Fireman.
A humanoid dungeon monster made entirely of flame.
They showed up pretty often in the 13th floor's labyrinth. No Relic drops, though.
Put them out? If you smashed the flint stone inside their body, they'd go out.
Basically the water dungeon's water spirit series, but fire.
Other elements had their own versions too — wind, earth, you name it.
"Oh, this. That's it."
I muttered it without thinking. Using Deep Stillness, I lined up my thoughts.
I tracked the Firemen rushing toward the light point and unleashed Banish.
The next Fireman I downed — Banish.
Then Fireman after Fireman in rapid succession — popping off one after another.
This was it. This was an arcade shooting game.
Point the light gun at the screen, a target appears, pull the trigger, enemy down.
Exactly that. With that same feeling, I mowed down the Firemen.
Used to play those a lot back then.
Every zombie in a salaryman getup that came at me — I'd picture them all as my boss.
Every zombie in a doctor's outfit that came at me — I'd picture them all as my boss.
Every zombie that came at me — I'd picture them all as my boss.
Man, that was a great stress reliever.
"Master, it's strong, exhilarating, death."
"You're in good form, ain't ya."
Chardina's eyes sparkled while Alexander puffed away at his pipe without a care in the world.
Most of the monsters had been taken out by me.
The result of my Relic evolving from Silence of the Deep.
The operating time had jumped to ten minutes, so the usability was on a whole other level.
As for drawbacks, the main one was that I couldn't use Banish on command without activating Silence of the Deep.
The target pointer and light dots were absurdly convenient too.
I casually asked Alexander something that had been on my mind.
"It's not just about setting up teleportation arrays, is it?"
"You can think of it as handling all the dungeon's behind-the-scenes work. Confirming and processing this event counts as part of the job too."
"This is the first time I've heard the word 'event.' Does that happen often?"
"Differences in scale aside, it happens more often than you'd think. To be blunt, the current reality is that nobody can even tell what qualifies as an event. Whether monsters from the lower floors wandering around the upper floors counts as one — even experts can't agree on that. This time around, it was just so obviously massive that everyone agreed it was an event, is all."
"I see."
Come to think of it, you could probably call everything happening in a dungeon an event.
And then we arrived at the place where the event was taking place.
A swarm of chimeras. Behind them, a chimera sub-species. Exactly the same as last time.
Had they respawned?
I used the Wheel of Fortune.
Multiple green lights beyond the cave. Two yellows. One blue. The blue one was all the way in the back.
So if it was still there, that meant nobody had taken it.
Apparently, this floor had a reputation for being skipped over, since the transfer gate to the next floor was found early on.
Well, who wouldn't hate a maze like this? I couldn't really blame other delvers for avoiding it.
Or maybe it was because fire-type dungeons got progressively harsher the deeper you went.
There weren't many delvers around. Come to think of it, the wind dungeon hadn't been that crowded either.
In comparison, the most popular earth-type dungeon was so packed it had entry restrictions.
People even set up entire inns at the dungeon entrance. The gap between dungeons was pretty stark.
As for the city's dungeon…
The lockdown was supposed to lift one week after "the Great Oblivions" ended.
The Junkyard, at least, was still open as a special exception. That much was good news.
Alexander stood watching the horde of chimeras, groaning.
"I figure it'd be fine to just leave 'em be, personally."
"That's… yeah. Mm."
"Is that so, desu?"
Since most people skipped this floor anyway, leaving things alone wasn't exactly a problem.
Still, a job was a job.
"How do we handle the event?"
"With this thing here."
Alexander held up what he meant — it was a stone.
A lopsided, semi-transparent stone of an unremarkable color. The kind you could find just about anywhere.
"What is that?"
"Events and buildings get generated in dungeons from thought, y'see. Thought is a concept of the soul without form. This here's a phenomenon stone. It's a Legacy that can seal the phenomenon of a concept that has no shape."
Alexander tossed the phenomenon stone.
By the time the chimeras noticed, the phenomenon stone blazed with light and shattered into pieces.
Once it was gone, the swarm of chimeras looked like something had been lifted off them.
The chimeras and their subspecies retreated into the cave behind.
"Does that mean the event here is gone?"
"That it is."
That was fine and all, but the chimeras had gone into the cave behind us.
I had business in there too… oh well.
If I ran into them, I'd just have to fight.
The moment we passed through the cave, a chimera attacked us.
Shaldina deflected its sharp claws with her cutlass, seizing the opening.
Targeting.
—Banish.
Shot. The chimera's head vanished.
Alexander severed its snake-like tail.
"Right into it, huh."
"That hit was a heavy one."
"Thanks for the help, Shaldina."
"Wof, guarding is my job. But if you really, truly insist, you may pet my head."
I gave Shaldina's head a light pat as she crouched down.
She looked happy about it. Then, first things first. I opened the green-glowing treasure chest.
"Not a potion, huh."
"Well, it is what it is."
The next green glow was a power potion.
A rare one that temporarily enhances the body.
"Well, it is what it is."
Next was the yellow glow.
The yellow glow was... ah, so this sort of thing can happen.
"Oh, now this is rare. There's a whole pile of junk gathered here."
"Every last piece is broken — beat-up weapons and armor, desu."
It was a dead end, where decayed weapons and rusted armor had been heaped together.
A little junkyard. The yellow glow meant... dig through the junk. There it was.
What I picked up was a small, narrow wooden box.
An old box with patterns carved into its surface.
When I opened it, inside was a pendant. It had a red gemstone set in it.
"That's a nice find, desu."
"You can tell?"
"Well, I can at least say my instincts aren't bad."
"I, not interested, desu."
Shardina showed a dismissive attitude.
"Well, it is what it is."
I stored it in my pouch.
Now for the main course.
I took down about two chimeras, just as Alexander had told me.
The hunt parts for chimeras are the claws and the fangs of the snake on their tail. They buy those for fifteen hundred to three thousand oro.
Not that high for this kind of thing. Even less so when you factor in the trouble of fighting them.
Well, I'll bring them along anyway. Might as well.
The blue light was from a dead-end section of the Junkyard, tucked further in.
Next to a rusty knife and broken armor, a white plate was casually stuck in the ground.
That white plate was the source of the blue light.
"This here's a rare find, desu ne. Only the second time I've seen one, desu."
Alexander looked at the plate in my hand with surprise and a touch of awe.
"What is this?"
Appearance-wise, it looked like a color variant of a Relic plate.
"It's a Relic plate, desu yo. And not just any one — it's called a duplicate Relic plate. Legendary, desu ze."
"Duplicate?"
"You can duplicate a Relic and put it into a plate. But it's not just any Relic — only common-type Relics that you can stockpile in large quantities, like ones tied to attributes, desu ze."
"Heh, even so, that's pretty convenient. So does that mean there's no Relic inside this one?"
"That's because it's blank, desu ne."
"Um, Master, I have a favor to ask, desu."
"What is it?"
"I, the humble one, would like to have Master's Relic, desu."
"Ah, you want me to duplicate one of my Relics and give it to you?"
"Yes, desu!"
"So Shardina doesn't have any Relics of her own?"
"No, desu!"
"I see. Alexander, how do I use this?"
"You just hold the plate and imagine the Relic you'd like to store inside it, desu ze."
I tried picturing my Relics one by one.
Wheel of Fortune — no good. Banish — no good. The Silent Deep — no good.
Silent Automove (Half) — no good. Generous — obviously no good.
Oh, Danger Discernment worked. The plate turned black.
"That means it's been stored inside, desu ze."
"How do I use it?"
"Hand the plate to the recipient and declare 'I possess it' — then they'll have it, desu ze."
"Here you go, then."
"...Master. Are you sure about this, desu?"
Shardina was the one who asked for it, yet she hesitated.
"It's better to use something like this sooner rather than later."
"Then I shall use it, desu."
Shardina took the plate and declared, "I possess it."
The plate crumbled and vanished.
"How is it?"
"Wah— w-wah! Master, Master! Two Relics have formed deep inside my chest, desu!"
"Two?"
I'd only replicated one.
"Y-yes! Danger Discernment and Impact, desu!"
"Not Discernment?"
"No, desu. Judgment, desu."
"And Impact, of all things—"
Wasn't that Arveld's Relic?
What was going on?
"Now this here is a rare occurrence, I tell ya. As expected of Wof—truly delightful, truly. A fission phenomenon like this is something you might not see once in a lifetime, I reckon."
"...Fission...?"
"A portion of the original Relic split off, I'd wager. That must be what replicated into two separate Relics."
"Danger Discernment became Danger Judgment, and Banish became Impact."
"Master! Master! I'm so happy, desu! Really, really happy, desu!"
Shardina was practically bouncing with joy. With her face being Muniéka's, the dissonance was through the roof.
But well, if they're happy, that's all that matters. Yeah. That smile. Priceless.
"— Wof. I've been thinking, if you don't mind."
"What is it?"
"I feel like the reason things are the way they are now is because we keep doing stuff like this, y'know."
"............"
I couldn't deny it.
We left the Fire Dungeon and parted ways with Alexander.
He'd really helped us out in so many ways.
After we got back, Shardina headed to the witch's house. I went to the lab.
I dragged a reluctant Haiarn to the training room and got started.
Ten consecutive Evil Eyes, and I nullified every single one.
The look she gave me was anything but bunny-like.
Was she a master detective or something?
Still, I was in pretty good spirits.
Now I could finally step onto Arveld's stage.
After that, I got an earful from Muniéka about Shardina's Relic.
Shardina and I sat seiza-style and endured nearly an hour of lecturing.
There was definitely a hint of jealousy and poutiness mixed into the lecture, but that was probably just my imagination.