After arriving at the dungeon, the entry procedures didn't take long at all this time.
We simply showed our adventurer cards at the entrance and were waved inside.
"Yesterday took thirty whole minutes, but today was a breeze, huh?"
"That's only because the first time takes so long. I bet the day the dungeon was first discovered was absolute chaos."
"I heard about that from my big bro, and apparently it really was nuts, you know? The doors and checkpoints weren't even built yet, so people tried to barge right in. The guards had a rough time keeping order."
Chatting as we walked, we entered the dungeon for the second time.
"How is it looking, Garm?"
"Gau~"
Right after stepping inside, I asked Leticia-san to have Garm scout ahead.
When Garm searched for monsters as usual, it gave a low growl to Leticia-san.
"What did Garm say?"
"Just as we heard before, it seems the monster density has changed compared to yesterday."
"I see... For now, let's proceed using the map I drew yesterday."
With that instruction to the team, I immediately led the way deeper into the dungeon.
It took about five minutes before we encountered our first monsters.
What we found was a group of five slimes. There wasn't much change in the size of the monster packs that spawned at one time.
And so, we cleared the first floor with only four monster encounters.
With packs capping out at five at a time, we only fought a total of thirteen monsters.
"Compared to yesterday, the numbers have dropped quite a bit."
"...Part of that might be because it's only the first floor, but still, this is pretty low."
We proceeded onward to the second floor.
The second floor wasn't much different, resulting in a mere five skirmishes as we explored.
It was the same story—a maximum of five monsters per pack, totaling fourteen monsters.
"We haven't seen a single magic stone so far, either."
"Well, magic stones are purely down to luck. Maybe we just had an unusually good drop rate yesterday."
"We got a taste of good fortune on our first day, so we got our hopes up too high. I mean, we made a ton of money off magic stones alone."
"That's true. Let's try not to fixate on them. If one drops, we're lucky—let's leave it at that."
With that agreed, we pressed on.
With fewer encounters and less time spent in combat, we made our way down to the fifth floor in just an hour.
On the third floor, the monster count dropped further to ten.
On the fourth floor, after finishing off the last monster, we had defeated only sixteen.
The fifth floor saw a slight uptick, allowing us to fight twenty monsters.
"At this pace, are we on track to defeat around a hundred?"
"If that's the case, simple math means we made three times as much on our first day, huh..."
"We can't be sure of that just yet."
Replying to Alan's grumble, I led the group down to the sixth floor.
From here on out, skeletons would start appearing.
We descended in high spirits, but after ten minutes, we had only fought twice.
Both encounters were pairs, making a total of four monsters defeated.
"Aren't there way too few?"
"I think this is normal. Yesterday, we probably only defeated so many because we cleared out the backlog left behind by the higher-ranked adventurers."
We continued our descent after that.
Exploring took far less time than yesterday, and three hours after entering the dungeon, we stood before the stairs leading down to the eleventh floor.
Thanks to the map I had drawn yesterday, we didn't waste any time wandering.
Because we took the direct route, our monster encounters naturally decreased, lowering our total count.
"Skipping unnecessary exploration lowered our encounter rate, and this is the result, huh..."
Clearing from the first to the tenth floor, we had defeated only 130 monsters.
Compared to yesterday, the haul was visibly smaller.
"On top of that, not a single magic stone dropped."
"For now, since we agreed to tackle the eleventh floor only after upgrading our equipment, let's spend our remaining time heading back toward the entrance while picking off any monsters that respawned."
With that, I turned around and led the way back toward the surface.
Since we had just cleared the monsters on our way down, we didn't run into many on the return trip.
Even so, we managed to take down a few more stragglers.
Today's total kill count came to 142.
◇
Skeletons: 34
Goblins: 41
Slimes: 67
◇
Yesterday, we kept our eyes on the bounty requirements and made clean, intact kills, but today we fought without worrying about that.
Even with that loose approach, the numbers were far lower than expected.
When we stepped outside, it turned out we had returned before the evening bell had even rung.
Since heading back inside now would just be a waste of time, we returned to the royal capital.
We headed to the Adventurer's Guild and collected our reward money.
Sixty copper coins was our entire earnings for the day.
"...It really plummeted, huh."
"You can tell at a glance that yesterday was an anomaly."
"There wasn't any magic stone bonus, either. I wonder if this is the baseline?"
Philia and the others were visibly disheartened by the stark difference from yesterday.
"Clearing all the way to the tenth floor... We knew going in that yesterday was just an exceptionally profitable run, but seeing this still stings a bit..."
"Besides, the fact that we're only doing day trips is another reason our income is low, right? Other adventurers seem to camp out in the dungeon for days at a time."
"That's true, but we don't have the gear or the endurance to camp in the dungeon just yet. That's a goal for further down the road."
If we wanted to spend full days in the dungeon, we would need to make thorough preparations.
Right now, we had almost nothing, so we would have to start by gathering the proper supplies.
Explaining that to Philia and the others, I decided to call it a day, and we went our separate ways.