Level Eater-Chapter 225

And on the sixth day, during daytime.

Tatsuro and Ai were outside the house, practicing curves with a ball that wouldn't hurt when it hit them, trying to learn [Trajectory Correction].

Ai's inherent clumsiness and poor athletic ability. This seemed to be something even the [Valkyrie] skill couldn't do anything about, and they were having quite a difficult time.

At that moment, Leah came to Tatsuro.

"Tatsuro-san. I've attached a prototype magical mechanism to the staff you lent me, could you try using it for a bit?"

"Ah, sure. Alright Ai, let's take a break."

"Oh—wow. Tatsuro's staff got really bulky, huh."

"Yes, since this is just to confirm its behavior, I really just attached things rather crudely."

The staff that Tatsuro first obtained had bonuses for fire and wind magic.

Several square boxes were inserted into the staff like nuts everywhere except the handle.

Furthermore, all of them were connected with multiple wires, making it look quite unsightly.

And when he received this clear prototype staff, its weight had increased considerably along with its appearance.

"—It's heavy. But thanks to my stats, it's not too heavy to hold."

"Yes. But don't worry too much since it can be removed right away."

"Understood. Then let me try using some fire and wind magic."

"Yay! Show us something cool!"

"Please do."

Ai had completely turned into a spectator, and Leah had activated [All-Seeing Eye] and was looking at the staff with a researcher-like expression.

Among this, Tatsuro thought for a second about what would constitute cool magic and created a wind river flowing around them with small sparks mixed into the wind he created with wind magic.

Ai clapped her hands at this.

"How does it feel to use?"

"Somehow, it feels even easier to use magic than before."

"Yes. The mechanism I attached seems to be working properly too, so it looks fine. Then, can I borrow it again?"

"Yeah, please do."

After receiving the staff from Tatsuro, Leah returned to her workshop.

After watching her leave together—.

"Well then, shall we resume practice?"

"Yes!"

Saying that they cheerfully resumed their curve ball throwing practice.

Time passed after that, and after obtaining meat and SP from three more giant mimics, on the morning of the tenth day.

Ai finally learned how to throw curves and learned [Trajectory Correction Lv.1], and soon after raised her [Throwing] skill level to 10 and obtained the title [Master of Throwing].

And on the eleventh day.

At last, Leah's research reached a milestone, and it was time to showcase the results.

First was Tatsuro's staff.

"Although we're still at the stage of testing the mechanism we want to incorporate into the new staff on a different staff, I think even this is significantly better than the previous one."

"Thank you. Well then, let me try it right away."

The staff Leah had been holding onto was now much cleaner with only one square box remaining and no wiring, having lost all its previous clutter.

The weight too had been significantly reduced compared to when it was cluttered, so it seemed fine for regular use now.

And as for how it felt to use it.

"This feels good. It feels even easier to control magic power than when I first bought it, and I feel like my magic power has increased too."

"Heh. Is that because of that one box attached to the staff?"

"Yes, that's right. Right now it's unsightly because it's attached externally so it can be adjusted anytime, but even so, it should be enhancing and supporting magic power and magic control."

After Tatsuro's staff mini-update was complete, next was the showcase of Nana's Frog-kun Staff Improved (tentative).

Nana eagerly took out her Frog-kun Staff to show everyone, but at first glance, it didn't seem to have changed anywhere.

"What changed about it?"

"Watch this, desu no!"

When Athena, who couldn't wait, asked, Nana started inflating her Frog-kun Staff.

Then it started inflating by absorbing magic power just like before, but when Nana pointed the frog's front toward the ground and slightly changed how she channeled magic power.

Then—with a thud sound, the inflated frog figurine's hands moved and slapped the ground.

"Amazing! It can move now!!"

"It can be controlled with subtle adjustments of magic power, desu no. Right now I only had time for the hands, but the magic has been enhanced a little too, desu no."

"That's interesting. Was this possible because you used the mimic meat materials?"

"Yes. With a bit more modification, it should be able to move more freely according to will."

"Well, that's something to look forward to."

"Yes, desu no!"

And so after Leah's experiments and research reached a milestone, the group took a break and would set out for dungeon exploration again from the next day.

When they were feeling ready to bid farewell to the dungeon again and move on to the next floor.

Tatsuro remembered that he had forgotten to ask about Leah's current status regarding specialization.

"Come to think of it, did Leah end up taking the Magical Intellect/brain specialization?"

"Yes. For some reason, it required five slots, so I can only take four more, but..."

"Eh, you still took it even so?"

"If this can be completely developed, it should be technology that can be applied to all equipment and items. So I thought it was rather cheap even at that cost. Thanks to it, research is progressing better than before."

Due to obtaining the Magical Intellect specialization, her crafting prowess increased even beyond her current blacksmithing level. So research progressed more than expected.

"Then, have you decided on the remaining four?"

"During my research on Magical Intellect, a specialization called Magical Armament that consumes three slots became available, so I took that too."

"You used them quite lavishly again. Is that Magical Armament thing like that hammer you're making?"

"Yes, though that's still a prototype. By the way, I'm keeping the last one on hold."

Thanks to seeing various things and phenomena with [All-Seeing Eye], Leah seemed to have opened up a different path from others.

And she decided to save the last one in case something else interesting came up.

"Well then, now that everything's settled, let's go, desu no!"

"Yeah."

And so Tatsuro and the others jumped into the glowing pond all at once.

Then after clearing the next floor in two days, they had now reached the twenty-fourth floor including the treasure room floor.

There, they emerged onto what seemed to be a giant raft twenty-five meters square, which kept moving in one direction endlessly across a sea-like expanse of water.

However, there was something strange - despite there being no current in the water, the raft kept moving on its own.

"A raft, huh. Looks quite sturdy, we should be able to fight properly on this."

"But I wonder if we just need to stay on this to clear it?"

"However, there's nothing else in sight, so it seems best to just ride along for now."

Even when Tatsuro's [Spirit Eyes] and Leah's [All-Seeing Eye] looked around, all they could see was water stretching out, without even any islands or floating debris like driftwood.

Therefore, the options available to Tatsuro's group were:

Leave the raft on their own and venture out into this sea.

Dive underwater to explore new territory.

Or stay on this mysteriously self-moving raft without any water current and see where it goes.

These three options seemed reasonable.

"We don't even know what kind of place this is yet, so wandering around might be dangerous."

"It's boring, but. That's the safe option, desu no."

Just as Nana was about to sigh imagining herself just being rocked along quietly, Cardina detected the enemy's presence.

"Looks like they've prepared some attractions so we won't get bored."

"I hope it's a delicious attraction."

Ai peered into the clear, beautiful water surface, imagining yet unseen ingredients.

"Fufu, thinking about food again, Ai-san?"

"Because water means fish!"

"It's not seawater though, so if anything it would be freshwater fish. We'll need to either grill or freeze it because of parasites."

"I want grilled fish with salt~!"

"Ugh, that sounds delicious!"

Leah had also become quite hungry since living in the dungeon.

Though not as much as Tatsuro and Ai, Leah also got excited and put her hand on the hand grenades hanging at her waist.

"If we're going to use it for food, we need to avoid damaging the meat too much, desu no."

"If I cut off its head with my scythe, we can drain the blood quickly which is convenient."

"Peewee!"

"Neigh!"

Sensing Tatsuro and Ai's enthusiasm, Cardina and the others' fighting spirit also increased, and they perfectly completed their full combat welcome setup.

And after waiting for a little over a minute, that monster appeared.

"..."

After waiting in anticipation of surely delicious monsters appearing, what showed up was a brown, fuzzy disc-shaped object that started circling around the raft while floating on the water surface.

"Eww. Doesn't look tasty."

"I just checked with Dispel magic... It seems to have lots of tiny legs densely packed underneath in the water where we can't see. That's not a fish or anything, it's an insect."

"Insects are a bit..."

They had imagined it would be a flat fish-type monster like a flounder since the reaction was from a flat circular monster... but reality isn't so kind.

Nobody wanted to eat insects.

"Then, can we just deal with it without holding back?"

"Yeah, plea—"

Just as they were about to quickly defeat or capture it since they had no intention of using it as food.

Tatsuro and the others' bodies were pressed down onto the raft by what felt like an overwhelming crushing force.

"Ugh"

"Ungh"

"Bii!"

"Bururu!"

"Guh"

"Uh"

"What is... this?"

Thinking it might be the monster's doing, Tatsuro and Cardina immediately cast Dispel magic to check, but it seemed the monster was suffering too.

"Leah! Can you tell what's happening?"

"This is ΥЗΨКёЯ!?"

"What did you just say!?"

While Ai was asking about the mysterious language Leah had uttered, which was hard to tell if it was even words or just strange sounds, the scenery suddenly changed.

"What now..."

"The crushing sensation is gone, desu no."

It was an incredibly vast empty white space stretching out everywhere, and all of Tatsuro's group was standing there alone—.

Several hours before this happened.

The members of Fornacis who had fought Tatsuro's group for the right to go to the treasure room knew the method to clear it, but a series of small mistakes forced them to escape from the dungeon.

"Really now. It would have been dangerous if we stayed there."

"Well, we made enough profit even pulling out there."

The leader Beverly and the giant race Mirowsz were talking about such things while climbing the stairs from the final white room to return to the original entrance using the return stone.

And behind them, the other exhausted members followed, and everyone went outside the dungeon.

"—Beverly-san. Doesn't the dungeon seem strange...?"

"Huh? Strange—indeed it does seem odd..."

The human woman Deina turned around casually to look at the glowing pond that leads into the dungeon.

The place that usually glows white was now dyed completely black.

"We'd better not enter this. By the way, besides us, was that Tatsuro's party the only ones who went in?"

"Right now other parties should be holding back from entering while dealing with countermeasures for the new boss dragon."

"I hope those kids will be okay."

"That's up to luck. We were lucky to get out before anything happened."

"Well, maybe nothing will happen. There's almost no chance of meeting them inside anyway, and we have no obligation to risk our lives to warn them. For now, I'll go inform the guards to not let anyone enter for a while."

And so through the Fornacis members, this dungeon was temporarily sealed.

In the white room, Tatsuro and Cardina were casting Dispel magic around while being wary of whether this too was some kind of dungeon trap.

"Leah, you said something before we came here, can you explain the current situation?"

"No. Broadly speaking, it feels like the dungeon suddenly went messy?"

"Did Dungeon-chan have a bug?"

"It feels a bit different from a bug. Rather than that, it's reconstruction... ah."

At that point, Leah seemed to realize something, and following that, Tatsuro also made a guess from her words.

"Reconstruction? —Don't tell me the dungeon leveled up?"

"It might be. For a dungeon that's continued for thousands of years, I thought 'soon' meant on the scale of several decades... But it seems it really was imminent."

"What should we do? Should we head outside?"

"Yeah. It's frustrating when we are so close to reaching the deepest floor... But we don't know how long we'll have to stay here... Alright. If nothing changes after another ten minutes, let's use the return stone to go back."

"That's reasonable. Well, even if we have to leave here, we've gathered plenty of SP, so it's fine in a way, but I really wanted to hunt that boss dragon."

Since they could have fought openly without anyone complaining or watching if they defeated it, the others were disappointed like Ai.

Ten minutes passed after that.

So Tatsuro took out the return stone and tried wishing to return as Beverly had told him before.

"...Everyone. Can you see any path back anywhere?"

"Let's see, as far as I can see with [Far Sight], there's nothing."

"Pewee"

"Neigh"

"Neither I, nor big sister Cardina, nor big sister Jeanne can see anything, desu no."

"Even with my [All-Seeing Eye], nothing particularly..."

"With my normal eyes too, I can't see anything special."

"What's going on? When I tried using this to return before, it worked properly."

Actually, when they no longer had to worry about return stones, he had tried using it once to see if an exit point would appear properly.

At that time, a return point had properly appeared.

And yet, now it's not responding at all.

"Could this mean... we have to wait here until the level-up is complete?"

"I hope it finishes before I become an old man..."

And so, Tatsuro's group ended up being unexpectedly detained.