I ran over the rocky hills that made up the outer border of the floor, aiming for the Glavras faction's HQ.

It was then I noticed an enemy. I'd call it an evolved rat. F-ranked, I guess. Too easy~.

I silenced my footsteps and went around the rat. It didn't notice me, so I stabbed it in the throat with a [Darkness Dagger] along with using the [Demon Claw] attack. It was an instant kill.

SYSTEM MESSAGE:

Acquired title: [Mysterious Killer]

Acquired skill: [Lurk Lv.1].

Acquired skill: [Ambush Lv.1]

[Lurk Lv.1] has been integrated into [Lurk Lv.36]

[Ambush Lv.1] has been integrated into [Ambush Lv.16]

Hey, a new title~. Too bad I can't use the Kigal-Note before tomorrow around noon to find out what it does. The name and the rewarded skills do give me a good idea about why I got it now. Isn't it quite late?

I stuffed the corpse into my Storage in case any Glavras monsters would come by and hid in the shadows of the rocks. ...no reaction from [Detect Monster]. I'm in the clear. Time for a break.

"Is this the best place to take a break?" - Gust

"UWAAA?!" - Garami

Th-that scared me! Stupid bird! Be more threatening so that you make a beep on the [Detect Monster] radar... Who allowed you to laugh at me!

*Bonk*

"Ugh..." - Gust

"I got a better question for you: Why are you here?" - Garami

"My answer to that is: that's what I wanted to ask! Why're you here? The Sahuagins said it was fine to stay in their fort. Why're you so close to the enemy's base? I can't even risk flying around here without getting blasted with water." - Gust

"Were you blasted?" - Garami

"I wouldn't be alive if they did!" - Gust

Good point. And I do remember that the Sahuagins said it was fine to stay yesterday, but...

"I got curious." - Garami

"Of what?" - Gust

"That spider boss. It had the highest "bounty" out of all the bosses on this floor. I was wondering why." - Garami

And maybe see if I could kill that thing. I do have a secret weapon on hand. 5 levels to all my skills are just too damn tempting~.

Gust told me yesterday after we saw the "bounty mission" that a quest that gives skill levels as its reward is damn rare. And it's normally restricted to one category of skills. And I'm not talking about Ability Skills or Attack Skills, but skills related to a certain occupation. A quest restricted to swordsmen could boost your swordsmanship-related skills, just to mention an example.

"Hey, those quests are one of the most difficult you can find. And you want to fight the most dangerous of all those bosses?" - Gust

"It's not necessarily the worst one." - Garami

"Hmm...there is that possibility. Some rewards may be higher than normal if the task is helpful to the quest giver. That much is common sense. And this time, the quest giver is the World System itself, and it, or rather, the gods controlling the System wants this Dungeon away, so a higher bounty must mean..." - Gust

"That the Queen Aquarect can be more troublesome than the other two?" - Garami

"Seems like that. Not that I can imagine how." - Gust

I agree. The Rexus-monster was the one who blasted the falling mansion to bits, and according to the Sahuagins, the Hydraortress monster is supposed to have even higher stats than the Rexus.

Then again, we have the boss-snake who only fought the Sahuagin forces because he was forced to, so maybe the Queen is the opposite? She has an intense drive to keep the Dungeon safe or something? They are spider-type monsters, so maybe they have strong feelings for their "nests"?

---

...yeah. The question from before? About how the Queen's bounty is higher than the others? I know the answer now...

After some searching, Gust and I finally discovered the stronghold of the Aquarect Queen. It's a huge, castle-like structure that seems like it's grown straight up from the ground. It's probably constructed through the same method as the Sahuagin fortress, by carving it out from the bedrock. The building's in a gap inside a huge cliff, easily 6 floors high, so it must have been one heck of a carving job.

Rather, it wouldn't be strange to call it a tower. Yes, let's do that.

Anyway, the tower and the cliff it (probably) was made out of were too high for the Glavras monsters to travel up and patrol, so it's conveniently empty for patrols. Then again, there is no easy way to climb up, so they must think that nobody can get there from the start.

Even I had to stay on the upper level of the cliffs ever since I passed the entrance to the 8th floor on the south end of the Dungeon. The commotion with the boss snake from two days ago in the northern parts of the Dungeon has attracted too many Glavras monsters over there.

I did take a peek inside the 8th floor as a side trip. The quest on that floor is easy to clear, but I'll be busted the second I do so, meaning it will have to wait until I finish stuff on the 7th floor.

Crap, now I'm taking a side trip with my explanation. Get back on track, me!

I have managed to get into one of the tower's "windows" (actually just a crack in the wall) and can look down into the tower. There are no floors in here, just some "bridges" that go from one side of the tower to another. And on the ground floor, a huge "something" was making themselves comfortable.

Gust flew to the window after seeing that I had frozen up there and looked down. Which resulted in two bird brains staring down at the bottom. We managed to snap out of it before anyone noticed us, so we respectively jumped and flew across the gap between the cliff and the tower (I used my threads) and ran like crazy out of there.

After having laid a good kilometer between us and the tower, we finally took a break.

"What is the name of Terra Sol was that thing!?" - Gust

And Gust broke. I'm close to doing so myself, so I'm glad he did it first. It helps me keep calm.

"Her majesty, most likely." - Garami

"I was afraid of that..." - Gust

The Aquarect Queen looked like a gigantic version of the normal spiders. Probably bigger than those giant haul trucks used for mining. What makes it different from the normal spiders (outside its size) is its unnatural large abdomen. The Aquarects don't have those, unlike normal spiders, but the Queen's made her look more like a queen bee or queen ant.

And I may be onto something there. Because the Queen was releasing tons of some strange "orbs" from its abdomen, which were carried away by normal-sized Aquarects.

"I think we have discovered why there are so many spiders on this floor..." - Gust

"You think?" - Garami

There's no need to think too deeply about it. That spider's birthing new soldiers all the time. It's a spider pandemic! No, is that somewhat wrong? They're not zombies, so.........?

Anyway, this Queen's a royal pain. According to the Sahuagin chief, the Dungeon had stopped spawning monsters after "the sky shook!!". That had to be one of the bombings of the upper floors. Maybe one of them damaged the Dungeon's monster spawning function? Can't say for sure, but all the evidence points toward that conclusion.

Which further proves that the Queen is worth her bounty. The Sahuagins are without reinforcements, but the Glavras monsters can add new spiders to their rank whenever they need to. I saw some of the eggs hatched into completely adult Aquarects when I spied on them, so I bet the process is way faster than it should normally take. Maybe there's some skill working here?

Luckily, it's not like I'm powerless to defeat that thing. I have a secret ace up my sleeves...or in my Storage.

"Hmm? What's that bottle?" - Gust

Gust questioned me after seeing the secret ace in my hand. I wanted to take a double-check on it...and confirm my idea with Gust. But telling him that straight isn't good. It would go straight to his head.

"Distilled Hydra Poison." - Garami

"Okay...? Hmm? Say what?" - Gust

"Distilled Hydra Poison." - Garami

"Oh, yes. I thought my hearing had gone crazy. It seems that IT WAS YOUR HEAD THAT DID SO!!" - Gust

Tch, so it's not any good after all. The hydra poison I got from the 3rd floor's quest reward.

"It's that bad?" - Garami

"'Bad' doesn't even begin to describe it! Hydra Poison is classified as an SSS-rank dangerous item banned in multiple countries! One bottle of it could turn a clear lake into a poisoned swamp of death! And this stuff is distilled? That's enough to fill the whole floor with poison!" - Gust

"That sounds bad..." - Garami

"That's me being generous. A Hydra can turn any biome into its lair with its poisons." - Gust

"Wow..." - Garami

"That's an A-rank monster for you." - Gust

A-rank? And the giant boss snake on the 9th floor, the one who floods the floor every time it took care of invaders, is a (presumed) B-rank? ...yeah. A-ranks are crazy.

But this is troublesome. I can't use my poison if that's the case. And it's the only thing I have on hand that I know has enough power to kill that monster spider.

"Why not try to thin out the poison first?" - Gust

Damn, why did I use all of the bombs...what was that?

"Thin it out?" - Garami

"The problem is that the poison's distilled. There's a practice among adventurers that can use alchemy or chemistry of distilling potions so to thin it out in large amounts later so you can carry more while moving." - Gust

"So you think that can be done with this poison?" - Garami

"I don't know. The adventurer novel said that it worked with potions, so...why did you sigh like that just now!?" - Gust

"Despair." - Garami

"That's too rude!" - Gust

I'm too down to even consider punishing the loud bird. Should I give up on the free skill levels and rather take a shot on the 8th-floor quest? No, trying to lay low until rescue arrives is a safer bet...

"If you can't believe me, take it up with an expert on the subject!" - Gust

The bird seems to be annoyed over my reaction...an expert?

---

"Yes, yes, yes! It's done, it is done!"

The expert delivers without fail.

We returned to the Sahuagin fort and asked the chief if he had someone who could work with extremely potent poisons, so he led us to the "witch doctor" of the clan. An old fishhead with a beard that could rival a dwarf's.

When I showed him the bottle, he (and the chief who was still with us) jumped to the floor. Like, literally! Are you fish people or frog people?

After I told him that the diluted poison that I wouldn't need could be used in the battle against the Rexus and the Hydraortress, the witch doctor started to work on the poison with an eagerness at the size of a mountain. It's a secret between me and the other Sahuagins that we had placed everyone with detoxication spells and skills at the house where the witch doctor worked.

And the result was...300 barrels of highly poisoned liquid. Just from one small bottle that could fit in my hand...

"Yes, yes, yes! 1 barrel, enough to melt the small spider. 3 barrels, more than enough, to kill the big spider!" - Witch Doctor

Was his head done in by the poison? The witch doctor looks a little crazier than before...

"You guys can use these in the battle," I told the chief regarding the other 280 barrels of poison. My storage's filled to the brim with just these, and I had to give up some of the treasures. Sniff...

"We will not waste your generosity!" said the chief as he saluted. I guess being offered a chance to kill those pesky bosses...

"Hey, chief. Tell me when you're planning on attacking the Glavras monsters." - Garami

I just had an evil idea~~.