Is that not the most cliff-hanger-est-y t.i.tle you"ve ever seen or what? I might be able to do one more chapter in 2-3 hours but iffy and this time it might end on a bad cliffhanger. So don"t count on it, regardless next chapter not for another 12-16 hours.
Year 7444, Month 10, Day 8
We"ve returned from the dungeon. Excluding the first day we only explored the 7th floor for three days but this should be plenty. Just as we had predicted due to the fact that the pa.s.sages are wide and it"s bright the speed of exploring seems to be considerably fast. Also, I"ll just say this as well. We still haven"t arrived at the teleport room from the 7th floor to the 8th floor. Though there"s some forked paths up until now all of the destinations we"ve teleported into have been dead ends.
We still haven"t encountered an ogre mage but including the three on the first day we killed a total of 29 ogres. They came out in maximum groups of four but as long as I use magic to finish off one or two at first, then if we focus them down we"re managing them. I think we"ve gotten quite a bit used to combat against ogres.
Though really, you know ogres, they"re idiots on the same level as goblins, so you can easily get them caught up in traps, or rather leading them around. We tried doing a variety of experiments but as long as we have some distance then we can seriously defeat them safely. Of course it"s also fine to use projectile weapons and attack spells as well. Ah, freezing them in ice and burying them in dirt is no good. It"s not that it can"t be done but when I just tried burying their lower bodies it was impossible. Just like the Horned Bears in the past, if I aim to cover it"s entire body and suffocate it to death then it"s possible but if I don"t go that far then they manage to pull themselves out with pure strength. Though suffocating them to death is fine as well if we do that then the only one who gains experience points is me.
The correct answer was. Drugs. All you have to do is smear some paralysis drugs on a throwing knife and manage to hit with it. And, then when it can barely move you can slowly kill it. The magic paralysis drug (it"s almost like Dereonola who tried to rape Bel in the past taught me though) that I used during my training of the spell {Remove.Paralyze} has taken a great role. We have Bel smear an arrowhead with plenty of it and then aim for their legs. If we run away for a bit then it"s legs get numb and then if we put the same drug on the blades of swords then in a short while after cutting it the drugs will have circulated to the point where it can"t do anything.
Incidentally the natural paralysis drug(I was surprised after hearing how it"s made but it"s the exact same as the one Myun taught me in the past) that can be made from the ingredients of Ganbi gra.s.s and green tree frog that Miduchi brought had almost no effect. The one that had the most effect was a paralysis drug that was made from some sort of mixture of the fluid secreted from the feelers of the {Scavenger Crawler} and magic stones. It"s pretty cheap since the adventurers who use it are often ones who struggle against orks and hobgoblins on the 1st and 2nd floors. Since it was low enough that even the slave Derenola was able to buy it the sale price is at most 20,000 Z (2 silver coins).
I"ve tried using it on a number of different monsters up until now but there wasn"t a monster it was this effective on. The {Cave Boars} on the 6th floor can keep moving around for 5-10 minutes even after taking it. It properly works on Orks and Hobgoblins but it"s free to just freeze their lower bodies in ice. It seems that this paralysis drug isn"t very effective unless it"s against humanoid races. I found it strange why it wasn"t used very often until now but since the only place {Scavenger Crawlers} are is the dungeon in Baldukk so it seems they don"t circulate very often. Furthermore it seems there"s a number of different mixtures for it but the cheapest one was the most effective kind. Just, if we buy too much of the stuff then the stock will run out quickly, and it"ll seem suspicious.
【Paralysis Drug】
【Magic Stone.Alum.Scavenger Crawler Fluid.Ritto Leaves】
【State: Good】
【Manufacture Date: 7/6/7444】
【Value: 200/g】
【Endurance: -】
【Ability: Applies a magic-based paralysis when absorbed and inhibits voluntary movement.】
【Effect: Paralysis effect towards humanoids(most effective via oral intake)】
It looks like this with Identify but putting it frankly it"s cla.s.sified as a paralysis drug with a considerably weak effect. Recently whenever I bring in some feelers from the Scavenger Crawlers as thanks for buying them I buy a couple of different varieties of mixtures. If you rub them on the blade of your sword then they"re about a charm and most of them don"t work.
Furthermore, we still haven"t found any sort special rooms like monster rooms on the 7th floor. Also, the only monsters we"ve encountered on the 7th floor were ogres and goblins. After carrying 29 ogres worth of magic stones into the magic tool shop and the owners eyes went wide in surprise. The average value price of them was 120,000. The sale price was 800,000 Z (80 silver coins) times 29 of them. That"s 23,000,000 Z (23 gold coins). I wanted to combine them but I couldn"t do it. After all the magic stones were only the size of the nail of a little finger, the color was light gray and close to white. It"s impossible to combine them without a larger mother stone.
I only noticed after seeing the magic stone of the ogre but the magic stones of the ogres are all about the size of a little finger. The Horned Bear"s was a lot bigger and the Death=Tyrant.Kin"s magic stone was so large it"s not even a comparison. Though in reverse when it gets to that size it"s probably difficult to use since there"s no way to fit it inside of a magic stone box on the average magic tool.
Since the total amount was large I was a bit worried he would refuse to buy them but he bought them with no problem. Certainly there are magic stones in the shop window that have sale prices of about 2,000,000 Z. Since the ogres magic stone is at best 1,000,000 Z it should be included in the goods he deals in.
With a smile on my face I gave out 46 silver coins to each person and Miduchi was surprised and, "Th..This much.." at a loss of words. Yeah~ buy whatever you like. I profited 20 gold coins after all. Furthermore, that"s just from magic stones. It"s a new record that"s largely overwritten all of our previous records. Up until now our highest record was about 4,800,000 Z. We suddenly increased it by close to five times that.
We returned to the inn once and after leaving our bags and changing everyone went to the usual "Murowa" to eat and drink when some young adventurers came to greet us after hearing the rumors. When asking them, what rumors? and it seems that the old man from the magic tool shop put up a sign saying, "Singular Ogre Magic Stones Ma.s.s Arrival!!" It seems that thanks to that there"s rumors that someone made it to the 7th floor.
.............
Year 7444, Month 10, Day 9
One day later, after finishing my usual running, it was a short while after we all entered the 1st floor of the dungeon to do some training with spells. Toris and I were 200-300 meters away gathering the magic stones from corpses of gnolls while recovering from mana. Since Miduchi and Bel returned to the inn about an hour ago to recover their mana, Ralpha and Gwine are close to the teleport crystal taking shifts as they train.
"Al!"
"Al-san!"
and I heard a voice yell for me. Since there"s some distance the volume of the voice itself was pretty low. Toris and I exchanged short glances before dashing off towards the teleport crystal right away.
It seems that a different party teleported in to the teleport crystal. Ralpha and Gwine are standing on guard against the wall with their axe and spear ready. The ones they"re facing are..a full party of 10 members.
Ralpha and Gwine made openly relieved expressions when they saw Toris and I run up. There"s no one among the party they"re facing off against that I recognize the face of. I wonder what in the world happened?
"Ralpha, Gwine, what happened?"
Toris called out to them but I quickly said over that.
"It"s fine some come over here."
I said while approaching as well. However, for them to have their weapons ready, is this an explosive situation? In a hurry I tried identifying each of the members of the party they"re facing off against but there wasn"t anyone particularly strange. Their ages are all in their teens. Almost all of them are the same age as us and a few of them are a bit older than that as well. If we sort them out then they"re just men and the highest level one is 6.
The lowest was 4.
It"s difficult to imagine that these sort of {newbies} (probably) would suddenly attack the famous {Slaughterers} of Baldukk. In, which case I wonder if the idiot picked a fight again? How troublesome~
"Hey~ you all. I don"t know what happened but those two women are our party members. If anything rude happened on our side then I"ll apologize. Would you please forgive it?"
I said while calmly returning my long sword to my scabbard on the sword belt of my plain clothes. I don"t have my armor or protectors on. On the bottom I have something like high-grade long underpants as underwear on and rubber-sole combat boots so if you were to go off my own individual sense then I probably look pretty strange. Toris has his shield with him but he"s casually dressed in just a shirt and some pants as well. Of course, Ralpha and Gwine have their weapons as well but they"re dressed casually as well.
They"re dressed casually but..suddenly the blood raises to my head.
Ralpha"s appearance was something like a kimono (yukata?) like shirt on the above part that opens on the front. She"s wearing pants below that. Gwine is wearing an expensive b.u.t.ton-up shirt and pants as well. Though everyone is wearing rubber-sole boots.
2-3 b.u.t.tons from the that Gwine"s shirt had been torn off. He must have realized that, Toris started yelling.
"Hey! You b.a.s.t.a.r.ds! What is the meaning of this! What did you do to them!"
Seeing Toris yell with an tremendously threatening att.i.tude not only did they not get afraid the adventurers just started grinning with unpleasant smiles on their faces. I looked at their equipment and was surprised, it wasn"t just leather armor or even banded-mail and scale-mail, but there"s even a guy wearing splint-mail. In just looks that appear strong.
"He~ what can you do with just four of you? We have ten people over here~"
"Since that Dwarf-sis"s spear is pretty high-quality, don"t damage it."
"Hey, this elf"s shield and sword seem pretty high-quality as well~"
"I just saw this guys sword a minute ago but it seemed pretty expensive as well."
"Ora~ you~ all. Obediently leave your weapons. We won"t particularly save you though."
"It was true that you can rob all you want in Baldukk."
"However, these guys, they spent so much money on their weapons that they"re just wearing normal clothes~ just clothes."
"The dungeon you know~ is a place where poor people who can"t even afford armor will die right away you know?"
"Since it"s dangerous after all~! Gyahahaaha!"
"Ah~ It"s dangerous right!"
Ah, robbers right. I"ve comprehended it. They must be some idiots that washed down here from somewhere.
"Ah~, how bothersome~"
After saying that I froze all of their lower bodies in ice.
"Now then, Al-san, what should we do? They were saying something about robbing as they please in Baldukk though"
"Hey you all. I"ll put it obviously so even you can understand, putting your hands on these two women was a bad move. If these two were to seriously take you on the ones who die would be you all."
""Uuwa~ what the?""
""Hi...Ic..ice..""
""It"s cold!!""
""It..It"s magic!?""
""Sa..Save me~!""
"Hey, Ralpha, Gwine. What did they do to you?"
"Ah, since they suddenly teleported in we tried to open up the path for them but this guy suddenly started saying Gwine"s spear was high-quality so.."
Ralpha pointed at one of the guys frozen in ice while replying. The guy who was pointed at is saying something like, "n..no.."
"And then one them grabbed around my shoulder and pulled it."
Gwine starts looking for the b.u.t.tons that fell off while saying.
"Hmph, you all, do you have anything to say?"
I turned and asked the adventurers and one of them opened his mouth.
Misseru.Beirun, 16 years old. Human, Viscount Beirun family fourth son. Level 5.
"Yo..You all, let us out right now. Now, cold...My..My old man is his majesty the King you know~!"
Don"t lie, idiot...Though it might not be a complete lie. For example if the eldest daughter of Viscount Beirun is a beautiful young lady and if that eldest daughter were to run into that peerless King 17 years prior. Though back then it should have been before he inherited the throne but if it"s that old man he might have done it. In that sort of case, since there"s also the matter of reputation he might have been made into siblings of the eldest daughter when doing the naming ceremony.
""It..It"s true!""
""Misshi is his majesty Thomas"s illegitimate child!""
I grinned and smiled and looked at Ralpha and Gwine. Just in case I need to say it.
"I don"t know if it"s true or a lie but they"re saying this. Would you leave their treatment to me for a bit. Well~ it"ll be no problem~"
And then I turned back around to the adventurers before continuing my words.
"Ah, I see. But you know. If it"s the illegitimate child then you"re not royalty after all. Now go to sleep. Good night."
I said that and used the spell {Sleep Cloud} to put them all asleep without waiting for a response, then erased the ice.
"Well there"s no need to go as far as killing them right?"
Since either way the only ones listening is our members I can say whatever I please. I thought that Ralpha and Gwine didn"t have any intention of killing them either. Both of them nodded.
"Since they won"t wake up for the time being, shall we teleport them?"
We carried all of them to the teleport room and forcibly had them touch the the crystal rod. Ah, this is annoying. We piled three of them on top of each other and had each of them touch the crystal rod. We gave it our best and tried to have seven of them touch it. Toris uses his left hand to grab the crystal rod and his right hand to hold a couple of their hands on it. Ralpha, Gwine, and I are using both of our hands to hold another six of their hands on it.
When Toris chanted the incantation "botsufunku" to return he and seven of them were teleported to the entrance. Just the same way we teleported together with the remaining three. After returning to one of the small rooms near the entrance and Toris stuck his head out of a different room. We dragged along the three others and threw them all into a pile sleeping like corpses and then we slowly went out to the entrance plaza where the Baldukk knight group was guarding.
It was a party that entered the dungeon a short 10 minutes prior. Even the guards still remembered their faces. That was turned in under charges of robbery by the {Slaughterers}. Obviously we haven"t touched their wallets or equipment at all. If you check their status then you can tell they"re not dead right away and I explained that I put them to sleep with a spell and they took them in with no problem at all. They"ll ask if they really tried robbing someone at the knight group building when they wake up. I think robbery was 15 lashes with the whip right. Since it"s just attempted then maybe it"ll be a bit lighter?
I don"t know if they can endure 15 times being whipped but if this man who calls himself the illegitimate child of the country really is one, I wanted to know how the King would judge him. If he"s really a fake then when the knight group is interrogating him then I"m sure he wouldn"t use that lie. Even if he tries using that sort of lie, I think an even worse fate is in store for him though.
If he just orders lashings with the whip like that then there"s no particular problem. If he uses some sort of reason to make the punishment lighter or heavier, I just want to know that reason. From here on out, I might be able to use it as a reference for something. If he makes it far too light or something, or even innocent, then what sort of reasons he used, it"s some interest that"s in pretty bad taste.
In the first place if he isn"t dragged on the judgement day then I"m sure he"ll come to my place to negotiate. In that case it wouldn"t be bad to negotiate as well. Though I think that probably won"t be the case. Though in my case I would be more relieved if he isn"t punished in accordance with the law. I can make it into a favor after all.
..............
Year 7444, Month 11, Day 29
Our third day exploring the dungeon, we pa.s.sed through the 6th floor and arrived at the teleport crystal room.
The time is 2 pm in the afternoon. It might not be half bad to go a bit longer and look around on the 7th floor for a bit.
We quickly advanced forward exploring the 7th floor and every time we enter the dungeon we bring back several tens of millions of Z in magic stones. In total since we reached the 7th floor we"ve earned just over 100,000,000 Z. However, let alone an ogre mage, there"s no monster rooms, and obviously none of those strange altars either so we haven"t been able to find any new magic tools or magic items.
However, that"s in regards to the 7th floor and last week in an altar room that we pa.s.sed through on the 6th floor, we finally discovered a magic item. Since the {Bracelet.Of.Dead.Body.To.Water} we found in August, it"s our second magic item.
【Spear.Of.Piercing】
【Oak Wood.Iron】
【State: Good】
【Manufacture Date: 23/11/7444】
【Value: 1】
【Endurance: 15980】
【Ability: 190-240】
【Effect: Ignores the abilities of metal equipment(The abilities of equipment other than metal, including ones with magic properties are applied normally).】
It"s a rather splendid weapon. The abilities are high on it as well. Since the only one in our party using a spear is Gwine, I let Gwine use it. If it"s someone who can use magic then they can certainly feel the mana from it using {Detect.Magic}. Against monsters as the opponent it"s nothing more than a slightly strong spear but if it"s used against soldiers in war then it should play a pretty big role.
According to Gwine it seems it certainly is a bit easier to pierce through wtih it. If we were to sell it I wonder how much it would go for? Since I"ve heard magic weapons and armor easily go for several hundred million to billions of Z, I"m sure it"s worth quite a bit. In the worst case, it should be fine to sell it if we need some money.
.............
Year 7444, Month 11, Day 30
While holding the bento Giberuti made for us, everyone teleported into the 7th floor. After that we blew through ogres and goblins while proceeding forward and we arrived at the entrance of something like a plaza with a diameter of 500 meters or so. There"s not even a single weed growing in the plaza. It"s a dreary circular area like a desert. According to Ralpha it seems you can enter it from the eastern side.
This is the first time we"ve found a place like this since we came to the 7th floor.
I don"t feel anything particularly strange looking at the plaza. Nothing gets caught in the spells for detecting traps either. Rather there"s not even a single trap on the 7th floor though. We can tell there"s four other paths like the one we took to reach the plaza. I don"t feel like it can"t be just a bit intersection but if we go off the theory of the dungeon of Baldukk then it should be correct to think of this as a monster room. However, nothing is getting picked up in my {Detect.Life}.
Up until now we still haven"t arrived at the teleport room for the 7th floor the same as before. In the floors above this while there were obviously a lot of places with dead ends but on the routes to the teleport room while there were more or less at times, there was always at least one monster room. If this is a monster room then that would make this area the correct path.
"This place..might be a monster room. Though it doesn"t seem like there"s any monsters but let"s move forward carefully I guess.."
After confirming everyone had nodded, we stepped foot into the desert.