Live Dungeon!

Their advance begins from the fifty-first layer, characterized by the vast, verdant Valley biome, now Tsutomu’s team has come down to the fifty-fourth layer. Amy had easily overcome the fifty-first layer’s challenge of maneuvering around the Carrier Birds by herself, and Camille had acknowledged her control of <<Fly>> to be without issue.

As for her core combat skills, Tsutomu had seen that they weren’t as bad as he had expected; it was safe to assume that Amy hadn’t been simply lazing around all week. From Tsutomu’s point of view, her team synergy as an Attacker was not bad, either. Amy no longer rushed into the hunt alone as she had in the past; now she tried to match up her movements with her teammates’ actions as much as she could.

“<<Combat Cry>>.”

“<<Protect>>, <<Haste>>.”

Garm unleashed his red aura onto the enemies — four Spear Deers and three Verdant Wolves. Effective, all seven creatures roared as they approached Garm, whose defense had been solidified beforehand with <<Protect>>. Camille and Amy, enhanced with <<Haste>>, moved to intercept the Spear Deers.

“Rah!”

Camille caught one Spear Deer’s antlers head-on with her greatsword, then applied all of her force and hacked it right off. The monster flinched, severely pained by its broken antlers. Amy proceeded to stab its throat.

With her dual blades slipped into the deer’s tender flesh, she then twisted them. The Spear Deer fell to the ground, blood gushing.

Not even a moment later, Amy unleashed her long-range skill, <<Dual Wave Slash>>, onto another Spear Deer that was facing away, prompting it to turn to her instead.

Garm, with two Spear Deers still on him, caught their lunges with his tower shield, sent them flying away with <<Shield Bash>>, then guarded all three of the following Verdant Wolves’ tackles. As a result, he was now stuck in a shoving match against three groaning wolves.

But then, as if to abandon the struggle, Garm relaxed his guard and stepped back. One of the Verdant Wolves, startled by the sudden weakening of the opposing push, staggered forward; Garm subsequently stabbed its head with the sharp end of his tower shield. Then, he kicked another one of the wolves away, quickly pulling his shield out of the first wolf’s head. Narrowly taking another Spear Deer’s charge, Garm’s body hovered for a second, but he was otherwise fine.

Camille and Amy proceeded to make quick work of their Spear Deer, while Garm crushed down the Verdant Wolves when they tried throwing themselves upon him. Another Spear Deer charged at Garm, and was promptly stopped in its tracks by his tower shield; Camille struck the deer’s leg, toppling its stance and enabling Amy to swoop down on it.

“<<Rock Splitter Blade>>.”

The two blades effortlessly busted through the Spear Deer’s skull, piercing into its brain. The monster, having taken a fatal blow, fell to the ground and dispersed into light particles.

The last Spear Deer, turned away upon being blocked by Garm, was subsequently bashed in its head with his tower shield; it let out a whistle-like scream. Camille then swung her greatsword down on its head, causing its body to be wrapped in light particles and fade away. What remained of it thereafter was a colorless Medium Magic Stone, which Amy proceeded to pick up.

[I’ve got nothing to do…]

Tsutomu lowered his staff and grumbled in his mind as he surveyed the area.

In parts of the Valleys where visibility was limited, one needed to be on the lookout for ambushes, but as long as the initiating battle itself did not drag on, a multi-wave attack was unlikely to occur. While Garm drew all of the enemies together, Amy and Camille swiftly took down the monsters, sometimes individually, sometimes in tandem. With Garm’s defenses not faltering so easily, the team’s battles were over by the time Tsutomu had used his support skills once or twice.

[Hmm… At the pace we’re going, we should reach the Canyons and update Amy’s layer progress within the day. I’d planned to get us into a few more fights to help Amy warm up, but it looks like she might not need that.]

Tsutomu thought things over while catching the Magic Stones Amy and Garm were throwing to him, which he proceeded to store in his Magic Bag. Then, with <<Fly>>, the four ascended out of the Forest, heading toward the Black Gate that Camille had already discovered beforehand.

Since the objective of this trip was to update Amy’s Dungeon layer progress, the team didn’t particularly care for defeating the monsters along the way. As such, Camille had been tasked to search for Black Gates first and foremost, with her making maximum use of <<Dragon Form>> and <<Haste>>.

Then, after a few battles to get everyone accustomed to working together, they would immediately use <<Fly>> to exit the Forest and move on to the next layer. In the Valleys up to the fifty-fifth layer, the only airborne monsters were the Carrier Birds and the occasional Wyvern. If one could properly use <<Fly>>, they would have quite an easy time finding the Black Gates from above.

Repeating that process, the team got past the Valleys with no difficulty, arriving at the fifty-sixth layer’s Canyon just a little past noon. Amy, her palms over the top of her eyes, gazed at the towering cliffs in the distance. Tsutomu, after taking a glance at her, started preparing lunch.

First, he laid out a large Slime Mat on the ground, took out a folding low table, and then set up a three-legged cooking stove magic tool on the ground. Upon placing a Fire Magic Stone below it and feeding it some colorless Magic Stone Scraps, the Fire Magic Stone glowed red, in turn producing a long, thin fire through the stove. Tsutomu then set up a rack and placed on it a pot of pot-au-feu that he had received earlier, waiting for it to heat up.

Camille and Amy watched Tsutomu prepare the meal while they sat down on the Slime Mat; seeming to enjoy the mat’s bounciness, they bobbled around for a little while. Tsutomu, seeing them like that, thought how they seemed so much like a mother and child, and at the same time, he looked around to see if Garm, whom he had asked to scout the area to see if there were any monsters, had come back.

“There weren’t any in the areas I’ve checked.”

“All right. Thank you.”

“Hmm… now this smells nice.”

Garm had been praising Tsutomu’s cooking for a while now, perhaps because he didn’t remember the joke the latter had said to Misil the other day. Tsutomu, while wondering how much longer he should leave it to simmer, used a pair of tongs to take out some of the colorless Magic Stone Scraps, adjusting the stove’s heat.

Then he placed some cups on the low table — each with a color corresponding to each member’s hair color — and started pouring barley tea from the pitcher. Camille’s was red, and Amy’s was white. Since Garm’s hair was black with a hint of blue, his cup was indigo blue. And of course, Tsutomu’s was black; once he was done pouring into his own cup, he took a sip before proceeding to prepare the dishes while stirring the contents of the pot.

With Tsutomu’s bad reputation was put to rest by Solit Company’s apology, he had also received various forms of apologies from the shops and establishments he had visited thus far as well. That also included a reconciliation with the inn, which in turn meant that he no longer had to cook for himself; all he had to do now was pay the inn’s cook to have something ready. Tsutomu was not particularly fond of cooking in the first place, nor did he like getting up early in the morning, so he had given the inn staff the recipe of this pot-au-feu, and had requested them to make it for him.

Tsutomu stirred the pot-au-feu with a ladle and finished heating it up. Seeing that Garm and Camille had already prepared the tablewares and bread, Tsutomu thanked them and began to put the pot-au-feu into the dishes. Due to the high altitude of the area, the Canyon was slightly chilly. A warm meal here was sure to taste better than it usually would be, so Tsutomu had been looking forward to this quite a bit.

[Now this reminds me of Akiyama-kun from the Mountaineering Club… dude was right on his money.]

Akiyama — that was a friend of Tsutomu’s, and part of a Mountaineering Club at their university; he had invited the latter to go hiking with them at one point. Tsutomu was reminded of him saying how good a cup of instant ramen noodles was when eaten on the mountain, and he thought he’d like to go with him next time when he managed to go back home.

Amy sat impatiently at the table, more than ready to chow down the now-finished meal. As soon as Tsutomu told her to go ahead, she bit a chunk off her bread and scooped up some potatoes from the pot-au-feu with her spoon. Tsutomu, after clasping his hands together, also proceeded to start eating.

Although many ingredients familiar to him existed in this world, there were also a certain number of foodstuffs that he had never seen before. This pot-au-feu, too, contained some of those unknown ingredients; Tsutomu showed a degree of surprise to how well the food had turned out.

“Mm-hm, Tsutomu’s pot-au-feu sure is good.”

“It’s been a while since I had your cooking, but yeah, this is delicious!”

“Ahaha…”

Garm gave his compliment quietly, and Amy agreed with him as they continued to eat. Seeing how Tsutomu smiled awkwardly in response, Camille looked at the two, heaved a sigh, and then placed her spoon on the table.

“Tsutomu. Did you really make this yourself?”

“Huuh? Of course I did?”

“The amount and variety of ingredients are way up from last time, and most importantly, the amount of salt is a little too high. The subtle flavorings are completely different from what we’ve are used to, too. Did you have someone else make it?”

“…Yes, I did. I don’t think this is THAT different, though.”

Tsutomu, surprised by how Camille had been able to point out all those fine points. He tasted the pot-au-feu again and was relieved to know that she was right. To his sides, Amy looked away to stave off the awkwardness, and Garm looked down in practical despair.

“I’m quite confident in my cooking skills as well, you see.”

“Huh… That’s great.”

“Hehehe… Why don’t I make lunch for us next time? You can drop by my house and store the thing in your Magic Bag.”

“Oh, really? I’d really appreciate that.”

“Then I might try making this pot-au-feu too. Maybe you could teach me the recipe some time later?”

“Yes, of course.”

Seeing the two talking enthusiastically about cooking, Amy looked unhappy as she kept on eating her pot-au-feu, and Garm, having lost his timing to clarify his blunder, looked slightly confused as to what he should say.

Amy, having rarely cooked, couldn’t join in the conversation; instead, she quickly finished her meal as if to show her irritation. She proceeded to ready her gear and leave, saying she was going to check out the Canyon.

Camille, looking at Amy go while thinking how youthful she was, finished her own meal and started tidying up the tableware. Tsutomu also finished his meal not long after; he rinsed the dishes before putting them in his Magic Bag.

Deciding to take a fifteen-minute break before continuing, Tsutomu went to get Amy, who had been running around the area with all her might for some reason, and started a meeting with all members.

“I don’t think we’ve had any particular problem working together so far… What about you three? Do you feel that something needs improving?”

“No. Not at all.”

“Neither do I.”

“Me, too.”

“…Discussion over. Well, this must mean that we’re doing well, though.”

Tsutomu’s shoulders slumped in disappointment to the three responses. It was true that the battles in the Valley had gone without a hitch, but that also meant they wouldn’t know where to improve. And despite having been put through one multi-wave battle in the Canyon so far, they had gotten past it without difficulty as well; as such, Tsutomu felt that things were already perfectly good.

“Let’s see… Amy, you do know about the monsters in the Canyons, right?”

“Yeah. I’ve seen most of them a lot on Monitor #1.”

“I guess there’s no problem there, then… Oh, do be careful of the Wyverns’ tails — they’ve got paralyzing toxins. If you get hit in the air, you’ll lose control of <<Fly>>, so try to dodge them as much as you can.”

“Mm-hm, got it!”

“…Well, all we need to do is get you accustomed to facing them in a real fight, then.”

Tsutomu answered Amy with a smile, reassured by her casual reply. Since the party had gone through this before with just three members, the addition of Amy had actually lightened their workload down.

After the meeting, Tsutomu laid down on the Slime Mat and stretched his arms out… which got him rolled up in the mat by Amy into the shape of a caterpillar.