Otoko Nara Ikkokuichijou no Aruji o Mezasa Nakya, ne? Chapter 301

Year 7447, Month 6, Day 29

After returning the horseshoes to the leather bag and tying the mouth shut I left them to Zulu.
However, it hurts that I wasn't able to properly identify things in regards ot the giant stag beetles.
Whether that confusion attack is a spell or special skill.

According to Miduchi, most likely it has the special skill {Confusion} but supposedly the one she knew about was just a normal(?) {Amber.Goliath} without the {Great} attached so it's fine to think that Ralpha was. .h.i.t with the same special skill but she can't say anything at all in my case. Though that's the case, I ended up like that because I saw the those complex and shining compound eyes so it's easy to guess that wasn't a spell but a special skill.

I remembered that experience while trying to explain what kind of situation it was and started to feel sick again. That was seriously an unpleasant experience.

It seems like it'll take a reasonable amount of time for the net entangled with the corpse covered in yellow body fluids and green blood but I can tell quite a bit of it can still be used so we'll obviously recover it. The corpse itself has other uses before Ralpha changes it to water to get rid of it.
We'll test out hitting the corpse with attack spells. Particularly confirming the strength of the st.u.r.dy looking parts of it's carapace and figuring out where the weaknesses are in it's joints is necessary.

We all tried out various things in line with Miduchi's explanation. It's supposedly an uncommon monster which you never know if you'll see it once in every ten years at her hometown. Therefore, she's only ever heard stories about it but didn't have any experience directly fighting against one. There's a lot of points that need to be confirmed.

The result of that was we determined that while the st.u.r.dy looking surface of the carapace was impossible but if you land a direct hit on the joints then even Arbalest cla.s.s attack spells can deal plenty of damage. Even when it comes to the carapace portion if you use Ballista cla.s.s then it pierces through pretty well so we found out that we can expect a reasonable amount of power from it. However, in regards to the back, elbows, and knees that looked the hardest at the very least power over the heavy catapult cla.s.s is necessary.

Furthermore, when it came to the rifle other than the hardest portions it was able to pierce through the carapace no matter where it hit. That means we can expect the penetration power of the {Stone Heavy Catapult} cla.s.s from the rifles. Although, it's something that I realized after using it up until now but if the rifle hits a bad spot the damage it deals is pretty low. It's not particularly limited ot just the {Amber.Goliath} but even against ogres and trolls the larger their bodies are the lower the damage is when it hits a place other than their vital points.
Though the same goes for bows as well.

The only exception is when you land a direct hit with a sword. Only at times like that does the damage not decrease but actually increases. Whenever Zulu swings down the b.a.s.t.a.r.d sword that he normally uses with one-hand with both of his hands the damage increases by quite a bit. Of course even if he uses it with one-hand if he lands a direct hit the damage increases by a bit. This goes the same for Toris's sword and my long sword when I take out of the bayonet as well.

However, in the case that I use it while it's still a part of the bayonet or in the case of spears and halberds it seems to do the same damage as when up against normally sized monsters up to the same size as people. Also, even if they're both swords when it comes to Bel's shortsword or Zenom and Ralpha's magic axes even if they land a direct hit the damage seems a bit lower.

Also, what could considered the most abnormal is Miduchi's scimitar, as long as she lands a direct hit that isn't at a half-a.s.sed angle on the neck or limbs then regardless of the damage it will cleanly cut it off. It seems the special effect {Energy.Drain} is working at those times.

Other than that, both the magic stones from the {Great.Underground.Vodyanoy} had an identify value of close to 800,000. If we sell both of them then it should be over 11,000,000 Z. Something like selling them for 5,500,000 Z a piece, I'm sure magic tool shop Danhiru can't afford to deal in them. If we want to sell them then I'll probably have to take them into the magic tool shop Splendor in the capital. Well, I have no intention of selling them for the time being though.

By the way, we weren't able to find any high quality equipment like the ones the Minotaurs use.
However, I noticed that the leather in the leather bag that the horseshoes were in was double-layered.
After flipping it inside out and there was a complex pattern carved on the inside of similar to the ones on all of the equipment we've found up until now, if we were to think of this side as the surface then it could be considered quite the high quality leather bag. In order to imprint this intricate and complex of a pattern into such a thin piece of leather it should require quite a high level of technique.

After using {Identify} it came up as {Double.Tool.Bag}. The materials are supposedly sheepskin(judging from the sensation it should be the original exterior) and {Abyssal.Ogre.Leather}(the side with the pattern on it).

And then right now we're finally taking a break in the teleport crystal room of the 10th floor.

Now then, I wonder what we should do next.
We decided to discuss our plans from here on out.

The conclusion we came to was that the next time when we encounter the {Amber.Goliath} from the outside, when it either discovers or recognizes us and the the room brightens up along with the cage of lightning bolts appearing there's no other choice than to try using some kind of magic. If it's possible to use magic just like this time then we can blow the giant stag beetles away and kill them with attack spells before they even get close to us.
It would be fine to just aim carefully with the rifle as well. It seems fine as long as you don't look at both of it's compound eyes from a considerably close distance at the same time after all.

This time Ralpha and I ended up in a pretty terrible condition but as long as we're careful of that then it's good news that we can use magic. Ever since we've entered the latter half of the dungeon you could say this is the first good news other than finding treasure in a while.

For the time being there should be quite a bit of time before the guardians resp.a.w.n so first we should explore the large room that surrounds the teleport crystal room. After that if we can manage it we'll take a peek into the 11th floor for a bit and then defeat the guardian at least one more time after it resp.a.w.ns before returning to the surface.

There's a high probability that it'll take close to 20 hours to repsawn just like the last floor so we should have plenty of time to spare. After we return to the surface we'll probably need to carry luggage back here twice or so but if we don't take care of the things we can do before that I can't relax.

.....................................

In the evening we tried taking a step onto the 11th floor.
After teleporting what was in front of us was obviously the same teleport crystal we had been holding up until now.
This is the same as always.

And then, the place we thought we were most likely to be at was near the outer wall.
The surroundings of the teleport crystal were like a small semi-circle plaza and the bottom of that semi-circle was almost like the wall of a cliff with the dense overgrown trees from a deep forest surrounding it.
Just from a glance they appear to be broad-leaf evergreen oak trees.

Furthermore, completely different from up until now the 11th floor had light.
Gentle orange colored lights were pouring down from the ceiling almost like twilight.
In regards to this it wasn't almost as  bright as noon like the 7th floor but it's not like light like this hadn't appeared before.
That's why you could say there was still problem up to here.

However, there was a large difference that you could tell from a single glance.

First off the height of the ceiling was way beyond the 100 meters of the 7th floor.
It most likely goes far above into the kilometers and strangely enough there even appears to be something like clouds.

And if you're wondering why I can tell, it's because there doesn't seem to be anything like hallways at all.

Far into the distance above the the top parts of the forest surrounding us there's a long and thin pillar that stretches all the way to the ceiling almost like an orbital elevator that comes out in SF novels and beyond that is a wall surrounded by light mist that is probably the opposite side of the outer wall.

In other words, the floor itself seems to be a single large room just like the 14th floor(?).

Just as far as can be seen there doesn't seem to be any walls that would make up hallways.

"This was..unexpected right."

Toris casually whispered with his shield at the ready and {Flame.Tongue} in his right hand but he's carefully scanning the surroundings without his guard. He doesn't have his sword covered in flames.

"It seems like twilight but I wonder if it's because of the current time..."

Bel whispered while looking up at the sky with her magic sword in one hand but I'm sure no one has an answer to that.

"It seems there's no monsters nearby.."

Zenom said while observing the surroundings on guard with his magic axe just like Toris. Obviously I've already long since scanned over the surroundings with {Identify} vision but I wasn't able to find anything unusual.

"For the time being I'll write down the number."

Gwine took out a brush and ink from her bag and wrote "1" on an appropriate rock.

"I wonder if it's fine to move forward just like this?"

Basutoral said while guarding Gwine together with Zulu and Angela but I don't think there's any other way about it.

"But wait, isn't that pillar-like thing the place where the teleport crystal is? Probably. It doesn't seem like there's any walls either, doesn't it seem like we could easily pa.s.s through~"

Ralpha said while pointing at the orbital elevator far in the distance with her magic axe held in one hand. Though you could say that's exactly the case but I really doubt things would be that simple right?

"Excluding the fact that it's bright and the forest and it's almost like that place..Ah, or was the ceiling even lower?"

Miduchi said as if confirming with me with her scimitar in one hand.

"I just thought the same thing myself."

I replied while observing our surroundings but I couldn't find any dangerous monsters or traps.

"In that case, I wonder if only the boss is here?"

I wonder about that? Just like you said just now, that place on the 14th floor wasn't as bright as it is here and it didn't have any plants growing. The height of the ceiling is completely different and there's no guarantee that there isn't something lurking in the forest.

"If that's the case then I'm just praying it's something other than that fellow."

Just as I replied like that Gwine put away the brush and asked, "What should we do?"

"Let's try teleporting back in a number of times."

..............................

We repeated teleporting into the 11th floor around 20 times. However, every single teleport location was believed to be somewhere along the outer wall just the same as the first time. I had Ralpha check the direction a number of times but because the orbital elevator can always be seen in the center we were able to get a grasp on the general outline with Gwine's {Mapping}.

After all it was a large room of about 10 km in diameter and all of the teleport locations were somewhere along the outer wall.
According to Gwine because we can always see the pillar in the center and the outer circ.u.mference we should have the easiest time ever in producing the map.

"Hey, if you use wind magic to fly up high wouldn't you be able to look far into the distance?"

Unexpectedly Miduchi came up with an unbelievably reckless idea.

According to her, either she or I would hold on to Gwine while entering something like the barrel of a cannon made with earth magic. And then, after climbing up a bit higher than the bottom of the barrel use a decent level of wind magic to fly high into the air. Then when falling you just have to consecutively use wind magic to attempt a soft-landing. Even in the worst case if you fail on the landing as long you don't die instantly either Miduchi or I whoever remains can do something about it with healing magic, how do I put it, who in their right mind would do something as terrifying as that? or at least it was such an unrealistic idea that it seemed idiotic to even consider it.

After rejecting it without a moments thought and she said she experienced something similar so she suggested it was a reasonable amount of basis for it but there's no way we could do something like that this close to the outer wall. If we even make a single mistake with the angle and we'll either crash into the outer wall or die rolling down. Even if that isn't the case there's a forest below and there's guarantee we'd be able to skillfully land in the plaza.

Ralpha and Basutoral both said "I see!" as if it was a great idea worth hitting their knees over but the Gwine in question was so pale she might start foaming at the mouth at any moment. Although, the idea of having Gwine confirm the surroundings from a high place itself is naturally pretty logical.

The outer wall is just the same as the 6th and 7th floors with just enough footholds that a professional rock climber with the right tools in our past life..may..be.. able to climb up it.
Since it couldn't be helped while paying the highest level of attention to safety we had Gwine climb up to the tallest tree nearby just once to confirm the surroundings and just as expected quite a few things were confirmed.

First off, along the outer circ.u.mference there's a doughnut shaped forest with a width of about 200~300 meters.

Most likely all of the teleport crystals from the 10th floor are positioned inside of the dense forest along the outer circ.u.mference. In regards to this we confirmed that it was almost certainly the case by moving a mere 100 meters or so along the outer wall and found another small plaza exactly the same as the teleport location excluding the fact that there wasn't a teleport crystal like the one we used. If we were to a.s.sume that they're 100 meters apart with fixed intervals then there should be about 314 teleport locations on this floor. Though there probably shouldn't be any major differences no matter where we teleport. It's possible there's 360 locations if the intervals are a bit below 100 meters.

After pa.s.sing through the forest along the outer circ.u.mference and just as expected there's a 200~300 meter wide waist-high gra.s.sland spread out in a doughnut shape. Beyond that is more gra.s.slands or wilderness and then it mixes together with a different forest or bushes. She was only able to confirm the terrain up to there from on top of the tree, but no problem~ if there's more trees growing ahead then it's fine if she just climbs up again. Other than that just as far as Gwine could see she couldn't find anything like monsters.

"If we were to try and go in a straight line towards that pillar I feel like we could make it."

Gwine gave us some good news. But it seems she was pretty scared as the color of her face isn't very good.
Supposedly she doesn't have anything like a fear of heights but the height of the tree we had Gwine climb was about 10 meters. She climbed up to a height of about 6~7 meters but I'm sure scary things are scary.

"Were there any rivers or ponds?"

Zenom asked.

"I couldn't tell that much."

If we were to a.s.sume that there's no monsters or guardian then it wouldn't even take us 2 hours to clear through this floor. Even if there were as long as there's no traps and we don't get injured it shouldn't be all that different though.

"Shall we stop here for today? It's almost 8:00 right? I'm seriously starting to feel hungry and if things go smoothly those things should resp.a.w.n around tomorrow morning. I want to catch them off guard and kill them once after properly identifying them after all."

I'm sure it'll take some time for us to repair the net as well so we'll get by with just hardtack and dried meat soup for our meals for today.
It seems there's still over 20 bullets remaining for the rifle and if we can use magic it should be simple to blow them away with that.
It should be fine to slowly take my time identifying the monsters after that.

..............................

Year 7447, Month 6, Day 30

【】
【Male/30/6/7447.Great.Underground.Vodyanoy】
【Condition: Normal】
【Age: 0 Years Old】
【Level: 10】
【HP: 744(744) MP: 20(20)】
【Strength: 35】
【Speed: 15】
【Dexterity: 15】
【Endurance: 80】
【Special Skill: Excavate】
【Special Skill: Confusion Type III】

It's female partner is pretty similar as well.
However, back stabbing from behind is seriously frightening.

In order to verify the timing which magic can be used, when they were first resp.a.w.ning all of us surrounded the swirling fog while waiting leaving just Gwine in the teleport room. The minotaurs on the 8th and 9th floors respectively took 17 and 18 hours to resp.a.w.n. I wonder if this time it'll be 19 hours? While that was what we predicted since it was just a weak basis we obviously woke up pretty early and did a number of simulations while waiting for them to resp.a.w.n so we don't look at both of their compound eyes at once.

Just as expected 19 hours later at just past 7:00 in the morning.
The resp.a.w.n fog finally started swirling around.
During that time we were able to confirm that we were unable to use racial skills, magic, and unique abilities.

And then the moment the {Amber.Goliaths} resp.a.w.ned in a stance with one knee to the ground just like the minotaurs we all swung our weapons down with all of our strength just as we went over in simulations. Attacks that land in a bad spot might not be able to pierce through the hard carapace and deal no damage.
Even then if 4~5 people continue to attack each of them then they'll fall over and those with some leeway might be able to aim their attacks at the joints between the carapace.

That's what everyone thought.

However, the carapaces of the newly sp.a.w.ned {Amber.Goliaths} were pure white like an albino and almost like jelly. It was soft almost like a crab or crayfish immediately after molting. Additionally at the same time as the room turned bright and the sound from the cage of lightning bolts echoed through Gwine's voice yelled "It works!" from the entrance to the room. I was just about to stop everyone from beating them on all sides and immediately hit with a powerful spell but it didn't even require magic. That's why even when I used Identify on them at this point it still ended up as {Corpse of Great.Underground.Vodyanoy}.

It couldn't be helped and some tests were still necessary so we endured the wait for it to resp.a.w.n one more time(we spent the spare time investigating unexplored areas of the 10th floor), and just the same as when the minotaurs resp.a.w.n after taking one step outside and kicking them over the cage of lightning bolts activated.
Immediately after I pulled back into the hall leading to the teleport crystal room.

And then this time we waited for over 1 hour in the teleport crystal room after they resp.a.w.ned for the color of their carapaces to turn fully black. I just mentioned the details of Identify which I checked during that time right? Ah, {Confusion Type III}...

In order to use the special skill {Confusion Type III} it seems it requires simultaneously looking into both of it's compound eyes and you must be in close range that's a distance of less than half the height of the {Amber.Goliath}.

The targets captured in the special skill will see an unpleasant scene of a person of the same race they knew in the past or a scene that they find frightening but supposedly the possibility of seeing through it as an illusion is close to zero. Supposedly it creeps into your heart after taking on more than enough reality to make you believe that it's real. Otherwise it supposedly can make you mistake all other living beings besides yourself as the {Amber.Goliath}. The possibility of each of those effects is 40%. But, there's also the possibility of your senses being exchanged like me as well. This possibility was the remaining 20%.

I really had some bad luck.

After that I had Miduchi, Bel, Toris, Ralpha, Gwine, and Basutoral, everyone who can use magic practice using attack spells to aim at joint between it's carapace in the back of it's neck. Partially because we dealt some major damage to it all at once you could say it was an easy victory.

Again one more time. This time we returned to the teleport crystal on the 9th floor and after having some proper rest and meals made it back to the teleport room on the 10th floor with no guardian before the {Amber.Goliaths} resp.a.w.ned. On that occasion it was a bit of a waste but we brought along blankets. This time we threw the blankets over their heads at the moment they resp.a.w.ned and beat them to death without using magic after safely sealing their compound eyes.

Yeah. There seems to be no problem even without magic as long as we stab them in the back.

Even when it comes to fighting head on, it's fine if I just try invading from the outside matched up with the timing they resp.a.w.n again and try to finish them off with magic. As insurance it should be fine as long as everyone else remains on standby in the teleport room.