The Level-Up Junkie Acquires a 【Title】

March 19.

Today, like yesterday, I'd come to Shinjuku Dungeon first thing in the morning.

"Oi, isn't that…"

"That's the guy, right…?"

"Yeah… the unhinged one from yesterday…"

"Hm? What…?"

Walking from the changing room inside the Shinjuku-Station Explorer Association branch toward the Dungeon, I kept getting the feeling that people around me were watching.

"……"

I glanced around almost reflexively — and people, somehow, immediately looked away.

I checked to see whether something was off about my outfit, but couldn't find anything wrong.

Was I of all people feeling self-conscious?

A bit puzzled, but no one was actually saying anything to my face — so I decided not to worry about it and headed into the Dungeon.

"All right, let's get killing today too…!!"

Yesterday I'd packed in early because of fatigue, but Floor 1 monsters don't make me tense any more. So today there shouldn't be a repeat collapse around 3 p.m. — yesterday felt like more mental fatigue than physical, after all.

So, in high spirits, I marched deeper into the Dungeon.

The Slime population had clearly recovered overnight — there were a lot of them about — and I cut them down in passing with the longsword, hunting Mr Goblin and his juicier EXP yields.

Pretty soon, today's first Mr Goblin turned up.

My face lit up. With the light, bouncy step you reserve for greeting an old friend, I closed the distance.

"Mr Gobliiiin!!"

"GUGYAH? GUGYAAAAAAAAH!!!"

"— DIE!!"

I brought the sword down on the Goblin's shoulder in a kesa-giri slash, splitting clean through to the centre of its chest.

It's still not a one-shot bisection, but a Lv.1 Mr Goblin goes down in a single hit now.

I dropped the magic stone into my rucksack and walked on, hunting for the next one.

"Hmm, but if I'm clearing this easily, isn't it more efficient to just go down to Floor 2…?"

Floor 2 spawns the same monster mix as Floor 1: Slimes and Goblins. But it differs in two ways.

First, the monsters are higher level. According to the Modern Dungeon Strategy Wiki, Floor 2 spawns Lv.2–3 Slimes and Goblins. I can probably clear those at my current strength.

The second difference, though, is more of a problem.

On Floor 1, monsters almost always spawn solo, because the spawn-points are far enough apart that they can't pack up.

On Floor 2, however, monsters of the same species can spawn in groups of up to three. Which is why, from Floor 2 onward, parties are generally recommended for exploration.

By the way: a Party isn't simply "a group of friends exploring together". The black obelisk at every Dungeon entrance has a function called Party Formation, and an Explorer group formed using that function is what's called a Party.

The advantage is that, regardless of who actually contributed to a fight, every member of the Party gains the same amount of EXP.

If EXP varied by combat contribution, attackers would shoot up in levels while tanks and healers stagnated — so this function is broadly welcomed by Explorers.

Also: forming a Party isn't as hard as you'd think.

The Explorer Association provides a matchmaking app for finding Party members called Dungeon Pairs — so even if you don't have any Explorer friends or acquaintances, you can use the app to form a Party with total strangers.

Mind you — this is wildly popular for non-party-finding reasons too. I think trying to find love in a dungeon may indeed be wrong!! ¹

Anyway.

Back to me. I had absolutely no intention of forming a Party going forward.

Reason being: when you Party up, EXP gets divided evenly among members. The Party cap is five, which means the EXP you receive can be reduced to as little as one-fifth.

A Lv.1 Slime gives 5 EXP — in a five-person Party, that's down to 1.

A Lv.1 Goblin gives 10 EXP — even there, you'd net only 2.

Sure, the deeper floors have stronger monsters with bigger EXP yields, and a larger group can take on bigger, juicier targets. But even accounting for that — if your goal is grinding levels, going solo is overwhelmingly more efficient.

Besides — if this were a video game, I could enjoy levelling other party members up too, because the dopamine still triggers. But in this real-world Dungeon, raising someone else's level does nothing for me. No high.

For that reason alone, Party-up is off the table.

— Right. Bit of a tangent, but…

"Should I just bring the timeline forward and dive into Floor 2?"

If it goes badly I can just retreat to Floor 1.

With my current stats I should at least be able to escape from the Floor-2 Goblins, surely — so I pulled up my Status to confirm.

————————————————————————

【Name】Samejima Takeo

【Level】『3』   To next level: EXP 『165』

《HP》32/32

《MP》18/18

《STR》20

《VIT》12

《INT》6

《MND》12

《AGI》17

《DEX》12

【STP】『0』

【SP】『0』

【Skill】《Bladed Weapon Damage Up Lv.3》《Berserk Lv.1》

【Title】《Madman》

————————————————————————

"……Excuse me?"

What is this, hmmm?

A Skill I've never seen before, and a Title I've never seen before, have sprouted on my Status while I wasn't looking.

I pulled up the details on each from the Status screen.

————————————————————————

【Title】

《Madman》 — proof that the bearer has been recognised as a madman by many. Acquires the Skill 《Berserk》.

【Skill】

《Berserk Lv.1》 — While Skill is active: 《STR》 +20%, 《INT》 −20%, damage taken ×1.2.

————————————————————————

…"Proof that the bearer has been recognised as a madman by many" — ARE YOU KIDDING.

How on earth did this happen!? I can't think of anything I did to deserve it!!

I was, hand to god, completely baffled!!

Footnotes

1. TL note: the JP line is a wink to the title of Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? — a famous LN/anime. Preserved as a parodic aside. ↩