“It’s rough out there, I tell you…”
Mid-fieldwork, one of the elves handling the sugar deliveries came over to vent.
“Rough how?”
“Escort or no escort — pushing a cart that distance is simply beyond reason.”
Fair — it’s a solid ten-hour walk on foot.
Hauling a cart fully loaded with sugar makes it a full day’s work each way. I knew that much myself.
“Hmm… Buy an ox to pull the cart, maybe?”
“That’s one option, but even with an ox it takes too long. Leave at dawn and it’s a coin flip whether you reach town by dusk, so…”
“Mm. Then what’s the move?”
“The status quo will hold for now — but there’s the future to think about…”
“Alright — let’s convene a proper meeting soon and pool everyone’s ideas.”
And right then — Sonya’s carefree voice came sailing in.
“The legendary hero’s swooooord… WE GOT ONE!”
☆★☆★☆★
So — the dungeon expedition is home.
Maria returned under an active confusion spell, cognitively unavailable, and every single palm-top rabbit was wearing adhesive bandages. The battle, clearly, had been apocalyptic.
The bandages, for the record, are from an earlier catalog order — I’d handed them out as good-luck charms.
Sonya alone was unscratched. And the loot was ridiculous:
・The legendary hero’s sword
・A burlap sack stuffed with gold coins
・Assorted unidentified rings and a crown (extremely sparkly)
Ouroboros dispelled Maria’s confusion, and when we asked what happened…
“I do not wish to remember. I am never entering that dungeon again.”
—and she refused to say another word.
The palm-top rabbits just trembled silently. Only Sonya was beaming: “It was so fun~♪ Ufufu~♪”
I did confirm with Maria that the legendary hero’s sword really had been lying abandoned in the deepest levels. That part’s real.
The rest was them grabbing whichever valuables looked least bulky on the way through.
Anyway — zero serious injuries. Thank goodness.
Looking at the rows of shivering veterans, I reflected: I dispatched that expedition FAR too lightly.
Now then, regardless — liquidation time.
Which brings us to the present moment.
We are standing… before the offering box.
I fed in the gold coins, and the catalog’s digital display climbed from ¥10,000 to ¥20,000.
There couldn’t have been ten thousand coins in that sack — so they must be some rare, premium-grade coinage.
The offering box, by the way, isn’t the ordinary slatted Japanese kind where you can see inside — the interior is pure black. Black-hole format.
“The crown and rings are going to be a pain to liquidate, though.”
Asking Arisa to sell them would attract SERIOUS attention.
Routing them through Cornelia’s connections is the sanest option, but demon-realm customs skim brutally, as established…
While I stood there deliberating—
“You just shove it in~”
Sonya upended the burlap sack — crown, rings, the whole treasury — straight into the offering box.
“OI!”
My protest died in the air as the treasure vanished into the black hole.
Oi oi, is that even LEGAL — but the digital display had incremented by a crisp ¥100,000.
—Legal, apparently.
Though… watching this world’s gold and treasure get vacuumed away at this rate — money supply affects economies rather significantly, doesn’t it?
The treasure’s one thing, but if we keep tithing gold coins to the Money-Grubbing God at this pace, are we going to CAUSE something?
Well. Setting that aside…
“The legendary hero’s sword, though — cashing THAT in is clearly a bad idea.”
Honestly — valuable, sure, but why bring home the single most complicated item in the dungeon… And right then—
“You just shove it in~”
Sonya shoved the legendary hero’s sword into the offering box.
“OI! SONYA—!”
THAT one is definitely off-limits, surely?!
But my protest died in the air, again, as the hero’s sword slid into the black hole.
And so.
The catalog’s digital display now reads: ¥1,100,000.
The LEGENDARY HERO’S SWORD… appraised at one million yen flat…