"BWHAAA! Those potions hit the spot! Thanks, stranger." - Crow

You're not gonna fool me. You were all "ah, my life is over" just five minutes ago.

"You're not much of a talker, but I'm used to it, so no worries." - Crow

Yeah, yeah. Be glad you can't hear my thoughts.

In the end, I decided to save the bird. The fact that the knight's not come for him already, something the crow himself noted was strange since it normally takes less than a moment, so I figured out it was safe to take him. It does beg the question of why the knight suddenly lost interest in the bird.

"Why now? No idea. That rust bucket has dragged me around all over Terra Sol. It was an experience that I prolly wouldn't have gotten the chance to normally, but I'm not gonna thank that bastard." - Crow

The crow answered the questions I asked by having the Kigal-Note print my thoughts and show them to him.

His story is that he used to live in some sorta university city. A place that's 100% dedicated to studying the mysteries of this world, Terra Sol. Then one day the rust knight came as unexpected as he did when I first saw him, fought off the city's guards, and managed to snatch the crow with him before he left.

The days for the crow after that were like a "living hell" according to himself. The knight dragged the bird to various countries or ruins, more often dangerous than not, and made the crow look up the few pieces of info they could find in those locations.

And after months of lurking through ruins, the duo arrived at this place practically by coincidence. They only heard about this place when the knight busted something like a criminal group who had talked about these caves having been detected due to repeated explosions coming from it...

Hey, isn't it me who summoned that living tornado to this place? The explosions were partly my fault for having pushed the switch back then, then I was fully responsible for the second blast...

But I'm not gonna forgive him for blasting me off like that! I'm sure to send him to the scrapheap one of these days...

But to do that, I need power. Power. POWER!!

"Huh? Good evolution methods? How should I know that?" - Crow

Tch, useless. I was a fool for trying to ask this guy.

"But anyway, where are we going?" - Crow

Answer. The owner is currently looking for shelter. The Dread Spirit could return when we least expect it.

"Crap, I completely didn't think of that! Nice going!" - Crow

Yeah, yeah. Stop shaking the cage. It's difficult enough to carry on my back as it is.

FYI, it's not only the Dread Spirits who I'm taking shelter from. The knight could get second thoughts and come looking for the bird, so I wanna make some distance before he comes after us. One part of me wanna ditch this dangerous piece of luggage, but I shouldn't. Especially since he used to live in an academy city. The Kigal-Note's good to find statistic info, but it's useless for telling me how society and stuff work here in this world. The bird may be the key to my social debut.

But before that, I gotta evolve. And there are no monsters to kill down here. Maybe I should try to reach the 7th floor? I bet I could reach it if I just dug a little in the ground...

"Hey, is that the place we're hiding in? It looks awesome!" - Crow

What's this guy talking about now? There's nothing..., there was something there! And he's right! It's amazing!!

A huge castle was in front of us. No, seriously. It looks like someone stuffed the whole place into the bedrock. But even so, this place looks fabulous. Like some castle from the Arthurian legends.

The front entrance...looks weird. I can't specify why I think so, but my gut's telling me that way's no good. Let's find the back entrance.

---

After some searching, I found the kitchen entrance. But the view I was greeted with was something far from what a respectable kitchen would agree to.

"Rats!?" - Crow

Yup. Rats. There's not that many of them, just four, five of them, but they make it up in size. I think they're of the species "Greycave Rat". I've hunted them on the higher floors before.

The rodents froze when they heard the crow's shout, so I threw some web bombs with my free front arms at them before they could get themselves together. Two of them dodged. Tch! And my hands are full...

"GYAAAAA!!" - Crow

I threw the birdcage at one of the two rats, stopping one of them from attacking me while also giving me more limbs to work with. Two birds with one...birdcage.

Not that I had time to enjoy the view of my work. The other rat on the loose isn't stopping even after seeing his pal getting crushed by a cage. I threw some webbing at him, but this rat's fast on his feet. I couldn't hit him. At least I managed to slow him down, but that's not worth much.

Then it hit me. I activated the [Aura of Darkness] skill and enveloped my body in the dark, scary-looking aura. The rat froze on the spot, prolly, no, definitely scared outta his mind from the sudden change. Using that to my advantage, I fired a [Darkness Bullet], which is much faster than the webbing, at the rat. Like before on the 1st floor, some of the aura produced by the skill was used for the bullet, drastically increasing its damage output. I mean, just one shot was enough to kill the rat!

After that, I trapped the last rat who was KO-ed by the cage with some webbing before I killed them off one by one.

SYSTEM MESSAGE:

Karma Value has slightly decreased.

Your level has increased. You have gone from Lv.22 to Lv.23.

You have earned a total of 0.2 Aether Points.

Due to the Blessing: "Champion of Alvatria", an additional 0.2 Aether Points were earned.

Acquired title: [Beast Slayer]

Acquired skill: [Stamina Lv.1].

[Stamina Lv.1] has been integrated into [Stamina Lv.15].

Oh~. I got a new level for that~. Even a title. It's actually about time that "Beast Slayer" appeared. I've been exterminating rats left and right while going up and down this blasted Dungeon.

"Y-you treat your Wisdom Ravens too rough..." - Crow

Someone's complaining about my brilliant victory, but I'll let it be. Wait, you're a raven? I thought you were a crow.

Question. What is your identity?

After cleaning up the kitchen area, I asked the raven that question with the Kigal-Note while I tried to pick open the lock on his cage.

"...I guess I did forget to introduce myself. It's been too long since I had to do that. *Cough*, my name is Gust. I am one of the six Wisdom Ravens who lives in the Library Tower..., or, perhaps I was one of them. It's been too long now since I was taken...

"As for the Library Tower, it's a facility located on the celestial continent Humanitas. The whole continent has been purchased by Ordion Alberloft, the Grandmaster of the Collective Library, an organization he made to gather information about all the weird stuff that exists on this planet.

"Oh, and the six Wisdom Ravens are something the old man started after hearing a similar story from a Migrant who shared his love for tea time. Well, we're mostly the old man's pets and/or therapeutic relaxation, I guess. But despite being one of the most knowledgeable guys in the world, his naming sense is the worst! He's just naming us after winds! Just because we're birds!" - Gust

"Okay, I get it." I gestured that to this Gust-guy as I continued on the unlocking of the cage.

"But what about you? Why're you in this hellhole? Wait, because you're a demon?" - Gust

Stop with the bad jokes.

I gave Gust a short explanation of my situation, leaving out the stuff from that limbo-like place before I reincarnated.

"Wow. Reincarnating Migrants are rare, but not impossible to find. You must be an SSR though." - Gust

Do they have gatcha-games in this world? Some things never change.

*Click*

"FREEEEEDOOOOM!!" - Gust

The bird jumps out of the cage after I finally managed to crack the lock. Then three seconds later, he collapsed with a rumbling stomach. Is there any food in here? If there were rats here, it should mean that something that's somewhat eatable should be stored here.

There were some sorta preserved goods in a magical freezer that thawed the food the second you took them out, so the bird escaped death by starvation. It's just some tasteless cookies though. Further looking through the drawers, I found lots of food that the rats couldn't get to. Mostly because their hands lack opposable thumbs. Thank you, demon body.

"But what are we gonna do now?" asked Gust after he was revived. That's a good question...

Answer. Looking for hints in this area would provide useful in the future. Abandoned treasures may also be possible to discover.

"Treasures!? Like in those adventurer stories?! I'm in!" - Gust

That stupid book, it responded before I could. But its idea is alluring. It wouldn't hurt to have some treasures to cash in when I finally reach a human town. I'd need to evolve into a humanoid species first though.

"Evolution to a humanoid species? Sure, that should be possible for you." - Gust

Tch. The damn book translated my thoughts again-, what did you say!?

"It's common for demons to take a humanoid shape when they reach the E-rank area. Though, I've read that it becomes much harder to move out of the "monstrous demon" evolution line after that." - Gust

Geh! That was a close one. I'm close to evolving here too.

"If you need a few more levels, I bet those rats from before could help. Those kinds of animals make packs survive against stronger monsters." - Gust

So we've not seen the last of them, is what you're saying. I could need the EXP, but it's not for certain that we'll find more of those guys...

---

I take back what I said before.

After dinner, Gust and I started to explore the castle. We found some living spaces and beds, but they were closed behind doors that the rats couldn't have entered even if they wanted to. So our search for those EXP-bags..., *cough*, for the hostile monsters didn't go so well. Until we reached the main hall.

There were tons of them here! We're on the second floor of the hall, but we can barely see the floor below us! Rats, rats, RATS! Rats everywhere! We need more mouse traps...

"Crap, I didn't expect for there to be so many of them!" - Gust

We silently fled from the hall before Gust started to complain from the fear. I can't blame you. Those rats were a literal army. Is this what they mean that "when you see one, two more is bound to be hiding somewhere"?

But man, how are you supposed to beat those kinda numbers? Sure, I got that new skill lately from my Arachnid Assailant class, the skill that lets me stick to walls and ceilings, but that's not gonna help us in this situation.

Maybe I should buy something new AoE-type skill? I did get a lot of AP from when the ghost knight "helped" me in destroying the commando room and clearing the 5th-floor quest. Hmm...but I got no clue what that skill would be.

Now that I think about it, shouldn't there be a quest for this floor as well? Maybe that could give us some more options...

WHAT THE HECK!?

"What are you watching? ...wow. So that's the real reason why you want to hunt the rats? You should have told me from the start." - Gust

Sorry, but this is new to me too. What should I do...