Dungeon of Precious Stones Once Again (4)
With a large quantity of Ant Honey in their possession, the children's pace in conquering the floors increased dramatically. They progressed through the fifteenth floor's green stone forest, the sixteenth floor's red stone forest, the seventeenth floor's blue stone forest, and the eighteenth floor's transparent stone forest, all of which resembled the first floor but with a noticeably lower quality. They advanced at a pace faster than one floor per day.
":Nineteenth floor!"”
(It’s another tunnel.)
"Hmm, this... looks like glass."
The nineteenth floor turned out to be a tunnel made of green glass.
"If we’re back to a green tunnel, it means the four colors of tunnels and forests are grouped together and then repeat with different materials, right?"
(We didn’t see it, but was the eleventh floor a green rock tunnel?)
"Yes, it was."
(I see. If the next floor is a blue glass tunnel, then your theory is correct, Aniue.)
(We’ll know if we go there. So let's hurry up and go!)
As I discussed the dungeon’s structure with Feat and Bolt, Vector urged us to move faster, pushing on my back.
"Alright, alright."
(Geez~! Vector, calm down a bit!)
(But I want to move ahead quickly!)
Even though Mile scolded him, Vector didn’t seem to care.
"Allen wants to go quickly too."
"Elena wants to go too!"
"Weren’t you mining until just now?"
"”We finished~!"”
The children, who had been breaking through the glass tunnel to collect some materials, seemed satisfied now.
(Oniichan, here's the glass chunks we mined. Store them, please.)
"... When did you break this much?"
Joule was guarding a pile of glass pieces of various sizes.
"It’s impressive that you managed to get pieces this big."
I was particularly impressed by a glass chunk too large for me to carry.
(They were sticking out nicely, so we targeted the base, and they rolled off~)
"”They rolled off!"”
"Hahaha, well, we might find a use for them...”
"”Exactly! So, collect them, please!"”
At their insistence, I stored the glass chunks they had mined.
This is how unused items accumulate, huh?
Or rather, I wonder if my Infinite Storage still has enough capacity? The capacity increases with the amount of my magic power, and I do have quite a bit of magic power, so I think it's close to infinite, but... it's not truly infinite, is it? Maybe I should check with Syl just to be sure?
Looking at the loot Radian brought back, it was similar to the bottles Allen and Elena had, but instead of powder, it was filled with what looked like sea glass fragments.
(If you smash it to pieces, you get powder. If you break it apart, you get fragments. Is it the same principle as the meat from the Dungeon of Large Animals?)
"Oh, I see! That seems possible."
"”Oh!"”
In the Dungeon of Large Animals, the usual loot were chunks of meat, but if you pulverized the beast, you would get minced meat. As Joule insightfully noted, it might be the same principle at work here.
"”Let's try it!"”
"It's fine to try, but if you hold back too much and can't finish it off, it could be dangerous. Don't let your guard down until you see the loot.”
"”Got it~”"
Since they've already tried smashing it to pieces, the next attempt would be to defeat it without causing too much damage. However, this could be tricky if the monster doesn't die and ends up making a last-ditch effort while critically wounded.
"”Got a glass bead~”"
"This one is striped~"
"This one has a flower pattern~"
As a result of their experiment, they managed to obtain glass beads about the size of a pinky nail.
(Oh my, these are so cute.)
"Umu, these would make a nice souvenir."
"”Exactly! So, let's gather a lot!"”
The striped and flower-patterned glass beads seemed to be a hit with the twins and the two girls in the group, Feat, and Mile. This also meant they might be appreciated by Rebecca-san and the others, so naturally, the souvenir gathering began.
(Mumu... It's hard to control. I ended up with fragments again.)
"Umu, this task doesn't suit us."
"”Gee! Vector and Kaiser, just observe for now!"”
It seemed that the task didn't suit Vector and Kaiser, so they received a notice of being sidelined from Allen and Elena.
"There are many different colors and patterns, but the base or the pattern is always green."
"”You're right!”"
Even with some members sidelined, their fighting power was unaffected, and we continued to gather glass beads one after another. Along the way, we noticed that while the beads seemed quite colorful, they all had some green in them.
"So, on the next floor, will it be red?"
"Then blue next, and after that, clear?"
"That seems likely."
"”Alright, let's gather them!"”
"... I thought so~”
As expected, they decided to continue gathering glass beads even in the red, blue, and clear glass tunnels.
"Okay, is that enough green beads for now?"
"”Yeah! Let's go to the twentieth floor!"”
Thus, we smoothly progressed through the nineteenth floor in preparation to move on to the twentieth floor.