Chapter 41 – Floor 6. Onward

Severa’s FUEL gauge was at 0. I can’t use her anymore until I recharge it by using her properly.

However, it’s still possible for me to unequip the Staff of Flame and hold it myself.

I returned to where I started.

To cut in half that worst of traps, the summon trap, which had forced me to use a teleportation scroll—the trap that dared to summon those animal-phobic plants and yet somehow survived.

‘It’s still there.’

Sticking close to the corridor wall and just barely peeking my head out to remain undetected, I observed the room where predatory plants still remained, motionless, waiting for prey to approach.

They probably entered energy-saving mode after losing their target when I suddenly disappeared with the teleportation scroll.

I heard that Venus flytraps, the water guns of the insectivorous plant world, use so much energy when closing their mouths that they die after two or three misses.

‘They sure moved well for that sort of thing.’

What kind of madman created such terrifying creatures in the first place?

That… Osa… whatever, was no help at all, and after dying created only things like this—no wonder this world is doomed.

Fortunately, where I was cornered was beside a corridor leading from the entrance point of Floor 6.

And having been ejected to the opposite side of Floor 6 by the teleportation scroll, I could now catch these plants from behind. Though I’m not sure that makes any difference for creatures without eyes or joints.

Anyway, there were about seven of them.

Though their numbers had been greatly reduced thanks to the Wanderer, there were still many.

Even with the Lion Knight Armor minimizing damage, my health would be in a precarious state.

‘Can I just grab the box and leave? If I could just get through this room and into that corridor, I’d have explored all of Floor 6.’

There were a total of three corridors leading from the clearing.

The corridor through which I first entered this clearing. The corridor through which I came back to find this clearing. And lastly, the yet-unexplored corridor in between.

Looking at the map, this clearing and that corridor are surrounded by already explored areas, so if I could check that out, I would have explored all of Floor 6.

With an axe in my left hand and the Staff of Flame in my right, I enter the room, trying to minimize the sound of my footsteps.

Clink–

“Oh shit.”

As the sound of metal clanking from the joints and decorations of my armor spread, the predatory plants that had been motionless, disguised as ordinary plants, all turned toward me at once.

Even though they had no eyes, I somehow felt burning gazes on me.

***

Whoosh—

I deflect an incoming whip with my axe and aim the Staff of Flame at them. Fortunately, I had learned how to use magic staves from Severa when I had the chance.

The red jewel attached to the tip of the staff flashes as magical energy gradually gathers.

The multicolored magical energy emits light like sunlight through a prism, then gradually becomes a small flame.

And the red flames, swirling and forming a sphere, are aimed at the plants approaching with their bodies swaying.

“Burn! Tonight’s dinner is Plant BBQ!”

I had no intention of eating burnt carbon weeds, but wouldn’t it be better for those salad greens if someone ate them rather than just letting them burn?

Flare—!

The fireball, released with a formidable Mental stat of barely minimum value, instantly grows to the size of a basketball and makes a sound like when a fire accidentally breaks out from swinging a pan in the kitchen, then shoots forth.

The fireball hits a plant rushing toward me without flying very far.

Boom!

The stems and leaves of the plant hit directly by the fireball are torn away, scattering sparks that ignite and start to burn.

Yet the plant doesn’t die, continuing to wriggle while burning down.

But with a crackle-crackle sound of moisture bursting and creating hazy smoke, the roasting predatory plant eventually slumped to the ground and stopped moving.

The direct damage isn’t very high, but the spreading flames are a different story.

They inflict fixed damage, and these creatures have a weakness to fire.

Flare – Crackle–

The flames gradually devoured the surrounding grasses as they consumed the plant’s corpse.

The fire, swallowing everything it touched and growing in size, spread to nearby predatory plants, and those writhing in the clinging flames spread the fire to yet more plants.

Like the Black Death that swept through Europe in the past, as the flames began to dance with death, I felt a warmth in my heart.

Actually, it was just my face feeling warm from the heat.

“Haha! Burn to death, all of you! You fucking mosquitoes too!”

I slapped and killed a married woman who was sucking blood on my cheek, then tossed her corpse into the fire.

If I light a fire like this and send the ashes flying, it will rain, and that rain will be drunk by more grass and plants that will grow.

Truly, there can’t be a more passionate environmentalist than me.

I saved the current environment! I stopped global warming!

Ignoring the plants writhing and burning into black ashes, I walked toward the unopened box. Seeing how quickly the fire was spreading around me, there was no time to dawdle.

An old crate not rimmed with silver, unlike when defeating mini-bosses.

While not expecting as many rewards, I open the box, praying for good items inside.

Creak– The old box with squeaking hinges opens, and I put it in my backpack without even checking it.

There was a possibility it contained cursed items, but there was no time to leisurely check. Judging by how warm my back was getting, the fire seemed to be consuming the entire room.

“Ugh. It’s acrid.”

The ceiling made of branches and leaves was burning through, creating a hole to the sky where smoke was escaping, but the excess smoke and heavy toxic substances were sinking down.

If the stairs to Floor 7 weren’t right in front of me, I obviously wouldn’t have thought of doing something this extreme.

Covering my mouth and nose with a cloth soaked in water, I ran through the smoke that was starting to obscure my vision into the corridor I hadn’t checked yet.

Clink – Clink–

The sound of metal mixed with the sound of plants burning and ash falling.

Pop-pop – The sound of tiny insects unable to withstand the high temperature of the flames, exploding as their bodily fluids evaporated.

A sense of peace came over me at the sound of those garbage creatures that had been tormenting me every night disappearing.

Thus, escaping the flames consuming Floor 6, I ran through the corridor and finally arrived at the last clearing of Floor 6.

[You have learned the structure of the current floor.]

[You have grown.]

What was waiting for me there was yellowish, jaundiced skin covered in pus, a massive body that required me to lift my head high to take it all in, and no head where a head should be for a living being.

A beheaded ogre welcomed me.

***

“Hieeeek..! That’s fucking disgusting!”

It was already a dead corpse.

No matter how much various fantasy media exaggerate ogres as monsters, it’s natural that they die when beheaded.

It was the boss of this tropical rainforest area that appears on Floor 10.

“That appearance looks like it would have a severely negative effect on heart and mental health… to think I have to fight something like this…”

This was like an event showing in advance what boss I would face in this zone.

Just imagining it automatically chips away at my morale. It seems like being hit once by those arms, which look much thicker than logs, would turn me into a meat pancake even if I wore a full set of plate armor.

Despite its brutish appearance, it can use magic, is physically strong, has a tough body—an absolute nightmare of an opponent.

Nevertheless, since the future where I must face it remained unchanged, instead of complaining, I approached the stone tablet embedded in front of the ogre and read the inscription that seemed left there in hopes it wouldn’t disappear.

“My comrade, who was stronger and braver than anyone else but feared loneliness, rests here. Jeff, the wanderer of the world and the great ogre, friend of Gabadi.”

Jeff again.

Since this was an inscription I already knew from D.D., it wasn’t particularly surprising.

Rumble..!

As I read the inscription, the entire Floor 6 shook loudly as if an earthquake had occurred, and the ground supporting the giant ogre began to sink.

Gradually—and then gradually more.

As if it had now completed its duty.

The collapsing ground, like a sinkhole appearing on a road and swallowing a passing car in videos I’d seen before, pulled the truck-sized ogre corpse underground.

CRASH!!!!

Along with a tremendous sound, there was another sound of the ground collapsing far below, and then another sound of the ground collapsing even further below that.

Through the hole, soil and plant corpses exploded from the massive impact, rising up like dominoes of collapse.

Thud-thud-thud!

I tightly closed my eyes to keep out the dust from the soil that reached the ceiling and then rained down, and after about ten seconds, it seemed to have calmed down as I no longer felt anything hitting my head.

“Damn…”

Opening my eyes, I could see the entire clearing that had been obscured by the massive body, now with a perfectly circular hole where the ground had collapsed and disappeared.

A natural slide made of vines and branches intertwined to imitate stairs leading to Floor 7.

And right in front of it lay a small metallic object. It was a cross guard with neither a handle nor a blade attached.

A black metal cross guard with symbols that seemed to represent wind or water currents engraved in intaglio.

When I picked it up…

[You have inherited a memory.]

『Memory』

【This is a memory that was regretted. But because it has ended, it is called a memory.】

It was similar to the “Memory” obtainable by offering the alligator statue to the corpse of the King of the Sewers to pray for its rest.

I inserted the cross guard onto the handle. Fitting perfectly, it seemed to claim that they were originally one.

After putting it back in my backpack, I turned around.

The flames that had burned everything down to the corridor and followed me, as if trying to swallow me too.

‘Surely it won’t follow me to Floor 7?’

Just to be safe, I took out the Staff of Frost and fired it at the entire corridor, then sighed in relief as the flames could no longer approach.

And naturally, my gaze turned to the hole created by the ogre’s corpse.

In the ground, supported by thick layers of grass and soil, I discovered something strange. Something green supporting the bottom layer.

There would be trees supporting the ceiling on Floor 7 too, but this didn’t look like that—it looked more like what you see when cutting an aloe vera with a knife.

Thick mucous layers stacked like a sandwich under a green skin.

“Could that also be a leaf?”

And an enormously gigantic leaf at that. Was there more about this maze that I didn’t know, that wasn’t revealed in D.D.?

I decided to ask about it if I got the chance on Floor 7, and picked up the ogre’s grim head lying nearby, wrapping it in cloth.

This concludes the taste of the tropical rainforest area.

Ignoring the ogre’s facial contours that felt rough even through the cloth, I entered the plant slide that resembled a throat, leading to Floor 7.