Mary put her sister’s hand down and steered her toward the tent. “No, Met. You need to sleep, so let me take care of this instead.”
“But...” Metea looked back at Haruka as Mary pushed her toward the tent.
“We’ll need people with enough stamina for lookout duty tomorrow as well, Metea, so for now, you should get some rest,” Haruka admonished her gently.
Metea’s tail drooped slightly. “’Kay. I’ll sleep for now.”
“Try to fall asleep as quickly as you can, all of you,” said Haruka. “Especially you, Yuki. You’ve just used even more magic, so you need deep sleep to recover mana.”
“Yeah, I know. See you later.”
“Good night,” said Metea.
“Good night,” said Haruka.
Touya had already fallen asleep, and Yuki let Metea into the tent. Haruka added a few extra pieces of wood to the campfire, and then she and Mary leaned against one of the walls Yuki had created and quietly watched the flickering flame.
★★★★★★★★★
The next morning was unexpectedly peaceful. Nighttime ended when the sun rose. Of course, that would have been perfectly normal in the outside world, but deep in the bowels of the dungeon, Haruka watched their surroundings brighten with a subtle unease.
“I remained vigilant the entire time, but nothing happened,” said Haruka.
She seemed unhappy about having worked so hard for nothing. Mary laughed and asked, “Isn’t that a good thing, Haruka-san? Safety is the most important thing, isn’t it?”
“It is, but I imagine you’re a bit disappointed as well,” Haruka said with a playful smile on her face. “After all, we weren’t able to catch any more fish.”
Mary blushed and stuttered, “O-Oh, I-I mean, it’s true that the flying needlefish yesterday were very good, but I’m not the kind of person who only thinks about food!”
Still, she continued giving Haruka furtive glances, as if she couldn’t resist the taste of needlefish, and at last she asked, “Could we have some for breakfast too?”
Haruka almost burst into laughter but somehow managed to hold herself together and say, “S-Sure, of course. Would you like me to grill some again?”
Mary nodded cheerily. “Yeah, that would be great!”
Soon after the two began grilling fish, Touya popped out of the tent, and Metea appeared alongside him. A few minutes later, Yuki, yawning heavily, crawled outside to join them.
“Morning,” said Yuki.
“Good morning, Yuki,” said Haruka. “What’s the current state of your mana reserves?”
“Uhhh...” Yuki folded her arms and cocked her head as if attempting to measure it. “Better-ish.”
“I see. I’m glad to hear that,” said Haruka. “We’re going to need you to work very hard today.”
“Oh, I guess I really don’t have any other choice.”
“Mm. After what happened last night, I won’t feel safe unless you have Isolation Field at the ready constantly,” said Haruka.
“Yeah, I figured as much.” Though Yuki’s shoulders slumped, she nodded and seemed to resign herself to her fate.
Although it was possible to rappel down a rock wall quickly, climbing up was much slower. The members of Meikyo Shisui were now aware that the walls could collapse on them at any minute, and they’d suffered a monster attack in the dead of night, so they planned to take great care in selecting the spot for their next ascent. Under the circumstances, Yuki was the only person who could be counted on to lead the way, so she would ascend to a ledge and let down a rope ladder for the others.
“Hurry up, big sis Yuki!” Metea hollered. “The fish is almost ready!”
Metea pulled on Yuki’s arm excitedly. “Yeah, yeah, I’m coming.”
“The rice is ready too,” said Mary.
Yuki followed Metea to the bonfire. Mary more or less forced a plate of breakfast into Yuki’s hands the moment she sat down. Tempted by the delicious smell of the fish and urged on by the ever-energetic sisters, the others began to eat.
★★★★★★★★★
Yuki stayed on high alert as Meikyo Shisui ascended through the dungeon. Luckily for them, they suffered no further attacks from arrowhead eagles or flying needlefish. This lent some credibility to their theory that the sections where they’d been attacked previously would remain safe for a certain interval of time, but they had no means of estimating exactly how long that interval would be, and they’d been attacked down on the ledge the previous night. For that reason, it would have been far too dangerous for them to ascend without Yuki’s Isolation Field, and they took great care in securing their footholds. By the time they made it to the rock ledge directly overhead, Yuki had exhausted almost her entire reserves of mana, and everyone had to take a breather before progressing farther.
Yuki could recover her mana in half a day, but she was still a normal human and couldn’t be active all day and night. Thus, Meikyo Shisui could make only two ascents per day without taking unacceptable risks. Before beginning their journey upward toward the twentieth floor, they had descended six times, so along the way back up, they had to spend two more nights camping out. They were once again attacked in the dead of night, but Haruka used her own mana to create defensive walls, and the flying needlefish that had attacked them ended up inside of Metea’s tummy during the next morning’s breakfast. On the third day, the five members of Meikyo Shisui finally made it to the staircase that led to the twentieth floor of the dungeon.
★★★★★★★★★
“We made it,” said Touya, “finally.”
“The rock spiders that respawned along the way were more difficult to contend with than I anticipated,” said Haruka.
Over the last year, every member of Meikyo Shisui apart from Nao had learned the Scout skill. Touya had leveled his Scout skill up to Level 3, but that was still low compared to Nao’s. Everyone had learned to detect rock spiders to a certain extent after slaying a couple on the twenty-first floor, but the monsters still caught them by surprise much of the time; it wasn’t always easy to distinguish the spiders from the rock walls before they pounced.
“I wonder if it might be a good idea for all of us to try harder to level up our Scout skills,” said Yuki.
“You got yours via Copy, didn’t you, Yuki? What’s your current level?” Haruka asked.
“...Level 2.”
“That’s not high, but it’s also not low enough that I can accuse you of slacking off,” said Haruka. “It’s kind of an awkward level.”
Copy made it relatively easy for Yuki to learn new skills, but she still had to work hard to level them up beyond Level 1. So far, she had mostly been relying on Nao and Touya to detect enemies, but the fact that she’d still managed to get her Scout skill to Level 2 was a testament to the fact that she was working hard.
“Awkward, huh? What about you then, Haruka?”
“Me? My Scout skill is Level 1.”
“Huh?! So it’s lower than mine!”
“But is that really a fair comparison when you have the Copy skill, Yuki? I had to learn Scout through my own hard work. Besides,” she continued with a completely straight face, “if I leveled it up too much, Nao would lose one of his special roles, so I’ve simply decided to spend my time on more important matters.”
“Uh-huh...” Yuki muttered to herself. She didn’t sound entirely convinced.
Objectively speaking, Haruka’s words were nothing but an excuse. Still, given her own reliance on the Copy skill, Yuki could hardly object.
It was true that learning Scout had been more difficult for Haruka than for Yuki and Touya, although Touya, as a beastman, also had a sharp sixth sense. However, even Natsuki had long since acquired the Scout skill, so it wasn’t prohibitively difficult for any adventurer who worked diligently at it.
“Mary, Metea, both of you have learned the Scout skill by now as well, haven’t you?” Haruka asked.
“Um, yes, that’s right,” Mary replied.
“And both of you were able to learn it within a short period of time,” said Haruka. “I wonder if it’s because you’re both beastgirls.”
“That’s probably one factor, but Kaho didn’t have the Scout skill, so there’s gotta be more to it,” said Yuki.
Haruka cocked her head as she watched the sisters. “Hmm. It must be the result of hard work, then.”
Metea puffed her chest out. “That’s right, I worked very hard! I’m going to turn into a strong adventurer and make a lot of money!”
Hard work was one of the primary reasons that Mary and Metea had been able to learn the Scout skill so rapidly, but their environment had also served as a catalyst. They had experienced battles in areas that they wouldn’t have been able to reach on their own, and they were around Nao, who had a high-level Scout skill, almost constantly. In contrast, Kaho was hardly even aware of the existence of the Scout skill.
“Yes, of course,” Haruka said with a giggle. “I suppose the rest of us should work harder. We’ve allowed everyone to focus on training the skills that they’re best at, but we may need a better strategy to prepare for situations in which we’re split up like this.”
“It’s hard to say what would be best,” said Yuki. “Unlike in video games, we don’t have infinite time. We’ll eventually get old, so we definitely need to think about how to use our time efficiently.”
“Yeah, but this isn’t something that we should discuss here,” said Touya. “Let’s head back to the twentieth floor.”
“Indeed. We can resume this discussion at a later time,” said Haruka.
At Touya’s eminently reasonable suggestion, Meikyo Shisui began ascending the stairs. Haruka walked at the very rear of the group of five. After placing a foot on the first step, she paused and turned back to stare into the deep gorge. Shrouded in mist, it appeared bottomless.
“Natsuki, Nao, we’ll be back as soon as we can. You won’t have to wait long.”
Haruka turned forward again and swiftly climbed the stairs as if forcing herself to move on for the time being.