"A radio wave carrying the craving for mapo tofu drifts in."
"Mapo tofu? What's that?"
"Something like that exists. It's deliciously spicy food."
"Ew, I hate spicy stuff."
I smiled faintly at Tiona's disgusted reaction.
Even so, Loki Familia's expedition meeting continued on.
"As announced beforehand, from the 51st Floor onward we'll advance with a selected party. The rest will defend the camp together with Hephaistos Familia."
The party members were Finn, Riveria, Gareth, Ais, Tiona, Tione, and Bete.
The supporters were Raul, Narvi, Alicia, Cruz, and Lefiya.
Tsubaki would serve as weapons maintenance.
"And as previously announced, the Magus Andersen will also be descending with us. Akki, I'm leaving camp command to you."
Under Finn's orders, the members heading into the Dungeon were decided, and the special weapons brought by Tsubaki and Hephaistos Familia were distributed to each person.
Among them, only Tiona refused the additional equipment, and she had more than enough reason to do so.
"You really don't need it, Tiona?"
"Yep, I'm fine. I've got Uga in here!"
"Hey. At least take some backup gear, you idiot Jones."
"You jealous, stupid mutt?"
"Huh?!"
"Nyah~"
"You little brats! Cut it out already!"
After everyone finished preparing and got a night's rest, the next morning finally came.
The expedition below the 51st Floor at last began.
"From here on, no more chatter."
Everyone, battle-ready.
At Finn's command, the tension in the group rose to its peak.
"Go, Bete! Tiona!"
Then Finn gave the signal to start.
At that cue, the two vanguard members sprinted down the passage first.
And the others behind them, as already announced beforehand, also broke into a run from there.
I too reinforced my legs with mana, boosting my speed, and followed after them.
The sprint of superhumans was a little intense, but this much was still manageable in its own way.
The real problem would be after this... no, from below this point.
"They're spawning in the front corridor."
"Don't worry about the vanguard! Open the route! Ais, Tione, respond!"
"Don't let the group split up, you idiots!"
As expected, monsters kept spawning endlessly from all sides of the corridor, trying to obstruct our sprint.
But once the vanguard and the middle-ranked elites moved in, they were swept away like fallen leaves in the wind, never becoming a serious problem.
So up to here, things were going fairly smoothly.
But from the troublesome 52nd Floor onward, it was a completely different matter.
"Avoid combat whenever possible!"
"Just push the monsters back!"
"Do not get 'sniped' no matter what!"
Even while running, Finn didn't forget to call out the points everyone needed to watch for.
And then, at that moment—
GROOOOAAAR!
"A dragon's... roar?"
"Tch, we've been 'spotted.'"
No sooner had those words left his mouth than—
"Incoming."
KWAANG!
Something huge and beautiful—a pillar of fire—burst up through the floor below.
"Ghk!"
"Fall back! West route!"
"Riveria, get the defensive spell up fast!"
"Again!"
KWAANG! KWAANG! KWAANG!
And it wasn't just one or two crude blasts.
The number of fire pillars that had risen so far was around five or six.
And that number was steadily increasing.
It was, quite literally, an unpredictable 'sniping' attack fired up from below.
Its true identity was bombardment by the [Vargan Dragon], stationed in the pit on the 58th Floor, hundreds of meters beneath the 52nd Floor.
In other words, the domain of 'floor disregard.'
That was the terror of this place, the so-called Dragon's Pit.
"Hahahahaha! So this is the Deep Floors! Terrifying!"
"You've got time to be impressed, Magus?!"
"If you can't avoid it, enjoy it! Ah, yes, I'll enjoy it! New experiences are always welcome, whatever they may be!"
"Kahaha! That guy's got more guts than he looks!"
Without some cheat-like ability such as future sight, or a massive detection ability covering hundreds of meters, this area forced you to advance while leaving everything entirely to luck.
And fortunately for me, I always had a reliable Mystic Code with me that could detect things over dozens of meters, if not hundreds.
"[Burn, my blood]!"
Preparations had already been completed in advance.
As soon as I entered the 52nd Floor with the others, I expanded the automatic detection range of the Moon Spirit Slime to its maximum.
As a result, I couldn't catch the bombardment from below at the very start, but I could still detect it one or two seconds before it reached our feet.
"Tsubaki! Under your feet!"
"Ooh!"
KWAANG!
"Behind you! Supporter! Black hair!"
"Waaah!"
KWAANG!
It was truly bombardment navigation no one could have predicted.
Honestly, even I hadn't really thought about it until I heard about this place.
If I hadn't strengthened the Moon Spirit Slime's overall functions and output beforehand, what would have happened?
Thoughts I didn't even want to imagine flashed through my mind.
Then, all of a sudden—
"Huh? Damn it!"
"Huh? What is it?! Something wrong?!"
"Everyone evade! Seven shots are coming here at once!"
"Eh?!"
I shouted urgently to the whole group, warning them of the greatest danger coming from below.
This was on a completely different level from the bombardments so far!
KWAAAAAANG!
"Waaah!"
"It's collapsing!"
In an instant, the concentrated bombardment from the monsters erased the floor we were running on, and the surrounding ground began to collapse rapidly from the impact.
And as expected—
"Huh?"
"Lefiya?!"
The fairy girl fell through the collapsed hole.
Three people ran to save her.
"Don't drag us down, you airhead!"
""Lefiyaaaa!""
The vanguard's wolf and the Hiryute sisters broke away.
The Sword Princess tried to follow them, but Finn stopped her and held her back.
"I'm going too...!"
"Don't go, Ais!"
"Finn..."
"We're taking the regular route down to the 58th Floor. If we want to break through the new-type monsters at top speed, we need you."
At his logical persuasion, Ais hesitated for a moment, then followed his judgment and returned to the front of the group.
Watching that, I clicked my tongue in disappointment.
"Tch, I was thinking I might jump in there once."
"I'm not rescuing you, Magus."
"Tsk. You poor soul, not knowing the thrill of bungee jumping."
"Haah, honestly. Sometimes the things you say are as hard to understand as the words of the gods."
"If you could understand them, that'd be the bigger problem."
Well, I'd love to see them all suffer a spectacular black-history cringe moment for the sake of the memes, but that was impossible from the start, so I let it go for now.
"Still, even after running this far, it's pretty quiet, huh?"
"Yeah. It's an unpleasant silence."
Tsubaki agreed with me and nodded.
But had I spoken too soon?
Or was this simply an inevitable outcome?
Murmur murmur
"A-a new type!"
"Oh, there it is."
Within the detection range of the Moon Spirit Slime, which was still active, multiple magical reactions were sensed ahead in the corridor.
And then the new-type monster swarm came into view.
Above the heads of that insect legion, someone with a strangely familiar appearance was there as well.
The masked freak we had seen at the end of the 24th Floor.
"That person is...!"
"So we meet again?"
Unlike Ais, I even gave a casual wave, openly showing how happy I was to see her again.
Did she take that as some kind of provocation?
"Kill him."
For some reason, the masked freak sounded a little pissed as she gave the order, and the new-type swarm all at once spat and fired their dissolving fluid.
In an instant, the corridor was filled with it.
"To the side!"
The dissolving fluid that filled the passage surged like a wave and crashed over where we stood.
Fortunately, there was no one here slow enough to be taken down by that, so we escaped without any real damage.
"An ambush?!"
"Take the side passage!"
"They're appearing again!"
"They're coming from the 3 o'clock direction too!"
But wherever we went, swarms of new-type monsters kept popping out.
Each time, we moved around according to Finn's orders, but at this rate there was no telling when it would end.
In that case, maybe I should create a little leverage for a reversal here.
"Let's see, something useful for a situation like this..."
After a brief moment of thought, a good idea came to me.
It was a Mystic Code that would disappear after a single use, forcing me to make a new one afterward, which was a hassle, but in a situation like this I couldn't afford to be picky.
I hurried over to Finn and quietly suggested the method I had just thought of.
"...So, what do you think?"
"That could work. There happens to be a good spot nearby. I'll leave it to you there."
"Roger."
And then the chase continued.
At the end of it, we found ourselves in a dead end.
At a glance, it looked like a fatal mistake in route selection.
"Fire!"
Pshaaah!
The masked freak clearly had no intention of missing this perfect opportunity, and without hesitation ordered the monsters to unleash a volley of dissolving fluid at us.
Checkmate.
...Or so she must have thought.
But sorry about that.
"Just as planned."
More than that, the monsters had all gathered themselves into one place for me.
This was the chance for a reversal.
"Now then, [Duel]!"
Ignoring the wave of dissolving fluid rushing toward me, I pulled a single card from my pocket and placed it on the ground.
Then a six-pointed magic circle rose up, shining brightly.
If possible, I would have preferred it to manifest as a proper field divided into sections instead of something like this.
But that was still beyond my current skill and technical limits, so I set that aside for now.
"[Trap Card activated! Mirror Force of the Holy Barrier]!"
With a simple chant, I flipped over the card I had covered.
And there it was, the familiar illustration and texture of the card.
Fwaaaah!
At that moment, a rainbow-prismatic barrier spread out before our eyes.
The barrier instantly expanded, perfectly sealing the corridor entrance and blocking every drop of the incoming dissolving fluid.
But the effect of this Mystic Code didn't end there.
"Return it."
Fwaaaah!
Then the wave of dissolving fluid that struck the barrier mysteriously reversed course and poured straight back down over the heads of the new-type monster swarm.
It was, quite literally, the reflection of an attack—the power of the holy mirror.
So the rainbow reflection from my childhood really was canon after all.
Sssssss...
Kiiiiii!
As expected, the monsters that had their own dissolving fluid thrown back at them screamed in agony and mostly melted away.
Of course, there was no way they would all be wiped out by just that one hit.
Still, the momentum had clearly shifted to our side, and we had bought enough time for a counterattack.
"[O sign of the end, white snow, raise the wind before twilight. Closed light, frozen earth. Rage, the threefold winter... my name is Alv]!"
Win Fimbulvetr!
Crack!
As the witch's chant ended, a blast of cold air swept in, and the corridor was instantly filled with ice.
It was a spell of truly tremendous power.
No wonder the backline mages were called heavy artillery.
I honestly let out an admiring exclamation at its raw force.
"I see. Your skill is even greater than I heard."
Of course, it wasn't as if I couldn't produce this kind of power myself... but the downside on my side was that I had to prepare all sorts of things in advance.
In that sense, for the rear guard of a Dungeon expedition that demanded flexible movement, someone like her was far more suited than I was.
Honestly, Falna is way too broken in terms of efficiency and convenience.
"Still, is that the end of it? Well, this is surprisingly underwhelming, which almost makes me feel let down—"
That was when it happened.
Whoosh! Thud!
"Huh?"
"When did it—?!"
The shower of reflected dissolving fluid, combined with Riveria's powerful spell.
Those two things should have wiped out every new-type monster filling the corridor.
But unexpectedly, and without anyone in the party anticipating it, one single thing survived.
The masked freak.
"Now that's definitely unexpected. I thought that was the end of it."
"Shut up."
"Hahaha, you're really straining yourself."
Where on earth had she been hiding?
Suddenly appearing from a blind spot in my vision, "she" snatched me up in a surprise attack and fled.
The carnivorous flower monster I was already very familiar with by now.
Riding atop its head, she widened the distance from the party in the blink of an eye at considerable speed.
It had all happened so suddenly that none of the others could react properly in time.
"That bastard...!"
"No, don't come!"
So when the others tried to chase after us, I hurriedly called them back and stopped them.
Then, smiling, I assured them I was fine and told them to go on ahead.
"A rare date invitation from a lady! I'll take care of things on this end, so you lot go on ahead!"
At that, the dumbfounded faces of my companions gradually receded into the distance.
After being carried along obediently for a few minutes—
Thud!
"Oof. Have we arrived?"
The masked freak dropped me in some remote, secluded corner of the Dungeon.
Fortunately, I didn't lose my balance on the way down, so I avoided rolling around in a humiliating mess.
And once I stood up and looked around, sure enough—
"Whew, scary."
The pressure in the air was different.
Even if I couldn't properly confirm it because of the mask, the prickling killing intent transmitted clearly through my skin was real.
It seemed like "she" had quite a few things she wanted to say to me right now.
What a problem.
The feeling was mutual.
"Right. It seems like we both have a lot to say to each other. Why don't we take a little time for a constructive conversation? Hmm, before that, what should I call you? New-type tamer? Masked freak? Enyo's subordinate? Or...?"
Would Firvis be better?
Grinning.
The smile of a confident "Magus" spread across my lips.