Chapter 13

After a good night’s rest, they spent the morning getting equipment for their adventure into the dungeons. They weren’t picky in terms of equipment, getting the cheapest they could. They also bought two extra bags to store all their equipment in. They then had lunch in town before heading into the dungeons.

“Are you ready?” John asked at the dungeon's entrance. It looked like a regular cave, albeit much larger.

“Yes.”

The two ventured in. The dungeon was carved into the mountainside. Things went smoothly up until the fourteenth floor. The previous team had carved markers into the rocky walls; all they had to do was follow. The challenge began upon entering the fifteenth floor. The previous team had reached this floor, but upon stepping off the stairs, they decided to give up.

Without any markings, they’ll have to navigate the maze on their own. Luckily, the magic map given to them would track their progress automatically.

They would be able to tell which room they visited based on the lines created by the map.

Unlike normal adventuring or speedruns, their goal wasn’t to get to the bottom floor as fast as possible. They needed to visit every single room, as there was a chance that one of these rooms had treasure in it. They wouldn’t want to miss any.

“They won’t know anyway,” Leyla complained.

“I think they would… besides, we need the money, remember?”

Even if they didn’t notice, finding the treasure and getting the money would make things easier for them in the long run.

“Imagine this, if we get a lot of money, we can buy our way through the rest of the chairs.”

A pay-to-win strategy. This made things hard for them now, but it would be easier for them later. Besides, the request wasn’t too difficult. All they needed to do was finish a dungeon and then go and check some exams. There could certainly be other, harder tasks to complete.

“We do the easy tasks, and we skip the harder ones with money.”

Leyla could no longer refute his arguments and fell silent. However, they soon find out why the other teams gave up.

“Another empty chest?” John groaned. Some hours had passed. They had gone through the entire floor, unlocking three different secret rooms and opening the chest within them. Yet, the result always ended up the same. Empty chests.

Unlocking the doors to these rooms, then unlocking the chests themselves, took some amount of time. The keys were old models, so unlocking them was easy, but not easy enough that they could complete them within seconds.

“Should we really be doing this?” Leyla groaned. They had yet to find the staircase leading to the sixteenth floor. To make matters worse, they didn’t know how deep this dungeon went.

“Infuriating! We should have finished this ages ago!”

“Patience, Leyla. Patience.” John took a deep breath. He must keep his sights on his goal, or else he would fall into the same trap as her.

Get the money, get the chair, job done.

It was truly unfortunate that they didn’t have some kind of radar guiding their way. John left the empty chest, heading into the next room.

“We’ve turned right at this intersection… we should go left.”

It had been years since he last played video games. He still remembered a thing or two about them, but his busy adult life prevented him from spending hours into the night exploring dungeons. His puzzle-solving skills weren’t as good as they used to be. Past him could probably find the next set of stairs by now.

Besides… this dungeon is no fun.

It had a terrible design. Dungeons should have good rewards to entice the players to explore. This one didn’t have any.

No wonder the guild struggled.

No one would want to waste their time exploring a dungeon that didn’t have anything in it.

The ground began shaking. John and Leyla rushed into a room they had opened before. This dungeon wasn’t an empty one. A large spider walked past. Braving such dangers for no reward. John understood why they quit. Not just that. John himself wanted to quit. He would have quit had it not been for his goals.

Despite that, he must keep his composure. He must keep his smile. If he didn’t, Leyla would sway him into sprinting straight for the bottom. For both of their fates, they must continue looking.

The rumbling faded, the spider walking away.

“Let’s continue.”

The two walked side-by-side. Since John couldn’t use magic, he relied on Leyla to use it for him. After a long, painful search, they finally found the stairs toward the next floor.

•••

John sat on the cold, rock floor. He opened up his water bottle and took a drink. They had brought a lot of water with them, but they didn’t have unlimited water. Leyla could create water if the situation called for it, but that would add to her magic use, something she already needed to limit.

They sat next to another empty chest, an awfully common sight at this point. They were all locked, so it couldn’t be another person getting to it before them.

“How infuriating…” Leyla whispered as she threw another stick into the flames. They also brought some dried wood with them for a campfire. That way, they wouldn’t need to rely on Leyla’s magic. They could only bring a limited amount, though.

They brought enough supplies to last them a week in the dungeon. But, with how they took a day just to fully explore a single floor, it wasn’t likely they would reach the end by the time they ran out of supplies. They would need spare supplies to last them the return trip, so realistically, they could only stay for six days. They’ve already used some of the supplies today.

Five days. Just five days left. Maybe floor twentieth, twentieth one, or if they’re lucky, twentieth two. Unlikely to go below that. Despite disagreeing with Leyla’s statement previously, John began changing his mind. If all they would find were empty chests anyway, then what’s stopping them from heading straight down?

Maybe we really should do it…

They couldn’t get paid if they didn’t bring anything back anyway.

“Say, Leyla-”

“Zzz…”

John looked toward the sound of snoring. Leyla sat by the side of the room, her back leaning on the wall. She looked peaceful.

“... I guess today was exhausting.”

John got himself comfortable and closed his eyes.

•••

By the third day, or rather, third sleep, John had figured out ways to more effectively avoid monsters. Third sleep because they had no way of figuring out how long they had spent down there. They didn’t bring a clock with them, so it was purely guesswork.

John discovered that these monsters weren’t like the ones he encountered in a game. They didn’t have a predetermined path they followed from one place to the next. They didn’t go back and forth, either. Their routes were random, following their instincts. That said, their instincts did have a couple of tendencies.

Large monsters preferred large paths and seldom ventured into smaller ones, while smaller monsters tended to be scared of large monsters, so one wouldn’t find them near the larger monsters. As a result, navigating the complex maze became easier. John also managed to find a way to figure out the general area where the next set of stairs would be.

He couldn't tell the exact distance or the exact time needed, but it would be no more than a three-minute walk from the previous set of stairs. This greatly reduced the time needed to find their path. No matter how complex the dungeon was, they knew the stairs were close by. They were now on the nineteenth floor.

“Here it is,” John called out, pointing to where the next set of stairs was. “Should we go straight through?”

“Well, not like we’re going to find anything on this floor, will we?”

Unfortunately, so far, they had found nothing but empty chests. This floor would be no different. It would be empty chests and more empty chests.

“Let’s go around for a bit. At least, it won’t be clear we’re skipping floors.”

They did need to submit the map for when they finished the quest. If they submit an empty map, she may not give them their chair. Just going around wasn’t a problem, though. With the new knowledge they gathered, evading monsters was a breeze. The fact that there were only two of them made staying out of sight easier.

“Watch out,” Leyla warned. The two hid in a small room, letting a group of wolves pass through. While they waited, John opened the locked chest within that room. Again, they found nothing. After a bit of exploring, they went to the next floor.

“... Huh?”

“Is that?”

At the end of the stairs, a giant caterpillar blocked their way. John and Leyla waited for it to move, yet it just stayed there. They would have killed it if they had weapons with them.

“Should we explore this floor some more?”

“Better than doing nothing, I guess.”

Unfortunately, after exploring, the caterpillar still refused to move. Since they were running low on supplies anyway, they decided to return to the surface instead.