We leave the dungeon and decide to go back the next day to go to the seventh floor, but Dutina isn’t coming. I don’t feel good about taking her somewhere we know is dangerous in the first place, but apparently she doesn’t know all that much about the seventh floor anyway.
And so, we get information what information we can about the seventh floor before we go, and only the six of us will be challenging it.
Something else to consider, is that if no one besides our party is watching, we can go up a gear in the way we fight. Chris in particular can use spirit magic and increase our overall fighting power.
I haven’t been wearing my mask here in Altair, but Chris is still using spirit magic all the time to disguise herself.
I should probably be careful too, but I’ve been told that I shouldn’t walk around the castle with a mask. And we’re the only humans from the outside here anyway.
“Hold on, I’ll go first and check it.”
I use a lot of magic energy, and cast a barrier on myself.
That should protect me against any sneak attacks, and then I can just retreat. I’m using Parallel Thinking too, so I’m good to go.
I stop at the last step of the staircase, take a deep breath, and step forward.
The scenery suddenly changes, showing a grassy field. There’s good visibility here, and I don’t see a single monster. Presence Detection also shows me there are none nearby.
But there are monsters in the forest a little far from here. I’m sure the minotaurs are deeper in that forest, near the laurel tree.
If that’s the case, what I know at this point, is that tigerwolves and blood bears have been confirmed to be here, so there’s a good chance that it’s one or the other. Of course, it’s not like they explored every little corner, so maybe there’s more.
I take out an item and throw it in the entrance, and shortly after, the others come down.
“So there aren’t any monsters?”
“Yes, there aren’t any nearby as far as I can tell. But there are monsters in the forest.”
Rurika is looking around, checking for any signs of monsters.
“So, are we going straight to the laurel tree?”
If we head straight forward from here, we’ll reach a gate that leads to the eighth floor. We’ve been told the laurel tree are on the right side.
When we approach the forest and check the entrance, we see that the trees are really crowded together. I doubt big monsters could move well in here.
“Could it be that the trees being so densely packed together is stopping them from getting out?”
“Hn… Depends on the monster. It wouldn’t be weird for a blood bear to destroy the trees and leave.”
Strong monsters? But then they’d be relatively slow, so it would be easy to deal with them.
But without good weapons, their thick fur would block attacks and make it hard to take them down, so that’s not always true either.
If they’re weak to magic, and there’s a sorcerer present, that makes it a lot easier. The only issue would be that since they live in a forest, they would have to be defeated with something other than fire magic.
“Let’s just stay alert and keep going. I think the closer we get to the laurel tree, the less we have to worry about other monsters.”
Monsters tend to be very territorial, unless they are completely thoughtless. I can’t imagine a lot of monsters going near the territory of a high rank monster like a minotaur. Only if they’re wounded, hungry, or something else chases them there.
We keep walking, and it really is hard to walk with how cramped it is in here. Humans are relatively small, so we can pass through, but there’s so many roots on the ground.
Even if I try to avoid them, I still feel like my feet will get caught in them or I’ll step on a slippery root and fall.
I need to be careful and use the trees to support my body, or I could really be in trouble.
“If monsters attack in a place like this…”
Says Mia as she struggles to move forward. We haven’t been here that long, but she’s sweating.
Could she be feeling a little hot, even though the leaves cover the sun and block the sunlight, and it’s a little chilly?
I look at everyone else, and they all have sweat on their foreheads too.
“It’s all right, there aren’t any nearby.”
Mia breathes a sigh of relief, probably reassured by Sera’s words.
I would be anxious anyway, if I couldn’t use Presence Detection. There are a lot of places to hide, and visibility is bad in general. Being surrounded by trees like this gives me a feeling of pressure too.
“I hope we can find somewhere we can rest.”
I think we can only have things I have in the Item Box that are ready to eat. Not that that’s a problem, because it stores the food the way it was when I finished cooking it.
I check the positions of the monsters with Map again, but if I just look at it normally, I don’t see anything. I need to infuse it with some magic energy to enlarge it and see reactions from monsters.
I see two, but if one is the group of minotaurs, what’s the other one?
We’ll cross paths with them if we keep walking like this. We could go around them, but from what I see on Map, this reaction is moving around pretty restlessly.
“What’s wrong?”
Asks Rurika, noticing that something’s on my mind.
“We’re going to find monsters if we keep advancing like this. But it feels like they’re wandering around.”
“How many are there?”
“…Two of the ones that are nearest. As for the minotaurs… I just see them as a big mass.”
“I’m so jealous of that ability… So two… Let’s avoid fighting if we can. Both our footing and visibility are bad.”
Rurika is right. And we shouldn’t tire ourselves needlessly before fighting the minotaurs either. We don’t know how many there are, so we should be as close to top form as possible when we fight them.
That’s what I think anyway, but the world isn’t that kind.
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Thanks for the treat.
The world isn’t that kind. Well thats some foreshadowing for u