Evan D. Sherden, Goes on An Expedition (3)

The next morning, the members gathered together for a meal, all having strange faces.

In particular, it was a little creepy that Arisha, Mirole, and Diona looked at Evan as if they had promised.

“Why are you staring at me like that?”

“Well, I think my fiancé, who proudly declared last night that he would use the room alone, knows better why?”

“Yesterday, Miss Belois did not return for three hours.”

“I was going to serve you tea, but the door was sealed with magic.”

Evan wondered for a moment whether he would pretend not to know the resentment that poured out of their mouths. But before he concluded, Belois replied instead with a coy look.

“Unfortunately, I couldn’t serve his bed. It means the Master didn’t lie. He used the room alone.”

“Bed… I didn’t even think about that! I was looking forward to a late-night date at the exotic hotel!”

It was a very modern idea just by choice of words, Evan thought blankly. Perhaps she learned from Evan’s way of thinking and vocabulary.

“Yes, but I was obliged to serve you. I’m sorry.”

“And then, Belois, three years ago, you entered Evan’s room by yourself in the port city of Palman. At this point, I wonder if it’s because of your duty…”

“I’ve only done what I should do as an exclusive maid of Master, Miss Arisha.”

“Hmm…”

It was strange. He thought they had compromised, but when he heard the conversation between the two now, it didn’t seem like it at all. Evan sighed and calmed Arisha.

“You can go on a date next time. I’ll make time as soon as I get back to Sherden after my mission.”

“Really? If Evan says so, I’ll believe you. Then I’ll look forward to our date.”

“…Oh?”

A moment ago, Arisha, who was snarling against Belois, suddenly calmed down, smiled, and held Evan’s hand.

Evan belatedly realized that he had been beaten. He couldn’t even guess when it was acting. The only thing he could tell was that what Belois said yesterday was alluding to this right now!

“Arisha, you’re growing day by day…and in a way that I never expected.”

“Well, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

As Arisha looked calm and pretended to feign ignorance, Mirole, who had been looking at Evan until then, clapped her hands and muttered, meaning that she now understood the conversation between them.

“Is this the rotation of the date member? Same as the last patrol.”

“No, it’s not a rotation. I’m not some public good…”

Evan breathed a sigh, denying the High Elf’s words at once. On the other hand, Diona was complaining that she was the exclusive maid of Evan now. But Evan ignored her.

If he entrusted her with something like earwax, which was accelerating ‘Maybellification’, his chastity would be in jeopardy.

“Well, now everyone’s listening to me seriously. I told you earlier that we’re going to go for the Dungeon right after the meal, right? From now on, we’re going to come up with a detailed plan…So before that, I’d like Diona, Hannah, and Serpina to leave.”

“Ugh.”

“Are we going in that dangerous dungeon with five people?”

Hannah and Serpina heard yesterday’s Dungeon in detail… especially since they heard that the seventh-floor explorers had been killed.

Perhaps that was why they stuck to Raihan’s arms and didn’t let him go. It would never have been an extension of the three’s sticky love affair last night.

“If Hannah doesn’t help, wouldn’t my divine power help the party, Master? I can’t let you go like this because I’m so nervous.”

“What nonsense, Serpina. I would be more helpful to support firepower from a distance than you who can’t protect your body.”

“I’m sorry, but the absence of you two will be helpful.”

“Huck.”

Two women battled on Evan’s straightforwardness. Of course, Evan knew that they were quite talented. But to be honest, they didn’t think they would be any better than other explorers who had challenged the Dungeon and were killed.

“Trust us and wait. It won’t take long.”

“But even Master’s predictive powers don’t work, so what’s there…”

And if it weren’t for the two, there wouldn’t be anyone who could stop the current Astray.

Hannah and Serpina looked around the people in the hall, wondering if Evan was joking now, but none of them were laughing, forcing them to leave without any income.

* * *

Eventually, late in the morning, Evan and his party entered the Dungeon after briefing the party members.

When they left the village after they were armed, the hot spring village people, who roughly guessed their intentions, looked at it with worried eyes but did not stop them. Perhaps he was expecting the result.

“This is it.”

“Long time no see. I was looking around…”

“About?”

“I’ll explain it to you later.”

Over the past few years, the Dungeon had been too quiet and peaceful.

As a result of the explorers’ sacrifice of their lives to clear the monsters, the monsters inside had no mind to exit the Dungeon.

Evan found out that there was no danger to the outside and led the party straight into the Dungeon.

On the surface, it was a cave-shaped dungeon similar to the lower level of the Sherden dungeon, which was unusual if the hot air was felt as soon as it entered the first floor.

“The first and second floors of the Dungeon will be crushed. I’ll give you directions from the front, and you’ll all follow.”

Upon entering the Dungeon, Evan, who took a moment to detect the surrounding monsters’ level, concluded that he would stick to Operation A, which he concluded was no different from the game.

“Clear monsters that you encounter by yourself. Let’s go.”

Immediately after he finished speaking, Evan dashed.

Months after the last customer of the Dungeon died, the monsters slowly re-emerged on the first floor, recognized Evan, and began to open their mouths. But they crashed into him before their mouths were closed and bounced around like a billiard ball hitting the wall.

“These…”

“… It’s an alligator, isn’t it?”

Those who were running fast behind Evan quickly realized their true identity. Due to the habitat environment, it was a rare monster that had never been seen in Sherden, but it was so characteristic that it could be recognized immediately.

“Is the high temperature of the volcano causing alligators to appear?”

“That’s a strange creature. It looks like a demon race…”

Of course, unlike Earth, Sherden had a lot of leather, much better than alligator skin. At least it was an alligator, so it didn’t attract any more interest.

“We’re entering the second floor. Everyone, don’t waste your time and get together.”

Because the Dungeon was not that big, it was also fast to find the stairs. Moreover, unlike Sherden, he did not have to make certain achievements to level up. So, he immediately moved to the second floor when the party got together.

“On the second floor, you’ll see a Lizardman-type monster based on them.”

“Isn’t that a rare species?”

“Yes, but it’s not as good as I thought it would be. Therefore, we skip the second floor right away.”

If the first floor had a pure alligator, the second floor showed the alligator-based Lizardman, literally a two-legged, walking alligator.

It would be fatal to get bitten, but normal conditions never applied to Astray, anyway.

The stairs to the next floor could be found faster than before. The third floor was the last one to reach Yo-Ma Great War 1, so the atmosphere was quite different. And the most important difference was that the alligator Lizardman’s job differentiated, and each of them carried an unusual bottle.

“I can’t help it. It’s too low.”

But none of these were in the eyes of Evan’s party. Many explorers were strong enough, but they were still as strong as one-shot when hit with their bodies.

Even the middle-class monster guarding the treasure on the third floor to prove any difficulty. Of course, it was a one-time dungeon in the game!

For a while, he stood still and looked at Evan, who was thinking about something, not liking it.

“I was hoping for a mid-level boss… It’s a waste of time. I can’t blow away my precious members’ time against these lizards.”

“What are you going to do, Evan?”

“Like this.”

Evan stood there and raised his left fist. Arisha wiggled her eyebrows, thinking, ‘No way.’ It was a behavior that she had never seen before in the Sherden Dungeon.

“Are you going to break the floor?”

Evan didn’t answer and hit the floor hard. Soon after the heavy shock hit the area, he thought there was a crack on the Dungeon’s bottom, and the floor collapsed!

“Wind, be our wings!”

Even before the group responded, the spirit of the wind that Mirole created caught them in the air except for Evan.

Evan rejected the spirits, and below…that was, he fell to the fourth floor of the Dungeon and clenched his fist again.

“Ahhhhhh!”

“Now he thinks we can understand without that much explanation.”

“The fourth floor is collapsing, too.”

Evan, who neatly destroyed the bottom of the third floor and fourth floor with simple fist-shaking, fell to the fifth floor with the screaming alligator-shaped monsters.

The fourth-floor monsters were strangely red-skinned and spewing hotter fire energy, but it was none of Evan’s business.

Evan, who landed on the fifth floor, was seen rolling his fist again, ignoring the dead and injured monsters’ cries as the floor collapsed.

Boom!

“You look cool and bold.”

“That’s not what I’m saying, but it’s a little bit too much…”

“Everyone, get ready.”

As soon as Arisha was tackling Mirole’s misguided pint, Belois calmly said. Raihan was already holding the shield again.

“He’s also trying to break the bottom of the sixth floor.”

On the sixth floor of the Dungeon, a large, eccentric red-colored armor, armed with weapons, was incomparably larger than the alligator Lizardman on the second floor. Still, even they could not receive Evan’s attention.

No matter how hard it was, it would be the elite monster that appeared after the 40th floor of Sherden Dungeon after the reopening, but it has reached a level where even the demons were no longer a threat to Evan’s party.

“But wouldn’t it be better to go back to the 7th floor normally? No… What will it be?”

Evan was merely unwaveringly raising his fist, but Arisha, who stood up and watched the situation below, read the intentions beyond.

Because of the ground that collapsed from the third floor, the sixth story’s floor has a monster mixture. What was unusual was that even though they were monsters of the same Dungeon, they could not reconcile and were hostile to each other. Then there was one possible scenario.

“Isn’t Evan trying to cut the power of the seventh-floor monsters with those monsters?”

“I suppose so. We can figure out the level of the monsters on the seventh floor without having to bump into them.”

Their purpose was to prove their limitations by striking the monsters on the seventh floor fairly.

Of course, he didn’t think they would lose to the monsters. Still, as the explorers who went ahead had the result of the destruction, it would be better to use the available things to identify the enemy’s level and reduce its power.

“Huh…!”

Was the bottom of the sixth floor supposed to be thicker and firmer? Evan concentrated the glove’s energy on his fist and threw it to the floor with all his might, amid a disturbance of monsters.

The sixth floor collapsed with a loud bang, and finally, the view of the seventh floor was before their eyes…

“Huh!”

At that moment, Evan jumped on the collapsing floor and quickly reached where the party was. It was a leap of several hundred meters, but that was not surprising. Evan thanked Mirole when he promptly summoned the spirits and held them.

“Weren’t we supposed to go straight, Evan?”

“I was going to, but the moment I broke the sixth floor, I read his tracks on the seventh floor.”

Evan scratched his head with a strange look on his face. Arisha pointed out a nerve in his words.

“A monster? Is there only one monster there?”

“Yes.”

As the sixth floor collapsed, thousands of monsters, as well as the dust storm that caused all the shattered dungeon structures to crash, the seventh floor was completely invisible.

But as Arisha was thinking of removing the dust with the wind magic, there was a truly bizarre cry beyond it.

-Grrrr!

“Heeeee?”

Feeling instinctive rejection and fear, Arisha’s body got goosebumps. Next to him, Mirole had rarely distorted her eyebrows.

“Is this crying…?”

“Mirole must know.”

“It was quite common in childhood.”

She was humming her head and nodded. Evan, who indirectly experienced her childhood through Yo-Ma Great War Zero, tried to shake her head casually and desperately refrained from doing so.

-Grrrr!

The cries echoed back then. It was clear that there was magical power in it. He was so far away that he could hear it like he was hitting the ears of his party.

The effects ranged from fear to fascination, but fortunately, there was no effect other than the feeling that Evan’s party, who was made up of more than a certain amount of power, was offended.

“Oh…”

However, thanks to the mixed cry, Belois, who was full of magical talent, realized the cry’s identity following the experienced Mirole and the indirect experience of Evan.

“…Is it a dragon?”

-Grrrr!

The dragon cried again as if to answer her. At the same time, a dazzling light from the seventh story’s underground…No, there was a spark that was so clean as to be mistaken for light.

It was the breath of a dragon, also commonly called Bres. The moment it filled the basement perfectly, the debris of the collapsed Dungeon with a flash of light, and all the monsters that crashed with it died cleanly. Through the cool, open space, the party was able to see him.

-Humans… Humans who woke me up! I hate you! I hate you!

The giant dragon—indeed a huge winged lizard covered in red scales.

It was said to have perished in ancient times.

It was also a legend that lurks on the 97th floor of the Sherden dungeon. The dragon was here.