Chapter 280

Dungeon Fifth Floor: Courtyard of the Ancient Castle Area
We finally arrived at the fifth floor's ancient castle area, but this level was undeniably a castle, divided into multiple floors.

For now, we descended from the castle walls into the courtyard, only to find an overwhelming number of monsters that made me want to quit on the spot.
Do we have to defeat all of these?

"Oh, there's no need to defeat them all. Many monsters will react if you try to cut through the middle, but if you move along the walls, they won’t come too close.”

"Melanie, you're sounding awfully proud. Where did you even get that information?"

"From the Adventurers’ Guild in this town, of course. I also purchased a map of the castle there."

This ancient castle even has a map, huh?
From her explanation, it seems that the paths on this fifth floor don’t change.
Instead, the corridors are filled with numerous monsters, and the main source of income is the loot they drop—or, rather, reaching the treasure chests is the real challenge.

The treasure chests are confirmed to be placed in narrow areas, such as dead ends or inside rooms.
To retrieve them, you inevitably have to fight monsters along the way.
Naturally, traps are also set in the treasure chests, and if you take too long disarming them, reinforcements will arrive.

As a result, only experienced adventurers can collect the treasure chests on this level.
Not that it matters to us, though.

"Melanie, are there any treasure chests in the courtyard?"

"Hmm, I wonder? We don’t have much information about the central part of the courtyard. Ever since people learned that moving along the walls minimizes attacks, everyone started sticking to the walls."

I see, so there’s a possibility there could be treasure chests.
In that case, we’ll just have to proceed.

While progressing through the courtyard, I had Talat take care of the monsters using spider silk.
Regardless of this being the fifth floor and home to some of the dungeon's strongest monsters, it didn’t matter to Talat.
We could simply defeat them all and keep moving.

The courtyard featured flower beds and fountains, all impeccably maintained—though I couldn’t imagine who might be taking care of them.
Wait, there’s a treasure chest in one of the flower beds.

"Talat, just to be safe, freeze all the flowers over there."

(Okay.)

When Talat released icy threads onto the flowers, they froze solid and turned into dropped items.
Just as I thought—the flowers were monsters.
After Akemi confirmed that the treasure chest wasn’t trapped, we decided to take it.
Its color was gold—this could be promising!

In various flower beds, similar treasure chests were hidden and guarded by monstrous flowers.
All the chests were either gold or silver.
Then, while investigating the fountain in the courtyard, we discovered another treasure chest submerged within.

To be cautious, I had Talat freeze the fountain’s water as well, which also transformed into loot.
Even the water was a monster!

Regardless, we managed to secure the treasure chest from the fountain, making our courtyard harvest highly rewarding.
At this rate, we might be able to gather more treasure chests in other areas too!

What do you think about this chapter?