Chapter 263 - Bug (2)

A cave with crystals clustered thickly along its walls, giving off a brilliant glow.

I'd been here countless times, yet it felt strangely unfamiliar today. Well, it had been two months since my last visit, so perhaps that was only natural...

'There must be other reasons, too.'

I looked around, smacking my lips in disappointment.

For one thing, there were only three of us, unlike usual. And while it wasn't bright as day, there was enough light that we didn't need a separate torch.

In short...

"We're not in the Dark Region."

The EXP duplication bug had been patched. In other words, we could no longer use dimensional instability to start right at the entrance to the second-floor portal.

"Do you know something about this?"

I played dumb, and Raven cautiously offered a theory.

"I did hear that the royal family recently commissioned a major project from the Magic Tower. I've been staying outside the tower lately, so I didn't know the details... But now that I see this, perhaps they were stabilizing the portal."

Sigh. So that really was why the bug had been patched.

Still, thanks to SoulQueen, I'd prepared myself for this, so it didn't take long to let go.

Well, what could I do? From now on, I'd have to do things the old-fashioned way. I'd milked it for all it was worth for several months, hadn't I?

"Let's get moving."

After a brief look at the terrain around our starting point, I quickly took out my compass and found our bearings.

After all, hardly anyone had entered this time. If things went well, we might be able to earn the portal-opening EXP even without the bug.

"Avman, summon Iron Bear. We're going to move a little faster than usual."

As soon as Mister Bear brought out his summon, Raven climbed onto it with practiced ease.

"If only Aynar were this soft..."

Mages. All they ever thought about was finding something to ride.

"Wooooo!"

Anyway, I took the lead at a run, with Raven and Mister Bear following behind. Mister Bear, who was pretty sturdy for a ranged damage dealer, brought up the rear.

Goblins were no threat to us anymore, but you never knew what might happen. People had always been the most dangerous things in the Labyrinth.

'At least those Noark bastards don't seem to be here...'

I was tense as we raced through the cave at first, but soon lowered my guard a notch. We passed several explorers as we picked up speed, but most were low-floor explorers wearing low-tier equipment. Even those were few and far between.

'Maybe we really can open the portal first?'

As time passed, that tentative hope grew, only to be crushed the moment we reached the edge of the Dark Region.

"It looks like someone beat us here."

A rank-nine magic crystal lay on the path we intended to take.

It couldn't have been Misha's team. I didn't know about Erwin, but I hadn't taught Misha and Aynar to leave those behind.

"... Why are you picking that up?"

"A rank-nine magic crystal is still a magic crystal."

Remembering the days when I'd crawled through this long passage on three limbs, I couldn't condone leaving magic crystals behind.

Back then, these little crystals had been my hope—

"No, I meant that I could collect it with magic."

Hmm. Fair point.

Wait, did that mean the team ahead of us didn't have a single mage? With how fast they were moving, I'd assumed they were a top-tier team.

"Riate."

We resumed running, lighting the darkness with a light spell instead of a torch. After about forty minutes, the portal came into view.

I hadn't gotten my hopes up, but sure enough, someone had already opened it.

「You have entered the second floor, Goblin Forest.」

I put my disappointment aside and stepped through the portal. We'd agreed that whoever arrived first would wait on the other side.

"... I felt this way back in the cave, too, but this feels strange."

"Yes. The fighting was so fierce back then."

This was the very same Goblin Forest where Noark's forces and Raphdonia's explorers had fought a bloody battle. Now, all was quiet, and no one was in sight.

"Misha's team doesn't seem to be here yet. Let's wait a while."

While everyone took a break as they pleased, I looked around and found signs that someone had been nearby.

"Those must be from the people who came before us. But why are you looking so closely?"

"It's just bothering me for some reason."

"Uh, when you say things like that, Mr. Jandel, I suddenly get nervous..."

What was she talking about?

"Don't just stand there. Sit down and rest a little. We don't know when the other team will arrive."

We took our individual chairs out of subspace and settled down. Goblins occasionally approached from a distance, but they didn't interrupt our rest. Iron Bear alone was enough to deal with them.

* * *

"Excuse meee..."

In a forest bathed in soft moonlight, a woman who looked to be in her early twenties spoke in a petulant voice.

"We're on the second floor now, and there's nobody around. Can't I summon my little Draggy?"

"No. Something that big would definitely leave tracks."

"Oh, come on. Don't be like that. It's not like summoners are rare. Pleeease?"

"Camilla, stop it. Lady Reinweils said no."

"Hey, old man. Why don't you stay out of it?"

"Then stop giving me reasons to butt in. What are you even complaining about? You spent the entire first floor sitting on my shoulders—"

"Because you smell like a lonely old bachelor! It gets into my clothes. It's bad for my nose!"

"... What?"

The warrior carrying her stopped briefly at the scathing insult, but merely let out a sigh, as though he were used to this.

"Right. Why do I even bother talking to you?"

"Then don't start in the first place!"

"Camilla, I know you've been on edge lately, but stop acting like a child. I might put up with it, but there are other people here."

"Seriously, enough with the lectures..."

The woman called Camilla muttered and stuck out her lower lip. She didn't like a single thing about this situation.

"Anyway, why do we still have to carry out this mission? Everyone abandoned us and ran off outside, and we've barely heard a word from them. Is killing that explorer really going to change anything?"

"... They must have their reasons. They did contact us a few days ago, didn't they?"

"Oh, yes. You mean that call where they said their piece and cut us off after ten seconds?"

At Camilla's sarcasm, the archer frowned as well.

"They asked for our understanding about that. They said the barrier made prolonged contact impossible. Still, it seems they have a way to get us out, so we should just focus on doing our jobs—"

"How naive. Has it occurred to you that they might be lying?"

"... Then why did you come all the way here, Miss Camilla? Why not stay in the city?"

"That's..."

Camilla trailed off and bit her lip.

How could she tell him? How could she admit she'd come along because she was scared of what that woman might do if she threw a tantrum and refused?

'Ugh, seriously, what the hell is going on?'

Feeling irritable, she snapped at the archer again.

"Anyway, Nevarche. What exactly happened to that Scholar of Destruction? You were with him until the end."

"I told you. The Scholar of Destruction spoke with 'that man,' then vanished off somewhere—"

"Enough, all of you."

The woman clearing the way at the head of the group stopped, and the archer broke off, his expression changing.

"Amelia, is something wrong?"

"The trap I set near the portal is gone."

"That means someone has reached the second floor. Judging by the time, they must be high-level explorers... Perhaps more explorers entered than we expected."

"Nevarche, any idea which team it could be?"

"I don't know. But they won't belong to a major clan. Those people wouldn't make a move without being certain."

"I see."

Camilla interjected.

"Does it matter who they are? I don't even know why you're curious."

"... You're certainly not wrong."

Amelia seemed to ponder her words for a moment before murmuring quietly.

"But it's bothering me for some reason."

"Huh? What did you say?"

Amelia shook her head.

"... Nothing. Let's keep moving."

* * *

"Mister, have you been waiting long? I'm sorry. We happened to start in the southern area, so it took us a little while."

After we'd waited in the forest for about two hours, Misha's team reached the second floor. We quickly got moving again. More than ten teams had already passed us while we waited.

'So it isn't quite as deserted as I thought.'

Naturally, the third-floor portal was already open when we reached it. The same went for the fourth floor, which we reached after six days.

"At least we can finally eat properly now."

Having spent the entire journey running without even eating proper meals, we replenished our stamina as we cleared the trials.

Unlike usual, we were a party of six, but our progress was actually slower. The trials became harder with six or more people. The extra monsters weren't a problem, but trials such as the Trial of Wisdom, which required navigating a maze, took far longer because the map grew larger.

'Is it because of her racial stats? She's definitely better at finding the way than I am.'

Erwin, who'd received Scout training from her older sister, was better at navigation than I'd expected. While I relied on experience and knowledge, she tended to rely on her senses. Her night vision was far better, too, letting her spot traps from a distance.

"From here, I can tell even without Mr. Avman's help. It's this door, right? I can hear the mana pulsing on the other side."

Her sensory stat was even high enough to locate the portal to the fifth floor without the Guide talent. None of the Essences she'd absorbed should have had a Hearing bonus, though.

'Was she just born with it?'

Anyway, we reached the fifth-floor portal just as day nineteen began.

'So we're about a day behind our usual time.'

With seven people, it would have taken much longer. At that point, the waiting period for every trial increased as well. Oh, and that increase was proportional to the number of people.

There was a reason major clans split into teams of five and met up on the fifth floor.

"Aruru, why don't people on the lower floors meet up on the second floor and hunt together like us?"

"Because they'd have to split the earnings with one more person, and the returns on the lower floors just aren't worth it. Another big factor is that splitting into two teams requires a navigator on each side. A lot of low-floor explorers are noncombatants, remember?"

"Hmm! I see!"

"I... I get it now! You didn't understand a word of that and just nodded along, didn't you?"

"Oh, you really are a mage!"

"Both of you, stop fooling around and get some sleep."

It was time to make camp anyway, so we rested on the safe fourth floor before entering the fifth together early the next morning.

「You have entered the fifth floor, Great Demon Realm.」

It had been a while since our last visit to the fifth floor, and right from the start, it looked a little different from usual.

It was exactly what I'd hoped for.

"Nice and quiet. I like it."

The clans that always got there first, staked their claims, and controlled the hunting grounds were nowhere to be seen.

And...

"Oh! Over there, over there! It's an Istoltos!"

Monsters we once couldn't even see without paying a clan were roaming freely across the field.

"So this place was supposed to have this many monsters."

Mister Bear sounded deflated as he took in the sight.

Well, he'd been active on the fifth floor for a long time. Given how much resentment he harbored toward the clans, it must have felt strange.

"Jandel, what do you think? It won't stay like this, will it?"

"No. It probably won't last long."

I answered honestly. As early as next month, the major clans would start entering the Labyrinth again, one by one. Given more time, newly formed clans would fill all the remaining gaps.

"So let's stop sightseeing and get moving. Opportunities like this don't come along often."

There was a monster that would be difficult to hunt if we missed this chance.