Hazure Skill ‘Mapping’ wo Te ni Shita Ore wa, Saikyou Party to Tomo ni Dungeon ni Idomu Chapter 10

Chapter 10
Chapter 10 – Thrust blade

Translator/Editor: Mana
Special Thanks: Rinkage

“Force! Please wake up!”

It was a dimly lit morning, before the sun had risen. I knocked on the door to Force’s room. Force’s weak groan could be heard from the other side of the door.

“…Not happening. Headache. I’m gonna pa.s.s today.”

“Huh? What’s with that… Is something wrong?”

“I was drinking with a woman. Until late last night. With a woman! Just the two of us!”

“Stop emphasising the fact it was with a woman. It’s irritating.”

“Oh, jealous? You can be cute sometimes, Note.”

“I’m going to break this door…”

“Hey, don’t! At any rate, I’m not going today! Just take Neme with you and run inside the town!”

Force showed no sign of coming out. I didn’t want to waste any more time trying to negotiate for nothing, so I left Force’s room behind me and walked away. Perhaps I should just take Neme like Force said, and run through the inside of the city where no monsters would appear…

I felt a little ashamed of my lack of combat ability.

At this time, no one knew how much effect Force’s words and my choice would have on the tragedy to come…

“No… I don’t wanna go…”

Neme complained while draped over my shoulder. She still appeared to be half asleep, bundled up in children’s pajamas with her ruffled bed hair.

Dressed in that state, I left the house while carrying Neme and tried to run through the town, but she resisted and hit my shoulders with her small hands.

“Force is resting! Neme wants to rest too!”

“Please, Neme. Endure it for the sake of my stamina training.”

“I don’t wanna! I don’t like feeling sick!”

“You said you didn’t feel as sick anymore these days!”

“It’s just a little better! I still feel sick when you run!”

She was always like this when I tried to run with her. There was no end to how long we could keep bickering, so I just ran with her as is.

Usually, Neme would stop resisting once I started running, but today she refused to back down.

“Neme wants to sleep in like Force!”

She flailed her limbs everywhere, making me stop in my tracks.

“Please stop moving so much. It makes it hard to run…”

“I don’t wanna! I wanna go home!”

“You can’t, I won’t let you go home.”

“No! Let me go, you pervert!”

“Say what you want, we’re going to keep running.”

“Pervert pervert pervert pervert pervert pervert! Let go let go let go!” Neme wailed while flapping her limbs everywhere.

It really hurt my back and shoulders when she hit me that much…

“Hey, you over there. Stop for a second…”

“Y-Yes…? Can I help you…?”

Suddenly, several knights in silver armour appeared in front of me.

I really wish I wasn’t stopped so often while in the middle of a jog. Maybe something serious happened around here?

“Let go of that child!”

“Huh?” If you’re not reading on Binbogami WordPress, this is stolen.

The knights surrounded me, holding their swords out. Their expressions were dead serious. Their faces were grim.

It was as if they were trying to catch me—

“You sure have some guts trying to abduct a little girl in the town we’re protecting! You kidnapper!”

Ah… So that’s how it was.

I completely understood the situation. It was like this. The military police of this town had completely mistook Neme for a little girl and a.s.sumed I was abducting her when they saw her resisting while being carried by me…

Since we always jogged outside the town, I never realised how terrible the scene looked… Objectively, no matter how you looked at it, it was bad. This situation.

Not to mention today Neme’s resistance was much stronger than usual, drawing the military police towards us with her loud wails.

Sweating nervously at the false charge I caused myself, I glanced around at the surroundings. Despite it being early in the morning, curious onlookers were appearing one after another.

“You’ve got it wrong, Mr. Police! I’m innocent! Believe me! Right, Neme—”

I turned my head to look at Neme for help, but she was in an even greater state of panic than me. She was sweating like mad, her eyes were spinning, and her mouth was opening and shutting in her fl.u.s.ter.

Ah, this was that. She had completely entered her shy mode. Being surrounded by a huge number of military police and onlookers had made her panic.

I was counting on you to save me—

“For now, let’s have you accompany us to the station.”

I was promptly seized by the military policemen. They grabbed Neme, held down my hands and handcuffed them.

This wasn’t what I’d call accompanying! It was basically an arrest!

“Help me, Neme…”

Pushed down by a policeman and wheezing for breath, I squeezed out the last of the air from my lungs to call for Neme—

“Wawawah…”

And was met with the sight of a fl.u.s.tered Neme being guarded by a military policeman.

“Hey! Settle down in there!”

I was roughly thrown into a jail. My handcuffed arm hit the stone floor. It hurt a lot. The policeman who threw me into the jail immediately disappeared down the corridor.

Note Athlon, 16 years old. Arrested for the kidnapping of a little girl.

Who could have imagined such a future? I was only desperately trying to train for dungeon diving, yet I ended up a criminal. There should be a limit to how absurd this world can be.

As I lamented over my present and future situation, a cheerful voice came from the next jail.

“Hey, brother! You new here?”

“Well, yeah…”

“What did you do? This? Or perhaps that?”

Perhaps he was making some sort of gesture with his hands, but I couldn’t see through the wall. There was no point in ignoring that overly friendly voice, so I answered honestly.

“I was falsely accused of abducting a little girl…”

“Everyone who comes in here says ‘I didn’t do it’ at first… But you know, it’s better to be honest. You’ll get a lighter sentence if you’re honest and reflect on your actions…”

“Umm, I’m actually innocent though…”

“You don’t have to lie to me, you know…”

He didn’t believe me at all… It kind of made me want to cry…

There was no point in continuing to a.s.sert my innocence if he wouldn’t believe me anyway, so I changed the topic.

“So why are you here then?”

“A fight. Just a regular ol’ fight. I fought with a man who tried to make a pa.s.s at my girl in the pub yesterday, and now I’m here…”

He was only caught yesterday?! He was so full of himself, acting like my senior, but he’s only been here one day longer than me… this guy…

“Oi oi oi. Wait a mo’ there. I told ya that was my girl.”

This time a gruff voice called out from the jail in front of mine.

“Err… Who?”

“The guy I fought with,” answered the man in the jail next to mine. Then he continued.

“What are you saying, you simpleton! Rosalia is! Going out with me!” he shouted angrily at the man in the jail in front of mine.

As for the man in the jail in front of me, he scoffed at the excuse the man in the jail next to me gave—

“Rosalia’s in love wi’ me, ya mistaken fool!”

“What did you say?! I’ll kill you!”

“Tha’s my line!” Read at Binbogami for most updated version of the chapter!

The two of them scowled at each other—

I really didn’t like this jail…

“Please accept my most sincere apologies,” I said to Erin, who came to pick me up.

She apparently ran here after hearing the story of what happened from Neme, who returned to the party house in a panic. I was so grateful.

“Go home quickly and practice. You’ve lost a lot of practice time because of your idiotic blunder!”

“Yes, you’re right…”

I obediently kept my head lowered. Honestly, I couldn’t raise my head.

The time was already evening. Under normal circ.u.mstances, it would be the latter half of the ‘Trap Detect’ practice already.

“If you’re not going to put your heart into this, I’ll have you leave the party!”

“I am putting my heart into it…”

There was no need for Erin put it that way, so I felt a little annoyed. It wasn’t even my fault I was arrested…

“If you really did have your heart in it you would have busted yourself out of jail!”

“No, I couldn’t possibly break out…”

“Hah? If it’s the current you, then you could. If you can use ‘Trap Dismantle’—the higher cla.s.s version of the ‘Unlock’ art—then handcuffs and a jail should be a piece of cake, right?”

“Is that so…”

I had no knowledge of that…

Although I never even considered breaking out of the handcuffs anyway…

“But wouldn’t it be better to settle things peacefully than break out of jail and putting myself in danger?”

Unable to hold back my irritation at Erin’s lecturing, I snapped back without thinking. Seeing that, Erin let out a heavy sigh in disdain.

“It’s a waste of time to settle things peacefully. It’d be better to save every minute and second that you have…”

“Don’t we still have another five months before the deadline to go dungeon diving?　Wouldn’t it be better to avoid the dangerous option…”

As I was getting more heated up, Erin suddenly shot me a glare. Did I say something wrong…?

“I’ve been annoyed at you recently, but now I’m certain. You’ve been slacking off.”

“Slacking off?”

That couldn’t be… I was always serious. Even today, I was arrested as an unlucky result of trying to train against Neme’s attempt to sleep more, so why did I have to be told such a thing?

“That’s right. You’re slacking off. Because you just said it, didn’t you? That there’s ‘still another five months to go’.”

“What’s wrong with that…”

“What, are you planning on using whole five months!? You should be trying to finish your training as soon as possible so we can go dungeon diving!”

I was shocked at Erin’s words.

I suddenly understood it. Her reasoning. My slacking off.

It was true that I thought everything would be fine as long as I learned ‘Enemy Search’, ‘Trap Detect’, and ‘Trap Dismantle’ within the time frame. In the beginning, I was rus.h.i.+ng to find out if I had any prospective ability, but as I gradually got the hang of things I started to think ‘This is totally possible within the time limit…’ and became complacent with myself. I had stopped rus.h.i.+ng.

And that slack I wasn’t able to recognise within myself was completely seen through by her. Despite the fact I hadn’t noticed anything until it was pointed out to me…

It made me extremely frustrated with myself. Even though I joined the ‘Arrivers’ in order to change myself. Nothing had changed since I was with Miya. Since my past. I felt like crying over how I hadn’t changed, how I couldn’t change, how pathetic I was.

They said that people don’t change easily. They were probably right. Nothing about me had changed. About what I disliked the most about myself.

I wondered what I was doing.

After that, I think Erin tried to warn me about various things, but none of it entered my head. The only thing that swirled in my head was my doubts on what I should do. The aimless question of what I should do from here on.