The fifth day since we arrived on the 7th floor. Exploration is proceeding smoothly. Even though I say that we still haven't arrived at the teleport room to the 8th floor yet.
Honestly speaking, including myself everyone is feeling a bit impatient about this situation. Even though we've filled in over 50% of the map of the 7th floor. Even then we still haven't found the route to the 8th floor. We've tried discussing it with everyone but other than the fact that deep in a monster room seems suspicious, we couldn't think of anything else that could connect to the 8th floor.
After we defeated that huge earthworm, I'm sure we made a mistake on the route we advanced down...Since the time was what it was, it's regretful that we couldn't explore down all of the split paths after that time. Even though the 7th floor is considerably easy to remain cautious on, even I don't want to camp out in a place other than the safe area here.
In any case, in the four days up until yesterday, we earned 10,000,000 - 15,000,000 Z (10-15 gold coins) in magic stones everyday. Basutoral is smoothly building up some experience as well. Since we're earning quite the high amount, even though we still haven't found the teleport room to the 8th floor everyone's morale is high.
Particularly Basutoral since he's getting used to the atmosphere of the combat and a sharp light has appeared in his eyes. The fact that he's progressively giving it his best is good but honestly speaking I feel like he's got some dangerous insecurity building up in there as well. After all it's certain that Basutoral isn't as strong as the other members.
Even if I say he's getting used to the atmosphere of the combat, it just means he's stopped flinching, and it's definitely not like his combat abilities have increased. Since everyone already understands that, they're souring their words while telling him "be careful" every time something happens.
Since his might gradually increased and when Basutoral started to get more progressive at first I thought it was great, with this the foundations are complete for him to become a new member and put my hand to my chest in relief but since around yesterday I've started to feel a bit uneasy about it, and I even had to give him a considerably strong order not to get full of himself and go out too far on the front line during combat.
This is just my imagination but I think that Basutoral is in ecstasy over the fact that he can really get his hands on an amount of money that could blind you. Obviously at first he was nervous, doubtful, and felt a gap in the abilities of those around him so he was shrinking back but after he realized that there's some difference in the abilities between the {Slaughterers} and the monsters, his feelings have been swelling up.
I don't particularly think that itself is anything bad. I'm sure it's necessary at first to be saved by your surroundings and gain some experience. In any case, he needs to put in effort himself and train, and then make sure he increases his skills as well otherwise sooner or later it's obvious he won't be able to keep it up, as long he's not just an idiot once we return to the surface and he has time for his head to cool down he should be able to understand.
We managed to defeat 17 ogres between the morning and afternoon of this day as well and we returned to the teleport room on the 6th floor after obtaining magic stones that exceed 14,000,000 Z . We all chatted while eating away at the pot of thinly sliced pork roast Giberuti prepared for us.
Around the time the stock disappeared from the pot we added some barley without the husks into it and waited around 15 minutes after putting the lid on. Finally we put some eggs on top and it comes out as egg gruel, we blow away at it to cool it down while eating it. Other than the fact that there's no fish stock it's a menu that Japanese people would generally prefer so it received praise from all of us. Even a western stable pot meal can taste pretty good.
Just like this when you're eating it, while barley is different from wheat which is difficult to eat unless you make it into a powder, its clearly different from rice but if you eat it while it's still in grain form it's quite good is what I'm always thinking. Although, on Orth since things like the water wheel and individual grinders entered households the habit of eating whole grains is rapidly going out of fashion, most people prefer wheat which tastes better when changed into a powder compared to barley. Like Zenom, when he first met me he made fun of barley as something only the poor and slaves eat while still in grain form. As expected he hasn't said anything like that recently though.
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Year 7444, Month 12, Day 24
"Al-san.."
"Ma..Master.."
"What are you saying Toris, if it's Al then it's only obvious he's fine."
"Hn? In the past on our way to Baldukk I saw him create dirt towards the ocean but I don't think it was much as this time? Or was it?"
"It's because Gwine doesn't eat enough and doesn't have any meat on her bones. Though it seems that your physique has gotten a bit better recently, it would be best if you eat even more."
"Please stop with that, Zulu. Even though I already feel like I'm building up too much muscle recently..my abs have started to get ripped..even though I'm a girl.."
"I'm jealous of Miduchi-san..Rather are you picking a fight? Even though those sort of ideal proportions are absolutely impossible for me..abominable elves..abominable bunnies.."
"Maruso..that's not something to be jealous of. Also I'm just becoming defiant with the beard.."
You all..Stop saying such pointless things and show more admiration for my ice..Look, open your eyes even wider in surprise and look at it. Even though such great results are right in front of you..Well whatever.
"Umm..Al-san, is it fine if I ask something?"
"After all that ice is magic.. right?"
"If I can learn magic as well will I be able to do that much?"
"I said it previously but when I tried magic training in the village it was no good.."
"Rea...Really?"
"Yeah, keep with it."
I glanced at myself and used identify again and my experience points have increased quite a bit. My maximum MP increased by 1 as well. Just in case I tried opening the sub-window for fire magic and just as I expected the level increased and it changed to MAX. Since it was 12 ogres, a total of over 5,000 HP so I think that's only obvious though.
After that I used the spell {Anti-Magic Field} to erase through the ice like a tunnel up to where the ogres are frozen and we gathered the magic stones. And then while I got it was just 12 ogres but that seems to have been a mistake. It seems that while they're the same ogres there were two of them mixed in that had magic special skills. The levels of their skills were 3-4 so they were about the same as a normal magician but if we had tried properly taking them on the front things could have gotten difficult. If we were to be ambushed then heavy injuries, or depending on how things go we might have even had to prepare ourselves for casualties...
Including the one we entered from there was five paths stretching out from the monster room. I wonder if one of the remaining four paths is the right answer for being connected to the 8th floor? No, if that's not the case then we'll be troubled. We tried picking the direction that seemed like it leads towards the center while advancing and we managed to arrive at the teleport room to the 8th floor.
Just this place has a ceiling that's a bit over 10 meters and the interior isn't all that different from the usual dungeon. Strangely enough the tunnel leading into the teleport room only had a width and height of about 2 meters and were far too narrow. In the first place monsters shouldn't be able to approach from within 100 meters of the surroundings so I think there's probably no meaning to it but since there's zigzags five times leading to it none of the light from outside reaches into it.
It's still around 4 pm. The time is a bit early but since it's a good cut off point I guess we should finish things up early for today. In the first place today this time, no, this is the final exploration day in the dungeon for this year, in other words the day we finish things up. Tomorrow afternoon we have some training but starting the day after tomorrow until January 5th of next year we have 10 consecutive days off. Since we made quite a bit of profit and we were finally able to discover the teleport crystal for the 8th floor our morale went up quite a bit. That's why, since it's also Christmas, around tomorrow night we should feign it's the last meeting and doing some merrymaking might not be bad as well. Since today is Christmas Eve I'm sure Ralpha and Gwine will drink either way.
When we returned to the surface a cold rain was falling and even though we were feeling pretty good it made things feel kind of bad. The entrance plaza was considerably quiet as well and had a slightly lonesome atmosphere. Since we had been exploring the dungeon for 9 days already we just kept stretching ourselves out in the rain.