Danmachi- Hell’s Forge

Final preparations

After I moved on from that spot I quickly made it to the stone stairway heading down the the nineteenth floor which was the start of the great tree labyrinth or a place that was a huge tree with no known top or bottom that was a sort of labyrinth with much of those floors being undiscovered. Those floors were where the first level three monsters, the Lizardman, Vouivre, Mammoth fool, Deadly hornet and Bloody hive. The rest of the monsters with the exception of two were peak level two and the two outliers were low level four. The level twos were, Bugbear, Battle boar, Firebird, Mad beetle, Dark fungus, Gun Libellula, Sword stag, Metal rabbit and Hobgoblin.-

The two level fours were the Green dragon and the Moss huge with the dragon being classified as such due to it's power and tough defenses that were just below the Goliaths and the Moss huge because it was very intelligent and could create fake version of itself without magic stones as decoys. At floor nineteen you would at most only find the level two monsters and VERY rarely a Vouivre, Lizardman or Deadly hornet. -

The great tree labyrinth only consisted of six floors total starting from nineteen and ending on twenty four with floor twenty five being the first floor of the water palace levels of the lower floors. Anyways this next bit is a bit of an info dump about the description of the monsters in the great tree labyrinth. Lizardmen were six foot-ish tall humanoid lizard monsters with red scales and the ability to use weapons to a minor degree. Vouivre's were sort of like lamia's with serpentine lower halves and the upper halves of women. They also had a red gem on their foreheads and draconic wings on their back as well as long claws on their human fingers.-

Mammoth fools were the largest of the regular monsters reaching height of six to seven meters and having bulky hairy bodies and long spear like curved tusks. Deadly Hornets were basically hornets scaled up to about the size of a person and had stingers that could pierce even heavy armor and kill most level twos in a single thrust. Add on their poison and habit of appearing with friends and you can understand why they are ranked as level three monsters.-

In the same vein we have the Bloody hive which is basically a huge hornets nest that spawns bloody hornets rapidly to kill any adventurers found nearby. This is technically not a monster so much as a monster summoning object created by the dungeon but is classified as high level three and needed a powerful adventurer to handle without a team. Bugbears were basically bears that were more or less equal to a Minotaur but were faster. Battle boars were big ass pigs and something I was looking forward to hunting to see if it made good bacon. Firebirds were small red birds that shot fire at you as the moved through the air and were supposedly more common the closer to the floors ceiling you were.-

Mad beetles were person sized beetles that stood on two legs and used the other legs like daggers. Dark fungus were strange monsters with no set shape but were entirely made of poisonous mushrooms that spread their spores to poison people from safety. Gun Libellula were big ass dragonflies that shot projectiles and were a bitch and a half to hit apparently. Swords stags were legit deer with metallic and sharp antlers and a homicidal streak a mile wide.-

Metal rabbits were Larger more durable versions of the Horned rabbits from before with steel grey fur. Finally were the Hobgoblins that were honestly just bigger, stronger, smarter and more dangerous goblins. Personally I was rather looking forward to these new monsters not just for the sheer variety but also because their materials were so much better than the stuff I was using right now which means it was time for some motherfucking gear upgrades! Minor ones but still upgrades! Also a fun thing about the great tree labyrinth is that it was chock full of delicious fruits and medicinal plants that excite alchemists or something like that.-

Personally I was more interested in the drops and improved smoke quality and quantity that hopefully will let me get near the max in all my stats two weeks from now. Before all that though I needed to set up my campsite on the eighteenth floors entrance to the nineteenth floor. It wasn't really all that hard to find a nice private spot with a lot of trees tightly grown together.

'Lets make them even tighter shall we?' I thought with a chuckle as I touched one of the trees and activated my technique.

The tree shuddered but pulled up it's roots and moved over to another tree and fused together with it. I continued this process until I had an entire eight by eight size wall of trees with a roof of branches overhead and a door of bark and still living wood that was flexible at the side to allow it to swing open and close.

'Ha! Suck it scrubs!' I thought with a grin at my personal tree fort, one of a kind.

It kinda stood out a little since you know I had to fuse a bunch of trees together to make it but unless you came this way into the forest for some strange reason you'd never see it traveling the normal trail from this floor to the next.-

The best part though was that as far as monsters would be concerned it would just be a normal tree and thus not something worth attacking. With my campsite now good and created I set out the bedroll, tent, lamp and portable campfire. The later two run off of magic stones which aren't going to be a problem since I was going to be hunting monsters.-

With my lodgings covered it was now time for me to report to Hestia with my chatterbox coin.

"Ring ring, Alex to goddess, pick up goddess!" i spoke into the coin with a snicker.

"Why do you always do that?" Hestia's voice came from the other side of the coin with a irritated tone.

"Ah don't be like that, I was even nice enough to call and let you know that I made it to the eighteenth floor safely and set up camp." I said with a chuckle.

"Fine fine but you better be careful and make sure to call me everyday!" she said like a chiding mother.

With that done it was finally time to head to the nineteenth floor and get my first taste of the monsters there. I saw a few other adventurers heading down with me but we stayed out of each others way. The nineteenth floor based on first impressions was easily the most beautiful I have seen so far as there was flowers all over the place and this nice wooden jungle aesthetic that I was a fan of.