The seventh dungeon floor. Inside a small room where a magic circle and the stairs leading to the sixth floor were. The magic circle glowed and, the next moment, Rei, Elena, Set, and Yellow appeared at the magic circle.

「……I’m still not comfortable with this.」

「What’s wrong?」

Rei asked at Elena’s murmurs.

Next to him, Set immediately started to keep an eye out on the surroundings.

Yesterday, Byune had been with them, so they hadn’t needed to be so vigilant. However, only Rei, Elena, Set, and Yellow were here today. Naturally, they had to keep a lookout for traps and enemy attacks. Set, who had the sharpest senses out of all of them, naturally took on that role.

「No, it’s just the cave environment. Down until the fifth floor, it had been like a basic dungeon. I just don’t like this atmosphere.」

Elena looked around with a frown.

The ground was made up of compacted soil with stones littered around. The walls were glowing just like it had been down to the fifth floor. The largest difference was the cave like environment, making it cooler than outside.

Summer was in full swing and the temperature was way above 30C during the day in Exil. Rei and Elena had headed for the dungeon in the morning, so it hadn’t been that hot then and had been somewhat comfortable. However, considering the rapid pace at which the temperature would increase, spending time in the dungeon could be considered a privilege for adventurers.

In fact, during this season, there would be some adventurers who would stay between the sixth and tenth floors in search of profit and a cool environment.

That said, as far as today was concerned, the number of people inside the dungeon was a lot less than usual due to the information about the abnormal species becoming more widespread.

「Well, talking here won’t get us anywhere. Besides, it will be a desert from the 11th floor down, so I feel this is still much better than that.」

「Yeah. Even so, a magic item that would allow long distance communication……how far down will we need to go to find one?」

「We won’t know until we actually go further down. If we run into any powerful monsters, they might have magic weapons, but when it comes to communication magic items, the chances of a monster having one are a lot less.」

While exchanging such words, they left the small room.

As expected, a cave like environment similar to the sixth floor was spread out before them……

「Guru~!」

The moment they took a step out of the room, Set gave a sharp cry, seemingly noticing something approaching.

Hearing Set’s cry, Rei and Elena immediately readied their weapons.

Elena took her sword whip out from the sheath at her waist while Rei took the Death Scythe out from the Misty Ring.

Eventually, they heard a rattling noise from the end of the passageway.

Rei immediately knew what was making that noise. It was the same for Elena. After all, they had seen ordinary and abnormal variations of it just the day before.

「A Stone Golem, huh? From what we saw yesterday, they are quite slow, so we have the option of avoiding them completely if we want.」

Elena said that for the sake saying it, but she already knew fighting it was unavoidable from Rei’s fierce smile. After all, they were in a cave, so the only way to escape it would be to either leave using the magic circle or head back up to the sixth floor.

Alternatively, they could hide in the small room where monsters couldn’t enter due to the effect of the magic circle. However, Rei wouldn’t take such passive actions. In the event that the Stone Golem decided to sit outside the small room, they would end up just wasting time as they would have had to fight it anyway.

「There’s no point in me saying that, is there?」

「Sorry. ……There’s also something I’d like to try. Come a little closer.」

Elena looked suspiciously at Rei, who replied as he thrust the shaft of the Death Scythe into the ground.

「What are you planning to do?」

「I thought of it last night. Like Mud Golems, Stone Golems are slow, right?」

「Well, that’s right. But, it seems the power they have behind a single attack is quite high.」

「In other words. They are an enemy I can try a method of attack that I’ve been thinking about for a long time……」

Rei stopped speaking after saying that.

That was because the Stone Golem they could hear had finally come into view.

As expected from the footsteps, It was a Stone Golem. However, what was different from their expectations was that there were three of them.

「……It is what we expected. But I thought they mostly moved alone?」

「Is there an issue with your plan? What do you want to do now? Fight them normally?」

「No, I was just surprised because I had only expected one. I think my plan can deal with a few of them. ……Are you okay with that? I’m going to distract them now. If it works, they’ll all fall on the spot. We’ll take advantage of that to attack them all at once.」

Although it was a clumsy explanation, Elena had absolute confidence in Rei’s combat skills after having fought alongside Rei many times. Because of that, she nodded without hesistation at Rei’s words.

「I understand. I’ll move in if the Stone Golems fall over.」

Nodding at Elena’s reply, Rei activated a skill as he stabbed the Death Scythe into the ground.

「Terrain Manipulation!」

Along with those words, the ground which Rei and Elena were standing on sunk down 10cm in a radius of 10m.

For humans, animals, or monsters with normal consciousness, if the ground suddenly dropped by 10cm, they would be able to re-balance themselves without a problem. However, Golem type monsters, such as Stone Golems, had significantly duller judgement and they all few through the air as they lost their balance, hitting the ground together.

「Now!」

The moment the Stone Golems were thrown off balance, Rei pulled the Death Scythe out of the ground and stepped forward.

Set moved fowards alongside Rei while Elena’s sword whip changed to its whip form.

「Gururururu~!」

With a cry, Set created two water balls about 30cm in diameter before throwing them at the fallen Stone Golems. The water balls flew out rapidly, bursting as they hit the fallen Stone Golems and crushing the stones they were made out of.

(I had thought about this yesterday, but I guess it does work!)

Looking at the situation, Rei swung the Death Scythe at a fallen Stone Golem as he activated another skill.

「Power Slash!」

It was an attack based on the fact that the enemy’s body was made up of stone. Instead of slashing the Stone Golem’s body, Rei crushed it for greater damage. The attack of the Death Scythe smashed through the Stone Golem, splitting it in two as Rei had planned.

Unlike the previous time he had used the skill, part of the impact had been absorbed, so the burden on his wrist wasn’t that great.

However, he still couldn’t completely escape the shock and he still felt some pain.

As for the remaining Stone Golem, the tip of Elena’s sword whip sliced through its body. Contrary to Rei, who destroyed his Golem with a single blow, the sword whip flew through the air multiple times, cutting apart its limbs, body, and head.

「Gururururu~!」

Set also smashed his entire body down in a single blow, swinging his claw at his Stone Golem, which had already had parts of its body destroyed by the two water balls.

Set’s physical strength was scary. With the Bracelet of Herculean Strength and his innate physical strength, Set’s attack was even more powerful than the Power Slash Rei had used.

It was a one sided fight. Rei and Elena looked at each other and gave a small laugh after finishing the fight.

For Rei, Terrain Manipulation had been more effective than he had expected. And Elena, who had still been feeling somewhat awkward with Rei, was able to get her stride back after getting into battle.

「So that’s Terrain Manipulation? It’s quite a convenient ability.」

Rei shook his head with a bitter smile as Elena spoke with some admiration.

「It’s true that it could be an amazing ability if it could become stronger. However, right now, I can only raise or lower the ground by about 10cm……Terrain Manipulation.」

While answering Elena, Rei thrust the Death Scythe back into the ground and activated Terrain Manipulation again. The ground that had previously sunk by 10cm rose back up to its original height.

「……I see. That’s true, after hearing it, it does seem that 10cm isn’t a lot. But, when fighting someone who doesn’t know about this skill, you can use it to aim for a large reversal of the situation. 10cm isn’t a lot, but if you don’t know it’s coming, you’ll definitely lose your balance.」

Rei recalled the fight with the Stone Golems that had just happened.

That might be possible. Thinking about it further, it could actually fit that kind of situation. With that in mind, as Elena said, it could potentially be useful as a trump card in an emergency situation.

「I had thought if I could suddenly create a dirt spear at the enemy’s feet to catch them by surprise……but I gave up thinking about it since it’s not possible to do as it is right now.」

In the first place, he had learned the skill Terrain Manipulation from destroying the core of a dungeon using the Death Scythe. In other words, it was definitely a rare skill. And, even if he absorbed more than one of the same magic stone, only the first one meant anything. With that in mind, it would be hard to level up the skill without using magic stones of equal rarity to that of a dungeon core, so he had given up on the thought for now.

However, listening to Elena’s words, she showed him that even at this low lever, it could still be used as a trump card to stage a comeback.

Satisfied with that thought, he immediately stored the Stome Golems’ magic stones and body parts that could be sold as materials into the Misty Ring.

Thanks to Rei, Elena, and Set’s extraordinary physical strength, the process of storing everything took less than a few minutes…….

(I’ll do that later.)

Rei had thought about returning to the room with the magic circle to absorb the magic stones, but decided it was more important to move for now.

If it had been an ordinary day, he might have made a different decision. However, today, due to the appearance of abnormal species, many more stayed on the surface than usual. That said, there would be some people who would still enter the dungeon.

Out of those people, there would be adventurers whose goal would be to kill these abnormal species.

Because they were abnormal species, they were, of course, rare. If they could bring back their magic stones or parts of their bodies back to the guild, they would definitely be able to sell them at a high price.

If they could capture one, they might even be rewarded with a fortune.

There were adventurers who sought luxury, those that wanted to make money, and those that needed to make money for other reasons, like debt.

(Some people, like Vihera, might just be looking for a fight.)

Considering the possibility of such people transferring in, Rei decided it would be better to avoid absorbing magic stones within the dungeon for today.

「……Then, should we start exploring? We don’t have Byune with us today, so we have to be especially careful. After all, the traps in these cave floors are quite dangerous.」

「That’s true. i was surprised to see falling stalactites. There were any such dangerous traps on the fifth floor.」

Elena nodded in agreement with Rei’s words as they got into formation and made their way into the dungeon.

Set and Yellow were at the front while Rei and Elena were at the back.

No one said anything in particular as they silently walked through the cave.

「If we go straight down this passage, we will soon reach a T junction. We turn right there.」

「Guru~」

Set gave a brief cry in response to Elena, who took out a map.

Going ahead, they discovered some traps but were able to avoid them by following what Byune had taught them.

However, it was only at the level where they could avoid them. For example, not stepping on a switch hidden under the dirt or stepping over a piece of string several cm above the ground.

As expected, it wasn’t possible for them to disarm the traps like Byune could do.

Still, although their progress was slow, they still moved forward for about 4 hours. Curiously, they were able to find the stairs to the eighth floor without running into any monsters aside from the Stone Golems at the beginning of the floor.

[Previous Chapter] [Table of Contents] [Next Chapter]