Early the next morning, Fujimaru Ritsuka left the Familia residence and headed to the Dungeon to farm excelia and magic stones.
Ryuu did not accompany him.
As promised, she returned to work at the Hostess of Fertility.
She had missed an entire day of work yesterday and needed to make up for it.
Mama Mia was a kind person, but she remained serious and strict about work.
She had put tremendous effort into running the Hostess of Fertility, so Ryuu needed to work especially hard today.
Before they parted, however, Ryuu insisted on preparing a lunch box for Ritsuka to eat inside the Dungeon.
Considering how she had previously reduced a sandwich to charcoal, along with her almost conceptual inability to cook, Ritsuka had little hope for the meal.
Still, he accepted the box to reassure her.
He would discover what kind of surprise awaited him when lunchtime arrived.
After entering the Dungeon, Ritsuka wasted no time fighting monsters on Floors One through Twelve.
His previous visit had merely been a test.
Since it was his first time inside, he naturally wanted to gauge the Dungeon’s difficulty.
His conclusion was simple.
Not a single monster in the Upper Floors could survive a clone enhanced by Chen Gong’s Noble Phantasm.
Even a clone containing only five percent of his magical energy could blow all of them apart.
Under those circumstances, spending magical energy on them offered terrible returns.
Ritsuka activated Hassan of the Hundred Faces’ Presence Concealment and melted into the Dungeon’s shadows.
He avoided the low-level monsters without being noticed and quickly crossed the twelve floors he had mapped on his first day.
Soon, he arrived on the Thirteenth Floor.
[The Twelfth Floor has been cleared.
Three Saint Quartz obtained.] The system notification appeared the moment he entered, but Ritsuka paid it little attention.
The scenery before him had already captured his gaze.
Enormous rock walls surrounded gray-white ground, while deep shadows filled every corner.
Compared with the simple caverns above, this place finally resembled a true labyrinth rather than an ordinary underground cave.
“So this is the Cave Labyrinth.” Ritsuka rested one hand on his hip and looked around.
The Dungeon possessed different characteristics depending on the floor.
Floors One through Five were basic caverns.
They looked little different from ordinary caves, and their overall area was relatively small.
The later floors gradually expanded, but they still followed the same cavernous design without changing significantly.
Beginning on the Tenth Floor, however, the environment changed dramatically.
Floors Ten through Twelve served as the threshold separating the Upper and Middle Floors and contained areas shrouded in mist.
The Twelfth Floor possessed far more traps.
Adventurers who survived both those traps and the surrounding monsters could finally reach the Thirteenth Floor.
From this point onward, the Dungeon belonged to Level Two adventurers.
Hellhounds, Lizardmen, and the infamous Minotaurs began appearing here.
These monsters were significantly stronger than those above and were all considered dangerous opponents.
Ordinary Level One adventurers had no chance of handling them alone.
In exchange, their magic stones were also far superior to those dropped in the Upper Floors.
“Now, let’s see what—hm?” Just as Ritsuka prepared to search for monsters, he turned toward the shadows in a nearby corner.
A Lizardman was staring coldly at him.
The moment it realized it had been discovered, it launched itself toward Ritsuka.
Ritsuka raised one hand and materialized a red longbow from magical energy.
He nocked an arrow, drew the string, and fired at the airborne Lizardman.
The arrow struck its head like a large-caliber sniper round, piercing through its skull and blasting the entire upper half apart.
The Lizardman’s body crashed to the ground in front of Ritsuka.
Its limbs twitched briefly before becoming completely still.
Ritsuka did not immediately approach to retrieve the magic stone.
He carefully examined the surrounding ground first, ensuring he had not stepped near any traps.
“It must have found me through my scent.” Lizards possessed chemoreception and could locate enemies through odors carried in the air.
Even with Presence Concealment active, Ritsuka could still be discovered by smell.
That was a physical problem the skill could not prevent.
“These monsters are much more capable than the ones above.” Ritsuka looked down at the Lizardman’s corpse and began thinking.
“If even a Lizardman can find me this way, won’t a Hellhound also detect me with its nose?” The moment he finished speaking, a noise came from around a distant corner.
Ritsuka glanced over.
Thanks to the Great Hero’s Clairvoyance, he clearly saw a Hellhound staring at him from behind the bend, its two eyes glowing crimson.
“So it really does have a dog’s nose.” Even while complaining, Ritsuka raised his bow and nocked another arrow.
The moment the Hellhound charged around the corner, he released it.
The powerful arrow pierced straight through the Hellhound’s skull and blew its head apart.
Its charge ended halfway as the body collapsed and slid across the ground.
It stopped directly in front of Ritsuka, lying opposite the Lizardman’s corpse.
The Great Hero’s power was truly terrifying!
Ritsuka dismissed his longbow and examined the two bodies.
“It seems Presence Concealment will be much less effective down here.” Hassan’s Presence Concealment could hide him so thoroughly that even mages struggled to detect him.
However, it had ultimately been developed for hiding from people.
One monster sensed chemical traces in the air, while the other simply followed his scent.
There was little the skill could do against that.
Unlike the monsters Ritsuka had blown into fragments in the Upper Floors, these two still had intact corpses because he had killed them with arrows.
His earlier explosions had completely destroyed nearly every monster, leaving no possibility of preserving their bodies.
Inside the Dungeon, a dead monster would not immediately disappear as long as its body remained intact and its magic stone had not been damaged.
After some time, the Dungeon would reclaim the corpse by reducing it to ash.
Alternatively, adventurers could manually remove its magic stone, causing the body to immediately crumble once it lost its magical support.
Monsters could also leave behind various materials.
Those drops were vital ingredients used by Orario’s smiths and alchemists to forge equipment and brew potions.
Now, they would also serve as essential materials for Ritsuka’s Mystic Codes!
Ritsuka materialized one of Hassan’s daggers and cut open the Hellhound’s body.
After he extracted the magic stone, the corpse crumbled into ash.
It left behind fire-resistant Hellhound fur and a Hellhound heart that could be used to create magical amplification potions.
The Lizardman left nothing after its magic stone was removed.
Ritsuka stared at the materials before him, particularly the bloody Hellhound heart, and frowned slightly.
“Now I understand why supporters exist.” …