Chapter 261

Avering Dungeon, 20th floor.

The second Reptile Zone.

There were iguanas on this floor.

[6] You know, those lizard things?

As per this world’s logic, these iguanas were huge, monstrous things. [8] When I appraised the 2 meter long bronze-coloured lizard with a mouth full of fine, sharp teeth, the [Appraisal] revealed them to be ‘Big Bronze Iguana’.

They moved fairly quickly for their large size. At first, I blanched at their fierce looks and quick movements, but then…

[8] I started feeling sorry for them.

[8] Because, you know, when Fer, Dora-chan and Sui got into a fighting mood… it was really overkill.

Mister Iguana, please rest in peace.

To be fair, I might be partly at fault as well. Fer and the rest insisted on having Softshell Turtle Hotpot for dinner again, so we had hotpot for two days in a row. However, thanks to these hotpot dishes, my familiars were even livelier and more active. Which meant they became more vicious and fired up in their fighting…

It was merciless.

Please rest in peace.

Elland-san was the same. The elf dashed about among the Iguanas like an elegantly vicious dancer with his sword. I did not even have a chance to use my spear.

[6] In the end, I became something like a litter collector as I picked up the Drops left by my party members. These were mostly things like Skin and Liver. The liver was thoughtfully kept in a glass bottle. When I appraised these items, I found that Iguana Liver was one of the main materials used to make a drug to improve the function of internal organs.

Nice.

Anyway, thanks to their hotpot driven enthusiasm, we reached the Boss Room just a few hours after we started. I peeked into the room, curious to see what this floor has for us.

“Erm, that’s not a dinosaur, right?” I ended up pulling a straight man joke. Unfortunately, it was not at all appreciated by my familiars who rushed in excitedly at the sight of seven Giant Bronze Iguanas that were twice as large as the regular ‘Big’ iguanas.

A few minutes later, the corpses of the Giant Bronze Iguanas disappeared after being trashed to bits, leaving behind a small pile of Skin, Liver and a few small magic stones.

As I collected the Drops, I felt glad that I did not include the softshell turtle blood in the hotpot. Even back in Japan, I never did like the idea of drinking eating or drinking turtle blood. [6] Sometimes the turtle meat i ordered online would come with turtle blood and I’d gift the blood to my senior who swears by turtle-blood-in-sake…

Anyway, the bottom line is, I’m glad I did not give them any turtle blood. I had secretly appraised the blood before making hotpot and learned that the blood has ‘powerful nourishing effects. Very effective for energizing one’s body’.

I shudder to think what would have happened if my super motivated and energetic party members drank turtle blood.

After collecting everything, I stood up and gave the room one last sweeping glance, “Alright, shall we make our way to the next floor?”

“Umu, let’s go,”

““Race you!””

““Sui won’t lose!””

[6] “Hoho, I can’t wait,” Elland-san smirked as he spun his sword with effortless grace.

“Haahh… yes, yes, let’s go,”

And just like that, we descended the steps to the 21st floor.

~

The main monster on the 21st floor was also a lizard type.

To be more precise, it was a crocodile. A three meter long crocodile with huge jaws and a powerful tail. It was… not that surprising to see a crocodile that large, but what added to its menacing presence was its blood-red scales.

That’s right, it was a blood-red crocodile.

The [Appraisal] labelled it as ‘Red Killer Crocodile’.

If you’re bitten by them, their powerful jaws could break bones and their teeth were like knives. Also, despite their ridiculously stumpy looking legs, they moved faster than I expected.

As we headed down, we found a horde of crocodiles waiting for us. However, the story didn’t change much from the iguanas. The Red Killer Crocodiles were quickly eliminated by everyone. Speaking of which, the Drops from the Red Killer Crocodiles were their Skin and sharp Teeth. I thought it wouldn’t take too long to seize this floor at this pace, except, Fer and the others began to complain about their hunger. So we ended up stopping at a safe area to stop for an early dinner.

“I want meat,”

““Yup, meat!””

““Sui wants meat too~””

Because of the request made by the trio, the lunch was a Stewed Pork Bowl made from the Stewed Pork that I had prepared much earlier.

We spent the night and had a light rice bowl made with Chicken Soboro for breakfast. Unfortunately, it was probably too light since everyone immediately demanded more meat, meat, meat.

So, I served them more Stewed Pork on rice, this time topped with soft-boiled eggs. [5]

When everyone was finally full, we went through the 21st floor again. [5] [6] This basically meant I spent more time picking up Drops again. [5]

We arrived at the boss room to see five red crocodiles. [1] As expected, they were nearly twice as large as the standard Red Killer Crocodiles at 5 meters long. [2] [8] I think they looked bigger since the room was kind of narrow. When they snapped their jaws at us, I had a good look at their mouths. Their teeth looked like serrated daggers. Yikes!

However, awe and fear soon transformed into sympathy for these majestic looking crocs.

Fer took three down by his lonesome via Wind Magic.

[8] Dora-chan flew overhead and toasted one giant croc to a crisp with his Thunder Magic.

[8] The last one was shot full of holes…

[6] “I have something to say,” said Elland-san.

[6] “Yes?”

[4] “Giant Red Killer Crocodiles are A Rank monsters, you know?”

[6] “Aaa,”

[4] “I just want to say it,”

[4] “Ahah, sure,”

[8] We went back to our very important job of picking up Drops.

“I must admit, a dungeon challenge with Mukouda-san’s party is so smooth that it doesn’t feel like a challenge at all,”

I’m sorry, I know that Adventurers struggle hard to clear these dungeons.

It’s not like we’re doing it on purpose though. It’s just that my familiars are too strong. In addition to that, I think that super enthusiasm came from the fact that we ate the softshell turtles for two days in a row.

The softshell turtle is delicious, but I vowed to never eat them for two consecutive days.

[Gumihou: I’m normally pretty open-minded when it comes to food, but turtles are…]

[1] Structural Change: Combine 2 paragraphs

[2] Structural Change: Combine 3 paragraphs

[3] Structural Change: Combine paragraph & dialogue

[4] Structural Change: Change passive sentence to dialogue

[5] Delete Repetitive or Pointless Information

[6] Additional Information for Aesthetic Purpose

[7] Add Dialogue Tag

[8] Creative Licence Taken