CH 170

“This is the last one.”

I say after using a 『Polish』 scroll to rip apart a cat doll, before it turns to smoke and a gold coin flies out of the tornado.

It lands right in front of me, and I pick it up.

We finally finished taking down the cat dolls that appeared after the first couple.

I see gold coins shining all over the place, and I can tell there were a lot of them by how these are scattered. This took quite a while.

For some reason, Hipopo and Rose wouldn’t come out of their scrolls.

“Master Rust, what do we do with these?”

Asks Roa while picking up a gold coin near her.

“I’ve never seen these, but I can’t imagine they can be used as currency. And their quality is probably bad for gold coins.”

“Yes, they seem light compared to their size.”

Points out Ahri, and I nod.

“I think we might as well take them. This is that thing they call a dungeon.”

“Dungeon? There were many of those during the era of primordial magic, right?”

I respond to Master Halhammer while trying to remember what I heard about them.

“I know. Those things with specific monsters, and where treasure laid dormant.”

“But this is outside.”

Says Roa, sounding confused.

“Yes, it looks like we’re outside, but if we keep going forward, there might be an invisible wall or something that will take us back. According to the books I know at least.”

“So there are dungeons like that… Then these cat dolls are disappearing because they are dungeon monsters…?”

Ahri responds to Master Halhammer instead of Roa.

“So these gold coins are what they call drop items? Wait, you just want them for research use, don’t you Master Halhammer?”

I say, and he laughs loudly while agreeing. I pick up all the coins with the tornado and store them in my backpack.

“Of course I want them for research, but there’s also a chance that dungeon drop items might be used for something.”

He says while watching the gold coins get collected with a look of satisfaction.

I shrug a little before continuing to advance towards the building we were headed to before we were attacked.

But then, a half-transparent plate suddenly appears in front of me.

“Eh, what is that?”

“An enemy!?”

“Unu?”

The other three sound surprised, as I see half-transparent plates also appeared in front of them. And they can see them too.

“What’s written here? Can you read it, Rust?”

Asks Master Halhammer, and I look down at the plate in front of me. I see letters on it, like double-exposure.

“Yes. It says time up.”

Just as I respond, the world around us changes.

It gets dark all of a sudden. My eyes soon adapt to the darkness, as I look around and I see we’re in the underground ruins, in front of the wall where I held up the magic crystal key.

“Kyuu!”

I hear as my head gets heavy all of a sudden.

“Seilook! You’re all right! Great… But you’re too heavy, so move.”

I pick up Seilook, who dived on top of my head from behind.

I hold Seilook with both hands under its frontal legs, and everyone crowds around us, happy that Seilook is safe.

“Kyu kyu kyu!”

Seilook’s emotions are transmitted through the bond of our contract. It sounds like Seilook is saying it’s the one who was worried about us, not the other way around.

“From Seilook’s point of view, we just vanished all of a sudden. Sorry sorry, I know we worried you… Ouch.”

And try to soothe Seilook, but it smacks my legs with its tail.

Everyone laughs, and the mood gets naturally lighter.

I end up laughing along too.