The gear of "S"-rank hunters was largely the same.
Plain gray robes, leather armor—though there were differences in their weapons and finer details, on the whole their styles were much alike.
"SS"-rank, however, was clearly distinct from "S"-rank.
First of all.
There was that armor, which was obviously far superior.
Not steel, nor any ore, silver, or gold—but bone. Bones of all sizes and shapes had been pieced together in some fashion, ultimately forming full-body plate of an extraordinarily exaggerated design.
And most important of all, there was that bone mask that could only be described as indescribable.
It wasn't from an animal like a sheep or an ox—rather, it looked as though a human's facial features had each been cut off and then haphazardly stuck onto a pure white mask.
"So cool!"
Tiona tried to pull off the thing's mask, but of course she couldn't. That mask seemed to have grown into the monster's very face, and no matter how she yanked, it wouldn't come off.
"Cut it out, you idiot! If you want one, go back and have Cecil make you one!"
"Oh, right!!"
"Don't go touching things—"
Lefiya threw her arms around this idiot of a girl.
If she went poking around carelessly, she might trigger something, and then they'd run into some terrifying monster.
Though, that did seem to be everyone's goal in the first place.
But Ryuu and Ais, standing off to the side, looked a little worried too.
Clearly, they'd thought of it as well.
The final BOSS of these lower floors—would it, like the [Pale King] and [Alfia], turn out to be an overwhelmingly powerful existence?
Level 8.
Or level 9.
Or something with some absurd, ridiculous ability?
"We're already getting close to that thing, aren't we?"
There was a good chance it existed right here within this [Golden Kingdom].
Based on past experience, between one floor and the next, killing the final BOSS was not the key to advancing to the next floor.
In fact, the things guarding the passages between floors were usually far weaker than the final BOSSes.
Take earlier, for example.
The thing guarding the way between the 12th and 13th floors had been level 4 at most—not remotely on the same scale as the [Pale King] of the Goblin Kingdom.
This showed that, in a certain sense, the Dungeon supported you going down to venture into deeper floors first and then coming back to fight the BOSS.
Like right now, for instance.
The ordinary monsters of the deep levels—the 37th floor, that is—were around level 6 to level 7, which the current him could handle just fine. In fact, you could even say training there would be a faster, more efficient way to grow stronger.
It wasn't that Isagi hadn't thought of this before, but somehow it just felt off.
It wasn't worry over "skipping class," so to speak.
Rather, it was the thought that this might be one of the Dungeon's "traps."
If she didn't want you going any deeper, wouldn't she just set the entrances and exits so that you had to defeat the final BOSS before you could go further?
She was perfectly capable of doing something like that.
And so.
A rather frightening suspicion surfaced in Isagi's mind.
Namely, could it be that the Dungeon actually wanted you to head into the deeper levels? That she'd never intended to stop you from delving down in the first place—that this could even be counted as a kind of invitation?
That's right—hadn't that earlier Artificial Labyrinth forcibly tried to drag you down into the depths?
It had only stopped because it lacked the power to.
So wouldn't it actually suit her wishes if you went to the deeper levels while your level was still too low?
You had to understand.
For ordinary adventurers, delving deep into the Dungeon inevitably required passing a trial—the [Monster Rex]—
The [Goliath] on the 17th floor;
The [Two-Headed Dragon Amphisbaena] on the 27th floor;
The [Udaeus] on the 37th floor;
The [Balor] on the 49th floor;
The very first adventurers to come to the Dungeon could only clear a path to venture further into the depths by destroying the Monster Rex.
The "Miracle" was the Dungeon's original gatekeeping BOSS—yet in your case, it no longer applied.
Was it because the Dungeon wasn't stopping you, but only stopping the other adventurers?
For some reason, that felt even more terrifying.
Though he'd always thought the Dungeon was pretty terrifying to begin with.
"Isagi, should we switch to exploring somewhere else for now?"
Ryuu-senpai's words cut through his thoughts.
The Elf girl clearly believed that if they kept on like this and actually found the final BOSS, it would most likely turn out badly.
What if.
What if the thing was the type to suddenly launch an ambush, rather than obediently standing behind the mist gate and waiting?
If the guess was correct, the thing was at least level 8, possibly even level 9—and with their party's current combat strength, they might not even be able to retreat.
[The Dungeon is extremely dangerous; any moment of carelessness can lead to instant death.]
As a seasoned adventurer.
No one dared to underestimate the Dungeon, and courage was not the same as recklessness. Knowing full well the danger, one truly couldn't just charge in headlong out of stubborn bravado.
The plaza laid out with the corpses of hunters had, in this moment, taken on a certain "symbolism."
Those bodies fallen throughout the city were like a kind of marker, reminding him and the girls that they hadn't taken a wrong turn.
As long as they could find more corpses, it meant they were heading in the right direction.
But that, on the contrary, was exactly where the current him and Ryuu-senpai and the others shouldn't go—so in that case, they'd do the very opposite.
They could even—
Late night.
It was probably late night. The clock used to track time showed that it should be eleven at night, yet when everyone left the [Golden Kingdom] at the bottom of the pit, the pure white orb of light hanging over the desert was still blazing away with searing, scorching brilliance.
Isagi and the girls returned to the original 32nd floor—that dense forest of giant trees and vines.
And then.
He had Ryuu-senpai and the others make camp before the mouth of the passage between floors. This was something adventurers commonly did, because it was the easiest place to run into companions.
Every floor of the Dungeon was enormous, and although the Guild had "main routes," the passages connecting the floors were paths adventurers were bound to pass through, so resting in a place like this was naturally the safest.
There were even "merchants" who specifically carried supplies down into the floors to provide provisions to other adventurer parties—their prices, of course, were exorbitant, since running a business like that meant risking your life.
As for what Isagi would do next: after resting, he would head back down into the desert below on his own. He'd tested it before—once he left the current floor, it would revert to its original form.
At Ryuu-senpai and the others' current level 6.
They certainly wouldn't run into any danger in the original lower-level area, since this was generally a place explored by level 3 to level 4 adventurers.
As for himself.
He would head alone into the [Golden Kingdom], to see if he couldn't track down that final BOSS first and gather some solid intel about it.
After all, she could revive.
Although Ryuu-senpai and the others had earlier been struck by the "curse of undeath" too, the cost of reviving hadn't yet been figured out, nor had it been clear exactly what effects the so-called "Dragon's Cough" would inflict—so if death could be avoided, it was better not to die.
With this thought in mind.
Isagi, for the first time in a long while, set out on an adventure entirely on his own.
____
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