episode_0105

Snowfield Lions, unlike regular lions, were clinging tightly to the walls.

That was all thanks to their sharp claws.

Snowfield Lions that ran down, digging into the walls of the ice cave with claws that seemed capable of tearing flesh if just one got lodged in your body.

But they didn’t become the strongest among the 5th floor’s regular monsters solely due to their sharp claws.

Before approaching us, they shoot out cold air from their mouths.

As blue cold air flew towards us in a line.

“What is this…?”

The bewildered party members.

It was hard to find monsters that used such ranged magic up to the 5th floor, and usually such individuals would be special entities or elite-grade monsters or higher.

Since just regular monsters were suddenly doing ranged attacks by shooting cold air, there was no choice but to be bewildered.

However, there is one mage here.

First, I feed Ifrit plenty of mana and make it spew fire in all directions.

Fire and cold air meet, white mist spreads everywhere, obscuring the view.

Therefore, I spread my senses to see if any cold air was perhaps breaking through.

“Left!!”

As soon as Grace found it, cold air came through the flames created by Ifrit.

However. We still have one more option here.

“Stop it!!”

The Defense Golem pops out from subspace and deploys a barrier.

The cold air that couldn’t penetrate the barrier and vanished. And Ifrit, which had covered the surroundings, also used up all its mana and became tiny.

The ice cave filled only with the dense mist created by the collision of fire and cold air.

However, before long, the Snowfield Lions began to fall vertically, parting the dense mist.

It was something we were all prepared for.

First, Kairek’s arrow flies and grinds one lion to dust.

Moreover, the descending lions were scattered in all directions in utter panic by the shockwave emitted by the powerful arrow that split the wind.

Lions that avoided Kairek’s arrow and came down.

But then Luca leaps forward and shouts.

“Uwaaaaaah!!!”

The lions immediately twisted their bodies and changed direction at her [Taunt].

They launch a concentrated charge towards Luca.

But it wasn’t Luca who was facing them.

At the end of it, Adel was waiting, holding her greatsword like a shield.

The lions charged in, like fish rushing into a net.

They immediately poured out attacks towards Adel.

However, not all monsters fell for the taunt.

As expected of their reputation as high-grade regular monsters on the 5th floor, about half did not follow Luca and approached me and Kairek.

“I’ll block.”

Grace rushes out and stabs a dagger into the Snowfield Lion’s body.

However, true to the name Snowfield Lion, Grace’s ice attribute attacks didn’t work well.

A slow but heavy swipe from the lion’s forepaw whooshes through the air.

However, even if you manage to dodge two or three, it’s difficult when over 10 lions attack simultaneously.

Our mission is to reduce their numbers.

Kairek immediately pulls out an explosive arrow.

As he nocked and shot the arrow he bought, rumored to be highly effective against 5th floor monsters, a massive explosion occurred. When the flames touched the bodies of the Snowfield Lions, they writhed as if they had touched poison.

Thanks to that, Grace gained a little breathing room.

Watching the situation appropriately, I quickly poured mana into the fire spirit, Ifrit.

Then, as the fire spirit grew again and threw a punch, flames spewed out and engulfed the Snowfield Lions.

Grrrr…!!!

In the place where the flames passed, there were slightly scorched lions.

As expected, their base stats are strong enough that even a 4-cost card can’t kill them in one go.

However, the movements of the scorched lions slowed down noticeably.

Kairek and Grace quickly began eliminating the weakened lions.

Of course, I was just watching because I lacked energy.

Using [Mana Overload] to replenish energy would also be an option, but it would create a wound requiring a potion. I need to save potion costs.

At that moment, a massive shockwave erupted, traversing the ice cave.

It looked like Qi had gathered and exploded all at once.

And the bodies of the lions caught in it were crushed or broken.

The one who caused this was Adel.

She had taken all sorts of attacks and launched a counterattack.

However, there were a few lions that survived even that attack.

Immediately, Luca’s axe was lodged in their foreheads.

Afterwards, arrows and daggers flew, eliminating the last remaining lion completely.

『Please check card rewards.』

The reward window announced victory.

“A few low-grade mana stones and one silver card. It’s not bad for hunting 30~40 monsters. Though not great either.”

Grace, who had collected all the rewards, made a somewhat ambiguous expression.

You could say she caught them easier than expected, but wasn’t satisfied with the rewards.

“Still, the 5th floor is more manageable than I thought?”

A situation where they could clear out the 5th floor’s regular monsters even without me having to step forward. In a situation like this, it’s even okay to seriously consider going up to the 6th floor.

When I voiced that opinion, Grace refuted me.

“But we shouldn’t go up recklessly. Even if we can fight the 5th floor’s regular monsters, we haven’t fought elite monsters yet.”

There are countless parties that collapse after failing at self-objectification.

Because they know about parties that disappeared like that, guides are cautious.

“It seems we should try fighting the 5th floor’s elite monster grade before moving to the next floor.”

It’s usually quite ambiguous to know the qualifications for going to the next floor.

But if there’s something tacitly agreed upon to some extent. It’s that you should at least be able to easily catch the previous floor’s elite-grade monsters so you don’t go there and die helplessly.

“Then what should we do?”

“First, according to the information I’ve gathered, there’s a place called [Yeti’s Land].”

“Yeti’s Land?”

“It feels a bit like a hidden area on the outskirts of the 5th floor. I don’t know how much money I spent on a certain membership to find this out.”

“Certain membership?”

She didn’t find it out from somewhere strange, did she?

“Actually, I never thought this information would be used. It was so well hidden. But coincidentally, we got the map the knight gave us, didn’t we? So isn’t now the perfect situation?”

It seems using this newly found information is more important than finding out the qualifications to go up to the 6th floor.

Of course, with her being this enthusiastic, it felt awkward to just say let’s go to the 6th floor.

Although I disliked the 5th floor because of the hardship we endured, going up right away would be too reckless a choice.

“…Okay. Guide us for now.”

*

Yeti’s Land.

A hidden area not on the map Otlus gave.

However, it is said that there is a roughly determined way to find it.

“First, we need to head to one of the four lakes. Since we are closest to the north now. Let’s go north.”

We immediately moved following Grace.

After meeting other explorers along the way and fighting an Ice Scorpion once.

We arrived at the North Lake.

A warm lake located under the bones of a giant monster, as always.

“Monsters are also coming to drink water on the other side.”

Since it’s a warm lake, monsters appear quite frequently here.

But how do you find Yeti’s Land from here?

First, Grace began examining the giant bones covering the lake from various angles.

“…Huh?”

She just kept turning her head this way and that, as if something wasn’t working out.

Immediately, an ominous feeling struck.

“Could this have been a lie? No way.”

Looks like she got scammed.

“Just in case, should we try another lake?”

“No. Just give me a little more time.”

Grace immediately started walking on the lake.

It was all possible thanks to the cold air coming from her feet.

You might wonder if seeing it up close would change anything. But taking a short break after a long march wasn’t bad, so we lightly made a bonfire and were resting.

We could see other explorers.

Immediately, following the unwritten rule among explorers, the explorers began resting by the lake, keeping their distance.

And that wasn’t the end of it.

As expected of the 5th floor’s key area, the four lakes, there were monsters, and countless explorers headed here.

Covered entirely in snow, and with the characteristic of the structure changing every time, it felt like activity was centered around the lakes.

Well, if we hadn’t received the 5th floor map from Otlus, we probably would have come to the lakes too.

“But, how long is Grace going to keep looking at that?”

“…Indeed.”

For a non-short amount of time, Grace had created an ice sheet on the lake and was sitting on it, observing the bones. So much so that the explorers who came to the lake even cast glances at her appearance.

With one person sitting on the lake, it seemed weirder *not* to draw aggro.

Since time was something we had plenty of anyway, I let Grace do whatever she wanted.

Surprisingly, she wasn’t the only one who got scammed.

“Hey there!! Are you also looking for Yeti’s Land?!!”

“Uncle, you too?”

Grace, who immediately found a fellow traveler.

She began examining the bones on the lake with one Dwarf.

And his party member naturally approached us.

“Have you perhaps been to any of the other lakes?”

“This is our first time here.”

“We’ve been to all the lakes. But the old man keeps insisting that he was definitely not fooled…!!”

Just listening to the story made me feel frustrated.

Thinking that a Dwarf, already known for stubbornness, was acting like that because he was fooled by false information, I felt like my insides would burst just watching.

“Thanks to this, we were supposed to go up to the 6th floor, but we’re wasting a lot of time.”

“I see.”

Hearing the story, this party was originally explorers active on the 6th floor, but the Dwarf brought back information about a place called Yeti’s Land that no one had ever heard of.

Moreover, it is said that the Dwarf isn’t even a guide.

“Haa…, no matter how much I, a guide, told him it was fake, he wouldn’t listen. Well, since we’ve come this far, I can’t say anything more, I guess.”

“Still, thanks to that, we won’t have to struggle anymore. Thank you for letting us know.”

If they hadn’t been here, we would have explored all four lakes as well.

As a sign of gratitude, I shared the soup we were boiling.

“Oh-ho, thank you. I’ve been in the cold for so long, my body is a wreck.”

While we were sitting together with another explorer party and talking like that.

One more team of victims appeared.

“See! Didn’t I tell you it was correct information?!”

A party that appeared from between the canyons.

Two people among them were getting angry at the other party members.

“With people looking for it like that, there’s no way it’s wrong information!”

Immediately, those two ran towards Grace and the Dwarf.

In the end, the remaining victims looked at us with pity.

They were quick-witted too.

“Ah, are you also here for [Yeti’s Land]?”

“Yes.”

“They said they’d admit it if there was nobody here. Why can’t they think that there might be multiple people who were fooled?”

“Isn’t that because they don’t want to admit that they were fooled?”

“That’s true.”

As the group grew, it became a clan-sized group before we knew it.

When I shared the soup, they were grateful.

While we were waiting for quite a while like that.

Loud voices were heard from the lake.

“”We, we found it!!!” ”

Grace and her group, cheering “Banzai” three times and shouting “Waaaah” excitedly.

It seems they finally managed to find something.

But whether it’s the truth or not, we’ll have to see.