Legend

After picking the two fruit, they made their way from the oasis for about 30 minutes.

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Walking that far, they were able to travel safely without encountering any monsters, which would have swarmed around the traces of battle they had left at their earlier location.

「That said, given the situation, we’re bound to run into something sooner or later.」

Rei muttered to himself as he looked at another oasis that was closer to a lake.

The fact that such a large oasis existed naturally meant that there would be many monsters who would go to it as a watering hole.

(However, if this entire floor is covered in oases, then maybe the number of monsters that go to this oasis in particular won’t be that high.)

Set might not have sensed Rei’s inner thoughts, but he suddenly turned his head to the side.

A tree near the oasis swayed as a rabbit appeared.

However, if it existed on this floor, it was definitely not an ordinary rabbit.
In fact, it had a horn protruding from its forehead, like a Unicorn.

However, it differed from a Unicorn’s horn as it had spiral shape.

On the bright side, the rabbit was only somewhat larger than the rabbits Rei knew of.

Compared to the Gamelion, a rabbit like monster that Rei had fought before, this rabbit was extremely docile.

That said, Rei didn’t really want to count the Gamelion as a rabbit.

「This should be easy……woah-! As expected of a monster on this level.」

As Rei was about to say ‘easy to kill’, the rabbit dashed towards him as it twisted and spun itself, causing Rei to dodge on reflex.

With its spiral horn and spinning body, its attack was truly like a drill, complete with high penetration power.

Yes, enough power to the point that it crashed into a tree behind Rei and snapped it in two.

Seeing that, Rei couldn’t help muttering to himself.

Of course, he knew that it was a monster he had to be wary of, but Rei was still confident of his own safety because Set had jumped forward.

「GURURURURURU-!」

With a cry, Set swung his fore claws and broke the rabbit’s neck, throwing it to the side.

The rabbit did not survive the blow and died instantly.

「That rabbit……was it a Spiral Rabbit?」

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「Umm, give me a minute.
I think it was mentioned in the book.」

At Elena’s words, Rei pulled a book out from the Misty Ring that contained information on various monsters and flipped through the pages.

After about a minute, he found what he was looking for and started to read the description.

Spiral Rabbit.
E rank monster.
A carnivorous rabbit with a spiral horn.
It likes to attack by piercing its enemy using its strong jumping ability, characteristic to rabbits.

While attacking, they will rotate their body to increase its power, so care should be taken.

A blow from its horn can easily penetrate cheap leather armour.

The proof of subjugation is its distinctive horn, which is material that can be sold.

It can be used as material in forging weapons such as spears or used in making armour.

In addition, its fur is also in demand for decorative items and clothes.
Its meat was full of flavour and, for an E rank monster, rewards were quite good, so it was a sought after monster by adventurers.

「……I see.」

「Its horn? ……I can see how it could be used for a spear, but in armour?」

As Elena tilted her head and asked that question, Rei looked at his Dragon Robe before replying.

「Maybe the horn tips could be used to cover the surface of the armour, so if an enemy rushes at them, they will be caught by the armour?」

「But in that case, only the horn tips would be used.
……Well, that’s fine.
We should hurry up.
You’re not going to strip the materials here, are you?」

Rei was reminded of the four round fight they had against the Earth Crab, Bloodydiles, Earth Crab, and then Kobolds.

That said, the Bloodydiles had been so badly injured by the Earth Crab that half of them had already died while the other half had been dying.
In the second fight with the Earth Crab, it had already used up most of its magic power fighting the Bloodydiles.

Even so, such a series of fights had the possibility of attracting more and more powerful enemies.

It might be good for collecting magic stones, one of Rei’s goals for entering the dungeon, but it was problematic if they wanted to descend to the lower floors, where magic communication items, their main goal for coming to the dungeon, had a higher chance of being found.

Because of that, Rei nodded at Elena’s words.

「I’m not.
How are we doing on the map, where’s the next set of stairs?」

「If we continue like this without running into anything……it will take about 4 hours.」

That was what Elena said as she checked her map, but Rei shook his head in response.

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「As long as we keep walking past oases, there is no doubt we’ll keep running into more monsters compared to the previous floors.
It will be quite difficult to get out without running into anything more.」

「You are right that our monster encounter rate wasn’t that high in the previous floors.
……With the exception of the Cactus Mimics.」

Elena had a wry smile on her face, probably from remembering when they pushed through the area overgrown with cacti.

「In the case of the Cactus Mimics, we were the ones running into them.
We didn’t have to deal with monsters that attacked us first.
Anyway, with all these oases, it’s highly likely that will be attacked by more monsters.
Set, I would like you to keep an eye on the surroundings.」

「Guru~」

Leave it to me, Set seemed to say with a cry.

However, due to the thick trees that grew around the oases, the method of flying in the sky to watch the surroundings wasn’t possible, so Set had to rely on his senses to stay alert.

That said, as a Griffon, Set had extremely keen senses to the point that ordinary bandits wouldn’t even be able to touch him.

「Alright, let’s get going then.」

Storing away the Spiral Rabbit, they started walking again.

Continuing to walk for another 20 minutes, they came across some familiar people.

「Aren’t they……」

「People from the Silva family.」

Elena responded to Rei’s murmurs.

Yes, at the end of their line of sight was a party of 5 men.
The man in the lead was the one Rei had saved when he had previously fought the Sword Bee Queen.

It seemed the other party had noticed them as well.
They were alert for a moment, but after the man in the lead signalled it was safe, their alertness quickly died down.

「Long time no see.」

Rei gave a small nod at the man who gave a bow before speaking.

「Yeah, it seems like you’ve been through a lot.」

「Yes, it has been.
It’s been tough in many ways.」

He was probably recalling the events of the past few days as he sighed and spoke.

Rei was wondering how to respond for a moment and ended up continuing the conversation as best he could.

「So, what are you guys doing on this floor?」

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「Ah……that is……」

The man stuttered when asked by Rei.

From what Rei and Elena could tell, it seemed like they couldn’t speak of it to anyone outside of the Silva family.

「I’m not forcing to you tell me, so if you can’t say it, that’s fine.」

「……No, we’ve been helped out by you over and over again.
I’m sure big bro Vosk wouldn’t mind me telling you.
You seemed to run into them quite a lot.」

With that alone, Rei knew what they had been tasked with.

(I had thought they had entered the dungeon as adventurers……but it seems its something to do with the abnormal species.)

It seemed Rei and Elena reached the same conclusion.
They looked at each other before nodding.

Rei had no intention of dealing with the abnormal species or the Levisor family himself.

That said, it was a problem that he couldn’t absorb the magic stones using the Magic Beast Art, so he did want the issue to be solved as quickly as possible.

Unfortunately, he had a surprisingly high probability of running into them in the dungeon and had even run into people who seemed to have been creating them.

「There have been several reported sightings of monsters that appear to be abnormal species on the 15th floor.
There have also been reports of a suspicious trio sneaking around.」

I knew it.
The expression on Rei’s face displayed his thoughts clearly.

「The other party really is troublesome to deal with.」

「No, no, I don’t think they’re specifically targeting you? The 15th floor is the easiest desert floor to sneak around and it’s also roughly the middle of all floors.
With more adventurers around, it makes it a great place to gauge the abilities of abnormal species.」

「Wouldn’t there be more adventurers on the upper floors?」

「There are a lot of new adventurers on the upper floors.
I guess they don’t think it’s useful to test the abnormal species against weak adventurers? That’s just my own guess though.」

The leader, mumbled that he hoped these troubles would be over as soon as possible and his fellow party members all nodded in agreement.

「Then, what about the lower floors? From the 16th floor onward……there has to be floors that are easier to work on than the desert floors based on temperature alone, right?」

Despite his tone, Rei had an unpleasant expression on his face.

He had mostly heard about the desert floors from Pleiades, but had also heard some information on the floors below it.

Above all, if the information from the maps that Elena bought and what Rei had heard from passersby in the city patting Set were correct, the next set of floors from the 16th floor would be filled with undead like Skeletons, Ghosts, and Zombies.

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「I took a quick look around the 16th floor……but for now, there’s nothing suspicious there.」

「I hope so.
It’s a troublesome floor to deal with, so if an abnormal species appeared there, I wouldn’t be great.」

「Would it be troublesome?」

The man asked questioningly.

For someone who had seen Rei fight with his own eyes, he didn’t think that undead were something that Rei would struggle with.

In actual fact, Rei could deal with undead very easily, because he specialised in fire magic, which undead generally weren’t good at handling.

But at the same time, Rei had a terrible time fighting some types of undead.

Skeletons and Ghosts were no problem, but Zombies were.
Zombies had rotten flesh and the stench of their bodies was enough to make a normal human turn away.
Rei’s sense were much sharper than ordinary people.
……Yes, all five senses.
In other words, that included smell.

The first time he had entered a dungeon as Elena’s escort, his sense of smell had been heavily hit as soon as he had entered the undead floors, almost paralysing him.

Remembering that, Rei had a real look of disgust on his face and half seriously considered going to a store to buy some kind of mask.

However, in over a year in Elgin, he had yet to see any sort of mask.

(Would it be possible to tell them what a mask is like and ask them to make one? In case you get caught up in a fire, you can cover my nose and mouth with a cloth, so the idea isn’t that unreasonable.)

「Rei-san?」

The leader of the other group asked him worriedly after seeing the unexpectedly serious expression on Rei’s face.

As it had happened while they were talking, his concern was natural.

「No, it’s nothing.
I’m just thinking about something.
Rather, are you guys heading for the small room on this floor then?」

「Yes.
As I’ve said, we’re looking for an abnormal species or suspicious people.」

「Well, take care then.
I don’t need to tell you this since you’ve already cleared this floor, but there will probably be quite a few monsters that will attack you.」

「……Oh, of course.」

The man nodded, understanding what Rei meant.

While it was still a desert floor, like the previous floors, due to the number of oases, there were still a much larger number of monsters.

「Well then, I understand.
……We’ll be heading off, please take care Rei-san, everyone.」

Saying that, the man bowed his head and the adventurers quietly listening behind them also bowed their heads before going their way.