“What, you’re back?”
Is the first thing Shizune says when she sees us. Then she says she has work to do, and disappears into the back with Alto.
“Fufu, Shizune says that, but she was actually worried about everyone.”
Elsa tells us quietly, and then goes after them.
Shizune really isn’t honest, I think as we leave too to go rest.
Five days later, it’s time to go back to exploring the dungeon.
“Leaving already?”
Shizune is surprised, but we rested plenty, and looked into updated information in the guild.
As it stands, Guardian Sword has completed the forty-sixth floor, and is currently working on the forty-seventh.
Those clans that got together conquered the forty-fifth floor before Guardian Sword, but are apparently still on the forty-sixth.
They’re supposed to be a big force composed of large clans working together, but if they aren’t making that much progress, it tells me they are having trouble cooperating.
They actually failed to conquer the forty-sixth floor once already, and relations between them are getting pretty bad.
Apparently they already thought about disbanding that alliance, but got together again in order to overtake Guardian Sword.
They didn’t go back to the dungeon right away, and instead watched how each other fought, and crossed swords to try to get closer to each other before going back to the forty-sixth floor.
I call Map when we reach the forty-sixth floor, but don’t see any reactions that seem like they would be from this allied clan.
I pump more magic energy into Map to expand it, but even then, I can’t see the whole thing.
“Let’s just start walking. I want to look for the staircase.”
“Sometimes staircases appear in weird places in this dungeon.”
Sometimes people walk deeper and deeper, and it turns out the staircase is close to the entrance.
That’s a rare occurrence, but it does happen. Hm, I still don’t see it.
“But, you know, if the floor is bigger, doesn’t that make it less likely that we come across monsters?”
“Not necessarily, Siphon. Don’t forget that Sora has been picking the paths with the fewer monsters.”
Say Siphon and Jin while looking at me.
“I think there are actually fewer monsters. In relation to how big the floor is, at least. But from what I see on Map, they’re gathered in specific areas.”
I just happened to notice this, but I feel like the further down we go, the more monsters there are in the paths that make up the shortest route to the exit.
Conversely, if we go around, we can reach it without fighting.
But the dungeon spawns monsters both in specific points, and in random areas, so it would be hard for someone to take advantage of this unless they have a skill like me.
Hikari and Rurika are good at detecting monsters, so they can avoid them too, but they would also have trouble picking the right paths.
We discuss this, and decide to avoid the troublesome groups. Although I think we could beat groups of monsters without much issue.
Still, we never know in a dungeon, so it’s always best to be at least a little careful.
“Well, if we fight a few of them like we did now, this is how it goes. What did you think of their attacks, Jin?”
“No problem. With Sora and the golems, and everyone’s quick attacks, they go down easily.”
“I see. And if it was a big group?”
“We might be short-handed. It would be easy if they just charged at us, but monsters around here coordinate their attacks like us.”
Geitz is right. That might be one of the reasons why the allied clan failed.
It makes me wonder if they didn’t fight frost giants on the last floor, or if they only did it when conditions were favorable. There were few of them to begin with.
“How about we take a break and eat?”
I propose, and no one objects.
I could take something already cooked out of the Item Box, but Mia and the others want to cook, so I give them ingredients.
Needless to say, we aren’t baking bread here, so I have bread I bought before.
We usually cook meat or make soup in the dungeon, but we change the flavorings to keep us from getting tired of eating the same thing.
“There’s also the difference in what we and the others eat. It’d be perfect if we had some alcohol.”
Siphon lets that slip out, and Yuno gets angry.
“D-don’t hit me with the staff!”
He yells, but no one helps.
“He had it coming.”
Says Jin, and Geitz and Orga nod while eating.
When we eventually reach the staircase to the forty-seventh floor, there are no reactions from that allied clan on Map.
I actually saw them disappear into the staircase, so it looks like they managed to get through this floor this time.
“Should we keep going into the next floor?”
We have return stones, so we can just go back.
“We’re okay to keep going. What about you guys?”
Asks Siphon, and we look at each other.
“Let’s keep going. If there’s a problem, we can use a return stone.”
And so, we advance to the forty-seventh floor.
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Thanks for this weeks updates, as always well worth the read 👍 😎
Thanks.