«
[You have entered the Pilgrim's Path, on the third floor].
On the afternoon of the ninth day, after searching the northernmost part of the Land of the Dead for more than a day, we found a portal and reached the third floor.
...Next time, I won't go in without a scout.
I figured if we took the route to the Land of the Dead, we could reach the third floor just the two of us, but the lack of a scout provides a greater drawback. If we hadn't secretly followed a group of scouts passing by, we'd still be wandering around.
"Ugh, I feel bad every time I eat here."
Anyway, after such hardships, we reached the Jet Black Estuary. This was the starting point for taking the route through the Land of the Dead, a landscape characterized by shallow streams flowing in dozens of directions. Oh, and the sewer smell was a bonus.
"Let's go, then."
Since there were no other scouts, we continued using the compass to move northeast. As we did so, we quickly reached a dead end. In other words, we now had to wade through that black river and cross it.
"Can't you just take me?"
Tsk, and let you move around comfortably?
"...Just this eleven."
"Wow! Really? Thank you."
I hoisted Missha onto my shoulder and crossed the river. It was about 5 meters wide and came up to just below my knees. After carefully crossing so we wouldn't fall, the wet ground stretched out before us like a road. However, just as I was about to move on, as if following the sound of our crossing, a monster crept out stealthily.
«Gereuk! Gereuk! Gel, gel, gel!
"Bjorn, that's the Frogman over there."
This level 8 monster walked on two legs, resembling a frog. It used something like a harpoon as a weapon. Its small size might have made it seem comical, but its great agility caught many explorers off guard, resulting in their instant demise. Its abilities were also rather troubled.
How annoying.
These guys weren't compatible with me. My mace had enough power to blow a Death Demon's head off in one hit, but it was pointless if it couldn't hit anything.
Voom!
The Frogman moved out of the air and jumped again to dodge my mace. I immediately lunged and struct him with my shield, but it did nothing.
[The attack failed due to the rotten slime.]
The shield made contact with his body, but instead of emitting a dull thud, the Frogman just slid away.
"Ghell-Ghell!"
Are you having fun? Damn.
These guys had an absolute evasion fix for blunt weapons, so to me they were difficult enemies regardless of their rank. However, since Missha was there, there were no problems.
«Hello! Avoid this!» Missha, who had been laughing at the Frog Man playing with me, pulled out her gun and began a zealous sword dance.
«Geruk!» The frogmen came with considerable evasion compensation even for swords, but our swordswoman was of the freezing type. «Geg?!» It was not enough for his thigh to be cut off, but the lower part of his body also froze.
Fall.
The bastard frog who had been running indiscriminately collapsed.
«Missha, wait!»
«Hey?»
«I will do it.» After calling Missha, who was trying to kill him, I finished him off with my mace.
Whack!
Ugh, that relieved some of the stress.
It was normal to catch this guy with magic, but since the level difference was so great the battle was not that difficult.
«Ghell-Ghell!»
«Gereuk! Gereuk!»
Catching the frogmen like this, we continue moving.
Checking the time, 22:57, I slowly began to look for a place to camp. Partly it was because of fatigue, but in this place they also forced you to take breaks at fixed times.
«Bjorn, the water is rising».
«I'm already looking for her so stop complaining».
After exploring the surroundings for about 30 minutes, a resting point appeared. Unlike the gloomy estuary, the reddish mounds of earth were soft and not soggy. As if all the surrounding explorers had gathered, there were already about 30 people there.
The innermost place will already be occupied, since we are late.
Reluctantly, we settled by the water, where the smell of the gutter reached us directly. The ground was not wet, so the water would not reach here. As I dried my wet legs before laying out the blankets, the water level in the river began to rise rapidly. It was midnight, so I wouldn't go up anymore. This state would last the next six hours, so I put Missha to bed first. Since there were a lot of people, some teams didn't stand guard and everyone took a break, but you never knew.
Since we even ran into a Hans a few days ago, we should be careful.
I rummaged through my backpack, filling my stomach with snacks.
«Hahaha! Cheer up, my friend! They say that big oaks fell with small blows!».
«But... as you know, she is...».
«Damn, can't you see people are trying to sleep?».
«Aha! Sorry! I'll be careful!»
I heard a familiar voice from afar. I guess she hadn't fallen asleep yet, because Missha sat up, still wrapped in a blanket. «That's Hikurod's voice...»
Seeing that she thought the same, I didn't think I heard it wrong. Huh, what kind of coincidence was this?
It was not common to meet someone you knew in the maze. First of all, each floor was incredibly wide, and due to the darkness inside the maze, even if you turned on a light, visibility was less than 10 meters. Sometimes a clan would split into several groups and go up the floors deciding where and when to meet.
And to think it was really them.
Surprisingly, the owner of the voice was actually the dwarf. Next to him were Dwalkie and Rotmiller.
«Hikurrrod? It's you?»
«...Missha? Bjorn? That?! Why are you here!?»
«Wow, it's true that our team was connected by destiny!»
What were the chances of going separately without any promises and meeting again by chance?
«What about the commission? Didn't you go do that? What happened?» After taking a moment to marvel at the astonishing coincidence, Hikurod posed a question.
It must have been strange, because we were the ones who entered the labyrinth separately. I told him the excuse I had prepared. «Ah, we're done».
«Finished?»
«They had businesses on the first floor. When the maze closed, the client returned to the city».
«Ooh, did they?» Apparently that was reason enough because the dwarf nodded without further hesitation.
Now it was our turn to ask questions. «Why are you here? Didn't you say you'd only be on the second floor?».
As far as I knew, these three were supposed to do a simple fundraising assignment in the Desert of Rocks. Why was it the third floor, and curiously the Black Jet Estuary connected to the Land of the Dead, where they were located?
«Ah, that's because the inner core of the Stone Golem came out earlier than expected. We came to complete the other request I prepared just in case».
Listening to him, his reason also made sense, but I asked him why he hadn't told us beforehand if he was ready.
«Hahaha! Then you would have stopped us from doing it!».
Was true. The combination of a tank, a mage, and an explorer was quite unbalanced. Although that wasn't something we should say as a tank and melee combo.
«...So what is your request?»
«It's a collection request again. All we have to do is get two eyes from the Frogman Sorcerer. Since you're here, would you like to join us?»
«How much is the final payment?»
«Two million stones. Of course, if you two join together, the final payment will be divided exactly into five equal parts.»
A payment of 400,000 stones per person was not bad, and the sale of the other byproducts apart from the eyeballs would increase it even further. Of course, since the target was no ordinary Frogman, but a Frogman Sorcerer, the question remained whether the commission could be achieved or not. That depended on luck.
«I will do it».
After meeting Hans, I was worried about the idea of just the two of them turning around, so I accepted. After all, we'd both do nothing but hunt frogmen anyway. If the commission ended soon it might suggest that we all go up to the fourth floor together.
«Haha, then go to sleep. If we talk more I'm afraid they'll stab us».
The glances of other teams taking a break continued so we stopped chatting and went to rest.
Thanks to that, I will be able to sleep for five hours.
This was the advantage of large numbers. On-call time was shorter and sleep time increased.
After that, time passed. When the morning of the 10th
the day was clear, the depth of the water dropped and we left the resting point. Wandering around, we focused our attention on hunting.
Having an explorer is definitely ideal.
The explorer was a position that raised the quality of life of the labyrinth.
«If you go that way, there will be a river. Come this way». As if he had memorized all the terrain, Rotmiller guided us along the optimal route. Although we had been wandering around for so long, we didn't go through the water more than three times.
«Hmm, another raid...»
After defeating a sorcerer in four hours, we licked our lips. The body disappeared without a trace. This was the drawback of a collection request. If you used Distortion magic on a monster, you could acquire its corpse intact with an extremely low probability, but it would not drop an essence or a mana stone.
Ugh, I'm already lost thinking about the manual work I'll have to do in the future.
As you got into the second half of the game, there were more things that required monster byproducts: equipment, consumables, etc. For example, the Trace of the Soul. Until phase five you could get it with money, but from there you had to collect the ingredients yourself.
...Let's think about this later. As long as I have money, I can get it on the exchange or order it as a request.
Anyway, as much as the movement became easier, the battles also became easier, between Rotmiller's arrows, Dwalkie's magic, and Missha's ice blades.
«...I've been wanting to ask, but how did this happen?» Looking at the frozen Frogman, Rotmiller expressed his doubts, but this was not a problem either. Cold Condensation and Crushing Ice were not really obvious abilities.
«Oh that? My Spiritual Beast evolved». Missha answered naturally with the answer she had prepared for him beforehand.
«Oh, really? At this rate, you could advance to level 6».
«Miss Karlstein! Congratulations!»
Everyone knew that Missha had signed a contract with an ice-type Spiritual Beast, so no one doubted it. No, it was natural since they wouldn't think it was a lie in the first place.
Every time I do this, my conscience is stabbed.
But what could I do? I had to accept it. It was the fate of those who lived as evil spirits.
«Rotmiller, the water seems to be rising... okay?»
«Don't worry, the safe zone is next to us».
Soon it was time for the 10th
day will come to an end. The water rose little by little, but thanks to the fact that Rotmiller had memorized all the nearby terrain, we held out until the end and went camping after the hunt. The same thing happened for two more days, and soon the morning of the 13th arrived.
«Uh...»
«This is good? It's done, right?»
«It seems so.» As soon as we resumed our exploration, we hunted down the sorcerer. An arrow clearly pierced his neck, but the corpse did not disappear.
«With Miss Karlstein here, luck is definitely on our side!»
«Haha, he's blind. The way I see it, this is thanks to Bjorn, not Missha. That guy is always lucky».
Ignoring Dwalkie and Hikurod's comments, we obtained the sorcerer's corpse in just two days. Hmm, maybe it was too early to say it had been obtained.
«Uhm, but what should we do with this?»
«E-wait a minute. I'll use magic on him». First, Dwalkie used Preservation magic to prevent the corpse from decomposing, but that was it. It wasn't like we could put the entire body in a bag.
«Missha, since you use a knife you must be good at things like this, right?»
«What are you talking about, dwarf? I've never done anything like this before! Shouldn't you? The Stone Golem was also your commission».
«B-well... the Stone Golem was just a matter of bringing out the inner core...»
Even just to remove the eyeballs instead of the other byproducts, it was necessary to dismantle the body. None of us had experience in that, except the hardened worker Rotmiller.
«Get out of the way. I will do it». Soon after, Rotmiller sighed and deftly dismembered the witcher's body with a carving knife. He apparently did this often while working as part of a collection team in the past.
«Unsurprisingly, Rotmiller, you are the best!»
«Ohh, I ag-ugh, I'm going to look elsewhere for a while...»
After about 30 minutes, under Rotmiller's skillful hand, the sorcerer's body was shredded into muscles, blood, bones, and internal organs and placed in a box.
«So what do we do now?» Missha asked. The third floor Pilgrim's Way closed after the 15th.
In other words, there were still three days left.
I spoke as if I had been waiting for someone to ask. «Looks like the petition is over, how about we go to the fourth floor?»
«Um, right... It's been a long time since the whole team got together, so it's a shame to only finish it on the third floor».
«Rotmiller, what do you think? Do you think you'll be able to get to the fourth floor on time?»
Rotmiller closed his eyes as if he needed time. Crossing several areas in three days and reaching the portal in the heart of the Witch's Forest must have required time to think. «It's tight, but I think it's possible».
It was removed fascinating. Originally, I planned to break through the rift, kill the monsters, and return to the city.
As expected, things never go according to plan.
Somehow, I ended up going to the fourth floor.
***
The three-day journey that followed was tougher than expected. First, our sleep was drastically reduced, and we spent the rest of our time just moving. We even had to walk briskly the entire way, so as the days went by, everyone became extremely tired. However, the goal remained achievable.
[You have entered a special area. Field Effect - The Witch's Forest is granted.]
This was my third time passing through the Witch's Wood. The first time I arrived, Missha and I were stranded and went through all sorts of hardships, but as long as Rotmiller was here, there was nothing to fear.
"Everyone, follow me."
Since there had been an incident last time, we had our bodies together with a rope and ran quickly through the woods. How long passed? There were just over three hours left before the third floor closed.
"You did well, Rotmiller."
We stood before a massive tower located in the heart of the Witches' Forest. A colorful portal stood before a huge door that seemed to be the entrance.
"Now, let's go in!"
We waited for it to change color just in case and went in at the same time.
"Sir?!" I heard a faint, familiar voice from afar.