Volume 7 - CH 1.06

On the first few levels of the Labyrinths it was a relatively harmless monster. That being said, there is no rule saying that something that is weak on the lower floors of the Labyrinths cannot grow stronger on the higher floors. As far as we know, then logically when we advance further, there’s always a possibility that it might grow unexpectedly strong. This means that dealing with it at one point might turn from something simple to quite a headache for us. On the plus side, it probably won’t grow unexpectedly strong in a span of just a single floor; so at the very least, I don’t think that we’re going to have to worry about it surprising us with anything there.

If anything, then I think that we don’t need to be all that vigilant until we actually reach the twenty second floor; but after that – meaning from the twenty third floor and above…. That is probably where the difficulty is going to make a sudden spike. Thus, from that point onward we’re going to have to constantly keep our guards up and be on the lookout for potential attacks from a distance.

At least when it comes to the exploration itself it should be a relatively smooth sailing, since we have the maps of all of the currently discovered and cleared floors of Quratar’s Labyrinth – unlike with the rest of the Labyrinths, where we actually have to go and search every nook and cranny just to find a way to the Floor Boss Room.

「Okay Roxanne, would you please guide us forward then?」

「Certainly. Please follow me, master.」

Guided by Roxanne (along with the map), we proceeded through the thirteenth floor of Quratar’s Labyrinth all the way to its Boss Room. We then sent Miria to go and take a peek to see if there was anyone in the Waiting Room; and once she came back and reported that there was apparently no one inside, we decided there was no point in dilly-dallying around and proceeded to enter the Boss Room proper, where we faced off against the Floor Boss of the thirteenth floor – Animal Trap and the Sarracenia that was accompanying it.

「Why was Sarracenia accompanying the Floor Boss this time instead of a Fly Trap?」

「Because starting from this higher floor and onwards, there is always a possibility that any type of a monster that makes its appearance on the given floor might appear alongside the Floor Boss as its support.」



Oh, so it’s actually that any monster that appears on a given floor might start accompanying the Floor Boss once you advance high enough, huh? And here I was under the impression that the only ones that were going to make an appearance would be the monsters that are native to the given floor. Hence my astonishment when a Sarracenia showed up instead of a Fly Trap.

According to what Sherry taught me, Animal Traps are the enhanced versions of the Fly Trap enemies and serve as a Floor Boss on the floors where the Fly Traps are the regular enemies. Also, she told me that starting from the twelfth floor onwards, the Floor Bosses are going to have additional enemies in the Boss Room and they would fight together. That little gimmick might be more than a bit troublesome; but only under the assumption that we will not be able to defeat those additional enemies quickly enough. As long as we defeat them with all due haste, all we’ll have to worry about is going to be the Floor Boss itself, as per usual.

After that, we have returned to our usual tried and true formula for winning the battles against the Floor Bosses: we left Roxanne so that she could stay in front of it and bait all of its fiercest attacks while dodging all of them without any kind of harm coming to her, while Sherry, Miria and I surrounded the Boss from the sides and the back – where I just went to town on it with my Durandal.

When the battle was over, it was time to collect the Animal Trap’s Drop Item, which turned out to be a Dried Orange Peel. Sherry was the one who collected it and brought it over to me. What kind of logic dictated that an oversized Fly Trap was going to have a Dried Orange Peel as its Drop Item I don’t know and I honestly don’t care. The only thing that I want to see right now is what kind of item I’m going to be able to create once I use this Drop Item as a catalyst in my 「Crude Medicine Creation」Skill.

I launched the Skill with the item in my hand, and when the procedure was done, what was left in my hand instead of a Dried Orange Peel were three Tonics.

As soon as we left the Boss Room, I told Sherry to give me the rundown of the new enemy that we’re going to be encountering on the fourteenth floor of Quratar’s Labyrinth. 「All right Sherry, the usual question now: what kind of monster can we expect on the fourteenth floor of Quratar’s Labyrinth?」

「The monster native to the fourteenth floor of Quratar’s Labyrinth is the Hat Bat. It’s quite small in size, which makes hitting it with physical attacks a hard task; and due to the fact that it is capable of flight it can completely bypass the Party Members and go straight for the members placed in the backline. Therefore, Master is going to have to be especially cautious whenever we encounter it. When it comes to its strengths and weaknesses, it is generally weak against all forms of magical attacks, but the ones made with Water Magic, Wind Magic and Earth Magic seem to be especially effective against it.」

A Hat Bat, huh? From the way that Sherry described it, it seems like it’s going to be a nasty enemy to fight against – especially for someone like me who got quite used to fighting in the rearguard position, which became my safe haven. From there I didn’t have to engage the enemies directly, and could make do with simply supporting Roxanne, Miria and Sherry with my magic.



Then again, just because we have reached the fourteenth floor doesn’t necessarily mean that we have to force ourselves to fight on this floor immediately.

「What do you want us to do, master? Shall we go and explore the fourteenth floor?」

「No. For the time being we’re not going to do that. We’re going to go to Haruba’s Labyrinth instead.」

My main goal of replenishing the amount of recovery medicines, after I used so many of them during the Bandit ambush, has been achieved; so there’s no need for us to continue exploring the Labyrinth of Quratar. Instead, we can go back to the exploration of Haruba’s Labyrinth. Recovery medicines are my emergency method of healing in case something ever went wrong, and I was prevented from healing through the usual means of using the Monk Job’s 「Medical Treatment」Skill. If the circumstances didn’t force me to use them back when the Bandits attacked us, I would’ve just left them intact and not touched them at all. Alas, that was not how it was meant to be.

For the time being, three Tonics and three Nourishing Pills should be more than enough for our emergency healing needs.

「Is that so?」said Sherry.

「If that is what Master wishes to do, then we’re going to do exactly what you want.」said Roxanne.

「Yes, desu!」

Even though Roxanne, Miria and Sherry agreed with my intentions to go to Haruba’s Labyrinth instead of going to explore Quratar Labyrinth’s fourteenth floor, it was immediately obvious that the three of them were dissatisfied with the approach that I decided to take.



I could understand that Roxanne was feeling let down, but who would’ve ever guessed that even Sherry was going to be in a more warlike mood today? Or maybe it’s that she thought that it was the most rational thing to do to go and continue to explore the fourteenth floor after defeating the Floor Boss of the thirteenth floor?

Well, whatever the case may actually be with them, I just thought that it would be best for us to have a short break from Quratar’s Labyrinth after we just went through both its twelfth and thirteenth floors in a row without stopping. Apparently my intentions here ended up backfiring against me, however.

Out of all three of my slaves, Miria was the only one who accepted my plans obediently without looking or sounding dissatisfied. Ahh, her cat ears were so cute when she was saying 「Yes, desu!」.