The bloodthirsty roars echoing through the hallway only moments before had become howls of terror.
“……”
“……”
“…It would seem we can leave everything to her, no?”
“…Wanna head home?”
“You know we can’t do that…”
As the rest of the party observed her mutely, Asfi mumbled to herself and answered Lulune’s question quietly. She had fought back the urge to nod before rejecting the idea.
Watching the massacre unfolding before them, the members of Hermes Familia couldn’t help but wonder if their presence was even necessary.
“!”
Aiz was vaguely aware of the many stares watching her from far behind, but she wasn’t about to let up.
While she never allowed a single beast to deliver a clean hit, she did periodically need to go out of her way to block, pushing her body to move even faster.
If only there were more…
Despite the monstrous visages reflecting in her golden eyes, she was more focused on the sensations of her own body.
Aiz was testing herself, seeing what she could do. The ideal way was real combat with monsters.
She had just leveled up.
With her new Level Six Status, she needed to experience the dramatic boost in strength and speed firsthand.
Whenever an adventurer leveled up, their mind and body needed time to adjust. The sudden leap in their abilities could be disorienting. Aiz repeated the same actions over and over to fine-tune her senses and movements, speeding up the process of acclimating to her new body.
Aiz had rushed to the eighteenth floor after pursuing Bell Cranell. Add in the potency of Hermes Familia’s efficient teamwork, and she had hardly fought all day. This was her chance to cut loose, and she wouldn’t waste it.
She didn’t use her Magic.
Aiz piled on kill after kill with pure swordsmanship and physical strength alone.
“!”
“GHIII—!”
Slicing down monster after monster at dizzying speed, Aiz arrived at the end of the hallway, kicked off the wall, and flipped into the air.
She neatly cleaved the deadly hornet directly above in two.
Deadly hornets were known for their agility, but this one couldn’t evade her saber. As the bisected corpse hit the ground, Aiz spun and dispatched two swordstags while in the air. The rest of the pack couldn’t even press their chance to attack when she landed because Aiz was already racing out to meet them, ready to strike.
“GAAAAAaaa!!”
“SHAA!”
The remaining monsters began to express their fear as the horde dwindled around them. Amid their fright, three lizardmen equipped with nature weapons—a hardened flower for a shield, its thorny stem acting as a shortsword—came to the fore and challenged Aiz to a duel. The three scaly warriors’ display of courage was cut incredibly short, however, as their flawed swordplay was exposed with three quick flicks of Aiz’s wrist.
Next in line to stop Aiz’s merciless rampage were several mushroom monsters known as dark fungi. They flooded the air with a highly toxic pollen that was harmful to friend and foe alike—but to no avail. These middle-level monsters didn’t have pollen nearly potent enough to overpower Aiz’s advanced Immunity skill. The poison had no effect.
Aiz charged straight into the cloud of toxic spores.
Ignoring the pained cries of lizardmen and swordstags as they fell, she dashed through the poisonous cloud and skewered the dark fungi before finishing off the rest.
“OOOooooo…”
In a fierce battle where second-tier adventurers would have lost their lives, Aiz had overpowered her adversaries without taking a scratch. The monsters had never stood a chance.
The fight drew to a close with the dying rasp of a hobgoblin, a stronger species of goblin often found higher up in the Dungeon.
The large-category creature slammed down with a dull thud. Only then did Aiz place Desperate back in its sheath.
The stream of monsters had been completely wiped out in about ten minutes.
“…So that’s…the Sword Princess?”
Asfi stood in the middle of the hallway, looking past the mounds of carrion toward the female knight standing at the other end.
Lulune gulped as her allies watched with awe. The chienthrope narrowed her eyes in a smile at her fellow adventurer’s back.
“…W-well, that’s the top class for you, strong as hell. Taking down a mob like that with no backup, no wonder everybody’s always scared to death! Ah, need a potion?”
“No, I’m fine…Thanks.”
It took Lulune and the rest of Hermes Familia a moment to return to normal, but they greeted the returning Aiz with warm smiles.
Realizing they had one of the best, most dependable allies in the world, they showered her with compliments and admiration.
Embarrassed by the sudden praise, Aiz wasn’t sure how to react. However, she had a better sense of the new height she had achieved. Maintaining a similar pace for the same duration at Level Five would have been extremely taxing. But now, she didn’t even need a recovery potion afterward.
Aiz was fully aware of her improved strength and speed, but it was her newfound endurance that made the largest impression on her.
“Well, the monsters are all cleaned up, but…what do we do now, Asfi?”
The hallway had become a morgue, with carcasses strewn as far as the eye could see. They couldn’t just leave all the loot, so the supporters rushed out to collect magic stones and drop items. In the meantime, Lulune wanted to get Asfi’s opinion.
Aiz stopped flexing her fists and gave her full attention.
“If we can trust Black Robe, the pantry’s where we need to go. There are three of them on the twenty-fourth floor—to the southwest, to the southeast, and to the north. Where should we start?”
With a quiet rustling noise, she fumbled with the pouch at her waist and pulled out a sheet. It was a folded map of the twenty-fourth floor.
Sure enough, three massive areas were marked off—larger than any room on the map—in red ink circles. Aiz approached Lulune and peeked over her shoulder as the chienthrope scanned the map.
Seeing it drawn out like this, it hit her just how big the floor was.
Each floor of the Dungeon was larger than the previous one, and the twenty-fourth was at least half the size of Orario. Should they need to visit all three pantries, the sheer number of monsters they would encounter, plus the ground they had to cover, would take its toll.
The party waited for their leader’s decision. Asfi proposed, “We’ll let the monsters tell us.”
“Huh?”
“We should find the source of the outbreak by retracing their steps. If what we’re looking for is in a pantry, all we need to do is reverse the path the monsters took to get here.”
“I see.” Aiz agreed with Asfi’s logic.
All their sources of information about the outbreak pointed to a pantry. Rather than investigate all three for irregularities, following the flow would allow them to find their goal by process of elimination.
Lulune and other members of the party caught on to the idea, exchanging glances and nods. They turned their attention to the remains of the monsters Aiz had wiped out only a few moments ago.
They’d been pushing one another, momentum carrying the procession forward. The slain monsters at the intersection had come from…
“…The north, huh?”
In the soft blue light of the moss on the walls, Lulune whispered as she analyzed the tracks and the heading the corpses faced. She peered farther down the hall in that direction.
The party set off for the northern pantry as soon as the supporters finished amassing loot.
“So we’re going to the pantry after all…Just has to be a hotbed for newborn monsters. Any thoughts, Sword Princess?”
“I’m not sure…but…”
“But?”
“It’s…probably not
so simple.”
Lulune and Aiz continued their conversation, occasionally interrupted by Asfi, as the party proceeded down the hallway.
They knew their choice to head north was correct after encountering more monster ranks traveling through the hallways. Asfi, wanting to conserve Mind, energy, and supplies, asked Aiz to take care of them each time. It went without saying that the Sword Princess did have a limit and accepted potions from a human supporter, periodically resting to recover her strength.
As they pressed on, the Dungeon’s appearance began to shift.
The bark walls and ceiling became patchy, revealing rough areas of solid reddish rock. It wasn’t long before their route transitioned into what seemed like a cave.
This change was proof their destination was close. A pillar of quartz stood deep inside every pantry. Hungry monsters came from far and wide to drink the nutritious fluid that pooled at the base of the pillars. The Dungeon focused on optimizing energy use around the pantries to provide this food, so the surrounding environment reverted to the most basic form.
What had caused the outbreak?
What was waiting for them at their destination?
Anxiety was starting to affect Lulune and the rest of Hermes Familia. Sensing the tension, Aiz stayed on high alert. The monster presence had all but disappeared, making the Dungeon too quiet. Still, the party pressed forward.
“Wha…?”
That’s when the adventurers saw it.
“A-a wall…?”
“…Is that a plant?”
Something was blocking their path, a looming barricade large enough to plug the hallway.
It was an eerie sight, its strange appearance heightened by the squirming, pulsing movements on its surface. They came to a stop in front of the off-putting green-flesh barrier, unable to advance. The rocky walls of the Dungeon abruptly ended where the green monstrosity began. They were two completely different entities.
It seemed to be alive—plantlike, as someone had whispered earlier. Or maybe a cancerous growth afflicting the Dungeon.
Asfi had led her allies into the Deep Levels, and Aiz had traveled far deeper than this numerous times, but never had any of them laid eyes on something resembling this.
The jittery party talked among themselves, unsure of what to make of the thing.
“…Lulune, are we on the right path?”
“Th-this is it. I picked a direct path to the pantry straight from the map. This shouldn’t be here…but it is.”
Lulune quickly pulled out the chart again to check their position after Asfi asked for confirmation.
As the map carrier, Lulune was the party’s guide. Aiz had been beside her the whole time and could confirm that Lulune had made the correct decision every time they reached a fork in the path. They were exactly where they should be.
The pantry should be just a little farther down this hallway.
Aiz stared up at the sinewy bulwark that barred their path.
“…We’ll check the other routes. Falgar, Thane, make two squads and take the others to investigate. Do not go too far in. Report back the instant you find something.”
On Asfi’s command, the hulking war tiger and an elven man nodded. Extra maps in hand, they each took five adventurers to form small parties and doubled back on the path.
After watching them return to the previous fork in the road, Aiz and the remaining members of Hermes Familia again considered the wall.
The only four adventurers left in this location were Aiz, Lulune, Asfi, and a supporter. No one spoke as they individually investigated their surroundings.
There was nothing out of the ordinary with the exposed rock wall. It seemed less likely the problem originated with the Dungeon itself and more that the fleshy mass blocking the hallway was separate. Aiz decided to go near Lulune, who was visibly shaken as she paced back and forth.
The twenty-fourth floor’s hallways were massive. Closing one off completely meant that the wall had a span of at least ten square meders. It also gave off a putrid stench, reminiscent of rotting flesh.
“Nasty…”
As a chienthrope, Lulune had to plug her nose to calm her stomach.
Aiz ventured closer to the repugnant barrier and slowly reached toward it.
Lulune immediately rushed over to stop her, but Aiz heeded no warnings as her fingers brushed against the wall’s fleshy surface.
It’s alive…
She could feel heat and a slight twitch through the palm of her hand. Eyes and ears hyperalert, muscles ready to react to the slightest inkling of danger, Aiz continued to peer at the meaty surface.
“Asfi, we’re back.”
“What did you find?”
Once the other groups of adventurers had returned from scouting, Aiz rejoined Asfi’s group as they put some distance between themselves and the wall.
From what they’d seen, the other routes into the pantry were also blocked by the same kind of fleshy screen. Most likely, all paths that led into this pantry were now impassible.
It didn’t take long for Asfi to develop her own theory.
“It appears that this outbreak is an Irregular…but it didn’t originate from a sudden influx of monsters born from the Dungeon.”
“Wh-what does that mean?”
Asfi pushed her glasses up against the bridge of her nose when Lulune asked for clarification.
“Hungry monsters gather at pantries on their floor. If, for instance, their path was blocked for some reason…what do you think these starving fellows would do then?”
“Ah…”
“…Travel to a different pantry.”
Aiz answered the question in Lulune’s place, and Asfi nodded.
“The monsters who came to the northern pantry had no choice but to change course and travel south to one of the other pantries. The large flows of monsters that adventurers have encountered over the past few days were not outbreaks but migrations.”
Asfi concluded that creatures from this floor’s northern half, unable to feed at this pantry, were stampeding southward—directly into the path of unlucky adventurers.
With these walls blocking the entrances, an extraordinarily large number of hungry creatures had joined the mass migration across every major pathway on the floor, including the ones adventurers normally used.
The sudden food scarcity was now clearly linked to the outbreak. The party members agreed as Lulune turned around. “Now we know why all the monsters were wandering around…So, what’s on the other side of that wall?”
The unidentified greenish, plantlike boundary was the cause of everything.
The Irregular was right in front of them—whatever was on the other side was not normal, that much was certain.
“…Asfi, what’s your call?”
“…Do we have any other choice but to go in?”
Lulune tucked her tail between her legs after asking her question. Asfi answered with a long sigh.
The chienthrope wasn’t thrilled, either, shoulders drooping as she mumbled under her breath, “Yeah, yeah, I know.”
“But doesn’t that look kinda like a gate…?”
She pointed out a spot on the imposing wall that resembled a flower bud with all the petals turned inward. On closer inspection, it looked more like a mouth.
It was large enough to allow the most fearsome large-category monsters to easily pass through. If an entrance it was, then there was a possibility it would open automatically if they waited long enough, but…their chances were not great.
“It looks like destroying it is our only option.”
Asfi took a long look at the opening as well as the rest of the fleshy wall before making her decision.
“Since it’s probably a plant of some kind, fire magic might do the trick…”
“Shall I cut it down?”
“Please don’t say things like that with a straight face, Sword Princess…”
Aiz had already pulled Desperate halfway out of its sheath. Lulune sent her an
astonished glance over her shoulder.
Asfi took another few moments to consider before saying, “No,” rejecting Aiz’s suggestion.
“This is an opportunity to collect information. I want to see what we can do if we use our Magic. Merrill.”
A prum spellcaster came to the front of the party at Asfi’s call.
Everyone watched as the girl, barely taller than Aiz’s waist, held up a short rod and began her spell. Her pointed hat rocked and swayed.
The skilled caster chanted as a magic circle appeared and expanded. The prum’s voice was soft as a huge fireball blasted from her rod.
The mass of flames collided with the sinewy facade in a thunderous roar, igniting the structure.
An ominous wailing sound similar to a scream filled the air as flaming pieces of the wall scattered. The “gate” was now nothing but a gaping hole, and the mouth of the charred barrier was open.
Asfi made eye contact with each of her allies, who all nodded back. They lined up and faced the entrance.
Aiz and Hermes Familia entered.
“The wall…”
A strange gushing sound alerted the party that the situation was rapidly developing. Lulune looked over her shoulder and gawked as the structure started healing itself.
“In no way are we trapped. We simply need to open another hole on the way out.”
Asfi was quick to put the uneasy minds of her allies at ease and shore up morale. Sure enough, Lulune and the others quickly calmed down. Aiz joined them, everyone scanning their new environment.
The sides, ceiling, and floor of the interior were the same shade of pale green. They couldn’t help but feel they were walking inside something alive.
The odor of rotting flesh had grown thicker after they had burned down the door. Aiz walked near the internal walls.
Desperate in hand, she sliced the green surface open with a quick slash.
It gave way with almost no resistance. On the other side—reddish rock. The same rock face that should be here on the twenty-fourth floor.
Something’s covering the Dungeon…?
Aiz thought it looked as though fleshy wallpaper had been affixed to the labyrinth.
Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? On the Side: Sword Oratoria, Vol. 3 Page 10