They told me to wait four days.
For reference, the total amount, including service fees, was 140 million oro.
Wow.
The inflation in pricing was so extreme I could barely keep up.
An idea suddenly struck me.
"Witch. What if we secretly sold the elixir?"
"Fufu, fufu, yes yes. I see, I see. Young Wof, you do love splashing water into boiling oil, don't you? Kon does too, doesn't he?"
"Ah, no, I'll pass."
I realized that was something I really shouldn't do.
Incidentally, the former owner Hyarn was also holding up a big X and making a disgusted face.
Well, he'd actually done something similar with three eggs before, so...
Two days later.
I received word that there'd been a slight delay and they wanted me to wait an additional three days.
That knocked 3 million oro off the total, bringing it to 137 million oro.
Basically a rounding error at this point.
During that time, the Hydrangea Delvers' Guild remained closed.
However, a branch office of the Delvers' Guild had been set up elsewhere.
The reason for the closure was an emergency response to anomalies in the new dungeon.
The anomalies were occurring on the shallower floors.
And they were heading toward the surface in massive numbers.
To stop them, the guild staff had been mobilized en masse.
But even so, they were short-handed. Especially in terms of combat power.
The situation was grim.
They'd set up their main camp on the seventh floor and were barely holding the line at the eighth floor, the site of a previous battle.
That was why there'd been a mass recruitment of delvers. Qualification was Class IV through Class II.
Class I was the last line of defense, to be deployed only when all else failed.
And that also meant surrendering all authority to the Grand Guild.
The witch had told me. Every single Class I delver belonged to the Grand Guild without exception.
Complete surrender of authority—I didn't know what kind of implications that carried.
But to prevent that from happening, Alanze and the others had closed the guild.
They were doing everything in their power.
Hydrangea was shrouded in a thin fog of unease.
And then came the day. Night.
The first floor of the city dungeon. The Junkyard.
The deserted Junkyard was cloaked in an odd atmosphere.
There was a freshness to it, but I couldn't quite put my finger on how I felt being here.
I gazed down at the simple teleportation circle that had been set up, my face tight with tension.
It emitted a faint green light and looked no different from any other teleportation circle.
Though it did seem a bit small. Hyarn, perched on my shoulder, spoke up.
"Wof. I'm sorry."
"What's this all of a sudden?"
"I never imagined it would come to this. This is my responsibility."
"I'm responsible for waking you up too."
"It's not really on us, though... Wof. About Mineha and the others—"
"Yes. I'll keep quiet. I can't involve them in this."
I could afford to lose my delver status. I'd never really been that keen on it in the first place.
But Mineha and the others were different. They had real dreams and hopes tied to being delvers.
Just me. That was enough.
I was the only one who needed to lose something, even if it destroyed our relationship.
"...More importantly, we need to hurry. If what you said is true, we have to stop this as soon as possible."
"Right. The Minos Units' infinite spawning should be stoppable at the lab."
Infinite spawning.
I'd learned about it just last night.
That sudden revelation had nearly knocked the breath out of me.
Strictly speaking, they didn't spawn infinitely.
It consumed dungeon resources to produce them, or something like that.
The prototype weapon had originally been designed for use against dungeons.
But they'd discovered it was impossible to control—technically unfeasible, at least.
Development had been frozen two steps before the practical application stage. That should have been the end of it.
So once the dungeon's resources ran dry, it would stop.
And naturally, the dungeon would collapse.
And before it stopped, Hydrangea—or even the frontier and the kingdom—would be destroyed.
That might not even be the end of it.
The witch was there, so the damage should have been limited to Hydrangea.
But as was the case now, this was a fight. There were casualties.
The truly dire situation made me want to cry.
I absolutely had to stop this, no matter what!
First, I teleported from the first floor to the fourth. The teleportation circle was right there in the cave.
I took out the scroll for the simple teleportation circle and overlaid it on the existing one.
"Alright!"
I dove in. Next, the sixth floor. Inside a shack. I did the same and jumped through.
Next, the eighth floor. I landed inside some kind of storage room.
I was pretty sure this was the front line. Something echoed from the distance. The relentless sound of a savage thunderstorm.
Hyarn grimaced.
"Let's go, Wof."
And then to the twelfth floor.
Where I materialized, I was surrounded by slanted stone pillars.
A small clearing.
Once I stepped out, I moved quietly to avoid detection.
I carefully climbed the stone pillars and reached a vantage point.
"So this is the Ark Ruins."
It was a floor stretching all the way to the horizon, ringed by massive stones and absolutely packed with stone pillars. Light filtered in here and there.
In the distance—I see. So that's the Ark. It made sense.
I could see a massive stone angled into the ground, shaped like the hull of a ship.
It really did look like a boat.
And there was a gap, a wide-open space framed by the boulders.
From there, a broad path stretched out, completely free of stone pillars.
And on that path, as far as the eye could see, was an enormous horde of pale metallic minotaurs.
An army that filled the entire road.
But they were different from the minotaurs we'd fought.
For starters, they had three eyes and two arms, not four of each.
Three eyes, and their build was about the same as a regular minotaur.
They were armed, though.
"Soldiers, then...?"
"What you fought was a Minos Guardian. A special individual. Even so, Minos Units should replicate the strength of an average minotaur."
"...That's quite the problem."
Minotaurs were strong.
Various types existed, with combat power ranging from high Bronze to mid Silver.
They typically appeared in the middle floors of a dungeon, serving as gatekeepers in a sense.
And now there was that massive horde—I shuddered.
"The lab... there it is. It hasn't changed."
"Where?"
Hyarn's relieved voice urged me on.
I spotted a small dome-like structure tucked among the boulders at the far right. That one?
Just as I was about to head over, a suspicious shadow appeared.
*BOOOOHHH*
A Minos Unit. I'd been spotted by one.
I dodged its axe attack and leaped to a small stone pillar.
From there, I took out its torso in a single cast of Banish.
"Oh. Impressive."
"It's an emergency."
From there on, I fired off Banish after Banish.
I used my knife only for defense, taking down the Minos Units with Banish.
This was an emergency. I couldn't afford to be picky about my fighting style.
"Wait, isn't that too strong? That Relic. It's that powerful with no cooldown?"
"None."
Come to think of it, there wasn't one. I realized that just now. Hyarn gave a wry smile.
"...Truly off the charts. Not that I can talk."
Not exactly a compliment I was happy to hear.
After that, I detoured, hid and waited things out, and reluctantly took a few down.
At last, I reached the stone dome that housed the lab.
A dome made of enormous stone.
It looked both artificial and natural. But that was all there was to it.
I'd expected a smooth surface, but it was surprisingly rough and uneven.
"Um, where's the lab—"
"...Right here."
Hyarn pointed at the front of the dome.
"?"
"Look closely. There's a depression shaped like an egg."
"This? No way."
I pulled the sacred elixir egg from my pouch and fitted it into the depression.
A section of the stone dome rumbled softly and opened.
"Alright. Let's go."
"...This is the lab."
Inside the dome—it was oddly refined.
Or rather, there was nothing there. Just a gate at the center, with a pedestal before it.
When Hyarn touched the pedestal, the gate began to glow green.
"...Looks like I still have gate access."
Beyond the gate, the air warped and displayed a different scene.
A gate. So the lab was on the other side.
Following Hyarn, I stepped through the gate with a tense expression.
Beyond the gate, a corridor stretched onward.
A sterile gray corridor, with small orbs floating in the air.
Several rooms lined the corridor, but every door was shut.
How to put it. The corridor had absolutely no metallic feel.
Well, it probably was metal, but... hmm. Even my memories from my past life couldn't tell.
"This is incredible. Did you build it?"
"No. The only thing I managed to build was that gate."
"Then who made this—"
At the end of the corridor were double doors.
They opened automatically.
"...Ah, at last. At last."
Hyarn stepped inside, visibly moved.
I entered the lab as well.
Was this something that truly belonged to this world?
Should it even exist in this world?
It was a simple room. The same sterile quality you could sense in the corridor.
Rounded walls of a mouse-gray hue enclosed the space, with the far wall entirely glass.
Four square white table-like objects stood in the room.
There were also shelves and a desk along the wall, clearly brought in from outside.
Lights in the ceiling brightened the moment we entered.
"..."
On the glass wall ahead, there was some kind of control panel.
Not buttons—a touch panel. Beyond the glass, what was that?
A silver disc with a tank attached, and at its center, a massive sphere.
Around it floated squares, triangles, and round objects of some kind. What was this?
Hyarn gazed around with nostalgic fondness, though there were countless things I could've pointed out.
"Hyarn. We don't have time."
"Right."
Hyarn climbed up to the touch panel and began operating it.
A window appeared in the air, with text scrolling across it.
Was he searching for something?
"Na?"
"Oh, you're awake."
I couldn't exactly leave her behind, so I'd brought her along in knife form.
But she was usually asleep at this hour.
"...It's not here. The Minos Unit infinite spawning core system and my body aren't in the lab."
Don't use the chaos as an excuse to search for your own body.
"Then where?"
"...Wait. It's hard to operate with rabbit paws... Ah, found it. Found it! I found it. The Minos Unit infinite spawning core system! I'll pull it up on the map now."
A three-dimensional map of this floor materialized in the air.
There was a blue light on the map. I figured it out immediately.
"Here?"
"That's right. It's at this light point."
"...That's—"
Right in the middle of the Minos Unit horde.