After encountering the remnants of the nightmare, our journey from that point onward proceeded with surprising smoothness.
It seemed the newly evolved Earth Dragons had been hunting other Monsters throughout the area, so the main corridor was nearly devoid of any Monsters left.
That meant fewer battles and no run-ins with any major threats.
I suspected it wasn't just the Earth Dragons' influence, though.
The remnants of the nightmare.
Because that existence had been there, the Monsters had either fled or been wiped out.
After that encounter, Basgas's words grew few and far between.
He kept unnecessary remarks to himself, senses fully alert.
He spoke when something needed saying, but the easy, cheerful laughter from before was gone.
He looked like a warrior marching across a battlefield.
Inspired by Basgas's demeanor, conversation between us also dwindled.
It became more pronounced the closer we got to the exit.
The tension of being inside a dangerous dungeon, tangled with the tension of soon stepping out of this dungeon and onto a real battlefield.
Those feelings blended together, and everyone's expressions gradually grew harder.
"Well, at this point the exit is right up ahead."
During what would likely be our last camp, Basgas opened the discussion.
"About the exit — there's only one way out on this side."
"So we'll be using that passage?"
"That's right."
"It really is a dangerous spot, isn't it?"
"Yeah."
Basgas nodded gravely.
"Think about it. If any passage out of here were safe, tons more people would use it. The fact that nobody does means either nobody knows about it, or it's too dangerous to use. One or the other."
Basgas pulled out a map.
"Look. This is where we are now."
The spot Basgas pointed to was already very close to the exit.
Once I clearly recognized our position, a sense of reality finally sank in — we had really come all this way.
"And the passage we need to break through is here."
Basgas pointed to a spot on the map.
It was a wide, open space.
"A vertical shaft. There are several throughout the Great Ello Dungeon — they connect the Upper Layer to the Lower Layer. This particular shaft also leads to the surface. Climb up through here, and you reach the outside."
A vertical shaft.
I'd heard the stories — a massive hole said to connect the Upper Layer to the unexplored, perilous Lower Layer.
But this time, we wouldn't be going down.
We'd be going up.
And Basgas said even that was dangerous.
There had to be a reason.
"What kind of dangers does the vertical shaft have?"
"Right. First, you have to get through a danger zone before you even reach the shaft. That's here."
In the spot Basgas indicated on the map, there was a wide, open space sitting right before the vertical shaft.
"It's an Elurofelect nest."
"Elurofelect?"
"Insect-type Monsters with tons of little legs. Each one is weak individually, but there are absurdly many of them, and they inflict paralysis. They're fast too — once they catch you, you're paralyzed and swarmed before you know it."
"Ugh."
Kathia let out a small groan, apparently having visualized the scene.
"The only way to deal with them is wide-area attacks to wipe them out in one go."
"Got it."
Normally, that would indeed be dangerous.
But this party could handle it.
Almost everyone here could cast high-power, wide-area annihilation magic.
Me, Kathia, the Teacher, Ana — if these four unleashed their magic in sequence, we could cover a tremendous area.
And if any slipped through, there was Hailins's ironclad defense plus Basgas's support.
We'd be fine.
"That's the first gate."
"First? So there's more after that?"
"Second gate — a Finjigoat nest."
We waited for Basgas to continue.
"Finjigoats exist outside the Great Ello Dungeon too, but the ones that live here build nests in the vertical shafts and use them as bases. I don't know why, but almost every vertical shaft has a Finjigoat nest in it. Finjigoats are flying insect-type Monsters that carry venomous stingers. Each one is rated as a D-level threat, but they usually form squads led by evolved individuals. Those squads coordinate their attacks. To reach the exit, we have to dodge their assaults while climbing the vertical wall."
The Great Ello Dungeon clearly wasn't going to let us leave easily.
"Squeeeee!" Kathia screamed.
I hadn't exactly been an insect person in my previous life, but since coming to this world it had gotten even worse.
Well, I couldn't blame her.
Anyone looking at this scene would feel revulsion, bugs or no bugs.
What lay before our eyes was a writhing mass of insects packed shoulder to shoulder.
Creatures resembling the geji from my original world.
They filled our entire field of vision, overlapping and squirming.
No wonder she screamed.
Our plan was straightforward — fire off wide-area magic in rotation and mow down the swarm.
Or so it was supposed to go.
"N-no way! No way, no way, NO WAY!" Kathia went berserk, unleashing spell after spell.
The geji-type Monsters thinned out at a visible rate under the barrage.
"Um, isn't using fire in a cave dangerous?"
"It should be fine. Magic fire in this world doesn't work by burning oxygen to produce carbon dioxide."
"Huh? Really?"
"Yes. I haven't studied it in detail myself, but it's more like the phenomenon of fire is simply… produced. If a mage is unskilled, carbon dioxide can sometimes be generated, but the exact conditions are unclear. With Kathia's level of skill, no carbon dioxide should be produced, so there's nothing to worry about."
"That's fascinating."
"It truly is. How fire is produced without carbon combustion is a mystery to begin with, and the mechanism by which unskilled mages generate carbon dioxide is also unclear. It's different from hydrogen combustion too. Well, if you start pulling at that thread, you end up questioning what magic even is. Coming from a world with science, it's impossible to fully accept, but I suppose you just have to accept that this is how things work here."
While they chattered away, Kathia burned the entire Monster swarm to ashes by herself.
I looked down.
A bottomless darkness yawned open beneath us.
I looked up.
A sliver of daylight filtered in from above, and between the rays of light, countless shadows darted about.
Bees.
Their appearance bore a striking resemblance to bees from the original world.
But their size was incomparable.
Nearly twice my length, body included.
Enormous Monsters, flying in countless numbers.
Kathia, already no fan of insects, went pale again, though the rampage from earlier had drained most of her energy for screaming.
Whether fortunate or not, she had no strength left to panic and simply stared at the bee swarm.
"Well then, this is where we show what we can do."
"That it is."
Hailins and I took point.
Running through the air.
Using the Spatial Movement Skill to sprint across open space.
The Spatial Movement Skill was incredibly useful, which made it correspondingly difficult to master.
Only Hailins and I could fight while using it.
Kathia had the Spatial Movement Skill as well, but her earlier magic barrage had drained her significantly, so this time she stayed in the back.
The plan was dead simple.
Use Spatial Movement to intercept the incoming Monsters while the other members climbed the wall.
Scaling the wall would be grueling enough, and maintaining Spatial Movement the entire time was equally brutal for Hailins and me.
It wasn't as easy as it sounded.
I was worried about Ana, but with Basgas right beside her, I wanted to believe she'd be fine barring something truly extraordinary.
Sure enough, several bees immediately flew toward us.
Up close, they were enormous.
Six bees.
One of them radiated a stronger presence than the rest.
That one appeared to be the leader.
My sword cleaved through the leader bee.
I'd swung lightly, intending it as a warm-up, but it went down without a fuss.
Individually, they didn't seem like much.
But two or more attacking simultaneously would be trouble.
Hailins and I covered each other, picking off bees one by one with certainty.
No sooner had we dropped the last one than the next swarm arrived.
"No time to rest, is there?"
"None."
We thinned their numbers with Holy Light magic before they could close in.
But the bee swarm seemed to have fully recognized us as enemies, and a massive wave surged toward us all at once.
Our wide-area magic cut their numbers, but there were so many to begin with that it barely made a dent.
We intercepted with magic and swords, but a few slipped past.
The Teacher's wind magic shot those down.
"Don't worry about the rear! I can stay afloat with magic for a short while too!"
With the Teacher covering our backs, Hailins and I devoted ourselves to bee extermination.
We mechanically carved through the swarm as wave after wave descended.
Just when maintaining Spatial Movement was becoming genuinely unbearable, we finally saw the end.
The exit.
Basgas climbed up first, then reached down and hauled Ana up by the hand.
Next Kathia went, then the Teacher, then Hailins. Once I saw them all heading for the exit, I unleashed one final wide-area spell at the incoming bees and dove through.
Daylight flooded in for the first time in days.
It was already evening, and the sky was stained crimson.
No time to savor the moment — I moved away from the exit immediately.
If I lingered, the bees might pursue, or the Empire might have an ambush waiting.
So far no Imperial soldiers were in sight, but I couldn't afford to let my guard down.
"I've got a hideout on this side too. Let's head there for today."
I agreed to Basgas's proposal.
And so, at last, we succeeded in escaping our long dungeon life.