Chapter 21 - (Chapter 75): First ChallengeYear 7442, Month 6, Day 4
The next morning, after waking up before dawn as usual, I once again check my preparations for adventuring into the dungeon that I did last night before I fell asleep and made sure I didn"t miss anything. In terms of food I"ve prepared three days worth for up to two people of dried meat and beans and split them into two separate bags.
Eh? Wouldn"t it be fine if I just let Zulu carry it? Hey now, did you forget the important warning. You never know what will happen inside of the dungeon. If Zulu is turned to ash from the mysterious beam of a monster then what would I do?
That"s a joke but don"t they say you can teleport around inside the dungeon. In the case that we end up being split up having just one person hold all of the important stuff is epitome of stupidity. If it was an emergency situation where I"m injured and can"t carry anything no matter what then it would be different but it"s the theory of a infantry unit to decentralize things as much as possible as you go.
Putting aside individual arms, food and flask (I can make water with magic so this is for just in case) and those sorts of important items, and while we don"t have any yet I"m sure we"ll need first aid medicine and kits for everyone else well later. I bought new bags in order to hold those sorts of plain but important items.
Obviously I had one up until now but since I kept the majority of my luggage in the saddlebag of my horse it was a small bag, just by putting three days of food and some underwear in it and it"s already overflowing, furthermore so it doesn"t swinging around on horseback it has a belt attached as well so I can"t quickly take it off during combat.
And taking into consideration things from here on out I listened to Zenom and Ralpha"s opinion yesterday and bought two appropriate ones. The typical adventurer bags that they use are a reasonable size and most important of all there"s metal clips on the shoulder strings so it"s got a mechanism where if an urgent situation comes up you can simply twist those clips and throw the bag aside. When you re-attach it you have to slide the clip to the side so it"s a bit of a pain but it"s still convenient. The material is made of something thick and durable like canvas as well so I"m sure this was a good purchase. If possible it"s the point where I want to make one with rubber cloth.
Ah, that"s right, I ordered both a scabbard and belt for my sword. It seems it"ll be ready in less than a week.
I put on my protectors, carry one of the bags on my shoulder, the other bag I hold, and with my bayonet strap on my shoulder I head off to the restaurant we"re meeting at. Since it"s before dawn and I"m carrying this much full equipment and have something long on my back (well only 1.3 m or so) so it somehow makes me remember preparing to go fishing in my past life and feels nostalgic. I guess it would be better to say the feelings of excitement like I a child when you"re carrying a bag with accessories, cooler boxes on both shoulders, a fishing rod and heading from your car to the wharf where the boat is before dawn.
I arrived at the restaurant and the three of them were already there. I give Zulu his bag and have him carry it. He uses a two-handed sword but even when that sword has a blade of about 1 m and the handle is 30 cm because of his large build it seems he isn"t uncomfortable wearing it on his waist.
The length itself is about the same as my bayonet.
We all eat breakfast and have the restaurant put water in
to our flasks. Even though Zulu is a slave he was grateful that he was allowed to eat the same food as us from the menu. It"s fine, since your body is capital. After asking a bit, putting aside the amount it seems that normally it"s only obvious to give combat slaves used by adventurers and in the army lower quality food. Hmph, is that so?
However, the menu that"s lower quality than the breakfast we"re eating at this restaurant is only 100 Z (1 copper coin) different per meal. Our breakfast is 300 Z and the one inferior to that is 200 Z. Is there any meaning in being stingy over 100 Z here... If you were in possession of a lot of slaves then it would be different but I still only have one after all.
"Zulu, it"s fine since you"re the candidate for my head slave."
I said that. Since he was too focused on eating he didn"t respond. It"s fine though.
When we arrived at the entrance plaza there was still a considerably crowd. While we were waiting in line I tried to give Zulu the silver coin to pay the entrance tax for the dungeon but I was stopped by the three of them. Paying the taxes is proof that you"re the owner so it"s fine if I pay for Zulu"s portion as well. So it"s that sort of thing.
It seems that Church-san is acting as the guard for the tax collector again today. After he saw my face he smiled at me so I smiled back. After safely paying the tax for the four of us we moved ahead and there was a stone stairway going underground. It seems that that teleport crystal rod or whatever is down here.
After going down the long stairway the corridor stretches out ahead. There"s torches along the walls so there"s no problem with light. I don"t know if it"s because it"s a wide stone hallway but it feels desolate. Several tens of meters ahead there"s a room with no door. It was just as the party of people that entered before us we"re going into the room.
We follow after them towards the room. In the s.p.a.ce until the room at the end of the hall there"s several rooms with no doors along both sides of the hallway as well. I guess these are where you appear when you return from the dungeon. There was no party that came out when we were walking through.
In the center of the room at the end of the hall there was a square pedestal made of stone with no accessories that was about 70 cm high, above that there"s a thin crystal rod with a diameter of about 2-3 cm sticking out. The room itself is a small room of about 4 m per wall. The crystal rod sticking up from the pedestal seems to be about 80 cm. It"s true that about 10 people would be the limit for this length. On the surface of the crystal rod there was light purple s.e.xy letters flickering. I guess this is the incantation to teleport into the dungeon. There"s various letters flickering. If it"s too long will I be able to remember it?
When I approached and took a look at it I dumbfounded by what happened. As far as I can tell there"s three types of letters. The first one is obviously this worlds letters {Common}. However, the remaining two were bizarre. They were the English alphabet and j.a.panese hiragana. I spontaneously exchanged looks with Ralpha. I guess the two of them noticed our strange mood, Zenom and Zulu were looking at us suspiciously. Zenom said,
"What"s wrong? It seems that only this one makes sense. Ba.ru.su huh? I guess this is the incantation? I"m sure you don"t see crystals like this often so it"s surprising but isn"t it just as we had heard? It"s not too long to remember after all. Come on, let"s go."
After saying that Zulu and Zenom quickly grabbed the crystal rod. Ralpha and I exchanged looks once more and after preparing ourselves grabbed hold of the crystal rod. They"re all waiting for me to open my mouth. I guess I"m the one using this incantation. This incantation which seems like it would bring everything crumbling down.
"Barusu!"
Without anything crumbling to the ground, I wonder if in that instant the teleportation was completed? Just the pedestals and crystal that we were holding hasn"t changed at all but the state of the room has changed completely. I knew since I had heard the stories but when you actually experience it, it"s quite surprising.
I slow let go of the crystal while restlessly looking around the surroundings. And the moment everyone"s hands let go the crystal gave off a yellow like for an instant and there"s characters floating on the surface again just like before. Let"s see what it says? This time it says da.ri.o.fu huh? I guess it"s not particularly words that have any sort of meaning. I was a bit relieved for some reason.
The location we teleported to was like the dead end of a cave. Just as I had heard all of the walls of the cave are giving off light. If you were to say you don"t need light then it"s true but with this much it might be good to have one. It might be a good idea to buy a lighting magic tool that"s been modified into a lantern.
Zenom got right to tying the string to a adequate rock. He"s holding the bobbin with a stick in his left hand and has his axe hanging down in his right hand. I take my bayonet off my shoulder, take the scabbard off of the tip and hang it from the D ring on the waist of my protector so I"m ready for combat anytime as well. After Ralpha and Zulu held their weapons our preparations were complete.
"Alright, then let"s go. Just as I said yesterday I would lead at the front. Behind me is Ralpha and next is Zenom. Zulu be careful of Zenom"s string."
After confirming that everyone had nodded I start advancing but in several tens of meters we changed the order. The width of the cave gradually got wider and now it"s about 8 meters wide. I wondered if it was really a good idea to move in a column in this cave. Now Zulu and I the two of us are standing at the lead and behind us we have Ralpha and Zenom watching our backs. Also, while the ground of this cave is a bit rough and uneven it"s not as if there"s rocks all over the place and it"s the texture of dirt. It feels more like the walls are dirt and there"s stones scattered around in various places.
We add to the string of the bobbin and when we were about to add to it for the second time we could hear footsteps and voices like "buwan" and "gyau" from ahead of us. It"s been a while since our eyes already adapted to the dull light. We have about 30-40 m in our field of vision. It"s true we can do without a lantern I guess. Though supposedly there"s places with no light at all as well so it would be better to at least have one on hand I"m sure. Since we don"t intend to go to a place like that today it"s unrelated but if we were to carelessly have a light on us then I"m sure they would notice us from a distance as well.
We all lower our bags and stand on guard with our weapons so if the opponent poses us any danger we can react right away. We left our bags near the edge of the cave. All of us moved to the walls on both sides and cautiously on guard. It seems that the cave continues straight ahead for a short while. Alright, Identify time. In order to depend on Identify for vision I tried using my Unique Ability. I can see the silhouette of a small humanoid 70-80 m ahead. It"s a gnoll. It seems that they"re all equipped with spears. The number is..11 of them huh? I used Identify on the gnoll in the center and it"s level was 3. If it"s this then we can do it.
It would be more efficiently to wait for them to approach a bit closer. I held my breath while waiting for the group of gnolls to get closer. It seems that they"re slowly approaching us. And after they moved about 10 m ahead their movements suddenly stopped. This is bad, did they notice us? Well, even if they noticed us it wouldn"t make much of a difference. The gnolls immediately started advancing. However, they"re all screaming something as they charge over here. Just as one would expect of a hyena I wonder if their noses are good? I don"t think they had the special skill Super Sense of Smelling though. I wonder if it"s an ability that isn"t to the level of becoming a Special Skill?
Another 50 m. Still a ways to go.
Another 40 m. As expected the order of the gnolls has started to collapse. It"s about time.
Another 30 m. Now"s my chance! I jump out into the center of the hall and aim my left hand at the gnolls and discharged my spell. It"s the spell {Ice Cone}. A cone-shaped spiral of frost spreads out from my left hand and simultaneously countless small blades of ice like cutters are fired off. I can"t be bothered to aim every one of them so instead I just focused on pouring MP into increasing the number of blades. I"m sure they won"t die from a cold wave of -30 degrees or so but it"s plenty to maintain the small razor like blades made of ice. In the 15 degree or so cone-shaped area in front of my left hand the dense number of ice blades quickly turned the pitiful four gnolls at the head of the group into b.l.o.o.d.y corpses.
While I"m at it let"s go with one more. Next is the spell {Chain Lightning}. It"s quite literally an improved version of {Lightning Bolt}, the amount of MP it uses increases but after the electricity from this. .h.i.ts it splits even further and starts. .h.i.tting other targets nearby one after another. The number of times it splits goes up to four times but the weakness is that it only goes up to targets in an area of about 90 degrees behind the target up to 5 m away before the divisions stop. However, if it even splits up once then it spreads out quite a bit from there. In the end the power of it falls to about half that of {Lightning Bolt} but for a low level opponent like gnolls then it should be plenty.
I don"t think that this will wipe them all out. I had to maintain my concentration for the 1 second or so to maintain the magic until the divisions of the {Chain Lightning} had completed, I succeeded in killing another five of them with this spell. There"s 2 gnolls remaining. They"re 30 m ahead and I guess their morale dropped losing the majority of their allies, while they were s.p.a.cing out I finished them off with consecutive uses of {Stone Arrow} without making them into missiles.
I succeeded in taking out 11 gnolls in a period of 10 seconds or so. It would be fine if the average level of the enemies on the 1st floor is this amount though...
"It was an easy victory. Let"s gather the magic stones."
After I said that and picked up my bag the other three followed after me in a daze. It seems that even Zenom is dumbfounded. Did I overdo it a bit? I thought so but it was our first battle. Isn"t it something you put some fighting spirit into? Including the {Stone Arrow} at the end I used close to 80 MP but it"s an amount that doesn"t even add up to 1% of my total MP. And if it"s that amount then it should recover in 7-8 hours.
I hand Zulu a knife and while waiting for the other three to take out the magic stones I stand on guard in case monsters from from a bit ahead. I can clearly hear the conversations of the three while they"re working.
"So master was a powerful magician, since master only used healing magic yesterday I didn"t realize it."
"Yeah, he used magic when he met us as well but for it to have been to that extent.."
Uhaha, it"s fine if you say even more. Since I"m the type that grows from being praised.
"Since I"ve become able to use magic, it"s no good if I don"t quickly become able to use it like that."
I think that"s impossible, young lady.
In a bit over 10 minutes they finished gathering all of the magic stones. When I tried Identifying them the value was about 2,000. If we sell them at about 70% then it"s about 150,000 Z huh? Furthermore, the weapons of the gnolls were just sharpened wooden spears so I thought we wouldn"t gather them but we might be able to use them for something. The length is about 1 m after all. For the time being I had Zulu carry about 3 of them. By the way, I wonder where in the world they got their hands on lumber?
We continued carefully advancing ahead. Let alone crossroads there"s not even any curves. Isn"t the string useless?
"Hey Zenom, wouldn"t it be better to not use the string until the path splits up?"
I tried saying that but it seems that Zenom had the same idea. He immediately said "I guess so, wait just a minute" and ran off to the starting point. Since we"ve still only moved about 400 m, so I guess he went back to the teleport crystal in order to untie the string from the rock.
There"s nothing in particular to do until Zenom returns. It"s a short break of about 10 minutes. Even if I say that it"s only been about 15 minutes since we teleported in and started exploring. The amount of time we spent gathering the magic stones was the longest. The combat itself was only about 10 seconds after all. We continue to remain cautious of ahead while waiting for Zenom to come back. Before long Zenom returned and started rolling up the string. Ah, I see. If we don"t roll it back up then we can"t use it again. I thought, wouldn"t have been fine if he rolled it up as he came back, but it"s certainly more efficient to have one person hold the string as another spins the bobbin.
We ended up spending a total of 30 minutes of inactivity but after pumping ourselves up again we slowly start to move forward while on guard.
We proceeded another 300 m. The same as usual the cave just keeps going straight ahead. I don"t see any traps anywhere. However, it"s quite exhausting to be careful of traps that you don"t know where they might be. I thought we would be able to advance more comfortably but I guess I was underestimating it. Along the way we changed places so Zenom and Ralpha were at the lead and Zulu and I were in the back.
And soon after we changed positions we could hear small sounds form ahead of us. It seems like the sounds of combat but it"s seems like it"s quite far away as well. Zenom turns around to look at me. I nod to him and only say we should slowly and cautiously keep moving ahead. In addition I also say, "if the enemy has equal numbers to us then we"ll fight using swords this time". It"s fine if we keep moving forward using magic like this but with that it will end up being only me that earns any experience.
We can still hear the sounds of what seems to be combat. I can"t tell for sure but it seems to have gotten louder. Ralpha turns around and whispers.
"It seems like someone is fighting. Is it fine to not go and save them?"
"Eh? Why?"
"I mean, they"ve been fighting for quite a while and they might be having a difficult time right?"
It"s true that it"s been about a minute already since we heard the first shout and sounds. I think they"re most likely having a difficult fight. However, why is it necessary to go and save them? When I"m stumped for words Zenom came to my aid.
"Ralpha, it"s their own responsibility to adventure in the dungeon. If they"re having a difficult battle then it might be a strong enemy. It would be better to proceed carefully."
That"s right, that"s right.
"And, we might end up buying unnecessary resentment like, don"t steal our game. Even if we went to their side like this it would probably be better not to suddenly interfere. We should limit it to just remaining spectators until the adventurers ask us to save them."
That"s right, that"s right.
"..I understand. I guess that"s right, let"s slowly move ahead."
It seems that Ralpha has understood as well. I,
"That"s right, and it"s not decided that it"s a different adventurer yet as well. Monsters might be fighting among themselves."
added that to the conversation. Oh, I guess Zenom"s explanation was plenty. Since Ralpha has been an adventurer for quite a while I"m sure she can divide these things and if you properly explain it to her she"ll understand as well. Somehow I feel like I"m being criticized when I hear an ex-high school girl with the appearance of a 14 year old girl say "Won"t you go and save them?" to me.
We start proceeding ahead again cautiously. After going about 50 m the cave bends to the right for the first time. Since it"s not a forked path there"s still no need for the string. After turning right on the corner and the sounds suddenly got louder. I guess the sounds were being dampened somewhat by the corner until now. I can hear some shouts but it"s not proper words. Just the sounds of monsters yelling and several combat sounds.
If it"s an adventurer fighting them they might have been reduced down to just one left. If we run I wonder if we"ll make it in time? My basis for it is weak but if it"s me I could probably save them. If I use my excess mana and fire off magic consecutively wouldn"t I be able to save them? Though it"s their own responsibility, it would give me bad dreams to just let them die I guess.
In the next moment, Zenom raised his right hand and crouched down as he was moving ahead. What is it? is what I was thinking but after hearing Zenom"s words my questions were answered.
"It"s a trap. I think it"s a pitfall... It seems like the edge of the cave would be alright. Be careful of it."
It"s true it"s just as Zenom says, ahead of him in the center of the cave there"s an unnatural area of bulge that"s about 5 m in diameter. That was dangerous~ If I had gotten impatient and ran to try and help there"s no way I would have seen it. If I was careless then we all could have fallen into the pitfall there.
"Zulu, stand one of the spears on the side of it. It"ll be a landmark for the trap."
If there"s a powerful monster up here then we might need to retreat. I can"t laugh at all at the possibility of overlooking the location of the trap when we"re retreating and falling in the pitfall. It"s a good thing we collected the spears. Though in reality I had actually had him collect them so Zulu could use them as throwing spears.
It seems that Zulu quickly realized my intention and after avoiding the pitfall he stabbed the spear into the center of the cave as a sign. There"s a pitfall at the end of this spear. Another 50 m ahead in the cave and this time it bent to the left. We remain cautiously while slowly proceeding ahead. The sounds of combat and screams of a monster are still ringing out. It"s already been close to 10 minutes since we first noticed it. As we approached the corner the sounds got even louder. It should already be a bit over 10 meters away. I wonder if we"ll be able to see after we turn this corner?
Thinking that I stopped everyone and stuck my body against the left wall while carefully sticking just my head out and peeked itno the next hallway. I"ve already activated my Unique Ability Identify. Incidentally, I wasn"t able to see through the pitfall trap with Identify. I think there"s probably a thin cloth or dirt covering the pitfall. That"s why my glance can"t see through the structure of the trap and thus I wasn"t able to find it with identify.
In a place about 30 m ahead of the corner there"s a group of about 20 goblins fighting. I see several of them on the ground as well. I don"t see any figures of adventurers. It seems to be a fight between monsters. I tried using Identify on several of them but the levels were 2-4 and not that strong. I quietly returned to where everyone was and said.
"There"s a group of goblins fighting about 30 m ahead of here. The number totals about 20 of them. From what I can tell if we were to ambush them then we can win I"m sure. I can end things in one hit with magic but what should we do?"
And then Zulu said surprised in a low voice.
"You can still use magic! But..I"ll show you I can be useful. If it"s just goblins I"ll show you I can cut them to pieces!"
Zenom says,
"20 of them huh...It"s quite a few but if it"s just goblins I"m sure we can win. Shall we go!?"
that. It"s good to see he"s energetic.
"20 of them indeed. Then, we"ll charge into them so Al should prepare to use magic in order to not let any of them escape."
It seems Ralpha is good to go as well. Alright.
"Then, Zulu, you take the lead. Charge in. Zenom go from behind Zulu on the right. Ralpha you cover Zenom"s blind spots. I"ll try throwing the gnolls spears but don"t count on this. I can"t do anything more than the initial intimidation. First, I"ll throw one spear from the corner. At the same time as I jump out from the corner everyone charge in. If anyone gets injured, I"m sure the goblins we be able to run away but put priority on being healed. Alright?"
I simply decide the order of a.s.sault and gave instructions on it. If it"s just at the level of goblins then I"m sure there shouldn"t be any problems with just brute-forcing through them. And as long as no one dies instantly then I can heal them so, well there shouldn"t be any problem.
After checking the timing I jump out from the corner and with Zulu at the lead, the three rangers, otherwise known as my allies let out a roar while charging in.
While looking at their backs I use all of the muscles in my body like pulling back a bow and throw the wooden spear overhead of them. Obviously my aim sucks. In the first place, I"ve never thrown a spear before. It"s fine even if it doesn"t hit. I made excuses to myself while praying for the spear to hit but I saw it stab into the ground in front of the group of goblins. How pathetic~ Next time maybe I"ll try making the spear throwing device {Atlatl}.
I quickly saw Zulu and the others attack the group of goblins. It seems that the goblins who were fighting had no idea what was going on. Starting from the unlucky one that was stabbed through the back by Zulu"s two-handed sword, and the ones who"s heads were split open by one hit of Zenom and Ralpha"s {Tomahawks} and the confusion of the goblins got even worse it seems. It seems that the group that the first three that were killed was a part of it thought Zulu and them were helpers for the other side and the other side misunderstood that their allies increased.
I watch that while preparing myself with the last remaining spear and after approaching a bit closer I threw it at the one on the end. However, the spear missed this time as well and stabbed into the corpse of a goblin that had already died on the side. I had intended to aim carefully but since it"s literally just a sharpened wooden stick, I"m sure it"s not something you can hit with so easily just by aiming as you throw it.
Zulu is swinging the two-handed sword like a fierce G.o.d, without letting any goblins get near him any goblins that existed inside of his reach just turned into dead goblins. Every time that iron storm-like gale moves forward another one and another of the moving goblins decrease in numbers. Zenom and Ralpha seem to be taking them down one at a time making sure to finish them off in one hit each.
In a few minutes the goblins had been reduced to less than half and the remaining goblins are just recklessly swinging their cudgels while screaming which doesn"t seem like anything more than they"ve fallen into panic. I use the spell {Stone Arrow Missile} to shoot through the backs of any of them that try to run from a distance, it"s already gotten to the point where I can just concentrate on the operation itself.
In the end, without even taking 10 minutes the three of them were able to wipe out a group of 20 goblins unharmed. After that we gathered magic stones again and continued exploring even further into the dungeon.
I wonder if it"s still about 8 am in the morning? It"s a good start for the first day.