Fourth Omake
New Year’s
New Year’s. Unlike Christmas, New Year’s isn’t a religious event, it’s a celebrated event even in this other world.
Because of that, I tried setting up a New Year’s versions of traps. In addition, since its ability to kill got unexpectedly ridiculous, the target this time is just Hero Wataru. It’d be a bit awkward to kill someone with just a bit of joking around after all.
Eh? This Isn’t Revenge For Christmas Y’know~?
After all, it’s not like I’d be angry enough to kill him for correcting the ‘in exchange for the socks’ to ‘put inside of the socks’ right? Hahahahaha.
“And so Hero Wataru. Could you go and check to see if anything in the dungeon seems off?”
“Hahaha, so looks like Kehma-san’s going to sleep through New Year’s, huh!”
“Hey, there’s a reward for it, this thing that came from the dungeon. It’s an advance payment.”
“A pochibukuro! That’s a pochibukuro, isn’t it!? A New Year’s gift for the first time in three years…! I’ll accept it!” [1]
I knew you’d say that.
Dying to the point that you don’t die would be great.
*
The first things that the hero encountered after entering were the skewer traps.
Bamboo cut diagonally into a point attacked him from the ground. In the flash of an eye, a green needle flew towards the hero from the side.
“Hyaah! T-this is… New Year’s pine decorations!? No way, is it really!?” [2]
Wataru was jumping about, placing his feet onto the tips of the sharpened bamboo as his tension rose slightly.
When taking a closer look, the needle that stuck into the ground was a pine needle… And so, while Wataru stood on top of the bamboo, suddenly—
“Huh? What about the plum blossoms?”
Thinking about New Year’s pine decorations, there should be all three: pine, bamboo, and plum blossoms.
Hearing the sound of air being barreled through behind him, he turned around to see a log swooping towards him.
He caught the log with his left hand—
“Is this the plum tree? Might be… Well, I don’t know since it’s just the log. But pine decorations huh? Pine decoration traps on New Year’s, this is getting fun.”
—and more traps sprung up from the ground.
“A bit surprising huh.”
Wataru smiled.
*
When he walked into the labyrinth, a large torimochi suddenly dropped from the ceiling. [3]
“Oh ball of fire, burn my enemy! [Fireball]!”
The torimochi was burned away instantly…
More torimochi burned in his surroundings… a dreadful trap, it would’ve been impossible to move if he’d gotten caught.
“Fufufu, mochi, mochi huh… kagamimochi… nn? Wait, then that means—! Oh ball of fire, burn my enemy! [Fireball]!” [4]
Trusting in his intuition, he once again cast fireball, this time aiming for the ceiling. A second wave of torimochi rained down, burning.
The second wave of kagamimochi—not that, torimochi—targeted negligence. It really was a nasty trap.
“If it’s like this, is there the thing that must be placed on top of a kagamimochi—a bitter orange—too!?”
He was vigilant of the ceiling after that, but nothing really appeared…
“…Maybe it’s the type of kagamimochi that doesn’t have an orange? Ah, but it has a sweet filling!”
Wataru hurried forward.
*
He went further into the labyrinth area. Suddenly, he felt a sense of incongruity in his vision. For a moment, it had blurred.
When he turned around, the passage that he definitely came from wasn’t there… rather, it had moved ninety degrees to his side.
… He looked at the floor.
“… A rotating floor? Hmm, could it be… a spinning top…? No way, maybe I’m overthinking it?”
And then, at that moment, a small black ball flew through the air.
He deflected it with his sword on reflex.
Clang! Clang!
It let out a light sound.
“… H-hanetsuki? Is it really hanestuki?” [5]
And so, he looked at the ball that fell down… right, on that ball was—
Zzzzaaa.
—a black liquid poured down from the ceiling, staining Wataru.
“… There’s feathers on it…!”
Because the shuttlecock hit the ground, Wataru received the ink baptism. It was that kind of thing.
However, this really…
… smelled like oil.
“This isn’t ink, is it… [Cleanup], [Cleanup], [Cleanup]…”
Using [Cleanup] over and over and over and over, he was finally clean.
*
The place he thought was the riddle area… had turned into a safety zone.
So he took a breather.
However, this dungeon was able to communicate with Japan in some way. Wataru’s conviction of this deepened.
“New Year’s… yeah, the theme right now is definitely New Year’s.”
He regretted not having the time to dive into the dungeon on Christmas. He felt it was a blunder on his part for just leaving after giving the standard greetings since he didn’t have the time. He was sure that there was definitely a Christmas theme at the time.
Like there would be more treasure chests or something.
“However, I wonder if there’s games like flying kites or pin the tail on the donkey, or maybe anything like that…?”
Taking a glimpse into the next area, it was the spiral staircase area…
“—There’s definitely gotta be [Ball Dropping].”
For some reason, he was able to predict it.
Following his prediction, a giant ball fell down and attacked him, so Wataru was satisfied.
*
“How was the dungeon?”
“It was awesome… Ah, no, it’s in a really dangerous state.”
This guy got caught in so many of the New Year’s traps, but he’s smiling?
He really just brushed them all aside, but… is this guy an M?
I asked to see his report of the traps on a map. Yep, I already knew it, but he’s in high spirits. He figured out the inspiration for them all, so I’m also satisfied.
“But maybe it’s unreasonable for that rotating saw trap to be the [Happy New Year’s] itself, hmmm…”
Ah, sorry. That’s just a normal trap. You’re overthinking it.
“Hmm, maybe it’s going through another transition phase?”
“No no, it’s definitely for New Year’s… I think maybe three, no, seven days at the most is how long it’ll last. I’m thinking that the items are a limited time thing. Please, look at these.”
Wataru held out a can filled with curry powder.
“It’s currey powder!”
“Hmm, does that have any direct relation to New Year’s?”
“… … Not directly, no.”
Well, I’m the one who put it there though.
“… Also, please tell me if something like this happens again!”
“If it’s a limited time thing, wouldn’t it be over by the time a report to you arrived?”
“Wha—!? Now that you say it, that’s right huh.”
Yep, I definitely don’t want to do something so troublesome as switching around the dungeon constantly.
Furthermore, the limited edition New Year’s dungeon ended three days later.
Of course, me sleeping through New Year’s got ruined since there was talk of a transition phase going on.
Damn it…
Footnotes:
Pochibukuros look like this and are gifts given on New Year’s, generally to children. Commonly(usually) have money in them. Return
The decorations are like this Return
Sticky paper used to capture birds and insects. Think flytraps that we have here in the US. Return
Mochi -> sticky rice cake. Kagamimochi -> a pair of mochi used as New Year’s offerings, cut and eaten on January 11th. Return
Japanese badminton! The thing he deflected—the shuttlecock—looks like this Return