*Wheeze, wheeze*, who..., who the heck makes a freaking Dungeon floor into a water coaster!?

Hello again. Miss Garami, is the unluckiest and biggest snake-hating demoness of them all. I've just survived this Dungeon's (I and K-N decided to just stick with that) 5th floor. As mentioned, it's a big thrill ride.

To be more exact, the whole floor's made of stone "pipes" without its upper half where tons of water's flowing through.

The only way of moving through this floor is with special "cars" that are simply big rock shells that are floating on top of the stream! Without life rings or lifeguards!!

AND, as if that wasn't bad enough, that floor had several of those cobra-type monsters! The big ones! And K-N's rude enough to label them as "just D-ranks"? Those things could kill me 100.000 times over without breaking a sweat! Wait, can snakes sweat?

Who cares! Focus now, me. Aim your focus back to the current floor.

The 4th floor takes more of the tunnels connecting the floors' pages than the other floors. If I had to label it, it would be the "labyrinth tunnel floor". The 9th floor would be a "labyrinth floor", and only that. Not that it needs anything big when that king of the cobras is down there...

Speaking of a few security measurements, I can't see any monsters here. Did they leave for the war zone known as the 7th floor? That's what I imagine happened to the residents of the 6th floor. Not that I got proof.

Oh well. That's got nothing to do with me, except dancing a happy dance for them lowering the difficulty of getting outta here. The only problem is that there's less flora here than on the other floors. Maybe that's why...oh? Hey, the plants are growing. Like, right in front of my eyes! Cool.

The food crisis left before it could fully arrive. Am I in a lucky streak or something? ...now I'm starting to fear what's gonna happen after this. A parade of black cats?

Okay, now I'm getting so tired that my mind's playing tricks on me. Better go and get some sleep. Where's the camping area for crawling demons?

---

It took some time, but I managed to build a secure resting place for me now. *Sniff*, it's been too long since I've had a good night of sleep.

I discovered a small, hard-to-see opening in the wall, and it led to a cave bigger than you'd expect from such a small entrance. 'This place's perfect for a hideout', was my thought when I saw it, so I started working on making it more comfortable for me after I had checked the place was danger-free.

I covered the entrance with a rough cloak I'd weaved together as part of my training with the [Spider Threads] skill. A fancy thing about the skill is that you can alter the colors of the threads you produced, so I tried to make it as close to the walls' color as possible.

I also put up some real spider webs..., or something close to resembling webs. I'm still a beginner at this, but it's better than nothing.

Well, I've got a camp, some (questionable) defenses, and a spider web-type hammock. I've even collected a huge bag (self-made and my masterpiece) filled with the burrito-tasting plants and other good stuff. Now I can finally have a decent break for once. Good night~~.

---

Zzz...! I'm up! I'm up, I'm up!

What's going on? I'm far from feeling refreshed, but my sleepiness has completely disappeared. Mostly due to the chills.

...something's coming. I just know it.

Obeying this instinctive fear of mine, I made a rope outta threads and positioned myself over the entrance to the cave. Whatever that's coming won't see me up here with the first. So who's our unfriendly visitor?

......!? Roaches!?

Name: none Race: Crushroach | Gender: Male Level: 2/10 HP: 7/7 MP: 1/1 SP: 33/33 STR: 7 VIT: 21 MAG: 1 RES: 5 SPD: 22 DEX: 11 INT: 26 LUC: 88

Oh, I was wrong. Wait a sec! That's roaches! Big as a cat, yes, but still!

*Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch...*

Hey! They're eating all my veggies! Wasn't that emotionally connected to them, but still... And now they're eating the thread bag? And the rock I used to keep the bag standing!?

[Lurk] better work on these guys. 'Cause getting eaten by roaches isn't how I want my final moments to be. They look stupid, and they statistically are, but I'm still counting on you, [Lurk]!

Seems like the roaches have finished their..., what should I call it? "Devouring"? Anyway, they're leaving the cave now. Phew, that was-!? Two of them turned around and spotted me! Stop looking at me! I'm not food!

...after staring at me for half a minute, the two roaches turned to each other, and...made faces as if they saw something disgusting. Then they left.

.........alright, you damn roaches! Calling me disgusting? Me!? When you're the worst nightmare of the modern man!? It's on now!

---

I kept on looking for where the roaches had gone to. An easy task, as all the tunnel paths they had taken, were left bare due to them. How much can they stuff into those small bodies of theirs?

As I searched the tunnels for the pests, I finally found some of this floor's locals. One is a type of spider monster with light-blue bodies that do not have the characteristic big abdomen you can find on a regular spider. The second guy is a frog that's twice as big as the roaches from before with light-blue skin. Oh, and several mice. Big ones. They look weak enough that I think I could beat them in a one-on-one.

The Kigal-Note didn't seem to have a clue regarding the spider, but the frog's a "Pond Frog". They're simply good with the water attribute. It's not like they only live in ponds. They're too big for them anyway.

The rats are called "Greycave Rats". They are named as such because they are common to find in caves, most likely due to their ability to eat rocks and dirt to replace real food. They act as the bottom-feeder of the bottom-feeders, according to the Kigal-Note. Tough luck for them.

The frogs didn't catch my attention much, but the rats sure did. Even someone like me should be able to defeat those guys, right? The rats have around the same stats as the stupid bugs, but they didn't have any secret weapons like the roaches' swarm strategy.

And just when I was starting to feel downhearted over the lack of roaches, I hit the bingo. More than I needed, just to rub it in.

A whole cave the size of a baseball stadium, filled with wall-to-wall roaches. Layers of them even! And in the center of the cave was a whole different roach, the size of a small car. It had some golden-colored horns on it, so maybe a king roach?

Wait, it's a queen. It just gave birth to some new roach eggs. Urk... Yeah, my flames of revenge just died out. There are way too many of them down in the first place. Revenge's not more important than my life. I mean, it's like a pest exterminator's worst nightmare down there!

It's only because the tunnel I peek out of is around 10 meters away from the ground that I can spy on them without being noticed. But the moment I try to attack, the swarm will climb up the wall and drag me down, or just eat me here.

Thinking about it, the spider-type monsters from before looked like they were patrolling with determination before. Was it because of the roach infestation? The only possible way looked like to take care of the groups that patrolled the tunnels with patrols of your own.

As for the frogs and rats, not so much. They didn't seem smart enough to figure out there's a swarm of killer roaches on the loose.

I left while brooding over this floor's ecosystem, and returned to the crossroad right before the roach cave's "attic" entrance.

Let's see, I came from the path that leads downwards from here, but there's another one leading upwards. I only took this path because I heard the noises of the roaches, but couldn't this road upwards lead to the next floor?

If that's true, then so long, suckers! I'm not gonna stay on this infested floor a moment more than I need to!

Hungry for daylight, I rushed up the upward-going path... only to have my idea popped with a needle. The tunnel ended in a T-junction, with the lower end being the path I'm currently in, and the other two having flattened and not going any further upwards.

Oh well. I've gotten quite higher up now, so I should have come closer to the next exit... what's that sound? A muffled, but still powerful sound came from somewhere. I went into the junction, careful for anything around the corners, and tried to listen after the source of the sound.

It comes... it comes from the wall? I leaned my... body... towards the wall, and... it's water. Tons of water is flowing just behind this wall.

Then..., that water coaster from before..., did all the water come from this floor? Yeah, that could be it. Maybe the 4th floor acts like a pipeline system that feeds water to that giant water coaster that some people call "the 5th floor"?

...this, maybe I can use this...

---

A patrol of Glavras Aquarects, spider monsters of the Water attribute, kept their many eyes open after the pesky vermins that had occupied this floor of the majestic Dungeon.

This was a futile effort, as the vermin had a Queen that could reproduce the pests in less than a week. Still, as loyal guardians of the Dungeon Ruler, the Aquarects could not let the vermin roam loose.

The Aquarects decided to move closer to the area where the Queen had laid lair. They were not foolish enough to attack the swarm as a whole, but shaving off some of the vermin the moment they left the safety of their lair is an idea they could live with.

Just then, one of the Aquarects noticed something strange on the floor. A single stripe of white, with two more stripes creating an arrow at certain intervals, pointing up the tunnels.

The Aquarects was dumbfounded by the strange sight. They tried to touch the white stripe, but it was stuck on the ground. It looked like it was leading somewhere.

While the Aquarects were not stupid, as they figured out the possibility of a trap, the novelty of the strange substance had awakened their curiosity. Also, the Aquarects were the guardians of the Dungeon. Why should they not investigate a strange occurrence like this?

The Aquarects kept on following the stripe of white, only to find it leading to a wall. There was a deformed-looking picture of one of the vermin drawn onto the wall. The vermin was laughing as it pointed towards the viewers, meaning the Aquarects.

Blood instantly went to the Aquarects' heads. Without caring about the probability of it being a trap or not, the five Aquarects blasted the painting of the wretched vermin with their [Water Bullet] skill..., only for the wall to be destroyed from the impact.

The Aquarects couldn't believe their eyes. The walls of the Dungeon could withstand anything! That was what their common sense told them, so the shock of it being crushed before their eyes delayed their reactions so much that they could not do anything before they were swept away by the raging torrent.

---

Score! Jackpot! Banzai!

Those stupid spiders did just as I wanted! It was worth weakening the wall with [Aura of Darkness] all this time. I wasn't sure if they would get the roach I had drawn on the Dungeon wall, but they reacted just as I hoped!

But man, to think that the Aura could work like some sorta acid attack. That's something I didn't expect. This skill may be stronger than I first expected. Not that I'm the type who can keep a person in a leg-lock. And it wasn't that easy breaking down the wall. I needed lots of breaks to give my MP a chance to recover.

Right now, I'm in one of the other paths in the T-junction, watching as the water leaking from the "pipeline" gets flushed down the tunnel. Most of it was going to flow down the path I had originally taken there, but some of it was going to the roach cave!

...hey, where's the level-up announcement? I demand SOME EXP after all this hard work!

Don't tell me those spiders had resistance toward water attacks!? You could call that blast of water an attack, right? Or, is it because they were the ones to crush the wall, so all the EXP for any squashed spiders and/or drowned roaches goes to them?

...that stinks!

In any case, this isn't the time or place for me to be loafing around. I gotta find that entrance to the next floor. Even if I'm in a better mood now that I've taken revenge for my secret (temporary) hideout~.