Chapter 34 - If You Dig the Ground, Money Comes Out
Today’s climbing goal is the 12th floor.
From Zone 1 to Zone 5.
This time, I prepared new tools.
“Is this a logging saw?”
“Correct. I thought scissors might be inconvenient as the spider webs keep getting thicker.”
Now it’s almost embarrassing to call them spider ‘webs’.
Things as thick as my forearm were hanging everywhere.
Of course, saws are less convenient to use than scissors, but they’re more useful for cutting thick things, and.
There was also a scene I really wanted to see.
“Saha?”
“Uugh…”
“Saha~?”
“Hnng…! W-Why did you call me…?”
Hehehe…!
The way she flinches every time I call her name and tries to cover her chest with her arm for no reason.
This is really exquisite.
I felt like contemptuous gazes were flying from the side, but I decided to ignore that.
“Would you like to try swinging this?”
An extra large super saw made especially for Saha!
Saha carefully picked up the saw that had fallen to the floor (I struggled to even lift it).
Eventually, she infused it with magic power and ignited flames on the saw blade.
“Woah! So cool!”
“Woof!”
As if converting her shame into strength,
Saha lightly lifted the saw and cleanly cut through the spider webs with just a few smooth motions.
A big-boobed woman Doom Guy in a bikini instead of armor!
Movements full of love and romance!
I couldn’t contain my emotion and clapped.
Saha’s face turned a bit redder.
Led by Saha’s Doom Girl performance.
Today’s dungeon breakthrough formation.
Top. Saha (swimsuit).
The role of cutting through the path while swinging the Hell Fire Huge Saw (tentative name).
Gradually calming her shame and swinging the saw wildly with her usual solemn and cold expression, bouncing wildly.
Watching it makes me feel I could die without regrets.
Mid. Rideable Ark (controlled by: Tinya).
Since the ceiling was much higher than the 11th floor.
I gave Tinya, who is tiny, a piggyback ride to secure vision and allow immediate response.
The nape of my neck feels soft!
Bottom. Ari-hena.
Just an ordinary bottom duo.
Ari is good at eating CS.
We started earnestly breaking through with this stable role distribution.
“There are a lot of monsters…”
Ari muttered while lightly picking up the CS dropped by the tower.
Indeed.
The mob density was on a different level from the 11th floor.
Until now, we just annihilated groups gathered in rooms or wide spaces here and there.
Now they popped out everywhere from the paths, ceiling, between walls.
…Actually, the reason I evolved into Rideable Ark was.
There was an incident earlier where a spider falling from above tried to twist my neck 180 degrees.
The difficulty increased.
Quite threateningly too.
But?
If we change our perspective?
“Hehehe…!”
N times drop item event.
Materials are pouring down!
Sometimes monsters that don’t even appear in the sections up to the 15th floor peeked their faces out, but.
Our hero party with enough firepower to break through up to the 20th floor burned through them all.
In that process.
“Nyahaha! Master, you’re doing well nya!”
I finally started pulling my weight.
‘Mammonite Pistol’ had an additional cheat-level ability not listed in the tooltip.
Though its attack power was only BB gun level.
If I shoot pew at a spider with Normal Weapon Mode?
[Miser’s Mark LV.1 (Max LV.10)]
[Enemies marked have their critical resistance reduced by 10%. When a marked enemy dies, item drop rate increases by 10%.]
It applies a debuff to monsters!
And a pretty good one at that!
Until now, our heroes could only scrape together about 10% critical chance from their equipment at best.
But with this debuff?
What would have been 1 critical hit out of 10 attacks.
Now becomes 2 out of 10!
Plus increased drop rate!
Though there was a minor side effect.
“Kyuu–!”
Marked enemies prioritize targeting me as a taunt effect, but.
“Lumi!”
“Woof!”
Our jungler Lumi quickly grabbed the front legs of a spider jumping at me and slammed it to the ground.
“Nya!”
Then Tinya went pew with a Magical=Beam!
Seeing the explosion sparkle a bit more, it must have been a critical hit!
It was a perfect teamfight.
Let’s keep going like this!
If the same stimulus is continuously given at the same intensity, eventually the senses become dull.
However.
“Kyaa, kyaa, kyaaa…!”
That group of crazy heroes was giving Arachne new and fresh stimulation every time they came.
Yesterday they snipped with a strange blade with two intersecting edges, but.
That moment was just a slight sting, so it was bearable.
She thought she had perfectly prepared by increasing the hardness of the threads so they couldn’t possibly be cut by mere metal.
But.
“Th-That…! Kyau, kyaa…! What is thaaaaat…!”
The heroes’ new weapon, with a huge blade surface that seemed roughly carved as if bitten by a beast.
When that crazy knight wearing only two scraps of cloth in the sacred labyrinth dared to swing it so vulgarly.
“Kyaaaa…!”
First, a pain like ants biting her toes comes in sequential waves.
Moreover, an itching sensation flares up in the bitten areas, making even her brain itch.
Crunch crunch.
Crunch crunch.
It took less than 3 seconds to cut one spider web.
But it also took less than 3 seconds to move to cut the next one.
[12th Floor Zone 1 has been breached.]
“Huu, haa, kyaa…”
It was an extremely impious thought for a demon race burdened with the sacred duty of protecting the tower, but.
Thankfully it was breached, thankfully this pain is over, but they probably couldn’t pass easily since I summoned so many magical beasts.
Arachne could catch her breath thinking like that.
However.
[An enemy has entered 12th Floor Zone 1.]
She was flustered again by the driving force of the crazy hero party re-entering with almost no time lag.
“Huh…? Why…? Zone 1…?”
She quickly summoned 3 hooks.
And.
The usual pattern–
Not in a straight line to the exit.
“N-Nooooo…!”
Arachne screamed as she saw the heroes start to thoroughly search the entire labyrinth.
Moreover, since other zones had many other objects like prey storage and ancient hero graves, making it difficult to place treasure chests.
Arachne had placed the most treasure chests in Zone 1.
Realizing her mistake.
She hurriedly tried to change the tower’s settings, but.
[Object placement cannot be changed while a revelator is present. Please try again later.]
“Uu… Uwaah…!”
At the coldly appearing message.
Arachne despaired.
“Woof! There’s one here too woof!”
Wow.
Is today some kind of event day?
The rewards are generous, huh?
With a bit of exaggeration, there was a treasure chest hidden in every corner we peeked into.
Of course, they were viciously hidden by cleverly covering them with spider webs, or hiding them above the ceiling, but.
“Sniff sniff, arf! It’s that way woof!”
We had the master of smell.
The doggy who appears wagging her tail and perking her ears even when playing in the plaza as soon as I start cooking.
Behold, Lumiberus!
…We had her.
After sniffing the first discovered treasure chest for about 3 minutes.
After that, it was smooth sailing.
With a bit of exaggeration, she found them so thoroughly it seemed like treasure chests were appearing wherever Lumi went.
“Lumi, is there anything you want to eat?”
“Woof! All of Master’s cooking is delicious!”
How can she speak so kindly too.
Of course, not all treasure chests had only good rewards.
Occasionally.
“Kyaa! Master…! The box bit me…!”
Tinya, full of greed, jumped down from my shoulder and tried to open a treasure chest, only to get nommed by a mimic.
“…? What’s this?”
“Hyaaa?!”
Sometimes there was just a single book written in unidentifiable language that even I couldn’t read sitting alone in a treasure chest.
Tinya had a seizure after seeing the book title, probably written in demon language, but.
“T-Tinya can’t say…!”
No matter how much I asked, she wouldn’t tell me what the name was.
Since I couldn’t identify it with the item information either.
I’ll have to ask Elise later.
Most of the others were–
Large amounts of gold.
Or growth materials.
Rare ores.
They consisted of such substantial things.
It’s not enough to cover the deficit that completely evaporated from yesterday’s full power deployment incident.
But enough war funds to resume shop operations started piling up.
In the meantime.
I also tested the pistol’s performance here and there.
Whether having gold coins in my inventory counts as ‘possessed money’.
Pow!
“Kik–!”
The spider’s head dented slightly.
This much seems to have power surpassing a BB gun, about the same as a strong punch.
While watching the heroes’ reactions.
This time I tested up to Decisive Battle Weapon mode as well.
Of course without posing, holding the gun properly with both hands.
Fire!
Paaang–!
“Ugh.”
Still, the fierce recoil shook my aim.
It missed the targeted spider and buried into the innocent wall, making a big hole.
The power is quite good, huh?
“Ark? Don’t tell me–”
“No. It’s fine. I’m okay.”
After hurriedly making an excuse, I checked my inventory.
…10% of my money had decreased.
Decisive Battle Weapon mode is sealed for now too.
It’s much better to just steadily save money.
And make a planet-destroying level weapon even in Normal mode.
It’s not like money comes out when you dig the ground!
“Woof! There’s a treasure chest buried here woof!”
“Stand back. I’ll dig it up.”
…Is that right?
It seems like it does come out when you dig?
Moreover.
“Ark! The treasure chest looks unusual!”
At Ari’s words, I approached slightly to look into the hole.
“Oh…”
A special and cool-looking design different from the treasure chests we’ve seen so far!
My expectations soared even higher.