Chapter 10

Change in POV: Jules

Haa… I forget that normal Adventurers are too slow to go 50 floors in one go… This is so fucking annoying. Well, with my carts and my living armors, we reached the 34th Floor decently quickly. I will settle for this result today, after all I can't have the deadweight fight while tired.

I must say that these Adventurers are quite adaptable: after the initial shock, they just enjoyed the ride. Moreover, they immediately started setting up camp. How efficient. I on the other hand set up my magic tent. It had five rooms with private bathrooms, a bath area, a living room, and a kitchen.

Yes, me, Ishtar, Jeanne, and Artoria have our own rooms. While Ishtar would gladly share given how well I treat her and the fact that she literally has all the treasures in existence at her disposal thanks to my Shop, I am not one to buy people. Jeanne and Artoria still need time, and I will certainly not push them. I did say it before, but I put my complete trust in them, which means that I will put my life in their hands and will make sure that theirs is as perfect as possible.

Enough of my rant. The four of us sat in the living room while munching on some snacks.

"These guys are so annoyingly slow! And we even had to slow down for them! Let's get this expedition done quickly!" said Jeanne.

"My dear, they are nothing more than Humans, Pallum, and Beast-People. They are strong in their own right, it's just that we are too strong for this place."

"You're saying that just to convince yourself." noted Ishtar.

"True, it's boring as fuck. I doubt that we will be able to reach the 63rd Floor tomorrow, so we will have to camp on the 50th. After that, we could potentially skip to the 58th Floor by exploiting those pesky lizards' fireballs… Hm… I'd say that we will need two more days to get to the 63rd Floor's safe zone and probably four to go back to the surface."

"Well, that's fine. The next time there is an expedition, we should just send some of the living armors, since doing the same thing over and over would be boring. Actually, you should make some homunculi that will take our places when we are bored." said Artoria. She's right about the homunculi, though that will come only in the future. I still want to stay in this world for a few years to hunt those delicious monsters and a few interesting events. After that, the plan is getting rid of the One-Eyed Black Dragon, then skedaddle the fuck out of here.

We were eating some food from the Food Wars universe and watching a movie when Tiona entered our tent.

"Wah! It's enormous here! Hey, hey, how does it work?!" she asked.

"It's magic, Tiona. What brings you here?"

"Oh! Finn wanted me to tell you that we are about to hold a strategy meeting!" she said while saluting. Such a cute girl, almost like a dog.

"Very well then. Ishtar, Jeanne, Artoria, want to come as well?"

"Sure/'Kay/Might as well."

We exited and followed Tiona to a campfire. The entire group was there roasting some food.

"You're here, good. I had a rough plan of how to tackle this exploration but, as we have seen, your support is much better than I initially thought." said Finn while motioning us to sit with him.

"Oh, thank you for the praise. We aim to impress. I also have a rough idea and timetable that we could follow."

"Care to share, big guy?" asked Tsubaki.

"Sure. Tomorrow we will use the living armors to quickly clear the floors until the 50th Floor. We will rest there for the night. The next day, we will be able to skip directly to the 58th Floor by exploiting some monsters. After that, there won't be a break until the 63rd Floor."

"Why the 63rd?" asked Tione.

"That's the next safe zone after the 50th Floor. We will rest there for a night, rise back to the 50th and rest there. Rise back to Rivira and either rest there, if we have the need, or we can go directly to the surface. All in all, this expedition should last a week total, give or take a day."

"You… Seem awfully certain that the 63rd is a safe zone." noted Tsubaki.

"We've been there, so of course we would be certain." said Artoria.

"But… But you're always up and about during the day! Do you seriously want to tell me that you can go that deep in a single night?!" said Riveria.

"Oh, I can go much~ deep-" I got a slap on the back of my head, an explosive jewel to the face, and a fireball to the crotch. "Ok, sorry, sorry! Yes, we can get that deep in a few hours." In reality we could just teleport to the lowest floor we've been to or any floor we want, for all that matters.

I ignored the three glaring girls next to me and chuckled at the blushing mess that were the girls in the group. Well, except Ais because she is as clueless as ever. Nah, maybe she's good at hiding it.

"We will go with your plan then. What about team subdivisions? Oh, and please tone down the inappropriate jokes. Our Familia is all made of pure, clueless maidens after all." Finn said. I think he's subtly telling me to do even more inappropriate jokes.

"There's no need to separate. Let's move as one group. After the 37th Floor, we will use the carts again. The real exploration is from the 50th onwards. At that point, we will only bring one carrier and Tsubaki. Finn, Gareth, Riveria, Bete, Tiona and Tione, and Ais will be coming along. Oh, right! Before I forget, does anybody want to fight the Udaeus or the Balor?"

Ais raised her little hand. How adorable. She was followed by Bete.

"Good. I will make sure you two Level Up before the end of this expedition."

We did exactly as I planned. The second day of the expedition, we sped through the 35th to 37th Floor. Ais fought the Udaeus alone and got quite severely injured. Her arm was impaled by a bone spike and she was bashed quite harshly on the head. Still, she pulled through, so I healed her. If she hadn't been able to bet it, I would have sent her back to the surface immediately, as she would only be dead weight.

Bete fought with the Balor on the 49th Floor. To be perfectly fair, it is quite a lot stronger than the Udaeus, so I gave him two living armors that he could command. I am happy to say that he got some third-degree burns and that his ears and tail got a little burnt, but he also pulled through. While he is a prick that I would most likely hunt, my Familia and his are allied, so I will be lenient on him.

Anyway, I am sure that both of them Leveled Up, so I did my part. I healed them, then we continued the descent. We rested on the 50th Floor and got ready for the third day.

On the morning of the third day, I decided to be obnoxious. Well, I took two pans from the Shop and started banging them.

"It's morning! Wake up, maggots! If we want to get to the 63rd Floor while mapping the area, you need to get ready!"

I saw Tione come out of Finn's tent while holding a sword and his lifeless body. Oh, no: he was just asleep.

"Who the fuck's there?!"

"You thought that it was an enemy, but it was I: Jules!" I shouted while pointing at myself.

Anyway, I should make a note to myself that banging two pans together leads Adventurers to prepare for an enemy attack. A very effective method to wake them up *insert villainous laughing here*.

"The hell was that, you bastard?!" shouted Bete.

"That was me waking you up. Get breakfast and your equipment. If you want to map floors 58 to 63, we will need quite some time. I even doubt that we'll get to the 63rd Floor by dinnertime."

Bete was about to continue ranting and all that. God, he's so annoying that my hand subconsciously inched closet to my pistol.

"Bete, stop it. You know that he's right. Also, he's about to attack you, if you didn't notice." said Finn, who woke up and separated from Tione. Seriously, how are those two not a couple yet?

Oh well, I returned to my tent and had a quick breakfast with my dear companions. If you were wondering, the tent is soundproof, so they didn't hear the pans' banging. We then met up with Finn and his party plus Tsubaki.

"Good, you're all here. Have you ever been in the Dragon's Vase?"

"That's what the Zeus Familia called the 51st to 58th Floor…" murmured Finn, then he spoke up. "No, we've only ever reached the 50th Floor."

"Perfect. We will be entering a labyrinth. There is only one way forward that doesn't lead to traps or a dead end, so make sure to map it properly. We will only be mapping the 51st right now, then we will skip to the 58th. Everything clear?" They all nodded, so I turned around and started walking.

The first floor we explored was pretty easy. It was: 200 paces forwards, right 300, right agan for only 20, left 500, left an entire 1000 paces, right 50, left 20, again to the left for an entire 1000, left 70, right 10, left 60, left 800, and finally the stairs to the next floor. Obviously, there were a shit-ton of monsters and other turns that would lead to a dead end, but I would never get tricked by those.

I had Finn and Gareth fight here, mainly because I wanted them to raise their stats before having them Level Up. How can I be sure that they will Level Up? Well, one of the skills included in the True Akashic Library includes probability manipulation, so I am literally going to make it a certainty after they reached a decent standard. All hail the mighty Akashic Library!

We took a breather before going forwards.

"Good job, you two. Now, when I hold my fist in the air, you all stop. Do that, or you will have an 'unfortunate accident'."

"What kind of accident?" asked the ever-curious Tiona.

"The Valgang Dragons on the 58th Floor can shoot fireballs through the floors. Their maximum range is to the 52nd Floor. This however works in our favor since they also create pathways directly down."

"Through the floor?! Then how can we even know where they will attack?!" shouted Tsubaki.

"Ok, from now on, whoever shouts again will get slapped." said Artoria, holding her ears.

"It's intuition, mainly, with a healthy dose of clairvoyance and prediction." I started walking towards the next floor while talking. "You, however, better run for your lives on these floors: while the monsters can sense you and target you, the fireballs are not homing, so you will almost always find them blasting the areas you were in a few seonds before. You can also notice it because the floor will heat up gradually."

"Wait, then you want to freefall for six floors while under a barrage of fireballs?" asked Riveria.

"Not exactly~."

Then I held up my fist and created a barrier beneath us. Not even two seconds later, a fireball impacted the barrier. Obviously, it wasn't broken. I then started lowering the barrier like an elevator. I even started whistling some elevator tunes. While we were descending, several fireballs impacted the barrier, but I couldn't care less. I was busy storing my Smart Pistol and taking out the DL-44. The pistol is too low in caliber to pierce through the monsters right now. I could either use the Whisper of the Worm or the DL-44. And me being the fanboy I am, I obviously chose the latter.

Tsubaki's eyes shined seeing another weapon, but I really can't hand her a copy of this. It's a damn blaster pistol! It can rip through Juggernauts like butter! Yes, I had tried once to summon the Juggernaut to make it my prey, and the DL-44 made short work of it.

At any rate, we arrived on the 58th Floor and quickly killed all the Valgang Dragons and other mobs. Ais went on a little rampage, so I had to shoot some of the mobs that got too close to her. Well, I am supposed to support the expedition, so I guess that this should be included. We took another breather while Tsubaki fawned over the enormous quantity of drops. I stored them into my Inventory and will give them to her when we get back to the surface.

"The next area should be quite cold, so I will cast some protective magic on you. Next time you come here, you can bring some monster fur to protect yourselves. Well, there's no need for me to tell you obvious things." I casted a quick thermal barrier on them, then continued marching forwards.

The rest of the day went by quite uneventfully. I checked that Finn and Gareth reached a decent enough level stat-wise, then set them against the Monster Rex, a giant Frost Golem. I provided some fire support from the distance, but nothing too major. I am sure that the fight will make them Level Up.

I really hate this series of floors since they are too damn cold and too uniform in color. At least the labyrinth was a little more entertaining with the twists and turns. I remember the first time I went through it, four days ago, without using the system's map. I got lost there 148 fucking times. Aah, good times.

The day after reaching the 63rd Floor, we made our way back up. This time, me, Ishtar, Jeanne, and Artoria cleared the way while Finn and company just took care of mapping the places we went through. And that basically marked the end of the expedition. What did you think? That every expedition is filled with mysterious, fateful encounters of some sort? Fuck that shit! Expeditions are exploration parties that map the lowest floors while also documenting stuff on the monsters and environment. Strategies, tips, maps, that's what an exploration is. Quite boring, to be honest.

Ugh, how boring. I want a vacation already…