249 - - a day of exhausting

Thor and his team spent the next two hours exploring the walls of the large room on the eleventh floor, but were unable to find a mechanism to open the bars.

The first pitfall was the only one.

The only thing left to do now is to search the floor of the room with a fine-tooth comb, but the problem is the monsters that are roaming around.

We had killed most of the evil spirits, but there was nothing we could do about the crocodile bones that kept regenerating endlessly.

Besides, we never know when the spirits of the prisoners will reappear.

After much deliberation, Thor and his friends decide to continue downwards.

"Hey, could it be a woman?"

"Another one with a different coloring."

The monsters roaming the large room on the twelfth floor were, as before, ghosts without substance.

However, there were two notable changes.

The first was that they were clad in tattered black dresses.

And another.

Strands of what appeared to be hair were hanging from the skulls of the ghosts, of varying lengths.

There were other changes in the room.

Thorny plants were sticking to the walls here and there.

These were not ghosts, but living beings.

Sola looked at the ivy, which was opening small black petals here and there, and squealed in admiration.

"I didn't know they could grow flowers in places like this..."

"No, that's probably a trap too."

"Or maybe it's a monster."

The two of us had become completely skeptical, but we were right.

The moment Thor approached with his sword at the ready, a black flower suddenly sprinkled pollen on the ground.

The area of the pollen was much wider than he had expected, and he inhaled it, though only a little.

Thor's legs suddenly become unsteady and he almost loses consciousness, but he barely manages to in time and jumps out of the way.

If he had been just a little bit later, he would have certainly fallen into a coma near the flowers.

Thor shakes his head in exasperation, and then gives instructions to the three of us.

"This guy is too dangerous. Let's keep our distance and go around.

"Yes, sir. I'm coming, Moo-chan.

"Mwah ......"

"I think it's time for a long rest somewhere."

Perhaps it was because of the repetitive moving and fighting since this morning, but the child's stamina seemed to have bottomed out.

Mu's eyes, which were gripping the edge of Sola's clothes, seemed to be returning to normal after the eyelids had fallen down several times.

"Okay, let's go to that corner and rest.

"We're almost there, Moo-chan!"

"Muuu...... muuu......"

The group headed for the northwest corner, where there were relatively few monsters, but naturally, monsters blocked their way.

Thor closed the distance to the spirits of the dead who were wandering around in the way.

But as long as they are emitting life, they cannot surprise the corpse monsters.

The skeleton turns around and undergoes a sudden and drastic transformation.

The skin of the skeleton rises to the surface like gushing water, and in an instant it regains its human form.

The skeleton had a thin face that might have been quite beautiful in her life, but unfortunately, her eyes and lips are still missing, which in turn increases the eeriness of her appearance.

When Thor stopped moving due to the unexpected change, the female ghost opened her mouth wide.

A terrible scream emanates from the back of her dark throat.

Thor, who was exposed to the scream at close range, contorted his face in pain and almost fell to his knees, but he held on just in time this time.

He stretches out his arm and slashes at the approaching spirit in one swift motion.

A noisy noise behind him made him turn around to see a child rolling around on the floor.

Next to him, Yuril is holding his ears and contorting his face as if in pain.

Sola seemed to be the only one who could only frown, but Mu and Yuril, who had more senses than anyone else, seemed to have been severely affected.

I rush over to them and bring them back with .

Moe sat up with a start and stomped his head, his violet eyes flashing with anger.

"You're too big!　Oh, my God!　Muuuuuuuuu!"

Apparently, he had been woken up from his half-asleep state, and his mood had deteriorated even further.

After taking turns taking a nap in the northwest corner for about an hour, Thor and the others continued their search of the large room on the twelfth floor.

They avoided the thorns that scattered pollen to induce stupor, and the female screams were either slain by Thor or extinguished by Sola by aiming at their heads.

As for the screaming ghosts, Yuril came up with a simple but effective solution.

He covered Moe's ears with his hands and synchronized his senses with those of the others.

This way, Thor and Sora can use their hands freely even during the battle, and they don't have to take the trouble to put on and off the earplugs.

We managed to finish our search near evening, although this floor was also full of troublesome opponents.

There is only one way in and out of the room, which, like the one above, is blocked by iron bars.

Most of the walls are unidentified due to the pesky ivy, but we have already found what we are looking for near the center.

Sighing heavily, Sola looks into the hole at her feet with a disgusted look on her face.

"There's a lot of them, Thor!"

The large room on the thirteenth floor was home to ghosts clad in pitch-black armor.

And for some reason, even though they were indoors, they were riding astride horses with nothing but their bones.

The room is quite noisy with the sound of armor scraping and hooves pounding on the stone floor.

However, the presence of armor makes fighting much easier.

The ice and the cold air are now understood, even though the sword is not so effective against them.

Once the horse is lost and the armor is crumpled, it is just the usual evil spirits inside.

The number of spirits in the room was obviously fewer than in the two rooms above, so we were able to finish our search in about two hours.

Finally, in the southeast corner, Thor and his friends find what they are looking for.

A part of the decoration on the pillar in the corner moved.

At the same time, a creaking sound is heard along the wall.

Thor exhales deeply from the bottom of his lungs in front of the raised bars.

The group then proceeded down a long straight corridor and came to a staircase leading to the top.

From the twelfth floor to the eleventh floor, they find a staircase not far away.

And then the eleventh floor.

It is after midnight when they reach the eleventh floor.

While using to restore the strength of Sora, who is approaching his limit, and Mu and Yurir, who have already exceeded theirs, Thor and the others make a map and search for the stairs to the top.

Near dawn, they found a narrow staircase leading up to a dead end.

A heavy stone lid blocked the end of the stairway.

We raised the magic stone lamp to examine it, and found a clasp that looked like it.

After removing it, I lifted it with all my might and shifted it to the side.

The room that peeked out was familiar to me.

"Oh, this is it!　Here, here!"

An excited Sola pointed out on the map a small room to the south of the tenth floor.

It was empty except for a few sarcophagi, and was marked only as a morgue.

It was from one of these coffins that Thor and the others stuck their faces out.

"......There was a staircase hidden here?"

Once the current location is known, the rest is not so difficult.

Somehow, without the steel doll of the guard, Thor and the others finally reach the stairs after a day's absence.

For some reason, the number of bunks had also increased, but they all fell asleep without having time to pay attention to it.

A few hours later, Thor senses the presence of something and quietly lifts his eyelids.

He looks at the others warily.

He grips the hilt of his sword and grips it again.

There were two pairs of purple eyes staring into his eyes.