BXBX NOVEL Vol. 5 - Chapter 241 - 3rd Floor (1)
My friends had only had their Talents changed once, so I wanted to raise their Levels while collecting the Stone Slabs.
I had a lot of things I wanted to do, like collecting stone slabs and magic stones, so I was feeling very excited.
I also needed to earn 1000 Gold coins in 5 days to collect D-rank magic stones from the Adventurer's Guild.
The S-class dungeon, Tower of Trials, seemed to be full of challenging elements.
With gratitude to the Dungeon Master, Digragni, I walked over to the cube-shaped object.
As with the 2nd floor, there seemed to be a cube-shaped object on the 3rd floor that would guide us to the next floor.
Since there was a cube-shaped object right in front of us, I decided to learn the conditions required to go to the 4th floor before exploring the 3rd floor.
"Welcome, Abandoned Gamers. This is S301, the Dungeon Management System. Would you like to go to the next floor? Or go back to the 1st floor?"
"Huh?"
(Oh, come on. Seriously?)
"What's wrong?"
I was upset, so Kurena asked why I was.
"No, Kurena. Let me just check."
"Yeah."
"Excuse me. Can't we go back from the 3rd floor to the 2nd floor?"
"Sorry, you can only move to the next floor or to the 1st floor."
"Hah! We will need many Medals."
(What? Is this S-class dungeon just a Medal game?)
""!?""
My friends understood the meaning of my words.
We needed Medals to get to the next floor.
And if Medals were needed every time we wanted to advance to the next floor, it would mean that we had to use Medals to go up each time from the 1st floor.
"I want to go to the next floor."
I wanted to know the conditions for advancing to the next floor.
"To go to the 4th floor, please give me 4 Bronze Medals and 4 Iron Medals."
"I don't have them."
(We don't have a single Medal. Seriously, we need Bronze Medals too?)
"Hey, hey! What is this? The number of Medals we need keeps increasing!
Cecile recalled the agony that we had to go through for half a day just to get 3 Bronze Medals. My other friends were immensely impressed.
At that time, I somehow understood the difficulty of conquering the S-class dungeon.
The higher one went in the dungeon, the more Medals they would need.
"So, we'll have to consider staying in the dungeon."
"...It seems so."
Sophie responded with a hand on her cheek with an expression that said that she was in trouble.
We went to the trouble of renting a property near the dungeon, but found out that the specifications required that many Medals when we left the dungeon each day.
I remembered seeing the adventurers resting in the plaza on the 3rd floor.
They were resting in the dungeon, perhaps because of the specification that the Medals were required each time.
There must have been parties of adventurers who had been sleeping there for days.
"For now, let's keep track of the dungeon and collect the Medals."
It was easy to imagine that Iron Medals would be important in the dungeon.
I summoned B-rank Birds.
They flew into the sky amidst the amazement of the resting adventurers.
(Hmmm, there are a fair number of adventurers here, but it's not crowded. But there's a problem. Is every magical beast except for the ones fighting in the sand? How do I search for them? Hmm?)
The 3rd floor was not crowded with only about 20% to 30% of the adventurers who were active on the 2nd floor being there.
I looked around through E-rank Bird but I couldn't find any magical beasts roaming on the surface.
The magical beasts out on the surface were already in battle with a party of adventurers.
In the midst of all that, one party of adventurers approached a rocky mountain about the size of a mountain dotted in the sand.
It appeared to be a fairly large party of adventurers numbering in the dozens.
(Mm, what's this? Oh! There's a hole in the rock mountain! Hmm? Is there something in the hole?)
While I checked on the adventurers with my E-rank Bird, the adventurers began to form up in front of a gaping hole in the large rock mountain.
The adventurers seemed eager to engage in a battle.
Two Golems stood in the front, with the adventurers in the rear guard.
Lightly armed archers stood on the Golem's shoulders.
Two or so beastmen, who appeared to be scouts, slowly walked into the hole.
After some time, they came running out as if they were being chased at a great speed.
From behind they came Scorpion magical beasts.
The mountain didn't look that big, but more and more Scorpion magical beasts came pouring out.
Then one large Scorpion magical beast appeared from behind dozens of Scorpion magical beasts.
The battle between the adventurers and the magical beasts began.
The battle was proceeding in favor of the adventurers, as they were well formed.
(I see, there are magical beasts in the mountains too? So it's not just in the sand. Hmm? Was this the same on the 2nd floor? Come to think of it, there were large trees growing there.)
As the party of adventurers engaged in battle, I was reminded of the 2nd floor, which consisted of forests and grasslands; indeed, the 2nd floor also had large trees scattered at intervals of several kilometers.
I had the E-rank Bird, which was still flying on the 2nd floor, to head for a very prominent large tree.
The tree had a large hole in it.
All the large trees seemed to have open holes in them.
(Hmmm...are there Treasure Chests or magical beasts in these places? The trees on the 2nd floor are not as big as the rocky mountains on the 3rd floor, so maybe all of them have Treasure Chests. I see... I see...)
I expected the large trees or rocky mountains to have a magical beast or Treasure Chest in them.
Adventurers were searching through the trees on the 2nd floor or the rocky mountains on the 3rd floor while retrieving Treasure Chests or defeating magical beasts.
"What's wrong?"
Merle asked me, who was still thinking.
"Somehow, I'm beginning to see how we should attack this floor."
"Really?"
"Yeah, let's go to that rocky mountain over there for a minute."
We headed for a rocky mountain where no one seemed to be around to confirm that what I had noticed was correct.
"This is the place. You all be careful, there might be some enemies out there."
With that, Kurena and Dogora led the group to a spot a short distance away from the big hole in the rocky mountain.
Then, after getting into the formation, I sent B-rank Spirits into the hole.
"Hmm? There's nothing here."
""Huh?""
I saw through B-rank Spirit that the large hole in the rocky mountain that was large enough for an A-rank magical beast to enter and exit, was a bit like a cave.
I hoped to find a magical beast, but I reached a dead end and found nothing.
"Maybe there's not always something there. Let's try another rocky mountain."
I used E-rank Bird's [Clairvoyance] and found that there were more than 100 rocky mountains in the 3rd floor's cast, wavy desert.
Since we had just started to look into it, I decided to check another rocky mountain.
When we arrived there, we formed the same formation and I sent B-rank Spirits into it.
But nothing happened.
(Again, nothing. But there seem to be a lot of adventurers who are hunting magical beasts targeting rocky mountains like this.)
Checking the movements of the other adventurer parties, it seemed to me that they were divided into two main groups.
One was a party of adventurers who roamed the desert and hunted magical beasts.
The others were a party of adventurers moving towards a rocky mountain.
I didn't give up after the second failure and went to the third rocky mountain.
I sent B-rank Spirit inside again.
I went deep into the room and thought there was nothing there, but then something like a magic circle with many geometric characters appeared.
"""Kish!!!!!!!!"""
Then, from the magic circle, a large number of Scorpion magical beasts appeared and filled the cave.
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