The four of us placed our phones in the room and entered PD together.
Inside, we found Danpon, sitting alone and playing a game that looked suspiciously like Pokém〇n Silver.
Mikoto wasn’t there, probably stuck in the Kyoto Dungeon as usual.
「W-wh-wha-what’s this!? You brought even more people this time, Taira!? You’ve gone too far desu yo!」
Danpon, who was rarely ever upset, was now visibly angry.
Had we pushed things too far this time?
「I mean, I married all of them.」
「Oh? In that case, it’s fine.」
Danpon’s fury vanished as quickly as if it had been doused in liquid nitrogen.
Rules and logic retreated before the bizarre.
「Wow, so this is the famous Danpon. It’s my first time seeing you in person. I’m Oshino Hime.」
「Nice to meet you! I’m Makino Milk.」
「Oh! I forgot to introduce myself earlier. I’m Azuma Ayame.」
「I already know who you all are. Taira’s talked about each of you. Areh? But isn’t someone missing?」
「「「Someone missing?」」」
「Yeah, someone called Mizuno-san! I’ve heard so much about how Mizuno-san is such a good person! In fact, I’ve only mostly heard about Mizuno-san!」
Danpon’s words sent an awkward chill through the air.
I felt three pairs of eyes turn toward me, their gazes sharp.
Wait, wait! Sure, Mizuno-san is a great person, but I don’t remember talking about her that much!
「Danpon, there’s no way I talk about Mizuno-san that often, right!?」
「Huh? It wasn’t you—it was Kuro who said all that.」
Oh. Kuro. That made sense.
I spent most of my time with Mizuno-san when I was with Kuro.
Of course, Kuro would talk about her a lot.
「Hey, Danpon, are there showers or beds here? Or a changing room?」
Hime asked, glancing around the space.
No way there’s anything that convenient.
If there were, I’d have already used them.
「There’s no changing room. Showers are free, though. Baths and overnight stays cost extra.」
「Wait, there are!?」 I
「It’s listed on the service menu I showed you before, Taira.」
Danpon said, handing me the paper.
It’s the one he showed me before.
I glanced over it. It listed services like stamina recovery, magic recovery, and weapon repair.
「Hee, that’s a handy set of services.」
「It could be really useful for leveling up magic proficiency.」
「But I don’t see anything about showers or beds here?」
「Look in the bottom-right corner.」
I followed the instruction and, sure enough, in tiny, almost illegible text, it said:
【Accommodation, showers, baths, saunas, toilets, laundry, delivery services, telegrams, and various document applications are available upon consultation. 】
「It was there all along!?」
Seriously, who would’ve noticed that microscopic text?
「Showers and toilets, along with document services, have always been free to use. But we do ask for a DP donation to help cover cleaning costs.」
「Now that you mention it, I did see a lot of things when I went into the back room earlier.」
Ayame said.
Wait, what? I’d always assumed the back room was Danpon’s private space. All this time, whenever I had to spend long hours in a dungeon, I’d been going back home for bathroom breaks, earning suspicious looks from my mom for what she called my ‘frequent urination problem’.
「What’s with all those D-cans? There are five piles of them.」
「Those are from Gyuuzou-san. I’ve sorted them into four groups based on how difficult they are to open. Starting from the left, they get harder to open, and the last one is already opened.」
「That one over there’s open.」
Eh? That’s a Level 3 can—its opening conditions were so tricky that I never intended to even try opening it.
One of the conditions was what Mizuno-san was currently working on, like catching all 150 Pokém〇n.
I used detailed appraisal to check the conditions again.
【Opening Condition: Be proposed to by multiple women. 】
There it was!
I remembered now—there had been a can like that.
I’d thought there was no way I’d ever meet such a condition in my life. But to think it actually happened…
Inside the can was a beautifully adorned jewelry box studded with gems.
【Luxurious Treasure Box: The contents change based on specific conditions. 】
What kind of conditions?
I used detailed appraisal again.
【Specific Condition: The number of people you’re married to. 】
So, the more marriage partners I have, the better the contents?
Since our current situation would end after we cleared the Black Dungeon, now was the best time to open it.
I opened the box.
Inside were four skill beads.
It looked like there was one for each of us.
「Let’s each take one and be careful not to bite down on it.」
After we all consumed our beads, Hime spoke up first.
「The skill I got is… what’s this? How do you read it?」
「It’s called Kinshitsu Souwa*. It refers to the harmony between two instruments—the qin and the se. The qin is a small zither, and the se is a larger one. Since they sound best when played together, the phrase symbolizes a harmonious relationship, like that between a husband and wife.」
Milk explains.
I was impressed.
I had no idea schools taught stuff like that.
「It’s a rare skill that does nothing on its own. But when people with the same skill are in a party, it activates.」
「And what’s its effect?」
Hime responded to my question.
-0-
We began our level-grinding session.
We were waiting for Mizuno-san to deliver the growth rings and ribbons she was holding for us, which would arrive in a few hours in real-time.
In the meantime, we decided to get some practice in by moving to the eighth floor of the Shiramaha Dungeon, a location we often used for training.
「This is amazing. In most dungeons, you’d spend ages just looking for monsters, but here, they just keep appearing.」
Hime commented as she smashed a mimic pretending to be a treasure chest.
「For someone like me or Ayame, who relies heavily on magic, this might be a bit exhausting.」
「We’ll have to rely on Danpon-san’s magic recovery service wisely.」
「Yeah. I think our goal should be to break through at least twenty floors together.」
Normally, in PD, you can only replicate floors you’ve already been to. However, with the manager’s permission, you can explore even deeper floors. For example, in Stone Stage Dungeon, I was granted access to floors I hadn’t visited yet because I earned the trust of the overseer by defeating the Bite Wolf.
And now…
「Mikoto, you really left us a fantastic parting gift.」
I muttered to myself.
Danpon had told me that we could access up to the 20th floor of the Kyoto Dungeon.
It seemed like Mikoto, the Kyoto Dungeon’s overseer, had given her permission.
Could it be that Mikoto had anticipated all of this from the start? The way things were falling into place almost made it seem that way.
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