Akatsuki Translations

I wondered if perhaps I was quite the pervert after all. With Sakaki-san’s ample bosom pressed against my arm, all my nerves seemed to concentrate on that point of contact. If I hadn’t known Imari’s chest, I probably would have been quite flustered.

Still, Sakaki-san had become quite beautiful. Given that she already had a voluptuous figure, now that her face had improved as well, the effect was devastating. The Sensoji Temple Dungeon was as busy as ever with tourists. Even in the crowd, people kept turning to look at us as we passed by.

All the women stared at me, while all the men sent envious glances Sakaki-san’s way. I marveled at how much attention a pretty face could garner. People kept looking back at us so much that I wondered if it wasn’t bothersome to keep turning around like that. The fact that Sakaki-san had become such a cute girl only added to it.

As impressive as that was, having three even cuter girls showing interest in me was something else entirely. No matter how adorable Sakaki-san had become, I had no intention of wavering, but when faced with what could only be described as female lust coming on so strong, my head started to spin.

“Women are more blatant than men, huh,” I muttered to myself.

I glanced at Sakaki-san’s profile. Her slightly flushed cheeks. Her pink, moist lips. I felt like I could kiss her right now and she wouldn’t get angry, though of course I’d never actually do that.

“Is something wrong?” Sakaki-san asked, her brow furrowed in concern. “Are you getting scared after all?”

As we walked through the crowd, Sakaki-san’s expression was one of genuine worry for me.

“Ah, no, it’s nothing like that,” I replied hastily.

“You don’t have to force yourself,” she said softly. “If you want to run away, that’s okay. If you’re scared to be alone, I’ll run away with you.”

Sakaki-san’s attitude towards me was so drastically different now, it was jarring. If asked whether I disliked it, I couldn’t say I did, but she was clearly too weak to handsome guys. Then again, I was still unable to shake off her chest pressed against me, so I suppose I was just as weak to beautiful women, or rather, to large breasts.

“Thanks,” I said. “But that’s not my intention.”

Indeed, I had no plans to run away. Together with Sakaki-san, we arrived at the entrance of the Sensoji Temple Dungeon.

“Hey, Rokujou,” Sakaki-san said, her voice laced with concern. “Are you really sure you don’t want to run? No matter how you look at it, you’re going to lose.”

I shook my head. “It’s okay if I lose. I just don’t want to run away from Ikemoto.”

“…Rokujou. I understand. You have your pride that you absolutely must uphold. Alright then, I’ll do whatever I can to make sure you don’t die.”

“Thank you. But I don’t want to involve you, Sakaki-san. If I mess up, feel free to abandon me. Go in first. I’ll enter after a little while.”

Sakaki-san hesitated but eventually went into the dungeon. For her sake as well, I waited about ten minutes before entering the dungeon myself. The first floor was as hot as ever. It was the same in every dungeon, yet a completely different space.

There were eight people already on the first floor of the Sensoji Temple Dungeon.

“Hey, what are you spacing out for, you who’s about to be killed?” a familiar voice called out.

Ikemoto stood before me. He had become more handsome, but the change in his appearance wasn’t as extreme as mine. Honestly, I envied that. As Nagumo-san had said, when your appearance changes too drastically, it doesn’t feel like your own face anymore.

Sakaki-san stood beside Ikemoto, looking at me apologetically. She really had become quite beautiful. The prickly attitude she used to have was gone, making her even more attractive. Further to the side were Gotou and Onoda, who had just entered the dungeon.

Even if Sakaki-san didn’t join in, it was still three against one. But surprisingly, my heart remained calm.

“You’re all prepared, aren’t you?” I said coolly. “Ikemoto, were you that scared of me?”

“Huh? As if!” Ikemoto scoffed. “Don’t get cocky, you weakling!”

I was still in my winter uniform and feeling hot. The field was like a savanna with little grass growing. Heat haze rose from the ground. There was no sign of goblins around. For the first floor, you’d expect to see more, but they probably had a wide-range barrier set up.

I looked at the irritated-looking beautiful woman. There were five of them, but one seemed particularly unsettled.

“It’s alright, Ikemoto,” Onoda said with a smirk. “This guy really doesn’t seem to be thinking at all. He’s even dumber than Gotou.”

“Hey, hey, Onoda,” Gotou protested. “What do you mean ‘dumber than me’?”

Onoda and Gotou were grinning stupidly. Ikemoto and Gotou had even gone to the trouble of putting on proper equipment. Gotou, who had always been well-built, looked like a heavy infantryman who had invested everything in defense. Onoda, who had entered later, had started to don mage-type equipment.

“Hey, Ikemoto,” Gotou said, looking puzzled as if he couldn’t quite grasp the situation. “Did you really need to gather so many allies to face Rokujounokimi?”

“That’s right,” I chimed in. “Three against one is pretty pathetic, isn’t it, Ikemoto?”

“Keke,” Ikemoto snickered. “You think I’d send Onoda and Gotou away just because you said that?”

“No,” I replied coolly. “You’ll have Onoda and Gotou help you when you start losing to me, right?”

“Don’t be stupid!” Ikemoto snapped. “It’s not about getting help, we’re in this together from the start!”

His cowardly tactics were almost refreshingly blatant.

This guy had been targeting me since middle school, putting me through hell. I’d been bullied since elementary school, but Ikemoto was undoubtedly the most insidious and unpleasant of them all. It started with my erasers frequently going missing.

Then my indoor shoes began to disappear, and later I’d find lewd drawings on my desk. During those times, Ikemoto would always watch me with a smirk, and though I was certain he was the culprit, I had no proof. At some point, Onoda and Gotou joined in on the harassment.

I didn’t want the bullying to continue from elementary to middle school, and I had been working out, so I tried to resist. But lacking the courage to actually hit someone, I only talked back. That only made Ikemoto more determined.

Before I knew it, I was being openly beaten, and the more I persevered and kept coming to school, the worse the bullying became. I gradually stopped resisting, and after about half a year, I started hating school and often thought about dying.

I lived with frequent thoughts of killing Ikemoto and wondering if I’d be better off dead.

“Even if the three of you beat me, a level 7, you wouldn’t be happy about it, right, Ikemoto?” I said. “I’d rather you didn’t gang up on me.”

If they did that, I might really want to kill all three of them. Though preferably, only Ikemoto would die.

“Not at all,” Ikemoto replied with a grin. “I’d be thrilled. In fact, I love one-sidedly beating people to a pulp.”

Ikemoto always tried to assert his dominance by finding weak people and beating them. In our second year, though we were in different classes, it seemed he had found another weak target to bully in secret.

“H-hey, Kazuya,” Sakaki-san interjected, clearly trying to stop this. “Four against one with a level 7 opponent is just too unfair. Besides, I don’t understand why you have a grudge against Rokujou in the first place.”

I had misunderstood Sakaki-san too. She seemed to like handsome guys more than I had thought. She had been friendly with Ikemoto because he was the most handsome in our class.

And since my appearance improved, her attitude changed noticeably. But I’m sure her desire to help handsome guys was genuine.

What about me?

I fell for Misuzu, who was an exceptionally beautiful girl, rarely seen even in Tokyo, let alone at school. If Misuzu had been ugly, I probably wouldn’t have liked her. Both Misuzu and Evie cared about looks too. That’s why I didn’t dislike Sakaki-san’s obvious change in attitude.

“It’s fine,” Ikemoto said dismissively. “We’ll quickly incapacitate that weakling and feed him to the goblins. That’ll be satisfying. You guys don’t have any complaints, right? Hey, Onoda. The main reason you stopped going to the D-rank when I invited you was because you were afraid of Rokujounokimi getting revenge, right?”

Ikemoto looked at Onoda with a smirk. Onoda was the type who dyed his hair brown in a college prep school just to be popular with girls. He was quite clever, and his assistance made Ikemoto’s bullying even more insidious and annoying.

“Hehe, well, yeah,” Onoda admitted. “I’ve heard it’s common for people to level up in dungeons to get back at their bullies. We haven’t done anything that bad to anyone, so we don’t want to get beaten up, you know?”

They say that after all they’ve done to me. But somehow, these three seem to think it’s normal to do things that made me want to die.

“It’s the same for Gotou,” Ikemoto continued. “You want to get this over with quickly and feel better, right?”

“Well, yeah,” Gotou agreed. “Until Kyouka helped me level up in the dungeon, I had a pretty hard time in class because of Rokujou. It’s only human to want to return the favor.”

“Those losers in our class really piss me off,” Onoda grumbled. “Saying stuff like ‘Rokujou will definitely get revenge in the dungeon and beat you up.’”

Ah, I see.

When I entered the classroom, I thought there might be a commotion over how much my appearance had improved. Honestly, a part of me was looking forward to it. But nothing like that happened, which felt strange.

If the reason was that these guys, who had been treated badly in class, had leveled up and gotten back at our classmates, it made sense. They really were troublesome guys.

“Let me tell you something, Rokujounokimi,” Ikemoto said with a sneer. “It’s incredibly fun to beat someone who’s wronged you until they cry. I had the best time punching your annoying face every day. After all, I had to look at that irritating face of yours every single day!”

It was almost comical to hear Ikemoto say that to me.

“Ah, is that so? Sakaki-san must have a hard time too, huh?” I said.

“Ahaha, yeah,” Sakaki-san laughed nervously.

“What are you nodding for, Koharu? You want me to train you more thoroughly later?” Ikemoto growled, roughly grabbing Sakaki-san’s hair.

“Ow, it hurts. I-I’m sorry. That’s enough, please stop!” Sakaki-san pleaded.

“Tch. This girl’s always been swayed by handsome guys,” Ikemoto sneered. “Do you really understand? Who’s your master!?”

Ikemoto treated Sakaki-san roughly, as if to say she belonged to him.

“I-It’s you, Kazuya!” Sakaki-san cried out.

“You better understand that,” Ikemoto warned. “You’ll support us from behind as usual, right?”

“T-That’s… Even without me, it’s 3-on-1, so you definitely won’t lose,” Sakaki-san stammered.

“What!? Don’t tell me you’ve fallen for that guy!?” Ikemoto exploded.

“F-Fallen… I have fallen…” Sakaki-san admitted.

“Huh!?”

“B-Because I’ve never seen such a handsome guy before! Just looking at him makes me happy! I absolutely refuse to hit him!”

“You bitch!” Ikemoto yelled.

Sakaki-san sure likes my face, almost refreshingly so. But I guess it’s true. This face of mine must be quite handsome.

“Hey, Ikemoto,” Onoda interjected, acting high and mighty despite being nothing more than Ikemoto’s lackey. “Let’s just get this over with. It doesn’t matter if Sakaki joins or not, the result won’t change. I want to get this done quickly so I can hang out with Kyouka-san and the others.”

“Onoda. Haven’t you been getting a bit too cocky lately?” Ikemoto growled.

“I’m just being normal. Besides, it’d be bad to keep Kyouka-san and the others waiting. You’re the one who told us to call them,” Onoda retorted.

“Hah, whatever,” Ikemoto sighed. “Rokujounokimi. As you can see, it’s unfortunate that your face improved a bit, but for the sake of our peace of mind, die here.”

“H-Hey, are we really going to kill him?” Gotou asked, seeming genuinely scared that Ikemoto was serious about killing me.

“Of course we are, idiot. Look what explorers can do with just a little level increase,” Ikemoto boasted.

He kicked up a stone from the ground and unsheathed the sword at his waist. Ikemoto was wearing Western-style armor, clearly a swordsman like me. The tip of his sword wavered for a moment, then the stone split in two and fell to the ground.

“Hey, Rokujounokimi? Leveling up is amazing, isn’t it? You didn’t think you’d change this much either, right?” Ikemoto taunted.

“That’s right,” I replied calmly.

“It was close. If I had fought you back then, I might have lost. But now it’s different. You’re level 7, and I’m 15,” he bragged.

“Indeed. It’s so unfair it makes me want to cry. Ikemoto, don’t you feel pathetic?” I asked.

“Hahaha! No matter how much you provoke me, it’s use-less! You piece of trash! I’ve decided to only fight when I’m absolutely sure I’ll win! I was so happy when you invited me to the dungeon! If I killed someone outside the dungeon, I’d get arrested. But in here, it’s different,” Ikemoto ranted.

He understands that well. Even for explorers, the police don’t overlook major crimes like murder unless you’re around level 100. Even mid-level explorers can’t get away with killing multiple people. But inside dungeons, the police rarely intervene unless something extraordinary happens.

“So it’s okay to kill people in here?” I asked.

“That’s right,” Ikemoto confirmed.

“Ikemoto. You must be really scared of me after all,” I said.

“I told you that’s not it! Are you deaf!?” he yelled.

Despite his excessive show of force, I continued speaking, ignoring Ikemoto’s outburst.

“I’ve been thinking about you far more than the girl I like, so I understand everything about you. Shall I guess why you’re so wary of me?” I offered.

“What are you talking about? Wary? No, I just want to beat you to a pulp one-sidedly for fun,” Ikemoto insisted.

“You think I’m acting creepy, don’t you?” I asked, emphasizing each syllable.

“Not at all!” he denied.

“We definitely have the advantage. Even without Sakaki-san, who likes handsome guys, there are still three of us. There’s no way we can lose. But why does Rokujou look so relaxed? What’s he aiming for? Kyouka-san and the others are here too. Nothing unexpected can happen in this situation. So why isn’t he scared like usual? Am I wrong?” I mimicked his thoughts.

“S-Shut up!” Ikemoto snapped.

“You’ve realized you’re being treated as a dungeon pet, haven’t you? Onoda probably noticed too, but he’s accepted it. He thinks it’s not so bad. Gotou is just an idiot. But you’re different. You’ve been irritated every day lately, haven’t you?” I pressed on.

“Huh!? What are you talking about!?” Ikemoto shouted.

“You’re just pitiful. I’ve been thinking about your current status all this time. If you’re a dungeon pet, you probably haven’t been given the best leveling opportunities. Right, Kyouka-san, was it?” I turned to address the visibly irritated woman.

She was probably the leader, and her face showed she understood how troublesome explorer fights could be. Her hair was cut shorter than most men’s these days.

“Tch, oh man. I knew he’d bring trouble,” she muttered.

Despite her extremely short hair and nearly flat chest, she was beautiful. If she hadn’t been wearing a skirt, she might have been mistaken for a man. Ignoring my question, she kicked the ground, leaving a significant gouge. Just like Hazumi. She must be over level 200.

“Kazuya! Didn’t I tell you not to mess with explorers of any level?” the short-haired woman shouted.

“Huh? Who do you think you’re talking to, you sex-crazed woman?” Ikemoto snapped back.

“I’m talking to you! You idiot kid!” she retorted.

The short-haired woman was visibly irritated. However, I thought, if that’s the case, they could just keep Ikemoto in the dungeon, even if they continued to level him up. No, maybe the dungeon is stricter about such things than I had imagined.

Perhaps if it’s determined that they’re confining someone in the dungeon, these women might lose their ability to enter and exit as well. Well, it doesn’t matter. The reasons don’t matter. They’re at fault for not properly training their pet.

Still, I honestly thought it would be okay. I thought they would kill Ikemoto if they couldn’t educate him. But these people, they couldn’t quite bring themselves to be that evil. Heh, they’ve gone to such lengths only to do things halfway.

But I’m glad. Thanks to that, I can properly kill Ikemoto myself.

“H-Hey, Kyouka. We decided to go easy this time, remember?” one of the women said nervously.

“That’s right. We don’t want to be hated again. Even if there’s a bit of risk, I don’t want to be called a ‘monster woman’ anymore,” another chimed in.

“Yeah, how many times has this happened now?” a third added.

“I intended to do that too. But it’s no good. My danger sense is going crazy. I absolutely didn’t want to come here. But I knew terrible things would happen if I didn’t. Tch,” the woman called Kyouka grumbled, kicking the ground repeatedly in frustration.

“Hey! That’s enough!” Ikemoto shouted. “I’m seriously getting angry now! Who do you think has been dealing with you lot when no other man would?”

“Who? Tell me,” Kyouka demanded coldly.

“What do you mean?” Ikemoto asked, confused.

“From your tone, it’s clear you understand what’s going on,” Kyouka said, turning to address me instead of Ikemoto. “There’s no way a level 7 kid would trigger my danger sense this much. Come on, spit it out.”