CH 405

「That person is……incredible.」

The archer next to Rei murmured as he watched Vihera’s fight.

Hearing that, Byune puffed up her chest as if to show her pride.

Her expression didn’t change much though, so the archer didn’t notice anything.

……However, after seeing Byune, he the looked away before seeming to remember something……the next moment, he took in a sharp breath.

He had probably realised who she was.

Although he had only recently arrived in Exil, he had still heard about the four families that had laid the foundations for this labyrinth city, and that one of those families had since fallen.

It was rare to find a 10 year old girl who worked as a thief, which was probably how he was able to identify her. Unlike what he knew about Vihera, the archer seemed to know enough regarding the Fraut family to make a guess.

Still, only his expression changed and there was no change in his attitude.

「So, thanks for saving us. As I said earlier, I hadn’t expected Stone Golems to be so strong.」

「They’re definitely different from Mud Golems.」

「Yeah, we’ve fought Mud Golems several times, so we thought we could take on a Stone Golem……but our thief ended up getting hit at the beginning. Fortunately, she’s not dead, just unconscious……」

The moment the archer said that.

「Don’t joke around! That Stone Golem was our prey! What do you think you’re doing, crashing in like this!」

「Hey, you can’t talk like that after she helped us. You know well you couldn’t have killed this Stone Golem on your own.」

Such voices were heard by Rei’s group and the archer.

Hurriedly looking towards the direction of the voices, the archer saw Rambros shouting at Vihera while the man with the hammer rebuked him.

Vihera, on the other hand, didn’t seem to care that she was being yelled at as she checked the weapons on her hands and feet.

She had only just had them adjusted the night before, so she was probably seeing how they were.

However, Rambros couldn’t stand being ignored like that. Seeing Vihera blatantly ignore him, blood rushed to his head……

「Stop it, Rambros!」

The archer rushed over to Rambros, who was about to shout at Vihera again.

「Menos, why are you stopping me! These people interfered with our fight without permission!」

Changing his target, Rambros shouted at the archer.

Vihera glanced sideways at the situation for a moment before sighing in exasperation.

Yes, just like seeing an idiot who couldn’t be taught.

Of course, Rambros couldn’t stand her reaction as the blood rushed to his head. Changing his target again, he tried to shout at Vihera.

「Calm down!」

Along with those words, the archer, Menos, slapped Rambros across the cheek.

Rambros didn’t understand what had happened for a moment. However, he soon realised that he had just been hit……

「Cut it out, it’s unsightly. Don’t take out your failure to protect Karsana on others……and don’t take it out on the people who helped us, that’s disgusting.」

The man with the hammer probably held the same thoughts as Menos. Telling that to Rambros in a low voice with a sigh, he turned towards Vihera again.

Vihera looked like a dancer, wearing multiple layers of thin, underwear like clothes.

However, different to ordinary dancers, she had weapons equipped on the back of her hands and feet. Her sensational outfit would stir up mens lust while the weapons she had covered her hands and feet. The imbalance made Vihera’s impression only stronger.

「I’m sorry for my party member. I’m Energeia. The part leader of Blue Sky.」

Placing his hammer on the ground, the man called Energeia bowed towards Vihera.

At this point, Vihera finally seemed motivated enough to deal with them. Perhaps she had finished checking the condition of her weapons, Vihera turned to look at the hammer wielding Energeia.

「Finally, someone who knows what he’s talking about. So what are we going to do with this……? Can I have this Stone Golem here?」

「Hey! We were the first ones to fight it!」

「……Fufu. Can you give me a break? In the first place, your sword barely did anything to it at all. It was purely my effort in killing it. I can only hope you’re not as useless at night.」

Twitch.

A blood vessel popped on Rambros’ forehead as he heard Vihera’s words.

However, Vihera wasn’t joking after saying what she had to say. She just looked at Rambros with a contemptuously as she gave a provocative smile.

「Hey! You……」

「Stop it! You were in the wrong no matter what you think! You know that we would have been killed by the Stone Golem if they hadn’t helped us! Besides, you have better things to do than to get angry at her!」

At Energeia’s words, Rambros took a deep breath as he hurriedly looked over towards his girlfriend, who was lying in a corner of the passageway.

「Karsana!」

Whether it was just a hassle for him to resheath his sword or not, Rambros just threw his sword aside before rushing over to Karsana.

As his long sword hit the ground, its blade snapped in half, probably because it had reached its limits after hitting the Stone Golem so many times. However, Rambros was the only one to not realise as he ran off.

「Ahh……let me thank you again. Thank you for your help. Thank you very much. You saved our live.s」

「Fufu~, he doesn’t seem to think that though.」

「He doesn’t mean it. He’s usually a considerate person, but after seeing his girlfriend get suddenly injured and knocked unconscious, I can understand his recklessness.」

「Is that so. But, I still don’t like people taking that out on me like that.」

「I understand. I’ll give him a good talking to later.」

「Well. I’m not interested in someone with that level of strength, so it’s fine. Anyway, you don’t mind if I take the Stone Golem, do you?」

「Of course. I know best that we could have only bought ourselves time. Take it. Is that fine?」

At Vihera’s question, Energeia asked Menos, the archer, who nodded with no objections.

「Honestly, I didn’t think that a Stone Golem would be that strong. We had killed several Mud Golems before……it seems that the sixth floor was too much for us. We’ll come back down when we are more skilled.」

「Yeah, we’ll also have to wait for Karsana to recover.」

Energeia and Menos both nodded as they sighed.

However……

「Mmm……Mm!?」

Byune, who had been listening to them, suddenly raised her voice as she looked at the Stone Golem, which lying on the ground unmoving.

「What’s wrong Byune? ……This is troublesome, I don’t know what she’s saying.」

「Well, in the first place, it’s strange to be able to communicate by just saying ‘Mm’.」

At Elena’s response, Rei agreed with a wry smile.

However, there was someone who was able to notice the strangeness. No, it wasn’t about Byune’s method of communication, but rather something from having fought the Stone Golem.

「She’s saying this Stone Golem is strange.」

Everyone else only tilted their heads at those words as they had no prior experience in fighting Stone Golems……everyone except Vihera, who was the one to speak out, and Byune, who had crouched down to examine the Stone Golem with a pitter patter. Even Rambros, who was close to Karsana, looked back at Vihera.

Seeing everyone look at her like that, Vihera shrugged her shoulders as she spoke up.

「Sure, Stone Golems are stronger than Mud Golems, but they’re not significantly stronger than Mud Golems.」

「Wait. We had also fought Mud Golems, but……」

Energeia spoke up at Vihera’s unexpected words.

Seeing that, Vihera gave a small nod in agreement.

「Yes, this Stone Golem was clearly stronger. No, rather, it was too strong to think of it as a Stone Golem. How is it, Byune?」

「Mm.」

Nodding at Vihera’s words, Byune picked up a piece of the Stone Golem that had fallen to the ground from one of Energeia’s hammer attacks and passed it to Vihera.

Menos tried to speak up as he stared at it.

「As expected, this isn’t stone. No, I think it would be more correct to call it as an ore of some magic metal rather than stone.」

「Wait a minute. That means this Stone Golem is……」

Vihera nodded before waiting for Menos to finish his words.

「Yes, it’s probably a rare species……or a higher ranking species.」

「……Again?」

Twitch.

Vihera’s eyes shifted towards Rei when she heard him say that.

「Rei, what do you mean by ‘again’?」

「Hm? Oh, I fought a Sword Bee’s queen in one of the higher floors. That was another monster that wasn’t supposed to show up on the floor it was found on.」

「That’s right. Even if it wasn’t very skilled, the Queen Bee was still able to use Sword Bees in basic tactical actions. Considering that, there’s no doubt that it was probably a higher ranking Sword Bee.」

Elena nodded in agreement at Rei’s words, and Vihera, who had started thinking for a few seconds after hearing that, turned to Byune before asking.

「……Byune, what do you think? Is this a strange occurrence for you, as someone who has been in this dungeon for a longer time than me?」

「Mm.」

Byune nodded with a single response as usual, but there was a harsh light in her eyes.

However, it was something that only Vihera could feel.

「You’re right. It’s definitely strange. I’ve rarely seen anything like this before. ……Then, something must be happening. But what? ……I don’t know much about it. I’ll have to dig a little deeper.」

Vihera muttered to herself as she turned towards Energeia and Menos.

「Hey, you guys. Now that you’re in this situation, are you planning to leave the dungeon today?」

「Ah, yes. Of course. I wouldn’t explore the dungeon without a thief and, besides Karsana, we also have other issues.」

Saying that, he looked over at Rambros’ long sword, which had broked after he had thrown it aside.

With Rambros’ weapon broken, one of the party’s main attackers, it would have been nothing but suicide to attempt to continue exploring the sixth floor.

Of course, since they had been able to make it this far, it was a fact that Rambros had a certain level of skill. Naturally, he had spare weapons as well. However, his spare weapon was only a dagger and it was clear that it fell several steps short compared to the long sword he had used up until now.

「Ahh, we should have brought a porter with us so we’d have a spare long sword.」

Menos murmured with a sigh as Energeia shrugged his shoulders.

「That might be the case, but our party always operated without a porter. In the first place, we never thought that a port would be essential to enter the dungeon……well, we might be injured, but at least we still have our lives. Given that, this is fine. So, did you want us to do anything if we’re going back up?」

「I would like you to tell the guild about this. Something strange might be happening.」

「Well, that’s fine, but……you guys are? You’re Crimson, right? Wouldn’t it be more persuasive for someone like you to tell them?」

Energeia asked Rei, who had been keeping an eye on the surroundings as he stroked Set.

Rei had expected that they would realise who he was after seeing Set, but he didn’t immediately responded as he turned to look a Vihera.

「Unfortunately, we plan to explore a bit more……hopefully down to the seventh floor. There might be something else aside from the Stone Golem.」

「……Well, that can’t be helped. Then I’ll leave that to you. We’d only be dragging you down if we forced it. Rambros, let’s go!」

「Ah, I understand.」

Responding to Energeia, Rambros carried the unconscious Karsana as he walked past Vihera.

「I’m sorry for my anger earlier. Thank you for your help.」

He briefly thank Vihera before leaving.