Saitama Dungeon by Yamaguchi Yuuko
Episode 20 Third Floor Part 2
In high spirits I crossed the first floor and after swiping though the turnstile in the small cabin at the top of the stairs I descended to the second floor. From there, I looked at the map and headed towards the tunnel that led to the third floor, but since there were a lot of adventurers going in that direction I simply tagged along.
The third floor, which is reached by descending a 60-step staircase, is a tunnel-style dungeon just like the second floor I had previously explored. The monsters that appear on this floor include the same monsters as on the second floor, that is rats, slimes and giant centipedes plus a new type of monster, a giant spider.
As usual, I walked in a direction that seemed less crowded. Come out, come out, monsters, I thought to myself. I walked for about 10 minutes and finally the presence and sounds of other adventurers near me disappeared.
As an aside, B-rank adventurers make up only 7% of all adventurers, C rank is 2%, D rank is 0.3%, and only ninety-eight people in total hold the highest rank, S. Everyone else, that is nine out of ten adventurers are A-rank adventurers and limited to hunting on the first floor. It’s also worth noting that many C-rank adventurers and above are graduates of the Dungeon High School.
After the signs of life died out, I walked a little further and came to a fork in the road. I took the path that seemed to be less travelled and walked for another five minutes before I sensed what appeared to be monsters up ahead. It seemed my wish had been granted as there were multiple signs. Yosh! It would be a huge loss if I delayed and they escaped me, so I hurried forward.
The presence I sensed was indeed a group of monsters, the first giant spiders I've encountered in this dungeon. Their body is about 40 to 50 centimeters in size, and the legs are about 70 centimeters long. In total there were three of them, heading towards me. However, I have fought many giant spiders in the other world and they were much larger than these specimens, so I didn’t regard them as a big deal.
I gripped my mace again and charged at the approaching giant spiders. I aimed my mace at the three giant spiders and slammed it down on their heads smoothly and efficiently. One, two, three, done! Yosh! The three spiders curled up their legs, collapsed to the surface of the tunnel on their bellies and stopped moving.
This time too, there was no tension or anything. For me it wasn't even a battle, it was just a simple task, one-hit kills. These guys, who appeared and then disappeared as quickly as they arrived, are probably happy because they will be my source of nourishment. Their loss, my gain.
I took out the leather case I bought at the convenience store yesterday from my backpack and placed it on the floor. Since the spider's core is inside its abdomen, I turned the first one over and made a slit with the knife as usual, then stuck my gloved hand in and rummaged around inside its guts before pulling out the core. The core that was extracted was almost the same size as the ones I had obtained on the second floor from the giant rats.
I washed the core with water and then placed it in a pouch in the leather case. I repeated the process for the other two spiders and finally put the case into my backpack. Of course, I washed my gloves and knives with water. After extracting its cores I kicked the remains of the giant spiders into the corner of the tunnel since I didn’t want to recover the bodies to sell at the dungeon materials sales counter on my way out.
After defeating the three giant spiders in my first encounter, I wandered around the third floor’s mine tunnels at random and I ended up obtaining 13 cores.
After putting the last core into the case, I looked at the display on my smartphone and saw that it was almost noon, so I sat down in the middle of the mine tunnel and started eating my rice balls. The rice balls in the set are moist seaweed rice balls, one is pickled kelp, another is pickled plum, and the other rice ball set is mentaiko and okaka. Apparently something called tuna mayo is popular these days, but I have a policy of not eating things I don't understand, so I've never tried it before and probably never will.
While drinking tea, I picked up the pickled radish that came with the rice ball set with my fingers and ate it, and in no time I had finished all four rice balls. It's not my fault the rice ball was too small.
It was only 12:10 so I decided to take a short break before starting my afternoon work. However a few moments later I saw a light flickering at the far end of the tunnel. I moved to the side and sat with my back against the wall when I saw the lights approaching.
The light was coming from a flashlight held by the leader of a group of four adventurers. One of them appeared to be injured, with a blood-soaked bandage wrapped around his left forearm. It didn't seem to be broken or anything, so it was just the sort of minor wound that I could have easily healed with my magic powers. Of course, those sorts of powers aren’t normal in this world, so maybe a wound like that might actually be quite serious?
None of the four said anything, instead they just stared at me as they passed by. Are B-ranked high school adventurers really such an unusual sight? I guess so.
After the four of them passed by me and the light disappeared, I stood up, gathered my gear, and started walking in the direction they had come from.
Ten minutes later, I came across what looked like the remains of the fight between several monsters and the four-man adventurer team. There was one centipede corpse and two giant spider corpses left behind. Had the centipede collaborated with the giant spiders? Apparently monsters will team up, just like adventurers do.
With its size, it's hard to imagine that a giant spider would be able to stick to the ceiling of a tunnel, but centipedes definitely can cling to ceilings. I guessed that while the adventurers were fighting the giant spiders, the centipede might have approached unnoticed and dropped on them from above, resulting in one of them getting injured. It was just idle speculation on my part though.
The giant spiders were mangled beyond recognition and the centipede's head was crushed and its body torn to shreds. I thought it seemed a bit excessive, but the girls of the Akigase Warriors adventurer team also collectively beat up monsters with enthusiasm. I'm not sure if this is an issue exclusive to adventurers in the Saitama dungeon or if it commonly happens in dungeons all over Japan or it might even just be be a current fad.
Thinking about it, adventurers spending too much time beating monsters into pulp was a bad idea and could lead them into failing miserably. A new monster might sneak up and attack them from behind if they spent too much time fighting the monsters in front of them. I’m certain I wouldn’t make such a mistake, but it seems quite possible that this is what happened to those guys. From what I saw in the video they showed us in the Adventurer training, S-ranks don’t make that sort of mistake.
I haven't tried it yet, so I don't know if I can use all the power I had when I was a hero, but even without using a holy or magic sword, I should be able to easily defeat the gatekeeper on the 20th floor that I saw in the video the other day with the same sort of effort I’ve been using to hunt the lesser monsters here on the third floor.
After passing by the gore-splattered site of the battle I made my way deeper into the mine tunnel. I soon sensed the presence of monsters ahead of me again. Yosh!
Attack me all at once! I won't run or hide! That's right! I turned my lamp on full power to let the monsters know I'm here. I had been keeping my lamp dimmed because it was bright enough for me to see at the lower settings but leaving it on full would mean the monsters would find me quicker.
The monster presence gradually increased as it rushed towards me. What came into view was a group of large rats, ten of them. My wish came true!
I charged into the group of giant rats, swinging my mace. I was careful to hit the rats on the head with just enough force to kill them cleanly but without making a mess. It's just work, after all, no need to overdo things and leave a police crime scene behind me.
With low-level monsters like these, it didn't matter to me how many there were. It took me less than five seconds to eliminate all ten giant rats and then I extracted their cores, washing each one before packing them away in the case. I repeated this ten times and that was it.
I threw the giant rat carcasses to the side of the mine shaft so that they don’t get in the way and where they’d be absorbed by the dungeon in time. The third floor definitely seemed to be a better hunting ground for me than the second floor. What a blessing!
