The Darkness Was Comfortable for Me

TLN: Sponsored chapter included!

We are catching up to almost all the stories I am translating already. All 3 of them are single digits in remaining chapters. Nuuuh >-<

Anyways, enjoy!

——

The next day of the 2nd Chosen group having come to this world.

I woke up earlier than anyone else, and did the preparations for breakfast. 

I went to buy ingredients at the marketplace that is active from early morning, and cook them in the kitchen at the house.

The amount of work in cooking is not that different from the time when I was in Japan. 

There’s nothing like turning the faucet and water coming out, but there’s fresh water coming from the aqueduct to the city, and the drinking water and wastewater are properly divided. 

This water is constantly made by the Great Water Spirit, and because there’s the divine protection of the Spirits or something, you don’t spoil your stomach from drinking it. We have actually been using it without boiling it up until now and there hasn’t been any problems. There’s the chance Poison Resistance is doing its work though.

For the fire, there’s a Spirit Tool similar to that of a portable fire stove. The Spirit Tools that only bring out simple effects are different from the Magic Tools in that they are at a reasonable price, and we bought two of them for our home. 

The Spirit Stones that are easy to obtain in Meltia are: Dark, Earth, Wind, and Water. The Fire and Light Spirit Stones are comparatively higher in price. But it is made in a way that, as long as there’s a ‘colored one’ in the central power hearth, it can move even with a transparent stone. 

At the very least, we don’t have to buy transparent stones.

“I got nice vegetables today, so let’s try making soup. Let’s boil the corn first…” (Hikaru)

The kitchen is big. Or more like, the house itself is big, but it is 3 times bigger than the kitchen I had in my house on Earth. It is more of a dorm’s kitchen rather than a personal one.

It is most likely because this is a house for explorers. 

People who have high Tiers eat a lot after all.

And because Rifreya and I have of course increased our Tiers more now, the amount we eat has increased.

Jeanne is strong because she took the Physical Strength Up cheat with Points, so her Tier in itself isn’t that high. That’s why the amount she eats is still within the line of reason.

Well, Jeanne will eventually be eating a whole lot too.

“Bread, cheese, salad, and bacon. Let’s make the eggs scrambled…” (Hikaru)

I personally would want a japanese style breakfast in the mornings, but I can’t get miso without using Crystals. If there’s cheese, it might be possible to make miso ourselves since it is a fermented product too, but I unfortunately don’t have the knowledge to do it.

There’s the chance there’s something similar to that somewhere in the world, but none here.

Well, this city is nice because you can get cheese decently cheap. The fruits and vegetables can also be obtained at a good quality too. This world is really blessed in its food. 

According to Jeanne, the structure of this world shows glimpses of the plans of God, and that God is trying to have the Chosen have fun.

She said that this world is way too easy, and if you want to live normally, just a little bit of labour can allow you to live while still enjoying other activities. That there were still deaths despite that because of the Random Transfer, people seeking dreams from the Point Allocation, and stuff that they dug themselves into…

Now that she mentioned it, it does make sense. I myself would probably be able to live my entire life stably if I just explore exclusively the 2nd Floor.

It is because they try to do stuff like having adventures like that of an RPG character, or because they want to become stronger that they try to have ‘uncommon’ lifestyles, that in turn increases the difficulty, causing deaths. If they were to live like normal, there’s even the chance that it is easier to live in than on Earth.

“Alright… Let’s wake them up.” (Hikaru)

80% of the preparations are done, so I went to wake up Jeanne. 

Rifreya has woken up a long time ago, but her daily routine is to go to the garden to do morning training, and then take a bath. She still hasn’t come yet.

“Oi, it is morning already.” (Hikaru)

I try to wake Jeanne up by knocking on the door of her room, but she normally doesn’t wake up with this. 

It is 7 a.m.

In this world where there’s little to do once the sun goes down, you tend to go to sleep early. I normally would sleep at 20 o’clock, and would wake up at 5 o’clock. 

Jeanne probably hasn’t been able to switch her internal clock. I don’t know at what time she will be waking up, but she is not a morning person. 

I knock several times, but there’s no response. 

I open the door and enter the room. 

“Breakfast is almost ready.” (Hikaru)

It hasn’t been that long since we moved here, and yet, Jeanne's room is somewhat messy. There’s weird stuff scattered about, and I feel like someone could accidentally step on them, trip, and end up injured. 

There’s a half-read book on top of the desk. It seems like she was studying the Ringpill language until late at night. 

The Spirit Tool that has the Light Spirit Ability in it is decently widespread, so the price is accessible too. 

The study of the Ringpill language truly is just beginning little by little with Rifreya as the teacher. We are still on the very basic level where we can’t string sentences yet, but we should eventually be able to have conversations.

The automatic translation is convenient, but it is only the Ringpill language, and if there really is a time when we have to go to Gran Alismaris, we will have to learn the languages of other regions. 

“…But she isn’t waking up at all.” (Hikaru)

I called her countless times, but she isn’t showing signs of waking up. 

Jeanne is wearing a baggy t-shirt and was hugging a big pillow while sleeping. 

Looking at her like this, she doesn’t look strong at all, but she is a warrior that can stop even the attack of a Troll in the dungeon.

I opened the wooden window and let the outside light come in. 

Unfortunately, there’s no window panes.

I have heard that there’s stained glass in the church, so glass itself exists, but it must cost a pretty penny. 

By the way, Jeanne herself told me beforehand that she wanted me to come in and wake her up, so it is by no means as if I am coming in here without permission.

In the past, I thought going as far as entering her room was bad, so I left her be, but to my surprise, she didn’t wake up till noon. Someone has to come wake her up until she can wake up by herself. 

“Hnn, it is morning already?” (Jeanne)

Jeanne must have reacted to the light from the window, she wakes up with a ‘munya munya’. 

“It is morning. Rise and shine~.” (Hikaru)

I say this as I place her change of clothes on top of the table. 

My younger little sister is pretty similar to this, so I am used to it. 

It seems like Jeanne still yearns for her bed, she rolled on top of the bed, and isn’t showing signs of getting up. She must have slept quite late. 

“How long were you up yesterday? It is dangerous to do dungeon exploration when you are lacking sleep, so you can take a break today.” (Hikaru)

“Uuh~…I will get up… I will…” (Jeanne)

When she just wakes up, her usual commanding figure is nowhere to be seen, and she becomes a girl fitting her age. 

Or maybe this is the actual figure of Jeanne. 

Jeanne rolled around her queen size bed for a while, but she must have remembered something, she went ‘ah, right’ and turned silent. 

She made a face as if enduring her mouth from loosening and my eyes met with hers. 

“Kuro~, carry me.” (Jeanne)

“Hm?” (Hikaru)

“Carry me.” (Jeanne)

Jeanne spread both arms here while still lying down. 

I thought she had woken up, but it seems like she is still half-asleep. 

“It is not good to joke like that.” (Hikaru)

“Carry me~.” (Jeanne)

Jeanne repeated the same thing over and over while looking straight at me. Looks like she has no intention of bending here. 

I do have an idea as to why Jeanne is doing something like this. 

A little before when we talked about our families, I spoke a bit about my little sisters. 

The capable older little sister Celica that can do anything without mistakes. 

The youngest little sister Karen who has no house chore capabilities, but doesn’t lose to anyone when it comes to her specialty. 

Karen really gave me quite a lot of work, but even within all that, mornings were especially bad for her, and I had to try to wake her up with various means every day. 

If I didn’t wake Karen up, she would skip school just like that, and would stay asleep until noon. The school would then call us, and for some reason, our parents would get angry at me. In order to avoid that, I had no choice but to wake her up, but well, it wasn’t an easy task. 

In the first place, Karen would find ways to stealthily stay up till late all the time, and would always end up lacking sleep. 

In the end, I would have to carry her with all my strength, change her, and feed her breakfast… It is only after doing all that that she finally wakes up. That’s how much work it was. 

…When I told them that, I didn’t miss how Jeanne muttered: “That sounds nice. The life I yearn for.”

I didn’t expect her to actually do it. 

Does Jeanne have a little sister disposition? 

“Aaah~, so sleepy. I might fall asleep. Even though I feel like I could wake up at any moment now.” (Jeanne)

“Got it, got it. The viewers are going to make a stir out of this…” (Hikaru)

“The viewers have nothing to do with this.” (Jeanne)

Nothing to do, she says. They are actually watching all this though.

“Okay okay. Then, I will be picking you up. There.” (Hikaru)

I slip my hand on her back and…lift her upper half up. 

“Wa~~… Wait, this is different from what I thought.” (Jeanne)

“What were you imagining?” (Hikaru)

For me, lifting up a sleeping person is kind of like…nursing. 

Now that I think about it, I wonder if Karen is managing properly with me gone. I am worried.

Anyways, I succeeded in waking her up, so I told her to come down as soon as she was ready, and I went back down again.

I boiled the water and made scrambled eggs. 

The corn was steaming and looked good. 

There’s no coffee, so I put in a leaf like that of green foxtail that I bought in the market. 

“I am back~.” (Rifreya)

“Welcome back, Rifreya.” (Hikaru)

“What about Jeanne-san? Is she still asleep?” (Rifreya)

“I woke her up just now, so she must be coming down soon.” (Hikaru)

While we were having that talk, Jeanne came down, and the 3 of us had breakfast. 

“Hikaru, thank you for the breakfast all the time. I will make it tomorrow.” (Rifreya)

“…No, I am doing this because I like it, so it is okay. Your daily morning training is more important. Especially as a frontline. I think that would be more beneficial for the whole party. Yup.” (Hikaru)

“Really? If you say so, I will take you up on that…” (Rifreya)

That was close. 

The things that Rifreya makes are pretty…unique…or should I say, dangerous. 

This is a world where there’s no recipe websites or videos like on Earth. The ones that can’t do it are really bad at it. They have no knowledge after all.

I can teach her, and that’s what I thought about doing at first.

That’s what I thought, but…the person herself believes that she can do a pretty good job already, and it was hard to tell her the truth. And, in the end, it solidified in not having her touch the kitchen.

I have done a decent deal of house chores, so it might also be because I don’t like other people to butt into it too much.

Also, I don’t hate chores in general, so there’s no issues.

“Right, Kuro, what happened with the matter of hiring a maid?” (Jeanne)

Jeanne says this as if she suddenly remembered it. 

At the time when we bought the house, the idea of hiring a maid was proposed. 

“Aah, that, I don’t think there’s a need to. There’s nothing to do aside from the house chores, so I will do them.” (Hikaru)

“If you are fine with that, Kuro, that’s okay, but I can’t do anything and won’t be doing it, you know?” (Jeanne)

“It is not like there’s that much to do, so that’s okay. The laundry is a bit of a pain though.” (Hikaru)

“I will help out!” (Rifreya)

Honestly speaking, it is pretty difficult to clean up this big house. I do think that it would be easier on us if we had a person dedicated to that job. 

But if we were to hire a person, I would end up having to ask for a variety of things, and the thing that I understood after living together with Jeanne and Rifreya is that living together with a stranger…creates cultural friction…or like, there’s difficulties that I didn’t even imagine. 

Even with Jeanne who is a Chosen like me and understands the situation, and Rifreya who knows to a certain degree about the circumstances, it is still like that. 

Adding one more person to that is something that I don’t know how to describe, but I don’t like the idea. 

The fact that we have to hide our circumstances of being Chosen is also a plain pain too.

“If it eventually gets unbearable, we will hire someone. Right now, we have used so much money on our equipment that there’s no leeway.” (Hikaru)

“Hmm, well, if that’s okay with you, Kuro. I have no objections.” (Jeanne)

“I am okay with that too. Ah, depending on how much coin we have, we could have a girl that worked in my house before to come here.” (Rifreya)

If it is a person that worked at the home of Rifreya, it does sound trustworthy. Doesn’t sound bad. It might be fine to hire someone eventually. 

Also, if there’s someone we can leave the house to, we can concentrate more in dungeon exploration.

But I am also conflicted whether we should really create an environment that will allow us to concentrate even more than this.

Dungeon exploration is a dangerous job.

It is apparently the norm to rest for several days after 1 dive, and in this world’s standards, we are currently overworking. 

Even if we are aiming for the lowest floor, it is not like there’s a hard time limit. There’s absolutely no reason to push ourselves like at the time with the Viewer Count Race, and it would be better to prioritize performance.

Thinking of it in that way, it might be just right to have work at home too for some balance. 

(Also, well…the cooking is fine, but the cleaning and laundry…) (Hikaru)

It comes to how much it is outsourced, but the laundry and cleaning is all done by hand in this world, and it takes quite a lot of time to do thoroughly. 

And there’s a waterway at the side of the house for common use (the drinking water and wastewater are divided, and if you drain wastewater into the drinking water, you are penalized super heavily, and on top of that, the Great Water Spirit can detect it, so you will 100% get arrested for it. Scary) so it is easy to obtain water. 

However, laundry is washed by hand with a washboard (this washboard is also something I bought with Crystals), I do the cleaning of the house with a broom and dustpan, and would use a rag to wipe things; there’s quite a lot of workload. 

Well, Rifreya also helps me out with the cleaning, so it is better than it could be…

(We could outsource a part of it even if we don’t increase our exploration. At the very least, the laundry.) (Hikaru)

I was thinking that while eating without stopping, then Jeanne spoke with a baffled expression.

“…Anyways, you guys really eat a lot. Will I eventually end up that way too?” (Jeanne)

Rifreya and I were on our 3rd corn. 

This corn is also tasty. It makes me wonder if there was selective breeding involved in it. That’s just how sweet and big the corn kernels are. It is apparently right in season, and the market is filled with corn. 

I boiled 20 today in the cauldron from early in the morning. 

“The frontline has an easier time to increase their Tier after all. You will eventually be eating more than me, Jeanne-san.” (Rifreya)

“Really? That sounds like a pain…” (Jeanne)

“Eeh? But isn’t it bliss to be able to eat a whole lot of Hikaru’s handmade cooking? I am really happy about it though.” (Rifreya)

Rifreya said this with a big smile and it made my heart skip a beat. 

Rifreya eats a whole lot, so it makes it worth making the food, and her being happy about it also makes me happy. 

I wouldn’t go as far as saying it is my specialty, but cooking is one of the few things that I can do. 

“The food today was also delicious. You really can do anything, Hikaru.” (Rifreya)

Jeanne nods to the words of Rifreya, but even with that, it seems like turning into a glutton didn’t sound like a fun idea to her, she was still making a sullen expression.

“It certainly is tasty. But because it takes longer to eat, the time is also being eaten away…” (Jeanne)

“It is true that it does feel like we could waste a full day just eating if our Tiers increase too much.” (Hikaru)

I do understand the worry of Jeanne. 

If we are going to go even further down the floors, we will have to increase our Tiers to match it. 

It is good that you don’t get hungry in the dungeon, but the people that have adapted too much to the dungeon are unable to do any other job aside from exploring because of it. 

At the very least, it would make it difficult to do long journeys because of the worry of food.

Well, in my case, I have Shadow Storage, so it should be okay if I just fill it up with food, but for the explorers that don’t have that, they won’t be able to separate from the dungeons for the rest of their lives. 

“I think the one with the highest Tier in this city is Garnet-san from the Crimson Vials, but it is not like she is always eating something at every passing moment.” (Rifreya)

“That red haired person with the giant axe, huh. If she is like that at that level, it should be decently fine.” (Hikaru)

“…But she is always at taverns though.” (Rifreya)

“Isn’t that technically ‘always eating’…?” (Hikaru)

“I wonder about that. She is always drinking booze.” (Rifreya)

She might just be a drunkard, but your appetite is supposed to gradually increase. Dive the dungeon in order to earn coin for your food expenses, and because you dive into the dungeon, your Tier increases, and you end up dropping into a downward spiral, and in the end, you either die or become a Devil. 

The wild animals eat the animals around to take in the varied Spirit Energy into their bodies and, in the end, become Monstrosities; people take in Spirit Energy from monsters, and the varied Spirit Energy you take in…in other words, the Chaotic Spirit Energy, enhances your body, and then you change into a Devil that surpasses a human…apparently. 

“Devil, huh… Speaking of which, are Devils different from normal people?” (Hikaru)

When I asked this to Rifreya, she answered after finishing the last corn. 

“Garnet-san is called a Devil, but the characteristic of a Devil is not only being strong according to what the Great Spirit-samas say. There’s apparently other things. I myself haven’t asked in detail about it, so I don’t really know though.” (Rifreya)

“It isn’t simply just a person who has raised their Tier?” (Hikaru)

“So it seems. If it is an old dungeon like Gran Alismaris, there might be though -actual Devils.” (Rifreya)

Actual Devils might have horns. 

Or maybe they begin to eat people?

The possibility is there. Your appetite increasing seems to actually be true after all.

Raising our Tiers too high might be risky. 

Well, it is not an immediate worry. 

“Now then, we will challenge the 3rd Floor for real today. Our objective is to fight a Garden Panther.” (Jeanne)

After the meal, we talked about today’s plan. 

Looks like Jeanne wants to fight a Garden Panther, but…

“Panthers rarely show up, you know? They are even more rare than a Mantis.” (Hikaru)

“No problem. We will stay the whole time in the 3rd Floor until a Panther shows up and we defeat it.” (Jeanne)

It ended up with that. 

We have to get used to our new weapons, and our teamwork is still questionable. 

I want to add the Spirit Abilities of Rifreya into our battle tactics as a trump card too. There’s countless things to do.

I would like to get ourselves in top shape before going to the 4th Floor.

While waiting for Jeanne and Rifreya to finish their preparations, I opened the World Map in the Status Board, and confirmed the situation.

First, in Meltia, there’s 8 dots overlapping. 

6 from the 2nd group. At the time when they were transferred, they were at slightly apart locations, so we managed to tell that there were 6, but they are currently all in Meltia, so they are completely overlapped. It is a state where we don’t know how many there are. 

If we had the Map of the Surroundings, we would be able to tell in detail where they are, but the 6 new Chosen shouldn’t have the map either. That one costs a ridiculous amount of Points, so it isn’t worth the price, and its uses are very limited.

The number of viewers has decreased a little. 

300 new Chosen have come. It would be like having more channels on your TV all of a sudden. Of course the viewers would disperse. 

That said, I am grateful for that. 

“Hm? That Chosen in the hell, they are still alive.” (Jeanne)

Jeanne looked at the map and showed a rare surprised face as she said this.

That’s how rough of a place it must be. It is true that there’s a blue dot still there. 

“They must have kept points when they transferred. I think they are using Barrier Stones.” (Hikaru)

“The other possibility being that they brought quite the powerful weapon. It depends on the matchup, but if a master from Earth uses Physical Strength Up to their maximum when they transfer, they can defeat monsters to a certain extent.” (Jeanne)

“To a certain extent, that is…” (Hikaru)

I remember the forest I was transferred to. 

Would a master be able to defeat that gorilla? Even now, my back gets shivers just from remembering it. Would we be able to defeat it presently with all 3 of us…? We might be able to defeat it, but that’s something that can only be said after raising your Spirit Abilities plenty enough. I don’t think even one bit that a Chosen who was recently transferred can defeat it. They might be able to defeat it if they brought a heavy gun and turned it into swiss cheese though…

Thinking about it normally, not just the gorilla, even the wolves would be out of the realm of possibility. 

Moreover, it seems like this hell is being seen as even more of a danger zone than the forest…

“I don’t know what situation they are in, but I would like them to hang on.” (Hikaru)

I was feeling sympathy towards the Chosen in hell.

I don’t know what their situation is, but even I survived. If they properly use the Survival Hints, they should be able to receive useful hints just like me. I want them to believe in the possibility and do their best. 

And I want them to survive. 

Even though I feel danger in making contact with the 2nd Chosen group, it was weird that I felt this way.