Arifureta: From Commonplace to World's Strongest Vol. 5

by Ryo Shirakome

  “Well, I guess you’ve got a point...”

  “Ufufu... You’re welcome to stay here as her father forever too, if you wish. I did say I would do anything to repay you...” Remia blushed and put a hand to her cheek. Normally, Hajime would have been reassured by seeing her smile, but he could feel the room temperature dropping rapidly.

  “Please don’t joke around like that. A certain someone might kill me if you do...”

  “Oh my, I see you’re quite popular already. Still, it’s been nearly five years since my husband passed away... and Myu seems to be pining for a father.”

  “Huh? But Daddy’s already my daddy.”

  “Ufufu... There you have it, Daddy.”

  If the room got any colder, Hajime would freeze to death. It felt like he’d just stepped into the tundra.

  Remia didn’t seem to notice, or rather she didn’t seem to care. She continued joking with Hajime despite the cold glares Yue, Shea, Tio, and Kaori were giving her. Remia weathered their ire with a smile. She was surprisingly strong-willed.

  In the end, Hajime and the others decided to stay at Remia’s house. She caused another stir later by saying “Husband and wife are supposed to sleep in the same room, right?” And Myu had only made things worse by following up with “Daddy and Mommy are going to sleep together~” It was late by the time Remia and the girls finally stopped feuding with each other.

  They’d begin their hunt for Melusine tomorrow, so Hajime wanted to spend the night repairing his damaged gear, creating new weapons, and testing out the new ancient magic they’d acquired. However, he’d also wanted to make the most of his remaining time with Myu, so he made sure to play with her a bunch. By the time he crawled into bed, he was dead tired.

  Five days had passed since Myu had reunited with her mother.

  The dagon men had been extremely jealous at how close Remia and Hajime looked. He’d had to fight a good number of them off, and deal with all of the neighborhood ladies’ gossip. Thanks to that, Yue and the others had come on to Hajime even more aggressively, and he’d spent every night pinned to the bed by Yue. In the end, they hadn’t gotten any real exploration done the past few days, but now they were finally ready to embark.

  Even though this parting would only be for a short while, Myu was still sad to see Hajime go. She clung to him for dear life, but Hajime eventually managed to pull her off and head to his newly repaired submarine.

  Myu waved and shouted goodbye as Hajime ducked through the entrance hatch.

  “Goodbye, Dear!” Remia shouted. Hajime still couldn’t tell if she was being serious or not. If nothing else, it certainly looked like his wife and daughter had come out to see him off at work.

  He could feel Yue and the others’ sharp glares behind him. Out in front, the dagons were glaring jealously at him, too. Maybe I should just leave right after we clear the ruins.

  They traveled roughly three hundred kilometers northwest.

  That was where the Sunken Ruins of Melusine were hidden, according to Miledi Reisen.

  However, they hadn’t had time to get its precise location out of her before she’d flushed them out. On top of that, she’d mentioned something about the moon, and needing Gruen’s crest.

  For now, Hajime decided to find the ruins’ location, and then go from there. They arrived at the location Miledi had mentioned around noon, and began searching the bottom of the ocean. Unfortunately, they found nothing of note. Since it was a sunken ruin, Hajime had expected to find some trace of it on the floor, but there was nothing.

  The only difference was the depth. The surrounding areas were around one hundred kilometers deep, but the supposed location of the ruins was slightly shallower.

  The party reluctantly cut their search short and decided to do as Miledi had said. They patiently waited for the moon to come out.

  At present, it was sunset. The sun had almost completely sunk beneath the horizon, and was illuminating the sky with the last of its rays. Both the sea and the sky were dyed a dazzling shade of vermillion. A single streak of light ran through the water, connecting the horizon and the sun.

  No matter the world, nature’s beauty was unchanged. Hajime anchored the sub and headed up to the deck. Maybe if I follow that ray of light all the way to the sun, it’ll lead me back to Japan... Hajime thought idly. Heh, how ridiculous. He smiled at his own foolishness.

  “What’re you thinking about?” Kaori walked over to him.

  She’d just gotten out of the shower he’d installed into the submarine, and her hair was damp. Yue, Shea, and Tio followed behind her.

  It seemed they’d all been taking a shower, as their skin was slightly flushed and their hair damp. It was quite an alluring sight. The shower poured hot water directly from the ceiling, so it was possible for them all to take one together. Guess they’re all getting along now.

  The reason Hajime had come up to the deck in the first place was because he hadn’t wanted to get roped into joining them in their shower.

  Tio had actually invited Hajime to take a shower with her earlier, which of course meant Yue, Shea, and Kaori had all insisted they join in as well.

  Hajime had made it clear that the only person he wanted to see naked was Yue. However, Kaori and the others had completely ignored him. Tio and Kaori had pinned Hajime down, while Shea attempted to knock him out with Drucken.

  In the end, he’d fled up to the deck, fearing for his life. Though he was beginning to wonder if he was a failure of a man for not accepting their advances. Hajime shook his head, banishing such dangerous thoughts, and turned to Kaori.

  “I was just thinking about Japan. We have the same kind of sunset back home.”

  “I see. Yeah, you’re right. It’s exactly like the sunsets we used to see in Japan... How nostalgic. I can’t believe it’s only been half a year since we came here.”

  “It feels like the days here stretch on forever.”

  Kaori sat down next to Hajime and nodded, her eyes gazing off into the distance. She was thinking back to their days in Japan.

  Feeling lonely at being left out of the conversation, Yue tottered over to Hajime and sat down on his lap. She leaned back and looked up at him.

  Her eyes were begging to let her into the conversation. Yue was interested in hearing more about Hajime’s homeland. Though it was hard to resist Yue’s cuteness, Hajime could feel Kaori’s devil stand rising up again. He leaned over to Kaori and pinched her cheeks.

  That seemed to be enough to improve her mood, though that wasn’t what he was going for. He couldn’t understand why they were all so obsessed with him, especially since he’d made his intentions clear. He didn’t say anything, though. He felt it would be a betrayal of their feelings to ask something so crass.

  Shea came up to Hajime too, her eyes sparkling. She obviously wanted his attention as well. He patted her bunny ears with his spare hand. She grinned and leaned closer.

  Tio walked up and sat down, leaning against his back. She didn’t ask for anything, just quietly sat there. He could tell from her posture that she was completely relaxed, though. He’d been expecting her to ask for something perverted, so he was surprised when she didn’t give him a reason to chuck her into the sea.

  Though it seemed just sitting next to him was arousing enough, as her breathing grew heavy before long. The five of them quietly sat there, enjoying the sunset. There was still some time until the moon came out. Hajime decided to spend the time until then telling everyone stories of his homeland.

  Yue and the others listened with rapt attention, while Kaori chimed in with stories of her own.

  Time passed in the blink of an eye, and the sun set before they knew it. The moon appeared in the sky, shining brightly.

  Hajime pulled Gruen’s pendant out of his pocket and held it up. The design engraved on it was that of a woman holding up a lantern, framed in a circle. The lantern had been cut-out, leaving a hole in the center.

  While in Erisen Hajime had tried pouring mana into the penda
nt or holding it up against the moon, but nothing had happened.

  He still couldn’t figure out what he was supposed to do with this pendant, but he tried holding it up to the moon again just in case. He angled it so the moon was visible through the lantern-hole.

  He kept it like that for a while, but nothing changed. Sighing, Hajime took the pendant down and thought of other ways he could use it.

  But just then, the pendant began to glow.

  “Look, the lantern’s shining. It’s so pretty.”

  “You’re right... How strange. There’s a hole there, but it’s glowing...”

  Kaori and Shea examined the pendant with great interest. The lantern had seemingly absorbed moonlight, and now glowed with a pale silvery light. It filled the hole, spreading out like a wispy liquid. Yue and Tio leaned in as well, and Hajime held the pendant up for them.

  “It didn’t do that last night...”

  “Hmm, Master. I suspect it only activates in this location.”

  Tio’s probably right.

  Once the entire lantern was saturated, it shot a stream of light directly downward, to the bottom of the ocean.

  “That’s an impressive trick. Better than Miledi’s, at least.”

  “Totally. This is like something straight out of an RPG. It’s pretty cool.”

  Hajime and Yue watched in awe as the moonlight quite literally showed them the way. Shea, who’d been with them for the Reisen Gorge, seemed impressed as well.

  There was no telling how long the light would last, so they decided to hurry. They scrambled back into the submarine and followed the trail.

  The sea was even darker at night. Practically no light made it down past the first few kilometers. It quickly grew pitch black, and Hajime turned on the sub’s headlights. Those, and the light emanating from the pendant, were the only sources of light in the sea.

  The pendant’s light easily pierced through the transparent crystal Hajime had used in place of glass for the front windshield.

  As they grew closer to the sea floor, Hajime realized the light was pointing to a rocky section of the bottom. Countless massive boulders were next to each other, creating an underwater mountain range of sorts. When they’d explored that section in the afternoon, there had been nothing there. The light hit a specific part of a boulder, and the entire formation began to shake with an ominous rumbling.

  Part of the rock crumbled away, almost like a door. It revealed a passage leading further inside. The passage was pitch-black, like the gateway to some hellish underworld.

  “I get it now. No wonder we couldn’t find anything no matter how hard we looked. It was all a waste of time.”

  “We had the time anyway, and it was fun.”

  “Yeah. Sightseeing at the bottom of the ocean in another world was a great experience.”

  Hajime slumped his shoulders dejectedly, but Yue and Kaori seemed to have enjoyed the undersea adventure.

  Hajime steered the submarine into the newly-revealed passage. The pendant still had around half of its light left, but once they were in it suddenly stopped emitting any. All that remained to illuminate the surroundings was Hajime’s headlights.

  “Hmmm... I’ve been thinking about this since I heard the ruins were underground, but normal people would be unable to even reach the entrance.”

  “Yeah... You’d need a really strong barrier.”

  “On top of that, you’d need to create air, and light, and hold back the waves at the same time.”

  “You can’t even enter unless you’ve cleared the Grand Gruen Volcano, though. If you can beat a labyrinth, you’re already not someone normal.”

  “I guess the expectation is you’d use air magic to make it down here.”

  They discussed how they would have made it down here if Hajime hadn’t built a submarine as they continued down the passage. Considering you’d need a party of extremely skilled mages just to make it to the entrance, I’m betting this labyrinth is harder than the others.

  Hajime and the others steeled their resolve and stared warily out of the windshield. Just then—

  “Uoooh!?”

  “Hm!?”

  “Wawah!”

  “Kyaaa!”

  “My word!?”

  Something hit them from the side, sending them spiraling in the other direction. Like before, the submarine flipped around in the current, but unlike the time with the magma, Hajime had countermeasures in place. The weightstone comprising the bottom of the ship’s hull grew heavier, stabilizing the sub.

  “Ugh, I was hoping we wouldn’t have to deal with this again.” Shea paled and shook her head. She hadn’t enjoyed the ride out of the Grand Gruen Volcano one bit.

  “Don’t worry, I stabilized us already. The real question is where this current is taking us...” Hajime grimaced and looked out of the front windshield.

  The green glowstone headlights chased away the darkness and illuminated the cavern. From the looks of it, they were being pushed down a long tunnel.

  Hajime stabilized the sub, but otherwise let the current take them where it would. After a while, Hajime’s alertstone picked up on a number of creatures that were glowing dark red.

  “Something’s coming toward us. It’s probably monsters. Nothing else glows like that.”

  “Should I kill them?” Mana gathered in Yue’s hands as she casually offered to wipe them out. Her harsh words were a stark contrast to her cute face.

  “Nah, let’s try out my new weapons. I wanna see how effective they are.”

  Hajime activated one of the mechanisms he’d added to the rear of the sub. A barrage of small torpedoes shot out of the sub’s stern. He’d painted images of smiling sharks on all of them.

  They had to fight against the current, so they didn’t travel very fast. As a result, they ended up sitting in place, creating a minefield behind Hajime.

  The monsters closed in on the minefield, and the party got a good look at them for the first time. They were shaped like flying fish, just much larger. They swam headfirst into Hajime’s torpedoes.

  Then, there was a huge explosion. It was so massive that it made the entire tunnel shake. The flying fish were enveloped in a cloud of frothy water. The explosion tore them apart, and chunks of flesh whipped past the submarine, blown along by the current. There had been so many of them the water was dyed red with their blood.

  “Yeah, this is definitely better than before. Looks like my upgrades worked out.”

  “Whoa, Hajime-san. I think I just saw a dead fish’s eyes staring at me.”

  “You probably did. I just killed a lot of them.”

  “I was thinking about this for a while, but the artifacts you make are completely broken, Hajime-kun.”

  They ran into schools of other monster fish, but they had no problem dispatching them.

  As they were underwater, Hajime had no way of tracking how long that went on for.

  Eventually, though, Hajime felt a subtle change in their circumstances. The current had carried them to a place where the walls were severely damaged. Dead eyes stared at Hajime from the cracks in the rock, and he realized the fishes he’d blown up had become stuck there.

  “Have we been here before?”

  “Seems like it... Guess we’re going in circles?”

  They’d just been looping around. Hajime had thought he’d been advancing further through the labyrinth, but it turned out they’d just been shunted into a regular underwater cavern. He stopped letting the current carry them along, and the group carefully searched the cavern as they advanced.

  Upon closer inspection, the group realized there was more to the place than met the eye.

  “Ah, Hajime-kun. There’s something there too!”

  “That’s the fifth one...”

  They’d been finding fifty-centimeter stretches of wall where Melusine’s crest had been engraved. Her crest was a five-pointed star, with a line going from the top vertex to the center. Said center had a crescent moon housed inside it. There were
five of those crests in total.

  Hajime moved the submarine back to the first crest they’d found in order to examine it more closely. The current was pretty strong, so it took effort to keep the sub anchored in place.

  “So we’ve got five five-pointed stars and this half-lit pendant...” Hajime took the pendant hanging around his neck and held it up to the crest. As he’d expected, the lantern began to emit light again. The beam of moonlight hit the crest, which absorbed it and began to glow.

  “This would be pretty hard for people who came here using magic... You’d have to catch on quick or your mana would run out.” Kaori was right. Completing these series of steps while struggling to keep yourself from drowning would not be easy. It seemed this labyrinth had been designed to test one’s limits in a completely different way than the Grand Gruen Volcano.

  They went around lighting up the remaining crests, and it wasn’t long before they reached the last one. The lantern had lost a proportional amount of light at each crest, and it had just enough to light up one more.

  As Hajime lit up the last crest, part of the rock fell away, revealing yet another passage. There was more rumbling as the boulder slid away.

  They advanced inside and found a passage heading straight down. Hajime angled the sub down and descended. As they entered the passage, something pushed them down with force. The sub fell so fast that everyone felt weightless.

  “Whoa?”

  “Mmm.”

  “Hyaaah!?”

  “Nuoooh!”

  “Hawawawa!”

  All five of them yelped as they fell. Hajime felt the same kind of tingling in his crotch that he did when rode a roller coaster.

  The submarine landed on something solid with a resounding thud. Everyone groaned as they landed, especially Kaori, who was physically weaker than the others.

  “Ugh... Kaori, are you alright?”

  “Ugh... I-I’m okay. Where are we?” Kaori grimaced and looked outside the windshield. They weren’t surrounded by water anymore. There didn’t seem to be any monsters nearby either, so Hajime and the others tentatively stepped out of the sub.