We descended to the 6th floor.
The atmosphere was unchanged as we made our way through the cave.
Slimes, goblins.
We fought our way forward against the same monsters as before, until we spotted a skeleton ahead.
"Just one, huh? That's a relief."
"Yeah, we can gauge its strength. Mind if I take it on with my shield first?"
I nodded at Alan's request, deciding to engage the skeleton without opening with a preemptive magic attack.
The skeleton was a bipedal monster standing about 1.5 meters tall.
Holding a bone club in its hand, it lunged at us the moment it caught sight of our party.
"Ngh! Whoa, it's surprisingly weak."
Stepping forward, Alan caught the skeleton's strike.
Having fought so many monsters up to this point, Alan had built up plenty of combat experience.
Thanks to that, he effortlessly absorbed the skeleton's blow and brought his sword down upon its skull, targeting its weak point.
The forceful downward strike shattered the skull, destroying the core within.
"Alan. How was it?"
"Honestly, it didn't feel that strong. It was just one, and its attack didn't pack much punch. It's definitely faster than a slime or a goblin, but it's still slower than a wild boar, so handling it is a breeze."
"I see. In that case, can we rely on your shield work for the rest of the 6th floor?"
"Of course! I'm the party's shield, after all!"
Alan gave an energetic reply, and we resumed our exploration of the 6th floor.
After searching for a while, a group of five skeletons appeared.
This time, following our usual routine, we started by thinning their numbers with magic.
When I gave Philia the signal, she took down two of the skeletons with her magic.
"Clatter-clatter!"
With their comrades wiped out, the remaining skeletons swarmed us all at once.
Two rushed toward Alan, while the third tried to slip past and target Philia and the others in the rear.
"Your opponent is me."
Cutting in between them, I blocked the skeleton's attack with my shield.
The impact jarred my balance slightly, but my footing held firm.
"Haaah!"
Planting my feet to reset my posture, I swung my sword cleanly through and cut the skeleton down.
Then, I dashed over to Alan, who was being double-teamed.
I fired [Earth Magic] at one of the skeletons, blasting it away from him.
"Erik! Thanks!"
With room to breathe, Alan shifted instantly from defense to offense and drove his sword straight into the skeleton's skull.
The skeleton blown back by my [Earth Magic] still had an intact core and tried to scramble back to its feet.
But I was already on top of it.
Driving my blade into its skull, I finished off the skeleton.
"Erik, thanks for the save back there. Once they surrounded me, I got stuck purely on the defensive."
"We're a team, aren't we? Besides, none of us are used to fighting skeletons yet, so it can't be helped."
With that, we resumed our exploration once more.
Three hours had passed since we entered the dungeon, and we had already fought our way through a substantial number of monsters.
"There are way more monsters here than in the forest or the grasslands, so we're keeping up a great combat pace."
"Dungeons are practically monster nests, after all."
"Thanks to that, I feel like I've gotten a lot stronger just from today!"
Alan spoke excitedly, while I cast my gaze further down the path.
We were currently on the 10th floor.
The next staircase led to the 11th floor, where stronger monsters would begin to appear.
"We made it to the 10th floor as planned, but let's call it here for today. We can hunt monsters on our way back up to the surface."
"Sounds good. There's no reason to push our luck and go down to the 11th floor."
"I'm satisfied since we got this far on our first try. Now's not the time to overdo it anyway."
"I agree. Just reaching the 10th floor gave us a solid feel for how the dungeon works."
Philia and the others voiced their agreement, and we turned to retrace our steps.
While finding our way down had required searching for staircases, the return trip was straightforward since I had sketched a rough map along the way.
By the time we emerged from the dungeon, the sun was beginning to set.
I asked the soldier guarding the entrance for the time, and he told me the evening bell had just rung.
After thanking him, I set off back to the royal capital alongside Philia and the rest of the party.
"Reina-san, we're back."
"Welcome back. Is everyone unharmed?"
"Yes. We all made it back without a single scratch."
When I gave my report, a delighted smile spread across Reina-san's face.
From there, we proceeded to cash in the materials we had hauled back from the dungeon.
We turned in the standard materials for the slimes, and submitted the required proof-of-subjugation parts for the goblins.
Like slimes, skeletons were monsters that possessed cores, and those cores were traded as sellable materials.
The cores were made of bone, held residual mana, and could be utilized as fertilizer.
Skeleton cores fetched 1 copper coin for every two turned in.
◇
Skeletons: 80
Goblins: 90
Slimes: 120
◇
Because we had carefully managed our tally while fighting, we ended up with clean counts that could all be cashed in without leftover odd parts.
The total came to 1 silver coin and 50 copper coins.
On top of that, we sold the magic stones.
We had collected a total of 48 magic stones throughout this run.
That was quite lucky; normally, one wouldn't encounter monsters carrying them at such a high rate.
All of them were of the lowest rank, netting us 4 silver coins and 80 copper coins.
Combining everything together, our total earnings from this dungeon delve came to 6 silver coins and 30 copper coins.
"Dungeons really are incredible..."
After finishing the exchange, Alan muttered in awe as he reflected on the payout once we stepped outside the Adventurer's Guild.
"Even beginners can pull in this kind of money. That's why so many adventurers dream big and dive into dungeons."
"We were moving pretty cautiously, and this is just from half a day, right? Does that mean other adventurers make this much too?"
"...I doubt it. I suspect we earned this much because Erik-kun planned every move so carefully."
Leticia-san chimed in, addressing Philia's question.
"Look at our approach: we fully explored one floor at a time before descending, right? We never overextended, took proper breaks, and constantly monitored our Stamina. That steady pacing is precisely why we could fight so many monsters in just half a day."
"...Do regular parties not think things through that much?"
"From what I understand, many adventurers push themselves to descend as deep as they can possibly manage, only to come back empty-handed because they overexerted themselves."
Leticia-san explained in response to Alan's inquiry.
"It's not as though we outsmarted everyone to earn this, though. I'm sure there are plenty of other adventurers who plan things just as carefully."
"Still, I doubt many parties make this kind of profit on their very first run."
"You're giving me too much credit. It was simply the result of playing it safe. Besides, it was only possible because of everyone's hard work."
I deflected Leticia-san's high praise.
Since the hour was growing late, we agreed to meet up again tomorrow at noon and called it a day.