Skull warriors are mid rank.
They don’t have special abilities, so there’s not much to watch out for in battle, but the way they suddenly pop out of the ground is bad for my heart.
They also have more explosive power than goblins, so sometimes they counterattack unexpectedly.
The first thing I do after arriving in the Kokkoro Mine is check the measuring device. By checking the temperature, atmospheric pressure, and magic energy density, I can indirectly check the situation inside.
The temperature and atmospheric pressure are fine, but the magic energy density is above a thousand. That’s ten times the normal value.
“I can see an irregularity with the measuring device, so I think there’s a big monster in the mine.”
“Should we go back for now?”
I would if she was a regular person, but she’s a master rank, so I don’t think it will be a problem.
“No, let’s keep going. I need to check what that big monster is.”
Skull warriors appear on the third underground floor. Since this is an Area Two, the monsters here aren’t a big deal.
Surely there isn’t a master rank one like an alraune queen.
“Understood. Please tell me right away if anything happens.”
I step into the Kokkoro Mine for the first time in two weeks, and the cool air makes me feel chilly.
This underground space was put in place by people, so the passages are like straight lines on a grid. And they’re surprisingly wide, because they were made so a four person party can fight together with no problem.
There’s only two of us now, so there’s plenty of room.
“There is a monster up ahead. That’s, hum…”
“A kobold. A low rank monster.”
“Yes yes, kobold. You are quite knowledgeable to know at a glance.”
Says Sephilia while looking at me with respect.
“I’m not an expert, but I can whip up information on a monster like that no problem.”
“Proud friend, your humility moves me. If I met you before I met the lady, I might have served you.”
It looks like her estimation of me is going up. My chances of ranking up are looking good.
I start chanting, and the kobold up ahead is done in by a Flame Arrow.
“Hou.”
Sephilia is impressed.
She keeps going ‘hum, hum’, ‘I see’, ‘this is worth extra points’, ‘wonderful’, among other things, every time I fight a monster.
“Sephilia, how’s my score looking?”
I ask because I’m curious.”
“Your score? Hum, how should I put it…”
She starts mumbling, sounding troubled.
“No, my bad. Forget I said anything. It’s bad manners to ask during the test.”
I apologize for the question that clearly troubled her.
“Proud friend, I apologize for speaking in a way that led to a misunderstanding.
It is not as though I cannot answer your question about the points. The issue is that I have not been marking them in the first place.”
“Eh? Then why do you keep saying things like that?”
“I was doing image training for when the skull warriors appeared, proud friend.”
Image training?
What she says has an impact on me. Her personality feels serious, but she’s weird in a few ways.
But that’s fine! Sephilia’s air-headedness feels refreshing to me.
We keep going, until the scenery changes. It’s a wide area, like an open-air mining place.
There’s a huge hole in the middle that keeps going for many kilometers down. Just looking down almost feels like the air would pull you in.
There are many tracks in the air in the giant hole, and trolleys pass through them periodically.
“So this is the mining area. Apparently only dwarves work here.”
Dwarves are a race that’s a little smaller than humans.
Their whole race is good at mining, and without their high building skills, it would have been very hard to build these tracks in the air.
I stand and watch them work, and a dwarf carrying a bag suddenly yells angrily.
“Hey, adventurers! Stop spacing out and help with that mining area!”
“Are you talking to us?”
I ask with a confused tone while pointing at myself.
“Who else is there? The other adventurers are already there!”
“We didn’t come here to help with work…”
“Shut up easy-going idiot! Stop grumbling and get to work! These adventurers nowadays can’t work unless you tell them, uh!?”
That’s just unreasonable. But the dwarf ignores us, and starts walking to his post.
No one’s better at mining and building, but their high-handed and stubborn personalities, allied with their quick temper, make dwarves a little hard to deal with.
“I assume he’s confusing us for other adventurers.”
“We have other things to do, so let’s just keep going.”
“Yes.”
We ignore the dwarf, and keep going forward.
Apparently this mine is rich in amethyst, because all the carts are packed with it.
“I wonder how many work related injuries happen with dwarves. This seems like a dangerous work environment.”
I didn’t expect to hear Sephilia talk about dwarven work related injuries. It’s kind of shocking really.
She has this aura to her like I’m talking to a flower with a name, but hearing that pulls me back to reality.
I wish for Sephilia to stay pure forever.
The dwarves walk on the tracks like it’s normal, so it’s really dangerous. Falling from there is a one way trip to the afterlife.
Not that an adventurer like me is one to talk. If we die, that’s our responsibility, and there are no guarantees to the surviving family. This feels great to me because my work environment in the atelier was awful, but most people wouldn’t want to be adventurers.
We are currently on the upper part of the mining area. There’s a spiral staircase around the whole thing, so it takes time to advance.
But then, there’s a big tremor that shakes the whole place, and the high rank monster sandworm appears.
It’s a fifteen meter long giant worm that appears in the deepest parts of the mining area, and it’s moving all over the place.
I haven’t seen one since that time when I was in a wagon with Mars and Lela. Was that four months ago?
Its body is purple, probably from feeding on amethyst. And it’s very clear that letting it rampage around the mining area will lead to disaster.
At first I think about using Explosion from a distance like usual, but then I remember I can’t use high rank magic or above in the tunnels.
“Then I guess I’m going with Full Grow.”
If offensive magic is out of the question, then support magic it is.
I activate Full Grow, and jump to the track in the middle, landing on a rail car that’s passing above the sandworm.
“Enchant System.”
I infuse my dear staff with the wind element, and create a big wind blade.
It’s three meters long, and that along with the force of gravity splits the sandworm from the head in two when I swing it.
Wind magic energy spreads throughout its body from the wound, destroying it without leaving a trace of it.
A few seconds later, Sephilia also drops down.
She elegantly lands, and politely speaks to me while smacking dust off her maid outfit.
“Congratulations on your defeat of the sandworm, proud friend. That was wonderful swordsmanship.”
She gives me words of praise with no sarcasm behind them, so it makes me really happy.
“Thank you very much. How would you score that battle as an examiner?”
“Your targets are skull warriors, so I cannot give you points. I will simply say it was wonderful.”
Yes. And as I feel happy about being praised by a master rank swordsman, the dwarves that ran away gather.
“W-wow! He took that giant monster down in one hit!”
“This guy’s good for a human.”
They also praise me for beating that sandworm. It was by pure chance, but it looks like I saved the mining area from danger.
And because of this, the dwarves are friendlier to me.
But it would be a bit later that this would come in handy.
◇ ◇ ◇
“We’ve come pretty far down. What floor is this?”
I take out the map I bought from a merchant, and I see it’s the thirty-fifth floor.
We took a big shortcut when we jumped down, so that was at least a couple dozen floors we skipped.
But skull warriors appear on the third floor, so we’re really far. And it’s going to be a pain to go all the way back up, so I sigh.
“Excuse me friend, but do you know the goblin dragon theory?”
“Goblin dragon theory?”
“If there is a goblin and a dragon, which should be taken down? The answer is said to reveal a person’s character.”
“How is that related to this situation?”
“Eh? Hum… Surely the answer will become apparent if we keep going down.”
Sephilia changes the point in question because she doesn’t have an answer.
She’s one of those people that gets perplexed when someone gives her an answer she wasn’t expecting.
But we can’t keep going down. We need to head to the third floor.
I leave Sephilia’s strange question aside, and instead we’re guided by dwarves to the third floor.
The entrance is right where the sandworm appeared. And after walking for a bit, we encounter the high rank monster skull swordmaster.
“Guide, that is not a skull warrior.”
She’s right, that’s a superior species. It’s a rank above a skull warrior, and something that would not normally appear in the upper floors.
“Did you get the floors mixed up?”
“No way. There should be skull warriors here.”
Hum, I don’t think we’re on the same page.
I don’t think the dwarf is lying either, so there has to be something else going on.
“What is the matter?”
“Hum, let me think for a bit.”
“…Excuse me friend. May I have that monster?”
“Eh? Are you going to fight it?”
“Yes. I judge it to be better for you to recover your magic energy, since you just fought a sandworm.”
Ah, I see.
It’s a pretext to let me rest.
I can’t really focus right now, so it’s dangerous to fight that monster.
I’ll accept Sephilia’s kindness.
“Then can I ask you to do it?”
“Leave it to me. Please rest in a safe place.”
I let her take over, and get excited about seeing her use her sword. I’ve never actually seen her fight.
That skull swordmaster is three meters tall. It also has six arms, and they’re all holding swords.
It’s good at using them to unleash multiple attacks at the same time too, so people have to watch out for that if they’re going to fight at close range.
The difference in size between the monster and Sephilia is apparent. The slender Sephilia looks like a kid in front of it.
She slowly unsheathes her sword and walks towards it. She’s just holding it lightly, not ready to hold it up at all. At a glance, she looks completely unguarded.
The skull swordsmaster attacks first. Using six swords means its attacks are really intense, and slashes fall on Sephilia like rain.
But Sephilia blocks it all with elegance. It’s like time is moving slower around her.
And with an incredibly fast and silent attack, the skull swordmaster’s torso is split in two.
Even a complete amateur like me can see just how refined her swordsmanship is.
It’s not just incredibly strong, it’s also beautiful.
“It is done.”
“Wonderfully done. I can learn a lot from it.”
“I am still quite green, but I am glad to hear you enjoyed it.”
Sephilia is modest, but the fact that she’s not arrogant despite being that strong is part of her charm.
“Today’s full of surprises. One took down a high rank sandworm, the other buried that skull swordmaster like it was nothing. Who are you people?”
I’m just a simple D rank adventurer. And Sephilia here is just a regular maid.
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