"It's right here."
The moment Miella, our party's guide, spoke, we emerged from a long passage into a cavern where multiple other passages converged, with a lake at its center.
I followed slowly behind Miella and Laira as they approached the lake, staying vigilant for anything that might emerge from the surrounding passages.
"Every time we come here, I can't shake this weird feeling."
Miella grimaced as she walked toward the inner part of the lake.
Her face still showed unease, but she slowly stepped from the outer edge into the lake's depths.
We followed suit, dipping our feet into the lake behind her.
To an outsider, it might look like we were committing mass suicide.
'Follow me.'
Once we reached the lake bottom, Miella mouthed the words while looking at me.
I gave a small nod to signal I understood, and Miella led the way across the lake floor. The other party members followed her lead as if it were routine.
It was an odd sight for being underwater.
Our clothes didn't soak through or get heavy.
Even walking on the lake bed, there was no buoyant floating sensation—it felt just like strolling across flat ground.
And despite lacking gills, we had no trouble breathing underwater.
It defied common sense, but dungeons were inherently irrational places to begin with.
Wedged in the cracks between other realms, woven from the flesh and powers of gods, it was commonplace for a lake not to act like one or water not to behave like water.
We trudged on for a while through the murky, wavering visibility.
"We're here."
We'd clearly been walking underwater moments ago, yet the surroundings had suddenly opened into a vast clearing.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Dungeons grow denser with mana the deeper you go, and the environments and ecosystems shift dramatically toward greater danger.
Over countless years of exploration, humanity classified dungeon floors accordingly.
Upper floors: 1 to 15.
Mid floors: 16 to 30.
Lower floors: 31 to 45.
Anything from 46 downward: the deep floors.
Roughly divided in multiples of 15.
Of course, this wasn't some ironclad law of the dungeon itself—it was just humanity's convenient way of categorizing things, so it wasn't absolute.
Though Kaiden had made it sound grand, heading to the mid floors simply meant going from floor 15 to 16.
For now, at least.
"Fortunately, we've made it through safely to the morning."
Even though we'd descended from the ant-infested 15th floor, Kaiden gazed up at the lidless blue sky overhead.
The clearing around us was filled with ruins.
If floor 12 was a safe zone and 13 through 15 were a massive ant colony, then floor 16's theme was something like "a ruined world."
True to dungeon form, the vast expanse was littered with remnants of a civilization that once thrived here—crumbling ruins everywhere.
The architecture and cultural artifacts unearthed here differed so vastly from those of our native folk that it remained a hotbed of academic debate.
"Let's proceed with caution from here on out."
But one thing was certain.
This place had once hosted intelligence, formed civilizations, and birthed artifacts derived from them.
"Laira and I will scout as best we can, but everyone keep an eye out regardless."
Miella warned us with a tense expression.
"Unless you want a quarrel lodged in your skull or the whole party roasted."
A variety of monsters roamed this area, the most common being skeletons.
As it was a dungeon, questions about whether this place ever truly existed took a backseat; given the traces of civilization, the monsters here were mostly derivatives of humans.
Armless skeletons were no issue, even in hordes.
Human flesh wasn't particularly impressive among living creatures to begin with, and mere bones were even less so.
But skeletons with weapons were another story.
Swords or spears were tricky enough, but the real headaches were those wielding ranged weapons.
Especially the crossbow-wielding ones.
With a mere finger snap, their bolts flew at speeds impossible to dodge without predicting their path in advance, and they punched right through armor.
Skeleton crossbowmen, appearing from floor 16 onward, were infamous for embedding quarrels in anyone who entered their range too late.
Like walking landmines.
And though rarer, there were even skeleton mages who wielded magic.
Spot them late and let them finish casting, and fireballs came hurtling with explosive power that made grenades seem tame.
High-mana gear could mitigate some of that, but mid-floor crawlers couldn't afford equipment of that caliber on their income.
There were cases of entire parties wiped out by a late-spotted skeleton mage's fireball.
The multiples-of-15 divisions were arbitrary for convenience, but coincidentally, from the mid-floor benchmark of 16, the dungeon's insidious lethality jumped dimensions.
No longer could you get by with a simple formation of tank up front and support in the rear like on upper floors—you needed more fluid responses.
Thus, Kaiden's orders grew more precise than before.
"Skeleton group to the left. No other adds in sight. Laira?"
"Looks that way to me too."
"Got it. Let's clear them and move on."
"Miss Arjen, could you bless us?"
If a skeleton group appeared along our path, we'd check the surroundings and engage.
"One crossbowman hiding by the tree to the right."
"Where...? OK, spotted. I'll block the first shot. Rask, can you close in and finish before it reloads?"
"Heh. With my current mobility, nine times out of ten."
"Just in case, Laira, back him up."
"Yes."
Whenever we spotted the occasional hidden crossbowman or mage, we'd bait their first attack from a safe distance, then rush in during their reload animation to end them swiftly.
"3 o'clock, two archers on the second floor of those ruins."
"Bad terrain. No telling what else might spawn if we engage there. Skip this spot."
If the terrain made approach tricky, we backed off without forcing it.
Thwack-!
Crash-!
"All clear. We can sweep the area now."
The seventh ruin along our route.
Once we'd confirmed all threats inside were neutralized, Kaiden spoke up.
"Let's take a break here."
"Hngh~! Does that mean it's my time now?"
At Kaiden's words, Miella grinned and pulled a lockpick kit from her pouch.
She then bounced lightly around the ruins, hunting for anything valuable.
"Watch for disguised traps, Mia."
"No worries."
While Miella ransacked the place with roguish glee, the rest of us rested.
"It's a different vibe from the gateway floors, but your blessings still stand out here, Miss Arjen."
"Heh, no kidding. Normally, after fights like that, you'd have one or two holes punched in you. Back in the day, one out of every ten scraps left us hanging by a thread. Close call by a footprint, sure."
"Thanks to you, we didn't end up as wretched peony thistle cases."
"Heh."
Rask shuddered visibly at the mention of peony thistle.
Peony thistle was a herb infamous as an emergency hemostatic.
Dried and ground, smeared on a bleeding wound, it stanched blood fast amid burning agony—effective, but dreaded by most crawlers.
Like undiluted rubbing alcohol, but for different uses?
"At this pace, we might clear floor 16 in a single day."
"Nah, wouldn't that be a waste?"
Miella finished her lap around the ruins and plopped down beside me with a meaningful smile.
Clink-!
"Look at all this in half a day."
A motley assortment of coins and trinkets spilled from the pouch she tossed on the ground, glinting invitingly.
Coins, silver pieces, gold coins, brooches, necklaces, rings.
Many were scratched up and low-quality overall, but all metal—decent value if fenced properly.
"The enemies here are a pain, but the loot's compact and cashes out big. No need to rush, right?"
Miella beamed, positively buzzing.
Unlike the upper floors where she had little to do, her role here was front and center, and she was thrilled.
Ranged snipers elevated scouting's importance, and floor 16's farming setup sealed it.
Killing monsters didn't pop a loot window; you had to butcher them on-site for materials.
Those were bulky, and without specialized knowledge per monster, extraction was iffy.
Skeletons offered no usable mats anyway, but the ruins hid treasure chests and sundries everywhere.
Prime rogue territory.
"...Already this much? That's gotta be over three gold."
"Right!? Incredible, huh? Farm a bit more, and we might recoup what we sank into that guy."
Her face flushed with excitement, nostrils flaring.
Not content, she slung an arm over my shoulder with smug triumph.
"See that? Hey, monk. See what big sis can do when she flexes? Upper floors just didn't give me the spotlight!"
My upper-floor jabs had clearly stung; now Miella strutted before me, chattering nonstop.
"Scouting's half the game on 16! Trust me. You all pull your weight, and I'll make us rich this run!"
We chuckled as Miella bounded ahead, her catfolk agility enhanced by blessings making her steps feather-light.
'Cute.'
Though getting that hyped in a dungeon usually spelled trouble.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
"Heh. That beastkin's all picnic-mode. Spotted it coming."
"...Meow."
"...Focus, Rask. This isn't the time for jokes."
"Heh. You'll see."
At Kaiden's words, Rask raised his spear with evident tension.
"...Heh. Mess this up, and this might be our grave today."
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