Year 7447, Month 5, Day 9

We arrived at the monster room which ogre mages are believed to be in on the 7th floor.

Today Kamu and Kimu are with us so our pace is a bit slow.

The current time is around 10:00 in the morning.

It took us 4 hours to get up to here in the usually fast pace 7th floor after all.

Furthermore, we discussed even more of the fine details with the two of them last night.

A meeting is necessary before we charge into the monster room.

Though I say that the content is just a single sentence.

"I'll go and finish them off so wait here. Let's take a short break."

Just that.

Ah, I also put some hot water into the flask Giberuti handed me and ordered him to make some tea.

It's just the right sort of place for a rest point after all.

After that I carefully sneak up to the center of the room and after discovering the ogre and ogre mage group freeze them in ice using level 8 water and fire magic then it's just a matter of waiting. In reality though it would have been fine to fight them in close combat like usual but this time Kamu and Kimu are here, well~ I thought I should show them a somewhat good show.

Now I already know that I can finish them off with ice made using just level 8. It's not necessary to use it 8 times over like the first time I tried it. That's right, though a single usage of level 7 is a bit tough. At the very least double is needed. If you can at least use 3~4 times the amount then even if the aim is a bit off from the center of the group it'll definitely end the lives of the ogres.

When it comes to level 8 you create an amount of ice that is more than enough to not have to worry about things like that so the consumed MP is plenty at just two types of level 8 magic for a total of 16. It's still plenty even if I don't use all of it and decrease the amount. Additionally it's easier when it comes time to erase it.

I froze them inside of ice that's 5 meters high and 30 meters or so in diameter.

Even this is barely 1/30th of the amount of ice I can make with level 8 magic.

Though it's still roughly 3.5 times the amount of level 7.

The reason I'm so bent on using ice is because even if I were to bury them in the same amount of dirt with Earth Magic at least 1 of them would be able to escape.

If you use Earth Magic to create dirt it either appears from your hands or falls from the s.p.a.ce above where you're aiming so it's necessary to create more than the amount you actually need. Obviously there's a time lag before they're completely buried so they can move out the way. Although, it requires less MP so you can create all that much more for that amount but if there's that much more it becomes a pain when you're erasing it with {Anti-Magic Field} to find the corpses and gather the magic stones.

After freezing them in ice I briskly walked back to the place where everyone was waiting. A short break while sipping at the tea Giberuti prepared for me.

"Umm, Greed-kun. What about the ogre mages..."

Kamu who's sitting in our circle so we can keep an eye on the situation behind each others backs asked while taking some tea from Giberuti.

"Hn? Yeah, I went and took care of them. They should die pretty soon."

After entering the circle I immediately started sipping at my tea after taking it. It seems like Kamu and Kimu don't understand what I'm saying at all. They exchanged shocked looks with each other before preparing to say something.

"How many were there?"

Ralpha asked while sitting cross-legged and sipping some disgusting tea so the two who were about to say something stopped. No matter how you look at it Ralpha appears to have no sense of danger at all. However, it's certainly not very good even though it's made with hot water~ I understand what you're thinking but couldn't you make a bit better of a face, isn't this fellow too honest?

"The same as usual. Around 10 or so I guess? I didn't properly count them so no clue. Oh~ give me some roasted beans."

I take some roasted beans as a tea snack from Gwine and start crunching away at them. Beans are delicious.

"It sure is a good room as usual right."

"For real, this is about the only place with over 10 ogres all gathered together after all~"

"Right~ it's a nice break whenever Al-san does it at times like this."

"I know right~ give me some roasted beans too."

"Here you go."

Gwine and Basutoral were having that sort of carefree conversation.

Zulu and Angela have already taken out their large knives for gathering the magic stones and have them placed at their sides as they drink tea while Zenom is busy trying to pull out a hair from his beard that's grown in a weird spot.

"Hey, Greed-kun. Is it fine to be doing something like this? Even if I ask everyone they say there's no problem and that we'll understand soon but won't tell us anything.."

Kimu asked nervously while holding a cup of tea with both of her hands.

"I heard that you would take care of them using magic though.."

Kamu seems to be having trouble calming down.

"Yeah, I froze all of the ogres together in ice."

""Frozen in ice...""

"They should all be dead in another 10 minutes or so."

""All dead...""

Nn..I see, the two of them aren't able to use magic was it..Then it makes sense that they wouldn't be able to understand.

Of course, I don't mean the fact that I can freeze ogres in ice.

"Nn, you'll understand when you see later."

We killed some time while taking a break waiting for the frozen ogres to suffocate and then it's finally time to gather the magic stones.

If Miduchi was here then I could have her erase the ice as practice for using {Anti-Magic Field} but she isn't so I have to erase it. I deployed an {Anti-Magic Field} that's 5 meters in every direction in front of my left hand before walking around erasing the ice.

Whenever a corpse appears Zulu, Angela, and everyone else quickly take out their knives and run over.

I can hear Kamu and Kimu talking a bit of distance away from me where I have them keeping lookout just in case.

"If he could have done this from the start at that time.."

"Sis, what are you saying? If that was the case then Koritto-san and the others will still be cheating money out of us."

"Ah, I see."

"Also in the end no one died that time after all."

"But, along the way I thought that someone would definitely die.."

"That might be true but even though my arm was broken I didn't think I would die~"

"Since I was able to see it all from the back..I saw them use magic, I was really surprised."

It's not like they're whispering in secret so I think those nearby can all hear them.

I took a look at Gwine who was gathering magic stones closest to them and she had a clear bitter smile on her face.

The corpse of an ogre with an expression of anguish on it's face.

A young female dwarf making a bitter smile as she cuts open it's chest.

It's a bit surreal.

And then we arrived at the teleport crystal room of the 7th floor.

It seems that Kamu and Kimu were so surprised seeing the ogres frozen in ice in the monster room that they fell over backwards but when I explained to them how I discovered an efficient method to earn experience points and level up the magic skills on the way here they made faces as if they were impressed.

We took a bit of a break and then teleported into the 8th floor because it was still too early for lunch.

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

"After all the 8th floor is different.."

"Trolls was it, what's with those things..No matter how many times you stab them their wounds heal right in front of your eyes, I couldn't believe it until I actually saw it.."

Both Kamu and Kimu were considerably fatigued by the time we arrived in the teleport room of the 8th floor. Just as I thought they were grumbling they were sitting down. This, if the mino was still remaining wouldn't it have been bad?

"Even then if you just ignore the recovery of their wounds and continue to stab them you can defeat them though."

"It was easy when using fire magic right?"

Gwine and Ralpha started talking to the two of them. I quickly started taking off my armor and handed the parts to Zulu. I want to be ready so I can go and take a shower at anytime once Giberuti takes my change of clothes out from his bag.

"But, it's still worth the trouble with how the value of a value the troll's magic stones are right."

Kamu happily said.

"The color is bad but they're bigger than the ones from ogres."

Ralpha replied while quickly taking off her leather armor.

"And you know. Those huge bugs, defeating them itself is considerably easier than the ogres."

Kimu said with a tone of voice several times more cheerful.

"That's right. Even though that's the case their magic stones are worth around 100,000 a piece after all. Honestly speaking if you want to earn money it would be easier to just walk around the 8th floor than wandering around trying to find ogres right. And ogres are strong after all."

Well, if you were to ask me ogres are easier though. Less numbers of them appear so I don't have to use magic as many times. But, well, it's just as Gwine said the bugs don't send instant kill attacks flying like the ogres so that's also true. Ah, the scythes of the mantis aren't for the sake of cutting but in order to fix their prey in place once they've grabbed them. Even if they were to get a hold of your arm with no armor on it at worst it would cut down to the bone or break it and it's not to the point of cutting it off. Though if they were to get a hold of your neck it'd be dangerous but that's not just limited to the mantis after all.

By chance we didn't encounter any Scavenger Crawlers today so we were able to obtain mostly relatively valuable magic stones.

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

Yeary 7447, Month 5, Day 10

"What's that?"

Kamu asked Giberuti who was carrying the net gun as usual.

"Hn? It's a new model of bow."

Giberuti sure says some good things. I've had him learn how to fire the gun as well so he knows about the word gun.

"Bow? It doesn't have any strings, how strange..It doesn't seem like it's a crossbow either."

Kimu asked out of curiosity.

"It's something we use against the group of Minotaurs just before the teleport room of the 9th floor. I think you'll understand when you see it."

Basutoral said with a bit more detail but in the end didn't explain anything.

Though that's fine.

I worried about it for a bit on whether or not to use the net gun but in the end decided to use it.

Prior to that, as expected it's a bit scary not using it even though Kamu and Kimu are with us.

In the first place, different from the rifle this one has almost no ability to kill or injure.

If the sticks that act as the launching platform land a direct hit then it might hurt a bit but even that's limited.

Umu, the name net gun isn't good.

It would be best to change it to {Net.Shooter}.

..Though it's just word play.

Well, since I've already decided to use it for the time being I forbid Kamu and Kimu from speaking about it.

Though the two of them said they have that deep of an understanding about the obligation to silence in the part, just in the case, right.

"But, the 9th floor huh.."

"If we're talking about the 9th floor then"

However, I guess they lost interest in it soon after because Kamu and Kimu started whispering about something in a low voice.

It seems it's a discussion about food.

The crabs?

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

"Delicious! This crab is so good!"

"It was called kanishabu right? I really like this."

The single crab we defeated along the way on the 9th floor. It was worth it having Giberuti carry it.

Kamu and Kimu were delighted as they ate it.

Us?

As expected we didn't make that much noise over it.

We always eat it at least once after all.

Though it never gets old.

"Ah~ I'm so glad I made it into the {Saviors}.."

"We were only able to eat it once after all..It was worth it putting in the effort.."

I'm glad you're willing to say that.

However, I'm sure it's a joke saying you were willing to put in the effort for the sake of the crab but that sure is cheap, really.

Occasionally Basutoral would go back carrying some crab legs and even Toris brings back kanimiso pretty often you know.

Didn't you know?

That time when Bel made crab shuumai, weren't you around?

Or did we just eat that with the {Saviors}?

Since we didn't have any soy sauce we stopped after just that once.

Rather than that what happened to the talk about being impressed by the net gun, or rather net shooter?

Putting that aside, things will be tough starting tomorrow when we work on the map of the 10th floor.

Make sure you get plenty of rest.

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

Just like this we gave our best for about two months and a considerable portion of the map for the 10th floor entered Gwine's head.

During that time the only real thing that happened was the elf Basu, Hyumu sara, and the {s.h.i.+eld.Holder} Benno from the party {Verdure.Brotherhood} ended up seriously injured against ogres on the 7th floor and had to escape, so they had no choice but to suspend activities for a short while.

Ah, supposedly {Gehenna.Flare} is carefully walking around the 6th floor. Also, it seems that {Black.Topaz} purchased several combat slaves.

Oh that's right, in regards to the amulet but it seems that the bidding will end on August 4th.

Just one more month away.

I'm really looking forward to what the final price will be.

Everything is going smoothly for us {Slaughterers}.

Kamu and Kimu have completely blended into our {Saviors} and just as expected from them originally being first-rate adventurers they're pretty reliable as well. Particularly when it comes to knowledge about discovering ores through mining, Kamu was extremely familiar with it. If Kamu says this area smells then roughly 1/10th of the time some type of ore or gem will come out. Though they're mostly just cheap ones.

According to Miduchi gnomes are the next best at these sorts of things after dwarves. Though hearing that p.i.s.sed off Zenom who doesn't have any knowledge about mineral veins or mining. Come to think of it Arnold, the squire dwarf in Bakuddo who was in charge of forging, his father Gerudan.Furintogel was completely useless when it came to things like forging and craftsmans.h.i.+p. Though different from Zenom he was extremely strong at drinking alcohol.

Kamu was born in a squire household that serves a baron who manages a mining district in Count Rozenhaim's territory so while she hasn't ever actually worked in the mines she was reasonably knowledgeable about it. No wonder. According to her almost everything below the 6th floor is iron and there's rarely some suspicious places when walking through the halls. Particularly since she entered the 10th floor she said the number of times her intuition has kicked in has increased quite a bit. Even just taking this into consideration I think it's great that Kamu switched parties.

Also, while we weren't able to find any actual {Magic.Items} us {Saviors} were able to find 3 magic tools and while Miduchi was acting as the leader the {Butchers} found some completely transparent lens-shaped gla.s.s that's estimated to be worth 10,000,000 Z. You might think the price is a bit too high but completely transparent gla.s.s is extremely expensive. Since it can be used as seed gla.s.s after all. According to the president of Sandak Company something similar to it has come out of Baldukk a number of times up until now. I ended up buying this. Since it seems like I could use it in the future.

Between the end of June and the start of July the time for Kamu and Kimu to be dispatched to the {Butchers} and {Exterminators} as leaders arrived. Since neither of them can use magic I told them not to push things too far this time.

However, it's different for the {Saviors}.

It's finally time for us to clear the 10th floor.

I wonder how far we can go against the guardian without the rifles?

Would it be best to at least bring along the net shooter?