What became clear under the illumination was that there was no motif in this area.
　No wilderness or forest or mine or any other environment to refer to.

　Just, dark space. Black space. Down to the ground.
　The intention........or rather, I felt I could read the reason.
　Saving money, that is.

　It's the same in a house or a magical space that elaborate interiors are costly.
　That cost is money in the house, and magic in the magic space, but there is a difference.

　In short, we were so focused on creating monsters that we were willing to put in the effort to create the area's environment.
　Or maybe I was using too much magic power on the monsters and didn't have enough magic power to create the area environment.
　Either way, it was a nod to the story.

　After all, Gazer has an unbeatable magic eye of 'nullifying all magic effects', and the only condition for activating it is 'keeping the target in sight'.
　It boasts an ability to generate magical power of a different dimension that makes this possible, and it even has the ability to fly.

　It's understandable that the demons would use it to their advantage during wartime, and the humans would be eager to destroy it.
　Because of this existence, it would be costly to recreate it as a monster with magical power.

　And as for the true identity of the earthquakes...
　This one was also an amazing one.

　-- It was a giant.

　It's also different from Grendel. It was kind of big on the side as well. His skin was gray and his face was not flattering. Also, I could see the fierce anger in its eyes.
　The race was recognizable to me.

'Spriggan........'

　It is not often seen in dungeon attacks, but it is a sub-human that is still alive today.
　They can change their body size from dwarfs to giants, and depending on the individual, they can also use powerful magic.
　They are responsible for protecting fairies and treasures, and repel intruders.

　As a monster made by spirits, its role is to eradicate us, the intruders in this dungeon.
　The number of them, five.

　Maru-san and Mira-san flew through the air at the same time as the gazers were annihilated.
　They were the three of us who were in charge of retrieving them.

''Maru. "Armor in the air.

　A communication from Mr. Fulkus.

"In the sky, you mean...?

I need you to get it close to me. Is that possible?

"Yes, sir.

"Mistress Mal, would you be so kind as to send me right over the spriggan?

"Yeah, yeah, I'm home!

　As expected of a member of the Helvall Party, Maru-san's adaptability is high.

　I leave it to Mira-san to secure the rabbit sub-human.

''Marlin-san,''

Yeah, I know that.

　Large chunks of dirt fly from near Mr. Merlin.
　They are beautifully targeted on the chest of each spriggan.

　They are colored, one by one, divided into red, blue, yellow, black, and white.
　Now the entire clan could identify the sprigans.

''Blue.''

'Merlin, thank God. I'm close to white.

　A communication comes in from Fulkus-san and Arthur-san, who have immediately sensed our intentions.
　Then it's three bodies that we need to deal with.
　They are the sprigans painted in red, yellow and black.

　The red one is about to crush us right now.
　I tried to observe my surroundings while experiencing the rarely experienced fear of the giant footprints closing in on me.

''Fu.........!

　We won't be crushed.
　It's because we have a [Jet Black Brave] here.

　One of the developments of "Dark Shadow Group", "Giant Armor".
　It might be similar to Nicola's 'Heavy Armor of Snowfall'.
　It's the same as Nikola-san's "Strong Armor of Snow". Nicola-san's arms are mainly arms, but in Ex-san's case, depending on the amount of shadows, they cover the entire body.

　Mr. Ex caught Spriggan's legs with his arms raised above him.
　Six more arms sprouted from the back of his armor and entwined with Spriggan's legs.

''Black........!

　What a surprise, Xu-san swung around as it was and hit the red one on the black one that was nearby.

　........He threw the giant!

Leme, you tell them what to do!

　There's no way I'm going to say no to Mr. Xu when he says that. Nor do I intend to.
　The black individual has lost his stance, but that's all, he's advancing towards us, leaving the red individual behind.

　The biggest threat right now is the yellow individual.

I'm sure you'll be able to find it. Resistance.

Yeah.

　Merlin's right, they are deploying their magic.
　The Spriggan is like a moving mountain. It may not actually be that big, but it's that intimidating.

　There is no way to escape.
　There are non-combatants, and they're this huge. Even if you move to evasive action, someone will surely be harmed.

''Black magic, I will let you through.

　Mr. Merlin, holding his wand, closed his eyes once and quickly opened them.

''I'll trust you.''

　In my robe, the one who is moving unsteadily is Citry.
　Did I miss the right time to return to human form?

'I'll help you, Reme-kun,'

　Instantly, I felt clearer. A state of being able to focus well on one thing.
　I knew immediately that it was Citry-san's white magic, but I'll have to say thanks later.

　The magic power that continued to flow into the staff was sublimated into magic, giving it directionality.
　Normally, all you have to do is apply the black magic you emitted to the target and that's it.
　However, the enemy is deploying the magic power for resistance (resist).

　It's hard to break through this. Even if it's possible to push through with the amount of magic power, the enemy's attacks will attack us before that.
　There's no other choice but to quickly target them.

　--That's the only way.

　That's what I did to Aerial-san, along with Folus, in the raid battle.

　Even though it's a magical armor, it's usually sketchy. It's difficult to cover your entire body, and it's also annoying for those who can feel the magic power.
　There are places to naturally avoid.

　The most common is the eyes.

　They point their wands and release black magic.
　The yellow individual, towards the eyes.

''---''

　The spriggan held his arm in front of his face as if he had read it.
　If the magic hit his arm, the magic would fail.

''I knew it would (,,,,,)''

　My magic is already known.
　Instead of setting up a stiff resistance, I'd create an opening, exploit it, and prepare a countermeasure.
　I'm not going to be able to get my hands on them.

　So, I incorporated that into the mix and cast a spell.
　My magic bent to evade the enemy's arm, and soon after, it hit the enemy's eye.

　I'm sure you'll be able to find a way to make it work.
　I'm sure you'll be able to find out more about it.

　It approached this one and gained momentum - striking the black individual.

　A dull, loud sound could be heard.
　The black individual is blown away and the yellow individual runs to kick the red individual who was trying to get up.

''.........Haha, haha.......!　Leme, you are absolutely...!　A big one, really!

　The only person who is excited is Merlin, and the rest of us are generally still trying to wrap our heads around the situation.

'We've hung 'confusion' on the yellow. We recognize Spriggan as the enemy, not us. If we're going to take them down, let's start with black or red.

'Leme, what are your four favorite attributes...?

"...?　...Fire, I guess.

　She laughed when I answered quickly.

'I knew you'd say that. It burns me up to be compared to Fenix.

　The jewels fitted into Mr. Merlin's wand shine brightly.

'I'm thanking you for showing me something good.

　The black individual who had been hit by the yellow individual was just about to get up on his knees to adjust his position.
　Surrounding the fellow, a circle of sparks bobbed around him, and the next moment - the giant was swallowed by a pillar of fire.

　What is surprising is the firepower.
　Because it was an instant.
　When I thought the pillar of fire had disappeared, there was nothing left.

　The time it took to scorch that huge body to the core was only enough to finish the blink of an eye.
　This is the 【Foresight Wizard】.
　A great wizard who has no spirit blessing, yet is able to handle magic equivalent to spirit magic.
　The magic and technology that can invoke magic on such a large scale and control an enormous amount of magical power.

''It's amazing... but...''

　Mr. Citry muttered.

'Huh, come on guys, good luck. I'll be useless for a while.

　That's right, if you cast a spell like this, your magic will be cleaned out.
　It will be a big gap until it is created again.
　It's not like that's going to matter much. In fact, it's a great victory.

　The impact still lingers.
　We were almost at the same time, but I'll explain in order.

　Fulkus-san and the blue one.
　Fulkus-san had his armor summoned into the air by Maru-san, and he boarded the armor in the air as it was.
　She adjusted the size of her spear for her armor and used the power of her fall to hold her spear downwards and fall towards the blue one.

　The enemy attempted to knock it off, but failed.
　After being pierced in the arm, he was then run up.
　It was stabbed through the head and disappeared.

　Next, Arthur.
　This one is much simpler.

　Arthur's "Holy Sword of Light" possesses the blessing of the ability to cut off swords using light heat.
　Furthermore, the length of the sword can be temporarily extended by the blessing of light heat.
　In other words, it can be made into a joke-like long sword.

　While powerful, you need to be careful with it, but it's not so difficult to just swing it down from the top as it falls from the sky to the earth.
　The white individual was burned in half.

　The rest of the confused yellow individual scorched the red individual with a lightning strike level lightning attribute, and then we all took down the one that lost the enemy and blurred the enemy.
　The rabbit sub-human and Mira-san who went down to the ground also did a great job.

　Incidentally, in the meantime, Sitri-san returned to her dreamer form. She also put on her clothes.

　After the fight, we still talked about how the black magic I mentioned earlier was done.
　When I explained it, he was greatly surprised.
　I felt the respect from Josu-kun increased.

　What I'm doing is in the category of black magic, but since the magic manipulation and the efficacy of confusion are outside the norm, it's no wonder that everyone's reaction was understandable.
　Aerial-san once called me a [Black Mage] version of Panakea-san.
　Panakea-san is a former first-ranked party and an outstanding [White Mage] of the group.

　His white magic method is beyond common sense to measure.
　There was a precedent for such 'substandard', and many people knew Aerial-san's example statement - since it was picked up by the video board (TV) - so it was accepted in a manner.

　The fact that we fought the third layer together may have had something to do with it.
　Then, inevitably, there will be people who will wonder about the movements of the Fenix Party era... but as expected, no one asked me about it during the attack.

　Aside from that, exploration is resumed.
　The Sprigans are the guardians of the treasure.
　They were not in front of us from the start, but rather, they noticed the shadowy birds and beasts and approached us.

　In other words, they were originally guarding some place. They noticed the intrusion and set out to eradicate it.
　So, with Ex-san leading the way, we explored the area.

　There is good and bad here.
　The good news first. We found the treasures that each of the five bodies had been guarding.

　Three of them are gold, and two are magic tools. A dagger that says "this will never heal the wounds you've inflicted" and a staff that incorporates the magic of "fire arrows, wind blade, earthen wall and water ball".
　This is the third magic tool in total. I didn't expect to get this much.

　It is said that there are still undiscovered and unaccounted for magic tools in the world, but a percentage of those things may be in the hands of spirits.

　Next, the bad.
　The ejections.

　The enemy - slime.

　This was a very nasty enemy.
　The slime had a spherical core with a mucus-like body surrounding it.
　Physical attacks are almost ineffective, and unless the nucleus is crushed, it cannot be defeated.

　Moreover, depending on the species, they are often clothed in mucus that is harmful to humans.
　For example, they digest the creatures they swallow, and so on.
　A number of people were swallowed up in an attack by slime that mimicked the pitch-black ground.

　Their magical reactions were unreadable due to the dense space of magical power, the birds and beasts didn't get caught in Ex-san's net because they avoided them, and Arthur and Fulkus were slow to detect them due to the lack of signs.
　By the time they took on the floor boss battle, a third of the survey team, including the non-combatants, had left.

　The floor boss was - a demon.

　The 【○ demon】 used in the name of the demon is a metaphor, but this one is an imitation of the real one.
　It's humanoid. However, it has a beast-like head, horns, bat-like wings, and even a tail. Its ears are pointed and its claws are sharp. Its entire body is black, giving off a hint of evil.

　We succeeded in defeating the giant demon, but it was a fierce battle.
　It's as if it was a battle to expose all of our cards. A variety of magic and sturdy bodies, daring to try irrational moves.
　Six people left here.

''........It was as if you were being tested.

　Mr. Xu seemed to think so too.
　Anyway, we made it through the fourth layer as well.
　We opened the door that connects to the fifth layer and made a safe room a little further on.

　No, we tried to make it.
　On the wall, there was a text inscribed. It was in round letters.

'Next, during the ordeal. Those who wish to be tested by the spirits, please come in the flesh. You can't enter with your magical body (avatar).''

　All of them were riveted to that sentence.

　--Is there, a spirit trial.

　I don't know what kind of difficulty will be encountered, but it's an ordeal that will be rewarded by the spirits if they break through.
　However, I didn't know that it was a requirement to participate in the flesh and blood.
　Certainly, it's not fair from the other side to be able to challenge an ordeal that will make your wishes come true without risk.

　On the human side, the worst that could happen was that they could escape with an abstention function.
　In the flesh, that's not possible.
　I understand that, but........

　That's how dangerous it is.

'Let's make a safe room for now. Then we'll have to go back and talk about it once we're done.

　I managed to nod at Ex-san's words.
　
　Everyone would start moving.

　But everyone must have been thinking the same thing.
　If we break through, it's an ordeal that will make our wishes come true.
　Are you up for the challenge?　If so, what kind of wish would you get?

　I thought about it, too.

　I felt someone squeezing my hand.
　It was Mila.
　She was looking at me with an uneasy look on her face.

　I squeezed her hand back gently and smiled.

'It's okay. I have a dream to live and become a brave man.

　You can't choose to risk your life, even if you might get something useful on that path. At least I can't make that choice right away.
　I know exactly that there are people who care about me, and I know that they care about me.

　However, I would be challenged the next day with the test of the spirits.