Having Enough to Eat and Knowing the Dungeon*2
So, after thinking it over for a bit, I decided to dismantle my T-shirt once and use it to make a full set of clothes.
The oversized, baggy T-shirt turned into a perfectly fitting tank top. I gave up on the sleeves. Not enough fabric.
Along with that, I managed to make a pair of shorts and—finally—underwear. Pants. I finally got my hands on some pants!
Since the T-shirt had been a cotton-polyester blend, I made the shorts mostly polyester and the underwear mainly cotton. Because, well, underwear made of polyester is just… yeah, no. That’s not okay.
“Phew, that feels better.”
For the time being, clothing was taken care of. I had avoided becoming the neighborhood exhibitionist boy. Happy ending, happy ending.
… If possible, I’d prefer long sleeves and long pants, but with only a T-shirt and my bag as materials, there wasn’t much I could do. And I wanted to keep the bag as a bag.
Now then.
“Okay, next up is securing food…”
Which is why I busily started preparing for food acquisition. Of course—if I don’t eat, I’ll die. All I’ve got on me right now is a BLT sandwich for lunch (with a criminally stingy amount of B) and a bottle of barley tea. That’ll run out in half a day.
… But if I can dismantle a stone all the way down to its elements and then rebuild it, then things are different.
Naturally, stones contain some water, and probably some carbon too. Combine those, and at the very least, carbohydrates should be possible.
Materials aside, as for the method… once I dismantle and absorb a substance, I can get extremely detailed information about it. Even if it’s something I don’t understand, with the dungeon’s assist, I can apparently reconstruct it.
For example, I can’t instantly diagram how a gasoline engine works right now, but once I dismantle and absorb one, I could probably build them as much as I want, as long as I’ve got the parts. Basically, I’d be getting the blueprint. That kind of deal.
On the flip side, it means “I can only reconstruct something if it’s within my knowledge or I’ve dismantled and absorbed it before.” Probably. Well, I’ll test that as I go…
… For now, in order to secure the blueprint, I dismantled and absorbed just a little of the bread part of my BLT sandwich… and here goes!
“This isn’t just un-cost-effective—it’s a disaster!”
… Right. To cut to the chase: “Possible on an experimental level, but totally impractical.”
Because the cost-performance was way too terrible. Specifically, trying to create bread from stone burned through an absurd amount of mana. Plus, it tired me out. Turns out this dungeon power actually puts a load on me, too.
So basically, making bread from stone was just too impractical.
“If only I could start from carbohydrates, it’d be way more efficient.”
But I didn’t give up.
Yeah, making bread from stone was a bit much.
But what about making bread from grass?
The main component of plant cell walls and fibers: cellulose! It’s made of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen—so compared to stone, it should be way easier to rearrange into starch, right?
Or better yet, if I can find roots or nuts, that’d be even better. If I can extract the starch plants store by dismantling and absorbing them… it’s doable! I can get my food!
Which means…
“No helping it. Time to go exploring.”
… So I decided to head outside the cave to look for food—that is, plants.
My belongings: the bag holding my tea and BLT sandwich. Plus a small iron knife I’d made from magnetite extracted from granite. Making that one had cost me a lot of stamina. Maybe I’ll get used to it later. Here’s hoping.
Also, since I figured I’d need shoes for walking around outside… I dismantled a TOEIC prep book and used the paper to make sandals that were kind of like straw sandals. Obviously low durability, so if I found plant fibers outside, I’d swap to those…
“… Huh? What’s this?”
The moment I dismantled the prep book, I felt something like power welling up inside me.
I mean, sure, when I dismantle stone and absorb it, I feel a bit of energy too, but the prep book was on a whole different level.
Also, all of its contents got crammed into my head.
… Wait, what!? Does that mean I can score full marks on the TOEIC now!? That’s terrifying! Absolutely terrifying! No thank you!
Well, scary or not.
“So the mana I get depends on what I dismantle…?”
Looks like dismantling the prep book gave me way more mana than granite or tissues.
And what’s more, once I’d dismantled the prep book, using that to make sandals—just paper sandals with no writing—didn’t cost me much mana at all.
If I dismantle a stone and spit it back out as a block, my mana balance is almost zero. But after dismantling the prep book and spitting out sandals, the balance was heavily in the plus.
… Interesting.
Still, for now, I set that aside and focused on getting out of the cave. I wanted to secure food while I was still feeling okay.
… But getting out of the cave was unbelievably hard.
Because this cave was deep.
Not surprising, since the ceiling had been so high. Naturally, it goes down deep.
Well, in a stroke of misfortune-turned-fortune, I can apparently sense the layout of the dungeon. It’s tiring, but I can at least move around while looking at an accurate map in my head.
“… I’ll just make a path here.”
When I wanted a shortcut, I dismantled walls for mana. Honestly, there’s no way a kid-sized body could explore otherwise.
And somehow, I finally made it outside.
… What awaited me was, basically, a forest. Trees everywhere, sunlight filtering down gently.
“So this is still inside the dungeon, huh…”
Even out here, I could somehow tell “yep, this is part of the dungeon.” Probably the dungeon still extended this far. I didn’t know what decided its boundaries, but it definitely felt like this was “my territory.”
“Okay, let’s see… food, and maybe wood, plant fibers, stuff like that…”
Might as well take advantage of the forest’s bounty.
Right away, I started gathering fallen branches and putting them in my bag—
“… Nope, too much trouble. I’ll just dismantle them and store the mana.”
No need to increase my luggage. Unless I wanted something to keep in its original shape, better to dismantle and store it as mana. My elementary-schooler body only had so much stamina.
“Luckily, dismantling doesn’t use much stamina… Oh, wait, if I dismantle too far it’s a mess. Ahhh, nonono, I don’t need all that info, don’t need oak’s genetic sequence, ahhhhhh!”
… Unless I consciously blocked it, absurd amounts of information would come pouring in.
What the—so wood has more information than stone? And it feels like I get more mana too. That’s… nice, I guess, but…
… And then.
“Ugh!?”
Apparently I’d accidentally dismantled an ant corpse on a branch. In that instant, an insane flood of information rushed into me.
So much that I froze for a solid five minutes, my brain drowning in data.
“… I’m exhausted.”
I felt like my willpower was leaking out.
After a break and a little recovery, I reflected and decided to proceed more carefully.
“I need to focus on not routing the info through my brain…”
So, dismantling wood, ants, and so on gave me their information. But it seemed I could consciously block that from entering me.
In fact, if I didn’t block it, I’d get overwhelmed with raw genetic data and such.
Earlier, I’d even gotten a flood of an ant’s entire life story—or ant-life story?—jammed into me. Sure, maybe that could be useful sometimes… but as long as I can pull it out when needed, that’s enough.
It seemed the information was archived inside the dungeon itself, so there was no need for me to personally process it in real time. So I decided to learn how to divert it straight into the dungeon without letting it into my body.
With a bit of practice, I got the hang of it. Which meant I could now freely dismantle and absorb without worry.
… So I went on a spree, like I was clearing weeds in front of the dungeon, dismantling grass and branches left and right, and also found a water source and absorbed tons of that. Gathering all the information as I went.
Which meant, finally, I could make it.
“Arise… cellulose fibers!”
I extracted the stuff that’s in every plant by rearranging them. Not much different from pulling out magnetite from granite.
“And then, transform the cellulose fibers into cellulose cloth!”
I twisted the fibers into threads, wove them together into fabric, and manifested it. Basically the same as spitting out granite blocks. A bit more tiring, but whatever.
… And with that, my efforts paid off!
“Release cellulose cloth… summon pants!”
Pop.
… Before my eyes, pants appeared.
Yes! My second pair of pants! Now I had a change of clothes! Might as well make more while I’m at it!
“Actually, if I just dismantled and absorbed the grime on clothes, I wouldn’t even need changes of clothes…”
I immediately swapped into the new pants for no real reason, but thinking about it, that might’ve been pointless.
Still, as practice with dungeon powers, it was a good exercise. Along with the pants, I also made extra clothes, some fabric shoes, and sandals like the kind woven from plant fibers.
Since the paper sandals were too flimsy, I switched to the plant-fiber sandals. Okay, good.
… Now then.
Getting plant materials that could serve as clothing or fuel was a big help.
But my real goal was food! A single B-less BLT sandwich wasn’t going to keep me alive!
So I did look around for nuts, tubers, edible-looking grasses, that sort of thing… but I didn’t find any.
…Well, technically, while dismantling, I did detect things like walnut trees and blackberry bushes, but none of them had fruit.
Maybe it wasn’t the season, or maybe animals had already eaten them. Either way, no food. Bad luck. Nothing to do about it.
“Well, guess I’ll stick to plan A.”
… So I immediately set about trying to reconstruct bread from the plants I’d dismantled!
What do you think about this chapter?
