I took a girl outside the fence.

What's your name?
It's Alice.
I see. I'm Ryota Sato. It's nice to meet you.
Yeah!
All right, first I need to introduce you to my people. And convince them.

　I didn't want to give it to that man from the black company itself, so I impulsively joined him, but now, how do I convince him?
　I can't really imagine people disagreeing with me, so I'll just take him home and talk to him straight.

Two low levels.
What?

　Eve appeared out of nowhere.
　She was dressed in a bunny suit and a bunny mimi, and she was staring at me and the others with her usual ennui - but her eyes gradually turned to Alice alone.

"I don't like low-level--
No, no!

　I stepped between her and Alice and took the chop instead.
　There was a pecking sound and I was kind of sore.

'Low level disturbance.'
I'm not trying to get in your way, just don't chop at strangers or anything.
But I hate low levels.

　It's true that Alice is a low level. The upper limit is 2 and probably 1 now, so she's a low level anyway.

"But no, if I chop her up, she'll be out of carrots for a year.
-Oh!

　Eve despaired.
　She slumped to the ground in an orz, and her wispy skin hung down without power.
　The threat was so effective that I became impatient.

Oh no, it's the opposite of depressing me that much. If you don't do it to her, I won't do it to you without a carrot.
Really?
Yeah, unless you do.
I'll hold out for the carrot.
Yeah, okay.

　Eve stood up quickly.
　And then she gave me a very fast (...) chop while she did it.
　Well, as long as it's okay with me.

"Hey, I want this girl in my group, okay?

　Eve looked at Alice.

"Do you like carrots?
Sorry, I'm not a big fan of carrots.
Okay, then.
You sure?
We won't be fighting for it.
'I see, that's what I meant. Then that's fine for Eve, but I'm not sure about the other two.
Persuade.
Yeah?
Give me a carrot and the rabbit will convince you to do it for me.

　Eve looked at me.
　With a hell of a glitter in her eyes.
　This is more like ...... eyes begging for carrots.
　I don't think Emily and Celeste would disagree, and it's not like Eve's persuasion would make them better than me.
　You can't beat this begging eye.

'Okay, if I can convince you two, you can eat all the carrots you want for the whole day.
'Leave it to me, and even if the heavens and the earth were to turn upside down and the stars were to spill over, I would definitely try to convince them.
'You're strangely poetic on top of your usual eloquence!

　Eve was like, HUNGER, and then she left.
　As usual, you're wasting your enthusiasm when carrots are involved.
　The enthusiasm is a bit scary, but for now, I'll leave it to you.

　Apart from convincing Eve to go along with it, I have a lot of work to do later on.
　For now, we'll let Eve do the carrots.
　After Eve was gone, I turned to face Alice again.

'Shall we go to the dungeon?'
Really?
You remind me of Eve. You like dungeons that much?
'Yes!　I was born in a dungeon.
Born in a dungeon?
The mother who got pregnant with me was working in the dungeon and had an accidental birth, so I wanted to go to the dungeon someday. I've always wanted to go in a dungeon.
You didn't just pop up in a dungeon, you know, like in a dungeon or something while you're working on ......

　No. Hatake?
　Cyclo is aka agricultural city, all the vegetables are dropped in there.
　It's like a field in a way.

　　　　　☆

　I came to Nihonium.
　We chose this place because it's unobtrusive.
　This dungeon, which is deemed not to have any drops at all, is only for people like Margaret and her friends who are aiming for "air".
　Normally, it's completely uninhabited.

　I paused in front of the now board at the entrance.

'Touch this.'
Okay.

　Alice did as she was told and operated as she was told. A status appears.

---1/2---
Level: 1/2
HP F
MP E
Power F
Strength F
Intelligence E
Spirit E
Speed F
Dexterous F
Luck D
--------- ...

---2/2---
Plants F
Animals F
Minerals F
Magic F
Characteristic E
--------- ...

This is Alice's current status?
Yeah, well, it's my second time.
Is that so?
Yeah, I haven't had one of these in the village and I haven't used one since I moved to Ciclo.

　I took a closer look at Alice's status as she spoke so.

　To be honest, the status was one word: Despair.
　Her level has an upper limit of 2, and her abilities are mostly E or F.
　There's also only one drop that has an E and it's not the so-called 'F final', but since the plant is an F, it doesn't make sense with Cyclo.

　I can see why so many people have asked me to join them, but I kept getting rejected.

　I've given it a lot of thought.
　It's the last thing I'd ever do.
　Raise one level, feed him one Hagremonos magic fruit to learn two spells, and then give him a drop-boost with equipment and medicine.
　That's about it.
　If you do that, you should be able to fight in dungeons reasonably well.

''What's wrong?''
No, I was just making a plan. Let's just go inside. Let's level up.
Yeah!

　　　　　★

　The basement level of the Nifonium was unoccupied today.
　I wondered if Margaret and the others were in air production, but they weren't there either.

'Wow. ......'
What's going on?
That's awesome, dungeons are awesome.
Great?
'Yes!　It's very calming.
This is the kind of place I'd feel comfortable in: ......

　I didn't have that feeling.
　There are different types of dungeons.
　Nifonium looks like a limestone cave, a cavernous place full of pillars of rock from the ground and ceiling.
　I've never felt at home here before.

And this air is very nostalgic.
Maybe it's because I was born in the ...... dungeon.
'I know!　I'm still glad I came to the dungeon: ......

　Alice huffed and then murmured with emotion.

'Now then, let's go slay the monster.
Okay, this way.

　Alice suddenly turned herself around and started walking without hesitation.

'Huh?'
'What?　Can't we go this way?
No, no, no, no. Why not you?
Because there are a lot of monsters over here.

　I know the Nifonium basement level well, I've been through it many, many times, and I've memorized almost all of the places where monsters are born, where they try to take you by surprise, and almost all of them.
　It's one of those places where you can remember when they're born and get around super efficiently.

　This one that Alice went to (...) is the place where the skeletons are most concentrated on this floor.
　Of course, you can't see them from here, and you can't feel their presence.
　But Alice said as a matter of course.

'You've been here before?'
No. That one?　Then how do I know?

　Alice was now confused.

'You know what?　I thought you knew.
Yeah. I can feel them all over this place.
Is it because you were born in a dungeon?
I guess so!

　Alice didn't worry too much, she just laughed matter-of-factly and said.

'Do you know where there are no ...... monsters or anything?'
I know, but why ......?

　　　　　★

　Let's just tell it like it is.
　I've been walking with Alice for the past twenty minutes, and I still haven't seen a single skeleton.
　I told Alice to go in the direction where there are no monsters, and when I did that, we didn't see any.

'Hey, why are you doing this?　Aren't you going to fight the monsters?

　Alice twitches her head.
　She still doesn't realize how amazing she's done.
　It's pretty ridiculous to walk for twenty minutes in a dungeon that's almost completely devoid of adventurers and swarming with monsters and not encounter them.

　Even I can't dodge this many dungeons, even if I remember most of them.
　Even if you know the birth points, the monsters move, so you're never at the exact same point.
　It's just that when you're walking around, you somehow get encountered.

It's amazing.
What? What?
It's horrible being a natural.
?

　Alice nodded her head grandly and said, "?" over her head. I floated a number of

　　　　　Stars

'Wow!　What is that?　Doesn't it hurt?　Awesome!

　I'm back, and Alice calls me "wow".
　Now I'm surrounded by ten skeletons.
　The skeletons are attacking me.

　I've done this before, using S-HP and strength.
　Don't kill the attacking monsters, just bring them to me in batches.

Alice, you have to keep your distance.
Yeah!

　I checked her away as I was told and then loaded the bullets into the gun.
　Five reinforced bullets and one restraining round.
　I fired them at my feet.

　After the bullets flashed, ten skeletons were tied to the rope of light.
　I was leisurely walking away from the skeletons.

　I don't know how long it will be, but it's a straitjacket strengthened with five rounds of reinforced bullets, so it can probably be held for a pretty long time.
　Let's test it out next time to see how long the restraint will really be.
　For now, it's Alice.

"Try to beat them. Maybe that should bring you to level 2.
Okay!　But what am I going to do: ...... My first time fighting a monster.
'Yes. Why don't you hit it with that rock over there?
That one!

　Alice did as she was told and lifted a basketball-sized rock that had fallen into the cave.
　It was a reasonably large rock and looked very heavy.
　With it, she struck one of the restrained skeletons with a "good ......" call.

　The completely immobile skeleton was smashed by the rock, its bones broken and shattered.

'Yes!'
Keep up the good work.
Yeah!

　Alice took down the skeletons as they went.
　The rocks were heavy and faltering, but the restraining rounds didn't break up during that time, and she took down ten of them in about five minutes.

'Ah.'
You've gone up a notch.
Yeah!
We'll go out there and check it out.
Yeah!

　Take the overjoyed Alice out of the dungeon and check her abilities on the Now Board.

---1/2---
Level: 2/2
HP F
MP D
Power F
Strength F
Intelligence E
Spirit E
Speed F
Dexterous F
Luck D
--------- ...

---2/2---
Plants F
Animals F
Minerals F
Magic F
Characteristic E
--------- ...

　I'll check it against my memory, my MP went up by one, but everything else is the same.
　I feel sad that this is a level bust, but my MP has gone up, so I should make him eat the magic fruit as planned.
　Or rather, if it's only going to go up this much, do I make him eat the magic fruit with a bang, prepared to go back to level 1?
　The level is back to 1 and the MP just drops from D to E, and you learn a lot of magic for that.
　Maybe it's possible.

''Well, let's take our time with that.''
Hey, hey, can we go back inside?
Did you drop something?

No, but I was just told by Honnehoney to come back early.
'He told you?　To the skeleton?
Yes.
I didn't hear anything.
But he told me.
"Hmm.

　I'm not sure what it is, but I'm not sure what it is.
　Alice misses the dungeon and can see where the monsters are.
　I wonder what happened to her when she said she heard voices.

All right, let's go back.
Yeah!

　Alice jumped into the dungeon first with a big smile on her face.
　I'm going to follow her into the basement floor.
　Skeleton and I engaged the skeleton.

　I fired a straitjacket to stop him for now.

What do we do now?
He wants me to beat you.

　Masochism?　What a joke that was in my head.
　Alice, on the other hand, approached the skeleton, and this time she hit the skeleton with one of her long, thin stalactites.
　It wasn't as aggressive as the rock, and after a few strikes, she finally knocked the skeleton down.

　The scattered bones disappeared as usual - but it was different.
　The bones gathered in one place, glowing and condensing further.

''Wha, what?''

　After the light subsided, something I hadn't seen before appeared there.
　A very small, cute skeleton.
　It's about the size of a toy that goes into a Gachapon, and it looks like it's been deformed.
　It is moving, shaking its bones with a clatter and making a sound.
　To be honest, ...... is very cute.

Yes, it's nice to meet you.

　Alice squatted down and placed the SD skeleton in her palm as if she were talking to him.

'Nice to meet you from now on?'
She said she would fight with me.
Go to ......?

　I was at a loss for words because I hadn't expected this to happen at all.