We took a long rest.
Until the cuts and gashes healed without a trace, and our exhausted bodies were filled with vitality again.
It probably took about an hour.
“Kishaaah…”
Kikel, seemingly unsatisfied with the skeleton’s shield he had temporarily acquired, grumbled throughout the rest period, scratching the shield’s surface with his claws.
Well, it’s natural to be dissatisfied.
Unlike his original shield, which was reinforced with leather covering sturdy wood and metal edges, the new shield looked not just crude but downright shoddy.
A wooden shield made by roughly joining half-rotten planks together.
Honestly, it looked more like carrying around half of a door from a rural inn than an actual shield.
I spent the time cleaning the blood off my armor and sword with torn edges of my tattered cloak from the fierce battle, while Amy sat next to me watching.
“Formally registered magicians from the Magic Tower are recognized as copper tag adventurers as soon as they register as adventurers, you know? Due to lack of experience, they’re treated as half-wits among other copper tags. But still, if you gain experience with reliable party members you can trust…”
She went on about her life plan that I hadn’t even asked about, like water flowing smoothly.
After passing the Magic Tower’s test, she plans to go to the adventurer’s guild to register, and her goal is to rise to gold tag with reliable party members.
…Is she trying to recruit me now?
Listening to her, it seemed like she was desperate to include me in the ‘reliable party members’ she mentioned.
The way she was strangely friendly, and how she was going on about this… Even considering we’re both women, isn’t her attitude excessively familiar?
If it was all to recruit me, it would make sense in many ways.
* * *
After about an hour of rest, we resumed our exploration.
It was a much more cautious exploration than before.
Amy and Bolton, who had been so reliable when facing the three wights, had now become almost redundant.
Amy had used up all her attack spells and could only use spells for lighting and defense, while Bolton barely had a couple of healing spells and just one blessing left.
It meant the party’s firepower had significantly weakened.
Unlike warriors who can fight again after recovering their stamina, the number of spells magicians or priests can cast only recovers after midnight.
Both of them were in no condition to contribute much until tomorrow morning.
So what could we do?
Either retreat to this floor and waste a day without any achievements, or move much more cautiously than before, avoiding combat as much as possible.
We chose the latter.
It felt like it wasn’t even noon yet. The remaining time was too long to wait until midnight.
If the enemies were at a level where we couldn’t face them at all without attack magic or holy miracles, it would be different… but after fighting, it didn’t seem to be that bad.
Even the previous fight was problematic because there were three wights moving together, but if there had been only one, we could have taken it down without wasting spells.
“—So let’s keep going. Let’s check what other monsters there are. If we find it’s completely impossible to handle, we can retreat then. It won’t be too late.”
There were no objections.
* * *
Was it the right choice to resume exploration?
Perhaps the trio of wights wandering near the entrance were acting as gatekeepers, because the wights we encountered afterwards were all loners.
Whenever we encountered a wight, we checked that there were no other enemies nearby, then all rushed in to deliver generous violence.
Like a trio of young robbers targeting the wallet of a drunk middle-aged man.
“Grrrrr…”
Beating one wight to death as a group of four was surprisingly easy, to the point of being disconcerting.
Having fought one-on-one, I could predict all of its attacks just by seeing the precursors, and the other party members, though a beat slower than me, handled the wight’s fierce attacks without much difficulty.
The experience of facing three at once had given us wings, so to speak.
We wandered like that for about three hours, I think.
During that time, we killed eight more wights, and Kikel changed his shield four times.
The half-rotten wooden shields couldn’t even withstand one normal hit from a wight.
“When go back, buy good shield!”
Perhaps because of this, his longing for a high-quality shield seemed to have doubled from before.
If we meet again later, won’t he be carrying something like a steel shield?
Anyway, after thoroughly searching the third floor of the dungeon like this, we finally managed to discover something.
“This is…”
“A door.”
A stone door connected to a space beyond the wall. On both sides, skull decorations full of cobwebs were hanging limply on torch holders.
The square door surface was covered with strange reliefs that could have been patterns or language, but most were weathered and broken, making their original form indiscernible.
“Treasure room, is it?”
Kikel exclaimed, blinking his eyes. It was a reaction like a cat discovering a toy.
“Well… to me, it looks a bit ominous. It seems perfect for something to be hiding, it wouldn’t be strange for anything to jump out.”
I shook my head.
A door with reliefs and skull torches? Doesn’t this seem more like a boss room than a treasure room?
Treasure room and boss room.
The words themselves only differed by one word, but that one word difference could mean life or death for an adventurer.
If it was the former, we could just search inside like archaeologists in a game and take all the valuable things, but if by chance it was the latter…
We would typically be taught a lesson by the boss monster that pounces out as if it had been waiting, learning that there’s no such thing as free happiness.
And that while paying the tuition with our own lives or the lives of party members.
“What do you think, Miss Amy?”
“What do you mean, what do I think? The flow of magic is pointing inside here. It means what we’ve been looking for is in here.”
Amy paused for a moment, took a deep breath, and then declared in a firm tone.
“So let’s go in for now. If something we can’t handle jumps out, we can just turn our backs and run away.”
“Okay. Got it. Then… Kikel? Can you block in front of me with your shield? There’s a possibility of an attack flying out as soon as the door opens.”
It wasn’t an excessive worry, I had actually witnessed it a few times.
The sight of careless novices recklessly opening such doors, only to be hit directly by blade traps, logs, or arrow rains, falling back while spraying blood.
Honestly, it was a bit of a shocking memory.
A sixteen-year-old kid who was excited saying it was his first dungeon exploration, opened the door of a treasure room with a face full of expectation and a smile…
Splat!
…His head burst open from a log trap, and he convulsed like a lightning-struck frog, leaking excrement.
I really jumped in surprise back then.
“Right! Door dangerous, even iron armor hurts!”
Kikel nodded and took his position next to me.
I glanced at the wooden shield he was holding, then stretched both arms forward and pushed the stone door open with all my might.
Grrrru…!
With the sound of stone grinding, the tightly closed door slowly opened, gradually revealing the scene inside.
Since it was a door made by carving stone, I wondered if it might be too heavy to open, but it was surprisingly light and thin, easily pushed open.
“Haah!”
Realizing this, I let out a light shout and stomped my foot, using that momentum to push the door wide open, and Kikel, as if he had been waiting, lowered his shield to block in front of me.
I lowered my knees sharply and placed my hand on the sword hilt, ready to deflect whatever might come flying.
And—
“…”
“…”
Nothing happened.
“…Kachak!”
“Ahem.”
Kikel lowered his shield with an awkward laugh, and I too straightened my bent knees with a needless fake cough.
…Well, there might not be traps. Isn’t that a good thing? We saved one shield.
“Safe, good!”
“Indeed.”
Nodding in agreement to Kikel’s words that it was fortunate it seemed safe, I turned my gaze to look through the wide-open door, scanning the interior.
“That’s…”
“An altar?”
As Amy, who had somehow approached from the side, said, inside the open door there was a structure that looked like an altar carved from stone, standing alone.
Braziers shaped like stone towers lined up on both sides of low steps, a stone table placed in the center of the platform. Even strange-shaped statues draped like folding screens.
Anyone could see it was an altar.
Moreover, the kind that cultists who prefer human sacrifices would use.
“Altar… heretics… heretics… grrrr…!”
Perhaps reaching the same conclusion as me, Bolton ran into the room with his eyes rolled back in anger, grinding his molars.
“Oh Elianelleee!”
It was with a momentum like an uncontrollable fit of impulse.
“No, if you rush in alone like that…!”
“Human man does that again! That’s a disease!”
“Wait, wait a moment! Don’t destroy it yet! There’s something I need to check!”
We shouted urgently and ran into the room after him.