Fortunately, there were still no flying monsters that could keep up with my Aviaton. In fact, I had even better luck—there were no monsters that could teleport on top of me.

This single detail made the battle incredibly easy. At first, the monsters chasing me flew in a dense enough area that I could shoot somewhat haphazardly, and still successfully kill them.

The end result was that this battle against a hundred monsters was somehow less dramatic compared to my previous battle against five dragons.

It helped that I was growing more accustomed to the controls in front of me. I would probably be shot down in a second by any of the random Metan Aviatons Samantha had encountered, but I could make up for my clumsy piloting with my Aviaton’s incredible speed and automated systems.

After killing the flying monsters, then the rest of the floor was spent chasing down the land-based enemies.

After several hours of hunting, I finally cleared the fourth floor.

It was the fifth floor that I was most nervous about. Samantha had mentioned that this was the variable floor. People might leave the lobby thinking that they could easily beat 100 C-rank monsters, but the fifth floor was the wild card.

Like the idiot I was, I had forgotten to increase my Luck on the previous four floors. Just before killing the final monster on the fourth floor, I put the majority of my mana into Luck.

The prairie around me vanished when I killed the hundredth monster, and I appeared inside a narrow, underground tunnel.

Shit.

I was still inside my Aviaton, but my Aviaton could barely fit inside the tunnel I was in. In fact, the Schema had generously transported me to the widest part of the tunnel, meaning I was unable to move my Aviaton.

There were no monsters near me, but I wasn’t convinced that was a good thing. That meant I was likely supposed to find them.

How was I supposed to travel through narrow tunnels with my own personal aircraft? Walking would leave me exposed—unprotected by the hefty Mana Shield that the Aviaton provided.

I could try blasting my own passageway, but I had no idea how far I needed to travel. And the tunnel walls were glowing with mana—it might be harder than it looks to widen these tunnels.

I decided to give it a shot. I widened the beam of my Mana cannon, firing a Void Beam in the same direction as the tunnel that was in front of me.

The Void Beam continued a fair ways—widening the tunnel enough for my Aviaton to pass forward about twenty yards.

But around fifteen yards in, the original tunnel had curved slightly—leaving me with one wide, dead-end tunnel, and a narrow tunnel that could continue forever.

It was almost as if the system wanted me to ditch the Aviaton.

But I didn’t feel equipped to fight anyone with my incredibly weakened stats, and without Samantha’s help.

So there was one obvious solution.

I would wait.

Maybe the monsters in these tunnels would come to me—in which case, I would kill them with overwhelming firepower.

Maybe Samantha would wake up, and then I could most likely take on whatever monsters were in these tunnels with her combat shadow.

There was serious time-dilation in the Atropos Schema’s floors—even though I was in a rush to return to the real world, no matter how much time I spent here, I would still return quickly to the real world.

So I settled in for a long wait, studying my surroundings carefully to make sure there were no hidden dangers around me.

The first thing I noticed was that I was very deep underground. I couldn’t find the surface with Mana Sensing.

The second thing I noticed was that there were no living creatures within my Mana Sensing range, supporting the theory that I was supposed to abandon my Aviaton.

Well, maybe they would come to me.

I wasn’t used to having this much time on my hands, alone.

Samantha, are you there?

No response. If she was just trolling me, hiding the same way I had hidden earlier—I would be pissed.

Dammit, I was worried for her. Or, was I worried for myself, now that I didn’t have her?

I glanced at the Aviaton control panel in front of me, and fiddled around with a few of the buttons I hadn’t figured out yet.

There had been something thrilling when Samantha had flown the Aviaton. This feeling of appreciating someone else’s skill.

Well, I wasn’t going to glorify Samantha, even if she was permanently gone. She had repeatedly messed with my mind. This is what I wanted, since the moment she first started controlling me.

It would be a long wait, but maybe it would be nice to have some alone time…

I waited.

Probably an hour later, I was feeling restless. When Samantha was in control of my body, she had been able to hold one position, crouching in a ball, inside a tree, for hours.

My legs could almost extend all the way to straighten my knee. My right arm could reach all the way out, but my left arm had very little room to stretch.

Shame that I don’t have a skill to immediately fall asleep. That would be a killer skill. And it probably exists.

I’d been on longer road trips. I could do this. Anyway, I was putting off doing something important—I’d always been a good procrastinator.

I tapped my fingers on the control panel. I checked my notifications, hoping for any update, but all that I saw was a simple command:

Clear the Floor.

Of course, it was intentionally ambiguous.

Part of me wished something would happen. Maybe a poisonous mist would appear, forcing me to do something. Maybe a giant worm would try to eat me.

No luck.

I fidgeted with the seat behind me, looking for any knobs or levers that could let this chair recline.

It took an embarrassingly long time to find it, but eventually, I was able to extend my legs all the way, and lean back slightly, in a somewhat more comfortable position.

I woke up with a curse on my lips.

What kind of idiotic decision was that?

Falling asleep when a monster was out to get me?

I had no idea how long I had been asleep.

Mana Sensing said there were no changes to the environment around me, and I saw the same dimly lit tunnels around me.

I waited, readying my fingers to pinch myself whenever necessary.

Ten pinches later, I could tell I was getting too tired to continue my wait.

Postponing the battle would only make me more tired. I wouldn’t want to fall asleep while fighting whatever monster was in these underground tunnels.

I climbed out of my Aviaton, then placed the Aviaton inside my Interdimensional Pouch.

I felt naked, even though I was wearing by far the most expensive equipment that I had ever worn.

I started my long hike through the tunnels. As I walked, I kept my Mana Senses peeled, searching for any sign of movement.

I couldn’t find anything.

I walked for an hour, at least, and nothing had changed. I stifled a yawn, and continued walking.

To my surprise, the tunnel was actually taking me up, gradually towards the surface.

How fucked up would that be—place me miles underground, and then make me climb my way to the surface.

Finally, I noticed something different. The rocks and soil around me were glowing slightly with mana, sure. But ahead and above me, I could see what looked like a thick, branching vein of pure mana.

The mana was incredibly dense.

Technically, I still couldn’t see Aether. The same way I couldn’t see spirits. Which was to say, I could see the effects of Aether.

Aether was often accompanied by a specific, rare type of mana—Life-attributed mana. The yellow life-attuned mana was bunched incredibly densely in these individual veins of Aether.

This was the densest concentration of any mana that I had ever seen. It put the C-rank magicians I—Samantha—had fought to shame.

This made the C-rank Mana Shields around the warships we had destroyed seem like candles in the wind.

As I continued walking, I found that the tunnel I was in was bringing me closer and closer to the vein of dense, life-attributed mana that I could see in front of me.

I was starting to feel nervous. I kept walking until I was about fifty yards from the yellow mana, and then I took out a Void Shard, held it in my left hand, put some points into Physical Defense, and started widening the tunnel’s walls around me.

I’d rather be wasteful than idiotic.

Whatever I was walking into was giving me shivers. I could walk in, literally, or I could blast my way through the last few steps using my Aviaton.

To me, the answer was clear.

Once I had enough space around me, I brought the Aviaton out of my Interdimensional Pouch.

I climbed in and relaxed the moment the shields activated.

With a newfound sense of safety, I started blasting an Aviaton-sized tunnel, following the pre-existing tunnel towards the branching veins of dense Life-attributed mana.

Several minutes later, I finally was able to see a vein of Life-attributed mana myself.

I realized these weren’t ore deposits. These were roots. The green Plant-attributed mana was there, but it was completely drowned out, by the vivacious Life-attributed mana around it.

From the best I could tell, I was near the thinner parts of the roots, and the roots only grew brighter and larger as the tunnel continued towards what I guessed was the base of a massive tree.

Not long after, I caught the first senses of my opponent.

It was so large it was hard to tell what it was, at first. It was a serpentine creature, easily over a hundred yards long, wrapped around the roots of the tree in front of me.

I noticed immediately that the roots closest to the massive creature’s mouth were looking particularly drained of mana.

Under the notifications icon in my vision, I noticed a new message:

Floor Update: Kill Níðhöggr before he consumes the roots of Yggdrasil.