CH 134

Its head falls with a thump, immediately followed by what’s in my hand shattering.

The blade shatters and turns into shiny particles of light, leaving only the handle.

My body shakes as I fall to the ground, but something catches me.

It feels warm. I look up, and my eyes meet Sera’s.

I’m handed a mana potion. I rush to drink it, and I feel my lost strength coming back and spreading through my body as I recover MP.

“What was that…”

Fred sounds surprised, but Hikari and the others have the same question in mind.

“A sword with the holy element attached. But I was told that it was too specialized, and it would break after one swing. By the way, it costs two hundred gold coins a piece.”

That last part is a lie.

“If you had that, why didn’t you use it…”

He stops halfway through, but I understand what he means.

“Sorry, but you saw how it worked. I could only use it when I was absolutely sure I could sever its neck or bisect its body. And if I told you I had it, would you have believed me?”

He can’t answer. I doubt I would have believed it either, if I didn’t have the Appraisal skill to check its effect.

And I didn’t know if I could use it well. It kept sapping my MP with no sign of stopping, so I could very well have run out of MP and collapsed before I got a chance to attack.

“More importantly, can you give me another mana potion, Mia? I’m still not feeling too great.”

That defective item really showed no restraint with how much MP it took. Even if it could be used twice, my body wouldn’t have been able to handle it.

“Did you run out of magic energy?”

“Apparently. I was told that the sword sapped magic energy when used, and if the person using it didn’t have enough, they could be crippled or killed. But it looks like I have a nice amount of magic energy.”

This is also a lie, but if I lay out the reasons why I hesitated to use it, I doubt they could blame me. Call me dishonest or stingy, but I’m always going to take precautions to make sure I’m safe.

Truth is, it was actually dangerous, and I was scared to use something I’ve never even tested, even though I made it.

“More importantly, what about the return stone?”

If the shadow wolf was the reason why it didn’t work, it should work now. If not, we’re going to have to look for other conditions we have to fulfill.

But it seems the light is back to the return stone. Casting Appraisal also shows me the note saying it doesn’t work is gone.

“It looks like we can use it.”

“Then all there is to do is go back. Or at least I wish I could say that, but looking for the others who took refuge comes first.”

What a pain. Oh, Mia is sitting down on the ground. Fighting against a superior species for so long must have been exhausting for her.

And now that the battle is over and the tension is gone, all that exhaustion must be hitting her at once.

“Are you all right, Sera?”

“I’m not hurt, but I can’t say I’m not tired.”

Same here. Let’s check Map along with Presence Detection. I don’t see any monsters around here, so…

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to cook food to relieve fatigue. Although it’s only simple stuff with ingredients I prepared in advance.”

But I guess I should put the shadow wolf in the Item Box first, head included.

Fred is surprised to see this, but doesn’t really say anything. Thanks for that.

Today’s soup should be a simple one, that falls easily on a tired stomach. Making it a little saltier should be good for our tired bodies too.

“Master, good job again today.”

“Yes, but thank you too, Hikari. You really saved me.”

Hikari tilts her head.

Honestly, Sera worked really hard, but it was also thanks to Hikari that we took down the shadow wolf, even though she doesn’t think she did much.

The shadow wolf seemed to be moving slower there at the end, and if it wasn’t for that, who knows what would’ve happened to Mia.

And I’m pretty sure I know why that happened. The same thing happened to me after all.

I wasn’t sure if it would work on a superior species, but apparently Hikari’s poison knife attack started showing its effects after some time passed. She only managed to hit it once, but I think that played a big part in how things turned out.

I look at Hikari again, and give her a second helping. It looks like it got a passing grade, in terms of taste.

Ah… Good grief. Why did we have to go through so much trouble on the fifth floor of the dungeon? Isn’t there anyone I can complain about this to?

After we rest, it’s time to deal with the aftermath. First we collect the wolf corpses lying all over the place, and then we talk.

We talked about looking for the others, so I guess that’s what we’ll do. What a nice person Fred must be, to want to look for them on a floor this big.

But I have one condition. First, we head to the staircase to the sixth floor.

I want to register there, and check to see if the invisible wall really is gone.

“It looks like we can go down without any issue.”

And I’m done registering. Next is the sixth floor! Although we’re going to be using this device when we want to return to the surface, so we’ll be back.

“Hey, when we defeat a boss, what happens to the monsters on that floor?”

If I remember correctly, monsters spawn to be the boss’ lackeys. I wanted to know what happens when you take down the boss first, but apparently almost everyone takes out the other monsters first, so they don’t get in the way.

In a game, they would just vanish. I don’t see any on Map, but then again, we were hunting them while we walked around, so it wasn’t showing any anyway.

“So what now? I’m tired and I want to go back, but you want to look for survivors, right?

“Yes… Hold on a second. I can communicate with them through the card. It couldn’t be used before because we were in a boss room, but it should work now.”

Fred tries, and gets a response. I can’t hear the other person, but they’re definitely talking. Although from where I’m standing it just looks like he’s whispering to himself. I guess it works like a phone.

He tries calling others, but doesn’t get a response. In the end, did only nine survive?

Fred also asks the survivors over there to try to contact members of their parties.

“They’re headed this way. Can you wait for a bit?”

While we wait, I ask him to tell me more about how to use the return stone, and stuff like that.

He says it only works on fellow party members, and they have to be within range. If someone’s not in range of the return stone, they get left behind.

The adventurers arrive while I hear this explanation.

They’re happy to see each other alive, and keep asking how we defeated the shadow wolf.

Fred tells them he’ll explain when they get to the guild, and so we use the device to go back.

My body is enveloped in light when I use it. I feel this strange sensation like I’m floating, and then in the blink of an eye, the scenery in front of me changes.

I see a room bathed in a faint light. It feels kind of fairy-tail like with so many lights hovering around the room.

That concludes our first adventure in the dungeon, with the four of us getting back safely.