Profession, Merchant Volume 4 Side Story I (Patreon)

Side Story – Merchant Style Dungeon Crawling, I (LN Exclusive)

This was a little over a year before I set foot in Andersen, around the time I had begun my exploration of a vast dungeon called the “Creta Underground Labyrinth”.

Why was I in a dungeon when I’m a merchant, you ask?

Of course, it was to obtain goods for me to sell!

You might be thinking that “dungeon crawling is not the way to be a merchant” or that “a real merchant’s job is to buy low and sell high”. Or that “they are in charge of correcting the imbalance of relative prices”, as those ordinary merchants say, even some of whom you will see saying nonsense like “the romance of acquiring rare items through dungeon exploration is the domain of adventurers and archaeologists”. But even then, I don’t believe them.

Or rather, from my point of view, I say to hell with that kind of nonsense.

I conquer dungeons as a merchant. What’s wrong with that?

Come to think of it, my father, who was my mentor, was also a dungeon-crawling enthusiast.

If I remember correctly, he once said to me,

“Hey, son. Do you know how a dungeon is made?”

“I don’t know.”

“You see, they are dug by people who live underground – the Undergrounders.”

“Undergrounders?”

“Yes. Underground people, you see. They don’t like to go up. They only go down. But you can’t always go down in this world, can you? After all, there is the earth. That’s why they dig. Because they want to go down. They keep digging and digging until they create a labyrinth in the ground. And that becomes a dungeon.”

Because of my father’s words, whenever I met someone in a dungeon, I always understood them to be an Undergrounder.

But when I was over 20 years old, I finally realized.

My father’s words were utter nonsense.

The people I often met in the dungeon were actually also exploring the dungeon.

However, as far as the Creta Underground Labyrinth was concerned, my father’s theory about the creation of dungeon dwellers might not be far off the mark.

After all, this dungeon was built by the Cretans – people who escaped underground and dug their way into it to protect themselves from the invasion of monsters in ancient times.

In short, it was a subterranean fortress.

I know this because a stone tablet with the history of the Cretans was found in the ruins above ground. The text has long since been deciphered and published.

As for why this dungeon is so popular with adventurers, it is not only because of the adventurous romance it offers, but also because the Cretans are said to have possessed the Sword of the Sun.

The Sword of the Sun is a legendary item that gives the bearer the power to rule the region.

In ancient times, even the poorest of the poor could become kings if they could obtain this item.

It was therefore natural to assume that the King of Creta possessed the Sword of the Sun. And with that, it was unanimously theorized that it must be in the lowest level of the dungeon.

This is why all the adventurers here rushed to the lower levels – to get their hands on this legendary sword.

But while the theory is simple, the reality is not so simple.

Firstly, because the dungeon was originally designed as an underground fortress to protect against monsters, there are traps on every floor.

Secondly, the dungeon itself is now home to such monsters.

While many of the monsters on the surface are self-aware and rational (either because they are tamed or they are ruled over by a stronger being), this was not the case in the dungeon. In short, they are all wild.

Furthermore, the deeper you go underground, the more ferocious these demonic beasts become, so unless you are an expert, you cannot go deeper than the third basement level, which is the level being explored at the moment.

In this sense, if I, a mere merchant and a weak man, were to enter the dungeon directly, the first or second basement would be my limit, up to the third basement if I pushed it.

However, there is a merchant’s way to conquer this dungeon.

First, I set up camp near the ruins above ground.

It was nothing more than a leisure camp, but I was prepared for a prolonged battle.

After all, no one expects to conquer the end of the dungeon in a single raid.

Next, I bought information from other strong adventurers and archaeologists.

Of course, I had already bought “strategy books” from a bookstore before coming here, but these books lacked information and were inaccurate.

This was unsurprising, as the books were produced in a city far from the dungeon, yet where printing technology and publishing systems were available.

The best way to get information is to go to the dungeon yourself.

Where are the traps? What kind of monsters are there?

Then make a detailed map of each floor. As long as you have this information, you can proceed with ease, even if you are weak. Among other things, it is very important to know what kind of monsters live on each floor.

Anyway, I am weak. In particular, my offensive power is not much different from that of an old man.

So all I have to do is concentrate on escape and defense.

I do not aspire to be a defensive specialist.

But I never had any talent for attacking either, and I have no interest in trying. Should I give it a try? Absolutely not. With my busy life as a merchant, there is no way I would invest my time in improving such things.

After all, the difficulty of escaping will be completely different if you know what kind of enemy you are escaping from.

For example, there is a ferocious monster called a Dog Zombie on the third basement level, and it is extremely afraid of fire.

I can only use fire magic to light cigarettes, but if I prepare a torch soaked in extra oil, that’s all I need to survive.

I could just leave it alone after I escaped and the dog zombies would never be able to follow me again.

So with the wealth of information I had gathered, I made a detailed map and was able to make my way up to the fourth basement level relatively easily.

The problem, however, was the lower levels beyond.

It seems that even the best of the current adventurers have yet to reach the fourth floor and below, so information is scarce.

But that didn’t mean I could just go and attack in the dark. I would die instantly.

So I tried to piece together information on the lower levels myself, using trap-detection magic and running back to the upper floors when I encountered unexpectedly strong monsters.

It was not an easy task.

When I encountered a saber-toothed tiger on the seventh underground level, I thought I was going to die.

No matter what I did, even if I used fire, it was useless. The only thing to do was to dodge its attacks and run away with all my might.

After half a year of this, the explorers and I finally reached the ninth basement level.

According to the information I had gathered so far, the ninth basement level was the lowest level, and no one had ever been able to reach the floor below.

I was excited to think that the Sword of the Sun must be on the tenth floor.

But when I got there, I found out.

There was a reason why no one had been able to reach the tenth level.

There was not a single monster on the ninth floor.

It was littered with so many traps that even monsters could not live there.

You had to be very careful at every step, but that was not the real problem.

The real problem was that we could not find the stairs to the tenth basement, no matter how hard we looked.

“Oh, brother.”

I said to myself.

“…ve…me…”

Suddenly I heard a faint voice.

I thought it was a ghost and my body shook, but then I calmed down and tried to use the Hiarin spell.

Hiarin is an eavesdropping spell that catches voices in a room, but it is also useful in a dungeon because it can pick up sounds from other floors.

Anyway, what was that voice saying?

“Somebody help me!”

The moment I understood that, I naturally rushed toward the source of the voice.

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