From that, we devoted to raising our level for another week just in case, but we might be done too much.

Haku and Koku were able to fight against 3 mantises independently, so we challenged the plaza.

Of course, I choose a place with a few monsters.

The number of monsters in the selected plaza was 6 mantises, 4 frogs, and around 10 rabbits and rats.

If it's this number, Pochi and I would take 2 mantises each of us, and the others would take the other opponents.

Haku and Koku take 1 mantis each, and if they can afford the other monsters.

Ordering such formation, I confronted the monsters, but I threw 2 sickles that I had in my hand to the mantises before entering the plaza.

As I was throwing them with a peace of mind, I got better results than I thought.

The sickle I threw headed to the mantis while rotating, but one cut off the head of a mantis.

Moreover, the momentum hardly dropped, cutting off the arm of the mantis that was behind, and the direction turned diagonally due to the impact and pierced the body of a frog.

The other sickle that I threw also cut through the chest of a mantis and went through its back like that.

There was no one behind it, and it didn't cause any more damage, but if it would be, it would have caused further damage.

At this stage, there are 2 mantises defeated, one of the remaining mantises lost one arm, and there is only 1 frog wounded but it wasn't shallow.

Although I was surprised to see that it was more effective than expected, there is no reason to miss the chance.

The monsters also don't understand this situation, their movement is dull.

That's an even better chance.

Pochi bit 1 mantis quickly before the monsters could understand the situation.

We also jumped into the plaza a little bit late and I also headed for a mantis, but at that time Pochi was jumping over a new mantis.

I judged that we should beat them as soon as possible.

"Leave the mantises to us. Haku and Koku take the others."

Instructed that, I headed to the mantis.

Haku and Koku opposed the other monsters because, for Haku and Koku who are able to fight equally with three mantises, the frogs and others are small fries.

When I killed the mantis, the other monsters were already defeated by Haku and Koku.

The remaining mantis was also defeated by Pochi, and the battle finished sooner than I expected.

The time it took wouldn't have been 1 minute since I threw the sickles.

In that time, we defeated the monsters.

Yeah, it's more than I expected.

I guess there was also the thing that the number was small, but……

Well, whatever.

Next is to move to places with more numbers.

I strip the materials from the defeated monsters and put them away in the rucksack.

The rucksack continued to expand further, and now it's supposed to store 20 mantis' stomachs, but there is also the boston bags, so I don't put in there.

Since it's enough to take about 20 items, so other materials are put into the rucksack.

After that, we fought with monsters in several plazas, but even though there were a little more than before, I didn't have any difficulties and we could them easily.

Yeah, it seems to be okay if there are a little more.

Let's challenge places with a little more of them.

However, there are only plazas that are almost the same as the ones we've defeated or places that are too many of them.

As for how many of them are, there were more of 10 of each monster.

Indeed, I think that it would be reckless to challenge them so we avoided those places, and we challenged only the places that seemed to be the same or slightly larger than before.

If we challenge a lot of those places, I will challenge the others after building my strength or after increasing it further.

As we go forward, we were moving to unknown places that we couldn't go through until now.

Then, Pochi who was going ahead suddenly stopped.

That place is the pa.s.sage, but there is nothing.

Nevertheless, Pochi stopped and is sniffing around.

"What's wrong, Pochi? Was there something?"

I try to approach Pochi and ask, but Pochi is sniffing around like that.

Is there something?

I judged so and let Pochi do whatever he wants.

Then Pochi noticed something, headed to the wall of the pa.s.sage and started digging there with his forepaws.

Although I thought 'what's that?', I don't know what he wants to do, so I decided to let Pochi be until he is satisfied.

The wall was being dug little by little by Pochi's forepaws.

Then, when digging to a certain extent, Pochi found something, thrust his face, caught something and pulled it out of the hole.

He brought it to me and put it on the ground.

It was a lump of black metal.

It was about the size of a softball ball.

I take the metal-ish lump in my hand.

Eh, it's like touching metal.

Was there a black metal?

Ye~ah, it's useless.

There is no black metal in my knowledge.

I just don't know what it is, and can't judge if it's an unknown metal.

More than that, Pochi noticed that this was buried.

I didn't notice it at all.

I try to smell the metal approaching it to my nose, but it only smells a bit like metal.

To be clear, if such a thing is in the soil, I can't notice it.

How good is Pochi's nose to notice it?

Haku and Koku also didn't seem to notice it, I guess Pochi is special.

For the time being, speaking of what to do,

"Yo~s.h.i.+, well done, Pochi. You're great!"

crouching down, I pet and praise Pochi.

Because he was glad, Pochi wagged his tail and licked my face.

I continued for a while and stopped after some time.

When I praise him like this, Pochi is pleased so he became really kawaii.

It feels good to pat him, so I'm going to pat him even when there's nothing wrong.

While thinking about such, I put the metal in the rucksack.

I don't know what this metal is, but if I bring it to the materials shop, I'll probably know.

At that time, I just have to decide what to do with this metal.

"Pochi, if you found it again, I leave to you"

When I say so to Pochi, he says 'wan' meaning that he understood.

Pochi leads again as we proceed.

However, after that, Pochi didn't find anything and we didn't get any new metal.

Well, it's such a thing.

It can't be so easy to find many of it.

We couldn't find a new metal, but just knowing that the plazas can be beaten if it isn't one with a lot of monsters is enough.

Mio and the older chickens on the 3rd floor are likely to come to the 4th floor in a little more, there is no need to rush.

By that time, we are getting even stronger, so we challenge the plazas with a large number of monsters.

That is enough fighting results, and should I go to see the puppies of Pochi today as a reward?

Today it's the 3rd time of the week that I go, but it's okay.

When I see the puppies, their cuteness healed me.

It's perfect for stress-relieving.

Fighting monsters is quite stressful so I have to do something like this to relieve stress.

Oh, that's right.

Let's take monster meat as a souvenir.

I'm sure they will forgive me if I bring souvenirs.

Because I don't want to receive a prohibition.

However, it's worth going to see them because they grow up every time I go to see them.

Of course, I don't forget to take pictures.

I have collected a lot of photos so I need to organize them later.

Although only a week has pa.s.sed, the babies were pretty moving around.

If it's like this, I'm looking forward to the time when they got bigger.