“Don’t mention it. Oh, but they could be waiting for you on the way home, so be careful. Actually, I guess there’s no need for you to be careful with the likes of them. Ha ha ha!” laughed the leader, then he left the safe point with the rest of his team.
He seemed to know I had my magic staff hidden in my sleeve. It was no wonder they’d survived long enough to be veteran Divers. They’d stepped in as soon as the sickly team started messing with the boy who needed help, so they might have planned to talk to him if I hadn’t done it first. There were bad people among Divers, but there were good ones out there too. Knowing the world was a kind place warmed my heart.
“They were so nice,” I said.
“Yes, they were,” agreed the stranded boy, visibly relieved the ordeal was over.
I sat down and started boiling some water. While I waited, I took a bottle of water out of my safari bag and handed it to him.
“Here, have some water,” I said.
“Th-Thank you. Um, how do I—”
“You open it by twisting the cap counterclockwise like this,” I gestured.
“Got it.”
The boy was amazed by how clear the water was, and he started chugging it with enthusiasm. He then paused and breathed “It’s delicious...” before letting out a sigh of relief.
I then took a cup of noodles out of my bag, removed the film, and started cooking it as I introduced myself. “I’m Kudo Akira. Kudo is my family name, and Akira is my first name.”
“Oh...I’m Dillon, Dillon Frost,” said the boy.
“Nice to meet you, Dillon.”
That was a pretty cool name. Since he was from this world, he was probably Dillon from a village named Frost.
He could be a main character with that kind of name.
“Did you just start dungeon diving, Dillon?” I asked.
“Yes. I came here to earn a living after leaving my village.”
“Ah, thought so.”
That was exactly what I’d thought. Having grown up in modern Japan, I considered the idea of being kicked out to reduce the number of mouths to feed absolutely horrible. He was so young, yet he’d come here all on his own and put his life in danger to try and earn a wage for himself. I respected the effort, and it made me realize just how blessed I’d been.
“But why are you here without anything to eat?” I asked.
“I used to hunt animals in my village, so my level was high enough for the Forest. But I got carried away,” explained Dillon.
“Ah, you thought you’d be fine going a little deeper. Then you ran into a monster that was stronger than you thought, and you managed to flee here by using your belongings as bait.”
“That’s right...” he admitted.
“So you were doing this sudden-death style IRL,” I said.
“Sudden what?” asked Dillon.
“Never mind. Don’t worry about it.”
Dillon really was in a heap of trouble. It wasn’t just because he was nearly starving but also since it would’ve been over for him if he’d been attacked by a monster even once. Playing in sudden-death mode in video games was fine, but diving that way in real life was no joke. It’d take a huge toll on your mental health.
“Sensei is a demon; Sensei is a demon; Sensei is a demon...” I muttered.
“A-Are you okay?” asked Dillon, concerned.
“Oh, sorry! Don’t mind me, ha ha...” I said, realizing I’d been talking to myself. I had to keep it together.
The stainless steel camping kettle let out a high-pitched whistle. The water had finished boiling. I opened the lid of the cup noodles halfway and poured in the hot water.
“Just a minute. It’ll be ready soon,” I said.
“O-Okay...?”
Dillon was clearly confused. As a resident of Do-Melta, he had no idea what cup noodles were. He was probably wondering why I’d poured hot water into a strange container.
“Are you out here alone?” asked Dillon.
“Yeah, I am. I usually dive solo.”
“And you’re fine all by yourself?”
“Yep, I’m a mage. See? Here’s my staff,” I said and showed him.
“So that’s why,” he said, understanding immediately.
He must’ve figured a mage could handle themself. Though, solo diving wasn’t recommended, so even a mage could get scolded for doing so.
“By the way, are you injured at all?” I asked. “I can heal you while we wait.”
“Oh, I’m okay. Just a few scratches, if anything,” he said.
“You should at least clean your wounds then. You don’t wanna get tetanus.”
“Tetanus?” asked Dillon.
“Leaving open wounds dirty isn’t good. You should wash it when you can,” I said as I took a two-liter bottle of water out of my Dimension Bag. “Use this to clean off any dirt.”
“B-But this water is so clean!” said Dillon.
“Oh, don’t worry. It’s just tap water, not mineral water. Go ahead. Clean your wounds,” I said.
Dillon was hesitant to use such clean water that way. He poured just a tiny bit of water at a time to clean himself, but he wasn’t making any progress at all, so I took the bottle and dumped the water onto his wounds.
After we were done cleaning his wounds, Dillon started getting restless. He couldn’t help but notice the fragrance emanating from the cup noodle container.
Once three minutes had passed, I removed the lid completely and handed the cup to Dillon.
“Here you go,” I said. “Be careful; it’s hot. Oh, and here’s a fork.”
“Ah, wha— Huh?” he said, looking back and forth between the fork and cup in confusion.
All he had to do was to use the fork normally, so I wasn’t sure what the holdup was.
“Oh, that’s why,” I said to myself.
He’d never used a fork before. I’d heard that in this world, people in farming villages generally still ate with their bare hands. He’d probably seen a fork before but never used one personally.
“You use this fork to catch the noodles like this,” I said.
I showed him how to use the fork, and he awkwardly carried some noodles to his mouth.
“This is good!” he exclaimed.
“Yeah, that’s usually how people react when they try cup noodles for the first time,” I said.
He was enjoying it so much that he inhaled the noodles despite them being piping hot. I recalled how delicious cup noodles had tasted when I’d been younger, before my palate had become more refined. Though, fancier cup noodles still tasted delicious to me even now that I’d gotten used to high-quality ingredients from the dungeon. Dillon had probably been exposed to only a narrow range of flavors until now, so his tongue wasn’t used to food with such rich flavor. Cultural differences could be a factor in whether someone liked certain dishes or not, but in his case, practically anything was gonna taste good.
Dillon continued wolfing down his food, then suddenly paused as if a realization had hit him. “Um...are you sure it’s okay for me to have such delicious food?”
“Hmm? Oh, don’t worry about it. I wouldn’t have given it to you if I needed it, right?” I said.
“I suppose you’re right,” he said, looking grateful. He was so moved that he was starting to make me feel guilty.
Dillon eventually finished the cup noodles down to the last drop of soup, then said, “Thank you so much. I don’t know how I could thank you enough.”
“It’s fine. I’ve been asked to help people when I can, so I’m doing just that.”
It was God who’d made the request, but I didn’t feel the need to mention that part.
“Uh, well, here you go,” he said, offering the loot he’d been hiding in his pocket.
He must’ve been protecting it with his life even though he’d discarded his food out of necessity. It was his way of thanking me.
“No need,” I said.
“But—”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but at my level, I can easily get something like that if I wanted. Besides, do you think that’s worth as much as what I’ve given you?”
“No...” he said.
“Right? So feel free to accept what I’ve given you as a token of generosity,” I said.
In truth, I’d only given him what amounted to two hundred and a few dozen yen. It was so cheap that it wasn’t even worth what he was offering in return.
Now that things had calmed down, I had to do something for him as his senior. Just like that time I’d helped Scrael, it’d be irresponsible of me if I’d just helped him and left him out to dry.
Seeing me sitting upright, Dillon seemed to sense that I was about to say something important, and his expression grew serious.
“Dillon, I know I’m in no position to say this as a solo Diver, but you really shouldn’t be out here by yourself. If you just started diving, you should try to find a team to join or hire a guide or something,” I said.
“I didn’t know how to do any of that, and my receptionist told me it could be more trouble than it’s worth if I ended up talking to a bad team...so I thought it’d be better to go by myself,” replied Dillon.
“Ah, so that’s why.”
It was kind of a pain for new Divers to join a team. This wasn’t like online games where you could just introduce yourself and join some team right away. Running into other Divers by chance was the only way to find new members, and age differences with potential teammates could further complicate things. On the other hand, joining a team that was already established would also be difficult because of the level gap, and most of them would turn down a newbie unless they had the capacity to take care of them. Plus, Divers weren’t always good people like the folks from that veteran team, and I’d heard of people getting scammed when trying to join teams. When I’d first arrived, Lion-Maru had taken care of me and introduced me to Instructor Seeker, who was a dungeon guide, so I’d been super lucky.
“I heard you can make pretty good money solo if you can farm in the Forest, so I thought I should get some proper equipment before joining a team,” said Dillon.