Mob
Kousei No Ore Demo Boukensha Ni Nareba Riajuu Ni Naremasuka: Chapter #18
Translators: Nyx and Ririi Rain
Episode 18 High Income - Low Expenses = No Income
"Yo, that must have been hard. I got chills watching
this."
After my conversation
with Ono was over and I took my seat, the East-West combi was the first to
speak to me.
Nishida patted me on
the shoulder and said that, then Higashino laughe, saying,
"The rebuke you gave to Narikin was really refreshing.”
“Oh, oh... Um, you know..."
“But I didn't expect that Maro is an adventurer. I guess
that's what those part-time work days were all about.”
“When exactly did you start?”
I was about to say
that I was sorry for not telling them that I became an adventurer, but I was
swept away by the flow of the conversation.
I answered Nishida's
question,
"Ah, it was around the end of October.”
“It's really just recently, isn't it?"
“And you already got two-star? That’s amazing! I don't
really know, but it's a lot of work just to go from one star to two stars, no?”
“Ah, ah, there are many F-rank dungeons that can be
conquered in a day trip, but the E-rank dungeons require overnight stays. There
are also a lot of traps and such.”
"Haa〜,
that's tough work.”
“I guess there's no such thing as a job where you can
make easy money.”
“So, what kind of cards does Maro have?”
Nishida's eyes lit up
as he asked me that.
When I was about to
take my cards out, Higashino stopped Nishida.
"Come on, we'll be able to watch it on TV on
Christmas anyway, so let's look forward to it."
"Ah, that's true. Uh, but, is it okay? You ended up participating in the tournament as if Ono
was leading you into it."
"Oh, ...... I have to admit I'm not entirely excited
about it, but I also think it's a good chance."
When I said this while scratching my cheek, Higashino nodded
his head in understanding,
“I figured, ...... well, you're aiming to be a pro,
aren't you?"
“The guys in our class are just looking for some fun, but
we're really rooting for you. Good luck.”
“Thank you ......."
The heartfelt support
from my friends warmed my heart a little.
Even though I had
kept quiet about me becoming an adventurer, they still treated me the same.
They may be a dull bunch, but they are definitely a good bunch.
“By the way, do you actually think you can win at least a
little bit?"
"Even if you can't make the top four ......, can you
win at least two rounds?"
“You idiot! Stop
putting pressure on him. It would be a pity if he lost in the first round,
wouldn't it?”
“Oh, yeah, right, sorry, Maro.”
“You guys......”
My cheeks twitched at
my ruffian friends, who said they were rooting for me but actually looked as if
they didn't expect me to do much.
I snorted and smiled gruffly.
“Well, look carefully. I'll show you my power and what I
can do.”
***
"Uwaa~n! Renge, huhu~n, my classmates are being mean
to me..."
After school. As soon
as I arrived at the dungeon, I called out Renge and hugged her. I clung to her
as if to bury my face in her stomach.
Renge's eyes widened
in shock at the suddenness of it, but she seemed to understand the situation
immediately…
"This time I will allow it, Marodai1-kun. What happened?"
Renge said while patting my head.
"So-and-so, so-and-so."
I told her in order
what had happened today.
That when I went to
school in the morning, the atmosphere in the classroom was strange. That I was
exposed as an adventurer without permission. That the hateful people had gotten
involved. That I fought them off, but Ono, a central figure in my class, talked
me into participating in a MonColo tournament.
After hearing the
general outline, Renge said in amazement,
I see. So that's how you ended up participating in the
tournament. You really are an idiot, aren't you? You're like a pig that was cajoled
to climb a tree.”
"Don't say such things and help me! At this rate I
won't have a place in the class~"
“No helping it. In such a case, this is it2!"
Saying that, Renge
took out a straw doll from her sleeve.
............Eh?
I involuntarily became
confused.
“Oh the straw doll of zashiki-warashi~. ...... ……Om・Mahaashriye・Svaahaa3."
Renka did a D*raemon-style
voice imitation only at first, then she suddenly began chanting the incantation
in a low voice.
The straw doll seemed
to glow with a black light for a moment.
“Phew, now I've put a curse on the classmate who was mean
to Marodai-kun.”
“Yeah? Like what?”
“The curse of [Leaking Shit on a Crowded Train].”
........................
Scary.
Eh, it's not a real
curse, is it? Just kidding, right?
The cards cannot be
used outside of the dungeons, nor can it have any effect outside of the dungeons.
Experiments have proven that even if an enemy inflicts a status ailment within
the dungeon, it will be removed once the dungeon is exited.
No way, she is not
the rumored [Cursed card], and ...... it should be fine, right?
But I didn't have the
courage to ask the truth.
“Cough, well, enough of the jokes.
Now that I've decided to participate in the tournament, if
possible, I want to do my best to win.”
“That’s fine with me. But don’t you have the option not
to join in? Why don't you just ignore the guys in your class?"
"Well, it looks dangerous no matter how you look at
it. But to be honest, the prize is very tempting."
I showed Renge the paper on which the info from the
tournament website was printed.
“Let's see. The top four finalists will receive one of
the 16 D-ranked cards. The winner receives a trophy and a female vampire. I see
now ......”
“A female vampire is usually worth 70 to 80 million yen
if you buy one. If it had been a male vampire, or a C rank card, I wouldn't
have pushed myself to enter the competition.”
“If we win, we can move Eliza up in rank, right?”
“Yeah, I've been putting a lot of the burden on Eliza.
I'd like to reward her here.”
"I'm weak when it comes to Eliza. OK, I will
cooperate as much as possible."
"Ohh, thank you."
"So? Do you have a concrete plan?"
"Ah, let's start with the rules of the
tournament..."
I began to explain to
Renge.
The competition will
be held in a tournament of elimination style, and [standard] rules will be
applied to the match format.
There are three types of battles in MonColo: one-on-one (duels),
three-on-three (standard), and (expert) rules in which dozens of decks are
assembled to fight, with the [standard rules] being the most popular method.
In [standard rules], players
register a deck consisting of ten cards in advance. In one match, players
choose three cards from the deck and fight. There is enough time for each
match.
Defeat is determined
when the master receives a direct attack or loses all the cards on the field. If
the game is not decided by the end of the match time, the winner will be
determined by the number of surviving cards, and in the case of a tie,
technical points will be decided by the referee.
The only items that
may be brought into the tournament are magical tools. However, they may only be
used up to 5 times during the tournament. They may only be used during the
match. Simply put, potions are allowed, but not the tear spray.
"Well, in this kind of tournament format, it is
important to win without reducing the number of cards in your deck. It is also
important to know when to bring out the main members of the deck."
"Currently, me, Yuki, and Eliza make up three cards.
I think the point will be how to decide the remaining seven cards."
...... No, um,
Renge-san. We have one more regular in our group, you know.
“There are only twenty days left until the tournament. As
for me, I think it's tough to make all ten cards a force to be reckoned with.
I'm going to train the initial three cards to the fullest and rank up the Imp
to rank D. Then, I think it would be more realistic to fill in the rest with
E-rank cards that have special tricks......”
“Hmmm......"
Renge pondered for a
moment at my words.
“You know, maybe we could sell Amrita to build up our
forces?"
Ah I see. Of course
that question will come up.
No, I want to keep Amrita as insurance. In case that even
one of you ever lost, I want to sell it so that I can revive you.”
If I have 100 million
yen, I could revive everyone, including Renge. This was the main reason I
decided to participate in the tournament.
But that's only if
this is really Amrita.
Although it would
have been possible to find out in one shot with an appraisal, I had a sense of
danger that I might lose someone, so I purposely decided not to do an
appraisal.
“I see. ...... If that's the case, I ain't got nothing to
say."
After hearing my
explanation, Renge simply withdrew.
“All right, then, we're going to get busy. The goal is to complete
at least five E-rank dungeons!"
From that day on, our
days of furious dungeon capture began.
I bought information
on the dungeons from the guild in advance and chose E-rank labyrinths that were
easy to conquer because of their relatively few floors.
The reward for
conquering an E-rank dungeon is 20,000 yen times the number of floors. The
information fee is about 20,000 yen for a map, trap types, and information on
monsters that appear. Even in the shallowest dungeon of 11 floors, a fixed
salary of 200,000 yen is received per dungeon.
I spent one day on weekends
and two or three days on weekdays to conquer these shallow dungeons of 11 to 13
floors.
I would ride on
Yuki's back to save time and energy. Even so, the journey through the dungeons
was difficult, and I found that fatigue gradually built up in my body, even
though I was able to recover my strength with recovery magic.
Meanwhile, word was
gradually spreading at school that I was going to participate in the
tournament.
I could feel eyes on
me when I was just walking down the hallways, and I could hear people
whispering about me. I even had teachers telling me how much they were looking
forward to it.
Most of them were
curious and supportive, but a small percentage was malicious.
If I show an
unsightly appearance at the tournament, their invisible malice will actually
bare their fangs. The pressure seemed to be mounting on my shoulders.
I was not at ease at
school, and my exhaustion was accumulating.
Seeing me like this,
the eyes of my classmates gradually began to change.
At first, they looked
at me as if they were watching a guinea pig before an experiment or a clown
before a stage performance, but gradually they began to look at me as if they
were watching over me.
The first people to
approach me were the guys from the sports club, who taught me exercises,
massages, what fruits to eat, and other things to help relieve fatigue.
Apparently, they saw
me overlapping with themselves at the moment when they were pushing themselves
before a competition.
The East-West duo
also helped me out. They gathered information from the Internet on players who
said they were going to participate in the tournament, and compiled it into a
list along with other information such as what they had on hand.
The information about
my competitors, which had been unclear, gave me a clearer target. I was
especially intrigued by the cards of those who were considered to be the
favorites to win the tournament.
In this way, I had
broken through a total of nine E-rank dungeons by the time of the tournament.
The total number of floors was 106. The reward for conquering the dungeons was
2,120,000 yen, and 1,940,000 yen4 after deducting the information fee.
In addition, the
magic stones and magic tools obtained along the way, as well as unnecessary
cards, were sold together for 1,460,000 yen. Furthermore, the carbuncle garnet
fetched 2.3 million yen.
A total of 5.7
million yen. My total savings amounted to 6.6 million yen5.
This was almost the
same amount as the selling price of the card I was aiming for.
The name of the card
was [Empusa]. She is a dream demoness in Greek mythology, a beautiful woman
with legs of copper, bat wings, and donkey’s tail.
It is one of the most
popular D-rank cards, just because it is in the same family as the Succubus.
Thanks to this, it cost 6.5 million despite having no special skills as far as
I was concerned.
The reason I was
trudging through the labyrinth at such a high pace was because I really wanted
this card before the tournament.
Empusa is one of the
cards that enable imps to rank up.
The three mainstay
cards are too few to win the tournament. I really wanted to add one more card
there.
She who has synergy with
Renge, our biggest fighting force......
I decided to give her
a name after she moved up in rank from Imp to Empusa.
Her name is Mea. It's
an old English word for dreamer. I had been thinking of various ways for the
Imp to evolve, but since I decided to make her Empusa, I decided to name her
accordingly, since she was determined to become a Succubus.
This is her current
status:
[Race] Empusa (Mea)
[Combat Power] 205 (65 UP!)
[Inborn Skills]
・Sucking:
She can absorb and store the target's magic and life force.
・Invitation
to Dream: Can use powerful sleep magic.
・The
three transformations: Can transform from a beautiful woman into a dog, cow, or
donkey.
[Acquired Skills]
・Little devil’s heart.
・A single-minded heart.
・Friendship linkage
・Elementary wizard apprentice → Elementary wizard: Able to
use all simple magic.
Her combat power had
already increased by 65 because she was able to inherit the combat skills she
developed during her time as an imp. She also inherited all of her acquired
skills, along with her innate skill of [Apprentice elementary wizard], and she
was able to absorb the primary attack magic skills originally possessed by empusa
and grow her skills further.
To tell the truth, I
tried to rank-up an appropriate F-rank card to an E-rank card before ranking-up
Mea, but that one could neither carry over the combat power nor the acquired
skills that I had raised at all.
I had heard that the
succession in rank-up depends on luck and the degree of use, but it seems that
the degree of use is more important than I had expected.
I will use this as a
reference when ranking up other cards.
Anyway, I have done
all I can do.
All that remained was
to give it my all.
And so the day of the
tournament arrived.
---Monster Colosseum.
It is a new sport in
which adventurers fight each other using their cards.
It all started when
the Tokyo Dome was turned into a dungeon during the Second Angolmore.
The Tokyo Dome has a
very special structure for a dungeon, and only one dungeon boss emerges each
day.
Therefore, as long as
it is defeated first, there is no problem to hold any events, but it is indeed
impossible to hold events such as baseball in the dungeon, since the Tokyo Dome
has turned into a huge box.
As for baseball, a
new dome was to be built, but the Tokyo Dome, one of the symbols of Tokyo, had
to be put to good use somehow.
The governor of
Tokyo, who thought so, noticed that the Colosseum in Italy had also been turned
into a dungeon, and so, in cooperation with the Guild, he transformed the Tokyo
Dome into a Monster Colosseum.
Although there was
some criticism at first, this turned out to be a great success.
After all, the spectacle featured monsters that until a
short time before had been considered imaginary.
The scene of elves,
dragons, and other fantastic creatures killing each other, sometimes in
spectacular fashion, and sometimes with their fangs bared, sent people into a
frenzy.
"Gladiator",
which is broadcasted regularly on TV and airs every Friday night at 9 p.m., has
become a very popular program that continues to dominate the viewer ratings,
partly because professional adventurers fight each other until they run out of
cards.
Adventurers whose
lives revolve around colosseum matches are called 'gladiators', a name that
even derives from the show.
Other programs with
different concepts, such as "Catfight", which is limited to girl
monsters, and "Professional Champs", which is limited to three-star
adventurers, are also aired regularly on different days of the week and at
different times.
The one I'll be in
this time, [Gather around, student adventurers! Who
is the supernova?], was also planned by "Professional Champs" for a
Christmas special program.
In terms of
viewership, it was a behind the program of "Gladiator," but even so,
it seems that it's attracting quite a bit of attention because it's a fairly
aggressive project where high school students and younger fight each other to
the death, albeit in card battles.
A total of 68
students participated in this year's event for high school students and
younger. The number of participants was reduced to this number as a result of
students who announced their participation but did not show up on the day of
the event or cancelled their participation midway.
Considering the small
number of high school students and younger adventurers, it can be said that a
considerable number have gathered.
"..........................."
On the day of the
event. I was quietly waiting for my turn in a room at the Tokyo Dome Hotel.
As one would expect
from a Christmas special, the program had lavishly prepared a room in the Tokyo
Dome Hotel for each of the players.
I guess they didn't
want to cause trouble by putting the players in the same room with each other.
We were also
participating in the event at the risk of losing our expensive cards, even
though we were not paid for our performance. It would not be surprising if some
of us would do whatever it takes to win the tournament or at least make it to
the top four.
In order to avoid the
possibility of interference between players, the opponents are not even known
until just before the match.
Well, this was
probably also because they were not sure if the competitors would actually show
up until the day of the event, so it was not possible to decide in advance.
Around this time, the
artificial intelligence is probably creating exciting combinations based on the
inputted data.
I took out the cards
I was going to use in the first round.
The first card was
Eliza.
[Race]
Ghouler (Eliza)
[Combat
Power] 200 (60UP! MAX!)
[Inborn
skills]
・Living
corpse
・Firefield's
fool power
・Corpse
Eater
[Acquired
skills]
・Absolute
obedience
・Sexual
skill
・Pheromones
・Ambush
・Quiet
mind
・Protect
・Precision
movement: Enables more accurate movement.
・Music
performance (NEW!): Have a certain knowledge and skill in music performance
techniques. When specific actions are taken, a positive compensation is given
for the action
・Trap
Disarming (NEW!): Possesses certain knowledge and skills in trap disarming. When
specific actions are taken, a positive compensation is given for the action.
She has reached her
growth limit in combat power and has acquired the skills of [Music performance]
and [Trap disarming]. Although they are not skills that directly lead to fighting,
her many skills were of great help in my high-paced dungeon exploration.
In this tournament,
where direct attacks can lead to immediate defeat, she will likely be a starter
with her defensive skills.
For the other two first
cards, I chose the ones with excellent skills from among the E-rank cards.
[Race] Nightmare
[Combat power] 60
[Inborn skills]
・Dreamer's
Messenger: A dreamer's messenger. Able to use powerful magic power and life
force absorption only on a sleeping target.
[Acquired Skills]
・Presence blocking: Able to block out all
signs of life.
[Race] Sandman.
[Combat power】70
[Acquired skills]
・Sleeping Sand: Sand that
puts those it touches to sleep.
[Acquired skills]
・Status ailments enhancement:
Enhances status ailments.
・Preemptive attack: Strong
positive compensation for the first action.
When I was clearing
those E-rank dungeons, the most memorable enemy was this combination of Sandman
and Nightmare.
These guys had the
most excellent acquired skills among them. This Sandman put Mea, who had just
become an empusa, to sleep, and this Nightmare's [Presence blocking] could not
be noticed except by Yuki.
It is not a
combination that could be used over and over again, but I saw it as a good
enough first-time killer.
In my head, I repeated
the battle simulation over and over again.
It was almost
delusional since I did not know the strength of my opponent, but the purpose
was to enable smooth action by imagining the most successful pattern over and
over again.
At that moment, a
call came in on the room extension phone.
“Yes.”
“Kitagawa-san, please get ready for the upcoming match.
The TV monitor will show you your opponent and directions to the venue.”
“I understand.”
I hung up the phone
and turned on the TV.
My heart started
pounding.
What kind of person would my opponent be?
“————
What!?”
My eyes widened in
astonishment when I looked at it.
I couldn't believe my
eyes and checked the contents over and over again.
But no matter how
much I checked, the reality remained the same.
What was being
displayed on the screen was ----“Minamiyama”.
[Tips] Card Rank Up
Cards can be ranked
up by preparing higher ranked cards. One of the advantages of upgrading a card
is that it inherits the appearance, memory, and personality of the card you
originally used. Also, depending on how much you use the card, it can also inherit
its increased combat power and skills, but this also depends on luck. In order
to rank up, the sacrificed card should be unused (initialized), of the same
lineage, and of the same gender.
Example: Ghouler -> Vampire; Coosie -> Garm; Etc.
***
Notes:
1 -dai: An attachment to make the name seem more masculine↩
2 The same way D*raemon said it ↩
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