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«Labyrinth of Sandstorms» 一 A rocky mountain initially thought to be mere remnants of ancient structure foundations, but an underground labyrinth was discovered as the result of investigation that followed the expansion of Wirde.

The first floor was in the shape of a scoop roughly in the 1km × 700m dimension.

The edge end of the scoop was the entrance and after passing through the maze-like passage, around the handheld part you would find a straight hallway, and at the end of the hallway were the stairs to the lower floor. Taking the stairs to the lower floor, this time, you will find the edge end of the scoop in the opposite direction and so on, this alternate sequence will continue onwards.

The lowest floor verified at the present moment was the 10th, there’s the teleportation magic circle to escape, especially in the case when your teleportation destination isn’t registered, it will automatically return you to the entrance. And in case there are other destinations registered, you can choose them as well.

The main monsters that inhabit these floors are Sand Worms, Sand Scorpions, Poison buds, Sand Vipers in the magic beast category, mummies, skeletons in the undead category, and even magical life forms like Sand Golem.

“一Hmm, I see.”
“I-It’s quite a c-challenge for an amateur, isn’t it… Hiyuki?”

Joey looked appalled when I explained these while walking. Fiore was subtly burning in rivalry spirit as a professional(?).

Goodness, this could have been easily found out had they just looked at the guild’s material, but these guys were really planning to challenge the dungeon recklessly.

“…… By the way,” I looked at the woman… No, at the towering tall lady like an Amazon standing next to me. “You sure there’s no problem for you to accompany us for mere amusement?”

“Not at all. First, that’s my main profession. Not to say this dungeon has piqued my interest too.”

Thus replied the Rabbitkin adventurer Chloe (On that note, her adventurer rank seemed to be A rank) with a broad grin as she lightly swung her favorite red cane 一 a Magic Staff.

“一That’s right, what happened to those two fellows that were with ya?”

I guess she meant Tengai and Mikoto.

Chloe looked around quizzically, finding it strange that she couldn’t find the two around even though she didn’t remember parting ways with them.

“Ahh……Well, they are on standby.”
“Hmm, they are surprisingly understanding. And here I thought they would definitely object saying like ‘There’s no way we can let our Dear Princess venture into the dungeon’ and all with how overly serious they look.”

‹If I am to speak here, I am still against this.›

Tengai, who was in the pet-unison state, expressed his dissatisfaction internally. By the way, Mikoto was keeping an eye from the sky, so it wasn’t particularly a lie when I said they were on standby.

Besides, this time I at best would be acting as a supporter for Joey’s party, so I have equipped myself with the Saint’s equipment; ‘Blue Velvet’ on my hands and the battle dress ‘Anne of Geierstein’. And just in case of emergency, I am also carrying some of my other strong equipment (Though, to be honest, I had wanted Mikoto for the pet-unison state since I’m in Saint mode but this idea was vehemently opposed by Tengai.)

Well, I was still unclear about the true difficulty level of the rumored ‘Sandstorm Dungeon’, but I think it should be more or less fine since I could still summon Kokuyou through shadow transfer if push comes to shove.

The four of us walked around like that with such a mindset while chatting with each other about their recent status quo 一except Fiore since she almost didn’t talk to anyone but Joey due to her stranger’s anxiety, though一 and in around an hour, we arrived at the so-called ‘Sandstorm Dungeon’.

It kind of looks like a ‘someone just removed the boulder and there was a dungeon’ thing from its appearance, a gaping hole was opened in the ground, and at the entrance of the hole were the stairs that led inside.

Besides the dungeon, there was a hut near the dungeon entrance that seemed to be set up as a reception to deal with the entrance fee and entrance procedure. Also, there were some irrelevant booths lined up though I skipped them since they didn’t seem to have anything notable.

We paid our entrance fee at the reception 一It was there I came to know that Joey and his party weren’t even carrying any currency usable in Cres Freedom United Nation, so I paid everyone’s share to be fair (seriously, how impulsive he could be, even his back-up plan wouldn’t have worked…… )一 while also filling our name, the dungeon entry date, expected date and time to come out on the reception form with a pen.

I was curious about the previous form so I took a peek and saw the names of those who have come out of Dungeon were slashed with two lines but there were also names of those who hadn’t come even after their planned time were left unmarked. The average was like 1 in 20 so I couldn’t judge if it was quite a few or a lot.

Oh, and the reception was selling the dungeon map so I bought one copy.

◆◇◆◇

Let’s see, it wasn’t even past ten steps when Joey and his party encountered their first challenge.

“…… I-It’s so dark here, Master.”
“Yeah, the old ruins in Alra even have their stairs lit up.”

Chloe and I reflexively looked at each other’s faces amidst the dim light at the appearance of the duo who had stopped on their tracks and seemed to be at their wit’s end.

The lighting was of course not a problem for me, a vampire (in fact, the darkness here even feels much more comfortable than under the shining daylight outside) and with the light still falling from the entrance, this level of darkness should be like the broad daylight for the Rabbitkin Chloe too.

‘Well, nothing can’t be done to bridge this gap in racial difference.’

We nodded at each other with such expressions. 一No, well, in reality, they should have come prepared considering this as a possibility too.

On another note, it seems I may have gone too gentle on Alra’s ancient ruins reformation. I should have made it more challenging so that they could be capable of handling any of such trifling adversities.