Even in a Dark Fantasy, You Still Have to Eat - Chapter 12

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Haruto

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Even in a Dark Fantasy, You Still Have to Eat ◈

Chapter 12: Special Reward # 2

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“Alright, gather around. Time to settle up.”

We pooled all the Ether in one place.

The pile of coins was satisfyingly heavy. It was quite a sight.

Clink.

Hammer counted the large bundle of money.

“The amount we earned from killing Octopuses and those Star Church freaks is... 2.27 million Ether! Hermit, how much is that divided by four?”

“About 560,000.”

“We earned 560,000 Ether each just from hunting small fry? And at Michanic University, not the Great Plains crawling with monsters?”

Hammer trembled.

It was hard to read their expression beneath the armor.

“I feel amazing! Yore! You’re a real lucky charm!”

Hammer reached for me, so I quickly stepped away. I had only just washed, and I didn’t want to get covered in tentacle fluid again!

“You little squirrel bastard! Come here! Want a kiss?”

“No! You stink, Hammer!”

“Oh? You little punk! You smelled far worse when you first got here!”

“That was then. This is now.”

“Got you, you little brat!”

In the end, Hammer caught me and hugged me.

Squish.

Damn it. I needed another shower.

“If we assume we pay half in tax, that leaves 280,000 Ether per person.”

Felix calmly finished the calculation as he watched the crackling bonfire.

“Hammer, from now on, wouldn’t it be better to increase how often we go out and hunt only small monsters instead of going after treasure chests?”

“Yeah. If Ether drops every time we kill small fry next time too, that strategy will be worth considering. Either way, we have more cards to play now.”

“I’ll register the skill book at the auction house.”

Whoosh.

Hermit tossed the red skill book from her pointed hat into the bonfire.

The book burned up in an instant.

My hair stood on end.

“Hey! Why are you burning that? Do you know how hard I worked to bring it back?”

“Do you think I’m stupid? Why would I burn a valuable skill book? I registered it at the auction house. Shamans are normally supposed to do it, but we don’t have one, so I did it instead.”

Interesting.

Was that bonfire good for everything?

“Bidding started at ten million Ether. In about half a day, we should get a rough idea of the price.”

Felix asked, “Hammer, were you serious about giving Yore your share of the auction money?”

“Yeah. Yore ran into another party this time and made it back alive, but there’s no guarantee that’ll happen again.”

Hammer explained why I needed to be able to pull my own weight.

Felix and Hermit seemed convinced, so they said nothing.

“The payment came through. Twelve million Ether.”

Coins poured out of the bonfire.

The golden sight was so dazzling that I felt an urge to strip naked and dive into the pile.

# # #

「Would you like to level up?」

「4 → 5」

「Ether required: 80,000」

「Would you like to level up?」

「5 → 6」

「Ether required: 160,000」

「Would you like to level up?」

「6 → 7」

「Ether required: 320,000」

「Would you like to level up?」

「7 → 8」

「Ether required: 640,000」

We each received 2.4 million Ether from selling the book at the auction house.

Hammer gave me all 1.2 million Ether left after taxes.

Using that, I reached level 8 exactly.

It would cost 1.28 million Ether to go from level 8 to 9.

As I seriously considered whether to spend my own money on that, Hammer shook his head.

“Let’s stop leveling up for now. At this point, getting new equipment is more efficient than raising your level. Still, level 8 isn’t bad.”

Hammer had said the average level for veteran Blessed was around 13.

Since the Ether needed to level up doubled each time, that meant...

“Does each person need to spend forty million Ether to reach level 13?”

Wow. That was the price of a car.

In Night Diver, spending that much would put you near the top. But here, it only made you average.

Then I wondered how much Ether Felix had spent to reach level 15.

While I was calculating, Felix spoke first.

“One hundred and sixty million. That’s how much Ether I spent reaching level 15. You were obviously calculating it, right? Thieves all think alike.”

One hundred and sixty million, fuck!

That was almost the price of a decent house!

Felix was a walking property deed!

Suddenly, he looked very tempting.

Anyway, leveling up felt great.

My body felt a little lighter too.

“Alright, everyone, go wash up!”

At Hammer’s words, everyone scattered.

I threw my entire pile of Ether into the bonfire.

Apparently, this let you store Ether like putting money in a bank account.

「Yore: 2,379,320 Ether」

This really worked!

Simple and convenient.

It reminded me of the old days, when I sold game money to fatten up my bank balance.

The difference was that I had to run around myself instead of controlling a game character.

Level 8.

Just in case, I went to the training ground.

I lightly ran a few laps.

“My body really is lighter! I’m not even out of breath!”

It was a strange feeling.

I never knew a world like this existed.

“Ghhh!”

But when I confidently tried to lift a barbell, it wouldn’t budge.

It seemed leveling up hadn’t increased my strength.

“Even in games, luck and agility mattered more to thieves than strength.”

It was a little disappointing, but people had different talents, so I could accept it.

After sweating for a while, I entered the bathhouse and found Felix washing up first.

Felix’s body was covered in tattoos and scars. It looked downright gruesome.

They looked like yakuza tattoos.

“Felix, what did you do to your body? What are all those drawings?”

“At my level, finding new idols and receiving their grace has a higher expected return than the power I can gain from leveling up.”

Ah, like the key tattoo on the back of my left hand.

Felix and I washed in silence, then returned to the bonfire room.

Hammer, whose armor had been cleaned and maintained, welcomed me.

“You’re back, Yore! Today’s a festival! Since you brought back Hermit’s hat, we’ve filled our quota, so we won’t have to pay taxes from tomorrow’s expedition onward!”

What? We didn’t have to pay taxes every time?

The thought of not paying taxes once we met the quota put me in a great mood.

Clink.

With the beer and meat Hammer bought, we partied all night.

After we had drunk quite a bit, Hammer asked me, “Now that you’re family, let’s have an honest talk. How did you end up with fourteen prior convictions by the age of twenty?”

“Oh, that. Most of those criminal records were unfair. I should only have had about three convictions.”

“What? Are you saying you were framed...!?”

Hammer’s loud voice made Hermit and Felix, who had been resting near the bonfire, look up.

It was embarrassing to tell this story in front of everyone.

I briefly explained how I had grown up in an orphanage, escaped, and ended up with fourteen prior convictions.

The story I explained most carefully was the one about stealing jewels when I was seventeen.

That one was the most unfair.

“I could have escaped just fine after putting the jewels in my bag. But I got weak from hunger and was caught by the guards. That’s how I ended up with about ten criminal records through no fault of my own.”

If my legs had been a little faster, I would have had only three convictions.

Of the roughly eleven times I was caught, most were because my legs were too slow or I was too hungry to find the strength to run.

It was truly unfair and regrettable.

Hammer comforted me after hearing my heartbreaking story.

“...Yore, your idea of what’s unfair is very different from ours.”

Then Felix quietly asked, “You said you were arrested by knights while planning to kidnap a noble lady. Was there a guy among that group of scum who had bells tied around his ankles?”

“Bells?”

Why would alleyway robbers tie bells around their ankles?

It would only make them noisy.

As I wondered about that, Hammer nudged my side.

“Felix has his own story too.”

After that, the mood at the party fizzled out.

I had drunk a lot of beer and really needed to pee.

As I headed for the bathroom, Hermit followed behind me.

“Why?”

“I wanted to thank you for bringing back my hat.”

“Oh, that. I really almost died.”

I hadn’t done it specifically for Hermit.

Our money had been inside that hat.

“You made another deal with an idol, right?”

Hermit’s voice was gentler than when we first met.

“I didn’t get the chance to tell you, but it’s not good to increase the number of idols you trade with too carelessly. Idols don’t feel only goodwill toward humans.”

“Is that so?”

Felix suddenly came to mind.

“Felix is covered in tattoos.”

“Right. It’s more efficient for him than using Ether to level up now. Still, it’s stupid. If you can’t handle your deals with idols, the outcome won’t be merely miserable.”

Hermit badmouthed Felix.

Was she still sulking because she was slapped when she lost the hat?

“So, rookie. Which idol did you trade with this time?”

“Sabranik.”

“I’ve never heard that name.”

“Actually, its name was really long.”

I explained what had happened.

Hermit couldn’t hide her excitement beneath her pointed hat.

“Could it be the Skull-Eating Evil Dragon? It isn’t an idol you see easily! If it’s real, that’s a major figure! As far as I know, it’s the idol the Emperor of the Abyss traded with.”

“The Emperor of the Abyss? That smelly bug?”

“...That’s a stink bug. The Emperor of the Abyss is one of the false emperors ruling the Land of Night. They founded the Thieves’ Guild, so they should be more famous among thieves. They were originally a level 20 thief too.”

I had never heard of them.

More importantly, level 20...!?

How much Ether would that take?

As I struggled with the numbers, Hermit summed it up.

“The point is, if you maintain a long-term deal with Sabranik, there’s a good chance you’ll receive blessings great enough for an ordinary thief to claim the title of emperor. It isn’t an idol that appears before just anyone!”

“Ooooh!”

“Could you tell me what it asks for in return each time you trade with it, and what the Evil Dragon likes? It’s not easy to encounter a major idol.”

Hermit seemed to like idols.

Was she an idol fanatic?

“More importantly, Hermit, I’m about to pee my pants. Can’t we talk later?”

“O... okay!”

Ugh, it was urgent.

I ran to the bathroom and tried to open the door.

Click, click.

“What? Is someone in there?”

...

“I really have to go. Could you open the door?”