Volume 6 - CH 4.2

「Well, it does indeed smell as if there was Sarracenia out there.」

「…………」

Could it be that Miria also possesses a good sense of smell because she’s a member of the Beastkin tribe, just like Roxanne? I exchanged glances with Sherry, who possessed a normal sense of smell just like I did, but all that I got out of her was a shrug of her shoulders. Well that was to be expected of someone who cannot detect monsters by their smell, so we have no choice but to accept Roxanne and Miria’s words at face value.

「X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X?」

「X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X.」

「Miria said that she was is not able to detect fish monsters by their smell, but rather that she’s able to locate their presence.」

She’a able to detect monsters by their presence instead of by their smell, but it is limited to (who would’ve guessed) fish monsters? I feel like it is something to be amazed by, but at the same time that it’s not really worth it.

「Well, if Miria continues to do her best in the Labyrinths, then I’m sure that we’re going to reach the floors where the fish monsters are dwelling in no time.

「X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X.」

「Yes, desu!」

「All right then, pleased to be working with you from now on.」

Even though I feel that this motivation of hers is kinda cheap, it is definitely better compared to if she didn’t have any kind of motivation at all, but there is also a possibility that once we reach the floors with fish monsters in them and then move on from them to the places where there’ll be no more fish monsters, Miria might lose her motivation to help us continue to push ourselves to the very top since her own goal is already going to be achieved.

Well, I guess we shall worry about something like that happening when it happens, but no sooner than that. For the time being, we proceeded through the Labyrinth under Roxanne’s careful guidance.

The first group of monsters that we happened upon was a mixed one consisting of Sarracenias and Green Caterpillars.

Since this is going to be our first fight of the day, I instructed Roxanne that there’s no need for her to be taking us to a place with a lot of monsters, since this first bout is mainly going to be the one that we’ll use to demonstrate to Miria how the three of us: Roxanne, Sherry and I are fighting together so that she could observe us and adapt to our fighting style properly.

Because the threads that the Green Caterpillars are spitting might still pose a threat to us, I’m keeping Miria in the back of our formation. As long as she stays behind me, then the threads shouldn’t be able to reach her even if the Green Caterpillars do end up targeting me instead of Sherry and Roxanne.

And then there’s also the possibility of Sarracenias trying to shoot their digestive fluids at us, but since we are on the twelfth level of the Labyrinth, then I guess it is inevitable that the enemies here would be using their ranged attacks more often than their counterparts on the lower floors. The only saving grace here is that unlike Grass Bees and their stingers that can leave us poisoned if we let ourselves be hit by them, Sarracenia’s digestive juices don’t seem to possess that peculiar property, but it doesn’t mean that we don’t have to be extremely careful while engaging them.

Since Sarracenia is a plant-like monster, its weakness is Fire Magic, so when attacking them, I was doing so through the use of my fire Spells: 「Fire Ball」and 「Fire Storm」. While spamming those Spells whenever I had the chance to do so, we managed to defeat the entire group of monsters rather quickly, and throughout this entire encounter there was no cause for us to be concerned, and apparently none of my Party Members sustained any kind of injuries.

Just as I was expecting, with our current Party and its strength, fighting on the twelfth floors of the Labyrinths shouldn’t be posing any kind of threat to us.

「Here you go, desu.」

「Oh, thank you.」

Miria also participated in the process of collecting the Drop Items from the defeated monsters and handed what she managed to gather to me with a smile. It is so nice to see that she was doing that on her own, without the need for me or Roxanne to order her to do that. This goes to show that she can be pretty observant and mindful of her surroundings, and adapt to the situation quickly.

Now that Miria has picked up the Sumac Gallnut that was left by Sarracenia upon its defeat, she should’ve obtained the Job of a Herbalist, so I opened up my Party Job Settings to see if I was right about that, and sure enough, when I scrolled down to the list of Miria’s available Jobs, I saw that Herbalist Lv.1 has just been added to them, so I guess it means that just like the leaves that are left behind by Udowood, the Floor Boss of the floors where the Needlewoods are the native enemies, Sumac Gallnut left behind by Sarracenias is also considered to be a type of medicinal herb.

Since I have acquired a number of Sumac Gallnuts from the defeated Sarracenias, I decided that now would be a good time to make some Nourishing Pills from them with the use of my 「Medicine Creation」Skill.

「X X X X X X X X X X X X X! X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X!」

Since I’ve created those Nourishing Pills right in front of Miria’s eyes, she could witness the entire process from beginning to the end and so she commented upon it, but this time I didn’t even need Roxanne to translate her words for me, because I was pretty sure that I understood what she was saying: she was probably amazed that someone like me, an Explorer, was able to do something like that and she said: 「Oh my Gawd what is this, this guy is so amazing!!!」or something along those lines.

In any case, it looks like the process of Miria’s acclimatization in our Party is going rather smoothly, and so far she doesn’t seem to have any problems with keeping up with us despite the rather fast pace at which we were going, so we went and dealt with several more groups of monsters on the twelfth floor of the Labyrinth of Quratar.

「Sherry, do you think Collagen Coral is an aquatic monster?」

I asked Sherry about it after we finished a few more encounters and made a short break, during which I asked Sherry about her opinion on the elemental nature of the Collagen Coral monster, because due to Sarracenia’s being potentially too dangerous for Miria to handle right now, I was thinking about where should we go next so that she could have her chance to fight alongside us as well.

One of the Skills granted to Miria by her Diver Job is called 「Anti-Aquatic Enhancement」. Judging by its name alone, it should be a Skill that strengthens Miria’s capabilities of fighting against the monsters dwelling in the water, which would make perfect sense considering the nature and the purpose of a Job such as Diver. As for the Skill itself, I think it might be a Passive Skill and not an Active one.

「Hmm…. I never really thought about it that much, but I think you might be right. I think it is an aquatic monster.」

Sherry agrees with my notion of Collagen Coral being an aquatic monster. If it really is such a monster, then Miria should have no trouble fighting against them.

「Have you heard about a Skill called 「Anti-Aquatic Enhancement」?」

「I’m afraid I haven’t.」

「And how about Miria?」

「She says that she doesn’t know about it either.」

She doesn’t know about the Skill that she had? Well, it might be because it’s a Passive Skill that she had with her all this time and that’s why she didn’t notice anything.