Chapter 64 - Entertainment
How many days had passed since we came here?
In this place filled with holes and steam—so chaotic it could hardly be called a hot spring.
We had been endlessly, endlessly, endlessly conducting research and producing strange concoctions.
At this point, no one even considered this to be food anymore.
Why weren’t we making all sorts of dishes and enjoying them here in this so-called “cooking floor”?
Because no matter what we made or ate, some bizarre effect would always occur. It was never a place where we could simply enjoy a meal.
And so, this place had become nothing more than a laboratory for experimenting with medicine.
We had been working here without rest, deep in the dungeon, without being able to return home, continuing our research day in and day out.
Oh, how I longed to return to the mansion.
To go shopping, read a book, sip a little wine, and fall asleep in a warm bed…
Heh heh heh... This was no good. My mental state was clearly deteriorating.
At times like this, I’d take one fragment of this thing I made—chocolate melted with steam and mixed with a little honey, then cooled and hardened in a bottle—and eat just a tiny piece.
And then? My gloomy mood would mysteriously lift!
......Well, it would, but there was a limit!
Relying on something that was practically a drug to keep lifting a tired and depressed spirit...
It was like inhaling air that made your hunger vanish—just pretending to get by, leaving you with an inescapable sense of emptiness.
“Haaah~ I feel like taking a short stroll to the 14th floor for a change of pace. Anyone want to come with me?”
“I’ll go...”
“Me too...”
“I’ll tag along.”
There was always a chance that a new staircase to another floor might appear, so we made it a habit to patrol every three days or so just to break the monotony.
But all it amounted to was walking through a dungeon we already knew by heart. Honestly, whether we stayed or explored, it didn’t make much of a difference.
If we split into three groups, we could finish checking the entire floor in about three hours.
“Two enemies spotted ahead. Black apes.”
Nico reported, using her keen eyesight to detect the threat before anyone else.
Black apes were exactly what they sounded like—monsters that looked like jet-black monkeys, and that’s what we’d taken to calling them.
They’d probably get a proper name sooner or later, but naming monsters was a job for the Archives.
All we had to do was record their features and how they fought.
“Well then, since we’ve got the opportunity, let’s test out the medicine I made yesterday. This time, I’ll drink the hardening and strength-boosting potions and fight barehanded.
Nico, keep track of the time. If I’m not done one minute before the effect wears off, let me know. I’ll finish it with my sword.”
The moment I declared, ‘I’ll take this one,’ everyone following me made a face of obvious discontent.
I understood. I really did.
Because what we were doing now was nothing more than a distraction.
I pulled out the potions for hardening and muscle enhancement and drank them down.
Then I charged at the black ape coming at me and, for now, punched it with everything I had.
The ape was sent flying with incredible force.
Normally, there was no way I could ever hit that hard.
But honestly? It felt amazing.
The other ape lunged at me and sank its teeth into my hand, but I deliberately extended a finger where my armor was thinnest, letting it bite down. Then I grabbed its lower jaw.
Naturally, in that position, the ape desperately tried to tear my finger off, biting again and again—but I didn’t feel a thing.
As long as the hardening effect lasted, it seemed that monsters on this floor couldn’t hurt me at all.
With its mouth still in my grip, I raised my other hand and delivered a sharp hand strike to the back of its head.
I had aimed for just enough force to snap its neck.
But the strength-enhancing potion turned out to be more potent than I’d anticipated. The ape’s lower jaw ripped clean off in my hand, and its body slammed violently into the ground.
The creature died instantly and, like all dungeon monsters, scattered into particles and vanished.
The saliva and blood on my hand disappeared with it—this feature of dungeon monsters dissolving upon defeat really was convenient.
“It ended in an instant. No need to track the time after all.”
“Exactly. For a floor that doesn’t require enhancements, the effect was definitely overkill. Unless we go deeper into the dungeon... ah—”
I stopped mid-sentence, realizing something.
“What is it, Vice Captain?”
“Oh, it’s nothing... Next time a monster shows up, Nico, do you want to take it on?”
“Yes, yes! I’ll do it, I’ll do it!”
“What? Why Nico? I want to fight too!”
“Me!”
“Let me!”
Everyone started clamoring for a turn to fight.
Even though researching power-up potions wasn’t exactly the dullest kind of dungeon work...
Despite that, everyone had begun craving the stress relief that came with taking down monsters.
In fact, I myself had started thinking it might be nice to test this strength on even deeper floors.
This—this was the mindset of the First Unit.
When you spend enough time in a dungeon with no entertainment, battle naturally becomes the best form of amusement.
At this rate, my thinking might end up just like Captain Touji’s…
So our days went on like that, until quite a bit more time had passed.
At long last, we finished testing all the types of formulations Lady Auf had outlined, along with methods for compressing the resulting medicines.
Finally, finally, we could return to the surface…
Well—except that every time a courier arrived with regular updates from above, Lady Auf would send a new idea or experiment, one after another, so we never actually got the chance to leave.
Honestly, for a while there, I held a bit of a grudge against her.
I resented it—but the truth was, the results had been astonishingly successful. No one could complain, even if they wanted to.
…
At times like this, I reached for that one piece of chocolate—melted with steam in a bottle, mixed with a little honey, and cooled into a solid treat.
And then, what do you know? My prickly mood would smooth out, just a bit…
...Siiigh.
Comments
Post a Comment