episode_0004

4. Awareness (4)

Thanks to Tanya, who was presumed to have eaten a bowl of rice with her brother, I realized what function Hitomi Kaho had, so I quietly returned to my lodging from the park.

When I first arrived at the accommodation, there was no one in the room, so I thought Claude had escaped in broad daylight, so I looked around and saw that he was training in the backyard of the accommodation, so I returned to the room.

Only then did I want to wash up, so I looked around the inside of the room and saw two wooden buckets in front of a small door that looked like a bathroom.

I sighed at the sight of the bucket full of clean water, the small ladle floating on top of it, and the four stiff towels hanging at the entrance to the accommodation.

“I can’t feel the difference.”

As I became aware of my past life and became more sensible to modern people, I felt very sad when I saw the mess in the dormitory.

“Soap..? There is that.”

I opened the bathroom/toilet door and was relieved to see the soap.

“Even if they’re rookies or something, is this the only place a low-level explorer can stay?”

The basics provided in overnight accommodations are a bed, a bucket of clean water for washing and wiping each person, and two towels.

And the bathroom is about two pyeong (about 6.5 square meters) in size, with a tiled floor, a mirror, soap, and a urinal.

Washing and urinating are handled here, and the remaining water can be emptied into the urinal to reduce urine odor or used to wash the next morning.

If you want more water or towels, you have to pay extra.

“Oh.. There’s a mirror too…. What the heck?”

Now that I can see my face in the mirror, Cain, why do you only look at Sia with this face?

“He’s so handsome.”

If Claude was a typical macho handsome man with thick lines and a bold appearance, then what should I say about my face? He was a handsome man with a slightly neurotic impression that had a decadent and sickly look.

“I understand why women’s reactions are a bit strange.”

I can somewhat understand the reactions of Mion, the receptionist at the union, and Tanya, who saw me at the park.

“Oh, I feel uneasy. I should wash up first.”

I went into the bathroom to take off my clothes and wash…

“Wow.”

Below me, there was a snake bigger than the one my ex-girlfriend had loved so much in her past life when she caught me having sex with a black fitness trainer at our newlywed home and we broke up.

“씟!”

Even though he was clearly not angry and was in a calm state, to this extent… When he got a full erection, it seemed longer and thicker than when he had bombed his ex-girlfriend’s uterus in his past life, whether it was Michael or Bob.

As I pondered my memories, I remembered Claude’s astonished expression when he saw me showering in a bathroom without a partition during the early days of dungeon exploration, when we were staying in worse accommodations than now.

When Sia, who was uncomfortable with Hawk, was resting at the inn under the pretense of being tired, the three of us, Claude, Hawk, and I, would often drink together. I also remembered hearing stories about the establishments they were operating just before this labyrinth trip.

‘Hey, what do you do with the rice cake?’

‘Are you curious?’

‘Hey, tell me, you did it again last time?’

‘Hahaha!! Do you know Kanna?’

‘Ah! That herb!’

‘If you introduce her to a big guy and she’s satisfied, then you can thank her on her off day.’

‘oh.’

It’s not that I suggested it because I felt sorry for the woman and wanted her to hug me, but because I wanted to have sex for free, so I suggested it to the herb slut and the hole sister-in-law.

“ Chew ”

Claude often seemed like a good friend in other memories, but he also seemed like a brat.

“First, let’s get to know the relationships between the three people in this party a little more…”

I could immediately recall major or recent memories and act as ‘the usual Cain’, but I felt like the detailed episodes and emotions were still buried deep inside me, so I thought I would need to stay a few more days.

I need to use the excuse of being knocked down to rest a bit, find out more about this world, and decide whether to desert the party or continue as an explorer.

*

*

*

*

Even though I kept urging him to come back with all his memories back, he didn’t come back quickly, so I took a short nap and when I woke up, Claude, who had just returned from training, was whining that he was hungry, so I called Sia, who was staying in the room next door, and the three of us came down to the first floor to eat dinner.

“Sia, you should eat carrots too.”

“Huh.”

If you see a 21-year-old complaining about side dishes, you might get mad and call him a brat, but when you see Sia’s cute face and magnificent healing pouch, you don’t get mad and just smile like a father.

“Don’t scoop them out separately, but eat them together. Wouldn’t it be better to eat them together rather than just eating the carrots at the end?”

“Blue!!”

As I was watching Sia hastily eating the carrots that I had put aside with the stew, Claude asked about my protection.

“Hey, Cain, what kind of protection is this time?”

“Well, do you want to see?”

“Huh?”

“Hmm?”

When I showed them the Explorer Card I had renewed from the union, Claude and Sia also hurriedly took out their Explorer Cards and placed them on the table.

It’s like an unwritten rule of the labyrinth city. When you reveal your explorer card, the other person also reveals their card… It’s something that people who have entrusted their lives to do, but Claude understands, but even Sia is getting caught up in the show…

“Awareness? Awareness of what?”

“Cain.. What did you forget?”

“Well, it doesn’t seem like a blessing that casts anything, but rather a blessing that deepens your thinking.”

Since modern people have become aware of their past lives, their scope of thinking has broadened considerably, so it’s roughly correct.

“And thanks to this protection, I vaguely remembered how to use the first and second protections.”

“Really? Wow! Doesn’t that mean you’re smarter than you are now?”

“Congratulations Cain!!”

It is true that you need to know your past life to be able to utilize it, so this is also true.

“It’s not a particularly effective protection.”

“But where is that? Even if you don’t use any protection and just search with status, you’re still at the middle level of level 3.”

“That’s right.”

Claude’s Explorer card was revealed, tapping his card with his index finger.

Name: Claude

Level: 4

Status

Strength: 6

Agility: 6

Stamina: 3

Horsepower: 3

Special Status

Indomitable: 5

Guardian: Hero, Growth, Speed, Efficiency

Quirk

– Lechery

Usually, if the total status of an explorer is equal to or greater than level x4, excluding special statuses, it is considered to be at least as powerful as one person.

Claude is at level 4 with a total stat of 18, Sia is at level 3 with a total stat of 12, and I am also at 13, so all three of us are pretty good.

My special status, Dexterity, is 10, and all actions done by hand are compensated.

So, even though we hadn’t been able to use the protection at all up until now, we could form a party of just the three of us and enter the labyrinth without any problems. So now that we could properly use the protection, it was a situation where it would be beneficial for me to somehow have it work on me.

“So when are we going to do the next labyrinth run?”

Claude also knew that and asked me with a very expectant expression, but I told him about resting as I had expected.

“Hmm… I don’t think I can push myself yet.”

“Really?”

“I think you should rest for a few days, but Sia and I are going to do some gathering requests, so Claude, you should go to a makeshift party with Mr. Hawk.”

“Oh?”

“Instead, 70 percent of the salary should be paid as public funds.”

“Ah why!!”

“Why? Are you really asking because you don’t know?”

“…. Okay.”

Claude, who was excited about the prospect of having more sex with the money he earned from his tinkering while the party was on hiatus, was about to throw a tantrum at my words, but he calmed down when I took the steak knife I was using and pointed it at his heart.

“I’ll be resting for about 5 days, so don’t overdo it. Just fill in 4 of the 9 silvers you forgot about this time, and you can figure out the rest yourself.”

“Really!!”

“I told you not to overdo it. And I won’t deduct the cost of equipment repairs and consumables from the party’s funds, so figure it out yourself.”

“What!!”

“You know you still have a year left on your armor installment, right?”

“Right?”

“I’ve been using this sword for 6 months now, not the one I broke last time.”

“Yeah…”

“Even if our party grows at an unprecedented rate, if you don’t do anything stupid, the unit of cost deducted from the public treasury will be different.”

“Uh…that…sorry.”

Still, it’s a good thing that Claude the little shit at least seems to have a conscience like a human being, compared to the other outcasts and such.

“Do you remember your parents’ wedding anniversary last week?”

“Huh?”

In this life, I, Cain, was such a fool.

Of course, it was the same in my past life, but I wasn’t reincarnated as an orphan. All three of us still have our parents living well in our hometown.

When Claude made that stupid sound, Sia also put down the stew she was eating and looked at me with wide eyes.

“Last week, kid, Sia, whatever, you…….”

Although he had not shown it openly until now, Cain had been sending letters to his hometown on behalf of Siana Claude and had been sending money he had saved up or taking money from public funds to pay for condolence money.

The reason I started nagging at Claude now was because I was reminded of my ex-girlfriend from my past life.

‘Honey, it’s my parents’ wedding anniversary. Do you have anything?’

‘No, I eat that kind of beef all the time.’

‘How about sending them on a filial piety trip or something? Packages are pretty good these days.’

My ex-girlfriend wanted me to treat her like a son-in-law even though we hadn’t even been living together for a year.

‘Mom, are you well~ Hehe… I’m sorry. We’ve been busy lately so we haven’t been able to visit you… Next time, I’ll definitely stop by with you!’

‘Oppa, I’m going to go on a vacation with Mijin, so take care of your own food, okay?’

‘Oh, why!! I made a reservation two months in advance.’

Well, I don’t know if she called my parents and went on a vacation with Mijin, Bob, or Jimmy.

Anyway, I was thinking about that annoying girl and I started to feel upset and started to verbally scold Claude.

“….so you knew!”

“Ugh..! Th…stop it Cain, it was my fault!! Please stop!!”

Oh, I’ve been talking too much.

Anyway, whether it’s Cain or me, no, it doesn’t seem like there’s much difference between a past life and a present life, so it seems like it’s true that I was reincarnated and not someone who was possessed by a strange body.

“Sia, what are you doing?”

“Um… Sorry?”

After nagging me for over 10 minutes, Claude pretended to cover his ears and begged me to stop, and Sia put down her spoon, clasped her hands together, and gave me a big hug.

“It’s okay, Sia is kind, so let’s hurry up and eat.”

“Yeah!”

When I told her it was okay, Sia’s expression quickly relaxed and she started tearing off some bread and dipping it in the stew.

“I!!”

“I’ll stop nagging here, so you eat too.”

“Yeah..”

Dinner ended with Claude continuing to beat his chest as if he was tired from eating dinner while watching me, and Sia smiling happily after eating dessert.