The description painted by Uvela painted Floor Forty to Floor Forty-Two to be a gruesome mess. Bits and pieces of flesh were rotting all over the areas. Whether they’ll be pieces of internal organ leaked out from a strike or half-eaten corpses, the Moonless did it all.

  Yet here in a dungeon now changed to a much broader layout resembling that of a cave laced with metallic walls and floors—covered sparsely with gears ticking like a heartbeat, much to Arlene’s surprise—there weren’t any at all. It looked clean, squeaky clean even.

  She had braced herself for the smell—even enchanting herself and the two with anti-odor barriers. Nonetheless, she was relieved she didn’t have to see the sight.

  However, if this was thoroughly clean, was the dungeon the one that did it? Piles of corpses wouldn’t disappear in a few days. Adventurers would be busier with looting and clearing the dungeon even if they were on cleaning duties.

  “Anire,” she called to her, “Anything strange here?”

  She glanced to find Anire was shaking her head.

  “It’s still the same as any other floors,” Anire said. “Though I have a question for you.”

  Arlene blinked. Anire asked now this deep into the dungeon? Perhaps she saw something strange and needed a second opinion? “What is it?”

  Anire grinned as she looked all around her—the metallic cave that was the Floor Forty. “Where are we?”

  Arlene tilted her head. “What do you mean? We’re on Floor Forty.”

  Anire’s ear inclined forward. “I know, but where are we?” She pointed around. “This doesn’t seem like a straight layout like before. This entire area looked bigger, more jagged in elevation and looked to be more of a cave than a labyrinth corridor.”

  She turned to walk ahead of Arlene, to what seemed to be an edge. She leaned forward, hand up above her eyes to block the absent sunlight. “Because if you come here, Arlene~, This looks like a jump down.”

  Arlene edged forward, leaning downward instead. There was the floor of the same materials… further down of approximately two floors high—twenty meters. “Hmm.”

  She eyed forward after. There was a path going forward. Perfect. They could just jump. It was a good sensible thing to do.

  But their objective was to clear the floor.

  “Alright,” She stood straight and clapped. “We’ll jump down.”

  “Eh?” Anire said in unison with Wattyson at the back.

  “What do you mean jump down?” Anire questioned. “I am capable of many things, Arlene~. But those things relating to science! I can’t jump down from that height.”

  Arlene just stared at her blankly.

  “…You’re a neko, don’t all cats like always land on their feet just fine?”

  “Arlene~ I’m a neko indeed, but that doesn’t mean I’m a full feline. Though your idea that cat always land on their feet is fascinating, but I can’t do the same feat as that.”

  Wattyson strode to join them. “Arlene,” he said in a drawn tired manner. “Why do you want us to jump down there?”

  Arlene crossed her arms. “Well,” she had a smug face on. “I’m aware you don’t want to be here for longer than necessary, Watty. And there isn’t new anomaly for Anire.”

  She raised her finger up. “So, rather than having to walk more till we reach Floor Forty-Three. Why not just take the skip?”

  Her arm extended to the hole in the floor. “There’s our skip.” She turned to Anire. “So, do you have like potion to cushion your floor? You’re going to need that.”

  Anire hummed loudly and excitedly. If eyes were the mirror to the souls, Anire looked to be hook by Arlene’s impeccable reasoning.

  “I don’t have it~, I concoct vials to boost my own mana. It’s not every day I have to jump down that high.”

  She finally stood up and scratching out her arms to the top. “I rather not jump down though, but if you’re willing. You have some kind of magic to cast on us right? To make us fall like a feather~?”

  Arlene smirked. “Nope. I’m going to carry you then.”

  “Carry?”

  Before Anire could say anything further, Arlene quickly swooped her arms under her ankles and behind her back.

  “Light as a feather,” claimed Arlene.

  “Well,” Anire muttered lightly as she held her arm around Arlene’s back. “I’m flattered you think that way.”

  “In what way?”

  “Hmm?” She noticed the question came seemingly innocent. “No worry about it.” She eyed to Wattyson. “What about him?”

  “I will go back up myself if you intend to carry me.” Wattyson said shifting himself back.

  “Carry you? No. Why would I do that?” Arlene replied as she stood now facing the edge. “You can just float down.”

  “That is very tiring.”

  “Your party leader is going to descent down via a skip with another member. You are needed there.” She proclaimed with the air of mock authority. “I’ll be seeing you down there.”

  Anire was waving at Wattyson goodbye before she realized Arlene was already one foot over the edge. “Wait. Shouldn’t you give a countdown~? I’m still not used to fallin—“

  Her voice was cut out by the gravity pulling them both down to the bottom.

  What was pressing against the two as they freefell onto the Floor below were the rushing cold winds, and the smell of iron. The start of this skip looked like a natural sinkhole albeit of metal. Here mid-fall, the walls and platforms between the hole were scratched, damaged and cut. Steel poles and rods were sticking out. Sparkling manasteel wires dazzled all over. If the top was natural, everything below so far was damaged forcibly—like something had crashed through.

  Arlene hugged Anire closed—having to shift herself with the neko in arms to dodge the sparkling wires and stray poles from grazing or slashing them.

  Anire on her part shifted to grab onto Arlene’s cape, to hold onto it. It would be dangerous if they were dangled because of the cape.

  Ordinarily the drop from that high should’ve taken two seconds at most. Yet this fall felt like they were longer. The constant cold air pressured up against them like they finally found a way to rush out.

  Finally, they landed with a crushing shriek. Arlene’s armored boots firmly crashed into the floor itself, pinning herself down. The metallic floor exploded out from the impact, forming a slope up from the landing area—blocking views from the outside, and the wind flows.

  “Safe landing,” Arlene said with a confident smile. She looked around to those slope about twice her height. “Look like we landed in a natural defensible area.”

  Anire finally got off. “Mmm,” she purred out as she took a few steps before sitting down and lying against the slope. She ached her back out. “How many times you did this?”

  “Rarely?”

  “You almost crushed my back out~.”

  “Did I?” Arlene replied with a chuckle. “I’m sure you’ll be fine. I heard cats are very flexible.”

  “It doesn’t work that way~.”

  Arlene took a look around, and walked around the slope leading up. She drew her longsword out, her eyes scanning for anything that acted out differently.

  She took in her surroundings. The entire Floor they were on still full on metallic with gears darted all over. Up above, the white sparks frizzled all over in the dark.

  Climbing over the slope, she peeked her head out to find two figures. Humans. They all had shock expressions washed over them.

  Unsure what floor she was on, she kept her sword closed out of view from the two strangers. This could be an illusion by a dungeonster.

  “Identify yourself!” She shouted. Her free hand motioned back, gesturing to Anire to be on guard.

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  “C-Chosen One?!” One of the two finally yelped out. “W-What are you doing here?” The man was in bewilderment from the sight. From this view, the slopes weren’t there before and now a young blonde female with a bizarre pattern headband, the Chosen One, was peeking her head out.

  The other one with him, a female adventurer, straightened up. She held her arms up. “We’re adventurers! Adventurers!” The male did the same.

  Arlene narrowed her eyes to them. “Why are you putting your arms up?”

  The two couldn’t give an answer. They looked to be too dumbstruck. Finally, they put their arms down. “We’re… uhh...”

  “Can you answer a few questions of mine? What floor am I on? What are your ranks and what are you doing here?”

  The male nodded hastily. “This is Floor Forty-Two!” he jerked a hand to him and the female. “We’re both A rank. We were just going back to the top.”

  The answer seemed sound, but again. Why were there only two here if the minimum was five?

  “Where’s the other three?”

  “They went ahead! Likely Floor Forty by now.” The man answered, but before Arlene could question again. The woman followed up. “We were behind because we’re doing map works! Much of the floors from here aren’t mapped properly so we thought we could get extra rewards for this.”

  “I see,” Arlene answered as she still hunched behind the slope. “Are there any monsters here?”

  The man shook. “There isn’t. There are on Floor Forty-Three onward though.”

  “Also were there any gibs and pieces around? Like… corpses?” She phrased it out slowly.

  “There… was, but then it was gone. We kinda shifted them to the side for better passage later on with the intent to clean it up and identify the corpses. But… at the start of today, all of them were just gone. I and many others didn’t know where it went, and honestly,” he gazed down for a bit, “I don’t think any of us want to find out. This dungeon is already strange as it is.”

  All his answers aligned with what Uvela said.

  “Alright.” She climbed over, and slid down to them. “Thank you for your work.” Her sword sheathed but her hand never left the hilt. “Do you have a copy of the map? I don’t know the layout of this Floor.”

  “I-I do!” The woman raised her hand before bringing it down to rummage her back.

  Arlene took sight of the two. They were more armored than the previous two. Their armors were more pronounced with steels covering their vitals and surrounding. None of them wore shoulder pad, but their bracers and greaves were of hardened monsters’ materials.

  The build on those two suggested they were light oriented. On both of their backs right above the waist leather bags were a sheath for short swords. From the little corner near the handguard of the female adventurer, the blade was chipped. They were used extensively it seemed, not from negligence given the state of their steel and monsters’ armors.

  That wasn’t all, from the little peek into the woman’s bag. There was something thin—papers and writing utensils.

  Arlene relaxed her shoulder, and drifted her hand away from the hilt.

  “Arlene~, what’s going on out there?” Anire called out, but the sudden of the voice startled the two adventurers to instinctively shifted back.

  “It’s ok,” Arlene put her hands out. “It’s one of my companion. We landed there.” She glanced back to the crater. “I’m talking with adventurers! It is safe out here!”

  The woman relaxed and continued to rummage her back.

  While waiting, Arlene decided to ask the unoccupied one. “So, are there anything I should know further?”

  The man opened his mouth, then closed. “W-What do you mean?”

  The confused expression affirmed something to Arlene. “Right. My mistake. I should’ve been specific.”

  She turned to him fully. “Are there any other parties operating right now?”

  “I don’t think so?” His voice came out questioning himself which Arlene found odds. Next, he pulled something out of his pocket, something silver and round. A watch.

  “If I’m right,” he muttered trying to open the pocket watch, “and the time is what I think it is. Most parties are leaving for the day. At least that’s the trend I’ve observed yesterday.”

  The silver watch opened. The arms on it indicated it was twenty-five before five.

  “Ok,” he breathed out, “Most parties aren’t operating. Did you catch any of them as you leave?”

  Arlene shrugged. “We caught two, but they didn’t seem to be any deeper than Thirty-Nine.”

  “Werner and that scratchy fellow?”

  “You know them?”

  The man nodded. “Yes. They always hang out together, and refused to party up with anyone else.”

  Refused to party up? In this profession, connection and communication were keys. Adventurers needed to band together to tackle more difficult quests for more rewards. Though there may be exceptions to those who are gifted.

  However, this was a dungeon. While someone who was talented could solo the dungeon, Arlene would never dare to dream of it. The payoff wasn’t worth it to haul the rewards and materials back up alone to justify the loot to yourselves. Not to mention, the repairs and maintenance of your gears afterward would net you barely in the positive.

  Though with this knowledge, Arlene had a playful thought. Wattyson’s black hole storage could effectively solve this conundrum. If only he was an adventurer and not a scary supernatural hunter.

  She pushed the thoughts away. “What about you? Have you seen any other parties?”

  “Not many when we were down there. Only another two.”

  “So only three total?”

  “Yes.” He answered glancing to the woman near him then to Arlene. “It has been a slow day. The guild prefers other adventurers to map out the dungeon thoroughly first before advancing.”

  Arlene placed a hand on her waist. “So you also get the reward of looting the dungeon?”

  He flapped his hand. “No no, I meant after the other party pushed to a new floor, let’s say Floor Forty-Three, the guild would ask other parties like ours to map the previous floor in this case Floor Forty-Two. Less chance of getting lost and tire themselves out before they even fight.”

  Arlene quirked a smile. “That makes sense. Do they pay you well?”

  “They do.” The woman answered as she handed out the map to Arlene. “We’re on a commission rate too. So they pay us a fixed amount up front and then how well we mapped it out. That comes after they analyze other parties’ maps. If there are a lot of similarities, we would get paid more.”

  It seemed the guild used the system of the majority. If most said a statement, then it must be true.

  Arlene took the map. “Wouldn’t that be easy to you know? Get payout easily?”

  “Yes. A sensible person would think that.” The man replied. “But we’re just very competitive.”

  “There was an incident,” the woman added, “When four parties just copied each other maps, and it looked similar. I don’t mean like exact lining and keywords and everything. Even massive changes to line style and whatnot, it was too similar to each other for the guild. The four got penalized and rank demoted. They also took the front payments away.”

  “Then how do they know if all of your maps are distinct from one another?” Arlene put the map into her leather bag, then crossed her arms.

  Both of them shrugged.

  “Beats me,” the man answered. “I tried finding out. I didn’t find out.”

  “I’m just happy we’re being paid a lot if we get it right. We make more than two extermination quests in the open land. Though,” the woman scratched her cheek, “When there isn’t any monsters or traps, this whole process just feels too menial for us.”

  “Yes, I got a headache from all of th—“ the man paused as both of them looked up.

  “What?” Arlene noticed and turned to look. She immediately rolled her eyes.

  What approached was a figure in white robe and a staff held in hand. His expression was bored with eyes half-opened.

  “G-God?”

  “Sage?”

  Both of them murmured. From their views, they just saw a man floating down from the empty dark above with the only sparks from the wires dangling all over. The man himself looked too grand. The expression didn’t help, if anything, it mystified the impression.

  Wattyson landed or hovered. It was hard to tell since everything was hidden under the robe. “No.” He said flatly to the murmurs of others. “Not yet.”

  “What do you mean not yet?!” Arlene retorted. “Sorry. This is one of my companion. He’s not a sage, or god, or whatever you think of.”

  She turned to find the two were heads onto the floor, groveling before the newcomer. “Guys! Get up! Seriously! Are you that fatigued from the dungeon?”

  The two inclined their heads up, and looked to each other. They nervously chuckled before getting back up.

  “I guess we are,” the woman said. “Uhh…”

  Arlene felt the conversation wouldn’t go anywhere now with how Wattyson chose to land. “I’ll leave you two on your ways. It was nice talking to you two.” She smiled with a bit forced habit and genuine clashed. “I hope you two make it back safely.”

  The two bowed slightly. “T-Thank you! You too, the Chosen One, and your companions. I hope you achieve your goals here.”

  “Though,” the man added. “We’ll… need to map that crater. I could’ve sworn it wasn’t here before.”

  Arlene raised an eyebrow. “It wasn’t here before? I thought it was? I landed there.”

  “It wasn’t here before.” Anire answered for them, as she climbed up now though there was a bit of struggle by the sounds of it. She was out of breath.

  “Arlene jumped down and landed here. You can even see the imprints of her boots. Her weights caused this~.”

  “Please don’t say it like that!”

  “It’s true~.”

  Arlene jabbed at Wattyson’s left shoulder. She stared at him. ‘Go help her out’ was written on her face. Wattyson, as Arlene predicted, groaned but did it anyway.

  “So,” she let out abruptly to the two, “I’ll… leave you two to it. And wish you on your safe journey. Again.”

  The two nodded in sync. “You too.” They replied fast.

  Arlene watched the two of them go and scaled down the crater. She peeked over the top and saw they were talking—likely planning given one of them got their utensils out.

  She stood, waiting for Wattyson to finally give Anire a hand. Wattyson just stood there and extended his arm out which of course Anire couldn’t reach.

  Anire grinned and just grabbed onto his robe, and pulled herself out.

  “My robe,” he said dejectedly.

  “Don’t worry,” Anire said lightly, “Your hand is still clean~.”

  Wattyson clicked his tongue and offered nothing back. The two made their way back to Arlene.

  “Soooo,” Arlene dragged out. “Good news, we know where we are.”

  The neko ear flicked up. “Do you?”

  “Mmhmm,” Arlene pulled out a map like she got a treasure. “We got a map from those two. Now we know exactly where we are.”

  She rolled the map out for all to see. It was indeed a map—layout with corridors, legends on what were on the maps and so forth. The drawing itself felt rough—likely signs of being drawn and erased multiple times.

  Anire scanned the map then asked. “So where are we exactly?”

  “Floor Forty-Two,” Arlene answered.

  “I see, but where are we on Floor Forty-Two?”

  “We are,” Arlene answered more confidently this time, but she didn’t continue her streak with the actual answer.

  “Huh,” she scratched her head. “Where are we?”

  The map had everything. Lines, routes, legends and so forth. However, this was a map on a paper. Just having it didn’t mean they would know exactly where they were.

  Arlene gazed to her surroundings. It was all the same metallic textures with gears. She glanced back to the map. There were no gears icon on it.

  Anire however seemed to be perked up. “What is this cross here?”

  “Maybe treasure? Or,” the thought clicked in Arlene, “an indicator! We should find where it is.”

  “But which way do we go? There’s only two paths here, so it’s a fifty-fifty gamble~.”

  There were only two ways they could go, and judging by the map—it was either north or south.

  “We already know where we are.” Wattyson pointed out.

  “How?”

  He pointed to the wall close to them. They both looked there and found just the same gears darted all over the wall and a scratch cross—ohhh.

  “Oh my~ You are quite capable outside of being an anomaly, Wattyson.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Arlene chuckled before reeling them back. “It’s still a fifty-fifty. I mean, how do we know which way is north or south? The map said go north to descend.”

  Wattyson sighed. “As if it wasn’t confusing enough.”

  “What? The direction? It’s a floor, Watty. Not an open field.”

  Wattyson scoffed as he clicked his staff, making his way to the crater. “You two.” He shouted.

  “Y-Yes?!” The adventurers answered in unison.

  “Which way to Floor Forty-Three?”

  The two adventurers pointed vaguely in one direction. “That way!”

  “Very good. Thank you.”

  Wattyson strode back to the two. He jerked a thumb behind him. “That way is north.”

  Arlene chuckled as she jabbed at him again. “Why thank you for that, O’ Grand Chaos. Let’s go then.”

  ? The Noble Reincanarted Demon King ?

  by BookRusher98