Hazure Skill ‘Mapping’ wo Te ni Shita Ore wa, Saikyou Party to Tomo ni Dungeon ni Idomu

Chapter 5

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Chapter 5
Chapter 5 – The first dungeon

Translator/Editor: Mana
Special Thanks: Rinkage

The first floor of the Dungeon of Puriff was a cave that looked like a dimly lit narrow path surrounded by rock walls. When I referred to the map in my brain I could see that this path branched many times, with no goal in sight. At the very least, it was over one kilometre wide.

“It seems like ‘Mapping’ is useable.”

When I told the members of ‘Arrivers’ that my skill could be used, they cheered happily. Force raised his hands for a high-five. In response, everyone else did too.

This kind of thing felt like I was really in a party, which made me happy. Since I never had such feelings of fulfilment in my half a year of mismatched parties, an honest smile made its way onto my face.

Because ‘Mapping’ is a skill that automatically creates a map of 1000 metre radius in my brain, it usually applies those 1000 metres in a vertical direction too, but that didn’t happen for this dungeon.

In the map in my head, the area above and below this cave was a complete blank. As if there was no s.p.a.ce there.

Perhaps this was what they meant by ‘outside the logic of this world’. Every floor of this dungeon was separated as a different s.p.a.ce. The proof of that was in the distinctive floating sensation of teleportation that happened when we pa.s.sed through the door of the first floor. From what I heard from everyone else, every floor of the dungeon had a door like that to pa.s.s through.

However, if you touched the teleport crystal installed at the entrance, you could travel to and from any teleport crystal you have been to before. It seemed like there were more people who usually used that.

The cave-like dungeon had no sunlight, but thanks to the light blue crystals that scattered light over the walls near us, we could see a little further ahead.

“Everyone, stop. There are enemies approaching from the right side of that fork in the path. My ‘Enemy Search’ reacted. There are six enemies. They don’t seem particularly strong,” Jin suddenly put out his arm, ordering the party to stop.

No matter how many light sources there were in the dungeon, there was no way enemies that far away could be seen from here. In the first place, the right side of the fork that Jin mentioned was at right angle to the path we were walking down, making any direct line of sight impossible.

That’s why the reason Jin noticed the enemy was probably due to his ‘Enemy Search’ art. As long as he had the ‘Enemy Search’ art, he could grasp the whereabouts of nearby monsters.

I’ve been greatly indebted to the ‘Enemy Search’ art ever since my pickup group days. Everyone wanted at least one in a party.

The members of the ‘Arrivers’ immediately grabbed their weapons and took on a fighting stance at Jin’s words.

—Was what I would like to say, but they actually remained rather calm.

“Umm… is this really okay…? Shouldn’t we be preparing to fight…?”

“Ah. The enemies on the first floor are no big deal…” Force said with ease, stepping forth coolly.

“I’ll take care of the enemies, so guys can just stand back,” he declared, waving his arm as the weapon-wielding ogres appeared from around the corner of the path. There was exactly six of them. Each one held a sword, lance, or axe as a weapon and were a good deal larger than Force in size.

Force showed no sign of fear towards such fiendish beasts, casually walking towards them without his weapon ready. As if he was going for a walk. There was no way the ogres would look past something like that—

Whoosh!

The sound of the six ogres&rsqu

o; perfectly synchronised ambush attack on Force cut through the air. To be more precise, it cut through the air where Force ‘was’.

However, Force was already on the other side of the ogres. The ogres had yet to realise that their backs were turned. That Force had evaded their perfect ambush attack with his weapon still sheathed.

If I was in his place, I surely would have been killed. In an instant.

A cold sweat broke out at my temples. At the horrors of the dungeon, and at Force’s abilities over that.

“That’s Force’s skill, ‘Mind’s Eye’. He can see through all of his opponent’s attacks. And the other two skills he has are ‘Magic Resistance – Large’ and ‘Swordcraft – Master’.”

“‘Swordcraft – Master’…” I unintentionally reacted to Jin’s words.

—Master.

Like the ‘Bowcraft – Master’ skill that Miya had, it was a highest rank weaponry skill.

“Here goes!” he yelled, taking out the blade of one of the swords hanging at his waist.

The rest was over in a flash. All that remained was the light of his beautiful blade, and six fallen corpses.

Honestly, I never saw anything like it. Swordcraft of that level. That mastery. I instantly knew I could never reach that. His ability completely surpa.s.sed Miya’s, who had the same Master cla.s.s skill.

If her abilities were still under development, then Force’s abilities were completed. I was completely drawn in. I yearned for that. I was jealous. I was frustrated. The feelings from one year ago, when I watched Miya fight, came bubbling back up.

Except for one difference. Unlike one year ago, I was used to it. To those feelings. To that despair.

That’s why I wasn’t in shock.

My heart didn’t break.

We walked for around an hour after that.

The members of the ‘Arrivers’ and I had reached the boss room of the first floor. The party had smoothly progressed to the boss room without hesitating at any of the branched paths.

According to Jin, the first six floors of the Dungeon of Puriff were completely explored through, with almost perfect maps created. From the seventh floor onward there were maps of the shortest route to the boss room that predecessors had created, as well as maps created by individual parties, but most of them were incomplete.

I had them show me one of the maps of the Dungeon of Puriff that was in regular circulation, but there wasn’t much difference to the map drawn in my head by the ‘Mapping’ skill.

The only difference was that the map drawn by ‘Mapping’ were perfectly to scale, so the lengths of the roads and the sizes of the rooms were completely accurate too. Compared to the maps in circulation, it was much easier to look at and understand.

I could finally feel how useful this trash skill could be, in this dungeon where ‘World Map’ and ‘Area Map’ didn’t work.

When Force tried to open the door to the boss room, the mage Erin stopped him.

“Force! Are you going to defeat the boss alone too? You’re taking all the good parts! Let us fight too!”

Erin’s complaint was understandable.

All of the monsters up until now were instantly slaughtered by Force. Thanks to that, I was more than well aware of Force’s swordcraft prowess, but I had no idea what the other members’ strengths were.

“I also want to see everyone else’s abilities…” I supported Erin’s words, and Force seemed to reluctantly accept it.

“Alright… Do what you want. I won’t lay a hand at all…” he said, and retreated to the back. Force went straight to Neme, the little priestess and said “I’m bored, let’s play shiritori!” but was rejected nonchalantly with a “I don’t want to…”

When Erin opened the door, there was one large ogre, over ten small ogres, and a number of horned demons with wings waiting inside. There were ogres and demons that appeared on the way here, but the ones in the boss room were bigger. The large ogre that exuded boss status had not appeared before.

After everyone entered the room, the door closed and Erin began activating a spell to strike first.

“—‘Black Lightning’!”

Erin released a roaring bolt of black lightning from the end of her staff with a wave. At the same time, a pitch black strike of lightning burned the ogres and demons to a crisp.

Erin had released the strongest spell I had ever seen with my bare eyes in no time at all.

However, even she could not annihilate all the monsters in one go, and through the gaps in the lightning, the demons glided closer as the ogres sneaked towards her.

“Eh…? …Wait, someone stop them…!” For some reason, Erin was panicking. “I completely forgot there was no tank! c.r.a.p, I’ll die…”

Even as she made a commotion, Erin carefully shot down the approaching monsters one by one.

“Sorry, Erin. I’m a man of my word… I won’t lay a hand…” Force smacked the floor in a show of exaggerated vexation.

“You don’t have to show your manliness in a place like this! A weak girl is in a pinch here, turning your back on her would make you more of a failure as a man!” Erin snapped back, as she effortlessly disposed of the monsters. Despite what they say to each other, they seem like they get along. These two.

But Erin’s efforts were in vain, as two winged demons came within range of Erin. Erin burned one of them with a spell, but the other—

Was torn to pieces by a jet black shadow.

It took me a couple of seconds to realise that it was Jin, who was next to me just moments ago.

Jin smoothly ran towards the large ogre, as if his movements were flowing. It was like a black snake had reached the feet of the large ogre in an instant. The large ogre immediately reacted, swinging its club at Jin. Rather than a swing, the force behind it was more like an explosion—

Jin parried it easily with the small black dagger he held in his right hand. I thought I heard a sound like the whistle of wind…

“Just now… did Jin’s dagger move…?”

I verbally questioned the sight before me that I couldn’t understand. It almost looked like his dagger moved of its own accord and deflected the attack of the large ogre.

Force laughed as he answered my question. “It’s his skill. It’s a skill called ‘Shapeshifting – Mineral’ that allows him to change the shape of any substance made of minerals. With that, Jin can freely control his sword to his will…”

“He can do such a thing…?”

Shapeshifting type skills were better suited for crafting jobs. To put it bluntly, they were considered trash skills on a battlefront.

Even while I questioned Force, that black blade—that jet black darkness—dodged the continuous blows of the large ogre, weaving through the gaps between each attack and tearing the giant body up. As if it were alive…

“Unlike me, Erin, or Neme, Jin doesn’t have particularly strong skills. But he has experienced numerous situations. He tops us all in the number of deadly places he’s dived into. That’s how he consciously transformed a crafting type skill into a first-cla.s.s battle skill. He might be the most amazing one in this party…”

Though the large ogre had more health than the surrounding monsters, it was over in a moment in Jin’s hands. The corpse of the large ogre laid there, torn to pieces.

Force said that Jin’s ability was created through his experience and the number of deadly places he’s walked through.

If so, I wondered how many experiences, situations, and certain deaths I needed to avoid to get as good as Jin…

I couldn’t imagine the answer at all.

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