A magnificent thin white ring of Banish — the Banish Chakram.
Actually, I briefly considered calling it the Banish Ring.
"Grrruuuurrr!"
"Grrrrrrr!"
"Grrrrrrrrr!"
The kobolds growled, approaching us warily.
Just three of them, and they still wanted to surround us? Then it was first come, first served.
I used One Step to leap right in front of the middle kobold.
Without giving it a chance, I slashed the middle kobold with the Banish Chakram.
The part that was cut was erased, and the kobold collapsed.
Yep. It goes without saying, but the reach was on a completely different level.
"Grrruuuurrr!?"
"Grrrrrr, gyaaah—!!"
The one who took down the left kobold was Mineha.
A spiral thrust launched from the tip of Spiral Thorn tore it to pieces.
The remaining right kobold also became prey to the spiral thrust.
"...That's incredible power."
Kobolds are ore monsters. They're quite hard.
A spiral thrust from Spiral Thorn that pierces through and tears apart something with that kind of toughness.
"It was quite the struggle to adjust, you know. Too much power is its own problem."
I knew Mineha had been hard at work on the adjustments the whole time.
Even she apparently felt that what happened in the Heizen Great Forest had gone too far.
"So how's the adjustment going?"
"Not bad so far. You've changed too, you know."
"Banish has an essence to it. And my essence turned out to be a ring."
"So that's why it takes that shape. But couldn't you see it before?"
"Once the ring-shaped Banish was formed, I was able to see it."
Well, great. Not like that changes anything.
After the kobolds, I fought iron spiders.
Turns out it wasn't limited to just ore monsters, either.
I also went up against slimes, big rats, and Big Bads.
After safely making it down to the seventh floor, the area in front of the teleportation circle room had turned into a strange hall... and there was a keeper.
That keeper was... a giant green frog.
Like someone had taken a bullfrog and scaled it way up.
"It's a Big Dead Frog."
"This is the kind of monster that's really, really tough for people who can't stand them..."
"Indeed."
It was planted squarely in the center of the hall. What brazen nerve.
Yep, this was that. Definitely an unnatural layout — an event.
That, too, was an EVENT placed by the dungeon's will.
When I created the dungeon, Isibara and Milese-san taught me all sorts of things.
That's when I learned there was a method to place an EVENT at any location of your choosing.
And if you spend resources, you can select an EVENT from the Common EVENT Table.
Apparently the mainstream approach is to combine selected EVENTS and arrange monsters around them.
Like Tsukuru?
After hearing that explanation, I had a thought. Milese-san probably felt the same way.
At the ruins where I first met Milese-san, there had been a machine that could freely create EVENTS.
The one Agaro-san gloriously destroyed.
Maybe that thing was built by applying the dungeon's system.
Setting that aside, hmm. A frog, huh.
"Mineha-san, are you okay with frogs?"
"I hate them. I can't stand them."
She answered bluntly. Well, I'm not exactly fond of them either.
When they get this enormous, "creepy" is the only word for it.
Mineha-san readied her Spiral Dawn.
Hm? She was pressing a bunch of switches — or something like switches — along the side, clicking them one by one?
The various parts of the Spiral Dawn automatically slid into place.
Something resembling thrusters emerged, beginning to emit a pale phosphorescent glow.
"Mineha-san...?"
I can somehow feel an incredible amount of power emanating from that mechanical-looking spear.
"Ribbit!"
Did it sense something too, just like I did?
The Big Dead Frog frantically shot out its tongue, attacking Mineha.
I quickly activated [Blue Saint] and deployed Slow.
In the slow-flowing time, I stepped in front of her. Then I assumed the stance of the [Blue Saint's Gauntlet].
The Big Dead Frog's tongue was deflected, ricocheting back at itself.
"RRIIIBBBIIIT!?!"
A tremendous ricocheting sound rang out as the Big Dead Frog toppled to the side.
That was the golden opportunity, of course. There was no way Mineha would let it slip by.
She released the pale, gleaming Spiral Dawn that she'd been charging at her waist.
"[Radien Strike]!!"
A pale spiral beam erased the Big Dead Frog from existence.
Whoa… so a beam finally came out, huh… seriously?
Also, for some reason, there was a savory smell like burnt bird. Why was that?
Still puzzling over that mystery, we entered the seventh floor's teleportation circle.
We warped straight to the thirteenth floor in one go.
The thirteenth floor was filled with the roar of rushing water, stalactites lined up in neat rows.
"There's a waterfall that cuts across floors nearby."
"I see. The thirteenth floor's teleportation circle has a keeper too, right?"
"Yeah. Phew, let's take a short break."
"S-Sure."
I was a little surprised to hear the word "break" come from Mineha.
"This way. There's a spot to rest just over here."
She led me to a small park. It had stone benches, a fountain, and even a restroom.
It was a bit rundown, but perfect for taking a short rest.
"Monsters won't come here?"
"No, it's a safe zone. You can drink the fountain water too."
"That's nice."
We sat down on a stone bench near the fountain.
Oh, this fountain. There's a statue of Hydrangea's hero at its center.
"Wof. Do you have any dried meat?"
"Yes, I do."
I pulled three wrapped chunks of dried meat from my pouch.
"This one's the plain flavor I've had so far. This one's basil and olive oil. The last one, the bright red one, is Super Hot Spice."
"...I'm curious about the Super Hot Spice one."
"Actually, this one uses spices I got from the chef at Luriha's place."
Fairial cooking was Asian-style spice cuisine.
I'd gotten various spices from Luriha's personal chef.
So actually, I could make curry flavor too.
Of course, it was spice curry flavor. And that was perfectly fine in its own way.
But the classic coffee-shop curry from my past life was more to my taste.
And then there was homemade curry... with coffee milk as the secret ingredient.
Maybe I'd give it a proper try once things settled down.
"Well then, I'll take that and the plain flavor too."
"Sure."
I handed over the two blocks of dried meat — plain and super-spicy umami — as they were.
Both were pretty hefty chunks, but the recipient was Mineha. They might not even be enough.
"Mmm. These are good. The spicy one."
"Great."
Mineha alternated between comparing the two and taking sips from her canteen.
The two blocks of dried meat that I could never possibly finish on my own vanished at her lips as if they'd never existed.
As always, quite the hearty eater.
I sliced the basil-and-olive-oil flavor — the one that hadn't been selected — into thin strips and ate it.
After all those taste tests, I already knew it was good.
But yeah... maybe a bit more olive oil wouldn't hurt.
"How's the dungeon coming along?"
Mineha asked while working through her second block of plain dried meat.
After this, I was supposed to hand over the second block of super-spicy umami.
"So far, so good. Oh, right — things have reached a point, so I'll be giving you a contact ring soon."
"A ring?"
"Yes. It's a convenient ring that lets you communicate if you have one."
The thing is, I had no idea what kind of functionality the simple terminal embedded in the ring would actually offer.
And what kind of apps would be installed on it was also unclear.
But at the very least, it could probably handle voice calls.
"Oh, how handy. Then I'll take two — one for me and one for Rinieta, the one I party with."
"You call her Rinieta?"
"Yep. I'll introduce you sometime."
Rinieta, huh. I wonder what she's like.
And with that, Mineha finished off her second block of super-spicy umami dried meat.
Break over, we headed to the spot on Floor 13 where the transfer circle was.
There was yet another strange chamber there... with a massive black frog perched in the center.
"Another frog?" I sighed — but then I did a double take.
Wait, isn't this just a palette swap?
No, no — that's definitely... a bullfrog.
It just looks like someone took a bullfrog and scaled it up to a creepy degree.
That's weird.
From any angle, it looked nothing more than a color variant of the Big Dead Frog.
"......There was that one RPG back in the day where every single boss was just a palette swap."
And even among the mountain of crappy games from my past life, that one stood out.
The final boss and the hidden boss were both just color swaps — it was one of those lazy old RPGs.
"I have no idea what you're talking about, but that's a Big Hell Frog."
"So it must be different from the Big Dead Frog in some way?"
"It's just a color swap."
"Seeeeriously... then couldn't you just make them all Dead variants?"
"If the color is different, that's basically a whole other creature."
"Is that how it works?"
"That's how it works."
So that's how it works.
Anyway, since it was just a color swap, I took down the Big Hell Frog without any real trouble.
Honestly, this was literally just a copy-paste of the event data with the color changed, wasn't it.
Is that really okay, you people of the dirt dungeon?
Well, there were a few things I was curious about from the dev side, but more importantly — from the 13th floor's teleportation circle to the destination: the 16th floor.
The sixteenth floor.
It was a ruined city stretching out underground.