Thus, we temporarily parted ways with Jade Wings to resume our own exploration of the dungeon. Although we teleported past many of the floors to save time, we did stop to collect fruit and nuts along the way. The same day, right on schedule, we arrived before the boss room of the twentieth floor. It would have been ideal if we could’ve tackled the twenty-first floor in perfect condition, so I wanted to rest in the loot room at the head of the stairs, but...
“A month or so has passed since we last defeated the boss on this floor, right? I wonder if it’s respawned by now,” I said.
“If it has, then I wanna rest here for a bit before we fight it again,” said Yuki. “Lemme take a look.”
She carefully opened the door of the boss room, peeked inside, then immediately closed it again and took a few steps back.
“Well, I don’t see anything inside,” said Yuki. “Can you open the door for real this time, Touya?”
“Sure. Get ready for combat just in case.”
Touya placed his hands on the door and turned around to make sure everyone was ready, then opened the door. We entered the room and looked around. It really was empty inside.
“Whew. I guess the boss hasn’t respawned yet,” said Haruka.
“Yeah. My Scout skill didn’t detect anything, so this is what I figured, but still, better safe than sorry,” I said.
If I overrelied on my Scout skill, there were certain monsters that could catch me off guard. We had to remain vigilant whenever we were adventuring. We breathed a collective sigh of relief before crossing the boss room toward the loot room. After making sure there were no enemies in there either, we began setting up camp.
“It’s reassuring to camp in a small room like this,” said Haruka.
“Indeed. It’s much easier to protect ourselves than in a cave or out on the grassy plains,” said Natsuki.
In fact, camping inside the dungeon was a lot more comfortable than camping outside, since there was no risk of rain, but I wasn’t sure which was preferable, since being confined to an indoor environment for an extended period of time could affect our mental health. The number and strength of monsters varied between each floor, so it depended on where exactly we decided to camp, but loot rooms were comfortable enough. We weren’t sure to what extent we could trust the mechanics of the dungeon, but it didn’t seem that we would have to worry about a respawned boss charging in here or monsters from the floor below crawling up the stairs.
“Right—we should probably bury a teleportation marker here before we forget,” said Yuki. “The boss hasn’t respawned yet, but if we can’t teleport past it, we might end up having to fight a red tyrant strike ox multiple times.”
A blissful smile appeared on Metea’s face. “Oh, I loved the cheek meat. Steaks and stew with beef cheek are really good. I wouldn’t mind fighting it again!”
“Yeah, I really liked it too,” said Mary, but then she snapped out of it and scolded her sister, “Wait, no, Met, we weren’t able to help fight the boss last time, so don’t be so selfish.”
“The meat was definitely good,” I said, “partly because the cooks are so good at their job, but still.”
Beef cheek was fairly rare given that you could only obtain it in small amounts from normal cattle. Because of the red tyrant strike ox’s massive size, we’d gotten a decent amount, so the girls had been able to cook all sorts of different dishes. Stewed over an extended period of time, it was tender and delicious, and the steak was great too, although a bit chewy to me. All of that said, the idea of battling another red tyrant strike ox for more meat sounded appealing to me too, but we still had plenty of meat left inside of our magic bags, so...
Haruka giggled. “Thanks for the praise. In that case, I suppose we can come back here to slay another red tyrant strike ox once we run out of cheek meat.”
“Yay! And I’ll help out next time, I promise!”
★★★★★★★★★
The girls ended up serving us some beef cheek stew for dinner that evening, probably because Metea had mentioned it earlier. After savoring our meal, we spent the night sleeping in the loot room. The next morning, we headed down the long stairs toward the twenty-first floor. This was our second time descending these stairs, but they still felt annoyingly long.
Eventually, we heard a deep, weighty sound from far off. A little farther on, a giant waterfall came into view. I was once again stunned by such a magnificent sight inside the dungeon.
“...Man, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to seeing something like this every time we come here,” I said.
“If we were back on Earth, this would probably be treated as a World Heritage Site,” said Natsuki.
“Yeah, I completely agree, but we really gotta make some progress today,” said Yuki. “We can’t just camp out here.”
“Mm. This area isn’t particularly suitable for camping,” said Haruka.
The stairs led down to a rock ledge that was wide enough to afford us some space to rest, but the sound of falling water was deafening, and there was a constant drizzle. If we used our pop-up tent, it would probably block out sound, but whoever stayed up on night watch would get soaked from the constant spray. It was true that we all had the Robust skill, but we would probably still catch a cold if we were exposed to a cold and damp environment for a prolonged period of time.
“Let’s bury a teleportation marker here too, just in case we end up being unable to climb back up the cliffs,” I said.
“Yeah, good idea,” said Touya. “That’d make me feel a lot better about exploring farther.”
“We should set up another of the main compass units too,” said Yuki. “I think it should be fine to just put it on the stairs.”
Every level of the dungeon from the first to the twentieth had been straightforwardly laid out, but the twenty-first floor was completely unfamiliar to us, so we definitely needed to map it as we explored it. Yuki took out a compass and began to set it up at the bottom of the stairs.
I watched her work, then walked over to her and buried a teleportation marker.
“Let’s see,” said Yuki. “Okay, the compass is working fine. It might be difficult to map this ledge, though.”
“Well, good luck, Yuki,” I said. “The teleportation marker seems to be fine too, so—hmm? Wait...”
After Yuki tested out the compass, I had confirmed that the teleportation marker was functioning. I could still detect it after burying it, but...
“Uh, Yuki, can you detect the teleportation marker that we left behind on the twentieth floor?” I asked.
“Huh? It’s right above us, so it should be easy to detect.” Yuki put a finger to her temple and closed her eyes, but then they went wide in surprise. “Oh, that’s weird. I can’t detect it. Did it break?”
“Nah, there’s no way—it’s only been a day since we set it up!”
I couldn’t detect the marker on the nineteenth floor either, so clearly the issue wasn’t specific to the twentieth. If we left the markers alone for long enough, they would probably stop functioning eventually, but the odds of two breaking simultaneously seemed slim. In addition, I had improved the range of my detection ability, so under normal circumstances, I was fairly sure I should still have been able to detect the marker on the nineteenth floor. However...
“It’s probably because of the twenty-first floor itself,” said Haruka, gazing at the scenery around us.
Touya nodded in agreement. “Yeah, exactly. The stairs that led down here were long as shit, and the sky is also—oh, actually, the sky looks just as high and vast as the sky of the twentieth floor...”
“On the other floors, all we could see when we looked up was the sky,” said Yuki. “There was never anything like a ceiling. But based on how far apart the markers feel, the ceilings probably weren’t actually that high.”
“The stairs also weren’t really long enough to explain why we can’t detect the other markers,” I said. “Could this be something like spatial distortion?”
“It’s possible,” said Natsuki. “Strictly speaking, dungeons aren’t even located underground.”