We reached the area indicated by the Item-finding Rod, but there was no sign of anything relevant. I tried using the rod several more times just to be sure, but it consistently pointed right where we were standing. I was certain something was here, but...
"Hmm, looks like a forest to me."
"There really isn't anything unusual, is there?"
There was no way a place where a key could be used would just be sitting in the middle of a forest. I had thought there might be a hidden building once we got close, but there was neither hide nor hair of one. What on earth were we supposed to do?
"Where is the key, nya? Let me see it for a moment, nya!"
"Ah, I'll take it out now. ...Eh!?"
At Rache-san's request, I pulled the key in question out of my Storage Ring, only to find that it was actually glowing.
"It seems there really is something here, after all," Masso-san observed.
"Yeah. But what should we do...?"
Lowell and I nodded to each other, but we didn't know the most important part: how to use the key! I tried holding it up and shouting for it to open, but nothing happened.
"Let me borrow it for a second, nya."
With that, I handed it over to Rache-san.
"It's a key, so you obviously just have to turn it, nya."
She made a twisting motion in mid-air.
"...Nothing is happening."
"No, look behind you!"
Spurred by Masso-san's shout, I spun around to find a door engraved with mysterious patterns standing in the middle of nowhere. There was no building, not even a wall. Just a door existing all by itself.
"A door...?"
"Yeah... but just a door?"
Halfa and Spira walked all the way around the frame, wearing dubious expressions. Beyond the closed door was, naturally, just the forest stretching out. It seemed they didn't quite grasp the point of it.
"When you open the door, it'll be connected to a different space, probably," I explained.
"Ah! Like the entrance to this Dungeon!"
"And like the Magic House too!"
"Yeah. Something like that."
Well, there was no point in just standing here talking. Let's head inside immediately.
When I opened the door, it led to another location, just as I had imagined. The floors and walls were made of wooden planks. It was a somewhat spacious, simple room.
"There are several similar doors lined up."
"You're right, nya. I wonder if they're connected to other places, nya?"
"I see," Masso-san mused. "If they headed to another location from here, their tracks would be impossible to follow. So those who went missing used this place."
The adults were looking at a row of several doors. The one we had entered through was among them. Every single one was engraved with the same kind of patterns. That was likely why they had judged that they were connected to other places.
"This door says 'Tenth Floor Teleportation Door,'" Halfa read.
"This one... says 'Entrance,'" Spira added.
They were reading from small plates placed beside each door. Teleportation Doors, huh? It looked like our guess about them being connected to other places was correct.
There were six Teleportation Doors in total. The plate labeled "Entrance" was on the far left, and as they went toward the right, the floors increased by ten at a time. This meant the one on the far right was the Fifty-first Floor.
...The Fifty-first Floor was the level that the Gurna Council considered to be the Deepest Floor.
If it was connected to a place like that, I couldn't possibly believe this was a location built by human hands. Officially, the deepest floor reached by adventurers was the 31st Floor.
『This door over here looks normal.』
Shiroru was referring to a wooden door placed opposite the six Teleportation Doors. Unlike the others, it blended into the room. It likely just led to another part of the building.
"What shall we do?"
"Let's check the Teleportation Doors later," Masso-san said. "First, I want to investigate this place."
"Well, that's fine with me, nya. I just hope we find something interesting, nya~."
Rache-san agreed with Masso-san's assertion. We had no objections either. Unlike the Tenth Floor, there was a possibility that those doors were one-way, after all.
Beyond the wooden door lay a long corridor. From there, it connected to several more rooms. We considered splitting up to search, but since there was a possibility that someone was lurking inside, we decided to take a quick look around together for the time being.
『Oh? This room has a lot of stuff in it!』
"You're right. I wonder if they were using it as a storehouse."
Most of the rooms had been empty shells. Amidst those, we found a room overflowing with objects. It felt as though miscellaneous items had simply been shoved inside with no sense of order. If I had to point out a commonality, I had the impression that many of them were things that could be found in a dungeon... which made sense, given we were inside one.
"Hey, hey, Tort! Isn't this a Pandora Gift?"
"Oh! You're right!"
As we were rummaging through the room, Halfa found a Pandora Gift for me. It was only one, but since I had also obtained two from the Dungeon Research Society, my current stock was now three.
"Hmm. A Storage Ring, was it?" Masso-san said. "If you have room in your capacity, could you store everything in here? As expected, it would take far too much time to investigate everything on the spot."
When I tucked the Pandora Gift into my Storage Ring with a beaming smile, Masso-san made his suggestion. It was true that this place was essentially enemy territory. Even if these items might be clues, we didn't have the luxury of time to leisurely investigate everything.
However, storing these one by one would be a back-breaking task. I wondered if I could store the whole lot all at once. When I tried it out... well, would you look at that! The room that had been so overflowing with objects was cleared out in an instant.
"Oh!? To think you'd clear it out in a flash! Young Tort's Storage Ring must be a special specification."
Masso-san, who had been the one to suggest it, was the most surprised. Did that mean he had assumed I would store things steadily one by one? But then again, he was right to be shocked. Previously, I could store things that were a bit far away, but at most, it had to be within arm's reach. Perhaps it was thanks to the quality of the Storage Ring going up. Or maybe it was a benefit of the Creativity skill.
In any case, the fact that we could save time wasn't a bad thing. There were still rooms we hadn't seen yet, so let's finish our exploration quickly.