It was truly a city made of glass.
Grand, majestic high-rises of glass surrounded us on all sides, their surfaces blazing with reflected light.
"This is... I don't even know what to say."
Agaro murmured, almost involuntarily.
"How is this possible..."
"So a world like this really exists..."
"Everything's all sparkly and shiny..."
"Hmph. To think a place like this actually exists..."
"A-ah, awah! Awah! Awoof-woof-woof-woooof!"
Juicy started barking. Why, though?
Riv said, looking rather pleased with himself.
"Hmm... glass... teens..."
"I don't think that's right."
"Heh..."
"Beep... Afterlife... Vision System... synchronized... —Welcome to Starlight City. Starlight City is the main residential district aboard the Imperial-class space colonization vessel Great Roa."
Wait, what? A guided tour? An announcement?
What the heck did it synchronize with?
Starlight City, huh. It certainly was dazzling.
"What terrifying power. That this exists within a ship, beyond the barrier of the sky, on a satellite of that moon... To think humanity has such technology... Are they trying to become gods..."
A rabbit that's being all poetic.
Becoming a god, huh. There was plenty of that in my past life memories too. Both as material and in actuality.
Also, I only know two gods in this world, but both of them are... well, weird gods.
The Goddess of Knives who may or may not actually be a goddess of knives.
Pakira's alternate-color variant, a.k.a. Goddess Yomido.
With only these as reference material, in my mind, god equals weird.
"There might be all sorts of treasures in here, but..."
Agaro looked up at the glass-encased building and let out a wry smile.
"Indeed. It doesn't look like it holds anything we'd consider treasure."
"We might not even know what counts as treasure."
"I get the feeling there are outrageous things just sitting out in plain sight..."
Why did Pakira say that while looking at me with exasperation?
"Um, um, I think you should use Wof's Relic to figure out what's what."
"Huh?"
Everyone's gaze turned to Juicy's suggestion.
"Oh right, that exists."
"With that, even if we can't tell what anything is, we'll be golden."
"Wof. Please."
"O-Okay."
Sure enough, my Relic, the Ring of Fortune, could make it work.
Recently, I'd been able to search and detect all sorts of things, and the creeping feeling that I was turning into some kind of jack-of-all-trades was a little scary.
"Hn... wait..."
Riv stopped me.
"What is it?"
"...First... safety... securing safety comes first..."
"Hmm. That is true."
"Securing safety, huh? Do you have somewhere in mind?"
"Hn... let me look."
Even Riv, impressive as she was, didn't seem to know.
Well, in that case, all we could do was explore.
"Beep... beep... searching network... searching... please input search term by voice... beep... beep-beep..."
The pink sphere suddenly came out with that.
It was doing something again, but was that actually okay?
Munieka had said it was scary because you never knew what it would pull.
"Voice input?"
"I think it means you should state what you're looking for."
"So that's how it is. Hmm, somewhere comfortable."
"Somewhere we can drink."
"Somewhere with a nice hidden-retreat sort of vibe would be ideal."
"I see. Convenience, then."
"Yeah, that sounds about right. A hideout-type place, I mean."
"Um, um, like, a secret base would be great!"
One after another, everyone chimes in with their requests.
I think for a moment.
"Somewhere within a four- to six-minute walk of the station. Shops, a supermarket, or a convenience store within walking distance."
"Near the station?"
"A supermarket?"
"What's a convenience store?"
"Oh, it's just, like, a place with good access to everything around it."
My past-life memories of a dream apartment slipped out before I knew it.
Seriously, they're all just saying whatever they want. None of this exists here.
The pink sphere does a little spin.
'……Beep, beep, beep……one match found.'
There is one!?
"Oh, nice. Well then, let's go check it out."
And so, guided by the pink sphere, we set off.
The journey took about forty minutes.
Along the way we ran into a pair of black-and-white sphere-shaped puppets, fought them and won, navigated a confusing stretch of road, and finally arrived.
It was a quiet two-story building tucked away in an alley, far from the glittering center of town.
Surrounded on the right by a six-story building and on the left by a ten-story one, it was cast in shadow and looked even dimmer for it.
Squatter's rights would be nice, but no such luck.
"Heh, now this is something."
This building. The first floor was a bar.
A narrow shop with only a counter. Behind the counter, shelves were lined with all kinds of alcohol.
There was also a washbasin where you could do some light cooking.
The door to the left of the counter led to the bathroom.
And the second floor was the living quarters.
"There's nothing here."
"Not a single personal belonging or sign of life."
The room was enclosed by plain white walls, with only a table and chairs inside.
Just like Pakira said — no sign anyone had ever lived here.
"Um, um, the water works!"
"Where's the kitchen? There's something that looks like one."
Haiyān stepped around, checking things out. I could see pots and frying pans.
So even with advanced technology, some things never change.
"Hmm… over there… this is… the system kitchen…"
"Here?"
Haiyān stood on a black panel with a red circle marked on it.
Ah, I see. Not gas — something like an IH cooktop, probably.
Though I doubt it's an actual IH. Just something that looks like one.
I'll try it later.
"There's a bath!"
"Well done."
"It's pretty spacious."
"Um, the door at the back. That's the toilet."
"Phew. Now we can rest easy."
The second floor, after exploring, had four rooms in total. One of them was the living room.
The living room had a kitchen. The other three rooms were bedrooms with desks, shelves, closets, and beds.
At the end of the back hallway was the toilet.
Nearby were a changing room and a bathroom. The rest was a storage closet. Something like that.
"Hey. Come take a look at this."
Agaro called from downstairs, so I headed over.
Yuniton was floating above the counter, and a section of the counter's floor had been opened up.
An underground storage room, maybe.
I peered in and there was Agaro. I went in too.
It was narrow and long — by feel, about the same floor area as the counter upstairs.
There were lots of white boxes with rounded corners stacked up. Picking one up, it was a little heavy.
Yellow and red lines were drawn on the surface, along with numbers and text.
The texture was a bit smooth to the touch.
"Oh. You came. I found something strange."
What Agaro held in hand was some kind of canned food, by the looks of it.
It was pure white, with rounded corners, and green and black lines ran along the sides.
The same format as the stacked boxes, probably.
Then there was a bottle of liquor. Probably a bottle of sake.
It gave off a blue, glass-like sheen, and you could tell there was liquid inside.
The label depicted a tropical landscape and looked liquor-ish.
Well, Agaro would probably drink it and decide.
"That's called canned food, and there's food inside it."
It was probably canned food. I thought Riv might know how to open it.
"Man, it's just nothing but weird stuff here."
"Yeah."
The ones who were out of place were probably us, come to think of it.
Whatever happened to that pink sphere?
That thing was up to all sorts of shenanigans.
'Beep… beep… Beep——Search complete. Within a radius of 1 kilometer… No hostile sightings… Beep'
It came back, huh.
'Beep…'
'Wata-shi is Uniton——Afterlife Vision System… Exploration Support Unit… Uniton… verγ——Uniton verγ… Afterlife… Higher… Tonight's… Energy… Beep'
Hey. Don't just come back and immediately make a shaky connection with Uniton.
———————————
Today.
Volume 1 of the manga adaptation of "My Dungeon, My Life" goes on sale.
There are also special bonuses available at ebook stores and Melon Books.
Please consider picking it up.