"Shilomar, cut through it!

　At my command, Shiroumaru snarls and swings his paw down with a grunt.

''Bigger.''

　The goblins in the swarm were ripped into several pieces by Shiroumar's blow, killing them.

'Well done Shiroumaru! You've improved a lot.

　The blow that Shiroumaru delivered was one that he had developed earlier during the Crocodile Shark. For convenience, he named this technique "Slash Claw" and usually called it Slash and made him practice it.
　With the practice, he used to just release it with force, but now he's learned how to control the force and can send it far away or even use it on his claws (feet).
　To be honest, his previous techniques were difficult to use. The reason for this was that they could be substituted with other magic and were too sketchy.
　However, after limiting its use, it became extremely easy to use.
　The method was divided into three attack methods: close range, where it was applied directly to one's hands, fingers or feet to attack a target; mid-range, where it was applied to a weapon (a blade) to attack; and long range, where it was an improvement on the previous usage and released.
　As a result, even Shiroumaru was able to learn them easily, and his fighting ability increased dramatically.
　Most importantly, though, this is meaningless with the goblins I'm dealing with now...

"Shiroumaru, you can ignore the ones that run away.

　I took out the demon core from the goblin and burned the corpse.
　There are no rewards for defeating the monsters in the dungeon, except for designated ones and subspecies. And even if you took the parts of the monsters from the dungeon to another city to be defeated, they would be found out through appraisals and the like. In that case, you'll be penalized.
　In the dungeon, you can leave the corpses alone, but it's a nuisance if they decay, so it's an unspoken agreement that you should bury them or burn them when you have time. If it's a material, you can take it home with you, but the only thing you can get from goblins is the magic core.

There should be a staircase in a little while. Let's go, Shiroumaru.

　Like this, my first dungeon went thumping along, and I was at the 10th level in about 2 hours.

　Normally, a beginner would be able to get to the third floor in two hours, but in my case, as a result of advancing the shortest distance with Shiroumaru's nose and my search, and kicking out the occasional goblin or slime that appeared, I was progressing at a speed that would normally be unthinkable.

　As an aside, I had made up my mind not to let Slarin deal with his own kind as much as possible.
　The reason for this was not because I felt sorry for him, but because it made me feel bad to see him.
　In a fight between slimes that lacked a physical attack method, there were many ways to basically swallow the opponent whole and melt them away. Out of curiosity, I tried to kill Slarin, but Slarin would twist and turn to take advantage of my opponent's openings in an attempt to swallow him up. I got drunk watching him wriggle around as he did the same thing.

　So from then on, I was able to play a slime duel against my opponent. He made them stop fighting by way of the method.
　In addition, the Slurin who ate the slime he had defeated had remembered the fire magic that his opponent had. Conceivably, he probably took away his opponent's attributes, but since he had made the magic-holding demon eat a few times before, it would only apply when he was dealing with a magic-holding slime.

　Off to the side　

　
　It's said that this is the first wall for beginners.

'That was quick.......is that a caterpillar?

　The appraisal came up with Green Caterpillar, the green caterpillar. It seems to be poisonous.

Shilomar, wait!

　I made Shiroumaru wait, and then I picked up a handful of stones that had fallen at my feet, cast a strengthening spell, and

Go!

　He threw it like a baseball.
　

'Gross! And weak!

　Perhaps it was a mistake to have strengthened it to arm strength, but the caterpillar scattered body fluids and other fluids around the area and died.

''........From now on, I'll try to defeat them with magic as much as possible......''

　The 11th level is nothing but caterpillars! As much as I wanted to scream that, all I could find was a caterpillar.
　I was getting a little tired so I decided to find a dead end and take a break.
　My idea of how to take a break was to first enter the dead end and block the passage with earth magic. If it's like a private room, I'll check to see if there are any demons hiding in it... that's all.

　Although it's a simple method, I think this method is rather useful. Because if you put a strengthening spell on the earthen walls, there aren't many demons that will invade, and most importantly, it's great that you can sit down slowly without too much caution.

　Moreover, I have all sorts of magic, food, water, and even a carriage in my magic bag, so if I wanted to, I could live in the dungeon as long as my food allowed.
　However, no matter how well you can live, if you get carried away, you will lose your mind and your physical condition.
　That's why I've been looking for a place to stay on earth to rest my bones.

So I was looking for an inn where I could rest my weary bones.

　I instructed Shiroumaru and Slarin to take turns keeping watch, eating and taking a light break. Of course, I prepared food for Shiroumar and Slarin... or else Shiroumar would start the concert with a belching sound.

　After eating, I laid down for half an hour and went to bed. It was a good thing I had one spare bed in my bag for times like this. Even if you take a break, there is a difference in the way you lose fatigue if you don't lie down.
　This is what my grandfathers used to tell me in my past life, when you can lie down, you should do it.

　I feel much better mentally and physically, even after just a little sleep. It was an easy process so far, but I guess I was tensing up and getting extra strength without knowing it.

'I'd better get going, Shiroumaru.

　I call out to Shiroumaru, who was sleeping at the bottom of the bed, and then I clean up the bed and other things.
　Shiroumaru seems to have regained his strength and is stretching out, yawning.
　Instead, Slarin went into his dimension bag, as if to take a break.

　He was about to break down the wall to resume his adventure when he noticed a faint breeze behind him.

'Where's it coming from?'

　If the wind was coming from the wall in front of me, I wouldn't have cared, but the wind was coming from the one that was originally the wall, so I probed the wall with caution.

There you are.

　There was a hole about the size of a fist in the corner of the wall.
　I found the source of the wind, so I used my earth magic to expand it, and there was a deep hole there.

'A hidden room.........something like that. I don't know how far it goes, but I hope it's not a demon's nest.''

　I muttered and put Shiroumaru in my bag and used my flight to slowly descend through the hole.
　I closed the hole I had opened up as it was originally, just in case.


　The hole is about 4 meters in diameter, but the walls are occasionally jutting out to make the hole narrower, so I use my magic to scrape away the hole as I descend, and it feels like I haven't even descended 100 meters yet.
　Another 10 minutes of descending. Finally, the end is in sight.
　When I got down to the very bottom, there was a side hole there that a person could pass through, and the wind was flowing from there.

　I proceeded cautiously, using my search. And within five minutes, I was out in a large space.
　There was a considerably denser-than-normal magic in the space, so I quickly hid behind a nearby rock to look around, but there were no demons in the area that I could see.
　I used a search to be sure, and there was a rather large magical reaction in the back. Strangely enough, even when I used the appraisal, the only thing that came to mind was a string of garbled, unintelligible letters.
　I've never seen anything like this before, so I slowly proceeded to hide myself to where the reaction was.

Dragons?

　There it was, a rock in the shape of a dragon.
　It was about four meters in size and looked like it was curled up and resting on its body.

　I was so intrigued that I forgot that I had a magical reaction and approached it carelessly.
　When I got about five meters closer, the dragon-shaped rock stood up with its eyes glowing red.

''Huh, this thing was a golem!

　Inwardly impatient, I hurriedly took my distance, but the golem seemed to recognize me as an enemy and took up a fighting stance.
　I took out my adamantine sword from my bag and took a stance against the golem.
　There was an optional branch of escape, but I became interested in the nucleus that was driving so many golems, and I came to the conclusion that I would take it.

　The golem attacks by swinging its tail and waving its arms and legs, but fortunately it seems that it can't use breathers, and the only way to attack is to throw a rock at it when it is far enough away.

''That said, it doesn't look like they're taking much damage, even with Adamantine's sword.......''

　If he keeps going, he's unlikely to lose. However, if he continued to let them run rampant in such a place, they might eventually cause a fall.
　So I strengthened my Adamantine sword and ran to the bosom of the golem.
　It's a good idea to have a good time with your friends.
　Of course, I also attack while dodging the golem's attacks.

　I'm concentrating my attacks around the base of the golem's right front leg, and have been able to chip away at it, albeit slowly.
　At first I was using magic, but this golem seems to have magic resistance, and physical attacks seem to be more effective than magic, so now I'm using strengthened swords and physical attacks with earth magic to inflict damage.

　

　Anyway, thanks to the concentrated attack from earlier, the golem's front legs started to crack.
　So I took a large distance and hit the rock with my earth magic, and it hit the right front leg nicely and succeeded in crushing the golem's front leg as it was.
　However, you can't relax here. This is because this kind of golem is often equipped with a certain degree of regeneration ability, and in fact, the golem's right paw in front of me is trying to regenerate by taking in the stones around it little by little.

''I'm not going to let it!''

　I unleashed my fire magic and attacked again, keeping the golem in check.
　This time I was able to crush its left front leg faster than before. After that, I also crushed the back leg just to be sure, but this one had a tail attack, so in a way I had to be more careful than the front leg.

　As a result, a dragon golem with no limbs was created in front of me.
　Even though it had no limbs, it had a mouth and a tail, so I had to be careful, but on the contrary, that was the only way to attack it, so I struck the golem's head while trying not to let it regenerate.

　After five minutes of pounding, the golem's head was crushed and gone, but the golem still didn't stop moving.

''No matter how much it's a golem......................it's gross when it gets to this point.

　With these thoughts in mind, I smashed its neck. Then I crushed its tail as well, and all that was left was its body, which at a glance looked like a simple rock.

　As I was crushing the torso, I heard a crunching sound as if I had hit metal, and unbelievably, the reinforced adamantine sword chipped away.

''Whoa!''

　I made a strange sound. When the sword chipped, my hand went numb from too much impact.



　When I looked at the place I was tapping earlier, I saw some kind of white object.
　When I carefully tapped around the white object, what came out was some kind of white, round object.

''Could it be an egg........is it this?''　

　When he took it out, the golem stopped moving and crumbled, rattling.

'So this was the nucleus.　

　With the removal of the nucleus, the golem lost its function and became nothing more than a stone.
　I put the egg in my bag for now and was about to walk out when I noticed some metal mixed in with the crumbling former golem.
　An appraisal of it showed that it was mithril, so I gathered it up, one by one.
　The big ones were about the size of a thumbnail and the smaller ones were about half the size of a little fingernail.

''No wonder they must be so hard.... if they contain this stuff, they'll have a hard time...''　

　As I said that, I cast an earth magic on the shards of the crushed golem and turn them into sand. The one thing that didn't turn into sand among them is mithril, that's why.

　The collected mithril weighs about 10kg in total, and at market price, it would cost 5 million G before processing.
　This is about the same price as gold. However, when mithril is processed, it can fetch nearly five times the price before processing, depending on the object. This is because mithril is hard and difficult to process, so the price of mithril is higher than before processing.

　I explored the surrounding area to see if there was any other mithril, but apparently the metal contained in the rock that had been turned into a golem had changed, and only about 20 kg of silver was found in the area, but no mithril was found.
　Still, it's going to be about 100-200,000 Gs.
　When I was thinking of cutting it off at this point, there was a place at the edge where the space appeared to be distorted.

'Is this the thing you said was connected to the outside?

　Adventurers say this is called a warp zone. This was probably named by the reincarnators.

　I was a little apprehensive, but as soon as I entered the warp zone with my intentions, I was able to exit into another space.
　There was a door a little further on, so I opened it and found that it was near the door I had entered in the morning.

'Whoa, what the hell, Tenma just got back too!

　I looked at the direction the voice came from and saw the djinn and the others.

'Yeah, I dove in at random, and I got some success out of it, too.

　The djinn responded to the word "some achievement" by saying

How long?

　He asked curiously. His tone of voice was about as lucky as I would be if he told me, but I took out some of today's results and placed them on a nearby table.

'Hey, you ... how far did you dive for this one?

　Looking at the 100 or so magic cores and 20 kilograms of silver on the table (which, by the way, had been shaped by alchemy and turned into a 1 kilogram ingot), the djinn and others shouted.
　The people around them reacted to the voice and tried to look into it, but they glanced at it and kept it away.

''The location is a secret, but I think it's about 12 levels.... I've been hiding the place I took it from.

　Hearing those words, some adventurers ran to the entrance of the dungeon.......I'm not lying, never.

　The djinn looked at me like I was a stinker, but when they saw that I didn't change my expression, they gave up.

'Don't confuse me too much...'

　I muttered, putting a hand on his shoulder. I nodded vaguely.

Adventurers are on their own, though.

　The djinn smiled bitterly as he said.

''By the way, are you going to sell this silver to the guild?''

　Menace, who was beside the djinn, said something like that, and I replied that I was going to, but

''If the quality is this good, I'm sure you'll be able to get a higher price for it if you go to sell it to some high class store than to the guild.

　I was advised to do so.

Do you know of any better places?

　But I don't know the city of Seigen very well yet, so when I asked him where he could buy it, Menace thought for a moment and then

'I'm sure most of the stores on the north side will buy most of the places but I'm not sure I'll be able to tell you where to go until I find the right one.

　So I decided to keep the silver ingot in my bag for the time being.

How about we have dinner together from now on?

　I've been invited to do so.

Yeah, I'll join you.

　We decided to deepen our exchanges with the djinn. The most important thing is that it wasn't purely an attempt to deepen exchanges, it also included a calculation that if you get along with the djinn and others, they might be able to keep you in check to a certain extent, but I think the djinn are aware of this to some extent.

''So, where are you going?''

"There's a great place nearby. They have a great selection and they serve good booze.

　That good store seems to be located near the guild.

I'll stop by the guild and sell the magic core.

　And I decided to take a little detour.
　By the way, the Demon Nuclei were 3000G in total. Because there were so many goblins, and because the caterpillar nukes were of the lowest grade that could be obtained in a dungeon, most of them were 30G each.

If a beginner wanted to gather that many, it would take several people to dive for nearly half a day to gather them. From the side, it's hard to believe that we've accomplished about four hours of work.

　After that, we went to the restaurant that Jin and the others recommended, ordered and began to eat.
　I heard a lot of things during the meal, and I heard that the name of Jin and his party is 'The Sword of Dawn'.
　It used to be a party of three people, but since Leena joined four years ago, the party has become more stable, and recently the name has become well known in the royal capital.

''Jin, have you ever heard of any rumors about the Kukri Village in King's Capital?''

　I'll ask him that.

''No, I haven't heard of it... or rather, the last time I was in King's Landing before that was about three years ago, and the disaster in Kukri Village was a little before that... but what about Kukri Village?''

　Jin and the others knew about Kukri Village, but as expected, they weren't going to tell him in detail, so I briefly explained what I had said to the duke before.

''Well it would be nice to hear about that acquaintance...''

　And there was no particular doubt about it. I was told that the Count of the Frontier, who had a very narrow view of the situation in Kukri.

　It was the men arranged by the Earl of Hoost that had caused the destruction of the village. Unfortunately, many of the villagers had some kind of connection with the adventurers, so the adventurers had been pulled out of the Earl of Hoost's frontier territory. Moreover, they approached their own acquaintances.

　That's why, for a while, the number of adventurers from the Howst Frontier Domain was reduced to less than half of what it used to be. I heard that the number has almost returned to the original number now, but the number of veterans has decreased considerably.

　Talking about that.

Speaking of which, I hear Temma-san is very good at baking.

　Leena blushed and said..........................apparently it was the alcohol.
　How did you know, I wondered.

'Primera-chan was proud to say. 'I've eaten better than the sweets of King's Landing,' she said.

　The source of information was Natural Knight-sama (Duke's daughter (Primera)).

''I don't know if it's better than King's Landing, but I've sent Primera a couple of times, but...''

　And when I say that.

'Please make me one! Only Primera-chan is unfair!

　He leaned forward and said.
　Why, I wondered, was Menace sitting next to me?

She's got a sweet tooth but if you're going to make it, so is mine!

　

''Well that's fine but.......you should at least pay for the materials.

　With those words, Leena, of course! He held out a single gold coin.

'That is indeed too much! Two silver coins would be enough!

　When I said that, he nodded his head and pulled out two silver coins from his bag and handed them to me.

''As far as possible, the sweets should be something that Primera-chan has never eaten before!

　And then he ordered me to think about some things.

''Then I'll go and make about two different kinds. Well please come to the guild the day after tomorrow at noon or so.

　Then Lina said, I understand! It's lunchtime, day after tomorrow! And he was quite enthusiastic about it.

　The meal went on like that, and by the time it got dark outside, it was time to break up...because Leena, who was strangely overzealous, guzzled some alcohol and got drunk.
　I decided to take some of it home for Shiroumaru and the others, feed them in the room and let them sleep.


'Hey, wake up Temma,'

　I was supposed to be sleeping alone in my room, but for some reason I was woken up by a familiar voice.
　I woke up with sleepy eyes.

Hey, you're finally up. You're disturbing me for a second.

　And in front of me was the God of Skill and the God of Magic.

''Oi, wasn't the next one a decade later?''

　That question was answered by the god of magic.

The Creator made me do it.

　I was able to get away with a single word. I was so stunned that the god of skill told me that

So let's get cracking this time, since the time is much shorter than the last time!

　I said lightly.

'My requirements first! You got your mithril, Temma. I'm talking about how to forge it. Mithril is not easy to process by itself, so you mix it with silver, mix it up a little at a time, soften it and process it! And once you've formed it, you can beat it to a high temperature and the silver will gradually fall out, so you'll end up with a high-purity mithril. You get the idea! And that method can be applied to Orihalcon and stuff like that.

Okay.　

''The beast gods are next! The eggs that Temma finds will hatch if he continues to give them a significant amount of magical power. And the demon that is born will become Temma's family... that's all!

　I nodded my head in a humph.

'My turn. Temma's slime - or was it Slurin, that's not just a subspecies, it seems to be a new species. Supposedly, it has the ability to absorb the characteristics of its own kind. I'll add it to Slarin's status next time........................Very interesting.

　I've been thinking about how I sound like the protagonist of some drama, while the magical god laughing at me and pulling me back a bit.

It's time to go. Goodbye, Temma.
Bye, Temma.

　When I said that, the two of them went into a haze and I woke up... but it was still the middle of the night, so I fell asleep twice.