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After the quick trip down to Rivira that saved us more than a couple dozen hours of trekking and fighting through the dungeon, we directly went to the nineteenth floor rather than mess around in Rivira due to the insane prices of crap within the small town.

As we walked through the eighteenth floor, Ryuu began explaining the monsters we would be seeing the Large Tree Labyrinth floors that were from the Nineteenth floor down to the twenty-fourth floor, and my gods there was both a great variety and the actual danger level of them had spiked up as there was a monster for every scenario the dungeon would need.

Plenty of large strong monsters like Bug-Bears, Battle Boars, Lizard Men, and the Mad Beetles for just front liners. For more long-range there's things like Firebirds Gun Libellula, which are dragonflies with guns attached to their backside to shoot people with. And that's not counting all the venomous monsters and toxic.

"You know, I honestly thought my minigun was going to be out of place in here the dungeon. But-" Before I could continue Ryuu cut me off.

"Jake, whatever method you have to kill monsters, use it. In the end, the slaughter of monsters is the goal, and you get Excellia even if you have skills like Hunter to make monsters easy to kill." She said strongly and I nodded in understanding so back to bunker slaughter, I guess.

"So..." I drawled out as Bell groaned as she knew exactly what I planned. "If I had a way to slaughter thousands of monsters while being in a safe area where we could slaughter the hordes of monsters attracted to our location would that be alright?" I asked Ryuu and her eyes twitched as she wanted to scream that using some kind of super monster bait was stupid as hell, but she just said to do whatever was needed.

"Uhm Jake maybe we can see what your plan is first." Anya offered wryly and I nodded and quickly threw down a couple of stone blocks making a little tower three blocks tall.

"Break or even scratch these stones and we can do your slow and steady method," I said and the level fours tried.

Oh, they tried... Anya dashed with blur-like speeds to stab her spear into it but only broke the tip of her spear Ryuu even casted her magic upon it but nothing they did broke the stone due to it being an out-of-context item that didn't have something as banal and stupid as fucking durability of all things.

"Here Anya." I said giving the sniffling cat girl a new spear so I could take hers and put it into my inventory. "That spear is made by me and obviously won't break. So, what we will be doing is this. I am going to build a bunker so that we can cast spells and other things outside the bunker. Which with the bunker keeping the monsters out we can easily kill them without issue!" I said excitedly as I handed over a Shadow scale spear made from the scales of the Eater of Worlds.

"What will you do when a venomous monster poison's you due to enclosed area?" Ryuu questioned and in response, I took out my Bezoar I had equipped and the one I had for Bell. "These are Bezoar's, magically attuned stones that feed and absorb toxins and poison, so we don't catch or get such afflictions," I said handing Bell one and Ryuu took a deep breath.

"I cannot gainsay you at this point as its well-known that your... Objects that you work with are all but indestructible. Even to forge gods trying to break down your creations to learn their secrets, so I will trust your judgment this time." Ryuu said nodding in assent to me as we began our trek down into the nineteenth floor and just as we landed on the floor, we were greeted by a Mad Beetle doing its business not far away from the entrance.

"Bell here." I said passing Bell a flame thrower and then I took out my Mini-Shark "On three pull the trigger. One. Two Three!" And thus, a scene born out of a war movie played as Bell shot, slime gel infused flames that coated the screaming Mad Beetle in basically napalm while my Minishark roared to life laying a spraying deluge of musket rounds down range that shattered the heated exoskeleton of the truck sized beetle.

Within a couple seconds the Mad Beetle just collapsed to the ground as Ryuu and Anya uncovered their ears with Anya looking at me sorrowfully. "Nyah! That was too damned loud!" Anya cried massaging her brown cat ears atop her head.

"Yes, Jake although your method was indeed effective, but it was in fact far too loud for the dungeon... As is evidenced." Ryuu finished dryly as a small crowd of monsters came streaming out of the thick jungle foliage filling the floor but in response, I did the mature thing to Ryuu's point about my methods being too loud.

I threw several sticks of dynamite into the approaching crowd and while the explosives blew them up to high hell I quickly spoke to Bell. "Watch out for me Bell." I ordered as I did what we always did when we went into the dungeon and while I created a simple pillbox bunker Bell jumped atop a little stone pillar, I made for her so she could use her dual space guns to infinitely shoot due to her meteor armor fueling the guns mana needs.

"Get in the bunker now!" I ordered the girls who had actually taken out a couple monsters while Bell acted like a turret laying a suppressing hail of laser fire onto the monsters, I quickly finished up the only like six or seven feet wide and eight feet tall, little bunker before I sealed it up as we got into it.

"Jake... You didn't account for Ryuu and Anya. And just made the normal quick bunker didn't you." Bell said dryly as we were truly a bit squished into the bunker as I went into auto-build mode mentally and just built the bunker me and Bell used while delving into the dungeon as I could build it in less than two minutes.

I could only nervously giggle as I saw through the light of the torch, I mounted on the wall that Ryuu and Anya weren't all too happy being so squished, so I just passed to Anya and Ryuu a couple of my old magic staffs I wasn't using anymore.

"Here, now stick the end of the magic staff in the little peepholes I left open and push your mind into the staff to use it." I said and Anya instantly followed my directions and screeched as the bright blue bolt of magic that blasted out of the staff shot out and collided with monsters outside that began crowding outside the bunker and began screaming in pain.

"Nyah I am now a wizard! Hey Ryuu does that make me stronger than you now seeing as I got magic hehe." Anya giggled and Ryuu actually twitched as she held the staff that matched Anya's and I saw a bland look pass over her face before a massive blue magical bolt shot out and wiped out a whole Bug'Bear.

Ryuu just snorted and flipped back her hair as she nonchalantly spoke. "No, I am afraid that being able to shoot a bolt of simple mana that even Jake and Bell level ones and two can match makes you nowhere near my equal Anya... I am afraid you just aren't on my level."

Bell held my arm as Anya looked over at Ryuu with glowing amber-slitted eyes before she hissed and whirled back, and her staff began shooting a cascade of magical bolts that unerringly collided with the monster's weak points as Anya replied. "Well my magic is far more efficient and I don't need to blast in the whole chest of a monster to kill it!" Anya replied haughtily and Ryuu didn't like that...

Honestly, until Ryuu and Anya emptied their bodies of Mind/Mana me and Bell were barely able to score some kills but once I took out a Water Candle and a battle potion that increased spawn rates... Once the monsters stacked too high I would just throw grenades out to blast them off the bunker so more monsters could approach as the bunker got literally buried at some points.

I think Ryuu and Anya were honestly disgusted...

Our method of slaughtering monsters although not too profitable due to the monster stones getting destroyed due to the explosives that cleared the corpses from the bunker. But no other method was as great in the pure slaughter of the monsters.

Finally, after half an hour of literally thousands of monsters dying in piles due to the battle potion and the water candle I had placed, the dungeon seemingly tiring gave up on sending an endless tide of monsters at the bunker.

"Jake put away the stuff, the dungeon has given up." Bell said gleefully as she stretched out her sore arms that had been holding her space guns and endlessly shooting while Ryuu and Anya were laid out due a whole another issue.

The two girls in their little competition got close to mind down before Ryuu's cooler head called off the competition after me and Bell kept giving her them weird looks. "So why even do such an asinine thing as call a monster tide upon us?" Ryuu asked as I broke a doorway out of the bunker.

At Ryuu's question I shrugged as I spoke. "With my various crafting being so valuable to say nothing of the massive amounts of money I get for running boss events, our Familia's aren't really hurting for money in the slightest... I am just here for materials and a lot of them." I said as I literally being breaking the ground to get the dungeons version of mud blocks so I could eventually create a Chlorophite much later on.

"Bell, you keep an eye out for monsters while I strip this floor clean!" I said gleefully as I took out an axe made out of Shadowscales from my inventory and Ryuu's eyes twitched seeing me just tearing down every single tree in sight within the jungle floor to say nothing of the herbs and magical reagents I picked up for potions.

Wherever I went I left a wasteland as every tree was chopped down, every herb was plucked, and especially every single monster that came within view was killed and had its materials harvested like a firebirds flame attributed feathers for example.

"Jake there's some adventurer's over there, what should we do?" Bell asked pointing ahead of us and I grinned as I kept swinging my axe cutting down every tree leaving a bald patch of earth behind us.

"Full send Bell! We deal with anything that gets in the way!" I encouraged her and her eyes lit up as she nodded strongly.

Fuck those other adventurer's we came to strip the dungeon bare and if they wanted to complain they could go to the Guild. With Evilus, on the prowl I wasn't going to play nice anymore. I was literally going to ruin this dungeon floor as I got everything, I needed to make all the jungle items I needed.

As I pushed forward, I could hear a loud snarling and crashing noises coming from ahead, so Bell came back to my side with a nasty look as she shook her head. "There's a lot of Lizardmen ahead harassing the party." Hearing her words I looked to Ryuu.

Ryuu knowing what my glance meant, nodded as she spoke. "We have the strength to save them so lets move faster." And with that said the elf took off at a quick pace into the thick jungle ahead of us.

Myself and the other two girls followed up behind Ryuu as we tore through the last hundred or so meter thick jungle before we broke through into a clearing and in the middle of it was a party of some five people fightning a squad of a couple dozen lizardmen.

Lizardmen were three-meter-tall bipedal lizards armed with impossibly hard land-form weapons typically being large swords and a shield, but they could also have some spears as well rarely.

In the middle of the party of the Lizardmen was an Aberrant lizardmen that had yellow golden scales that contrasted with his basic kins brown skin and his enhanced brethren having red skin. To say nothing of how the aberrant was able to slightly meet Ryuu's blows with its greater strength.

"Bell be careful of the enhanced." I warned her as I dashed into the battle swinging my large Grass sword slicing into the large basic lizard men while Ryuu and Anya tag teamed the aberrant Lizard men and quickly killed it as they were able to dance around it, allowing Anya to stab it deeply in the chest and neck several times in the course of a minute of fighting.

Having cleaned up the Lizardmen we looked over to the other party and the leader smiled before he began speaking and I noticed how they were all kind of scantily clad. "My thanks Jake, and congratulations on your level up and record breaking... Anyway, although we could have handled it I thank you for getting rid of the aberrant as those are always too damn strong without Captain Shakti helping take the heat of those bastards off our back." The man grumbled and from his mention of Shakti I knew this party was from Ganeha's Familia.

"No problem we did kind of kill steal. So, you can have the drops and stuff. But did you guys see any exposed ore while down here?" I asked and the man blinked before chucking.

"Oh yeah I forgot your little spatial trick. Uhm yeah there's a large ditch or ravine over there with several ores being exposed but be careful as the ravine is a trap and will spawn a bunch of monsters when you start mining." He advised and I threw him a healing potion in thanks earning a nod of respect as he and his group went back into the jungle to the side.

"We shouldn't have given the monster stones and the drops from the aberrant away Nyah." Anya said stretching as she flipped her new spear through the air.

She was kind of right, but I had a good reputation as someone who only wanted materials and wouldn't fuck over people that weren't stupid like Apollo was. And I didnt want to lose said reputation merely for trying to nap a aberrant monster's drops when we all but kill stole it anyway.

"It's fine. There will always be more monsters... And the Lizardmen didn't have anything I wanted anyway." I said shaking my head as I saw the ravine in front of us. "Alright Bell here." I said passing her back the flame thrower. "I am going to break some ore out of the dungeons wall and then when the monsters spawn, I am going to leave the ravine so we can easily kill them and then I can keep mining." I said grinning as the dungeon made the stupid mistake of thinking that almost sheer cliff walls could keep me in the damned ravine when I had a grappling hook that would just drag me out.

A couple hours later I had a great number of natural materials and monster materials so that I could make the spawner for the Queen Bee and along with a bunch of other things like an Anglet of the Wind that would raise my natural bodies and mana regeneration. And was also one of the core ingredients to make the Lightning Boots which were just another step in making Terra Boots.

And not only did I accumulate a great number of resources, but I also drove Anya and Ryuu crazy when I maybe tried to tame a Vouivre... It was a female humanoid dragon monster. It had a red stone in its forehead known unfortunately when I broke the monster's wings and asked Ryuu how to tame a monster Bell literally shot the monster in the head.

"No Jake... You can tame a mount or something but no weird monster girls!" Bell said fiercely while blushing while I facepalmed as I wondered if that was going to get thrown out the window when the whole Xeno's come to the foreground.

After another three hours of pillaging the nineteenth floor of all its resources, it was Anya who stretched shifting her arm back and forth as she spoke that broke the monotony of the grind. "Nyah Its been a long while since I worked this hard in the dungeon... Hehe I bet I will get a couple stats here as well today so I may be able to beat Chloe in our next sparing session." Anya joked pridefully.

But Ryuu mercilessly popped her bubble as she snarked. "That would require for you to actually get your Falna updated."

Even I winced as Anya's tail stiffened and the brown-haired cat girl looked at Ryuu with a very uncustomary snarl. "Yeah, and are you any different Miss I hide away from my goddess out of some stupid sense of shame at something you failed to accomplish anyway! Chloe Lunoire and I have been following you every single night helping keep Evilus from dog piling you. And you aren't even brave enough to see Lady Astrea to become strong enough to actually clean out Evilus!" Anya said sharply poking Ryuu in her chest.

Honestly Ryuu looked utterly gob smacked at how the happy go lucky girl just completely whirled around on her, especially with us third wheels were fucking right here.

"Then why haven't you gone back to Freya then Anya." Ryuu said crossly as she pushed Anya's hand away from her chest.

Anya's face twisted into a snarl at Ryuu's question before she smiled a sickly thing as she retorted. "I used to fear going home to the Folkvanger, nyah due to my brother's control over me and how he would beat true strength into me... But how could I ever go home specially to see my goddess when the man who snapped my blood brother's neck like a twig is Freya's most favored adventurer?" Anya asked rhetorically before she looked to me and Bell and reflexively my Magna Cannon raised halfway up as this was far to confrontation then I could accept.

"Why don't we all calm down... We can go our separate ways or whatever but fighting in the dungeon is a terrible idea." I said trying to calm the situation but both girls just rolled their eyes.

"We are not so stupid to actually fight within the dungeon Jake Barris... We are not amateur's." Ryuu seemingly reminded me primly as her hand moved away from her sheathed wooden sword at her side.

"Nyah its fine. Stress has been building up and we both needed to shout at one another a bit. Though honestly I may need to look for another Familia as the situation I have with Freya's is." Anya sadly shook her head before wryly shrugging. "I obviously can't be in the same Familia as Ottar is... My blood boils at the sight of him Nyah." She finished and after seeing so much death both in the dungeon and the Evilus people I could see some of that same acceptance for death in her eyes.

That of course wasn't too unusual as all adventurer's had some level of it but Ryuu, Anya and a bunch of others had a different light in their eyes that told me that although they would make death take them kicking and screaming but, in the end, they will accept it. Ryuu for wanting to eradicate Evilus and now Anya for wanting to kill Ottar for revenge for her brother, I guess.

Seeing the two nonhuman girls calming the hell down I sighed brushing my hand across my face as I eyed Bell. "Well, I think today's excitement has been enough for today. Don't you think Bell?" I asked and the albino beauty quickly nodded.

"Yup! Jake, you got plenty of materials right!?" Bell asked me loudly and semi rhetorically, and as I nodded Bell matched my nodding with double the enthusiasm as she grinned. "Thats awesome, now we can go on that date we agreed on earlier." She continued and my brain froze as I most certainly didn't agree to any such thing.

Anya and Ryuu both blinked in surprise with Ryuu actually blushing for a moment before she turned pale as she pointed between me and Bell. "Wait Jake Barriss, you and Mrs. Cranel are in a relationship? What about... No, I am sorry but when did this happen?" She questioned.

I shrugged as I counted the days and answered with a waving hand. "Oh, something like a few days or close to a week ago, I guess. Why ask?"

Before Ryuu could respond Bell poked my cheek and as I looked back to her, I saw she was pouting but blushing. "I mean we have been on a date once... Could we go to the Hostess for dinner please!" Bell asked guilelessly and I couldn't help but see how Ryuu cringed like she imagined something most unfortunate.

"Uhh sure, I guess. I could do with a late lunch." I said and then looked to Anya and Ryuu. "You girls willing to call it quits for now?" I asked and Anya excitedly agreed as she could have the rest of the day off but if anything, Ryuu looked kinda green for some reason. "Ryuu are you alright? Did you get poisoned or something you honestly look ill or something." I said honestly feeling concerned for the petite elf so I approached, and she choked up freezing in place as I placed a hand against her forehead to make sure she wasn't running a hidden fever to burn away any poisons or something.

And no, I knew it wasn't some dense harem protagonist crap as I knew damned well that Ryuu didn't have a crush or see me in that light or anything at least yet.

"Well let's just get going I guess." I said shrugging as Ryuu's face turned normal when I pulled back, so I tried to just put it out of my mind. "Bell, do you want to upgrade your space guns to jungle theme stuff like sending a stream of razor-sharp leaves at monsters?" I asked on the way back to make conversation and then I got pulled into a conversation with Ryuu about my Sword of Grass and how she was interested in possibly buying a smaller version of it.

Funny enough the conversation carried us all the way back into Orario as we took the tunnel, I made back to the surface but as we exited the dungeon and began walking the Hostess to get lunch Ryuu seemed to literally forget whatever issues she was having in the dungeon until we stopped right in front of the Hostess of Fertility. Then she had a weird face cover her features again.