We have been living here for a few months. A shoddy shelter made of badly interlocking logs mark our home. Skins neither of us knew how to treat is draped over plant stalks neither of us knew how to make into straw making for very smelly, uncomfortable beds.

The food is bad. I pity Amina, since she needs to eat. We have no fire and non-meat edibles are rare and few in the meadow dungeon, so she often consumes raw meat. Her physical condition appears to be deteriorating.

I have asked multiple times if I should return her to the temple, or perhaps another city, but she vehemently disagrees. I don’t get her. I don’t know how bad the life of an acolyte is, but it has to be worse than this.

I talk to Hannah almost every day, bar when I go deep into the dungeon for more than a day. I have been trying to find more non-meat edibles, or valuable but the dungeon continues to be poor in any of these raw materials, even as I descent to the twentieth layer. I have gone no further because I died. I didn’t even manage to find out what killed me down there, so I have yet to return to that layer again. It also reminded me that strong as I may be, there may very well still be stronger things out there. I wonder how deep dungeons go. I think I remember somebody saying they continue forever, but what is the deepest one could go in them, I wonder?

Anyway, Amina’s condition has gotten so bad as of late, I have decided to bring her to the nearest town. Previously I was afraid to wander from here, but now a nifty road can guide me both to here and elsewhere, so as long I remember the directions, I will be able to find my way. I decide to head towards where my old village was, carrying a ton of badly skinned, small… skins? I can’t call them leather, the way that they look. And carrying Amina too, of course.

I am a bit astonished when I reach what I thought would be the same quaint village. There is now a wooden palisade, some 10 feet tall surrounding the city, and a single guard at the entrance. It is very reminiscent of Brahms, though.

The guard lets us through with a showing of my hunter tag, a “Welcome to Honecker” is given. The village I grew up in had no name, as far as I know. We simply called it “the village”.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

“Where can I sell off these skins?” I ask the guard, having lodged many of them over my back, sandwiched between me and Amina.

“I don’t think you can get much for those… If the guild won’t take them, I don’t know who would.” Guild? There’s a guild? Though the time seems several times larger than my village was, it should still be much smaller than Brahms, so I was surprised to hear this. I could make money to make wait more bearable for Amina.

Speaking off, I have put her down, but she her weakness and perhaps illness is incredibly evident. I have never seen anyone fall ill in this world before, but her subpar diet may be the cause of it.

As I am about to enter the front entrance, I remember what was said about materials, and I quickly find a side entrance down a wide alley to a much wider door that resembles that of saloons in old westerns. I bring my skins inside. There is no line or clerk, but I see a bell with a rope attached to it. I ring, presuming it will bring me service.

Shortly thereafter, a young woman in her twenties enters the room.

“What can I do for you?” She says.

“Can I sell these?” I say, as I unload the skins on the counter.

After a brief examination, she shakes her head. “These are worthless. They are also not fresh, so they won’t serve as proof for any kills.” I dampen.

“Then, can you dispose of them for me?” since they’re useless, I just have to be rid of them. She nods.

I bring Amina around to the main entrance, where I get her to find a request, which I promptly accept. I asked to locate one that could be done quickly and it appears to be one for the local dungeon, to bring 5 cadavers of the monster on the seventh floor. It is describe as being small enough to easily carry, so there should be no problem.

I still have some 7 asti left from our reward in Roxas. The guild still serves food as it did before. The price is 20 ibris, which is first real comparison I get for the old currency to the new. This would mean 1 asti is equal to three red, if a direct comparison like that could even be made. We currently seem to be quite poor. I had somehow thought of them as equal to one blue, so it is a sudden downgrade of the wealth I thought we had available.

After dinner Amina is looking better, though she keeps the very quiet quality she has acquired over the course of the last few months. I never know what to talk about with other people unless I have a goal, so we have mostly just been living in silence together.

I leave her in the town with the rest of my money, before sprinting to the dungeon and running through it myself. The monster on the seventh floor is very snake-like, except it has two arms with claws in addition to what looks like poisonous fangs. I quickly eliminate them and bring them back to the guild.

I only receive 5 asti. Aren’t hunters ridiculously worse paid than they used to be?