Volume 2 - CH 189

Landing a short distance away, me and the others put our magic into the magic stone we had and returned to the church.

After confirming that everyone was safe, we decided to head to the Adventurers’ Guild to report what had happened so far.

The Adventurers’ Guild is bustling as usual, with various adventurers lined up at the reception desk in the middle of accepting requests.

“Hmmm……..”

“Alena, you look sleepy. …… Shall we go home first?”

“Hmm.”

“Would you like me to take her back?”

“Is that okay with you, Uchikage?”

“You can count on me.”

I guess the reaction of being in the dungeon for so long is starting to kick in now.

Alena is still a child, how could she have stayed in the dungeon for such a long period of time?

I thought it was important to explain the dungeon to her, so I decided to ask her to return to the lodge with Uchikage after receiving the map from Alena.

Uchikage carried Alena up and left the Adventurers’ Guild.

Alena was probably very tired and had already fallen asleep in Uchikage’s arms.

We’ ve pushed her too hard.

“Shall we go?’

“Aye!”

The rest of the party is, just me and Reizen, decided to go and report to Maria.

We had walked around the Adventurers’ Guild enough to remember at least the guildmaster’s room.

So we decided to slip past the receptionist and head directly to the office.

I know that some of them are going to be the first to come to us when we do this kind of thing, but they won’t do anything to us once they know it’s …… me.

I know where to find them because of haze manipulation, but for now I just ignore them and walk on.

As long as they don’t do anything to us, we’re fine.

We arrived at the front of the room and knocked lightly, waiting for an answer from inside.

“Come in～”

Maria responded in a much laxer manner than she had when she saw us off.

As soon as I heard this, I put my hand on the doorknob and entered the room.

Inside the room, Maria was lying on the sofa, relaxing comfortably and elegantly.

I was curious to see her work desk, but it was clean and the work itself seemed to be finished.

Then I have nothing to comment on.

“Yo.”

“Hm? …… It’s you!?”

She jumps suddenly when she notices me.

Then, as if nothing had happened, she straightened up her expression and greeted us once again.

“Hello there! Ouren-kun!”

“How the heck are you switching over your manner suddenly like that.”

“That’s right!”

If she was going to be honest and admit it, she should have kept it out of the ordinary from the beginning.

Maria gave up and began to relax again, suggesting that we sit down.

I followed her instructions and sat down on the couch facing her.

“Oh …… that’s right, …… you guys have been conquering the dungeon, haven’t you?”

“Obviously.”

“Don’t add my workload!”

“Like hell I care.”

“Ah yes, yes, I get it – ……. Thanks for your hard work anyway. But why did you come here to report in person?”

We came to talk about it.

“I understand you’re quick to talk, but …… are you sure that’s a B-rank dungeon?”

“It’s supposed to be. Did something happen?”

“No,…… I could tell because Uchikage was there too, but it was obviously not a B-rank dungeon, was it?”

Then I went on to explain everything about the dungeon to Maria.

First of all, I explained about those spiders that were in the cave.

I explained the unusual number of spiders and how smart they were, and I told her about the mousetrap that had been set up in the cave.

As soon as I explained this, Maria tilted her head as if she was unsure of something.

“Wait a minute. Hey, do you have any of that spider material?

“Yea, I got it from Uchikage, who said the spider’s fangs could be used as an antidote.”

I took out the fangs from the magic tool bag.

The color has been lost over time and has fallen from a sickening color to a white color,……, but I hope this helps her to understand.

Maria looked around at the fangs carefully as I handed them to her, and she put her hand on her chin with a difficult look on her face.

“But there were a lot of them, and they weren’t very strong, were they?”

“That’s because I killed them with water. In fact, you should see me fight each and every one of them.”

“Ah, …… those numbers are troublesome. …… they’re also poisonous, and if I weren’t there, you’d be dead.”

The number of them is not the only thing that matters, but the size of them as well.

What kind of conclusion do you have that they are so big even for spiders?

The entrance is also the worst.

Once you go down, you can’t get out.

It’s not impossible to get out, but you’ll probably get attacked before you can get out.

“Cave Spider,……”

“Ah, I remember when Uchikage told me something like that.”

“No way.”

Maria said and tossed the fangs on the desk with a pop and began to rummage through the bookshelves.

Seeing the book being thrown wildly, Reizen tried his best to catch it,……, but I wonder what she is so impatient about,…….

“Chosu! Ha! HHA! SEIYA!”

“You should be using that useless athleticism somewhere else.”

“Found it.”

“Wha- that’s so fast?! Lucky it’s not a kunai”

It seems that only the last book was not caught and hit him on the head, but there is no damage to Reizen.

Unintentionally saying “ouch” is like saying “ouch” when the character you control is damaged in a game.

It is a conditional reflex.

In Maria’s hand, there was a map in one hand.

She quickly brought it over to us and spread it out on the desk.

“Look at this.”

“What is this?”

“It’s a map of that B-rank dungeon.”

“What?”

Hearing that, I took a closer look at the map.

The map seemed to be drawn very neatly, and every detail seemed to be well written down.

But something was not right …….

At first, the first floor.

It was exactly the same as the map Alena had drawn.

The road is straight and very wide.

The second floor.

This is also “almost” the same.

There is a large space where the adventurers’ camp in the dungeon used to be, and the road continues beyond it. ……

And then.

“Hmm?””

The path from the second floor down to the third floor was a staircase.

Looking at the map of the third floor, from there it was completely different from the map Alena had drawn.

After a straight line for a while, the dungeon extends, spreading out like a fan.

But in Alena’s map, the way down is a pit, not a staircase.

The shape of the dungeon is also completely different, making us wonder if we really dived in the same dungeon.

“Hey Maria. Are you sure this is that dungeon?”

“I’m absolutely sure.”

“Look at this. This is a map of the very same dungeon we dived into.”

After saying this, I took out the map drawn by Alena from my magic tool bag and spread it out on the still vacant desk.

Maria looked surprised as she compared them.

“How can this be!”

“The path has changed since the second floor. Probably over here.”

The place I indicated was that place where Alena had suggested we look at different caves from the adventurers’ camp.

The map had changed a lot from there.

I don’t know how long ago the map Maria brought with her was written, but the paper was fairly new.

I don’t know if it is really recent or not, but …… the change of this map is a tad bit unusual.

“Maria. How long ago was this map drawn?”

“Two years ago. I’m pretty sure it was done the year before last, as I once instructed an A-rank adventurer to fill in all the maps in this dungeon as a commission.”

“Is there any chance they missed it?”

“The party must have included someone with perceptive skills. So that’s a very slim chance.”

“Then this is ……”

“The dungeon has been expanded.”

How is that possible?

I don’t think the dungeon itself is alive, and I don’t think it’s possible for it to be expanded now without human intervention.

However, this is a different world …….

Perhaps such a thing is common in this world.

“Is this normal?”

“Of course it’s very unusual. Hey, more importantly, how many floors are there ……?”

“Fifteen floors in total.”

“This map only goes up to eight.”

The floors are almost twice as deep.

In other words, we had entered a completely different dungeon from the same entrance.

No wonder there are no adventurers in there.

At any rate, I decided to report other things to Maria.

There were treasure chests in that dungeon and various other floor bosses.

Then there were the endless centipede crystals.

That was a real pain in the ass.

And last but not least, we had to fight a fake reflection of us in the mirror.

This is the most crucial thing.

I have never heard of such a thing.

“You guys …… did a good job coming back …….”

“Though some of us got seriously hurt at the end.”

“Aye, …….”

“It’s pretty impressive that you got hurt.”

“It was a replica of me, after all.”

As expected, I was impatient that Reizen was injured…..Well, with my great heal and recovery water, he won’t be this energetic in a short time.

Although it is very unlike me and I would cringe if I said that in this place.

“Mmm! Did you draw a map of all fifteen floors?”

“Ah, there were some very dedicated kids in my party…..”

“No other adventurer would go that far. ……”

Children are sometimes obsessed with things for no reason at all.

Alena is one of those cases.

I’m surprised she didn’t get bored by the end, but that was important and it’s good to have her remember it.

As Maria said, there were no adventurers who would do such a thing, and this would surely come in handy.

“Hey, will you sell me this map? I’ll buy it for a reasonable price.

“I don’t mind, but I’ll have to ask the person who drew it.”

“Then come back tomorrow. We need to look into this as soon as possible.”

Well, it’s certainly not a good idea to leave that dungeon unattended.

For instance, if the monsters in the dungeon are out there for some reason, the adventurers around the dungeon are not going to be able to stand up to them.

“Ah, by the way, my magic enhancement has been activated too.”

“That’ s right.”

“Eh, what?”

“Reizen has the ability to read the nature of the land and transform it into his own power. It was the first time it happened to him.”

“It was my first time experiencing this, so I don’t know what triggered it.”

Well, the fact that the blessing of the earth of Reizen was triggered means that the nature of the land has changed only in that location.

We didn’t really know what that meant in the end, but we are treading on the assumption that it may have caused some strong enemies to come out.

“I see. …… Thanks. I’ll look into that matter.”

“Be careful, though, will you? I think I’ve thinned out most of them, but …… there may still be some enemies there.”

“I’ll have them check it out tomorrow. But first, I need to buy the map.”

“Ahh. Sure. Sure.”

Hmm?

By the way, does that mean that no one has been in the dungeon we went to this time?

If that’s the case,…… who in the world is in that treasure chest?

Just as I was about to ask Maria about it, someone kicked open the door with such force that I was surprised to see someone enter.

“Guildmaster! Are you there!”

“Ah!”

“Ah!”

“Huh? Ah!”

(TN : Spiderman meme?)

Me and Reizen knew this person.

He had red hair, a bright red spear, and was dressed in dazzling white armor. ……

The man I had forced to drink the mana potion and who had been the source of the open-air interview room that Reizen had been made was there.

“Houen huh?”