Dungeon Unemployment

(Agility activated,  accelerate!)

In the morning of rush hour, I lightly run up the stairs to the platform in my suit. Incidentally, the skill [Agility] seems to have no particular effect other than adding +1 to agility.

Even so, I am now at level 17 and have about 4 times the ability I had when I was at level 1!

The moon’s gravity is about 1/6 of the earth’s, so I feel almost as light as that. Well, that’s a simple calculation. If the level of gravity is raised a little more, I will experience the same lightness of my body as if I were on the moon.

Along with physical changes, I also feel environmental changes.

I used to be, if I may say so myself, a simple, dark-rooted otaku salaryman. I had a weak mentality that made me look away when I met someone else’s eyes on the street.

But now, I’m a man full of self-confidence. I am full of confidence inside. I haven’t felt like this since the universal feeling I had growing up when my body was getting bigger. Naturally, my eyes also seem to have power, and when my eyes meet someone I don’t know, they avoid my gaze before I do.

When I boarded the train, the doors closed, I saw my face reflected in the window glass, and as I looked at it, I thought to myself, “I’ve never felt this way before.”.

(Hmmm. My eyes and face have changed a lot.)

(If I were to use a good expression, I would say that I have become fearless. Yes, it’s the face of a warrior, if I say. But on the other hand, you could say his physiognomy has deteriorated. But so be it. Even in a dungeon, I have killed and killed and killed monsters and taken their lives.

It is not so much the eyes of a person who has killed people, but the eyes of a person who has killed people. I think my eyes have a certain fixedness that makes it difficult to read my emotions.

When I think, I suddenly worry that I might go crazy. But I am isolated because I am an otaku and different from other people. And that may be too late.

But what is even stranger than that is the current world situation.

Each country is sending its troops into the dungeons. This behavior seems to be somewhat insane. It is not to ensure the safety of their own countries, but rather to strengthen their soldiers in the dungeons ahead of other countries and to increase their influence in the world.

In other words, after the cyber wars fought in the cyber world, a kind of dungeon war may have already begun, in which people are eager to strengthen their own countries by capturing the mysterious power of dungeons.

Since the nation is like that, it is the same for private companies and ordinary people.

Just as I keep my refrigerator dungeon a secret, it seems that companies and individuals are also hiding dungeons and sneaking into them. Companies aside, among the general public, dungeons are referred to as “holes” in internet slang, and people exchange information on online social networking sites.

It is the same as people selling illegal drugs and prostitution using the secret word. I have also been researching dungeons on the internet and have found a few such sites and social networking sites.

But I found a lot of sites and social networking sites asking people to dive into the dungeon with them. I wonder if those who asked people to join them are insane.

If they did it as if it were a game I doubt their sanity. I can’t imagine diving into a dungeon with a stranger whom I’ve never met before, just by talking to him on the internet. Or is there something more to it?

On the contrary, that’s why men and women who meet on dating sites meet and then get involved in a love affair that leads to an incident. And those kinds of incidents are not going away.

Oh, and there’s something else that’s bothering me as well.

There are already a lot of dungeon-made items for sale on the internet. That is most noticeable overseas, but it is happening in Japan too. It is about mana stones. The red BB bullets-like things I picked when I killed monsters in dungeons were called magic stones or mana stones. And yet, they are being put on the market for sale, and websites claiming to buy them at high prices have sprung up, even though their uses are not clear yet.

I think they are doing it because they want to do it before it is regulated by law. But for some reason, the prices are rising rapidly. I wonder what kind of mechanism they are using.

However, in the front room of my refrigerator dungeon, there are already enough magic stones to fill a 45-liter polyethylene bucket halfway. I wonder how much it would be worth if I sold it. I can’t deny that it makes my cheeks lose a little.

……….

Busy! I’ve been so busy. I can’t stand it!

For the past two weeks, I’ve been working overtime and staying overnight, so I haven’t been able to dive into any dungeons. That is because the guys in the sales department got carried away. And make people in my department new contracts like a bunch of idiots.

But there was a widespread tendency within the company to approve of this.

On the wall of one of the sales department’s offices, the monthly performance rankings were posted in bold letters, and the names of the top performers were decorated with red artificial flowers. The competition was so fierce that they were willing to accept a contract even if the delivery date was a joke if the quotation was not good enough. They will keep trying to get the same shitty contract as long as they can get the monthly performance rankings.

And the department that suffers the brunt of this is people from my department.

Two employees from my department fell ill and dropped out of the company because they were forced to work with shitty conditions and deadlines. Even tho they had already been exhausted due to an excessive workload. My boss brought me a killer set of work he hasn’t given to those who had left the front lines, along with a shitty new contract.

That made me want to complain to my boss, but I was also exhausted from working overtime every day. So the enemy concentrated on me, who was still going strong thanks to my growth in the dungeon.

(Huh, no one will help me, all I can rely on is my strength.)

In this situation, it was no different from diving into a dungeon solo.

Even though I have to finish my work by the end of this month. Then, I’m going to make an emergency decision! Let’s do it the dungeon way! I released the power I had been hiding at the company.

From then on, it was all about the lone soldier, the lion, the lion’s share of the battle, and the lion’s share of the work. I flew around the site with my eight-sided, six-armed, eight-foot-long boat, and after returning to the office, I typed up reports with super-fast, furious keystrokes. I typed so hard that my keyboard broke twice last week and I had to replace it.

……….

So, 3:00 pm. I was sitting at my computer in the office after another day on the job site. My manager asked me to come to the conference room.

“Ezuki, you come to the conference room for a minute.”

“Mm? Yes.”

(Hey, what the hell, at this busy time. I don’t have a second to spare over here! I’m in a hurry to get back from the site, and I’m writing a report without changing out of my sweaty work clothes.)

I go to the meeting room in a dissatisfied mood. For some reason, my boss and the managers of other departments were there, and I was the only one without a position. So, with me standing alone in the center of the room. A question-and-answer session began as if I were in a court of law or a court-martial.

(What the hell is this? What in the world is going on?)

In short, they were asking me a series of unimportant questions, but they suspected that I had changed so suddenly and suspiciously that I might be on drugs or something. It seems to be a suspicion. It’s terrible, even though I care about my health every day.

“Hmmm, so you’re not on protein or other nasty drugs, are you?”

The bulldog-like head of the other department asks me.

“No, I don’t drink. Protein is not an illegal drug or anything, and most people who do strength training usually drink it, right? What you’re talking about is probably steroids, isn’t it?”

“Shut up! I’m not asking you that!”

No, you asked me that.

“What’s with the defiant look?”

No, I don’t have defiant eyes. I don’t look like that. My eyes are a bit like those of a desert fox.

I explained that I had not been using strange drugs and that my body had only recently begun to show the results of my daily training. I asked him, “I don’t understand, so I’d like you to tell me, but I think I’m working and I don’t think I’m doing anything that would cause trouble, but what is the problem?”

I did so, and people unanimously told me that I was extremely disruptive to public morals.

Specifically, I was told that I did not respond when people spoke to me, I was tapping on my keyboard in an ogre-like manner, and that when people approached me, I stared at me and scared me to death.

Why in the world…? These are recent events.

Even though I’m working hyper to get rid of an unreasonable amount of work, I don’t have time to waste time asking questions and requests from female employees in other departments. There were not even 0 seconds to spend.

It was true that I had been extremely stressed out for the past few days. But I was still working hard to get the job done.

But during that time, I heard that other things happened, such as female employees getting sick due to the pressure I was exerting in hyper mode. And because of that, my reputation went down the drain. (But that’s beside the point.

(But that’s just it. What is this trial-like behavior? They even tried to threaten me with high pressure!)

I don’t understand why all the department heads and section chiefs are lining up to make a fool out of me. Shouldn’t the department heads and immediate supervisors warn me about this?

I looked into the eyes of each person sitting in line and wondered what on earth they were thinking. Every time their eyes met mine, they looked away or stared back at me, showing fear or pretense.

(Oh, I see. I see.)

All the people in this company are like pigeons in the park.

With similar abilities, they sometimes stick together and cooperate. I used to be just one of those pigeons, but when I powered up in the dungeon, I suddenly became more than a pigeon and grew up to be a monster bird.

Then, the other pigeons were afraid of the pressure the monstrous bird exerted.

Especially when it was someone they had used and treated like a subordinate. They were probably afraid of when and in what form they’ll get avenged. That’s why they went out of control in such a half-hearted manner.

What the heck, they are well aware of what they have done, aren’t they?

But this is my fault. I failed to realize that the people in this company were a much smaller-minded group than I had thought.

“Well then. I couldn’t adapt to the corporate culture. I am leaving this company. Thank you very much for everything you have done for me.”

I bowed and quickly left the conference room where the managers lined up.

(Hmmm, it’s surprisingly refreshing to throw it away myself.)

If it had been the old me, I would have been crying, begging for pity, and bowing my head to be allowed to stay at the company. However, with four times the thinking ability and mental strength than what I had before, I choose to quit the company immediately. There was no merit in I’m staying at this company anymore.

Yes, I am no longer an anxious pigeon who must flock together. I am a bird that can soar high in the sky without any worry even if I am alone. I don’t know how far I can fly, but I’ll fly as far as I can!

……..

As soon as I got home, I opened the refrigerator in my suit and dove into the dungeon. I came home with only one bag, not even cleaning up the desk I used at work.

I let go of my tie and spread my arms and legs out on the cardboard in the dungeon’s front room. The cold dungeon air coming through the floor felt good.

I have no intention of going to the office tomorrow, nor do I intend to pick up my personal belongings.

Today is my complete farewell to the company. I am aware this is a very unbecoming behavior for a member of society. However, they went so far as to court-martial me because they wanted me to quit. If that’s the case, then this is fine.

But I am not unmoved by the fact that I suddenly resigned from the company.

I worked very hard this time. I am frustrated they don’t appreciate my efforts at all. And I’m also worried about my future income, considering my future life.

“But! Even if I get another job in the future, I’ll have to get stronger in the dungeon first!”

I had already decided that.

If I could improve my abilities in the dungeon, I could get any job I wanted. My brain, which was being trained, was absorbing knowledge like a sponge, and it was getting better and better.

“Hmmm…watch me. From now on, I’ll spend my days studying and conquering dungeons!”

I pumped my fist at the pale ceiling and smiled fearlessly to encourage myself.