by Fujino Omori
“Miss Mikoto, how many are there?”
Assisting the front lines with her handheld bow gun, Lilly called out when she realized the enemy numbers weren’t diminishing.
Mikoto responded with an equally panicked yell after puncturing a mad beetle’s head with an arrow.
“Seventeen, no nineteen—it’s still rising!!”
Now that Mikoto had fought these monsters, Yatano Black Crow told her that their relentless foes were about to receive reinforcements.
Sure enough, more of the creatures poured through the entrance on the other side of the room.
“Ngh…I’m using it!!”
Lilly watched as Bell and Welf took down monster after monster without making a dent before she reached to her belt and withdrew a golden dagger—a magic sword.
The two young men immediately jumped away as soon as her voice reached their ears. Her path clear, Lilly brought the blade straight down with all her might. A stream of energy burst from its tip.
The electrical blast cut a straight line across the battlefield toward the entrance on the opposite side of the room. Every fiend in its way burst into crackling flame, bringing the fight to a swift end.
A boom exploded within the room a second later as though the intense blast of energy had collided with a wall farther down the passageway.
“…!”
Crack! Not even a moment later—
The yellow blade shattered.
Several hours had passed since they set foot on the nineteenth floor. The monsters they’d encountered were so strong that the group had been forced to use the magic weapon several times just to keep going forward.
It had reached its limit. Golden shards fell from Lilly’s grasp.
“It gave out…Guess we relied on it a bit too much.”
“But just now…!”
“I know. We needed it…but it just wasn’t strong enough.”
Several emotions crossed Welf’s face as he looked at the remains of his handiwork and stopped Lilly’s counterargument by raising his hand.
While it was true that Crozzo Magic Swords were extremely powerful, the blades themselves were actually rather frail.
“This is my problem,” Welf bluntly stated, caught between his skills as a magic-sword maker and his pride as a smith.
At any rate, the battle was finally over.
“Bell, is everyone okay?”
“Yep, I’m fine. Didn’t get hurt.”
“But currently there are only two of Welf’s magic swords remaining…Lady Lilly, what is our location?”
“We have pressed past more than half of this area. The twentieth floor is close.”
Wiene bounded up to Bell, her salamander-wool cloak flapping behind her like a flag on a windy day, with a big smile on her face. At the same time, Mikoto approached Lilly for an update on their location.
Pulling out a map of the floor, Lilly pointed to a spot about three-fourths of the way down the main route. One of their three magic swords was gone, and they had consumed far more potions and magic potions than expected. However, the rest of their weapons were still intact and in good working order. Leaving their item situation aside, the party remained on track.
The group paused for only a moment to share the update before moving on to their next task.
Lilly instructed everyone to gather the loot scattered about the battlefield.
“Again, please don’t leave behind a single magic stone. Bad things will happen should a monster find and eat one. Take any drop items that will fit…As for the larger ones, we have no choice but to throw them into thicker grass.”
“Y-yes.”
“I’ll help, too.”
Lilly issued the orders to make sure that their secret mission remained a secret by covering their tracks. The fighters and Wiene helped the supporters finish the job before pressing forward.
“I’m just gonna put this out there. I know that the monsters here are stronger and there’s a higher encounter rate, but…Bell and I didn’t run into this many last time. Or is it just my imagination?”
“That’s probably because there aren’t as many other adventurers. More than likely, there’s nothing else to distract the monsters from us.”
Consecutive battles were unavoidable, but the numbers were staggering. Lilly tried to offer an answer to Welf’s doubts.
There were many reasons—one being that suspicious adventurers often flocked to this floor—but very few parties passed through during the night and early morning hours. Even adventurers who used Rivira as a base camp preferred to avoid operating during this time of day. Lilly explained how hungry monsters would gather from far and wide when prey was scarce.
“……”
“Lady Wiene?”
“This place is…familiar…but scary…and cold.”
The vouivre timidly wrapped her arms around her body as she scanned the Colossal Tree Labyrinth.
Haruhime wasn’t faring much better, fox ears and tail visibly shaking. Even so, seeing Wiene so afraid was worse. Putting on a brave face, she reached out and held the girl’s hand.
Bell glanced at the girls in the center of the formation before resuming his constant vigil. Mikoto, who had slain the many types of monsters they had encountered thus far, never forgot to activate her Skill periodically as they advanced. Lilly and Welf were just as quiet as the rest of the party, inspecting the walls around them as if the bark might crack open at any second to reveal another wave of monsters.
The ceilings inside this sylvan domain were surprisingly high, and small hollows dotted the walls. While birds or small animals might have called these alcoves home on the surface, they were the perfect places for monsters to stage an ambush. Clusters of plants indigenous to these floors popped up all over the place, fascinating the adventurers who passed through.
Bizarre mushrooms with red and blue spots, grasses with golden thistles sprouting like cotton, and an astounding amount of vines hanging off the walls like snakes filled the passageways. Bell caught a glimpse of a dead-end room with beds of silver flowers, and it was so beautiful that he would have loved to paint the scene if he had the talent.
Everyone knew it was only a matter of time before the next encounter. These moments of peace were just the calm before the storm, so they stayed in tight formation and gained as much ground as possible.
…We’re still being watched. And…
There were more of them.
Bell studied the surrounding fauna, his head on a swivel, as goose bumps broke out along his skin.
Had the unknown watchers from aboveground followed them this far?
There were more of them here on the nineteenth floor. Of that he was certain.
The hollow alcoves above his head, the treelike network of branching paths, the dark spaces behind massive leaves—Bell’s gaze traveled from one suspicious spot to another, seaching for any movement in the shadows. While he saw nothing, he knew their observers were concealing their presence somewhere nearby.
Just who were they? What were they trying to do?
The ominous air made Bell’s heart beat a little harder.
His shallow breaths quickening and dread saturating his veins, Bell knew he had no choice but to keep pressing forward.
He tightened his grip on the Hestia Knife in his right hand.
“…?”
Without warning—
An unexpected obstacle halted the party’s considerable progress.
It completely blocked their path. Confusion ran rampant through the group at the very sight of it.
They came to a stop in front of a motionless wall of mushrooms.
“No way forward…”
“A-are we going the right way?”
“Hey, Li’l E, what gives?”
“P-please wait a moment. This shouldn’t…”
Stretching from wall to wall and floor to ceiling, a colony of gigantic mushrooms sealed off the route.
A silent barrier of red- and blue-polka-dotte
d mushrooms stood in their way.
Mikoto and Haruhime voiced their disappointment at reaching a dead end. Lilly defended herself from Welf’s frustration as she pulled out the map and opened it for a closer look.
“This is…weird.”
Welf sniffed and grumbled under his breath.
An inexplicable feeling of recognition overtook Bell upon hearing those words.
……
And he realized immediately why those warning bells were ringing in his head.
However, this was more than a sense that something was off or baseless déjà vu.
It was the knowledge of the lessons drilled into his head by a certain half-elf “older sister” of his.
If you think you’re in trouble—it’s already too late.
Many of the gigantic mushrooms making up the colony opened slits that looked remarkably like eyes beneath their large umbrellas.
“……”
Dropping the act, the mushrooms of many sizes revealed their dark-purple bodies at once and moved as a unit.
“It’s not a wall—they’re dark fungi!!”
A wave of cold fear swept through the party as Lilly screamed loud enough to injure her throat.
Dark fungi.
The mushroom-like monsters had evaded Mikoto’s Skill due to the fact that she had zero experience dealing with them. These monsters preferred to wait for prey to come to them, hiding among the gigantic fungi that naturally clustered together inside the Dungeon.
Just as infamous as the many species of insect monsters inhabiting the Colossal Tree Labyrinth, these creatures produced enormous clouds of poisonous gas.
“!!”
The mushroom caps swelled right before their eyes.
Their clouds of toxic spores made the purple moths’ poisonous pollen in the upper levels look like child’s play. It was potent enough to inflict Status ailments on contact and could even bring large-category monsters to their knees with little resistance.
A series of explosions rang out a second later as the fiends expelled their gas.
It was too late for Lilly and the others to get out of range as the purple clouds flooded into their path.
In the same instant—
“Firebolt!!”
—Bell made his move.
As the only one equipped with Eina’s lessons, it was up to him to keep the venomous clouds at bay.
Nine bursts of electrifying flames burned through the cloud. As waves of extreme heat surged through the dense mass of spores like a tsunami, the Swift-Strike Magic slammed into the colony of dark fungi directly behind it.
The purple clouds that threatened to engulf the party went up in smoke.
“~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~!”
Susceptible to fire, the mushroom monsters writhed in pain as they perished in the flames.
The conflagration engulfed fungus after fungus, and even the actual gigantic mushrooms ignited to become towering torches in the passageway.
Bell’s quick reaction bought Lilly and the others time to escape the edges of the poisonous gas cloud even as bits of the spore cloud burned in midair—but the Dungeon wouldn’t allow them to escape so easily.
A dark shadow suddenly appeared on the other side of the inferno, and a colossal boar burst through a moment later.
“A battle boar?!”
Nearly two meders tall, this was truly a large-category monster.
The wall of flames parted in its wake as the monster charged through with sheer brute strength. Its eyes locked on the adventurers, and its fur bristled.
It wasn’t alone, merely leading the charge of its peers. It roared at the top of its lungs as a swarm of bugbears and other monsters followed it through the flames.
“Damn it!!”
Welf planted his foot on the ground and charged back into the poisonous purple haze.
Casting aside his greatsword, he grabbed the large shield hanging from Lilly’s backpack on the way.
He held it directly into the boar’s path to protect his friends.
“OOOO!!”
“!!”
The silver shield, forged by his own hands, collided with the monstrous boar.
Only with the strength granted to him by Haruhime’s Level Boost did Welf, twinkling lights still hovering around his body, manage to stay on his feet and absorb a blow that would have sent many upper-class adventurers skyward. Digging in his heels, he lost only a few steps’ worth of ground before bringing the monster to a complete stop.
That was when Mikoto rushed into action.
“HYAAA!!”
Jumping clear over Welf’s head, she drew Chizan, one half of a set of twin daggers that she always kept on her person, and drove it into the monster’s neck from above.
It was a clean strike, sending a gush of blood into the air, but it was not enough to behead the battle boar. Mikoto carved several more slashes into its hulking body as she spun through the air. The monster collapsed to the ground at the same moment the blood-spattered girl landed at its side.
“—HA!!”
Bell dashed by the boar’s body and straight into the oncoming rush behind it.
He brandished his double knives—a flash of violet light slashed through a bugbear’s neck, sending its head tumbling through the air, as a crimson streak rode the momentum to strike another monster down in the same moment. Bell’s trademark agility caught the oncoming horde by surprise; they were powerless before him as he drew them into the fray.
He tore into the bugbears, slaughtering them one by one as Welf and Mikoto arrived with bigger blades, greatsword and katana; the three of them joined forces to take care of the rest.
“Haa, haa…!”
Bell slew the last monster as the combat came to an end.
The three humans struggled to catch their breath, faces illuminated by the burning mushrooms.
Haruhime gawked at the piles of corpses surrounding them and was about to rush to her companions’ aid when Lilly grabbed hold of her wrist. “It’s not safe yet,” said the prum, her eyes following the last wispy trails of poisonous spore clouds.
“Sorry, but could a guy get an antidote…?”
“Y-yes, right away!”
Welf groaned as he staggered his way back to the supporters, skin glistening with sweat.
Haruhime quickly retrieved a vial of green liquid and handed it to him. Inhaling the toxic spores inside the purple cloud had poisoned Welf. He downed the concoction in one gulp.
“Seriously, Bell roasted most of them, and I still got hit…Guess this means upper-class adventurers can’t just blindly charge in and hope for the best.”
“Consider yourself lucky. There are worse cases of poisoning, and those take much longer to recover from…”
Lilly continued by explaining how the unlucky ones would have died on the spot and rummaged through her backpack as Welf’s breathing returned to normal. Pulling out a few items, she turned to the others.
“Mr. Bell, Miss Mikoto, how are you feeling…?”
“It hurts, but I can stand up…”
“Everything feels heavy, no energy.”
Mikoto and Bell returned to the supporters, their faces off-color.
Unlike Welf, the two of them both possessed the Advanced Ability Immunity. However, it wasn’t effective enough to completely nullify the poison yet, and they became painfully aware of the dark-fungus spore cloud’s potency.
Sharp claws and fangs weren’t the only things adventurers had to worry about in the Colossal Tree Labyrinth.
“Lady Wiene…You look perfectly normal.”
“…? I’m fine.”
Being a type of dragon and born in the middle levels, Wiene must have been born with a high resistance to Status ailments. All the adventurers were looking at her with concern, but she couldn’t understand why.
Lilly sighed before instructing Haruhime to drink an anti
dote, just to be on the safe side, and then followed suit.
“Lady Mikoto, Master Bell, what will you do…?”
“Conservation is of the utmost importance. Sir Bell and I will share one.”
Living in poverty as a member of Takemikazuchi Familia for so long had taught her to scrimp and save whenever possible. Mikoto didn’t give it a second thought when answering Haruhime’s question.
Bell took the antidote—stamped with Miach Familia’s emblem—from Haruhime and said, “I-in that case…” After drinking half of it, he handed the bottle to Mikoto.
Her heart skipped a beat. With the half-empty vessel in her hands, the realization that Bell had just drunk from it shot through her like lightning. She stared at it for a moment before her face became bright red. Only then did it hit Haruhime, fox ears standing up straight as she quickly covered her eyes.
“One, two, and…” Mikoto whispered to herself, cheeks still flushed, before drinking the rest.
Even Bell started blushing. A cunning strategy…Lilly thought to herself, fists clenching as she watched with jealousy in her eyes.
“……”
Then, once everyone had recovered…
Wiene’s ears started twitching.
“I hear…something.”
“You do?”
Wiene turned, her elfish tapered ears guiding her.
Their surroundings were quiet. Bell followed the girl’s gaze down the path from which they had come. There was nothing out of the ordinary.
Welf and the others started to wonder if something was wrong with Wiene when…
“…Ah.”
“I hear it as well…”
Bell and Mikoto definitely sensed it.
A strange sound.
One that they hadn’t yet encountered during their time on this floor.
Wiene possessed enhanced monster senses, far superior to the adventurers’. Fear flashed across her face—an omen of what was to come. The vouivre girl took a step back.
“Are those wings? No, not quite…”
It wasn’t the telltale signs of other adventurers locked in combat, nor was it a monster’s howl.
The unusual sound reached Lilly’s ears. She, too, thought it was the flapping wings of a bird at first, but it was too metallic. A bead of sweat rolled down her neck. She adjusted the straps of her backpack as Welf lifted his greatsword into a defensive position.