Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?, Vol. 11 Read online

  Copyright

  IS IT WRONG TO TRY TO PICK UP GIRLS IN A DUNGEON?, Volume 11

  FUJINO OMORI

  Translation by Winifred Bird

  Cover art by Suzuhito Yasuda

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  DUNGEON NI DEAI WO MOTOMERU NO WA MACHIGATTEIRUDAROUKA vol. 11

  Copyright © 2016 Fujino Omori

  Illustrations copyright © 2016 Suzuhito Yasuda

  All rights reserved.

  Original Japanese edition published in 2016 by SB Creative Corp.

  This English edition is published by arrangement with SB Creative Corp., Tokyo, in care of Tuttle-Mori Agency, Inc., Tokyo.

  English translation © 2018 by Yen Press, LLC

  Yen Press, LLC supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact the publisher. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Ōmori, Fujino, author. | Yasuda, Suzuhito, illustrator.

  Title: Is it wrong to try to pick up girls in a dungeon? / Fujino Omori ; illustrated by Suzuhito Yasuda.

  Other titles: Danjon ni deai o motomeru nowa machigatte iru darōka. English.

  Description: New York : Yen ON, 2015– | Series: Is it wrong to try to pick up girls in a dungeon? ; 11

  Identifiers: LCCN 2015029144 | ISBN 9780316339155 (v. 1 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316340144 (v. 2 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316340151 (v. 3 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316340168 (v. 4 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316314794 (v. 5 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316394161 (v. 6 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316394178 (v. 7 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316394185 (v. 8 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316562645 (v. 9 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316442459 (v. 10 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316442473 (v. 11 : pbk.)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Fantasy. | BISAC: FICTION / Fantasy / General. | FICTION / Science Fiction / Adventure.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.O54 Du 2015 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015029144

  ISBNs: 978-0-316-44247-3 (paperback)

  978-0-316-44248-0 (ebook)

  E3-20180403-JV-PC

  Contents

  Cover

  Insert

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Character & Story

  Prologue: The Lost Ones

  Chapter 1: The White Rabbit Brought Low

  Chapter 2: Diverging Strands, Intersecting Plans

  Chapter 3: The Night Before Battle

  Chapter 4: A Skirmish in Daedalus Street

  Interlude: Three Orphans, a Cry in the Night, and a Bloody Maze

  Chapter 5: Ultra Soul!

  Chapter 6: A Deity’s Scheme

  Chapter 7: The Return of the Hero

  Epilogue: And So I Start to Run Again

  Afterword

  Yen Newsletter

  PROLOGUE

  THE LOST ONES

  In the passageway dominated by darkness, lights gleamed at regular intervals.

  The shining points continued along the walls into the distance, just bright enough to dimly illuminate the walkway. Every so often, a cool draft wafted through the gloom, making the lights flicker.

  A line of figures advanced down the corridor.

  One after another, strong shoulders and muscled arms bearing sheathed knives passed before the weak glow. The clanking of the fasteners on their armor blended with the pounding of their shoes and boots.

  They were adventurers.

  There were perhaps ten or twelve in the group, led by a dwarf with a helmet pulled low over his eyes. Each held a magic-stone lantern and used it to search the surroundings carefully.

  They were not in the Dungeon.

  The tunnel-like hallways they walked through were made of rock, hewn by human hands. Magic-stone lamps nearing the end of their life spans were affixed to the walls, while water rushed down the center of the passageway with a hiss.

  It was an underground sewer.

  “Prey is always first come, first serve. No hard feelings, right?” said an animal person in the group.

  “Just try touching one of my kills and see what happens,” an Amazon responded.

  The armor of each adventurer was engraved with a different familia’s emblem; they were a mixed-faction party. It was clear from the extreme lack of unity that the group had been formed in haste. The animal person responded to the uncompromising Amazon with spit and a curse.

  These rough, poorly behaved individuals were all experienced adventurers.

  Among them was Mord Latro, as well as the two human companions who always accompanied him.

  “Hey, Mord,” called one.

  “Are you sure this is okay?” asked the other.

  “What are you talking about? The guys from the Guild are leaving no stone unturned on the surface, but they haven’t found a thing. They must be in the sewers.”

  Mord had a rugged build and a fierce visage, with scars on his forehead and cheeks. He looked every bit an overbearing scoundrel. In fact, about two and a half months earlier, he had even tried to give a certain extremely fast-growing rookie an adventurer’s baptism.

  He withdrew a scroll from his pocket.

  “We’ll kill these monsters before anyone else can catch up. The prize money is gonna be ours!”

  The illustrations on the scroll depicted armed monsters, drawn based on what was known about them. Among them were a fiendish lizardman and a gargoyle.

  Three days had passed since the monsters appeared on the surface as a result of the disturbance instigated by Ikelos Familia. After shaking off the adventurers pursuing them, the escaped monsters scattered across Orario. Even now, they were hiding somewhere in the city.

  Guild Headquarters took the situation very seriously, ordering several familias to quickly subjugate the monsters and placing a bounty on their heads as an incentive. Tempted by the generous reward, adventurers abandoned their exploration of the Dungeon and were currently in a frenetic search for the monsters believed to still be on the surface.

  “No, that’s not what we meant, Mord.”

  “These armed monsters look really strong. I heard they even got away from Loki Familia…”

  “It won’t be a problem. The Sword Princess beat them up pretty good from what I hear. They’re probably so tuckered out they can’t even move right now. For a bunch of monsters that only know how to go on a rampage, they’ve been awfully quiet. I’d say that’s proof enough. It’ll be an easy win.”

  As Mord loudly guffawed, the men accompanying him exchanged uneasy glances.

&n
bsp; A group of upper-class adventurers from a different familia was also talking among themselves.

  “By the way…Did you hear the latest about the Little Rookie?”

  “Yeah. Townsfolk seem to be giving him the cold shoulder. He’s really done it now, eh?”

  They laughed as if they were recalling the scene.

  “He must have gotten a hankering for his vouivre friend. What an idiot.”

  “I think it’s because he let all that special treatment and flattery about being a record holder go to his head. Serves him right!”

  The adventurer had become a laughingstock—no more than an amusing subject for ridicule.

  Other adventurers listened to the disparaging conversation and joined the sneering.

  That was when Mord broke in.

  “…Hey, you! What’s so important you can afford to forget the business at hand?” he said, his scoundrel’s face twisting into an even grimmer expression than usual. “Right now, we’re a lot like him ourselves, I’d say! So stop picking on the Little Rookie!!”

  “Hey now, Mord!”

  “What’s the matter all of a sudden?”

  His companions rushed to stop him, but he flew at them, spitting.

  His outburst threw the party of unfamiliar adventurers into confusion.

  “That little brat attacked other adventurers because they were killing a vouivre. I’d say that’s going too far!”

  “Yeah, it’s…I know, it’s the debt! It’s all because of that unbelievable debt his familia has!”

  Their voices were choked with a mixture of scorn and hostile criticism toward the boy. Mord turned his back on them emphatically and began walking forward again.

  “What’s with him?”

  “Yeah, what’s his problem?”

  Mord could hear the murmurs behind him, and he snorted with irritation.

  Just when the atmosphere of the group was growing perilously stormy, the dwarf at the head of the line yelled out.

  “Stop.”

  The upper-class adventurers reacted in unison to his tensely spoken order.

  The dwarf was glaring straight ahead.

  Deep in the gloom, a pair of yellow eyes glinted.

  Then, with a fat, undulating tail covered in scarlet scales, the monster showed itself.

  “It’s…the lizardman!”

  “Finally showed yourself, eh!”

  No sooner had the adventurers moved into battle formation than the monster, clad in armor, charged toward them.

  “UOOOOOOOOO!!”

  The sturdy dwarf had braced his shoulders in an attempt to absorb the shock, but he was thrown backward by the frontal attack.

  “What…? What’s going on?”

  The shocked voices of Mord and the others rained down on the dwarf, who had become entangled with the adventurer behind him as he fell backward.

  Oblivious to whom he was attacking, the lizardman rampaged through the group.

  “Swoooosh!!”

  “Oooooooof?!”

  Along with its flashing longsword and scimitar, the creature also swung its tail about like a flail.

  Unable to defend themselves against their foe’s terrible battle prowess, the trampled party let out a series of screams. The tail hit an animal person, knocking him into the air so that he lost his footing and fell into the waterway.

  A spray of liquid blasted the adventurers, sending them running without a single backward glance.

  “Guess he wasn’t so weak after aaaaaaaaaall!!”

  With a chorus of wretched screams, Mord and the others fled at full speed.

  “…Mmmm.”

  A pair of pointy, misshapen ears quivered at the sound of low screams echoing in the distance.

  The dragon girl fluttered her ashen eyelids and slowly opened her eyes. She could just make out a dark stone ceiling above her.

  “Where…am I…?” she mumbled to herself.

  “Are you awake, Wiene?”

  The gentle voice had come from right beside her. Slowly turning her eyes in that direction, Wiene saw a beautiful siren with a relieved expression on her face.

  “Rei?…?!”

  As soon as she uttered the name of the siren, her fellow Xenos, the vouivre leaped up.

  “Bell! Where is Bell?!”

  “Please calm down, Wiene. Bell is fine.”

  Rei wrapped her wings around the frail body of the girl, speaking slowly to calm her frantic worry over the boy’s safety.

  “Really? Oh, I’m so glad…But when I was at his side, didn’t I…?”

  “Fels brought you back to life.”

  Wiene unconsciously touched her hand to the red stone on her forehead, tilting her head in confusion at Rei’s words.

  “Maybe it would have been best if she’d slept a little longer.”

  “Gros…?”

  It was the gargoyle, standing by their side, who had spoken.

  Wiene looked confused. A moment later, Lido appeared.

  “I’m back!” he announced.

  “Lido!”

  “Oh, you’re up, are you, Wiene? I’m so glad!”

  “Yes. Where were you just now?”

  “…I chased off some adventurers.”

  With that, he turned to speak with the black-clad mage Fels, who had come to greet him.

  “Are you okay, Lido?”

  “I am. Thanks to your magic, my body is perfectly healed. I can move around just fine. The adventurers came rather close, though. It would be best to move from here.”

  “Oh, I see…”

  Wiene did not know what to make of this grim conversation between Fels and the others. She looked around. They were not in the Dungeon or in Knossos, the man-made labyrinth that the hunters had brought her to. Instead, they were in a forgotten chamber of a sewer, where she could hear the sound of flowing water.

  About fourteen of her brethren were there with her, including lamias, trolls, and Lido. Even to Wiene, the group looked small. Timidly, she spoke up, her profile illuminated by the light of the half-broken magic-stone lanterns.

  “Where…are we…? And where are the others?”

  “…Let’s explain. Listen well, Wiene,” Fels answered.

  As the girl’s amber eyes shifted uneasily, the mage explained clearly and concisely that they were on the surface, where townspeople were chasing her and the other Xenos in an attempt to kill them. For that reason, they were moving around Orario so as not to be found. In the process of fleeing from the adventurers, some of the Xenos had been separated from the group.

  “Asterios, too, was unable to make it back to us.”

  “If only he were here, we may have been able to do something, but…”

  Hearing the unfamiliar name, Wiene followed the gazes of Lido and Rei. When she saw what they were looking at, she froze.

  A powerful jet-black limb had been set on the floor. It was a severed arm, the massive muscles practically as thick as Wiene’s torso. Now it was encased in ice to keep the flesh from decaying. The vouivre gulped at the sight, which spoke to not only the violence of the battle that had nearly cost Lido and the others their lives but especially to the importance of the minotaur’s presence.

  “To survive, the only choice is to return to the Dungeon. But the entrances to Babel and the labyrinth are all shut tight, so as matters stand, there’s currently no way to get back,” Fels said from the depths of the torn hood.

  Alone and unaided, surrounded by enemies on all sides. They were in the worst situation imaginable.

  The mage paused for a moment, then continued.

  “If we have one hope, it’s…”

  The whispered words melted away into the silence.

  Surrounded by her brethren, who were also now hushed, Wiene slowly looked upward into the darkness that enveloped them.

  “Bell…”

  He was born hungry.

  The first thing he did when he set foot there was to massacre everyone.

  Countless members of his familia wer
e present. They tried to attack him, and he was hungry. They showed him no mercy. He thought of them less than the morning dew. He beat them to death with his hands, stomped them to death with his feet, crushed them with his body. Within the boundless maze, he threw himself into endless battles.

  He didn’t know exactly when he first became aware of himself. There was a sense that it had been when he was born, but he also felt like it was long, long before that. That his self had hovered within some sort of dream. The one thing he remembered very clearly was the scene so vivid it had made him conscious of his self.

  He was still hungry for that feeling.

  Always hungry. Always fighting.

  Even when his skin was torn, his bones crushed, and his flesh melting, rotting away, he continued to move from one place to the next, slaughtering his familia members.

  The turning point came when he finally fell to his knees, bereft of energy.

  The figures that appeared before him at that moment were not his familia members but his brethren.

  They protected him and rescued him from the jaws of death. After bringing him to their home, they soothed his body.

  As they had helped nurture something within him other than hunger, he saw the brethren as a positive presence. They were also widely knowledgeable and taught him the true nature of his hunger.

  “It is a powerful yearning,” the fighter who was kin had said. “It is what you desire.”

  His yearning? He didn’t really know what that was. But he understood that it was his “desire.”

  In the dream that visited him incessantly, there was no sound or smell, only light. A will so strong his body shook from it, an ecstasy that filled his empty shell, something that affirmed his very existence.

  He learned many other things from his brethren. Wisdom, strength, and the use of weapons. Eventually he separated from them and once again threw himself into the place where he had been born. The far graphite depths of the Dungeon.

  This is not it. This is not it.

  Having learned the true nature of his hunger, he could no longer feel satisfied. Even if he honed his strength and massacred his kin, he would never be able to reach his dream. At some point, he even began to feel irritated. Perhaps you could call it impatience. His hunger grew and grew. He carried on the search for his dream and remained lost on his way.