CH 66

Chapter 66: In the Corner of the Dungeon where No One is There

Yuto: “Eliz, the battle is over.”

Eliz: “Huh?! ……..oh….”

When Yuto calls out to her, her shoulders jerked up and shook once.

But once she heard that it was Yuto’s voice, the tension in her shoulders were released.

Eliz: “IーI’m so sorry…….yes. I…...couldn’t participate in the fight.”

Yuto: “It’s okay. For those who don’t like them, they call Floor 16 the Gauntlet anyways.”

Although Eliz dropped her shoulders in shame, Yuto smiled at her.

Inside the Dungeon are many kinds of species of creatures.

With that much variety, there are bound to be Monsters that are more frightening to you personally than others.

The #1 unpopular Monster is the Dark Scavenger. Basically a giant cockroach.

“Disgusting, persistent, and fast” - are the trifecta of unpopular traits, and no one argues that they should be placed at the top of the tier list.

The actual reason is unknown, but most seem to have a natural physiological or biological repulsion towards it for many Adventurers.

One theory hypothesizes that in ancient times, human beings may have been hunted by Dark Scavengers, and the fear of them was engraved deeply in our psyche since.

The Evil Spider is also a very common unpopular Monster.

In fact, among the Adventurers, they are so unpopular that the 16th Floor has a specific route mapped out to get through the Floor as quickly and efficiently as possible.

The unpopular Monsters are not just disdained by their looks alone. Usually, the fact that some of these Monsters have abilities that can be extremely annoying or irritating, and Adventurers develop a fear from that as well.

For Yuto, any Monsters where physical attacks are ineffective usually trigger an uncomfortable dislike towards those Monsters.

But now that he has Magic Swordsmanship Skills, he is not as disadvantaged or helpless as he was before.

Regardless, if you have fears or dislikes against Spiders, forcing Eliz to stick around this Floor would be dangerous.

If she’s paralyzed in fear, she wouldn’t be able to evade or dodge attacks.

Yuto: “Well……..let’s go ahead and take the shortest route and get through this Floor as fast as we can.”

Eliz: “I’m so sorry, yes.”

As Yuto makes the suggestion, Eliz lowers her head apologetically.

Yes, Yuto does want to defeat 100 Evil Spiders to Clear the Quest.

But Yuto is not so narrow-minded that he would be willing to gamble the safety of his Party members for that purpose.

They immediately take out the map of the fastest route, and run through the Dungeon accordingly.

Normally, they would take 2 to 3 hours on each floor, but in this case, they were able to get past the 16th Floor in 15 minutes.

Granted, the 2 to 3 hours average is because of Yuto trying to clear his Monster Slaying Quests.

But even if you try to avoid combat and run through, it should take around 1 hour to get through a Floor.

No Floor should be so small that they could clear it in 15 minutes.

Dannan: “Hey, don’t you think there were a lot of unnatural paths along the way here?”

Yuto: “Oh, you mean those holes……..I wonder…..”

Inside Yuto’s mind, he contemplated the possibility that the Adventurers responsible for creating the [Fastest Dungeon Clear Route] actually destroyed walls that were in their way.

But in general, it is said that the Dungeon walls have an [Indestructible] attribute.

Destroying these indestructible objects seemed unlikely to Yuto.

But the saying goes, “a single thought could pierce stone.” Then maybe a single thought could pierce a wall?

Yuto: (Maybe nothing is impossible for people…)

On the 17th Floor, they face the Dead Boars.

They are four-legged creatures that are dangerous if you remain in their charging path.

Because Eliz was fine against these creatures, Yuto made sure to Slay 100 before proceeding to the next Floor.

And up until the 20th Floor, Yuto and his Party continued to hunt down Monsters on each floor.

After defeating 100 Minotaurs, they take a short break in front of the Boss’ room.

As they rest, Yuto checks the Quest status.

Yuto: (........good. The Chain Quest initiated just as I expected.)

Reaching the 20th Floor, the Chain Quest to defeat the 20th Floor Boss appeared.

>>Level 31 → 33

>>Skill Point: 4 → 8

Yuto made sure to defeat 100 Monsters on each Floor from the 17th to the 20th Floor, so he gained a lot of Levels and Skill Points due to that.

Yuto: (What Skill should I increase now…….?)

Yuto could spend an entire day just thinking about how he would distribute his Skill Points.

But they finished their break, and Yuto and his Party entered the Boss’ room.

The Boss that appeared was a Minotaur.

These Monsters appear in deeper Floors, but those Minotaurs will be armed.

The 20th Floor Boss is bare-handed, and some call it the Bare-Fist-Taur for that reason.

It is bare-handed, but the Minotaur’s body is large and its physical strength is high as well.

If you underestimate it, you’ll easily receive some damaging blows.

You also can’t forget about its horns that can thrust you into the air.

Just because it’s an inferior version of a Monster in the lower levels, there’s no reason why you should think of it as easy prey.

But for Yuto’s Party who have already defeated B-Rank Monsters, the Boss was not that frightening of a creature.

3 minutes after the battle started, the Minotaur was sucked into the Dungeon Floor and disappeared.

Yuto: “Good work, Mr. Dannan.”

Dannan: “Good job, Yuto.”

Yuto and Dannan bump fists.

Eliz trotted over to Yuto and raised both fists in the air towards him in a celebratory manner.

Because she had a Slime on her head, she looked more adorable, and Yuto patted Eliz’ head or rather Pino who was on top of her head.

Yuto: “Good work, Eliz.” Eliz: “Urgghhh!!”

Yuto: “Hーhey! That hurts!”

Yuto didn’t understand what made her so upset, but Eliz angrily protested and was hitting Yuto’s arm.

They registered their ID’s with the 21st Floor Transport Room, and Yuto and his group returned to the surface.

They divided up the rewards, and after the party disbanded for the day, Yuto returned to the 16th Floor.

Yuto plans on taking down 100 Evil Spiders for the Monster Slaying Quest by today.

Yuto: “If it’s just 100, I should be able to do it.”

If he defeats one every minute, he should be able to clear it in 100 minutes.

If all goes well, he will finish before the sun comes up.

Yuto runs around the Dungeon as he looks for the Evil Spiders.

His [Presence Detection] alerts him of unnatural formations on the floors.

As he watched Dannan disarm trips over and over, Yuto began developing a keen sense of awareness to see signs of these traps as well.

He won’t be able to disarm them, but he can simply avoid them as he moves through the Dungeon.

He walked around the unnatural looking floor, and Yuto quickly defeated Evil Spiders back to back.

Yuto: “.....great! I’m doneー!”

Yuto defeated 100 Evil Spiders.

And the time it took to do so was much shorter than expected.

That’s because compared to other Floors, the concentration of Evil Spiders was abnormally high.

Yuto: “I bet since all the Adventurers take the shortest route, the number of Monsters do not decrease on this Floor.”

There’s no one else who will go around targeting Evil Spiders on the 16th Floor like Yuto is doing right now.

In the last couple of years, Yuto may be the only Adventurer that has veered off the shortest route through this particular Dungeon Floor.

Yuto hurries and heads towards the Transport Room on the 16th Floor.

In order to defeat 100 Evil Spiders, he explored the Floor pretty deeply.

Returning back to the surface from here may take at least close to an hour.

If he doesn’t hurry, the sun will rise to signify the next day…

ーーand it could impact his Adventure schedule.

He wanted to avoid that at all costs.

When Yuto was running down the hallways…

Ahead of him, he saw a small box.