The next couple of chapters are slightly lower quality than usual for various reasons. Honestly these were some of the worst chapters in my impression the first time I read this, I don"t think it"s as bad for people reading the translations because when the author was originally putting these out, he had frequent notes about business trips/other things and most of these had 2-4+ week gaps in between them, also the reason you sometimes see the author recapping/repeating things. Year 7446, Month 9, Day 10
However you know, all said and done we were able to make it to here at favorable pace.
It"s big that Zulu is wearing the leather armor he used to use in the past as well.
This time we managed to teleport into a location that"s roughly 7 km from the teleport crystal.
If it"s here then it"s very possible for us to enter the 7th floor this morning.
Zenom and Miduch lead the {Butchers} and {Exterminators} as they just cleared through this 6th floor a number of times the other day. I thought they would already have been over some of their aversion to the teleport traps but it seems the previously psychological burden isn"t going to disappear so easily. Certainly if I were to see my allies disappear right in front of my eyes to some unknown location then I might end up with a trauma similar to them as well.
Teleport traps are frightening but if you were to ask me I"m more afraid of the monsters that make use of those suddenly attack almost like an ambush. We have no choice but to remain on guard. Consequently on this floor rather than "running through" we just proceeded by speed walking.
Though Miduchi said, "It"s certainly a bit slow but we"re still clearing through at a considerably high speed."... I can"t even remember when it was anymore when we would pa.s.s through slowly one at a time and spend a total of several minutes just to get by. I"ll accept that we"ve make tremendous progress compared to them though.
Normally we move slower as they nervously stick to the wall and follow behind but this time we weren"t lowering our speed for that Ginger, Jeru, and the others at all. Gwine just acts like she"s looking at the map for a bit and says, "The part sticking out of the wall over there has a teleport trap about 3 meters ahead of it" and then we all walk casually past it along the wall without lowering our pace.
For the sake of caution I wanted to turn around but (Particularly on the side of a trap in the worst case a boar appears there and someone gets knocked into the trap it would be difficult) I even endured that. If I don"t do this then they"ll eternally maintain the trauma and every time they have to pa.s.s a teleport trap they"ll turn pale while barely unable to advance.
I thought if they could conquer it here then it might have some influence on the other members with the same type of trauma.
While Ginger and Jeru are probably pale and barely advancing, without even turning around I faced forced with my pace the same while saying, "Anyone who"s slow will be left behind. If it"s impossible then return. If it"s from here then you can quickly return back to the 5th floor and there"s no monsters. If you run it won"t even take 5 minutes." before walking off. Kamu, Misu, and Rodrick were trying to say something but I didn"t pay it any mind.
And then, the Ginger and Jeru they were worried about followed after us just a bit late. We"re walking as well and they know that if you walk along the edge of the hall you can pa.s.s by without getting caught in the trap so it"s only obvious though. However, compared to the time when I had entered {Sun.Ray} it"s tremendous progress. It"s quite something.
Well that"s great.
It seems we haven"t just missed them.
"It"s here. We"re finally in the correct location."
On our 17th time teleporting in we finally managed to get to a location that leads to the northern monster room.
In order to get to the place where we came from the other day we have to clear through the northern monster room once but it"s possible to pa.s.s through the ogre mage room without fighting by just moving along the wall.
It took another 30 minutes to get up to here. It hurts that we ended up wasting some time but if the teleport luck is bad we would have had to clear through one of the other monster rooms and then pa.s.s through the 7th floor teleport room before going back over to the monster room on the northern side. As a result it"s certainly the fastest method but I feel like we would be hurrying a bit too much.
"Alright, with me at the lead, Zulu is behind on the right, Rodrick on the left, behind Zulu on the right is Jeru, behind Rodrick is Ginger, behind me is Gwine and then behind her is Giberuti. Behind Giberuti is Kamu and Misu. Miduchi follow after at the very rear. The interval is 5 meters. We"ll use this as the base. Let"s go."
Several minutes after I started running.
"Look at everyone else from the {Slaughterers}. They"re making calm faces."
"That"s right. Didn"t Ral say it as well? That even she"s never seen Greed-kun being serious."
Wha!? Huh? Don"t screw with me, what in the world has she been watching up until now, that s.h.i.tty brat!
I"m sure Ralpha is that much of an idiot.
After all it seems she"s from "Hatsudai Academy High School"~ Not that I know about it though.
In order to not have to get desperate and use all of your strength fighting as if your life depends upon it that"s the reason why you have a brain right. The {Horned Bear} when I was a brat and then the {Vampire} and {The.Gazer} since coming to Baldukk. I never want to have to enter that sort of combat to the limit again...Even if I say that as long as we continue exploring this dungeon I"m sure it"s possible we"ll fall into similar circ.u.mstances after this as well.
I"m sure there"s plenty of situations where a party gets ambushed by monsters in the dungeon and falls into an unfavorable situation. That itself I"m sure would be a situation like being attacked by an unpredictably strong monster or an attack by a huge swarm. Whether it"s Jeru or Miduchi if someone from my party falls into a crisis that"s the time for me to get frantic and get it my all once more, I"m sure I"ll fight mustering all of my strength.
"What is it?"
I guess I must have been making a strange expression. Miduchi called out to me.
"No, it"s nothing.."
"In any case, Jeru and Misu I won"t forgive any objections. Obey the leader."
I don"t know whether or not she noticed my face(I think it"s probably unrelated) but Kamu said that to Jeru and Misu. Yeah, I overlooked it because we"re not in combat but normally this place is the middle of the 7th floor where it wouldn"t be strange no matter how tense we get.
"On the 7th floor here it"s bright so we have good visibility, if we properly maintain vigilant then I"m sure we won"t be ambushed so easily. Miduchi don"t let your guard down from any direction. Let"s go."
And I just said that to them before hurrying ahead.
We pa.s.sed through the northern monster room by following along the outer wall and arrived at the entrance we previously encountered {Black.Topaz}.
Just from what I can tell nothing has changed.
With the exception of when we pa.s.sed through the monster room, since we hurried up to here the time was just a bit past noon.
"We"ll have lunch later. Let"s go."
We advanced down the wilderness like hall from the monster room and about 100 meters ahead entered the forest.
There"s probably an ogre somewhere in this forest.
If it gets caught in my {Detect.Life} then there"s no way for it to run.
If there"s more than three of them then I"ll use magic but if it"s two then I can finish them off with my bayonet.
After pa.s.sing through the forest some shrubs continue for about 100 meters.
Even though the halls of the 7th floor are considerably wide and the ceiling is high, in the end it"s shaped like a tunnel.
It should be plenty if we use {Audible Clamor} every 500 meters to 1 km apart.
We beat down all of the ogres we encountered.
Wouldn"t it take about 2 hours from the monster room up to here I guess?
I called out to Gwine and she confirmed that there"s a high possibility that this connects to the teleport crystal {Black.Topaz} used to get to here.
....................................
It was in a location along the wall of the hall where some rocks were.
They must have spent the night here that day.
No, it"s not like I"ve seen ogres fighting among themselves before so I don"t know though.
About 2 km ahead of here is the forked-path to the closest teleport crystal to the monster room what we {Slaughterers} call the super lucky "win".
As expected it was too close so we thought, "it"s most likely not here" but if {Black.Topaz} was wiped out on their way back then it"s possible.
We carefully investigated up to where the teleport crystal should be(it"s not like we used that one this time so we can"t see or touch it) but it ended with just killing off an ogre and goblins.
In the middle of despair while carrying a corpse to the surface it"s unlikely to think they would try to do mapping of all the split paths.
We ignored all of those forked-paths and then ran another 2 km or so.
We"re using the time they spend concentrating for the spells as a rest break.
And then we"re coming up on another forked-path leading to a teleport crystal.
That teleport crystal is about 1.5 km from here.
We couldn"t find anything out of place on the way down from the forked-path.
After returning and advancing about 100 meters ahead we found traces of a camp again.
I guess they were injured in combat with one of the ogres that resp.a.w.ned?
If they fought then they must have been using attack spells and it should take some time to recover as well.
It seems they"re giving it their best.
And then after advancing another 3 km we found traces of a camp.
I guess they somehow managed to make up to here while remaining on guard and carrying the heavy burden of Rotto"s corpse.
We decided to have sobagaki and Baldoggies for a bit late lunch here.
They were moving a lot slower than I had imagined.
They departed for the 7th floor before 5:00 am that day.
If they smoothly entered combat on their way in and didn"t get caught up in investigating the forked-paths on the way to the monster room then after all their teleport crystal would be the last candidate.
Their movement speed is slow so they might need another night.
"If it"s like this then they"re probably worn-out but alive."
With this it means they were definitely alive until last night.
I poured MP into distance and(even then it"s less than normally though) extended it to about double so it was about 200 meters ahead.
After using it consecutively once more and it seems they"re moving over here.
At almost the same time I ran out into the area with waist-high gra.s.s like a field.
One more shot, and just when I thought that a {Stone Arbalest} came flying from my side.
It"s the same {Stone Arbalest Missile} as my own.
It"s Miduchi.
The moment I thought I turned around one and shouted "Hurry!" before running at full speed.
That ogre is most likely a scout.
The fact that there"s an ogre between us and {Black.Topaz} means...
Even in the best situation...
We need to hurry even just a second faster.
I run past the side of the fallen ogres.
Hurry.
I run through the field and entered the forest ahead of that.
The distance is about 100 meters ahead.
It would be good if they heard it though.
""..o!!""
"..lp us!!"
Alright.