I peeked out from my hiding place, a large fissure in the wall. From there, I could see the newcomers.
Humans... or humanoids at least. They are wearing armor with helmets, so I can't see any characteristic that shows that they're humans or something similar, but there are no centaurs or tentacle-aliens at least. No female knights either...
The armor had the same white-and-gold theme, but looking closely, I can see some serious differences between the six of them.
There's one guy that looks like the model of Arthurian knights, complete with a cape and sword. But he's the most normal-looking one among all those guys.
A different guy's without weapons, but his gauntlets are so stupid-big that anyone else couldn't lift their arms if they had those equipped. Except for that, and some greaves on his legs, he's only wearing leather armor. Probably some pugilist or practitioner of martial arts. That's the feeling he gives.
Two other guys look like magicians that forcefully added armor to their robes. Is calling them "magic knights" alright? One of them looks more priest-ish, with the crosses decorating his armor. So, magician knight and priest knight? They're the ones with the biggest reactions from [Magic Sight], and the priest-looking one's got a golden-and-white aura to boot.
Musn't forget about the spear-wielding fellow. His armor's thinner than the others, probably designed to move around quickly. Even an amateur like me can see he's got some smooth movements.
Last in the group is the guy walking in front of the other one. But calling him a knight may be stretching it a little. He looks more like a thief with that huge mantle covering most of his body and how he's checking the ground like that. Only his helmet hidden underneath the hood and the metal boots, reveals that he's part of the same group.
The knight group kept on moving, closing in towards the glued tortoise-duo. Not that they moved with any haste. The... thief-knight(?), kept on checking the ground for potential traps and such, but after a while, they must have decided that it was safe.
So that's how pro Dungeon divers do it. Kinda feel like what I've been doing's been blasphemy towards the real adventures... but hey, I'm a monster! Why should I move like the humanoids?
While I was thinking about the difference between monsters and non-monsters, the knight group had started to investigate the tortoise duo.
Or, I think they're investigating it? They've taken out these wacky thingamajiggies... whatever they are. Looks like video cameras, or some scanning devices. There's mana in them, so... magic machines? No, that sounds wrong.
In any case, if those guys are so busy with their science project, let them be. I'm outta here! Having three of those tortoises in my Storage would kill my appetite for reptiles.
That, and they would rot before I could eat them all. Sometimes, meaning all the time, I wish that [Spatial Storage] had some time-freezing functions.
---
Some times after I ran away from the knight brigade, I arrived at a new crossroad of dilemma. A real crossroad! Okay, I'll stop joking.
The road is splitting into four, like the Greek letter Ψ (psi). The next floor is through the left-most upper road, while the first floor is the road at the bottom. The problem, however, is the middle- and right road at the top.
Both paths lead to a machine that needs to be bugged, but the right road is the most problematic. It's guarded by a freaking two-headed snake tortoise! I know that cause I saw it while exploring the floor on the first go. Ran away the moment I laid my eyes on the behemoth.
The middle path's better. Just your everyday frog hive... frog hotel? Frog society? A big area where the frogs in the area have made their official sleeping place.
The frogs are easy to slip by, but the behemoth is different. I can't reach the machine without reaching the end of my lifespan. Or can I?
This idea better work here. Now, where's a good stone when you need it?
---
"Zzzzz, quark, quark, quark. Zzzzz, quark, quark, quark."
What snoring sounds from these guys, er, frogs. Fine with me, as long as they don't wake themselves up.
I'm at the entrance of the cave that contains the Dungeon machine... and the hordes of sleeping frogs. Even a tortoise will have trouble with this amount of frog legs.
No problem for me though. I used a thread as a safety rope and traveled the cavern by walking on the wall. I needed to replace the thread as I walked, but in the end, I reached the machine.
*Click*
And there went the device!
"Zzzz, QUARK!"
Eek! What was that for!? One of the frogs made a loud noise all of a sudden. I was preparing for the worst, but it looks like it was only sneezing in its sleep. Don't scare me like that! But the stupid frog was already sleeping. Can frogs even sneeze? Weird.
I had no choice this time, as the timing of the frogs' sleeping hours matched my purpose brilliantly, but thinking about it, shouldn't I have thought of some plan B? Believing that I can hide with [Stealth] all the time will come back to bite me sooner or later.
... Let's get that class with the Skill Points from this floor's Quest. Getting the skill for increasing DEX won't cost me so much, and I can use Skill Points to force its level up. The only drawback is that I won't be getting any Skill Points when the skill reaches Lv.10 now, even if I make it reach that level naturally afterward, but with DEX being my most used stat, I'll have it reach Lv.20 when I get the Rogue class.
Since I need three more points for reaching 100 DEX, I need to spend 3 Skill Points to get [Dextrity Increase (Small)] at Lv.3. I've already completed the requirements of "Killing 10 or more beings undetected" thanks to the Shredder, or, in this case, having killed 10 or more beings before they could react.
Then there's the requirement of being in the presence of other creatures without being detected for a certain amount of time, but since I've been in stealth mode for most of my second life, I'm not that concerned about that one.
Wonder if the knight group has arrived yet. As I thought that, I reached the psi-crossroad... only to find the spoken devil... Sorry, I meant the knights.
Did they take a break before moving on? Or rather, they must have moved slowly due to seeing that there's something in this Dungeon that can create birdlime-like thread mass. That came back to bite me. Getting to check out if they're following my lead is a good thing, but damn that was close.
The thief-knight looked at the big rock that lent to the wall that divided the right- and middle tunnels. They started to discuss it with each other, so I sneakily came closer...
"... What is this supposed to be?" - Thief-knight
"It looks like some drawing...?" - Pugilist-knight
Oi! Why do you say that as a question?
"I can see that, but what's the drawing supposed to be?" - Thief-knight
"A... mouth?" - Spear-knight
"A hole?" - Magician-knight
"A takoyaki?" - Priest-knight
It's a treasure chest! The right path leads to freakin' treasures(lie)!!
"Who made this? And for what reason?" - Knight
"Don't ask me. It could be a trap made by the Dungeon... but which path should we take then?" - Thief-knight
"Logically, the path the drawing points towards would be the same one, and the other two would be filled with traps..." - Magician-knight
They're both safe! All of them are safe! If it wasn't for the inhabitants...
"... But what if the Dungeon's ruler knows about this way of thinking?" - Pugilist-knight
"He's right. If that is the case, then they would know that people would take the right path since they expect that one to be the trap-less one. So instead, they placed all the traps that could be placed on the two other tunnels in the right one, creating one bonafide death trap." - Spear-knight
Why are you guys complicating this so much!?!?
"... But why wouldn't the ruler of the Dungeon lay traps in all three tunnels?" - Priest-knight
"Ah!" - Knights
Are you stupid or something!? If they could do that, then they would have placed them by the entrance or something! ...Speaking of the devil, I haven't seen any traps either. Is this place bad with traps?
"No matter, we need to investigate the whole Dungeon. The leads tell us that guy is also here, so we need to look for him while working on conquering, or destroying, this Dungeon. Leave no stone unturned." - Knight
"Sir!"
With that, the knight group went to the right tunnel. Finally! I was getting impatient here.
I left the frog tunnel and left for the next floor. Good thing I overheard the knights also wanting to beat the Dungeon. That increases the odds of them placing the last device after beating the two-headed tortoise.
I even considered a moment to join the fight between them, as both sides will lose some life if they clash, bringing a good chance for obtaining some free, high-quality EXP. Although, it would probably end with me dead from a stray shot. I hope those art-haters get what they deserve!
... Wasn't this too easy? Getting to know the knights' plans and all that? Must be overthinking this. I mean, after all my worries, why shouldn't I have a stroke of luck sometimes?
***
- The knights' PoV -
"Was that good enough?" - Priest-knight
"I think so, but one can never know for sure." - Knight
The knight group, an adventurer party that called themselves "The Grail Knights", walked through the Dungeon tunnel while discussing the monster that had tried to keep itself hidden from them.
"This better work. I hate acting." - Pugilist-knight
"No worries. The spider in question was skillful and intelligent enough to take care of two, maybe more, rank E monsters on its own. And from the information we got from the party before, this creature must have the same thoughts about this place as we do." - Magician-knight
The knights had already discovered the existence of the spider monster of the Reha Zera race the moment the battle between it and the tortoises started. Who wouldn't notice a bunch of monsters making hell? Even if it was only the thief-knight that noticed them at first.
"It's better to have a local work with the sabotage of this monstrosity. Even with temperature regulating armors, we will not be able to explore much of this place without proper logistic channels." - Knight
The knights had met up with the Cheerful Hunters party on their retreat from the Dungeon. When these two parties met up, the Hunters told the Grail Knights the way to enter the Dungeon, saving them some time and resources.
Due to that, the knights have quite the fair share of goods left in their Item Bags and Storage skills, but not enough to explore a Dungeon of unknown size. Some of the more famous Dungeons could have 50, if not 100 floors and areas.
Due to that, adventurers that go Dungeon diving anticipate having to stay in the Dungeon for weeks, if not months. The number of materials needed for that is way more than a search for some mystery item that produces the drought.
"Just hope that the little bugger stays clear of that guy." - Spear-knight
"True. That guy is known to hate Darkness attribute creatures." - Magician-knight
"We got to meet up with the Cheerful Hunters by following his tracks, but seriously, I wanna throw him in the slammer more than anything." - Pugilist-knight
"Ssh. Something's up there." - Thief-knight