Chapter 18 (2/2)

The next day, everyone’s physical conditions were entirely restored.

The guardian here is a h.e.l.lhound. It has deep red eyes and jet black fur, the magic beast known as the watchdog of h.e.l.l.

“… A dog…? It’ll be a bit of a pity to kill it.”

Only Ria would say such a carefree thing.

Larger than a bear, the dog was dripping drooling slovenly. Her sense of what she called cute was odd.

“It’s level 45. It has no special abilities in particular.”

From the Identify, Carlos took the front with his high defensive strength.

After receiving Lulu’s defensive magic and stopping the opponent’s attacks with his s.h.i.+eld, he attacked with his sword.

It was quite a stalemate.

“There’s no helping it~”

Without even drawing her katana, Ria approached at a steady pace.

Though the h.e.l.lhound naturally turned around to attack Ria, it was struck by her fist when it tried to bite at her.

Gyan! Though it yelped, it didn’t lose its will to fight. It even tried to snap at Ria again, it does have the brain of a beast after all.

Putting its face between her hands, she flung it away by force. Showing its stomach, the h.e.l.lhound was pinned down by Ria.

“He~y, who’s a good doggy? Who is? You are~”

Being given a merciless rubbing attack, the h.e.l.lhound was panting happily. Though it didn’t lose it’s desire to fight, its instincts as a dog didn’t let it defy someone stronger than itself.

After playing with the h.e.l.lish monster for a while, Ria seemed to finally be satisfied.

The h.e.l.lhound neatly waited next to her.

“Alright, then let’s go shall we?”

Then the party headed into the third floor without defeating the guardian.

The look of this floor was about the same as the first floor. In the stone pathway, all kinds of trees were entangled here and there.

“The main enemies here are golems. Most are wood golems, with the floor guardian being a stone golem.”

“A good enemy.”

In contrast to Gig being full of ambition, Lulu gave an unusual request.

“Please get as many golem cores as possible without breaking them. Since they are popular materials for experiments, they are worth a lot.”

We agreed.

When we arrived at the guardian before noon, we a.s.saulted it as we were.

“It’s level 55~”

The two vanguards advanced and exchanged blows with it. During that, Carlos’ sword was unable to endure the rough treatment and broke.

“Aah~! That was expensive!”

“It’s because he didn’t care for it properly,” though Ria thought that, she took out and handed him a spare sword.

Even though he wasn’t accustomed to the sword, it was still a one-handed sword. He was somehow able to to continue fighting against the golem.

But soon, Serge lost interest.

“Gig, I’m going to use acceleration magic on you, so finish it up quickly ‘kay?”

After a short amount of concentrating, the magic was finally put on Gig. His movements were obviously sped up.

He drove his warhammer into the stone golem. Carlos aimed at its joints.

Just as that happened, the golem was defeated. Of course, the golem’s core was acquired safely.

“You could make a personal golem with this~”

By the way, if asked what kind of golem I’d make, it seems one for remodeling rooms would be useful.

The party entered the fourth floor.

The labyrinth was completely made of stone. The sources of light were nothing but unidentifiable torches placed on the wall.

The guardian there was a minotaur, Ria heard about it from the Ogre King.

Mainly, difficulty depended on the complexity of the labyrinth. It was on this floor that Maal’s former party was annihilated.

“Alright, then shall we go ahead with the wall breaking strategy?”

No one could stop her anymore.

Ria destroyed the wall bare-handed. Though strong enemies did gather there, their level also rose considerably.

Twin-headed snakes, gigantic wolf spiders, the same group of beasts as usual. So long as they didn’t have special abilities, they could be defeated easily.

And Ria killed the enemies that had special abilities with a single stroke of her blade.

As a matter of fact, her Swordplay level increased to 8 when she fought the Ogre King.

Lulu restrained the ma.s.sive amount of enemies with a wall of fire, while Carlos and Gig did the heavy labor of defeating the monsters, raising shouts and fighting.

Serge and Maal did the same as before, taking out monsters who escape from the vanguard with magic and arrows.

Taking a short break, we planned for the future.

“Maal, what kind of place is the 5th floor?”

“From what I’ve heard, it seems to be a place like a rocky desert. Rather than calling it a labyrinth, it’s more like a series of rooms.”

“Alright, then I’ll go make a bath over there after this.”

Ria didn’t miss a beat.

The minotaur was pitiful.

In a normal fight, many strong explorers would have been turned into mince meat, but this was Ria.

Due to it being far weaker than the Ogre King, and was easily defeated.

Speedily moving behind it, she cut the back of its knees.

She then cut off the tendons of the elbow on the arm it held its huge battleaxe in.

Then the two warriors finished it off.

“I wonder if you can eat minotaurs…”

“Ria, minotaurs more or less fall under being demi-humans. You shouldn’t eat them.”

Thus, the party dove into the fifth floor.

Though this was the one wall for explorers, they weren’t aware of that.

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