It was a diagonal hole, suddenly open in the middle of the forest, looking so out of place it was almost jarring.
This was the dungeon entrance. It twisted and turned, its depths hidden from view.
"Be careful going down."
"I'm heading in first."
"Ah."
Mineha left my shoulder and flew straight into the dungeon hole.
"That guy."
"Gone already, huh."
"Acting like the seventh sister—so selfish. But I have to admit, I'm a little jealous."
Just like Rel said, I thought the same thing, if only for a second.
We descended slowly.
We reached the bottom. Torches were placed at regular intervals along the rock wall.
Their light illuminated the surrounding area.
"You're slow."
Mineha directed her cold gaze at us.
Axe forced a tight smile.
"Sorry, I don't have wings like a bug."
"Who are you calling a bug?"
"Don't pick a fight in a place like this."
"Hey. If you make too much noise, monsters'll come."
"Hmph. If it's monsters, I already took out the ones nearby."
"What? Skeletons?"
"That's right."
"Skeletons...?"
The swarm of skeletons we'd fought in that forest came to mind.
That wasn't something I was likely to forget. Axe answered.
"According to the report, the monsters that appear in this dungeon are skeletons, slimes, and treants."
"Treants are the tree monsters, right?"
"Skeletons and slimes aside, a treant is pretty rare for a dungeon."
"Is that so?"
"Normally they're forest monsters. There are plenty of them in the forests under our management."
"Not really dungeon monsters, then."
"Who cares about that. Let's go."
Mineha, looking thoroughly bored, sat down on my shoulder. She crossed her legs as she settled in.
"Ha ha ha ha..."
"Let's wrap this up already. This pointless exploration."
"'Wrap it up,' he says. Even so, it's still going to take over three days."
Axe said, dripping with sarcasm.
"Huh? Why would it take three days for just the third floor?!"
"Is there some reason for that?"
"That's news to me."
"I ain't never heard it'd take that long, neither."
At everyone's words, Axe pulled out a map. A scroll.
"This is a map of the dungeon's first floor."
With that, he spread the scroll open.
Wait, wait, wait, wait. It unfurled across the floor.
"What the heck is this…"
"This is the first floor?"
"Yeah. I've got two more scrolls of the same scale."
"It's a maze."
"A huge one, too…"
Everyone but Axe drew a sharp breath.
From end to end, the scroll was nothing but maze.
Complex, tangled, and riddled with dead ends.
A dungeon is fundamentally
a labyrinth.
That's what it is.
Not a maze.
But this was pretty unusual, even for a dungeon.
"This is ridiculous. All of this."
Mineha said it through gritted teeth, practically spitting the words out.
I could understand the feeling. Axe turned a calm expression toward her.
"Still, it's a commission."
"But there's no point. Not in something like this."
"Doesn't matter. Rank III delvers don't get to refuse."
"Wh—!?"
Axe. He's angry.
Can't really blame him, but still, he's forgetting who he's talking to.
"That's right. It's a commission."
"Can't be helped, I guess."
Rel and Hoss shrugged in unison.
So this is what professional delvers look like.
"What do you want?"
"Mineha."
"I know, I know."
She muttered under her breath. I sighed.
"Hey. If you're done complaining, let's move already."
Axe and the others started walking off.
Hmm. I should probably bring that up later.
The dungeon exploration continued without a hitch, though the mood stayed hard to place.
The monsters we ran into were two skeletons and four slimes.
Still hadn't spotted a single treant.
Oh — Hoss was crouching down.
"What's wrong?"
"Look. Mushrooms."
And sure enough, they were mushrooms. Three of them, with thick red caps.
Hoss picked them carefully.
"Are they edible?"
"Red caps. Best soup ingredient there is, I say."
My Danger Discernment read them as white — safe.
Hoss went on, sorting through wild herbs and selecting only the good ones.
Impressive. He carefully avoided anything Danger Discernment would flag as red or black.
"Cultivated through experience?"
That knowledge was every bit as good as having a Relic.
I was impressed, so I helped out in earnest.
How long had we been exploring?
By the time I noticed, we'd entered a square space where the ceiling had opened up to bright light.
There was nothing around — it felt like nothing more than a passing point.
Axe and the others had stopped.
Looking at something she took out from inside her outfit.
"What could it be?"
"It's not for camping. It's already late at night."
Mineha, sitting on my shoulder with her legs crossed, spoke up.
It's not like she's always sitting there.
She flies off on a whim and comes back.
"You can tell?"
"Every delver carries one of these."
What Mineha showed me was... a black crystal.
"This is?"
"A day-night stone. If it's daytime outside, it's white. At night, it turns black."
"Oh, that's interesting."
"Since dungeons are basically all underground, you tend to lose track of the day-night cycle and your sense of time. When you get back to the surface, the reversal can throw your body all out of whack."
"I see. So with this day-night stone, you can at least tell whether it's day or night."
"That's right. Roughly, anyway. When it goes from white to black and back to white again, you know a full day has passed."
"Do they hand those out?"
"They do. You get one from the guild when you become a delver."
"Huh..."
A day-night stone. That's one more thing to look forward to.
But they really do make them small enough for fairials, too.
Wait, they actually have those?
And just like Mineha said, we ended up camping here.
This is my chance.