Translator: mii

「Then, it'll become a three-people party if I enter inside, so go ahead already, nya. I'll have some candies to remove the bad taste in my mouth, nya.」

「Ah, yes… Then let's go, Tsuna. This is the first time I am combatting with someone, so it might not work well.」

「Well, I also have never fought with anyone, so we should just give it a try. Also, I think your fighting style is going to work well with me. Mine js rough, while yours are more detailed.」

「Uh, yeah. That's right. I'll do my best.」

Well, since the goblins here were like that, the kobold might be even more terrible.

「Ah… By the way, Chittsan.」

「What is it, nya? Do you forget to ask something, nya?」

「I'm just talking about my experience, but after eating goblin meat, no matter what I eat, I can only taste the goblin for a while.」

「Nya…」

The timing when I said that was just right at the moment when she threw the candy into her mouth.

We headed to the boss room, while listening to the voice of Chittsan's death agony.

And when I arrived at the boss room, I was puzzled. Probably, Yuki also felt the same way as me.

「Hey, this is…」

「Fusuma1, right…」

The entrance of the boss room was separated by fusuma.

Our surrounding was a den, and in the middle of the natural cave made of soil and stone, a j.a.panese-style sliding door suddenly appeared. An ukiyo-e-like2 pattern with a dog head… which was probably a kobold was drawn on the fusuma.

By the way, it had been a straight road so far. So there should be no mistake in the destination. I wanted it to be wrong, though.

「I'm getting nervous in another meaning.」

「I just feel exhausted now.」

Indeed, this seemed like a way to ease the tension of beginners and make them relaxed… seriously?

「Should we arrange things first?」

「Let's share our role. Tsuna is the vanguard, and I'm the shortstop. Basically, I will gundwr the opponent's action, so Tsuna should just think about earning damages.」

「So I'm a tanker? But I don't have a s.h.i.+eld.」

My fighting style was not a tanker. Probably I didn't have apt.i.tude for that too. I didn't think that I could do it even if I had a s.h.i.+eld.

「No, you don't need to protect me, just focus on attacking. We are both considered as the vanguard category after all.」

「So I can just get close to the boss, ward it off, and strike, right? It doesn't really change with when I'm fighting alone.」

To be precise, that was what I always did.

「You can just do it as what you always do. My role is to create a gap and stop the opponent from doing something that looks dangerous. 」

「What is the priority when there are multiple opponents?」

「If there is a rear guard, I will fight them. In that case, Tsuna should stop the opponent's vanguard. You can also just defeat them.」

「You're right, it will certainly help if the number of bows and stones that are flying to me when I'm fighting are reducing.」

Yuki was the same vanguard as me, but unlike me, he had a ranged means of attack. Even if the rear guard was someone with a bit and arrow, he would be able to hinder them.

「Even if we discuss that much, it's not like we can work exactly like that anyway, so let's just go with this first? We are a rushed pair after all.」

「Isn't that good enough? Since there are a lot more of things that will happen, we'll just revise it whenever. 」

「Yeah, let's go. Ugh, after all, this fusuma makes me lose my strength. There won't be a trap, right… ah, they told us that there are no traps here.」

It was said that the trial dungeon had no trap.

「I'll open it.」

I had the role to move ahead after all.

The fusuma opened smoothly, just like it was newly constructed or renovated.

Just as I expected, the inside was a tatami room. It had a wide s.p.a.ce, around 50~100 tatami mats.

「Err, should we take off our shoes?」

「No way, of course we don't have to. Let's go.」

Even if we were former j.a.panese, why should we take off our shoes in this situation?

As soon as the fusuma was opened, I expected the boss to immediately attack us, but there was no surprise attack. In the first place, there was no kobold in the room.

Even after we entered the room and looked around, there was no sign of it lurking around.

「Will it come out from those fusumas?」

There was different fusumas other than the entrance where we entered, but would they appear that normally? Chittsan said that there would be an appearance scene after all.

What I could think of as the possibilities were, if this was a normal production, they would appear from a magical stage, they would appear from the joist of the ceiling, or if it wasn't that elaborate, they would appear from the bottom of the tatami mat like a ninja.

「There are fusumas over there, but we don't know where they will come from. Let's stay alert.」

「Is it from upside or bottom… There's also a possibility that they will come from behind.」

We waited for a few seconds while staying alert. And they appeared.

…By opening the fusuma normally.

「Why do you come out normally!!」

Yuki flipped out.

The kobolds' expression looked like they wanted to say, “Why am I being scolded?” for a moment, but we rushed into the battle as it was.

Our opponents were two kobolds from different fusuma. Probably, the place where they came out increased to match the number of us.

Not only that they were quite far away from us, the kobolds were far away from each other.

Before they could approach us, Yuki fired his short bow first. He shot another one just a few seconds after the kobold screamed, and I could feel the skillfulness of his technique.

It hit the kobold's shoulder who was approaching from the left. The left kobold was staggering, but it evaded the second short of the arrow that was shot without pause, and kept running to us.

As for me, I stood in front of Yuki and prepared for the right kobold.

「It's hard to understand, so the left one is Kobold A and the right one is B.」

「Roger that.」

Naming the monster with AB from the left made this felt a bit like RPG.

Kobold B, who arrived earlier than Kobold A, attacked me with its spear, full of vigour.

This was the first time the trajectory of the spear that was pointed to me was in point and it was certainly difficult to avoid, but the opponent had neither perfect technique nor physical ability, so the speed was like a dying mosquito.

I twisted my body from the spear that came straight to me and avoided it, then I swung my sword to Kobold B's neck with the same momentum.

Unexpectedly, Kobold B's neck flew in a swing.

Next, I prepared for Kobold A who was delayed by several seconds.

Kobold A stopped in front of me, as if it was hesitant after looking at how B was finished in an instant.

It was already just a target, but when I prepared to use my sword, Kobold A threw its spear like it had lost its will to fight.

「Uwahh!」

It was an unexpected action, but I repelled the spear with my sword.

Immediately after the Kobold who was in escaping stance turned its back, a knife pierced its leg and it fell down like plunging on the ground. It seemed like Yuki threw that from behind.

「Amazing. It's like a scene from manga, aiming at the opponent's leg.」

「I'm used to it.」

I approached the fallen Kobold while praising Yuki, in order to finish it off.

The kobold bawled out with his a.s.s on the tatami mats, unable to stand up because the knife was stuck on his leg. I didn't know what it was saying.

It was a pitiful figure, but of course I would be merciless.

However, when I was brandis.h.i.+ng my sword, something I didn't except happened.

「Eh?」

I heard Yuki's stunned voice, and looked at what he was looking only to saw another two kobolds appearing again. …They were Kobold C and D.

「Eh? What? They are increasing!?」

I didn't expect them to increase. For the time being, I finished the kobold in front of me and watched out for the kobolds who were coming toward us.

No matter how much they increased the number, it wouldn't be any problem with their strength. We could kill them with the same method.

However, maybe because they saw Kobold A who was instantly killed, they didn't attack us and maintained a certain distance.

「Wait a minute, I have a bad feeling.」

「How unexpected… Me too.」

Our bad feeling came true, and the fusumas opened again when we were taking our time with the kobolds who were not approaching us. It was the appearance of Kobold E and F.

As I thought, they would keep increasing by two after a certain time.

「Yuki, let's rus.h.!.+」

「Yeah!」

Wikipedia: In j.a.panese architecture, fusuma (j.a.panese: 襖) are vertical rectangular panels which can slide from side to side to redefine s.p.a.ces within a room, or act as doors. ↩ Wikipedia: Ukiyo-e is a genre of j.a.panese art which flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock prints and paintings of such subjects as female beauties; kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers; scenes from history and folk tales; travel scenes and landscapes; flora and fauna; and erotica. ↩