Volume 2 Chapter 5 (1/2)

Even a first-rate party will take at least six hours to clear the dungeon. For our current party, we should be able to clear the dungeon within 10 hours, if there aren’t any unexpected incidents.

Luna’s fox ears began twitching and her movements changed.

[Youya, I can sense a monster at the turn ahead. Feels like a boar monster.] (Luna)

Looks like we found our prey right from the get go. It’s time to hunt.

[Is the prey asleep? If it’s asleep then Luna will go alone. Erase your presence and approach it cautiously without waking him up. Usually all boar-type monsters have a weak point between their brows.] (Youya)

[Leave it to Luna. Luna will go now!] (Luna)

Luna began to run towards the target. Although she was running on the stone pavement in an enclosed area, I couldn’t hear any sound at all. Her unique trait as a fox allows her to land softly on the ground while running, producing no sound at all. This was a demonstration of her talent at work Luna did not bring along a light crystal with her as she is able to detect the monster’s location and the surroundings with Presence Detection, akin to having a radar of the surroundings within her head. That is why she is able to locate the monster without a light source. It was also easier for her to land a surprise attack.

I heard a ringing sound unique to landing a critical hit and Luna came back. It seems that it was successful.

[Youya, the drop item is a meat. Pork (Average)] (Luna)

[Well done, it’s an item that we need for our quest. Now, let’s continue.] (Youya)

[Uhn. Luna will continue to assassin!] (Luna)

That is a good sign for our start. Let’s continue on at this pace.

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From that point onwards, Luna and Til both played an active role to our success as they were not affected by the darkness in the labyrinth. For Luna who is able to sense her surroundings with Presence Detection and Til who possessed the jade eyes unique to elves, the dark surroundings was actually advantageous to them. Thanks to that, I didn’t have a chance to participate at all.

[Youya,Til. A herd of boars are coming over here! We can’t see them because it’s dark but they are extremely close.] (Luna)

[Ah. If it’s a group of them my bow won’t be that useful.] (Til)

Til began chanting after Luna’s warning was issued. A couple of seconds later, a herd of wild boars appeared in front of us. Til fired arrows at the herd while continuing her chant. Thanks to the special ability of the class exclusive to elves, she is able to fire arrows while simultaneously chanting a spell, allowing her to have twice the firepower of a standard class.

After several tens of seconds, Til completed her chant and casted the advanced magic Heavenly Thunder, the only area of attack spell that our party had. Numerous lightning bolts descended onto the herd, striking the entire herd altogether.

[[GAGUUUUU]]

The electrified wild boars screamed as the lightning bolts struck. However, the monsters here were around level 25, it wasn’t a level where they would be taken out by attack. Those that were damaged beforehand by Til’s arrows collapsed, however those that were still alive were placed under paralysis from the lightning bolts. While they had their movements sealed, arrows flew towards them. However there were still many of them alive and it is impossible for us to handle all of them with just Til’s arrows. Some of them who had their paralysis wear off began charging towards Til. Luna and I intercepted the charging boars.

[Bash.] (Youya)

[Assassinate.] (Luna)

Bash is a skill that doesn’t have any special effects but it has a high attacking power with efficient fuel consumption while Luna released Assassinate which has a high attack power when landing a critical hit. Similarly, both of us landed attacks onto the weak point of the Horned Boars between it’s eyebrows, releasing a ringing sound. After finishing off one boar, we quickly moved on to the next. Thanks to the damage taken from Til’s ranged attacks, we were able to defeat each of them with a single blow. Shortly after, the entire herd was annihilated.

[We did it! We have plenty of meat!] (Luna)

[Fufufu. Youya, it’s fine to praise me you know! After all I was almost able to defeat all of them by myself!] (Til)

With high spirits, Luna and Til ran towards the herd of Horned Boars to pick up the Pork (Average) dropped around everywhere, placing them inside their magic bags.

Looking at the ground in front of them, I felt cold sweat flowing down my back.

[Don’t move!!] (Youya)

I shouted at the top of my lungs, however they were slow in reacting due to their excitement from the recent victory. If this goes on….

[Haah!] (Youya)

I pushed opened the door and my body was covered in the white aura. I focused the white aura around my body onto my legs and stepped in using the high-speed movement skill Ground Shrink, grabbing their collars and throwing them behind me. Luna and Til landed on ground with a loud slam as I couldn’t afford to spend any time to soften their landing.

After confirming their safety, I closed the door and the white aura dissipates. I can’t afford to leave the door open for too long and risk losing my stamina here.

[Youya, it hurts.] (Luna)

[Ugh, I think my butt is swollen.] (Til)

The two of them stared at me grudgingly.

[I apologise, but I had not choice. Take a look.] (Youya)

I picked up the body of a Horned Boar that was on the verge of death and threw it onto the floor ahead of us which had a slightly different colour.

The ground opened up and the dying boar fell through the hole. After awhile, the sound of fleshing being pierced could be heard. Luna and Til peeked into the pitfall. At the bottom of the pitfall, spears were lined up with the Horned Boar pierced between several spears.

[This pitfall was designed to work against adventurers. If the weight above the trap is too heavy or too light it won’t activate. Earlier, the herd of boars were too heavy and the trap didn’t activate, but under both of your weights the trap will definitely activate. The two of you should have the mentality that every labyrinth-type dungeons will have a trap.] (Youya)

It is commonly known that labyrinth-type dungeons have traps that are targeted specifically at adventurers, however it seems that the two of them made the rookie mistake of advancing forward without caution due to their excitement. There weren’t many traps present in the beginner dungeons at Rumberg, but there will be many more traps present in dungeons once you hit the intermediate level.

Although, placing such a trap in a dungeon with low visibility is just bad taste. This is the reason why the survival rate of adventurers in the Starfish Larvae is so low.

[That was close. If we fell then Luna would had died.] (Luna)

[Uwah. What is this? It’s so scary.] (Til)

Both of their faces turned blue and the ground in front of us rumbled before closing again.

[Youya, the battle earlier raised our levels and there are skill points. Trap Detection was also unlocked. I’m scared.] (Luna)

[No, it’s okay not to level it. It is definitely convenient to learn Trap Detection, however it is possible to notice traps in the dungeon just by looking at the surroundings. You should focus your points onto other skills. I’ll teach you the method to find traps so that you do not rely on skills to detect traps.] (Youya)

[I understand. Please teach Luna how to do it.] (Luna)

For hidden treasure chests, there might not be any hints about their location, however for traps there is always a way to notice where they are. If it is only possible to detect traps by having the necessary exploration skills, then it would be impossible to clear dungeons safely without inviting a specialised class into the party. That would just be a horrible game design, and all game producers and players would know it. Therefore, it was made so that it was possible to clear dungeons even without exploration skills. The variety of exploration skills a Thief possesses is huge. If possible I would like to avoid wasting skill points onto skills that can be supplemented by experience. Example of skills that can’t be supplemented are Increased Drop rate and Summon Rate.

Note: I am unsure about Summon Rate so I’ll just leave it as that. If the skill comes up again I’ll rethink its name.