“So can we catch the fishes?” Metea asked.
“Yes, you can catch the ones that aim directly at you,” Haruka replied. “If you encounter monsters on the ledge below, we’ll have Touya rappel down to you as quickly as possible while the rest of us provide backup from above. Does that sound good?”
“I suppose this will be a test: It may be that the monsters target anyone climbing down, but it may also be that they’re simply a trap that won’t trigger again after the first descent,” said Natsuki. “Regardless, I’m inclined to believe that this is worth trying.”
After some further discussion, we came up with what we believed to be the safest plan: Metea would slowly climb down first, and I would follow her on the rope ladder, maintaining a constant distance of a few meters between the two of us. If monsters attacked us, I would pull Metea up to me and protect us with Isolation Field. We attached a lifeline to Metea as she and I prepared to climb down.
“Here goes!”
Metea saluted us with a smile on her face, then went over the edge. I had no idea if she was smiling because she had no fear, in spite of having witnessed the injury Touya had suffered earlier, or if she just had that much trust in us.
“I’ll get going too,” I said.
“Take care of her, Nao,” said Haruka.
“Of course. You can count on me.”
As I slowly descended after Metea, I constantly checked her position. When we’d progressed a few meters beyond the point where Touya had been attacked, my Scout skill picked up some signals. I looked up to warn the others and saw that Haruka already had an arrow knocked.
There were a total of four arrowhead eagles flying at us—one more than before—but Haruka was able to react swiftly. By the time the eagles were within range of my magic, she’d already sniped two of them, and Yuki had nailed another with a Fire Arrow, so I downed the final eagle with a Fire Arrow of my own. Since I had more leeway to react this time, I tried to shoot it from an angle that would result in it falling onto the ledge below, and when I craned around to check, it looked like I’d succeeded. Of course, given that I’d used fire magic, I had no idea whether its feathers would be salvageable.
While I was busy dispatching the last arrowhead eagle, Metea had climbed up beside me. She clapped her hands and said, “That was awesome, big bro Nao!”
She was dangling in the air, but she didn’t seem frightened in the slightest.
“You doing okay so far, Metea?”
“Yeah!”
Even as we exchanged those words, Metea began descending again. It was almost like we were fishing with her as bait, and soon, the fish showed up. This shoal appeared to be about the same size as the first, and like it, they’d emerged from the top of the waterfall and headed straight at us.
“Touya!” I yelled.
“Yeah, I know!”
“Whoa!”
With one hand, I pulled Metea up next to me, then into my arms, then activated Isolation Field. A few flying needlefish jammed their snouts into the rock beneath us with a series of sharp thuds, and a few more bounced off of the spell and fell into the gorge.
“We got hit even up here,” I said. “I wonder if using Isolation Field was the right call.”
“Um, maybe I just got pulled up too fast!” said Metea.
If I’d been the target, the shoal’s initial trajectory had been off mark, but when I’d pulled Metea up, some of them had adjusted their angle of attack. They’d probably been going too fast to change directions mid-flight, but with enough distance, they could clearly make some adjustments.
“Are you not scared at all, Metea?”
“Nope, I feel fine! I know I can count on you an’ everybody else to keep me safe, big bro Nao!”
“Well, don’t get overconfident, but I’m glad that you trust us.”
If necessary, I could also expand the Isolation Field spell to cover Metea while she was climbing below me. However, the mana cost of spells scaled with their area of effect, so that would rapidly deplete my mana. It wouldn’t be a huge deal, though; we could just put this “test” on hold and return home.
“You can go a bit slower, big bro Touya!”
“Huh?”
Touya peeked down at us from overhead, looking a bit confused. Metea didn’t seem to care; she just waved her hand as a signal to give her more slack.
“Let’s go pick up all the fishes first! There’s plenty of fresh fishes waiting for us!”
“Yeah, let’s,” I said.
In addition to the couple of fish that had bounced off of my Isolation Field, there were about twenty stuck in the rock wall, so Metea and I copied the method that Touya had devised earlier to collect them. It was honestly a pretty smart strategy. If you didn’t snap their necks before pulling them out of the wall, they would probably try to stab you with their snouts, so it was best to kill them while they were immobilized, even if it looked a bit gruesome.
“Okay, all done! Now let’s go catch more fishes!”
Metea seemed pleased with our haul and urged me to hurry with a smile on her face. We ended up repeating the same process four times, and by the time we reached the ledge, we’d accumulated over a hundred flying needlefish. Just in case there were monsters concealing themselves nearby, I lowered myself onto the ledge before Metea, but luckily enough, it seemed completely clear. We’d made it to our initial destination and gotten some fish and birds along the way.
“Is it safe down there, Nao? It is? Okay, I’ll go next!”
Yuki waved at us, then climbed over the edge. We had decided beforehand on the order in which we’d descend. The next thing we had to test was whether the flying needlefish would continue attacking subsequent climbers after a couple of us had already made it to the ledge. Yuki could defend herself with magic, hence the fact that she was next in line after me.
But she made it all the way down to the ledge without being attacked. Apparently there had been no need to worry.
“Whew. I was kinda nervous, but everything was fine.”
“I’m glad you made it down here safely,” I said. “Although given that you can also cast Isolation Field, I’m pretty sure you would have been fine regardless.”
“Please, I don’t know if my Isolation Field is actually good enough to block flying needlefish! Yours is a lot harder and more durable than mine!”
“Well, yeah, the durability scales with the amount of mana you use.”
You could adjust the size and hardness of the Isolation Field at will and cancel it at any time, but there was no way to reabsorb the mana you’d put into it, so if you made it more powerful than was really necessary, it was a waste of mana. For that very reason, I’d vacillated a bit about the amount to use in my own Isolation Field.
“Anyway, I think we can conclude that the flying needlefish don’t just attack anyone passing through that area,” I said. “Maybe they’ll attack again after a certain amount of time has passed, though.”
“Yeah. Maybe this is one of those dungeon traps,” said Yuki. “You know, the kind that takes a while to reset after you trigger them?”
“So no more fishes flying at us?” Metea asked.
The two of us laughed at her disappointed tone. In spite of the danger posed by their sharp snouts, flying needlefish were, at the end of the day, just fish. They were easy enough to catch as long as you took precautions.
“Even bosses eventually respawn, so I’m sure we’ll run into the flying needlefish again at some point,” I replied.
“Yeah, ’xactly,” said Yuki. “If it’s the same as the respawn rate for bosses, we might have to wait a few weeks. But for a regular trap like this, maybe it’ll only be a couple days.”
“Oh, yay!”
Metea was beaming, and Yuki and I laughed again. Despite the serious injury that her “big brother” had suffered, Metea was just happy to have a new source of fresh fish. Adventuring was definitely a good profession for her personality type.
Mary was the next to climb down to the ledge, followed by Natsuki, Haruka, and Touya in that order. Touya pulled up the ladder, then rappelled down. Our plan was to leave behind the rope he’d used.
“Well, we all made it here safely.” Haruka glanced around. “This place looks similar to everything we’ve seen so far on this level.”
Of course, a difference of twenty meters in elevation wasn’t enough for a dramatic change in the scenery. The bottom of the gorge was still shrouded in darkness, and the massive waterfall likewise appeared unchanged from this angle. A plank trail similar to the one above led away from the falls, and a rock wall overhung it like an eave. That overhang had prevented us from confirming the existence of another plank trail on this level, but it would probably help to shield us from rain.
But wait, is there rain inside dungeons? I’d normally assume no, but there’s a sky above us with what look like clouds. It was clear the whole time we were in the grassland area. I wonder if the good weather will hold.
“There doesn’t seem to be anything of note here apart from the plank trail,” said Haruka.
“What do you think is next?” I asked. “Will we end up at another dead end or will the trail actually take us somewhere?”
“Well, based on how things have gone so far, I bet we’ll have to climb down again,” said Yuki.
Natsuki nodded. “And the shoals of needlefish seem likely to be a recurring trap.”
“This shelter is pretty convenient,” said Touya. He pointed up at the waterfall. “Great view too.”