CH 72

The next morning, I apply [Purification] on myself and head for the dungeon.

This is my new favorite thing to do in the morning. It’s nice to feel refreshed after a sweaty night.

In this world where baths are basically limited to the homes of the nobility and the rich, I might be considered to be cleaner than those who take a bath every day. Thanks to [Purification], which cleans every inch of my body without leaving any residue, I think I’m cleaner than when I was in Japan, to be honest.

But I can’t stop using [Purification[ now. It’s very hard to draw water from the well and wipe yourself with it. It’s especially hard for women. They can’t just sit naked by the well and wipe themselves like male adventurers.

I paid a silver coin to enter the dungeon, went down to the basement level, and jumped to the 11th floor through the transfer monument.

And while looking at the map, I started to walk towards the stairs, but…

“…Isn’t there a lot of people?”

Even though I didn’t try to look for signs of people, I could see the presence of people and lanterns shining from everywhere.

The most crowded place I’ve seen so far is the sixth floor, where only Forest Wolves appear. The second and third floors, where slimes and El Rabbits appear, are next, followed by the first floor, where only slimes appear. And this eleventh floor seemed to be more crowded than the sixth floor, which had been the most crowded until then.

The reason for this is vague, but I can imagine it. Perhaps it’s the balance between the value of the drop items and the strength of the monsters.

For example, on the second and third floors, El Rabbit, which sells meat and fur, is probably the most profitable monster. Goblins, which are stronger than El Rabbits but only have magic stones to sell, are shunned, so the 4th and 5th floors where Goblins and El Rabbits appear are not as popular.

From what I’ve read about the Desert Cow on the first floor, it looks like a cow-like monster with big horns. I think that meat and skin come out as drop items and they sell at a good price.

“With this… I should probably give up on this floor.”

To be clear, my goal is to level up. I know money is important, and I’d like to save some, but leveling up is more important than that. Right now, I’d rather deal with monsters with good experience value than monsters that are profitable. However, unlike in games, where you don’t know the experience value, my priority will be monsters that I can efficiently hunt in numbers among monsters of the same rank. In other words, it would be better to avoid this floor with many rivals, no matter what the monsters are.

So, I went through the eleventh floor, passing some adventurers on the way, and proceeded to the twelfth floor.

“Eh… there are a lot of people here too.”

When I descended to the twelfth floor, I felt the presence of several people and immediately realized that this floor also seemed to be crowded.

I flipped through the stack of papers I had copied from the documents and checked them again.

According to the document, the monsters that appear on this floor are Desert Cow and Orc.

In a nutshell, the Orc is a bipedal pig. It’s a strong D-rank monster, stronger than Goblins and Kobolds. Maybe these Orcs also drop meat and hide.

I flipped through the bundle of papers and checked ahead.

From the twelfth floor to the fifteenth floor, there was a combination of Desert Cow and Orc.

“Then again, there might be a lot of people on the fifteenth floor.”

I proceeded to the stairs, wondering what I should do.

But still. I had always imagined a pyramidal organization with F-ranks having the most adventurers and the number of adventurers decreasing as the ranks increased, but considering the number of people here, maybe D ranks have the most adventurers.

When I think about it, I’ve been through the F-ranks in an instant too. I’m still ranked E, but that’s not so strange considering I’ve only been a registered adventurer for a few months.

The highest rank of adventurers in Rankfurt during the Stampede was C, and the number of C-ranked adventurers I saw at that time was around 10, so I guess C-ranked adventurers are reasonably few in number and even fewer beyond that.

“Mmooo!” (Monster)

As I was thinking about this, I heard a cry from ahead of me, and something came running towards me with heavy footsteps thudding. From the sound of it, it was a… horse? Probably?

…Woah, that looks dangerous!

So I hurriedly thrust my bundle of paper into my pocket and held my spear forward, the silhouette of the enemy emerged from the darkness.

It looks like a cow, and it has two horns that are thicker and longer than my arms. Just as I said, it was charging towards me. It was almost two meters tall, with a wide body and it had two horns on its head that gave it a very intimidating feeling as it faced me.

“Hey! This is!”

It’s impossible to attack something like this head-on! I’ll definitely be blown away!

The Desert Cow was probably trying to tackle me with its horns, but as it ran, it lowered its head to the ground and lunged at me.

“Damn it!”

I quickly jumped back to the right and struck Desert Cow in the neck with my spear, then quickly pulled it out and rolled to the ground.

I quickly got up and held my spear, poised to strike.

The Desert Cow disappears into the darkness.