Black Iron Magician

Therese fell asleep, but her request included exploring the dungeon. Since we are getting rewards, we have to do it perfectly. I don’t think it’s going to happen, but I don’t want to be blamed for this, so I decided to take Haru, Chinatsu, and Touko to explore the unexplored place.

At the entrance of the secret passage on the dungeon side, Nell, Lily, and Gobuo remain as guards for the sleeping Therese. The uneven trio seemed to want to come, but they didn’t seem to be able to follow the movements of Haru and the others, so they stayed behind. Since they had just witnessed the battle, they surprisingly accepted it easily.

「Hmm? Onee-san, have we met before…?」

「That’s just your imagination. I’m a wandering adventurer, you know?」

「I-Is that so? Hmm…」

「「…… (shaking)」」

Megane-kun asked so toward Nell, who disguised herself with just wearing glasses. She thinks that her disguise is perfect so she’s strangely confident about it, but she hasn’t been found out somehow. Lily and Fuchi, who were watching the exchange from afar, were shaking their shoulders as they struggled to hold in their laughter. It seems that the detective is not fooled. I’m a little worried.

On the other hand, our exploration of the unexplored dungeon was progressing smoothly. Well, we’ve already cleared the dungeon from the deepest part and defeated the boss first after all. The rest is a simple task of just heading to the entrance. We got rid of the stone lions we encountered and trampled the traps. And what lay ahead was the outside light.

After passing through what seemed to be the entrance to the dungeon, we found ourselves in a forest somewhere. The dungeon entrance, which had been formed like a cave, was hidden, covered with ivy and leaves. If you don’t look carefully, you won’t be able to find this entrance. The only strange thing was that the way it was hidden seemed to be intentional rather than natural.

「Shishō, there are some strange people.」

「Ahh, we met strange people, huh.」

「W-Who the hell are you people!?」

And in an open space immediately after we left the dungeon, there’s a mysterious group of people dressed in black. There are about twenty of them and they all carry suspicious-looking staves and wearing skull-shaped necklaces. No matter how you look at it, it’s not a decent outfit. It seems to be a radical religious group or something like that.

Well, since I could see the sky, I was able to roughly confirm our location. Although it is a little far from the city of Genius and the Gibeon Ruins, it is probably within the territory governed by Duke Ortho. I can expect a reward from this.

「Y-You bastard, that’s the sacred place of our god! Don’t enter with your impious and impure bodies!」

The representative of the group, who looked like the founder and is wearing a particularly strange outfit even within the group, is shouting agitatedly. He slammed the staff in his hand against the ground, and his ugly face, smeared with ink, turned bright red. He seems to be very upset that we had entered their sacred place, this dungeon.

「Sacred place? It’s weird, I don’t think this place has been registered as such. If your group is big enough to create a sacred place, you must be obeying the law around that, right? We are the envoys appointed by the lord of this land, Ortho Batten-sama. In the first place, who are you people? It is our duty to ascertain your identity.」

I signaled Haru and the others to wait and said a formal stock phrase. It would be easy for us if they obediently get caught, but I don’t think they will obediently obey it.

「T-That thing is irrelevant! We have made this place a sacred place and worshipped our god since a long time ago! Get lost! Even a lord shouldn’t have the authority to take our land unjustly!」

「Then, show us the certificate of this land. If you’re telling the truth, you have it, don’t you?」

「I-It’s not here…」

「If that’s the case, I ask you to come with us. Don’t worry, it will be a short visit until you can show us the certificate. Once that’s done, we won’t care even if you use it as a sacred place or use it as a villa. Ah, however―― it’s a serious crime if you know about the existence of a dungeon where monsters are roaming and keep it a secret, you know? The dungeon, which endangers the people, is under the control of the government and it’s important to keep the danger in check. It’s stated in the national text and it’s common sense that even children know, so you can’t say that you didn’t know about it, okay?」

Saying it this far, the founder is overwhelmed. The believers in the surroundings are also terribly perplexed.

「… Touko-chan, did you know that?」

「Hahaha, no way.」

「Setting aside Haruna, you should have learned it at the castle…! General common sense is the minimum necessary…!」

「…… Seriously?」

I’ll leave the high school girls who are doing comedy acts behind me. Ah, no, maybe it’s their turn.

「These people are heretics! Kill them, kill them!」

As soon as the founder shouted this, the believers started running with weapons in their hands. It was obvious that negotiations had broken down.

「Okay, it’s self-defense. Girls, incapacitate them without killing them. I’ll allow you to break their arms or legs. I’m going to take them alive to Duke Ortho, so be careful.」

「Ye~s.」

「Alright! Haruna, let’s see who can kill more!」

「You’re not supposed to kill them…」

There are about 20 enemies and they are just imitation magicians. I’m sure they don’t stand a chance against the girls. If I also calculate that there will be those who try to escape on the way, well, it will be enough within a dozen seconds.

Well, the general setting is complete. A vicious religion that unjustly occupied land as a sacred place hid the entrance to the sacred place, the dungeon. I don’t know what kind of ritual they were doing, but they probably worshiped the stone giant as a god. Fortunately, the monsters here were golems that only patrolled a fixed route. However, if these were the type of monsters that goes out of the dungeon, it would not be surprising if one or two of the surrounding villages got annihilated. This is why the discoverer of a new dungeon will be paid a large amount of money. On the contrary, it’s a serious crime if you intentionally hide the dungeon.

In this case, I’ve accomplished both the discovery and exploration of a new dungeon, and also capturing the offenders. The battle with Touko was useful for Haru’s training, and the rewards multiplied as the various factors piled up! I guess being unable to hold back laughter is something like this. Fuhaha

「Shishō, we have incapacitated them~!」

「Danna! I got one person more!」

Oh, they have finished in the meantime. Looking at the state of the believers, there were incapacitated in various ways. Those who can’t walk because of their broken legs, those who fainted uninjured probably got a knock on their necks, and those who normally got beaten and fainted. Now, I wonder who defeated whom and by which method.

Broken legs = Haru, uninjured = Chinatsu, got beaten = Touko, I guess?

Or maybe, Touko – Chinatsu – Haru?