Strongest Gamer; Let's Play in Another World Volume 2

by Shinobu Yuuki

, every tree we cut down was ready to go the moment it hit the ground, so Ann, Mary, and I were able to make a ton of progress with just one swing of the axe. I'd known Mary was strong from the start, but Ann's usefulness had really surprised me.

  "Aoi, what can you tell me of the half kobolds?" While I waited for the men to haul away the tree I'd just cut down, Mary, who had just taken down a particularly large tree of her own, walked up to me.

  "From my understanding, the kobolds have clever hands and are gifted at producing fine, detailed work, but are generally physically weaker than other races."

  "Timber!" The sound of Ann's shout accompanied the crunch of an axe biting into wood, and shortly thereafter came the ominous crash of yet another tree hitting the ground.

  "Physically weaker, eh?"

  I'm sure a girl on the cusp of womanhood like Ann would cry if I called her brawny, but it would be a bit of a stretch call her weak!

  "Ann is a dungeon dweller. She's probably a little outside the norm."

  It took two or three adult kobolds to drag away one of the logs, struggling all the while, so it seemed safe to say that Ann's strength was the exception rather than the norm. It had been less than half a year so far, but she'd been living in the labyrinth with me the whole time, so I figured she'd gained a few levels and her stats had gone up. That's how fantasy worlds worked, right? I wasn't able to see most of the details on people's stats, though, so I didn't know exactly how character growth worked here. Maybe they had a purely skill-based leveling system.

  As logs accumulated, Barry and his group finished the wooden racks and brought one to me. I fastened the rope bundling the logs together around my back and started hauling. My shoes were sinking into the ground. Did they load this one up with too many logs?

  "You, um... You are human, correct, Aoi?"

  "These days, I'm not so sure anymore, but I think so, more or less." I was hauling a wooden rack loaded up with logs, something intended for one of the giants. My strength was definitely inhuman.

  "This isn't exactly normal, is it?"

  "Indeed not, particularly with your physique. Even the traders are more muscular than you. You look like a government clerk who sits at a desk doing paperwork all day. A normal human with your build would find it difficult to lift even one log."

  I already suspected as much, but it seemed a labyrinth dweller's physical abilities were beyond those of normal humans from this world. If we ever had the free time, I really wanted to try inviting the village residents out to the labyrinth for training. Oh man, what nostalgia. That reminded me of these labyrinth manager sims I'd played, and strategy games and stuff, where you recruited subordinates and trained them up. Ah, the joys of gameplay.

  ◇

  As I hauled logs from the lumberyard to the construction site day after day, I observed the progress at the sawmill, listening to the sound of hammers on wood and smelling the smoke from the kitchens.

  "How are things going out here, Chief?"

  I called out to Barry, who I found supervising a few workers driving a wooden log into the ground, its ends sharpened down until it was more of a stake.

  "That you, Boss? Thanks to you and Ann, we got our wood faster than I expected. Keeping that lumberyard in good shape has been a mighty pain. On the upside, we finished building a proper kitchen oven out of stone, as well as clay from the forest."

  The villagers had taken to calling Barry "Chief", which made sense given they were working under him, but my situation was different even though I was doing the same work as all of them, so in turn, he'd started calling me "Boss". The hierarchy was a little funny, but the names were clear enough.

  I headed over to take a look at the kitchen, where Jenny found me and made me help set up. The simple oven of stone and clay was already complete and ready to make meals, but Jenny quickly dragged me up to the roof. It seemed she wanted to rainproof it, as well as to secure the building from the grit that inevitably blew in on the wind in this arid terrain. The dwarven villagers had not only made the oven from clay, they'd also used it to secure and support the logs that were holding up the roof. The village's giants had used their massive hammers to drive the pillars into the ground, fixing the roof support in place. Ordinarily, doing work like this required setting up scaffolding and whatnot, but giants made easy work of many such tasks. I watched them hammer away, feeling the shock of each stroke traveling up through my legs. Over at the lumberyard near the forest, soup was simmering in a few big metal pots on top of more clay ovens. I hadn't really minded being alone in the labyrinth, nor had it bothered me much when it was just Ann and I building the stairs together, but I sure was having fun working alongside all these people.

  I'd played a lot of sandbox games in my time, and a lot of survival games where you had to tough it out alone in extreme conditions like snowy mountains and barren deserts. Those were fun in their own way, but there was a special joy in interacting, cooperating, and even competing with other people in a multiplayer setting. Sure, there were a few drawbacks to this situation: I was paying out wages and even worker's compensation for people who got injured, for instance. But when you sat back and saw all this hard work going on, or better yet when you really jumped in and took on your own responsibilities, it turned out the game of life wasn't half bad.

  ◇

  Several days after we began gathering wood, I found Karumi waiting for me in front of the cabin.

  "Good morning. Pardon the abrupt visit, but I've brought a few things that could aid you." Towering behind Karumi was a mountain of cardboard boxes, all bearing the Tundra label. Barrels peeked out of every box, all with the same logo branded on them.

  "Good morning. What's with the barrels?"

  "Read this."

  Karumi handed me a little paper booklet entitled General Purpose Coagulant (Standard Construction Stone Framing: Liquid Solution) Instruction Manual. I scanned the detailed explanation. It sounded quite easy to use. Just paint an area with the material, and whatever you applied it on, from soil to sand, the spot and its surroundings turned into solid stone.

  "This seems really convenient. It'll make construction easier."

  I sure wished she'd brought it along sooner. This opened up all kinds of possibilities. For example, we'd planned to shovel up cubes of regular dirt or even sand, which were going to go to waste. Now we could instead turn them into stone building materials and reuse them. Sure, I could go take the pickaxe and carve out the stone we needed to use, but it was heavy, and we'd still have to do something with the soil and sand we dug up. I'd never had any call to try using it for anything before, since those cubes crumbled under any kind of impact.

  But did I really need fifty barrels of this stuff? Kinda seemed like overkill.

  "I've never seen this in the Tundra catalog before."

  There was a certain pleasure in browsing the Tundra listings, so I did it often, but it was my first time seeing this stuff. Maybe it just sold out as soon as it was listed; it certainly was useful enough.

  This almost seemed too convenient. Even a novice like me could tell that this sort of material would make construction work fast and easy. "Are there restrictions on where you can sell this stuff?"

  This kind of thing happened from time to time, especially with PC games. The platform would apply restrictions on particularly desirable goods in certain areas, bringing many a tear to the unfortunate region-blocked gamer's eyes. Karumi nodded, confirming my suspicions.

  "These are intended to be supplied only to labyrinths operating in forward zones, but, well..." Her voice trailed off.

  "Smuggled it in for us, did you? Well, I may be new to all of this, but I know a desperate situation when I see one," Mary solemnly spoke up.

  I was thinking the same thing, and was relieved to find that she was able to look the other way, even if reluctantly, when the rules needed to be bent to save someone on the brink of destruction. Perhaps she'd seen the same thing herself and learned to accept it while fighting on the fron
t lines. What a relief to find she wasn't completely by-the-book.

  "You see, we never know how much the labyrinths will need, so a large supply is always kept in reserve. But due to the nature of the reagent, its effectiveness weakens over time in storage, so these barrels of coagulant won't actually turn anything to the hardness of stone. At best, the result will be the consistency of soft wood."

  Degradation of industrial chemicals was a fact of life. Still, even turning things into soft wood would come in handy for construction purposes.

  "Working labyrinths generally cannot use them in this state, so they were slated for disposal."

  It was a believable story. Even stone walls and floors would need frequent upkeep in a labyrinth frequented by adventurers.

  "Although these were supposed to be disposed of, they're not without their uses, so I've built up a steady supply. I get them from the control center for operational labyrinths with the intent of using them in case of emergencies for the public works labyrinths under my oversight, like yours. It's fully within my authority to provide you all of this material, for your own usage."

  "Being in charge of labyrinths sure is hard work."

  The light faded from Mary's eyes as she was once again exposed to the full scope of the bureaucracy associated with my job. You could almost hear, faintly in the distance, the sound of her dreams being strangled to death.

  I left Mary behind stewing and went to test out the coagulant. At first glance, the mountain of barrels looked to be made of wood, but on closer inspection they turned out to be cardboard. I kind of thought you'd want to transport liquids in something sturdier, but meh, whatever. I ripped off the tape on top of one and removed the lid, then I took a closer look at the viscous white fluid inside. I picked up the brush that had been taped to the top of the barrel, dipped it in the liquid, and spread a bit of it on a block of soil I had handy.

  "Doesn't look any different to me. And the instructions claim you don't even need to wait for it to dry, right? This stuff sure is handy."

  I produced a shovel with the and dug into the block of soil to which I'd applied the coagulant.

  "Oh, wow, look! It's not crumbling, Aoi!"

  Ann stared at the mossy cube of dirt. I picked it up in awe

  "It's firm enough that this shouldn't crumble so easily anymore."

  I rapped on it with my knuckles, but instead of breaking apart, it gave a satisfying thonk. Man, seeing a chunk of damp, soft soil turn into a single solid cube really reminded me of this one game I'd played a while back...

  "Wow, that's so weird! It feels moist, but my hand isn't getting wet at all. This is freaky."

  Ann had taken the mossy soil cube from me. Or, I guess it was more like a mossy block? She lifted it up and eyed it, squeezing it here and there.

  "So let's see, it comes with a dissolving agent, or you can pour hot water on it for long enough and the effect will wear off. I see."

  The instructions even had a section on undoing the effects. It somehow made sense to me that boiling water would undo the effects of the coagulant, and it was a nice emergency measure in case you ran out of the dissolving agent. It wasn't like intruders were going to build a sauna inside the labyrinth, so it probably didn't present much of a risk to the integrity of the building materials.

  "Okay, the manual doesn't cover this, but I gotta try it out anyway." I dug up eight mossy soil blocks and stacked them into a cube then coated it all with the coagulant and tried picking it up.

  "Yep, they're sticking together." I picked up my jumbo-sized block and shook it around, but it didn't show any signs of breaking apart. The eight blocks had hardened into a single big block.

  "Cool. So not only does this harden soft soil, it also works as an adhesive." I couldn't rely on it too heavily, because it only made things as hard as soft wood, but I could still use the hardened earth and sand as building materials.

  "This is a godsend. We'll be able to finish the labyrinth faster now for sure."

  "I'm pleased to be able to fulfill my duty of aiding my labyrinth managers." She was hiding it well, but I could tell Karumi was elated about having done something useful. Ann nodded at her brightly.

  "Man, it's gonna be a lot of work hauling these all to the construction site."

  "Oh no!"

  Apparently neither Karumi nor Ann had thought of that. But come on, just use your head. We had at least fifty of these giant barrels, all filled to the brim with coagulant, and here they all were at the bottom of a deep ravine. Maybe I'd be fine if this were some game where I could just stick them all in my backpack and they'd magically take up no space and weigh nothing, but I didn't think Karumi had any trick like that up her sleeve. Hell, even if she did, she probably couldn't let me use it. The thought of hauling them all up out of here was giving me a headache.

  ◇

  "Careful with those tools, now. I don't want any injuries on my watch."

  Barry supervised the work, blueprint in hand, his booming voice rallying the workers. Once the supporting infrastructure was built, we directed our efforts towards the next task: excavation. The kobolds had begun digging what would become the entrance, according to our blueprints. They used shovels produced from the to dig out blocks of soil, applied generous amounts of the coagulant to them, and carried out the now-solid blocks.

  "Man, at times like these, you can really see the difference between games and reality."

  The team consisted of two kobolds digging, one applying coagulant to the blocks, and ten hauling blocks away. Although their cubic shape made them easy to transport, they weren't exactly light. The blocks measured about ten centimeters to a side. Humans and kobolds could carry one or two by hand, and even with a carrying rack, the most they could carry was about five. The giants and ogres could handle two or three times that, but fitting them in the tight confines of the excavation site had proved impossible. The dwarves and kobolds hauled the blocks just out of the dig, and the giants and ogres carried larger loads of them off to a second site further away.

  "Heave-ho! Heave-ho!"

  Ann stuck out like a sore thumb, walking along happily with a rack on her back piled up with just as many blocks as the giants were carrying. She had almost twenty of them stacked up on the rack, and she was so small, it looked almost like the rack was moving along by itself. The villagers would see her and smile, chattering about how a girl who worked every day in the Great Dark Lord's labyrinth really must be something special, but something about it felt off to me. Jenny stood dumbfounded, her mouth hanging open, when she came by to bring cups of water to the workers. Now that was more the reaction I'd expected.

  "Oof." I set down a barrel of coagulant in a corner of the workshop, having just hauled it up from the bottom of the ravine. I'd found myself in the envious position of carrying them all to the construction site.

  "Bring up the wood, boys, we're reinforcing these walls!"

  Man, that sure looked like fun, working together like that. Not that I was jealous or anything. Carrying barrels is my favorite!

  In half a day, they'd finished a set of stairs leading down to what would become the labyrinth's first floor. The area above the staircase was left open to make it easier to work through the rest of the excavation and construction on that floor.

  "It's coming along nicely, Boss. That coagu-whatsit of yours is amazing, let me tell you. Makes carrying out all the soil we dig up much easier. We're thirty meters down, and the sun isn't even set."

  As evening approached, Barry and I looked over the day's progress. Down in the deeps, it was mainly the kobolds working, with their good night vision. Just then, a pair of them with matching fur patterns appeared at the top of the stairs with a load of blocks, which they set down for the giants to carry away. Perhaps the two were brothers. The ogre tasked with hauling blocks away from the entrance went into action.

  "Barry, what's the status of the tools?"

  "We've got more than enoug
h left. I'm still a little weirded out by these perfect blocks and rods, but those shovels and pickaxes work like a charm. Besides that, we've got more than enough wheelbarrows, and more magic potions than we could use up in a lifetime of injuries. I'd get smacked upside the head if one of my builder buddies heard me complaining about anything here."

  "Glad to hear it. When the girls and I finish bringing up all the barrels, there won't be much left for me to do, but I still want you to come and get me right away if anything happens. Got it?"

  "Of course, of course. Keeping you up to date is part of the job, my boy."

  I'd wanted to help out with the actual digging as well, but the agreement we'd come to was that I was only to help with bedrock, or anything the villagers would have a hard time with. I'd wanted to work alongside everyone, but I was a limited resource and had to put my abilities to use only where they were really needed.

  "Make sure you show up at mealtime. Eating out of the same pot and sitting around the same fire goes a long way."