CH 183

We spent two more days in the academy, and the girls all managed to learn some basic things.

However, Hikari said Yor does a better job explaining. Should I ask her to teach them some more when she has the time?

I took it easy reading books, but that would be easier if Celes didn’t constantly ask me about this or that. Is she just bored there?

It was quiet the first day, but after that she started asking me a lot of questions. According to her, she hasn’t been outside this city in years, so she’s curious.

“Are you taking this quest too, Sora?”

Asks Fred.

I’m in the adventurer guild.

So it’s Fred and the others who will be coming with us? It was all so sudden that I didn’t get to hear who it was, but maybe they’re looking out for us because we don’t know a lot of people here.

So it’s the six of us, Fred and nine more of his group, and ten miners. Twenty six people in total.

Our party was picked because Leila said we have an item bag, and for some reason because they were also told I’m a good cook.

They left everything up to me, including the ingredients, so I went out shopping with Hikari yesterday.

“I’m surprised you took such a sudden quest.”

“You too Fred. I guess the person putting out the quest being who he is plays a part in it too.”

“You don’t look like you care about that sort of thing.”

I couldn’t say no, but currying up some favor is no bad thing either. Not to mention that he’s also Leila’s father.

“Are you the remnants’ party? I’m Murok, and I’ll be leading this survey group.

That said, I don’t know about dungeons, so we will be counting on you to give directions halfway through.”

When I think of miners I think of someone rough, but this guy is pretty gentle-mannered. Even compared to the others, he’s not really that muscular or anything. He looks like a normal guy.

But by looking at him more closely I can tell his body is slim and tight. Well, maybe.

“We’ll be going to the fifth floor. We’ll see how we’re doing when we get there, and decide if we want to keep going. Are you all right in terms of baggage?”

I guess Fred is taking over as the leader of the adventurer side.

And so, the ones better suited for scouting go in front, Siphon and the others that are good at being guards stay close to the survey team, and our party goes in the back, except for Hikari and Rurika.

The passages in the upper floors are pretty narrow, so we always end up forming a long line.

It kind of reminds me of grade school students on a field trip.

Apparently Siphon and his party have been here a few times by now, so they answer the survey team’s questions. Siphon’s replies are a bit weird though.

We reach the fourth floor two days later. The survey team members are miners, so they have good stamina, but the fact that we’ve been getting lucky and finding the staircases quickly helps. Yes, it’s really lucky.

“Wolves appear on the next floor. There are a lot of them, but don’t get scared and stick with us. They might attack us from two sides at once, so please look after our backs, Sora.”

He says, but he doesn’t sound worried. Especially with Sera here.

The miners on the other hand do look worried, because we haven’t fought once. That’ll go away once they see Sera fight.

Sure enough, she easily takes down five wolves by herself. After that first battle, we give Chris and Mia a turn to show off too.

But since I’m not doing anything, I’m basically here to carry things and cook, in the eyes of the miners.

Speaking of cooking, the miners really like the food, especially since it feels exotic to them. The adventurers say that getting used to this is going to make future dungeon explorations harder.

Fred also tells Murok several times not to think that this is what people usually eat in the dungeon.

And so, we reach the fifth floor without much trouble, and agree to complete it.

Fred starts worrying if the miners aren’t more tired than they think because they’re not used to this environment, but backs down when they tell him they’re fine with a pretty energetic tone.

The fifth floor really is different from the rest. Apparently the miners heard about it too, but they open their mouths wide as they are taken aback by what they see.

Fred asks them again if they’re fine, and the miners say once again that they’re all right, even though they look embarrassed and kind of flustered.

I ask Murok if it wouldn’t make more sense if someone went around from the sixth floor, but he tells me that he doesn’t mind because this allows them to get used to the dungeon environment too.

And if possible, he wants to get food from the dungeon.

Apparently the merchant guild asked indirectly to pick it if they could.

Only a few people should know that it’s possible to mine ore on the fifteenth floor. I’m kind of worried about their information control.

I tell this to Murok, and he sort of dodges the topic and says he was asked by someone he knows high up.

I’m sure he has his obligations too. There’s no point in digging too deep into that.