From the 13th to the 15th floor, it was also a great load of nothing interesting, according to Hati (it seemed like there wouldn't be anything worthwhile until the 20th floor). And so, we passed through them.
'Quickly take care of the boss, and then move on.'
The troll that was the boss on the 14th floor was killed by Groot, and likewise Razsegath took the minotaurs that held down the 15th floor.
'Everyone's so strong. This party has no weaknesses, huh? ...No wait, there is one: me.'
Sadly, I was by far the weakest one here.
'Oh well, I'll just have to look reality head on when it comes to that. Let's just get through this while being protected by everyone.'
As soon as we got to the 16th floor, the situation that had been the same on all the previous floors changed at once.
First, its appearance was completely different. Up to the 15th floor, the dungeon was made of proper stone walls that looked man-made, but the 16th floor looked like a tunnel in an excavated mine.
"Wow, sure feels different from the 15th floor."
"Indeed. This is a dungeon. It differs depending on the dungeon, but there are even floors with a forest or a desert."
'Ahh, oh right, some games work like that too.'
As we went along the path, there was a hole to the right. When I peeked inside, I saw a fairly large room with a dome roof, and a monster inside. There were several orc generals, and the orcs that they led.
"Hey, there's a lot less adventurers around here, so let's start really picking up drop items and treasure chests."
"Everything here is so weak it would just be a huge bother..."
"What are you saying?! You know that the one purpose of even going to a dungeon is for the drop items and treasures? If you ignore that, then what's the point of even being here?"
"For a worthwhile enemy."
"Ahhh, sure, sure. That might be the case for you, Hati, but it's not for me. We're all the way here anyway, let's just go pick up some drop items and treasures. I'll even take your request for a meal."
"Hm? Really? Fine then, I shall do it. I want that meat from your world that I ate before."
'Ahh wagyu beef, huh? Wyvern and dragon meat are clearly more delicious, but is food from my world better to Hati since it raises his stats?'
"Hati, you say you want to eat the stuff from my world, but is it really that much better?"
"I cannot eat that meat unless I ask you, no? I will not say it is as good as dragon, but meat from your world is plenty delicious, and, more importantly, it is rare."
'Well, he is right. It's not like anyone else has a skill to buy things from my world. So there's no way to eat that stuff other than to ask me. And I guess I can see that if it's good on top of all that, he'd want to eat it.'
With that settled, the orcs that were in the room were the target and got instantly destroyed. They dropped their testes and some meat. I hesitated a little to pick up their balls. It was gross, but since it would turn into money, I ended up wrapping it in kitchen paper and forcing myself to pick them up.
After that, we went by another four rooms and picked up the drops in them. They were all monsters that appeared anywhere in between the 11th and the 15th floors. According to Hati, they had all gotten a little bit stronger.
While we were moving along the tunnel, there was a faint sound of something going, 'click.'
"Mm? It seems we have sprung a trap."
I could hear something rolling.
*Rollrollrollrollroll*
'It sounds like it's coming closer...'
*Crasshhh* *Thudthudthudthudthud*
"Gehhh!! What the heck is that?!"
A huge boulder that spanned the entire length of the tunnel was rolling towards us.
"Be quiet." Hati swung down his front paw and released a phantasmal set of claws made of light. It was the skill, Rending Claws, that I had seen before.
*Sllrrssshhh*
The round boulder was cut cleanly by the skill and rendered into dust.
'Huh? That skill can... cut rocks?'
Hati, in an extremely Hati-like fashion, held on to his completely unsurprised face and just said, "Let us go."
'At this point, I feel like I can probably just leave it all to Hati and we'll be able to get through anything... Actually, including the trap just now, I get the feeling that all the traps on this floor have been a level more bloodthirsty. Let's be careful.'
From then on, we started to be careful to avoid traps as we went around the rooms and collected drops.
Finally, we'd reached the boss room. The room was almost twice as big as the one on the 15th floor. Inside was a mixed bag of orcs, lizardmen, and ogres. There was quite a number of them, but with my three familiars on the job, the fight didn't even last five minutes.
Looking over at where everyone was gathered, I thought there would be some dropped items there, since there were so many bodies. Once I'd finished picking up all the dropped items like hides or magic stones, we left for the 17th floor.
◇◇◇◇◇◇
This dungeon must have a lot of humanoid monsters in it, because the 17th floor was just like the 16th, in that it housed an assortment of monsters from the 11th to 15th floors. According to Hati, the next floor would be the same thing.
However, higher forms of said monsters were steadily starting to become more common. They still weren't a match for my familiars, though. Everyone was gleefully mowing their way through monsters left and right.
I'd collected a considerable amount of drop items by now. The most common drops were hides, but I wasn't sure how much money they would fetch. I couldn't imagine that they were all that worthwhile though.
'Oh well, it'll be fine if they at least contribute to my food expenses a little.'
After running around a couple rooms on the 17th floor and retrieving the drops inside, we finally found a treasure chest. While I was running around picking up dropped items, I saw a whitish box just kind of sitting there in the back of the room. It had gold bordering, and some ornamentation using gems.
"OHHH! Finally, a treasure chest!!"
My first instinct was to open it immediately, but I held myself back. This dungeon was pretty dirty with its traps, after all.
'Since that's the case, the chances that this chest is trapped are...'
For now, I used Appraisal on the chest.
[Treasure Chest]
A treasure chest that is set up so that it will release poison gas at the same time that it is opened.
'Yep, it's a trap. Poison gas, what the hell? That's so scary. I can't open it like this, not at all.
"Hey, this treasure chest says it'll spew poison gas when it's opened, so someone else do it."
"Mnn, fine."
As Hati undid the clasp and opened the box. Immediately, some purple gas shot out of the opening with a whoosh.
*Cough* *Hack* *Cough*
It was probably poison gas, but to me it was just a little bit of smoke and that was it. 'Thank goodness for barrier'.
Peeking inside the box, I found a somewhat dirty bag inside.
"What the heck is this?"
When I removed the bag, the treasure chest disappeared.
Then, when I tried appraising it, it read:
[Magic Bag (small) ...A magic bag that has the carrying capacity of five large jute bags.]
'Large jute bags mean those 1 meter square bags, right? So, five of those means this is pretty big?'
I wasn't having any problems since I had my Item Box, but this might be something that people without one would pay an arm and a leg for. It was kind of filthy and ugly, and it was also a (small) bag, but it looked like it would still sell for a pretty good price. When I thought like that, it was actually pretty good for the first treasure chest we had found.
I stuffed the magic bag into my Item Box.
We moved on to the next room, but there were already adventurers fighting in it, so we just went past into the boss room. Looking inside, there was an orc king surrounded by orc generals, all leading a countless number of orcs that were swarming around them.
"Hmph, orcs, huh? No matter how many orcs there are, they are nothing to me. Let us go."
[Yeah!]
[Groot will beat a lot too!]
Leaving those words behind, my three familiars charged into the orc army. Then, they started trampling that army into the ground. I stayed behind, and finished off any orcs that they missed.
It didn't take very long for the orc army to disappear. I picked up the meats, hides, and testes that they all dropped. By the way, the king dropped its testes as well. It was gross, but of course I picked it up, since it could apparently turn into a strong vitality enhancer that would definitely result in a child, and was thus pretty expensive. I remembered this from the last time I sold off an orc king.
After that, Hati and the others cleaned up the 18th floor without any particular problems. Of course, I made sure to pick up all the drops. The different hides of all the monsters we'd beaten have started to pile up. Unfortunately, we passed into the boss room of the 18th floor without having seen a single treasure chest.
Inside the room was a mixed company of orcs and ogres being led by a special ogre with reddish skin. There were quite a lot of them in this room too, but it seemed like even this wasn't enough to faze my familiars, as the battle was over quickly.
The 19th floor also went the same way, with my familiars making easy and steady progress through the floor as I picked up all the drops. In the fifth room, I discovered another treasure chest after it was cleared out.
"Oh! There's another treasure chest." Since there was a chance that this one was trapped too, I started off with Appraisal.
[Mimic]
A dungeon monster that mimics a treasure chest. It sometimes drops a decorated treasure chest after being defeated.
'Oh, this is a monster and not a treasure chest.'
"This isn't a treasure chest, it's a monster, it says."
"Ahh, a mimic, huh?" It seemed like Hati knew of them. "That monster will attack you when you try to open it."
'When you try to open it, huh? If that's the case, I can just get close to it with a mithril sword?' "If that's the case, I'll try fighting it."
'Slowly get closer...' "Hup!"
"Ggehh!!"
I cut it in two in a flash. 'This mithril sword really is just incredibly sharp.'
After the mimic disappeared, it left behind something that looked like a small jewel box.
"Ohh, it dropped something. Even though Appraisal said that it only does that sometimes."
Taking a closer look at it, the small box had some gold ornamentation on it, and the whole thing was rather pretty. 'Looks like this will sell for a pretty high price, too.' I happily stored the box in my Item Box.
After that, we went through two more rooms, and got to the boss room. There, the boss was an ogre king leading a horde of ogres and trolls. The 2 meter tall ogres were already large, but adding on the even larger trolls and in those numbers made my hips give out a little.
Meanwhile, the familiars around me all happily charged into the crowd. And of course, they easily won.
I suddenly had a thought while I was picking up all the hides and magic stones that were dropped.
"Oh yeah, it's only our first day in the dungeon, but we're already at the 20th floor, aren't we? Everyone's so strong so we're just breezing past this place."
"Well, we are quite strong, after all. Monsters around these floors probably would not even be considered proper opponents for us."
[Mwahaha! Have you come to know my greatness? I'll keep running them over!]
[Master is Groot strong? Groot will defeat more and lots of them!]
Everyone was still not only lively, but extremely motivated. I let out a strained laugh, watching everyone being so enthusiastic. 'I expected to be in here about 10 days, though... It might just be that it won't take nearly that long, I'm getting the feeling.'
Going along with all my enthusiastic familiars, we explored the 20th, and then the 21st floor. Both of them were pretty much the same as the 16th through 19th floors, and were home to a mix of those monsters that showed up in the 11th to 15th floors.
Just as Hati said, a lot of superior forms were present, but everyone took care of them in a flash. I collected all of the large amounts of drop items in both floors, and we moved to the 22nd floor.
In this floor, which was currently being explored by only the foremost of adventuring parties, things were a little different than before. No, it was the same in that the walls still looked like excavated tunnels, but the scale of said tunnels was clearly different: the tunnels were more than twice the size than they were on the previous floor.
As for why that was, it became apparent when we looked into the first room. In this room, which was clearly larger than all the rooms up until now, was a group of over 3-meter-tall trolls and minotaurs that absolutely filled the room until it was crowded like nothing before.
"There's nothing but trolls and minotaurs... So that's why the tunnels were so large."
"Seems that way. From the presences I feel, it looks like this entire floor only has giants as well. Also, I think that this continues for another three or so floors."
'I see. So Hati's saying that the giants zone goes from this floor to the next floor, the 23rd, all the way to the 25th floor, huh? I get scared looking at just one over 3-meter-tall giant, but now the entire floor is full of them? ...Ugh, this dungeon is just the worst. I thought I'd try helping a little, but that's going to be impossible with monsters of that size. I'm seriously starting to respect everyone who can face those down and stay calm.'
"Those giants might be a liiiiiiiiiiittle too much for me. And so, I'm counting on all of you."
"Hmph, you really have no guts, do you? Well, trolls and minotaurs are not any threat to us, either. You can just stay there and watch."
I'm just fine being gutless, okay? I got the Hati's barrier around me, but it's not like that lets me be calm in front of over 3-meter-tall giant monsters or anything.'
[Just leave that stuff to me! I'll take care of those lumbering lugs lightning-quick!!]
'Oh, Razsegath's raring to go. Countin' on you, bud.'
[Master Groot will also go pew pew and get a whole lot of them! Groot will use water magic!]
'Groot's totally motivated, too. You go pew pew all you like.'
"Well then, let us go."
At Hati's words, everyone leapt into the room.
*Szshhh* *Szshhh* *Szshhh*
*BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOOOMMM*
"""Guowooaahhhh!"""
"""Moooooaahhh!!"""
Hati's lightning and wind magic burst amongst the trolls and minotaurs.
*Thud* *Thud* *Thud* *Thud* *Thud*
"""Grruuwooaahhhhh!!"""
Razsegath wrapped himself in Fire magic and moved at high speed to pierce trolls through the chest over and over.
*Pew* *Pew* *Pew* *Pew* *Pew*
"""""MOOOOAAHHHH!!"""""
Groot's Acid Bullets melted through the torsos of the minotaurs.
Looking at Groot's battles up until now, it seemed that the tree seedling had learned to properly use its Acid Bullets in both long- and short-range fights. It made a large ball of acid in order to bathe the enemy in the stuff at close range, and at long range it shot out the bullets at high speed to pierce them through. Since Groot couldn't use a bunch of different kinds of magic like Hati or Razsegath could, it instead modified the stuff it could use.
'Not sure whether to call Groot smart or skillful here. Groot's the youngest, and is in its growth period, but it just keeps getting stronger, huh? It might even evolve again by the time we go back up.'
'Ah, it's over, huh? Let's see... okay, guess I'll start picking stuff up. Minotaur's iron axes and minotaur's horns, minotaur meat, oh, and troll hides and poison claws, huh? Kinda feels like the rate of drops has increased on this floor, doesn't it? So it really is true that the deeper you go, the more profitable it is. Of course, it's also more dangerous for it, though.'
After that, we steadily went around the rooms and cleared them to get drops.
Still though, there's so many monsters around.
Up until this floor, it was pretty rare to see any monsters in the passageway, but on this floor, seeing monsters out in the tunnels became quite frequent. Of course, with all my familiars around, it was no problem at all, though.
Around when we had finished exploring the 22nd floor, and all that was left was the boss room...
"I am hungry."
[Yeah, I am too.]
[Groot is also hungry!]
It was time to feed the children. We decided to eat in the safe area near the boss room.
'What should I go with this time? The orc general ginger-fried pork bowl and some tonjiru should be fine.'
After molding some rice in a deeper dish than usual, I laid a thick bed of shredded cabbage on the rice, and covered the cabbage with ginger-fried pork on top to finish out the ginger-fried pork bowl. After that, I also poured some of the tonjiru into another deep dish. Then, I served the food to my familiars.
"Here you go. Dig in."
Everyone immediately started chowing down.
"Having a meal after work makes the food taste really good."
[Ohh! The flavoring on this meat is amazing!]
[Yeah, yeah, it's delicious, right? This soup with the vegetables and meat in it is good too!]
'A meal after some exercise really is good, right? I should dig-in to my food, too. The sweet and salty flavoring sure does match well with the cabbage and rice here. It's so nice that the shredded cabbage gives a refreshing note to the whole thing.
And this tonjiru, too. The vegetables have completely absorbed the flavor of the soup, it's good. Not to mention how calming it is to have some hot soup here. Ahh so nice.'
"More." [More!]
It looked like Razsegath was full (since the serving I gave in their bowls easily equaled three human portions), but Hati and Groot still wanted more. After I gave Hati and Groot their second helping, I watched them go to town on the food. In the end, they weren't satisfied until they cleaned out all the ginger-fried pork I'd made.
For the tonjiru, there was just barely a single serving left.
"Hey, Hati, I'm tired too, so why don't we just call it a day here, and then go fight the boss on a full night's sleep?"
"I see. It is probably around the time to sleep on the outside as well, so let us do that."
It seemed like Hati could just instinctively tell the time, and that it was nighttime at the moment.
'Well, his stomach clock's already pretty accurate...'
"Well, that's that, Razsegath, Groot. We're sleeping here for today."
[Sure, got it.]
[Okay! Master, the bed?]
'Oh that's right, the futon. We're the only ones here in this safe area anyway, so might as well.'
After spreading the cardboard box bases, I unfurled the futons for both me and Hati.
'I'd never have thought we'd make it so deep so fast. I made a huge amount of food so as to not be seen using my skill, but was all that wasted effort? Well, it's making it so I don't have to cook in the dungeon, so I guess it's not completely wasted.'
While pondering that subject as I was preparing the bedding, I heard a voice.
"Just get in the safe area!!!"
"Hurry up! Go faster!!"
"Damian, snap out of it!!"
"What happened to our potions?!"
"We already used them!!"
A party of adventurers covered in wounds ran into the safe area.
It was a party of four men and two women. There was an exceptionally heavily wounded man being supported on both sides. He was covered in blood. Looking closely, I could see that his side was cut, deep enough that I could see his innards.
Surprised and shocked at their sudden appearance, I came to when the person who looked to be their leader called out to me.
"Hey, you! Do you have any potions?! I'll pay, so please give some to me if you have any!!"
"I-I do!" I had some bottles left over from when I bought them in Karelina. I took one of the high-grade ones out of my Item Box and handed it to the leader-like male adventurer.
"Hey, here's a potion! Wake up!!!" After laying down the heavily wounded man, he poured Groot's special high-grade potion over his cut flank.
When he did that, the man's wound started to visibly close up. The adventurers were surprised, looking at the effects.
"W-What the heck...? Was that a special-grade potion?"
"N-No way... There's no way a person would own a special-grade potion just by himself..."
The adventurer's gazes all focused on me.
"U-Ummm... This is a high-grade potion, but it's a little stronger than normal ones. Please spare me the questions of where I got it."
'W-Well, I didn't lie, at least.'
"I see. If it's this strong, then I'd want some myself, but I do understand your feelings of wanting to keep it a secret."
"This kind of thing is important for adventurers, right? We won't just be able to get that info for free."
'Somehow, they just explained it away themselves. More importantly, is that guy all right? I saw some stuff that I feel like you should never see on a guy, you know?'
"He's still unconscious, but his wound has already closed and his breathing is calm. He should be fine now." Saying so, the leader-like guy let out a relieved sigh.
"Good... *Snff* ...I thought Damian was done for..."
"Don't cry. Well, you were really close to Damian, I guess. But still, it's great that we managed to save him."
"Really. As the healer, I hate to say it, but even if I wasn't out of magic, I don't think I'd have been able to do anything about a wound like that."
"Certainly. Only a highly ranked priest or something would be able to heal a wound like this... It was a miracle that we managed to save Damian."
It seemed like the heavily wounded man was named Damian. The members of his party all looked relieved knowing about his safety.
"You really saved us, thanks." The man who looked to be the leader of the group bowed his head to me.
"No, please don't mind it. I just happened to have the potion."
"Given how effective that potion was and the fact that we're in the dungeon right now, how does 15 gold sound?"
"S-Sure, that's fine, but aren't high-grade potions supposed to be worth 10 gold...?"
"The potion we just got clearly had a greater effect than a normal high-grade potion. Also, we bought it in a dungeon, which is a special condition in which such things would normally not be available; it would be unforgivable even for us to not consider that in the price." Saying that, the leader-like man handed over 15 gold.
Given his reasoning, I took the gold. But in exchange...
"This is a freebie. Please use it." I handed over three low-grade potions.
I mean, even though they weren't as wounded as Damian was, all the members of the party were still covered in cuts. Pitiful wouldn't even begin to describe it.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, help yourself. In exchange, would you tell me what happened?"
In response, the leader said, "Sorry," and accepted the potions. Then, he started talking about what happened.
Their party was the A-ranked adventuring party, "Tempest." The party was made up of the A-ranked leader and one other A-ranked member, with the rest of them all being B-ranked. It seemed like they were very proud of their accomplishments and abilities.
They started diving into this dungeon around two months ago, and apparently this time was their second time attacking it. The previous time they'd also managed to get down to the 22nd floor, but they were running out of food, so they decided to leave.
This time they had planned to go even deeper, and passed straight through the first 20 levels, it seemed. And so after exploring through the 21st and 22nd levels, they reached the boss room on the 22nd floor.
But, inside was...
"There were 3 whole damn spriggans in there. As well as swarms of trolls and minotaurs. There were clearly more than when we saw last time."
Apparently spriggans were giant monsters even larger than trolls or minotaurs, with an even uglier face, to boot. The last time they dived into the dungeon, not only was there only one spriggan, but there were also fewer trolls and minotaurs around, the leader said.
"We know this is a dungeon, and that it's not guaranteed that things will always be the same every time, but we would never have expected three spriggans..."
And there were even more trolls and minotaurs around on top of that. Figuring out how bad the situation was, they somehow managed to start the retreat, but at the last moment Damian took a hit from a minotaur's axe and was wounded. As he was hanging on for dear life, they ran all the way to this safe area, the leader's story went.
"You should also be caref- ...Actually, you guys should be fine." As he said that, the leader glanced furtively at Hati.
'Ahh, right, A and B-ranked adventurers can tell that Hati is a Fenrir.'
"I had heard that there was an adventurer that managed to tame a Fenrir, so it was true."
"W-Well... yeah..."
"Haha, you don't have to be that wary, you know? I won't ask for any specifics, and the Adventurer's guild already told us not to mess with you, you know?"
'I'd be thankful if you followed that, yes.'
"I think you'll be fine with that Fenrir following you, but be careful anyway. We thought we were plenty prepared and ended up like this, after all. We'd asked the guildmaster here for info beforehand on the dungeon and other stuff, and the consensus was that this floor had one spriggan on it. Even so, we thought two spriggans might be possible and prepared for it, but three was... Well, there's no use complaining now. After sleeping here, we're gonna go back up."
'So they got surprised with something they'd never have thought to have expected, huh? Makes sense, since not only were there three spriggans, there were even more trolls and minotaurs than usual. This dungeon really is just the worst, what with the traps and all.'
'Wait, huh? If the people in Tempest didn't defeat the enemies in the boss room, then aren't all the spriggans and trolls and minotaurs still in there?'
I tried asking Hati and got an affirmative reply.
'Ghhhh... What do we do???'
"There is no need to worry. No matter how many spriggans there are, they are no match for me. Just go to sleep already. We are going deeper tomorrow," is what he said.
It was probably fine with all three of my familiars around, and I also had the barrier from Hati, but I couldn't help but get worried imagining being surrounded by giant enemies everywhere.
I forcefully convinced myself that it would be fine with everyone around and went to sleep.