I once roughly explained how the ranking system of the guild works, didn’t I? Now seems like an appropriate time to go more into detail regarding that. There are a total of 9 ranks, reaching from rank F to rank SSS. Over the years the being an adventurer became a fulltime job however and people figured out new ways of getting experience, dungeons being one of them. Since the adventurer’s average level grew higher every year there had to be added new ranks to the system every now and then. Going a couple hundred years back reaching level 100 seemed near impossible, while that is about the average for fulltime adventurers these days. The result of those changes: it is possible to climb up to rank B in a flash but than most people get stuck at rank B or A for the rest of their life. In terms of requirements to reach the higher ranks… see for yourself:
| F | 1-10 |
| E | 10-20 |
| D | 20-30 |
| C | 30-40 |
| B | 40-100 |
| A | 100-200 |
| S | 200-500 |
| SS | 500-1000 |
| SSS | 1000+ |
Now, you might have noticed the reason I am talking about this right now. Yesterday, when we headed to the guild, it turned out that I reached level 40 and with that my rank increased from rank C to rank B!
Being rank B gives you access to a few more things in your life as an adventurer but overall it doesn’t have to much of an impact. In theory we could get a better room in the guild in since we can move to the B rank floor but it currently is too much for our tight budget.
Fiola still is rank D, while being level 27, and Eir reached level 15 and became rank E.
Leaving yesterday’s good news behind, this morning we got another problem to take care of. It isn’t an unexpected one but it still is an annoyance. Eir actually grew again over night! I really would prefer if my morning walk to the clothing shop does not turn into a daily routine. Since the shop deals in used clothing I could sell the cloths we bought yesterday again, at a much lower price that is …
In terms of Eir’s current looks… She looks around our age now, Fiola being 16 and me being 17. She is smaller than Fiola and me, who are about the same height. Her hair grew as well and now reaches down to her breasts, which, while still smaller than Fiolas, also grew quite a bit… What? I am a man too!
I bet in the right clothing people could easily mistake her for the stunning daughter of some noble. Of course, if Fiola would take more care of her appearance, she would be quite a beauty as well. But as of now…her hair a mess, the clothes covered in dirt and sweat, the way she gulps down her breakfast… she truly became a model adventurer, unfortunately…
Taking a table on the ground floor to eat breakfast we waited for Silm to come over and take our over.
“Morning lads! How are the Hansas newest benefactors doing this morning!”
Fiola was the first to answer.
“Morning Silm. We were nearby yesterday and thought of visiting.”
“Sorry, I was still working at another shop so I came back late.”
“Aren’t you working too much? You are gonna wear yourself out at this pace.”
“Like you are one to talk!”
Both start laughing.
It is actually surprising how they are getting along so well after spending such a short amount of time together.
Silm looks at Eir for a while.
“Even if you told me, for her to grow just like that in 2 day is crazy! She is as tall as I am now!”
“Mmm! I’m taller.”
Correcting Silm in her usual manner, Eir stands up to proof her claim. Taking measure with her hand, she shows of the ever so slight difference in their heights. The defeated looking Silm next to the triumphant looking Eir was not too bad of a picture.
“I will outgrow you soon enough, just you wait. By the way, are you going into the dungeon again today?”
“We planned so why?”
“Every year the neighboring duke Ashenfell sends his newly recruited troops to train in the dungeon for a while and those arrived just yesterday. The lower to middle floors will be a bit cramped over the next few weeks.”
She leans in a bit more and lowers her voice.
“Be careful around them. Those guys can be a real pain in the ass. I heard a rumor, that this year one of his sons joined them as well, so take care.”
Well… that’s annoying.
She goes back to her usual form and casually pets the head of Eir, who is still standing taller than her.
“Soooo, young lads, what can I bring you?”
After our breakfast we dived straight into the dungeon. By using the elevator, we reached the 10th floor in just 5 minutes and were right where we left off yesterday. Our provisions for today where again in Eirs backpack while Fiolas and mine were reserved for materials. Of course we also brought along the magic back we bought yesterday, which also is reserved for materials.
After doing a final check on our equipment we walk up the stairs to the 11th floor.
The entire floor is covered in bright daylight. It seems to be a completely flat grass plain with some trees popping out here and there. The grass is just high enough that you could lose Sen in it and got a healthy green color to it.
Due to the openness of the plain you could easily overview the entire floor. I could see around 8 parties of 3-5 people on this floor, all wearing a similar attire. It seems like those are some of the troops, Silm mentioned earlier.
The floors 11 to 15 should be occupied by [Petal Warriors] and [Petal Archers]. The petal warriors are basically a weaker version of the rose warrior boss Fiola fought yesterday. I could see some heads pop up above the grass and walk around just to be quickly taken care of by one of the eight parties. The petal warriors seem to be a lot smaller than the actual boss, judging from this distance they seem to be around half a meter tall.
While I am looking around Fiola, next to me, raises her voice.
“Should we just go straight to the next floor? It seems like we will not be able to get anything done here with so many people around.”
Eir agreed.
“Too many people.”
“I guess so. The stairs up are back there.”
Unfortunately the next floor was even more crowded. I could count 11 parties on this floor. They even set up tents here so they won’t be leaving anytime soon either.
While walking all the way up to the 15th floor we had only a single monster encounter. Every floor was ridiculously crowded. The duke must have sent around 300 new recruits. Even on floor 15 where you are supposed to find big groups of petal warriors and archers fighting together you could hardly find any of them. Some adventurers were trying to earn their money from basically the leftovers they could find here and there. I could also see a few of them angrily arguing with the more important looking people of the troops.
While it is unfortunate, we had to ignore the 11th to 15th floor entirely if we wanted to come out with some profit today.
The 16th floor was in contrast to the previous ones almost completely empty as far as I could see. We already knew the reason for it as well. The 16th to 19th floor are the, according to the adventurers we talked to, worst floors in the entire dungeon.
The floors are covered in a forest even thicker than the thick forest on the 9th floor. The temperature is needlessly warm and the air feels heavy. In just a few seconds I started sweating already. The light is dim and makes it hard to see and the most obnoxious part about this floor is a monster called [Venus Trap]. They are plants lying flat on the ground, hard to spot due to their environment, and when stepped on, closing their mouths insanely quick, biting deeply into your leg. One mistake can result into a lot of pain and a forced retreat.
The other monster called [Vine Monkey] generally moves through the trees and launches surprise attacks from your blind spot, if you are not careful enough. I am not surprised that this floor is not popular and why the troops do not want to enter this floor at all.
“I will take charge and keep my eyes on the ground. Eir, you walk behind me and keep your eyes open for any attacks coming from above. Fiola, you keep our backs save, while also focusing some of your attention on the trees. OK?”
“OK!”
“K!”
“Then, let’s go!”
The venus traps where hard to spot after all. Even when I was focusing only on those, I still almost stepped on them occasionally. The vine monkeys attacked us a bunch of times as well but as long as they did not come in groups they were usually not hard to deal with. Fiola has good reflexes, so she ended up grapping the jumping monkeys mid jump and hold them down, where either Eir or Fiola herself finished them of. The monkeys are fairly small and their arms don’t have much in terms of reach so it was easy for her to pin them down. Once Eir spotted an attack and called it out I took care of it if it was within my reach. If not Eir focused on blocking it with her shield in one hand and if possible finish it off, with the sword we got of the rose warrior yesterday, in the other hand. After her body changed overnight she now was tall and strong enough to hold her shield and sword at the same time, which turned her into a viable party member.
The fighting in of itself was not very taxing on our stamina but the temperature and being forced to focus on your surroundings nonstop took a toll on us. At the end of the 16th floor, I was already pretty exhausted, mostly mentally. We decided to take a break halfway up the stairs.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to use Sen and let him take care of the traps? That would be half of our worries gone.”
“That’s true. I would like to challenge the boss afterwards, though. Since you are the only one of us with an attack spell and fire at that, I would like it you didn’t have to exhaust your mana before the fight.”
“You want to fight the boss straight up? Isn’t that a bit to rushed?”
“It is. But to be honest, I think killing the next boss will be easier than taking on these floors again. You were able to kill the last one entirely on your own after all.”
“I guess so. The next Boss was the [Jungle Ape], right?”
“Yeah, he is a big version of those monkeys on this floor from what I know. With the two of us we shouldn’t have much of a problem.”
Eir stands up and puffs up her chest.
“I’m here too!”
“See. With Eir as well this much should still be easy.”
Fiola agreed but still sounded a bit doubtful.
“I hope so.”
“It will be fine. Just that one fight and we don’t have to do these floors again. Let’s get through the 17th floor first however. Everybody ready?”
“”Yes.””
The 17th and 18th floor where the same as floor 16th. The encounter rate of the monsters increased quite a bit in floor 18, which slowed us down a lot. Despite that, we took our time and took little breaks whenever we could.
Then, on floor 19, it happened.
We got jumped by 6 monkeys at once, four of which coordinated their assault on Eir. Blocking one was no problem for her, even two she could handle without being injured, but four was too much.
Both Fiola and I dealt quickly with our attackers and rush to Eirs aid. She is holding of one monkey with her shield and scaring another with her sword the two left however attack her feet and make her trip. I can see Fiola taking care of the two monkeys Eir managed to fend off while I am catching the falling Eir. However, I overestimated myself in my movements. Losing balance myself I try to find a new foothold I put my food in the worst possible spot. Right into the mouth of a venus trap.
It snaps and bites right into the middle of my upper leg. The pain is pretty bad. I can see blood dripping out where its big teeth burrow into my leg. After an intensely painful first second, the pain lets of a bit and I manage to cut the plant open with my sword.
Even after I cut the four leaves of the plant they are still attached to me. We got some bandages in our supplies so after Fiola and Eir made sure nobody else was attacking us they take out the bandages, carefully pull the leaves of my leg and put those on.
Fiola looks at me with a worried expression.
“Are you fine?”
“Probably. Most of the pain is gone now. It isn’t bleeding too much either.”
“Can you stand?”
“Let me try.”
“It hurts a bit when I put my weight on it but I can walk. Fighting might be a bit too much.”
Eir tucks at my clothes.
“Sorry.”
Even with when her expression does not change much, you could tell she, really, felt bad about it.
“Don’t worry about it. Everybody will get hurt eventually. You can be as careful as you want but it will still happen, so don’t worry, OK?”
“Mm.”
Fiola looks at my hurt leg.
“What do we do now though? Should we still try to push through or should we just head back?”
“I think the boss will be easier than walking back 9 floors but you two would have to handle the biggest part of the battle now, so you should decide.”
“While the last boss was easy, it also had a lot of endurance. Long fights like that are exhausting. This boss will be even harder to beat than the one yesterday, so I feel a bit uneasy about challenging it with our small group.”
Eir, who picked her weapons up again, showed her motivation.
“I’ll give it all. I’ll make up for my mistake.”
Fiola sighs. It seems like she was not completely on board with challenging the boss but she gave in.
“We will do the boss, on the condition that Veltin will stay behind us however.”
“Got no choice I guess. We should make it to the, safe room before the boss, for now.”
Eir approves as well, holding up her shield a bit higher.
“I’ll protect you. Don’t worry!”
I pet Eir once, again. Currently her light pink hair is an utter mess but she still looks adorable.
Our paste dropped significantly but we managed to reach the stairs to the boss floor in, what felt like, about an hour. We were pretty close to it already which makes situation earlier even more frustrating for me. My leg started to hurt quite a bit after the hour of walking, which is why I was happy I could sit down as soon as we went up the stairs and reached the save room, leading to the boss of the 20th floor. Since Fiola decided to use Sen for most of the way we had left, we wanted to take a long rest before challenging the boss.
Everybody got an hour of sleep while the 2 others kept watch (we took the time with a cheap hourglass we brought). It must be dark outside the dungeon for a while already. It is hard to keep your feeling for time inside the dungeon after all.
After it was everybody’s turn to sleep three hours passed. After I woke up and while it was Fiola’s turn with sleeping the group we saw yesterday passed us and entered the boss room. They took a few minutes to rest before the boss, as well, but simply ignored us after a short greeting and went on. Shortly after they entered the door made a loud metallic *click* sound and locked itself. Around 10 minutes it got unlocked with the same sound again. Nothing happened during Eirs turn and we finished our long rest with giving Eir a few minutes to properly wake up and giving everybody the time to prepare for the fight.
My leg was feeling a bit better but I have to be careful I cannot push it. Luckily I still got one thing up my sleeve which I didn’t get to use over the last few days.
We all are ready and we learned the important information about the boss from our information gathering a few days ago.
[Jungle Ape], he is around two meters tall.
In contrast to the monkeys before his attacks have a lot more power while being a lot slower.
He prefers frontal and jumping attacks. His jumping attacks are easy to predict and leave him wide open for attacks.
Recommended to be challenged by a party of four people around level 20.
Not doubting the information for a second we walked into the boss room, which, looking back, actually was the biggest mistake of the day.
Chapter 4 Chapter 5
LYLDY Novels 