"That may be true. But I couldn't have done it without Sasara and Ruru. Because Sasara and Ruru slashed the enemies with the weapons I trained them with. That's why the three of us worked together to get this far."

Meiko smiled as she said this, but in Sasara and Ruru's minds, the image of Meiko's small body running toward the fearsome Dragon Boss, braver than anyone else, was burned into their minds.

An ordinary girl with [Synthetic Enhancement] would have been overwhelmed by the boss's intimidation and destroyed the party without realizing that it was an enemy that could be defeated.

Now that it's over, I understand.

If Meiko had been five seconds slower to start running, Sasara and Ruru would have been drained of strength and would have just sat there.

Both Sasara and Ruru were convinced that they were here because of Meiko.

Meiko was tickled by their admiring glances, and she laid back down with a plop.

"Oh, it was so much fun having this adventure with you two."

Staring at the blue sky, Meiko thought back to the past few days.

Adventuring in dungeons, discovering things, defeating enemies, getting stronger. She would have a reassuring friend by her side, who would adventure with her.

Meiko had everything she was looking for in these few days.

"I had a great time adventuring with Meiko-san and Ruru-san!"

"I had a great time with Shaara and Meeko, too!"

Sasara tells us with a big smile on her face, and Ruru replies with a big smile on his face.

The two also lay down.

The three of them are somber for a while.

Then Sasara suddenly became curious and asked Meiko.

"Speaking of which, you didn't get a single blow from the boss, did you still have the [soloist who has broken the first level] effect?"

"That's what I was thinking. That guy, despite his appearance, he was not even able to deal us a finishing strike!"

While saying this, Meiko checked the effect of [Layer 1: Treader, Solo] on the status screen.

The effect column had turned gray and was lost.

"Why not!"

She confirmed that it was effective before the boss fight, and then surely he had not received a single blow, but when in the world?

Meiko's mind flashed back to a scene from the boss fight.

She had taken one hit.

She had been hit by a wave on the cobblestone pavement, which had knocked her off her feet after she had fallen in the shockwave.

She couldn't think of anything else but that one.

And the fact that the damage she had received from that blow was fatal.

Since it was the boss's attack, there must have been a magical aspect to it. Like earth magic.

"Hieeee!"

Meiko broke out in a cold sweat, remembering how she had narrowly avoided the dragon's subsequent sliding bite and how she had relied on her invincibility to be the final decoy.

It was so close.

It is a miracle that she is here now.

She could not thank Sasara enough for slashing the dragon's face with the Sword Slash.

If that didn't work, Meiko wouldn't have been able to survive as the last decoy.

She didn't want to say this because it would worry them, but she had to share the information.

Meiko spoke honestly.

"Ho, is it true!"

"Shaara, you did well!"

The three of them were shaken.

Now that she no longer had the support of invincibility, Meiko was ready to switch her tactics and learn a different way of getting around.