Chapter 169 - Burning (1)

The Otherworld beyond the mirror. A kind of hidden field, like Larukaz' Maze.

The difficulty here was fairly high immediately after entering. Monsters came pouring out right from the start, after all.

“Bjorn! More incoming!!”

Another pack of monsters surged toward us almost before our last battle ended. The sheer scale was on an entirely different level from before.

Eight rank-seven beast-type Flame Wolves. Five rank-six nature-type Salamanders. And three rank-five plant-type Redwoods.

“Raven, how much longer on that spell!”

At my shout, blue light burst from Raven's wand.

“Narua Brigianu Thun!”

The rank-five area-of-effect freezing spell, [Ice Rain]. The one called Blizzard in the English version of the game.

RUMBLE!

Gray clouds formed overhead, pouring down razor-sharp icicles.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

That single spell left more than half the monsters half-destroyed. Of course, the rank-five monsters were unscathed even by an area attack like this.

“Behel—raaaaa!!”

[Wild Outburst] combined with [Gigantification].

Thanks to my increased Threat stat, the monsters gathered around me without my having to do anything in particular. This was why a tank was just as important as a mage here.

[“Gaaaaaah!”]

Blocking the Redwoods' whipping stems with my shield, I focused entirely on defense.

I called it Barbarian Turtle Mode.

I could probably take down at least one on my own using [Swing], but...

It was better to conserve Magic Power. My Threat stat would drop once [Gigantification] wore off.

“Take care of the Salamanders first!”

While I held off the three Redwoods, our mage prepared a spell for the next wave. That meant it was time for our other damage dealers to shine.

BOOOOM!

With ranged support from Mister Bear, Aynar and Misha started cutting down the monsters in earnest. Clearing out the trash mobs took around three minutes.

'Two melee damage dealers really make short work of the trash.'

After that, all five of us joined forces to finish off the rank-five monsters. But there was no time to rest.

“... More coming.”

We had barely finished one battle before another pack arrived, drawn by the noise.

We kept repeating the process. About ten more battles later, Raven spoke up.

“Mr. Jandel, I'm running low on mana now.”

After freely firing off area spells, Raven had less than a third of her mana left. Of course, that wasn't a major problem. The initial waves were nearly over.

“Don't use offensive spells. Focus on support.”

“Right!”

From then on, Raven used her remaining mana to curse enemies or buff the team.

Around then, my [Gigantification] ended too. Mister Bear, who had been firing explosive arrows left and right, also seemed to be running low on Magic Power.

“Behel—raaaaa!!!”

As the three of us found it harder to contribute, Aynar and Misha—the melee sisters, for short—became increasingly important.

When it came to basic-attack DPS, melee really was king.

“Wooooo!! This is the kind of battle I've been waiting foooor!!!”

Facing an endless stream of enemies had driven Aynar's excitement to its peak. Befitting a barbarian, a member of the so-called warrior race, that excitement actually helped.

'Was she always this good at fighting?'

She seemed to swing her greatsword crudely, yet dodged everything she needed to. She fought like she was hopped up on stimulants.

'Come to think of it, she did say she trained in swordsmanship there too...'

Her combat instincts themselves seemed far superior even to Misha's.

Anyway, with the battle finally nearing its end, I changed our formation.

“Avman, send him over here now!”

Iron Bear Irathun, our team's assistant tank. Teddy, for short.

[“Wooo!”]

Teddy, who had been protecting our ranged damage dealers in the rear, joined the front line to bolster it.

Everyone really did seem to be reaching their limits now. Our mage's mana had hit rock bottom, cutting off even our support.

CRUNCH! CRUNCH! WHOOOOSH!

Mace, swords, and heavy crossbow bolts.

Pushed to our limits for the first time in ages, we cleared away the remaining monsters with nothing but basic attacks, no skills involved.

“I think that's the last of them...”

The battle ended when I smashed a burning skeleton with my mace.

Hundreds of magic crystals covered the ground.

“Were magic crystals always this dark, nyah?”

“It's a property of this space. Their density is about twice as high.”

Simply put, a double-rewards event was in effect.

It took Raven several minutes just to collect them using what little mana she had left.

Oh, and one Essence had dropped too.

“I saw that one! It came from where that thing with all the human heads hanging off it died!”

“A Headhunter, then.”

A rank-seven fire-type undead monster.

So I discarded it without hesitation.

Sure, absorbing it would have its uses, but we were hunting even rank-five monsters every day now. There was no reason to take this one.

“Hmm, we're throwing it away...?”

At my decision, Aynar stared at me with the longing eyes of a child who had dropped a piece of candy.

No, that still didn't mean she could have it.

Bad girl.

“It's not a good Essence for you. You'll just have to live with the disappointment.”

“... All right!”

Absorbing whatever she found would only cost us extra money when we had to remove it later.

But perhaps throwing away loot still bothered her.

“Can't we put it in one of those test tubes and sell it?”

Aynar offered her new suggestion with a cry of eureka. Our mage handled that one.

“No. Anything below rank six won't even cover the cost of the test tube. Besides, I've heard we can only take one item out of here.”

“Huh? Only one? What do you mean, nyah?”

“I don't know why either. But apparently, anything acquired here needs spellbend cast on it before it can be taken outside, and that only works for one item.”

That was a field property I would have had to explain if Raven hadn't known it.

“We need to choose carefully what we take out. Essences are one thing, but... I've heard of someone finding an extremely valuable item here.”

“A valuable item...”

I had already decided what we would take out. Still, I was rather curious. Did someone know about that item?

I asked for details, but Raven made it clear that was all she knew.

“Information like this is hard to find in books. Even I only heard it through the grapevine.”

Fair enough. From the fifth floor onward, information was classified as high-level. Even minor discoveries were treated as intellectual property and rarely shared. Some clans went so far as to forbid any mention of what happened inside the Labyrinth.

There was a reason she had been so desperate for Complete Analysis of Ruptures II.

“Everyone rest for now. I'll stand watch.”

We took a break after that intense battle, and I assessed our current situation.

“Raven, how long will it take to replenish all your mana?”

“Twelve hours if I meditate or sleep. Otherwise, more than a day.”

“I see.”

This was why I'd said melee damage dealers were better than mages on the fifth floor specifically. Mages took quite a while to replenish their mana.

“From now on, conserve your mana whenever possible.”

“You intend to keep exploring like this?”

“This isn't somewhere we can enter easily. We should explore as much as possible. We might even find that valuable item you mentioned.”

“You do have a point. We don't know when we'll be able to come here again...”

That settled the matter.

After fifteen minutes spent recovering our stamina alone, we resumed exploring. It was a grueling march, but no one complained. We had all seen those magic crystals and that Essence pouring in.

“I'll finally be able to hold my head high in front of my wife again.”

Mister Bear was grinning from ear to ear. Whatever else you could say about him, he really was a family man.

“Avman, can you sense a portal anywhere?”

“I can feel one faintly, very far in that direction.”

Compasses didn't work in this field, so I used his Guide ability to get my bearings.

“... Why ask if you're going to head the opposite way?”

Because that was where I wanted to go. Of course, I couldn't say that.

“The portal is most likely the exit. Wouldn't we be more likely to find something in the opposite direction?”

A plausible excuse I'd slapped together on the spot. Still, since it wasn't wrong, Raven quickly backed me up.

“Oh! That's right. I read that there's an exit portal inside the mirror.”

Whew. This was why you needed a reasonably smart character around.

“Well then, let's get moving.”

Around seven in the evening on day twenty-two.

With another day nearly over, we had roughly a week left. We needed to hurry if we wanted to milk this for all it was worth.

* * *

The Mirror of Fire.

This field had one unusual feature: monsters took a full day to respawn. Thanks to that, an area temporarily became a safe zone once we finished hunting there.

That was fortunate in several ways. If hundreds of monsters swarmed us every time, we wouldn't even be able to get a decent night's sleep.

「You have defeated a Hell Guardian. EXP +4」

「You have defeated a Gremlin. EXP +2」

「You have defeated a Doom Warrior. EXP +5」

「You have defeated a Chaos Bug. EXP +2」

「You have defeated a Doomflame Elf...」

Killing all sorts of monsters we hadn't been able to hunt because of the clans controlling the fields, we took three days to leave the wasteland where we'd started.

Progress was far slower than I had expected.

'The map's huge, sure, but there are just too many monsters.'

Whenever a battle broke out, nearby monsters heard the noise and gathered one after another.

Of course, it was better than the very beginning, when they had converged from every direction. We only had to worry about enemies ahead of us, and we could retreat if necessary.

Still, as the grueling march continued, our stamina and MP ran dry, slowing the hunt itself. A few situations nearly became dangerous because of it.

In the end, we had to take regular breaks.

'Still, the rate we're earning magic crystals is insane.'

I hadn't called this place the Burning Zone for nothing. Large-scale battles using magic, plus a double magic-crystal event.

Now that I was here, I finally felt like I was making money from magic crystals. Until now, all my big windfalls had been equipment looted from plunderers.

'Mass pulls really are the way to hunt.'

The morning of day twenty-six.

After breaking camp just outside it, we finally entered the new field.

FWOOSH!

The Burning Forest.

True to its name, the trees in this field were engulfed in black flames, burning all 365 days of the year. Still, the fire damage was minimal. The trees were spaced fairly far apart, and we also had [Ice Blood] active to raise our Fire Tolerance.

For the record, I had three reasons for choosing this place.

First, its combat difficulty was the lowest.

“Hmm, there's less here than I expected.”

“Yeah, I was a little nervous, but this seems easier than where we were before, nyah. There aren't even any rank-five monsters.”

There were plenty of monsters, but they were all rank six or seven. Of course, easier fights meant smaller rewards.

But the Ash Mountains and Lava Lake in the other directions were still fairly difficult for us to tackle. And the Altar of the Dead, where the portal was, had nothing worth picking up.

Which brought me to...

Second, getting that item first would make things easier later.

It was hidden in the heart of the Burning Forest. With it, not only would we be able to tackle the other fields when we came back, but we could also enter that island on the sixth floor.

“Don't let your guard down too much. We don't know what might appear.”

I gave the habitual warning, but even I had picked up the pace considerably since entering the forest. We had spent more time than expected, leaving it uncertain whether we could arrive in time.

“The trees here have all burned out.”

“Let's rest here tonight.”

After a full day of fighting and traveling, we unrolled our sleeping bags at a campsite around sunset.

And the following morning...

'There it is at last.'

We encountered a monster.

“Allua! What's that one called, nyah?”

“Uh, well... I don't know either.”

A monster whose name and rank were unknown even to Raven, who had spent her whole life reading books.

Only one of its kind existed in the Burning Forest. A monster so rare that even the clan controlling the fifth-floor field connected to this forest might not encounter it once in an entire year.

[“Groooooar!!”]

The rank-five Rare variety, Vertars.

It was my third reason for choosing the Burning Forest.

“Behel—raaaaaa!”

This thing had a guaranteed Essence drop.