Evil Avalon - Volume 2 - Chapter 2

Chapter 2: To the Tenth Floor - Part 2

A black mist formed two kilometers away from where we’d fought the giant bat, and an orc archer appeared.

“Have a go at taking it down fairly,” I suggested to Kano.

“Roger.”

Kano set me down and brought her dagger up. Hopefully this fight would be more informative than the fight against the giant bat.

As soon as the orc archer left its defenseless postspawn state, it spotted us and raised its bow. The orc fired an arrow at Kano’s leg as she ran toward it, probably wanting to slow her down.

The monster’s bow was simple, no more than a tree branch with a bowstring tied. Yet it was massive, over two meters long. The loud sound the bowstring made when released showed how much power one needed to use the weapon. And the arrows’ boom made it seem like someone had used a ballista. Level 8 monsters were nothing to trifle with.

And yet...

Kano effortlessly struck away the arrowheads of the projectiles without slowing down, and she sliced the orc archer open from its neck to its collarbone when she closed in on it. The orc archer turned into a magic gem before even hitting the floor.

Her dagger had bent slightly out of shape due to the force exerted upon it.

“Oh no, my dagger!” yelped Kano. “It’s gone wonky!”

“From the looks of things, you might have gone up to level 15,” I said.

Although the dagger’s slender design made bending it more likely, it was as durable as any other steel weapon. It had been tough enough to retain its shape when she’d handled it roughly at level 8. This display meant her grip strength and overall power had increased.

Also, that was a rental weapon and technically belongs to the school, not you... Now we’re gonna have to find a way to pay for it.

I paused for a moment.

“We’ll have to get some new weapons,” I said. “I’m basically broke, so I hope we can find something nice at Granny’s Goods.”

“Can we trade our dungeon coins and magic gems there?” asked Kano.

In the game, you could buy items at Granny’s Goods that other adventurers had sold. One could snatch up magic items and weapons made from rare materials at a cheap price as long as enough were in circulation. We probably wouldn’t find anything like that because there weren’t many other players in this world. The lack of players meant that certain items would be cheaper to buy.

“Looks like you can handle the fights, so it should be safe to head down to the tenth floor,” I said.

“Gotcha,” replied Kano. “Hang on tight because I’m gonna run.”

I climbed onto Kano’s back, and she sped down the scarcely populated road toward the next floor.

Kano’s running form was like she was jogging, probably so I wouldn’t have a bumpy ride. Somehow, she reached a speed of about forty kilometers per hour. Several adventurers did a double take when they saw us, startled by her speed and how she was carrying me.

Uhh, Kano, I thought. Couldn’t you slow down just a bit? We’re getting odd looks.

“Whoa, I’m going crazy fast!” she shouted, laughing. “This is so much fun!”

“Watch where you’re going!” I screamed.

Despite the main street not being as busy as the other floors, we encountered adventurers traveling down the path. I knew it would end badly if we collided with them.

***

After Kano ran for a few more kilometers, we reached the ninth floor. I thought about suggesting we take a rest to let Kano catch her breath after twenty minutes of running. But she’d barely broken a sweat, so we skipped it and set straight off for the tenth floor.

The official statistics claimed that only ten percent of adventurers could fight monsters on the tenth floor. When I looked at the ninth-floor rest area, I only saw a handful of adventurers. All of them had likely changed to basic jobs, recognizable because they all wore equipment suited to their roles of Fighter, Caster, Thief, or others. Fighters, who wore light armor and used single-handed swords, were the best represented among the gathered adventurers.

A person generally needed three things to be able to reach this point: enough capital to equip yourself with decent armor, time to hunt monsters and level up, and the right amount of friends to form a party. Few people had all three. Those who had these things received support from sponsors or an adventuring clan, were graduates of Adventurers’ High, or were wealthy. Of course, former players could get along just fine with just their game knowledge.

“So what’ll we run into on the ninth floor?” asked Kano.

“Mostly orcs and bats, same as the eighth. Although you do get some trolls down here too.”

Trolls were giant, three-meter-tall hairy monsters with a level of 9. They attacked with bare fists rather than weapons, but it was a good idea to dodge their blows because of their colossal strength. You would be in deep trouble if they caught you too. Fights against trolls often became prolonged due to the monster’s regenerative skills. Longer fights increased the risk of other monsters joining the fray, so fleeing was usually the best option.

“Reeeally,” she said. “I bet I could walk all over them with my current strength.”

“Don’t forget that I’m not in fighting form, and our weapons are too weak to handle our strength,” I warned her. “We’ll fight back if one attacks us, but don’t go looking for trouble.”

After a pause, Kano replied, “Sure.”

I watched a party of adventurers battling in the distance as we strolled toward the tenth floor.

“Look over there!” called out Kano. “There’s a weird lump in the ground.”

“That’ll be an active trap,” I explained. “Avoid lumps like that if you spot them unless you want to break your back trying to climb back up.”

So far, we’d only encountered traps that others had already sprung on the main streets of the dungeon. However, we’d begun to find a few active traps down here where fewer adventurers came. The traps on the first ten floors were relatively conspicuous and of no danger when careful. Around the twentieth floor, traps would become almost impossible to spot, requiring parties to have at least one member with a trap detection skill.

We kept running, overtaking several other parties, and even passed an orc general. Since we were the only adventurers there, we ran past the monster and finally reached the tenth floor.

***

Reaching the tenth floor was one of my long-standing objectives, so being here moved me deeply... Or I would’ve felt that if I’d planned it and not been forced here by that damn skeleton and those bastards from Soleil. They’d get what was coming to them, especially after what they had done to Kano. I’d make sure of that.

Thinking about them pissed me off.

I glanced around at our surroundings in the resting area of the entrance to the tenth floor. The creators of this floor’s map had designed it to look like a human-made labyrinth. All the walls were built from stone, as were the floors. Even the light blue ceiling looked like the sky, seeming brighter and less claustrophobic than on the other floors. The scenery reminded me of walking through the backstreets of a traditional Japanese castle town.

“There are the shops. Oh, look, there’s a hotel too!” remarked Kano.

Several stores sold their items in a corner of the rest area alongside offices with employees of the Adventurers’ Guild. On the other side was an old traditional Japanese inn. It looked like they served food inside, and several parties were relaxing and chatting outside its entrance.

Unlike the leisure facilities on the fourth floor, this one catered mainly to actual adventurers looking for a place to stay during their raids. Going through the dungeon without using a gate would take half a day, with the same being true of the return journey. As such, adventurers who raided deep inside the dungeon needed a place like this on the tenth floor to stay for a night. Most adventurers brought tents with them and camped in the open space of the resting area to save on costs. But high-level adventurers and the upper classes were too proud to pitch a tent, which kept the inn in business.

Doesn’t make a difference to us, I thought. We can just use the gate.

Granny’s Goods was opposite the main street that led to the eleventh floor. Few adventurers would have business in this direction, as the area teemed with monsters. I decided that we should take a break to prepare for the coming conflict.

“Let’s rest up a bit,” I said. “I’m gonna go use the bathroom.”

“Me too,” Kano replied. “Oh! And I’ll pick up some food to take with us, just in case we get hungry.”

Then, I glanced at the food stalls and saw a terrifying sign reading “Yakisoba: 1080 yen.”

I knew I shouldn’t grumble. The delivery people had to fight through monsters to get the supplies down here, and the hiring pool for a job like that would be tiny. But still, over a thousand yen for some yakisoba? I wondered how much more expensive it was going to get.

As I continued brooding over the prices when I returned from the bathroom, I got a big surprise. My sister was about to order from that same yakisoba stand.

Better check my wallet, I thought.

“Hey, mister!” chirped Kano. “Can I get two yakisoba?”

“Comin’ right up!” replied the vendor. “Two yakisoba, with some extra for the pretty lady.”

“Thanks so much!”

I looked at the yakisoba he’d given her. The servings were larger than what he’d served to other customers. Yet the stingy vendor had barely put any filling inside.

We wrapped the yakisoba packs in napkins and put them in our rucksacks, took a final look at the resting area, and set off to the west toward the hidden store. As the name suggested, it stood in an area that was difficult to access.

“So we just have to slot a dungeon coin into the wall?” asked Kano.

“Yeah, a copper one,” I said. “There’s a miniboss on this floor that has a chance of dropping them when you defeat it, but we don’t need to do that. We’ve already got some from killing the orc lord.”

Kano groaned and said, “Can we at least come back to fight the boss when you’re all healed?”

I’d thought running for an entire hour with me on her back would wear her out, but Kano was itching for a fight. Her physical enhancements were having a greater effect on her than I had expected.

While I felt incredibly energetic after leveling up, I was pretty sure I was experiencing the burst of hyperactivity a person felt after powering through exhaustion.

At any rate, we were almost at our destination. I’d get my status effects healed at Granny’s Goods first, then I could sleep well at our home. All I’d need to do was to keep my guard up for a while longer.