….aaaand I planned on having this finished mostly by Tuesday.

Searching for Fatty Tuna.

“Still no area of effect magic. I guess it can’t be helped, can you guide us to a place with lots of scissor lizards?” “That seems to be the case, I’ll do that then.”

I changed Roxanne’s instructions. My MP will run out early at the rate things are going. I take out Durandal and finish off a Scissor Lizard that had been petrified.

We continue forward under Roxanne’s guidance. She led us to a place with four Scissor Lizards. Gah. Suddenly the difficulty has gone up quite a bit.

Four people started running. I use [Sand Storm] from my position. After using two spells, I run after them. The Scissor Lizards are coming this way as well.

The demons confront the vanguard formation. Four lizards cram into a line. There doesn’t seem to be a guy staying at the back. If someone stayed at the back, they’d use magic, and that’s scary as well.

Scissor Lizards gathered, and swung their scissors. Roxanne avoided it, Miria fended it off with her shield, and Vesta blocked with a sword. Roxanne in particular is skillfully dodging the attacks of two Scissor Lizards. I feel sorry for the Scissor Lizards whose attacks have become so useless.

Sherry is attacking one of the four with her spear. She is ready in case they try to use multiple magic in quick succession. I used another double [Sand Storm]. We are steadily defeating the Scissor Lizards.

“It’s coming.” “I did it, desu.”

Roxanne and Miria shouted at the same time. A red magic formation is at the feet of one of the Scissor Lizards. Another Scissor Lizard has become petrified. Is this finally the debut of the magic?

The magic formation disappears, and the lizard spits out a ball of fire. Isn’t this single target attack magic? The Scissor Lizards magic doesn’t seem to be area effect magic.

Roxanne could easily avoid it… but instead is hit by it. Why?

“It doesn’t feel like anything we need to worry about.”

She seems to have taken the hit on purpose. The exchange of attacks with the Scissor Lizards continues on. While I continuously use magic, the petrified Scissor Lizard becomes smoke. A little later, the other Scissor Lizards collapse as well.

“Are you alright?” “There’s no problem. This isn’t enough damage to require healing either.”

I ask Roxanne while I heal her. Are you alright?

For a Wizard, I do not believe there is a difference in strength between the single target magic and the area of effect magic. Is it the same with demons? Roxanne let herself be hit by the magic on purpose, but how should I estimate it?

Since they are demons, there is the possibility they have multiple types of magic. Though the demon just now didn’t do anything else. Scissor Lizards should have at least two types of magic, single target and area of effect.

“Here, desu.”

Miria brought leather. It’s the first time leather was dropped. We defeated this many, and there’s just one? Since it isn’t a rare cooking ingredient, it’s drop rate won’t even increase if I use Cook.

“Leather, lea-th-er.” “Leather, desu.”

It’s not the skin of a fish, so she’ll have forgotten by tomorrow.

“Can you make equipment with this?” “Yes, though it normally takes many years for a Master Smith to get to that stage.” “You won’t have a problem Sherry. You can do it.” “Right.”

I reassured Sherry. I’m more worried about the Scissor Lizards magic. I’d like the opinion of Sherry’s common sense.

“The problem is the Scissor Lizards magic. Do you think it’s safe?” “I think you don’t need to worry about a single blow. Even in the worst case we can endure a number of them, but they don’t seem to use them often. It looks like we’ll be able to fight fine.”

Sherry seems to trust Roxanne’s evaluation. Are you alright Sherry?

Area effect magic will hit all of us. With that in mind, it would be a cheat if the strength of it became too high. We can probably believe that it’s power isn’t any different from the single target attack magic.

The Scissor Lizards still haven’t used the area effect magic. We can’t wait for it forever. It looks like we are fine on the 23rd floor at least.

“Shall we head back to the 22nd floor now?” “Yes, desu.”

It’s no use just waiting around for the area effect magic. We move to the small room nearby the floor 22 boss room using [Dungeon Walk], and then head to the boss room. Along the way I switch out Alchemist for Gambler. For the Black Diamond Tuna, it will be good if I can use [Abnormal resistance decrease] and have the boss petrified again, and then switch to Cook.

I use Durandal against the boss, and recover MP. Sherry makes the decisive blow against the Black Diamond Tuna, and Vesta did the Ma Bream. Fatty Tuna did not drop. Next time?

“It’s hard to reach the demons with the spear like this. Roxanne and Vesta, can you draw the demons a bit closer together?” “I understand. I’ll do it.” “Yes. I think I can.”

Sherry seems to be practicing for using [Incantation Interruption] on multiple demons. It wouldn’t be good for her to be running around.

Vesta will use Durandal on the boss fight on the 23rd floor. Sherry will be in charge of backing up Miria and Roxanne. It might be better to practice with Miria and Roxanne.

But, Miria has the important role of petrifying the Black Diamond Tuna. She isn’t an Assassin yet so we could pass the Estoc of Petrification to Roxanne, but it’s best to just leave it as her job. I don’t need to switch it.

In the following boss battle, we didn’t charge straight at the demons, but instead waited for them to move a bit closer. Roxanne stood in front of the Black Diamond Tuna, and Vesta waited for the Rtoll Troll. Sherry stood behind the two people. Miria and I joined in after the demons had approached.

I defeated the Rtoll Troll with Durandal this time. The strategy is a little better.

“I did it, desu.”

Miria’s petrification worked. The Black Diamond Tuna is a dead fish. Even though I used Cook while defeating it, only lean tuna is dropped. Another round?

“I think we’ve got the positions alright. You can fight as normal now Roxanne.” “Okay.” “On the 23rd floor boss you’ll be backing up Roxanne and Miria, Sherry.” “We only had to wait a moment, so there should be no problem letting Roxanne handle positioning.”

With the planning, I don’t think there will be any problems for the time being. Now we just need the fatty tuna.

“I’ve gotten a rough idea of it, so it should be alright. Miria, do you understand too?” “Yes, desu.” “Ok, on to the next round then.”

We try the boss again for the fatty tuna. That round, there was no petrification and Sherry got the finishing blow. The demon fell to the floor.

“Yes, desu!”

Oh? Was it petrified? I thought that, but the tuna turned to smoke. Miria ran over to the wall.

“What happened?” “A magic crystal, desu.”

A magic crystal seems to have been made. You left the lean tuna to get the magic crystal?

Fish savings seem to be more important than lean tuna. We probably wouldn’t find the magic crystals without Miria. Even if Miria doesn’t pick up the lean tuna, someone will get it.

Since it was just lean tuna, we decide to go again. Miria handed the magic crystal to me with a smile, so I praised her with a “You did well”. When we find magic crystal, we can decide on having fish for the next days dinner. Well, tomorrows dinner is already fatty tuna.

So we repeat the fight again, trying to get fatty tuna. I’ll set Cook’s [Increased drop rate for rare ingredients] as Jobless’s skill if it doesn’t drop soon. Since [Critical outbreak] skills seemed to work together, there is a good chance that Cook’s [Increased drop rate for rare ingredients] skill will work together as well. There’s the problem that I can’t quickly change it again, but we’ll have a break to eat breakfast after this anyway.

After another two tries, Miria’s petrification worked, and fatty tuna dropped. When I stabbed the tuna to death, it became smoke and left fatty tuna behind. Probably because I’m using Cook’s [Increased drop rate for rare ingredients]. It’s quite useful.

“Good. This will be tomorrows dinner.” “Yes, desu.”

Finally the repeated boss battles are over. Miria passes the fatty tuna to me reluctantly. I receive it, and place it in the [Item box].

“How is the time?” “The sun should already be up.” “We’ll stop here then.” “Okay.”

I check the time with Roxanne, and finish the exploration. I don’t know if changing Jobless’s skill would have helped or not. Oh well.

Even if I test it, it will be hard to tell for certain if the two effects overlap. The single effect isn’t that big to start with. It’s not worth doing an experiment to check either.

I use [Warp] from the labyrinth, to the wall of the adventurers guild. We buy ingredients for breakfast, and then return home.

“There is only one leather, can we make something with that much?”

At the end of the meal, I ask Sherry.

“Ah, yes. The leather mitten equipment can be made with it. It uses one leather, and one hide.” “It uses two kinds of materials?” “That’s right.”

Do they overlap to reinforce the leather? The outside might be hide, and the inside might be leather. Or maybe since it’s for the hand, the part in the palm might be hide.

“We have hide too, so make it when your finished eating.” “Ah… yes.” “We’ll get plenty of leather as we fully explore the 23rd floor. We’ll make another piece of equipment tonight.” “Um, ah, okay.”

Sherry is worried about it, but she doesn’t need to. Master Smith has risen to Lv34. Sherry worried whenever I asked her to make new equipment up to now. She hasn’t noticed there’s no problem yet?

“We haven’t had any problems so far.” “Making leather equipment is a graduation for a Master Smith from apprentice. Only dwarves who have had ten years experience can do it.” “It should be fine for Sherry. If it isn’t, we can try it again another time.” “Yes.”

Sherry agrees. Even if I say another time, it won’t take long to reach Master Smith Lv35. We don’t need to wait a year to try again.

This time feels serious. I hope you succeed.

Sherry seemed to succeed making the leather mittens easily. When she finished, leather mittens were left in her hand. Like I thought, there doesn’t seem to be any problem.

“As expected of Sherry, you don’t need to worry so much.” “Oh, I can do it.”

Sherry passes me the leather mittens. I let myself relax.

“Amazing, Sherry.” “As expected, desu.” “That’s incredible.”

I didn’t start cleaning up, and listened to Sherry being praised by the other three.

“I’m heading to the merchants guild, please finish up here.” “Yes. Have a safe trip.”

From her appearance, Sherry doesn’t seem to have overused her MP. I leave Roxanne to organize the rest, and [Warp] to the merchants guild.

Luke and the other broker met me in the waiting room straight away. The other broker is the same weapons dealer from recently. The talks seem to have gone smoothly.

“I have the Rod of Offerings.”

I start speaking in the conference room straight away, since greetings are annoying.

“Here, this is it.” “Let me have a look.”

I pull the Rod of Offerings from my [Item box], and the weapons dealer analyzes it straight away.

“How is it?” “There’s no doubt, this is it.”

Luke asks, and is answered. There can’t be any mistakes.

“The Rod of Offerings is alright?” “It’s good.”

The weapons dealer is interested. The Rod of Offerings is a follow up trade to the Soul Sucking Staff. It would be bad if I seemed too reliable, but with Sherry we could do work to a certain extent. It will be difficult to strike a balance.

“You need at least this much to enter the labyrinth.” “Yes, you seem quite young, are you from a good family?” “Well, I’m from a long way away. I’d prefer to talk about the trade.”

The gossip chat stops a bit abruptly. I’m not much for idle chatter. If I say something accidentally I might be troubled later. If I say that I’m from far away, there might be less problems.

I told Roxanne and Cassia that I’m from far away, so there’s no contradiction. It would be dangerous if I said I was from somewhere local like Vale.

This isn’t the kind of society where a youth leaves their area to head to the city. You’d need some kind of circumstances to leave your village and move away. You don’t need to come to Quratar just because you are an Explorer, there are labyrinths everywhere, and that would just lead to abandoned villages. I won’t tell them about my circumstances.

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