Hazure Skill ‘Mapping’ wo Te ni Shita Ore wa, Saikyou Party to Tomo ni Dungeon ni Idomu Chapter 11

Chapter 11
Chapter 11 – Change

Translator: Mana

“I’m sorry for yesterday…”

The next morning, when we arrived for our usual jog at the gate that lead outside the town of Puriff, Neme bowed her head to me. According to Neme, I had been acting distant ever since I returned from jail yesterday. Neme didn’t about how I was scolded by Erin, so she mistakenly thought I was upset about the false charge she caused. It seemed like I had caused trouble for Neme too… I tried to explain how I wasn’t mad at her while scratching my head.

If that incident didn’t happen, I wouldn’t have realised the slack that Erin pointed out as fast. That’s why I thought being thrown into prison worked out well in the end.

I was a completely different person to when I was confined, and no longer had any feelings of anger towards Neme. If anything, the only person I was angry at was my own pathetic self.

I was so frustrated at my inability to accomplish anything, I couldn’t forgive myself.

“Alright, let’s go!” Force’s voice hurriedly called out. Apparently, he was partic.i.p.ating today. Neme was also feeling guilty and agreed to be carried over my shoulder without complaint, unlike yesterday.

With that smooth start, Force and I ran along the outside wall of Puriff.

“It feels like Note’s shoulder is more uncomfortable than usual…” Neme spoke up honestly. In response to that, my only thought was “As I expected…”

And the reason for that was—

“It really is tough running while using ‘Enemy Search’ at the same time…” I muttered under my breath so that Neme wouldn’t hear my complaints over my shoulder.

This experiment was the result of spending all night turning what Erin said over in my mind, thinking about what to do. Like Erin had said, it was no good learning at my current pace unless I intended on using the whole five months for learning the ‘Enemy Search’, ‘Trap Detect’, and ‘Trap Dismantle’ arts.

I was currently a roadblock in the dungeon clearing progress of the first-cla.s.s adventurer party, the ‘Arrivers’. I had to master ‘Enemy Search’, ‘Trap Detect’, and ‘Trap Dismantle’ fast, as fast as possible.

That was when I came up with the idea to always keep ‘Enemy Search’ activated, even during other practices. It was true that there using them both had the risk of lowering the efficiency of ‘Enemy Search’ and the other practice. However, when you’re actually in a dungeon, there are situations where you must use multiple arts at once and run while using ‘Enemy Search’.

Overcoming a difficulty of this degree should be reasonable. Rather than whining idly, it was worth testing. But it wasn’t like I could just ignore Neme’s complaints.

I locked the arm carrying Neme into place and focused on reducing the swaying in my body. I also made sure not to forget ‘Enemy Search’…

After progressing for a while and becoming able to see ahead clearly, I noticed that the distance between Force and I had widened more than before. Apparently I was too conscious of Neme’s comfort, and my running speed had slowed down.

As I increased my pace, I used my ‘Enemy Search’ senses to continuously check the surroundings. I also had to remember to reduce my swaying as much as possible…

“If you focus on something else, you’ll miss things you would normally pick up on! ”

Suddenly, I remembered what Erin told me earlier. If I recalled correctly, that was when I detected the trap with Neme’s underwear. It was exactly as she said…

At that

time, I didn’t understand the meaning of the message Erin wanted to tell me at all, but now I knew. Even though she gave me that hint, I was disgusted beyond belief at my immature past self for not realising it was a hint.

I noticed that my ‘Enemy Search’ was slacking while I was looking back on the past, and pulled myself together. Regret could come later. Right now I had to focus on the task at hand.

In the morning ‘Enemy Search’ practice with Jin, my concentration was running low from having ‘Enemy Search’ activated all morning, and I lost focus several times. But that was still alright.

The problem was in the afternoon, when I was practising ‘Trap Detect’ and ‘Trap Dismantle’. Because I had constantly kept ‘Enemy Search’ invoked, the accuracy of my ‘Trap Detect’ and ‘Trap Dismantle’ dropped dramatically.

I wasn’t expecting to do it perfectly from the start, so this was well within my own expectations, but the problem lied in Erin’s reaction.

Ever since the events of yesterday the atmosphere between Erin and I was at its worst, so as soon as she noticed my ‘Trap Detect’ and ‘Trap Dismantle’ level dropping or whatnot, she turned an even colder att.i.tude towards me.

With her disappointedly cool glare, Erin taught me that there was something worse than the worst in this world. It was a glare that seemed to be saying “I only scolded you a little harshly, if that’s enough to make you crumble then you’re truly trash”.

To be honest, it would be understandable for Erin to think that way.

If you had strongly warned someone about something, only for them to become unable to do what they were capable of the next day, you would misunderstand too.

I had a slight feeling that it would come to this. But even so, the fact that Erin did not scold me or complain today was like she had decided I had not met her expectations, and stabbed at my heart no matter how prepared I was.

However, I didn’t think it was right to crack under that worst atmosphere and cancel my ‘Enemy Search’ in order to focus solely on ‘Trap Detect’ and ‘Trap Dismantle’. That felt like it would be truly betraying Erin, so I kept using ‘Enemy Search’.

There was also the option of explaining to Erin that I was using ‘Enemy Search’ at the same time as ‘Trap Detect’ and ‘Trap Dismantle’. But I stopped. It felt dangerous to put the resolution I finally gathered within myself out loud, as if it might be cheapened that way.

I wasn’t practicing these arts in order to get on Erin’s good side. I was practicing in order to go dungeon diving with the ‘Arrivers’ as quickly as possible, without being a burden.

I absolutely wanted to avoid a situation where my own determination was broken by something as small and insignificant as the opinion of others.

After dinner. I knocked on the door to Jin’s room.

“Wait a second,” Jin’s voice called out, opening the door a moment later.

“What’s wrong? Suddenly wanting to talk to me… Is it about today’s practice not going well?” Jin asked worriedly. Even during the ‘Trap Detect’ and ‘Trap Dismantle’ practice he seemed to sense the stormy atmosphere between Erin and I, and somehow managed to keep her calm.

I felt sorry for getting Jin involved with my personal issues like this. However, I had a different reason for visiting Jin’s room this time. I offered my apologies and grat.i.tude for him calming the situation, then got to the main point.

“You want me to make traps!?”

Jin raised his voice in surprise. The thought of causing more trouble makes me withdraw a little. But even so, I couldn’t back down. I looked at him straight in the eye and made my request.

“Yes. I never have anything to do in the time after dinner… Since I was free anyway, I wanted to work on practising ‘Trap Dismantle’ a little more… A small-scale trap should be possible indoors…”

Traps came in all kinds of sizes, from large ones that dropped from the ceiling to little magic circles that zapped you with a little electric shock. I wanted to have Jin create traps that could be activated indoors, so that I could practise ‘Trap Dismantle’.

Jin seemed a little troubled by my idea and scratched the back of his head.

“That kind of thing would be better for you to ask Erin… Actually, that seems quite difficult right now. I’ll ask Erin to make some traps myself.”

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Jin dropped his gaze away from my bowed head wistfully.

“For Note to request something like this… is it related to what happened with Erin today after all? You don’t have to worry about that, everyone has their bad days…”

“It’s not like that. It doesn’t have anything to do with how the atmosphere between Erin and I was the worst…”

The reason I hesitated from telling Jin the truth was because I felt that putting my determination into words cheapened it. But I couldn’t lie to Jin’s face just to stop him from worrying…

“Well it’s not completely irrelevant, but Jin shouldn’t worry about it. I’ll figure out why today’s practice didn’t go well by myself!”

I waved away his concerns with my fake smile, the only skill you could say I had picked up from my days as a stray adventurer.

If I could quickly learn to use ‘Enemy Search’ with ‘Trap Detect’ and ‘Trap Dismantle’ at the same time, I could stop Jin from worrying and dissolve this tense relations.h.i.+p with Erin.

That was all I could do right now.

There was no need to confess my plans and have others feel pity for me.

After that. I took Erin’s small traps I received through Jin and spent every second of my spare time working towards ‘Trap Dismantle’.

Of course, I didn’t forget to activate ‘Enemy Search’ either—