Stomp, stomp, stomp.
She ran through the cave with her new companions, looking at their backs after offering the excuse that she would watch the rear.
«Sir, please explain. Why do we go up to the second floor?».
There was a great distance between them that prevented him from getting too close. However, he could get over it in a second if he tried. Yes, I was sure I could.
But...
«Not anywhere on the second floor. Let's go to the Goblin Forest.»
Why did you suddenly feel like you could spend the rest of your life trying and still never be able to close that gap?
I thought for sure it would happen... that over time, things would eventually go back to normal...
He had tried not to get impatient, but his confidence was beginning to fade as the days went by. The interaction he had witnessed a while ago spoke for itself.
«I think that would be better for you».
«Yandel, don't be offended and listen to me. Right now you are very unstable».
Seeing how those words resonated with Bjorn, the first thought he had was: «I should have been the one to say that».
She had lost.
It had never occurred to him to say something like that. The answer he gave was what he assumed Bjorn wanted to hear. But after so many years, I wasn't even sure what it was «what Bjorn wanted to hear».
«I'm not sure. I guess killing them... would be better...»
She had not expressed her own opinion. No, she just looked around the room and gave the answer that she thought most of them would agree. Now that I thought about it, things had always been like this. He had never questioned Bjorn or advised him which path he should take. He had decided to follow him in silence, no matter what he did. That was all he had ever done.
Amelia Rainwales...
The fundamental difference between the two was palpable. He looked at Amelia and realized that she must be what people meant when they talked about a real companion. It wasn't that Missha's position in the group had disappeared while she was gone. He had always felt like he could come back and claim his place at any time, but now he was realizing that it hadn't been such a special place in the first place.
«...Are you okay?» Amelia slowed down to join her in the back, falling into the step next to her. «I've seen you bad for a while».
When he looked at Amelia, he felt her gritting her teeth despite himself. «Do not worry about me. I'm fine».
It didn't matter if she still had a place here. It didn't matter if he looked through it either.
«If you don't, Bjorn Yandel will die.»
Because she had something more important to take care of.
***
About an hour after Day Three began, the entire cave began to shake as the crystals glowed red. That meant that the Lord of Terror, Dreadfear, had been summoned somewhere, probably as a result of one of the eight raid requests that had already been sent to the Adventurer's Guild. The problem was how soon they were summoning him.
It's only been an hour and it's here. How many people are waiting their turn?
Of course, none of that mattered to us, since we had our sights set on something else. However, the eight teams that had received a raid permit probably thought the same. In fact, it was safe to say that most adventurers had considered the same possibility.
What if they defeated the Lord of Terror, Dreadfear, now?
While planning this month's search, I also considered the possibility that the key to accessing the hidden area was to defeat him again. Unfortunately, I couldn't apply because the available places were all already filled.
However, if the Lord of the Abyss, Berzak, was the real key, then we would have to completely give up reaching the hidden zone for now.
...Everyone has the common sense not to invoke Berzak, right?
I wanted to believe it, but I wasn't so sure. At first glance, there were dozens of groups throughout the Crystal Cave, not just the eight that had applied for a raid permit. If just one of those extra teams became a little greedy, the results would be catastrophic.
That does not matter. We have our own mission to focus on.
It wasn't like he could personally persuade all the cave adventurers not to get greedy and summon Berzak, so in the end, we quickened our pace and got out of there.
[You have entered the Goblin Forest on the second floor].
We quickly headed to the second floor and then the third. Since we were running as fast as we could, we were able to get there before the third day was over.
[You have entered the Pilgrim's Way on the third floor.]
It was a huge plant with more than ten different areas. After passing through the Goblin Forest, we appeared in the Greentail Swamp, inhabited by Lizardmen. From there, we went to one of the neighboring areas, the Temple of Sculpture.
This area was filled with rubble from the ruins of crumbling stone buildings. It looked similar to the Panthelion Ruins in the Dark Continent on the seventh floor, but there were also some differences here and there. One of them was that this place was full of sculptures, although they were all broken from the neck up.
«This place gives me chills every time».
«At least no one else comes here.»
The Temple of Sculptures was the most unpopular area on the third floor by an overwhelming margin. First of all, there was only one type of monster that appeared here.
[You have killed an unnamed Sculpture.]
The nameless sculptures were rank seven monsters resembling stone golems. The main difference was that they were much smaller, humanoid and agile.
[The Nameless Sculpture has launched Unanswered Prayer].
The ability that came with his essence was also famous for being absolute garbage. When a player used it, it consumed an insane amount of MP and almost always failed, doing nothing. However, when they used these things, they had a much better chance of success.
[The nameless sculpture has been imbued with great power.]
If the sentence was successful, the user temporarily gained a random essence of rank five or lower. Therefore, they were abnormally difficult for rank seven monsters to combat. In reality, they were more complicated than difficult. There were numerous variables to take into account, as predicting what kind of skills they would gain was impossible. Therefore, no adventurer decided to hunt or pass through here. Why would they do it if even the essence they obtained was garbage? If your goal was to get EXP, you could kill one of those wandering around the outskirts and skip this area completely.
What's more, it's totally out of the way.
If you wanted to go to the fourth floor, it was much easier to go another route. As a result, no one took this path, to the point that most of the adventurers had not even seen this place.
However, the objects are not that bad...
The main attraction of this place were the objects that the monsters dropped. If you used Distortion, you could sometimes get a Magic Power Crystal, which could sell for a considerable price. Even so, it was more efficient to extract them on the fifth floor. That's why no one came here for them.
But we were here for another object that had a chance of falling.
«Everyone, on the go.»
Feeling short on time, I ordered everyone to go hunting.
[Versyl Gowland has cast the rank six High Level Distortion space-time spell.]
[Versyl Gowland has cast the High Level Distortion space-time spell.]
[Versyl Gowland has cast the rank 6 High Level Distortion space-time spell.]
Since we already had more than enough combat power, I had our mage focus on using distortion magic on the remains of the monsters to see which objects fell.
[You have killed an unnamed Sculpture.]
[You have killed an unnamed Sculpture.]
[You have killed an unnamed Sculpture.]
[You have killed one...]
I broke all the sculptures I saw into pieces. Then, since that was still taking too long, I ordered the team to fan out and attract the monsters' attention so I could attract them all together.
«¡Become-aaaaaa!»
Monsters, unlike humans, would become frantic and charge immediately when they saw someone with a high threat level. Using that to our advantage, we were able to gather them in an area and defeat a group in one fell swoop. We then had Versyl cast distortion magic to grab the objects. When more began to appear, we ran to attract their aggressiveness and cornered them again at a specific point. Splitting our team in this way allowed us to quickly take down countless monsters.
[You have killed an unnamed Sculpture.]
[You have killed an unnamed Sculpture.]
[You have killed an unnamed Sculpture.]
[You have killed a...]
We continued hunting with the same concentration for a while, without taking any breaks. Only after having collected six Crystals of Magical Power were we finally able to find what we had come looking for.
«Bjooorn! Is this what you are looking for?»
Ainar lifted a small piece of rubble with a unique pattern on it.
[You have acquired an unnamed fragment].
It was a drawing of the sun.
Nameless Fragment was an item that had a certain chance of falling when you cast Distortion on Nameless Sculptures. It was unique because you couldn't have more than one in your inventory, and they fell randomly with one of the three drawings etched into their surface. It was also impossible to take one to the city.
Since we found the sun, we only have the moon and the star left.
I always had the feeling that there was some secret behind these things, and I had tried everything I could think of in the game to find out what it was. And to think that he had finally found what they were for...
«Is this what you were looking for, Mr. Yandel?»
«That makes sense. From what I've heard, they appear in a sun, star, and moon» pattern.
«... I can't say for sure, but it seems likely. Time is of the essence, but we may make it».
Getting to the third floor, defeating enough monsters to get those three specific items, and then going down to the first floor before it closed... It was a rather difficult feat to achieve, but not impossible. In our case, however, we fell short, as we had lost more than two days on the first floor. We would have had a better chance of getting it if we had gone straight to the third floor from the beginning.
«I think we can do it next time», Versyl consoled me.
I had to admit that it seemed very unlikely that we would reach the hidden area this time. It took only one of those unnamed fragments eight hours to appear.
This means that if we want to find the other two, it will take sixteen hours.
The math suggests that we will run out of time, and that too under the assumption that none of the others who fell were duplicates of the ones we already had. Still, how were we going to go faster? Even going all out and scouring the entire area attacking all the monsters we saw, getting just one took us eight hours.
But also, at this rate, Versyl would run out of PM and would no longer be able to use Distortion.
Damn, was it too much to try to get this month? I thought it might be possible if we went as fast as we could, but maybe that was optimistic of-
«Oh! Bjorn! Another one!»
¿Eh?
I blinked at the stone Ainar placed in my hand, completely dumbfounded.
[You have acquired an Unnamed Fragment].
It had a star drawing. In other words, we now had eight more hours to find the last lunar pattern fragment.
That? How did Ainar find this random thing?
Ainar was lucky as a beginner, yes, but that shouldn't affect the rate of falling objects, just essences. In any case, it was better to take advantage of his inexplicable fortune while we could.
«Change of plans», I said. «From now on, Ainar will be in charge of defeating the monsters. Everyone else's job is to run and aggro them for her«.
Even though it wasn't as efficient as before, I decided to leave Ainar in charge of defeating all the monsters. And lo and behold, about five hours later...
[You have acquired an Unnamed Fragment.]
«Un patron landing...»
It was time to admit it. «Ainar.»
«You can flatter me all you want!» boasted.
«You're right! Barbarians are the superior race!»
«¡Woooooo!»
Instead of putting an end to Ainar's antics, I launched gigantization and threw her into the air.
«Ahahaha!» As expected, Ainar was happier than ever.
Hit!
Very good, it was enough to play. With the Unmentionable Shards in hand, I quickly led the team back the way we had come.
Day Five, Day Six, Day Seven...
Going back down the floors was even harder than going up in the first place. However, thanks to Ainar, we had extra time to camp, rest and regain our stamina. As a result, we were able to reach the center of the Goblin Forest on the afternoon of the seventh day. There we entered the field that housed the portal that led to the Crystal Cave on the first floor. It was the same field where we once fought a fierce battle against three of Noark's greatest warriors, who had been guarding the entrance.
«...What is this?»
However, now, the place was packed with adventurers that I didn't recognize at all. There seemed to be over a hundred of them and, just from appearances, they didn't seem like adventurers who had given up on this month and were heading to the first floor to catch the closing of the maze back home. If that were the case, they would be passing through the portal instead of standing in front of it. Nor did they seem like adventurers who had just found their way out of the Crystal Cave.
«Priest! Is there a priest?! Please help!
«Drink this!»
What the hell was going on? As I approached the portal, countless adventurers recognized me and began to whisper among themselves.
«¿Bjorn Yandel...?»
«Wasn't he also on the first floor?».
The crowd seemed confused to see me arrive from behind them and not through the portal. I sighed. I had wanted to sneak back to the first floor unnoticed instead of attracting attention like this, but since that was no longer an option, I called someone who seemed quite talkative to explain things to me.
«Hey! What's happening?»
His response was immediate. «Berzak! That demon has appeared».
Hah yeah, I figured something like that could happen.
No wonder we had been so lucky before.