Yuki began to recount all of the events that had led to this point, and a strange mixture of wonder and astonishment played over the faces of the three members of Jade Wings. After Yuki had finished explaining, they let out a collective sigh.
“It seems your party, too, has endured many tribulations,” said Kaho. “If your party obtained the ownership of a dungeon through hard work, then I suppose we have no right to explore it.”
“Mm, I was somewhat looking forward to learning what a dungeon is like, so it’s a little bit of a shame, but that’s all right,” said Sae.
We could have chosen to interpret our ownership over the dungeon as excluding anyone else from exploring it, and despite their disappointment, Jade Wings had enough common sense to avoid complaining to us about that fact. Unlike all the classmates we’d run into in this world, they had reacted like sane people. Hmm...
“...I personally wouldn’t mind giving your party permission to enter our dungeon if you’re willing to accept one condition,” I said.
“Yeah, sure, same,” said Touya. “And if you’re worried about lodging, we can just lend you some rooms on our property.”
“Hmm? Do you mean that we would be living under the same roof?” Kaho asked. “If so—”
“Oh, nah, that’s not what I mean,” Touya replied. “We actually own another house in this town.”
Kaho’s jaw dropped.
“...What? Splendid as this house is, you own another? This is difficult to credit. We are nowhere close to being able to afford a single home...”
But Touya was telling the truth, of course. Admittedly, it’s hard even for me to believe that we own two houses at our age.
“Yeah, we got the rights to another house as a reward after we paid for this one,” said Yuki. “But we can’t really afford to maintain two houses for ourselves, so this is honestly pretty good for us too.”
“Ugh. There is no justice in this world,” said Kaho. “In any case, your offer would be a great boon to us. Is it truly acceptable to you as well?”
“It’s perfectly fine with us,” said Haruka. “If we simply let it sit, it would just fall into disrepair. However, we do visit our second house from time to time because that’s where we have our alchemical laboratory, among other things, so you’ll need to keep that in mind.”
All three nodded at Haruka’s caveat.
“Oh, of course,” said Sae. “A rented house is still much homier than an inn.”
“Yeah, exactly,” said Yoshino. “I don’t think we have anything to complain about.”
Still, there was one last warning I wanted to give them in order to avoid complaints in the future.
“Just so you’re aware, our dungeon isn’t necessarily the greatest way to make a living. There are plenty of monsters with edible meat, so once we loan you our magic bags, you could make money hunting those, but slaying the monsters outside the dungeon would probably be more profitable.”
“Your party prioritizes exploring the dungeon over slaying monsters, correct?” asked Kaho. “I can only suppose you have your reasons.”
“Yep. The main reason is that exploring the dungeon is more fun, but there’s actually another reason...no, two other reasons related to the condition I mentioned earlier,” I said.
“It’s a separate condition from forming a clan together, right?” Yoshino asked.
“Yeah. The thing is that you can harvest fruit from the eleventh floor onward.”
In fact, that was one of the primary reasons we’d wanted ownership of the dungeon. When I shared that secret with Yoshino, Metea looked sad and murmured, “Sweet fruit...”
“If you can promise us that you won’t gather and sell the fruit, then I’m willing to allow your party to enter the dungeon,” I said. “What do you all think?”
Now that she’d heard the rest of what I had to say, Metea nodded emphatically to herself, beaming. The other members of our party laughed.
“I’d say that’s a reasonable condition,” said Haruka. “I think it would be perfectly fine for Yoshino’s party to harvest some fruit for personal consumption, however.”
“Yeah. Honestly, all of us can share the fruit if you just agree not to sell it,” said Yuki. “It’s not like we can harvest everything while it’s in season.”
“And you’re quite certain about this? I need not remind you how much money fruit can fetch on the market...”
Kaho must have noticed the upset expression on Metea’s face earlier, because she glanced at her. Metea went and hid behind Mary’s back; she must have been embarrassed. Yuki laughed, then shook her head in response to Kaho’s question.
“Yeah, but it’s not that much money for us,” she explained. “Just having good food is a way higher priority for us.”
Dindels were valuable, but that meant they could fetch up to three hundred Rea apiece—less than a single orc, and they were harder to obtain. Especially here in Laffan, both the period in which fruit was available and the varieties on offer were very limited.
“Logical enough, I suppose,” said Kaho. “And in any case, we’d much rather hunt for meat.”
“Meat was readily available even back in Kiura,” said Sae. “It was things like vegetables, fish, and fruit that were hard to find.”
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