Chapter 374 - Treasure Hunter (2)

Thirteen hours after entering the Labyrinth, we were still in the first floor's Crystal Cave.

There was one reason we remained on a floor the three of us had cleared in mere hours last time: this was where our expedition plan began.

"Hmm. I never knew you could open a rupture like this."

"Hehe, you really do know everything, Mister!"

First-floor ruptures came in four types, including Blood-Tinted Castle and Glacial Cavern. Players could deliberately open these ruptures.

It had taken us this long because we'd gone up to the second floor to hunt a rank-eight monster, then come back for precisely that purpose.

'By now, everyone heading upstairs should already be gone...'

I glanced around as I took the rank-eight magic crystal out of subspace.

'It's been a while since I was here, too.'

A cavern roughly thirty meters in radius, with a single stone monument. This was where those of us left behind had tried to figure out how to survive after the military and the large clans fled through dimensional gates.

Well, it had been much larger back then, thanks to the mages expanding it in every direction.

"Everyone ready, then?"

Both women nodded at my question. Taking that as my cue, I set the magic crystal before the monument like an offering.

And at that moment...

RUMBLE!

Tremors spread from the monument across the entire first floor. At the same time, a green portal opened.

「Your character has entered a first-floor rupture.」

All right, let's go.

* * *

WHOOOOSH!

The light of the portal floating in midair revealed the outline of a cave. Rails ran along the ground, and discarded timber lay scattered all around.

Was it a little creepier than in the game?

[Green Mine]

One of the four types of first-floor ruptures.

Clearing it was simple. You started at a point blocked by a collapsed ceiling, wandered through the mine following the rails, and killed the Guardian. That was it.

"What are you two doing? Let's get moving."

The two of them had started surveying the unfamiliar terrain as soon as we arrived, but I hurried them deeper into the mine.

After all, more people were bound to enter soon.

It was best not to run into them. Amelia and I were one thing, but Erwin had become incredibly famous in the city. Even lower-floor explorers might recognize her.

TAP TAP.

We moved beyond the portal's light and concealed ourselves with the darkness spirit Erwin summoned. Only then did the additional entrants arrive inside the rupture.

"W-whoa!"

The first was a man in equipment typical of a lower-floor explorer.

"Wh-what? Am I the first one?"

At first, he simply looked around blankly. Then, as it finally sank in that he'd entered a rupture, his face broke into a broad smile.

Just then...

"Waaah!"

A second entrant shot out of the portal and crashed to the ground. Another man.

"Hoho, a pleasure to meet you!"

Okay, they were both men, so there shouldn't be any trouble.

After watching the two exchange pompous greetings, I put my worries aside and turned around.

Then...

"They won't hear us from here. Let's run."

"Yes!"

We began our assault on the rupture in earnest, running through the mine tunnels. As expected, the first monster we encountered was a goblin—though its build was a little different from those on the first and second floors.

[GRRR!]

It was about as tall as an ordinary goblin, but its physique was another matter: a broad back and dense, solid muscle, complete with a miner's helmet and a pickaxe resting on its shoulder.

"A goblin miner."

Rank eight. You could only get EXP for these in first-floor ruptures.

[SKREEE!]

The muscular creature charged the moment it spotted us, swinging its pickaxe down without a care that it was outnumbered three to one.

The blow certainly had far more force behind it than anything an ordinary goblin could muster.

But...

"Gross..."

Like that was going to work.

Any one of us could easily clear a first-floor rupture alone.

THUNK!

Without even bothering to shoot an arrow, Erwin used her wind spirit to pierce it between the eyes.

「You have defeated a goblin miner. EXP +2」

One shot, one kill.

Granted, that was only natural at our level... but the way she pointed her index finger at it and fired a blast of compressed air was pretty impressive.

'Is that... a Finger-Flick Art?'

I'd gone through a martial arts novel phase once, you see.

Man, couldn't I have something like that, too?

"Schuitz, is something wrong?"

"Yes, you're suddenly staring at me..."

"It's nothing. Let's keep moving."

I quickly put aside my wandering thoughts and moved on.

Hmm. In martial arts terms, would I be an external arts master who'd achieved an indestructible diamond body?

TAP TAP, TAP TAP.

Anyway, from then on I ran in front and led the way. Not that there was much to it in the opening stretch, where all we had to do was follow a perfectly straight tunnel...

"Why are you stopping?"

"The rails break off here, so this should be the spot."

I'd been watching the ground as we moved, and stopped as soon as we reached a damaged section of track.

Then...

BOOOM!

I smashed at the surrounding walls with my hammer.

Amelia panicked and asked whether I was trying to bury us alive, but her worries were needless. Since when did a rupture's terrain break that easily?

If something could be broken, there was usually a secret behind it.

Like this.

CRAAACK!

The wall crumbled as easily as a stack of Styrofoam boxes, revealing a space beyond it: a side passage barely wide enough to squeeze one person into.

Whew. If I hadn't shrunk, I might not have fit—

BUMP.

Damn it, my shoulders were still catching.

With no other choice, I turned sideways and shuffled into the passage like a crab.

Then...

"That's three million stones earned already."

I picked up a green gemstone from a chest hidden in the cramped space at the end of the passage, then repeated the process to get back outside.

"I never knew the mine had something like this."

"But, Mister... can we take it out without a mage?"

"It's fine. Things like this usually don't need spellbend."

It was easy to understand if you thought back to Blood-Tinted Castle on the first floor.

The only things that needed spellbend were odds and ends from the rupture, like bricks and building decorations. Valuable things like the Necronomicon counted as items, so you could simply carry them through the portal...

Oh, right. She hadn't been there.

"Let's get going, then. We've taken everything here."

Anyway, that was the only hidden piece in the first stage, so I stopped watching the ground and focused solely on moving. Before long, we reached a cliff.

More than two-thirds of the bridge had collapsed, rails and all.

Normally, you were supposed to take a passage to the side and go around...

'If I still had Leap, I could just skip this.'

I missed having a movement skill. Any intermediate movement skill or better would let you bypass this section.

'There are only goblin miners over there anyway. What a waste of time.'

There weren't even any hidden pieces along that route, but we had no choice but to take the side passage. We burst every goblin miner we saw and emerged at the exit on the other side.

Had it taken us about thirty minutes to get this far?

"It certainly is easy, being a first-floor rupture."

"It's definitely not quite what I expected..."

Erwin seemed unhappy with how uneventful the rupture expedition was, but there was no helping that. We'd brought a group capable of hunting on the seventh floor into a first-floor rupture. What else could she expect?

Most RPGs wouldn't even give us EXP.

Wait, was a system that made you visit low-level hunting grounds for EXP actually more vicious...?

"Don't look so disappointed. We'll finish up and be back outside in no time."

Since everyone seemed bored, I picked up the pace even more. We passed through the tunnel beyond the bridge we'd detoured around and hunted all the monsters that appeared starting in the second stage.

「You have defeated a hobgoblin miner. +EXP 3」

「You have defeated a mineral slime. +EXP 2」

「You have defeated a copper golem. +EXP 3」

Those were the new monsters we encountered in the second stage.

Oh, and I should add the miniboss.

「You have defeated a goblin bomber. +EXP 4」

No Essence, of course.

Well, we didn't have a test tube to store one in, or a mage, anyway.

'The second stage was mostly combat, so that went fast.'

Having beaten the miniboss in barely ten minutes, I spent a little time searching the area for the hidden piece—the stuff you found by smashing the mineral deposits around the miniboss room.

[Gobble Quartz]

Oh, exactly three.

"We can eat one each."

As I started handing out the Gobble Quartz I'd mined, Amelia and Erwin grimaced.

"You... eat that?"

"It smells strange. And for some reason, it feels sticky..."

"It's still an elixir. It raises your Poison Tolerance."

"In that case, then."

Amelia, who must have developed a strong stomach growing up in Noark, swallowed her Gobble Quartz first. Erwin squeezed her eyes shut and followed suit.

"Does it taste that bad?"

"... Surprisingly, it doesn't taste like anything."

"The texture is very unusual."

"Oh, really?"

How unusual could a texture be?

Didn't sound like I needed to brace myself.

CRUNCH!

When I bit down on the Gobble Quartz with my molars, the texture really was strange. Soft on the outside, but like chewing a rock on the inside?

Still, barbarians routinely chewed through bones, so it was nothing special.

「Your character has consumed Gobble Quartz.」

「Poison Tolerance permanently increases by +3.」

「This effect does not stack.」

Anyway, the rest of the rupture went much the same way. We pressed forward, smashing every monster we saw, and only stopped to search at spots with hidden pieces.

That was how we finished the third stage, descending a spiral staircase built along the edge of a cliff.

And then...

"The last one, now."

Having reached the deepest part of the mine, we stood before a collapsed tunnel that looked as though it had been sealed to keep something inside.

Normally, you had to clear the way using explosives hidden throughout the mine...

But high-level characters had tricks of their own.

BANG! BANG!

As I smashed and split the foundation stones at the bottom with Demon Crusher, the whole thing collapsed, leaving a gap wide enough for a person to pass through. We stepped inside.

「The slumbering Green King awakens.」

A vast cavern roughly fifty meters in radius.

At its center, a mass of green slime writhed and howled.

[SQUEEEEE!]

It was the Guardian of Green Mine: the King Slime.

* * *

Meanwhile, near the rupture's entrance, two men were trembling in the deep darkness, relying on the flickering light of a single torch.

"... D-do we really have to go with just the two of us?"

"What other choice do we have? The portal's closed."

"But I heard ruptures were explored in groups of five... What in the world is going on...?"

The archer sighed at the axe warrior's words. No matter how often he asked, the archer had no way of knowing why the portal had closed when only two people had entered.

Of course, he'd initially assumed it was a temporary glitch. But they'd already spent three hours waiting near the closed portal for entrants who might never arrive.

They couldn't keep denying reality forever.

"Enough. Let's just go. If we're going to clear this rupture with just the two of us, we need to start making slow, steady progress now."

"... A-all right."

The axe warrior, timid despite his size, took the lead, while the archer followed behind in support.

'Fucking buggy piece-of-shit game.'

The archer generally considered himself lucky.

Well, he'd stumbled across that game, played it, and ended up here... but aside from that, life tended to go smoothly for him. That hadn't changed after waking up in this unfamiliar world.

His first expedition was proof enough. He'd lucked into an Essence right at the start, and on his second expedition, he'd made his starting funds by stripping the equipment off an explorer and a plunderer who'd taken each other down.

With that foundation, he'd been able to grow steadily stronger.

But...

'Here I thought I was getting into a first-floor rupture on my third expedition. Who knew this shit would happen?'

Despite his internal complaints, he kept his wits about him. That was the only way he'd get out alive.

"... Wait. Stop for a moment."

"... What is it?"

"Something's wrong. We should have run into a goblin miner by now..."

"You seem to... know quite a bit about ruptures?"

"Just a fair amount. I like studying."

That was his excuse, but it wasn't true. He'd played the original version.

Granted, he'd quit without making it past the opening section, then only cleared the game after learning about the cheat version later. Still, his experience with the original meant he knew the early game inside out.

With that insane difficulty, reading and rereading Elfnuna's Beginner's Guide was essential if you wanted to play properly.

"... Let's keep going for now. I don't know why we still haven't seen any goblins, though."

Waiting wouldn't change anything, so he chalked it up to a difference between the game and reality and cautiously resumed moving.

Then...

"Oh, there's a side passage through that collapsed section!"

At the spot where the rails were damaged, he saw the hole in the wall and realized the truth.

"... Someone came in before us."

"... What was that?"

"Just talking to myself."

Someone had entered the rupture first. Three people, without a doubt.

'Then... they must have killed all the monsters along the way.'

The moment he realized that, relief washed over him so intensely that his legs nearly gave out. Once that relief subsided, however, he began to see this as an opportunity.

'No signs of a fight anywhere. That must mean they're strong enough to cut everything down without breaking stride.'

They probably had no interest in Essences from a first-floor rupture. And dropped Essences lasted about thirty minutes.

If he hurried after them now, he might find an abandoned Essence in the later sections. Perhaps he could even pick up a hidden piece they'd left behind.

"Let's hurry. Don't worry about monsters."

"... What do you mean?"

"There probably aren't any monsters ahead. If you don't believe me, I'll go first."

With that, the archer began running fearlessly through the dark tunnels.

But...

'They took the Gobble Quartz.'

There was nothing left in either the second or third stage. Whoever had entered first knew this rupture so thoroughly that he couldn't find a single thing they'd missed.

'I didn't even know about that one... But it's broken, so there must have been something hidden inside.'

After running for quite some time, he finally reached the boss room. It had taken about forty minutes.

If the Guardian's Essence had dropped, and they hadn't absorbed it...

'It might still be there.'

He entered the boss room with the axe warrior.

And then...

WHOOOOSH!

As they spotted the Essence floating in midair, intense greed filled both men's eyes.

There was a difference, of course.

"A-an Essence...!"

"So it is."

"C-could that be the Guardian's Essence—"

The axe warrior in front felt more surprise than greed, but for the man behind him, it was the other way around.

THUNK!

Gripping an arrow in his hand, the man drove it into the axe warrior's shoulder.

"Aaargh!"

The axe warrior screamed at the sudden attack and rolled across the ground. Of course, he regained his senses and tried to raise his axe, but unfortunately, it didn't go well.

CLATTER.

The axe slipped from his hand.

"It's no use. I coated the arrowhead with paralytic poison."

"... Wh-why are you doing this? I-I'll give you the Essence. S-so please!"

Sensing his defeat, the warrior cried out, pleading desperately. But the archer's eyes remained cold.

"Why's an NPC so desperate to stay alive?"

"N-NP... C...? What does that mean? No, more importantly, Dragoon! Please, spare me just this once. I have a daughter at home—"

"Dragoons are Protoss."

With a smirk, the man pulled out the embedded arrowhead.

Then...

"Hans Ellivan."

"...?"