After lunch, when I tried to talk to El, Naga told me to take a nap.
Indeed, although I woke up in the middle of the night due to magic depletion, staying up all night was tough.
I followed her advice and took a short nap.
I think it was about 30 minutes. However, the nap worked dramatically, and my sleepiness was largely gone.
From here, we would finally explore the third floor. The monsters on this floor should be Silent Panthers and Boars. I would rely on Ashera’s eyes.
While pulling the rickshaw, I talked with El about what Ao had mentioned earlier.
“El, it seems your shield can block the Earth Dragon’s breath.”
“It seems so…”
“What’s wrong?”
“Brother. About what we talked about earlier… should we face the Earth Dragon with just the two of us, or at most, with Ashera as the third?”
The moment El spoke, a murderous aura briefly rose from Mother, Naga, and Ashera.
“El. It seems you’ve grown to the point where you worry about us, and Mother is so, so happy…”
Mother… If you’re happy, it would be helpful if you could put away that anger…
“I’m sorry. Mother, Naga. But I don’t have the confidence to protect everyone… My shield can only protect one person… Even if I try my best, the most I can protect is two people…”
I thought El might be being arrogant, but it seemed that, faced with attacks that could only be blocked by his own shield, he was making a calm and rational proposal.
The murderous aura from Mother and Naga gradually faded.
“Ha. Let’s discuss this another time. Naga, is that fine with you too?”
“Yes. I thought for a moment I had been underestimated. Elphas, I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t convey it properly…”
Naga whispered softly, ‘Elphas-kun is also possible,’ but I didn’t hear anything.
I looked around again, and the third layer was just like the previous ones, with similar caves stretching out. Without the stairs, it would be hard to tell the difference between layers just by the scenery.
I wondered if the scenery changed in the deeper layers… Speaking of scenery, this brightness.
The walls, floor, and ceiling of the labyrinth themselves faintly emitted light and were luminous. Why they shone, the principle behind it, it seemed all of it remained a mystery.
And I noticed last night, it seemed to be synchronized with the outside time, so when it became night outside, it also became dark inside the labyrinth.
Could what Ao said before, ‘The labyrinth is the vent of the miasma from the mana stream,’ be related to this?
There were so many things I didn’t understand, but for now, I thought I’d do what I could do.
Also, from the fourth level onward, traps should finally appear. Regarding traps, I heard from Naga that there are four types: poison, paralysis, sleep, pitfall, and teleportation.
Actually, I was a little curious about traps and asked Ao in advance. I couldn’t help but wonder who makes what kind of traps and how.
Ao was impressive. He roughly explained to me everything from the cause of trap generation to the process of their creation.
First, the cause of trap appearance is mist, which is a mixture of negative emotions emitted by people and magical power.
Among negative emotions, traps apparently mainly originate from ‘fear.’ Traps are created based on the mind thinking, ‘If poison comes out here… paralysis… a pitfall…’
It wasn’t the case now, but for example, if I spread a rumor about a ‘rockfall trap,’ a new ‘rockfall trap’ might appear somewhere in the labyrinth.
Of course, I planned to keep venturing for more magic mist stones, so I had no intention of spreading such rumors.
The rest is just the process, but it also involves the human heart.
Traps are created in places where one thinks, ‘I don’t want a trap here.’ At first, a small space forms in the ground or within the walls, and it gradually grows bigger. If it’s in the ground, by this point a pitfall trap is already complete.
Poison, paralysis, and sleep traps are completed when poison gas or paralysis gas accumulates further.
It seems that wall traps are triggered by human magical power, so they never activate when a monster passes through.
Among traps, only teleport traps occur slightly differently.
It seems that the magic circle for teleportation gradually emerges on the ground.
It apparently takes a considerable amount of time to surface, so in popular labyrinths, it is common for teleport traps to be discovered before they are completed.
If adventurers find a magic circle that is in the process of surfacing, it is an unspoken rule to always destroy it.
The rest is about ‘how to find traps,’ but when I asked Ao, he just dismissed it with ‘I don’t know.’
When I asked Naga, she said the basic method is just to pay attention to the ground and walls; there really isn’t any other way to deal with them.
However, everyone in this party could use Heal and Antipoison, and except for Mother, also Antiparalysis.
Poison, paralysis, and sleep traps aren’t instantly fatal, so honestly, it seemed like we didn’t worry about them much.
In short, other than teleport traps, it was like saying ‘even if it hits us, we can just cure it, so no problem’…
That was the brain-muscle logic… By the way, ‘brain-muscle’ refers to people whose thinking seems as if their brains are made entirely of muscles.
At this point, traps… well, let’s not think too deeply about them…
The monsters on the third floor were weak, and by evening we reached the stairs down to the fourth floor.
“Well then, shall we make a camp immediately after descending here? The Sly Apes that come out from the 4th layer are quite nasty monsters, so stay alert.”
“””Yes.”””
Mother watched us respond with that creepy grin… I only had a bad feeling.
As we prepared to eat dinner a little early, one Sly Ape started observing us from a distance right away.
When we showed any sign of approaching to defeat it, it immediately ran away. But before we knew it, it was watching us again from afar.
Extremely annoying. But dealing with it felt stupid, so we ignored it, and before we knew it, a group of about 10 had formed and launched a surprise attack.
And they even used the dead branches we had gathered for firewood as clubs.
El, Ashera, and I defeated them, but our campsite ended up a sea of blood with the bodies of the Sly Apes.
We couldn’t just sleep among the monster corpses, so we reluctantly moved the campsite about 100 meters.
At this point, we had a rather bad feeling, but Naga kept a composed face and Mother just had a sly smile.
Just as we thought moving the campsite was finally over, two new Sly Apes were watching us from a distance…
El, Ashera, and I furrowed our brows and glared at the Sly Apes as if to defeat them, but they ran away in a flash.
If we chased them, it wouldn’t be impossible to defeat them, but we would become completely isolated.
When starting the labyrinth exploration, the thing Naga strictly told us was ‘no solo actions.’
One person’s selfish decision could lead to a crisis for the whole party.
We returned to the campsite with veins bulging in anger.
Eating the usual black bread and dried meat, even though we were in the labyrinth, a slightly relaxed time flowed.
However, having this meal continue forever would be bad. What was bad was that my motivation was bad.
If I kept eating something like this three times a day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, I was sure I’d start thinking I didn’t want to go into the labyrinth…
Delicious preserved food… I’d definitely bring dried fruits, and sausages… I’d heard they originally last a long time as preserved food. Then there were dried foods… even if it was dried fish, it’d be fine if I roasted it over a campfire.
In the future, I also wanted to try dried noodles.
Before the next exploration, I absolutely had to prepare dried fruits and dried fish. Absolutely! If possible, maybe some jam too…
I vowed in my heart to improve my meals during labyrinth exploration.
After a while, it was time to sleep. Normally it would be too early, but since we took turns keeping watch, the sleep time was set a bit longer.
The watch order started with Ashera and Naga. Next was El and Mom, and last was me.
For some reason, it seemed like everyone thought I could manage on my own, and Ashera and El each had Naga and my mother as guardians assigned to them.
About an hour after falling asleep, Naga woke me up.
“What’s the matter…?”
Half asleep, I spoke, and Naga was on alert, scanning the surroundings.
“It’s an enemy attack. Two people won’t be enough. Fight back.”
I immediately looked around and saw a group of about fifteen Sly Apes surrounding us.
“Y-You damn apes… attacking my peaceful sleep… unforgivable!”
After being so irritated at noon, they even attacked me while I was sleeping…
El, Ashera, and I surged with killing intent like actual demons and charged into the group of Sly Apes.
I aimed at the nearest Sly Ape. I ignited the Vernier and, as we passed each other, sliced the Sly Ape in half with my magic weapon (greatsword)… one down first.
Then I ignited the Vernier at the nearest Sly Ape again. This time, with the momentum, I smashed its head with a knee strike. While I was at it, I threw my right dagger at the neighboring damn monkey. It sprouted a dagger from its forehead and slowly fell down.
I used gravitational magic to return the dagger and searched for the next damn monkey, but as they had escaped, there were none nearby…
“El, Ashera, are you alright?”
“Yes, brother.”
“I’m okay.”
“How many have you defeated?”
“I’ve defeated two.”
“I also defeated two…”
“I see. Together with my three, that makes seven…”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“When I first looked, there should have been seventeen.”
‘Less than half…’
‘Brother. I’ve come to really hate that monkey.’
‘Me too… when I find it…’
‘Same here. Those damn monkeys. I’ll definitely kill them.’
When we returned to the camp, Naga had a tired look and gave a wry smile. As for Mother, she was still sleeping, surprisingly deep in sleep.
Seeing her drooling and muttering in her sleep, we shared a wry smile and slumped our shoulders.
From there until morning, there were no attacks by those damn monkeys. However, one to three Sly Apes were constantly wandering around.
Since it was annoying, I fired Wind Bullets at them several times, and they immediately ran off, but before long, they were wandering around again.
While having breakfast, I asked Naga.
“Ms. Naga, how long are we going to camp here?”
Ms. Naga gave a wry smile as she looked over us.
“Until I can judge that there is no problem, I suppose.”
For now, it seemed Ms. Naga had no intention of moving from here.
I wasn’t sure if I understood the meaning of this camping, or maybe I kind of did…
But if Ms. Naga said so, it must be necessary.
El and Ashera also had somewhat uncertain expressions.
I didn’t know how many more days we’d be camping here, but I thought I’d do what I could.
I also intended to continue my ultra-vibration training whenever I found the chance.
We don’t use ads!
If you enjoyed our translation, please consider buying us a cup…
Thanks!!!
Become a Patron!
We don’t use ads!
If you enjoyed our translation, please consider buying us a cup…
Thanks!!!
Become a Patron!