Episode 5.2-3-4
Episode 5.2-3-4
"Come on in, come on in! We've got all kinds of potions, for cheap! Not to mention normal medicines. You'd regret it if you don't get them here!"
"Is there anyone who can attack from a distance! We are a five person party looking to recruit someone with ranged attacks if possible!"
"You can find guides here! Leave it to us up to floor 10! Oh so you have maps? Do your maps have info about magic beasts' weak points? Do they tell you what equipment you need for the next floor? Do they teach you the knacks to raise spawn rate of treasure chests? We can even carry your luggage! How about it, how do you like veteran guides!"
It's really lively.
Lecan is not familiar with dungeons like this.
However, he doesn't dislike this atmosphere.
Lecan has just arrived at this town. By chance, he got up early, left early, and ran too fast in high spirits and ended up arriving before noon.
There is no entry tax to enter this town. There's not even a wall nor guards. Only a huge signboard, written with <Welcome to Dungeon City Golbul!> at the town entrance.
There was no need to even ask someone where the dungeon was. You'd naturally arrive at it if you just followed the flow of traffic toward the liveliness.
At any rate, the dungeon's entrance is extraordinarily wide. It's split in two, with the right side being the entrance, and left the exit.
The entrance has been fenced for about 50 steps. The space inside the fence seems to be a trade-free area, filled with four guards, people coming into the entrance to the right flow endlessly, as do people coming out of the exit to the left.
The area outside the fence is filled with people selling equipment, doing maintenance, looking for companions, and people selling food, consumable goods and information, and further outside of all these are rows of shops. Shops selling stuff indispensable for dungeon explorations. Lecan was tempted to take a peek at the weapon shops and drugstores, but managed to convince himself to save it for later.
The space outside the exit fence is populated with those seeking to buy materials, calling for people who need treatment, and offering appraisal service. And outside the area is a jumble of material processing shops, purchasing shops, medical centers, rest area, repair shops, and eateries. The purchasing shops have signboards signifying that they're specializing in magic gems, weapons, and stuff. And further apart from there the buildings get bigger and bigger, forming into a relatively big townscape that's like a fusion between pleasure quarters and artisan district. There's also some temples. And even further from there is a building complex where huge carriages are coming in and out.
This is truly a dungeon city. A city made up of those drawn by wealth obtainable in the dungeon, who then proceed to process, consume and export those wealths.
The town itself is not that big. It's probably only around a tenth of Vouka.
However this town has the upper hands in density and liveliness of the downtown. And even though this is a small town, there seems to be a slum outside the downtown. Now that he thinks about it, Lecan has never seen a slum in Vouka even though it's a big town.
There's a lot of young adventurers, more than he thought. And their expressions are beaming.
After hearing Chaney's story, he was worried for a second about what would happen here, but at least he sees that a lot of people feels this place is worth living in. Of course, there's probably dirty stuff being carried out behind all this. But that's the same everywhere.
There's another thing that makes Lecan happy.
Mages.
This town is filled with mana possessors. Several of them are even among those who are going to enter the dungeon right now. Someone may not necessarily be a mage just because they possess mana, however considering they've gathered around so close to a dungeon, there must be many adventurers who employ magic among these people. He's caught sights of adventurers wearing mage-like attires as well. Dungeons really gotta have mages after all.
Lecan paid no heed to the barkers and walked toward the entrance. And then a soldier who was standing guard called out to him.
"Ooh, you look like the real deal eh. And ain't that <Box (Ruuf)> you've got there. Whoa. Where'd you come from."
"From Vouka."
"Vouka? Well okay, go on and explore inside. Be sure to grab lotsa stuff and load them off in our Golbul Town. May you have a good adventure (La Jitto Jiit)!"
"Thank you (Narou)."
Contrary to his expectations, Lecan took his first step into another world's dungeon while feeling pretty good.
<TLN: If you're reading this novel at any other site than you might be reading an unedited, uncorrected version of the novel.>
Now then, it's finally time for dungeon diving.
<Life Detection> could not be used to detect things inside dungeons. The adventurers disappeared from <Life Detection> even though his bare eye could still see their flesh once they took a step in the dungeon. <Life Detection> also couldn't reach the inside of dungeons at his former world. Though, in his original world, people would immediately got transported to random floors the moment they stepped inside a dungeon, thus seeing adventurers inside a dungeon from outside feels quite fresh in itself. However, the fact that <Life Detection> being out of range was fundamentally the same showered Lecan with an indescribable sense of security.
He stepped inside the dungeon.
<Life Detection> immediately demonstrated its effect, displaying all adventurers who were on the same floor. In exchange, information outside the dungeon disappeared. This is the same as his former world too.
Something curious occurred.
A not insignificant number of adventurers suddenly disappeared.
From both <Life Detection> and bare eye.
They muttered something just before they disappeared.
On the other hand, adventurers suddenly appear in the left interior.
Since other adventurers are taking it as a matter of factly, it must be a normal event in this world.
Lecan is curious about the nature of it, but he's sure it would be made clear in time.
This dungeon has 30 floors, but <Life Detection> only displays this floor. This part is the same in his former world as well.
--There's no magic beasts on this floor huh.
Which means he's got to go down a floor at once. Looking at the map together with <Life Detection>, the adventurers here are each aiming for the stairways located in five spots. They all know their geography well.
Lecan ran toward the stairway connecting to the lower floor while being careful not to bump with others. The stairway was unexpectedly wide and long.
At the end of the stairway is <First Floor> according to the map. Apparently, the place where Lecan first arrived at was called <Ground Floor>.
After passing through a maze of rugged rocks, he immediately felt a presence of battle ahead.
Walking ahead, five young adventurers were engaged in a battle against three magic beasts.
It's <Red Apes (Urd)>.
He passed by behind them as to not get in their way.
Something is coming closer ahead.
It's a <Red Ape>.
He cut it down.
He probed where the mana gem was with <Mana Detection> and gouged it out with his sword.
The magic beast turned into sand.
Still, the bag with <Box (Ruuf)> that Chaney gave him is a nuisance. He ended putting it in <Storage>. He could just take it from inside his overcoat's pocket if someone questioned him about it.
After checking where the stairways are in the map, he ran there.
He took as much detours as possible through the maze if he was about to encounter other adventurers along the way, but he had to run pass them several times.
Lecan encountered many Red Apes. He cut them all down, but taking their magic gems would take too much time so he left the bodies behind.
Looks like there's only red apes on this floor.