We follow Map towards monsters, but we have to walk quite a while to reach the nearest non-captive monster. Like, twenty thousand steps?
It takes about half that to reach the next, which means we’re probably not going to reach ten in one day.
“Master, are there people and monsters?”
“Yes, on both sides of the next T junction.”
There are reactions to the left and right. About seven adventurers to the right, and three to the left. Eighteen monsters to the right, and eleven to the left.
When we reach the end of T junction, I hear what sounds like whistling from the right side. I turn to the right, and see a man smiling.
“I haven’t seen you around. Is this your first time?”
“What do you want?”
Argo steps forward and responds before I can.
The adventurer shrinks back a little because of the aggression in his voice, but he quickly puts the smile back on.
“We caught some monsters, so you wanna buy them? This dungeon is pretty big, so you’re gonna have trouble hunting on your own.”
“No thanks, we’re good.”
Argo’s voice is cold, and the man’s cheeks twitch.
His friends standing behind him are exuding hatred because of that attitude.
“Hey hey, I’m being friendly here. There aren’t any monsters around. It’s a bargain if you want to go down.”
“Sora, which way is closer?”
“That way.”
I say to Argo, after he ignored the man, and he faces the opposite direction.
Argo starts walking, and since we don’t really intend to buy, we follow him.
The man, feeling ignored, raises his voice and starts hurling abuse. He’s off business mode, I see.
The adventurers on the left side saw all this, and they’re about to speak to us at first, but stop because Argo is glaring.
I turn my eyes to the captured monsters. The passage is about ten meters wide, and they’re next to a wall.
Their limbs are bound, but they’re not resisting. Their eyes are also closed, like they’re sleeping.
According to Argo, they’re under the effect of a sleeping drug that only works on monsters.
“It’s because some monsters in this dungeon can call other monsters with their cries, depending on the floor. Some people use that to gather them too.”
“Did that happen before?”
“No, no one did this the last time we were here. I heard it started three years ago.”
Sounds like Argo looked into some stuff before we arrived.
“By the way, did you guys give out your rank when you arrived?”
There are adventurers who take the initiative to make their rank known. It makes sense that a high rank is a status symbol.
I’ve heard that in the empire in particular, people are more important depending on their rank, so a lot of people brag. That’s the impression I have.
“Yes, in the empire, the higher your rank, the more you can influence things around you. But it brings a lot of trouble too, so if people don’t know, we keep it that way. Well, I did put on airs a bit just now.”
He was being persistent, and we didn’t want to get involved, so I think he was right.
I figured their levels would be lower, because we’re on the first floor, but the first group was in the lower twenties, and the second in the upper twenties.
They should have no trouble taking down goblins, even if they’re superior species.
According to Argo, there are hobgoblins on the second floor, and superior species of goblin on the third, so they should be able to fight there too.
And on the fourth floor, there are orcs.
“Let’s forget about them. We don’t need to get involved with them with you around, Sora.”
“He’s right, master. If we can buy monsters, let’s buy meat instead.”
Hikari strongly agrees, and everyone lets out a laugh.
“But my skill can’t solve everything. It’s fine on the first floor, but I don’t know how effective it will be on the others.”
There have been times when Map didn’t work right.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get there, let’s just take down ten monsters.”
We walk around the dungeon for two days, and finally hit ten goblins. It takes a long time because we have to go deep into the dungeon to find monsters that haven’t been caught. Also, there are more parties hunting them.
On our way back to the staircase, we see the people selling monsters are still here.
Actually, it’s just the group of seven people who were throwing abuse at us, and two of them must have gone to rest or something, because only five of them are around.
They see us, but don’t really say anything.
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Thanks for the treat.