CH 179

Episode 179 – First Treasure Chest

Today was my second day of solo Dungeon-clearing.

Based on the movements of the [Azure Alliance] this morning, it looked like I could expect them to return tomorrow morning. Even though it was only my second day of solo Dungeon-clearing, this was probably going to be the last day that I’d go alone. My top priority for today was to shoot for the 6th layer, without being reckless. After taking a deep breath, I entered the Dungeon, channeling the teachings of “The Dungeon of Landaust in One Book” within myself.

I dealt with any monsters that I encountered using Edward’s style, always keeping in mind to not take too much time. My body had gotten more used to the Dungeon after the first day, and I felt that I could move much easier with an improved mindset compared to when I went into the Dungeon the day before yesterday for the first time.

Also, I must say, this Night Vision Potion is quite effective.

To test the effects of the potion, I used the Night Vision Potion as soon as I entered, and I could now clearly see inside the pitch-black confines of the Dungeon. It was still dark, but the inside of the Dungeon now had a kind of greenish tint to it, which was a difficult sensation to describe.

It was important to know how long the Night Vision Potion would last, but even after an hour, it still wasn’t showing any signs of wearing off. If it could last for at least 2 hours, it would definitely be an item that I’d want to always keep at hand… But judging from the sensation, it felt like it could even last for about two hours with plenty of time to spare.

After that, now that I was more familiar with the Dungeon, I was able to breeze through the first two levels and passed where I stopped last time with the help of the Night Vision Potion. I continued along just like that, successfully making my way down to the 5th layer with ease.

After about 4 and a half hours, I arrived at the 5th layer. The Night Vision Potion hadn’t worn off yet, and it was still showing no signs of doing so. Getting this level of quality for only 7 silver coins per bottle made it a highly useful potion, so from now on, I made the decision to always carry multiple bottles with me whenever diving into the Dungeon.

I had purchased the Night Vision Potion just to try it out since I was curious about the name, but I really didn’t expect it to be this good of a product. The discovery of this potion was enough to declare today’s Dungeon attempt a success, but here on my 2nd day in the Dungeon―I finally found a treasure chest.

Starting from the 5th layer, the interior of the Dungeon had changed a bit. Although it was still cave-like with the same poor visibility, parts of the Dungeon started to become overgrown with grass here and there. In one of those overgrown thickets, which were usually areas with monsters lurking about, I caught sight of a treasure chest peeking out from behind the tall grass.

After dealing with the Slimes and Goblins nearby, I immediately ran over to examine it. The most important thing about the treasure chest was the material out of which it was made. The hierarchical order was Gold > Silver > Bronze > Wood in terms of the value of the items expected from the contents of a chest based on the outer material… With a gold chest, there’d be a high chance of it containing powerful Legendary-class items and equipment or other treasured articles.

""

According to one rumor, there was apparently one time when a gold treasure chest appeared on the 1st layer, although this was still unproven. To a beginner like me, this was very encouraging to hear.

Unfortunately, the material for this treasure chest was wood.

Hmmm… In the end, there was no way it would be that easy, huh?

I would have preferred at least bronze, but there was apparently a chance for even a wood treasure chest to contain good items, so I couldn’t get discouraged just yet.

As I unfastened the lock and lifted the lid of the wooden treasure chest, the hinges squeaked with a characteristic creaking sound. Even though it was wood, the lid had a surprising heft to it, and that inexplicable weight made me excited.

When I looked into the contents of the treasure chest, I saw a single red ball placed right in the center. The treasure chest had been too heavy for me to even lift, but the inside of it was only this tiny red sphere.

I had felt more than a little disappointed when I’d noticed that the treasure chest had been made out of wood, but I gingerly picked up the small red sphere between my thumb and pointer fingers nonetheless. I held it up in the air and took a closer look, but it was just glimmering red. I couldn’t figure out what it was for in the end.

…The smell of failure is strong with this one…

I couldn’t just keep staring at it because I was still in the Dungeon, so I put it in the holder I had gotten from the Perfect Circle General Store and continued my exploration of the 5th layer.

★　　　★　　　★

After that, I finished clearing the 5th and 6th layers without encountering any difficult fights or abnormal events and arrived in front of the staircase on the 6th layer. Below this staircase was the 7th layer, which was also known as the Boss Floor.

The boss of the 7th floor was a monster called a Minotaur. The book had described it as a monster with the head of a bull and the body of a human, and was over 3 meters tall. Although I had checked it out on the Dungeon monitors several times, I could see that it would be quite a close fight if I were to try and challenge it solo.

The swings of its giant axe were both fast and extremely heavy, and even if a tank were to block the hits with a tower shield, they would still be blown away. But as expected of a low level Boss, there was a certain strategy to beat it. As long as a party properly assigned roles, it’d be relatively easy to get through it.

I finally made it to the 6th layer, and I was tempted to give the Boss Floor a try… But I decided to stop here for today. On top of achieving my goal of clearing the 6th layer, I was able to find a treasure chest, although it had only been a wooden one.

I had also discovered the usefulness of the Night Vision Potion, which still hadn’t worn off even now, and, after all, I would be reuniting with the [Azure Alliance] tomorrow for the first time in a long time. If I were to challenge the Minotaur and get injured, I could end up missing my chance to meet them. In the worst case scenario, there was even the possibility that I would never see them again.

With this train of thought, I stopped clearing the Dungeon and set my sights on returning to the surface.