Thanks to the warm stew that filled him up, Max seemed to be in a better condition, so I asked what the initial exploration team had experienced.
Overall, it wasn’t too different from what we had expected.
The Slime Floor was easily breached during the day with several wizards around, but on the 6th Floor, a female Troll ambushed them and three were captured, and after that, it was a literal march of hardship.
Before the surprise attacks of the crystal monsters that nullified most magic and miracles, the members of the exploration team started falling one by one, leaving only five in the end.
“We searched for the gate, praying that the 11th Floor would be the last… and then suddenly, suddenly, two crystal Golems appeared at the same time…!”
As he recalled the memory, perhaps the fear he felt back then resurfaced. Max was visibly trembling, breathing heavily.
“So, did you escape? Did all five scatter?”
“That damn crystal!!”
With eyes wide open like a dragon whose scales had been pierced, Max was having a fit. In a bit of a starkly creepy reaction, Reed hurriedly covered his mouth, trying to soothe him.
“Enough! Okay, I get it, calm down! Goodness, how did a person get so broken…”
It took quite a while for Max to regain his senses. Even after stopping the fit, he continued to tremble for some time.
Much like Reed’s lament about a person being broken, it seemed impossible to dig any further.
“…Arine, do you happen to know any holy miracles to stabilize the mind?”
“Well, I do, but… I was too busy learning the holy miracles for weapon enhancement, so I haven’t gotten to that yet…”
In other words, she just didn’t learn it because she was too busy learning other things.
Well, being young, it must have been overwhelming just to learn recovery, equipment enhancement, attack, and barrier miracles.
Moreover, having even learned binding miracles made her one of the best students among the adventurer nuns juggling both jobs.
In the end, the only way to soothe Max’s mind was time. Once he got a good night’s sleep, he might feel a bit better.
◆◆
While Arine recited a prayer to soothe Max, Reed came over to ask about our future actions.
“It seems like the five survivors are hiding somewhere on this floor, scattered like Max.”
“So, we’re going to look for them?”
“…Yes. Our mission is to clear the dungeon and rescue the initial exploration team. Plus, having those five would significantly help our exploration of the lower floors.”
“Hmm….”
Well, that did seem overly optimistic.
Without saying it out loud, I thought that if the other four had scattered and fled like Max, they probably wouldn’t be alive by now.
This dungeon was oddly high in difficulty for a mid-level dungeon. In fact, if it had just been Friede and me, we probably would have retreated after some consideration.
With Max, who was already broken mentally, still alive seemed almost miraculous. It was frankly improbable without an absurd amount of luck.
It seemed Reed, who brought it up, was closer to hoping they were alive rather than truly believing it.
If there had been no survivors at all, he would have completely given up hope, but since one had been found, he couldn’t shake off the faint expectation.
Understanding that feeling to some extent, I eventually nodded and decided to thoroughly search the 10th Floor for survivors until it was time to sleep.
◆◆
As expected, there were no survivors. Only Golems remained.
In other words, it meant that not a single corpse, which should have been there, was found.
“…Do you think they were completely eaten by monsters?”
Friede tilted her head and asked, suggesting that the reason we didn’t find any bodies was that they were inside a monster’s belly.
“Well… a monster that could swallow bones, armor, and weapons whole would likely be a Slime at best. Did we encounter Slimes on this floor?”
“We didn’t, did we…? After the 6th Floor, it was all crystal Gargoyles, crystal Golems, and Mimics.”
If there had only been missing corpses, one might have thought that they were just completely consumed, but the absence of blood and equipment was strange.
To have even devoured weapons was an act only a powerful Slime capable of melting metal with a strong digestive acid could perform.
“…What if they all went down to the lower floors?”
Reed cautiously voiced his speculation.
“To the 11th Floor?”
“Yes. The 11th Floor is a transit floor like the 6th. We don’t know what’s there, but once we deal with that monster, it should be much safer than here.”
The inference was that if they were going to hide, they could have gone one floor down to the safer 11th Floor.
It wasn’t entirely implausible, but it was a vaguely weak assumption.
The odds of those who faced annihilation on the 10th Floor defeating the mid-boss of the 11th Floor would probably be less than 40%, if one were to be overly generous.
“Hmm… well, I guess we’ll find out when we go down. Let’s get our gear together for now and head down tomorrow morning.”
While thoroughly searching the 10th Floor and defeating the monsters that had frequently ambushed us, it was now just past midnight.
Considering the risk of confronting the mid-boss while exhausted, it was wiser to get a good night’s sleep and head down in the best condition.
“Hey, um… are we really going down there? Below this point…?”
However, Max didn’t seem to like that decision very much.
I understood. After experiencing enough fear on the 10th Floor to break him mentally, he wouldn’t be thrilled about descending to the inherently more dangerous 11th Floor.
Of course, just because I understood didn’t mean I would agree with his complaints.
“Our mission is to clear the entire dungeon. If it becomes impossible, we’ll have to retreat, but it doesn’t seem like that’s the case.”
We have to do this right since it’s our job.
We’re enduring all this trouble because we were ordered to clear the dungeon fully; what would Argantir say if we quit halfway, saying we rescued one person?
For that reason, Max’s objections to turning back were, without question, dismissed by the rest of the team.
◆◆
We set up a makeshift tent at the dead-end to prepare for camping. The people who would sleep inside the tent were, like yesterday, only me, Friede, and Arine.
Reed declared that he would sleep outside again, and Max planned to sleep next to him. I hoped they would manage to soothe each other since they seemed to be friends.
Unlike last night, we decided to take turns keeping watch. Since the 10th Floor couldn’t be considered completely safe, we couldn’t know what might happen while sleeping.
Reed had set up an alarm device at the entrance, but it felt a little insecure to rely only on that and fall asleep.
‘…That Max guy might do something unexpected.’
Although I didn’t voice it out of consideration for Arine and Reed, a person driven by fear might do something reckless.
While suicide might be the more benign option, in the worst-case scenario, he could hold a grudge for forcing him to clear the dungeon and try to kill us.
So, we had to keep watch to prevent him from causing any unexpected situations. It was a necessary measure.
…In retrospect, it proved to be of no real consequence.
“—T! Krimhilde! Wake up! This is bad…!”
Reed, who had drawn the short straw for the guard duty, woke me from my sleep, his face a bit pale. It was a full thirty minutes earlier than the scheduled wake-up time.
“What do you mean ‘this is bad’…?”
Could it be that a Golem had invaded? No, it was too quiet outside for that.
If those heavy, giant things had come this far, I would have woken up automatically to their thumping sound, even if Reed hadn’t.
That meant…
“Max, that idiot, ran away…! And he hit me in the back of the head!”
“Aha.”
It seems like Max had indeed caused trouble. His decision wasn’t to kill himself or ambush us but to desert.
He must have woken up a bit earlier, knocked Reed out cold, and bolted.
Whether it was a sign of having at least a glimmer of conscience or just plain stupidity, at least he hadn’t harmed us, so that’s a relief.
Reed might not agree with the sentiment of not having been hurt now that he had a huge bump on the back of his head, but since no one was dead, and no gear was stolen, I figured it was time to not worry any further.
He promised he would be saved, and then he knocked someone out and fled by himself, so good luck to him from now on.
“Please tell me you didn’t wake me up because you want to go get that runaway…?”
I spoke with a slight tone of annoyance, clicking my tongue.
“Just so you know, if I run into that man again, my first action will be to take his head. A person who’s gone so far as to desert in the dungeon will just cause us problems again if we bring him back.”
He would probably die soon enough anyway, but if found before then, I intended to take care of it myself. I had no intention of discussing going to rescue him at all.
“Um… that wasn’t my plan. I just thought we should assess the situation and report right after waking up…”
Reed, who hesitated with his words, shook his head and replied that he had no such intentions.
He only wanted to quickly grasp the situation and report it.
“I see. Well, since my drowsiness has vanished, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to prepare for descending while we’re at it. Should we prepare breakfast?”
I rolled up my sleeping bag, tied it to my backpack, and after a quick wash with a damp cloth, I stepped outside the tent to prepare breakfast.
I had intended to prepare a special stew by adding plenty of the spices I had been saving…
“Mint herb and Giggle mushroom powder…? Krimhilde, I’m sorry, but have you lost your mind? What on earth are you planning to put in this…!”
Reed was fervently trying to talk me out of it, so I was left with no choice but to give up.
I couldn’t understand why he was against it so strongly.
The mint herb has a mild purifying effect that can calm the mind slightly, and the Giggle mushroom powder, when added to food, significantly boosts its offensive power—it’s a great ingredient.
Well, if he doesn’t want to eat it, there’s nothing I could do. Forcing someone to eat something they don’t want is just bullying.
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