Volume 2 Chapter 13

With the addition of an excellent tank, our second adventure in the labyrinth was going so smoothly that it was incomparable to our first attempt.

[Shield Bash!] (Selene)

Selene’s spike penetrates through a giant caterpillar with a green shell. Although it shared similar characteristics with the Starfish Larvae, it wasn’t as large and was only about five metres in length at most. The pattern on its back was capable of intimidating it’s enemies and depicted eyes similar to a swallowtail larvae. It had two eyes that looked like jewels. It’s name was the Terrafish Larvae

Note I have no clue what the name is so I just came up with one myself. If anyone could confirm, its name is 地食蟲

It was a rare existence that can only be found in the labyrinth of the Starfish Larvae with a small spawn chance. Unlike the Starfish Larvae there wasn’t a second enraged phase that occurs once you defeat it, so we could defeat it with confidence. However,, it was still essentially a miniature version of the Starfish Larvae that is quite powerful. Selene activated Fortress and directly received the creature’s charge despite it’s massive weight and speed. However, even after it’s movement came to a halt, Til’s barrage of arrows and Luna’s Assassinate couldn’t damage it due to it’s hard outer shell protecting it and it’s vital points. Afterwards, we finally managed to defeat it by breaking an opening in its outer shell by using Napalm Strike and dealing the finish blow with Selene’s spiked Shield Bash. After having it’s flesh completely gouged inside out, it’s body turned into blue particles and a red jewel drops onto the ground. It was the Terrafish Larvae’s eye.

[Youya. It’s a weird item drop] (Luna)

[U~wah. It’s a beautiful jewel isn’t it.] (Til)

[It is but once you remember that it was the eye of that giant caterpillar, you don’t even feel like picking it up.] (Selene)

The name of the jewel is Insect Ruby.

(Note: Again, I’m winging the name. Kanji is 蟲紅玉ちゅうこうぎょく)

[What are you talking about. Insect Rubies can be used when creating equipments to enhance their magic power. It is an item that every magic caster and monk wants to obtain. It’s also effective for crusaders. Let’s make a custom-made gauntlet for Selene using this.] (Youya)

When using a ruby jewel as material to create an equipment, an equipment with special properties can be created. Especially materials with high potentials such as increasing magic power are expensive and rare to obtain. As one would expect from a rare monster of a rare dungeon.

The Insect Ruby was a rare item with about a 5% drop rate. It seems that the Luna’s newly obtained skill has already started to show its effects.

[Isn’t it better to sell this kind of expensive items and divide the money among ourselves? If it’s just me reaping the benefits I will feel guilty.] (Selene)

Selene mentioned without any intention of reaping the benefits for herself.

[How did you come to the conclusion that we should sell it? It is a rare monster item drop you know. We could possibly never come across another one just like it ever again. There is no way that we can sell such a valuable item. Furthermore the stronger Selene gets the stronger our party becomes. It doesn’t feel greedy at all for you to make use of the jewel.] (Youya)

[Uhn. Luna thinks so too. If Selene wasn’t here it would had been hard for us to get it in the first place.] (Luna)

[Me too. I was completely shocked you know. The huge bug suddenly appeared and charged towards us. Even though I fired my bow and my spells. It was too fast and I wouldn’t had made it in time.] (Til)

[As they mentioned, it would have been bad if we didn’t have Selene as our tank and shield.] (Youya)

As the narrow path stretched out as far as we could see, it had suddenly appeared in front of us and began charging towards us. Since it was a huge caterpillar 5 metres long and is large in width as well, we had no room to escape in this narrow path. With a monster chasing us at a speed of about 70 kilometers an hour, it is impossible for us to escape. It was akin to living a nightmare. In such a situation, I am completely inadequate as a tank. It was a situation where I didn’t have any room to use my Deflect and my abilities to their potential. Thankfully for us, we had an unmovable wall in Selene that was capable of receiving the monster’s charge as a level 25 crusader. We are currently safe and alive currently because of her. Otherwise, in the face of that monster’s charge, I would have no choice but to go all out and activate both my God’s Strength and open the door to survive that encounter, exhausting myself before we managed to arrive at the exit.

[Selene, you did great managing to use Shield Bash after receiving that charge.] (Youya)

[I was reckless. Until the end of the battle I couldn’t feel the pain in my arms.] (Selene)

Even though she was specialized in defense, as expected receiving that charge cause a large amount of damage onto her arm, if it was just slighter faster or stronger then she would had probably been unable to stop that charge. Selene began healing her arm with Heal. Luckily for us she was capable of casting recovery magic. With this, even if we were to get damaged during our battles we will be able to continue fighting. Originally, if we were to crack our dominant arm’s bones or our legs, that person would automatically be out of the battle. After finishing her spell, Selene opened her mouth to cover her embarrassment.

[It’s nice to know that people can rely on me as well. All this time I had been raising my level with a babysitter, the high-levelled knights that were in charge of protecting me would often be the ones battling the monsters. Doing my own battles feels nice for a change.] (Selene)

As I reached my hand out to Selene, Selene gripped my hand and we shook hands.

[Luna will do it too!] (Luna)

[Ah I’m part of the party too. Everyone in the party has to do it!] (Til)

The four of us placed our hands together as we did a celebration cheer. It was somewhat embarrassing but it didn’t feel that bad. We continued to carry this momentum all the way to the exit of the labyrinth.

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[Arrived at the exit! Nano.] (Luna)

[Today’s trip didn’t take very long did it.] (Til)

The two girls held each others hands and began a victory dance. It was strangely cute to watch.

[This feels like a dungeon that you can easily clear together with your friends if you knew what you were doing. Initially when entering for the first time, you would feel intimidated at the atmosphere and how dark it is. No matter how much you proceeded in the dungeon, it was scary to think that you might not even be heading in the right direction. But now that we know where the exit is, it is much more enjoyable.] (Selene)

Selene arrived at the correct conclusion about the labyrinth. Selene new battle style was being sharpened with each battle and monster we encountered and I am certain that her power will be essential for our party in the future. It is impossible not to have fun when we are having this sort of adventurers in a party. That pleasure is something that I am fairly familiar with.

[Now then, I still have a job to do. Selene, Luna, Til. Reflect on our battles today and what we should do in the future to better improve our coordination. I’ll listen to the results of your discussion later.] (Youya)

I could just outright inform them about my opinions on the battles earlier today, but that would be too easy. I would rather have them be more self-aware of their mistakes and strengths plus it’ll be more fun to help each other improve that way. Above all, our party would truly become a true party by communicating like this. Just like this, the scene of three beautiful girls talking to each other became much livelier than before.

Suddenly I felt like I am glad that I decided to invite Selene into our party. However, Phil was going to catch up with us in a month. It could be even more exciting with five people in our party. By then we will have to somehow obtain that item that increases our party’s maximum number of members.

[Before that, I have to a job to do.] (Youya)

I took a note of the hour hand’s current position before comparing it with the note I made two days ago. With this, I can roughly estimate when the magic egg will spawn.

[Everyone. I managed to find out when the egg will spawn. It will spawn at midnight five days from now. And the star chart hasn’t change the last time we came here which means that we know exactly where it will spawn too.] (Youya)

The three girls who had their discussion interrupted turned their gazes towards me.

[Hehh. You can really use this star chart and the clock to determine the location and time of the magic egg’s spawn.] (Til)

[Youya is an Esper.] (Luna)

[Luna, Til. I’m pretty sure that I have explained how they work the last time we were here..] (Youya)

I answered with a slight nuance. Since It was the first time Selene had seen this, I decided to explain once more how the star chart and the clock’s mechanism worked.

[So it’s this sort of interesting concept. I didn’t know that there was such a secret to obtaining the Magic Egg.. Using this you could obtain as many eggs you wanted.] (Selene)

[That sounds about right. Although, if you have more than one Magic Pet in the party, the pets will go into a fight with each other and more often than not the weaker pets would escape until only the strongest one remains. In that regard, we only need to get one egg. Neither do we plan on staying in Greenwood forever.] (Youya)

Theoretically, with this secret we could hog the magic eggs all to ourselves and sell the excess eggs to the auction house, securing our income for the rest of our lives. It was one of the goals for every adventurer to secure a living, however it wasn’t an enjoyable method. I want to be at the top and enter dungeons that are much more difficult than this.

[That side of you is why I like Uncle Youya.] (Selene)

[Luna agrees! Luna doesn’t want the same dungeon forever.] (Luna)

[Uhn uhn. We will become the most successful party in the world so we can’t be held down to just one dungeon. Wherever there are strong monsters, we will go.] (Til)

I was happy at their responses and started to laugh as everyone looked towards the ceiling. For normal parties, there wasn’t a single person who wasn’t look for stability and safety. Well, although having the monopoly of the magic eggs sounds like a safe source of income, that isn’t actually the case. Eventually, someone will catch on about the situation and you will be targeted by other adventurers for your life and information.

[Yosh. Let’s go home. We now know which tree and the date and time for the egg’s spawn. Afterwards it’ll just be to secure the egg. With this much of an advantage it will be disgraceful if we didn’t secure the egg.] (Youya)

[Leave it to Luna! Climbing trees is Luna’s specialty. Even if someone happens to eye the same tree as us, Luna will get the egg faster than anyone else.] (Luna)

[I’m looking forward to it. Luna is the quickest and lightest on her feet among all of us here.] (Youya)

Speaking of which, foxes were always good at climbing trees. Looking at her ears, it looks like she was proud of her tree-climbing skills.

[In that case, if someone happens to be there then I’ll fire an arrow coated in paralysis poison towards them.] (Til)

[Stop that. There’s a chance the person will actually die from the arrow. Supposedly the guy is part of a larger clan then they will definitely perform a witch hunt for us.] (Youya)

[It was just a joke. I’m not serious about shooting them with an arrow.] (Til)

Til turned her head and puffed her cheeks.

She was definitely serious about shooting that arrow.

[Now then, let’s hurry up and return. We have to eat dinner soon then it will be time for Luna and Selene’s training.] (Youya)

[Uhn. Do your best.] (Til)

[Thank you for troubling you again uncle Youya.] (Selene)

Aside from entering the dungeons, I was also preoccupied with grooming my two disciples.

I have my schedule completely occupied. We have five days until the egg spawns. Let’s continue to raise our level while training the two of them thoroughly. If we continue to exploit the labyrinth within the Starfish Larvae without competition, it is possible for us to reach level 30 in a month when it would normally take three years. If that happens, we will be able to travel to another town with a Magic Pet.