By the time I got back to the markets around the dungeon, there were far more shops set up than before and plenty of them were starting to fill up on ores. As Jerry had predicted, the line to the dungeon was starting to thin rapidly, with many people outright leaving after seeing the prices of ores drop all around them. They knew that there wasn't much of a chance to make it big anymore. Even if they had waited in line for an hour, it just wasn't worth it anymore.

I found one shop that hadn't gotten any stock and sold the rest of the beast's corpse to him. Unfortunately, without the fire gem, the reddish ore went back to the almost silver-like appearance of alum so I couldn't try and convince the salesman that it was special and ask a higher price. The corpse was around the same mass as twelve ores and I sold it for two silvers, bringing the total on hand to four. If not for the fact that the pieces were so broken up and that more and more ore was bringing dragged out of the dungeon by the moment, I might have been able to haggle out a third coin or some of the local currency.

After that, I returned to the inn four silver richer than before and enjoyed the leftover food with a mug or two of beer. Despite all our drinking, the barrel had dropped only a finger's length and I still had a bit of wine leftover in my shirt. Apparently, we could afford one more night than expected in the inn due to food expenses and alcohol being lowered from my efforts. That hyped me up for the next dungeon run as I could contribute heavily simply from reaching the rest area, not even mentioning all the ores I could gather along the way.

It wasn't long before I was back at the front of the line before the dungeon. The others heard about the line dying down from me and rushed over as soon as I finished eating. At that point, there were only four or five people in the line while the rest had already given up. I was surprised by how much it had emptied out even with the shops all around resuming their usual prices and stock.

"Two silvers, not one for today," said the guard when I gave him one of the silvers I had earned.

"Two? Why did the price go up?" I asked.

"It's a method to lower the lines on busy days like this one. The price will go back to one silver tomorrow," said the guard while passing the silver in his hand back to me, assuming I was going to leave after complaining about the price.

"Well, the lines aren't long anymore nor is it busy. Why wait the entire day to drop the price when this is a good as time as any?" I asked.

"I'd love to drop the price back down but rules are rules. It lasts the entire day as sometimes merchants will come in all around the same day, separated by a few hours, making the prices everywhere go crazy. Even with things going back to normal now, it can change on the turn of a coin. We can't raise and lower the prices constantly throughout the day as we're expected to be somewhat consistent as the public dungeon," said the guard.

It made sense to some degree but felt unfair. Now I had to decide whether it was worth two silvers to enter the dungeon. Sure, I had managed to profit from it so far but if I was unlucky then it would make things an even bigger loss than usual. The same could be said for Jerry and Matt. So much for saving on food and drink expenses. I pushed back the silver and put another in the guard's hand before walking into the dungeon.

If I thought about it in another way, I had made four or more silvers this morning and so entering the dungeon again for two silvers would still end up with one silver profit overall for the day even if I fail miserably like with the dog beast but unable to sell its corpse. So one silver or two silvers was overthinking things. I just had to make sure I ended up on top by the end of the day.

Green walls surrounded me as I came upon the first room of the dungeon. In the middle of the room was a blue puddle, not the usual blue that I would expect of water, but dark blue that did not betray the contents of its depths. The puddle was the monster for sure or was hiding the monster in some way. Poking the puddle with my spear was the best course of plan.

After what seemed like days, I'd finally be using the spear to some effect. Every time I had pulled it out lately it seemed like I was forced to put it away or drop it in favor of the sword. Relying too much on the sword was a bad thing as there would be times in the future where it wouldn't be effective. If only I had an enchanted spear, or maybe a club, or clothes. Normal clothes would be fine too, anything other than these rags.

The puddle reacted to me thrusting my spear at it by moving around to avoid it. The liquid parted and created a hole where the ground was visible right where my spear hit. Good thing that I only wanted to poke and feel around a bit to find the monster or I might have broken my spear and hurt my arm if I stabbed it at full force. That might have happened even if it hadn't moved with how thin it was.

Moving around my spear, I found the liquid reacted and moved to avoid it while reforming in the path behind it. I tried waving it around right down the middle to see if the puddle would separate in half and stay that way to no avail. The two sides would always stay connected by even the tiniest drop and managed to avoid my spear's movements.

At this point, it'd probably be easier to take out the fire sword and try to evaporate the liquid, killing the monster through heat. That or the dark dagger with its instant killing abilities. I could just lay it on the ground near the puddle and then move my spear in a way that pushes it into the dagger, killing it instantly if I was lucky. However, I wanted to know if there was a way to kill this type of monster without relying on an enchanted item.

Considering its liquid body, I doubted that my spear would be much effective even if it did cut into it. Why did it dodge my strikes anyway? It could part its body at will so being cut posed no issue. The only weakness I found so far is its refusal to completely detach a part of itself and its extreme dislike of being touched. How could something like this even hurt me? I could not harm it and it could not harm me.

Eventually, I gave up and pulled out the fire sword and tried stabbing it close to the puddle. Once again, it moved out of the way and even the flames did nothing. It ignored the heat and continued dodging the sword strikes the same way it did when I was using the spear but now I had to stand much closer and backed off a few times. Who knew what it would do if I got too close. I sheathed the sword and pulled out the spear again to keep my distance.

If I couldn't find a way to kill this monster with my spear within the next minutes, I decided to just leave. This thing, whatever it was, was a pain in the ass to deal with. I should have just waited until the next day to enter the dungeon. First I had to deal with an armored dog beast in the rain and now my enemy was a freaking puddle I couldn't hurt. At the very least, I could leave and say I still made a silver in profit for the day.

There was one part of the puddle that moved slower than the rest. It was a clump in the puddle that appeared a bit more solid. I found it right around the time I was about to give up and felt it was the key to defeating it. After all, it was the only part of the puddle slow enough that I might hit it. The only reason I hadn't yet was because I was trying to isolate it from the rest of the puddle, pushing it towards the edge and seeing if I could completely cut it off from the rest despite my previous failed attempts.

Finally, I stabbed this clump and watched as the puddle dried up, seeping between the cracks on the ground, leaving behind only the clump underneath my spear. I picked up the clump and before my eyes, the liquid around it dissipated, revealing a chunk of ore, the same ore as before. The main body and weakness of the puddle was ore, just like how the dog beast was made of ore. If not for the skeletons I had faced when I first came here, I would think this sort of thing was normal. I put the ore in my bag and moved on to the next room.

Five rooms later and five more ores in my bag, I expected to be faced with two puddles and instead found one large puddle. It was roughly twice the size of the previous ones and I assumed it had two ores inside of it. At least, that’s what I hoped as things would be annoying if I only got one ore from fighting this thing. Or perhaps not as these enemies seemed easy enough and if they gave too many ores I would have less of a reason to go further in and have to carry a bulky bag along with me.

When I approached the puddle, a part of it started to lift up and formed a hand that lunged towards my leg. I backed off and stabbed the hand with my spear with it having no time, nor intention, of moving out of the way. The hand collapsed onto the ground and reformed with the main body of liquid but it left an ore behind. These ores acted like brains and with two brains the puddle was able to focus on keeping itself together and presumably avoiding attacks on the main body while the other attacked me.

I couldn’t help but imagine how things would be with thirty enemies, all combined into one. It would be far more terrifying than thirty individual enemies as I could fight those one at a time. All it had to do was act a bit more defensively with the ores on the other side until I’m within range to be attacked and I would be completely helpless. On the other hand, such an enemy would be intimidating yet easy to beat if it attacked like this, providing easy to exploit vulnerabilities as it attacked.

The other brain, ore or whatever I could call it was found without much trouble. I just waved my spear around looking for a section that moved a bit slower then stabbed it. Same as the previous rooms except a larger puddle to sift through. Before heading off to room eight I had to consider something. Since the hand formed by the puddle was offensive and didn’t move to dodge, perhaps using the dark dagger was more appropriate. The best case scenario was the dark dagger killing the entirety of the puddle no matter how many ores lied in it. It would speed things up as I’d no longer have to individually off them and it would be much safer.

Not just safer, but easier to the point where I would be able to go farther into the dungeon than I ever have before. It’d be as if I was facing only one opponent on every floor rather than it increasing every so often at first then consistently with every room. I could even reach the end of the dungeon if there was an end. That’s something I should ask the others after I got back. More likely, if I tried to get to the end, at some point the puddle would act differently or an element version of it would appear and then chase me off or kill me.