"In other words, when you're trekking through the desert, you don't want to walk on the flat areas. If you stick to the ridges where the sand is packed down and firmer, you'll conserve a lot more stamina. Usually, adventurers who have just arrived on this floor have to spend time acclimating their bodies to the desert environment, but... well, I suppose there's no point in telling you two that. You've been marching across the flats like it’s nothing."
As they walked through the dunes, Pleiades shared the essential precautions for operating on B11F.
"And while it might not matter much to Rei-san, since he’s an Item Box user, running out of water on this floor is a death sentence. To compensate, we use the cacti growing in the sand. In a natural desert, you’d have to worry about poisonous varieties, but fortunately, every cactus on B11F is safe for hydration."
Otis, the archer, took over after Pleiades finished, though she lowered her voice significantly for her next point.
"However, you have to be careful from B13F onward. Monsters there can mimic cacti. If you approach them carelessly, they’ll catch you completely off guard."
"Mimicking cacti? Well, between the Item Box and my other magic items, I’m not exactly worried about water... but even so, I wouldn't want to get near something like that without a good reason."
Rei furrowed his brows irritably at the wind-whipped sand. He pulled the hood of his Dragon Robe deeper to shield his face from the sun, which beat down with an intense, overbearing glare.
Inside his robe, Iero remained tucked away. The cool environment and the steady, rhythmic pace of Rei's stride must have been soothing, as the small dragon remained curled up in a peaceful sleep.
"An Item Box, huh... I mean, I saw those three Sandworms vanish in an instant with my own eyes, so I have no choice but to believe it."
Sharl, the mage, chimed in with a look of lingering disbelief.
She had spent most of the journey in a state of shock over the presence of Rei, Seto, and Elena. However, after witnessing the Sandworms being stored into the Item Box, her sense of surprise seemed to have finally short-circuited, allowing her to return to a relatively normal state.
"That's true. Honestly, Rei's Item Box has saved us more times than I can count," Elena said.
"I can imagine. Normally, a party only strips the essential materials from the monsters they kill. Lugging around three whole Sandworms over five meters long would be impossible for anyone but a massive expedition—the kind where dozens of people from multiple parties act as a single unit. In a dungeon like this, your movement speed is the difference between life and death."
"Even we usually bring a porter along, though they aren't a professional. It's usually a warrior pulling double duty," Pleiades added, grumbling as he rested the spear's shaft against his shoulder.
It was clear that, to them, being forced to leave behind harvestable materials felt like a terrible waste.
"No, we really lucked out meeting Rei-san and Elena-san," Otis said. "With just the three of us, we wouldn't have had the combat strength to protect ourselves while harvesting. We would have been forced to leave those Sandworm materials behind and watch them go to waste."
As Otis noted, Rei and Elena were currently traveling with Pleiades's party.
The primary reason was the Sandworms. As Otis mentioned, the others couldn't bear to let the materials go to waste. For Rei's group, the stairs to B12F were in the same general direction, and they had struck a deal: Rei would keep any Sandworm corpses the other party couldn't carry in exchange for information on navigating the desert floor.
"Also, the desert floors basically don't have traps, so you can relax on that front. That's why we didn't bring a thief along today."
"Hmph. That is helpful to know," Elena replied. "Both Rei and I have a fair amount of confidence in our skills as a warrior and mage, but when it comes to traps, we still can't match a professional."
"Wait, really?" Otis's eyes widened slightly. "Then how did you get this far down? The cave floors are packed with some incredibly dangerous traps."
She paused for a second, then nodded as if she had solved the puzzle.
"Ah, I see. Did you hire a Holy Light Religion's thief? They're expensive, sure, but their skills are usually the real deal."
"No. Rei isn't fond of religions, so unfortunately, we have no connection to them," Elena explained.
"Then... how?"
"I have a few contacts. It was only for a few floors, but we traveled with a thief I know. She taught us the basics of how to identify traps. After that, we just avoided them instead of trying to disarm them."
Rei kept Byune's name out of the conversation to protect the privacy of House Flaut.
While the women engaged in their somewhat dangerous brand of small talk, Sharl was busy peppering Rei with questions.
"Hey, what does your magic construction image look like? And what about your magic power management...?"
"Even if you ask me what it's like... the only answer I can give is that it's exactly as I imagine it."
"No way, that's impossible! Under normal circumstances, controlling more than 50 flame arrows—and moving them exactly how you want—is unheard of. For me, ten is the absolute limit, no matter how hard I try. Besides, the more arrows you add, the more your magic power consumption increases exponentially. At that point, it’s better to stop using arrows and just switch to a high-yield annihilation spell."
Even through her cloak, Rei could see her pouting at his lackluster answer.
"If you say so. I suppose it’s just a difference in imagination. As for my magic power management, it’s mostly just brute force."
The vast majority of the flame magic Rei used was inspired by the manga, novels, anime, and games he had consumed back on Earth. Because he had direct mental references for the visuals, descriptions, and movements of these spells, recreating them wasn't particularly difficult for him.
He did add his own variations, of course, rather than copying them exactly.
Furthermore, Rei possessed a pool of mana so vast it had shocked even Zephyle, whose emotions had all but vanished after becoming a soul. By leveraging that massive capacity, he could construct and release any spell formula he could visualize. That was the core of Rei's magic process. Since it required both the specific imagery and a monstrous amount of mana, it was effectively impossible for a normal mage to replicate his style.
"Hey, Sharl. Don't ask for the impossible," Otis scolded. "We're already imposing on Rei-san and Elena-san's kindness as it is."
"...Fine, fine. But listen, Rei. Next time, you have to give me a real lesson on your magical theory. Deal?"
"If there's an opportunity," Rei replied curtly.
As they continued their lively conversation across the sands, the corpses of the Sandworms finally came into view.
"Oh, looks like they're still here. Good."
"Normally, other monsters would have made a meal of them by now, or other adventurers would have stumbled across them and started the material stripping themselves. Though, since we ran away and left them, we wouldn't have had any right to complain," Otis added, nodding in relief.
Pleiades let out a long breath of relief at the sight of the five Sandworm corpses. Sharl was still casting lingering, hopeful glances at Rei, but Pleiades cut her off by pulling out his dismantling knife.
"Alright, Sharl. Let’s get these materials stripped. There are five of them, so we need to work together if we want to finish before dark."
"...I know."
"We'll handle the perimeter watch," Rei said. "We've got Seto, too."
Seto had been circling above, but seeing that the party had stopped, it flapped its wings and began its descent.
The wind pressure from its massive wings sent a flurry of fine sand scattering, but Seto had carefully adjusted its angle so that none of it hit the people on the ground.
"Guruuu?"
Seto tilted its head with a soft trill, asking what was happening. Otis stared, momentarily mesmerized by the gryphon's sheer cuteness.
Rei was used to people reacting that way to his partner, so he simply stroked Seto's head and whispered into its ear.
"Pleiades and the others are going to strip materials from the Sandworms. We’re on guard duty while they work."
"...Though in truth, you just want to watch their material stripping technique, don't you?" Elena teased.
"I won't deny that." Rei gave a blunt nod.
Pleiades couldn't help but crack a wry smile. It was a simple fact that a person's situational awareness dropped while they were focused on dismantling a carcass. If his party’s safety was guaranteed in exchange for letting Rei watch and learn their methods, it was a steal. No, it was better than a steal.
(After all, we've got Crimson himself as a guard. Our safety is basically a given.)
Pleiades wouldn't have trusted Rei's combat prowess this much based on rumors alone. However, he had seen Rei instantly vaporize two of the three Sandworms that had nearly killed his party. There was no room for doubt.
On top of that, they had a Rank A monster like Seto and a warrior like Elena, who wielded a rare whip-sword with terrifying precision.
"Well then, feel free to take notes. Just make sure you keep a sharp eye on the horizon for us," Pleiades said with a light, casual tone. He then gestured to Otis and Sharl, and the trio immediately set to work.
Each Sandworm was over five meters long, making the dismantling an arduous process. They began by cutting off the tip of the tongue—the proof of subjugation part. Next came the materials. Pleiades used his spear instead of a dismantling knife to cleanly sever the fangs that met a certain length requirement.
The fangs were hard enough to crush plate armor, meaning a standard dismantling knife couldn't even scratch them. It was a task that required both a high-quality weapon and the strength of a skilled warrior.
A short distance away, Otis and Sharl worked in tandem to slit the worms' bellies, reaching in to extract the magic stones from their hearts.
After that, they moved to the tips of the legs growing from the underbelly. This required a fair amount of physical strength, but the three of them worked quickly to hack them off. Finally, they removed the single large eyeball from the head, with Sharl carefully preserving the lens inside a glass beaker.
Since it was a d-rank monster, the meat was technically edible and tasted decent enough, but none of them had the stomach for worm meat. Since only a few specialized shops would even buy it, the party unanimously decided to let Rei have the carcasses.
Rei didn't mind, and Seto wasn't picky—it would happily eat insects or anything else. For Rei, it was a great deal.
Finally, after securing several types of internal organs used in alchemy, they finished the material stripping for the first worm.
It had taken less than ten minutes. They were clearly a veteran party; everyone knew their role, and their speed was impressive. Even Sharl, despite her initial reluctance, worked with a practiced efficiency that far outpaced Rei, who often had to stop and reference his knowledge while harvesting.
Still, at ten minutes per worm, harvesting the remaining four would take another fifty minutes. With estimates being what they were, they were looking at about one hour of work on the hot sand.
Despite the time spent, no other monsters appeared. Perhaps the corpses of the Sandworms signaled that this was occupied territory, or perhaps the nearby predators were wary of the group that had killed them. More likely, however, the monsters were terrified by the sight of Seto flying conspicuously overhead.
(I thought monsters in dungeons cooperated with other species to some degree...)
As the material stripping finished, Rei stored the remaining Sandworm corpses—now his property as per the agreement—into the Misty Ring. He voiced his thought to Pleiades, who explained that "it depends on the dungeon and the floor."
In the Exil dungeon, for instance, species in the desert floors rarely cooperated, though such alliances were common on other levels.