Chapter 136: Day Trip Dungeon (4)
Chapter 136: Day Trip Dungeon (4)
Heh.
Fay, who was busy dismantling the Fisherman’s corpse into pieces, wore her signature gloomy smile.
“Harvesting materials, obviously.”
“…….”
Hearing her say that with a face splattered in blood made it feel like a scene from a horror movie.
The title would probably be Psychopath… no, Psycho-Fay? Something like that.
While I stood there, stunned.
“Mmm-hmm~ Hmm-hmm~”
Fay even started humming happily as she continued the harvest.
She sliced off a few scales with her dagger, carefully packed away a strangely shaped organ and even the eyeballs, and only then did she stand up.
The whole process had taken barely a minute.
“Good grief.”
Did I bring a looting pet along with me?
As I stared blankly at Fay, who was wiping the blood off her face, she hunched her shoulders as if embarrassed.
“Junior? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I was just thinking your harvesting speed is incredible.”
“Hehe… Even a dirt-poor Alchemist has a few things they can do, and one of them is prepping materials. Before I met you, I used to work at the monster exchange quite often!”
“Wouldn’t it be better to just make and sell potions? With your skills, Senior Fay, you can stably produce intermediate-grade potions.”
“…I didn’t have the money to buy the ingredients, though?”
“Ah.”
The Academy provides students with plenty of food, clothing, and shelter so they can focus on their studies regardless of their family situation.
Because of that, you occasionally see students like Fay who recklessly dump their entire fortune into their work and survive solely on the provided meals.
Anyway, a minute or so wasn't a long time, and if those materials helped Fay, there was no reason to stop her.
Above all, since you never know when you might need something, it’s always better for a production-class person to carry a wide variety of materials.
“By the way, what do you use Fisherman materials for?”
“Hmm… If it were a high-ranking specimen, it could be used for almost anything, but for a low-ranking one like this, the uses are pretty much set.”
Fay pulled out the materials she had just tucked away to show me.
“If you treat the scales chemically, they can be used like a metal that conducts mana well. Or you can break them into pieces and mix them into explosives to increase their power, or grind them finely to use as a catalyst. The swim bladder and eyes are…”
Perhaps because I had asked about a field she knew well, Fay began rambling in a slightly elevated voice about how useful the Fisherman could be.
Normally, I would have just listened, but since we were currently in the middle of a dungeon raid, I cut her off at a reasonable point.
“Tell me more about the details later. For now, let’s head to the next room.”
“Oh… I’ll be quiet now. Mmph…!”
Fay covered her own mouth and returned to her position.
I let out a small chuckle at the sight and resumed the raid.
As expected, the raid itself was incredibly smooth.
I disarmed traps exactly as I remembered them, prepared for battles with monsters, and headed toward the center without ever losing my way.
In between, Carla and Elisha tried out their robes, and Iris evaluated me as I showcased Element Combination magic in front of her.
We didn't neglect the things that could only be learned through field experience.
After several hours of clearing rooms and passing through various forks in the path.
I came to a halt in front of a fork that led to the room containing the Dungeon Core.
Perhaps because I hadn't stopped once until now except during combat, Carla tilted her head and asked.
“What is it, Master? Is there a trap in the passage?”
“No. Nothing like that. If we take the leftmost path here, we’ll reach the Core soon.”
The clear condition for a dungeon is generally to destroy the central axis that maintains it.
If that nucleus has settled into a monster, you have to kill the monster known as the boss; if it has settled into an object, you have to destroy the object known as the Core.
It varies so much depending on the dungeon that it’s hard to say which is better, but in the case of a labyrinth-type dungeon, destroying the Core is much easier than fighting a boss.
Dungeons with a Core don't have a formidable enemy that could be called a boss, but instead, a swarm of monsters gathers around the Core to protect it.
That usually makes it difficult to just slip in and take out the Core…
However, in a labyrinth-type dungeon, there are either no monsters near the Core or far fewer than in other types of dungeons.
This is because the monsters are scattered all over the place due to the nature of the dungeon being formed through spatial distortion.
In the case of this dungeon, the final fork split into five paths, and while the other four led to rooms filled with Fishermen.
The actual Core Room—the correct path—didn't have a single monster in it.
That was why I had stopped.
“Now, Senior Fay just needs to show off her skills and grab whatever she can, and then we destroy the Core to finish the clear… but isn't it a bit of a waste?”
“Huh? Master, don't tell me… are you itching to kill more monsters?!”
“No, do I look like some kind of battle-crazed lunatic to you?”
“No. But it’s true that you are pathologically obsessed with… ahem, that you pathologically hate cultists and monsters.”
“That’s true… but you’ll understand why I hate them so much once you get to the Core Room.”
It’s a pretty gruesome sight for someone seeing it for the first time.
“Anyway, that’s not what I meant. I was saying it’s a waste to throw away such a perfect chance for field practice.”
The Fishermen are like the perfect teaching aids for me right now.
Individually they are weak, but they aren't so weak when they group up. As long as I don't use the robe’s transparency, it would be excellent training.
“Training… you mean training?”
Carla, wearing a meaningful smile, sidled up to me.
“Field experience is certainly the best training. Especially for you, Master, since you’re a mage who relies more on intuition than theory.”
“Then…”
“HOW. EVER.”
Before I could say anything, Carla wagged her index finger and emphasized each word.
“Field experience is good for mastering things you can already do. You’re already utilizing what you have quite well, aren't you, Master? If I had to point out a deficiency, it would be the application of Element Combination.”
“Mhm. Just amplifying power or operating it for ease of use is enough to play one's part… but the essence of Element Combination is ultimately causing phenomena that shouldn't exist. If you become more proficient, Master, you will be able to respond to any situation.”
I turned to Iris, who was nodding beside her, and asked.
“What do you mean by that, specifically?”
“Master, throughout this entire raid, you have fought primarily using lightning-attribute magic. Even your Element Combinations were just mixing wind and lightning, or fire and lightning, to sweep a wide area at once, were they not?”
“Right. Wide-area lightning magic like Chain Lightning only starts appearing from intermediate magic. Everything I can use is a single-target spell, so I borrowed the range of the fire and wind attributes. You praised me for that, too.”
“Of course, you did well. However, isn't it too monotonous? What if one Fisherman saw you fighting and informed the others? Do you have a way to deal with them when they are prepared for your magic?”
“Pour in more mana and just crush them all, preparation be damned?”
“…That is a very Lindelheit-esque method, but since it seems feasible for you, Master, I find it hard to criticize.”
Iris looked exasperated for a moment, but she soon shook her head and continued.
“Still, since Element Combination is the secret of the Sylvan Magic Tower, if I may offer a suggestion, there is also the method of mixing it with water. You take only the controllability unique to water-attribute magic and directly manipulate the lightning to weave through the enemies.”
“Oh….”
That made sense. Something like a Water Ball is a spell where a skilled mage can curve its trajectory in mid-air.
If I applied that to Thunder Bolt, I could maintain its power while tearing through enemy lines.
It would be something like a lower-tier version of Chain Lightning.
An attack where the range is wide but only needs to be blocked once is different from a powerful single-target spell that bounces like a trick shot.
No matter what the opponent prepared, it would likely have some effect.
“Ahem. I seem to have gotten sidetracked, but anyway, such things are originally realized through solitary training and deep thought. To learn something in the field, you have no choice but to be pushed into a crisis—like the situation I just hypothesized—and squeeze your brain to overcome it.”
“I get what you’re trying to say. Unless it’s a grow-or-die situation, there’s no room for growth in the field, so you’re saying I should grow through training instead of combat?”
“Precisely. Awakening in a crisis does not come so easily.”
“Iris said it well. That’s exactly what I was going to say. If you were seeking combat to become more proficient with a newly learned spell, Master, that would be fine. But if it’s to grow further, isn't there a much better way?”
“A better way… Wait. I feel like I know what you’re going to say, Carla.”
“Hehe. I’m going to say it anyway!”
Carla grabbed both of my hands, her ruby eyes sparkling.
“While Miss Fay does her job, let’s finish our Resonance training, Master!”
“I knew it was about Resonance!”
I told you, I still don't really get how to do that!