“Just to be clear, I have absolutely no experience exploring dungeons.”
After everyone entered the dungeon, the group began quietly discussing their situation.
Naturally, Yakumo had no dungeon-exploration experience, and he said so directly.
“Hahaha! Neither do Himmel and I.”
Heiter once again tried to laugh his way past the problem.
“Unfortunately, neither do I.”
Eisen was in the same situation.
Then everyone simultaneously turned toward Frieren.
After all, she was an elf who had lived for an extremely long time.
Surely she’d seen plenty of things?
“Hm?”
“Why is everyone looking at me?”
Frieren tilted her head.
“Just so you know, I spent almost all my time researching magic.”
“I rarely went outside.”
“Staring at me isn’t going to change that.”
“Hahaha!”
“So we’re all the same.”
Himmel scratched the back of his head and laughed.
“That actually makes me feel more relaxed.”
“If we encounter anything seriously dangerous, we can all run away together.”
[Furina: Is this exploration party really going to be okay?! This is completely different from what I imagined!]
In Furina’s imagination, a proper adventuring party exploring a dungeon would have a dependable short member skilled at detecting traps.
A mage would handle magical hazards.
The frontline fighters would hold off enemies.
And the priest would handle healing.
But what exactly was Himmel’s party supposed to be?!
[Yakumo: We’re all beginners, that’s why. I was mentally prepared for this from the start.]
Yakumo really had been prepared.
Everyone here was still an inexperienced rookie.
None of them had much opportunity to explore dungeons before.
Yakumo himself wasn’t particularly frightened because he didn’t fear death.
But not fearing death didn’t mean he couldn’t get caught in traps!
Besides, if he died and respawned, he’d have to run all the way back through the map again.
That would be incredibly annoying.
The dungeon consisted of a long corridor that repeatedly twisted in different directions.
Without a good sense of direction, someone could probably become lost after entering and never find their way back out.
Fortunately, Yakumo had his system map.
Once an area was revealed, he could see the dungeon’s structure.
At the very least, returning to the entrance wasn’t something he needed to worry about.
Before long, the group reached a fork.
“Two paths.”
Frieren observed.
“Pick one.”
“If it’s wrong, we can always come back.”
Eisen’s approach was as straightforward as ever.
“The Goddess isn’t giving me any revelations about this either…”
Heiter held a book in his hands.
It was a sacred scripture carried by priests and served as their most important medium for casting divine magic.
“No.”
“If this is a dungeon, we should naturally explore every route.”
After a moment of thought, Himmel asked everyone for their opinion.
“What if there’s a treasure chest down the other path and we miss it?”
“Still, Himmel…”
Heiter immediately began worrying again.
“If we spend too much time wandering around, get lost, and run out of supplies, we could die in here.”
“I can handle the route.”
Yakumo raised his hand.
“I can remember it.”
“But I can’t provide unlimited supplies.”
“Then we’ll simply explore faster!”
Himmel declared enthusiastically.
He stepped forward.
Click.
A faint sound came from beneath his foot.
Everyone looked down.
One of the floor tiles had clearly sunk downward.
There was absolutely no doubt about it.
Himmel had triggered a trap.
“It… shouldn’t…”
“Maybe the mechanism is so old that it’s broken?”
Himmel himself looked extremely awkward.
He couldn’t decide whether to lift his foot or continue forward.
The dungeon didn’t leave them uncertain for long.
A thunderous rumbling grew louder behind them.
A giant stone sphere nearly large enough to fill the entire corridor came rolling toward them.
And judging by its speed, the force behind it was definitely nothing to laugh at.
“RUN!!!”
Heiter grabbed Eisen beside him, threw the dwarf over his shoulder, and sprinted forward.
Himmel and Frieren followed close behind.
Yakumo attempted to cast Cold Beam, hoping he might freeze the stone sphere in place.
Unfortunately, the ice created by the spell was effortlessly crushed beneath it.
With no other choice, Yakumo ran as well.
“This is exactly why I said we shouldn’t explore some stupid dungeon!”
Heiter screamed while running.
He still had Eisen over his shoulder.
How was this priest capable of carrying someone and still running that fast while yelling?!
“Hahaha!”
“But isn’t this exactly the kind of thing that’s supposed to happen while exploring a dungeon?”
Himmel laughed while sprinting.
“If we keep going forward, there might be another passage.”
“Dungeon traps can’t continue forever.”
“Ah…”
She pitched forward and fell flat onto the ground.
“Frieren!”
Himmel immediately stopped and turned around to pull her up.
“Himmel, keep running!”
Yakumo used Teleport, reversed direction, grabbed Frieren, then Teleported back.
Several more rapid Teleports brought him back alongside the others.
This time, he’d learned his lesson.
He activated Soaring, grabbed Frieren, and floated while keeping pace with the group.
“So that’s a mage’s ability?”
Himmel only looked surprised for a moment.
“I’m jealous.”
“Not every mage can do this.”
Frieren, who no longer needed to run herself, finally had enough breath to speak.
“Yakumo is the only person I’ve ever seen use an ability like this.”
“Also…”
“Could you hold me differently?”
“This is uncomfortable.”
“This is an emergency! Stop worrying about how I’m carrying you!”
Yakumo projected his system map in front of himself.
“Watch the right side ahead!”
“There should be another passage!”
“Let’s duck into it!”
Once Yakumo pointed it out, everyone noticed the branching corridor roughly a hundred meters ahead.
They had already exited the downward spiral passage.
The ground here still sloped slightly downward, which meant the stone sphere wasn’t going to stop.
“All right!”
“Heiter, watch your footing!”
Himmel was a Hero.
A sudden turn like that posed little difficulty for him.
But Heiter was a priest.
His physical abilities weren’t especially impressive.
And he was still carrying Eisen.
“Wait for me!”
Yakumo Teleported forward first and set Frieren down.
Then he returned, grabbed Himmel and Heiter, Teleported several steps forward with them, and shifted sideways into the branching passage.
When Yakumo grabbed Himmel and Heiter, Frieren apparently cast some sort of spell.
Yakumo barely needed any strength to lift them.
“It’s a spell that makes objects float.”
Frieren watched the stone sphere thunder past the intersection.
“Heiter is quite tall, after all.”
“I assumed he’d be heavy.”
“How rude…”
Heiter immediately complained.
“Still…”
“Looks like our misfortune turned into good luck.”
Frieren pointed behind them.
“There’s a treasure chest here.”
A wooden chest sat quietly in the passage, patiently waiting to be opened.