Chapter 400: The Offering
[God dammit! I’m SCREWED!]
Watching Diniel hand the mysterious paper card to her party members while she studied the Black Gate that likely led to the next layer, Tsutomu felt an overwhelming urge to simply give up on everything.
The paper, he knew, would not translate itself into the local language until someone with the appropriate Appraisal skill examined it. For now, Diniel and the others had not realized it was written in Japanese. But once they returned, it was inevitable that she would ask Amy to appraise it. And Amy, being Diniel’s best friend, would not lie to her.
Even if she tried to lie, Tsutomu could already imagine Diniel seeing through the deception. She would simply bring it to someone else with an Appraisal skill, and everything would come to light.
And then what? He could imagine a hundred different outcomes, but none of them were good. As his mind spiraled, another line of thought resurfaced, one he had already wrung dry countless times: even if he returned to Earth now, if he were thrown back two years into the future, would there be any place left for him? That ever-present fear of what might await him in the real world clawed back to the forefront of his thoughts.
As he brooded, something small and soft came to rest gently atop his head. It took him a few seconds to register the touch as Eunice’s hand.
“There’s no reason to look so hopeless, you know? The hundredth layer isn’t the end! God’s Dungeon will go on! So cheer up, okay?”
While Tsutomu had been trapped in his thoughts, Eunice had been puzzling over what had caused his sudden shift in mood. She assumed, wrongly, that he was worried about the Dungeon’s potential end. So she offered her clueless comfort and, with exaggerated cheer, began to pat his head like she was consoling a sulking child.
Tsutomu had no idea what she was talking about. But the forced smile on her face was so earnest in its intent to cheer him up that he could not bring himself to stop her.