Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?, Vol. 13 Read online

  Copyright

  IS IT WRONG TO TRY TO PICK UP GIRLS IN A DUNGEON?, Volume 13

  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. 13

  Copyright © 2018 Fujino Omori

  Illustrations copyright © 2018 Suzuhito Yasuda

  All rights reserved.

  Original Japanese edition published in 2018 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 © 2019 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? ; 13

  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.) | ISBN 9781975354787 (v. 12 : pbk.) | ISBN 9781975328191 (v. 13 : 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: 978-1-9753-2819-1 (paperback)

  978-1-9753-3077-4 (ebook)

  E3-20190207-JV-NF-ORI

  Contents

  Cover

  Insert

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prologue: You’ll Be Back

  Chapter 1: Young Cranell’s Case File

  Chapter 2: The Prophetess of Tragedy

  Chapter 3: The True Intentions of Gale Wind

  Chapter 4: Countdown

  Chapter 5: Calamity Arrives

  Chapter 6: And So They Spin Their Cruel Fate

  Afterword

  Yen Newsletter

  PROLOGUE

  YOU’LL BE BACK

  You’ll be back.

  Someone told me that.

  “It’s no good; I can’t find Lyu anywhere,” the human waitress Runoa said, shaking her head.

  She had just returned to The Benevolent Mistress, the bar on East Main Street. It was shortly before opening time, and her words caused a sudden uproar among the other employees.

  “Where could that girl have gone, meow? I’m sure she’s playing hooky. Unforgivable, meow…” the catgirl Ahnya complained, flinging herself onto the table. Her words, however, had no bite to them.

  “But this is the first time she’s gone off without saying a word, leaving only a letter behind,” Runoa said, gripping the piece of paper and sighing as if she was quite upset.

  Lyu had vanished from the bar.

  Without permission and unexpectedly.

  She had left a note in her room in the back building, announcing in her beautiful penmanship that she would be away for a while and apologizing.

  “She’s disappeared now and then in the past, but…this time…”

  Something felt different.

  The staff of The Benevolent Mistress had sensed it and had split up a little earlier to search for their elven coworker in her usual haunts.

  “She’s been really tense lately, you know? So tense that whenever I saw her…I felt uneasy.”

  “Hey, you blackhearted cat, watch your mouth!”

  “Whoops!”

  Chloe covered her face with a hand in response to Runoa’s reprimand. The catgirl had been narrowing her eyes and looking completely unlike herself, but when she moved her hand away from her mouth, it was wearing its usual smile, as if she’d switched personalities once again.

  “Meow…I’m just worried something happened to her, given she’s someone who has been forced to do work dirtier than cleaning the sewers, meow. Or rather, that she made something happen, meow,” she pronounced, swishing her cat’s tail and smiling inanely.

  Her worry was more premonition than insight—the premonition of one who knew about the past of the elf called Gale Wind.

  “Hey now,” Runoa said, scolding the catgirl’s half-joking words for a second time.

  She glanced at the corner where a girl with blue-gray hair sat wordlessly.

  Syr remained silent, an expression of intense thought on her face.

  As if to dispel the tension in the room, the two temporarily quiet catgirls began to chat noisily again.

  “While the white-haired one is holed up in the Dungeon, Syr is down in the dumps, meow! I’m sure it’s all one of his plots, meow!”

  “Definitely! It’s all the boy’s fault, meow! To make up for it, I’ll force him to let me bury my face in that ass of his, meow!”

  “You two are disgusting! What in the world are you talking about?” Runoa said.

  But even the ordinary scene of Ahnya and Chloe running their mouths and being scolded by Runoa didn’t bring a smile back to Syr’s face. That was because the serious elf, who always reproached the others so calmly, was missing from their circle.

  Suddenly, the door to the room opened with a bang.

  “What the hell are you idiots doing? Stop gossiping and get to work!”

  It was the dwarf owner of The Benevolent Mistress, Mia.

  Ahnya, Chloe, and Runoa jumped at their boss’s shout and scurried out of the bar like so many baby spiders.

  Alone now, Syr and Mia exchanged looks in the suddenly quiet tavern.

  “Mama Mia…Do you know something?”

  “If you don’t know anything, how am I supposed to?” Mia replied curtly.

  Syr was Lyu’s closest friend.

  The dwarf turned and left the bar.

  “That elf is a real handful,” she muttered on her way out.

  “Lyu…”

/>   Syr’s whisper disappeared into the hushed bar.

  Are you okay?

  I remember that warmth.

  I remember the hand the girl with the blue-gray hair extended to me.

  I remember the smile of the girl who brought me back to the world of light after I had wreaked my vengeance, driven by raging emotions and a misplaced sense of justice, long after I had lost my reason to live.

  She saved me.

  Those women rescued me—those catgirls who worked at the bar and its crazy dwarf owner.

  I feel as if that noisy, pleasant bar washed my body clean.

  My body defiled by blood and filth.

  My sky-blue eyes that had been burned to ash by the flames of revenge.

  If someone was to ask me now what the most precious thing in my life was, I’d probably say The Benevolent Mistress.

  That’s how sacred everyday life with those women is to me.

  All the same, my wounds never went away.

  The emptiness from losing my familia, which was as important to me as that bar.

  The palpable loneliness that would throb painfully at any chance.

  Although I closed my eyes to them, I knew the black embers were still smoldering in my heart.

  I would dream about it.

  The shrieks that filled the air.

  The horrible, piercing screams.

  The tears stained red.

  The violent last moments of those girls, once so beautiful and noble, kept rising before my closed eyes.

  On mornings after I had the dream, I fought to overcome the writhing of my terrible emotions and the unbearable sense of loss.

  My raging emotions were crying out.

  It almost seemed like I could hear the lingering regrets of companions, their cries searing my body.

  I would hold myself and dig my fingernails into the flesh of my arms.

  In the shadow of the gentle light that The Benevolent Mistress shone on me, a small darkness lurked. For the past five years, I have been bearing two emotions in my heart.

  So I may have known.

  I may have known full well that if the chance presented itself, the dam would break and I would transform into an unstoppable monster.

  There exists a certain dim underground maze.

  Cold drafts fill its passages.

  In that maze, there is a cesspool of Evil that the sun never reaches.

  What I saw there made my hair stand on end.

  “L-L-Leon!”

  A voice of despair.

  My name, drenched in fear.

  The men shivered as they looked at me.

  Time stretched out, and when the moment broke, the monster in my heart shattered its chains and roared.

  “Leon?!”

  I heard them call my name again.

  It may have been the last thread holding me back.

  But I shook off the voices of my comrades and surrendered myself to my raging emotions.

  As the men ran in a panic away from me, I pursued them.

  Wherever they run, whatever tangled corner of the maze they try to hide in, my desire will never stop screaming out within me until I pounce.

  The flames from the black embers are spreading.

  All too easily, they have transformed into hellfire.

  You’ll be back, Gale Wind.

  My heart told me that.

  And it was right.

  As long as I do not overcome my past—

  CHAPTER 1

  YOUNG CRANELL’S CASE FILE

  “It’s awful…”

  The adventurers grimace in unison the moment they see the scene.

  Reddish-black stains are splattered everywhere.

  In the center, sprawled like a doll, is a corpse.

  It’s the body of a fellow adventurer, pitifully shredded—or rather punctured—by countless stab wounds.

  I have no words as I stand rooted to the ground before this scene.

  “No way…”

  It’s Welf who spoke. He and the rest of my party have belatedly joined the group of adventurers who gathered after hearing about the incident. He draws his brows together as he lets out a groan.

  Our current location is the eighteenth floor of the Dungeon.

  We’ve returned to this safety point to seek treatment for the wounded members of our joint party—born from a faction alliance between Hestia Familia and several others—after we finally managed to overcome the Irregular moss huge we encountered in the lower levels, where we’d headed for our expedition. Right now, we should be planning a celebration to commemorate our safe return alongside Modi Familia and Magni Familia, who we met along the way.

  That plan, however, has gone out the window with the appearance of this dead body.

  “Oh yeah…it’s definitely a murder. This is the work of a human not a monster…”

  Bors, the head of Rivira, clicks his tongue as he stares down at the corpse. He and the noisy group of adventurers are gathered at the foot of an enormous island that rises from the marshlands on the outskirts of the town.

  He’s right. The wounds on the body are far too clean to have been inflicted by a monster’s fangs or claws. This could have been done only by an adventurer’s blade. Most likely, the lethal blow was what left a bloodstained hole in the adventurer’s neck.

  The entire corpse is covered in cuts that speak to the ferocity of the attack. There are wounds from a blunt weapon, too, including crushed bones and broken limbs. The bloodshot eyes are wide open…as if the adventurer had come face-to-face with something terrifying but was unable to do anything to fend it off.

  “Ugh…” Haruhime groans, pressing a hand to her mouth.

  “Please don’t look, Lady Haruhime,” Mikoto says, wrapping her arms around her friend’s shoulders and blocking the horrible sight from her view.

  Caught up in the wall of spectators, Lilly and Aisha exchange grim glances. Nearby, Ouka is standing tight-lipped while Daphne frowns. But the healer Cassandra is paler than anyone.

  “Hey, Bell, are you okay?” Welf asks, sounding worried.

  “…”

  I can’t find the words to answer him. I’m just staring in a daze at the adventurer’s corpse.

  My heart is beating uncontrollably.

  Of course I’m shaken. Being at the site of another adventurer’s death—at the scene of a murder—is a huge shock to body and soul.

  But just as powerful is the feeling of dread that dampens my cheeks with clammy sweat.

  “It was Gale Wind! She was here! She did this…!”

  My breath catches at those words.

  Yes, indeed, the name causing all this uproar among the adventurers is none other than Gale Wind.

  “I saw it! I saw a hooded elf stab Jan like a crazy person and then run off!” screams the male werewolf, a resident of Rivira and the first to discover the corpse.

  As he speaks the name of his deceased acquaintance, he hugs the body, drawing the gazes of Bors and the gathered adventurers.

  “I’ve seen Gale Wind once before, with a bunch of Astrea Familia members. Those guys were as strong as monsters. Her face was hidden the whole time…but the sky-blue eyes I saw deep inside the mask were the same eyes I saw today!”

  Perhaps because he is reliving the experience, the werewolf adventurer is shaking from head to toe as he speaks.

  There’s no doubt about it—the description matches hers.

  But I still can’t believe it.

  I don’t want to believe it.

  How could Gale Wind—how could Lyu—do something like this?

  “I’m sure of it! Gale Wind killed Jan!” the werewolf shouts.

  Just as I’m about to shoot back, “Wait a minute now!” another adventurer speaks up.

  “Now that you mention it…I saw someone in a mantle running across the fields.”

  “Oh, me too! They went straight to the Central Tree…and down onto the floors below!”

  I lose my chance to interject as the witness
es speak up one after the next. It seems that multiple adventurers saw someone who looked like Gale Wind from various vantage points in Rivira, which is carved into a cliff and has excellent views of the surrounding terrain. Lilly, Welf, Mikoto, and Haruhime—all who know about Lyu’s background—are stone-faced.

  For some reason, Aisha is silent, too.

  “…But didn’t Lady Leon of the Gale Wind die five years ago? And even if she’s still alive, why would she be causing trouble now?” Mikoto asks. She’s among those who were won over by Lyu’s struggle, and she’s made up her mind to express her doubts.

  “…I’ve heard rumors that the Guild and Loki Familia are planning a large-scale operation in the near future. Word on the street is that they discovered the secret hideout of the Evils’ Remnants,” Bors says in an uncharacteristically serious tone.

  The words secret hideout give me an idea.

  Knossos, the man-made dungeon.

  The violent hunters who captured Wiene and the other Xenos were using that awful place as a base camp. It’s a real incubator of Evil.

  There is definitely some connection between the Evil that grew rank in Orario five years ago and Lyu, who was a member of Astrea Familia. I heard it from the elf herself on this very same eighteenth floor.

  “If Gale Wind is alive and taking advantage of this new campaign by the Guild to become active again…this could all make sense.”

  “…!”

  “Gale Wind is a crazy adventurer, driven by hatred for those who killed her familia members to crush anyone suspicious without giving them a chance to argue back. She’ll kill anyone she deems to fall in the gray area…including merchants and Guild members,” Bors continues, crossing his arms and gazing around at the crowd.

  “Plenty of residents of this town know all about Evil. Actually, everyone here is a shady character. We’re here in this Rogue Town because we couldn’t make it on the surface with the Guild’s crackdowns, and we had no other choice.”

  I’ve heard about the underground markets that exist here in Rivira, beyond the Guild’s oversight, engaging in rampant illegal trading with adventurers. There are rumors that it’s possible to buy illegal goods and even rare items like Status Thief, which is made from the ichor of deities. It goes without saying that it’s all a gray so dark it’s almost black.