Next chapter tonight-ish. And more soon after that. Still some time between due to size of chapters.
Year 7443, Month 12, Day 30
New Year"s Eve. Even if it"s Orth, it"s only obvious that the first day of the new year is a holiday and most businesses close up for the day. That"s why today pretty much every store thrives considerably well. Even though I don"t particularly have any business I"m looking into food stores as well. Talking about New Years dishes during the New Years holiday is extremely boring but it"s probably a good idea to at least completely rest until I"m satisfied once in a year.
Regardless of whether it"s a holiday or anything else I"m still continuing with my training so my body won"t weaken that easily. If I get too bored then it might not be half bad to go to the dungeon and rage around as well. It"s become where I have to bring either Zulu or Angela along but I"m sure that the New Years holiday is different after all.
It seems that recently Zulu is on good terms with a sister that works at a restaurant and the dark expression that Angela had when I first purchased her has completely disappeared. Ah, that"s right, starting next year how about I raise their wages a bit as well. I take out a smoked octopus leg I bought at the delicacies shop from the inner pocket of my inverness and start chewing on it while thinking these things and wandering the town.
Oh~ Toris and Bel are window shopping at a store over there. They have their arms crossed and are completely on good terms. How enviable. Come to think of it on the day we saved Bel I was chewing on a smoked octopus leg as well. Even though all four of us has octopus legs in our mouths we were discussing it. I remembered something pointless.
"Master, are you out on a walk?"
Hn? What the, so it was Angela? She"s holding bread and some kind of vegetables or ham. I"m sure this fellow is shopping for tomorrow as well. I just paid their wages for this month this morning after all and there"s quite a few restaurants that are closed for business tomorrow as well. Since I said to get your own lunch, she"s probably buying up enough food right now for tomorrow"s lunch as well. It seems like quite a bit of food for one person though if you think of it as lunch for throughout the holiday then it"s an amount that is just right.
"Ah, Angela huh? Buying lunch for tomorrow?"
"Yes, since most places are closed tomorrow.."
After all.
"That"s true. Maybe I"ll buy something as well~"
"I think that"s a good idea. The places that are still open will be extremely busy."
Right.
"That"s true..I"ll make sure I buy something as well. See you later."
I said that and walked towards the food store nearby. I wonder what I"ll buy...In the end, I decided on some dried Meineiji. Meineiji is a seasonal fish but I"ve seen fat ones being transported after being caught in the reef area west of Baldukk. It might be nice to go fishing next time but I don"t have any reel after all. If you grill them with the portable stove magic tool and they"re delicious.
It"s no comparison to the taste of the dried mackerel I had in my past life though the dried fish of Orth aren"t anything to make fun of either. It"s common knowledge that fish become more delicious by drying them out. You grill the dried fish and then unravel it and put it in between bread with some mayonnaise and it goes together quite well. I don"t know who thought of it but I was trembling in excitement after meeting this taste.
I got two dried meineiji dried and cut like in j.a.pan in my past life and had them tied on a string by the neck. I hung that down while wandering around again. It seems there"s some kind of uproar going on at the restaurant a bit ahead but it"s nothing unusual.
Well if a member of my parts is involved in the fight then there"s no choice than to arbitrate it so I"ll peek in a bit but the only one who I can think of doing something like that is Ralpha when she gets drunk, so I"m not all that worried. Recently she"s often drinking with Gwine, and Gwine is the type that gets quiet when she"s drunk (I haven"t seen her really drunk) so there"s probably no problem.
See look, it"s someone different. Ah, that guy.. isn"t it a guy from {Bright Blade}? Really, those guys are all quite rough. Well anyone who is willing to pick a fight with the members there is pretty unusual as well. I bet it"s just some countryside hick who just came to Baldukk. If you"ve even spent six months in this town you"d know they"re the top of people you definitely shouldn"t mess with it. As proof of that look, no one is even coming out to act as bookmaker for gambles.
A~a, that bro is going to be beaten half to death I"m sure. It"s a Wolf-people man that seems to be in his late teens but his face is bright red as he says something. The Dog-people race man with a large wound on his face is scratching his chin while listening to that. Of course the Dog-people is the member of {Bright Blade}. If I remember correctly his name was...That"s right Rongel. He"s one of the center members of {Bright Blade}.
I met eyes with Rongel. I shrug my shoulder and pa.s.s by. Well make sure you let him off by not killing him. If you kill him it"s troublesome right? By the time I finished pa.s.sing by it seems they had reached a conclusion. One punch huh? I turned around once but there was nothing like an upset.
Even though I say that, around the time we recruited Bel, adventurers often picked fights with us at restaurants as well. Since even on Orth Bel"s beauty stands out, she"s the perfect bait for drunk adventurers. Bel herself as well but I don"t even remember the number of times I"ve gotten into a fight either. Eventually when we started to be called {Slaughterers} there was almost no one would mess with us though. There"s restaurants where Ralpha and Zulu were banned from as well.
What entered my sight is the scenery of Baldukk which is a bit more lively than usual. It seems I was able to safely make it through this year as well. Thinks are proceeding smoothly in exploring the dungeon as well, I guess the results of our training are finally showing, but it feels like everyone"s skill with the sword has changed quite a bit. Starting next year I want to become the true top of Baldukk in both name and reality.
Hmph. Since tomorrow is New Year"s day in order to not forgot my original resolve it might not be half bad to run through the 1st floor alone.
............
Year 7444, Month 1, Day 1
The second New Year"s day I"ve met in Baldukk. Just like last year I go to the temple for my first shrine visit and donated 10,000 Z. Since you can"t see the first sunrise of the year unless you go to the summit of the crater like hills, when it was still start I started my running and went to see it before going to my first shrine visit of the year. After visiting the shrine I went straight to the restaurant and had breakfast with everyone. I gave the five others than my slaves their wages and then returned to my inn.
I excitedly put my rubber protectors on and confirmed my equipment. My leather gloves got some oil on them last night from Ralpha"s roast pork so I"ve left them to the inn to clean. I put the map into my bag, my portable stove and dried meineiji, and without forgetting some bread and a jar of mayonnaise I threw them in as well. I put some water from the well into my flask, now then, it"s time to depart.
Of course, I"m not calling out to Zulu and Angela. I feel bad for them but this is a ceremony. In order to not forget my original resolve, I need to recognize my original nervous feelings when I first challenged the dungeon. Of course, it"s true that the 1st floor is easier than a fart but it"s been close to a year since I"ve gone in with no backup.
"Ya~ Greed-san, happy new year. Are you alone today?"
It"s Church-san from the knight group in Baldukk. I guess he"s guarding the tax collector at the entrance to the dungeon this early in the new year?
"Happy new year. Church-san. I thought to return to my original resolve for the first time in a while. So it"s something like light exercise."
I exchange greetings and after paying the taxes I entered the dungeon and teleported to the 1st floor.
Now then, I wonder where this is? The number on the pedestal of the teleport crystal is..None! So an unexplored area huh? It"s been quite a while. It"s the 1st floor after all, I"m sure it"s not particularly dangerous. In the first place, since we"ve filled in almost everything on the map of the 1st floor we already knew the general shape of all of the remaining unexplored areas. And as a matter of fact, if we wanted to investigate them we could at anytime. Because, the remaining unexplored areas on the 1st floor are thought to all be connected to the central teleport room in some sort of shape.
Putting it simply, if you just teleport to a place which connects to the teleport crystal, then once you get to the center room you start moving backwards from there and it"s thought that you"ll definitely be able to make it to them. It"s just not an action that has much meaning. It"s a waste of time after all.
However, this time I luckily (?) was able to teleport into an unexplored area. As a matter of fact there"s only three blank places left on our map of the 1st floor. If I just walk for a bit I"ll quickly be able to figure out which of those three places it is.
Baon!
I use wind magic to strip the traps naked. Everything seems fine. I briskly started walking ahead and in less than 10 minutes I was able to guess where this is. Ah, if it"s here then I"ll be able to make it to the center in two hours of walking. Alright, let"s try doing a time attack for once.
I send the goblins scattering with my bayonet, cut the gnolls to pieces with {Ice Cone}. I pour more mana in to strengthen {Chain Lightning} as I roast Orks, and send {Fire Javelin Missiles} into a Gargantuan Spider to kill it all at once. I charged into a group of Hobgoblins with only four of them and beat them all down before stabbing them in the throat while hurrying ahead.
I"ve only gathered the magic stone from the Gargantuan Spider. I use {Flame Thrower} to burn some Green Slimes, I"m sure in about another 30 minutes I"ll arrive at the teleport room.
Even if it"s a time attack, it would be foolish to get injured from hurrying. I can"t let my guard down. After all this is originally a ceremony to come back to my origins. I haven"t brought along the clock magic tool but it"s probably been about two hours? I took a rest in the teleport room while feeling satisfied. Going off the amount I feel like my stomach has emptied there should still be a while until lunch.
Now then, since I"ve gone all the way of coming this far. I guess I"ll try peeking into the 2nd floor for a bit. After finishing my break I stand up and confirm my equipment. No problem.
"Mehebuka"
I chant the teleport incantation and moved to the 2nd floor.
...............
Now then, I wonder where this is? The number on the teleport crystal pedestal is..None! Another unexplored area huh? It"s been quite a while. Since it"s the 2nd floor, I doubt it"s all that dangerous. In the first place we"ve filled in quite a bit of the 2nd floor map as well so we already know the general shape of the unexplored areas. And, I feel like I just this as well. I closely investigate the teleport crystal pedestal in the center of the hall but as a matter of fact I was quite pleased. There"s nothing above being able to fill in the blanks on our map even just a bit more.
I use wind magic the same as usual to send the dirt flying. I steadily walk down the pa.s.sage and I discovered an abnormality. It"s a pitfall. However..this is...
【Besshuz.Floating Disk.Automending】
【Wind.Void】
【Condition: Good】
【Manufacture Date: -/-/-】
【Value: -】
Is this that area we visited once upon a time? In that case if I return to the teleport crystal this should be on the other side of it as well. I ran back to the teleport crystal and use wind magic once more before proceeding to take a look.
..It"s here. But, I can"t remember which though I should have buried one of the pitfalls with earth magic. Of course I didn"t completely bury it, I just buried it in enough dirt so we could pa.s.s through the center of the pitfall but I remember burying it with earth magic.
It"s over a year ago but it was the time we first stepped foot on the 2nd floor. I wouldn"t forget it that easily. I knew that the dirt created with elemental magic doesn"t remain the dungeon forever but even then it was that large of a quant.i.ty. If you were to create it in a normal pa.s.sage then it wasn"t an amount that would disappear in a year or so.
I feel the center of my head cool down. I desperately try to remember back to things at that time. If I remember correctly, we advanced ahead at the split back and got rid of a snake..after that we went to a split path and then turned back. I take out my map of the 2nd floor and check it once more. The blank areas on the 2nd floor make up roughly 10% of the whole, since the diameter of the dungeon is about 10 Km, the area of each floor in the dungeon is roughly 80 square Km. Even though it"s about 10% that"s still 8 square Km or so of unexplored areas.
What should I do? Somehow I feel that this area is different from normal areas on the 2nd floor. If it"s the normal 2nd floor then right now I don"t think it would be a problem for me at all. It"s already been a while since I"ve reached the highest level of adventurers in Baldukk.
Honestly speaking, if it"s now I even have the confidence to take on the commander of the first knight group from the front. I"m sure I"m not his opponent in terms of precise sword techniques but being supported by my high status and the training which I never miss out I think I can show quite the results of that. I won"t fall behind any opponent carelessly.
However, you never know what will happen in the dungeon. In order not to forget my original resolve I came here today... Honestly speaking, my curiosity is taking over my head with quite a bit of force. This is probably a special area on the 2nd floor. I might never be able to teleport here again. Is this a chance? I"m sure it"s a chance.
I still properly remember.
"It seems there"s a pool of water where fairies live on the 2nd floor."
It"s a story that only comes out in the adventure legends of the founder George Rombert the First. It"s treated as a story for drunks that no one believes there"s something like faeries but we think it"s a possible story. Well other than that fairies only come out in the legends of Orth so I"m sure it"s not very credible, but even then I think it wouldn"t be strange for there to be fairies.
I wonder if I should keep moving ahead?
I inspect my equipment once more. In addition I"ll Identify myself as well.
【Alan.Greed/5/3/7429】
【Male/14/2/7428 ・ Human ・ Viscount Greed Family Second Son】
【Status： Normal】
【Age： 15 Years Old】
【Level： 19】
【HP： 160(160) MP： 7105(7436)】
【Strength： 26】
【Speed： 34】
【Dexterity： 24】
【Endurance： 26】
【Unique Ability： Identify (MAX)】
【Unique Ability： Gift of Natural Talent (MAX)】
【Special Ability： Earth Magic (Lv. 8)】
【Special Ability： Water Magic (Lv. 8)】
【Special Ability： Fire Magic (Lv. 8)】
【Special Ability： Wind Magic (Lv. 8)】
【Special Ability： Void Magic (MAX)】
【Experience： 1071321(1100000)】
I properly put my helmet back on and carefully tighten the end of it. I open my fingers and clench them one at a time. I should be able to do this. Right now, I should be the most powerful existence on the 2nd floor Baldukk. There"s nothing to fear. Remain confident.
I take one step forward and with my bayonet in my right hand I point my left hand forward. I use earth magic to bury the pitfall once again, and crossed over that.
............
After going down to the Y shaped split path on the left side I entered another pa.s.sage. If I remember correctly last time we from the right side. Just in case I"ll try going down the right side as well. Along the way, there were two snakes but I use {Lightning Bolt} to kill both of them.
After all it seems that above the Y split they"re connected together. Let"s return and continue advancing ahead.
After proceeding forward and there was another similar pitfall one more time. I used earth magic again to create dirt and walked over it. I"ve pa.s.sed several corners but there"s no split path since then. And it seems there"s a room ahead. I quietly close in on the room while checking out the state inside of it. I still can"t tell what"s going on inside. Common sense would say there"s a boss in it. Or maybe fairies?
I make sure not to make any sound as I slowly move forward. There"s the cases of the Scavenger Crawler on the 1st floor and the Vampire on the 4th floor as well. There might be a powerful boss in there. Otherwise there might be something like occasionally appears on the 2nd floor, a fountain which spits out snakes? Those things are quite annoying.
After all it seems to be a fountain of snakes. Not to mention making it even more troublesome is there"s four of them in the room. Just when I was about to enter the room snakes started erupting from the fountain. Roughly 40-50 snakes are spit out of one fountain. Since there"s four of those that"s a total of 200 of them..I feel a bit exhausted but nothing will start if I don"t clear through here.
I looked around in the room but let alone the corpse of an adventurer there"s not even some bones. s.h.i.t, after some more snakes starting erupting out again I used the spell {Acid Cloud} in the room. {Kill Cloud} would work as well but even with {Kill Cloud} they don"t die instantly. They suffer for a short while before dying. That"s why it"s hard to use in the dungeon. Since it doesn"t absolutely finish them off and there"s quite a few monsters that don"t die. A yellow gas fills the room, the portion that couldn"t fit starts coming out into the pa.s.sage.
I deploy an {Anti-Magic Field} on my back and ran away from the room at full speed. I"m sure this is a method of attack about only I could manage. Well, even if I leave it alone the {Cloud} type gas should become harmless within about 10 minutes so even if I don"t move from here it"s fine to just hang out with {Anti-Magic Field} as well.
I moved quite a bit of distance away from the room and just in case I waited about 20 minutes while keeping an eye on it. It should be fine already. I advance towards the room again. Inside of the room had turned into a horrible state. There"s a ma.s.sive amount of snakes moving around with festering and melted skin from the strong acid gas. Alright now, I"ll put you out of your misery. I use {Flame Thrower} in AoE mode and burn the snakes to death while moving forward. Since it"s troublesome I"ll just ignore the magic stones.
It seems that further in the snake room the pa.s.sage still continues. However, after moving about 100 m ahead I tilted my head. If you were to ask why it"s because there"s clearly something different in my sight. It"s a door. And not like the hidden doors after the 4th floor. It"s about a 2 m, double-door that looks quite heavy blocking my way. There"s no k.n.o.b but there"s a metal plate at just the height that you can grab to open it.
This door is probably something you push to open.
Well even if I"m tilting my head I can"t figure out things I don"t know. Since there"s a door here that means there"s something on the other side and since there"s a door it means there"s someone who added the door here. However, it would be terrible if there was poison smeared on the door. Even when I use Identify it just comes up as 【Door】 so I think it"s probably fine but since it probably wouldn"t come up as 【Door Covered In Poison】 either way it doesn"t hurt to be careful.
I thought about just kicking it open but if there"s monsters on the other side they"ll notice from the sound. I put the gun-stock of my bayonet to the door and push towards it. However, the door won"t even budge. Even if I try to push against it with the bottom of my boots it"s no good. I wonder if it"s locked, or in the first place maybe this just looks like a door and is actually a wall, no, it"s possible it"s just a pulling door and made to only open in this direction.
It can"t be helped thinking like this. If it won"t open then there"s no helping it. However, I wonder if I can at least look through the gaps of the door to the other side? I can"t find anything like a keyhole on the door. I gathered my resolve (it"s probably fine though) and went close to look through the gaps in the door but since it"s closed far too tight, this, isn"t it really designed not to open? is what I thinking at that moment.
When I put my hands on the door to look through the gaps the door gave off a soft light and disappeared. And my mouth went wide open dumbfounded like an idiot seeing the scene on the other side of the door.
The other side of the door was a room so large I couldn"t see the end of it (or more accurately I can see far into the distance). And something that shouldn"t be possible in a dungeon there"s a considerable distance to the ceiling as well. I don"t see any source of light but there"s light brightly raining down almost like sunlight, there"s even vegetation growing. Almost all of the trees are small bushes and as far as I can see a gra.s.s-covered plain was stretching out.
What in the world is this? An illusion?
It"s such an out of place scenery that I couldn"t help but think that.
And, before I realized it the door appeared in front of me and I returned to the inside of the dim dungeon, the scenery of the 2nd floor cave again. In a panic I put my hands on the door again and it gives off a soft light and the door disappears and in front of me the plains is stretching out. If I take one step forward before the door disappears I"m sure I could probably confirm feeling the sensation of stepping on soft gra.s.s. It might just be my imagination but I think I smell the scent of gra.s.s as well. When I look up the ceiling is so high I can"t even tell. It feels like there"s sunlight falling from the entirety of the ceiling.
I get the feeling it"s almost like being at the bottom of a large well and the lid of that from the upper parts of the wall to the ceiling are giving off light. Although, this well feels like it"s several hundred meters or even kilometers.
While I was thinking that the door appeared again, if I peek past the door in front of me then I"ll be pulled back to the reality of the 2nd floor cave that I"m used to seeing. I thought about it a bit and tried touching the door with my fist covered in my bra.s.s knuckle. Nothing in particular happened. Next I try touching it with the tips of my fingers from my gloves. It immediately gave off a soft light and the door disappeared, then the ill.u.s.trious scenery was spreading out in front of me again.
Hm~mm, I guess the key to it is touching it directly.
The problem is that right. In other words, if I take a step past here will I be able to return.
If I can return then it would be fine to keep exploring from here on out but if I can"t then I"m sure I"ll just die.
And, in the next moment I saw something fly by ahead of me?
Without even enough time to Identify it, it disappeared from my sight so it"s ident.i.ty is unknown but it seems that I"ve confirmed there"s some kind of living creature here. The door appeared again.
I took out the 2nd floor map and tried to guess where this is. There"s only one unexplored area with enough area for that much s.p.a.ce to fit inside.
However, think more carefully about it.
The founder George Rombert the First met with the fairies and continued to adventure even after that.
At the very least he returned.
No, just like me he might have just opened this door and taken a look in without walking inside as well though.
I guess I"ll try calling out to something.
If they notice they might try approaching me from their side.
Though I might just cause them to be on their guard.
Well I"m sure they"ll be cautious of me.
I touch the door once more and look at the village of fairies.
If fairies are living here I wonder if that means there"s food?
Since there"s water and vegetation growing after all.
I wonder if it rains?
I have an endless number of questions but there"s no way of knowing.
If you don"t jump into the tiger"s den you can"t get his cubs.
It can"t be helped getting cold feet. I guess I"ll try taking a look.
In the worst case if I try digging at the wall in the area of the door I"m sure I can somehow manage to return.
I take a deep breath in front of the door that appeared again and gather my resolve.
Ah, before that let"s try an experiment?
I touch the door and toss a rock that was inside of the dungeon into the village of fairies.
And I heard a light sound as the rock disappears into the gra.s.s.
In addition I place a rock around where the door appears.
When the door appears again I wonder what will happen to this rock?
I observe the rock with great interest.
When the door appeared I don"t know what sort of reason it had but the rock was repelled and moved over to this side.
I touch the door once more and look at the village of fairies.
Ei~ to h.e.l.l with it.
The founder George Rombert the First returned from here as well.
There"s no way that it"s no good for just me.
...........
I took a step into the village of fairies and timidly turned around. Almost as if there"s a large hole opened in the wall of the village of fairies you can see the cave of the 2nd floor. I wonder if the door will appear soon...Huh? There"s just the hole opened and the door-like thing isn"t appearing no matter how long I wait. Maybe I"ll try returning. When I tried returning to the cave area on the 2nd floor and the door appeared in front of me again blocking the way to the village of fairies. I touch the door once more and the village of fairies is spreading out in front of me.
Yeah. It seems to be fine. I was finally able to relax as I took a step into the village of fairies. The village of fairies just from my estimates appears to be a diameter of about 1 km in a circle. In what"s probably the center of that, there"s a single tree with a reasonable height (5 m or so) that I can see. For the time being I"ll try heading towards that tree.
After walking for a few minutes I"ve roughly come to understand the terrain. The center area is probably a pond. And in the center of that there"s something like a small island and that large tree is growing from there. When I was able to see the pond from a distance I was simultaneously able to see a fairy.
【Romi.Pakkus/15/3/7327】
【Male/15/3/7327 ・ Fairy ・ Baldukk】
【Status： Normal】
【Age： 116 Years Old】
【Level： 3】
【HP： 28(28) MP： 65(65)】
【Strength： 1】
【Speed： 30】
【Dexterity： 24】
【Endurance： 1】
【Special Ability： Naming】
【Special Ability： Fairy Sight】
【Special Ability： Earth Magic (Lv. 5)】
【Special Ability： Water Magic (Lv. 6)】
【Special Ability： Fire Magic (Lv. 3)】
【Special Ability： Wind Magic (Lv. 4)】
【Special Ability： Void Magic (Lv. 6)】
【Experience： 8652(10000)】
Their height is about 30 cm, there"s something like the light wings of an insect such as the mayfly growing from their back, and you literally can"t call them anything other than a fairy, there"s dozens of something (people?) like that fluttering around above the pond.