More to come in 4-16 hours.

Year 7442, Month 12, Day 24

Today is Christmas Eve but..when it comes to an event of a religion that they didn't particularly believe in from their past life as expected Ralpha and Bel can casually ignore it. After doing our coordination training in the morning the two of them we're talking about what menu to eat for lunch. I was relieved that I didn't strangely be too careful on that end as well. If I had been carelessly excited while preparing a cake (or something like that) as a present then there's no doubt Ralpha would have looked at me like an unfortunate child.

There's plans for my older brother to arrive in Baldukk on Thursday of next week so I'll at least reserve a room for him in the inn. Although, I'm sure it'll be off by one or two days or maybe even more. Since there's quite a distance between Keel and here. Recently someone from the third company of the first knight group has come to my inn everyday, waiting anxiously for my older brother's arrival.

Even if older brother comes I'll be taking the measurements in the capital so they don't need to be in such a hurry and I already decided to take orders from the third company this time so it's like I'll run away. Relax for a bit. Every time I return to my inn from the dungeon and see people from the knight group waiting outside I think that but I can't treat them carelessly. It's started to get annoying offering them tea before saying "not yet" and then having them leave.

We haven't advanced much at all in regards to the dungeon, it's taking quite a bit to clear the 3rd floor. Ah, no, we've gone to take a glance at the 4th floor, and for the most part we can get to the teleport room to the 4th floor. However, it takes too much time. Teleporting from the 2nd floor to the 3rd floor then trying to figure out where we are on the 3rd floor, it takes a reasonable amount of time just confirming our current position. If we don't know then we can just keep teleporting until we get to a place we do but that's far too troublesome and we'll never fill in the map for the 3rd floor.

I paid a large sum (listen and be surprised, of all things it was 12,000,000 Z) and purchased what's said to be most accurate map of the 3rd floor you can get your hands on right now but even then you can only trust about half of it. We've repeated teleporting and investigating countless times, if each individual party doesn't increase the accuracy of their own map then it's difficult to go to the 4th floor. If you end up teleporting to a place which isn't on your map if you push yourself a bit then you can get to the teleport room on the 3rd floor but if you do it carelessly then you could end up spending an entire day just to clear through the 3rd floor. We've tried challenging it countless times but without a proper map of the 3rd floor it takes us a lot of time like 24 hours or 30 hours after entering the dungeon to get to the 4th floor.

Even if we take plenty of rest before going to the 4th floor the ground in the teleport room of the 3rd floor is basically some rugged stone leveled out so it's difficult to even normally get some rest. Putting it simply it's difficult to sleep on. We did lookouts in s.h.i.+fts and tried getting some rest but I didn't feel like I could get rid of the fatigue. We spend 6 hours getting through the 1st and 2nd floors then take a 1 hour or so break in the teleport room of the 2nd floor after that if possible we try to arrive at the teleport room of the 3rd floor within 6 hours. After getting one nights rest there we spend about half a day clearing the 4th floor and then I want to take a nice rest in the teleport room of the 4th fl

oor. This is the ideal.

Although, in our case we have leeway with the amount of mana we have so we actually have a bit of advantage when it comes to getting rest in the teleport room on the 3rd floor. It's simple. I use earth magic to create an appropriate amount of dirt and just put the blanket on top of that. I'm always intentionally making sure to use {Anti-Magic Field} at the end to erase the dirt so no one else can use it again. If I want to try and put a reason on it then I could say I don't want to make the dungeon dirty. Well, whenever everyone is going to the bathroom I'm always creating dirt and handing it to them so no matter how you think about it I just don't want to supply or a.s.sist other parties though.

6 hours in order to clear the 3rd floor. It's hard to say we've cleared the 3rd floor if we can't definitely manage it with that sort of schedule. If we can keep filling in the map of the 3rd floor at our current pace then most likely we should be able to reach that point in another three months or so. Although, this is supposing everything proceeds smoothly so I think it's highly possible that it could take an extra one to two months on top of that for delays. Well, even then there's no mistake it should be considered a considerably high pace.

Since we still have plenty of leeway in our ability to fight monsters on the 3rd floor, it's large that we have more mental leeway than other parties. I'm sure it'll eventually get harsher someday but by all means I don't want to lose this leeway. Recently since Bel has started to use magic for both attacking and support her experience has gone up quite a bit and in addition to how much MP she originally had it's added quite a bit to our combat potential. Ralpha's void magic turned level 2 as well and she's gotten earth and fire magic both to level 1. Her MP has reached double digits and it's probably about a good time to try and increase her Unique Ability.

Zulu and Angela have increased their skill quite a bit and are functioning as splendid front-line attackers. There's no need to get impatient. It's fine if we just keep slowly moving forward. Since what we end up having to pay if we fail is our lives after all.

On Sat.u.r.day afternoon, after we finished eating lunch and I was in a corner of the 1st floor practicing my attack spells I was thinking that. I can already use all of the attack spells I know in at longest 2 seconds, for the shorter ones I've even become able to use them in less than 1 second. Since I'm fighting against monsters on the 1st floor at the same time my experience points are going through the roof as well. My level has increased even further and now I'm level 15. All of my magic special skills increased to level 8 and after another 100,000 experience points or so my void magic should reach level 9.

In regards to my Gift of Natural Talent it's finally reached within another 100 monster kills from hitting MAX. Things are going well.

Anything and everything is going well. I'll finish up here for today and after doing some running I guess I'll go and eat with everyone. Since it's Christmas Eve if I were to say I'll treat everyone I wonder if Ralpha and Bel will be surprised? I'm sure they will be surprised. But attentiveness is important after all.

I was thinking that while gathering the magic stone from the gnoll I just killed and then grabbed on to the teleport crystal rod.

.............

Evening, we all gather at the usual restaurant. Putting aside Zenom, since I'm always in charge of Zulu and Angela's dinner, I wonder what I should do. Thinking about a present for my own slave, it seems stupid after all. Well I guess it can't be helped worrying about it. I'm sure that Zulu and Angela don't know about Christmas so there's no meaning to it.

However, let's at least go to "Doruleon" for today. I've stopped by a number of times to the Roze fillets since last month. We ate the slightly extravagant food and had some beer while enjoying ourselves. After all it seems that Ralpha and Bel weren't particularly thinking of anything. When I said that the bill is on me because it's Christmas Eve they just exchanged glances then laughed and ate without holding back. After the four of us returned to Boil Manor we split up to our rooms.

If Ralpha is just going to hang out in Bel's room anyway then I thought those two should just stay together and let Zenom have his own room but if I involve myself that far and they don't like it, it would just be unpleasant so I'm ignoring it. I paid 100 Z and used my home-made shower in the shower room and after returning to my room Ralpha and Bel were standing in front of my door. What is it?

"Hn, What is it? Do you have some business with me?"

"Umm you see. Isn't today Christmas Eve? That's why Bel and I, the two of us prepared something."

Eh?

"Since we're always in your care, it's a present from us Al-san."

Oh?

"Eh? Ah? Sorry. Thanks."

Oh~ I was moved by their feelings.

"Then, good night."

"Have a good nice."

The present I received from the two of them was an inverness coat. Since it's cold out right now and I didn't have a coat. I'm sure it's just right to wear around the town. I'll gratefully accept it. If I look carefully it has my name sewn on the inside of it. The characters are done badly but it reads "Kawasaki Takeo". The part that's badly done about it is there's too few of a number of strokes in the two characters Kawa and Take. This was probably done by Ralpha.

Come to think of it, I've received a coat as a present from my wife as well. In Miki's case I feel like it was always something like clothes or shoes though. My birthday was...when was it again? Ah, July 25th. Recently February 14th has remained too strongly in my consciousness so it took me some time to remember. My birthday was summer goods and Christmas was winter goods I think it was...speaking of presents, the ones s.h.i.+na gave me were always pretty nice as well. A short while after she entered the company, when she was still my errand-runner, or rather something like an a.s.sistant as I worked her hard. She said with a meek face "since I'm always under your care.." and gave me a pretty nice ball-pen for Christmas. I remember thinking, this fellow sure pays attention well, and starting from the next year I would give her something as well though.

I think she should be about the same age as I was when I died right around now, was it? I wonder if she's doing well? Miki should already be past 60 as well. It would be good if she was able to remarry. Since she was two years older than me as expected there might not be anyone who would marry her already...I'm sure if she didn't remarry she's eating some pretty good stuff and doing well. I think at that time she had just become the head of the accounting department of small foreign trade company. If she didn't quit then her income should be pretty decent so I'm sure there's no need to worry about her lifestyle. I'm sure my life insurance money was quite a bit as well.

I guess it's because I received a Christmas present I suddenly remembered my past life. A smile naturally appears on my face. That's right, my wife is already an old woman. I wonder what she would say if she were to see me right now? Wearing rubber protectors, wielding a bayonet, and wearing my handmade boots as I slowly and nervously walk around in the dungeon, she'd probably laugh. And if she found out that the reason for doing that was to earn money so I could found my own country there's no doubt she'd roll around hitting the floor while laughing.

I put my rubber protectors on the armor stand and then carefully put the inverness on top of that and climbed into bed naked as usual. I'm starting to want some pajamas. But it's normal to sleep naked on Orth. I guess only those of true n.o.bility and royalty would wear something like pajamas. I've completely gotten used to it already but when it comes to a cold season I miss my pajamas. When I was small I was in a bed for infants and after I graduated from that I was in between my parents. After I got a bit bigger the three of us siblings slept in a large bed together in the kid's room. After a short while I received a single bed but until then I had always slept with someone close by. I don't even remember the number of times I Identified the boards on the roof.

There's various things in life.

........

Year 7442, Month 12, Day 27

Today is Wednesday and a day off. Or rather, I went all out and made until the Wednesday on January 4th a holiday.

It seems that Bel and Ralpha are going together with their guardian Zenom to sight-see in the capital starting tomorrow. Since it seemed like Zulu and Angela didn't have anything in particular to do so I think it would be fine if we go together with Bel and the others though my brother should arrive around tomorrow. I'm sure we'll return to Baldukk later that night though.

After eating breakfast and finis.h.i.+ng my running, now then, when I started thinking about whether I should enter the dungeon and continue with my magic training or maybe hang around in a boss room on the 1st floor beat down the boss while investigating how it revives as I returned to the Boil Manor, there were some people I recognized and some kind of an uproar going on.

It seems that my older brother and the others arrived one day sooner than planned. The knights from the third company of the first knight group that were on duty (smile) for today must have guessed who older brother and the others were based on their luggage and started talking to them, it seems that the cause is after realizing they were correct they were going to escort them all on their own convenience. Hey now, I'm sure older brother and the others are tired, since they arrived a day early at least let them rest for a day. How much do you want some armor?

"Ya~ brother. Thanks for going out of your way to come all the way here."

"Oh~ Al!?..Did you dye your hair? Even you wake up to s.e.x appeal when going to city I see~"

..It's not like I've suddenly become aware of s.e.x appeal though. Rather than, this person.

"Rossh-san. It's too soon for the scheduled time. And the delivery to Lord knight leader and the second company are after tomorrow, so taking measurements will be after that."

"Oh~ Greed-kun! Even though you say that I want to order even just a day faster. And this was your older brother huh? I'm sorry about that, it was rude of me when I didn't know your face. I'm the commander of the third company of the first knight group of the Kingdom of Rombert, knight Beinrolf.Rossh. It's an honor to meet the highly rumored "Black Eagle of Webdos". We the first knight group welcome everyone of Greed Company. I'll escort you to the knight group headquarters in the castle."

Rossh-san said that while greeting older brother. Rather what's that Black Eagle of Webdos?

"Yeah, I just heard your greetings from a moment ago...However, can you please pardon me on the Black Eagle of Webdos stuff? I'm not longer active duty after all.."

Older brother said that with a fed up expression. This is...older brother must have been hiding the fact hat he was called that from us.

"No, not at all we've heard stories of your activities from Lord Greed your little sister, and the sub-commander. Supposedly your skill with the sword and horsemans.h.i.+p even surprised the sub-commander Lord Bittwaz."

Hohou, after all older brother sure is amazing~ As expected for him to be scouted by the first knight group. Let me hear some more.

"And, I'm very sorry but we're a bit exhausted from the long journey. We need to let our horses rest as well so we'll definitely visit the castle tomorrow but would you please today.."

Che...I wanted to hear a few more stories. But, I'm sure it was a long journey and they're tired after all. It should be fine if they take a comfortable rest for today and then go to the castle in Rombertia tomorrow as planned. Even I want to slowly talk to older brother and I want to talk to the squires as well.

"That's certainly true. Please excuse my actions. However, once again tomorrow someone from our third company will come to accompany you. Please appear at the castle together with that person. I'm sure that case would cause less problems when arriving at the castle."

After Rossh-san said that and politely bowed his head to older brother, he turned around and left.

"Al, did you already make room reservations? I want to rest already. As a matter of fact, we s.h.i.+fted our plans one night and we've all been walking through the night since yesterday morning. We're tired."

"Yeah, of course I've made reservations. It's fine. The carriage can go over there and there's some stables for the horses on the other side."

After saying that I was about to go into the inn and call the apprentice of Boil Manor when older brother grabbed my arm and opened his mouth.

"Al, I arrived a day early but do you have any plans for today?"

"No, it's fine. Well, even if I had some then something like that doesn't matter at all."

"I see, then that's good."

..........

After finis.h.i.+ng the procedures with the inn, we all split up to get some rest in our rooms. I went up the stairs together with older brother and when I was about to show him to his room it was just as Bel and Ralpha came out of Bel's room.

"Huh? Al..Who's that?"

"Ah, this is my older brother. He's Farnestan.Greed. Older brother, these two are Ralpha and Bernadette. The human is Ralpha Firefreed and the Rabbit-people one is Bernadette.Koloil. They're my...my allies."

"It's nice to meet you Greed-san. My name is Bernadette.Koloil. I'm always in the care of Al-san."

Bel smiled sweetly and properly introduced herself.

"Yeah, my name is Farnestan.Greed. It's fine to call me Farne. It seems that Al is always in your care. Thank you."

Older brother smiles while replying.

"U...Umm..My name is Ralpha Firefreed. It..It's nice to meet you. U..Umm, I'm always taking care of Al."

What is she saying? This girl.

"Fufu..It's nice to meet you Ralpha-san. Thanks. It seems that Al is saved by it as well. Please take care of him from now on as well."

As expected even older brother couldn't hold back his laughing.

"Fu~ Yes! Leave him to me!"

Really you, what are you saying? Pretending to be my guardian?

"It should be fine already, my room is over here. Older brother's room is there."

"Ah, then, first let's go to your room."

After saying that older brother briskly walked off. I followed after that.

After I used the key to open the door and

"What the, aren't you keeping it quite tidy?"

said that while entering inside.

"Of course I am."

"Now then, Al. Stand over there and clench your teeth."

"Eh? Wh..bugou"

Ol.older brother..that was my stomach..isn't..that unrelated to my teeth...

"Don't use magic, stand up."

"Why..suddenly..buge~"

Again..that's..my stomach...

"Do you know why you're being hit?"

I was. .h.i.t by two body blows of older brother and I'm writhing on the floor without know what in the world is going on. I was throwing up the contents of my stomach while unable to stand up this time. Why?

"Ku..Wh..why..gu"

While I was writhing around the floor this time he grabbed me by my hair and dragged me up then punched me in the cheek this time.

Sh..s.h.i.+t..you can aim for world. Or not, it seems like my teeth aren't broken but the inside of my mouth is cut up. I spontaneously raised my hand to my left cheek which was punched. Older brother grabs that hand,

"Don't use magic. So you still don't understand. It can't be helped...Well, I'll leave it at this I guess. You, taught some strangers the method to train magic right? Mother's method...Do you know the reason why you were hit?"

Ah...I did teach someone. I taught the method of shaking a flame to acquire void magic. Kuro and Mary, Ralpha and Bel. I've taught four people. Even putting aside the method of increasing mana which I noticed when I was an infant, not the method using {Cantrips} but the efficient method to acquire void magic. I should have been told by my parents that it was a family secret. However, why does older brother know about that?

"This summer, when I went to Keel for deliveries, I was greeted and thanked by two squires in the knight group. Squires named Baladik and Binsil. You remember them right? According to what I heard from them they were saved by you. That's fine. It's only obvious for n.o.bles to save troubled citizens. I'm sure you just pitied their circ.u.mstances and taught them magic but why did you do it on all your own without getting permission from father! Since just by chance they hadn't told anyone about it yet I made sure to forbid them from speaking about it to anyone. Since it seems they felt quite the debit of grat.i.tude to you they swore that they would never tell anyone about it."

Gu, Ma, Mary became able to use magic as well huh...But, I screwed up. Rather, why did I forget about something as important as that?

'Older brother...Sorry. To be honest, I taught those two from just now as well. I'll immediately go and forbid them from speaking about it."

After I said that I heard the sound of someone knocking on the door. Older brother turned around and opened the door. The ones who were standing on the other side of the door was Bel and Ralpha. Good timing. I need to tell them not to reveal it to anyone.

"Ah..Bel, Ralpha"Al! What's wrong!""Al-san!"""

The two of them ran over to me as I'm crouched over a puddle of puke. Older brother was a bit surprised it seems.

"Older brother! What in the world is the meaning of this?"

I'm sure she noticed that I wasn't heavily injured or anything right away, Ralpha drew closer to older brother. Rather, what's up with older brother?

"That's right! Did Al-san do something? Al-san, healing.."

Bel was going to lift me up.

"The healing is fine. This is punishment. I did something that it's only obvious to be hit for after all...Ralpha, Bel...It's suddenly but the first method of acquiring magic I taught you, that's right, the one where you move the flame. That, is a secret of my family. Please promise not to tell anyone about it. I'm begging you, just like this."

I lowered my head to the two of them while being held up by Bel. The both of them have already finished the training of moving the flame so I don't know if they still remember it but if they were going to teach someone magic from here on out then I'm sure they would definitely remember what they forgot.

The two of them accepted it and swore that they definitely reveal it to anyone. In addition, they said they understood the reason why I was. .h.i.t. Older brother opened his mouth after quietly listening.

"Now then, young ladies. If you know a good restaurant somewhere, it's a bit early but would you accompany us for lunch? Please excuse me but we want to get something to eat and go to sleep a bit early. Also, if it's fine with you I'd like to have dinner together as well. Since this fellow is going without meals until tomorrow morning. Right, Al. Don't take even a step out of this inn until tomorrow morning. Spend the night reflecting here."

"I understand...I'll reflect on things until tomorrow morning here..Sorry.."

"I'll be quiet about this to mother and father so relax."

"Yeah..Thanks."

"Then, the two of you, shall we go? Ah, that's right, you, have slaves right? What are they doing about meals?"

"I'm feeding them breakfast and dinner."

"I see, then for today I'll feed them in your place. Nn, Ralpha-san, do you know where Al's slaves are?"

"Yes, I know. Al you reflect over there."

s.h.i.+t.

..........

It's become noon. My stomach is growling. The cut insides of my mouth hurt. It seems like my cheek is swelling up as well.

.............

It's become night. I'm hungry. There was nothing so convenient as someone secretly bringing me food. Putting aside the squires from Bakuddo, Zenom, or Ralpha, I at least had some hopes for Bel though. I don't care anymore I'm going to sleep.

............

Year 7442, Month 12, Day 28

It's about time for daybreak. I spent a full day hungry, reflecting, and thinking about it. Why did I forget about something that important and teach them? It's definitely not like I was getting full of myself and teaching people right and left. Since they're reincarnated people, and it's true I felt it was just right to sell them a favor and make them into my subordinate. However, no matter how I think about it, it's unnatural. Even if it's me, I don't understand the reason why I would selfishly break the things father told me and teach them. In the first place, it's fine to just teach them the method to learn it using the {Cantrips} mana detection on the fire-starter magic tool. The efficiency drops but even then while it might take a bit of time they'll learn magic without problem.

I know something like this~ I'm amazing right~ I didn't have any sort of feelings of bragging like that at all. I just completely forgot about what father had told me. Was I, this forgetful?

The fact that I forgot it means that there's doubting that's the case but, nevertheless you know...

Even though portions of memories from my past life are obviously fading but I think I still remember quite a few of them.

I wonder if this has some sort of relation to the rejuvenation(?) of my mentality?

I doubt that's the case.

There better not be anything else that I'm forgetting about?

I've started to get a bit afraid now.

I'm like a youth with amnesia that's realized they've lost their memories.

If it's something I don't know then I need to gather as much material on it as I can and reorganize things or for the time being shelve it until I get more material to make a decision on, is what you could say is a valid method of going about it but when it comes to this time. It might even be possible that I'll forget I'm thinking something like this..That's worrying too much, for me. Then I'll write it down. It's still before the sun rises but I went to sleep right away last night and I'm not tired anymore. It's cold but if I put my clothes on I'm sure I can write some memos.