The two red boars appearing before us let out low, threatening growls, their breaths heavy and rough. Their sharp eyes were fixed on us, making it clear they were ready to charge at any moment.
I always find myself wondering: for monsters whose main method of attack is a charge, wouldn't it be more effective to just hurtle toward the enemy at full speed the moment they spot them, rather than stopping to intimidate? Well, maybe they just respawned a second ago.
"Okay, like we agreed, we aren't going to step in. You two handle this, Mika, Saori-chan."
"Got it! Leave it to me!"
"Yes. I’ll do my best."
With those words, the two of them stepped forward, each leveling their weapons at the red boars. Their movements were practiced; their poise suggested they were already beginning to move beyond the realm of newcomer explorers.
Seeing the two of them move, the red boars let out loud bellows and began their charge.
"Saori-chan, I’ll take the one on the right!"
"Understood! Then I've got the one on the left!"
Concluding their brief tactical meeting, Mika and Saori-chan quickly split to the left and right, closing the distance with the charging red boars. The monsters seemed momentarily wide-eyed with surprise at how fast the girls had closed in, but they immediately shifted to counter, tucking their chins and trying to point the tips of their tusks toward them.
However...
"Hah!"
"Yah!"
"Bumo!?"
The brief opening created by their momentary freeze was significant. Before the boars could finish their counter-posture, the tips of the spears thrust out by Mika and her friend pierced through and through, right between the monsters' eyes.
The girls quickly withdrew their spears and backstepped, putting distance between themselves and the red boars, which were still stumbling forward from the momentum of their charge. After a few sluggish steps, the beasts slowly collapsed.
"Whew... I managed to take it down in one hit."
"Yeah. The first battle always makes me so nervous."
Confirming that the red boars had begun to dissolve into particles, Mika and Saori-chan exhaled, letting the tension drop from their shoulders as they shared their impressions of the first fight. Even we get nervous during the first fight of an expedition, so I could understand why I’d been worried they might mess up right out of the gate. You always use that first battle to check your condition for the day.
A dozen or so seconds after the red boars began to fade, our first drop item of the day appeared where they had fallen.
"Ah, this is..."
"A Core Crystal, huh? Nothing dropped on my side, so this feels a bit disappointing for our first result, doesn't it?"
Mika picked up the Core Crystal from the ground, a slightly dejected expression on her face. Considering the current market rates, a Core Crystal only sells for about a hundred yen these days. Compared to the early days, the purchase price has really plummeted.
Still, since nothing dropped for Saori-chan, I suppose it was better than nothing. To think you'd fight for your life against a monster and only get a hundred yen... it’s a harsh reality for rookies just starting out as explorers.
"Good work, you two. I heard about your progress from Daiki, but that was some impressive handiwork."
"Indeed. I haven't seen you two in action for a while, but you've both grown quite a bit."
Yuji and Hiiragi-san, seeing Mika and Saori-chan fight for the first time in a while, gave small rounds of applause and praised their performance. I had reported the details to them as best I could, but seeing was believing. Both Yuji and Hiiragi-san looked genuinely surprised.
It felt like the foundations of the martial arts I’d drilled into them and the basics of being an explorer were finally starting to bloom now that they’d gained actual experience. For fighting single monsters on the surface floors, their proficiency was more than sufficient.
"Haha, well, we worked really hard over summer vacation!"
"Thank you very much."
Mika and Saori-chan looked a bit bashful as they accepted the praise. Honestly, we’re all a bit unusual in various ways, so we aren't the best points of comparison, but their growth rate was extraordinary compared to your average explorer. We were having them explore under a "safety first" policy, but if they had a slightly more reckless style like other explorers, they’d probably be diving down to around the 14th or 15th floors by now.
Of course, if they ever tried to be that reckless, we’d have stepped in to stop them by force.
"Alright, the first fight's out of the way. Let's keep moving and fight a few more times like that. It'll be tough to suddenly face a large group of enemies without properly limbering up first."
"Good point. It’s better to gradually increase the numbers."
"That's the plan. Mika-chan, Saori-chan, let's keep moving forward while fighting more monsters."
Yes!
Having finished our successful warm-up, we began walking through the dungeon again in search of more monsters. Luck seemed to be on our side today, so we might reach the monster room faster than expected.
About four hours after entering the dungeon, we arrived at the 8th floor staircase plaza. Yes, we had reached the 8th floor in just four hours. And that was while searching for appropriately sized groups of monsters and engaging them in combat.
I wonder why? We really seemed to be on a lucky streak today.
"We made it here incredibly smoothly today."
"Yeah, it was almost scary how well it went."
"Even though there are fewer student explorers than during summer break, I wonder why things were so smooth?"
Feeling a slight sense of unease at how well things were going, we began preparing to take a break in the staircase plaza. We intended to take a long rest that doubled as a lunch break.
"Compared to usual, it felt like fewer people were descending. Maybe the timing just lined up with a shift in the corporate explorers' active floors? Combine that with the drop in student explorers, and maybe that's why it's like this...?"
"Ah, that might be it. Come to think of it, since around summer vacation, the number of corporate explorers working on the shallow floors has been decreasing."
Hearing Mika and Saori-chan's conversation, a theory crossed my mind. Perhaps the training period for new recruits at dungeon-related corporations ended around summer vacation, and their base of operations had moved to deeper floors. Even if a recruit with no experience joined in April and was being trained on the surface floors, it had already been half a year. Even if it was hard to level up because of the crowds and lack of monsters, that was more than enough time for a training period. If they were diving as a full-time job, they could put in far more hours than a student.
If you consider that shift in personnel plus the students who stopped coming after summer break... the current encounter rate actually made sense. If the number of people active on a floor decreases, the encounter rate naturally goes up.
"If that's the case, we really were just lucky."
"Yeah."
"I suppose so."
That said, conversely, it meant there were now many more explorers in the middle floors. While it made it easier to operate on the surface floors, the movement and activities in the middle floors would likely become congested. Well, I suppose that was just the natural flow of things.
We should probably just consider ourselves lucky that we happened to slip into the gap this time. If we started expecting it every time, we were bound to be disappointed.
"Well, let's set aside the questions we can't answer and have lunch, shall we?"
"Sounds good..."
"Indeed..."
"Yeah!"
"Yes!"
With that, I pulled a thick leisure sheet out of my bag and spread it in a corner by the wall of the plaza. There was a fair amount of foot traffic, so it would be a nuisance if we spread it in a bad spot.
Once the sheet was down, we sat and pulled out our respective lunches.
"You've got a sandwich, Daiki? From the convenience store."
"Yeah, being compact and easy to eat is best. What about you, Yuji? A convenience store onigiri?"
"Yeah, it's just a day exploration. No need to bring anything fancy, right?"
"I mean, it's only a few hours of exploring."
So, Yuji and I began peeling back the plastic wrapping to eat our lunch.
On the other hand, for the women...
"Oh? Is that homemade, Mika-chan?"
"Yes, I woke up early this morning to make it! Though it’s just a bunch of onigiri turned pitch black by the seaweed..."
"It's impressive that you can make it yourself. Besides, since we're fighting in the dungeon, a colorful, elaborate lunch box would just end up a mess after being bounced around in a bag anyway."
"I-I guess you're right!"
Mika looked embarrassed as she stared at her lunch box filled with black, seaweed-wrapped onigiri. Hiiragi-san praised—or maybe comforted—her by saying it was better than a poorly made, decorative bento that would fall apart. So that was what she was doing earlier when I noticed her in the living room earlier than usual...
Come to think of it, I once saw a group of explorers eating convenience store bento boxes where all the side dishes had been mashed together into a slurry. They looked miserable. Compared to that, a lunch box of onigiri that can be enjoyed as individual items even if they look entirely black is certainly better.
"Saori-chan has a clubhouse sandwich."
"Yes, my mom made it for me. It even came with French fries as a bonus."
"Oh, that's nice."
"It is. But maybe making it myself like Mika-chan did would have been better..."
Saori-chan looked a bit awkward as she looked down at the clubhouse sandwich in her hands.
Hey, there’s no need to be so fixated on it being homemade, so you shouldn't feel bad, okay?
"And what about you, Yukino-san? You have so many different dishes. Did you make that?"
"It's homemade in a sense, but I just packed up some leftovers from our shop."
"I see."
It seemed Hiiragi-san had also brought a homemade lunch.
The women began picking at their lunches while chatting merrily. I don't know why, but suddenly Yuji's and my lunch started looking incredibly bleak...
"...It tastes good, right?"
"Yeah, it tastes fine."
Yuji and I didn't say much more, focusing intently on finishing our lunch as quickly as possible. For some reason, it felt like a lunch of total defeat. Maybe next time I'll buy one of those high-end retort pouches made with dungeon food and bring that?
After about an hour's rest, we resumed our exploration. That said, our goal was right in front of us. We'd have a fight to settle our stomachs before moving on to the main event.
We progressed smoothly until we were near the room with the target monster trap. However, though we had wanted to fight some monsters as a final warm-up, we didn't encounter any... well, there was no need to force a fight.
"It should be around here... or was it a bit further ahead?"
"No, no, I'm pretty sure it was this area. But it was quite a while ago... my memory’s a bit fuzzy."
"I think it was around here too... though I'm not entirely confident."
After all, it had happened months ago. Since then, so many other vivid things had happened that even though I thought I remembered, my confidence was wavering. It should be this way. Probably. Maybe. I hope so...
Guided by our uncertain directions, we walked through the dungeon with Mika and Saori-chan in the lead, when we began to hear sounds from the distance. Violent footsteps, the sound of things clashing, and... death cries.
"I hear something coming from up ahead..."
"Yeah, sounds like a large group fighting."
"Looks like we were heading in the right direction after all."
Picking up the pace slightly, we headed toward the source of the noise.
The sounds grew louder, and from the cacophony, we could begin to distinguish human voices. The voices were coming from our destination—the monster trap room where a large number of goblins appear.
"Damn, a few are circling around to the back!"
"I'll take the ones in the rear! Cover this spot for a bit!"
"Understood, but hurry! If you take too long, we might get pushed back!"
"Please, hurry!"
"I know, just hold them for a second!"
It seemed they were struggling quite a bit against the goblin swarm. Maybe the number of goblins that appeared was higher than expected, or maybe a low-level newcomer explorer party was overextending themselves... whatever the reason, it looked like it would be bad to just stand and watch without saying a word.
Thinking that, I took a small breath, about to call out to ask if they needed help, when I heard a scream—or rather, a complaint—from the explorers inside the room.
"Damn it! There’s way more of them than usual! Why are there so many today!?"
"Who knows!? I thought we were lucky since there were no other parties waiting their turn, but this is a total disaster!"
"Seriously! If there were other parties waiting like usual, we could ask for help, jeez!"
"You guys! Stop whining and keep your hands moving!"
It seemed they were very much in the mood to ask for help.
However... in our case, we just thought the lack of people and the higher encounter rate were lucky. I suppose there are downsides to a lack of people as well.
One person's "good" is another person's "bad," I suppose?