Chapter 8.1
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Translator: Einbedo
Editor: Weasalopes
（Y-you did what?!!!）
Haruna shrieked in response to Hiroshi’s news. The noise was so shrill that Tatsuya, who was standing right beside her, flinched back from the resulting buzzing in his ears.
（Haruna, would ya mind keepin’ it down a bit?）
（I-I’m so sorry.）
（It’s Hiro’s lack of tact at fault here, not you.）
Tatsuya didn’t waste any time sticking up for Haruna who had begun instinctively apologizing. Taking a step back to process the situation from a distance her reaction wasn’t at all unreasonable, especially when considering how their own boss encounter went down.
（What are you up to now?）
（Busted through a few layers of walls and found ourselves a neat place to settle down for the time bein’.）
（Glad to hear.）
Haruna and Tatsuya let out a sigh in relief hearing that Hiroshi used some common sense for once in his life by not going in guns blazing. Granted he wasn’t *that* far gone but, based on the dungeons core design, it wouldn’t have been too far a stretch of the imagination to believe that they might’ve gotten forced into an encounter with no way of pulling out until the dust had settled.
The dungeon wasn’t all too cool with idly sitting around for any much longer than ten minutes at a time, at which point it’d take matters into its own hands by physically shoving people along the path. Based on this knowledge alone, the notion of it compelling someone to make a stand or die trying wasn’t all that unrealistic.
（Stay put for the time being, I can feel us getting closer and closer to the core as we speak.）
（Aye, will do. Makoto, Mio, how are things lookin’ up for ya?）
（Same here.）
（They’re barely in range but I’ve managed to pick up on Haru’s and Tatsu’s signals.）
（Would ya look at that, we’ll be back together in no time.）
（If all goes well.）
Compared to how the dungeon run had kicked off, things were looking up for them. The one aspect that they did find a tiny bit regrettable, was how they had used up all of the fire stones they had in stock but, really, what’s the point of a consumable if they’re treated like a collectible? They could always just cobble together another batch should the need arise.
（Don’t mean ta be a stick in the mud or anythin’ but I’d very much appreciate it if you could pick up the pace a little, I’m not sure how long it’ll let us camp out here like this.）
（We’re well aware.）
（That Bein’ said, due to the dungeon bein’ in a state of perpetual change, we may get close to one another but take a lil’ while to converge. Us bein’ a decent distance from the final boss room be the one savin’ grace, it can’t exert its full power over us.）
（Although even that’s not gonna last for long as the walls are already getting’ too thick to bust through. Worst case scenario we could try ta stand our ground as long as we can but that might prove too taxin’ for Artiem to handle.）
Hiroshi wasn’t too keen on the idea of being forced into taking on the last boss all by themselves. Granted Artiem’s combat ability wasn’t insufficient by any means but stat wise she wasn’t quite on par with the rest of the group. That alone wasn’t all too damning but when combined with the fact that the dungeon’s roster of monsters were, on the whole, a terrible matchup for bow users. Assuming that the final boss was to follow this established pattern there was a high possibility that she’d remain useless throughout the entire encounter.
（Not much we can do there, you’ll have to bear through it, somehow.）
（Was expectin’ as much.）
With that Haruna and Tatsuya, who were in constant motion throughout the whole thing, left the conversation so that they may concentrate more of their conscious awareness to their surroundings. The situation was looking less and less favorable as time went on, and not in the cutesy sense that Haruna had initially feared, but in a very real possibility of them not making out in one piece.
「How’s your mana reserve?」
「As full as it’ll ever be.」
「Are you down to get a bit dangerous?」
「The situation calls for it, I’m down.」
Even the voice of reason understood that the situation was either do or die.
「But before that, we’ve got one pressing issue on our hands.」
Tatsuya grunted while staring down the fork in the road. This favored technique of the dungeon’s didn’t serve much purpose besides buying it a very miniscule amount of time, and to see that it was still up to its old tricks this late into the game was discouraging to say the least.
「Guessing which one of these will get us to our destination faster?」
「Bingo.」
Although all paths were bound to lead to the final boss room, the fact that there was more than one was indicative of one being faster than the other. The only way they could estimate which was which was through the vague feel of which had the higher miasma concentration, and even then that would only result in ballparking.
「I’m sorry to say but trying to make an ‘informed’ decision here is a complete waste of time.」
Haruna completely abandoned any notion of thoroughly chewing through the options presented in front of them and followed her intuition by moving towards the one with a denser miasma concentration. This self-assured instantaneous decision making of hers left Tatsuya scurrying to keep up.
「What do you mean by that?」
「We could be spending that time moving towards the objective, which seems a lot more logically sound than stopping to consider our options when it’s going to result in glorified guesswork anyways.」
「Acting in the immediate context is more productive than considering all the trivial details, huh?」
「Something like that.」
They had no time to spare and, as such, standing around in one place for an extended period of time, when they could be on the move on, was generally a bad idea. Haruna’s intuition had kicked into full gear by her being forced to act in a high pressure environment, which made her a lot more rational than she was coming into the run.
「A mob’s right ahead of us, that must mean we chose correctly.」
「Wouldn’t want to find ourselves being chased down to the boss room, so we’d better try and deal with any mobs along the way in as little time and wasting as little resources as possible.」
「Makes sense.」
Tatsuya agreed to Haruna’s proposal and promptly began cooking up a grand napalm to dispose of the horde of rats positioned in front of them.
Meanwhile, Makoto and Mio.
「Over here.」
「Alright.」
The two barely exchanged any words as they briskly progressed towards their destination by piggy backing off of Mio’s detection ability. They consciously avoided the paths littered with encounters by taking the longer ones and making up for any lost time by picking up their pace.
「This one’s really long isn’t it?」
「We’ll get there faster this way.」
「Even if we were able to clear out any encounter with a single ability?」
「Are your major damaging abilities spammable enough to be back up right after every single encounter?」
Makoto replied with a tacit silence to Mio’s no nonsense reality check.
「How’s our progress?」
「We’re getting closer.」
「What about the upcoming fork?」
「This one’s mob free.」
Mio responded by pointing towards the left hand path. Makoto nodded and the two progressed down said path without any second thoughts.
「Can you track the others’ locations?」
「Sensei’s location’s, hmm…Ah, there we go, they’re to our right, relatively speaking. Haruna’s group is to our left. They’re both maintaining a similar pace to us with occasional stops along the way to, presumably, deal with random encounters.」
As they made their way through a sharp curve the floor’s moss texture abruptly shifted.
「Mio?」
「The space around us is has changed, it’s likely we’ve been warped.」
「How’s the miasma density ahead?」
「Denser than here.」
The whole situation was eerily similar to how they got caught up in the previous boss counter. If that did, in fact, prove to be the case it would mean that they’d, once again, have problems discerning their relative location. Worst case scenario they’d have to buckle down for yet another boss encounter.
「Well, if there’s no way back we may as well get a move on.」
「Allow me to feel around for traps before you go and do that.」
After stopping Makoto dead in her tracks Mio began gently feeling around the room with her ol’ reliable ten foot pole, meticulously going through every nook and cranny.
「This one spot feels fishy, I’ll try giving it a good prod so keep your eyes peeled.」
「Okie dokie.」
Having informed Makoto of this observation Mio proceeded to do just as she stated. The space around the area had begun wriggling, as though the dungeon itself was writhing in pain. Had they walked into it all willy nilly it likely wouldn’t have ended well for them.
「Took it long enough to bring out a trap.」
「The dungeon must be at witt’s end.」
Had they been in the midst of all that chaos it surely would have spelled disaster. The two grimaced at the sight of such a trap. Although their method of getting around was unconventional, by most standards, it was almost a miracle how Hiroshi’s group managed to arrive at their destination without any similar hitches along the way.
「What now?」
「I’ll make it cry.」
「Do your thing, girl.」
Makoto’s only real choice here was to leave everything in the hands of Mio, who was much more experienced in trap related matters. That being said, not wanting to be complete dead weight to the party, she lazored in her focus on thoroughly scanning through the environment. According to Haruna’s party the dungeon’s walls were impervious to any conventional fire magic.
This, and many other factors, really begged the question of how Hiroshi was even able to get away with his unconventional approach to begin with. The answer to that question was multifaceted; Although he wasn’t able to use it, the extra skill he had acquired back in Farlane had a passive effect which, in combination with all other sources, would’ve put his strength stat in the lower four digits. That, paired with his weapon of choice excelling in environmental destruction and having a novice level damage buff applied to it to top it all off, would likely produce enough force to bust through a wall or two. Well there was also the fact that his weapon was made out of magically imbued metal, which also probably had something to do with it.
Since he was using a low attack speed weapon with a weak novice level buff his overall dps was below average at best but his ability to maintain top dps throughout an extended fight was nearly unparalleled, rivalled by only the most hardcore of players. No longer was his damage output against trash pitiably laughable, although he still struggled greatly with mobs above a certain threshold.
Makoto’s own strength was nothing to scoff at either as it was on par with some of the more casual no-lifers, which meant that, given a blunt weapon is used, she could break through a stone wall without breaking a sweat. This case was a bit different as, judging from the feedback gained from taking a light swing at the wall, it was highly unlikely that her stats were high enough to get away with Hiroshi’s approach, even if she was to have a go at it with his weapon of choice.
(Didn’t I have better things to think about than some walls?)
Makoto refocused her derailing train of thought in an attempt to take in as much sensory information around her as humanly possible. Within her fov Mio could be seen fiddling around with her bow.
(If regular magic won’t cut it would purification magic or something of the sort do the trick?)
Makoto reached this conclusion just as Mio got done firing off some arrows towards the path. Due to this interference of hers the path forward was already effectively shut off for good.
「Can I try something?」
「Go ahead.」
Having received Mio’s explicit permission Makoto stuffed down a piece of cloth down the same bottle of dwarf slaughterer used earlier, soaked up whatever dregs of it had remained, lit it on fire and hurled it right in.”
「Ooh, wow.」
「The flame’s huge.」
No matter what they tried, be it fire arrows or torches, it had no effect whatsoever but now that whole section was engulfed in a fiery inferno of flames.
「Mako, didn’t that just make things worse?」
「Well I expected as much.」
Makoto just told it how it was without much care for keeping up appearances. Since that had ended in failure and they had nothing to lose she built up to resolve to try out the other idea she had in mind.
「Bull Impact!」
She swung down her unsheathed long sword, using an intermediate level impact ability, with all her might right at the ground, which was wriggling like a fish fresh out of water. The moment they made contact a massive crack ran through the floor, which spread through to the walls and even the ceiling.
「It collapsed.」
「That seems to have calmed it down a notch.」
The ceiling had collapsed under its own weight following the crack, taking some sections of the walls along with it and physically preventing the floor from wriggling any longer. The flames had spread much further than was expected, allowing them to get a nice view of the wide open area that stretched beyond the boundaries of the walls.
「It seems to have died out.」
「It’s still a little hot.」
「Nothing we can’t handle.」
Mio agreed after checking up on the newly opened up area’s temperature and, pulled out her ten foot pole and began cautiously moving along.
「What’s our relative location?」
「We’ve gotten much closer to sensei’s group thanks to the warping, although I’m not sure if we should be happy about that or not.」
「Why’s that?」
「When I checked in on them previously they were a fair distance apart from the core but now they’re right next to it.」
The realization came almost immediately. It appeared as though their biggest worry had come to life.
「We better get a move on!」
「Right behind you!」
Mio responded with a shout of her own and sprinted straight towards the higher miasma density path. Contrary to their expectations it would end up taking a good while before all three groups got back together, although without access to the power of hindsight the two had no way of knowing at the time and, as such, focused their attention entirely on getting to the final boss room as quickly as possible.
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