Chapter 262

Our dungeon challenge continued pretty smoothly.

Aside from a few meal breaks here and there, we spent most of our time just trashing monsters. [6] Well, my familiars (and Elland-san) did while I picked up Drops behind them.

Anyway, to make a long story short, we blew through 22nd, 23rd, and 24th floors very quickly. We probably would have gone through faster if not for my familiar’s very accurate stomach clocks. We made stops for breakfast, lunch and dinner. However, aside from that and sleep time, we battled monsters non-stop.

As for the Dark Spheres collected from the Undead Floor, there was no real opportunity to use them. This situation continued until we reached the 25th floor.

Ah, speaking of which, the 22nd floor was occupied by snakes called Black Anacondas. These snakes have dull black scales and were extremely huge and fierce. The Drops we collected from them were dull-looking skins and snake meat.

The 22nd floor’s Boss Room was guarded by Tyrant Black Anacondas, which were even bigger and fiercer versions of the Black Anacondas. Once decimated, we managed to get a large magic stone on top of the skins and meat.

Personally, I’m not a huge fan of snake meat.

I mean… I’ve eaten Black Serpents and Red Serpents, but, I guess my main issue is psychological. I mean, after seeing them slither and move around like that kind of throws me off. I’d still eat the meat, of course, because it would be a waste not to.

On the 23rd floor, we encountered something called Scavenger Lizards. To my eyes, they looked basically like Komodo Dragons. The only difference that I could see was their skin colour. Scavenger Lizards come in some weird poisonous hue of reddish-purple.

[8] “Scavenger Lizard bites are venomous,” said Elland-san. “They inject a venom that weakens the target before eating them.”

That sounded kind of similar to the Komodo Dragons I’ve seen on TV in my past life. The documentary [6] featured a debate over whether Komodo Dragons were truly venomous or whether people just died after getting infected by their dirty, bacteria filled teeth [9] after getting bitten.

The really shocking thing for me was the number of Scavenger Lizards that came out. It was one thing to see monsters piled up nearly on top of each other in Boss Rooms since they have nowhere to go, but the 23rd floor’s passageway was literally filled with giant purple-red lizards. In fact, I think some of them even started eating each other…

Naturally, for Fer, Sui and Dora-chan, this was nothing more than a target-rich environment. [2] The Drops collected were Scavenger Lizard Skins, [6] I supposed their purplish-red colour could probably be described as pretty? Aside from the skins, we also collected quite a lot of Scavenger Lizard Poison. According to [Appraisal], the poison is something called ‘Hemotoxic Poison’. When injected into a person’s body, the victim’s blood would not solidify and they would die from haemorrhagic shock.

This was quite a scary Drop! And in such large quantities too!

[4] “W-would anyone even buy such a scary poison?” I asked Elland-san.

[8] Elland-san’s reply was a prim, “I cannot say it out loud, but there is a demand for all kinds of poisonous drops from certain organisations…”

[8] “An actual ‘demand’!?” I was horrified.

What a scary world!

On a more positive note, the 24th floor contained creatures that I was much more familiar with. That’s right, the delicious and valuable Black Serpents and Red Serpents.

The expected Drops were meat, skin and magic stones as usual. Naturally, when meat was involved, my terrible trio became very motivated.

Their battle cry on this floor was “Fried Fooood~” [5]

[6] I guess that decides what we’ll have for lunch.

Once we’re out of this dungeon, I’ll do a frying spree and fry up lots of serpent and anaconda meat.

[6] After dealing with the 24th floor’s Boss Room (lots of Black and Red Serpents) we continued on our way to the 25th floor.

I wonder what we’ll encounter next?

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After stepping out onto the 25th floor’s passageway, a monster appeared.

“It’s that a… Crimson Cobra? What a troublesome creature…” Elland-san frowned, one hand slipping to the hilt of his sword.

I stared at the hooded snake monster. It looked like a proper cobra with its spread out hood and two protruding fangs. It was also reddish-purple and about 3 meters long. After the first one appeared, more turned up behind it.

They all reared up with their spread out hood, hissing at us.

“Impudent. Dora, Sui, let’s take them down,”

““Ou!””

““Yes~””

[8] “Be careful!” Elland-san called out. “They are very venomous and will also spit out poisonous fog, so watch out!”

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“Wait? Poisonous fog?” I cried. “I mean, they’re cobras so it’s natural for them to be venomous, but poisoned fog?”

“Yes, also-” the sword suddenly left its sheath and Elland-san took a combat stance.

[6] Alerted, I held up my spear and looked ahead… [8] just in time to see a Crimson Cobra slipped through the supposedly impenetrable wall of Fer, Sui and Dora-chan through some kind of lightning-fast movement and slithered our way like a reddish-purple lightning!

“What the-”

Slash!

The head of a Crimson Cobra went flying into the air.

In a very economical move, Elland-san slashed the air once more to get rid of the blood on his sword. As he returned to his battle-ready stance once again Elland-san said, “Be on the lookout for these unexpected movements.”

I refrained from the urge to clap.

“Hah, that was a close one. Thank you for the save, Elland-san,” that was really dangerous.

“Don’t let your guard down just because you have your familiars, Mukouda-san,” Elland-san chided. He looked very serious. There was none of the slightly silly otaku persona now.

He was right. [2] Even though I have Absolute Defence, I should never let my guard down in situations like this. I am the weakest and most vulnerable. Carelessness could result in a painful death. [5]

I withdrew some Dark Spheres from my [Item Box] and placed them within easy reach at a leather bag attached to my belt. Finally, after adjusting my grip on the Mithril Spear, I prepared myself to face the enemy.

[Gumihou: Work hard, Mukouda-san. Also, red cobras exist on Earth. The red cobra you see here is the Sudan Cobra, very venomous]

[1] Structural Change: Combine 2 paragraphs

[2] Structural Change: Combine 3 paragraphs

[3] Structural Change: Combine paragraph & dialogue

[4] Structural Change: Change passive sentence to dialogue

[5] Delete Repetitive or Pointless Information

[6] Additional Information for Aesthetic Purpose

[7] Add Dialogue Tag

[8] Creative Licence Taken

[9] Komodo Dragon Kills with Venom fact provided by Gumi.