Eminira Dungeon (4)
On the way to the fourth floor, there’s a large plaza, and we’ll be setting up tents and camping there. It’s said that monsters don’t attack in that plaza, so it’s likely a safety zone.
However, there are other adventurers around, and apparently, some of them pick fights on purpose to steal loot.
They probably wouldn’t try that with the Golden Wings or the knights, but Canal and I were told not to act alone together.
When we arrived at the plaza, there were a lot of tents already set up.
We looked for a space where three tents could fit. It was a little farther in, but we eventually found a spot where three tents would comfortably fit and pitched them.
Canal and I helped out too.
The Golden Wings split the tents between the men and women. The six of us use one tent, but there’s spatial magic cast on it, so the inside is spacious.
For dinner, we skewer orc meat, green peppers, onions, and such for a barbecue. Just salt and pepper for seasoning. Seems like a fancy meal in this plaza.
While eating, we asked about the other adventurers.
Most of them ate bread and dried meat. To carry back more loot, they limit what they put into their magic bags to only the bare necessities.
Magic bags with large capacities are expensive. Most beginners have small second-hand ones, and it’s likely they went into debt to buy them.
Adventurers working in floors 1 to 4 usually spend a few days in the dungeon collecting drops, then exchange them at the Adventurers' Guild, rest for a day, and repeat the cycle just to make a living.
They keep hunting to raise their rank.
Mr. Salem told us that once you rank up enough to reach the 8th floor, life becomes a bit easier.
Even at the third-floor boss room, two iron ingots as drops won’t cover the cost in just one round.
It’s good we joined this time—I’m starting to understand what life is like for adventurers.
Since we have another day ahead, Canal and I went to bed early in the tents.
The adults took turns in pairs keeping watch outside the tent.
Thank you for your hard work. We’ll gratefully got some sleep.
It’s day two in the dungeon.
For those who thought “Wow, you actually woke up on your own?”—sorry to disappoint, it was Brother Gerald who woke me. I couldn’t wake up by myself.
Canal was already up helping with breakfast. Ugh...
But if I can’t wake up, there’s nothing I can do. Let’s just own it and move on.
I hurried over to help too.
Mr. Will was making soup, simmering potatoes, carrots, and so on.
There was dried meat, so I asked, “Are you putting this into the soup?” and he replied that it’ll be eaten as is.
I mentioned that if he put the dried meat into the soup, it’ll soften and since it’s salty, he might not need to add extra salt to the soup. He decided to give it a try, cut the dried meat into bite-sized pieces, added it to the soup, and let it simmer.
After a while, we tasted it and it was quite tasty.
“This soup is good. It tastes different from usual—did you use some new seasoning?” Asked Miss Linka.
“Nope, I just added dried meat. It was Young master Reinhardt’s idea. We don’t need extra salt, it’s simple, and tasty.” Explained Mr. Will.
“We’ll make this in the Knights Order too.” Says Meyer.
“I’m glad everyone liked it. I was worried it might turn out badly.” I said.
Maybe I’ve made up for oversleeping.
We packed up the tent, left the plaza, and headed to the fourth floor.
The fourth floor was also a dry land, with sparse grass and trees—a sort of grassland.
The monsters here were called Armd, which looked like 70cm-long armadillos.
Their defining feature was their extremely hard shells.
Their attack style was to use that shell, which even swords couldn’t pierce, curl up, and roll like bowling balls to ram into targets.
If we just dodged, we wouldn’t get any loot, so we have to defeat them.
Armd can sense people from 100 meters away, then start rolling toward them at increasing speed. If you're too slow to react, they’ll slam into you and you could end up with broken bones.
This time, four knights and Brother Gerald and Mr. Will took on the battle.
Not long after I started walking, I heard a loud rumbling sound from ahead.
Hamilton and Kamuela use earth magic to create walls—one in front and one about 10 meters away from us where the Armd were rolling in. The Armd get trapped between the two walls.
Then, the wall in front tilted like a slide, and the Armd, still curled up, rolled and crashed into the second wall at high speed. About half of them end up uncurled, their bodies stretched out.
When that happens, they slashed at the unarmored inside with swords.
For those still curled up, they repeat the wall-crashing method, bouncing them back and forth like on a seesaw to defeat them.
Once their numbers dwindle, we can target the 3–5cm gap between the head and tail sections of the curled-up bodies. Stabbing there causes them to uncurl, and then we slash them open.
The loot here was a 10cm x 10cm x 5cm iron plate. One per Armd.
We started with about 30 of them, and by the time we reached the boss room, we'd handled a massive group of around 150–200.
For the Golden Wings, Miss Linka used barrier magic to stop the Armd, and just like the knights, they targeted the 3–5cm gap between the head and tail while the monsters were curled up, they stabbed it, forced it to uncurl, then slashed it.
The only difference is in how they stop the Armd—the rest was the same.
What do you think about this chapter?
