CH 198

While exploring the dungeon, we learned that Miss Leila was looking for parties that registered in the dungeon from the twenty-first to the twenty-fifth floor, and decided to volunteer.

There were two other parties with us, Thousand Gold Coins, and an outsider party.

That party was composed of people who toured the academy before, so I’d actually seen them before.

This was another guy, but I got a little curious about his relationship with Miss Leila when I saw her talk to him with her guard down.

I have this image of her in my mind that’s always dignified and has a strong sense of responsibility, so I was surprised when I saw her with a completely different expression on her face.

Then we got to the dungeon… And honestly, they’re stronger than us.

We’ve built up some confidence after coming this far in the dungeon, but I felt the gap between us when I watched them fight. In particular, that beast person named Sera might be stronger than Miss Leila.

I heard they defeated the twentieth floor’s boss with just their six person party. That’s unbelievable.

Then we registered on the twenty-fifth floor just like we planned, and Miss Leila visited us again while we were taking a break and resting.

She said Sora’s party was going to tackle the twenty-fifth floor.

Her party and Thousand Gold Coins are going deeper, so it would be just the two of us this time.

I talked it out with the other members of my party, and in the end, we agreed to give it a shot. If we found it too hard, we could discuss it and come back. Also, we are going to be moving on to the next grade soon, so I want to try the lower floors too.

Our exploration was going well, too well. Yes, it was going too smoothly.

A big part of that was that we were able to avoid fighting orc zombies at night. In fact, I get the feeling that we fought too little during the day too. I think it’s because Sera, Rurika, and Hikari are so good at searching for enemies.

If it was just us, or just parties from the academy, I think we would have fought more.

But a problem arose in the meantime. Not fighting orc zombies meant we didn’t have a good grasp on how strong they were.

Considering the nature of the orc zombies on this floor, we were going to have to fight them eventually. And when the time came, knowing or not knowing how strong they were was going to make a difference in our state of mind and how we fought.

The problem was that fighting them there meant a lot of orc zombies would focus on us, and it would leave us very tired.

After talking about it, we decided to fight them right before dawn.

Using the dungeon’s rules in our favor made a lot of sense. It just goes to show that we have different ways of looking at things.

But then, as we woke up early and were getting ready, a problem arose that left me exasperated. Disagreeing because of that… It makes me worried for future dungeon explorations.

And Sora, aren’t you too soft on Hikari? It’s not like I don’t get it, there have been times when I was too soft on my siblings too, but there’s such a thing as time and place. Probably…

And yes, Sora’s food was very good, and there were times when it made me forget I was even in the dungeon. Thinking about how we’re going to eat after he leaves makes my stomach hurt. Are we going to be all right?

Eventually, we found the marker that signaled we were almost at the staircase.

But this was where it really began.

According to the reference materials, the remaining distance can’t be traversed in one day. Maybe if someone ran the whole way through, but that’s not feasible.

And so, we attacked an orc settlement, and rested until just before dusk.

We did this to use the orcs’ territorial nature to our favor. It was an idea we came up with after talking and hearing everyone’s thoughts. That’s something I want to incorporate into our party even when it’s just us.

Honestly, fighting at night was so fierce that I don’t want to do it again.

Having someone like Mia who can use holy magic was a big help, but I don’t think we could have gotten through that without Sora’s holy water and healing potions.

But more importantly, since I mostly just saw Sora as a cook, I was surprised when I saw him fight. He says he’s a merchant, but he can use a sword and magic.

I did see him fight before, but not much, and I honestly didn’t think he had it in him to fight through the night.

Not to mention the way he walked without rushing and cut monsters in two. Of course, sometimes he ran too, but he mostly approached his opponents slowly and took care of them one after the other.

That reminds me of when I saw Miss Leila unguarded. I’m sure it’s because she saw this too. He feels reliable somehow.

But it was all over when the sun rose.

I was too tired to even move. I looked around, and saw that members of both parties were in the same state.

Except for one glaring exception, Hikari. I saw her moving around like crazy, but right after it was over, she started demanding food…

I don’t really know how to feel about how Sora accepted that too like it was normal, and started cooking right away…