In the end, Rei picked as many fruits as he could from the trees on the second floor.
As for what the others were doing during that time, they were helping him pick the fruits and scouting the surroundings.
After gathering a certain amount of fruit, Rei asked if he should switch to helping them... but Elena, Marina, Vihera, and Byune all opposed the idea in unison.
They told him to focus on picking the fruit and storing it in his Misty Ring.
Even Byune, who was usually expressionless, displayed a look so intense it could only be called frantic — a clear indication of just how much the women of the party valued those fruits.
Since traveling with Rei, they had never struggled with money — Elena and Marina had never struggled with money even before that — yet despite this, they clearly believed they should pick as many fruits as possible while they had the chance.
Rei thought of the saying about sweets going into a separate stomach, but wisely kept his mouth shut and devoted himself to silently picking the fruit.
Furthermore, the tree bearing various fruits was not just the single one Rei had first found.
There were several others, and he continued harvesting from them... with the result that the day ended up being less of a dungeon exploration and more of what could be called a fruit-picking excursion.
Of course, whether Rei actually disliked that was another matter entirely — and the answer was no.
At any rate, the forest on the dungeon's second floor synchronized with the outside world as the sun began to set... and seeing that, Rei and the others decided to return to Golts for the day.
Since they had a Magic Tent, camping there would have been no problem, and they had Yellow Bird and Orc meat on hand. If they searched the forest, there should be wild vegetables and the like as well, so camping on the spot — though calling it camping would be far too grandiose a term — would not have been an issue. But in the end, they decided to return to Golts.
The reasons were that it would be better to report the dungeon situation to the Guild, and more importantly, if they slept inside the Magic Tent, Rei would end up sleeping on the floor or the sofa.
If necessary, Rei would not hesitate to camp out, but if he was going to sleep anyway, he also wanted to sleep in a proper bed.
...Only Reliu had been in favor of camping.
The reason Reliu supported camping was likely because, if they camped, he could keep watch outside the Magic Tent under that pretext and dote on Set.
Reliu had already stopped trying to hide the fact that he was a Set enthusiast, but his proposal was ultimately rejected.
At any rate, after safely exiting the dungeon and returning to Golts, Rei and the others headed to the Guild... and were shown straight into the Guild Master's office.
"Sorry about this. I should have greeted you when you arrived yesterday, but... I was in a meeting with the deputy and didn't get back until the middle of the night."
The woman who said this to Rei and the others as they sat on the reception sofa in the Guild Master's office appeared to be in her forties.
As a former adventurer, her body was covered in unmistakable muscle.
"No, don't worry about it. We were busy with various things yesterday too."
Rei said that as the party leader, though in reality, nothing had particularly kept them busy.
It was simply a matter of making it seem as though they had been just as busy as the Guild Master had been.
If the other party had taken a high-handed attitude, Rei would have responded in kind, but since she had approached them amicably this time, Rei followed suit.
The Guild Master likely understood this as well, as she did not press the matter.
"I appreciate you saying that. Now, I know it's a bit late, but I'm Vanilas, the Guild Master of Golts. You can just call me Guild Master."
Vanilas said that with a smile, but her demeanor quickly turned serious.
"Now, I'd like to hear it right away... was that cliff wall truly a dungeon, as expected?"
She asked the question, but Vanilas's expression already held the conviction that it was indeed a dungeon.
As an adventurer, she had likely anticipated as much.
Rei had no particular intention of hiding the fact that it was a dungeon, so he simply nodded.
"Yes. I'm certain it's a dungeon. The first floor was a simple structure with only one fork in the path, but the second floor had an entire forest spreading out. One that's hard to believe belongs to a newly formed dungeon."
"A forest...? You mean not an illusion or anything like that, but an actual forest with real trees growing in it?"
Rei nodded at Vanilas's words and produced a single fruit from his Misty Ring.
It was a fruit with yellow spotted patterns on its skin, one commonly sold in any town... though it was a fruit in season during spring.
When he placed the fruit on the table, Vanilas picked it up with a questioning look.
She knew Rei possessed an Item Box, so there was nothing particularly surprising about a spring fruit being perfectly fresh at this time of year.
"What about this?"
"That's something I picked from a tree growing in the forest inside the dungeon today. As you can see, it's real, right? Well, that said, it won't mean anything unless you believe my words."
"No, I believe you. Everyone with you is well-known. In such circumstances, you wouldn't do something like lie."
People like Elena and Marina were not the sort to lie about something like this.
She had spoken with Marina several times as a fellow Guild Master and knew her personality well.
The others as well, despite their various circumstances, were mostly famous individuals.
Given those factors, she could determine that if they said there was a forest, there undoubtedly was one.
(Ideally, I'd like to send someone directly to confirm... but Golts adventurers wouldn't be able to manage it. If anyone were to go, it would be me, but I don't have that kind of time either.)
The adventurers in Golts were by no means strong.
With the strongest being a C-Rank adventurer, it went without saying what the average quality of adventurers was like.
"But... doesn't that mean that dungeon isn't newly formed?"
"Who knows? There's probably more about dungeons that hasn't been explained than has been. It wouldn't be strange for one to have that sort of structure from the very start."
Hearing Marina's words, Vanilas thought with a somewhat troubled expression.
From Vanilas's perspective, having a fully developed dungeon near Golts, where she served as Guild Master, was extremely unwelcome.
That was precisely why she had used her connections to contact several people, including Worker, and had adventurers sent here while it was still early.
And yet, the fact that the dungeon had already grown beyond her expectations at this point was a complete miscalculation.
(Tomorrow... no, starting today, I suppose. Either way, I need to go consult with the deputy.)
She thought it was a hassle, but it was certain that this information should be conveyed to the deputy as early as possible.
The deputy dispatched in place of the noble ruling Golts was moderately competent — neither particularly good nor bad.
He was somewhat strict about money, which troubled Vanilas as the Guild Master, but objectively speaking, there was no doubt he was a capable person.
As for his personality, he was not the kind of noble associated with the Noble's Faction who held elitist ideologies.
Then again, being the fifth son of a noble family, perhaps he had never had reason to develop such elitism.
Regardless, since he was by no means a bad person, hearing that the dungeon had actually been growing would surely prompt an appropriate response.
"So, were there any monsters besides the ones already known?"
"No, I didn't see anything new. Oh, but we did encounter the same Yellow Birds as yesterday. It's a forest, so it wouldn't be strange for there to be many bird monsters."
"Besides, you were picking fruit nonstop right after coming up the stairs, after all."
Rei tried to object to Vihera's words... but since it was the truth, he could not argue back.
In fact, he had been so engrossed in picking fruit that it resulted in them barely exploring the second floor at all.
...However, Vihera, who was now smiling at Rei mischievously, had also agreed to picking the sweet fruits... no, rather, she had been actively in favor of it.
In that sense, it would be fair to call Vihera an accomplice too.
Whether she would admit it herself was another matter entirely.
"Well, setting that aside."
Vanilas did not particularly blame Rei for having focused on picking fruit and returned to the topic at hand.
Since they were not exploring the dungeon on a Guild request in the first place, she was in no position to complain about Rei and the others progressing through the dungeon at their own pace.
Of course, as Golts's Guild Master, she would have liked them to push further into the dungeon, but she could not make unreasonable demands.
After all, with Rei's party being the only ones currently able to challenge the dungeon, she had no choice but to rely on them.
"Will you be diving into the dungeon again tomorrow?"
"Unless there's something urgent, that's the plan. We need to properly investigate what kind of monsters live in that forest too."
For Rei, searching for unknown monsters was extremely important in terms of Beast Magic.
Of course, the top priority was the dungeon core where he might acquire the Terrain Manipulation skill, but beyond that, it was not unusual for dungeons to contain unknown monsters.
In fact, they had already found the Yellow Bird, an unknown monster, emerging from the dungeon on the very day they arrived in Golts.
The second-floor forest where those Yellow Birds likely lived held a very high probability of harboring other unknown monsters as well.
In that sense too, Rei wanted to press forward with exploring the forest.
(It's painful being the first ones to challenge that dungeon. If someone had already attempted it before us, there'd at least be some information to work with.)
Rei felt it was troublesome as he recalled the forest, but precisely because they were the first to challenge it, they could monopolize any undiscovered items within the dungeon.
"Oh, that reminds me."
At the thought of undiscovered items, Rei recalled what he had obtained in the dungeon and took out the rock plant they had acquired on the first floor from his Misty Ring.
It had been cut partway through, but even so, one could tell at a glance that the plant was made of rock.
The moment Vanilas saw the plant, her face contorted.
"C-could it be... there's a monster like a Basilisk with the ability to petrify its opponents...?"
From the question asked in a fearful, timid manner, Rei understood what Vanilas was worried about and immediately denied it.
"No, it's not like that. As you can see, it's a plant made of rock, but it has nothing to do with petrification. It was alive in this rock state as-is. And it attacked by launching its rock leaves at you when you got close, that sort of thing."
At Rei's explanation, Vanilas felt relief from the bottom of her heart.
Monsters with petrification abilities, such as Basilisks and Cockatrices, were extremely powerful.
So powerful that she was certain Golts's adventurers would not be able to defeat one.
If such a monster existed, in the worst case, it might even become necessary to relocate the town of Golts itself.
Vanilas's thoughts raced to that conclusion in an instant, but Rei's words made her realize such concerns were unnecessary.
"So, a plant made of rock? Is it a monster?"
The most famous plant-type monster was, of course, the Treant.
The question was whether the plant before her was that sort of monster too, but Rei shook his head.
"No, it didn't have a Magic Stone, so it's not a monster. I think it's just a plant."
"...It's made of rock, you say?"
Vanilas asked in disbelief, but Rei simply nodded in return.
"Given that it's a dungeon, I figured nothing there could surprise me... but this is startling. Could you let the Guild investigate it? If it turns out to be valuable, I'd like to search for more of them."
Hearing Rei's request, Vanilas drew a small breath and then nodded.