Chapter 88 - Infinite Hell
While I was eating a simple peppered omelet and bread, finishing it off with well-chilled fruit for breakfast, a loud bang bang echoed as someone pounded on the door.
“Yes, what is it?”
When I opened the door, a young woman from the First Unit—one of their messengers or transport staff—was standing there. I had nothing but a bad feeling about this.
“Vihita? I’m Tash from the First Unit. You’re to wrap up gathering drops in the No-Hunger Dungeon for now and bring the Second Unit over to the Hot Spring Dungeon.”
“Huh? Yes, I understand that, but why us?”
“A new floor’s appeared over there. They’ve found a hot spring, too. But no one knows what its properties are yet. So you’re to come and investigate as well.
For the finer details, ask the duke’s daughter you’re assigned to guard... not me.”
...They must have been interrogated by Lady Auf thoroughly.
Extensively. In exhausting, painstaking detail.
It might have been the first time I’d ever seen someone from the First Unit look that worn out.
...Could it be that the real reason they’d summoned the Second Unit was because reporting the verification results to Lady Auf was such a nightmare?
After a long while, I returned to the Nausa ducal estate, went straight to my room, and hid the personal liquor I had fought so hard to obtain during my leave.
Unfortunately, I hadn’t managed to secure any tourmaline gems during my off-duty dungeon runs, but I had acquired more than enough alcohol. That alone left me quite pleased.
Now then, time to go see Lady Auf.
The moment I arrived, she launched into a rapid-fire barrage of questions—about the water absorption of the cloth found there, about the hot spring’s mechanism and interior structure, about how exactly the water was gushing out—and ordered me to investigate everything in greater detail.
Since that cloth might be connected to the hot spring, she would graciously give me a few samples, would she? Thank you very much.
Oh, I was only borrowing them, not receiving them outright? Yes. Of course.
Ah, they were genuinely fluffy and soft to the touch. They seemed superior even to the custom bathing cloth Her Majesty Yuzha used—those special ones layered thinly with thread-dungeon fabric and cotton.
I honestly wanted one for myself.
But unlike soap, which could be taken freely, these apparently sprouted from the dungeon at fixed intervals like mirrors. Knights constantly stood guard to ensure no other nation’s agents snatched them. There was never a chance for me to quietly claim one.
By the time they went on sale at the archives, the price would probably be outrageous...
“Well then, I’m counting on you, Vihita.”
After receiving a detailed list of hypotheses and investigative tasks from Lady Auf, we finally set out.
Even she seemed unable to hazard a guess about the effects of a hot spring that continuously spewed water and foam without pause. None of it made much sense.
We descended into the Hot Spring Dungeon and reached the newest level—the eighteenth floor.
Just as reported, a crimson bear-like monster appeared. Since it was a deep-layer creature, I first swallowed a body-hardening potion for safety.
But before I could finish preparing, the bear charged at me far faster than I’d imagined and attacked.
I hurriedly raised my gauntlet to block its amateurish, telegraphed punch.
Even so, the sheer force blew me backward—guard and all—and slammed me hard against the wall, back first.
“Guh—bwagh!”
“Vice-Captain!?”
“H-Hey, wai—no, everyone, handle it together! Hurry and drink your potions!”
It hurt like hell. But the fact that it only hurt was something to be grateful for.
If I hadn’t eaten that hardening buff meal, I might have suffered multiple fractures—or worse.
The other frontliners hurriedly swallowed their hardening and strength-enhancing potions and rushed in to assist.
We surrounded the red bear with several fighters and hacked it apart. Just when we thought we had finally brought it down, two more emerged from deeper within.
“Wait, wait—two more!?”
“Stay calm! Stay calm and deal with them—EEEEK!”
The bears barreled forward at full speed, mowing several of us down and sending them flying.
Lilo, especially—small as a child in stature—was hurled an alarming distance.
Our formation collapsed, and the battle dissolved into chaotic melee. But since we vastly outnumbered them, that chaos actually worked in our favor. We attacked relentlessly from the sides and rear with arrows and blades, and eventually claimed victory.
Thanks to the hardening potion, both I and the girls who had been trampled were all unharmed.
“Pant... pant... the enemies... they’re strong...”
“Are you alright, Vice-Captain? Lilo?”
“It hurts... it really hurts...”
“My bones... seem fine.”
Captain Touji had said that we’d probably be fine up to around the twentieth floor. But was this really what she meant by fine?
Wasn’t it less “we could handle up to the twentieth floor” and more “we could reach the twentieth floor if we paid for it in blood”??
Those monsters earlier—if we hadn’t used power-enhancing potions, there would have absolutely been casualties.
Yes, the boss guarding the Equipment Enhancement Hot Spring on the sixteenth floor was said to be about as strong as something from the twentieth floor, and yes, we could handle that.
If—if—we were allowed to properly assess the enemy’s strength, numbers, and traits beforehand, brace ourselves mentally, and respond accordingly, then sure, it was within a range we could manage.
But if we were caught off guard and suddenly ambushed the moment we encountered it? Even on the eighteenth floor, we could very well die, couldn’t we?
And the First Unit’s advance report on that red bear had been, “We defeated it easily, so we’re not sure how strong it was.” What a wonderfully useless report?!
That was practically the same as having no report at all!
“Hold on—everyone rushed to drink their potions. It’ll take quite a while before we can trigger hardening again...”
“Those of you in the rear who haven’t taken hardening yet, rotate with the frontliners for a few hours.”
“Huh? We’re supposed to hold those monsters at the front?”
“W-Wait, that might be a bit much for me...”
“Use speed potions, use whatever you have! Just hang in there somehow!”
And so we pressed on, barely managing to deal with one lethal-level monster after another—each encounter one wrong move away from death.
At long last, we reached the area where the hot spring was located.
There was an extremely unnatural room waiting for us. An interior I had never seen before—no, more like an architectural style from an entirely foreign culture. In any case, it gave off an utterly unfamiliar atmosphere.
Lady Auf had told me to sketch every unnatural detail I found. But at that moment, I had neither the willpower nor the stamina. I would deal with it later.
“Yo, Vihita. You took your sweet time. These shelves were packed with that cloth before, but now they’re empty.”
Three members of the First Unit, including Vice-Captain Yunev, were standing inside. They had likely been stationed here to determine whether the fluffy cloth would respawn after a certain number of days like the mirrors—or if it was gone for good.
Frankly, assigning only three sentries to guard a place this dangerous was questionable at best.
“Where are Captain Touji and the others?”
“They’re circling the wide grassland on the seventeenth floor for now—scattering dungeon grain seeds while exploring. Even if we’ve found the stairs to the lower level, we can’t exactly skip a full survey of the surrounding walls and the total area.”
“Haha... yes, I suppose that’s true.”
The color drained from my face—and from the faces of everyone in the Second Division.
The reason was simple: the vast grassland on the ninth floor had been reported based on rough visual estimates from a hot-air balloon. We had calculated an approximate size and called it good enough.
If they said something like, “There were caves along the perimeter walls, and items placed inside them. Was there nothing like that on the ninth floor?”
And then followed up with, “Did you really explore it properly?” Just imagining that worst-case scenario made my stomach twist painfully.
“S-So then, if you’ll excuse us, we’ll be heading to bathe.”
We practically fled toward the bathing area.
A hot spring. Yes. We would let the hot spring heal us.
It would solve absolutely nothing, but we would let it soothe us anyway.
Just as reported, the bath was lined with immaculate marble stone and tiles, utterly out of place in a dungeon. Water was continuously gushing into it.
“They said the effects of the water are unknown, so perhaps those of us with injuries—myself and Lilo—should go in first.”
If the water healed wounds instantly, the First Unit—who cleared floors unscathed—might never notice.
Lady Auf had mentioned that as one possibility.
“Whew... the bubbles rising from below feel pretty nice. The water pressure over here is—AAAAGH?!”
“V-Vice-Captain!? What’s wrong?”
“M-My back—! The water pressure on the spot I slammed earlier—aaagh!”
The stream hit the exact bruised area on my back and pressed into it sharply. It hurt like absolute hell.
That settled it. At the very least, this was not a wound-healing bath.
“Vice-Captain Vihitaaa~... isn’t this a stamina recovery bath? My fatigue’s disappearing in a really unnatural way.”
...Huh? ...Oh. Now that she mentioned it...
I’d been too distracted by the burning pain in my back to notice, but when I paid attention, my stamina was indeed recovering at an unnatural rate.
When I aimed that same stream of water pressure at the soles of my feet, the fatigue in my legs vanished as if it had been blown away. And on top of that, the sheer stimulation of the water against my feet simply felt wonderful.
In other words—just as they had filed that empty, meaningless report claiming they couldn’t gauge the red bear’s strength because they themselves were too strong—They had said they couldn’t tell what the hot spring did because they themselves were barely fatigued.
...Sigh.
Perhaps being too strong made one well-suited for conquering dungeons but utterly unsuited for investigating them.
Once we realized it was a stamina-recovery bath, everyone rushed in.
It seemed to restore stamina even if you just soaked normally, but if you let the bubbles hit you directly, the recovery was even faster.
For now, I kept my bruised back positioned over the bubbling vents.
It wouldn’t heal the injury, but perhaps it would help it recover faster.
“Yo. You lot just got here? You’re late.”
“Captain Touji?!”
Captain Touji and the main force of the First Division entered the bath, completely naked.
They had already completed their circuit?
“If you run it, about two days for a full lap. I’ve run the ninth floor’s grassland several times before. Distance isn’t much different.
Nothing around the perimeter of the seventeenth floor either. Honestly, if they’re going to prepare a place that big, they could at least put something interesting there.”
Running that distance... What in the world went through this woman’s head?
Well, more importantly, I felt immense relief knowing there was nothing around the ninth floor’s perimeter. Our sloppy survey wouldn’t be exposed.
“Then please, Captain Touji, you must be tired. Do go ahead.
And I believe, this time, even you’ll be able to perceive the hot spring’s effect.”
For a brief moment, she wore a puzzled expression, but once she stepped into the bath, she seemed to feel the stamina recovery effect immediately.
“Ohh... so that’s the effect? I see. You wouldn’t notice unless you’d expended a significant amount of stamina...”
She closed her eyes, appearing deep in thought as she angled the water jets against her waist and thighs.
Yes. She was thinking. That was dangerous.
“Oh, since the effect’s been confirmed, we’ll hurry back to report—”
“Hey. Wait.”
Just as we tried to slip away quietly, she stopped us. I had an extremely bad feeling about this.
“You lot. Exercise here until you hit your stamina limit.”
There it was.
Please, spare me. My back hurts.
Though even if I said that, I know she’d brush it off with, “You’re moving just fine. That’s not an injury.”
“One at a time. Carry someone and do squats and push-ups to exhaustion. Go on, start.”
“C-Captain, we’re naked...”
“A-At least something to support our chests...”
“Are you planning to strip and dress again every time your stamina recovers? Quit whining and get moving. Even if your breasts sag, the ninth floor’s bath will fix it.”
An eighty-kilogram mass of muscle from the First Division climbed onto my back.
Aaaah, it hurts, it hurts. The fact that it only hurt, that I could still move despite it, somehow made it worse.
There was a nonzero chance I would have been happier if I’d actually broken a bone back then and been confined to absolute rest!
We were forced to exercise until we reached complete exhaustion. I collapsed like a flattened frog, twitching on the floor only for the woman who had been on my back to mercilessly toss me into the hot spring.
...Oh. How dreadful. My stamina was rapidly recovering.
“Alright. Let’s go for another round.”
Captain Touji grinned as she continued doing push-ups with her giant subordinate on her back, sweat pouring down.
This was hell. Endless hell.
Had I done something to deserve this?
“U-Um... how long are we supposed to keep doing this...?”
“Hm? Well, if stamina recovery is infinite, there’s no end to it... Oh. Once the stock of that cloth regenerates, you lot can take some back. We’ll keep training here for a while.”
...Once the cloth regenerates?
How many days would that take?!
Wait, would it even regenerate at all?!!
It was hell. From that point onward, it was days of hell.
At every mealtime, we stared at the wooden shelves like damned souls in the underworld, waiting desperately for the cloth stock to reappear.
The cloth was replenished three days later.
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