I still don"t feel like doing the non-plot related SS yet, so just doing SS18 or so then going to chapter 96. Will go back to other SS when I feel like it.
Year 7442, Month 10, Day 26
Since that sort of thing happened the other day for a moment I worried about what kind of face I should make in front of Ralpha and Bel but I thought once again that I don"t particularly need to change the way I act so I can just act the same as usual.
Since they didn"t seem any different than usual as well I was relieved.
After confirming our equipment the same as usual we entered the dungeon.
We proceeded through the 1st and 2nd floors in ultra express mode and when we arrived at the teleport room on the 2nd floor it was just about noon.
We ate the soup made with hot water from magic along with some sandwiches we brought along and took a break for about an hour.
During our break I was telling some jokes to Ralpha and Bel, and Zenom, Zulu, Angela joined in on that.
It"s the same as usual.
No, it might just be my imagination but it seems like Ralpha"s expression is stiff.
"What is it? Are you tired?"
We probably walked close to 15 km to clear through the 1st and 2nd floors.
We"ve already walked through both of them countless times and we have a map where the traps are listed including several we added ourselves so the tension should have been considerably reduced.
Though I say that, since it"s descending through the dungeon at a speed of close to 2.5 km/hour so there"s no way it wouldn"t be painful or exhausting.
"Hn, I"m alright. But, I guess I was a bit on guard? Didn"t we talk about those sorts of things yesterday? That"s why I thought I need to give it my best and not fail. Fu~ but, after all I think I might be a bit tired...Sorry, let me rest for a bit longer."
Come to think of it, among us only Bel"s Endurance is 12 and considerably low. The next lowest ones after Bel are Ralpha and Angela but even then they have 16, so it"s 33% higher than Bel.
I"m sure her Endurance will increase from here on out with level up and age but why did Ralpha get tired before Bel this time?
I wonder if it"s related to the fact that Bel is a Rabbit-people race?
Or maybe Ralpha is just weak to tension and easier to exhaust herself?
I tried gently taking a look at Bel"s state but she doesn"t seem to have changed at all and is happily talking about something with Angela.
It"s not like we"re in such a hurry that we have to fight over one or two months.
Thinking about things from here on out so I think it would be best to clarify as many things as possible that I"ve put off around here.
"I see, don"t push yourself. If it"s painful then you can say so anytime."
Alright, it"s a shame even though we"ve made it this far for today but let"s just take a look in the 3rd floor and then return.
After tomorrow we"ll take it a bit easy in the dungeon for a short while and I"ll try doing something about the things I"ve been putting off for a while.
"Eh...Yeah..I"m sorry. Somehow, Al, have you become kinder? But, I don"t want you to misunderstand."
Ralpha grabs both of her shoulders like she"s protecting her body and moves away from me.
"You know, are you seriously trying to anger me? What about it?"
I"ve decided, Ralpha, I"m going to use you as an excuse.
I"ll provide you with the perfect role for a terrible farting bug.
Rather~ after all let"s go as far as we can on the 3rd floor.
........
The 3rd floor of the dungeon of Baldukk.
It"s made of stone and dim, the width of the pa.s.sages are narrower than the 1st and 2nd floors, there"s not even 10 m.
It"s probably gotten about 50 cm more narrow than those floors.
Of course, there"s various places where it gets more than 10 m or becomes about 2 m as well. The air is stale, and you can"t feel that it"s flowing but it doesn"t seem that it"s not blowing at all since you occasionally feel it brush your cheek.
Angela is whispering something to Ralpha.
You two, focus on your jobs when we"re working.
I"ll let it off because it"s not a loud voice but whispering though.
We steadily walk down that pa.s.sage but hitting the floor with a 3 m pole doesn"t help much at all anymore.
This isn"t because there"s no pitfalls but rather because the structure of the pitfalls has changed.
On the 1st and 2nd floors the pitfalls have a board covering them and that surface is camouflaged, so if you hit that surface the sound changes and you can easily see through them.
But, on this 3rd floor the pitfalls have undergone a complete change.
From a glance they appear to be camouflaged with the same sort of stone as the pa.s.sage.
It seems like there"s several poles inside of the pitfall and above that there"s something like a thin stone wall or stone board placed on that to look like the normal pa.s.sage.
Even though it"s been made thin, that thickness is about 15 cm and even if you hit it a bit with a pole you can"t hear the difference in the sounds.
Since Bel"s skill is something that makes it easier for her to pick up on sounds, it"s not like she can tell the vague differences in the sound itself. The best she can do is tell the number of legs something has from footsteps or how many sources are making sounds, and tell if they"re moving.
The only way to see through the pitfalls is to move forward slowly and try stepping on them or try hitting the floor with the end of Zenom or Ralpha"s hand-axe.
Even though it"s a axe-hand, the pointed end of the blade is a ma.s.s of heavy cast iron so as expected if you hit it with that the sound changes and you can tell that the lid of the pitfall moves slightly.
Since it"s troublesome I thought about using earth magic to make a large roller like thing and roll that along as we go but even if my mana is absurdly high it"s only obvious that it would run out after a few Km keeping it running like that. It"s to the point of not even needing to experiment with it. In the first place moving that much distance, putting aside mana, I wouldn"t be able to maintain my concentration.
Though I"ve become able to use magic while moving or fighting, it pushes my nerves to the limit, and if that sort of condition continues for even 10 minutes I"m sure I would be mentally worn-out. If a monster were to come out at a time like that it wouldn"t be a joke.
If it came to that then it would even be difficult for me to be considered useful in combat.
Taking into consideration the speed we"re moving forward it feels too inefficient to move while hitting with the axe every time so it"s about time we have no choice other than to proceed carefully. The person at the front will have to take one step forward and without putting their weight on that step as much as possible they poke the stone floor with their foot. If there"s a pitfall there you can tell because it moves slightly. Then if you move to the side and do the same thing and it seems fine you can move forward from there.
It"s different from the 1st and 2nd floors, the floors aren"t made of dirt so it"s difficult to stab something that would act as a landmark into it. It can"t be helped so I"m just making dirt with earth magic and pouring it around that area.
It seems that various methods were used in the past and we"ve discovered something like paint or painting material scattered around in some places as well. Just in case we tried poking it with the end of our feet and after all it was a pitfall, since you can vaguely feel it move.
If you pay close attention it"s not to the point where you can"t see the gaps between the stone lid and the real thing but since it"s dimly lit, so if we"re being careful of them we end up with a speed of advance that is slower than a tired so I gave up on it right away.
However, there"s no mistaking that a considerable number of people have moved along these pa.s.sages since the past, we realized there"s something like marks all over the place pointing to the pitfalls so it"s a bit of a salvation that we can maintain our speed somewhat.
In other words, if it"s a place where there"s a mark then it"s a place where someone has explored in the past.
Of course, we can"y deny the possibility of them overlooking something but it"s a big help to have various marks.
However, we"ve ended up finding a large number of pa.s.sages along split pathways that clearly no one has pa.s.sed through as well.
In those cases, we just proceed forward a bit carefully and if we can"t find any landmarks along that path we turn back and go down a different path.
If we can discover a mark then there"s no problem with just continuing down that way.
I don"t know if this is the correct way of doing it but if I don"t believe it is then the efficiency drops to a point where it"s absurd to even compare them so it can"t be helped.
I found out the reason why the entrance to the 3rd floor that is the teleport room of the 2nd floor always has someone camping in it.
If you don"t rest once before going into the 3rd floor it"s very difficult to deal with it I"m sure.
When you go to step foot into the 3rd floor if there"s no clear proof that someone has pa.s.sed through there (First off is the number carved out near the teleport crystal. If that"s there then someone has definitely pa.s.sed through. Next is the marks near pitfalls and such. Since there"s no other choice to remain careful until you find something like that it wears away at the nerves quite a bit at the start though) then you once again return to the 2nd floor, and teleport to the 3rd floor again.
The speed of advancing forward dulls even more than up until now and the mental exhaustion acc.u.mulates.
However, even then there"s a lot of gain at on the 3rd floor.
It"s a pa.s.sage made of stone but it seems that there"s two types of rooms ones made of stone and ones with exposed dirt. The stone rooms have the same powerful monsters making nests in them as up until now but very rarely they say there"s something like a torture chamber with strange apparatus placed around that no one knows how to use.
Although, it seems that it"s already after anything of notice has been taken out so the number is limited and it seems there"s more adventurers who have never seen them before.
The problem is the ones where the dirt floor is exposed.
It seems that these are the same as the other rooms where a powerful monster is making them into a nest but if you dig up the walls then rarely you can discover raw ores or gems.
In short it"s just that you"re inside of a mine of gems but putting aside the reason, just that there"s a possibility that you can gather the raw ores of gems is the reason adventurers come to this floor, no, it"s one of the appeals to entering the dungeon of Baldukk itself.
Hearing this, I first thought, I see now, and at the same time several doubts came up in my mind.
It"s fine if various gems and minerals can be gathered. This is Orth and not Earth, I won"t be surprised by something like that at this point.
However, if the raw ores of gems that are discovered aren"t normally cut then there"s not much meaning. The cutting of gems is an artisans technique and there"s various methods of cutting to make the gem look beautiful, I"m sure it"s the same as Earth that there"s various methods to change the value based on that.
However, in the first place do the tools for cutting and polishing them even exist?
It"s not like you can"t do the polishing with magic. IF you just keep repeating the {Cantrip} {Polish} it will take time but you can somehow polish it I"m sure.
If you can use void magic then I"m sure the efficiency will increase a bit so using that is fine as well.
But, what about the cut?
Do they do it with some tools like a set of chisels?
However, if they even make a single mistake then the long-awaited precious and expensive gem would come to nothing.
I"m sure it wouldn"t become completely worthless but the value would drop significantly.
It"s not like there"s something like a machine so I wonder if that"s where the technique of the artisan comes in?
In that case I"m sure they can"t do anything other than simple cuts.
Most likely the limit is facet, step, or mix cut and something like a brilliant would be impossible, it"s possible to think they"re might try to smooth it over with cabochon as well.
In that case, I wonder if a diamond with a brilliant cut would have an insanely high price?
I don"t know the value of diamonds in Orth terms though. Well I doubt they"re cheap, probably?
Even the raw ores of gems, if it"s my identify then I"m sure I can tell what type of gem they are.
Umu.
I can smell the scent of money from the 3rd floor.
Thinking that way I can put a bit of enthusiasm into the annoying exploring that wears away at your nerves.
Luckily it seems that we have yet to run into any monsters on the 3rd floor this time as well but it"s about a good time.
Ralpha expression looks quite exhausted. I wonder if no one has realized because it"s dark?
..Ah, I see!
I screwed up here. Seriously sorry I called you a farting bug.
"Ralpha, are you alright? It seems that you"re considerably tired but aren"t you pushing yourself?"
"Eh? Yeah, I"m alright. There"s no problem."
How steady of her.
I"m happy that she has some guts but as expected I didn"t intend to pull her to her limits from the start.
I guess it"s about time to head back.
"Let"s take a small break. We"ll stop here for today. Zenom, keep an out ahead together with Zulu and after 10 minutes Angela and I will shift with you."
Zulu stands with a daunting pose being cautious of ahead of the party and Zenom stands in a place about 3 m to the side of that.
The rest of us sit in a circle and drink some tea.
Just like usual I make some hot water with magic and put in some tea then give it out to everyone before opening my mouth.
"We"ve done quite a bit in going back and forth between the 2nd and 3rd floors since noon today..five times huh? We discovered 6 pitfalls. Among those only one of them was probably in an area that wasn"t on the map or an unexplored region. If we can confirm the number on the teleport crystal rod then while we can"t let our guards down it might be okay to see it as no problem. Since we still haven"t seen a pitfall with the lid off on our way back lets drop some dirt on the one we saw before and try collapsing the lid. I want to see what they"re like."
After saying that and drinking some tea from my flask I looked at the three of them. It seems there"s no objections. Ralpha is listening with an unusually serious expression.
"Now then, Ralpha. I already know you"re pushing yourself. From now on say things properly without being embarra.s.sed about them."
"Eh?"
Ralpha responded with a surprised voice.
"Don"t make say everything, it"s embarra.s.sing. If you"re not feeling good just tell me. Bel, Angela the same goes for you two as well. From here on out when you feel tired properly tell me. It was my bad for not being careful of things like that until now. Sorry."
"Al-san.."
It seems that Bel finally noticed the abnormality in Ralpha and figured it out.
I think that Angela probably realized when we first came down to the 3rd floor for today.
As expected of the Dog-people race, I"m sure she noticed from the scent of blood but..If possible I wish she would have mentioned it then.
After that, I exchanged places with Zenom and the others and quickly retreated.
I decided to approve of a salaried day off once a month, or rather, taking a day off from exploring the dungeon when you"re feeling unwell.
Of course it"s different if that day is a Wednesday or Sat.u.r.day.
But if we"re not careful it could end up being something that puts all of our lives at risk so I ordered them to tell me without reservations when they"re not feeling well.
I"m sure it"ll be fine if we just earn some experience points in an adequate place around the 1st floor with the rest of us.
Ah~, that"s why it"s better to have less women.
Putting aside reincarnated people, I wonder if it would have been better not to buy Angela, is what I thought a bit.
It"s a bit late to sell her at this point and it"s pitiful so it can"t be helped though.
I"ve decided.
We"ll restrict the number of them in our party when we enter the dungeon and I definitely won"t buy anymore female combat slaves.
If they increase anymore than this, then depending on the situation I feel like we might seriously end up with weeks where we can"t progress with exploring the dungeon.
Tody we just luckily didn"t encounter any monsters but it wouldn"t be a joke if monsters started to appear on the second or third days being lured by the scent of blood.
.............
Year 7442, Month 11, Day 29
After a month or so pa.s.sed by and we"ve finally started to get a knack for exploring the 3rd floor.
Even if I say knack it"s nothing too special.
The stone steps that make up the floor, or rather tiles but it"s a knack for you"re poking them with your feet. We"ve gradually gotten a grasp on how to maintain your posture comfortably or how much weight to put on it is good.
Ralpha"s level increased and she"s finally reached 7 MP.
I"m sure she"ll be able to make quite a bit of experience in her magic and unique ability from here on out. This is something to be honestly happy about. I think it would be best to increase her MP as much as possible from here on out so after aiming to somewhat level up her magic special skills, when her MP gets to about double digits it would be best to have her start leveling up her unique ability "Spatial Understanding".
I"ve become acquainted with several other parties that we often come across inside of the dungeon.
I haven"t seen the top teams like {Verdure Brotherhood} or {Black Topaz} since then but I"ve gotten reasonably familiar with the people who can make it to the teleport room of the 2nd floor.
However, I still don"t have the guts to do something like camp in the teleport room of the 2nd floor.
After all more than half our party is made up of 14 year old brats.
Even though Zenom and Zulu are here as well, if we were to be attacked while we"re sleeping I"m sure it would become a terrible situation.
It seems that it"s reasonably known to everyone that we"re always holding a considerable number of magic stones when we go to the teleport room of the 2nd floor and the people who start talking intimately ask how we"re killing all of the monsters and I can"t help but get the impression they"re trying to sound out our secrets.
And I"ve figured out that it"s not that simple to gather gems on the 3rd floor.
It"s a dungeon that"s been accepting adventurers for several hundred years already.
Even though it"s the 3rd floor it"s been reasonably explored.
About once a month it seems that supposedly a raw ore of a gem with a decent value (20,000,000 - 30,000,000 Z) is discovered. Even though I went to the trouble of buying a pickax and was carrying the heavy thing along it"s to the point where it seems stupid.
Since I think we"ve already started to get somewhat used to the 3rd floor, it might be about time to aim for the 4th floor and just make it into a floor we pa.s.s through.
In the first place, it seems that the value of the gems you can gather are even more valuable and easier to find on the lower floors.
In the end we weren"t able to find the raw ores of gems or the stone room with strange tools in them on the 3rd floor but I guess it"s fine.
After organizing things a bit and since normally the possibility of gathering the raw ores of gems can only be done after the 3rd floor it"s appropriate to try and earn after that floor. It seems that rare metals start to appear on the 4th floor as well.
I don"t know much about the 5th floor since only the top teams can get that far but even then the information that I did obtain was that you can gain even more rare metals and valuable gems.
I"m sure it"s just being able to find one about once in a month or so but it"s only obvious that the possibility of finding them would be higher in a place where there"s almost no people. After all, we should quickly pa.s.s through the 3rd floor and seek out the possibilities of the lower floors. If we don"t get too particular about gathering the magic stones then we can get through the 1st floor in roughly three hours and the 2nd floor in about the same amount of time.
The problem is the 3rd floor. There"s also the matter of traps so it will take a considerable amount of time. Even if it was about the same amount of time (though that"s definitely not the case) the amount of time it would be possible for us to explore the 4th floor would be about two or three hours. No matter how I think about it, entering in the morning the best we could do in one day is make it to the teleport room of the 3rd floor or not.
Near the end of this day, after we started on our way back from exploring, I declared that we were suspending spending anymore time than this on the 3rd floor and since tomorrow is a day off, starting next month we would aim for the 4th floor.
Simultaneously I started saying that it"ll definitely be necessary to take some rest in the teleport room on the 3rd floor before the 4th floor and in order to do that we"ll need to prepare the tools needed for camping and since the map for floors beyond the 4th isn"t sold so we have to start producing our own map, therefore, it"ll be even more difficult than the quick clearing we"ve done until now while looking at everyone.
Since no one commented I said that while tomorrow afternoon is a day off we need to split up and buy the necessary things as we left the dungeon.
After returning to my inn and a letter from Bakuddo had arrived.
It seems that they"re going to leave the house at a time where they"ll arrive in Baldukk around December the 28th.
Different from normally it seems that they"ll be leaving Bakuddo for quite a while so they"re just coming with older brother and some squires.
I thought it might be good to take a week-long break or so like the j.a.panese for the New Years holiday.
............
Year 7442, Month 11, Day 30
During the morning, we performed our using coordination training and after taking some lunch we went shopping.
Since Ralpha volunteered for the preserved food and portable stove magic tool I left it to her and Zenom.
Putting aside food we can make water with my magic.
It"s bad tasting water but there"s no problem with drinking it.
As far as I can tell from looking at other parties they"re splitting up heavy looking buckets or water bags between them.
After listening to their conversations and it seems that"s it common sense for a sorcerer who can create water not to use their mana in combat.
With just water magic level 2 you can make a bowl full of it and if it"s level 3 then you can make about a bucket full so it seems that they try to save as much mana as possible and make their baggage lighter.
Even then they at least want to drink some delicious tea to rest themselves when they"re exhausted so they each take a few liters as well.
Hmm, I understand those feelings.
It"s true that the tea I was treated to that time was delicious.
I guess we should take along some proper water and use that for tea when camping rather than using the water made with water magic. I"m sure it"ll be a bit heavy but it might be good to just say to put water in the flasks that we normally keep empty.
The remaining members went to obtain some bedding and blankets.
Baldukk is a town where adventurers are gathering for the dungeon so I thought there would be some convenient goods like sleeping bags but I couldn"t find something like that no matter where I searched. Since Bel and I knew that the sleeping bag was an extremely useful tool when camping in our previous lives so we were pretty fixed on that.
It"s true that none of the people who were camping in the teleport room of the 2nd floor and that time when I saw the members of Black Topaz on the 1st floor they weren"t using something like a sleeping bag.
There was no tent as well.
They were just laying a blanket on the thing floor and rolling up in that to sleep.
However, Bel and I both can"t help but feel doubtful about that style.
Since I fundamentally stayed at inns on my way to Baldukk, I"ve only camped out a handful of times but in my case I slept in a hammock.
As expected there"s no convenient trees to hang a hammock from inside of the dungeon.
It can"t be helped there"s no other choice than endure with a blanket here.
I ordered blankets for everyone made of the threads from the Roze we gathered previously.
I"m glad I didn"t try to make gloves for Ralpha and Bel.
It seems it"ll take about a month for them to finish being made.
Something like a qiviuit blanket what kind of rich person is that, I couldn"t help but think that but I"m sure a warm blanket is necessary.
I haven"t caught sight of them at all since then but if we encounter Roze on the 2nd floor again we need to secure them no matter what.
Since we can"t afford to rest until the qiviut blankets are completed, it couldn"t be helped so I purchased some appropriately thin blankets. I purchased a bag to put those blankets in separately as well.
It should be fine to tie this up to the top part of our bags.
Since we"re throwing our bags down every time there"s combat I thought they would be damaged quicker but it seems that leather-made bags are more durable than I thought and they weren"t all that damaged so it shouldn"t be necessary to replace them.
In regards to a tent putting aside Zenom and I, I thought that the women would want one but after all they did.
I"m sure they wanted something to block sight while changing and other stuff.
I can understand those feelings but it"s large and since it"ll add to the baggage I wanted them to restrain themselves on that.
After all, it"s not easy for one person to carry a tent large enough to stand or change inside.
Whether it be adventurer"s tents, two-person tents, or even the simple shelter three-person tents it"s impossible to stand up inside.
I couldn"t say anything other than that I would block them off with a blanket so to make do with that.