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Chapter 418

“Run away!”

I shouted and ran away from the charging Treasure Hunter. It moved much like a bull, barreling down the hallways without any hope of being able to stop its momentum. The best thing we could do is get to a turn in the hallway.

Ahead of us was a hall intersecting to the right. I immediately grabbed the girls and dived down it. Just as I had predicted, the Treasure Hunter couldn’t stop and he ended up passing by.

“Let’s go!” Then I jumped back into the hallway behind where he just passed. The creature had stopped, but he had already made his way down the hallway by a bit.

“Attack!” I pointed and gave the order.

The extremely threatening Treasure Hunter had one weakness. Although I had acted on impulse, it was actually the best action to take. The Treasure Hunter was now facing away from us, and in this dungeon it couldn’t turn around. The girls began to attack its back aggressively.

Like some other monsters we’ve encountered in the past, this Treasure Hunter was an HP sponge. Unlike the insects that could be killed in one hit, all five girls whaled on this thing for minutes while it failed to turn around. If we had been fighting it from the front, it would have been extremely difficult to defeat. Its powerful arms and swipes would have been challenging for the girls. It might have taken over an hour for it to finally collapse.

As for now, the biggest concern was that it would suddenly charge again, but the Treasure Hunter was thankfully too dumb for that. It just sat there trying and failing to turn as it let out vicious sounding wails.  After five minutes of battle, it finally collapsed to the ground and disappeared. In its place was the chest from earlier. When I opened it though, it wasn’t just the sword I had seen earlier. There were coins and a couple of other magical items.

The sword was the thing that caught my interest the most, though, so I picked it up and identified it.

{Widow’s Sword – An orichalcum sword imbued with mana. Infuse mana using Mana Control to activate the attack.]

Not only was the sword made of the rare orichalcum, but it was also a magic sword! It had the name of the dungeon on it, although I didn’t know if that had any significance. Gripping the sword in my hand and turning away from the girls, I put mana in it. When it didn’t do anything, I attempted to strike.

“Oh! Wow… it’s the Master sword!”

“Is that its name, Master?” Lydia asked curiously.

“Ah… no…”

“If Master is taking the sword, isn’t it Master’s sword?” Celeste offered.

“Ah, I guess you’re right.”

The smartest things sometimes came from Celeste’s head. I called it the Master sword because when I imbued it and struck, a projectile of light shot out of it. It was a bit sharper than Mana Blast, but it used a tenth of the mana. In short, I could now attack long distance without needing to learn archery. As long as I was careful to not hit the girls, I could now attack from a distance just like Celeste.

The rest of the magic items I passed on to the girls, who had lost most of their stuff during their fight with Shao. As for the money, it was about 100 gold, although it was mostly in copper and silver. Including the money we got from the Siren and the money we picked up from the insect horde, we were now at around 1500 gold. This was truly a wealthy dungeon.

Chapter 419

We went down to the twelfth floor. When it came to traps, there were considerably more than the previous floor. This time, there weren’t armored insects though, but sprite elementals. The main one was a water elemental, but they were backed up by a nature elemental. Both elementals are used in conjunction with the hopes of trying to trip you up or get you to fall in traps.  Traps were so frequent you couldn’t go a few feet without running into one.

I had to remind myself that Raissa, a seasoned Dungeon Diver, had only just made it to the 15th floor barely alive. We were already on the 12th floor. This was challenging stuff here, where the slightest move could lead one to death. However, I wasn’t seeing where temptation was factoring in.

“Master, sprite elemental remains are a mana product used heavily in alchemy. It would be good for making potions, but it’s also possible that they will create a fusion skill like my spirit fire and Celeste’s fairy dust,” Miki spoke up.

There was the temptation. Like most of the monsters in this dungeon, the elementals dropped something very valuable to certain people. I also noticed that this is the 12th floor, 3 floors before you can get to safety on either the 15th floor or 9th floor. In other words, this is the floor farthest from being able to safely take a break. At first, I didn’t realize why this floor was dangerous, but then I noticed the girls were shaking slightly. I glanced over at them worriedly.

“It’s just cold, Master,” Lydia responded, rubbing her arms.

All of the girls were wet. If they weren’t wearing their armor, it’d be a sexy sight. However, I realized that this was the goal of this level. It was so damp that starting a fire was impossible. In fact, there was about half an inch of water covering the ground at all times. In was also extremely humid, yet, if I had to speak of the temperature, it was probably a few degrees colder than the floors above.

This floor made you want to stay to hunt the potentially valuable elementals, meanwhile threatening to kill you with hypothermia. That cold also dulled the mind and made it easier to fall into one of the many traps. There were floor pits, wall spikes, swinging blades, and wall arrows, to name a few. Even if you get past this floor quickly, you’re a long way from the next possible break, making it difficult to survive. This dungeon curse could be extremely insidious.

Worse, the drops weren’t that common. We had defeated almost 15 elementals when the first dropped. The small blue crystal that I picked up was called a water gem. I was already familiar with this product. Water gems were how running water was used in this world. As long as you could infuse them with mana, they would release water much like my Create Water. They weren’t exactly rare, per se, but they were expensive and had a constant need.

We had been venturing through this level for an hour when I finally came across a nature gem. This wasn’t a gem I was aware of, but I knew other gems were used for other purposes. The fire gem could be used to heat a house, for example. I wondered if the lightning gem could power electronics. Well, it wasn’t like the world used electricity, so it didn’t matter.

“If you grind this up, this will be very beneficial for the fairy spring, Master,” Celeste said.

So, the nature gem was more like a really good fertilizer or this world’s version of miracle grow. Now, I wanted a lot more of these gems. This really was a temptation.

We hunted for six hours, but it was starting to get near night time. We managed to reach the stairway to the 13th floor, but it seemed I had still overdone it. All of the girls were shaking now. I was cold too, but I dealt with it.

“M-m-m-m-master….” Miki shook. “I-i-i-it’s fine.”

She had the weakest constitution and looked the worst after playing around in the wet cold. Her tail was wet and her skin was red and bumpy. She really looked like a drowned rat.

“Let’s go,” I said.

When I didn’t turn towards the stairway, the girls glanced at me with surprise.

“Where are we going, Master?”

“We’re going back to Chalm.”

Chapter 420

It was impossible to return to the miner’s town at the moment, but with Portal, I could go anywhere. Chalm seemed to be the best place to go to. I opened a portal, and the group of us stepped out of the dungeon and back into relative safety.

Once we arrived, I started hearing a great deal of noise. There appeared to be music playing which piqued Celeste’s interest, and it sounded like a party was going on.

A person wearing only a pair of shorts walked by, whom I didn’t recognize, but I decided to stop him anyway. “Hey, what’s going on here?”

“Eh? Haven’t you already been?” He looked at the group of us as we dripped wetly.

“No… can you explain?”

“Ah… well, we finished the lord’s new manor, so the Mayor decided to throw a celebration.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t that the kind of thing you throw while the lord is present?”

He chuckled. “Well, you know how haughty lords can be. He wouldn’t let the riffraff commoners play around in his hot spring. He’ll likely get one of those fancy celebrations all of them lords enjoy when he returns.”

“What? Hot spring?” My eyebrows raised.

“Yeah, where have you been? They accidentally uncovered a hot spring while digging for the mansion. The Mayor had it turned into the lord’s private hot spring. I’m so jealous! How could we not try to use it once before losing it to that damned lord!”

“Th-thank you…” I responded wryly.

This guy really didn’t know me. He must have come later. He didn’t even seem to know that I wasn’t born a noble. To him, all nobles appeared to be of the exploitative variety. A noble who had just spent the last day nearly sacrificing his life for water and nature gems to help the town thrive and insect shells to make armor is something he didn’t even think about.

“See you there!” He waved and left.

Well, he had some mean thoughts about me, but he didn’t seem like a bad guy. The group of us followed in his direction, and lo and behold there was a hot spring about the size of a pool in our backyard.

“The fairy spring?” I asked nervously.

Celeste shook her head. “Mother would have made sure that didn’t happen. It’s possible she helped them find this though in order to thank Master.”

So, it was something like that. Since she had control of the local water veins as she built her fairy spring, she may have noticed some geothermal water and helped it reach the surface for me.

There was a celebration with a large table that seemed to have a variety of foods on it. Mostly, it was a monster that was roasted up and some various fruits and vegetables. There were hundreds of people around the pool and only about thirty in the hot spring. It looked like there was still room to spare. Perhaps everyone wasn’t as gutsy as to enter the lord’s pool. Or, maybe the heat was enough to cause people to not stay in it very long.

When we arrived at the pool, enough people recognized either me or the girls that the sound quickly broke up and the hundreds of people roaming around my backyard all froze and turned to me. The first person to approach me was the Mayor. He had a crooked grin and looked like a kid caught with his hand in the candy jar.

“Ah… Lord Deekson, you’ve arrived… this is just… well… de-stressing after a long project… and…” It was clear he felt a bit of shame for what he had done.

I looked back at the ladies. They were still shivering in the evening air, and steam was rising up from the hot spring.

“Well, what’s everyone waiting for? Let’s party!”

The crowd all burst into a roar. As for the girls, they immediately stripped and raced for the hot spring.

“W-wait… put on clothing first!”

I thought I was going to have to burn the eyes out of every man here, but the women nearby were on it. It was mostly Lydia and Celeste who got excited. Shao, Terra, and Miki still had enough common sense to not do that kind of thing.

Any guy who dared open his eyes was dealt with by the nearby women until Celeste and Lydia were properly covered. The girls ended up getting a hot bath and warmed up happily.

I took over the cooking and the meals substantially improved. I found the roaring fire of the grill was more calming for me. Of course, I pulled from my own supplies in my storage ring as well, and I ended up creating a feast.

{Cook has increased to level 15.}

After cooking for several hundred people plus 10X experience, I ended up gaining some levels as well.

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