“Welcome back, Guilford.”
“Thank you ma’am. These are our colleagues we told you about.”
“They?”
The owner of the inn is surprised when she sees us.
This inn is close to the dungeon.
It’s only me, Guilford, Hikari, and Mia who are here. The others are tending to the wagon outside.
“Don’t judge them based on appearances, they’re stronger than me.”
“Really?”
The owner opens her eyes widely.
“Yes, they already conquered two dungeons.”
I look at Guilford, as if asking if there was a need to say that.
“It’s all about power in the empire, so this way, people won’t look down on you.”
He whispers to me.
“…! T-that is incredible. Let’s get you checked in. You said there were seven of you, right? Are the other four outside?”
“They are, but it sounds like one won’t be joining us. That means it will just be six of them. And they have a wagon they want to park here.”
“Very well, I will arrange for it right away.”
I told Guilford Kaina will be sitting out this dungeon, and she’s going to the giants’ village.
She could return to the core, but we might as well give her an opportunity to spend time with the giants.
We leave the wagon with people of the inn, and we’re taken to our room. I can see why it’s expensive. And the bath is wide, looking like it’s perfect to take it easy.
“I’ll go call the others.”
Guilford leaves the room, and I create a Transfer magic item so I can take Kaina to the giants’ village.
After explaining everything and saying goodbye to Kaina, I return to the inn, where I break the magic item.
My maximum amount of MP goes down with each magic item, so I dispose of them in places where I don’t need them.
But when I get back, I hear a knock. We open the door, and see Argo and the others.
They come inside, we all say hello to each other, and get right into talking about the dungeon.
The dungeon in Zuirya has ten floors. Like the others, the floors get bigger the further we go, and the monsters get stronger.
It’s a labyrinth type like Majolica’s, with a big difference.
“Once you go down a staircase, the staircase to the next floor is right in front of you.”
“So we can go down as much as we want?”
Come to think of it, the map I saw on the way to the guild didn’t have staircases marked.
“That’s the tricky part. There’s a pedestal near the entrance of each floor, and you have to make a party application there. And you need to hunt a certain number of monsters to proceed to the next floor.”
Argo says that if, for example, we want to go from the first to the second floor, we need to take out ten monsters on the first floor.
And it can be anyone in the registered party.
“So if you can find and hunt monsters quickly, you can move on to the next floor right away.”
Says Argo, with a long face and a sigh. Guilford and the others are reacting the same way.
Apparently that’s because people scramble to take down monsters to advance.
“Does that mean we have to go through it all over again every time we enter the dungeon?”
“No, if you make it to a floor, you can start there. People compete because in order to enter a floor’s boss room, you have to meet the monster quota again.”
Like in Majolica, boss rooms drop treasure chests with a higher rarity rate.
There are adventurers who go around boss rooms, especially on the first few floors where they don’t have to take out too many monsters and the bosses are easier.
So that’s why people compete to take out monsters.
“When we reached the second floor, we saw people capturing monsters to sell them. We told the guild, but there isn’t really a rule against it. And those people aren’t just independent adventurers either, some are part of clans. That wasn’t the case the last time we were here.”
Furthermore, the dungeon spawns more monsters when they go down to a certain number, so if they’re captured alive, new ones don’t spawn.
So that’s why they’re all sighing.
“So we have to pay to hunt monsters?”
“Yes, Rurika is right. If you have a problem with that, you have to go further away from the entrance. But they’re also spread pretty wide, so we won’t know how far until we actually go deeper.”
That sounds pretty annoying, but I can look for monsters with Map, right?
They’re not selling each monster for all that much, but we won’t make much of a profit even if we sell their magic stones and materials.
Actually, if it’s ten of them, wouldn’t that be a big loss? Goblin types spawn on the first floor, and those have pretty much nothing that can be sold.
There are superior species of goblin on the first floor, but only regular ones spawn near the entrance. Superior species become more common the further away you go.
And apparently they all count as one.
“I think it would be more profitable to just hunt normally.”
“I agree.”
Not to mention that keeping them captive until they’re sold sounds like a lot of trouble.
Maybe they sell enough that it’s worth it.
In any case, Argo looks exasperated.
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Thanks for the treat.