Chapter 123: The 2nd Floor
Chapter 123: The 2nd Floor
After spending a day at the secret base, Guwon headed for the 2nd Floor.
It seemed Diana would need a few more days. Still, because the head of a magic school had come to help, she said things were wrapping up sooner than originally planned.
“Will it be okay for us to go to the 2nd Floor by ourselves?” Leia asked, a hint of anxiety on her face.
“Don’t worry. We took down the Layer Boss easily yesterday, right? We’re not hunting a Transcendent Species or anything, so regular monsters won’t be a problem. If things get dicey, I’ll put my body on the line to protect you, so don’t worry.”
“Put your body on the line? You can’t do that. You have to cherish your own body too, Guwon.”
Guwon had spoken with a reassuring tone to calm her, but Leia’s expression turned stern instead.
She’s beautiful even when she’s deliberately making a face like that. And what she says is so angelic.
“Still, it’s better than you getting hurt, Leia.”
“G-Guwon, you…”
When Guwon pressed on without backing down, Leia was the first to yield, her face flushing red.
Her ears twitched and her previously still tail began to sway, a sign that she wasn't feeling too bad about it.
Beastkin are great.
Even a guy like me can get a read on their emotions just by looking at their ears and tail.
I never had a fetish for Beastkin before, but after meeting Leia, I’ve found my eyes increasingly drawn to their ears and tails.
No, is it not because she’s a Beastkin, but simply because she’s my angel?
“In a situation like this, shouldn’t you be vowing to prevent such a thing from ever happening in the first place?”
Now certain of Sara’s feelings, Guwon didn’t take her words at face value.
“Don’t worry. If you’re in danger, Sara, I’ll throw myself in front of you to save you too.”
“Wh-What are you talking about! I meant you should stop that from happening to begin with…”
“Right. That’s a given, of course. But I’m saying I’ll protect you if you happen to be in danger.”
Sara pressed her lips together firmly and fell silent, her eyebrows furrowed in a subtle frown.
It was as if she were trying her hardest to maintain a neutral expression.
Seriously, the things she does are surprisingly cute.
…Even though I was completely oblivious to it until now.
Upon arriving at the 2nd Floor, the power of their enhanced equipment was immediately apparent.
Despite the endless desert stretching before them, the heat felt no worse than a warm spring day.
This is a fantasy world, all right. A world where things that can’t be explained by science happen as a matter of course.
In any case, the monsters of the 2nd Floor were no match for the party.
Most of them would collapse, their legs giving out, and become unable to fight after just a single hit from Guwon’s Saint’s Touch.
The biggest difference between the monsters on the 2nd Floor and those on the 1st was their use of skills. But with that advantage completely nullified, they didn’t feel much different from the 1st Floor monsters.
This is making combat too bland.
Maybe it would have been better to just pour all my points into Charm from the start, without bothering to raise my other stats.
Of course, if I had only focused on Charm, it would have been incredibly difficult to have relationships with women. They’d probably tremble and pass out the moment I tried to enter them.
As with all things, moderation is best. Moderation.
While the difficulty of hunting had dropped dramatically thanks to Guwon’s increased power, there were still some troublesome monsters.
As it was a desert, the monsters that appeared were desert creatures, and among them, a scorpion-like monster was particularly annoying.
It was only about 20cm in size, and as befitting its small body, it was incredibly fast, often managing to get close to Sara and Leia before Guwon could land a Saint’s Touch. Of course, in those moments, Sara, who was far more agile than Guwon, would take it down before it could even attack.
Well, I should just be grateful that Saint’s Touch even works on insects.
But with hunting this easy, wouldn’t Leia have nothing to do, even if Guwon and Sara were busy? Of course not.
“Ouch.”
Because things like this happened.
The desert monsters often carried poison. And with poison, you can’t proceed unless you cure it every single time you’re afflicted.
Thanks to that, Leia had a job to do.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah.”
If he used Saint’s Touch properly, Guwon could end battles without taking a single hit. But for the sake of Leia’s level-ups, he would assess the situation and allow himself to be hit by enemy attacks from time to time.
Even though she knew this, Leia would wear a pained expression and heal him whenever he got slightly injured or poisoned.
Honestly, how can she be so angelic?
“By the way, I really can’t tell where we are here.”
Sara said, looking around.
She was right. The 1st Floor was a maze of dense trees that made it hard to find your way, but this place was difficult in a different sense.
It was because there was nothing but a desolate desert stretching all the way to the horizon.
“Still, with such a clear line of sight, shouldn’t you be able to see far into the distance? How about it? See anything far away?”
“Hmm… no.”
Sara said after slowly turning in a full circle to survey the area.
According to Diana, the 2nd Floor, unlike the 1st, wasn’t structured to descend deeper and deeper. It was more like a single, endlessly vast space.
That meant that somewhere beyond this horizon, there had to be a path to the next floor and the 2nd Floor’s teleportation magic circle.
Is it too much for a party new to the 2nd Floor to be looking for something like that already? Let’s just focus on raising our job levels today.
No matter how easily they were defeating them, the appropriate level for the 2nd Floor monsters was slightly higher than the party’s. Thanks to that, the experience they gained was quite substantial.
After hunting all day, Guwon returned to the secret base and asked Diana a question.
“Diana. Is the 2nd Floor’s teleportation magic circle far from the werewolf passage?”
“Hmm? It is. Even if you walk without stopping and skip most of the hunting like we did on the way here, it would still take you five or six days.”
So we have to go with the mindset of completely crossing a desert.
No wonder Sara couldn’t see it.
“Are you planning to register the 2nd Floor’s teleportation magic circle?”
“Yeah. Hunting today was a lot easier than I thought. I think we can skip through the 2nd Floor pretty easily, don’t you think?”
“Yes. My bow has been greatly enhanced, so I can take down the 2nd Floor monsters with ease,” Sara said confidently.
She was right. Her level was already slightly higher than Guwon’s, and with her enhanced bow, her attack power felt almost like overkill even on the 2nd Floor.
One or two arrows were enough for small monsters like the scorpions, and even the Orcs of the 2nd Floor went down in just three or four shots.
“Don’t get careless. I know you’ve all gotten stronger, but it’s useless if you can’t hit your target. None of you have any area-of-effect attacks, so stay quietly near the entrance until I rejoin you.”
“Can’t hit them? You mean the scorpions? They were fast, but not so fast that I couldn’t…”
“No. I’m talking about the mosquito swarms.”
“Mosquito swarms?”
“Indeed. Individually, they are very weak, but they have a habit of moving in swarms. If dozens of them attack at once, even you lot won’t be able to handle them without taking damage. I, on the other hand, could finish them all at once with an explosion spell.”
Dozens of them. That would certainly be a problem.
And if they were mosquitoes, they would fly, right? If they took to the air, Guwon would have no way to attack them at all.
We would have been in big trouble if I hadn’t heard this from Diana beforehand.
Maybe we should just hunt quietly near the entrance until Diana joins us, just as she said.
But life rarely goes as planned.
“G-Guwon! Over there!”
The next day, while they were cleaning up after hunting some Orcs on the 2nd Floor, Sara let out a rare, scream-like cry.
“Huh? Whoa…”
Looking where Sara was pointing, a gasp escaped Guwon’s lips.
At first, it just looked like a bizarre, writhing black mass.
But on closer inspection, that wasn’t it.
The black mass was, in fact, a countless swarm of mosquitoes.
Dozens of mosquitoes, each easily over 10cm in size, had formed a clump and were rapidly approaching them.
The first emotion Guwon felt upon realizing this was disgust.
Sara, with her vastly superior eyesight, must be feeling like she wants to cry right now.
“Sara! Attack! Attack!”
“Y-Yes!”
Guwon shouted at the stunned Sara and began frantically firing off his own Saint’s Wave.
Since the opponents were insects, even when they were hit by Saint’s Touch and fell, it just looked like they were being knocked down by a normal attack skill.
Thanks to that, he could use the wave freely in front of Leia.
If Leia asks, I’ll just say it’s a new Martial Artist skill.
But the wave wasn’t an area-of-effect attack. Since one wave could only take out one mosquito at a time, it wasn’t very effective.
At this rate, not only would he fail to kill them all before they reached them, but his life force would run out first, as the wave consumed a lot of it.
Almost simultaneously with Guwon launching his Saint’s Wave, Sara also unleashed a volley of arrows.
With each of her arrows, four or five mosquitoes were skewered and fell from the sky.
It was a little better than Saint’s Wave, but it was still just a drop in the bucket.
Dammit.
As the swarm drew closer, Guwon’s mind raced.
First, it was too late to run. They were too fast.
They had no choice but to fight. But how?
No matter how weak they were individually, an attack from that many at once would deal insane damage. And what if they had the poison characteristic of desert monsters?
Guwon himself would be fine. His vitality was incomparably higher than others.
But what about Sara and Leia? Their vitality would be depleted in an instant.
Worse, if Leia went down, there would be no one left to cure poison.
Guwon made a split-second decision.
“Sara! Leia!”
He ran to them, pulled them into his arms, and tackled them to the ground.
“Kyaa!”
“G-Guwon! What are you doing at a time like this—!”
“I have a plan!”
Guwon proceeded to bury their bodies under the desert sand. Of course, that alone wasn’t enough to completely cover them.
But I can cover this much area with my own body.
He then shielded them with his own body.
Alright. This should limit their attacks to just me.
“G-Guwon! If you do this, you’ll—!” Leia cried out from beneath him, her voice trembling.
“I told you, didn’t I? I’ll put my body on the line to protect you. I’m tough, so I’ll be fine. Just in case, could you keep casting healing magic on me?”
“Hic! Yes!”
Leia nodded frantically.
“Guwon! But we’ll just be taking hits like this! What I said before was a joke! You don’t have to do this for me! I need to attack—!”
“No. What if you get hit? Just stay put. I have a way to deal with them.”
It seemed Sara thought I was just going to lie here and take their attacks.
As if. If I go down, Sara and Leia are next.
If this was just a way to delay the inevitable, it would be better to get up and fight like Sara said, but Guwon had a plan.
I’ve never tried this before. It’ll work, right? Please work. Please.
Guwon prayed inwardly as he began to move his mana.
In that time, the mosquitoes that had reached them began to peck at his back.
Ugh… this feels disgusting.
The creepy sensation almost broke his concentration, but he steeled himself and focused again.
“Guwon, you can’t die!”
“Guwon!”
Leia was desperately casting healing magic from below, while Sara, on the verge of tears, looked as if she was cursing her own helplessness.
They’re both so cute.
Even in such a desperate situation, he couldn’t help but think that. Their faces were just that beautiful.
Alright, I have to focus even harder to protect these ladies.
Even though they were weak, being attacked by so many at once was proving to be overwhelming. Despite Leia’s healing magic, Guwon’s vitality was dropping rapidly.
But before his vitality ran out, Guwon’s skill activated first.
“Hnnggggh!”
“Haaaahng!”
Simultaneously, tremendous moans escaped from Sara’s and Leia’s lips.
Huh? Wait, this isn’t right.
Guwon’s original plan was this:
By lying on top of Sara and Leia like this, the only place the mosquitoes could attack was his back.
So, what if he activated Saint’s Touch over his entire back?
The mosquitoes trying to attack him would all climax at once and fall.
He didn’t know what an insect’s climax was, but since even the scorpion monster became dazed and confused after one hit, he figured it would work on them too.
It was a two-birds-one-stone plan: wipe out all the mosquitoes and dramatically increase Sara’s and Leia’s affection for him.
But Guwon’s plan was only half successful.
Instead of activating Saint’s Touch only on his back, he had accidentally activated it over his entire body.
The mosquitoes were dealt with as planned, but Sara and Leia, the very people he was trying to impress, let out huge moans from beneath him and lost consciousness.
Even in their unconscious state, their bodies trembled, making them look pitiful.
And the problem wasn’t just that they had fainted.
Is Leia going to turn into a Gumiho again?
If that happened out here in the wide-open 2nd Floor, it would be dangerous in many ways.
After all the mosquitoes had fallen, Guwon carefully pulled Sara’s and Leia’s bodies out of the sand.
The first thing he did was turn Leia over to check her rear.
Let’s see, the tail is… Dammit! I’m screwed!
Hanging limply from Leia’s rear were one golden tail and eight purple ones.