There was a monster cooking right in front of her, and the food actually looked delicious.
Adi Varma, an adventurer of the Ganesha Familia standing just one step short of Level 3, was in that moment struck by the greatest shock she had known since becoming an adventurer.
Ever since reaching Level 2, the upper floors had held no danger for her, and they had become nothing more than a quick stop on her way down and back.
It had been a long time since she had paid the upper floors any attention at all.
The only reason she had come here to investigate today was that she had heard at the Guild about a strange rash of incidents lately, rookie adventurers on the upper floors falling into abnormal states of unconsciousness.
There had been no fatalities, but every single victim had, without exception, been robbed of half the magic stones and part of the gear they carried.
Wondering whether this might be the work of some hidden faction that had quietly slipped into the Dungeon, and wanting to ease the burden on her elder sister, who served as the Familia’s captain, Adi took it upon herself to fulfill her duty as one of the city’s guardians.
Without a word to her Familia companions or to the young ladies of justice she was on good terms with, she slipped into the upper floors alone to look into the matter.
And so, having deliberately masked her presence, she had barely arrived on the third floor when she witnessed the scene before her with her own eyes, the true face of the [abnormal situation] now unfolding on the upper floors: A special Goblin had appeared here.
Its features were clearly different from those of an ordinary Goblin.
Its practiced movements looked like those of an adventurer who had accumulated real experience, and it possessed the cunning to lay traps that exploited the nature of monsters.
On top of all that, it even bore the traits of an Enhanced Species, one that knew to devour magic stones to strengthen its own power.
From the shadows, Adi watched with her own eyes as an adventurer graced with the blessing of the gods was struck down in an instant, before she could so much as trade a single blow.
“If Goblins like this one were to be everywhere, the upper floors would probably become a nightmare for rookie adventurers before long, wouldn’t they?” The thought made Adi’s head ache.
She had never once heard of a Goblin, that weak little monster found only on floors one through five, ever producing a special individual like this.
Within the Dungeon, monsters preying on one another was rare, but not unheard of.
According to her sister Shakti, in the deep floors the monsters devoured one another all the time, growing stronger by consuming each other’s magic stones.
That was the fundamental difference that set the deep floors apart from the ones above.
If such a phenomenon were to occur among the Goblins of the upper floors…
just imagining it filled her with dread.
“…” Adi drew a deep breath, her fingers already reaching for the beloved sword at her waist.
There was no doubt about it.
This monster was dangerous.
In all of Orario, she had never heard another adventurer speak of a monster this unusual.
If it were left alone, if it were not eliminated here and now, it would surely become an enormous threat down the line.
It would be fine.
Among Goblins it was certainly strong, and in a straight fight it likely would not lose to a mid-tier Level 1 adventurer.
But she was Level 2, a high-tier adventurer who had left the upper floors behind, passed through the middle floors, and made the lower floors her main hunting grounds alongside her Familia companions.
No matter how abnormal it was, it was still only a Goblin.
If she acted now, she could at least prevent any more victims.
Adi drew her weapon without a sound and was about to move, and then what happened next left her stunned: The Goblin did nothing further to harm the fallen female adventurer.
It simply picked up the backpack that held her magic stones, tore it open, scattered the stones inside, and then did nothing more.
It even produced a pile of lumber from who-knows-where and, right there on the spot, began a bizarre ritual of rubbing wood together to make fire.
The monsters drawn in by the commotion and the magic stones during all this were, one after another, knocked out cold by a frying pan the creature pulled from who-knows-where.
Then this Goblin, apparently in a splendid mood, began humming some nameless tune while it set to work on the bodies of the monsters whose magic stones it had not stripped away.
Across that face, so like an ordinary Goblin’s and yet so utterly unlike it, rose the sly grin that only an intelligent creature could ever wear.
This strange event, which clearly could no longer be described as an abnormal state, made her slide her weapon back into its sheath.
The alarm that had first filled her eyes was tucked away clean, right along with the returning blade.
Stepping out from the corner, Adi’s eyes now held nothing but plain, visible astonishment.
Driven by overwhelming curiosity, she finally could not stop herself from speaking up.
… A Level 2 at her peak, or a Level 3 adventurer, perhaps?
A high-tier adventurer who could close in on him from that distance was, at the very least, no first-tier small fry, surely?
Tucking the frying pan, still fragrant with the aroma of roasted meat, into the wall, and letting the Mother Goddess who watched over him stow away his weapon, Artorias now found himself thoroughly troubled as well.
I really don’t want to fight a high-tier adventurer like this.
It was precisely because he hated running into this kind of trouble that he had never once dealt an adventurer a killing blow.
Beyond the fact that, having once been human himself, harming or killing people who didn’t seem like bad sorts weighed on his conscience, there was a more concrete, practical factor: Getting injured while exploring the Dungeon was routine business among adventurers, but if someone actually died, it would be a headache in every sense of the word.
The anime had described the upper floors quite simply, but from the experience he’d gained across the many games he’d played before, he understood one thing for certain.
Games that stuck a first-encounter-kill trash mob with no consideration for the player in the starting village, or that exploited terrain to tuck monsters behind doors just to torment the player, were exceedingly rare.
And besides, DanMachi itself was a proper Japanese-style Western-fantasy world with a strict hierarchy of levels.
Without a protagonist-level rare cheat or protagonist-level stats, punching above your level to overturn the order was very nearly an impossible feat.
Under those conditions, if Level 1 rookie adventurers kept dying on floors one through five, where death reports almost never appeared, then even setting aside the possibility of a high-tier adventurer from their Familia launching an investigation, at the very least, once such cases grew common, the Guild that provided support to adventurers might well require low-tier adventurers to explore collectively, in [parties], as much as possible.
That would place a serious restriction on him, whose adventurer-combat tactics revolved mainly around ambush, and his extra channels for acquiring magic stones would tighten up too.
So he did his best to avoid causing deaths, and he even deliberately protected the greenhorn adventurers on his floor when they were swarmed by monsters.
Artorias truly hadn’t imagined a high-tier adventurer would notice him under circumstances like these.
His luck really was terrible, wasn’t it?
Just as he was weighing whether to find a chance to slip away and run, or simply drop a life at HP-1 and then bolt for the spawn point to put on a little Goblin play-dead act, “Mister Goblin, why don’t we have a proper talk?” The girl, who had returned her blade to its sheath, gave her own cheeks a firm slap, drew a deep breath, and then, smiling, Adi extended her hand toward the already-resigned Artorias.