Several types of monsters existed on the 1st floor, but aside from Cave Goblins, which roamed the entire floor, they almost never mixed together.
Because monsters of the same species only operated within a rectangular zone with a Water Source as its vertex, and no other monsters spawned within that range—an area called a 'habitat.'
On that note—
"Yuta, what symbol is this?"
"A Mud Doll."
The place we had dropped into was the habitat of 'Mud Dolls.'
Mud Doll.
Translated literally, it meant a doll made of mud, and that was the exact way it looked in reality, too.
Shaped like a human, this monster had squelching mud covering its entire body instead of flesh.
For the record, stones sat where its bones would be.
"How long will it take to reach the first Water Source?"
"Looks like it'll take about five days to a week."
That was the rough profile of the monster we would have to fight for days on end.
"We're in luck."
"Is it a weak monster?"
"Not quite."
For a Level 1 monster, a Mud Doll was fairly tricky.
First of all, thanks to the mud forming its outer shell, it boasted considerable defense against most attacks.
Not only that, because it weighed far more than its size suggested, its weight class was overwhelming, too.
Its height and build were similar to a human's, yet its weight easily topped 200 kg.
"...Doesn't that mean we're unlucky, then?"
However, as befitted a low-level monster, its weakness was clear-cut.
"Groooar...!"
First off, a Mud Doll was absurdly slow.
Spotting us from across the way, a Mud Doll approached—squelch... squelch...—barely managing to take even a single step at a time, as if simply walking were a struggle.
With our current specs, taking a single hit from that thing would leave us near death, but if you didn't get hit, that was that.
"Wait, don't we have to get close to fight it, though?"
"Hunting it isn't hard."
Instead of explaining in words, I raised my weapon and charged.
Spotting me closing in, "Groooaaar!!" the creature cried out gleefully.
WHOOSH!
No sooner had the distance closed than its palm swung out at me.
It was heavy, but just as slow, making it easy to dodge.
Ducking low, I easily dodged the blow and struck its knee with the edge of my shield.
At the same time—CRACK!—a shattering sound rang out, and the Mud Doll's massive body—THUD!—crashed to the ground.
Its stone frame shattered instantly, and the mass of mud spread out beyond recognition.
The Mud Doll's second weakness.
The creature had extremely fragile knees.
"As long as you don't panic, there's nothing difficult about this monster."
"...Oh?"
"Hmm...!"
Was it still hard for them to grasp, though?
My party members just stared this way with wide, startled eyes.
"...Is it really that impressive?"
Come on, didn't they train for a whole week?
Honestly, that wasn't even that hard.
"..."
Soon, I noticed their eyes were looking somewhere else, not at me.
When I looked back, I saw the remains of the Mud Doll, which had returned to nature.
And two Record Sheets lay scattered on the ground.
...What is this?
***
Save for a few very special cases, a single monster never dropped two Record Sheets.
In other words, I had killed two monsters.
Figuring out what had happened wasn't hard.
"It's small. A Cave Goblin, right?"
When I cleared away the Mud Doll's remains, a Cave Goblin crushed underneath was revealed.
It must have been hiding in stealth right behind the thing and gotten squashed flat.
Caught two at once without meaning to, huh.
Well, that roughly explained what had happened.
More importantly—
'Records drop like this?'
Those bizarre odds caught my attention.
The drop rate for a record was normally around 1%.
Meaning you had to kill a hundred monsters for a single sheet to drop.
And that was just simple math; if you were unlucky, you could kill 10,000 monsters and still not see a single sheet drop.
In fact, on our first expedition, we had hunted nearly 200 Goblins over six days, yet only obtained a single Goblin record.
Yet what is this right now?
One Mud Doll, and one Cave Goblin.
Yet there are two records.
And in our very first fight, at that.
'...Were we actually lucky?'
When we dropped onto the outermost edge, I thought my life was as far from lucky as could be.
Well, in any case, having two records drop—especially a Cave Goblin record, when they were hard to hunt in bulk—was a great thing.
"I'll use this one."
A Cave Goblin's Normal Record granted 1 point of Sorcery.
When I tore the white Record Sheet, I felt a formless energy seep into me.
I'd have to cast a magic skill to know for sure, but the effect and casting speed of my magic must have been slightly enhanced.
"As for the Mud Doll's record... Tille, you use it."
The 1 point of Frame granted by the Mud Doll's record went to the Elf.
There was no need to add any special explanation to how I distributed the records.
My party members nodded with looks in their eyes that said, 'I'm sure he has a good reason.'
"Off to a smooth start."
Sure enough, life isn't made of only bad things.
***
Once you succeeded in hunting a monster, you had to take care of two additional tasks.
1. Check for dropped records or items
2. Extract byproducts through dismantling
However, a Mud Doll was an extremely ill-suited monster for carrying out step 2.
True to a monster made entirely of mud and stone, 'dismantling' it was impossible.
Where a Mud Doll died, only the chunks of stone that had formed its frame and the mud that had lost its binding force along with its life and spread out remained.
It had been like that in [Dungeon Log], and what lay before my eyes right now was the exact same.
"There's nothing to take from this monster."
Did that mean you couldn't get any byproducts from a Mud Doll?
If you went hunting with these things as your target, could you not make any money?
"Not quite."
Rummaging through the Mud Doll's remains, I found and pulled out something like a small bead from inside.
"What is that?"
"A Mud Gland."
It was an organ that replenished the mud covering a Mud Doll's body whenever it was lost... Well, there was no need to know all that; what mattered was that this was the Mud Doll's byproduct.
"Oh... You mean this one piece goes for 3 gold, right?"
The gold you got from killing a single one was less than a Goblin's, sure, but in exchange, its tiny size and weight were a huge advantage.
When conducting a long-term expedition like right now, you could make far more profit with these.
Whereas collecting Goblin bones or Twinkle Dog pelts for just ten days resulted in an amount that was practically impossible to carry, you could gather hundreds of Mud Doll Mud Glands without them being much of a burden at all.
'This is why a Mud Doll habitat is so convenient.'
The fights were easy and simple enough that we barely even needed to rest, and the byproducts were small and light enough to carry with ease, letting us move that much faster.
'I should try moving up our schedule a bit.'
On our last expedition, we had traveled a little over 10 km a day, but in this section, we could more than double that without issue.
'If things go well, we can shave off nearly four days.'
Finishing my rough calculations, I passed along our next schedule to my party members.
"Let's move."
***
There are days like that.
Days when everything just goes smoothly.
For instance, before you have even hunted twenty monsters, a record with a mere 1% drop rate drops three more times, letting every single party member except me secure a Mud Doll record in a single day...
"...It's another Record Sheet!"
Now that made four.
For the record, the Mud Dolls we had killed had only just hit fifteen.
"Do these things normally drop this often?"
Not a chance.
The drop rate for a record was definitely around 1%, just as I knew.
I had confirmed the exact same accounts several times in the city, too.
'Then why...'
Why are they dropping like crazy?
Come to think of it, Record Sheets had dropped pretty well during our first expedition, too.
Goblin records had barely dropped at all, sure, but we got a Goblin Elite record from killing just one, didn't we?
And with the Twinkle Dogs, we got four sheets before even killing fifty of them.
'Don't tell me someone here has [Grace]?'
Its exact name was [Grace of the Floors].
One of the rare Constitutions, it granted an extremely high probability modifier on specific floors.
'Doesn't feel quite on that level, though...'
Not only were characters with [Grace of the Floors] vanishingly rare to begin with, if that effect had actually been active, we would have seen ten or more records drop by now, not four.
To say nothing of our last expedition.
'Is it seriously just pure luck?'
It was a bit too excessive for that.
At first I had brushed it off, but when things went this smoothly, it actually started making me a little uneasy.
For starters, I'm someone who's a long way from having luck like this.
"The paper that makes you stronger! Wait, this time it is black paper!"
What was more, what had just dropped was a Special Record Sheet.
The very Record Sheet I needed.
"I'll take this one."
"Are you going to use it, Yuta? What kind of record is it?"
The Mud Doll's Special Record was [Mud Veil].
Just like a Mud Doll, automatically regenerating mud covered your skin.
The problem was that it covered your head and face completely too, plugging up your eyes, nose, and mouth entirely.
"Isn't that... kind of bad?"
Not just kind of—it was complete garbage.
Aside from an Elf geomancer build born with the earth affinity, it was a Special Record that was practically impossible to use.
And even for them, there was no real reason to bother using it.
Naturally, I didn't need this ability either.
Still, there was a way to put even this to use.
'Looks like we'll need to stop by a [Preservation Room], too.'
Tucking the black Record Sheet into my backpack, I checked our route through the Dwarf.
"Hm... Ah, right here."
And amazingly enough, a [Preservation Room] sat squarely along the route we were already scheduled to take.
And not even that far away, at that.
"Somehow, it feels like a lot of luck is following us on this expedition, doesn't it?"
"Definitely."
There was a lot of good news in more ways than one.
And the more that happened—
The vague unease that had been drifting through me was gradually sharpening into near certainty.
"Stay sharp, everyone."
A crisis always tears through happiness and peace without warning when it makes its entrance.
Especially in the labyrinth.
Sure enough.
"Hwaaaagh!"
Suddenly, the Orc let out a scream.
"What is it?!"
"A g-ghost! No! A monster! A new monster has appeared!"
Pointing down a side passage, the Orc sprinted over like a shot and hid behind me, putting his massive build to shame.
Anyway, a new monster? What is he talking about?
A different monster never operated inside another monster's habitat.
Wondering just what this guy had seen to make such a fuss, I turned my head, and the moment I saw the figure approaching from the other side—
"Ah."
—I let out a sigh.
"Guh... haa... P-please save me..."
Approaching... no, crawling toward us was a person—more precisely, a white-furred fox Beastfolk.
Covered head to toe in bright red bloodstains, though.
"...Damn."
Ah, granted, a person covered in blood was a pretty common sight in the labyrinth.
They might have been injured themselves, or gotten monster blood splashed on them.
The problem, however, was that this was the habitat of Mud Dolls, which had no 'blood.'
And that torn, punctured wounds were gashed across the back of that Beastfolk.
For the record, a Mud Doll's attack pattern never left wounds like those.
Which left only two possibilities—
1. They ended up in that state after getting attacked by a Cave Goblin.
For starters, it wasn't this one.
True to being the weakest among Level 1 monsters aside from its stealth, a Cave Goblin stabbed once and waited for its prey to die; it didn't attack repeatedly like that.
Then the answer had to be the second one.
2. They were attacked by Raiders.
The instant I made that judgment, I issued a new order.
"Draw your weapons."
Sure enough, nothing ever goes peacefully in the labyrinth.