Prologue

Seris led me and Chris to the towerlike structure that had drawn my eye when I’d first set foot in the Magius Academy of Magic. The view from the top was as incredible as I’d expected, providing a panorama not just of the campus, but of the entire city of Majorica.

Seris had brought us here to ask for help. Not from me, but from Chris—specifically, she said, from Chris’s spirit.

“Please...do proceed...” Seris lilted in her usual way.

Chris nodded. She was dressed in her Magius Academy uniform with her disguise spell inactive. That made her silver eyes and similarly ashen twin ponytails glisten even brighter than usual in the light that streamed in from the windows. Her most eye-catching feature, though, was her pointed ears. She wasn’t a human, but an elf.

Chris was standing across from Seris with her eyes closed and hands clasped while she concentrated. As Seris began reciting what sounded like a chant, my Detect Mana skill showed me the ever-strengthening mana that coiled around Chris’s body. Then, as she intoned the final words, their mana twined together and then surged.

Seris explained that the spell was a barrier she’d originally created with her own spirit’s power to hold the monster parade at bay. It had proven incapable of fully restraining the increased activity lately, so she’d asked the newly arrived Chris for help. The power of Chris’s spirit would help reinforce the barrier further.

“Thank you. This should really buy us...so much more time...” Seris cooed when it was all over.

Chris let out a long breath and intoned a spell of her own. In the blink of an eye, her silver hair and eyes turned gold, and her ears became rounded like a human’s.

The sight brought me back to the day of our reunion, when Chris had first confessed her true identity to me.

“Why do you hide that you’re an elf?” I’d asked her.

In response, Chris had explained that her granny, Morrigan, had strongly cautioned her not to reveal her origins to others—especially people outside their hometown. It was too dangerous, she’d said.

Chris had initially been skeptical about this, but she’d begun to believe it when she’d started traveling and heard the ways people talked about elves. In particular, the old stories she’d heard in the Empire had been bad enough to make her want to cover her ears.

Apparently, when they’d first told Morrigan they wanted to venture out to find Eris and Sera, she’d said she’d only let Chris do it if she first learned the spell to disguise herself as a human.

Chris let out a little sigh as she told me this, perhaps remembering how hard it had been to do. She also explained that her and Eris’s ears hadn’t been pointed when they were little; instead, they’d changed as they’d aged and their mana had grown more powerful.

Then, when Chris had removed her disguise to show me, it had released a jolt of mana. Seris’s spirit had reacted to this, which alerted Seris to Chris’s presence nearby. Spirits could apparently talk to each other, so Seris’s spirit informed her about Chris, and Chris’s spirit did likewise about Seris. Chris had been comfortable revealing her identity to Seris because she knew she was a fellow elf.

“So...what will you do now?” Seris asked us.

“We’re going to meet up with Rurika and Sera and head home for now,” I explained.

We bid our goodbyes to Seris, then went down the tower’s long staircase. After leaving the building, we headed for the campus arena.

“Oh, Sora and Chris. Did you finish what you were doing?”

As soon as we entered the arena, we were greeted by Rurika, Chris’s traveling companion and childhood friend. She was also dressed in a Magius Academy uniform, and her shoulder-length golden hair rustled as she turned to face us, looking at us with matching golden eyes.

“Yes, but Rurika, what’s going on here?” Chris’s own eyes were focused on Sera, who was standing on the arena platform.

Sera was a beastfolk girl with the twitching ears and swishing tail of a cat. Before her lay the scattered bodies of magic academy students, some of whom I recognized. They weren’t really dead, of course.

“They asked to fight Sera today. I kind of respect how they kept getting back up no matter how many times she beat them down. I fought them for a while too.” Rurika looked very content, almost radiant. “Sera, Sora and the others are here. Let’s go!” she shouted.

Sera turned around when she heard it. She had auburn hair and golden eyes with a trace of hostility in them, but the latter vanished the minute she saw us—specifically, when she saw Rurika and Chris.

The three of them had come from the Eld Republic. Seven years ago—maybe more like eight by now?—the country had been invaded by the Vossheil Empire, and Sera had been kidnapped by imperial forces and turned into a slave. Rurika and Chris had embarked on a journey to find their big sister, Eris.

It felt strange to consider that, in a way, that awful situation was what had brought me, Rurika, and Chris together in the first place.

All that explained why Sera softened when she looked at them. I could tell how truly happy she was to be reunited with them, and Rurika and Chris clearly felt the same way.

“Are they going to be okay?” I asked about the students on the ground. It must have been quite the hardcore training session.

“They’re fine, master. Just too tired to move,” Sera replied casually.

The reason she called me “master” was because I’d bought her out of slavery, and she wore a black collar around her neck to indicate her status.

The students she’d been dueling with were ones who’d given us a hard time when we’d first gotten special permission to take classes at the school. There was no hostility between us now, though, and they’d sometimes ask Sera for training.

“Big Sis Sera, thanks again!” I heard them cry out as we left the arena. I turned around to see the students who had been lying down before now standing up and bowing in our direction. Some of them were leaning on others, unable to stand for themselves.

Sera grimaced at being called “big sis,” but Rurika and Chris laughed in amusement.

Instead of going straight home from there, we stopped by a large house nearby.

“Ah, master!” As we entered the grounds, a girl noticed me, ran up, and threw her arms around me.

This girl’s name was Hikari, and she had dark hair and eyes just like mine. She had once been a spy for the Kingdom of Elesia, but thanks to a series of unexpected events she’d ended up traveling with me as a special slave. She wore the same black collar as Sera, though hers had three silver stripes to indicate special slave status.

“Hikari, what’s going— Oh, Sora. Did you finish what you were doing?” asked Mia, who came up a few steps behind Hikari.

Mia was the former Saint of the Holy Kingdom of Frieren. After a demon had attempted to kill her, I spoke with a cardinal named Dan about getting her to safety. Then I talked with her about what she wanted to do and ended up taking her with me on my travels.

She looked similar to Rurika in height as well as eye and hair color. She also wore a slave collar around her neck, but this had just been part of a plan to get her out of the Holy Kingdom’s capital city. After that, she’d chosen to remain a slave because of certain other circumstances.

“Chris? What’s wrong?” Mia asked in confusion as Chris giggled at her words.

“Nothing. It’s just that Rurika asked us the exact same thing before...”

Ah, right. Rurika did ask us if we’d finished what we were doing, I thought. Chris must have found that funny.

While we chatted, a little round object that looked like a white angora rabbit came floating up to us. It was a spirit named Ciel. She perched herself on Mia’s shoulder and sleepily rubbed her eyes with her ears. Mia petted Ciel gently, and the little creature’s eyelids drooped in bliss.

“Hey, is there really a spirit with us now?” Rurika asked, watching curiously.

Generally speaking, people couldn’t see spirits. The main ones who could were elves with high spiritual affinity and those with the Spirit Spells skill. Nevertheless, I’d been able to see Ciel for some reason, and Hikari, Sera, and Mia, with whom I’d forged slave contracts, could see her as well.

But to Rurika, who couldn’t, it looked like Mia was petting thin air.

Rurika had once asked what Ciel looked like, so the five of us had tried drawing the little spirit, but our output had just confused Rurika and upset Ciel. I didn’t think the pictures were that bad, myself...

In fact, the reason Mia had chosen to remain a slave was that removing our contract might make it impossible for her to see Ciel anymore. Petting Ciel was certainly addictive.

Incidentally, Ciel was the only spirit I could see. I couldn’t see the one Chris was contracted to, though I could intuit the presence of something from the movement of mana around her.

“So, how are things going here?”

“I think we should finish on schedule. It’s been a little chaotic these last few days, but we should be able to take it easy when it’s done.”

Hikari and Mia hadn’t come to the academy today because they’d been helping Norman and his gang move to a new house. The gang in question was a group of about thirty orphans who’d been living together in the inn one of their grandfathers used to run. They didn’t have the money to maintain the building, though, so it had fallen into pretty significant disrepair.

In the past, they’d made a living working as porters for the dungeons, but so many adventurers had moved on to the more profitable lower floors that they’d had trouble finding work lately. Hikari had later offered them a job breaking down monster bodies, and we’d also bought them a house to live in because their inn was in such a bad state.

“Elza and Art helped too,” Mia added.

As if they’d been waiting for the mention of their names, two children dressed in maid outfits came out of the house. They were orphans too, but we’d taken them in to look after the house we were renting.

“Ah, you’re back,” Elza said. “We were about to eat together. Would you like to join us?”

Since the timing was right, I decided we would. When I told her so, Elza nodded happily and returned to the house. I went in after her and overheard her telling the kids that we’d be joining them.

That night, I checked over my stats while I lay in bed.

It had been a week since the life-or-death bout against the shadow wulf on the dungeon’s fifth floor. It had been an eventful time, but Seris had asked me to defeat the boss on the fortieth floor to stop the monster parade, and dungeon diving would also allow me to procure materials for the Eyes of Eliana. That meant it was about time to get ready for more trips to the dungeon.

“Open status.”

Name: Fujimiya Sora / Job: Scout / Race: Otherworlder / Level: None

HP: 450/450 / MP: 450/450 / SP: 450/450 (+100) / Strength: 440 (+0) / Stamina: 440 (+0) / Speed: 440 (+100) / Magic: 440 (+0) / Dexterity: 440 (+0) / Luck: 440 (+100)

Skill: Walking Lv. 44

Effect: Never get tired from walking (earn 1 XP for every step)

XP Counter: 790,039/810,000

Skill Points: 2

Learned Skills

[Appraisal Lv. MAX] [Prevent Appraisal Lv. 4] [Enhance Physique Lv. 9] [Regulate Mana Lv. MAX] [Lifestyle Spells Lv. MAX] [Detect Presence Lv. MAX] [Sword Arts Lv. MAX] [Dimension Spells Lv. MAX] [Parallel Thinking Lv. 9] [Boost Recovery Lv. MAX] [Hide Presence Lv. MAX] [Alchemy Lv. MAX] [Cooking Lv. MAX] [Throwing/Shooting Lv. 7] [Fire Spells Lv. MAX] [Water Spells Lv. 7] [Telepathy Lv. 9] [Night Vision Lv. MAX] [Sword Tech Lv. 5] [Resist Status Effects Lv. 6] [Earth Spells Lv. 9] [Wind Spells Lv. 7] [Disguise Lv. 7] [Engineering/Construction Lv. 8] [Shield Arts Lv. 5] [Provoke Lv. 6] [Traps Lv. 3]

Advanced Skills

[Appraise Person Lv. 9] [Detect Mana Lv. 8] [Enchant Lv. 8] [Creation Lv. 4]

Contract Skills

[Holy Spells Lv. 4]

Title

[Spirit Contractor]

My Walking level hadn’t ticked up yet, but I’d built up a lot of XP while I walked around buying things for the move, so I knew it should roll over pretty soon. I’d been grinding Hide Presence while sitting at home, too, and I’d maxed that out as a result. This had added the advanced skill Conceal to my potential skill list...but learning it would use up all my skill points, so I’d held off for the moment.

We were eventually going to try to make our way to the previously unexplored fortieth floor of the dungeon, which would surely be home to some very powerful monsters. Because of that, I was hoping to learn some heavy-hitting combat skills instead.

Then there was the question of how to use the shadow wulf magistone and the mithril we’d found. Creating mithril weapons would easily boost our battle prowess, but another option on my Creation list had caught my attention.

Guess I’ll have to do some research in the school library, huh?

Interlude 1

I sat up. My head hurt like hell.

“Finally up, Syphon?” came an amused-sounding voice.

I nodded, which only made the pain worse. “That you, Jinn?”

My partymate answered, “Seriously, what happened back there? You drank enough to pass out? You’d better have learned something, or not even I can cover for you.”

“I didn’t learn everything, but...well, the guy was pretty damn tight-lipped. I’d say I learned enough, though.”

Before continuing, I sighed and drank down the water Jinn had handed me. Ah, feels good.

“I didn’t find out who it was, but it sounds like some bigwig got sent here from Elesia, and that’s why they wouldn’t let us in the dungeon.”

I remembered that we’d passed a group of wagons when we were on our way here from Pleques. I’d been pretty sure they were heading from Helia to the capital city of Mahia. An amateur would probably mistake them for an ordinary merchant’s convoy, but we could tell they were anything but. These people were guarding some valuable treasure. I figured that had to have something to do with why they hadn’t let us in the dungeon.

In fact, I’d peeked into one of the wagons and seen what looked like a young girl with black hair.

It reminded me of how I’d told Rurika and Chris about Sora when I ran into them in Mahia. They’d been pretty damn shaken to hear about his death. From the way they’d reacted, I thought I’d messed up for a second, but then I figured they would’ve learned about it sooner or later. I decided to tell myself that sooner was better—though Juno’d given me a talking-to about it later on.

“No chance of us hitting the dungeon, then?” Jinn asked, taking me back out of my thoughts.

“Yeah, seems like there’ve always been restrictions on it anyway. They don’t let newcomers like us register, let alone enter. Nothing to be done about it—we’ll just have to head to another town and take some quests on the way.”

Maybe we’d even return to Elesia, I thought.

We were thinking it over together when the door opened and Gytz came in. His expression looked pretty tense. Nervous, maybe?

“Gytz? What’s up?” Jinn asked.

“Just got this in,” said Gytz, holding out a sealed letter.

It wouldn’t look like anything special, unless you were in the know. Jinn went pale, and I realized I wasn’t too eager to take the letter from him either.

I couldn’t avoid it for long, though. I removed the seal and checked what was inside. Then I read it over and over again, slowly, just in case.

“What’s it say?” Jinn asked.

I silently handed him the letter. It contained orders for a new mission.

I didn’t know why, but some bigwig in our homeland must have been worried about the safety of those girls—one girl in particular. That was the only reason we’d get an order like this.

“Heh, well, we were just talking about where to go next. Guess we’ve got our answer, eh?” Jinn laughed.

“That’s a great attitude you’ve got there, Jinn,” I told him wryly.

“Jinn’s right. No point in stewing on it.” Gytz, having finished the letter, said what we all knew.

“I never know what’s up with these orders. The last one, or this one...” I muttered, getting no response.

The one thing I did know was that we’d have to get our things in order to travel to Majorica.

Chapter 1

“Be back soon, master!”

“Okay, I’ll be heading out soon myself.”

“Big Sis Hikari, take care,” Norman said.

“Sure, I’ll bring lots of gifts,” Hikari declared confidently in response.

Hikari and the others were going to start at the first floor of the dungeon on their way to the fifth. Rurika and Chris weren’t registered there yet, so the five girls—Hikari, Mia, Sera, Rurika, and Chris—would start from the beginning and make their way there together.

Meanwhile, my own plan was to wait for two days, then go straight to the fifth floor, where we’d meet up and head for the sixth. But if any of them looked too tired at that point, of course, we’d turn back.

“By the way, Chris. Why do you always wear your adventuring outfit?” It was something I’d been wondering for a while. She was currently dressed in the adventuring outfit she’d worn when we first met, while the rest of the girls were in their Magius uniforms for the dungeon dive.

“You never know what might happen in a dungeon. In case my transformation ends up dropping... I want to be in my adventurer’s outfit with its hooded robe.”

“Yeah, and the uniforms are a little tight around the shoulders. That’s why I’m wearing my usual clothes too,” Rurika chimed in.

Rurika’s adventuring outfit was indeed quite revealing in that area—other than a pauldron on her right shoulder, which she seemed used to. Still, I’d seen her move quite comfortably in the school uniform, and she’d expressed fondness for it in the past, calling it cute.

“Rurika’s wearing her adventuring outfit because of me. She didn’t want me drawing attention by being the odd one out,” Chris confided in me after Rurika walked away.

She might have denied it if you asked, but Rurika clearly cared a lot about Chris.

We registered our party at the dungeon entrance, and I watched the five of them go in.

I wasn’t going along this time because Hikari and Mia had asked me not to. We’d split up during the fight with the shadow wulf, and they’d gone through a lot together during that time. They also said they wanted to bond on a girls-only trip. We’d reported the situation to the school, of course.

“Gonna learn to cook from Big Sis Rurika and Chris!” Hikari had declared, looking forward to the dungeon dive. She’d been enraptured by the stories Rurika and Chris had told her about all the places they’d gone as adventurers and the different meals they’d cooked on the way. She’d also been helping Mia cook at home more often lately, but cooking in a house and cooking while camping were different things.

They’d all worked together to get ready the night before.

Norman and I split up as we left, at which point I headed for the academy.

Hanging out with Norman reminded me of Fred’s team. Fred was one of the adventurers who’d fought the shadow wulf with us on the fifth floor, and we’d stayed in touch since then. He’d been coming by lately to give Norman’s crew instructions on self-defense and breaking down monster bodies.

He’d also mentioned two days ago that his team had found a new party to group up with, and they’d be going into the dungeon soon too.

“How’d you meet your new party?” I’d asked him. He explained that they’d gotten drunk together and gotten along really well. I guess it’s important to have chemistry?

“Oh... I see we’re alone today...” Seris said to me as I arrived at the library.

I used to go to the library by myself a lot, but now that Chris was attending school I often came with her. “The others are starting a dungeon dive,” I told her.

“Oh...you did mention that, didn’t you... And you’re going to meet up with them later... But you never know what might happen in a dungeon...so you really must be careful...” she lilted.

I nodded, remembering what had happened during our last dungeon dive. Still, I’d probably be fine as long as I didn’t run into any advanced subtypes, and I’d likely focus on gathering herbs and ingredients while I was alone anyway. I was planning to avoid fighting monsters as much as possible.

I picked up a book about golems, as had been my daily routine of late, sat down, and began to read. In response, Ciel moved to her usual sunny spot and dozed off immediately.

It’s been a while since I’ve had a nice, quiet time to myself, I thought, thinking back on my reunion with Rurika and Chris and the busy days that had followed.

◇◇◇

Sera wasn’t the only one happy about the reunion with Rurika and Chris. I was too. I’d been glad to finally let them in on all the secrets I’d been keeping from them as well. They’d said they’d thought I seemed a bit suspicious but had chosen not to press me on it, which felt like further evidence of their kindness.

Chris also told me why she really gave me the write-up about magic when we parted ways in Elesia: It was a roundabout way of hinting that I should form a contract with Ciel. She couldn’t tell me directly because she’d had to keep her identity as an elf a secret, but we had indeed managed to form a contract, so her hints had worked well enough.

Then, the next day, when I had been going to have a serious talk with them about the dungeon and everything else, someone had stopped by our house early in the morning.

It was the vice principal of the Magius Academy of Magic, who looked out of breath.

“How can I help you?” I’d asked.

Completely out of the blue, he’d responded that two girls staying with us, Rurika and Chris, were to be temporarily admitted to the school, just as we’d been. I’d expressed my suspicions about why he knew the names of two girls who had only just arrived in Majorica. He must have interpreted this as a refusal, because he’d started pleading with me.

There was no sign of the blustering baddie he’d been the day we’d first arrived. “I’ll ask them to come speak with you, so could you please tell me what this is all about?” I’d said at last.

A sudden look of relief had washed over his face. He left after they promised to pay the school a visit, looking like a man who’d just received a stay of execution.

I later learned that Seris had picked up on Chris’s mana and ordered the vice principal to do this. I could still remember how deferential he’d acted toward Seris when I was up in the tower.

That was the first major thing we’d had to take care of. The second was getting Norman and the others moved.

The down payment on their new house had been paid with the money we’d gotten for beating the shadow wulf. I’d spent all mine on the mithril, so we’d paid with Hikari, Sera, and Mia’s shares. Just to be clear, I wasn’t ordering them to pay as their slave master—Hikari was the one who had proposed it, and Mia and Sera had agreed.

I’d been especially surprised by Sera, who was getting close to having enough money to buy her freedom. Buying a house would set her back quite a bit.

“I can always make more money,” Sera had replied, a bit flustered, when I’d asked if she was sure.

After that, we’d had a busy day of carrying things around and buying necessities, and Fred’s group had stopped by amid all the hubbub.

I’d seen Hikari talking to Fred about something after the shadow wulf was slain, and apparently she’d asked him and his team to look after Norman’s crew. Mia’s compassion must have been rubbing off on her. It was stunning to compare her current behavior to how expressionless she’d been when we’d first met.

With all that going on, things had been very busy lately. Incidentally, Fred had taken the job for free partly out of friendship—since we’d fought the shadow wulf together—and partly to thank us for cooking for them in the dungeon.

I was reading my books and thinking back on all that when Ciel woke up and flew over to me. Time for lunch, eh? I thought.

While I was getting my own lunch ready, Seris came to join us, and we enjoyed a meal together. Seris watched with gentle eyes as Ciel chowed down hungrily.

When I looked over at Seris, she seemed to notice my gaze. She looked up and met my eyes. “Yes...?”

I quickly tore my eyes away, but I could tell through my peripheral vision that she was smiling mischievously. I didn’t look away because I was embarrassed or anything. It’s true, okay?! The reason I’d been looking at Seris was that I was thinking about Chris. There’d been something on my mind since the moment I appraised her.

[Name: Chris / Job: Adventurer / Level: 22 / Race: High Elf / Status: Nervous]

Those words—High Elf. How is that different from a regular elf? I’d wanted to ask, but I chickened out at the last second. Seris didn’t know that, though, which was why she’d taken on a teasing air.

I was trying to figure out how to handle this annoying development when I sensed someone outside of the door. It turned out to be Layla, who felt like my saving grace at that moment.

“Sora? What is it?” she asked as I thanked her in my mind.

“Oh, nothing. Haven’t seen you in a while, though.”

Indeed, I hadn’t laid eyes on her since the shadow wulf incident. We’d both been so busy we hadn’t had time to meet up—Layla was always in demand.

“I was just taking a breather. Oh, and I have a favor to ask you.”

“A favor?”

Layla walked up to where we were sitting, exchanged pleasantries with Seris, and then got right down to business. “I heard you were going to the fifth floor. I was hoping you could pick a lot of healing herbs and sell them to the school.”

Because more people were trying the lower floors of the dungeon lately, demand for potions had gone up. That meant it had gotten harder not just for adventurers but also for students to get a hold of them. They were brewing potions from herbs grown on campus, but that apparently wasn’t enough to meet demand.

I’d also heard that students from the school were going to the dungeon more often while it was so profitable.

“I don’t know how much I can gather on my own, but I’ll keep it in mind,” I told her. Layla had apparently remembered Hikari telling her that I was an herb-picking expert, which was why she’d gone out of her way to ask me.

Perhaps satisfied by my answer, Layla left with a relieved look. It seemed she had to discuss her next dungeon dive with her party.

“Layla seems...so busy...” Seris drawled, a sentiment I certainly agreed with. “So, Sora...what are you thinking? You’ve been reading so many books about golems lately...”

“We’ve got a larger party now that Rurika and Chris are here, but I’m still a little worried about those lower floors,” I told her. I’d heard that parties that ventured to the eleventh floor and below tended to include at least ten people. “I thought maybe we could add a golem to our ranks. It would make resting a lot easier if we could have it stand watch.”

Apparently I couldn’t make a whole golem with my Creation skill, but I could make an item that would let me summon one.

[Golem Core] Needed to make a golem move. It moves when infused with mana?!

As usual, the description text was a little bit odd. By the way, reading books in the library had filled in the list of ingredients to make a Golem Core. They were as follows:

[Golem Core]

Materials needed:

Golem Magistone

Ore (1)

Ore (2)

Monster Magistone (1)

Magistone

When I selected the numbered items, further explanatory text popped up:

Ore (1): Determines the toughness of the golem’s core. Any ore can be used.

Ore (2): Determines the toughness of the golem’s body. Any ore can be used.

Monster Magistone (1): Determines the golem’s shape. Any magistone can be used.

As long as a golem’s core remained intact, they could spend mana to recover from an injury, even regenerating lost limbs. The more damage that needed recovering from, the more mana they would use, so an overly fragile body would run dry very quickly. Still, as long as the Golem Core was intact you could always resummon the golem by infusing it with more mana, so I figured the core’s toughness was probably the most important thing—the question I’d been stewing over regarding the mithril was whether or not I should use it to make the toughest possible Golem Core.

The type of magistone you used also determined the shape of the golem. A wulf magistone, for instance, would produce a quadrupedal golem, while an orc magistone would result in a humanoid one. A golem would sometimes even take on characteristics of its magistone source. The stronger the monster, the stronger the golem, but it took more mana to maintain as well.

“A golem magistone, though...” I mused. “I wonder if I should put a request in with the adventurers’ or merchants’ guild?” Maybe I could put one in for ore as well.

“Golem magistone... That reminds me...” Seris hummed. “There were rumors long ago about a golem being seen in the dungeon...”

“Really?!” I exclaimed. “The dungeon in Majorica?”

“Y-Yes... I believe it was the fifteenth floor...but they sent down a search party and couldn’t find it...and I believe the adventurers left town after being called liars...” Seris emphasized that this had happened a long time ago.

The fifteenth floor, huh? I had yet another thing to look for down in the dungeon. It seemed like a golem would be useful for many things, even on our later travels.

◇◇◇

Three days after the girls had left, I headed into the dungeon myself. I stopped by Norman’s place first and made sure they had plenty of monster bodies to break down. The little building I’d built in our own yard for that purpose was gone now, and I’d modified a room in Norman’s house for it instead.

I entered the dungeon’s fifth floor, called up my automap, and used Detect Presence. With luck, they could have made it from the first to the fifth floor in less than three days, but if they’d arrived before me, they probably would have stopped back at the house first. They hadn’t done that, which meant they probably weren’t here yet.

Indeed, I saw no human signals on my automap at all. The special fields on floors ending with five were unpopular with the local adventurers, so it was no real surprise that I had the floor all to myself. But given the demand for herbs at the moment, I would have expected to see someone...

Not that I minded at all.

Most of Majorica’s dungeon was walled-in labyrinths, but the fifth, fifteenth, twenty-fifth, and thirty-fifth floors were “special fields”—wide-open natural spaces that made you forget you were inside a dungeon. The same was true of the boss rooms on the tenth, twentieth, and thirtieth floors.

According to the reference materials available at the adventure course, the fifth floor was a field of forest and grasslands. While walking around during my last visit, I’d learned that you could gather healing herbs there and also forage nuts and fruits from the trees. I couldn’t be sure because I’d only caught a glimpse while I was on the run from the shadow wulf, but I was pretty certain there were even some ingredients I hadn’t seen available in the city. Other than the monsters, though, there were no creatures or insects present.

I’d also read documentation about the floors below this one.

The fifteenth floor was a mountain field, a series of winding paths of ravines. Some said it was like an open-air mine, and you could harvest ore and crystals from the rocky walls. Not that anyone ever tried—the noise of mining there tended to bring monsters running, and no one had ever found any ore good enough to make it worthwhile. I assumed something could probably be found if the nation seriously mobilized a survey team, but Seris had explained that they were already doing that in the Pleques dungeon.

The twenty-fifth floor was mostly forest, with a large lake in the middle. The field was known as the Sleepless Lake due to its special property: The monsters that appeared there swapped in and out on a night and day cycle, with orcs during the day and undead at night. Each time the switch happened, the monsters you’d slain last time also revived, which meant you were constantly fighting.

There was one other noteworthy thing about the twenty-fifth floor: Unlike other floors, the entrance and exit locations were always in the same place. The records also mentioned that there was a beautiful stone statue there for unknown reasons. It was actually a quietly popular map, and a lot of people preferred hunting there to hunting on the fifth and fifteenth floors.

The thirty-fifth floor was known as the Nightmare Forest because it was rife with treants, creatures that disguised themselves as the foliage. This floor was still in the process of being documented, though, so there weren’t many details written about it. The nickname even had “(subject to change)” written beside it.

In addition to that, the boss room on the tenth floor was a grassland, the twentieth a wasteland, and the thirtieth a marsh.

I took my eyes off my automap and looked out over the fifth floor again. It really did feel nice to be out in nature. I could feel the wind and the warmth of the sun. It felt liberating. It would certainly be easy to forget I was still in a dungeon. Ciel seemed to be enjoying it too... Right, because I told her we’d look for fruit and nuts.

The fifteenth floor also seemed worth looking forward to, as the towering rock walls I’d read about in the documents sounded like an incredible sight. That was also where Seris had mentioned rumors of a golem being seen. Where there was smoke there was fire—maybe I could get a golem magistone there.

Ah, I can’t wait to meet up with the girls again. My conversation with Seris had really spurred on my desire to get to the fifteenth floor, and my eagerness was growing by the day.

Battling the monsters on the twenty-fifth floor sounded like it would be difficult, but I was curious about the statue. Wasn’t there something mystical-sounding about a beautiful stone statue standing on an island in the middle of a lake?

The forest to my right looked larger than it had been the last time I was here. It had been several days since then, though, so I wondered if a transfiguration had occurred.

A transfiguration was a significant alteration to the dungeon’s structure. The main effect I knew of was a change in the locations of the stairs, but on special fields, it could also alter the placement and scale of the forests and grassland. This meant that the best foraging spots for herbs moved around as well.

Maybe that helped explain why people rarely went to the dungeon to forage—it took way too long to find them. Herb patches outside of town were documented, so you knew exactly where to go, and manifest lists kept track of who had picked what and where...most of the time.

“Well, let’s head for that grassland over there first,” I said, then started walking.

Ciel flew past me, zipping merrily over the field. It must have been a nice change of pace for her—the city was densely packed with buildings and other obstacles, which stopped her from flying so freely.

While Ciel disappeared into the distance, I stayed at a leisurely pace and enjoyed the scenery. There was no proper road here, so the grass came up to my calves, making a quiet swish, swish as I walked. I used Appraisal as I went and found quite a few edible wild plants around me. I was mainly here to pick herbs, but I couldn’t pass up grabbing some of these too.

That slowed down my progress, and the next thing I knew, Ciel was back by my side.

“What is it, Ciel?” I asked.

She restlessly pointed her ear at a certain spot.

I assumed that meant she wanted me to go that way, so I followed her through the grass until the light yellow-green of the plants around me turned a dark forest color. I used Appraisal as I crossed the boundary threshold and found myself in a treasure trove of healing herbs.

“You found these for me?” I asked.

She gave a firm nod, as if there should have been no doubt, so I petted her gratefully. She seemed to enjoy it for a while, but then her eyes popped open and she looked at me expectantly.

I’d known Ciel long enough that I could tell what she wanted just from the look in her eyes. “Got it,” I told her. “I’ll make a real feast.”

That must have satisfied her, because she began to zip around me, dancing through the air.

After using my automap to check the current locations of nearby monsters, I started picking herbs with my Appraisal skill on.

This meant I was currently using my automap, Appraisal, and Detect Presence all at once. “Automap” was actually a dimension spell, but Appraisal and Detect Presence were both skills, which meant they required SP to use. Using them at the same time would typically consume SP even while I was walking, but my Boost Recovery skill kept the losses minimal. I just kept an eye on my remaining SP, and once it ticked down to half, I could turn my skills off and just walk for a while.

Repeating the cycle of gathering, walking, gathering, and walking, I eventually managed to put a big hole in the forest-green area. As I’d gone through, I’d sorted the different kinds of herbs by quality before putting them in my Item Box. My plan was to use the highest-quality ones to make potions for our party and sell the rest to the school. I’d then sell any excess to the adventurers’ and merchants’ guilds.

All right, how about some food now? I asked Ciel telepathically, and she returned in record time from her spot off in the distance.

“No need to hurry,” I told her. “I’m just about to start cooking.”

I used a spell to level out the ground and set up a cooking area. Unlike on the other dungeon floors, I could do this as easily here as if I’d been outside—probably because the ground was made of actual dirt. Maybe I’ll even try making a house with magic tonight? I thought.

I fried up some wulf meat and made tempura with some wild grasses I’d picked while gathering herbs. Ciel was startled by the sound of popping oil at first, but she seemed intrigued by the idea of this new food. As it drew near completion, she’d started drooling in anticipation.

“Hey, it’s done. But it’s hot, so be careful.” I held out a piled-high plate.

Ciel all but dove into it. She’d eaten hot things with no trouble before, but I still always worried a bit—though less about Ciel herself and more about the fact that Hikari always seemed to be trying to one-up her.

I kept cooking while I watched Ciel eat. I added more as soon as she cleaned her plate, stealing a few nibbles as I cooked to sate my own hunger. The tempura coating was nice and crispy. I’ll have to make some for Hikari and the others next time. I bet they’ll be surprised.

After five extra helpings, Ciel finally flopped to the ground with a look of contentment on her face. As usual, her appetite had been incredible. There’d been a lot of recent occasions where the presence of other people around us had kept her from eating, so she must have learned to eat as much as possible when she had the chance.

After cleaning up my cooking utensils, I checked the contents of my Item Box.

I’d collected quite a lot of herbs. It was enough to make at least a hundred potions for our own party to use, and I could make even more to sell to the school.

“Ciel, is it okay to go into the forest now?” I asked. “I’d like to see what we can get from the trees.”

Ciel slowly opened her eyes and nodded.

I walked clear across the grassland and straight into the forest. I hadn’t had time to slow down and look the last time I’d been there, but the trees were close together with densely intertwining branches, which kept much light from penetrating even at midday. This made it quite dark, but the closeness of the trees seemed like it could also slow down any monsters that might enter. That might have been part of why I’d managed to evade the shadow wulf the other day.

I walked through the forest, minding the roots around my feet, and foraged what I could find. This included some fruits here I’d never seen before; peeling and eating them revealed a citrusy sweetness. I didn’t especially care for sweets, but at least this wasn’t cloying, and I could probably eat a few of them in one sitting.

When Ciel saw my reaction, she seemed eager to try one. I peeled one and offered it to her, and a happy expression appeared on her face as she munched away.

Looks like I’ll have to bring some back for everyone.

In the past I might have been able to hide it, but now we had Chris who could talk to Ciel, so she might tell her about the fruit. Chris was a girl, so there was a good chance she liked sweets, although I hadn’t asked her if she did. She herself probably wouldn’t hold it against me, but I might be in hot water if the others found out about it.

The thought of it set me trembling. A chill ran up my spine.

“Try to hold back. This is for Hikari and the others later,” I told Ciel, who seemed to want a second helping, as I picked more of the fruit in question.

By the way, when I appraised it, the description read:

[Noblefruit] Sweet and delicious. Becomes even sweeter when boiled. Not poisonous.

While I was picking the noblefruit, Ciel, who had previously acted like she would do as I said, must have suffered a sudden break in her willpower, as she took a big bite of a fruit a little ways away.

After that, she slowly sank to the ground.

“Hey, you okay?” I ran up to her and picked her up. She was twitching and frothing at the mouth. Yeah, that’s not something you want to see...

I appraised the fruit Ciel had eaten. The description read:

[Drossfruit] Bitter. Not for human consumption. Not poisonous, but you’ll regret eating it.

I sometimes wondered who in the world wrote the text for these things.

Both fruits looked about the same, so it would be hard to tell them apart at a glance. I took a closer look and found that the noblefruit was odorless, while the drossfruit had a slightly sweet aroma.

“Here, eat this to get the taste out.”

I offered Ciel another peeled noblefruit, but she turned up her nose at it, possibly thinking it was more of the drossfruit. She should know I’d never prank her like that... I thought, but then I remembered that her suspicions weren’t completely groundless. It’s not like I knew how bad the rations tasted at the time, though...

With no other choice, I cut off a piece and made a show of eating it myself. This must have convinced Ciel that it was fine, because she gulped down the rest in one bite.

“These two fruits look like each other,” I warned her. “You can tell them apart by the smell, but be careful, okay?”

She nodded soberly in response, more serious than I’d ever seen her. It must have tasted truly awful.

It must have really left an impression, too, because Ciel followed obediently behind me after that and didn’t try to sample anything else from the trees on her own. But she still seemed curious about the new things I’d foraged, so whenever I found anything that seemed edible, I gave her a taste.

Occasionally I’d pick some drossfruit to use in traps, though, and she’d stare at me in disbelief when I did.

“Should we call it a day?” I finally asked.

We ended up sleeping in the forest. We could probably have made it out if I’d stopped foraging to focus on walking, but that would have taken us into monster territory, so there was no reason to hurry. Besides, getting too far away from the entrance stairs would make it harder to meet up with the girls when they arrived.

There was also something I wanted to try, so I walked around the forest looking for somewhere with enough space to set up a house. I finally found an appropriate spot, which happened to have an herb patch nearby as a bonus.

After gathering all the herbs from that patch, I used magic to build a house, which seemed about as sturdy as the ones I’d constructed outside of the dungeon. I gave it a whack with a blunt instrument to test it further, and it seemed unfazed. It had also taken the same amount of mana to build as the ones I’d created outside.

“It could probably defend against an orc attack, at least?” I mused.

These walls were tougher than the ones I’d made for Tenns Village, so they’d probably hold out. Still, I’d have liked an opportunity to put that to the test.

“Okay, ready to eat?” I asked.

Ciel, who’d been sleeping in a tree, flew down when she heard those words, and we entered the house together. We’d mostly had meat for lunch aside from the tempura, so for dinner I wanted to prioritize greens. I’d be sure to make some bacon out of the wulf meat too. Since I was in a forest anyway, I decided to look around for some of the wood I’d need to make it.

Then, to top it off, I crushed some noblefruit and boiled it in a pot. Ciel watched warily, but it wasn’t like I was going to try cooking drossfruit.

After it boiled for a while, a sweet aroma began to drift from the pot, which made Ciel even more wary. I guess it does smell a bit like the drossfruit...

Guided by my Cooking skill, I took the pot off the heat and let it cool, dished some into a bowl like soup, and set it in front of Ciel.

Ciel looked at me, then at the bowl, and didn’t move. But just like the last time, she took a timid lick after I drank a little myself, then her eyes opened wide and she drank it all down. She immediately began flapping her ears, demanding seconds. They were truly moving at incredible speeds.

“Just one more bowl, okay?” I told her.

She looked unhappy about that stipulation, but I wanted to save some for Hikari and the others, so I stashed the pot in my Item Box to prove I was serious.

Ciel seemed to get the point. She didn’t gulp it all down at once this time, savoring it instead with tiny sips.

◇◇◇

“Sora, we’re here!” came Mia’s voice out of the blue while I was walking through the forest. It was noon of my third day on the dungeon’s fifth floor at this point.

If we can communicate with our dungeon cards, that means... I widened the scope of my automap and saw some signals by the entrance.

“Oh, you made it?” I asked through the card.

“Sora, you didn’t get so caught up in what you were doing that you forgot, did you?”

Sorry. I found so many high-quality herbs in the forest, I got a little distracted. Though I apologized internally, I changed the subject to something I was curious about. “It took a long time for you to get to the fifth floor. Did something happen?” Looking more carefully at my map, I saw more signals than I expected.

“We ran into Fred and the others on the way and decided we’d all go together,” Mia responded, sounding a little tired. I asked her if she wanted to head back, but she said she was fine. “We’d like to start heading toward you,” she added.

I looked over and saw Ciel flapping her ears enthusiastically. “I’ll head your way too,” I told her, “but it looks like Ciel wants to meet up with you, so you can follow her.”

“Okay, got it. I’ll let the others know. Don’t push yourself too hard,” Mia responded.

“Don’t worry. We’re far enough away that we won’t meet up until tomorrow, so don’t go pushing yourselves too hard either.”

There was no way I was going to wait where I was, though. Most people might have found the walking annoying, but it was a great chance for me to pick up more XP.

“Okay, Ciel, see to it,” I told her. “Meet up with Mia and the others and show them the way.”

Ciel nodded and flew off, and I started walking in the direction she’d gone.

The main thing that had my interest right now was the number of signals displayed on the automap. With thirty of them popping up, there were way too many for it to just be Fred’s group. Did they run into another party besides his? Mia had made it sound voluntary, so I wasn’t worried that they could be in trouble. Still, I decided it might be best to meet up as soon as possible.

I was also a little concerned that she’d sounded so tired.

The morning after my talk with Mia, I managed to make it out of the forest. I was glad I’d remembered not to go too far afield.

That night, I heard from Rurika and Chris as well as Mia. Ciel had met up with them, and she was leading them in my direction. The girls were managing to lead the party the right way while making up a cover story for how they knew where I was.

It also turned out the whole group had decided to head straight for the sixth floor together, so I was extremely curious about who they were traveling with now.

In addition, Mia and the others were now in a location quite far away from the forest. Most people wouldn’t choose to camp out near a place with such reduced visibility, after all. Hikari said that others in the party would keep watch that night so they could sleep early, and she added that they’d cooked for them in exchange.

“I think that’s it over there.” I walked toward the signals and came upon a group of people. As I came closer, a few figures broke away from the group to approach me—one humanoid and one animal.

Ciel was the first to arrive, zooming up to me and flying circles around me. Soon after, a girl with dark hair ran over and threw her arms around me.

“It’s been a while, Hikari.”

“Yeah, we looked for treasure.”

Hikari nuzzled against me, so I patted her hair. When Ciel looked at me seriously, I produced a meat skewer from my Item Box, which she chomped down on happily. As I expected, she hadn’t eaten since she met up with Hikari and the others.

After that, we continued walking toward the group while they walked toward us, and soon enough we were reunited.

“I didn’t think you’d really be here alone,” Fred said as we met up, and a few men around him nodded in agreement.

I looked around the group and saw quite a few familiar faces—adventurers who’d fought the shadow wulf with us. The people near Mia were the ones who’d called her “Lady Mia,” and the ones close to Sera were those who’d called her “Big Sis Sera.”

“We happened to run into them in the dungeon, and they all tagged along,” Fred explained. “Oh, and let us introduce you to our new party members. Hey, Syphon! Over here!”

The name made my heart skip a beat. I found myself looking over at Rurika and Chris, who both nodded. They’d said Syphon’s party was heading for Pleques, so I’d never expected to encounter them here.

Nevertheless, the man who emerged from the crowd was indeed the Syphon I knew, surrounded by the members of the Goblin’s Lament. They haven’t changed at all, I thought. The sight inspired a powerful nostalgia in me, but it was joined by a terrible sense of guilt.

I looked straight at Syphon, trying to keep my cool. I knew Rurika and Chris had run into them in Eva’s capital city of Mahia, but I didn’t think that would mean a full reunion here in Majorica.

Syphon furrowed his brow as he laid eyes on me. I hoped it was just because I was wearing a mask.

“Hey, Syphon. This is Sora, the other member of Hikari’s party I told you about. Don’t worry about that weird mask; he’s a decent guy. He claims he’s a traveling merchant, but he’s amazing in a fight.” Fred introduced me with a big smile, and I noticed Syphon’s brow twitch when he heard my name.

“It’s such a pleasure to meet you,” I said after a pause, speaking in an overly formal manner. “My name is Sora, and I’m a traveling merchant. These three are my slaves. I look forward to working with you.” I cast a glance at Hikari and the others as I spoke.

“R-Right... I’m Syphon, leader of the Goblin’s Lament.” Syphon went on to introduce Juno and the other members of his party. I felt like he was scrutinizing me for reactions the whole time.

“That’s quite an amazing party name. Did you decide on that together?” I asked him.

Syphon’s expression contorted into a scowl.

“I’ll tell you all about it later,” Fred laughed. “Anyway, Sora, I hear you found the stairs to the sixth floor?”

“Yeah.” To be more precise, I’d seen it on my automap. “Are you sure you want us all to go together?”

“Yeah, we’ve got quite a few here who haven’t been to the sixth floor, including Syphon’s crew.” The “quite a few” Fred mentioned were probably the people wearing brand-new equipment. They were looking around all the time with nervous looks on their faces.

“Big Bro Sora! Which way should we go? We’ll lead the way!” someone suddenly called as I finished talking to Fred. It was one of the people who called Sera “big sis.” I couldn’t understand why they’d be calling me “big bro,” though.

“Could you please not call me ‘big bro’?” I asked. “And the stairs are that way,” I said, gesturing in their direction.

“Yes, big bro!”

Seriously, please don’t call me that... I grumbled internally.

The apparent newbies followed along, looking very excited. Some of them also bowed when they looked at me.

What in the world is going on here? I sweated. What did they tell them about me?

“Hey, how exactly did all this happen?” I managed to ask the girls as I dropped to the back of the group.

They went on to explain that the large group had come together on the dungeon’s third floor. The first group they’d run into were the ones I called Team Sera, who were currently leading the way. Even the newbies, who hadn’t thought much of Sera and the others at first, had changed their tune after watching Sera fight.

Rurika seemed to enjoy the mild discomfort their enthusiasm inspired in Sera. I was sure I didn’t need to hear the details, though.

After that, the group headed through the third floor. There, they’d gotten turned around several times while they were looking for the stairs, until they’d met up with Fred and the Mia Appreciation Society. Team Sera was the main reason they’d gotten lost so many times; they had been leading the way and kept hitting dead ends.

The reason so many parties had started from the first floor was that they’d all taken in new members. Some of them had dungeon experience but had never been part of a party before, and so they’d started out at the first floor to judge their ability.

Among the newcomers were a few children who looked to be about Hikari’s age. Team Sera and the Mia Appreciation Society had apparently learned about the orphans we’d taken in (probably Norman and the others) and decided to take in some kids in similar circumstances.

The reason progress had been so slow was because they’d had to teach the newbies combat tips and so on as they went along. Hikari and the others had wanted to meet up with me sooner since they knew I was waiting, but Mia was worried about the newbies getting hurt, so they couldn’t just drop out.

“Sora, are you all right?” Chris asked me worriedly.

“Hmm? Yeah, why do you ask?” I said.

“Well... When you saw Syphon and the others, you looked like you were in pain.”

Did I? I certainly had been shaken, but I hadn’t thought they could see my expression through the mask...

“See?” she pressed me. “You’re not acting like yourself at all.”

I looked around, decided it wasn’t something we should talk about here, and told her, “Everyone might hear us if we talk here, so I’ll explain when we get back. Would you mind giving me a little advice then?” I spoke with a smile to reassure her, but I wasn’t sure how convincing it was.

We walked until it got dark and ended up setting up camp in the forest. The forest was so big that there was no way to get through it all in one day, and because the stairs were in the middle of the forest, there was no avoiding having to travel through it.

“Master, wanna eat your food,” Hikari told me, so I ended up cooking that night. I used magic to level out the ground and set up a cooking site, then got started.

Some of the people there seemed disappointed by this...mainly the Mia Appreciation Society, who seemed to have been hoping she would cook. Still, because we had so many people to cook for, Mia and Rurika helped, among others. The sight of this cheered the Mia Appreciation Society right up.

In exchange for us cooking, Fred and his gang would handle the watch shifts overnight.

“Your food is still great, Sora.” Fred stuffed his face eagerly when his turn came up, earning peculiar glares from those around us. “Oh, it’s because I ate so much of the meat. I just prefer this manly food, y’know?” he responded almost apologetically for some reason.

It seemed the hostility involved the food situation on the way here.

Generally, adventurers in dungeons ate rations. But Hikari and the others were always eating freshly cooked meals, and it had begun to inspire envy in those around them. The Mia Appreciation Society seemed to especially crave Mia’s cooking. (Sera didn’t cook much, by the way.)

The trouble was that Hikari and the others hadn’t brought enough ingredients to cook for everyone. They had brought a lot, but it was still just enough for five, as their bags of holding didn’t have infinite storage like I did. They also had to use them to store the bodies of the monsters they’d hunted, which didn’t leave much space to carry food that they could give out freely. As a result, the people who wanted to eat had drawn lots, and Fred had drawn the lucky straw.

The real problem, then, was that Fred hadn’t praised Mia’s cooking as much as he did mine, and the people who overheard that—the Mia Appreciation Society in particular—didn’t take kindly to it.

Grudges about food really do run deep, I guess.

“Sora, you can cook too?” Syphon asked, sounding surprised by the quality of the food.

“Isn’t he amazing?” Fred beamed. “Didn’t I tell you before about the time this floor turned into a boss room? Sora’s the one who played decoy against the shadow wulf. He can use magic too. Gotta say, we have our doubts about whether he’s really a merchant.” A few of the other folks who were listening in proceeded to nod in agreement.

“Well, traveling merchants do encounter monsters on their travels,” I explained. “I’ve done a lot of traveling by myself in the past, so I still carry around items that can help me out of tight scrapes. I’ve got a bag of holding too.” Normally it would be better not to mention you had one, but pretty much everyone here already knew about it.

But I couldn’t say too much without giving the game away, so I changed the subject. “So, may I ask how the two of you met, sir?” Fred had said they’d met in a bar, and I wanted to know more about that—particularly why Syphon was here now.

“You can just call me Syphon,” he responded. “It feels weird for anyone to use fancy titles for people like us. You can just talk normal to us, like you do with Fred.”

I felt nostalgia at those words, but I tried to remain neutral and nod in response. However, I didn’t think it was Syphon who had said that to me before, but someone else from my adventurer days.

“Like I said before, we drank together and got along,” Fred chimed in. “We got to talking and he mentioned they’d meant to do a dungeon dive in Pleques but couldn’t register there, so they came here.”

“Wow, you can be refused registration at a dungeon?” I asked.

“I’d never heard of it before myself. But apparently the noble in charge of that city is pretty fussy, so maybe it’s got something to do with that.”

I’d thought it was the adventurers’ guild that oversaw the dungeons. Then again, dungeons were troves of natural resources, so maybe it would be natural for the lords to assert control? None of that had anything to do with us, so I’d never really thought about it before.

“Anyway, they were thinking about heading back to Elesia, but they decided to come to Majorica as long as they were in the area. They needed to earn money to get back anyway.”

So that was it. Quite a few adventurers had apparently come to Majorica from Pleques for much the same reason.

“So anyway, given all that, we probably won’t be able to look after Norman and the kids for a while. We’ve let Hikari know that too.”

After that, we were exempted from a watch shift because we’d cooked, and after breakfast the next morning we set off for the sixth-floor stairs. We moved quickly since we already knew the way, and perhaps thanks to the strength of our numbers, we effortlessly slew any monsters we came across.

Watching them fight, I realized the Mia Appreciation Society and Team Sera were very strong, as was Fred’s group. It looked like that the bad matchup against the shadow wulf and their accumulated exhaustion had made them come off worse than they deserved before. Their levels were higher than most of my group too.

The Goblin’s Lament were also reliable slayers of monsters. Gytz the shield bearer would draw their attention while the other four moved in sync to kill one monster after another. Their motions were all perfectly polished without a bit of effort wasted. I was impressed by the way all the adventurers moved, in fact.

Of course, we did plenty of fighting ourselves. Defeating monsters still earned you something like experience points, so we couldn’t let the others have it all. Whenever we fought, we had a healthy cheering section—I don’t think I need to say who it was. Since loud sounds could end up calling more monsters, I wished they’d knock it off...and frankly, I would’ve wished that even if they couldn’t.

Then again, maybe more monsters was just what they wanted.

After facing down one thing after another and traveling for a day and a half, we managed to reach the sixth-floor stairs.

All the monster fights had tired out the newcomers, so we’d had to take more frequent breaks, which was why it had taken so long. I figured going all the way from the first to the sixth floor had to be hard on your stamina, but walking around in an unknown forest seemed to be mentally taxing too.

“Well, it’s something we all go through,” Fred said.

Syphon seemed confused by his comment. He probably didn’t know about how the people of Majorica struggled on special fields like these.

Once we got out of the dungeon, we lined up at the sales counter in the adventurers’ guild and settled our tab. We’d split up the monsters we’d hunted in the dungeon itself, so it all went smoothly.

“Oh, you’re...” As we were about to leave the adventurers’ guild, we ran into a familiar face. It was Reese, the guildmaster. She seemed surprised to see us for a moment, but then she smiled and engaged us in conversation.

Her smile made a few of the adventurers blush. She definitely had a mature appeal about her, but I managed to suppress my urge to stare. I wasn’t about to make the same mistake twice—especially since it wasn’t just Mia around to punish me this time.

I glanced to the side and saw Syphon looking at her with complete indifference on his face. He met my eyes for a second, and I felt like I knew just what he was thinking.

Yeah, Juno’s scary when she gets mad.

“Did you form a party to go into the dungeon?” Reese asked us.

“Nah, we just happened to run into each other down there and decided to dive together this time,” Fred replied with his usual breezy manner.

“It looks like you have some newcomers, so don’t push yourselves too hard,” she advised us before she left.

“Think it’s time for us to go our separate ways,” Fred said after she was gone. “Now, everyone, if we run into each other in the dungeon again, let’s all take care of each other!”

His proposal earned a cheerful response from the group. The Mia Appreciation Society and Team Sera bid us goodbye, and then we went home.

Once we were back in the house, we talked about what had gone down in the dungeon that day. The girls told me how Hikari had tried to do some cooking and how Rurika and Chris had been gobsmacked by Sera’s over-the-top fighting style.

The stories went on and on, and though we should have been tired, we kept talking long after we normally would have gone to bed. Elza and Art sat close by as well, listening enraptured to everyone’s stories.

The most exciting part, though, came when I peeled a noblefruit and passed it around. One bite and I could tell that they were all believers.

Hikari looked up at me as if to beg for more, but I asked her to hold off. “The rest is for the merchants’ guild and to eat with Norman and the others,” I told her. I added that more people would start foraging on the fifth floor if the merchants’ guild showed interest, which might make it easier to buy it regularly. That seemed to convince her.

And so our fourth dungeon dive ended with us successfully reaching our destination, the sixth floor.

Still...there was just one thing that bothered me. I’d appraised Syphon and his group as we were parting ways.

[Name: Syphon / Job: Adventurer / Level 53 / Race: Human / Status: —]

I was pretty sure Syphon and his team were C-Rankers when we first met them, but their levels were higher than those of Locke’s group, the B-Rankers we’d met in Frieren, and Layla and her team as well. Then again, an adventurer’s rank was reflected by the quests they took, not necessarily their skill...and I hadn’t known Appraise Person when I’d first met them, so maybe they’d done a lot of grinding in the meantime.

However, even though I knew that rationally, I couldn’t help but feel like something was off. I’d only met a handful of people over level 50, after all. But it wasn’t like I went around appraising every single person I met, so maybe I’d met more and just coincidentally didn’t appraise them?

I closed my eyes and thought back on all the ways Syphon and his party had helped me back in Elesia. Their friendly attitudes suggested they cared about all adventurers, not just their own party members. Nevertheless, I was still suspicious of them, maybe because I saw myself reflected in the way they seemed to be hiding things.

I decided to bring this up to Rurika.

“There are lots of adventurers whose rank doesn’t line up with their strength. If you raise your rank, you might get forced to take more annoying quests, so some people deliberately refuse to do it. By the same token, people who want to make money often use their connections to nobles and others in power to get their rank up even though they don’t have the talent for it,” she responded.

She had a point. I could understand why someone wouldn’t want to raise their rank under those conditions. If I’d continued being an adventurer, I’d definitely have avoided raising my rank higher, since it might hinder my ability to travel freely.

Money was important, but freedom was priceless.

Chapter 2

We decided to take three days to recuperate before returning to the dungeon. Mia and the others had spent almost ten days there before, so I was worried they might be tired. However, it seemed the size of their joint party had helped them conserve energy, so they were still in good shape.

Thanks to my Walking skill, I wasn’t tired at all from the time I’d spent exploring the fifth floor solo either—even though I’d probably been the busiest of all of us over that three-day period.

We recovered the monster parts Norman and the others had broken down, then handed over a new set of bodies to get the same treatment. Next, I brought Hikari, Elza, and Art over and held a feast where we ate the noblefruits.

I also brought some noblefruit and drossfruit to the merchants’ guild and told them where they could be foraged on the dungeon’s fifth floor. I gave them some other rare fruits and nuts I’d found, but as I’d expected, the noblefruit was the star.

After some negotiation, I ended up selling them at a price of ten silvers per noblefruit. I’d wasted one giving them a sample, but getting one gold piece for every ten fruits still felt like quite a haul. I made sure to warn them about the drossfruit, though, since it looked so similar.

Then I dropped by the school and gave some noblefruit to Seris and Layla, sold a portion of my herbs to the school, and walked around town to restock on a few things. Hikari and the others joined me for this part.

I spent most of my time after that making potions with alchemy, being sure to get occasional exercise with mock duels and stroll around town for a change of scenery. The time was well spent because I’d managed to increase my potion stock by quite a lot, but there were still a lot of herbs in my Item Box.

I also decided to take this time to discuss the matter of Syphon with the others.

Rurika had mentioned that the Goblin’s Lament had seemed sad about my “passing” when they’d met up in Mahia. They’d apparently told Rurika and Chris not to worry about it so much, but if they really hadn’t cared, they wouldn’t have been sad. They’d definitely looked shaken when they’d heard my name in the dungeon too.

I wanted to let them know I was okay. At the same time, even though we were now far away from Elesia, I felt nervous about whether it was okay to tell them. The more people who knew my secret, the greater the chance of it getting out.

“What do you want to do, Sora?” Mia asked me.

I wasn’t really sure, but I knew we wouldn’t get anywhere if I just kept quiet, so I confessed to the girls how I really felt—my fear that they’d come after me again if word of my survival got out, which might put Hikari in danger too; that I wanted to put their worries at ease by letting him know that I was safe, but that I was also afraid they might be mad at me for lying to them; and more.

“I think you can trust them,” Chris said with a reassuring smile.

“Master. I don’t know much about this Syphon guy and his friends, but if Chris says they’re trustworthy, they probably are. They seemed like a nice bunch of people while I was in the dungeon with them too. And...if you don’t tell them when you have the chance, I’m pretty sure you’ll regret it.” Sera looked slightly sad as she said those last words.

Her words and manner were what steeled my resolve. “Okay, Rurika. Can you take a message to Syphon and his party at the guild?” I asked her.

“Leave it to me,” she responded cheerfully.

“We’ll head on out, then. I’ll let you guys look after the house and Norman,” I said to Elza and Art as we left.

“Yes, sir. Be careful out there,” Elza responded.

“H-Have a good...time!” Art stuttered.

Lately, they had been making quite a few visits to the kids’ house, where they taught the children various things and all got lessons from Iroha together. At first I’d thought all this work must have been running Iroha ragged, but she always seemed to have a spring in her step. She’d even prepared new maid outfits for the orphans.

“So, Sora, how far do you want to go this time?” Rurika asked me while we walked.

“Let’s see... I think we should get to the tenth floor and decide from there if we want to take on the boss,” I responded.

“I think the eighth floor has groups of wulfs, and the ninth has a variety of goblins?” Chris said.

“Lots of stuff to take back. And blood snakes on the seventh!” Hikari chimed in.

Wulfs would be good, but I was afraid we’d overtax Norman and the others. They’d already broken down a few hundred...though I doubted they’d admit it if they really were struggling.

“I see. We have a lot of wulf meat, so maybe we should all have a feast together once we get back.”

This proposal set Ciel to dancing and brought a shine to Hikari’s eyes.

Mia and Sera smiled in amusement at the sight.

We had the adventurers’ guild send the message, then headed for the dungeon entrance, where the line was longer than usual.

Looking at the length of the line, I was reminded of something. “With all the adventurers coming here from Pleques, I’m surprised we didn’t run into any on our last dive.”

“There were a lot of people on the fourth floor. You didn’t see them because you spent the whole time on the fifth,” said a voice from behind us.

I turned back and saw Fred walking our way, with Syphon’s party trailing him.

I hadn’t been expecting to run into them first thing today, but Syphon must have gotten the message, because he walked right up to Rurika. “We’d like to talk with you for a minute after we get out of the dungeon,” I could hear her saying.

“Back to the dungeon already, eh? It’s only been three days. I hope you’re up to it,” Fred said.

“You’re one to talk, Fred,” Syphon teased him. “You’re doing the same thing.”

“We’re adventurers, you idiot! This is how we make our living, so we need a quick turnaround. Besides, you’re all young ladies, except for Sora. You sure you can handle it?”

“Yeah, we got meat,” Hikari answered immediately.

Hikari, it’s not just about the meat... I thought with a wince. Maybe she was still fixated on the idea of the upcoming feast.

Fred, now more than aware of Hikari’s love of meat, shared my expression. “So you’re starting on the sixth floor today?” he asked, keeping his voice down.

I nodded.

“Why don’t we party up, then? I’ll bet we’re going to the same place.” He explained that their next target was the tenth floor as well. He said that he wasn’t sure if they could make it all the way in one go, but they’d prepared a lot of rations to make a run for it.

I mulled over whether to accept his proposition. I wouldn’t be able to tell Syphon my true identity in the dungeon with Fred and the others around, but going as a large group would certainly have benefits. As much as I wanted us to fight a lot of monsters for the experience, I was also hoping to get as far down as possible. The more people we had, the fewer shifts we’d have to take on watch duty, the more rest we’d get, and the better we could preserve our stamina.

In the end, with the threat of the monster parade taking priority, we agreed to a joint operation.

When our turn came around, we registered our party at the entrance and skipped right down to the sixth floor. It must have been unusual to see adventurers teaming up with students, because the guild personnel at the entrance looked a little shocked as we passed.

Just getting through the sixth floor took us the whole day, though that would probably be on the fast side for most parties. The reason we made such swift progress was simple: Knowing that killer bees were the main monsters on the floor, we avoided combat as much as possible and charged straight for the stairs. The reason it still took all day was because the stairs were so far from the entrance.

Incidentally, the reason we could head straight for the stairs was because Hikari and Rurika had taken point on that floor, so I could telepathically tell them which way to go based on my automap. Meanwhile, Fred and the others just chalked it up to their training.

“We made it to the stairs so easily. Didn’t run into many monsters either. Pretty lucky, eh?” Fred said to me while we were camping out near the stairs to the seventh floor.

When we reached the seventh floor, Fred’s crew took point, with Gytz of the Goblin’s Lament and their main scout, Orga, walking in the lead. It took two days to find the stairs to the eighth floor, and we defeated seventeen blood snakes on our way there.

“Finally time for the eighth floor. It’s packs of wulfs there, right?” Rurika asked.

“That’s right. You’d better watch out, Rurika,” Chris responded teasingly.

I was cooking while I listened in, with Mia and Hikari helping me. As I did, I recalled what I’d learned from the documents in the reference room.

Of all the single-digit floors (other than the fifth), the eighth was the one that tended to give adventurers the most trouble. The documents said wulfs tended to appear in packs of at least five, and sometimes ten or more. Very occasionally, you found mutant variations among them as well.

We took shifts standing watch again that night, then had breakfast and descended to the eighth floor.

On the eighth floor, our party took the lead again.

I saw quite a few human signals on my automap here. It looked like there was a group of almost thirty people in one spot, but unfortunately they were going away from the stairs. I telepathically directed Hikari again, but the monster encounter rate on this floor was quite high, which meant it was hard to avoid combat entirely.

During battle, we tried a few different approaches. The first time, we waited for the wulfs to get close, then I used Provoke to lure them to me. When their attention was on me, Hikari, Sera, and Rurika tore through them—thirteen in all—in the blink of an eye. The second time, we focused on long-range attacks, with me, Mia, and Chris each firing off spells. However, we used a lot of area-effect spells, which meant we couldn’t salvage any materials from this combat except magistones.

“Magic is convenient, but it’s not good for collecting materials,” Rurika mused.

“The meat’s gone...” Hikari lamented.

We ended up calling it a day without making a lot of progress. The constant combat had really made it tough to get anywhere.

“Those academy students sure are impressive, though,” I heard Syphon say over dinner.

“You probably shouldn’t judge by this lot,” Fred told him in response. “Of course, there are some students who’ve gotten to floors even lower than we have. Just a handful, though.”

On the ninth floor we faced goblin fighters, archers, mages, and champions, but they were no match for us. In fact, since we didn’t have to worry about collecting materials from them, we could really let loose with our magic. Not that magic was all we used; we employed coordinated tactics as well, with Syphon’s party giving us constructive feedback.

“Still, clearing dungeons goes quickly with you guys,” Fred said. “This is a huge difference from the last time we tried to get to the tenth floor, and it’s all thanks to Hikari.”

For some reason, Ciel nodded proudly at Hikari’s side, but Hikari herself barely seemed to react to the praise. She just nodded a little bit, perhaps to be polite.

We registered our cards at the stairs to the tenth floor, then proceeded down. In front of the boss room itself was a kind of monster-free staging area, so we decided we’d eat there.

The boss room floors worked like this: Once one group entered the boss room itself, the door wouldn’t open until the boss was beaten—or the party inside was wiped out, which meant that everyone else had to wait in the staging area.

But defeating the boss could result in a treasure chest drop, and those often contained rare items, so many people would hit up the boss room over and over, like grinding for loot in a game. Indeed, there were quite a few parties already in the queue when we arrived.

“Looks pretty crowded,” I said. “Should we head out for now and come back later?”

“Nah, better to wait here,” Fred told me. “It might take a while, but this is on the smaller side as far as crowds go.”

I wasn’t sure how you could keep track of the arrival order in a crowd like this, but Fred explained how it worked. Basically, if you told the people around you that you were going to try the boss room, they would tend to remember. Fred apparently knew quite a few of the people here as well. He seemed like a pretty well-connected guy.

“This might be a good time to cook,” I said, and Hikari strongly agreed. It was almost lunchtime anyway.

I sat down in an open area and started cooking. I also checked to see what would happen to the smoke if I started a fire, and it seemed like the ceiling here absorbed it like on the labyrinth floors.

“Will you be helping too, Hikari?”

“Yeah, Big Sis Mia taught me. Wanna show what I can do.”

As we started cooking, Fred got called away by some other adventurers. Soon after, he came back and jerked a thumb behind him. “They say they’d be willing to pay if we feed them. Seems like a lot of them have been waiting their turn since yesterday.”

Apparently there had been a few parties who’d taken several hours to clear the room, which had gummed up the works quite a bit. Given that, I was surprised to hear that this crowd was still on the small side.

“Sora, can we share with them? We’ll help you cook,” said Mia, who’d overheard. We decided to go for it. Maybe if we did them a favor now, they’d repay us down the line. It never hurt to make friends, anyway.

“Hikari, it just needs seasoning and then it’ll be done. Could you handle that?” I asked her.

Hikari proudly agreed, so I brought out my cooking utensils and ingredients and handed them to the girls, then started working on another dish.

Once the food was done, we went about handing it out.

The adventurers politely lined up to wait for their share, each holding a handmade bowl. I naturally didn’t have enough bowls for everyone, so I’d handed out pieces of wood and told them to carve their own. I was surprised to find that many of them were quite skilled—good enough that some even bragged about their craftsmanship.

There was no fighting while they were lining up, but some had to enforce the queue with stern glares. Mia’s cooking was the most in demand, and the lines for Hikari, Chris, and Rurika filled up next. The ones who ended up in my line looked a little dejected about missing out, though Syphon and his party also lined up for my cooking.

“Thanks, Hikari.”

“Thanks, little miss.”

“I’ll treasure every sip!”

“Thank you, Lady Mia.”

The adventurers, who must have learned our names from hearing us talk, thanked us with a smile as they walked away with their meat skewers and bowls of soup.

“Did you give all of it out?” I asked.

“Yeah, all gone,” Hikari said with a smile, showing me an empty pot. “But I saved some for you, master.” She showed me that she’d ladled out a bowl for me beforehand.

“Ah, youth... I wish I’d gone to that magic academy.”

“He’ll pay for getting a smile from Hikari!”

“Ah, she’s so cute.”

“If I could kill a man with just my eyes...”

“This soup will last me for the rest of my life...”

I can’t say I cared for the tone of some of those comments. Just eat your soup before it gets cold, okay?

But that wasn’t all.

“When I get back, I’m gonna recruit some lady adventurers who can cook.”

“Can’t beat the motivation that comes from eye candy.”

“Hot food really fills your whole body.”

“I think I’m gonna enroll at that magic academy.”

“Looks like Fred’s got a lady adventurer in his party too.”

“But I think she’s married to that adventurer there.”

“Yeah, the bane to bachelors like us.”

While listening to the different comments around me, I took my food from Hikari and was about to start eating. That was when it happened—the sound of agonized groans began to pop up here and there among the lively chatter.

A few people tensed in response to the sound, and their eyes turned to the source. I looked in that direction as well and saw several adventurers pitched over, about to topple. Looking more closely, I noticed they were all people who’d gotten soup from Hikari.

As they realized people were looking at them, the adventurers pasted on smiles and insisted that nothing was wrong. However, their expressions were strained and their hands trembled on their bowls. They looked like they were in genuine pain. Some were even clutching their stomachs.

There was one more person whose attention was on these adventurers—Hikari. I could see her brow slightly furrowed, and she looked a little sad.

The adventurers seemed to realize she was watching them, nodded to each other, then slurped down their soup all at once and showed us the empty bowls. Seeing that, Hikari smiled and looked happy again. It really was a good feeling to watch people finish the food you made. It made it all feel worthwhile.

Sadly, that seemed to be the limit to what they could take. Shortly after finishing their soup, the men began to fall like dominoes.

This sent the campsite into a panic, and Mia rushed over to examine them. After checking their condition, she seemed to realize the problem and cast Recovery on them.

Recovery shouldn’t have an effect on colds and other illnesses... I thought. But in front of my eyes, the adventurers started admitting up again. The turnaround was so quick that it was genuinely shocking.

Mia let out a sigh of relief and continued her work, casting Recovery on the rest of the suffering adventurers.

Wondering what was going on, I cast a quick Appraisal on one of the fallen adventurers and did a double take. If I hadn’t been wearing a mask, I’d probably have rubbed my eyes.

Once all of the adventurers had recovered, the attention then fell on me—more precisely, on the bowl in my hands. They must have noticed the connection between all the adventurers who’d collapsed.

I glanced over at Hikari, who was looking up at me nervously.

I gulped and brought the soup to my lips. I saw Mia looking flustered out of the corner of my eye, probably about to stop me, but it was too late.

The taste...wasn’t especially bad. It was a little bitter, but surely still better than rations.

A cry of surprise rang out as I finished my bowl. The recovered adventurers couldn’t believe that I’d finished it unscathed.

“A-Are you all right?” Mia asked.

“Yeah, no real problem. It was just a little bitter,” I told her.

On hearing that, the other adventurers seemed to decide that the ones who had collapsed were just being dramatic, and they got back to their meals.

“Hey, Sora. Did Hikari make that soup by herself?” Rurika asked me.

“Huh? She just did the final seasoning,” I responded. “I was working on it with her when we started, but then Fred wanted to talk to me, so I let her take over.”

“Um, well, Hikari takes instruction very seriously and learns quickly. But, how to put this... I guess she likes to improvise? She’ll try all kinds of bizarre things if you take your eyes off of her for a second.”

In short, she’d mixed a lot of different seasonings together to make her own original blend.

While that made sense to me in a way, I also had my doubts. The seasoning I’d prepared was my own personal blend, but the spices themselves were all sold in shops. Even if Hikari had mixed a few of them together, that was no reason to think it would cause a status effect.

Yet, when I’d appraised the adventurers earlier, I’d learned that they all had a status of “Poison (Mild).” I’d heard of substances that were dangerous to combine in my old world, but I wasn’t aware of any that were edible.

Incidentally, the reason I’d come through unharmed was probably because of my status effect resistance.

“So we’d probably better not let Hikari cook alone anymore. Tell her to make sure she always has someone who isn’t Sera with her.”

The reason Rurika stressed that last part apparently involved the hard life Sera had lived as a slave. Especially when she was in the Empire, she hadn’t been very well fed, and she’d been lucky to get to eat at all. Also, the Howler Slave Company prioritized nutrition over flavor, and she’d gone somewhat taste blind because of her time with them—though, obviously, she could still tell when something tasted good.

Even then, her treatment at Howler must have been better than at other slave companies. At some of the others I’d been to, many slaves looked thin as if they hadn’t been fed properly, but the slaves of Howler didn’t look like that. It was probably a mercenary choice on their part, though—healthier slaves would fetch a better price.

Anyway, Rurika was probably right that it was dangerous to let Hikari cook alone, now that I knew that creating poison was a potential result.

“Hikari, when you want to cook, call me...or Mia or Rurika or Chris. We’ll all teach you how to make different things.”

“Bacon and curry and stuff too?” she asked.

“Yeah, of course.”

“Okay. Got it.”

Bacon isn’t especially hard, but could she handle curry? I wondered. Maybe if I made something like instant roux in advance? Either way, I’d have to keep an eye on Hikari when we cooked together from now on and find out what had gone wrong.

No major problems occurred after that, and we chatted while we waited our turn. Sharing a meal seemed to have created a sense of community between us and the other adventurers, and when they learned three of the girls were my slaves, some were jealous and some looked on in awe.

I decided to check my stats before I slept.

Name: Fujimiya Sora / Job: Scout / Race: Otherworlder / Level: None

HP: 460/460 / MP: 460/460 / SP: 460/460 (+100)

Strength: 450 (+0) / Stamina: 450 (+0) / Speed: 450 (+100)

Magic: 450 (+0) / Dexterity: 450 (+0) / Luck: 450 (+100)

Skill: Walking Lv. 45

Effect: Never get tired from walking (earn 1 XP for every step)

XP Counter: 204,830/850,000

Skill Points: 3

Learned Skills

[Appraisal Lv. MAX] [Prevent Appraisal Lv. 4] [Enhance Physique Lv. MAX] [Regulate Mana Lv. MAX] [Lifestyle Spells Lv. MAX] [Detect Presence Lv. MAX] [Sword Arts Lv. MAX] [Dimension Spells Lv. MAX] [Parallel Thinking Lv. 9] [Boost Recovery Lv. MAX] [Hide Presence Lv. MAX] [Alchemy Lv. MAX] [Cooking Lv. MAX] [Throwing/Shooting Lv. 8] [Fire Spells Lv. MAX] [Water Spells Lv. 8] [Telepathy Lv. 9] [Night Vision Lv. MAX] [Sword Tech Lv. 5] [Resist Status Effects Lv. 6] [Earth Spells Lv. MAX] [Wind Spells Lv. 8] [Disguise Lv. 7] [Engineering/Construction Lv. 8] [Shield Arts Lv. 6] [Provoke Lv. 7] [Traps Lv. 3]

Advanced Skills

[Appraise Person Lv. 9] [Detect Mana Lv. 8] [Enchant Lv. 8] [Creation Lv. 4]

Contract Skills

[Holy Spells Lv. 5]

Title

[Spirit Contractor]

In preparation for the boss battle, I’d thought about changing my job to one that was better suited for combat, but I’d heard that we were going to see traps starting on the eleventh floor, so I left it as Scout.

My Walking level had also gone up by one, and some of my learned skills had maxed out as well. The best part of all was that my Holy Spells skill had gone up by a level. However, it seemed that Heal was still the only such spell I could use—maybe because I’d learned it by contracting with Ciel?

Incidentally, Mia had gained new admirers during the meal, while I’d earned such dishonorable titles as “Man with the Iron Stomach” and “The Masked Poison Tester.”

◇◇◇

“You guys are trying to reach the bottom floor, right? Do you wanna try fighting this boss by yourselves, then? It should give you some good experience.”

“Hey, Syphon, that’s...”

Syphon, who hadn’t talked much so far, approached me while we were doing some light warm-ups after breakfast. Fred quickly tried to stop him, but Syphon raised a hand and kept his eyes fixed on me.

I gave his words careful thought. Given what we were up against, beating the boss on the tenth floor by ourselves would probably give us a confidence boost. Besides, the monsters would only get stronger the farther down we went. We wouldn’t get anywhere if we were struggling on these early floors, even against a boss.

“If anything goes wrong, we’ll run in to support you. How’s that?” Syphon offered.

That was the clincher for me. “Okay,” I said after a moment. “Should we talk about a plan, then?”

After that, we all worked out a plan, passed it on to Fred’s team, and finally approached the boss room. All the adventurers who’d been waiting in front of us had cycled through by this point.

The door was large, easily five meters tall and wide enough to allow more than ten people to go through at once. A protrusion at the center of the door seemed to react when someone in the party touched it, at which point it would open for only five minutes and allow only members of the same party to enter. Apparently that judgment was somehow made based on dungeon cards, but the details weren’t clear yet.

I knocked lightly on the door, careful not to touch the protrusion. I’d thought it was made of metal, but I appraised it and it said “unknown” just the same as the walls.

“Ready to go in, Sora?” Fred urged me.

I was about to touch the protrusion when I noticed something above it. The door was engraved around the edges, but the area at the center of the engraving, on the top edge above the protrusion—something like a relief—was blank. That was what had caught my eye, but since I was already using Appraisal, looking up at it brought up a pop-up balloon.

[☆ Goblin King 1 / Goblin Champion 3 / Goblin Mage 5 / Goblin Archer 5 / Goblin Fighter 20]

It was a series of monster names and numbers.

“Sora, is something wrong?” Chris asked worriedly as she saw me suddenly hesitate.

“No, it’s nothing. Let’s head on in.”

If that reflects the number of monsters currently in the boss room, then... I started to think, then stopped myself. No, I should make sure first. It would be dangerous to spread unreliable information. We already knew what kind of monsters we’d be facing anyway and had talked out our plan, though it was so simple it barely qualified as one.

When I touched the protrusion, the doors creaked inward.

The now open space was like clouded glass, so I couldn’t see through it to confirm what was inside. It was like the boundary between floors: You wouldn’t be able to see beyond it until you stepped through. The difference with a boss room was that you couldn’t leave after entering until you defeated the boss—in this case, the goblin king.

I stepped inside cautiously and looked around. As the reference materials suggested, there were no monsters nearby.

“The first thing we need to do is find the boss, which is hiding somewhere in the area,” Fred explained.

While he did, I brought up my automap and used Detect Presence to find out where the monsters were. The map apparently displayed the whole area without the need to expand my view, about three kilometers from edge to edge. However, for some reason, the automap currently showed my party members but not the monsters. The same was true when I used Detect Mana.

I looked around, wondering if the display function just didn’t work in the boss room, but all I saw around me was empty grassland, and all I heard was the wind rustling through the grass.

Visibility was mostly good aside from some low hills around us. If I couldn’t figure out where the monsters were with my automap, I’d just have to confirm them visually. The fact that I couldn’t see them from our current point with the naked eye suggested they might be very far away.

“First, I guess we should find the monsters,” I said. We checked around to make sure we were safe, and we were about to start moving when suddenly Detect Presence picked up a new reading. New signals appeared on my automap at the same time.

“Ah, I sense something over there,” Hikari said, pointing in the direction where I’d picked up the monster readings.

Maybe it takes a while for monsters to spawn after you enter? I thought.

Then we started walking in the direction of the monsters, and after about ten minutes they came into view. I could see a group of goblins running our way, thirty-four in all.

“Let’s let them come to us,” I said.

Hikari and Rurika fanned out around me and Sera, with Chris and Mia behind us. I raised my shield and readied my spells, while the fighters took out throwing knives and hand axes, all enchanted by me.

We then watched the goblins run toward us, quietly waited for them to enter our firing range, and then...

“Let’s get started.” Chris, a spell at the ready, raised her staff and thrust it at the goblin horde.

Fire burst from her staff and the fight began.

◇Syphon’s Perspective 1

It took a while after we entered the boss room for Sora and his party to start moving. I glanced at my partymate, Orga. He nodded, confirming that they were moving toward the monsters. I also looked behind me and saw that the door we’d passed through was gone. It was just a wall now.

Our previous dungeon dives had shown me that these girls were great at tracking monsters. Hikari and Rurika were something else—even Orga, our scout, had to acknowledge that.

The only question now was how they’d fight the boss—a goblin king, according to the documents. They’d handled group battles on the eighth and ninth floors well enough, but advanced subtypes were on another level. Fred had filled me in on how they’d fought the shadow wulf, but I had my doubts about how true that was. Stories tended to grow in the telling, and all that.

Watching the fight with the goblin king quieted those doubts real quick, though.

It started with a Firestorm spell from Chris, which burst over the head of the goblin fighters running in the lead and consumed them. The power and size of the blast were greater than anything Juno could cook up.

The goblins who were farther from the spell’s activation point weren’t killed right away, but the first explosion was followed by others, producing more goblin screams. One of these was from a Firestorm from Sora himself, but the others shocked me—specifically the explosions from the knives and hand axes that Hikari, Rurika, and Sera threw at them.

Just a few minutes after the combat started, the entire band was kaput except for the goblin king.

I looked over at Jinn and the rest of the crew and saw they were as shocked as me. Who wouldn’t be? Their knives and axes were exploding! Even we’d have trouble guarding against those things.

Once the goblin king was all alone, Sora lured it in while the three in the vanguard attacked, and the remaining two harried the monster with attack spells and backed up the party with support spells—probably holy magic for the latter. I’d heard that Mia wasn’t accustomed to fighting, but she was one of the most powerful holy magic users I’d seen in all my days.

Sora’s movements were what caught my eye the most, though. He blocked strikes from the goblin king with his shield, and while it was only a goblin, it was still an advanced subtype. Those strikes weren’t trivial by any means, but he held the line, unfazed. I felt like I was watching Gytz for a moment.

Then there was Rurika. I’d sparred with her plenty in the Kingdom of Elesia, but her movements now were like night and day compared to then. Each strike increased in ferocity, and her movements were clean and smooth. She wielded her dual blades perfectly, always being sure to attack from the goblin king’s blind spot.

Even though Sera was drawing its attention, the efficiency with which she took advantage of the situation showed how much she’d improved. Her weapons weren’t strong enough for her to land the killing blow, but with a mithril blade in her hands she probably could’ve soloed the thing. That was how good she was.

In the end, there was no doubt in my mind that Sora’s party would win the day. As the goblin king began to slow down, Sera ended it by striking the finishing blow. Beastfolk were so strong, and watching the blow being delivered was an incredible sight.

We’d been ready to step in just in case, but it hadn’t been necessary.

Watching the six of them come together and chat happily after beating the goblin king, I thought about what I wanted to do next.

◇◇◇

We were taking a breather after the battle ended when Rurika suddenly asked a question.

“Hey, is this one of those treasure chest things?” she asked, pointing. That was indeed what it was.

“Let’s get the magistones and the trophies from the monsters first,” I told her. Our kills were recorded on our dungeon cards, so the trophies weren’t strictly necessary, but it was probably good to stay in practice... Then again, most of the goblins had been incinerated, so we couldn’t even retrieve their magistones.

After we collected several magistones, including the goblin king’s, we decided to check the treasure chest. I appraised it and confirmed there were no traps on it. Hikari had been looking forward to opening one, but this time it seemed she was letting Rurika handle it. One time, when she’d been expressing her excitement about treasure chests, Rurika had apparently looked curious too.

Rurika seemed a bit nervous about whether it was really okay for her to do it, and she checked with Hikari several times first. Then, with everyone watching her, she opened the lid. Fred and Syphon were also interested, as was Ciel, and they peered over Rurika’s shoulder at the chest’s contents.

Inside were two bags, small in comparison to the chest’s size. They were the things I often referred to as bags of holding.

Magic bags and bags of holding both had the ability to hold items, but the name changed based on whether they prevented degradation in their contents’ quality. Magic bags were the ones that prevented degradation.

“If these are magic bags or bags of holding, it’s a huge win... We’ll just have to have their abilities appraised at the guild. They should have a magic item that can do it,” Fred said.

Though I already knew the answer, I decided to keep quiet. Mia, who knew I could use Appraisal, looked over at me, but I put my finger to my lips to hush her.

Fred and Syphon told us to keep the treasure for ourselves, since they had just watched us, but I replied, “No, let’s split it up evenly. It’s great to know we can handle a battle like this, so you guys sitting out gave us lots of confidence.” It would have been one thing if they couldn’t have beaten the boss themselves, but they definitely would have. They’d just let us do it so that we could get the experience.

“Anyway, I’m glad we beat the boss, but where’s the exit?” Syphon asked Fred.

As if it had been waiting for just that moment, it began to appear—an outline formed in midair and then slowly filled in. Eventually it became a flat plane, which had a sort of protrusion on the side facing us.

“Touch the protrusion, and it’ll open down the center like a door. It doesn’t appear until you beat the boss,” Fred explained. He touched it, and the plane did indeed split open at the center.

We passed through it into a little room, where we found a registration dais just in front of the stairs.

“Let’s register our cards and head back to the surface. You’re all tired, right?” Fred said, and we agreed.

We left the dungeon island and returned to the guild. The adventurers first headed for reception to update their kills, then we all went together to the sales counter. Fred talked to the employee there, after which we were brought first to a small room where we could ask for an appraisal of the two bags, then to a warehouse which handled the monster intake.

If it had just been magistones and materials, we could have handled this at the counter, but we’d brought back whole monster bodies. The employee didn’t believe me about this at first, but I proved it by pulling several wulf bodies from my bag of holding.

“The item appraisal should be done by now,” Fred said once we had that all tallied up. “Let’s all go back to the room where the others are waiting.” We headed back together, and we found Fred’s partymate Edell and Syphon in the room, both excited.

They explained that the appraisal had revealed the items to be a magic bag and a bag of holding. There was much debate about what to do with them, and we ended up deciding to auction off the magic bag and let Fred’s party buy the bag of holding. They said neither was of exceptionally high quality, so they wouldn’t fetch a huge amount, but magic bags of any kind were rare and precious, so the bidding would start at ten platinum pieces.

Ten platinums seemed like a pretty huge amount to me, but apparently it was on the cheaper side as magic bags went.

“Now, Sora, you’re sure we can come by Norman’s place tomorrow afternoon?” Fred asked.

“Yes, we have a feast planned. Please drop in if you have time,” I told him.

“Also, Mr. Syphon. Could I have a minute of your time tomorrow morning?” Rurika said to Syphon at the same time. She was laying the groundwork for me to reveal to his party that I was alive.

Once it was decided that we’d be meeting up tomorrow, I felt my anxiety suddenly spike. I wondered if this was how Chris had felt when she’d first come to tell me that she was an elf.

◇◇◇

“Sora, you really should calm down,” Mia said.

I was extremely nervous at this point, breathing deeply and pacing around the room.

It was currently just me, Mia, and Hikari in the house. Iroha and the kids had headed to Norman’s place to prepare for the feast, while Rurika, Chris, and Sera had gone to fetch Syphon.

I sat down at Mia’s direction and produced some fruit water from my Item Box to quench my thirst. The chilled treat helped to cool me off a bit, and I belatedly realized that this was the fruit water I’d made from noblefruit juice. It really was delicious, with an airily sweet flavor and aroma.

I was letting out a long sigh when I felt a sudden tug on my sleeve.

“No fair, you get it all. Want some.”

It was Hikari’s usual reaction, and I couldn’t help but smile. That, more than anything, helped me calm down a lot...though Mia had helped too, of course.

We talked a while as we waited, until Ciel finally flew into the house. I could feel my heart rate spike at the sight, but I at least felt calmer than before.

I waited until Rurika, Chris, and Sera entered, followed by Syphon’s team. We exchanged greetings and sat down, and Mia immediately served drinks. As Syphon and his partymates thanked her, I watched and let out a breath.

“You okay?” Chris asked me quietly.

I nodded. I’d committed to this, so I was going to see it through.

“Rurika asked us to come,” Syphon started. “How can we help you today?”

“I have something I wanted to say to you guys. First... I’m sorry.”

Syphon seemed mostly confused by my apology at first, which was understandable.

The next thing I did was reach a trembling hand toward my mask. I’d told myself I’d committed to this, but I was still nervous. Still, stopping now would just make things more confusing, so I grabbed it and tore it off in one movement.

I heard a gasp from the whole party, followed by the sound of a chair falling over. The next minute, the world around me went black, and I felt something warm and soft against my face.

“Wh-What are you doing?!” Chris said in a panic, and then I was free.

It hadn’t been a bad feeling at all, really... When I realized the source of the softness, I wanted to smile, but I desperately maintained my poker face. I think I did, at least.

“I’m sorry... I never dreamed that you could have survived.” There were tears in Juno’s eyes.

Chris turned red at the sight of that and returned to her seat.

“Sheesh... Are you really Sora?” Syphon asked.

“Yes.”

“Okay, so you survived. But what the hell happened? The guild told us you were dead...”

I told him the story I’d thought up in advance, weaving truth with a little bit of fiction to explain how I’d faked my death to flee the Kingdom without revealing that I was an otherworlder.

“Why were the Kingdom officials after you?” he asked. I could sense a barb in his words.

“I think it’s because of my skills,” I said after a pause. “This, for instance...” I started producing items and food from thin air.

Syphon gasped. “Is that a dimension spell?!”

“Yeah. I’ve also got Appraisal and Alchemy and all kinds of other rare skills. A bunch of different groups started courting me, and they eventually got so serious I was scared for my life. I even had a few close calls.”

“Yeah, I get it. I could buy it from those guys.”

I got the feeling that Syphon wasn’t exactly fond of the Kingdom. I wondered if they’d had a similar experience.

“Then I heard what happened when the girls met you in Mahia...and I wanted to apologize,” I said.

“Yeah, it’s okay. I’m glad to know you’re alive. The girls were so sad when I told them you’d died...and Juno got mad at me later. Said I should’ve thought it out better.” Perhaps picking up on how nervous I was, Syphon let out a boisterous laugh that helped put me at ease.

I was grateful for his consideration. Of course. I never should have doubted them, I thought as I looked not just at Syphon, but at Gytz, Juno, and the others.

“Rurika also told us you’re heading for the dungeon’s bottom floor. Let us know whenever you need a hand from us. We go way back, so we’ll do what we can. Also, you can drop the polite act. Fred and his friends might get suspicious if you change all of a sudden.”

We then talked for a while, catching up on everything we’d been through since we last saw each other. When the time came, we headed to Norman’s place for the feast, which was being held out in their yard. It wouldn’t be just Fred’s party in attendance, but also Layla’s, who had apparently heard about it from Iroha.

Before the party, Layla had bought a cake from the shop she’d taken Hikari and the others to, and the children—the girls especially—really enjoyed it. The curry was more popular among the boys.

Ciel also furtively took part, unlocking an appetite on par with a competitive eater to make up for what she’d missed while we were in the dungeon. She ate several times her own size in meat, and I frankly had no idea where she put it all.

We passed the time just having fun, while the kids thanked me over and over again.

I was having fun too, and now that I’d finally been able to reveal my identity to Syphon’s party, I felt myself actually relaxing for the first time in a while.

Interlude 2

“Guild Master. This concludes my report for today.”

I listened to my subordinate’s report while I checked on the current status of things.

The hunt numbers, which had been low for a while, had improved with the arrival of adventurers from Pleques. Most were still on the higher floors, so they weren’t extremely effective, but the fact that some of the incoming adventurers were quite high in rank suggested we could probably expect improvement soon.

Of course, I still wasn’t completely clear as to why people were coming in from Pleques. I’d discussed it with their adventurers’ guild, but nobody would give me a straight answer. I hope there’s no trouble brewing, I thought. Adventurers didn’t change their stomping grounds lightly, especially since the dungeons of Majorica and Pleques had totally different structures.

“There’s no point in dwelling on it, I suppose. I should just be grateful I have more people to take on the dungeon.” Regardless of the reasons, it was to our benefit, after all.

“Excuse me,” my employee said then. “Someone is here to see you. Shall I let him through?”

I’m not expecting any visitors today. Some new wrinkle? I wondered. I’d received several such reports since the dungeon had started activating. Events on the level of the fifth floor turning into a boss room were quite rare, but reports of smaller issues were still coming in regularly. The fact that someone was coming to see me personally suggested something more significant, though.

I could feel a headache coming on.

“Of course. Let him in,” I said anyway. Then, when the guest actually stepped in, I almost yelped.

I think these past ten days have given me enough surprises for a year.

“Thank you,” I told the employee, hoping my voice wasn’t trembling. “I’d like to speak with my guest alone.”

After my employee left, I walked out from behind my desk and knelt before the man.

“Lord Ignis. It’s been a while,” I told him.

Lord Ignis smiled as if he couldn’t help himself and told me to stand. He didn’t like human towns very much, and I was surprised to see that he’d gone out of his way to take human form to come here.

“Is this about...the otherworlder? Or the Saint?” I asked, thinking back on the dark-haired boy and his friends whom I’d met at the guild the other day. Their names were Sora and Mia. They seemed to be wearing academy uniforms, but investigation had revealed that they were not officially enrolled.

The first time I’d seen them, I’d had to do a double take at my skill to confirm I wasn’t seeing things. My skill—similar to Appraisal—only worked on people rather than things, but it was strong enough that I could use it even on people who had a measure of resistance.

The first thing I’d done when I’d spotted them was report what I’d seen. Even out here, we’d gotten word from the Frieren adventurers’ guild that the Saint had been killed, after all.

“Or...the high elf?” I ventured.

A few days after I’d reported in, though, I’d seen something that surprised me even more—a high elf. I’d heard tales about them in the past, but I’d never dreamed I’d see one with my own eyes. Her name was Chris. I’d looked into it and learned that she was childhood friends with the beastfolk girl, Sera, who was one of Sora’s slaves.

I reported this too, as well as the fact that they’d apparently be dungeon diving for a while.

“Yes, I came to check on a few things in this town, including that,” he replied. “I’ll be staying in this city for a while, in fact.”

That surprised me too. “Is there anything that I can do to help you?” I asked him.

“Let me see...” Lord Ignis asked where Sora, Mia, and Chris were currently staying, as well as what they were up to.

I told him that they were auditing courses at the academy while dungeon diving for materials and gave him their current address.

After that, we chatted for a while, and I informed him of the current state of affairs in Majorica.

“The reason people are streaming in from Pleques is that the Kingdom paid them to reserve exclusive use of their dungeon,” Lord Ignis told me as he was about to leave.

My headache had now fully arrived.

The lord there was pigheaded and put his own purse above everything, so perhaps the reason the guild employees there had been so elusive with my questions was because he’d paid them to keep quiet. Guilds were supposed to be run independently of the government, but not everyone could resist the allure of money—as stable as the work was, a guild employee’s salary was not particularly high.

I thanked Lord Ignis, asked where he would be staying, and then went back to my work.

Chapter 3

A week had passed since we’d returned from the dungeon.

Making progress was important, but so was getting decent rest. I wanted to make sure the girls got to enjoy their time at the academy too. They’d been through a lot, after all, and besides that, I wanted them to learn how to disarm traps.

I attended classes for one day, then spent the rest of that time in the dungeon. I’d tried attending the disarming practice, but my Traps skill seemed to make it a moot point, so I decided that grinding out Walking XP and gathering materials would be a better use of my time.

Since the merchants’ guild had been so excited about the noblefruit, I was expecting to see more people there, but there were almost no visible signals when I checked my automap. I decided to take it as a divine blessing to do plenty of foraging for myself. The feast had almost completely diminished my stock, after all.

“They sure do grow fast, though,” I mused. “I’m pretty sure this is where I was picking them earlier, at least...” I’d been gone for two weeks, and the dungeon didn’t seem to have undergone a transfiguration in the meantime. However, both the noblefruits and the healing herbs here had completely restocked.

I’d have loved to test the respawn time if I could. I hadn’t found anything written on the subject.

When I got back, the girls told me about everything they’d done at school.

“Master, I fought with Big Sis Sera and Rurika,” Hikari boasted.

“Everyone collapsed from exhaustion,” Sera added with a smile. “Hikari’s fierce.”

“So are you, Sera,” Rurika corrected her awkwardly.

They told me that they’d had mock duels at the adventurer course, with most of the student body taking part in both the individual and group battles. Apparently, more people had been participating lately. Chris had grabbed Yor to talk magic, while Mia and Tricia had gone to their holy magic club.

“How did traps practice go?” I asked next.

“Perfect. We got it,” Hikari declared, nodding confidently along with Rurika.

“Oh, and I submitted the dungeon plan like you asked me to,” Mia added.

“Then we’ll spend tomorrow preparing and head out the next day like we planned,” I replied.

“That should be fine for us. But don’t you have to rest, Sora?” Chris said worriedly.

I said I was fine, and I was about to tell them about what I’d foraged in the dungeon when Fred and Syphon stopped by. At the feast they’d said they were going to hit the dungeon a few days later, so maybe they’d just made it back? I was concerned because they looked pretty tired, but we let them inside anyway.

“How did things go today? Did you sell the magic bag?” We hadn’t arranged to meet up or anything, so I figured that was why they’d stopped by, but apparently not.

By the way, the people currently in our sitting room were me, Fred, and the five members of the Goblin’s Lament. Hikari and the girls were off doing their own thing—cooking or equipment maintenance. The visiting parties did have a lot of large men who didn’t leave much space in whatever room they were in.

“It was actually Syphon’s group that wanted to see you, not us.” Fred nudged his friend with an elbow. “Go on, tell them.”

Syphon rubbed his head apologetically and then began. “This is a little embarrassing, but we’ve got nowhere to stay tonight. I talked to Fred, and he said you guys might know something.”

They apparently hadn’t run out of money. It was just that so many people had come from Pleques that it was hard to get rooms at an inn, with the few remaining spaces going for exorbitant prices.

“Isn’t there any way we can help them, Sora?” Chris asked sincerely, having overheard while she was helping Elza and the kids. It made me reflect once more on what a kind person she was.

Anyway, I truly wanted to help them in return for what they’d done for us in Elesia, but we didn’t have any free room in our house either. Norman’s house might have space, though, so maybe they could stay there? I thought.

“You can’t stay with us, but Norman’s place should have room,” I told him. “In exchange, I’d like you to show him and the other kids there some of the ropes of adventuring when you aren’t in the dungeon.”

Hikari had asked more or less the same thing of his party before, so Fred seemed to catch on to what I was asking and explained it to Syphon for me.

We then stopped by Norman’s house to run the idea by them, and Syphon’s party ended up getting its temporary home. Some of the kids seemed a little nervous about it, but since they’d met at the feast, they seemed to come around quickly.

“Thanks for helping today, Sora,” Fred said as he watched Syphon’s group being shown to their rooms.

“Well, we did dive the dungeon together,” I reassured him. “And I’ve heard that doing nice things for others can make good things come to you.”

Syphon and the others had seemed awkward when they asked, maybe because they didn’t want us to see them vulnerable—probably worried about their image as capable veteran adventurers. They don’t have to worry about that, though, I thought. We’ve gotten pretty close by now.

“What in the world does that mean?” Fred laughed at my comment. “I’m not sure I’ll ever understand you guys... Anyway, Sora, you going to the dungeon soon?”

I nodded.

“Mind if we tag along again?” he asked. “I’ve been to the twentieth floor, so maybe I can offer advice.”

I thought about his offer. It would be nice to have a guide, but since we were of a high enough level to defeat the monsters there, and we had the automap to tell us where to go, we might not need one... Then again, we’d have to start dealing with traps soon, so it might not hurt to have someone to walk us through it. A larger party would also mean fewer shifts at night for each of us.

I’d be happy to have Syphon’s group along too, now that the awkwardness was behind us.

“We were going to head out in two days. You guys just got back, right? Should we delay it a bit?” We’d then have to adjust the planned departure day we’d submitted to the school, though.

“Nah, don’t worry about that. I’ll go back and talk to Syphon and the others. Later.”

And with that, we decided to go dungeon diving with Fred and Syphon once again.

◇◇◇

“Okay, let’s give this our best,” I declared as we met up with Fred and the others at the guild. From there, we jumped straight to the eleventh floor.

There were no monsters on this floor, just traps that slowed you down. On lower floors, you’d find both traps and monsters, and the difficulty tended to scale up quickly. Luckily, there were no traps on the special fields or boss floors.

I opened my automap and used Detect Presence, this time seeing quite a few human signals on the floor. I’d heard that a lot of people used this floor to practice disarming traps, so maybe that was the reason. It was probably safer to train when you didn’t have to worry about a monster ambush.

The school had taught us how to find and disarm traps. They’d said you could see the abnormalities if you looked close enough, but... Yeah, I can’t do it. Hikari and Rurika seemed to have the knack, though. I knew how to disarm the traps we found, but I couldn’t figure out where they actually were.

“Master, there’s a trap here,” Hikari warned me once.

“Sora, it’s not safe there,” Rurika warned me another time.

While I watched them disarm the traps, I caught sight of a slight change in the flow of the mana where they were working. Could it be? I switched on Detect Mana and saw a new set of symbols appear on my automap. Some were overlapping with human signals, and after a while one disappeared, then a second.

“What is it, Sora? Did you learn something new?” Mia asked me.

I nodded and informed her telepathically that my Detect Mana skill could tell me where the traps were.

She responded with a face that seemed to say, Not again...

Come on, it’s apparently just something my skill can do! I thought plaintively. It’s not like I planned it or anything...

On the eleventh floor, our party took the lead in dealing with traps, but in practice most of the work was done by me, Hikari, and Rurika. Incidentally, I was chosen for this duty because I could appraise traps to learn how to disarm them—perhaps this function was also connected to the fact that I’d learned the Traps skill.

In Syphon’s party, Jinn and Orga handled trap duty, while the others stayed out of it.

Once we’d gotten used to dealing with the traps, we started moving in force to search for the stairs. Syphon and the others said they’d gotten turned around on this floor a lot, but our party was leading the way, so we were aiming to take the shortest route as usual. Having us—the less experienced crew—walk in front would be good practice for finding and disarming traps. That seemed to be the logic, anyway.

“Are you just lucky, Hikari? Or do you have a talent for finding stairs?” Fred said in surprise as we arrived.

“Hey, do you know where the stairs are beforehand or something?” Syphon asked me.

“I’m using a skill,” I replied, low enough for only him to hear.

Because of this, we decided to have Hikari and Rurika take point on the twelfth floor.

From there on, most of the monsters we faced were ones I’d never seen before. About the only monsters from the twelfth floor and beyond that I recognized were...orcs and tiger wulfs, maybe? On the twelfth floor we met slimes, which were hard to hurt with physical attacks. If you got unlucky, they’d hit you with acid attacks that could damage your weapons and armor, so we beat them mostly with long-range magic attacks spearheaded by me, Chris, Juno, and Edell.

On the thirteenth floor we met kobolds: bipedal monsters with doglike heads. They attacked mainly with their sharp claws and teeth, and they wore armor like human warriors. Our weapons had better reach than theirs, so we probably had the advantage, but they could block attacks with their armor and mess you up pretty badly if they got in striking range. They were also fast, so I thought it might take a while to get used to fighting them, but nobody in our group ended up struggling.

On the fourteenth floor, we met hobgoblins. These were a bit like mutant variations of goblins, with some believing they were a proper evolution, but nobody had ever gotten a clear answer. Goblins were about as tall as children, while hobgoblins were about the height of adults and more muscular. Rurika said that their strikes hit hard and that when she blocked them at full force it felt like her hands went numb. I didn’t feel it as much, though. Because of my stats, maybe? Hikari never traded blows with them; she just made sport of them with her speed.

If we kept making progress like this, we’d be able to finish the fourteenth floor by the next day.

“Next up is the fifteenth floor. The reference materials say it’s like a mine, but can you tell me more?” I asked Fred and his two companions, the only ones who had really been there, as we made camp.

“It’s hard to explain. It’s like a ravine with lots of branching paths... You go along these narrow roads flanked by sheer cliffs, occasionally coming out into wide-open spaces. They say you can harvest crystals and ore from the walls, but it weighs you down, so most people don’t bother. And the sound of mining summons the rockbirds, which I’ve heard are a pain to deal with.”

He added that, for some reason, rockbirds also tended to stalk you if you were carrying ore you’d mined there. There was apparently a way to get around it, though—they wouldn’t follow you if you used the Storage dimension spell or a magic bag to hold the ore. According to the directions, bags of holding wouldn’t work for this—since a magic bag was basically an upgraded version of a bag of holding, the protection it afforded was likely related to that.

The next day, we found the stairs to the fifteenth floor as predicted, registered there, and then decided to head back topside. Fred said that our dive here had taken less time than it had on their earlier visits. He’d been shocked we’d made it from the eleventh floor to the fifteenth in a single dive as well.

“You want to try another dive in four days?” Fred proposed, though he also asked if we might need a little more time to rest. We’d taken a ten-day rest break after making it to the tenth floor, after all.

“If everyone’s feeling up to it after we check in, sure,” I said. I’d talked with Hikari and the others about this the previous night, in fact.

In practice, very few of our party members seemed tired at all. Fred and Syphon had also commented on what good shape we seemed to be in—probably because we were eating and resting well. It probably was also connected to the fact that I could store the monsters we hunted in my Item Box, which lightened the load of our monster materials considerably.

Another possible reason was the crowds I’d started seeing on my automap starting with the twelfth floor. More people meant fewer monsters we had to fight through to reach our destination.

Over the course of the next three days, there was just one thing I needed to do—either buy an item for mining or make one with alchemy. Fred had said there was no point in mining, but you never knew what might turn up in a dungeon, and I wanted to be prepared just in case.

Especially since I could put whatever I got in my Item Box, so it wouldn’t weigh me down.

◇◇◇

After three days of rest, we started our dungeon dive again. We submitted our plan to the school, which seemed to surprise them for some reason.

The first thing I felt when I stepped onto the fifteenth floor was awe. The path was about three meters wide and flanked by towering two-hundred-meter walls on each side. The walls were rough to the touch, and appraising them revealed them to be full of ore. It reminded me of Alessa, the Elesian mining town I’d gone to with Rurika and Chris—though that had been a mine, so it had had a closed ceiling, which had made it feel more like the labyrinth floors.

I pulled up my automap, which showed a maze of interweaving paths as intricate as a beehive. The narrow, winding roads regularly opened up into large, open spaces, from which several more narrow roads branched. It looked like you’d have to pass through quite a lot of those open spaces to reach the stairs. I could also tell there were about four parties currently on this floor.

I thought back on what I’d learned about rockbirds from the reference room.

Rockbirds were large birds that attacked fiercely with their steely beaks. They weaponized their entire bodies with their dive-bomb attacks, which terrorized and often even killed the adventurers they faced. They were also highly resistant to long-range attacks and spells, with only fire magic being effective—their “resistance” to long-range attacks was more that they were hard to hit with arrows.

It was recommended to make as little noise as possible when you walked on this floor, as rockbirds had sensitive hearing. Additionally, they were mostly active during the day and less active at night—though not entirely so.

“If rockbirds attack, the first thing you need is a way to hold them down. The best method there would be for Gytz or Sora to block them with their shields. They’re also vulnerable to fire magic, but...trying to use that in this confined space isn’t a great idea,” Fred explained. He added that the rockbirds’ bodies would explode if they got hit by fire spells, which could easily cause a landslide.

We took his words to heart and moved along as quietly as possible.

On the first day, we walked until the sun went down. The first time we reached one of the open spaces, we set up camp. There were no rockbirds in sight.

“We haven’t even fought any monsters yet, but it really wears you down,” Syphon said while we ate. The rest of us nodded in agreement.

We ended up not fighting any rockbirds at all that day. We could hear their cries from a distance, though, and when I saw signals disappear from the map, I assumed there were parties fighting them.

“It’s beautiful, though,” Chris breathed, and the girls—Mia and Juno in particular—seemed just as enraptured. There was a sultry look in their eyes I hadn’t seen before. Quite frankly, it made my heart skip a beat.

They were gazing at the crystal trees and what looked to be clusters of crystalline flowers that coated the surfaces of the walls. The crystals absorbed the orange light of sunset as they turned from blue to red, briefly creating a mystical appearance. Now it was like the three of them were bathing in the afterglow of what they’d seen, even though they’d seen them sparkling in the sunlight all day.

Right now, the crystals were glimmering faintly in the moonlight. When I appraised their quality, it seemed like only the higher-quality ones really sparkled.

After eating, our team and Fred’s took turns standing watch. We handled the first shift, keeping a close eye on our surroundings, though my automap revealed no people or monsters close by.

Ciel flitted up to me, and I waited for her to settle on my shoulder. Then, after making sure Fred’s team was sleeping, I pulled a meat skewer out of my Item Box. Her eyes lit up as if to say, Finally! and she devoured the first serving and requested seconds and thirds. You don’t have to smack me with your ears so hard, though!

By the way, Ciel, I thought to her directly, gesturing to the top of the cliffs. Is there anything interesting up there?

Ciel looked a bit smug in response to my question. While the rest of us had been walking through the paths, she had been flying around, amusing herself. I’d even seen her glide all the way to the top. I was a little curious what it was like up there. I could see a lot of monster signals in that area, and if they were rockbird nests I was hoping to check them out.

More precisely, I wanted to hunt them.

[Lyaf Shield] Wreaths the body in wind when infused with mana. Lightens the body to make dodging easier.

This was a shield I could make with Creation. The display for constructing it was as follows:

[Lyaf Shield]

Materials needed: Magic Ore

Magic Crystal

Rockbird Feather

Rockbird Magistone

Magistone

I’d also learned recently that items I made with Creation were easier to enchant, but inviting a monster ambush just to suit my own selfish desires seemed ill-advised.

“What is it, Sora? You’re looking strange.” Mia, who was sitting nearby, must have noticed my conflicted expression.

It was a bit of a rude thing to say. I was seriously trying to figure it out, okay? “There’s a kind of magic item...a piece of equipment that I’d like to make,” I told her. “But to do it, I’d need to beat a rockbird and get its magistone and materials.”

“Oh, and you’re worried about making trouble for Fred and the others.” Mia nodded in understanding.

“I’m also curious if there’s anything on top of the walls. The way Ciel’s been acting makes me think there might be.”

At that, Mia looked at Ciel, who was already yawning from boredom and rubbing her eyes with her ears. It looked like it was nap time for her. Getting to eat and sleep whenever she wants... She really is a free spirit, isn’t she? A literal spirit, at that.

“Hmm, it does make you wonder, doesn’t it?” Mia agreed. “We’ve seen those crystals sticking out of the walls the whole time we’ve been walking, like flowers blooming. I wonder if seeing them from above would offer a new perspective.”

Maybe I should have Chris ask Ciel if there’s something up there after all?

“Er, you want to climb up?” Fred squeaked when I told him my idea.

“Yeah, I’m wondering what’s up there. There could be some kind of treasure, right?”

Fred seemed genuinely surprised by my sudden suggestion. “I think you’re the first person I’ve ever heard say that. Nobody’s ever thought about climbing up there.”

It seemed possible to me that the rockbirds lived on top of the cliffs, and the fact that there were readings on my automap all but confirmed it. Also, if there really were golems in this dungeon, I was thinking that might be where I’d find them.

According to what Chris had learned after waking up the drowsy Ciel, there were crystal clusters way larger than the ones down here, as well as brightly colored rocks, but apparently no golems around.

In practice, appraising the visible part of the wall revealed nothing but mundane ore and crystals—none of the rare magic ones I’d discovered in that mine in Elesia once. But since I picked up signals different from the rockbirds when I used Detect Mana, I had to assume there was something to be found up there.

If we were in a hurry, we’d want to rush through this floor without taking detours, but I couldn’t stop myself from being curious.

“Fred, I agree with Sora. He found a lot of rare foods on the fifth floor, so there could be something interesting here too.”

“Hmm, Sora has found a lot of stuff...but how would we even get up there?” As Fred pointed out, you’d basically need to fly to get to the top of those two-hundred-meter sheer cliffs.

“Maybe if we find a way up, we can think about it then?” I proposed.

My argument, as well as Syphon’s, seemed to have stirred Fred’s curiosity, and we agreed to check it out if we found a way up. But the walls were nearly vertical, so we’d need to find a way to make some footholds.

Hey, Ciel. Did you see any places that might be easier for us to climb up? I asked her.

In response, Ciel seemed to think, then swept her ears out to the side and flew off. According to Chris, she’d answered “I’ll look around!”

We then spent another day walking toward the stairs. Since the only way to climb the walls would be if we could find an appropriate place for it, I wasn’t making it a huge priority.

On the way, we stumbled upon one of the open spaces where a group of adventurers was battling some rockbirds. They seemed to be in pretty bad shape.

“Hey! You need help?” Fred shouted to them.

“Yes, please!” a desperate voice replied.

Three rockbirds were above them, picking up speed as they circled.

Syphon’s party ran into the fray immediately, and the rest of us were quick to follow. I invoked my Provoke skill at the first rockbird about to attack. Its attention had been on the adventurers, but it changed its direction and plunged toward me instead. I managed to block its momentous attack with my shield, but the force of it briefly took me off my feet.

When the attack had concluded with me unharmed, the rockbird began flapping its wings to take off again. However, before it could get any altitude, Sera charged in and lopped off its head. It would look to the outside like an easy kill, but my hands were still stinging from the impact. These things definitely packed a punch, maybe even more than a blow from the goblin king.

Just then, a new squawk rang out over the battlefield. I looked up and saw two rockbirds descending at the same time. They were heading for the adventurers, but Gytz interposed himself with his shield just before impact, after which Juno and Orga sent some attacks their way. Juno used wind magic while Orga fired arrows, both at the rockbird farther back.

The wind spell looked like Tornado with its area of effect narrowed down. It caught the rockbird in its funnel and threw it off-balance, at which point Orga’s arrow pierced its body. The rockbird let out a shriek, but it immediately straightened out and continued its descent. It looked like the attack hadn’t caused much damage, but it had slowed it, preventing the two birds from striking at the exact same moment.

The first rockbird collided with Gytz’s shield, which he immediately reangled to his left, causing the bird to skid off behind him. Syphon was right there, waiting to slice it in half.

Gytz then met the second rockbird straight on, forcing a counterblow at the moment of impact. This sent the creature flying back, where the remaining party member, Jinn, closed in to deal the finishing blow.

The combat was over in less than a minute.

“I really want to thank you again. You saved us,” said the other party’s representative, who introduced himself as Blue, when the combat was over. Mia and I had cast Heal on the injured.

Blue’s party was made up of ten people. They’d gotten as far down as the nineteenth floor before, but they’d come back here after swapping out some party members. At first they’d only been fighting two rockbirds, but the sounds of the battle had attracted three more. They’d managed to defeat the first two, but their injuries had left them at a disadvantage against the rest.

Blue added that a lack of potions had exacerbated the trouble. They’d used potions on their injured party members, but having run low on stock, they were hesitant to use more.

“Have you been in the dungeon for quite a while?” Fred asked.

“This will be our sixth day on this floor.”

“That explains it. We’ve been in the dungeon for three days, but the school supplied the guild with potions the day before we left. They’d be easier to get if you went now.”

Blue slumped over, realizing he’d gotten unlucky with his timing. He said clans had bought potions up in bulk when there hadn’t been as many to go around, which had made them very difficult to get hold of. Even if rules were in place to prevent monopolization, clans did tend to have a lot of members, and they needed a lot of potions to stay active on the lower floors. The fact that most of the item shops had raised their prices was another issue.

After the fight, we were allowed to keep the three birds we had hunted without any arguing about it.

“Hey, Sora. Isn’t there anything we can do?” Mia tugged on my sleeve after I’d finished storing the rockbirds’ bodies in my Item Box.

There definitely was still a lot of dungeon left. From what I could see on the automap, we were just about at the halfway point. Apparently part of the reason their progress had been so slow was because they kept taking wrong paths. This was a place where you could end up wasting a lot of time if you hit a dead end. Indeed, Blue explained they’d hit several of them and had had to retrace their steps many times.

“Do you mind if we have a word?” I entered the conversation with Fred and Blue, using my polite merchant’s tone.

“Yeah, you’re Sora, right? Thanks for healing my party.” Apparently Fred had told him my name.

“Yes, I overheard what you were discussing. As you can see, we have holy magic users in our party, which means we have potions to spare if you’d like to buy some. What do you think?” Giving them to him for free might make him feel like he was accepting charity, so I offered to sell them.

We ended up deciding on terms—one rockbird for one potion set. I definitely felt like I was getting the better side of that deal, but apparently it was hard to carry around whole rockbirds anyway, so I didn’t feel too bad about accepting.

“Hey, Fred. It’s about noon. Should we have lunch here?” I asked him. As long as Blue and the others were here, I decided to cook for them too.

I wondered why the offer of food had them weeping with joy even more than when I’d sold them the potions...

◇◇◇

“Sora, Ciel found a place where we can climb.”

It was our fifth day on the fifteenth floor, and Ciel had just made it back to us. Chris had listened to what she’d had to say and learned that she’d found a place to scale the wall.

Ciel, can you show us the way? I asked her telepathically.

The way she was leading us happened to be in the direction of the stairs to the sixteenth floor, so I used telepathy and asked Hikari to lead us in the way Ciel guided us.

Eventually, we arrived at a dead end—at least, it would have been a dead end, except the wall was slanted. Though the angle was still steep, you could probably climb it if you wanted to. Chris, translating for Ciel, added that this cliff was lower than the others.

Still, Fred and the others looked at it and said they wouldn’t be able to make the climb.

“Hey, Fred. I think I can climb it. Do you mind if I try?”

Fred seemed to think hard about my question, but he eventually gave me permission to try. He probably figured I’d give up if I couldn’t make it.

“Then when I get to the top, I’ll drop a rope.”

True, it probably would’ve been impossible to climb in my current state, but fortunately, I had a way to overturn the impossible—skills. I wasn’t sure if it would ever be useful again, but my curiosity won the day. The fact that I currently had five skill points—plenty to spare—was another big factor in my decision.

NEW

[Mountaineering Lv. 1]

The skill’s effect was to give me knowledge and guidance in mountain climbing. Kind of like the Cooking skill, perhaps.

The exact moment I learned the skill, I knew where to put my hands and feet on the slope. It also gave me a warning pop-up that the crystal portions were slippery.

Guided by my Mountaineering skill, I made it to the top of the wall. I looked down and saw my comrades staring up in surprise.

There seemed to be no signs of monsters around me. I used Detect Presence to confirm this, then stuck a stake into the ground, tied a rope to it, and dropped the rope down. Normally this would’ve made noise, but I used my combined dimension and wind spell Silence, which blocked out sound around me so I didn’t trigger a monster attack.

Once the rope was down, the others began to climb up, starting with Sera.

“No rockbirds on the way?” asked Syphon, who was the last to reach the top.

“Looks like I got lucky,” I responded.

I returned the rope to my Item Box and looked around again. I left the stake in place, since we’d be using it later on to get back down.

The view from the top of the wall was good, and you could see quite far. The unimpeded view let us see crystals all over, sparkling in the sunlight. There were also low hills and scattered boulders all around.

The others were distracted by that sight, but I immediately started appraising the rocks nearby.

[Ore] [Magic Ore] [Ore] [Ore] [Mithril] [Ore] [Ore] [Silver Ore] [Magic Ore] [Ore]

Hmm? Wait a minute.

I checked again to confirm, and Appraisal revealed it to be mithril.

“Hey, what are you doing?!” Syphon called out in surprise as I pulled out the pointed excavation hammer that I’d prepared before entering the dungeon and swung it down at the rock. But I’d already made an impact, and the rock broke...without the slightest noise. I’d used the same Silence spell as before.

This left Syphon even more surprised, but I ignored him and continued my work. I realized I was being a little rude, but I couldn’t exactly explain in front of Fred and the others that my Appraisal skill had told me I’d find mithril here. I figured he’d accept it once he saw the results.

It took me ten minutes of hacking away before it finally showed itself.

“Hey, that’s...” Of course, it was Syphon who noticed it first.

“There was a fissure right here. I thought I saw something like mithril inside.” I pulled out the mithril from my Item Box and explained that it looked a lot like the one I had.

This got the others excited, so I kept mining and ended up with a variety of ore. I also explained that I was using magic to mask the sound. Juno, who knew a lot about magic, seemed puzzled by this, but she didn’t press me. It was obvious enough that I wasn’t making noise.

Syphon and Fred also joined in on the digging, and though most of what we got was plain “ore,” we did occasionally find a magic ore mixed in with it. It seemed that you couldn’t find something as valuable as mithril just by digging randomly. Even Appraisal had shown most of the material around us to be ore, after all.

This just seemed to make Fred and the others even more impressed by my rare find. But the main reason I’d gone after the mithril was to make weapons for my party out of it, so I didn’t regret it.

“Excavating mithril... This could make you a rich man, Sora,” Fred said enviously as we stood watch that night.

“I’m using it to make weapons for my party,” I told him. “I won’t be selling it.”

“Still, mithril weapons—that’s something every adventurer wants. But not everyone can work with the material, so they’re pricey to have made,” he replied. “Still, it’ll make quite a fuss if word gets out that mithril’s extractable here. Would it be better to keep it a secret?”

“It’s probably okay to reveal it,” I decided. “I doubt your average adventurer is going to get the same lucky strike I did.”

Fred gave me a strained smile. “Guess I’ll report it to the guild, then. Since you know the lord’s daughter, maybe you should pass it on to him too. You might get a finder’s fee if it pans out.”

A different adventurer might’ve demanded I give him the mithril or at least offer a share, but not Fred. That strength of character was probably why he was so well-liked and respected. He really reminded me of Syphon’s party in that way—the people in Elesia had seemed to hold them in very high regard.

After a while, we ran out of things to say to each other and just gazed up at the sky instead. Ciel was perched on top of my head, so I couldn’t see her, but I thought she had to be looking up at the moons too. Surely she’s not just sleeping, right? I thought.

The moons would soon be reaching their zenith. When they were at their highest point on the fifteenth floor, they would sparkle briefly, as if to announce that the day had ended and a new one had begun. It was one thing to enjoy about night watch duties here.

At last, that moment came—along with another surprising event.

Here atop the cliffs, the sparkling of the moons was causing a slight glow among the exposed rocks and crystals. Soon, the light began to rise up from the surface into shining pillars. Engulfed by the radiance, we could only stare, breathless. It felt like we were bathing in a sea of light.

Ciel took this literally, swishing side to side as if she were swimming through the light. Her ears flapped hard in excitement.

The mystical vision turned out to be a brief one, though. As the moonlight dimmed and the moons began to sink again, the pillars of light seemed to be drawn back into the earth and disappeared.

It was after this that I felt a sudden surge in mana around me.

“Sora? Is there a monster coming?” Fred intuited from my reactions.

I looked at my automap, and I did see a signal that hadn’t been there before—multiple signals, actually, though still only a few. Was I seeing new monsters being born?

It didn’t seem to be the rockbirds that had been a constant presence around us either. Detect Mana revealed a different quality of mana.

“Sorry, Fred, could you wake everyone up for me? I’m going to check and see what happened.”

“Hey, you okay by yourself?” he asked worriedly.

“Yeah, I’ll contact you through the cards once I see what it is.”

I invoked Hide Presence and hurried to the spot where I’d seen the signals appear. I put up my Shield spell to guard against surprise attacks as well.

Soon enough, I saw...

“Is that...a golem? Yes, a golem!” I shouted through the card.

“A golem?!” Fred and Syphon parroted back in shock.

I’d originally said it as a question because this was my first time seeing one, but then Appraisal confirmed it.

[Name: — / Job: — / Level: 28 / Type: Golem / Status: —]

It had a pretty high level.

My research at the library had taught me that golems had high stamina and defense. They’d deactivate if you destroyed their magistone, but then you couldn’t keep the stone as loot. The only way to keep it was to repeatedly damage the body until the mana it used to regenerate ran dry.

Regarding its defense, the one before me was probably made from earth or rock, which wasn’t as bad as some of the alternatives I’d read about—iron golems, mithril golems, and the like. But they would be resistant to bladed weapons, with blunt ones being a better match for them. It wasn’t impossible to defeat one with a sword, but you’d have to be strong enough to cut through a rock.

Seris would have asked why I didn’t prepare a hammer if there was a chance a golem might show up, but while I’d practiced with blunt objects, I wasn’t particularly talented with them. Skills really are incredible, you know? I’d briefly considered taking the Bludgeon Arts skill, but since I didn’t know if I’d really find a golem, I didn’t want to waste my precious skill points.

That just left magic to test out against it.

“Stone Bullet.” I decided to start with a spell that dealt blunt impact from rocks. The impact made a loud noise, but the effect seemed rather minor in comparison. Worse, I could see more signals coming toward me now—the sound must have attracted the attention of the rockbirds.

The golem I’d hit seemed to register me as an enemy now too, because it turned to come toward me. Its heavy footfalls rang out as it tramped my way. Before it got into melee range, I cast another spell. This time I used Wind Cutter, which fired off blades of wind.

Once again, it...actually seemed a little effective this time. I wouldn’t destroy it this way, but it did cause some damage where it hit. Building off that, I tried my Tornado spell, but the golem crossed its arms to protect itself the moment it hit. When the spell died down, I could see it had left several marks on its body, but they seemed shallower than what Wind Cutter had done.

I went back to Wind Cutters while invoking Parallel Thinking, firing off one shot after another. On the seventh try, I managed to take the golem’s arm off. After I did, its body shone brightly for a second, and then the arm restored itself.

Still, I thought, it’ll run out of mana if I do that enough times. It wouldn’t be very efficient, though. I’d have to chug through a lot of mana potions to take it down at this rate, and I could tell the golem still had plenty of mana left.

The golem had gotten in close at this point, so I tried an attack with my sword, but the creature deflected it easily. I channeled mana into the blade and tried again—this time I left a mark, but nothing very impressive. If it’d been a normal monster, even light wounds would’ve slowed it down due to the pain. But the golem didn’t feel pain, so that didn’t seem to help me.

“Master, move back,” came a voice from behind me.

I did as I was told, swiftly moving away from the golem.

Sera stepped past me to approach the golem, and that was when I heard an explosion.

The force of the blast passed over my body, but I managed not to topple over. I waited until the air cleared and looked back at the golem. It was in bad shape, its left arm blasted off at the shoulder.

Sera didn’t sound happy about it, though. “Sorry, master,” she said ruefully.

Yes, the sound of the explosion had drawn even more rockbirds our way. I could see it on my automap, but maybe Sera could spot it with her naked eye. We had a great view of the sky at the top of the cliffs, and Sera possessed great tracking skills and a magic item that let her see in the dark.

“It’s not your fault, Sera. It would’ve taken me too long to finish it at the rate I was going. Let’s just take it out before it arrives. Avoid the chest area, though. I’d like to get the magistone undamaged.” Then I gave Sera a simple explanation of the golem’s regenerative properties.

“Got it. I want to see if this’ll work.” Sera took an axe in each hand, leaped in closer, and swung them down.

As if anticipating the power of the incoming strike, the golem took a defensive posture. The strike came down regardless, and the axes dug deep into its crossed arms, but then they stopped.

The golem, having successfully defended itself, was about to shift to an attack when the axe in Sera’s left hand suddenly started moving downward again. With a high-pitched keen of metal on rock, she forced the axe in deeper to take off the arm, then kept the momentum going into a diagonal tear through the golem’s body itself.

The golem, now without its top half, started glowing as if to regenerate again, but then the light faded and its movements stopped, its mana run dry.

“Whew, looks like we did it,” Sera whispered.

What was left of the creature’s body fell over, then crumbled into sand and vanished, leaving behind a red magistone on the ground. It had been an incredible show of power from Sera.

“Hey, you beat it?” called a voice from behind us as we picked up the magistone. It was Syphon, who’d come running with Jinn at his side.

“Sera did, mostly,” I corrected him. “Where are the others?”

“We saw some rockbirds heading our way, so Gytz, Juno, and Orga stayed behind. They’re a better match for rockbirds than golems.” Fred had also stayed behind to coordinate, Syphon explained. “Anyway, let’s beat as many of them as we can over here. The noise from the battle probably got their attention, but if they spot the other group, they could go either way.”

We were closer, distance-wise, but not all of the monsters would necessarily attack us. I could use Provoke to draw them to me to some degree, but if there were too many... Actually, could I use that to disrupt their formations?

Just as we were readying our weapons to fight the rockbirds, I suddenly felt a new spike of mana...right at our feet.

“Retreat!” I cried, and the three others leaped back immediately. Just then, the ground below our feet swelled up and...

“Hey, are you kidding me?”

Syphon had good reason to complain—a golem had appeared from below. It wasn’t just one golem either. There were three in total, one of which was a clearly different color.

[Name: — / Job: — / Level: 28 / Type: Iron Golem / Status: —]

Most of the stats were the same, but the dull gray one had “iron golem” as its “type.” It was also a head higher than the other two-meter-tall ones.

“Think we can handle those rockbirds while we’re already fighting golems?” Jinn asked.

Syphon gave it some thought. It was standard practice to defeat the easier opponent first. Fortunately, it would be a while before the rockbirds arrived. Unfortunately, we didn’t have that much time to spare.

“Syphon, you two deal with the iron golem. We’ll handle the normal golems. Take these too,” I told him, handing over a few vials.

“What are these?” he asked.

“This is called Blood of Rivell. It’s a magic concoction that draws a monster’s attention. Think of it like the opposite of a monster ward.”

“And we’re supposed to use them on that thing?” he said, indicating the iron golem.

“Use one on the iron golem and the rest on the rockbirds when they arrive. If we’re lucky, maybe we can get them to take each other out.”

I gave a few vials to Sera as well, then she and I readied our hand axes and throwing knives—all enchanted with fire properties—and began throwing them at the golems. I wasn’t giving any thought to retrieving the golem magistones now. Well, in a corner of my mind I was, but I forced that thought down to prioritize taking them out.

There was one explosion, then another, followed by a hit from my throwing knife that seemed to cause a chain reaction into an even bigger blast. Syphon and Jinn glanced over at us, apparently shocked by the weapons’ power, but then sprung into action against the iron golem. The iron golem seemed about to head our way to back up its comrades, but it was easily distracted by the other two adventurers.

“Master, how are the golems doing? Should we keep throwing?”

She’s right. Maybe we should save some for the rockbirds rather than using them all? I used Detect Mana to figure out how much mana the golems possessed...and saw that there was only a little bit left.

“Let’s make one last push to finish them off,” I told her. Through the explosions, we could hear the cries of the rockbirds coming nearer. If we waited until the smoke cleared to finish the golems off, we might not be done before the rockbirds’ attack. Thankfully, I felt the last of the mana drain from the golems just before the rockbirds arrived.

I turned my attention to the birds after glancing over at Syphon and Jinn. They were harrying the iron golem well, but their weapons must have been a bad matchup, because their attacks didn’t seem very effective. No—the mana I could detect from the iron golem was going down little by little. That indicated it was using mana to regenerate, which meant their attacks weren’t totally pointless. It also looked like they’d managed to hit it with the Blood of Rivell.

In that case, we’d just have to do the best we could.

I raised my shield in preparation for the rockbirds’ arrival. They’d be within range of my Provoke skill soon. When my shield blocked an attack from the first one, Sera would try to use the Blood of Rivell on it instead of killing it outright.

My hand on my shield tensed, and the birds came into range of my Provoke skill. I was just about to use it when something unexpected happened—the flock suddenly tore upward as if to get out of range, then turned in the direction of Hikari and the others.

Obviously, not all of them went the other way. A few stayed behind with us, seemingly trying to act as a diversion. I could see them circling above, looking for openings. When I tried to make a move back to camp, they let out warning cries.

“Master, what are they doing?” Sera asked.

It was clear that more rockbirds had moved on than had stayed, and most of the still incoming ones were splitting off to attack the others as well. Perhaps the flashy attacks we’d used on the golems had made them wary?

In the end, seven remained with us, while over twenty headed for Hikari and the others.

I exhaled my rising panic in a quick breath, then said, “Sera, could you try to draw them in? I need them to come down a little bit more to get in my Provoke range.” I assured myself that Fred and Gytz and the others were with them—I had to trust in my friends and defeat the rockbirds in front of me!

“Okay, got it.” Sera seemed to catch on to my intention immediately. She made a show of heading in the direction of our camp, making a few of the rockbirds plunge down to stop her.

I then used my Provoke skill on them, turning their course from Sera to me. There was no need for me to stop all the attacks. I’d block one for Sera to use the Blood of Rivell on and dodge the others.

I swung my shield to make the first rockbird whiff past me, then the second. When the third arrived, I thrust my shield down at it in a kind of counterstrike. The rockbird lost its balance and slammed into the ground, but it managed to flap its wings to dull the impact. Sera took advantage of its moment of confusion to coat it with the Blood of Rivell, then feigned an attack, forcing it to flee back into the sky.

When the individual coated in Blood of Rivell joined back up with the group, the rockbirds around it seemed to divide back into groups: Some attacked it and some didn’t. When I’d used the Blood on the shadow wulf, all the goblins and wulfs had attacked it in a frenzy, but that hadn’t happened this time. Only two out of the seven turned on their ally, while the rest plunged down at us again.

I wasn’t sure what accounted for the difference, but I’d still cut the number of attackers in half, so I decided to count it as a win.

I stowed my shield into my Item Box to keep it out of the way and got ready to fight back. I held a sword in my right hand and a throwing knife in my left. Normally a person would have to draw throwing knives out of a holster, but I didn’t need any extra motions to pull them out of my Item Box; after throwing one, I could just will a new one into my hand.

I acted primarily in a support role for Sera, calling on my spells, my sword, and my knives in turn. Sera ended up beating three out of four, while I took down the last one. Meanwhile, up above us, the rockbird under attack by its comrades had fallen to the ground, leaving just two remaining.

“Master, I think I can handle the two here myself,” Sera said.

Just then, I felt a sudden surge of mana from back at camp. For a second, it felt like the wind was blowing in their direction, and then it suddenly reversed. It was blowing so hard that I had to put up a hand to guard my face. It wasn’t a normal wind either—it was hot, as if from a fire.

The blazing wind blew for a few seconds, then suddenly settled as if it had never been there at all. The rockbirds that had been flying overhead were now gone, perhaps swept away by the wind.

I stood there for a moment, not sure what had happened, and then...

“Sora, bad news. It’s Chris. She’s...” Mia called in a panic through her dungeon card.

Her tone made me think something urgent had happened. Sera must have heard her too, because she found her eyes turning toward the camp.

“Sora, we’ll finish this one off. You go!” Syphon called, snapping me out of my rising panic.

“Okay. I’ll leave the rest to you,” I said, then ran off, heading at top speed toward the camp where Chris and the others were.

◇Chris’s Perspective

I was awakened, not peacefully, but with a violent shaking. I was still a bit sleepy, which indicated that the night wasn’t over yet. That realization let me snap awake immediately. I was still a little fuzzy, but my years as an adventurer had taught me that being woken up prematurely was a sign that something had gone wrong.

“Chris, they’re saying monsters have appeared,” Rurika told me.

I tilted my head. I’d thought rockbirds were the only monsters to appear on this floor, yet Rurika’s tone suggested it was something else. It was like a sense of nervousness about the unknown—but maybe I was the only one who picked up on it.

Just then, I heard Sora’s voice through my dungeon card, followed by the sound of Syphon and his party crying out in shock.

“A golem?” Mia whispered anxiously, speaking for everyone present.

“Anyway, I’ll... Jinn and Sera will go help Sora with me. Fred, you take command here. Gytz...keep them safe,” Syphon said. Sera had raced off before he’d even finished talking, and he and Jinn went running after her.

Fred took charge right away. “Mages to the center of the group. Orga, fighters, keep an eye out for the enemy.”

We all did as we were told.

“Don’t worry, Chris,” Mia reassured me. “Sora knows what he’s doing.”

Was I that obviously scared? Ah, but Mia was right. Sora had come a long way since we’d first met him. He was very dependable now.

Eventually, it sounded like they’d beaten the golem, but that threat was immediately replaced by the sound of rockbirds heading our way. We were just getting ready to fight them when we got word that three new golems had appeared.

“We should go help them,” Fred determined, but then...

“Better not,” Hikari interrupted him. She pointed at another flock of rockbirds coming from a different direction. She said that if all the flocks joined up it could add up to fifty at once.

Rurika and Orga nodded in agreement. “We’ll have to defeat them quickly with magic before we go to help the others,” Fred said. “There’s not much cover here, so they won’t be able to defend against it.”

Fire magic was strong against rockbirds, and since there was no risk of the explosions causing landslides here, we could use as much of it as we wanted. Fred was right, then—it would be best to beat them all quickly before running to help Sora. I gripped my staff and focused.

Just then, two unexpected things happened. One was that a golem appeared close to us as well. The other was that most of the rockbird flock that had previously been heading toward Sora ended up diverting their number toward us instead.

Gytz and the fighters managed to keep the golem at bay, but they were in such close quarters that we couldn’t use our enchanted knives, since they might get caught in the explosion.

We three mages cast the area-effect spell Firestorm on the rockbirds, but the creatures seemed to have good instincts, as they flew out of the spell’s range and then returned to taunt us. Some monsters were very intelligent, and rockbirds definitely belonged to that group. I’d heard that monsters often learned from past experiences, but did that apply to dungeon monsters as well?

The one thing I could say confidently was that if things kept up this way, we’d exhaust ourselves before they did. We had plenty of mana potions thanks to Sora, but I’d heard that they would lose their effectiveness if you drank too many in a short time.

I looked around...and pulled my hood down over my face. Rurika noticed and smiled at me. It might be a burden on my body to use it with my mana depleted, so I drank a mana potion to recuperate, then began to chant.

Rurika had said the chant sounded like singing, but I couldn’t really say. I could feel mana filling my body, but the sensation was different than normal. It felt a little bit oppressive; the buildup seemed more powerful than usual.

I didn’t have time to think about it, though. The other mages were already heaving for breath. Fred’s comrade especially seemed to be out of the fight.

I focused, calling on power from spirits of fire and wind as I imagined the spell consuming the whole region. I saw some clever individuals move away as if to escape, but I wouldn’t let them go.

“Aires Nova,” I intoned.

This spell would send a burning wind over a wide area and scorch all enemies within, invoking power borrowed from spirits to extraordinary effect.

The spell activated, and the wind raged around us. The flames pursued the retreating rockbirds as if they had a mind of their own. I could hear the rockbirds around us crying out in pain, followed by the sound of explosions.

I gritted my teeth, supporting myself on my staff. I felt pain rack my body, perhaps blowback from the spell, and I could feel myself going limp. I tried to dig deep and stay upright but failed. I began to tip over, then gravity brought me fully to the ground.

But just before impact, I felt someone catch me. I was glad, but at the same time afraid.

My transformation spell had lifted, you see. I couldn’t let anyone but Rurika, Mia, and Hikari see my real face. Even though I was wearing my hood, anyone close by would recognize my true nature.

“Chris, are you okay?!”

The sound of the voice set me at ease—it was Mia.

With that, my consciousness sank into darkness.

◇◇◇

We came running to find Mia holding a collapsed Chris, with Hikari and Rurika standing watch over them. The other two casters were nearby, on their knees in exhaustion.

I squatted down, peered into Chris’s face, and noticed that her hair had turned silver. From what I could see, the other mages would have been in no condition to look over at her, but once the battle was over, the warriors would surely come running. What should we do?

I cast a glance toward the warriors and saw they were locked in combat with a golem. Gytz was issuing commands, but they seemed to be struggling to deal proper damage.

“Leave it to me.” That was when Sera joined the fray and put the whole thing to rest. She’d learned from the last fight that it was better to do the job with her axes rather than use thrown weapons.

I was glad that the battle was over, but I hadn’t thought up a way to hide Chris’s identity yet. Would I just have to keep the others away from her?

Mia, I’ll figure out something to keep Fred and the others away, I told her telepathically. For now, keep her hair tucked into her hood and pull it low over her face. I also checked her status with Appraisal, and she’s just out of mana, so she should recover with rest.

Mia nodded in response, so I left that to her and ran over to Fred and the others.

“Thanks for the save. Where are Syphon and Jinn? And is the little lady all right?” Fred looked over at Chris, seeming genuinely concerned.

“I think she just used too much magic and ran out of mana. We should probably let the girls look after her... Actually, Mia got mad at me for ‘trying to watch a girl sleep,’ so I came back to you.”

I’d had to use Mia’s name in my excuse. Sorry, Mia.

“R-Right. We’ll leave that to her, then. Mia’s the best nurse for her, anyway.”

Nice work, Mia. Fred and the others really trust you too.

“Oh, Syphon and Jinn are still fighting the iron golem! I think we’re all right here, so maybe we should go help them. But...”

I looked around and saw the burnt bodies of the rockbirds littering the ground. There were no monster signals nearby, but golems did tend to show up without warning. Someone had to stay with the mages, so we couldn’t all go.

I checked my automap again and saw no monster signals in the area. Hmm? None at all?

“Hey, are we done over here?” came Syphon’s voice out of the blue.

It seemed that they’d defeated the iron golem and come running in just that short time.

“How’s Chris?” he asked.

“I think she exhausted her mana, but Mia’s looking after her for now, and she should feel better after some rest.”

“I see. But what do we do? Rest here or go down? Fred, what do you think?” Syphon seemed relieved by my update, and he asked Fred what to do next.

“Too many unknown factors here. Let’s go down for today and rest,” Fred suggested, to nobody’s objections.

Until now, golems had just been a rumor with no concrete reports behind them. I also hadn’t heard of anyone climbing the cliffs before, so maybe the golems just appeared here and wandered around every night. The fact that new ones had kept spawning after the first wave suggested that they might keep doing so all night long.

We packed up our things and retrieved what we could before moving back down the cliffs. I carried the unconscious Chris on my back. You’d think it would’ve been hard to carry her by myself, but my Mountaineering skill made it easy.

We then took shifts until morning and decided we’d be leaving the dungeon soon after.

Chris woke up in the morning, but she didn’t seem completely recovered, so I carried her on my back again.

“Sorry, Sora,” Chris told me.

“Nothing to apologize for. This wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t wanted to climb up, so...really, I’m sorry. And thanks for protecting everyone.”

In lieu of a response, Chris just hugged me a little tighter. I walked behind the others, feeling her warmth on my back.

We arrived at the stairs to the sixteenth floor just before evening the day after the fight with the golems.

Normally we’d have gone straight home after making it back to the surface, but instead we stopped by the guild to file a report. However, Fred wanted to report it to someone higher up the chain than a standard employee, and he was told that no one with that authority was free at the moment.

“We can’t just report it at reception?” I asked.

“Nah, this is really important stuff. If we report it directly, we can make sure the info gets where it needs to and nobody kills it halfway.” Fred’s mouth twisted disagreeably, as if he’d had bad experiences with this in the past. “In that case, it might be best for you to use your connections to report directly to the lord. Can you do that?” he asked me.

“Sure I can.” Iroha would definitely pass this crucial dungeon information on to him. I could even give her the mithril as proof.

In the end, having settled on me filing a report to Layla’s father—Will, the lord of Majorica—we all headed home for the day.

Interlude 3

“Dammit, dammit, dammit.” I gulped down my wine and pounded my fist on the table.

Looking back, the bad luck had started with the closing off of Pleques’s dungeon. My adventuring career started eighteen years ago. Once I’d gotten capable enough, I’d moved to Pleques with big dreams of striking it rich in the dungeon there. I’d been in enough demand that I sometimes actually got assigned quests from the guild, and I even fulfilled them well.

Yet suddenly, I’d been refused entry into the dungeon without so much as an explanation.

In the end, we’d decided to leave town. It wasn’t just us either. Lots of adventurers had left Pleques. The thing we all had in common was that we hadn’t been born there. The few parties that stayed seemed to be the ones with deep ties to the local nobility.

I pounded the table again as I thought back on it all.

The members of my party, too, had begun drifting away day by day, and now we were down to seven. Whenever I heard about one of our old members succeeding somehow, it just made things more irritating.

When we’d first arrived in this town, we’d had no problems making headway in the dungeon. We’d been a little disoriented by its differences from the one in Pleques, but the monsters were weak enough that they weren’t really a challenge.

All that changed when we reached the eleventh floor. We couldn’t deal with the traps. The monsters themselves were still no problem, but we were constantly taking damage from traps.

Potions had been hard to come by and expensive, which ate through our savings. More of our money went to the trumped-up cost of lodgings at the local inns too.

My comrades, nervous about the way the wind seemed to be blowing, started dropping out one by one to join the more established local parties. But I—we, the ones left behind—couldn’t do that. We were stubborn and proud about what we’d accomplished in Pleques, and we weren’t about to bow and scrape to people younger than us.

“But seriously, what do we do? At this rate...” one of my partymates whined as we drank at the table together. It made me furious, but I swallowed my rage.

“Pardon me. You seem to be having some kind of trouble,” a sudden voice interrupted.

We all turned to look.

“Ah, do excuse me. I happened to overhear.” The speaker—a man dressed all in black with a cloth band tied around his head—gave me an oily smile.

“Who the hell are you?” I was a little drunk, but I was still surprised I hadn’t sensed his approach.

“I’m in a spot of trouble, and I’ve been looking for some aid. I thought perhaps you might be the men for the job. Of course, there will be a substantial reward.”

There was always a catch with this kind of thing. We visually signaled each other to be on our guard, but as the man started stacking gold coins on the table, we couldn’t take our eyes off it.

“I’d like to offer this as a down payment. What do you think?” He’d set down ten stacks of gold with twenty coins each. “And if you successfully complete my request, I’ll give you ten platinums as a reward.”

It’s hard to be cautious in the face of an offer like that. We shared another glance and then nodded.

“Excellent. I knew you’d have what it takes,” the man said, seeming to like what he’d heard. “I’ll contact you when everything’s ready. You may do as you please until then—ah, except for entering the dungeon. I want to be able to find you when I need you. And if it seems like it may take me a while to prepare, I’ll send you additional funding, so please remain available.”

With that, the man left. The rest of us scooped up the gold before anyone else noticed and ordered another round of drinks.

Three days later, the man in black showed up again.

“Huh? What do you mean you want us in the dungeon?”

I was mad. Of course I was. He’d told us he had a job for us, but he hadn’t said a word about going into the dungeon.

“Forgive me, but I realized that’s what it has to be. Besides, I’ve looked into you and found out that you’re quite skilled adventurers. I also learned the reason you stopped going into the dungeon. Considering your skills, I believe you could have gone further if not for the traps.”

“Y-Yeah. That’s right.” I could feel my temper calming. I’d accidentally let my annoyance get the better of me, and I had to stop that. It wouldn’t be good to pick a fight with this guy. I couldn’t afford to lose a backer because I lost my temper.

“Therefore, I will employ a specialist in the disarmament of traps. He won’t be as excellent as you, but he will be capable of defending himself. I don’t believe he’ll be a hindrance to you.”

“And you want us to take him and beat the dungeon?”

“Ah, well... I’d like to go as well, so I was hoping you’d be my escort.”

Escort? That was a different matter entirely. Besides, our party wasn’t at full strength right now because we’d lost so many members. I didn’t know how far we could go, though I couldn’t let him know that. He might use the info to stiff us.

“Additionally, I was hoping you’d call back the members who have left your party. I could prepare a new team, of course, but I think they’d be more likely to trip you up than reliable comrades you fought with for a long time.”

I found myself grimacing at this. I tried not to show it, but thinking about the people who’d bailed on me made my blood boil.

“Of course I’ll add to your compensation. Let me see... One platinum for every person you call back? And I’ll add more rewards for every level you take me down. If we reach my destination, the thirty-fifth floor, I will pay you a hundred platinums. Ah, and you’ll need equipment, so I’ll pay for that as well.”

It was true that the monsters on the thirty-fifth floor gave good materials that were fetching high prices. At least, so I’d heard. Nobody had gotten that far down outside of the Guardian’s Blade—which had been active in this town for a while—either. So making it that far down might earn us some renown in addition to the money.

Then, even if the Pleques dungeon opened again, we might not need to go back. In fact, it might even be better to start again with a new clan in this city. And then those snooty guild staff members would have to bow and scrape and beg us for help.

Feeling I hadn’t done anything wrong, I shared a nod with my comrades.

◇◇◇

It went very well.

I always appreciated how easy it was to manipulate desperate people. Just by flashing a little gold to an adventurer in trouble, you could get them to do whatever you wanted.

Now, as for how to carry out my orders and secure the lord’s daughter...

The dungeon would certainly be the best place to do that. I definitely needed to look into it more. It would be nice if we could get her on the surface, but it would be hard to find an opening.

It seemed she had a hidden escort on her around the clock, after all.

The lord here was of a different caliber than the peace-addled Lord of Pleques.

Chapter 4

“Golems, then, hmm...” Seris said. “I see. And then, poor Chris...”

It was our first visit to the library in a while, and I’d just told her what had gone down on the fifteenth floor.

Ciel was also happily enjoying pets from Seris, and the fact that she’d just had a full meal seemed to contribute to her satisfaction as well. Whenever we were in the dungeon, her mealtimes were restricted, and she frequently had to eat alone. She was happiest at times like this when she could eat unreservedly in a group setting.

“And you found mithril too... That’s really quite impressive. Word of it even reached my ears...”

As far as I knew, the situation was still classified. Where had she heard about it, then?

After we’d gotten back from the dungeon that day, I’d asked Iroha to send a message to Will. I’d handed her some of the mithril and said I had something important to tell him about the dungeon. I got a reply the next day—an invitation for me and Fred to come to his estate. He even sent a carriage for us.

Fred sat down, looking as nervous as could be. The guild master, Reese, was there as well.

“Now, Sora and...Fred, was it? Let’s hear what you have to say,” Will started.

Fred and I chose our words carefully as we described the events on the fifteenth floor. We told him how we’d climbed the cliff, about the different ores we’d extracted, and about the golems attacking overnight. We continued talking, occasionally pausing for questions and breaks, and it took almost two hours in total.

“I truly wouldn’t have believed it, but I can see the proof right here,” Will said, turning the mithril over in his hand.

“That’s right,” Reese mused. “There were rumors in the guild about golem sightings long ago, but... We may need to investigate what triggers their appearances. We’ll need people who know about mining, too, if we can get them. You seem to have gotten lucky in extracting some ore, but I doubt digging in any old spot would turn it up.”

“That’s true. We’ll want them to send some miners, then...” Will said. “But they’ll need an escort to protect them on the way. Should we send the knights? And some adventurers too?”

“What about an assigned quest? It might be expensive, but we’ll need plenty of talent if they’re to accompany amateurs.”

The latter half of the conversation didn’t have much to do with Fred and me. Ah, but the drinks are delicious.

We listened to Will and Reese talk without us for a while, until finally Will asked us if we’d be up for the job of escort. Since I had the automap, I could safely and swiftly get the miners where they needed to go. I didn’t mind all the walking either. At the same time, it had already been about three months since Seris had first asked us to beat the dungeon—Chris had bought us more time, but that had been two months ago too.

“Sorry, but I’ll have to pass this time,” I told them. “I’d like to focus on beating the dungeon.”

“I see. I understand; that’s very important too. What do you think, Fred?” Will asked him.

Fred thought it over for a minute, then said, “Do you mind if I talk it over with my party?”

They agreed to let him.

“Sorry, Sora, we really need this,” Fred told me the next day as he stopped by the house. He’d apparently decided to take Will’s offer.

“Hey, that’s all right. You guys have your own circumstances.”

Fred bowed in apology. “I talked to Syphon’s party too, and they want to focus on beating the dungeon like you. Would you mind partying up with them? They’re good guys, and it sounds like they and the girls go way back.” He explained that with the influx of adventurers from Pleques starting to slow down a bit, it might be hard for them to find a new party otherwise.

“Sure thing. I’ll meet up with them and talk it over.”

“Yeah, thanks. They’re a little worried you’re gonna kick them out of the big house too.”

That last part was a joke, right? I hoped. Fred had chuckled as he said it, but I couldn’t help but think they might really be worried.

After Fred left, I let the others know about the situation.

“I’m in favor of letting them join us,” Rurika said right away. “They know your circumstances, and they’re strong fighters too.”

The others unanimously agreed as well, so I headed for Norman’s house and told Syphon our decision.

“Sure, we’ll help you all we can,” Syphon said. “I’m glad we won’t get kicked out of our house!”

“We’re truly grateful,” Juno told me. “It’s really helped him cut down on his drinking.”

I guess they really were worried... I realized. Judging by her comment, Juno was the happiest of them all. Apparently Syphon had been limiting his drinking lately because she’d told him it would be a bad influence on the children.

“Chris, are you feeling better now?” Syphon asked her.

“Yes. I’m sorry for the trouble.”

“Hey, no trouble at all. You’re the reason we got out of that mess,” he laughed. “Anyway, when are you heading out next? Or are you going to take a long break?”

“I was thinking of shooting for five days from now, depending on how Chris is doing. Does that work for you?” I asked.

“Sure, no problem. We’ll make our preparations in the meantime too.”

“We’ll handle potions and food, so you can take care of the rest.”

“Hey, that’s barely anything,” he objected.

“Then help out Norman and the kids—give them some training in breaking down monster bodies and combat.”

We decided to stick around and spend the rest of the day with Norman and the kids.

As we finished our conversation and went outside, we ran into Elza, who seemed to be hard at work. “Oh, it’s you guys!” she said in surprise as she laid eyes on us.

She and Art often came over to teach housekeeping to the smaller children. Right now they were hanging up sheets to dry, and I could see the rows of white sheets billowing out over the lawn.

Elza and the other girls were chatting happily as they worked, while the boys were in a corner holding mock swords and trying to keep up with Gytz’s combat lessons. I’d noticed that only Syphon and Juno had been around to talk to us while we were inside, so apparently the others had been out here. Rurika went to join in excitedly, while Sera went along with her—or rather, was dragged along.

“Big bro, do you think you could teach us how to cook, if it’s not too much trouble?” Elza asked after she reached a stopping point in her work. She’d occasionally asked for cooking lessons at the house, too, though she always seemed nervous when she asked, as if she felt bad about taking up my time. There was no sign of that when she asked Mia.

“Let’s see. Anything you want to learn in particular?” I asked.

She asked about tomato soup and cream soup. I’d walked her through the tomato soup several times, so the kids here must have been asking about it. The ingredients were cheap because we were so close to Lokia, and I remembered it had been popular when I’d served it here before. I’d made a pizzalike recipe with tomato sauce too; that had also been popular, come to think of it.

We’d had the kitchen in the house expanded after I’d bought it, so it could now easily hold at least ten people. Mia and the others joined us, and we chatted as we cooked. The kids listened intently when I explained the recipe, but otherwise they just told me how they were spending their time lately. They all sounded grateful and happy in their new lives. Some of them had a few complaints about the boys, but it seemed like they were all getting along pretty well in general.

They’d even been talking about plans for the future. Some of them wanted to go to Magius Academy of Magic to learn spellcasting like us, and others wanted to open up shops. They thanked us for giving them the opportunity to do so.

“I’m glad we met you all too,” Elza said shyly, and Art nodded in firm agreement.

Syphon and the others joined us as we finished the meal, and then we all ate together.

The good times really seemed to fly by in an instant.

We decided to head back before it got too dark. Norman and the others seemed to wish we could stay and talk a bit longer, but...

“We’ll come by again sometime,” said Sera.

“Yeah. We’ll play again then,” Hikari added.

“Sure! See you later, big sis!”

“You better come back!” the children responded.

◇◇◇

“So...you came to visit me because you’re heading out again tomorrow, hmm?” Seris speculated.

“And to apologize, I guess?” I said sheepishly. “After all, we haven’t gotten very far in the dungeon.”

“There, there... Chris has bought us a lot of time, thankfully. By the way, could you give this to her?”

“What is it?”

[Secht Necklace]

Changes the wearer’s appearance. Become a “new you” today!

Okay, Appraisal, I’ll pretend I didn’t see that descriptive text. The effect was the important part anyway.

We chatted a bit longer before I left the library, and we ran into Joshua as we were about to head home. We’d both been spending a lot of time in the dungeon lately, so it had been a while since I’d met up with him.

“Is that you, Sora? It’s been a long time.”

“Yeah, we’ve all been busy lately, huh?”

I asked how he was doing, and Joshua said they were gearing up to take on the eighteenth floor. But he must have been a little tired, because he didn’t look happy about it as he talked. On the other hand, he looked shocked and a little deflated when I said we’d just made it to the sixteenth floor ourselves.

“It’s thanks to the adventurers we’ve been working with,” I told him, but I couldn’t tell if he was really listening.

We’d be heading into the dungeon the next day, so that night I checked how my stats had changed over the last five days.

Name: Fujimiya Sora / Job: Alchemist / Race: Otherworlder / Level: None

HP: 480/480 / MP: 480/480 / SP: 480/480 (+100)

Strength: 470 (+0) / Stamina: 470 (+0) / Speed: 470 (+0)

Magic: 470 (+50) / Dexterity: 470 (+50) / Luck: 470 (+0)

Skill: Walking Lv. 47

Effect: Never get tired from walking (earn 1 XP for every step)

XP Counter: 61,017/930,000

Skill Points: 4

Learned Skills

[Appraisal Lv. MAX] [Prevent Appraisal Lv. 5] [Enhance Physique Lv. MAX] [Regulate Mana Lv. MAX] [Lifestyle Spells Lv. MAX] [Detect Presence Lv. MAX] [Sword Arts Lv. MAX] [Dimension Spells Lv. MAX] [Parallel Thinking Lv. MAX] [Boost Recovery Lv. MAX] [Hide Presence Lv. MAX] [Alchemy Lv. MAX] [Cooking Lv. MAX] [Throwing/Shooting Lv. 9] [Fire Spells Lv. MAX] [Water Spells Lv. 8] [Telepathy Lv. 9] [Night Vision Lv. MAX] [Sword Tech Lv. 6] [Resist Status Effects Lv. 7] [Earth Spells Lv. MAX] [Wind Spells Lv. 8] [Disguise Lv. 8] [Engineering/Construction Lv. 8] [Shield Arts Lv. 7] [Provoke Lv. 8] [Traps Lv. 5] [Mountaineering Lv. 2]

Advanced Skills

[Appraise Person Lv. MAX] [Detect Mana Lv. 9] [Enchant Lv. MAX] [Creation Lv. 6]

Contract Skills

[Holy Spells Lv. 5]

Title

[Spirit Contractor]

My Walking level had ticked up twice to reach 47. Though I’d been walking more these days, I also needed more experience to level up each time. My skill meant that I never felt tired, but this measure of how many steps I’d taken in a short time showed how impressive the others’ stamina was too. Where would I be now if I didn’t have my skill to help me?

My Resist Status Effects skill had also increased to 7 for some reason. I say “for some reason” because it seemed to have gone up completely unprompted... Or was it because of Hikari’s cooking?

I’d also been using Enchant a lot lately—imbuing lots of throwing knives and axes with spells—so now it had maxed out. Having to enchant them one at a time had been a truly time-consuming task.

Even more significant than that, though, was the items I could make with Creation.

I’d managed to get the mithril and the golem magistones I’d been after on the fifteenth floor, which would let me create some things I’d wanted to make for a while. It was especially huge that I’d ended up with three golem magistones. Golem magistones were crucial for creating a Golem Core, so I’d offered Syphon money to let me take them all myself.

First, I managed to make six mithril weapons for our group. Since the mithril I was dealing with was an extremely precious commodity, I changed my job from Scout to Alchemist before getting down to it. I tested our current weapons to get the right size and weight and took opinions from the wielders as well.

Hikari seemed especially impressed by the increase in attack power that came from infusing a mithril weapon with mana. Because daggers had lower attack power than swords, she hadn’t managed to do much against tough enemies we’d encountered recently like the golems. Sera and Rurika were also practicing mana infusion when they had time.

After that, I made Lyaf Shields, Canard Buckles, and a Golem Core. I ended up making five Lyaf Shields, partly because I had the materials to spare, but also because it was also a good chance to level up my proficiency. I gave one each to Mia and Chris, and I enchanted both with my Shield spell so they could infuse them with mana to create a personal barrier. However, doing this consumed a lot of mana, so they’d have to use it wisely.

The next items I made were the Canard Buckles.

[Canard Buckle]

Increases regenerative abilities and relieves exhaustion in the wearer.

This seemed to give an effect a lot like my Boost Recovery skill. I had the others use it to test how well it worked, and they all said it felt like they didn’t get tired as easily. I hoped it wasn’t a placebo effect.

I used the following materials to make it:

[Canard Buckle]

Materials needed:

Mithril

Magic Ore

Magic Crystal

Slime Magistone

Magistone

I was able to do it thanks to our mining efforts on the fifteenth floor. I didn’t have a lot of slime magistones, but I still managed to make one for everyone.

Finally, I made my main object of interest, the Golem Core. I used a golem magistone, mithril (for “Ore 1”), magic steel (for “Ore 2”) and the shadow wulf magistone (for “Magistone 1”). I’d used the goblin king magistone for the creation process itself, wanting a high-quality magistone to create the most durable core possible. The result was:

[Golem Core: Shadewolf Type]

After that was all done, I browsed for new skills to learn. I wanted a skill that would let me use the golem more effectively, now that I’d made its core.

I could still call it into being even in its current state—the Golem Core incorporated a lot of magistones, and it was used similarly to any other magic item in that I could channel my mana into it. It typically looked like a ball, but it would form a body around itself (mine would take the quadrupedal form of a wulf) when it had access to mana, and then it would obey the orders of its registered master. You could register multiple people as master, and I managed to at least register all six of us.

The main problem was that its mana expenditure was very inefficient. The golem consumed mana as it took action—and did so at a tremendous speed.

I’d tested it several times, and at the current rate it could only be active for thirty minutes, which would be further shortened if it had to regenerate from any damage it took. This was because it constantly emitted mana without being able to store any new mana of its own. It was similar to the mana control wands I’d made before, where the light would stay on as long as you were channeling mana into it but go out if you stopped.

I looked through my skill list and found one that seemed like it could be useful. It had actually been added to the list since I’d maxed out Enchant.

NEW

[Mana Enchant Lv. 1]

This was the mana version of my Enchant skill. Of course, just enchanting the golem with mana wouldn’t let it run forever. The best it did was slow the pace of its mana consumption, but as I raised my level, this should improve, and it should cost less MP to use it in the first place... Yeah, it consumed almost all of my MP on my first try.

It had other uses as well. For instance, Sera was bad at channeling mana into her weapons, but if I used Mana Enchant on the weapons, she could wield them as if she’d infused them with mana herself.

No wonder it cost three skill points to learn.

That left me with one skill point. I’d happened to see some skills I’d been thinking might be useful in the dungeon, but since they apparently counted as advanced skills, I couldn’t buy them with just one skill point.

My only choice was to get in more steps and raise my level again.

◇◇◇

“Good to be working with you again!” Syphon, who was looking giddier than usual, said as we entered the dungeon together.

Our plan today was to go to the sixteenth and seventeenth floors, then register at the eighteenth-floor stairs and return.

“Could you wait just a minute?” I asked him.

I checked the floor layout on my automap as usual. I could see a lot of monster signals, and quite a few human ones as well. From how they were moving, it seemed like the people were coming our way. Maybe they’d just registered the floor.

“Hey, it seems like you always do something when we come to a new floor. What is it?” he asked.

“Oh, it’s sort of an application of dimension spells. I can see a kind of a...map of the dungeon’s layout.” I explained how my automap worked.

“Then we’ve gotten through the floors so quickly without meeting many monsters because...” he said in surprise.

“Because of that spell, yes. But the search function doesn’t always pick up every monster, so it’s more like a reference?”

I was hoping to summon the golem if I could, but I decided to set that aside for now since it seemed like we’d probably run into people here.

The monsters on the sixteenth floor were kobolds, kobold fighters, kobold archers, and kobold thieves, which we hadn’t fought before, so we took part in a few battles just to get used to them.

“Damn, what’s with this thing?” Syphon cursed partway through the battle.

“Ah, be careful. There’s a trap!” Rurika warned him.

“That stupid thief! It tried to lead us into that trap!” Orga screamed.

The kobolds didn’t seem very strong on their own, but kobold thieves were tricky creatures that liked to stay in control of the situation. They were willing to spring traps that even hit their own allies, abandon them completely to escape if they got in trouble, then lead more allies down upon us. The best thing to do when you encountered one was to beat it first, but they’d use allies as shields to protect themselves from both magic and long-range attacks.

“He’s tough,” Hikari said, sounding impressed. But after a few fights, she managed to slip behind enemy lines and kill the kobold thief.

The monsters on the seventeenth floor were hobgoblins. We’d fought them in solo encounters on the fourteenth floor, but here they appeared in groups of five or more. I felt like they were tougher than kobolds in terms of raw strength, but they were straightforward opponents, so they weren’t hard to deal with even in large groups. I felt like our coordination with Syphon’s group had improved as well.

“You’re not as good as Gytz, Sora, but you’ve gotten better as a tank. Did you stop fighting with your sword as much because of Chris and Mia?”

“That’s part of it. I’d heard more monsters use long-range attacks the farther down you go, and I have allies I can count on to handle the front lines too.”

“Fair point. That Sera is a tough one, in particular.” Sera’s combat skills were indeed incredible enough to send a chill up Syphon’s spine.

We soon found the eighteenth-floor stairs and ran into Joshua’s party as we registered there.

“Oh, Sora...and who are these men?” he asked, looking at our new partymates.

“They’re the adventurers who agreed to help us explore the dungeon. They’re apparently friends of Rurika and Chris, so we decided to travel together.”

Joshua seemed surprised to run into us. He explained that his twenty-four-student joint party had tried out the eighteenth floor and was returning unsuccessfully after five days.

The monsters on the eighteenth floor include tiger wulfs, don’t they? I recalled. They certainly were tough. I still had some trauma from the last time I fought one.

“Are you going to go on?” he asked me.

“No, we’re planning to head back for the day,” I said. “Want to stick together?”

I thought he’d tell me to back off, but they ended up accepting my offer. They did look pretty beat-up, and I was hesitant to leave them in their condition. Their expressions were also gloomy and disheartened.

As we went along, Joshua and his party seemed surprised by a lot of things they saw. Because they’d looked so exhausted, we took the lead in defeating any monsters we came across, and we also cooked for them.

“You said you made it down this fast because of your adventurer comrades, but I can see the real reason. I always knew you guys were strong, but I didn’t know you were this strong,” Joshua said.

“Well, Rurika and Chris—our new members—are also highly experienced adventurers,” I told him. “The veterans... Syphon and the others give us a lot of direct pointers too.”

Rurika scratched her nose shyly when she heard my praise, and Chris looked down in embarrassment. Syphon’s party just smiled for some reason.

“We’ve also gotten our hands on some really good weapons,” I added.

We were currently using mithril weapons. They were the same shape and weight as our original ones, but the hilts and other parts were new, and they felt different in the hand. It was a big difference, but we wanted to get used to using them.

Several of the students looked at us enviously. Since Layla had used one too, it was easy to see that mithril weapons were in high demand.

“I know you’ve been down that way before, but we made it back so quickly... Did you memorize the route?” Joshua asked after we’d made it back to the guild.

“Kind of. I have a good memory. But are you guys okay?”

I couldn’t help but feel like his mood had gotten worse by the day, and I was worried.

“We really owe you. Thank you for all your help,” Joshua said, and the other members of his party thanked us too as they left. I thought his smile at the end seemed just a little bit forced, though.

“Did we go a little too far?” I asked.

Because so many of the students seemed close to their limits, we’d focused on getting them out quickly, and so we’d basically stomped on any monsters we’d come across. At first they’d just looked surprised, but as we’d gone on I’d felt some people looking at us in a different way.

“Hard to say,” Rurika said. “We really don’t know what was going through their heads, and if the difference in our abilities was enough to break their spirits, they won’t make it far as adventurers. We’ve seen a lot of strong people in our travels too, but we’ve always gritted our teeth and kept moving forward.” Apparently she spoke from experience.

Sera nodded in agreement. She’d been raised in an environment where you had to get strong or die.

◇◇◇

I talked with Syphon and the others about what to do on our next dungeon dive, and the next day, we entered the tenth-floor boss room to test the capabilities of the shadewolf Golem Core.

Everyone else was tired enough that I’d planned on going by myself, but the others were curious to see the golem in action, and they apparently thought it was dangerous to send me into a boss room alone.

The shadewolf’s first fight caught us all by surprise. Its fighting prowess was truly incredible—overwhelming, even. It dazzled the lower-level goblins with its speed and finished them in short order with its fangs and rakes from its foreclaws. In the final one-on-one with the goblin king, it used attacks from the shadows to disorient it, then put an end to it with a bite to the neck.

My use of the shadow wulf magistone in the shadewolf’s creation had apparently allowed it to use the wulf’s special shadow attacks.

Just as I was about to recover the magistones and leave...

“Hey, as long as we’re here, why don’t we stay a bit longer?” Rurika suggested.

I asked why, and she said that no one else could walk in on us here, so we could leave the golem—the shadewolf—active to see what it could really do.

She had a point. I’d thought the waiting room might be crowded like it had been the last time, but we’d had the room to ourselves when we’d arrived, and we’d finished the battle itself quickly enough that we probably didn’t have to move on too soon.

“Good idea,” I agreed. “Let’s see what it can do.” I was curious about that too, after all.

I ordered the shadewolf not to hurt its opponents, and we held a mock duel between it and everyone but Mia and Chris. The shadewolf fought well against the four of us, but we had still proven stronger in the end. After a few fights, its attacks from the shadows occasionally gave us a run for our money, but experience put us over the top in the end.

“It’s strong. We can count on it,” Hikari said when it was done.

“Yeah,” Sera added. “Its combos using shadow attacks were really good.”

“You’re right,” Rurika chimed in. “Its dynamic use of speed is really something else. It can move in ways we can’t.”

The three girls praised the creature while patting its head, though it showed no reaction. Ciel seemed to get jealous as she watched, though. She flew around Hikari and Sera and waved her ears to beg for attention. When they did pet her, she seemed to be mollified. I was pretty sure she saw the golem as a rival of some kind.

Incidentally, the treasure chest contained a Returner Stone.

◇◇◇

“Hmm, I see...”

I visited the school library for the first time in a while, and I told Seris about running into Joshua’s party in the dungeon.

“Well, I think that’s a problem they should work out for themselves...” she advised. “Before Ash, who later joined the Guardian’s Blade, broke the record, the lowest any student made it in the dungeon was the twenty-second floor, I believe. Given that, it’s very impressive that they cleared the seventeenth floor at their age...”

Seris explained that, because Ash and Layla had gotten all that attention for going so far down, people had gotten it into their heads that it was something anyone should be able to do. “I’ll just let the principal know about this...” she concluded.

“And I’d like to ask you about one more thing,” I said. I told her I’d created a Golem Core and asked if it was okay to use it in the dungeon. Specifically, I wanted to know what I should do if it ended up being seen. I told her I’d thought about saying I’d gotten it from a boss treasure chest.

“Yes, treasure chests do contain many different things...so I think you can tell them that. But watch out for wicked people... There are so many more outsiders in the dungeon than there used to be...and we’ve had reports of students running into trouble with them...”

It was true that most outsider adventurers probably didn’t know the unwritten rule about not messing with students.

“All that aside, Chris...are you wearing the Secht Necklace right now?”

“Y-Yes. I don’t look weird, do I?” Chris asked.

“No, you look perfect... Don’t you agree, Sora?”

“Yeah. You look so much like your usual self, I would think you were using your disguise spell.”

Chris was currently wearing an item called the Secht Necklace, which allowed a person to project a desired image to others. By watching her use it, I’d also noticed that it helped keep her mana suppressed. This wouldn’t matter to people who couldn’t detect the flow of mana, but there were a few such sensitive people out there. It was how Seris had learned about Chris, in fact.

“Ugh. I can’t see it myself, so it makes me nervous...” Chris had told us that when she looked in the mirror, she saw herself with silver hair and eyes and pointed ears; the image the necklace projected was only visible to third parties. When the rest of us looked at her in the mirror, we saw the usual golden-eyed, golden-haired version with round ears.

Chris had also been hesitant to wear the Secht Necklace at first, but she’d relented because of the danger posed by what had happened on the fifteenth floor. She couldn’t fully deploy her powers while using her disguise spell, and going right from lifting her disguise to invoking that powerful magic—the spirit spell—had shown her what a burden it was on her body.

According to Seris, who had talked to Chris about it, she hadn’t used spirit spells much before now, and she still wasn’t quite used to it. That surprised me, since I’d thought the disguise spell also called on the power of spirits, but apparently it was substantively different to the attack spell she’d used.

“Instead of going right to such a huge spell...you should get used to it by using smaller spells first,” Seris explained to her kindly.

“Yes, ma’am.” Chris nodded obediently.

The three of us chatted for a little while after that, until Hikari and the others arrived. At this, Ciel, who had been sunning herself on the windowsill, also snapped to attention, and she came flying over in search of food. The unsteadiness of her flight path made it clear she was still not fully awake, but when I set out the food and the smell wafted through the room, both her eyes snapped open wide.

However, it was actually Rurika who most looked forward to our meals in the library. She borrowed the Eyes of Eliana from Seris and gazed enraptured at the sight of Ciel stuffing her face with food.

The first time Rurika had seen Ciel had been something of an ordeal. She’d spent the whole day watching Ciel in the library instead of going to class. I could still remember how her smile had taken up nearly her entire face.

After that, she’d scolded me time and time again for interacting with Ciel when she couldn’t, to the point that she’d even made the outrageous request for me to make her a slave. I’d had no clue that Rurika loved cute things so much... It was truly hard to imagine.

I’d explained to her that I could make the Eyes of Eliana once I had the materials, at which point she’d grabbed me by the collar and demanded to know what the materials were. I won’t deny that I was a little bit intimidated by her intensity. I mean, the seriousness in her eyes was genuinely scary.

That was what had made Rurika quietly gung ho about conquering the dungeon.

“Hey, Rurika. You’re drooling,” Chris cautioned her as usual, but Rurika just let out a noncommittal noise, probably not even hearing her.

I was glad to know for sure that the Eyes of Eliana worked, though.

As our time there came to an end, I went through my usual routine of convincing a reluctant Rurika to return the Eyes of Eliana, and we left the library behind.

While we were coming out, consoling Rurika, we ran into Joshua. I got a brief feeling of déjà vu as I greeted him, and we were about to move on when he stopped me.

“Sora, I’d like to ask a favor,” he said. “Do you have a minute?” he asked.

I’d thought he just meant me, but he actually wanted Hikari and the others to join us as well. He wanted to know if we’d let his party accompany us next time we went into the dungeon.

“That’s fine by me, but we’re heading to the eighteenth floor next,” I said. “I don’t know how we’ll fare against tiger wulfs. Are you sure? Also, is it okay if we bring our adventurer friends?”

It wasn’t easy to beat a tiger wulf. Rank C adventurers were allowed to take hunting quests that involved them, but it was common sense to fight them in multiparty groups at least—or so I vaguely remembered from over a year ago. Granted, my level had gone up quite a bit since then, and we had Syphon’s party with us, so we should have been fine. Still, my memories of dealing with them in the past weren’t exactly pleasant ones.

“Yeah, that’s fine,” he agreed. “They’re the ones you were with in the dungeon before, right? We don’t mind at all. But if you think we might be a drag on you, feel free to tell us.”

When we asked Joshua for more details, he explained it would just be the six members of his own party coming with us.

“What happened to the others?” I asked.

“To tell the truth, we had a fight...” Joshua sheepishly explained how a discussion of their next dungeon dive had turned into an argument that caused their joint dungeon team to break up. I could hear some regret in his tone, but...maybe some people needed time to cool off.

Their joint team had been made up of four parties, and they’d been making steady progress up until then, but they’d failed at this particular point several times over. This had led to a loss of confidence and enthusiasm, he explained.

After some hard thinking, his core group decided they wanted to go down again with us, a party of the same age, and really watch how we fought.

“So let’s get together tomorrow to plan out a dungeon dive,” I told him.

Our dive with Joshua’s party made it easily to the twentieth floor. They tensed up the first time we saw a tiger wulf, but...

“I can handle tiger wulfs,” Sera said breezily.

“Leave it to us,” Syphon said with an easy confidence. Both seemed to help set Joshua and the others at ease.

Our basic fighting style was a reliable one, with me and Gytz wielding shields to hold the tiger wulf in place while the attackers defeated it. Tiger wulfs would try to retreat if their position got too bad, but any time there was a risk of that happening, I’d use Provoke to prevent it.

One thing I realized while going along with Joshua’s party was that their weapons would have a hard time dealing damage to a tiger wulf. It was natural that they wouldn’t work as well as our mithril swords, but it still explained why they’d struggled so badly. Uniforms were provided by the school, but you had to buy your own weapons.

From what they said, it seemed that Joshua’s party also didn’t have any dedicated shield bearers. It was rare to see students at the school wielding shields at all. I only recalled...about one student who used shields even in mock duels, at least when I was there. The farther you went, the stronger the monsters got, and you started seeing students fall into the role of de facto shield-wielders, but without a lot of experience to back it up.

Good spellcasters could defeat tiger wulfs in theory, but unfortunately the creatures were fast and hard to hit, with good instincts too.

While we rested, Joshua and the others talked assertively with Syphon’s party despite their nervousness. They mostly seemed to have a lot of questions, but the veterans were polite about answering them. By the time we’d reached the twentieth floor, they seemed to have established quite a rapport.

“What do we do about the boss room, then? Just go in like this?”

“We’d better not. I think we should wait to try it until we can get here under our own power,” Joshua said, and his party members nodded in strong agreement.

And so, our time in the dungeon with Joshua’s party came to an end. Later I’d learn that he talked with the students of the parties he’d fought with before, and they’d started dungeon diving together again. They’d decided to focus on floors where you could make a good profit to save up money first.

I stood in front of the twentieth-floor boss room and gazed at the door. Its shape was the same as the one on the tenth floor, with a kind of blank relief above the protrusion. As before, appraising it revealed the name and number of monsters within.

[☆ Kobold King 1 / Kobold General 2 / Kobold Guard 14 / Kobold Archer 10 / Kobold Fighter 20]

We’d been to the tenth-floor boss room a couple times, and the numbers of monsters there had changed each time. That had helped me confirm that the number of monsters present matched what was written on the relief.

“If that’s true, it’s a major discovery, right?” Rurika replied when I told her.

“Knowing in advance what monsters are in the boss room on the fortieth floor would be a huge help, yeah,” I responded.

For rooms up to the thirtieth-floor boss room, the reference materials described what people had encountered in the past. But nobody had entered the fortieth-floor room yet, so knowing the type and number of monsters in advance would give us a serious leg up. If you knew what monsters you would face, you could figure out strategies beforehand.

“Okay, here we go.” I told them the type and number of monsters listed on the relief, and we entered the boss room.

In front of us was a large wasteland map. The ground below our feet was red clay, and each gust of wind seemed to blow up clouds of dust. All the trees we could see around us were dead, and the ground was littered with small rocks. It wasn’t hard to walk on, but it might make it harder to fight.

I summoned the shadewolf golem and was getting ready for battle when...

“What’s that all about?” Syphon asked me. He was eyeing the shadewolf.

A natural reaction. Hikari, don’t pet it so much or Ciel will be jealous. It’s not a pet anyway.

“It’s a golem,” I told him. “We got a Golem Core from a treasure chest in a boss room.” I soothed Syphon’s suspicions with the lie I’d thought up in advance.

Just as Seris had predicted, Syphon’s party seemed a bit uncertain but accepted it. Well, perhaps it was more correct to say that they had no choice but to accept it—it wasn’t like they had any way of confirming the tale’s truth anyway. I’d thought about admitting that I’d made it myself, but I decided to put that off for another time.

Unlike the ones on the tenth floor, these monsters took some time to beat, thanks to the kobold guards. The shields they wielded seemed to be magic, which let them skillfully block all our attacks. The kobold general also seemed to keep them well coordinated, making it hard to break through their defenses. The minute you thought you’d made a hole in the line, another would come in to fill it, and the archers would loose volleys of arrows to drive you back when you got in close.

“It felt like fighting a platoon of well-trained soldiers,” Rurika admitted.

“Hey, Hikari, you’re bleeding. Come over here to get healed,” Sera told her.

“Are you all right, Chris?” Mia asked as she healed Hikari.

She did look rather tired. Not only had she unleashed multiple spirit spells in a row, she’d used a lot of normal spells as well. I myself hadn’t used so many spells at once since the stampede in Frieren.

“Well-coordinated monsters are bad enough, but they’re a real threat when they use tools too. That makes it like fighting other humans,” Syphon said.

I found myself agreeing. The kobold guards weren’t just fast, but they wielded magic shields as well. I suspected we might be facing a lot of monsters like them in the future.

“What did we get this time?” I asked as the girls opened up the treasure chest.

It turned out to be another Returner Stone and some cash. It was good to have more Returner Stones in case things got hairy, though they were so precious that I imagined it would be hard to figure out where to use them.

Chapter 5

The twenty-first floor would mark the start of floors populated by undead.

When I’d been diving with Fred, he’d mentioned these floors were unpopular because it was hard to make money on them. Undead monsters didn’t have any harvestable materials other than magistones, and though even the magistones of the weakest undead—skeletons—were of good quality and fetched a high price, it was apparently quite hard to actually retrieve them.

There were two ways of killing undead: One was to break the magistone, and the other was to use holy-attribute attacks. This included both holy spells and light spells; weapons imbued with the holy attribute through holy water or the Blessing spell; and silver weapons.

Since there weren’t many people who could cast holy or light spells, the most common way to fight them if you wanted to retrieve the magistones was with holy water and silver weapons. These were both pricey items, though, so even if you got the magistones, the expedition could still leave you in the red.

Beyond their expense, silver weapons were quite fragile, so you had to keep them up your sleeve for when you really needed to kill some undead.

A few things changed when we started on the twenty-first floor.

One was that, unlike the brightly lit labyrinths we’d been traveling through so far, these were dark—pitch black, in fact, which meant magic items that offered night vision were a must.

The monsters on these floors were also undetectable by search skills like Detect Presence, with Detect Mana being the only way to sense an approaching undead. This left Hikari, Rurika, and Orga a bit out of sorts, while Mia seemed to know the direction the monsters were coming from.

Also, this floor was where I started using a new skill I’d learned. It was the one I’d had my eye on for a while.

NEW

[Conceal Lv. 1]

This was the advanced version of Hide Presence. To put it simply, I could use Hide Presence on myself and Conceal on other people. If the target got too far away from the user (me, in this case), it would stop working, but the greater the skill level, the wider my casting range would get. I thought it might be useful in future dungeon dives, so I wanted to boost my skill level quickly.

“Mia, I know we’ll be relying on you a lot, so please give it your best,” I told her.

“Sure, leave it to me,” she replied enthusiastically.

The twenty-first through twenty-ninth floors, with the exception of the twenty-fifth, would be entirely populated by undead, which meant it would be a very unprofitable run without holy and light magic wielders. Thankfully, Mia and I both qualified.

In preparation for this day, Mia had spent pretty much her every waking moment making holy water. Apparently the way to create it was to cast Blessing on ordinary water, but there was a kind of a success rate to it. You couldn’t always make it with a single cast of the spell.

Incidentally, the members of the holy magic society at school had told Mia that they sometimes made holy water to sell for tuition fees and spending money.

From here on, we’d mainly be using the holy water that Mia made to give our weapons the holy attribute during fights. Unfortunately, the effects of both holy water and Blessing itself only stayed active for a limited time, so you had to time their use carefully. Generally, the most efficient way was to use them when you were about to fight a long chain of monsters, but this would be hard to do since you never knew where the monsters would appear. Thankfully, my automap would ensure that we only used them when we were coming up against a swarm of monsters.

Adventurers wouldn’t usually push themselves to conquer floors that offered so little reward, but many of them did for the sake of reaching the twenty-fifth floor, which was considered a very profitable hunting ground.

I thought back on my earlier conversation with Chris and Seris in the library about light magic.

Light magic users were the rarest of all elemental casters. They did exist, of course. There had even been some in the group I’d fought the shadow wulf with. At the time I hadn’t known the difference between the holy and light attributes, so I’d just gotten the idea in my head that Holy Arrow and Light Arrow were about equally effective.

Chris and Sera explained to me that holy magic was mainly about recovery and support, with relatively few attack spells. It was especially good at defeating undead and undying creatures, but less effective than light magic against dark-attribute monsters. Light magic, meanwhile, had several exceedingly powerful attack spells in its repertoire, and they worked well against dark-attribute and undead monsters. But it was harder to get them to a level where you could use them in combat compared to most spells, so there were very few casters who used it as their main spell pool.

That made me think back on our fight with the shadow wulf on the fifth floor. It had manipulated shadows to attack, which according to Seris would make it a dark-attribute creature. It should have been weak to the light attribute, then, so why had it gone after me and Mia instead of the people who could cast light spells?

“Well, I would expect nobody there used it at a level that was practical in battle... Unless you’re a specialized light magic user, you’ll tend to use other types of magic as your main attack method...” Seris had responded to me.

Had it been targeting Mia and me first because it thought we’d be a bigger threat, then?

“Also, I’ve heard you can’t chain the spells quickly, so perhaps it costs a lot of mana to use them...” Seris kept on talking about light magic. As she spoke, I got the impression that she was frustrated with her own inability to use those spells.

Was that why “light spells” wasn’t on my learnable skill list? I hadn’t had holy magic appear on it either. The only reason I could use it at all was because I’d made a contract with Ciel.

“Mia, could you cast Blessing on us now?” I asked, looking at the map. Of course, I’d checked with her in advance to make sure she had enough mana left. That said, we generally tried to avoid monsters and make our way to the stairs by the shortest route possible.

“Let’s rest here for today,” I said, and the shadewolf sat down to keep watch. Ciel sat on top of him contentedly, looking like she was riding on his back.

“I’ll try it, then.” As we began to make camp, Mia cast the holy spell Sanctuary. It was a spell that created a field of light around a designated spot, and it worked the same way as the monster ward item. It was especially effective against undead, but a little less useful against other kinds of monsters.

“I’m going to cook. Any requests?” I asked. After taking them, I started cooking, and I served up steaks and tomato soup.

“Hot meals in a dungeon... I could get used to this,” Syphon said, and the other members of the Goblin’s Lament nodded firmly in agreement.

“You don’t cook for yourselves?” Mia asked.

Syphon and the others stopped in the middle of eating. “N-No. We tried it early on to save money, but...” Syphon explained that they’d tried to cook in the past, but it had never turned out just right, so they’d opted for rations as the best of bad options. Juno had been especially interested in a lot of things back then, and she’d apparently tried the hardest of anyone to learn.

“Would you like to cook with us while you have the chance, then?” Mia proposed. “Some of us are great cooks. Even I’ve learned how to do it fairly well, and I was completely hopeless at first.”

The person who took the most interest in the offer was Juno.

Starting that day, Juno joined Mia and the others in cooking. They seemed to start her off with soup, specifically ones that used fewer ingredients. She appeared to struggle with cutting the vegetables, and Syphon watched her worriedly at first, but she managed to get through without serious injury.

Early on in her attempts, she’d mess up the seasoning or fail to cook the vegetables evenly because she was cutting them irregularly, but her skills improved every day. Maybe focusing on soup at the start was the right call, or maybe Mia and the others were very good teachers, or maybe Juno was just a really hard worker, but her attempts paid off very soon.

“D-Delicious!” Even Syphon praised the fruits of her labors.

Juno seemed extremely pleased by this, almost as excited as a child. That sight, in turn, brought a smile to Syphon’s lips.

It felt like the experience had brought the women closer together, and that reflected in their relationship from then on. Juno was much older, and so she’d been a bit aloof around them, but lately I’d caught sight of her chatting with Mia and the others quite happily.

“Thank you, Sora. It’s been a while since I last saw Juno that happy,” Syphon told me one night as we were keeping watch together.

“I didn’t do much. It’s the girls you should thank.” I’d only helped the first couple of times. Mia and the others had done most of the teaching.

“You idiot. I can’t just say that to those girls. It would be...embarrassing, y’know?” he replied.

We talked a little more after that, and he said he thought he knew why Juno had taken interest in Mia’s offer.

He explained that they used to spend so much money on food that they sometimes couldn’t afford the equipment and consumable items they needed. Now that they had money to spare, though, she had no reason not to try to learn to cook. It was just a guess, but he couldn’t help but think it when he’d seen how happily she’d smiled when he’d said the food was good.

On our tenth day in the dungeon, we found the steps to the twenty-fifth floor. Given that the floors seemed to get bigger the deeper we got, I felt like we’d made excellent time. The fact that these two floors had a fairly short route available to the steps had contributed as well, though those who assumed the stairs would be farther away might have ended up taking a much longer time. That was one of the really scary things about dungeons. I was truly grateful for my automap.

Aggressively avoiding monster battles had played a big role in our speed as well, as had the fact that we quickly bulldozed any monsters we did come across.

On the twenty-first floor, we’d faced skeletons and the occasional skeleton knights. The twenty-second floor featured zombie wulfs and dark wulfs; the twenty-third floor, ghouls and revenights. The twenty-fourth floor was overrun with goblin zombies and dark goblins.

The zombie-type monsters that had started appearing beginning with the twenty-second floor carried a noxious odor with them, enough that we refused to fight them close up. There were products to mitigate the stench, but it still tended to permeate the closed-in dungeon floors. It almost felt malicious that the smell refused to dissipate like the smoke from our cooking fire did. I often ended up using wind magic to disperse the smell while I was cooking, but I couldn’t do that all the time because of the mana cost. I wanted to still be able to cast spells when we ran into monsters.

This was one of the factors that spurred us to rush forward so we could reach the twenty-fifth floor quickly.

There was one other thing that concerned me, though, and that was the behavior of the undead. They tended to specifically target me and Mia, as if they could identify us as holy magic users. They must have decided Chris and Juno were easy targets too, because they would often ignore the frontline fighters to come straight to the back lines after one of them.

I hadn’t seen that mentioned in the reference materials, so I decided to ask Seris when we got back.

◇◇◇

“Goodbye! We’ll be back again!” Rurika wailed as we left the library behind. The reason for her dramatic reaction was that the library was the only place where she could play with Ciel.

“Ciel’s cute. I get it,” Hikari said.

“Yeah. She sure is,” Rurika responded. There was no sign of her usual vivacious personality now as she trudged along, slumped over.

Hearing all this, a very satisfied Ciel plopped down on Rurika’s head. Rurika would probably have died of joy if she knew she was there, but sadly, she didn’t.

“Shade’s a good boy too. Felt nice to ride him,” Hikari added.

At some point, she’d started calling the shadewolf golem “Shade,” and we’d all picked it up. She’d noticed Ciel riding on Shade’s back now and then, so she’d gotten curious and tried it herself, and she’d apparently really liked it. She’d said that at first it hadn’t been a comfortable seat, but after a few times it seemed like he’d managed to make his back softer. The golem seemed to be able to learn the strangest things.

I also asked Seris about the habits of undead. She claimed that she didn’t know much about them either, but that when they’d gone into the dungeon before, she’d felt like they often made magic users their priority targets. Skeletons didn’t have eyes, and so they were likely attracted to mana.

As we chatted on our way down the stairs, we ran into Joshua a third time.

“Hey, is that you, Sora? No dungeon today?” he asked.

“Yeah, we have to do some prep for the next dive, so we were studying in the library.” The bigger reason we were here was so that Rurika could see Ciel, though. “Good day?” I asked him.

“What makes you think that?” he asked in surprise.

“You just look a lot happier than the last time I saw you.”

The last time I’d seen him was when we’d made it to the twentieth floor together. After that, I’d heard he’d started adventuring with his original party again, and whatever burden he’d been carrying then seemed to have been lifted completely. Now he looked like he had when I’d first met him in the adventurers’ guild and watched the Guardian’s Blade with sparkling eyes.

“I talked it over with everyone, and we decided to get some proper equipment first and take it slower when we try again. For now we’re hitting up the fifth floor to make money while we do some training on the fifteenth through seventeenth floors. Hey, Sora, did you know there’s a fruit called the noblefruit on the fifth floor that sells for an incredible price? We tried some ourselves, and it was delicious!”

Mia smiled in amusement as Joshua described the noblefruit’s deliciousness.

He went on to say that they’d been gathering lots of herbs, selling them to the school, and using the money to buy potions. Since potions were less costly now, a little more saving would let them buy new weapons soon.

He also described how he’d eaten the drossfruit, which looked like the noblefruit, and it had been so awful that it made the usually tasteless rations seem delicious. He added that he never wanted to eat drossfruit again.

He told us that while he was picking noblefruit, he’d gotten friendly with other adventurers who were there for the same reason. Outside of transfiguration, nobody knew how long it took for dungeon resources to replenish themselves, so a lot of info trading went on, mainly about noblefruit growth spots, herb patches, monster sightings, and more.

But, he added, there was one thing to watch out for when you befriended adventurers.

“The ones we’re getting close with have been in the city for quite a while. I know some of the newcomers will be good people like Syphon, but I’ve heard bad things about a lot of the others.”

He explained that some of the newly arrived adventurers would look down on you if they found out you were a student, so they were avoiding people like that. He’d even heard of students being accosted, so it was important to be on your guard.

“Anyway, Sora, let’s adventure together again sometime!” Joshua said, then disappeared into the school building.

◇◇◇

The Sleepless Lake. That was the name given to the twenty-fifth floor by those adventurers lucky enough to reach it. Like the fifth and fifteenth floors, this floor had a day/night cycle.

We came down the stairs and found ourselves already in the forest. Just ahead of us was a trail worn bare by the passage of many footsteps, so our only choice at the start was to follow it.

The way the branches completely covered the sky made it feel like we were walking through a tunnel.

We followed the tree-flanked path until the scene opened up to reveal a huge lake, so large that I couldn’t see the far shore. I couldn’t tell exactly how wide it might be, but it was at least a hundred meters and seemed to get wider as it went. The surface sparkled in the sunlight.

Wonder if there’s any fish in it, I thought, which made me suddenly remember that I hadn’t had any fish since coming to this world. All of a sudden I had a craving for seafood. A wry smile found its way to my face as I realized I’d found a new reason to travel this world. Letting my thoughts be dictated by food... I’m acting like Ciel, I mused.

As if reading my mind, Ciel shot me a grumpy look.

Between the forest and the lake’s shore was a thin band of grassland only ten meters wide. Orcs apparently made settlements in the forests on this floor, and you often encountered them during the day, including some advanced subtypes. I’d heard that orc lords had even appeared on this floor in the past.

But the most famous thing about this floor was that the monsters you encountered switched based on whether it was night or day. At night, you’d meet orc zombies, skeletons, and skeleton knights. The materials said that orc zombies especially grew more numerous at night the more you killed during the day.

There was also a kind of monster that you could encounter at any time of day: the frogmen in the lake. These generally wouldn’t enter the forest; instead they’d attack you if you walked near the lake to avoid it. They had slippery bodies that made it hard to land attacks on them, and they were tougher than orcs. Their extendable tongues, which they’d lash out at you if you got far away, made them particularly fearsome. I think there’s also an attack where they spit water at you?

While I thought about all of this, I realized that I hadn’t called up my automap yet. Normally I would have done it the moment we arrived, but coming right out into the forest had made it slip my mind.

I called up my automap, expanded the view, and used Detect Presence and Detect Mana together. A number of signals appeared—not just monsters, but humans as well. This might have been the first time since I came to Majorica that I’d seen so many human signals on the same floor.

The twenty-fifth floor map also had a somewhat unusual layout, elliptical with pointed ends like a rugby ball. The stairs were set at each end, and it broadened out in the middle.

“Which way should we go, then?” Syphon asked me.

“There’s people in all directions, I guess. We’d have to go deep into the forest to avoid them.”

There were a lot of adventurers who used this floor as a hunting ground, including members of clans like the Guardian’s Blade.

Lots of monsters appeared on this floor, so it was easy to get battle experience. The presence of so many undead also meant it could be a profitable hunting ground, even if you used holy water in abundance. Having to fight large numbers of monsters did come with some risk, but many people still camped here to build up experience and money before heading for the next floor.

You’d need more than just strength and toughness to beat the monsters up ahead, after all—you also had to have the right equipment. It was like how Joshua’s party had struggled against tiger wulfs with their current weapons.

That was why the twenty-fifth floor made for such a popular hunting spot, and why so many adventurers hung out there. There was also a degree of rebound effect from the fact that the twenty-first through twenty-fourth floors were so unprofitable.

“Well, that’s understandable. I’m sure everyone wants to grab a campsite close to the stairs,” Syphon told me.

If you were close to the stairs, then you could easily get away and regroup if something went wrong. Those with more faith in their abilities went deeper; the deeper you went, the more monsters you’d find and the more magistones you’d get.

“Want to try a fight with the frogmen?” Syphon proposed. “Going along the shore might get us to the stairs faster.”

We gave his idea a try, but we decided to go through the forest in the end.

We were strong enough as a group that the frogmen didn’t pose a mortal threat to us, but there were just so many of them. The speed at which they kept swelling out of the lake made me wonder where they all came from.

I looked at my automap and saw that we’d managed to attract almost every frogman in the area. Thankfully, they didn’t follow when we moved away from the lake and into the forest.

“Th-That was...terrible...” Rurika gasped once we were safe.

“Yeah, going through the forest can’t possibly be worse than that,” Syphon responded, panting. Juno had given him an earful for his suggestion that we fight the frogmen.

I’d been wondering why it was called the Sleepless Lake and not the Sleepless Forest, but it looked like I had my answer now. “Well, let’s just try to avoid people as we move along,” I said. “I’d like to see how the monsters appear at night, and once we know that, we can talk floor-clearing strategies.”

According to the reference guides, undead were drawn to living creatures close by, but if there were no living beings around they’d congregate at a certain point—near the stairs to the twenty-sixth floor. This meant that the closer you got to that spot, the more undead you’d fight, until you basically had to tear through a wall of undead to reach the stairs.

Breaking through during the day was another option, but there were lots of orc settlements near the stairs as well. This was a widely known fact, which was why so many adventurers camped out near the entrance to rack up experience instead. Even the people farthest from the stairs never seemed to stray farther than halfway across, according to my automap.

There seemed to be just one mysterious safe zone on the twenty-fifth floor—a small island close to the exit. It was home to a seemingly out-of-place stone statue, and you had to cross a bridge to get to it.

Day two.

The forest was lush and deep, with plenty of layers of branches and leaves to block out the sunlight. However, the trees were still far enough apart that we could walk a few people abreast, which spoke to the sheer size of the trees.

During the day, we walked through the forest, avoiding orc settlements; at night we walked a bit more before using Mia’s Sanctuary spell to rest. The spell was as effective as it had been on previous floors, but it didn’t keep us fully out of battle. There were just so many monsters running around, and the spell wasn’t effective against skeleton knights, which were advanced subtypes of skeletons.

There’d supposedly been skeleton knights on the twenty-first floor, but they appeared so rarely that we hadn’t run into any.

“It feels like each orc settlement has its own ‘turf,’” Rurika said. “They moved so cautiously, like they didn’t want to breach another settlement’s territory.”

“Yeah, I bet they don’t get along,” Hikari agreed.

“Is that why you wanted us walking through the areas where their sets of turf overlap?” I asked.

The two of them nodded in response.

I’d known that some monster species could turn on each other, but I’d never heard of it happening within the same species. Perhaps it was a phenomenon that only occurred in dungeons.

Day three.

In the distance, I heard the sounds of battle between adventurers and orcs. According to the automap, we’d made it about one-third of the way across the field, and the groups of people hunting nearby numbered over fifty each. The number of people allowed in a boss room capped out at thirty, but there were no such restrictions here.

Looking at the signals displayed, it felt like there were three different subgroups. A group to go hunting, a group to stand watch, and a group to rest? I speculated. We decided we should probably form a rotating schedule like that too. The small size of our group meant less time to rest, which was a source of constant worry for me.

I didn’t get tired while I was walking, though, so I was probably better off than the others. As long as we were walking, I was fine.

En route to the twenty-fifth floor, we’d discussed the idea of recruiting comrades from the school or adventurers’ guild to help us reach the twenty-sixth floor, but we’d decided against it in the end, mainly because it was harder to trust your back to an impromptu party.

“These are bad conditions for us, huh?” Juno asked as she set about cooking.

“Yes,” Chris agreed. “We can’t use fire magic so deep in the trees, and the branches get in the way of wind spells and cut their potency in half.”

The fact that they couldn’t participate in combat as much was why they were taking point at camp.

“Sora, don’t you need to rest?” Juno asked me as I joined them. “You’ve been fighting in the orc battles, unlike us.”

“I’m okay. I wasn’t exactly on the front lines, and cooking is a nice change of pace.”

“Hmm, I see...” Juno said knowingly, eyeing me, then Chris.

C’mon, don’t make it sound like more than it is... I silently begged her. Chris also blushed under the weight of her gaze.

“It’s hard to be popular,” Juno laughed merrily in response.

I wondered just what that was supposed to mean.

Day four.

I looked at the automap and saw that we’d made it about halfway at this point. There were no more adventurer signals around us now, so we’d probably end up in more battles ourselves.

“Should we rest until nightfall, then?” I asked.

“We’ve set up traps to keep orcs away, so if we sleep at the center of them we should be able to buy time even if we get attacked.”

At the midpoint between four settlements, I used earth magic to build a house. With help from Rurika, Hikari, and Orga, I also set up noisemakers around us so we’d know if monsters came near, as well as pit traps to slow down any that tried to come after us.

The others were naturally surprised when they saw my house-building magic on display, but they seemed to realize it wasn’t anything special when they saw that it didn’t faze my usual companions.

After a dinner of soup that Juno and Mia had prepared, we rested in preparation for nightfall. I used my Disguise skill on myself and Conceal on everyone else to mask our presences. I didn’t forget to deploy my Shield spell to surround the house as well.

Shade waited outside, ordered to distract any orcs that approached and lead them to another settlement. Incidentally, he was now strong enough to deal with at least five orcs by himself.

Ciel, will you keep watch too? I asked her telepathically.

She responded with a professional nod from her position on Shade’s back.

Counting on you, then. But a lot of fruit and nuts on these trees are poisonous, so don’t eat them, okay? I was sure to warn her. Ciel probably wouldn’t die if she ate them, though... I thought to myself. Come to think of it, I still don’t really understand how spirits’ bodies work. Maybe I should ask Chris for more info sometime.

Things stayed quiet until nightfall, and we managed to get a good rest for the first time in a while.

Day five.

The moment the sun came up, the skeletons and orc zombies disappeared. The faint light streaming in through the dark underbrush felt like rays of hope.

Seeing it, the party around me dropped to the ground or lay down against trees to rest.

“You’re not tired, Sora?” Syphon asked, surprised.

“Of course I’m tired. But scoping out the area around us comes first, right?” I responded while I checked the distribution of monsters on my automap.

In fact, I probably wasn’t as tired as Syphon. I had joined in the undead fight, but I didn’t get tired while I walked, and I recovered faster thanks to Boost Recovery. His party would have benefited from some Canard Buckles, but unfortunately I didn’t have the materials to make one for each of them. I needed more mithril and slime magistones.

Mithril was a rare metal, and not many people hunted slimes. They weren’t strong, but they’d melt off your armor and equipment, which made them tricky to deal with. They were slow, though, so people who couldn’t beat them with magic from a distance tended to just avoid them. For some reason, slime acid attacks didn’t damage human skin, which was quite a mystery.

I did have Mia give a Canard Buckle to Juno with the explanation that it would help her recover from exhaustion.

“I think there’s an orc settlement close by, so we should probably get moving. Or should we attack the settlement and take it out?” I asked. “If we do, we’ll get to sleep until night, at least.”

I checked the automap and saw over fifty monster signals relatively close by. The monsters on this floor would revive at sunrise the next day even if we beat them. They also revived in predetermined places, with orcs starting the new day in the settlements they’d previously lived in.

In general, that was how the flow of time worked on this floor. The one exception was that the locations of settlements would change when a transfiguration happened, and the monster spawn points would alter accordingly.

“No, if we’re going to take a settlement, we should do it when we’re a bit closer to the stairs,” Syphon advised. “Killing too many orcs seems to get us more powerful and plentiful undead at night.”

“Then, sorry to say it while you’re tired, but let’s get moving. The orcs will still be in their settlements at the moment, so we aren’t really in danger of meeting any, and we’re a bit too close to a settlement now.”

I led everyone to a safe zone, where we enjoyed breakfast and discussed what to do next.

Day six.

“I didn’t know there’d be an orc general in that settlement,” Rurika said, sheathing her sword and rubbing her arms.

“There were so many of them. It was annoying,” Sera agreed, also out of breath.

“Yeah. Archers and mages too. But wasn’t that golem tough?” Syphon said, watching Shade in awe.

“You’re right. He’s the reason I was able to keep them at bay even by myself.” Gytz, who had tanked the majority of the attacks from the general and his crew, nodded in agreement.

Shade was powerful enough to beat a goblin king solo, on top of his shadow attacks, so it was clear at a glance how strong he was. In this battle, though, he’d managed to defeat the general’s entire force by himself while Gytz drew their attention. We’d cleared out the other orcs in the meantime.

Still, despite Shade’s incredible contributions, the situation had been fairly touch and go. If things had gone on too much longer, his mana would have run out entirely, both from his use of his special abilities and from the depletion of mana that came with every hit he took. The only reason he looked uninjured now was because his regenerative function was constantly on.

I recharged him with Mana Enchant, then began preparing dinner. Led on by the smell, the people lying down started to sit up. I doled out portions and we rested a while.

From what I could see, the stairs were only a half-day walk away from our current location, but there was a large orc village blocking our way there as well. As we’d approached the stairs, we’d seen fewer orc settlements, but the ones we did see seemed to be getting larger.

The settlement we’d cleared out today had contained over a hundred orcs, and we’d only stood a chance because of Chris and Juno’s spells. Ironically, larger settlements meant fewer trees, which made wind magic more powerful, and they could even use fire magic if they were careful. Chris’s spirit spells were especially overpowered, and I felt like she’d taken out at least half the orcs by herself.

That said, it ran the risk of making her a target too. Even orcs could tell who the real threat in a party was. Of course, her longtime companion Rurika didn’t let a single orc come near Chris.

“Let’s rest until nightfall, then. Feels like my body’s crying out in pain,” Syphon said.

Everyone nodded in agreement.

I wasn’t eager to sleep in a house that orcs had lived in, so I found us a nice, sunny spot, leveled it with earth magic, and then laid out a tarp to rest. We’d spent so much time in a dark forest that everybody seemed to want to rest in the warm sunlight just as much as I did. I ordered Shade to keep an eye out around us, then lay down and closed my eyes like the others.

Just before sundown, we started walking again.

We’d had our first nice long rest in a while, but it didn’t feel like we were fully recovered. The others didn’t complain about it, but I could tell by paying attention to their movements.

“Want to try out that ‘safe zone’?” Mia asked.

“Yeah. It’s around sunset, and the gap will come soon,” I said.

“The gap” was what we called the moments between day and night when the monsters switched over. During that time, there was a brief period when the orcs slowed down. We’d also learned that there was a significant stretch between the disappearance of the orcs and the appearance of the undead when the only monsters on the floor would be the frogmen. You could cover quite a lot of ground in that time.

“Looks like it worked.” Heaving for breath, I reached the other side of the bridge and looked back. All that running had worn down my stamina a lot, but my stats and skills had carried me through.

“But it’s impressive. The monsters really are staying away,” Syphon said, looking at the other side of the bridge.

The undead had gathered at the entrance to the bridge, but none of them had tried to cross it. The frogmen also congregated around the island, eyes poking out of the water and watching us. It was kind of eerie, but they didn’t try to get closer.

Actually, one frogman did...but it was promptly annihilated, letting out its hideous death rattle.

“I’m going to have nightmares about that,” Rurika shuddered.

“Y-Yeah,” Chris said, turning pale.

“So loud,” Hikari said, watching with a frown.

When they saw the death of their comrade, the frogmen began to back away from the island, and they eventually disappeared from view entirely. The same went for the skeletons and other undead, who withdrew from their position around the bridge and now returned to the forest.

Once they were gone, I looked back up at the island...more precisely, at the statue. It seemed about...three meters tall, including the pedestal? It depicted a woman in an extravagant dress, thrusting a staff in her right hand forward as if to show us the way. It was pointing right to the twenty-sixth floor stairway.

“Do you think something sad happened to her?” Juno asked.

Syphon had the opposite interpretation. “She looks angry to me.”

Everyone seemed to read different emotions on the statue’s face. The dungeon reference guide had even alluded to this, describing it as a mysterious statue whose expression seemed to change based on the onlooker.

Incidentally, it looked to me like the woman was pleading for help.

Day seven.

We weren’t sure if the island would be safe during the day as well, but we waited until noon and monsters still didn’t approach us. More precisely, orcs congregated at the bridge, and frogmen did surround the island, but it went the same way as the night before. One monster—this time an orc—tried to step onto the bridge but was annihilated with a death rattle, after which the other monsters left.

Do frogmen’s memories reset when the sun comes up? Or was that a different group than the ones that watched us last night? There was no way of knowing, but getting to rest without having to worry was a major gift for us.

“It’s otherworldly, isn’t it?” Mia breathed.

“Yeah, it’s beautiful,” Chris agreed.

The two girls sat side by side, gazing at the center of the island. It was blooming with beautiful flowers, so that if you kept your gaze focused on just that spot, you could easily forget you were in a dungeon. The wind blew by, scattering the petals, and Sera let out a rare expression of girlish delight at the sight. When she saw that I’d noticed, she blushed a deep red.

I walked away from the group and started a fire for soup. Then, at the request of Hikari and the others, I took some stall food out of my Item Box. Rurika, Chris, and Syphon’s party hadn’t been to Frieren, so I gave them some of the food I’d bought at stalls there. They all enjoyed it, and Mia seemed particularly delighted to eat food from back home.

“Back when I was just starting out, I heard that just knowing how to use dimension spells would get high-rank adventurers begging for you to join their party. I had my doubts at the time, but seeing what you can do makes me a believer,” Syphon said.

“You guys have never met someone who uses dimension spells?”

“’Fraid not, though maybe they all just hid it.”

We spent the rest of the day talking about our travels and time as adventurers.

Day eight.

We woke up in the middle of the night, had a meal, then started heading toward the stairs to the twenty-sixth floor. At sunset the day before, the skeletons had gathered around the island again, but once again, one died trying to cross and then the rest dispersed. Not a single frogman had approached the island this time.

We crossed the bridge and began our flight through the forest. Detect Mana told me that monsters were heading in our direction, but undead tended to move slowly, so the only monsters that could keep up were the skeleton knights.

“No problem,” Sera boasted, and she smashed through the skeleton knights with her axes, which had been given the holy attribute through Mia’s Blessing. The monsters dropped magistones, but we ignored them and pressed on forward. If we stopped to pick them up, even the slow-moving skeletons and orc zombies might catch up to us.

You might wonder, what was the point of using Blessing if we weren’t going to pick up the magistones? The truth was, it still allowed Sera to beat them faster. Sera’s and Rurika’s mithril weapons were also taking advantage of my Mana Enchant, which gave them incredible cutting power. However, because of MP limitations, theirs were the only ones that had it.

That let us reach the final settlement—the last stop before the stairs—before dawn.

There, I set a lot of traps on the stair-facing side before we entered the forest again, and as the sun came up we heard the angry shouts of orcs behind us. Thankfully, we managed to reach the stairs before any of them caught us.

Interlude 4

“Let’s take a break for now.”

After we’d defeated all the monsters around us, half the group took a seat while the other half stayed on the lookout. Monsters could spawn in this dungeon really suddenly, and only an amateur would let their guard down after seemingly slaying all of them.

That said...

I glared over at the people the man in black had brought with him. The trap specialists were fine enough, but everyone else, including the man in black himself, was too damn weak. I’d even say they were holding us back, but I’d just have to suck it up. The man in black had demanded that they be there.

Anyway, if things ever really got dangerous, we could always ditch them. I’d have hated to lose out on the payday, but we’d made a bundle already.

The trap specialists, for their part, were decent enough fighters, and they were skilled enough that they could at least defend themselves without our help. The best part, though, was their attitude: They knew the pecking order and fawned before us like they were supposed to. Any praise we threw their way had them on cloud nine, and they looked at us with respect in their eyes.

Some of them had even come to talk to us behind the man in black’s back, asking if there was any way they could join us.

“So, how far down are we going?” I asked the man in black.

“Let’s see,” he said in his usual measured way. “I’d like to get a few lich magistones on the twenty-eighth floor. Can you handle that?” He offered me a cup of water as he asked. I was just feeling thirsty anyway, so I took it.

The only decent thing about this guy was his consideration about stuff like this. He was a drag, but at least he had his priorities straight. I looked around and saw the rest of his companions giving out drinks too with their heads bowed.

Liches used magic and were the trickiest undead to deal with, but the man in black had said he’d got some magic items that could counteract their spells, so I figured it’d be fine. “Sure. Let’s hunt liches, then,” I said.

My companions agreed with confident smiles.

Liches were tough undead, to be sure, but they couldn’t hold a candle to us.

It turned out they weren’t the ones we should’ve been watching out for.

We beat a ton of liches on the twenty-eighth floor and got a bunch of magistones. Then, during one of our breaks, I dozed off after drinking the water the man in black gave me.

I woke up to find myself lying face down on the ground. I managed to get my head turned and saw my partymates in the same position.

“I see it finally took effect. Perhaps their muscleheaded nature slowed its course,” the man in black said, and the others around him laughed. “Now they’ll obey my every command. The target won’t be here for a while yet, so let’s find a good staging ground.”

The man in black clapped his hands, and my body moved on its own. Baffled by what was happening, I met the man in black’s eyes for a second, but he didn’t say anything. He just kept smiling at me like it was funny or something.

I knew that he’d set me up, though. I tried to send my fist into his face, but my body wouldn’t do what I told it to.

“We’ll arrive at the staging area soon. Rest well until then.”

I felt myself sinking again, like I really was falling asleep. I tried to fight it, shouting angrily in my mind. You’ll pay for this!

I shouted that over and over again, but eventually everything went dark.

Chapter 6

“Oh, Sora. I heard that you beat the twenty-fifth floor?”

“Hey, Layla. It’s been a while.”

I was at the adventurer course looking through reference materials about the next floor when I saw Layla for the first time in a while.

“How can you sound so casual about it?” she asked, exasperated. “Honestly, I hear you tried it with only eleven people? How reckless can you be? I would have helped you if you’d asked!”

“You just seemed so busy. And we would’ve turned back if it’d seemed too hard.”

“Honestly. I know you’re very capable, but you shouldn’t push yourself so hard. Especially on a floor that’s famous for having large monster swarms.”

Layla was right, of course. A hundred regular monsters could sometimes be more dangerous than one advanced subtype—the stampede was a good example.

“Well, anyway, does that mean you’ll be resting for a while, Sora?”

“Yeah, we’re all pretty darn tired after all that. We’ll take a rest before we try to hit the next floor,” I said, even though at least two of my comrades had enough energy to be taking part in mock duels at this very moment. Not that I was one to talk, as I was planning to hit a few boss rooms of my own. “How about you guys?” I asked her.

“We’re currently planning to head down in two days. Do you think you’d, er, like to go out with us somewhere today? W-We were thinking of taking a breather.”

Apparently the Bloody Rose and their companions heading to the twenty-eighth floor were going to take some time in town after class. The theoretical idea was to do last-minute checks of item shops inventories and so on, but it was really more about the bonding experience.

“Are you sure we wouldn’t be an imposition, since we’re not part of your dive?”

“Not at all,” she said. “There are quite a few people who want to talk to your party, you know? Not only are you moving through the dungeon so fast, you also attracted a lot of attention for reforming Mr. Helio’s students the way you did.”

Come to think of it, I’d noticed a lot of people around school respectfully calling Sera “big sis.”

After that, we parted ways, with an agreement to meet up at the school gate that afternoon.

“N-Nice to meet you. I’m Toth, leader of the Thousand Golds.”

A group of six students—the Thousand Golds party, apparently—stood in front of the gate together with the Bloody Rose members. One of them, Toth, was an attractive blond-haired, blue-eyed young man, who introduced himself and then his comrades.

The moment Hikari set eyes on Toth, she just breathed the word “Invisible,” which sent a jolt through Toth and his comrades.

“Th-That’s true. I suppose I am,” Toth muttered in response, cringing as if in physical pain.

The others desperately tried to reassure Toth, but he looked inconsolable—the idea that he seemed invisible must have been a sore spot for him. I hadn’t said it out loud, but that had been my first impression of him too.

“R-Really, she’s just a child. Please, Toth, don’t take her too seriously,” Layla added to the chorus. “C-Come on, Hikari. You really should apologize.”

Hikari seemed confused, though. “Huh? Why’s he sad about a compliment?”

Her response was so unexpected that even Toth looked up in surprise. The rest of us stared at Hikari in confusion.

“Hikari, what do you mean by that?” I asked.

“Being invisible means enemies don’t see you. Scouts are important. You’re a natural,” she said.

As alien as it was to the rest of us, apparently Hikari thought being “invisible” was a good thing.

I decided to check with Detect Presence, and Toth’s signal did indeed seem quite faint. I wondered if he might unconsciously be using a skill like Hide Presence. If not, then maybe it really was natural talent.

With Toth’s spirits now restored, we headed off on our outing. We’d block traffic if we stood in front of the gate for too long anyway.

“Heh, missing Hikari?” Layla teased me as I looked out the window.

There were four people eating on the terrace nearby: Toth, Hikari, Rurika, and Talia—the ones who specialized in scouting and searching. I didn’t know what they were talking about, but Toth seemed to be listening very intently to what the women had to say.

Still, I couldn’t help but worry. Hikari and Talia tended to be taciturn and blunt, and though Rurika’s explanations sounded helpful on the surface, they were sometimes too vague. She did her best to be kind, but she appealed to instinct too much. I remembered there were times when I had no idea what she was trying to explain.

The combination of three pretty girls and one young princeling—and the fact that they were clearly Magius students—also attracted attention. Everyone who passed by tended to cast at least one glance their way.

“Did you find the items you were looking for?” I asked Layla, changing the subject.

“Yes. We managed to get the status effect recovery items we need, so that should be everything.”

“Poison, paralysis, petrification, and curse... Only the petrification ones were cheap, I see. Does that make you think they’re low-quality?”

“They may be. There haven’t been any reports of petrification in this dungeon so far, so I wouldn’t expect them to stock high-quality ones. I’ve also heard that the petrification remedy itself is quite hard to create,” she replied.

I remembered reading something along those lines in the reference materials. You could get poison and paralysis status effects from traps, and archer-type monsters sometimes coated their arrows in it. I remembered the kobold archers on the twentieth-floor boss room using poison-tipped arrows and the orc archers on the twenty-fifth floor using poison and paralysis ones.

Curse was employed by undead, and I recalled reading that the liches on the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth floors used especially powerful curse attacks. I’d also read about sightings of elder liches on the twenty-ninth floor. Holy water could remove the curse effect, though, and you could also use Blessing to protect yourself in advance.

“Are you stocked up on healing and mana potions?” I asked her. “I’ve finally gone through all the herbs I picked on the fifth floor, so I’ve got some to spare if you need them.”

“Would you be so kind? We couldn’t get any very effective ones.” Layla paid me and I gave her the potions in question. “And I really wish I could’ve said it sooner, but thank you.”

I didn’t know what she was talking about, so she explained.

“Both for helping with Joshua’s party and for finding those herbs and fruits on the fifth floor. It’s given people a chance to make money without going to the lower dungeon floors, which means fewer people are pushing themselves past their limits.”

She explained that their visit to Frieren had made her realize the importance of experiencing the outdoorsy atmosphere of the fifth and fifteenth floors. Many people, especially those who were born in this city, were so used to the labyrinths they couldn’t handle the special fields. This meant that very few people had ever explored them thoroughly, and nobody had even thought of foraging the fruit to make money before.

I didn’t know what to say to this, so I just smiled uncomfortably. I’d had to pick herbs to make my own potions, but I probably never would’ve thought to search the trees so closely if not for Ciel.

I glanced over and saw Ciel beaming with pride. I think you just wanted to eat, though...

We then parted ways with Layla’s group and stopped by the armor shops to ask for repairs.

Layla had said they were heading to the twenty-seventh floor this time. If they reached the twenty-eighth they’d check it out—specifically, they’d get a taste of what fighting the monsters there was like and then return. This was a common style, to do a little fighting with the monsters on the next floor so you could concoct strategies for beating them or determine if they were still too much for you. Their school group would be partnering with a professional adventurer party for this dive too.

Layla seemed disappointed that we hadn’t finished the twenty-fifth floor just a little earlier so that we could have joined forces.

◇◇◇

We soon headed to the twenty-sixth floor with Syphon’s party, as scheduled. As usual, it was pitch-black, and I made my way along using my Night Vision skill. A look at the automap showed that the floor was quite large, with the winding paths you’d expect from a labyrinth, so it would be tough to make progress.

“Could you wait a minute?” Even a casual glance at the map revealed a lot of dead ends, so I decided it might be best to plan the full route in advance. Using Parallel Thinking to solve the maze, I realized you could use up a lot of unneeded effort on this floor if you didn’t know the layout in advance. You could follow a single long path that suddenly split into three, with each of them leading to dead ends. One bad route choice could lead you to waste an entire day.

It felt almost malicious. I was pretty sure the previous layouts hadn’t been this cruel.

I’d previously assumed that the reason other clans had gotten stalled on this floor while the Guardian’s Blade had finished it involved a significant difference in skill, but now I realized there might have been other factors in play.

It took me almost thirty minutes to solve the labyrinth in my head.

“Are you all right? You’re sweating,” Mia said, wiping my brow for me.

“I’m fine,” I told her. “I just didn’t think I’d be solving maze puzzles in a place like this. Anyway, let’s get going.”

At this, Hikari, who’d been playing with Shade, ran up to join us again.

I could see signals on the map wandering down the dead-end routes, but they’d just have to do their best. We had no way to warn them.

“Sora, don’t push yourself too hard. We can cook if it comes to it,” Chris said worriedly.

“That’s right. No need to take everything on yourself, master,” Sera added.

“Heh. Sera, you want to cook too, then?” Rurika teased Sera, but she joined them in telling me to take a break while they cooked.

The gentle conversation soothed my exhausted heart. I didn’t get physically tired from walking, but I could tell it took a mental toll.

When Mia handed me my food, I noticed her wrist was wrapped in a cloth I didn’t recognize.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Oh, Juno made them for us a while back. Remember how we taught her how to cook? It was like a kind of thank-you gift. I can’t believe you didn’t notice, Sora.”

“I got one too, master,” Hikari said, showing me.

“Heh, yes. She made one for each of us. I wish you’d noticed sooner, though. I know you’ve been busy with the dive, but still...” Chris teased me. It seemed Juno had given one to each of the girls. “Seris is worried too, you know? She doesn’t want you working too hard on her behalf.”

It was true that I’d been so focused on the dungeon lately that I hadn’t had much time to spend socializing with the others. I decided to be more careful about how I spent my next day off.

On our tenth day of walking, we finally reached the twenty-seventh floor.

“What do we do now? Keep walking, or go back?” Syphon asked.

I thought it over. If things went like they had in the past, I might have decided to keep moving to the thirtieth floor, but given how long the twenty-sixth floor had taken us, that could take up to fifty days, depending on where the stairs ended up. However, if we went down as far as the twenty-eighth floor, it might take just as long to get back to the twenty-sixth floor entrance.

Of course, I remembered the route we’d taken to some extent, and knowing exactly how long it would take to get back would make it easier to ration our time and stamina, the latter of which was a major concern to the others.

Our party could deal with these time-consuming dungeons thanks to my automap and Item Box, but most people would probably have had to return after finishing each floor.

Thankfully, we always had our Returner Stones if we needed a quick escape.

“Should we get a look at the twenty-seventh floor layout before we decide?” I asked. “The monsters there are all ones we’ve fought before, so at least combat-wise, it shouldn’t be an issue.”

The others agreed to head to the twenty-seventh floor first to check it out.

If Layla and the others are on the way back, we might run into them too, I thought. I brought up my automap and used Detect Presence to check, but I didn’t see anyone. Does that mean they made it to the twenty-eighth floor?

Then I used Detect Mana to check on the positions of the monsters. One of the clearly shown signals on the automap concerned me—an unstable signal, weak enough that it could go out at any second. It was alone, and based on how it was moving, it seemed to be coming toward us.

“There’s a signal I’m worried about. What do you think?” I explained what I’d seen on my automap to the others.

“It’s weird that it’s alone. When do you usually see weak signals like that?” Syphon asked, stroking his chin.

“For monsters, when they’re weakened. For humans...sometimes when they’re using magic items?” I honestly couldn’t say for sure. The signal hadn’t appeared when I’d used Detect Presence, so if it were a person, the only thing I could tell was that they had a skill like Hide Presence.

“It might be best to check on it,” Syphon proposed. “I hate to say it, but it could be a sign of something gone wrong.” The fact that the signal was by itself suggested a party might have been annihilated and the only survivor was now heading for the stairs.

“We’ve got to save them, then!” Mia ran off first, with the rest of us falling in after her.

One long trek and several monster battles later, we found...one adventurer? He was wearing a hooded cape and was coming toward us with unsteady steps. I looked closer and saw that the cape looked torn, with a wet patch in the ripped spot.

The adventurer stumbled and began to collapse, but Sera managed to catch him before he hit the ground.

“It’s Toth,” Sera said as she peered under the hood.

Indeed, it was the leader of the Thousand Golds, whom we’d met before we entered the dungeon.

“That wound looks bad. Sera, hold him up,” Mia requested, then cast Heal.

The amount of blood on the cloak made it hard to tell if the wound had completely closed, so I used Cleanse to clean him up and confirm it. Still, it looked bad enough that I was ready to use my all-purpose hematopoietic, but Toth opened his eyes before I could.

“Wh-Where am I?” he asked.

“You’re on the twenty-seventh floor of the dungeon. Do you know who we are?”

“You’re...Sora, Hikari, and Rurika, right?” He seemed dazed, and his eyes wouldn’t quite focus. Then he seemed to remember something. “That’s right! Please, the Bloody Rose...the Thousand Golds...attacked...on the twenty-eighth floor...” That was all he could manage before he passed out again.

I appraised Toth and saw that his status was “Weak/Sleep Deprived.” A closer look revealed dark circles under his eyes; he must have come all this way without rest. I also detected mana from his cape, and appraising it revealed that it was enchanted with an effect similar to Hide Presence.

“I don’t know what might have happened, but if Layla and the others are in trouble, we have to save them. It’s just...” I looked over at Toth. If he’d been awake, we could have at least gotten him out with a Returner Stone, but unfortunately, that wasn’t an option while he was unconscious.

To use a Returner Stone’s effects on someone else, they had to be registered with your party when you entered the dungeon. That meant Syphon’s party couldn’t use one to take him back with them.

Still, there was no telling how long it would take Toth to wake up, and it would be hard to get to the twenty-eighth floor if we took him with us. He was weak enough that there was no way he’d stay conscious for long, and if things were dangerous on the twenty-eighth floor right now, venturing down there with a vulnerable person to protect was far too risky. I felt bad saying it, but carrying him around would slow us down too much.

“Syphon, what do you think we should do?” I asked the more experienced man.

He glanced around, then spoke plainly. “I think we should go back. I know it’s cold, but my party’s safety comes first. I can’t put them in danger to save people we barely know.”

As heartless as it sounded, I could definitely understand. Even for the rest of us, if it had just been the Thousand Golds in trouble... We might wrestle with our consciences, but we’d probably make the same decision in the end. Maybe that meant valuing some lives over others, but this was a world where you had to make compromises.

However, the involvement of the Bloody Rose made things tricky. Obviously, my own party mattered more to me in strict terms, but...

“I think...I want to go save them,” I decided. “I know it’s selfish, but...”

“Sora, enough,” Mia scolded me. “You’re not the only one who wants to save them.”

“Yeah, I’ll go with master,” Hikari said.

“Same here,” Sera added. “Layla’s group has always been nice to me.”

“If Sera’s going, I am too,” Rurika chimed in. “I haven’t known Layla and their party for long, but they’ve been very kind to us at school.”

“Yeah, I think so too,” Chris agreed.

I understood Mia and the others, but Rurika and Chris wanting to join us as well... Actually, knowing them, maybe it’s not so surprising.

Meanwhile, Syphon and the others looked at each other uncertainly.

“I know splitting the party can be dangerous, but do you guys mind taking Toth back?” I asked him, knowing it was a bit reckless given the levels involved. “I think you can handle it, and you can report to the guild what’s going on.”

It took us a while to work out the details, but Orga and Jinn assured us that they remembered the way back, so we wound up deciding to have Syphon’s party take Toth out of the dungeon.

“Syphon, take this,” I said as we were about to part ways.

“Returner Stones and a bag of holding?”

“Use them if things get dicey. The most important thing is the safety of the Gob—of your party. I also stuck a universal hematopoietic in the bag. Have Toth drink it once he’s awake.” I’d filled the bag with consumables like food and healing potions and given them two Returner Stones so that when Toth woke up, both he and their party could use one and escape. That would mean no Returner Stones for us, but we could always press on to the thirtieth floor if we had to.

“We already have one, so you can take this back.” Syphon took just one of the Returner Stones and the bag of holding and his party took off running for the twenty-sixth floor, Gytz carrying the unconscious Toth on his back.

Sometimes you couldn’t save everyone, even if you really wanted to. If they ended up abandoning Toth, that would be my responsibility as the person who had proposed splitting the party. If it all worked out, though, everyone would get out safely.

I watched them go, then activated the Golem Core with Mana Enchant and checked my automap carefully. This floor looked big, but not as complex as the twenty-sixth floor had been. We might be able to get through it faster.

“I think we’d better pick up the pace. Mia and Chris, can you ride Shade?” They’d gained endurance from leveling up, but they were still weaker than the other members of the party. If we were going to prioritize speed, it was probably faster to have Shade carry them. Hikari normally rode around on him, so I figured adding one more person shouldn’t make that much of a difference.

“Hold on tight, you two. Shade, can you make sure they don’t fall off?” I asked. He extended his shadows to bind the two of them in place, then nodded to me.

“Are you okay running, Sora? You’re the one who knows the way,” Rurika laughed. “You’d better take us in the right direction.”

I shot her an awkward smile in response. It was true that my preternatural endurance wouldn’t apply when I was running, but increasing my Walking level had still boosted my stats.

I should also change my job from Alchemist to Scout, I decided. I’d thought about taking a warrior-type job to improve my stamina, but I opted for Scout for the SP and speed bonuses instead. I didn’t know exactly what we’d find on the twenty-eighth floor, so the Scout job, with its bonuses to scanning and detecting enemies, seemed best.

It was five days later that we arrived on the twenty-eighth floor, and I think I’d held up as well as could be expected. I felt like I was about to collapse, but I couldn’t afford to look weak in front of the others.

What felt stranger to me was that the other runners looked unbothered. My Walking level was higher than the regular level of everyone but Sera, but could my stats still be lower than theirs? I seemed faster and stronger when we did mock battles, though, so it looked like that wasn’t the case...

“Your running form is pretty sloppy, Sora. Maybe I should train you when we get back,” Rurika offered.

“I got it, master. I’ll teach you,” Hikari proposed.

Apparently, the problem was with how I ran.

That was only the start of the problems, though. The moment we entered the twenty-eighth floor, Shade reverted to his Golem Core.

“The mana here feels unstable,” Chris said. I looked back at her and saw that she’d returned to her silver-haired, silver-eyed elf form.

“Hey, Chris. It looks like your magic item isn’t working right either,” I told her.

Chris seemed to realize it too, just as I said it. She tried using her disguise spell, but that didn’t seem to last either. The mana had also drained out of our mana-enchanted mithril swords, though the spell-enchanted throwing weapons seemed to still be functional.

“We can’t let the Bloody Rose see you like this,” I said worriedly.

“It’s all right. I’ll try hiding my ears with my hair like Seris does. And Sera mentioned you used something to change your hair color before. Do you still have it?” I did, as a matter of fact, so I handed it to Chris, who changed her hair color, brushed her hair over her ears, and pulled her hood low over her face. “I’ll put my hood on too, though I might look a little bit suspicious...”

Surprisingly few people wore hoods in the dungeon, it was true.

“Chris, are you okay?” Rurika asked worriedly.

“Yeah, Rurika, I am,” Chris responded with a smile. “Saving lives is more important than protecting my identity.”

I understood why Rurika was worried. Seris had mentioned that elves were a rare sight in the world these days. She herself hadn’t met one in several decades, at least, and the slave traders had said something along the same lines.

“I’m ready, Sora. Let’s go,” Chris said.

I called up my automap, but the image was blurred and full of static. I continued channeling mana into it, and it gradually stabilized until I could see the floor’s layout. Maintaining this level of clarity would be difficult, though.

I quickly started memorizing the route. I saw human signals by the map’s upper-left outer wall and monster signals moving in that direction, as well as another group of humans behind the monsters. Maybe they’re trying to save the fleeing people? I didn’t know the situation, but if two groups were showing up, one of them had to be Layla’s party.

There was just one thing that worried me. I’d thought the monsters on this floor were supposed to be liches, but for some reason, the monster signals had appeared in response to Detect Presence. Usually it’s Detect Mana that reveals undead signals...

I thought it over a bit longer, but I eventually shook my head and dismissed it. I wasn’t going to figure it out now, and it was more important to keep moving.

With that, we took off through the mana-distorting maze.

◇Layla’s Perspective 1

We’d entered the twenty-eighth floor and had begun to feel out the strength of the monsters there when we happened upon an injured man. He explained that his party had been ambushed by monsters and that he’d come a long way looking for help.

We debated our choices, and since we’d been more than a match for the monsters on this floor so far, we ended up deciding to help him.

However... I soon realized that we’d made a terrible mistake.

The man did indeed lead us to a group of injured people, but as we approached, we realized that something about them was off. The adventurers we’d partnered with seemed to notice it as well, and they paused.

Then it happened.

We heard a scream behind us, turned around, and saw the injured man attacking the people at the rear of our party. I reached for my sword to go help, but the injured men in front of us rushed to attack us. Their party was about the same size as ours, and though there was something awkward about their movements, they were impressive fighters.

Then, another strange thing happened. The whole dungeon shook, quaking powerfully enough to throw all of us off of our feet. The shaking went on for a while, but it trailed off into a bestial howl and some kind of...footsteps?

These were unthinkable sounds for this particular floor. The native monsters were liches, which chanted spells, but they didn’t howl. They floated through the air as well, rather than making footsteps.

“Run! Withdraw! Run!”

I didn’t know who that cry came from, but I did know one thing—something was coming at us from down that hall. My instinct was screaming at me to get away at once.

I shoved aside the attacker in front of me and pushed through the fray to aid my comrades fighting around me. We had just managed to throw our attackers off when suddenly...

“Lady Layla!” Casey cried out, and I felt myself go flying.

I’d been hit hard, but it was painful and nothing more. When I sat up, I saw Casey collapsed in front of me.

“Case?!” I cried. I moved to help her up, but something seemed off. She felt...heavy? I looked and saw a gray tint overtaking her hands and feet. There was sweat on her brow, and she seemed to be in pain. “Case?!” I cried again.

Her eyes opened slightly in response to my call. “Lady Layla, run. Leave m...” Her voice died halfway. She seemed to have lost consciousness.

That was when I realized that Casey had saved me. I’d been safe because she’d covered for me.

“Miss Layla, we have to go,” shouted Walt, the head of the adventurers we’d partnered with. “Hurry! That’s...a cockatrice!”

Spurred on by his call, I started running as fast as I could, holding Casey in my arms. I could hear the sounds of fighting behind us, but I had no time to look back. Walt kept shouting that we had to keep moving.

The next time we had a chance to stop, I found that I’d completely lost my bearings. As we took stock of the missing and injured, I realized we were short quite a few adventurers. Walt explained that some had stayed behind to help us get away, and I felt guilt sink into the pit of my stomach.

“It’s nothing for you to worry about, miss,” Walt said with a reassuring smile. “They didn’t sacrifice themselves to protect you because you’re the lord’s daughter. They were motivated by their own sense of honor, fighting to protect a young person with a future.” There was indeed pride in his expression, but at the same time there was a sense of mourning.

I later learned that it wasn’t just Casey who’d been hit with the petrification effect, but a member of Toth’s party as well as six adventurers from Walt’s. Two of them had been cured with the petrification remedies, and two more by the holy magic spell Recovery. The other four, including Casey, we hadn’t managed to cure.

We immediately tried to use Returner Stones to escape, but we discovered that they didn’t work.

“What’s going on?” Walt whispered, speaking for everyone present.

Through a little more testing, we learned that all of our magic items had been rendered inert and that spells were acting unstably as well. We felt lost about what to do at this point, but every time we heard the monsters nearby, we dutifully moved away again. I wished we could let Casey and the others rest, but we couldn’t afford to.

We tried to find our way back to the twenty-seventh floor stairs, but failed. A member of Walt’s party said that he didn’t think we’d gotten lost; rather, the maze had undergone a transfiguration. Walt suggested it might be a kind of trap, though he couldn’t be sure.

“I remember reading something in some old reference materials about traps that can force a transfiguration. I’ve never heard of it making new monsters appear, though.”

It seemed unbelievable to me, but then, the labyrinths were full of mysteries, and it wouldn’t have been the first unthinkable thing I’d encountered here in recent months. Besides, I’d seen the out-of-place monsters with my own eyes.

After that, all I could do was take care of Casey as she grew weaker and weaker. I was desperate to help, but there was nothing I could do. Tricia’s holy spell, Recovery, would ease the pain, at least for a while, but nothing more.

It was during all this that Toth approached Walt and me, saying that he would go to find help. We tried to stop him, but we were won over by his passion and let him go. A selfish part of me quietly wanted him to go—after all, if Toth brought back help, we might be able to save Casey. Another part of me berated myself for taking advantage of his concern for his own colleagues.

Toth put on the magic cloak Walt gave him and ran off. It wouldn’t work on this floor, but it might be useful if he could make it back to the twenty-seventh. I tried to give him a Returner Stone as well, but he refused to take it, in case it might eventually become usable for us.

From there, we resumed our flight, fighting groups of monsters as necessity demanded. Luckily, there were no cockatrices among them.

But as the days passed, I began to feel despair creeping over us.

It was the Thousand Golds who showed the first signs of losing heart. Walt and the others tried to comfort them, but morale was clearly growing worse every day. I tried to talk to them as well, but looking into their eyes, racked by despair and filled with tears, made me start to think that it would be easier just to give up.

I will bear it, though. There are people who have stood up in more hopeless situations, so I won’t give up to the very, very end. Until the moment my life gives out.

Then, as if to mock my renewed determination, that monster—the cockatrice—appeared before us once again. The hideous hellspawn with its petrification breath. The disgusting creature that had done that to Casey.

The cockatrice, which seemed to be acting as leader of this particular band, remained in place while the monsters it had come with fell upon us. Among them were orcs and ogres, as well as spyder-type monsters and others that had never before been recorded in this dungeon.

“Tricia, take this.” I gave her the Returner Stone and faced down the monsters with Walt.

So that I can do whatever’s in my power...to keep us going even a little longer...

◇◇◇

I held my breath, pressed up against the wall, and peered ahead into the passage. About a dozen adventurers were walking in a group with a few men dressed in black. Thanks to my Conceal skill—or because they weren’t watching their backs—they hadn’t seemed to notice us.

“They’re bad guys, master,” Hikari whispered as we watched them.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“They’re talking about attacking them. Layla and the others,” Hikari explained. They were far enough away that I couldn’t hear them, but apparently she could. While we all kept our guard up, she summarized what she’d heard.

It sounded like they were specifically targeting Layla. They’d been talking about taking her alive if they could and killing her if they couldn’t. Their reason apparently had nothing to do with her father, the local lord, but with her mother instead.

Come to think of it, I thought, in all of my meetings with Will, Layla’s mother has never come up. I’ve never met her either.

“What should we do, Sora?”

“Even if we beat the human attackers, there are still monsters ahead of them,” I said. “But if they want to take her alive, I guess they’d have to go through the monsters to do it...”

Perhaps they weren’t especially committed to the idea of taking her alive? Or maybe they were controlling the monsters somehow? I’d seen monster-taming skills on my skill list, so maybe there were people out there who had them naturally.

Meanwhile, the monsters beyond would be making contact with their quarry—Layla’s group—around now. I’d noticed one particularly large signal among them too. I was starting to get worried; I needed to save them ASAP but didn’t know how.

“I think the fastest way would be to start a ruckus with Sora’s enchanted throwing knives,” Rurika explained. She seemed to have noticed my nerves and was speaking in a more measured tone than usual. “You said their effects will be dulled here, but I think they’ll still work as a distraction.”

The more she spoke, the more I felt myself calming down. “Thanks. I feel better,” I said.

Rurika grinned broadly in response.

I let out a steadying breath, then readied knives in both hands. The other fighters in the group got their throwing weapons in hand as well, and we unleashed them together at Rurika’s signal.

We’d caught them completely off guard, but the men in black still dodged the attacks, causing the knives to explode loudly in midair. Then the men in black fell back to let the adventurers charge us, and the battle began in force.

Hikari, Rurika, and Sera traded blows with their opponents, while the remaining few came after us. I used my shield, sometimes deflecting the men’s attacks and sometimes forcing them back, all while Chris unleashed her magic attacks on them.

The adventurers had us outnumbered, but there was something awkward about their movements that kept them from overwhelming us entirely.

I gritted my teeth while I watched the scene unfold in front of me, my grip trembling on my sword. Just then, I saw something happening on the automap out of the corner of my eye. Half of the monsters ahead had turned back to join the fray, perhaps drawn by the sound of the explosions.

They encountered the men in black first, but they ignored them and charged at us instead. There were ogres in the group—monsters I’d never seen mentioned in the materials for this dungeon at all.

The ogres unleashed their powerful swings, attacking both us and the hostile adventurers indiscriminately. One of the adventurers took a hit, collided with the wall, and fell still.

While defending against the adventurers’ attacks, I channeled mana into my mithril sword and charged into the chaotic melee taking down monsters wherever I could. Hikari and the others focused on the monsters they were best suited to, sometimes using them as a wall between them and the adventurers.

“Sora, look out!” Chris shouted.

I immediately raised my shield. A metallic sound rang out, and a dagger fell at my feet. I looked up and saw the man in black charging toward me.

Around me, Hikari and the others were fighting men in black too. I tried to block the incoming attack with my shield, but he redirected his swing just before the strike landed, throwing off my timing. My attempted counterblow instead sent me pitching forward, and I wound up parrying the blow with my sword. The next instant, I felt something cold flowing down my back.

Unlike the adventurers, the men in black hit sharp and fast. I wished I could use my Shield spell at a time like this, but I hadn’t been able to activate it reliably since I set foot on this floor. The only dimension spell of mine that was working was my Item Box.

As more of the men in black joined the fight, their attacks grew more intense. Chris used attack spells and Mia deployed support holy spells to help out, but I was barely hanging in there, even with Parallel Thinking on full blast.

The men in black saw that I was losing ground and tried to get behind me to target the girls, but I moved to cut off their attack route. I cut my opponent’s sword in half with one swing, and I was about to catch the man’s arm on the backswing...when suddenly, my sword stopped.

No... I had stopped.

My moment of hesitation gave the man a chance to fight back. He slammed his body into mine, eyes blazing with rage, and sent me flying. I heard something hit the ground nearby, but I didn’t have time to think about it as I fell hard onto my back. I looked up and saw the man in black holding his sword high to strike. I wanted to get up and fight back, but my body wouldn’t move in time.

Just as the sword was about to come down on me, a figure dove in between us. The man in black was almost sent flying back, but he caught his balance and shifted his target to the person who’d intervened—Chris. She managed to block the blow with her shield but was still sent flying with a cry.

I tried to tackle the man before he could go after her, but I couldn’t get there in time, and he got me with a kick to the solar plexus instead. Pain radiated out from my chest, but I gritted my teeth and kept moving. At the very least, I’d managed to get myself in between him and the fallen Chris.

I looked up and got a feeling of déjà vu as I saw the man in black standing over me again. I pulled a spare sword from my Item Box to block the incoming blow, but either because I was rattled or because the previous strike had hurt me so badly, I couldn’t get a good grip, and the sword fell from my hand.

The man’s sword swung down...and was stopped with a clang of metal.

◇Syphon’s Perspective 2

“Syphon?” Jinn looked at me in confusion as I stopped.

Yeah, guess it’d look pretty strange to see someone stop when they were running full tilt a second ago... “I’ve got a bad feeling,” I said.

“The usual one?” Jinn asked.

I nodded. The hairs on the back of my neck were standing up.

As an adventurer, you sometimes found yourself in situations like that. I couldn’t explain where the instinct came from, but following it had gotten me out of plenty of scrapes before.

“I think the girls are in danger.”

Right now, though, we were busy getting Toth back to the twenty-sixth floor. I’d been hoping to give him the Returner Stone when he woke up so he could go back without us, but the kid must’ve been really exhausted, because he’d been out like a light the whole time.

“Syphon, why not leave this to us while you and Orga head back?” Jinn suggested.

My first thought was to look over at Juno. Splitting up here would make everything way more dangerous, and if I took Orga with me, it’d be just the three of them the whole way back. Plus, Gytz wouldn’t be much help in a fight while he was carrying Toth, so it’d really just be the two of them against any monsters they ran into.

“I’d rather ditch the kid and have us all go together, but I’m guessing that’s not happening, right? Besides, it’s okay for you to trust us sometimes,” Jinn said.

I couldn’t help but smile. I already trust you a hell of a lot, I thought to myself, but I snapped into professional mode to give out my instructions. “I trust you, so get to it. Juno, you look after the two of them.”

“Take care, dear,” she said.

I nodded, then Orga and I backtracked the way we’d first come. I could’ve gone by myself, but I was glad to have Orga. This kind of thing wasn’t really my forte.

When we got to the twenty-seventh floor, we started running. Orga was amazing. I wouldn’t have been able to track them while we ran, but he could. We didn’t have to stop at all for him to know exactly where to go.

“Think we’ll find them?” I asked.

Orga replied that we probably would. We were following the path that Sora and his gang had taken—specifically, we were going by the tracking bracelets we’d given to Chris and Rurika.

I’d felt a little bad about doing it, but we’d given them to the girls just in case we got separated in the dungeon. I hadn’t been sure how to go about handing them over, but Juno had said she could offer them as a present for teaching her how to cook and managed to get it done.

The effect grew weaker as time passed, so eventually they’d lose effectiveness and really just be nice presents. I hadn’t expected them to become useful quite like this, though.

Still, after we arrived on the twenty-eighth floor, we had to slow down. Orga said the traces were weaker here, so we’d lose track of them if we ran. Our own magic items weren’t working well either, which told me something was off about this floor as a whole. We’d have to keep our wits about us.

After that, we stopped at every fork in the road and looked closely for signs of which way they’d gone.

Two days after we reached the twenty-eighth floor, we turned a corner to hear the sounds of monsters howling and metal clashing with metal in the distance. I shared a look with Orga, and we picked up our speed. Soon enough, we saw a group fighting in the hall ahead. Even at this range we could tell it was Sora and his crew. Those school uniforms really stood out.

As I picked up speed, I saw a man dressed in black about to strike down at Sora. It looked like Sora was protecting Chris—that hooded robe was definitely hers.

I pushed off the ground and leaped. My body, already tilted forward from running, flew straight ahead. I put all of my momentum into deflecting the man’s sword, then slashed at him with my backswing.

I’d made it just in time. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Orga join the fray.

Keeping on the alert, I turned around and saw...

“You okay, Sora?! And...” The sight had me at a loss for words. “Miss Elf?”

◇◇◇

Syphon was standing in front of me, wide-eyed.

I was every bit as shocked as he was. What was he doing here? What had happened to Toth? I had plenty of questions, but there wasn’t time to dwell on them right now. I could see another man in black coming up behind Syphon.

“Syphon, behind you!” I exclaimed.

Syphon sprang into action, spinning around and slashing through the man as he did.

“Sora. Your mask...” I heard Chris whisper.

I put a hand to my face and realized it wasn’t there. I looked down and saw it on the ground nearby. Then I glanced over at Chris and froze.

Her hood had been torn and fallen away. Fortunately, her face wasn’t hurt, but her distinctive ears were no longer hidden by her hair.

Just then, I remembered what Syphon had said before—after saying my name, he’d whispered “Miss Elf.” That meant he now knew Chris’s secret.

“Sora, it’s okay.” Chris’s words snapped me back to reality. Her smile was gentle and kind; she must have read my thoughts from my expression. “Saving Layla and the others comes first.”

I decided to believe her, gave her a spare robe, then picked up my mithril sword and fallen mask and got back to slaying monsters.

The addition of Syphon and Orga to our side put the wind at our backs, and the battle was over in no time.

One problem remained, though: Syphon had learned Chris’s secret. When she realized this shocking truth, Rurika took an even more shocking action—she suddenly pointed her sword at Syphon.

“R-Rurika! Don’t!” Chris grabbed her from behind to stop her.

Rurika’s response was to start crying, which made things even more confusing. “But... But...” she sniffled.

Chris comforted her, then turned back to Syphon. “I’m sorry,” she said to him at last, bowing apologetically.

Syphon didn’t seem to know what to say at first, but he eventually forced a smile and forgave her.

“Something up?” came a new voice.

“That you, Orga? Did you get them?” Syphon asked.

“Sorry. One got away,” Orga replied.

“Go after him. He might’ve seen. We need to keep this quiet.” Syphon’s icy voice echoed all around us.

Orga nodded, then disappeared down the narrow corridor.

“What’s Orga doing?” I asked.

“Looks like one of the attackers got away. He saw Chris too. I asked Orga to shut the guy up.”

“From how you’re talking, it almost sounds like you knew about Chris?” I intuited.

At this, Rurika looked up from her crying.

“Ah, we can talk about the details later,” Syphon said awkwardly. “Helping the others comes first, but...that one’ll be tough.”

There were other things I wanted to ask, but I agreed to shift gears. He was right that saving Layla and her crew should come first.

“Is that...a cockatrice?” Chris’s expression tensed up when she saw the monster as well.

“Yeah, mixed up with them. And it looks bigger than the usual kind. We have a stock of petrification remedies, but you’ll want to avoid the breath if you can.”

It sounded like the cockatrice was a tricky monster whose breath could turn a person to stone. Syphon went on to explain that this was still one of the less bad situations to fight them in, though.

“Cockatrices can be tricky to beat when they keep to the air, but since we’re indoors, it’ll be easier to hit this one with attacks of our own. Of course, that also makes it harder for us to dodge its breath attacks.”

The twenty-eighth floor’s corridors were taller and wider than those of previous floors, but the size of the cockatrice’s body would still limit its flying range. Syphon muttered that it would have been lots of trouble if we’d run into it on the twenty-fifth floor.

“Could you leave the cockatrice to me, then?” I asked.

Hearing that they couldn’t do much to stop you once you’d gotten in close reminded me of my Resist Status Effects level. It was currently level 7, which gave me full immunity to poison, paralysis, and petrification. At levels 7 and 9 I’d get resistance to charms and curses respectively, and at levels 8 and 10 I would gain immunity to those same effects.

“You’ve got a plan?” Syphon asked. “Go for it, then. We’ll take care of the others. Rurika, if Sora’s hitting the front lines, I want you to stay back and protect the mages. It should be okay, but you never know when other enemies might show.”

With that as our plan, we fell onto the second monster horde from behind.

The cockatrice sensed that I was coming and unleashed its breath attack at me. I leaped back cautiously, then rushed back at it while slicing down more monsters heading my way. Syphon had said that the cockatrice was a smart and cunning monster, so the idea was to make it think I was afraid of its breath.

Once I was at risk of getting close, the cockatrice took to the air to avoid me. It couldn’t fly far, but I still wouldn’t have many options if it got airborne. I threw a knife to try to stop its retreat, but the wind from its wings flapping blew it back to the earth.

Fortunately, the knife was just a decoy with which I unleashed the Tornado I’d been keeping on hand. It didn’t have the power to cut the cockatrice up like it usually would, but it was powerful enough to impede its flight.

Caught by surprise, the cockatrice lost its balance and started dropping back down. I used the chance to get in close once again, and for a moment I felt like we made eye contact. The beast’s eyes flashed maliciously, and it opened its beak wide. From the beak poured the hideous breath that turned people to stone.

I was close by and running full speed, so I couldn’t avoid it. The breath hit me full blast, but I just kept charging forward. My petrification immunity let me keep moving even as the breath hit me.

The fact that I was unaffected by its breath seemed to have left the cockatrice at a loss. Not letting the chance slip by, I took off its head.

The death of their “leader” made the other monsters break formation, which let the adventurers on Layla’s side finally go on the offensive.

The monsters couldn’t hold out long with attacks on both sides. Before long, we’d taken them all out, and Layla’s party was saved.

◇Layla’s Perspective 2

As the monsters charged us, I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself down. I was still tired, and I was honestly in no condition to fight. But if I backed down now, I would be killing us all—particularly the people who were mostly immobilized by the petrification.

We had debated it again and again during our various flights from danger. Some had said we should abandon the petrified people and go. Each time, Walt and the other leaders persuaded them otherwise.

And then there was Toth, who’d run off alone into danger to save us. I was worried for him, but I had to focus on the task in front of me for the moment.

We positioned the helpless people in hiding behind us, then revealed ourselves to the monsters. Once they saw us, their charge accelerated.

We were fortunate that the cockatrice and the monsters immediately around it chose to stay back this time. We positioned our shield bearers on the front lines to fight a defensive battle and stall. Our exhaustion would put us at a disadvantage in a prolonged fight, but the presence of the cockatrice made us hesitant to go on the offensive.

For once, though, luck was on our side.

An explosion sounded out behind the monsters, and most of the ones around the cockatrice turned to address it. I thought for a moment that the sight would fill my body with strength once more, but I was wrong. No, the disruption of my rhythm made my exhaustion catch up with me.

The floor around us was littered with dead monsters, but there were also injured people among us who had been forced to fall back. We had been able to keep fighting nonetheless; for their sakes we couldn’t afford to back down. Eventually, though, every warrior had to reach the limit of where determination could carry them.

It took all my power just to hold myself up on my sword, and even then it was hard to move. Walt and the others, who were still fighting, looked like giants in my eyes.

The cockatrice loomed even larger, though, and now it had slowly begun to move.

I followed it with my eyes. It wasn’t coming toward us, but going after the people on its other side. At last I could see the people beyond the cockatrice, and I saw that Sora was among them.

No, not just Sora—Hikari, Sera, and the others were there too.

Incredibly, Sora was facing the cockatrice head-on, and I saw him take a blast of its breath. He had studied the monsters of the dungeon thoroughly, but perhaps he hadn’t known what the cockatrice could do. It was a monster that wasn’t supposed to appear in this dungeon, after all.

But even as those thoughts went through my mind, Sora passed through the breath attack unscathed. A moment later, he had easily slain the cockatrice.

The rest of the monsters were soon defeated, and I slumped to my knees on the ground.

◇◇◇

“You okay, Layla?”

“Sora... What are you doing here?”

“We ran into Toth on the twenty-seventh floor and came to help you. Let me heal you up.”

It turned out they’d run out of potions, so Mia and I divided the healing duties between ourselves. We managed to cure their wounds but couldn’t restore their lost stamina, so I lent Layla a shoulder as we headed down through the corridor to tend to their more badly wounded.

The people there were in even worse shape, and it seemed they’d been placed there to rest more than to receive treatment. Tricia was there along with other holy magic spellcasters, but they’d run out of mana and couldn’t do anything else to help them.

“Mia...” Tricia breathed.

“You’ve done an admirable job,” Mia told her. “I’ll take over now.”

Hearing these words, Tricia was so relieved that she fell asleep immediately. She’d apparently been casting periodic regular Recovery spells on the petrified people. The petrification cures they’d brought with them hadn’t worked on four of the affected people, including Casey, and although the Recovery spell could slow it down, the stone had continued to spread through their bodies.

“Can you cure them, Mia?” I asked.

“I don’t know. But I’ll try.” Mia focused and cast Recovery on each person, curing one of the four but only managing to shrink the affected area for the other three.

“I’m sorry, but it looks like that’s the best I can do. I hope we can get you back for proper treatment soon... We may need to ask a priest.”

Mia bowed her head and apologized, but of course, nobody blamed her. On the contrary, they were grateful that she’d been able to cure them that little bit. Mia clearly felt awful about it, though.

“I’m sorry, Layla. I wasn’t good enough.” She also apologized to Layla for not managing to cure Casey after many attempts.

“It’s not your fault,” Layla told her. “Besides, I haven’t seen Casey sleep so peacefully in quite some time. I’m sure that’s because of you, Mia.”

I’d heard that the four people inflicted with petrification had been unable to sleep all this time due to the pain. Given that, it was pretty amazing that Mia’s Recovery had worked as well as it did. I assumed that was either a benefit of the leveling up Mia had done in the dungeon or a natural property of Sainthood that let her heal things that people like Tricia couldn’t.

“Anyway, let’s eat for now,” I said. “I’ll make something that goes down easy.”

While I cooked, Hikari and Sera began collecting monster bodies. The cockatrice and ogres in particular were monsters that didn’t appear in this dungeon, so we definitely wanted to hang on to those.

After we ate, Layla and the others immediately passed out and slept like the dead. They must not have had a chance to get some real sleep with everything they’d been through. The large bags under their eyes spoke to that as well.

We ended up standing guard in their place, even though we were exhausted too. Obviously we were better off than Layla’s team, but we really had rushed down here.

“Syphon, can we talk for a minute?” I said, walking up to him as he stood guard.

“Don’t glare at me like that. It’s about Chris, right?” he guessed. “I was surprised to see that too, but I think I get it. This really isn’t the place to talk about it, though, so let’s let it sit until we get back. I promise I won’t tell anyone else.”

Syphon’s face was the picture of seriousness, and I didn’t think he was lying, so I didn’t press him further. Instead, I asked him something else I was curious about. “Why did you come back?”

“It’s a little hard to explain... I guess it was kind of like instinct. I felt like something bad was gonna happen... Really tough to articulate, though.” Syphon scratched his cheek as he searched for the words.

“What about Toth and the others?”

“Toth was still knocked out, so I left him to Jinn, Gytz, and Juno. I knew they could handle it, even without us. They’ll be fine.”

From the way Syphon spoke, I could tell that he really trusted them. “I see. Sorry I didn’t say it earlier, but thanks for saving us.”

With that, he said simply, “Get going, then,” but I couldn’t help noticing that his ears had turned a little pink.

We ended up spending two full days in that spot—Rurika stayed by Chris’s side the entire time—and then got moving again. I originally thought we should return to the twenty-seventh floor, but I realized the stairs to the twenty-ninth were closer, so we went that way instead.

Orga never caught up with us, but Syphon said he had a Returner Stone, so I imagined he’d seen the man in black escape with a stone of his own and chased after him.

We arrived at the twenty-ninth floor after three days of walking, and from there we could use our Returner Stones to escape.

◇◇◇

We had a lot to do after our return from the dungeon.

First, we took the three people still afflicted with petrification to the adventurers’ guild infirmary. The guild had some petrification remedies they were going to try, and they’d sent for a priest from the church just in case.

I’d heard that Toth’s party had already made it back safely, and Layla’s party—who’d been asked to give a report about what had happened—sent Walt and Layla to testify along with me and Syphon to serve as witnesses. I told Chris and the others to head home without us and rest.

“I can hardly believe it,” Reese said after hearing the whole story.

“Sora managed to recover the bodies of the ones who attacked us,” Layla added. “But they say that one of them escaped.”

“We’ll put a warrant out for him at once,” Reese said. “Did anyone see his face?”

“I did.”

“Then, Syphon, could you describe it to him?” Reese introduced him to a man sitting two seats down from her, and he and Syphon moved into another room to talk.

I handed the men’s bodies over to the guild, and we divided up the monsters we’d beaten on the twenty-eighth floor with Walt and the others. Walt and Layla tried to decline out of gratitude for what we’d done for them, but we only asked for the cockatrice for ourselves and split up the rest of the bodies normally.

“Sora, thank you for all you did. I don’t think we would have made it back if not for you,” Layla said when we were finished.

“You’ll have to thank Toth for that. We wouldn’t have made it in time if not for him.”

“Yes, you’re right.”

As we headed for reception together, we found Hikari and Mia standing there.

“You didn’t go back with the others?” I asked.

“Waited for you, master,” Hikari replied. “And Big Sis Mia said...”

“Sora, I want to check in on Casey again,” Mia told me. “The priest may have cured her by now.”

Layla seemed to want to check on her too, so the four of us stopped by the infirmary. The place was bustling with activity, and we could see the comrades of the still-petrified adventurers gathered in a corner of the room. They explained to us that neither the guild’s petrification remedies nor the priest’s Recovery spell had had any effect on them.

“It seems that the three of them, including Casey, got the brunt of the cockatrice breath.” Layla explained how Casey had taken the blow for her, looking worriedly at her friend lying on the bed.

“Hey, Layla. Can I try the spell one more time?” Mia asked.

“Mia...”

“I know it might not be any better, but I’d like to try.” Mia looked at her seriously.

Layla looked hesitant—she was probably worried about how Mia would react if she still failed to cure her—but nodded.

Mia asked the adventurers if she could treat their friends, then cast Recovery again. Her expression was very serious, but I could tell there was an awkwardness, a tension there too.

Immediately, two adventurers she hadn’t been able to help on the twenty-eighth floor were cured. The adventurers shouted in surprise and began showering her with praise, nearly bowling her over with their gratitude.

An expression of relief appeared on Mia’s face too; she’d surely been worried about whether she really could cure them or not.

I found myself thinking of the conditions back on the twenty-eighth floor. Magic and magic items had all been less effective there, so she probably hadn’t been able to get the full effect from her Recovery spell. That was why she’d wanted to try it again now.

Then Mia used Recovery on the last remaining person—Casey.

Light emanated from Mia’s hands and wreathed Casey’s body as she spoke the words of the incantation. Everyone was expecting the same result as the previous two...but Casey still wasn’t fully cured when the light died down, although the stone that had covered her right arm had disappeared.

Mia cast Recovery again and again. She kept on trying even when I tried to stop her, and in the end she didn’t stop until she collapsed, her mana exhausted.

“Sora, tell Mia not to let it bother her too much,” Layla told me.

“Yeah, I’ll do that. I’ll see if there’s any way to make a more effective petrification medicine with alchemy too.” I hefted the unconscious Mia onto my back and left the guild with Hikari.

Outside, we found Syphon and Orga waiting for us. They explained that the man in black had gotten away.

“Sorry,” Orga apologized.

Obviously, it wasn’t his fault. It was hard to track a single person, especially without any specific skills for it, and he could still be in the dungeon too.

They’d locked down the city after we made our report, but the man might have escaped before then or had a way to climb the walls. I wasn’t sure whether he’d realized Chris was an elf, but between that and the fact that he’d been after Layla, it felt like something I might have to deal with soon.

“Anyway, Sora, there’s some things I’d like to discuss with you. I think we should do it sooner rather than later, but I won’t have time today, so I’ll stop by your place early tomorrow.” With that, Syphon walked off into the crowds, talking with Orga about something.

“Master. Could be from the Kingdom,” Hikari suddenly said as we were walking back home.

“You mean the man in black?”

“Yeah. Had that smell on him.”

Smell? Does she mean like an aura? Did that mean I was in as much danger as Chris? Would it be better to get moving instead of hanging around to beat the dungeon?

“Master, you okay?” she asked.

“Let’s just keep our guard up for now. We can’t do anything today anyway.” Maybe I could make a hut in the corner of the yard, have Shade stand watch there, and put a Shield over the whole house? While I was thinking about that, Mia woke up.

“Sora? Where are we?” she asked from her place on my back.

“We’re heading home.”

“Oh...really.”

“What is it?”

“I couldn’t save her. I could save everyone except Casey...my friend.”

“There was nothing else you could’ve done. It’s not your fault, Mia.”

“I know that. But...if I’d only been stronger... They called me the Saint, but it was no more than a name... I was just a figurehead.”

That’s not true, I wanted to say, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

I held Mia a little tighter to my back while she apologized again and again in a quiet pleading voice.

“Big Sis Mia...” Hikari looked at us worriedly.

Beside her, Ciel flew around us looking distressed.

Interlude 5

The plan had failed.

It had all gone perfectly right up until the ambush too. My first miscalculation had been my choice of adventurers. Fools, led by an incompetent man desperate for money—and yet, at the very end, it was his own actions that had thrown my plan awry.

He’d triggered the worst trap possible, causing the whole dungeon to shake and rapidly spawn monsters that were not supposed to appear there. It was fortunate that my illusion skill worked on those monsters, but having to use it on so many placed a tremendous burden on my body.

I’d made it look to the monsters like we were part of them, which had allowed us to guide them where we wanted them to go, but it had made our original plan to take the girl alive more difficult.

My second miscalculation had been failing to anticipate an attack from other dungeon divers. I won’t deny that their attack from behind had caught me by surprise, but I wasn’t expecting mere students to be as skilled as they were.

It couldn’t have been a coincidence. They’d known we were there and targeted us.

We’d fought back, with the monsters joining in, but the last-minute intervention of a few more adventurers had turned the tide against us. I’d lost many of my comrades and been forced to flee myself. Normally, failure would mean death, but I decided it was more important to take back what I had learned.

There was no question—that had been No. 13 there. I recognized the boy as the otherworlder they’d exiled, and there was an elf among them as well. If I could bring back this information, it wouldn’t matter that I’d failed.

After I’d shaken off the adventurer pursuing me, my first priority was getting out of the city.

“Ah, I think I made it.” By the time I got back, the city’s exits had been sealed, but unfortunately for them, that wouldn’t stop me.

I had to be careful, of course. I couldn’t let my guard down.

Then that man appeared before my eyes.

The man standing in front of me... Was he human? Just looking at him made alarm bells sound in my mind. My instincts screamed at me to flee at once, but my body wouldn’t move.

And then the silhouette of the man before me blurred. Yes...as if he were contorting.

Standing there a second later was...

“A...demon?”

Yes, a demon. There were two horns on his head, and wings on his back.

I tried to buy time with my illusion skill, but I failed. I reached for my sword, but what seemed like a single step from the demon suddenly put him right in front of me.

I heard him whisper something, and then his hand reached for my body... It didn’t pierce me, but my consciousness became hazy nevertheless.

I heard the demon’s voice as if from a long way off, and I found my mouth open against my will. I felt like I was saying things I shouldn’t, but I couldn’t stop myself.

“Well done,” he said at last. “I have no further use for you.”

Those were the last words I heard.

Chapter 7

Syphon came by early the next morning as promised. I’d told Iroha and Elza that we had something important to discuss, so they’d left to go shopping and visit Norman’s place.

Everyone from the dungeon dive was with us except Hikari and Mia. Mia wasn’t feeling well; her inability to cure Casey still seemed to be haunting her. Ciel must have been worried about her too, because she’d spent all night with her.

Rurika didn’t hide her wariness about Syphon, which was making Chris look a little uncomfortable.

“Ah, I’ll get right to the point,” Syphon began. “We’re originally from the Eld Republic. And... Chris, I should probably give this to you and your friends. We were originally gonna keep it quiet, but I think it’s the fastest way to earn your trust.”

He handed Chris a sealed letter. She looked uncertain as she took it.

“Chris? What’s wrong?” Rurika asked worriedly.

“Ah, well... This seal. I’ve seen it before. It’s the same as the one on the letters Granny got.” Chris broke the seal, looked inside, then gave the letter to Rurika.

Rurika read through it, looked up at Syphon, then read it over again. “Is this...true?”

“Ah, sorry. I don’t know what the letter says,” Syphon said sheepishly, so Rurika handed it back to him. As he read through it, his expression slowly grew strained. “W-Well, anyway... Do you see that we’re on your side now?” he concluded, his voice squeaking a little.

What on earth is in that letter? I wondered.

“Ahem, anyway... Lady Chris. The Goblin’s Lament officially requests permission to accompany you.” Syphon and his party stood up, then knelt in front of her.

Chris, looking a little taken aback, asked them why they were acting that way.

Syphon explained that the city where they were raised practiced a kind of elf worship. “Our parents always taught us that we owed our way of life to the elves,” he told her.

When Chris showed her elven features, Jinn actually started praying to her, which was a bit unsettling.

I asked Syphon to tell me as much as he could about the situation.

He told me that at first they were only supposed to watch over Chris and Rurika while they were in Elesia, and running into them again in Mahia had been an honest coincidence. Their initial plan had been to hit up the dungeon in Pleques because Juno knew someone there, but the Pleques dungeon had turned out to be off-limits. Just as they’d been discussing what to do next, they’d received word that Chris and Rurika were dungeon diving in Majorica, and they’d also been ordered to protect them if possible.

Then he apologized for giving the girls trackable bracelets. “We’d looked into it and learned you were attending the academy. Security was pretty strict there, so we thought it would be better to try to make contact with you while you were dungeon diving. I was surprised to find out that Fred happened to know a friend of yours, but that turned out to be the in we needed. Not that I expected the friend to be Sora, of course.”

That explained why Syphon’s party had declined to stick with us in the dungeon when Fred’s party had taken the job with Will.

“So,” Syphon said then, “you’re sure you want to keep dungeon diving? We’d rather keep you out of harm’s way if we can, of course.”

“Well for me, I was partly doing it to gather materials, but there’s another reason I need to beat the dungeon.” I explained the current situation to Syphon. They’d apparently heard about the possibility of a monster parade as well, and they knew it was why the guild was offering big money for materials from the lower floors. Maybe seeing how dangerous the dungeon could get had given them cold feet, though.

“U-Um, I know it’s dangerous,” Chris protested, “but another of my kind living in this city asked us for help!” Her letting that last part slip was a sign of how flustered she was. She’d probably felt threatened that they might limit her freedom.

Fortunately the effect it had on Syphon’s party was immediate. The moment they heard that the request was from an elf, their attitudes changed on a dime.

We spent a little while after that discussing next steps, and then Syphon suddenly seemed to remember something. “Oh, there’s something I had to tell you. The guild sent me a summons this morning to check something.”

“Check something?”

“Yeah, it was about the man in black who ran away. They said they found a body that might be his, and they wanted me and Orga to confirm it, so we did. It was him.”

“So we’re safe for now?” I asked. If that was true, it was great news.

“Probably best to stay cautious for now. He still might’ve passed on the info before he died. But someone from the guild also found his hideout and said there was no sign that he’d been there in a while.”

Once we’d finished discussing the dungeon, we decided to catch up on what we’d been through since we split up. We hadn’t really had a chance to chat like this since I’d revealed my identity.

I took the opportunity to give them my cover story: that Hikari was a survivor from a village destroyed by monsters and that Mia was another slave I’d bought along with Sera. I couldn’t exactly tell them that she was the Saint.

Then, when we went outside to see them off, Syphon said to me, “Actually, there’s one other thing I wanted to ask you about. That dark hair of yours isn’t very common, is it? Do you have any relatives in Elesia?”

“No, why do you ask?”

“On our way to Pleques, we passed an Elesian carriage whose window happened to be open. They closed it right away, but I caught a peek at someone inside—I thought they had dark hair.” But he concluded that I shouldn’t worry about it if it had nothing to do with me, and then they departed.

His story reminded me of the people I’d met back in the castle. I’d been so busy with my own things that I basically hadn’t thought of them at all since my talk with Ignis. I sometimes reminisced about the world I’d originally come from, but that was mostly because of the food.

The other summonees had been given VIP treatment, so I’d assumed they were fine, but given how the king’s goons had sent Hikari after me, I had to wonder.

I talked a bit to Mia that night and learned that she really was depressed. I decided that the best way to get her feeling better was to heal Casey.

Then I checked my stats.

Name: Fujimiya Sora / Job: Scout / Race: Otherworlder / Level: None

HP: 520/520 MP: 520/520 SP: 520/520 (+100)

Strength: 510 (+0) Stamina: 510 (+0) Speed: 510 (+100)

Magic: 510 (+0) Dexterity: 510 (+0) Luck: 510 (+100)

Skill: Walking Lv. 51

Effect: Never get tired from walking (earn 1 XP for every step)

XP Counter: 892,406/1,100,000

Skill Points: 3

Learned Skills

[Appraisal Lv. MAX] [Prevent Appraisal Lv. 5] [Enhance Physique Lv. MAX] [Regulate Mana Lv. MAX] [Lifestyle Spells Lv. MAX] [Detect Presence Lv. MAX] [Sword Arts Lv. MAX] [Dimension Spells Lv. MAX] [Parallel Thinking Lv. MAX] [Boost Recovery Lv. MAX] [Hide Presence Lv. MAX] [Alchemy Lv. MAX] [Cooking Lv. MAX] [Throwing/Shooting Lv. 9] [Fire Spells Lv. MAX] [Water Spells Lv. 9] [Telepathy Lv. 9] [Night Vision Lv. MAX] [Sword Tech Lv. 8] [Resist Status Effects Lv. 7] [Earth Spells Lv. MAX] [Wind Spells Lv. MAX] [Disguise Lv. 9] [Engineering/Construction Lv. 9] [Shield Arts Lv. 8] [Provoke Lv. 9] [Traps Lv. 7] [Mountaineering Lv. 2]

Advanced Skills

[Appraise Person Lv. MAX] [Detect Mana Lv. MAX] [Enchant Lv. MAX] [Creation Lv. 8] [Mana Enchant Lv. 3] [Conceal Lv. 3]

Contract Skills

[Holy Spells Lv. 5]

Title

[Spirit Contractor]

I checked my Creation list while I was at it. Gaining levels has gotten me more skill points, but if I want to make a petrification cure, Creation is probably the way to go, right?

[Carchatox Remedy] A medicine to cure petrification. Good medicine is always bitter—topical application recommended.

It sounded like a petrification cure, at least, but I didn’t know how effective it would be. The remedies the guild had sent over were of excellent quality, but they still hadn’t done the job. That said, the items made with Creation were typically better than standard ones, so it seemed worth a try.

[Carchatox Remedy]

Materials Needed:

Full Potion

Cockatrice Blood

Cockatrice Venom Sac

Magistone

I could probably get the blood and venom sacs by breaking down the cockatrice’s body, but the “full potion” would be an issue. I’d never heard the term before. With only one ingredient missing, I could probably just eat the MP cost, but that would be a last resort.

I checked the Alchemy list and didn’t see it there. Could Creation handle it, then? I looked and saw it on the list.

[Full Potion] A potion that restores HP, MP, and SP. A real “three birds with one stone” product.

A potion that restores all your stats at once... Seems like a pretty niche item. It would be useful for me since I often used spells and skills in tandem, but people like me were rare. Mages typically just cast spells, while people with attack and search skills generally never used them, so most people only needed potions to recover one or the other. Not to say that uses might never come up.

[Full Potion]

Materials Needed:

Healing Potion

Mana Potion

Stamina Potion

Magistone

It was easy enough to get the materials together, so I decided to make a couple for myself.

After producing a few full potions with Creation, I stopped in to pay Hikari and Rurika a visit. Hikari was with Elza and Art, while Rurika had just gotten out of the bath and was wiping down her wet hair.

“What is it? Chris is in the bath right now, so if you peep on her you’d better be ready to commit to a whole lot more,” Rurika teased me.

Aren’t you supposed to tell me not to peep? I wondered. I was glad she was acting like herself again, though. She’d been exuding a dangerous aura since Syphon’s party had learned Chris was an elf. It had been bad enough that even Elza and Art had been giving her a wide berth.

“Well, I’ve got a question,” I said. “Rurika, can you break down a cockatrice?”

“I don’t think so. Hikari?”

“Never done it before.”

Maybe I’ll check with Syphon and the others tomorrow? I thought. If they didn’t know how, I might have to ask at the guild.

◇◇◇

The next day, I took Mia and the others outside. We were heading for Norman’s house, but I decided to take the long way through town as a change of pace.

The academy students lived in dorms, so I’d assumed the student town would be relatively quiet in the morning, but it turned out to be quite lively. Most of the adventurers who couldn’t get lodging in the dungeon district had apparently ended up here, and it ended up taking a whole hour for us to get to Norman’s house.

When we arrived, the children swarmed Mia and pulled her off with them. Mia’s a popular girl. Good with kids too. She’d apparently visited a lot of orphanages during her time as the Saint.

“What brings you here today?” Syphon asked. When we’d talked the day before, I’d said I had the whole day off, so they were probably surprised to see us dropping by.

“I have a question for you guys. Can you break down a cockatrice?” I told them I wanted to use its blood and venom sacs in alchemy.

“Yeah, Orga can do it. How about you, ladies? Do you want to watch?”

Hikari and Rurika looked interested and nodded, so Orga began his lesson in breaking down a cockatrice. I participated too, but I stayed back with Norman and the others to watch. Orga was a great teacher, but I hadn’t been doing much with monster bodies lately, so it was hard to keep up. It looked like I’d have to try a bit harder in the future.

The cockatrice meat near the organs couldn’t be used, but the rest was quite delicious, Orga said. Should we have another feast soon? I wondered. I got my answer from Hikari’s expectant gaze, while Norman and the others glanced our way with a guilty air.

Now that I had the blood and venom sacs, I left the abattoir, borrowed one of the work rooms, and started revving up my Creation skill to create Carchatox Remedies. I didn’t have a lot of venom sacs, so I only used half, thinking I might find another use for them later.

When that was done, I told Iroha, who’d been giving lessons to the girls, that I wanted to look in on Casey. She said she’d set up an audience for me tomorrow.

“Mia, I’m planning to see Casey tomorrow. Do you want to join me?” After walking around the house looking for Mia, I eventually found her with Chris. They explained that the children who had been with them had split off to work with Iroha and Elza.

“Sora, would it be all right for me to come along too?” Chris asked.

It seemed like a strange request, but I couldn’t see any problem with it, so I nodded.

We then spent some time—our first in a while—chatting leisurely about school before having lunch with the group. That night, we feasted on the cockatrice meat as planned. Obviously, I prepared other kinds of meat as well. Norman and his friends stuffed their faces with cockatrice steaks and talked about how they hoped days like these would never end.

It was true that we could look after them while we were here, but we’d definitely be leaving this town once our dungeon diving was complete. We still had to find Eris, after all. Chris had said there was no need to rush it, but I also wanted to find her, and...as ignoble a motivation as it was, I really wanted to see more of this world as well.

I would have to think about what would happen to the kids’ quality of life after we left. The fate of Elza and Art was another factor, but I figured they could at least move in with Norman and his friends.

“There’s a lot we have to think about, huh?”

We were currently on the dungeon’s twenty-ninth floor. It might be hard going after this point, but our goal of the fortieth floor still felt closer than ever.

The next day, we stopped by Layla’s house, where Casey was now being treated.

We were let into the room and found Tricia already there. She’d apparently been casting Recovery on Casey regularly.

“It’s the only way to stop the petrification from spreading, so I asked Tricia to help,” Layla said. She added that it would be too much for her to handle alone, so they’d been asking various people from the holy magic society to help as well. It seemed that even the lord of the land couldn’t just keep a priest on retainer. “And Iroha told me about your petrification remedy...”

“Yeah, though I don’t know if it’ll be any better than the ones you’ve been using. I think it’s applied topically, so do you mind handling that?”

She asked if it would be better to have Casey drink it, and I said the taste was very bad. As with potions, drinking it could be more efficient depending on the location of the injury...but when I thought back on my own attempt to taste it, I couldn’t help but grimace. The taste was every bit as bad as the drossfruit, so drinking it was definitely a last resort.

We waited outside the room for a few minutes. At first, I heard shouts of excitement, but when Layla finally came back out, one look at her body language told me that it had failed. She explained that the petrification had disappeared briefly but had returned soon after, and we were back to square one.

Chris heard this and paused for a moment before suddenly saying, “Layla. Could you leave us alone for a minute?”

Layla didn’t seem to know how to respond to that at first. I was a little taken aback too.

“I’d like to examine Casey alone with Sora and Chris. Could you please ask everyone else to leave the room?” Mia clarified.

Chris looked down, her face red. She must have been embarrassed that she couldn’t explain it well.

Layla cast a worried glance at Mia, shot me a look—not that I knew what was going on either—and finally gave permission.

Once we were alone in the room, Chris explained her plan.

“Heal her with holy magic? The three of us?” I echoed. “But I can’t use Recovery.”

“That’s right. It’s more like we’ll link your power and Mia’s through me to make her spell stronger. It’s hard to put it into words.” Chris explained that if we joined hands in a circle, we could channel mana between us and increase the power of Mia’s holy spell.

I asked if there was a way for just Mia and I to do that, but apparently it had to be the three of us.

“This isn’t actually my idea,” Chris clarified. “It’s Ciel’s.”

I looked up at Ciel to see her hovering in the air, swinging her ears proudly. I figured it was a little bit like a person thumping their chest with pride.

“Casey, we’re going to move you. I’m afraid it might hurt a little,” Mia said.

Casey opened her eyes a bit and nodded.

Following Mia’s instructions, I picked Casey up and carried her to a chair. Her body was so limp that I had to position her carefully so that she didn’t slide off. I didn’t want to touch her in the wrong place, so I let the other two make the final adjustments.

“Let’s get started, then,” Chris said.

The three of us formed a circle around Casey. I took Mia’s hand in my right and Chris’s in my left before they joined hands as well.

First, I felt Chris’s mana surge and envelop the two of us. Then I began to hear something like voices inside my head. It was like whispers, and I couldn’t make out the words, though the voices were familiar.

I looked up at Ciel floating in the air above, her body wreathed in light. There was something solemn and unapproachable about her now, very different from the usual frivolous Ciel I knew.

The voice was gradually growing louder in my head, but it still just sounded like noise. Then the sounds suddenly united into one, and a word rang out in my head:

“Recovery!”

The name of the spell burst from my mouth unbidden, overlapping with the words from Mia’s mouth. In that instant, the light Ciel was emitting suddenly swelled, first to encompass Casey’s body and then to sink into it. As it did, the light around Ciel’s body diminished, and she fell to the ground limply.

I quickly released the girls’ hands to catch Ciel, then saw Chris also slump forward in my peripheral vision and just barely managed to catch her as well. I felt a soft sensation against my arm as I did so, but... It’s not like I did it on purpose.

“Sora!” Because of where my mind was in that split second, Mia’s sudden cry made me flinch. She wasn’t looking at us, though, but at Casey. “Casey, are you all right? Are you in any pain?”

Casey’s eyes suddenly snapped open wide. She looked down at her hands, then began touching herself all over. At last, she carefully stood up, tears streaming down her face. “I-I’m fine. I’m moving... I can move!” she shouted, before launching into a coughing fit.

I’d heard she’d been “cured” several times before, but the petrification had always returned, so I appraised her and confirmed that her status showed a full recovery.

“Try to stay calm and get some rest for now. Sora, ah...is Chris all right?” Mia asked.

“It looks like using so much mana at once took its toll. I’ll call Layla in and see if we can find a room for her to rest in.”

I walked out and told Layla what had happened, at which point she immediately charged past me into the room. I heard celebratory voices behind me as the maid led me to a separate chamber.

Once I had Chris resting in a bed, I gazed at her sleeping face and wondered if this was how the others had felt when I’d passed out like this in the past. Yeah, I’ll have to be more careful from now on. Ciel was still unconscious too, so I placed her on the pillow nearby.

I was still watching the two of them when I heard a knock at the door. Thinking Mia had arrived, I was about to get up, but it turned out to be Layla’s father, Will.

“Ah, no need to get up,” he said. “First, let me say thank you. Thanks to you, my dear friend’s daughter was saved.” I’d remembered Layla mentioning something about their family’s relationship before. “Second, is the girl all right?” he asked, looking at Chris.

“Yes, sir. She just ran out of mana.”

“I see. I owe you not just for Casey, but for Layla as well. To think spies infiltrated the adventurers coming in from Pleques... I’d thought I’d been so cautious.”

Will explained why he thought Layla might have been targeted. They’d partly wanted to throw Majorica into chaos by attacking the lord’s daughter, but they’d especially wanted to put pressure on one of the country’s higher-ups—Layla’s mother. I asked for more information, and it seemed she was something of a political leader who held a key office in the capital.

“Between this and the ore on the fifteenth floor, you’ve given our city a lot. If you ever need anything, just ask. That said, while I think the guild has managed to keep news of the attack quiet, I’d like to ask you not to spread it around as well. We don’t want people panicking or jumping at shadows.”

I was pretty sure the men in black were the instigators, but he told me that the people who’d found the bodies said the attackers were adventurers who’d been diverted from Pleques.

Will’s offer to provide aid where we needed it had immediately made me think of Elza, Norman, and the others, but that wasn’t something I could decide on my own, so I’d have to discuss it with the others. It wasn’t our power alone that had saved them, after all. Frankly, I hadn’t been of any use in the battle against the men in black.

After that, Will left, and Mia came in.

“How’s Casey looking?”

“I watched her for a while, and there’s no sign of the petrification symptoms coming back,” Mia said. “I was thinking I’d stay behind a bit longer. What about you?”

I wasn’t entirely sure yet, but I eventually decided to take Chris home. She looked human thanks to the Secht Necklace, but it still didn’t feel safe to leave her lying unconscious in a strange person’s house. It also seemed that Mia would be sticking with Casey for the time being, and if I stayed alone in a room with Chris for much longer, people might start asking questions.

When I told them we were going home, Layla and the others tried to stop us, but I insisted. They arranged a carriage for our return, and we opted to take it.

When we arrived home, the others were shocked to see me arrive with an unconscious Chris on my back. I explained what had happened at Layla’s house—that Casey was now cured—and everyone including Iroha was delighted to hear it.

“Is... Is Ciel all right?” As worried about Chris as she was, Rurika was afraid for Ciel too.

“There are a lot of things about Ciel that even I don’t know. If she isn’t awake by the time Chris is, I’ll ask her about it.” Deciding to leave it at that, I left Chris and Ciel in their own room and went back to mine for some shut-eye.

Despite my worries, Chris was all better the next morning. Ciel also woke up normally and, other than asking for more food than usual, seemed unaffected by her experience.

The biggest change was with me: I could now use the Recovery spell.

I asked Chris later what exactly we had done. She said it had all started when Ciel, upset to see Mia so depressed, had asked her what she could do to help. Chris had ended up acting as a bridge for Ciel’s power, but Ciel had proven more powerful than expected, and it had depleted Chris’s mana and made her collapse.

Later that day, we went to the school to ask Seris about the trap we’d encountered in the dungeon. I’d never heard of a trap that caused monsters that didn’t usually appear in a dungeon to spawn. I supposed they could have been from a still unexplored floor, but I still had to ask.

Seris responded that she’d never heard of such a thing either but that the dungeon contained many mysteries, so it didn’t surprise her that much. She added that some traps could even change the internal layout of a dungeon.

We’d always disarmed traps as we went along, but I decided we’d have to be even more careful in the future.

With that in mind, we started preparing for our next dungeon dive, when I realized something—Jinn, Gytz, and Juno, who’d gone back with Toth, hadn’t actually registered on the twenty-ninth floor. Neither had Orga, who’d gone after the last man in black.

When I mentioned this to Syphon, he replied, “Oh, we’ll just head to the dungeon ourselves and get them registered. You guys are probably tired after all that, so take it easy while we handle it.” He made it sound trivial, but I argued it would be safer for me to come along, given my automap and Conceal skill.

We ended up jumping to the twenty-seventh floor together, then spent six days reaching the twenty-ninth.

The experience really made me appreciate how incredible Syphon’s party was. They could run with perfect efficiency for long periods of time and deal effortlessly with any monsters they encountered. I could understand why Syphon hadn’t been afraid to leave Toth in the hands of just three of them.

After we’d gotten everyone registered on the twenty-ninth floor, we rested for three days and then resumed our dungeon dive. Syphon asked if I was sure I didn’t want to get more rest, but I said it was fine.

The twenty-ninth floor was basically the same as the twenty-eighth. We hadn’t gotten to see it because of the trap, but normally the twenty-eighth floor was all liches, with some elder liches mixed in. I looked at my automap and saw the signals of creatures with a great deal of mana, which could’ve been the elder lich.

The guild had put out a warning about the twenty-eighth floor because its mana-scrambling status was still in place. Word had gotten around that unusual monsters were appearing there now, and though some parties showed interest in this, the possibility that those monsters were cockatrices quickly dampened their spirits. Those aiming for the lower floors were forced to stall, and nobody wanted to press the issue.

Therefore, going out from the twenty-ninth floor side when we’d initially fled the dungeon had turned out to be a smart choice.

We ended up making it through the twenty-ninth floor in seven days, then spent a day in front of the boss room before deciding to give it a try there and then. Part of the reasoning for our actions was that there weren’t many people here, unlike on the tenth and twentieth floors. We also weren’t all that tired.

I appraised the door as usual.

[☆ Orc King 1 / ☆ Orc Lord 1 / Orc General 3 / Orc Mage 12 / Orc Archer 12 / Orc Warrior 30]

I knew from the reference materials that there would be a king and a lord in the boss room, but I hadn’t been sure which was the boss. It turned out both of them were.

“Syphon. The monsters in the boss room will be...”

At first, Syphon was confused to hear that I knew the number and type of monsters in there. I explained that it was written on the door and that you could read it if you used Appraisal.

“Really? That’s a pretty huge find, isn’t it?” Syphon said. “The other floors have documentation on what monsters appear where, but the fortieth floor is a boss room too, so that’ll help with the fact that we’re going in blind.”

I agreed that it gave us a big advantage.

“So let’s eat and talk strategy.”

The girls agreed to handle the cooking while I collected my crew’s mithril swords to enchant them with mana. I’d been using Mana Enchant whenever I had time, so its level had increased to the point that I could enchant more items with each use. It wasn’t enough to enchant everyone’s equipment in one go, though.

“By the way, I noticed that you guys have changed up your equipment,” I said, looking at Syphon and the others. Their new stuff was pretty flashy, and Appraisal revealed the items to be quite high-quality.

“We generally have to pretend we’re ordinary adventurers, after all,” Syphon said with a shrug. “Really good equipment attracts too much attention.”

Then we sat down for lunch, with Ciel joining us this time. I’d explained to Syphon’s party that I had a spirit with me and that she was quite a glutton.

They’d been shocked by the disappearing food at first, but learning there was a real spirit present made them assume a prayer posture for some reason. I couldn’t help but wonder what the heck went on in the Eld Republic, but Chris said this was just the way things were in certain areas.

It felt like our parties were more comfortable around each other now that we knew each other’s stories, though Chris was less than comfortable with their overprotectiveness at times.

The terrain of the thirtieth floor boss room was a wetland. It looked similar to the grassland floor at first, but with saturated ground that made it harder to keep your footing. It wasn’t so bad as long as the water was shallow, but you had to keep an eye out for the deeper pools.

There were some obvious puddles here and there as well, but the sight of them paradoxically made it harder to move, since it indicated a direction you definitely couldn’t go in.

“I’d really like to lure the monsters to an easier place to fight,” Syphon said. “These advanced subtype orcs can be smart.”

Especially since we’re fighting both a king and a lord this time, I agreed internally. I asked him which was stronger of the two, and he answered that kings were usually a bit more powerful. I’d had it in my head that a lord would have to be stronger.

“But the difference isn’t that major, so it can come down to individuals,” he added. “Neither is the kind of monster you really want to mess with.”

While we waited for the monsters to spawn, we searched the surrounding area for a good battleground. Shade took point on the search, but I helped out a fair bit as well—particularly with my Traps skill. I walked around with it activated to spot pools and waterlogged patches of ground. Shade also used his shadows ability to show us places where the water was deeper than it looked at a glance.

Even after the monsters spawned, we didn’t go to them; we continued taking our time scouting out the area. Once we’d found an ideal place to fight, I sent Shade off to lure the orcs to us.

I hadn’t been sure if the orcs would take the bait, but Shade must have done a good job provoking them, because they soon came running. Our plan had been to split up the king and the lord between our party and Syphon’s, and we succeeded in doing that. However, both generals ended up going after Syphon’s party too, and they ended up fighting over twice the monsters that we did.

The reason we’d managed to split the monster party in two was because we used my Provoke skill and a series of long-range attacks to break up their formations while Shade was still evading them. Chris’s spirit magic was particularly useful here, throwing the orcs into a blind panic. I didn’t know what they were saying, but I could hear them shouting something.

Despite having to fight the lion’s share of the orcs, Syphon’s party had their new equipment, which left them with no blind spots. Gytz’s magic shield kept the orcs’ long-range attacks at bay, while Juno’s spells blasted through large numbers of them at once.

I had to appreciate the difference a little change of equipment could make. Orga was also supporting the two vanguard members by using a bow for once, while Syphon and Jinn crossed the distance to the surviving orcs and cut through them quickly.

By the next time I looked their way, they’d whittled them down to just the lord and the generals.

The rest of us did our best to keep up, and the power of our mana-enchanted mithril weapons allowed our three vanguard members to tear through the orcs with ease while I focused on defending against the long-range attacks from the orc archers and mages.

The king ended up so thoroughly dominated that I felt a little bad about it. Sera was just too powerful.

“S-Sera, you’re good at this. No wonder they call you ‘big sis.’” Syphon and the others were taken aback by the sight.

Of course, I knew Sera was of a higher level than any of us. Beastfolk also had strong physical abilities to start with, and her advantages were only enhanced by her mana-enchanted weapons.

Once we’d beaten all the monsters, including the two bosses, a chest appeared. It wasn’t protected by a trap, so we opened it right away and saw a fist-sized chunk of mithril inside. This was quite a treasure in its own right, so why weren’t we happy?

“Hey, Syphon,” I asked. “Do you mind if I buy the orc king and lord magistones?”

“Fine by me, but what are you using them for? Alchemy?”

“It might be faster to show you. Is it okay if I buy the mithril as well?” I needed to replenish my stock, but the price turned out to be pretty high... I might be the poorest person in our party right now. I’ll have to pick some more herbs to earn the money back.

While I thought about that, I created a Golem Core. The ingredients I used this time were Golem Magistone, Mithril (Ore 1), Magic Steel (Ore 2), Orc King Magistone (Magistone 1), and Orc Lord Magistone.

I wanted to create a powerful golem in preparation for the fortieth floor, so I used the precious magistones right away. Syphon and the others were shocked when they saw the finished product.

[Golem Core: Guardian Type]

Then I used Mana Enchant to infuse the Golem Core with mana, and it transformed into a large, humanoid golem.

“Hey, now,” Syphon said, stunned. “What in the world...?”

“It’s one of my skills,” I told him. “I need a lot of materials to do it, but I can make golems.”

“So you made that thing too? You didn’t find it in a chest?” Syphon asked, pointing at Shade.

I nodded.

“That explains why the Kingdom’s guys were after you,” I heard him say, but I ignored it for the moment to focus on checking my new golem’s capabilities.

◇◇◇

“I see... So you finally made it past the thirtieth floor? Hmm... I see I chose well...” Seris seemed quite pleased as she watched Rurika play with Ciel.

Preventing the monster parade would help keep the city safe. The way Seris talked made it clear to me just how much she cared about the town.

“So... When are you going back to the dungeon?”

“We were planning to hit up the thirty-first floor in four days, but I think we’ll go back to the tenth and twentieth boss rooms first? I want to test what my new golem can do.” I’d assumed it would be strong, but I wanted it to get some battle experience outside the public eye before we moved on.

It would be dangerous to go alone, so I went with the five girls. Golem X (Hikari’s name for him) seemed strong enough to fight by himself without Shade’s support. I wasn’t sure yet if he had any special abilities, but his biggest strength was probably his ability to use weapons and armor.

I also want him to act as a night watchman, so maybe it would be best to give him a spear and shield as his basic gear, then have him use a sword against whatever gets in close? I’d like to give him long-range weapons like bows too... I had high hopes going forward.

I’d asked Hikari where she’d gotten the name from, and she’d said it was just instinct.

From the thirty-first through thirty-fourth floors, our wealth of experience in the dungeon so far allowed us to make smooth progress. I watched the signals on my automap and summoned Shade and X when I could. But starting on the thirty-third floor, I stopped seeing any other human signals entirely, so then I could keep them out all the time.

We didn’t know it at the time, but apparently our getting this far was a pretty big shock to some people. That was probably a natural reaction to seeing a party of students and a handful of adventurers tearing through while the major clans were at a standstill, though.

Though I was keeping an eye on the signals around us, my mind had mostly been consumed by thoughts of the next floor down.

By this point, reports from the Guardian’s Blade had allowed the thirty-fifth floor to be completely documented, and I’d read through them multiple times. The area was already famous for its treants, but we now knew it was also home to silent killer bees and ghosts.

Silent killer bees’ special ability was that they flew without a sound, letting them act like assassins. They were part of why the clan hadn’t been able to let their guard down the whole time they were there.

Meanwhile, ghosts were weaker than most monsters on that floor in terms of numbers, but they had unique characteristics that made them tricky opponents. Although they counted as undead, they had no physical form, which made them impervious to physical attacks—including weapons with a holy attribute. With most undead, if you didn’t care about the magistone, you could usually just hit them until they went down. You couldn’t do that with ghosts, though—to defeat them, you needed magic with either the holy or light element.

Because they couldn’t physically attack you, you could theoretically leave the ghosts alone, but they also had a special attack that made this impossible: possession—taking over a person’s body to make them attack their allies. The only way to prevent this was with holy-attribute magic items like talismans, the holy spell Blessing, or the purification of the body with holy water.

We’d already been relying on Mia a lot since the twenty-first floor, and this would be putting even more of a burden on her.

I looked through my list of learnable skills again, but Light Spells still wasn’t available. I’d checked enough times in the past to suspect this would be true, but I was hoping that learning it would lighten her load.

Maybe they’re just impossible for me to learn, I thought. Or there are other conditions I have to meet first...

Suddenly, there was a quiet knock on my door, and Mia stepped in. “Sora, can we talk?” She started as she saw me. “Uh, what are you doing?”

“Um, practicing to increase skill proficiencies, I guess?”

Her surprise was perhaps understandable. I was currently using my water magic to create spheres of water and moving them around in the air in a form that was kind of like juggling. The reason I was doing this was because Water Spells was the only one of the four elemental magic types that I hadn’t maxed out yet.

I had a theory that Light Spells might appear on my learnable skill list if I maxed out all four magic elements. I’d heard it was harder to use than the other four elements, after all, which had gotten me wondering if it might be an advanced skill. After that, I’d started casting water spells whenever I had free time.

Unfortunately, because this particular spell also qualified as a lifestyle spell, it raised my proficiency slower than most water spells would. It wasn’t like I could just go shooting out water blasts in the middle of a city, though.

“So, what’s up?” I asked Mia, and she responded that she wanted to ask me for some water to create holy water.

You could make holy water with regular water, but magical water was said to convert more efficiently and also be more effective.

“We’re going to the dungeon tomorrow. Are you sure?” I asked.

“Yeah, I won’t be overworking myself. I’m not you, Sora.”

“I can’t deny that that one hits home, but you push yourself pretty hard too, Mia.”

“Heh, I guess I learned that from you.”

That one definitely stung. Don’t learn from my worst points! I silently reprimanded her. And don’t tilt your head cutely when you do it. It’s not fair...

I put the magic water I’d summoned into a large bottle and handed it over, after which she left, humming to herself. I was still looking out the door after her when Ciel flew up in front of me and waved her ears.

“Leave it to you, huh?” I asked her wryly.

She nodded in response, then left the room after Mia.

◇◇◇

The Nightmare Forest—people called it that because the monsters within were so difficult to deal with.

Treants, which were hard to tell apart from normal trees; silent killer bees, which crept up without a sound; ghosts, which possessed you to attack your allies... It was a collection of the most insidious monsters possible.

The thirty-fifth floor consisted of a series of forests, which occasionally opened up into wide open spaces. But according to the Guardian’s Blade, these were actually the most dangerous locations on the floor even though they looked like safe zones. One time they’d set up camp there and found themselves surrounded by treants in no time.

The whole area was also quite dark. Even in the daytime, there was a mist that blocked out the sunlight, making it hard to see far. That further increased the danger posed by the ghosts and silent killer bees.

I checked my automap as usual. First I used Detect Presence, then Detect Mana. More signals appeared when I used the latter. Are those the ghosts, then?

Still, there were an awful lot of visible monster signals out there. There were some places where they weren’t as prevalent, and I thought we might want to take that route even though it would be a big detour.

“Let’s see. We’ve never fought treants—or any of the monsters that appear on this floor, for that matter. I’d like to try them out in a less populated area.” I summoned my two golems, then put Shade in the vanguard and X on the back lines as we walked.

There was a lot of variety in the forests themselves, from places where the trees were spaced out enough to pass through with no problem to places where they were packed so densely that even Hikari could just barely slip through. That didn’t leave many options for the direction we could go in, to the degree that it almost felt like we were being guided.

“Signal ahead!” I shouted, and our frontline fighters crept forward cautiously with weapons at the ready.

As we entered the trees, visibility got even worse. I used wind magic to disperse the fog, but more fog appeared instantly. However, Hikari and Orga seemed able to see the silent killer bee in the split second of clarity, and they disappeared into the fog with Shade running after them.

We waited five minutes, keeping a close eye around us. Finally, the three of them returned, with Shade carrying a dead killer bee on his back.

“Great job,” Sera praised them as they returned.

We were currently in an area that was dense with trees, which made it hard to fight with larger weapons like axes and swords. That meant we had to let Hikari and Orga do most of the fighting. Orga switched easily between a variety of weapons, and he had proven quite skilled with each of them. When I commented on this, he protested that he was simply a jack-of-all-trades but a master of none.

“There’s another signal a bit ahead of us,” I said. “It’s not moving right now, so it could be a treant.”

Rurika snapped to attention immediately.

“Rurika, don’t get too excited,” Chris said, quickly moving to calm her down.

Rurika was so excited because treant branches and magistones were two of the ingredients needed to create the Eyes of Eliana, which would let her see spirits. I’d accidentally let that slip.

By the way, the items I needed to make the Eyes of Eliana were:

[Eyes of Eliana]

Materials needed:

Gigant Eye

Treant Branch

***

Gigant Magistone

Treant Magistone

Magistone

With the Creation skill, I could still work it out with one missing ingredient, but I was really curious about what the final ingredient was supposed to be.

This time, Shade and I went first, with Shield cast on both of us. I was holding my shield at the ready while keeping an eye on my footing when suddenly the mana signal grew stronger. Shade leaped away, and I raised my shield to block—the treant had thrust out a branch out to attack me. It was followed up rapidly with a second, then a third.

I relied on watching the flow of mana with Detect Mana and the sound of crackling branches to know where to move my shield to repel the attacks while swinging my sword to cut away at them. The treant let out a kind of cry that echoed through the forest around it, and I wasn’t sure whether it was pain from me cutting off its branches or an expression of rage.

The battle took a while—about ten minutes to put the thing down completely. Treants were like golems in a way, and they continued to regrow limbs even after you cut them off. To destroy them, you had to either wait for them to run out of mana or destroy the magistone inside.

Of course, if you destroyed the magistone, the toughness and quality of the branches and trunk dropped significantly and lost their value as materials.

That meant I probably could have finished it faster if I’d cut right into the tree’s trunk instead of taking out the branches one by one. I hadn’t done that because I wanted Shade to get more combat experience and because there wasn’t a lot of room to move here.

“You really do need to be pretty close to see the monsters in here,” I commented.

“Which means it might be tough to camp out in the forest,” Rurika responded.

“Yeah, I can see why the Guardian’s Blade decided to camp out in clearings.”

I had started thinking about the best place to set up camp when I saw several signals coming our way. Rurika seemed to sense them as well, and we prepared for combat again. Following our lead, the others put their guard up too.

I heard a rumbling from below. It grew louder and louder until we suddenly heard the sound of trees toppling over. Chris used wind magic to blow away the mist in the direction of the sound, allowing us to see a pack of treants coming our way.

“That sound it was making... Was it calling more allies?” Syphon asked.

I looked at my automap and saw more of them coming at us, not just from the front but from the right flank as well.

“Mages, clear the fog out with wind spells! Don’t worry about the materials; just thin out their numbers!” Syphon called.

The party sprang into action. Gytz took point as shield-wielder in my place, while Hikari and Orga disappeared into the forest to prepare surprise attacks. Syphon, Sera, and Rurika held back and readied their weapons, while Jinn stayed on the back line to protect the casters. I helped them out by using wind spells, though I took whatever chances I could get to use water spells as well.

It was a battle of epic enough scale to level the forest around us, but we ended up managing to defeat all the treants. The treants themselves had toppled most of the trees around us, so I couldn’t help feeling like they’d done us a favor by creating a perfect campsite.

We’d beaten twenty-six of them. Eighteen had had their magistones destroyed, and thus they would have no use beyond firewood.

Mia had shined the most in the battle, using Protection and Blessing to support the rest of us and dealing with any ghosts that appeared while we fought.

“Syphon, should we rest here for today?” I asked.

Syphon’s first response was to look over Mia. Given how tired she was, he decided we couldn’t make any more progress for that day, so we opted to set up camp. Mia was apologetic about making us rest earlier than usual, but the endeavor ended up teaching us something as well.

“Is it the trees’ leaves that create the fog?” I breathed.

With all the trees around us gone, there was no more fog in the area, so I’d used Appraisal, which told me that the leaves themselves had been generating the fog. We also learned that you could stop the leaves from doing this by exposing them to light.

I figured constant spellcasting would be strenuous either way, whether it was light or wind. But since we’d learned that using the lifestyle spell Light would dispel the fog for longer, Chris and I decided to go with that from now on. It seemed Juno wasn’t great with lifestyle spells.

“That’s convenient.”

“Yeah, master’s amazing.”

Rurika and Hikari led us farther into the forest. I walked beside the two of them, casting Light as we went. Juno was worried that I was doing too much casting, and I was indeed burning MP with each use. However, walking immediately restored it, so it wasn’t a problem. I had Boost Recovery helping me out as well.

“This could be big news if we report it to the guild,” Syphon proposed. “No one’s been able to use this place as a hunting ground yet because of the fog. With that gone, it should be a lot easier for everyone, which’ll make treant materials cheaper.”

Fighting the monsters had been a lot easier with clear vision, so I agreed with him there.

“I doubt it, Syphon,” Jinn dissented. “You’d have to be able to round up the right team in the first place. There aren’t many people who can do what we’ve done here.”

The others nodded in agreement with him.

He explained that we’d been able to fight normally even with multiple treants surrounding us, but having people who could see through their camouflage to prevent ambushes in the first place had made a huge difference. Even Hikari had said it was hard for her to tell the treants apart from the trees until she got close, so the automap must have played a big role in that. It also suggested that Detect Mana was more useful than Detect Presence for spotting treants.

We ended up making it to the thirty-sixth floor stairs. After that, we returned to the guild, sold off the materials that we weren’t going to use, and passed on the info about the thirty-fifth floor. They said they’d have the Guardian’s Blade double-check the method we’d used for clearing it.

Three days later...

While we were getting ready for our next dungeon dive, we received a report that the Guardian’s Blade had been shattered while exploring the thirty-ninth floor. The party wasn’t completely wiped out, but several of their members had died, and most of the survivors had come back injured.

At the school, it was all anyone was talking about. Layla and Joshua had taken the news particularly badly. One member of the clan, Ash, had partied up with Layla before, and Joshua greatly admired him too.

When I saw them, they had bags under their eyes, and they looked so depressed that it made me hesitant to approach them.

When I ran into Fred later, he said the same thing was true not just at the school but at the adventurers’ guild as well.

“We heard about it when we got back from the dungeon yesterday,” he said. “Even when there’s lots of people there, there’s a real pall hanging over the proceedings. I don’t think that’d happen for just any party of adventurers.”

After telling me this, Fred walked away, and even his footsteps felt heavy.

Chapter 8

I dropped by the library and told Seris about our experience on the thirty-fifth floor.

She seemed shocked when I told her how we’d gotten rid of the mist.

“You can do that? But what about all the trouble I went to, using that little one’s power to blow away the mist by force?” she muttered to herself, gazing into the distance. A moment later, she snapped out of it and went back to her usual lilting tone. “A-Anyway, well done... But...what will you do now?”

“Eh? I thought we’d head to the fortieth floor like you asked.”

“Are you sure...?” she said after a moment. The fate of the Guardian’s Blade—the destruction of such an experienced party—seemed to have affected her as well.

It made me think we should consider the thirty-ninth floor to be on a whole other level of difficulty than the ones that came before...or perhaps the giant guards that appeared on the thirty-ninth floor were just that strong. I was pretty sure giants were the only monsters that appeared on the thirty-eighth floor, and the materials said that giants and giant guards appeared on the thirty-ninth.

I’d also heard this had been the Guardian’s Blade’s third trip to the thirty-ninth floor.

Normally, because the dungeon got harder and the monsters got tougher the farther down you went, the general approach to a new floor was to make several brief visits to gradually acclimate yourself to the conditions there. The way we’d done it was pretty unusual, and most people couldn’t imitate it. My automap, the Item Box, Syphon’s team’s experience, and the golems had all played a big role there.

However, the biggest reason might have been that we had a well-balanced party. The fact that Chris could use spirit magic and Mia could use holy magic already made it a top-tier party composition, but the effectiveness of Mia’s holy spells was also greater than that of the priests, who were otherwise the best holy magic users in the city.

“Seris, how do you think the Guardian’s Blade got destroyed?” I asked her.

I’d heard that giants were close to four meters tall, and two meters wide at the shoulders. The labyrinth corridors were definitely getting wider, but surely there were limits to how many could gang up on you at once. They’d also need to swing weapons around, so I couldn’t imagine even five standing side by side—unless they just threw themselves at you all together, of course.

“What I hear is that they were suddenly surrounded by a whole group of monsters... Perhaps it could have been a room...”

“A room?”

“Yes... You do see them sometimes...in labyrinth-style dungeons... Wide-open spaces form, very much unlike the corridors. We call those rooms...”

So you can be attacked by unexpected numbers of monsters, all at once? I thought. “But if they knew the room was there, they could’ve avoided the ambush. Why do you think they didn’t?”

“Maybe they didn’t realize it until the attack happened... Perhaps there was an illusion making it look like a corridor...that wasn’t lifted until they reached the point of no return... Such things are known to happen in dungeons...”

I’d never seen a wide-open space like that in the dungeon so far. Maybe I’d just gotten lucky? We’d have to be more careful on our next dive, then.

“Well then, Sora... Once you reach the fortieth floor, be sure to stop by and see me first. Of course, you’re free to stop in every time you come back... Make sure you do it...”

At last, we reached the day before our next dungeon dive.

“Tomorrow’s the day, huh?”

Chris laughed. “Are you nervous, Rurika?”

“W-Well... You are too, right, Chris?”

While we were checking our gear, I could hear Rurika and Chris talking with deliberate cheer to distract themselves, but I saw they were taking the job very seriously when I looked at them. From what I could see, the destruction of the Guardian’s Blade hadn’t affected them. They seemed calm.

The other three seemed all right too.

“It’s okay. I’ll keep everyone safe,” Sera said.

“Yeah, I’ll find all the monsters,” Hikari added.

“Sora, don’t you push yourself too hard either,” Mia warned me.

“I won’t,” I assured her. “We’ll be running away the minute things seem dangerous.”

Syphon’s party had given back the Returner Stone I’d lent them, as they’d apparently picked up one of their own. The stones had gone up in price lately, but apparently they’d been visiting boss rooms on the sly. I’d talked with Syphon in advance about using them right away if things got dangerous.

As long as you were alive, you could always start over.

“Then let’s get to bed early tonight to be ready for tomorrow,” I told them.

My six companions (five humanoid, one animal) nodded in response.

◇◇◇

The monsters on the thirty-sixth and thirty-seventh floors were all ones we’d faced before, so we didn’t have any particular trouble there. Once those floors were finished, we returned with a plan to take on the thirty-eighth after a day off.

While we were in town, we lightened the mood by visiting the school, spending time with Norman and the kids, teaching Elza’s gang to cook, and other things. Most of all, I never forgot to do my all-important walking.

At the school, it seemed like the students were very eager to know what we’d seen in the dungeon, and everyone but me was regularly surrounded. Why everyone but me? I’d been calling myself a merchant, so most people assumed I was a porter and left me alone. I don’t feel sad about it all, okay?

“Are you actually jealous?” Seris teased me when we came to see her.

Rurika, though, ended up even worse off than me. A few people had tagged along when we visited the library, so she couldn’t play with Ciel. Her greatest reason for coming to school had been cruelly denied to her.

Ciel also seemed sad that she couldn’t eat with us, so she sulkily snuggled up with Seris. I secretly thought she could have snuggled up to me, but I wasn’t about to mention it.

The Guardian’s Blade must have heard about our dungeon exploits as well, because a few people from their team—Ash among them—dropped by our house to pass on some info about giants and giant guards. They also told us more about what had happened on the thirty-ninth floor. It was kind of them to go out of their way, since the memories around it couldn’t have been pleasant.

As Seris had suspected, they’d been moving along a corridor which had suddenly transformed into a wide-open space, and they’d found themselves surrounded by monsters. The sudden surprise had thrown them into confusion, and the person carrying their Returner Stone had been the first one injured, which had played a big part in their losses.

“There wasn’t even a trap. At least, none that we could find.” That was the last thing Ash said as they were on their way out.

Then, the next day...

We arrived on the thirty-eighth floor.

◇Seris’s Perspective

“I’m sure they’ll be in the dungeon by now...”

I was standing by the library window and gazing out. I could see the children running around below.

Suddenly I felt a seizure in the mana around me.

The next moment, a tremor occurred. Unable to stay standing, I knelt down on the floor. I heard books falling from the shelves.

By the time the shaking abided, the library was in a terrible state. None of the shelves had fallen, but books were scattered across the floor.

The thought of cleaning it all up by myself made my head hurt. I wish someone would help me... Should I call the vice principal?

The shaking just now had felt worse than ever.

I could hear the voices of students outside. I picked myself up and looked out to see several of them fallen and unable to stand.

“Perhaps...we’re nearly out of time...”

So far, I had managed to hold it back with Chris’s help, but maybe the dungeon’s power had grown strong enough to overpower even that. The moment really might be close.

Unfortunately, I had no way of knowing when that moment would actually come. The monster parade could happen tomorrow, or further into the future. Either way, we had to prepare. It was possible that they might even have to recruit the students into the effort.

This was something to discuss with Will, the principal, and the master of the adventurers’ guild.

Then there was one other thing I was thinking about.

Should I really leave the boss to Sora and his friends?

I’d originally asked them in the interests of preventing the monster parade...and my own personal revenge. But the more I’d interacted with them, the more I’d begun to wonder if that was truly the right thing to do.

It was true that if the dungeon were conquered, the monster parades would never happen again. Even so, I had begun to wonder if it was right to ask young people who were not from this town to do what we had been unable to.

That boss was certainly strong. I had seen it for myself.

When I’d heard that the town’s strongest clan, the Guardian’s Blade, had been destroyed on the thirty-ninth floor, my worries only grew stronger. If they could at least go down with the Guardian’s Blade... I couldn’t help thinking.

“I don’t suppose he would help, would he?”

I didn’t know why, but I had heard that that person was in the city at just that moment. But if he were to show himself, it would likely just lead to more chaos...

Why was he staying in this city for so long, though? Was he interested in Sora, the otherworlder? If he were, I assumed he could just make contact, but he didn’t seem to be doing that.

None of it made any sense to me.

I turned my eyes in the direction of the distant dungeon and sighed.

◇◇◇

While we were clearing the thirty-eighth floor, we fought giants several times.

They towered over us at over four meters tall, and blocking their clubs with my shield made my hands go numb. Part of it was that they could swing down with so much momentum, but they really were strong too.

You couldn’t really beat them with one blow either. You first had to take out their legs to limit their mobility before you could finish them off. That was if you wanted to beat them up close, of course; long-range attacks were harder to use since all colossus-class monsters were highly resistant to magic. Their faces were their weak point, if you could hit them, but the monsters knew that and would keep their guard up.

“I think the throwing knives you made were the most effective, Sora,” Syphon said after a few battles.

The magic-enchanted throwing knives weren’t great for gathering materials, but their power was undeniable.

“Hikari’s dagger too,” Rurika added. “Paralyzing them slows them down, which helps a lot.”

Hikari seemed happy to hear that, but it was hard for the dagger to break the skin by itself, so she had to imbue it with mana for the technique to work. Ciel also nuzzled Hikari as if to praise her.

Having worked out a degree of battle strategy, we were able to try several different methodologies in our next set of battles. Once, we tried fighting without me and Gytz; another time, I joined the melee with my mithril sword, and we tried other combinations so we would be okay if anyone had to leave the vanguard for any reason.

Was it dangerous to experiment like that in a live combat situation with lives on the line? We’d talked it out in advance, though, and decided it was necessary preparation for the thirty-ninth floor. If we ended up surrounded, we might find ourselves in a situation where Gytz and I couldn’t cover for everyone, after all.

There was also a skill I’d managed to try out in combat for the first time.

NEW

[Shield Tech Lv. 3]

It was basically a shield version of Sword Tech. Learning the skill came with a few techniques I could use, and I would get more as I leveled it up. By the way, this one cost one skill point to learn, and I’d leveled it up through mock duels and this latest series of battles.

Among Shield Tech’s techniques was a counterattack move called Shield Bash that could throw enemies off-balance, but it was mostly defensive skills otherwise. Learning it had also made me realize that Gytz’s perfect defense against long-range attacks in the last boss fight wasn’t just thanks to his magical shield, but a skill he had to enhance it.

Soon after, we finally arrived at the thirty-ninth floor stairs. The first thing I did when we went down was to check my automap.

“Anything?” Rurika prompted me.

“I do see a wide-open space up ahead, but...” I wasn’t quite sure what to say. The Guardian’s Blade had told us the general location of where they’d been ambushed, so I’d checked the map area around there. It definitely looked like a wide-open space, and more like a room than a corridor, but I couldn’t find any similar open spaces in other locations. “If there are other spots like that, the automap might not be showing them.”

I added that if the space had only widened out after a trap or something had been triggered, we wouldn’t know about the others until we sprang it. The Guardian’s Blade had said that monsters had surrounded them after the corridor had widened, so I’d looked out for areas with monster or trap signals around places labeled as walls, but I didn’t see anything like that.

“So, is anyone feeling tired?” I asked. “Should we head back for now?”

I didn’t feel any exhaustion thanks to my skill, but I decided to get the others’ opinions. Distance-wise, it would probably take longer to go back to the thirty-fifth floor, but the monsters in that direction would be weaker. The large clans used Returner Stones to get back, so the more clans that made it to the bottom levels, the more those stones would cost.

In the end, since we had a Returner Stone, we decided to keep going for the moment. We had plenty of supplies, and everyone had leveled up nicely, so maybe their stamina had improved. Everyone except for Sera had gone up quite a bit since we first started out in the dungeon. Chris’s level was still low compared to the others, though. It had been higher than Mia’s when we’d first entered the dungeon, which made me think that maybe elves gained levels slower than humans.

Our party’s levels were currently as follows:

[Name: Hikari / Job: Special Slave / Level 49 / Race: Human / Status: —]

[Name: Mia / Job: Debt Slave / Level: 42 / Race: Human / Status: Nervous]

[Name: Sera / Job: Debt Slave / Level: 70 / Race: Beastfolk / Status: —]

[Name: Rurika / Job: Adventurer / Level: 47 / Race: Human / Status: —]

[Name: Chris / Job: Adventurer / Level: 36 / Race: High Elf / Status: Nervous]

Syphon’s companions had also leveled up into the fifties.

We kept going, maintaining a cross-shaped formation.

Giant guards were a little smaller than giants, but they were still huge. The reduction in size made them more agile, though, and they also had better equipment. Shade could easily deal with their speed, but X seemed completely unable to keep up. However, he seemed to quickly realize this, opting to focus instead on a more effective defense strategy while waiting for the right moment to land a counter-blow. Seeing that he was so tough that even their powerful attacks wouldn’t faze him set me at ease.

“We’re almost there, aren’t we? I feel some powerful monster auras nearby, so there must be a lot of them, right?” Rurika said, pausing to wipe sweat from her brow.

In the space where the Guardian’s Blade had been ambushed, I could see over ten monsters on the automap. They seemed to be concentrated in the center of the room.

“Let’s see if Shade can lure them out,” I said. I gave him the order and sent him running.

Shade soon arrived at the center of the room, and I could see the monsters on the map start to move in his direction. Shade seemed to have stopped for a while, but he doubled back once the monsters were close enough. The monsters pursued him at first but stopped just short of entering the corridor, withdrawing to their starting point at the room’s center instead.

Seeing this, Shade tried again, but the result didn’t change. I eventually ordered him back telepathically, and he seemed a little dejected when he returned. Hikari and Ciel comforted him. Did he learn how to look sulky to get reassurance? I smiled as I watched it, then explained to everyone what I’d seen on the map.

“Maybe there’s some kind of rule in play. By the way, is there any way to make progress without going into the room?”

“Not according to the automap.”

“Then we’ll have to go through. Knowing what we’re getting into gives us an advantage, so the question is just if more monsters will appear. Have their numbers gone up at all?”

“No, but we’ll have to keep on the alert.”

We then discussed our plan of attack and continued into the room.

Chris made the first strike with her spirit magic, and it was so powerful that it took out half the monsters at once. After that, we kept our eyes peeled for more monsters appearing, but none came, and the battle ended safely.

“We owe that to the info we got,” Chris said.

Rurika agreed. “Yeah, it’s thanks to the Guardian’s Blade that we didn’t get surrounded.”

As we continued our exploring, we did get surrounded by a group of monsters in a suddenly widening corridor once, but we were being careful enough that we managed to deal with them just fine. Gytz, X, and I managed to protect the rear guard, while Sera and the others whittled down their numbers. The mages used attack magic to keep the attacking monsters in check, and Mia cast Protection and other support spells to buff them.

I hadn’t known what Protection did at first, but I was really starting to see what a big difference it made. It definitely lessened the impacts of the strikes against my shield, but the biggest benefit was clearly to the golems, Shade and X. I could tell from their reduced mana consumption that their durability had increased.

After that, just before arriving at the fortieth floor stairs, we found our first treasure chest in a while. The reason we hadn’t found many outside of boss fights before now was that they often appeared at the final walls of dead ends, but since I had my automap, we tended to avoid those. This time, though, there wound up being a dead end not too far off our path, and we happened to notice the chest at the end.

Inside it was...

“We’ll have to bring these back,” Rurika said.

“Yeah.” Hikari nodded in response, holding a dagger in her hands that bore the Guardian’s Blade insignia.

We’d found a lot of things in treasure chests, but this was the first one we’d found that held the equipment of a fallen adventurer. It also contained things like their adventurer cards.

“After we check the door, we can head back for now.”

As we arrived in front of the fortieth floor boss room, I appraised the door to check the monsters inside.

[☆ Gigant 1 / Gigant 5 / Giant Guard 10]

This seemed on the light side for a boss room, and I also noticed that “Gigant” appeared twice as if it were two different kinds of monster. Seris already asked us to report back when we reached the fortieth floor, so maybe I should tell her about this too?

I was mainly excited to learn that we’d find gigants here, as their materials were necessary to create the Eyes of Eliana, so I decided not to think too hard about it for now.

We left the dungeon and returned to the guild, where everyone seemed pretty on edge. Normally there would’ve been more people there, but it felt like there were very few adventurers at the moment.

Have they all gone into the dungeon? I wondered.

The guild receptionist looked surprised to see us and waved us over.

“Something up?” Syphon asked.

She explained that there had been a big earthquake while we were in the dungeon. She asked if we’d noticed anything while we were in there, and we said we hadn’t felt anything.

“So how did your dive go?” she asked after that.

“Well, we made it through the thirty-ninth floor and arrived on the fortieth. As usual, the fortieth floor was a boss room,” Syphon said, handing over his card.

The receptionist checked it, then cried out in shock. This got the attention of the other adventurers, who immediately started showering us with praise, and then we were taken to another room to make a report.

They said we could wait until a different day if we were tired, so Syphon and I stayed behind to tell them what we’d found on the thirty-ninth floor. We also gave the Guardian’s Blade equipment to a member of the guild staff.

We asked what the earthquake had been like. They explained that it had caused significant damage to the city, and that the adventurers’ guild master and the lord had given orders to increase readiness.

It seemed we might not have much more time before the monster parade began.

◇◇◇

“I see...the fortieth floor at last...” When she heard my report, Seris seemed somehow happy and sad at the same time. “Tomorrow, come see me again with your adventurer companions...”

“I thought you had to be a member of the school to come on campus?”

“I’ll find a way to make it happen... I just want to tell you a few things... It’s very important information about the dungeon... So do make sure you bring them...”

It was exhausting to hear her say all that in her usual lilting tone, but something about her demeanor made me feel like I couldn’t say no.

We returned home, then stopped by Norman’s house to tell Syphon and his party that the school wanted them to drop by the next day to give a lecture to the students.

Syphon’s response was to grimace hard. He was usually a very caring person, so I’d assumed he’d be glad to do it, but he apparently hated public speaking.

“Not happening!” Syphon said restlessly, but he finally gave in when Chris asked him.

The next day, an extremely nervous Syphon and his party came to a kind of lecture hall at the academy and told them what we’d seen in the dungeon, after which they moved to the arena and did some combat instruction.

Reaching the front lines of the dungeon made us exceptionally popular, almost celebrities. The school had welcomed us in as well. Even the vice principal seemed excited, but... No way, right?

After that, we had lunch, then Syphon and the others came with us to talk with Seris in what was apparently the vice principal’s laboratory at the top floor of the tower. In the library, there was always a chance that people might come in no matter what measures we took, but apparently that wasn’t an issue here.

The vice principal looked like he wanted to cry about his laboratory space being taken, which seemed fair to me.

When he saw Seris for the first time, Syphon stopped in his tracks. Juno scowled and drove an elbow into his solar plexus, which felt like Syphon’s own fault.

Seeing her reaction, Jinn and the others tried to keep it together, but they clearly couldn’t help being enchanted by her.

I couldn’t exactly blame them there, of course, so I kept quiet.

Seris described her own experiences in the boss room on the fortieth floor.

She said the room’s interior was all white, like a temple, with a large seat at the end. It was an unthinkable sight to see in a dungeon, though it did match the structure of the final room in the previous dungeon she’d been to. But when she’d finally sensed the monsters appearing, her eyes had been drawn to the gigant that appeared to be the boss sitting in the seat. It carried a staff and, in the context of the setting, looked almost like a high priest.

Seris said they’d fought the gigant and its giant underlings in what turned out to be a lengthy battle.

“Ah...is that all true, ma’am?” Syphon asked.

“Yes... You don’t believe me?” Seris lifted up her hair to show off her ears.

The sight made Syphon and his party stop in their tracks. Learning that Seris was an elf had probably made them nervous.

“However, I now feel genuinely uncertain... I had previously asked Sora to clear the boss on the fortieth floor—to beat the dungeon once and for all—but now that I think about it, it will be quite dangerous...” Seris explained that the aid provided by Chris had bought the city time to prepare for the monster parade, so there was now no reason to force the issue of beating the dungeon.

“But won’t defeating the boss and beating the dungeon prevent the monster parade entirely?” I asked. “And not just this time, but forever?”

“Yes... That is true, but...” Seris’s affirmation trailed off weakly. The town was very important to her, but she was also worried about us and our safety.

“I think I want to keep on going and beat the dungeon,” Rurika said after a pause. “Besides, Sora said he could craft the Eyes of Eliana if he gets those gigant materials. After that, I could see spirits with the Eyes.” She seemed to be taking on a consciously cheery tone to offset Seris’s worries.

It wasn’t just Seris who was shocked by her words; Syphon felt the same way. Since we heard the story of the Guardian’s Blade getting wiped out on the thirty-ninth floor, my six-person group had discussed whether or not we should try to beat the dungeon several times. I’d wanted to put the safety of my party first, so I was ready to call it off if things got too dangerous.

The boss room, in particular, was a one-shot-only thing, so we had to be especially cautious there.

But Rurika, Chris, and Sera had said that they wanted to see it through if it would prevent another monster parade. This was before we’d known that the monsters on the fortieth floor were gigants, so the reason Rurika was giving here and now must have been something she’d come up with later.

Chris had apologized to me once we were alone together. “We would just be really sad to see any harm come to the city and its people. I’m sorry to be selfish.”

Then I remembered what Chris and Rurika had told me long ago: They’d lost their home in the Vossheil Empire’s invasion. The potential damage of the monster parade clearly brought back some traumatic memories for them.

“We feel the same way Rurika does,” I told Seris. “So could you tell us more about your time fighting the boss?”

Perhaps realizing how serious we were, or simply happy to see our enthusiasm, Seris smiled bashfully and went into detail about her time fighting the boss. “Well then... I will tell you everything I know...”

Seris explained that the boss gigant on the fortieth floor was a mutant variation which was a different color and a little bit smaller than a standard gigant. She also told us more about gigants themselves, as I’d actually looked into them at the guild before but hadn’t found any info.

Gigants were one-eyed colossi with the impressive regenerative abilities typical of their kin. They had tough skin and resistance to both physical and magical attacks—at least compared to other monsters, from what Seris could see. Their one weakness was light-element magic, which she only knew because one of her party members had a skill that allowed for the identification of weak points.

“The tricky part,” she went on, “is the special abilities used by the mutant gigant. It didn’t seem much stronger than the regular gigants at first, but then...”

Seris explained that the mutant had four special abilities: a black powder used for offense, a black mist used for defense, absorption, and summoning. The black powder wasn’t directly fatal, but its effect would gradually make its victim suffer over time.

“The black powder causes a status effect when you come into contact with it... One of my party members who had experienced a curse before...said it felt a lot like that. I experienced it myself...and it felt like my mana began to weaken, I suppose?” Seris balled her hands into fists as she thought back on it.

Even if it wasn’t directly harmful, she explained, it would be dangerous to get hit by too much of it at once. Usually, if you got hit by one curse, you would be unaffected by further ones as long as the effect lasted. This wasn’t the case for the black powder, though—the curse’s effects would actually stack. Furthermore, in the true manner of powder, a small amount of it could apparently hover over a wide area, which made it even harder to deal with. You could direct it away from you with magic, but it wouldn’t actually disappear until it made contact with a person or the ground.

“And then there’s the black mist, which it wears like armor... It seems to have a regenerative effect...”

This part had been like a nightmare to Seris. The black mist not only increased the mutant’s regenerative abilities but could also bring monsters they’d previously defeated back to life. Even if they broke the creature’s magistone or cut the body into bits, the black mist could bring it back to life over and over again. Touching the black mist could also inflict the curse status, making it an effective attack as well as a defense. Seris added that the key to dispelling these two abilities was light magic.

I asked if holy spells would do the trick, and she said they wouldn’t destroy either.

“Then the absorbing and the summoning...” she went on. “Even after we endured everything else and fought back...and thought we had the mutant on the ropes...”

Just as they thought they’d almost beaten it, she explained, the mutant had devoured one of its allies. More precisely, the black mist had engulfed the creature and then been absorbed into the mutant’s body, after which the mutant seemed to grow stronger. It didn’t end there either—the mutant then summoned more of the monster it had absorbed. This happened over and over again, making the mutant grow more powerful at an alarming rate.

In the end, Seris and the others ran out of consumable items. It was only thanks to a skill used by one of her party members that they managed to escape from what should have been an inescapable boss room. Unfortunately, the person who used the skill hadn’t been able to escape with them.

“And that...” she concluded, “is all that I know...”

“Maybe I was taking all this a bit too lightly,” Rurika said, gazing up at the sky as we walked back. She sounded a little pained about it.

It was much clearer now why Seris hadn’t wanted us to go. It seemed when she’d first asked us to try to beat the dungeon, she’d initially wrestled with the idea quite a lot, and she only ended up asking because she feared the monster parade. She’d also told me in secret that I reminded her of the friend who had gotten them out of the dungeon, which was why she’d gotten her hopes up.

Still...after hearing her actually describe the fight, I couldn’t help but think that it might be possible. Especially after hearing the boss’s fighting style and weak points.

Light Spells hadn’t been on the learned skill list when I’d looked before, but it actually had been added yesterday when I’d checked again. Learning it would cost two skill points. I’d been right that maxing out my Water Spells level would unlock it.

Learning Light Spells to strike at the boss’s weak point would let us keep the battle short. We could also use the golems—status effects wouldn’t work on them, so they might be unaffected by the black powder. I’d have to worry about the mana weakening effect for them, though. As for absorbing and summoning, I felt like we could keep it from absorbing other monsters and from using its regenerative abilities as long as we were careful.

“Let’s prepare for it, at least,” I decided. “The most reliable method would probably be to have the golems deal with the boss, but we should still take precautions against the curse status. Sorry to ask, Mia, but we’ll need more holy water. Would you mind asking Tricia to help you out? Meanwhile, I’d like a hand from Rurika and the others.”

“Sora, you still want to fight that thing after everything she told us?” Syphon asked me in surprise. His other party members seemed to feel the same way.

“I mean, it’s not like we’ve got no chance at all. And even if we decide not to go through with it, there’s nothing wrong with preparing, right?”

“Right...” Syphon trailed off and thought for a moment. “Anything you want us to do?” he finally said.

“You’re willing to help us?”

“Well, it sounds like you six will be going either way. And...I don’t want to have any regrets.” Syphon forced a smile as he looked at Rurika and the others, whose previously dejected-looking eyes seemed to have taken on a new spark.

“Would you mind collecting some good-quality herbs for me, then?” I asked him.

With that, we set about making new preparations to take on the fortieth floor.

◇◇◇

I looked at my new skill.

NEW

[Light Spells Lv. 1]

With this, I could learn light-attribute magic. I’d have to raise the level, but I figured it would have to come in handy at some point. I’d also learned that I could enchant weapons with it, like I could with other elemental magic.

Learning Light Spells had also unlocked a new job for me: “sorcerer.” It seemed to be a better version of a mage, so I switched to that for now.

“Let’s stick around here while we train X up until we can meet back up with Mia, Syphon, and the others.”

We were currently in the waiting area in front of the fortieth floor boss room. Apparently gigants had a similar build to giant guards, so my plan was to have X gain some experience fighting them on the thirty-ninth floor. Shade as well, of course.

I also wanted to raise the levels of the rest of the party. I’d have liked to bring Mia along for this purpose, but her priority was creating holy water for the fight. Maybe it wouldn’t be necessary if we managed to clean things up quickly, but you never knew what might happen, so it was best to be prepared.

For the next three days, we fought as many giant guards as time would allow. We let X and Shade do most of the fighting, but we also worked out our own ways of beating the monsters as efficiently as possible, since we’d be facing giant guards in the boss room as well.

“Spirit magic really is strong, though,” Rurika had mentioned before we went down. “Can you use it too, Seris? We’d feel better if you fought with us.”

Seris had looked up apologetically and explained that she wished she could fight with us, but her party members couldn’t enter the fortieth floor boss room for some reason. It seemed that they’d trained up to make another try at the boss room after returning the first time, but they had been unable to enter, and they’d never gotten their rematch.

We met up with Mia three days later and worked on our combat coordination even more. Then, two days after that, we reunited with Syphon’s party. I used the herbs they gave me to make as many full potions as possible, and while I was doing that, the whole group did some hunting on the thirty-ninth floor without me.

When I asked if it was really okay to do that on the day before the big battle, the response was “Ah, it’s just a little warm-up. Don’t want to get out of shape.”

After they returned, Syphon said to me, “That golem of yours. X, right? Looks like he’s got some amazing equipment now.”

X now held a greatsword, a full-face helmet, and full plate armor. At a glance he looked like he’d be pretty weighed down, but he seemed to move just as fast with or without it. In this form he just looked like a regular knight, other than being abnormally tall.

“Now, for one last check...”

We discussed tomorrow’s boss battle over dinner, and chatted for a while afterward. Our main point of discussion was what was going on topside, with the knights armoring up for the monster parade and more adventurers on the lower levels being pulled from the dungeon to join the defensive line.

“So, how do we use these?”

“Just put them on. But I don’t know how much resistance they’ll grant, so be careful.”

The Feyer’s Charms would protect you from curses, but they had a durability of one hundred and would break when that number reached zero.

[Feyer’s Charm]

Materials needed:

Holy Water x10

Magic Crystal

Lich Magistone

Magistone

I’d chanced upon the recipe one day while I was looking around for items to prevent curses. It ended up using almost all of the holy water that Mia had made, but I managed to make one for each of us. I was truly grateful to Mia, Tricia, and the others.

Now all we had to do was beat the boss, stop the monster parade, and get the gigant materials.

◇◇◇

The next day, we entered the fortieth floor boss room.

It was indeed the templelike room that Seris had described, utterly white and lined with pillars that rose to a ceiling about ten meters up. Unlike the other boss rooms, it also seemed only about the size of a soccer pitch. At the far end was a large sculpture in the shape of a seat.

Soon enough the boss appeared sitting in the seat, with its lackeys in front of it.

“Follow the plan,” I told them. “Lure the mutant away from the other monsters!”

Before the monsters had appeared, we’d marched up to a certain distance from the seat, then stopped. While we’d waited, I’d summoned the golems and had them take a long way around to approach the seat. Once they’d reached the closest pillar, I’d ordered them to wait there until the time was right.

Then, at last, the boss had appeared. It was a one-eyed giant with dusky-colored skin, matching Seris’s reports. Though its lackeys wore simple loincloths, this creature was dressed in a fine embroidered robe that seemed to barely hold in its burly frame.

The seated mutant raised its staff and let out a war cry. I felt a tremor run through the air—its presence was incredible. I’d known the mutant was the boss, but the difference between it and the other gigants was still absurd.

Maybe that was what inspired me to examine it with Appraisal.

[Name: — / Job: — / Level: 78 / Race: Demigod / Status: Delighted]

The other gigants were level 52, but the mutant was level 78. Even for a boss, it was an unbelievable gap—along with the fact that its race was “demigod” rather than the standard “colossus.”

Seris said it started out around the same strength as the others but got stronger the more creatures it absorbed, I thought. Has its status carried over from when Seris first fought it?

“Sora!” Syphon called, breaking me out of my train of thought. “Incoming!”

I snapped back to reality, looked up, and saw the giant guards and lackey gigants running toward us. Each step they took covered so much ground that I knew they’d be on top of us shortly. This was what we wanted, though—I’d even planned to use Provoke to get them charging if they hadn’t done it on their own.

We backed up, putting as much space between us and the mutant as we could. The back line took the lead in the retreat, while Gytz and I moved back more gradually, using our shields to block attacks coming our way. At one point, the monsters’ charge cut off my view of the mutant, but I used Detect Presence to confirm that its signal wasn’t coming any closer.

“Sora, the black powder!” Mia exclaimed.

Indeed, a sort of black cloud had appeared overhead, which must have been the black powder in question. I could see it slowly begin to fall.

“Chris, Juno, use your spells to buy time!” I ordered them. “Blow it away from us if you can!”

Chris and Juno used wind spells to blow the black powder away, but more of it kept generating and they couldn’t keep up. Large amounts of powder rained down on us and made contact, but we suffered no ill effects, perhaps thanks to the Feyer’s Charm. I appraised my comrades and saw them all still at “—” for their status, instead of “Cursed,” but appraising the Charms revealed that their durability had ticked down.

I used Telepathy to command my golems and set them to attack the mutant. I’d imbued Shade’s claws and X’s greatsword with the light attribute in advance, which I assumed would make them more effective than standard weapons.

I left the mutant to them while we focused on defeating the other monsters. Our time on the thirty-ninth floor had paid dividends, and at first we had no trouble taking them all down. But then something unexpected happened.

“Ah! It’s reviving?!” Chris shouted.

She was right. The black mist had appeared near one of the giant guards we’d beaten, enveloped it, and brought it back to life.

“Hey now, I thought it had to get close to do that,” Syphon complained.

Indeed, this wasn’t what we’d been told. But as unexpected as it was, it shouldn’t matter if we stuck to my plan.

“Gytz, focus on defense. Rurika, frontliners, keep them distracted. Sera, you work with me to strike finishing blows!”

We’d gone over this plan many times beforehand. I’d also asked them to defeat the gigants without destroying their magistones if possible.

“First, let’s beat the gigant on the far end,” I told Sera.

Sera quickly cut through its leg to pin it down, then I executed a Sword Slash with a light-enchanted blade to finish it off. The gigant hit the ground with a crash, and the black mist appeared nearby as if in reaction.

I quickly dove in between the black fog and the gigant, then activated one of my Shield Tech techniques to “protect” it from the fog. “Aura Shield!”

Aura Shield created a dome-shaped barrier around my shield to protect a large area; it was mainly intended to protect the people behind you from area-effect spells. The black mist kept moving forward even after colliding with the Aura Shield, but it dispersed when I unleashed a sparkling gold Light Arrow.

After confirming that it was gone, I hurried over to the gigant’s body and stowed it away in my Item Box.

“Sera, let’s keep chipping away at their numbers, just like this,” I told her.

One by one we finished the monsters off, after which I packed them into my Item Box so they wouldn’t resurrect. Now I just had to hope that the mutant wouldn’t summon more, but from what I could see with Detect Presence there was no sign of their numbers increasing for the moment.

We allowed the monsters defeated by Syphon’s party to revive, but we continued to collect the ones Sera and I defeated in my Item Box. It seemed the black mist couldn’t be activated multiple times at once anyway.

Clearing out so many monsters opened up our sight lines again, giving a look at how the battle between Shade, X, and the mutant was going. I’d been worried about the mutant’s high level, but the attacks on its elemental weak point seemed to have been effective, and the golems were holding the line.

The mutant, now standing, seemed to be coming toward us despite the constant attacks on us. I wasn’t sure if it was planning on absorbing one of its fallen comrades, but we couldn’t let it make contact and get stronger. It seemed like it could heal them with that black mist even from a distance, so the fact that it was running up to us suggested it couldn’t absorb the bodies from where it was.

Black powder continued to spawn around us as well, but Chris and Juno made sure its damage was kept to a minimum.

“Master, we’ve cleared out all the gigants, and there are only three giant guards left,” Sera told me. “It looks like my axes and light-enchanted weapons can dispel the black mist, so I think you can go support the golems.”

I nodded in response, cleared up another cloud of black mist with a Light Arrow, and then headed for the mutant.

When I arrived, hearing the sounds of combat behind me, the sight that awaited me was like a typhoon had passed through. A pillar had been broken through in the middle, and its remnants were scattered over the floor. Despite the intensity of the battle, we hadn’t heard any of it because we’d been so focused on our own fight.

Shade and X remained healthy thanks to their excellent coordination. They were following my orders to the letter, with Shade running around to distract the mutant while X would stay still, look for openings, and then strike.

But, as I’d feared, the black powder seemed to have vastly depleted their mana. I assumed the black powder was responsible because there were no signs of damage on X’s armor. Since the armor wasn’t part of X’s body, it wouldn’t repair itself after being damaged; its untouched state suggested that X wasn’t spending mana recovering from damage dealt to him.

So, taking into account how much mana he would be expending just to stay active, I determined the cause had to be the black powder. Shade was losing mana too, but much less than X, suggesting that he was much better at avoiding the black powder while he was fighting.

The mutant seemed to notice my approach and raised another war cry.

It was even more intimidating up close, but I knew it was coming, and that allowed me to steel myself against it. Shade, X! Let’s take it down! I said telepathically.

A prolonged conflict would be to the monster’s advantage. I used Provoke to draw it in, then blocked its attack with my shield. I’d never felt such a strong blow before, and I might have been in real trouble if not for my shield techs. I used the Parry technique to block the strike, then pushed its staff away with another technique, Shield Bash.

The moment the mutant’s momentum shifted, Shade and X flung themselves at it, with X attacking from behind. X’s greatsword did much more damage than Shade’s attacks, and the mutant must have known this from its experience fighting them, because it instinctively moved to block X’s blow. This meant it turned its back to me.

I could see the mutant’s unguarded back just in front of me. I gripped my sword in both hands, found the location of its magistone with Detect Mana, and stabbed at it. The mutant seemed to realize this was happening and tried to use the black mist behind it to block my attack. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t work on my light-enchanted sword.

My mana-infused mithril blade tore first through the mist, then the skin of the mutant, and it kept going until it shattered its magistone. Its force sent the mutant collapsing forward, then it hit the ground and lay still.

According to Syphon, the remaining giant guards that their party had been fighting vanished into dust after we beat the boss.

“Master, you okay?” Hikari asked me.

“Yeah. It was actually pretty easy thanks to Shade and X.”

“Uh-huh? Good job, Shade.” She beckoned to Shade, who came trotting up to her. He was basically just a pet at this point.

Meanwhile, Rurika and Sera ran up to X and started patting him on the armor, apparently congratulating him.

I stored the mutant’s body in my Item Box and found a treasure chest lying beside the spot where it had been. I appraised it and found no traps, so Hikari opened it like usual. The chest contained a Returner Stone and a bag of holding, as well as a blank scroll, a broken mithril sword, and a notebook of some kind.

“We can divide this up after we get back, but it looks like we’ve officially conquered the dun—” Syphon started, but his words were cut off by a roar.

The seat the boss had been sitting in when it appeared had crumbled. In its place, there now stood a door large enough for even a gigant to pass through with ease.

We looked at each other and walked up to the door.

“Hey, is there more to do?” I asked, but nobody there knew the answer. I turned back and looked back at the wall we’d originally come through. It was still solid, which suggested we couldn’t go out the way we’d come in.

“I guess we should just keep going?”

The others must have thought the same thing, because they quietly agreed.

“Well... Shall we?” I touched the door, and it slowly opened.

Chris let out a small, sudden cry as I did, and then...

“Wah!” I didn’t know who made it, but it sounded like a noise of awe.

There was another room beyond the door. A road stretched out ahead, paved in white tile. In terms of overall area, it was probably a bit smaller than the boss room, and I could see what looked like a building in the distance.

We started down the road, which was lined on either side by colorful flowers. Things that resembled butterflies flitted around the flowers, which surprised me, as I hadn’t seen any creatures in the dungeon other than monsters. I used Detect Presence and Detect Mana out of curiosity and got no signal, so I reached out to touch one and found that my hand passed through it.

There were no clouds in the sky, but what seemed to be floating rocks instead. Unfortunately they were hanging over ten meters up, so we couldn’t touch them. Float stones? I couldn’t help but think as I looked at them.

“It’s like a giant house.”

We walked up to it and saw that the structure was about seven meters tall, yet it only seemed to be a single floor. We looked closer at the house and found that the whole thing seemed to be made out of stone, with traces of damage to the walls here and there.

“I don’t sense anyone around. Should we investigate a bit?” I asked.

Nobody objected. Syphon and the others were still adventurers too—their eyes were shining with a childlike glee. But it would be dangerous to explore alone, so we split into two groups.

“By the way, you cried out earlier. What was that about?” I asked Chris as we entered, remembering what had happened before.

“I felt a big shift in the local mana when you touched the door. I can’t be sure, but...I think the bad mana that was coagulating in the dungeon is gone now,” she responded.

“Does this mean we stopped the monster parade?” I asked.

Chris nodded slightly, but she didn’t look confident.

We searched the house, but the sheer size of the furniture made it hard to investigate. Sometimes I used alchemy to create stepping stools, and sometimes X helped us.

Our search revealed that all the furniture, like the house itself, was made out of stone, at a size just right for a colossus—probably the gigant—to live in. The bed was large enough for the six of us to share with room to spare.

As for gains, we found a strange kind of ore when we were searching the house. It was a beautiful rock sparkling in rainbow colors, and appraising it revealed it to be “rainbow ore.” There were pieces of it too. Unfortunately, they were the only thing we found that seemed usable.

We met up again after that, walked even further, and discovered a familiar-looking dais—a registration platform.

Beyond it was a set of stairs leading even further down.

Interlude 6

“Lord Ignis, are you really leaving?” I asked.

“Yes. I’ve finished everything I came here to do.”

Lord Ignis had sent a message that he’d be leaving soon, so I’d slipped out of the guild to meet up with him. I couldn’t have moved so freely before, as we’d been on high alert until a few days ago.

We’d been preparing for the monster parade.

The guild had a tool to measure the relative activity of the dungeon, and it had detected that the local mana values had risen to abnormal levels over the past year or so. I wasn’t sure why that had happened, but they’d stabilized for a while, then more recently grown unstable again. At last they had reached a level where a monster parade was imminent.

Then, just the other day, the increased activity vanished into thin air. The only cause I could think of was the recent defeat of the fortieth-floor boss.

The news of the boss’s defeat had seemed unbelievable at the time, but I’d checked the party’s dungeon cards repeatedly and confirmed that it was true. They’d also had the body of the monster in question to prove it.

There was also one other development: They’d learned that there was more to the dungeon, which meant that it might be possible to get new materials there.

That said, the vanguard of dungeon exploration, the Guardian’s Blade, had been wiped out on the thirty-ninth floor, so they wouldn’t be able to look into it anytime soon. Sora’s party, as the ones who had beaten the fortieth floor, could do it. But would they?

All that aside, there was something I wanted to ask, so I mustered my courage and did it.

“Lord Ignis... Forgive my impudence in asking, but why did you stay in this city for so long?”

Lord Ignis seemed to think my question over. Finally, he answered, “I was partly curious to see how the otherworlder boy was faring, but the high elf girl is far more important. There was something else I wanted to confirm as well.”

High elf... The words conjured thoughts of the current Demon King. I’d never met them in person, but the current one was said to have one of the highest mana counts in history, and I’d heard they had forged a contract with a powerful spirit. But I’d also been told they were lacking in a certain strength of will.

“Does it involve the bandits I heard about?”

“Yes. That land is corrupted.”

I could hear clear anger in his voice when he spoke those words. It sent a chill up my spine, but as one of the people who knew the truth, I could fully understand.

Really, I should have been more cautious, since my eyes could have seen who they truly were...

“Well, I’m glad I came. I was a bit worried, but the goal was accomplished. Maybe I should have stopped it myself, though...” He then added something under his breath, and it sounded like I couldn’t show my face again if something had happened. “I’ll be going now. Contact me if anything else changes. I’ll be going home after meeting up with a friend, so someone else may come if it’s urgent.”

And with that, Lord Ignis left.

An old friend...

From the way he was talking, did he mean the Dragon King?

Epilogue

I watched as Seris knelt down and prayed.

We were on the grounds of the Magius Academy of Magic. We had come to an island on the campus—the place Seris said her old friends had been put to rest. There was a stone monument at the center surrounded by a colorful array of flowers. It looked kind of like the island on the twenty-fifth floor.

Seris placed a cracked mithril sword in front of the monument. It was the one we’d gotten from the chest in the fortieth-floor boss room.

In dividing items with Syphon’s party, we’d taken the scroll, the mithril sword, and the notebook. Appraising them showed me that they’d all belonged to Seris’s old partymate. We’d brought them back to give to her, and she’d taken us here.

“Sora. I want you to use this...”

She handed me the scroll. It had looked blank at first glance, but I could see there was writing on it. It was a skill scroll that an otherworlder had once used to learn the skill “Teleport.” When I told Seris that, she gave it back to me hoping it would be useful on my journey.

“Well then... What will you do next?” she asked. We’d stopped the monster parades for the foreseeable future, so we’d accomplished all of our goals here in the city.

We’d decided in advance that we’d refuse any offer of a reward; I’d already gotten a skill scroll as well as the gigant eyes and magistones from the fortieth-floor boss room anyway. Unfortunately, I’d had to break the mutant’s magistone, but the materials of the gigants I’d stored in the Item Box were all intact.

It also turned out that the rainbow ore we’d found in the colossal house was the last ingredient for the Eyes of Eliana. With the gigant materials, I could just spend MP to make the Eyes of Eliana without consuming it, but using it would let me make a few pairs of Eyes of Eliana without using all of my gigant materials. The materials were very precious, and I was hoping to keep at least some of them for later, so I’d bought the remaining eyes and magistones from Syphon’s party.

If I hadn’t taken Seris’s request, I wouldn’t have gotten the materials and been able to make the Eyes.

Incidentally, there was nothing written about the rainbow ore in the library, so I decided it must be extremely precious. I’d told Syphon’s party about this, and they told us to keep it and use it ourselves.

Rurika was the happiest about the result. Whenever she’d been given the Eyes in the past, she’d spent all her time with Ciel. You could also choose the shape of the Eyes, so I’d made them into an accessory. Ciel seemed equally pleased, since it meant more people to give her attention. She was now sitting on Rurika’s head, dozing blissfully.

The only trouble was that Rurika couldn’t touch Ciel. She’d even ended up asking if there might be a magic item that would make it possible.

Everyone else had seemed satisfied by what we’d gotten out of it too.

“I guess the Lufre Dragonlands is on the docket next? There’s something I have to do first, so it should come after that.”

We’d primarily chosen Lufre because we were looking for Eris. I was curious about what lay beyond the fortieth floor, but we could worry about that after we found her. Because of that, we’d soon be moving out of our rental property and into Norman’s house, but even that would only be until we got ready for our next journey.

I was hoping to find a way to raise their quality of life while we were gone. I planned on talking to Will about that.

“I see... I’ll miss you, but I understand... Still, I think Will, the adventurers’ guild, and the merchants’ guild will all be sorry to see you go...”

The idea that the fortieth floor wasn’t the end and that the dungeon went further beyond that, presented fresh possibilities for getting precious new materials. The whole city was buzzing with life.

“We’ll be back! We worry about Elza and the others too,” Mia said.

“Yeah, and we’ll bring tasty food,” Hikari added.

“We’ll be back to play again sometime,” Sera chimed in.

“Yes, please teach us many things then,” Chris requested.

“That’s right; we’ll be back. You want to come back too, right, Ciel?” Rurika said with a smile.

Ciel seemed so surprised to have her name suddenly called that she jerked to attention, and the force from it made her fall off of Rurika’s head. She rolled a little ways on the ground before stopping, then whipped her head around as if to find out what was going on.

She must have still been half asleep and not aware of what was happening.

The rest of us laughed at the sight. Seris picked Ciel off the ground and cradled her, smiling in amusement while she gently stroked her head.

Afterword

It’s good to meet you, or to see you again. I am arukuhito.

Thank you very much for picking up Isekai Walking 4 ~Magic Nation Eva: Dungeon Arc~. I’ve got more pages for my afterword than usual, so I’m not sure what to write.

I first started writing this halfway through December, and I only finished the first stage in early February. When I get stuck, I usually do some walking and thinking to get it together, but at the end of the year I hurt my foot and couldn’t do that, so I had to find a new way to clear my head.

That was when YouTube (VTubers) stepped up. I’m so behind in the culture that I only started watching in November of last year, but I watched the FPS everyone is talking about...and got motion sickness in about five minutes. It’s incredible that people can play something like that, and also incredible that people can watch it. The game was introduced to me through Kakuyomu comments, but the changes in POV made me seasick.

Sometimes I’ll put music or streams on in the background to keep me productive while I’m writing, and for a breather I’ll listen to conversational streams or beginner videos for people who don’t know the rules of mahjong. Watching streamers talk and play mahjong together was a lot of fun.

When I hit a hard point I’d lose track of time watching it, but thankfully my smartphone alarm had my back.

Getting back to the subject, volume 4 was a continuation of the Magic Nation Eva storyline from volume 3. Volume 3 was mainly about exploring the city of Majorica, but volume 4, as the subtitle states, primarily involves the dungeon.

The main thing I worried about when I was writing it was the number of people in Sora’s party. With the addition of Rurika and Chris they have a party of six, and although Sora and his friends all have amazing abilities, they’re still far smaller than the Guardian’s Blade, who are fighting on the front lines. That was why I had that familiar old crew appear to help them beat it.

It was still a relatively small group, though, and I wanted them to make up for that by beating the dungeon not with “effort and guts!” but with careful use of Sora’s skills.

I also added some ideas that I only realized I wanted to incorporate into the original online version of this arc after I’d finished it. Thanks to that, there’s not much left from the online version now. Maybe people who read that will think it’s better, but I also want the story to be how I want it.

Now, a few messages.

By the time this comes out, I think they’ll have put out the first book of the manga adaptation, serialized by Magazine Pocket, by artist Kei Odagawa. I wrote a short story for the manga as well, and I hope you’ll take a look at that.

Now, one last thing. First, thanks to my editor O, who took time out of their busy schedule to consult and offer suggestions, as well as the occasional harsh critique when necessary. Thanks also to Yu-nit for the always appealing character designs and illustrations, and to the proofreaders who spotted typos and other mistakes. The reason I can keep putting these books out is because of your support.

And for those of you who read this one to the end, and to those who keep reading them online, thank you. You’re the reason I can keep writing like this. I hope you’ll read the next volume if you can.

arukuhito