Floor 3 was overfilled with melanoids.

The guards said as much from the moment they came down. Mino’s tour guide certification was enough, technically, but they stressed to take care and stay safe. They thought the trio was unprepared, unskilled, just some bodies looking to get eaten by the magical dungeon monster hordes.

That, of course, did not happen.

Instead, they found themselves ankle deep in inky black goop while crashing away at every foe that faced them. Amelia and Mino, back to back, destroying a whole circle of ravenous, glossal-shaped creatures. It seemed that Amelia, more than anything else in the dungeon, was an amazing flame to attract these oozing monstrous moths. They had them surrounded, but with her Combat Module roaring at full strength, and with Mino’s water magic whipping around, they easily fended off the pack. And they were not the real force in this battle, either.

Scrambling in and out of that chaotic circle was Phelia, hacking away with her oversized axe, surprisingly graceful in her aim and swift in her attacks. She knocked over melanoid or melanoid, seemingly unaware of her presence as their attention focused fully on the half-golem they had encircled.

And where Phelia’s attacks did not connect, her feisty companion finished them off—Otto had apparently found his new calling as a combat pet, viciously tearing into mel after mel and finally putting to rest any question that olms’s blade-sharp teeth were just for show. As much as an animal could, he seemed to relish the moment. Amelia could no longer see the pipsqueak slimy animal always begging for affection—she saw only a miniature monster.

Phelia slammed her axe on the ground, with such power her body lifted off the ground from the impact. It cracked the ground around her and knocked down three unlucky melanoids, who had their misshapen bodies eradicated by Otto just seconds later. They really made a team. So much so that Amelia and Mino hardly got a chance to actually take out any stragglers. Disappointed, Amelia deactivated her Combat Module and lowered her rocky right arm to her side. Mino swirled up her whip of water back into a ball of liquid, and with a waving motion from her hand it broke apart and dissipated into the air as moisture.

The battle was over, and this section of Floor 3 was secure.

“Wow, wow, wow!” Phelia exclaimed before the group had a single moment to bask in the newly quiet cavern. “I can’t believe we just did that. Like, wow.”

“Mostly you,” Amelia said.

“See, last time was a total fluke. All because I didn’t have my axe with me. I’m trained for power weapons, after all. I’m strong!”

Mino leaned over and patted her on the head. “Yep, you’re super strong.” Mm, mm.”

Amelia was loath to admit it, but it was true. The kobold girl had proven herself far beyond her expectations for a three-and-a-half-foot warrior with a weapon about as big as her. She was not anything Amelia would trust in a true life-or-death situation, but here clearing out melanoids, it was interesting to see. Entertaining, in a way.

Phelia bared her fangs in a wide grin. “I’m gonna complete a quest today. I can feel it!”

“Quest?” Amelia cocked her head to the side.

But by the time Phelia might have heard the question, she had already scampered off deeper into the Floor 3 caves, racing towards the lost treasure. Otto galloped right behind her.

Amelia glanced in Phelia’s direction, then at Mino, who did nothing but shrug. She apparently knew nothing about Phelia’s “quest” either. The strangest mystery to suddenly pop up out of nowhere. Amelia was not always an attentive listener, but she was absolutely sure she had never heard Phelia talk about something like that before. Perhaps it was simply an overeager imagination? Or a kobold thing, more likely.

The two women were now alone again to talk while they took their time catching up to the third much more excited woman. They entered through a short, extremely narrow tunnel, and despite the limited space, Mino made a point to keep walking side-by-side with Amelia.

“Otto’s doing well,” Mino said. “I kind of wish we brought him along the first time after all.”

“A little scary, I’ll admit.”

“Scarily adorable, you mean?”

“No.”

“I wonder if he could bite through your rocky parts with those super sharp teeth of his?”

“It would be very painful.”

“You’re a big girl,” Mino said.

“For him.”

Mino patted her on the back, then sped up her walking pace the moment they stepped out from the narrow tunnel and into a wider space. “Let’s get to that treasure, why don’t we?”

She wore the same vaguely motherly face she always did when she was unhappy. Amelia was sure she had no idea that she even did it, but it was cute enough that she decided never to tell her. It was like she was trying to present herself as calm and pleasant, but always doing a little bit of a poor job at it.

Ever since they had come down deeper into the dungeon, Mino had been this way. No, it was not the felid monster hunter and the obvious crush she had on them. It was almost certainly just the general atmosphere of it all.

When they had come down to Floor 2, the beautiful central lake, the nature preserve with plants and animals going mostly undisturbed, was completely changed. Guards from the North Sunwell Company were on patrol everywhere, trying to keep the peace for the tourists and observers but generating a great amount of unease from their mere presence. At first, the group had speculated it was due to Fleet’s Pride and the attacks they had done in the outpost town. However, that was a while back, by now.

The real reason was melanoids. Spotted first in Floor 4, then in large numbers in Floor 3. They were virtually unheard of going beyond that in the post-Great Hero era, but attacks in Floor 2 were becoming increasingly common, said the guards, and there had been five confirmed sightings all the way in Floor 1, just this week. Here on Floor 3, they already had to fight off a whole wave of them, and that was after the daily patrols that guards sent out to help quell their numbers.

Melanoids, the devious creations of the Dungeon Core, were a dying breed of mindless monsters that fed off the souls of living beings. They were not invaders, not without a Dungeon Core to direct their minds. No, they were just scavengers, just bottom-feeding opportunists. At least that was what everyone said. But the attacks were looking increasingly coordinated, and increasingly high in number.

Whatever was going on here, Amelia had no doubt it had something to do with the North Sunwell Company and some horrible actions they were taking, somewhere deeper in the dungeon. Something to send these melanoids into a frenzy that had them climbing the dungeon as ravenously as they could. Today was not for that kind of investigation, but one day, she would find out what was driving these creatures and put a stop to it. For the city’s sake, and for Mino’s. Anything to put a real smile back on her fake-smiling face.

Amelia and Mino reached Phelia and Otto, right at the edge of the abyss.

“Gods,” Amelia muttered as she stared at the chasm before her. She took a step closer than she was comfortable with, and peered out as the immense blackness, separated only by twisting cavern walls and occasional pockets of standable land. She looked down and found only darkness... Until, of course, she enhanced her vision even further and found an ultra-faint gradient of light coming from far in the deep.

“That must go down to, what, Floor 7?” Amelia asked to herself. If she were more of an idiot, she would consider this chasm a nice shortcut to get down much lower into the dungeon. Fortunately, she was not an idiot.

“Look!” Phelia shouted, pointing a claw. “The treasure chest is still there.

All the way across the cavern, a hundred feet or more, there was a ledge with barely enough room to stand on. Sitting precariously on that tiny bit of rock was an actual treasure chest, with damp wood and a rusted metal lock and the faint glimmering of a prize worth shooting for.

“It’s still there,” Mino said. “See, I told you you had nothing to worry about.”

“Nothing to worry about,” Amelia repeated aloud, just to make sure the words actually made any sense.

Yes, the treasure chest was indeed sitting there peacefully. It was also a hundred feet away with a giant near-bottomless pit in the middle.

“Well, here we go.” Mino kneeled and began unpacking all of her supplies, all the specialized climbing gear she had rented from the weapons shop. She took out a hook shot, a sort of harpoon-like device, but obviously not for any hunting use, as well as several metal rods to plant in place to weigh the device down. Phelia took a bundle of rope and tied it around her waist on one end.

“You’re going to climb all the way there,” Amelia said in a questioning tone.

“Pretty much,” said Phelia, taking the other end of her rope and examining it closely. “We fire the hook shot over to the treasure, and I climb over there. I’ll soar right into victory.” She dropped the untied end of the rope and it plopped on the ground, part of it dangling over the ledge. “Super simple.”

“Sounds it.”

“You know the real interesting part about this chasm?” she asked. “It didn’t actually exist in the Dungeon Core days. That treasure chest obviously wasn’t placed there by some prankster, which means it was there back when the Dungeon Core was still around... And now there’s a huge pit surrounding it.”

“That’s terrifying and almost certainly untrue,” Mino said, standing up and marching over to Phelia. “Also, what are you doing with that rope? We have a harness for you. The rope is tied to the harness, not you.”

“Oh, sorry,” Phelia said. She untied the rope from around her waist—

—And it immediately went careening over the edge of the chasm, dropping silently into the darkness.

“Oh. Sorry.”

Mino stared blankly in disapproval.

“We have more rope, don’t we?”

With no words, Mino scolded Phelia greater than Amelia had ever seen from one glossal to another. Truly damning.

“So I guess I gotta be careful, huh?” Phelia laughed nervously.

With a barely suppressed sigh, Mino tossed the harness aside and picked up the hook shot, now planted firmly in place on the ground. She aimed it for the treasure chest and shot.

A softer blast than a rifle. Just metal and rope, after all, no explosion. But it launched almost as elegantly, the projectile flowing through open air in stoic grace.

Then a loud clang as it impacted into the side of the cavern wall, just below the ledge with the treasure chest.

Phelia gasped. “Perfect shot, Mino. I knew you could do it.”

“I’m good at this sort of thing.”

The hook had made a clean path from their ledge to the treasure’s, but it was one single rope, with no safety measures whatsoever. Danger to extreme levels, and the near-salivation in Phelia’s eyes were not encouraging.

Amelia stepped forward and said, “I think I should do this.” After all, she always had an out, always had some way to save herself in case of things going incredibly badly.

But Phelia pushed her away with surprising force. “This is my quest,” she said. “I’ve got to get that treasure chest. I’ve got to be the one.”

Mino shared the look of concern on Amelia’s face, but did not do much to dissuade the kobold. “Please be careful. Absolutely as careful as you’ve ever been.”

“Or else... splat,” Phelia said, suddenly with caution ringing in her voice. Then it went away. “I’m ready.”

She gripped her claws around the rope and began to climb across it, inch by inch, ever closer to the other side. With her breath held, Amelia watched as—

One claw slipped—

“Uh-oh.”

Before Phelia had even begun to drop, Amelia had already broken into a sprint.

“WARP MODULE!” she screamed at her Access Core.

She jumped, and—