Book 2: Chapter 2: (2)

I ended up calling a security camera company I had found after searching on the internet. Deet mentioned that because the iron gate was too dangerous to be opening and closing, it was safer to have a camera installed.

「So you have a detached room a bit of a distance away from your main home, and you want to install a camera for safety purposes?」

Well, it’s inside a dungeon though.

「Would it be possible?」

「Yes, of course, that’d be doable. As long as you have a long power and coax cable connected to the system it’d be fine. It’s also possible with a LAN cable or even wireless, but coax would be the most stable. 」

Sweet! It looks like I’ll have no problem installing a camera in the dungeon then! The LAN type looks the most inexpensive, but it would probably be better to use the type that is used by retailers and stores professionally. And I’m not entirely sure that wireless would work well inside the dungeon. Coax cables are the cables used for television antennas, right? I should ask how efficient they are.

「Does it work in real-time, as well as video recording?」

「This type of camera includes live footage, video recording, and replaying footage. It should have everything that you would need. 」

Live footage, recording, and replay huh? Yeah, that should do nicely. It just keeps sounding better for me.

「Will I still be able to see the footage even in a low light area? 」

「Yes of course, it also allows you to see inside dark areas with ease. However, from sundown onwards, the color will turn to more of greyscale, but you should still be able to see fine. 」

So, then it’s kind of like those nature documentaries they show on TV, with the nocturnal animals.

「Do you have some kind of animal, person, or an unknown intruder on your property? 」

「Uhhh…」

Rather than animals or people, I’m more into the “looking for monsters or elves” variety of intruders.

「This type is also able to use the camera sensor light at the same time. 」

「Oh you mean a light that shines when something gets close? 」

「That’s correct. And when the image becomes lighter, it will also become clearer. And with that clearness, you will have easy to see proof that someone was there. Isn’t that convenient? 」

I see. But even if I yell out “Hey goblin! I see you! You’re an intruder, and I have proof now!”, the goblins will still come inside regardless. I don’t think they’ll care much. For now, as long as it can see inside dark places, it should be fine.

「Would I be able to see the footage on my computer?」

「Most of our clients use specialized recording and monitoring equipment, but if you were to adjust the settings, streaming it to your computer should pose no difficulty. 」

I see. Well, what should I do? My computer has a tower that’s sitting on the floor, so there’s enough space for some extra stuff on top of my desk. It could probably fit a monitor and recording device.

「We also have a bundle option, which includes a camera and recording equipment in a set, if it makes it easier for you to make a decision. 」

He makes a good point. Being able to purchase this kind of stuff in a set from the manufacturer would be a lot easier than searching and buying them all separately. And it seems like it would include a mouse and cable for operating the recorder, as well as set up.

「Would it be possible to order a longer coax and power cable? It would be nice if they were around 40 meters long. 」

「That would be no problem, we can exchange those for you, on the house. The normal cables are also quite long too. 」

「Really? Then I’ll take them. Thank you so much. 」

「Would you also like a monitor? 」

「You said it’s possible to hook it up to a computer monitor right?」

「If it’s connected to the recording device, then yes it should work fine on the computer.」

Perfect. My computer monitor will work just fine then. Now then, how many should I get? It’s a little expensive, but if I buy 4 cameras, I’ll be able to get a discount. If there are 4 cameras, that will cover my front door, the entirety of the big main room, the inner part of the iron gate, and then eventually I can get one outer part of the iron gate as well. With this, I’ll be able to see everything that’s going on inside the big dungeon room outside my apartment. This can probably ensure the safety of the area.

$1200 is a bit pricey, but it’s a necessary evil. My savings are starting to dwindle down. It’s like I’m raising my level in real life. It feels like I bought some in-app purchases for a social game or something.

「Alright, I’ll take the four-camera set please.」

「Thank you very much. When would you like installation? 」

「Huh? 」

「Because you spent more than $1000, the installation service fee will only be around $200. 」

$200 more would really hurt my wallet, but if it’s installation…

「Would you be able to install them inside a dungeon?」

「…A dungeon?」

「Uhm, never mind it’s nothing. I’ll just buy the equipment and set everything up myself, is that okay? 」

The features seem really good, but I can’t have people come over here and install these things inside the dungeon, it’d be too dangerous.

「We have many customers who opt to do self-installation.」

「Is there anything I should watch out for, or something you could teach me?」

「Hmm, possibly. What kind of house do you live in? 」

Oh, my house? Well, it’s a lovely 2-bedroom apartment/dungeon living space…or so I wanted to say.

—

「So I went to a retail store and bought the equipment there.」

Ria was listening to my story with a wondrous face.

「What exactly is this?」

「It’s a really useful artifact. But setting it up will be rather difficult. How you do it…well, I went and asked one of my sage friends. 」

For the time being, I’ll try setting up the monitor and recording equipment inside my room. I put the recording equipment and monitor onto my computer desk and plugged in the power cord.

「Alright! This isn’t exactly how you’re supposed to use this equipment, but everything’s connected now!  Now, let’s try the camera in the other room. 」

I had placed a cardboard box on the tatami floor in the Japanese style room and then placed the camera on top of that. I connected the recording equipment to the coax cable and then made sure it was plugged into the power socket in the wall. That’s about it I suppose. When I returned to the western style room, Ria was staring into the monitor with bewildered eyes.

「J-Just a moment ago! In the tatami room! Master Thor was inside this box! 」

Looks like it was a total success. The monitor was showing the inside of the tatami room. By the way, Shizuku was inside the closet reading one of my doujinshi. She was probably expanding her knowledge of the world.

「But I guess, getting up to this point was the easy part.」

After this, things were going to get difficult. It was a problem of how to run through and connect the power cable and coax cable inside the dungeon. If I just open a hole through the concrete in the wall, my landlord would get really upset.

「Looks like I’ll have no choice but to use the method that the manufacturer told me about. Ah, here it is. I’ll have to run the cord through the pipe for my air conditioning unit. 」

The air conditioner has to be connected with a unit on the outside of the apartment or it won’t run. So in other words, I’ll use that hole to connect the cables.

「If the size of the hole is too tiny, the cable won’t fit through. If I disconnect it from the outside unit, it won’t be able to run, and I’ll just have to endure the heat and cold. So normally, if you make the hole too big, you can fill in the crevice with a clay putty-like gum and that should solve the problem…」

Got it! After a bit of deliberating, I didn’t end up needing any putty, and the hole looked like a good fit!

「I’m saved. From the looks of it, the coax cable will also have no problem connecting to the other side. As for the power cable, if I make one split off into the dungeon it should be fine. 」

For the time being, I put one coax cable and one power cable through the hole. If I think about the position of the air conditioners pipe, the tip of the coax and power cable should poke out into the dungeon now.

「Alright, Ria. Let’s head into the dungeon. 」

「I-Into the dungeon?」

「Yep. The camera in the dungeon, or rather the artifact, needs to be set up now. 」

「Understood!」

I put on my headlamp, walked happily to the front door, and opened it. After exiting into the dungeon, I walked to the stone wall with Ria and took a look.

「They’re not here…The coax and the power cable…」

But relative to the position of the air conditioner, they should be here. I looked all over the big dungeon room, but the cables were nowhere to be found.

「It makes no sense…」

Please don’t tell me I just wasted $1200 on nothing. I’m actually going to cry. But even more than that, I’m angry that my plan is back to zero.

「Wait a sec…When I pushed the cable through the wall, the front door was closed, right? It probably went into Japan rather than here! 」

I returned with Ria to the apartment for a second and pulled on the cables, and they came back from air conditioner piping. I then opened the front door so that I could see the inside of the dungeon.

「I think with this, the cables should exit out into the dungeon rather than into Japan.」

I once again tried pushing the coax and power cables through the hole and into the outside.

「Alright I sent it through! Ria, let’s try going into the dungeon one more time! 」

「A-Alright!」

I shone my headlamp at the spot that I thought the cables would be poking through the pipes.

「They’re here! I can’t believe it! 」

From the inorganic dungeon stone wall, two cables were unexpectedly sticking out. After an hour I was finished installing the cameras. One to record in front of the front door, one to record the entirety of the main dungeon room, and one in front of the iron gate. Right now, I’m attaching the cables to the stone wall with a putty-like paste, but tomorrow I’ll try drilling a hole in the stone wall with the electric drill I ordered, so it should have no problem staying in place after that.

I want to conceal the cables with some putty, and then spray paint that to be the same gray color as the stone wall, but I think for today this was a good stopping point.

「So with this, Master Thor will be able to watch the dungeon from inside of his sleeping quarters?」

「You got it! Let’s go take a look now! 」

But before that. As I watched Ria enter into the apartment before me, I attempted to check her status.

[Name] Aria Eldlux

[Race] Human

[Age] 18

Ria’s status appeared like an image inside my head. Like I thought. This is the effect of my [Person Appraisal] skill. The skill is still only level 1 so it doesn’t show me that much information yet, but it’s plenty of fun to use. The more I level up the skill, [Job] and [Level] should become visible as well. I want to hurry and level up some more.  And the more levels I get, the more I can level up my skills.

「It’s obvious but, her name, race, and age are all exactly as she told me… 」

Considering I’m from a different world, she didn’t falsify anything about her name, age, or body type. While I was thinking of it, I decided to check my status as well, and as I did so, I realized my [Magic] had dropped down to 33 / 39. So that’s it. When I check other people’s statuses, it drains my magic by 6 points. While I was thinking about that, Ria stood in front of the door and called out while waving at me.

「Master Thor, let’s hurry up and look at the monitor!」

「Okay!」

I hurried to catch up to Ria. We quickly returned to the room in my apartment and looked at the monitor on top of my computer desk.

「Wow, so it can even see through dark places like this?」

When the front door is closed, the outside world becomes Japan, so I had thought that the cables would disconnect. But, it looked like everything was still running smoothly. The monitor was displaying the inside of the dungeon. The cameras also had infrared lights attached so we could still somewhat see in the dark.

「Alright, that’s looking pretty good.」

Just by looking at the “Front Door Camera” and “Iron Gate Camera”, I could determine if it was safe or even see if any traps were being planned there or not. The “Dungeon Main Room Camera” was a bit dark, but it was still enough to tell if there were any monsters there or not.

「Master Thor, the main room camera is a little dark, isn’t it?」

「The infrared that the camera is currently equipped with isn’t very strong, but if we buy a better one, we’d probably be able to see more clearly. The ones I just looked for on Amason were under $10. 」

「Amason?」

「Oh, uhh..that’s the Great Sage Marketplace. 」

The stuff I need to buy just keeps increasing. This is costing me too much money. After all of this, I’ll have to have a discussion with Deet when she comes back home with her Gadheus gold coins.

「But, before that, there’s something else I want to buy from Amason. 」

「What would that be?」

「Hehehe, oh you’ll see. I hope it comes in quickly…」