Hazure Skill ‘Mapping’ wo Te ni Shita Ore wa, Saikyou Party to Tomo ni Dungeon ni Idomu Chapter 12

Chapter 12
Chapter 12 – Nickname acquired

Translator: Mana

“I’m getting sleepy…”

Over my shoulder, Neme yawned. Seeing her so carefree reminded me of the days where she hated being carried by me, making me smile at the difference in her now.

The reason why Neme could be this relaxed was probably due to the progress in my training. I understood that much, even though I usually had low self-esteem.

—Three months had pa.s.sed since the Little Girl Abduction Suspicion Charge.

Though it was hard to say myself, I was probably making progress. The simultaneous activation of ‘Enemy Search’, ‘Trap Detect’, and ‘Trap Dismantle’ that I struggled so much over in the beginning now came to me naturally.

In regards to ‘Enemy Search’, it was now standard for me to keep it activated during my daily life, and I was even able to detect the presence of harmless animals and humans now. Furthermore, I could roughly grasp the level of malice and strength behind the living things I detected with ‘Enemy Search’.

Doing so had shockingly changed my perception of the world, putting the information reflected on the map in my head a completely different league. While I used to be half doubtful of the compatibility of ‘Enemy Search’ with mapping skills, I now completely accepted this from the bottom of my heart.

Recently, I tried to keep ‘Trap Detect’ constantly activated like ‘Enemy Search’. Like before, I suffered at first, but once I got used to it it was a piece of cake. Now it was as natural as breathing to me.

Though there may have been no point to keeping ‘Trap Detect’ constantly activated inside the town where there were no traps, the accuracy of my ‘Trap Detect’ would increase, and I could feel the security systems and defence measures of the citizens across the town. For that, I kept my practice in the town up.

Though I’ve progressed quite a bit in comparison to my old self, there were still one or two points I wasn’t quite happy with at present…

“Yo! Sure workin’ hard, Girl Abductor!”

“Good morning, Mr. Girl Abductor!”

To my utter dismay, my nickname as the ‘Girl Abductor’ had spread. I really didn’t like it…

The nickname had gradually spread after my arrest on the suspicion of kidnapping a little girl. Because Force had started to skip the morning runs lately, I had to run in the town more, making the name propagate explosively.

“I really wish they would stop… Calling me a girl abductor…”

I muttered a complaint about the calls of the people in the town. Because of her shyness, every time someone called out to me Neme would panic over my shoulder.

“That’s right! Neme is a proper adult lady!”

Leaving aside whether Neme was an adult woman or not, our general opinion of wanting them to stop was the same. Since I had become used to running with ‘Enemy Search’ and ‘Trap Detect’ activated, with the seal of approval from Neme for carrying comfort, I decided to engage in some casual conversation to increase the difficulty.

“Neme. You know that nickname? Is there any way to change that?”

“I don’t think so. Originally, nicknames are naturally created when adventurers gather at a pub—it’s not something someone decides, so it’s hard to make them stop…”

It was true that when I was in the pub at Broad, there was a lot of gossip about other adventurers… I think I used to call adventurers by their nickname too. Rumours were hard to erase once they spread. This nickname probably won’t be stopping anytime in the near future.

Since even now, I was carrying a little girl like this…

Even so, it wasn’t like I could stop my training over something like a rumour.

“Seems hard to change… Come to think of it, do you have a nickname, Neme?”

I took the chance to ask something I had always wondered. To be honest, it was a question based on my wish for the other members to have a weird nickname like me.

“Neme is called ‘Fairy’!”

“A fairy, huh… How come you get such a nice and cute nickname…”

Neme looked a little guilty at the cold glare of envy I shot her way.

“Actually… I’m called ‘Little Saint’…” Neme took back her proud words in a sorry tone.

It was true that Neme was a saint, so the nickname of ‘Little Saint’ seemed perfect too. But for Neme, who was bothered by her appearance, that nickname probably wasn’t one she was happy with. She didn’t talk about it in a particularly fond way either.

“Well… as those with unfortunate nicknames, let’s get along!” I patted her shoulder to cheer her up.

Meanwhile, Neme seemed rather disgruntled, even though I was sympathising with her. Rather, it seemed like she was disgruntled about my sympathy.

“It’s better than ‘Girl Abductor’!” She said the taboo words. I started running while purposefully jolting my body up and down.

“I’m sorry! I was wrong! I won’t say it again!”

I was glad she understood. I calmly returned to my usual comfortable running.

“Neme wanted a cool nickname too… There’s a priestess like Neme in this town who’s called ‘Crusher’ or something, I want a cool nickname like that! Isn’t it unfair?!”

‘Crusher’, huh… For a healer role like a priestess…? It was questionable as a nickname…

“Do Jin and the others have nicknames?” This was a good opportunity to ask all the questions I had been wondering.

Neme touched her hand to her cheek and hummed in thought at my question.

“I dont think there was anyone else amongst the members who had a weird nickname like us… By the way, Jin is called ‘Black Shadow’…”

What… how cool. Unfair…

I also wanted to be called something like ‘Black Shadow’, not ‘Girl Abductor’…

Right. Underfoot. Behind the boulder.

Focus. As fast as I possibly could.

Cancelling the magic circle with the magic gathered at my fingertips, I intercepted the activation of the physical traps with the knife at my waist and dispelled the enchantment from the magic circle with my empty left hand.

“What’s with you! Geez!” Erin’s irritated voice of discontent echoed throughout the narrow cave.

“Umm… why do you get angry when I succeed at using ‘Trap Dismantle’ well…?”

As I questioned Erin’s illogical att.i.tude I deftly moved my right foot to dismantle another trap I had located.

“Erin’s just a bit shocked that Note is easily undoing all of her handmade traps…” Jin replied without missing a beat.

“It’s not that I’m easily dismantling them, I’m actually pus.h.i.+ng my concentration to its limits to clear these traps…” I thought unhappily as I stood right in front of the last trap in this area and began cancelling the enchantment.

See… even a complicated magic circle like this took as long as two seconds to cancel… I still had a long way to go…

When Erin saw that I cancelled the last trap, she growled in irritation. Meanwhile, Jin broke out in applause.

“Congratulations! You’ve fully mastered it! There’s nothing more you could learn from us about traps!”

While I was honestly happy at Jin’s words of praise, I felt rather conflicted when seeing Erin’s continuously menacing glare. For now, I should refrain from getting ahead of myself.

“No, I still have a long way to go… Just because I can do it in practice doesn’t mean I can use ‘Trap Dismantle’ properly when we really go dungeon diving…”

“No, with Note’s level of ability I don’t think you’ll have a problem with the dungeon traps.”

“I wonder if that’s true… Putting aside Jin’s traps, since he’s an a.s.sa.s.sin—being able to dismantle Erin’s traps doesn’t mean much, since she’s not even in a trap-making job…”

When I glanced at Erin, she glared at me with an amazing amount of hatred. It wasn’t like I meant it in a bad way… I meant in support of having her traps dismantled by someone as low as me…

Jin shook his head from side to side as if denying my words.

“Erin’s traps are top cla.s.s. She’s got the ‘Elemental Magic Apt.i.tude – All’ skill, so magical traps are her specialty… I don’t think you’ll find any enchantments more complicated than Erin’s in the dungeon…”

Was that so. Since I was acting confident about magical traps, she was mad at me for dispelling hers…

Well, at any rate— If this is not Binbogami WordPress then it is stolen!

I felt a little happy about her illogical rage. Because it was different to her cold, indifferent anger of the past… I could now a.s.sert that the relations.h.i.+p between Erin and I had gotten a lot better than three months ago, though not as close as when I first joined the ‘Arrivers’.

After the Little Girl Abduction Suspicion Case, she saw me unable to perform ‘Trap Detect’ and ‘Trap Dismantle’, worsening our relations.h.i.+p. In the one month it took me to get back on my feet, we didn’t talk to each other at all, only glaring at each other when we pa.s.sed by in the corridor. To be honest, it was pretty tough…

However, after I regained my pace and started improving my arts to the point that even I was surprised, the awkwardness between us slowly disappeared. Watching me seriously throw myself into practicing the arts made Erin realise that I was even more mad at myself than she was.

Even so, after taking such a cold att.i.tude to each other, it was hard to suddenly become close again. Erin’s reluctance to apologise sounded like she was saying “I’m still mad!” when she talked to me, but that anger felt a little unnatural, as if she was forcing it.

And well, wasn’t it a bit infuriating for me to be the one to approach her first? So we maintained a delicate distance between each other.

Perhaps, if either one of us folded, we could return to before. No, maybe we could be even closer than before…

“Note still has a long way to go… Don’t let him get ahead of himself, Jin. He’s only finished the first stage of practice…”

Sorry. We can’t get along after all…

Suppressing my annoyance at Erin, I turned to Jin to remove her from my vision.

“First stage? Does that mean there’s a second stage?”

“That’s right,” Jin started, then turned his gaze to Erin. Erin nodded, and as if Jin had been waiting for confirmation—

“From here on Note will enter the second stage of the arts practice,” he said.