Volume 10 Chapter 1 PaRT 5
「Did it, desu!」
While I was thinking that, Miria managed to proc petrification once more. Consider yourself lucky, monster, but it won’t change the fact that you’re going to be killed by my Durandal all the same.
Well, Oyster Shell is a giant clam, so even if Miria managed to petrify it, it was not immediately apparent. Our only indication was that it stopped moving. And since it’s not moving, it’s a clear sign for me that I can start hacking away at it. Once I started doing that, it quickly disappeared after turning into smoke.
「Go ahead and keep it, Vesta.」
「Of course. Thank you very much, master.」
Volley was the only thing that the Boss dropped. I didn’t have a Cook Job equipped, so it didn’t leave any oysters behind.
「Do you have enough Volleys for the time being?」
「Yes, I should still have a hefty amount of them.」
「So we don’t have to go around gathering more of them?」
「No, I believe it should be more than enough to last me for a while.」
Vesta still seems to have a fair amount of Volley left. Now I know that she won’t have to be fore to endure it when she eventually runs out of it. That being said, she should still be careful about how much of them she consumes at once, even if it’s just the beginning.
「Let’s see… yes, I don’t think we’ll need to go around for it anymore.」
For some reason, Roxanne cut into our conversation.
「It would seem so.」
「This time we were lucky enough that there was no people around, but if we’re going to be repeating the Floor Boss battles many times, then we’re sure to bump into some of them eventually.」 Ahh, I see.
She was probably thinking that I was getting worried about how crowded the Waiting Room was going to be if we continued to farm the Floor Boss here on the twenty-second floor? That is exactly why I didn’t want to get involved in any disputes. That, and I also know that Roxanne’s wish is to fight against the enemies on the higher floors.
Should I evaluate it as reliable?
「Well, it’s only been a while since we entered the Labyrinth, and I never heard of any Party made out of commoners that managed to reach the twenty-third floor so quickly. Floors from one to eleven are considered the ones for beginners, and floors from twelfth to twenty second are considered the ones for those who are only a little bit better than beginners. The floors from the twenty-third onwards are considered the ones for intermediate Adventurers, so I wonder if we’re going to keep up our current pace? Personally, I think it might be good for us to challenge the Floor Boss here on the twenty-second floor many times, and if we’re not going to be struggling, then we might as well, go and proceed to the twenty-third floor.」
When I looked back at Sherry, she shared her own theory with us, but I never would have expected that Sherry of all people is going to be in favor of farming the Floor Boss on the twenty-second floor of Quratar’s Labyrinth.
「Let’s do it, desu!」
「I think we’re going to be okay.」 Judging by their responses, these two must have not given this matter much thought.
「That’s right. We should be fine on the twenty-third floor.」
I didn’t think about that either to be honest, but let’s just pretend that I did.
「The monster native to the twenty third-floor of Quratar’s Labyrinth is a Gummi Slime. Even though it uses Earth Magic, it is not resistant to it, and it is also not resistant to any other types of magic.」
Once again, I have received a briefing from Sherry.
「Gummy Slime, huh? Talk about nostalgic.」
「If you have ever fought against them, then you know should know that even if you were to attack them with a sword or a spear, it is quite difficult to pierce them with physical attacks. And if it happens to eat someone and then you attack it with something other than magic, then the person that has been eaten will also receive damage.」
「And the eaten person is going to melt?」
「Yes, that is what happens if you get fully eaten by a Gummi Slime. It must be defeated before it fully digests you if you don’t want to die.」
Gummi Slime was one of the first monsters that I have fought against when I first came to this world and Durandal was my only weapon. If you were to ask me about it now, I still would’ve said that this is a pretty troublesome monster. And now that it is going to appear on the twenty-third floor, it’s definitely going to be stronger than the one I fought before.
「Even if it’s not a monster that appears on the first floor, is it still possible for them to appear outside of the Labyrinth?」
「If they appear on the first floors, then there is a possibility that the monsters might appear near human settlements. However, if there is many people around then they usually don’t try to venture too far from the place of their appearance and they don’t attack people aggressively. The same thing can be said about the monsters from between the twelfth and twenty-second floors. Monsters that are on the twenty-third floor and above can also appear outside of the Labyrinth, and when they do, they can travel across long distances in search of food and can also attack people aggressively.」
「Hou?」
Is that the case?
I do understand that people would not want to live in a place where the Labyrinth would be created and move on, but in that case, how does the Labyrinth that remains in an uninhabitable place feed itself, and how? The answer is obvious. Such Labyrinths would inevitably resort to sending stronger monsters outside of the Labyrinth to attack humans.
The Gumi Slime that I fought against on the way to Vale must have made its way there from somewhere far away. I felt that it was annoying back then, but knowing that its not all that uncommon makes me feel a bit better about it.
「Also, the monsters from the twenty-third floor and upwards are going to start using area of effect magic, dodging which might prove to be difficult, and they probably won’t go down in just one or two hits.」
Sherry spoke some truly ominous words.
Area of effect magic, huh? Well, I am using 「Fire Storm」pretty often, so I guess monsters are going to start doing the same from now on.
And since that is something that even Roxanne might not be able to avoid, then those are terrible news indeed. Also, what did Sherry mean by saying that the floors from the twenty-third onward are considered the ones for intermediate Adventurers? That if we’re not going to be careful and keep our guards up, we’re going to get obliterated?
「Are we going to be okay?」
「If it’s master, then we shouldn’t have any problems.」
「I still have my own worries, but as I said earlier, since we can deal with the Floor Boss on the twenty-second floor just fine, then we should also be able to handle the twenty-third floor.」
「Let’s do it, desu.」
「I think we should be fine.」
If Sherry says that we should be fine, then that’s probably true. We are definitely not going to let ourselves be killed in just one hit, right? And if there is such a possibility, then I feel like there should be more warnings about it.
Not only Sherry, but the Adventurers Guild should also be calling more attention to such matters. For example, they could post something like the mortality rates between the twenty-second and twenty-third floors to call this problem out.
Sherry must have said that because she wanted me to calm down a little and not think about the Labyrinth so much.
Based on my own experiences, the damage that we received from the monsters on the twenty-second floor wasn’t even that fatal. As expected, going up by just one floor shouldn’t mean that the enemies will suddenly be able to kill us in one strike alone.