Chapter 241
Chapter 241 Strongest Sage, Discovers Sloppy Construction Work
" . . . Wha?"
Right after dodging the attack, I suddenly lost sensation of the ground .
--The dungeon"s floor had fallen off .
Floors of a dungeon are far st.u.r.dier than the walls .
The outer layer could be soft in some cases, but not soft enough to have it fall off from monsters" attacks .
Dungeons would have been full of holes if an attack by mere a Floor Boss could break it .
It could very well happen on very shallow floors . . . But it"s just impossible on Floor 27 .
I recovered my posture in the air while thinking that .
"Mathi-kun!?"
"T-the floor!"
I dropped down as the girls were panicking .
However, the fall wasn"t really long .
My feet hit the ground after falling merely three meters down .
『I"m fine! You three be careful where you step, don"t fall down!』
I check the surroundings .
Looks like I didn"t fall down to Floor 28 .
The fall wouldn"t have been cut so short if I fell to the floor below .
Distances between Floors differ depending on dungeons and Floors, but this one should have been 10 meters .
The problem now where is this place I and Crash Grizzly have fallen in anyway .
This s.p.a.ce did not exist in my previous life . I would have absolutely noticed if it did .
This s.p.a.ce was created after I had reincarnated .
As I looked at the ceiling while thinking that--I realized the nature of this s.p.a.ce .
--Monster House Increment Plan .
This floor was a hugely popular farming spot back when I was alive .
As such, there was always a shortage of Monster Houses and the quarrels were intense .
So people came up with a plan to dig out the dungeon"s floors and artificially create more rooms, aka the Monster House Increment Plan .
This First Dungeon Floor 27 is a special floor whose environment promotes the occurrences of Monster Houses .
By artificially creating rooms in the shape of Monster Houses, mana would likely converge in those rooms, giving birth to Monster Houses .
The plan didn"t go forward when I was still alive due to reasons like safety and such--but it seemed like it was carried out after I had reincarnated .
"Do it right if you"re gonna commit dang it . . . "
I muttered while gazing at the broken ceiling (which was a floor to me just now) .
The ceiling was only 10 inch thick .
Ordinary dungeon floors are meters long thick .
No need for Crash Grizzly"s claws, even some slightly strong magic would break that .
Of course, the ceiling had been reinforced .
It did, but they used an alloy which was very common back then, the [Hardened Magic Alloy] .
This alloy might be good, being cheap yet strong . . . but it"s not an alloy well suited to reinforce dungeons like this .
Since the magic augmented on the alloy to strengthen its structural integrity would gradually degrade if left in places where mana flows intensely like dungeons .
The floor must have broken down because of that degradation .
. . . Sloppy construction work .
People in my previous life should have known that [Hardened Magic Alloy] would deteriorate in dungeons .
They probably used stuff that would eventually break on purpose to cut cost .
Back then, the pa.s.sage would never see an intense battle, so they probably considered that using cheap stuff below it would be fine .
When I was still alive, using Hardened Magic Alloy in dungeons was a big no no, but it appears that common sense(?) had been overturned after I had reincarnated .
I dodged the Crash Grizzly"s claws while thinking that .
"GAAAAAAAA! GURUAAAAAAAA!"
The Crash Grizzly wasn"t perturbed at all by the falling floors and kept trying to attack me .
I"ve been dodging it as usual . . . But it can"t go on .
"Mathi-kun, mana reaction!"
"Yeah! I"m falling back!"
I used magic and jumped out of the hole on the ground .
Looks like the Monster House Increment Plan was a success .
Evidenced by--hundreds of monsters that manifested all at once inside the artificial Monster House, triggered by the collapsed ceiling .
I"d like to avoid fighting in a cramped s.p.a.ce like this .
"What just happened really . . . "
"A secret room created by an ancient civilization was buried in the ground, and collapsed . . . . Thanks to that, we"ve got ourselves some nicely trapped monsters there . "
I gaze down at the hole .
The sloppily-made Monster House has become a form of pitfall .
Thanks to that, Crash Grizzly has been confined inside the Monster House along with other monsters, free to pick on .
. . . This is a good chance as any to explain the method to efficiently farm exp in this dungeon .
"Now that we don"t have to worry about the Floor Boss, let"s go beat all these monsters with it . "
I knead the mana inside my body .
What I"m going to use now is a spell bluntly named [Monster House Annihilation Flame] .
Befitting of the name, it"s unusable in ordinary battle .
First of all, it takes too long to cast . Slow to the point that even chant magic used in this era is faster in comparison .
Next, its firing speed is slow . There"s no way it could hit its target in ordinary situations .
Just these two are already fatal, but it"s got more flaws .
Once it lands, the spell needs ten seconds before it could demonstrate its full power .
Even the slowest of spells only needs half a second .
I mean, your enemy would easily get out of its effective range if they have 10 seconds to spare .
In addition, since I"m a Disqualified Crest, the firing range is also short .
Considering this spell"s effective range, I"ve got to immediately get out of the range once cast if I don"t want to get caught up in it .
All those sacrifices are for the sake of raising firepower and attack range .
Its range is precisely a whole Monster House wide .
The power is also enough to kill all monsters on Floor 27 .
Not powerful enough to kill unhurt Crash Grizzly, but it is now the Crash Grizzly has been weakened .
"You hurl this spell inside, close the door and wait for the roasting . Such is how you farm exp on this Floor . "
Then, I toss the Monster House Annihilation Flame into the artificial Monster House and step back .
After a slight pause, a flame flared up inside the artificial Monster House .