Cave Exploration 1
Kayden, Irene, and I hadn't changed much. Kayden's swordsmanship was a matter of adaptation rather than gear, and Irene's holy magic wasn't something equipment could dictate one way or the other. That was why most of the rewards from the Magic Tower—and the gear bought with gold coins—went to Grace and Han Se-ah.
What Han Se-ah received was a red mage's cloak that fell to her thighs. Capes were exactly the sort of thing novice adventurers wore for the cool factor only to trip and become goblin food—but an adventurer of the 21st floor wasn't about to get tangled up in a cloak hem.
Looks like the thing's plastered with stats… and it's short enough that she won't be stepping on it and falling over, at least.
Grace received enchanted half-gloves and a quiver. They had functions to keep arrows from slipping during chaotic fights and to coat arrowheads with reagents, so Han Se-ah and Grace had rushed to the market and bought several kinds of potions from an alchemist to apply to the tips.
"Everyone get a good rest? Not sure if you heard it from Hanna, but we took a gathering commission from a mage at the Magic Tower. So today we'll be clearing the 21st floor again—hunting and gathering at the same time. We need to put Hanna's new magic and Grace's arrows through their paces."
"They already built the gate?"
"From what I heard, they put it up in advance while the negotiations were still going. Just slot in a mana stone and it activates."
Once again, something clearly designed for the players' convenience—a 20th-floor gate slapped together a single day after we'd claimed the quest rewards. It had been built right beside the gate leading to the 10th floor, presumably for ease of management, and that was quietly worrying me.
If we went past the 10th and 20th all the way to the 100th, that would mean roughly nine or ten gates. How were they planning to build and maintain all of them? The question of space for more gates crossed my mind for a moment, but that was the Magic Tower's problem—they were the ones making money off the gates.
After picking up a few more suitable gathering commissions at the guild, we headed out. Word of the 20th-floor gate had already spread; other adventurers were moving in the same direction as us.
"Look at those women…"
"That's the second time already. Means it's skill, not luck, right?"
"Shame there's no open spot in their party."
Every adventurer heading for the 20th-floor gate was Intermediate-grade, so they all seemed to recognize Han Se-ah's face. Black-haired beauties weren't exactly common to begin with—and a black-haired beauty walking alongside a grey-haired beauty and a tightly bundled nun made them even easier to spot.
It being the first day the gate was open, we fell into step with a fair number of people as we walked through the city. Solid citizens opening their shop doors, adventurers flowing toward the Tower and the gates—just another morning's routine.
We had the mage standing guard confirm Hanna's token, then stepped into the gate as if it were second nature. Breathe in the city air, breathe out, draw another breath—and a clean, crisp forest scent tickled the tip of my nose.
It couldn't compare to the Blessed Forest we'd visited before, but stacked against a cave, this place was heaven.
"Haaah— the air's great. Gotta stock up on deep breaths while I can."
"You'll want to get used to cave air too. After that comes the swamp, and the air there's so damp it's not exactly pleasant to breathe either."
"Ugh, way to kill the mood…"
Grace's face crumpled, no doubt picturing that clammy, musty air. I fell in behind her as she naturally took the lead, adjusting my grip on the shield. Even on that short stretch from the 20th floor to the 21st, there was no telling when a monster might come bursting out.
Along the way we put down a couple of moss wolves that had been lying in wait, and reached the 21st floor without incident. The only real differences were that the gate let us arrive at a much earlier hour—and that Han Se-ah had learned a new spell.
"We'll keep the same formation as last time. We need to get used to the new gear and magic, so we won't push past the 21st floor. We'll stick to the area around the gate and commit the paths to memory."
"Didn't you say you can record any path you've walked once?"
With Han Se-ah's light briefing done, I took the lead in a different direction from last time. Shield in one hand, a torch-type magic tool in the other. Its soft glow faintly lit the otherwise pitch-dark cave, showing us the way forward.
Looks like Han Se-ah planned to update the map around the 21st-floor gate while she was at it—testing her skill in the process.
This wasn't a game you played with keyboard and mouse, so you couldn't walk every inch of the cave and fill the minimap to a hundred percent. But she clearly meant to thoroughly chart the area around the gate connecting the 20th floor to the 21st.
"Wow, though—plains, forests, whatever, the cave atmosphere is no joke. If a horror game got made at this quality, streamers would be doing horror broadcasts and someone would actually drop dead of a heart attack, right?"
Kerrrrrk—
From deeper in the cave came the eerie echoes of what might have been a goblin pack running into cave spiders, while Han Se-ah chattered away with her viewers. The pitch-dark surroundings probably had her talking nonstop just to shake off the tension.
Then again, even knowing a horror movie is fake, you still jump when something leaps out of the screen.
The texture against your skin, the musty air pressing in at your nose, the short death-screams of kobolds or goblins ringing out from deep in the cave—every sense under assault. Of course a woman raised gently in the modern world would be on edge.
"Up ahead—a pack of cave spiders. Roughly seven of them."
"I'll try the new spell first. Hold your arrows until after I cast."
"Got it."
After several forks in the path, the first thing we ran into was cave spiders again. They were so massive that not all of them could cling to the narrow cave ceiling—three on the floor, two on the walls, and the remaining two stuck to the ceiling.
Pale, elongated legs skittered and scraped against the cave walls with an unsettling noise, and the women's faces twisted in peculiar disgust. A meter-long pale spider working those long legs was more than enough to trigger revulsion, even if it fell short of outright terror.
"—Air Blaster!"
There was no silent-casting system here, so Han Se-ah shouted the name of her newly learned skill with her face flushed red. Unlike Magic Missile, which had been a pure lump of mana, a mass of wind—nearly invisible in the dark—scraped along the cave ceiling as it shot forward.
Puh-WHUMP—
The power of intermediate magic, on a completely different level from beginner spells. The wind mass didn't even strike the spiders' bodies directly, yet the roaring gust scraped their carapaces against the ceiling and walls and dropped them all to the floor.
As expected—when it came to mages, firepower was everything. Among characters of the same rank, no class could touch a mage for raw damage. If an archer outdamaged you as a fellow backliner, who'd ever play a mage?
"They're all tangled up!"
"That many, I can handle them all with arrows, right?"
"Obviously."
Cave spiders that had dropped straight down from the ceiling, and ones that had slid and tumbled off the walls. Seven meter-tall creatures with long spindly legs all piled onto that narrow cave floor made for pure chaos—crushing each other, legs tangled together…
One thing was certain: it was genuinely disgusting to look at.
Seeing that, Grace hurriedly stepped up and drew her bowstring. Arrows whistled past my shoulder and cleanly shattered the spiders' mandibles before burying themselves in their heads. Even for someone who'd run wild in the forest as a hunter since childhood, that sight had to be pretty gross.
"At that level, we probably don't even need reagent on the arrowheads."
"The mana cost is way higher, though. Roughly more than double a Magic Missile?"
"The destructive power looks about five times higher, so who cares."
"I should save it when we run into goblins or kobolds."
The cave spiders—who knew nothing but crushing things under their bulk—couldn't even put up a real fight before turning into seven mana stones. Even with the crushing strength to topple a mid-floor adventurer, and mandibles and venom stingers that punched straight through leather armor, none of it mattered if they couldn't close the distance.
Just as humans had used tools to face beasts stronger than themselves, a well-built adventurer party's power was this formidable. Six-star tank or five-star priest—whatever. One mage and one archer could wipe a whole monster pack without taking a scratch.
"Grab the mana stones and let's move. Mana's fine?"
"I only used it once. If I cast them back-to-back… I could probably manage about five. The cloak helps replenish my mana."
Using all her mana would leave her collapsed from exhaustion, but five intermediate spells in a row—stronger than I'd expected. There was a reason ordinary mages mixed in non-offensive magic. Whether it was for the dopamine hit players got to feel, her stats were far superior to a typical mage's.
Then again, some people wouldn't be satisfied leaving everything from start to finish to their starred companions. In a fantasy world, the adventure only meant something if you earned it with your own power.
Cave spiders got knocked to the floor; vampire bats had their wingbeats disrupted so Grace could put paralysis arrows into their bodies. Using the newly learned magic as we went, we circled around and around the area near the 21st-floor gate.
"This gathering commission—is it talking about moss like this? Did they give you any specifics on color or features?"
"They just said to gather moss. Guess they want to try using it in all kinds of ways."
We stuffed our inventories full of mana stones and moss.
"A pattern… on the wall?"
Until someone dropped a meaningfully timed donation.