Chapter 9

I continued through the dungeon, killing as I went. As the hours passed, I began to feel more and more comfortable within the dungeon. That didn't mean I got cocky or reckless, just that a feeling of familiarity began to bloom as I stalked the halls of the dungeon. I also realized that adventures crossing paths in the dungeon were much more common than I would have initially thought. Since the routes to go to each floor were pretty well mapped out, most people just traveled along the fastest route to the next floor. I also encountered people as either they or I were fighting monsters, but that happened less often.

Once I made my way down to the sixth floor, I readied myself more than I had for any of the previous floors. From what I remembered, this is where most people began dying much more often. The green light of these floors was much dimmer than the all-encompassing soft blue light of the first four floors. Dark shadows seemed to cling to the corners of each room and tunnel. I made my way down the pathways, encountering a monster almost immediately. A frog with one large eye on its head literally popped out of the wall in front of me.

It shook its head, seemingly to clear it, then looked around and spotted me. A split second later, its tongue shot at me faster than any attack I had encountered in the dungeon so far. I quickly used Aura Sword and used my blade to cut off the end of the tongue, causing the frog to begin screeching. It continued to shoot its damaged tongue out at me, but with my enhanced perception brought on by Thought Acceleration, there was no way I would get hit with the tongue. That was what I believed, at least, before I watched a tongue wrap around my waist from behind.

Luckily I had time to act, so I turned and sent an Aura Slash down the hallway to bisect the second frog that had snuck up behind me in half. I then rushed forward and ripped through the first frog, ending it quickly. I quickly harvested their cores while I admonished myself internally for not checking behind myself every once and a while. Once the stones were collected, I resumed walking. It didn't take me long to start to feel the increased spawn rate of these floors compared to the ones above. It seemed like I encountered a monster every five minutes.

On top of the increased spawn rates, the monsters of this floor were also smarted than before. When I walked by a particularly dense area full of shadows, a War Shadow jumped out and tried to sneak attack me. Of course, I had seen it in advance, but I could see how a newbie adventurer used to the first four floors would get taken by surprise and end up dying. Out of every monster I had encountered so far, the War Shadows impressed me the most. They had at least some rudimentary intelligence and picked their battles more intelligently.

As I was about to descend to the seventh floor, I got attacked by a War Shadow and a Frog Shooter at the same time. The War Shadow seemed to have purposefully lured the frog here so that it could attack from range while the shadow got up close and tried to disembowel me. I laughed as I rushed forward to meet the shadow, sending an Aura Slash at the frog as I did so. The War Shadow leaped to the side and tried to block my slash from getting to the frog, but that only resulted in the shadow losing its hand while the frog's belly was split open.

The shadow used its three dark claws to try to disable my sword arm, but I turned and blasted it fully in the face with an Aura Slash from point-blank range. Its whispy body turned into mist as its stone clattered to the ground. I collected both of their stones before descending the steps to the seventh floor. As soon as I descended enough to see into the floor I watched a group of four adventures carefully avoiding what looked to be a large ant. 'Ahh, a Killer Ant,' I thought as I looked at the impressive creature.

"Great Sage, can you please remind me about Killer Ants?" I asked as I continued to inspect the creature.

[Know along with the War Shadow as the two "Newbie Killers," the Killer Ants are monsters that have incredibly hard carapace and high attack power. They also use pheromones to attract more ants when in danger]

"So they are basically a nightmare for low-leveled adventurers?" I said while stoking my chin, an idea forming in my mind.

[Yes]

'First, let's see how well they do against my aura,' I thought as I approached the lone ant in one of the tunnels branching from the bottom of the steps. It noticed my approach and cried as it charged toward me. I readied my blade and swung with everything I had as the ant got within striking range. My sword cleaved straight through the ant fairly easily, spilling its stone on the floor alongside its innards. However, I did feel some resistance as I cut it in two. I quickly checked my blade and saw that there was the beginning of a crack starting to form in the metal of the blade near the hilt.

"You got to be joking," I said as I wiped the blade with my sleeve as if that could fix the problem, "How long will this last Great Sage?" I asked frustratedly.

[It should be fine for today, a replacement should be found once you return to the surface]

I was grumbling about having to spend the money on a replacement, but I had known even before coming to the dungeon that the sword was on its way out. I sighed one more time before I got up and walked forward through the floor until I found a secluded Killer Ant near the outskirts of the floor. I quickly rushed toward it and cut off its two hind legs with a slash before it could react. It turned, lashing its two front arms out at me, but I leaped back and used a perfectly timed Aura Slash to cut off the two from arms. Lastly, I cut off its last two legs, causing it to collapse to the ground pathetically.

"Why should I go find the monsters when they will just come to me?" I said as I slashed through the ant's carapace in a non-lethal spot.

It didn't take long before the sound of approaching Ants reached me. I grinned and watched the tide rushing into the room. However, I had chosen this room due to its one entrance and exit. Not only that, but the entrance to the room was narrow for a good stretch before it opened up into the area where I was currently standing. The Killer Ants were forced through a funnel toward me, allowing me to launch full-powered Aura Slashes through the oncoming crowd. My slashes ripped through the leading ranks, killing most in a single blow, but the tide quickly washed over their downed brethren to get at me.

I rinsed and repeated this process for a few hours, watching the stones pile up. I had basically found an infinite money glitch that was also incredibly dangerous, but I was still making quite a bit of money. The only problem is that the monsters are blocking the only exit most of the time, so you have to fully commit to dealing with each wave of ants. Eventually, I had to call it quits due to my sword, which had begun to literally deteriorate in my hands. Small shards of the blade sprinkled the floor around me while deep cracks ran through the length of the blade.

Once I killed the last ant in the current wave, I returned and killed the ant that I had been using to lure the others here. I dispatched it, cleaned up all the stones, dropping them safely into my storage before heading back toward the stairs leading back up to the sixth floor. I decided to avoid more monsters as I did so due to the condition of my sword. I wasn't even sure if it could withstand performing another slash, so I kept it as a last resort. I found it strangely exhilarating to run through the floors of the dungeon, avoiding the monsters. 'Am I some sort of battle maniac/adrenaline junky? Or is this body somehow affecting my decision-making?' I wondered as I backtracked all the way back to the first floor.

It wasn't long after that I finally made it back to the steps leading up and out of the dungeon. However, there was a group of three goblins between me and the exit. I couldn't help but laugh at the coincidence. 'A goblin will be my first and last kill of the day,' I thought as I drew my crumbling blade and proceeded to kill the goblins quickly. I left the crumbling remains of my sword behind as I made my way out of the dungeon.