Volume 4 Chapter 5 Valley of Trials – Third Floor
Edited by: Kanaa-senpai
Waking up, everything’s pitch black around me.
For a moment, I’m so disoriented I almost panic.
Right, after breaking through the second floor of the Valley of Trials’ dungeon, I was so exhausted I just collapsed and slept.
Using a hard bed of stone steps as my makeshift bed──it’s quite the show of dexterity on my part.
Yet, I slept like a log.
Must’ve been more tired than I thought.
The temperature around here must be around 25 degrees.
Not too hot, not too cold──pretty comfortable, actually.
If it had been any colder, I might’ve frozen to death in my sleep.
No idea how long I’ve been out, but I’m starving.
I’ll treat myself to just one bite of that precious bento.
Heading back for more food is a life-or-death mission; I’ll have to brave that flock of pixies again.
I’d rather just plow through to the bottom floor in one go.
Monsters on the third floor should be Lamias.
Half snake, half beautiful woman──pretty strong monsters, but they seem to mainly be there for fanservice in Japanese games.
With a Centaur around, it’s no surprise to find a Lamia, but in many ways, they’re the last enemies I want to face.
The Lamia in this dungeon is an Assassin at level 46, equipped with Searching and Stealth skills.
And she’s a pain with status ailments like poison and charm to boot.
In my case, the moment a fight breaks out, it’s game over for sure, so I don’t have to worry about status ailments.
The real hassle is that the opponent has Searching and Stealth skills too.
If she uses her Searching skill, it’ll chop my Stealth skill to bits.
On the flip side, if I use my Searching skill while she’s in Stealth mode, I’ll cut into her Stealth skill too──and might even tip her off to my presence.
If she gets suspicious, she’ll keep searching until she finds me.
Can I really hold out against a master’s Searching skill?
Maybe it’s best not to use Searching skill on this floor at all.
Stealth is the safest bet──slip past without alerting them, without raising suspicion.
The problem is, if I do that… I won’t know where they are.
The corridor’s pretty tight──accidental contact is almost unavoidable.
This entire floor is pitch black, and their lower half?
Basically a snake.
If I stumble on that long tail, I’ll be caught in an instant.
First things first, I need to map this place out.
Use Radar Scan to scan the terrain on the third floor of the dungeon.
It’s similar to the second floor──like a cave filled with stalactites──but these stalactites are black as obsidian.
There’s no light source, so I can’t even see their color in this darkness.
The dungeon’s material is tough but not indestructible.
Its value as stone is high, but unfortunately, it disappears if you take it outside the valley’s barrier.
Under the adventurers’ lamps, the black-glossing stalactites are strangely beautiful──almost mystic.
The shimmering scales covering the lamia’s lower body are breathtaking──so radiant they can hypnotize you.
Some say they get mesmerized by her surreal, night-floating beauty──and end up dead.
You’d think that when you get caught, it’s because you’ve fallen into her trap… seduced without even realizing it.
The dungeon’s supposed to be less deadly than usual, so even if you die, you probably come back with a laid-back shrug.
That enchanted scene──so beautiful──means nothing to me, trapped in total darkness without a light.
Thanks to my Night Vision skill, I can see decently enough with just faint starlight now… but in true darkness, it’s useless.
Even a tiny flicker──like a glowworm’s light──would make all the difference.
* * *
Anyway, regular parties probably light up the whole place with magic, blazing brightness as they move.
But for the kind of folks who come here, torches and lamps are just backup.
Magic illumination also helps prevent sneak attacks.
Some light magic can purify poison, too──an ideal attribute for clearing this floor.
Even non-specialist magicians at level 50 can usually wield a few types of light magic comfortably.
For basic lighting, you can even pick up a derivative of a living skill.
I thought about learning it too, but with the night vision skill, I guess it’s kinda redundant.
Using a light means letting any number of unknown presences out there know my location.
If I had the muscle to turn the tables on an ambush, that’d be one thing.
But for a guy like me, blending into the dark is the right call for survival.
Logically, this floor should be where the thief-types with the Search skill shine.
But in the game, it was all about brute-forcing it with high defense and HP.
It’s that whole “brute force breakthrough” strategy.
With a party limit of 4, if adding a thief means a drop in our combat power, maybe stacking tough warrior types and ramming through is more reliable.
Long battles against poison-users are a no-go.
If we end it quick, we only need the antidote once per person, and that’s that.
Using an antidote during battle, getting poisoned again… repeating that could leave you crying over empty item slots.
Come to think of it, I didn’t bring any antidote items with me.
Should’ve been in Ms. Claire’s bag, but I was too careless.
I only planned to check out the second floor’s pixies and then head back.
Everything’s going too smoothly; the plans are starting to unravel.
Well, for me, I’d run out of HP before I even get poisoned, so having an antidote would just be for show.
Let’s keep moving.
* * *
Now, I take a cautious step into the darkness, reading the terrain as I go.
Even with my enhanced Radar Scan, I couldn’t detect the Lamias.
The layout of this floor is mostly like the game – a maze-like ant nest.
There are slightly larger rooms here and there, connected by narrow corridors.
The Lamias are nesting in one of those rooms, lying in wait.
They’re better than the pixies for not wandering around, but the fact that I can’t spot them even when I know where they are… that’s pretty damned terrifying.
There should be 5 Lamiyas lurking on this floor.
There are multiple routes to the next floor, but no matter which one you take, you’ll have to pass through at least 2 rooms.
I’m planning to slip through without a fight, no matter what.
Just as I was about to decide on a route and take a step forward, my Stealth skill got utterly shredded by their monstrous Searching skill.
Panic.
I rush back to the stairs.
Lamiyas are mainly a waiting type, so I doubt they’ll chase me this far.
If I can draw one of them out, maybe the others can break through a safe route.
It’s a viable strategy, but…
As the Dungeon Master, they probably won’t let me get away with such tricks.
They’ll want me to clear each room the hard way.
Still, this dungeon is a great training ground.
It’s a shock that my lifeline──my Stealth skill──seems almost useless.
Using that Radar Scan earlier must have riled them up.
Now that they’ve spotted me, they’ll be on high alert for a while.
In an instant, I gained an absurd amount of proficiency points.
I bet I could really beef up my Stealth skill here.
But can I really become immune to their Searching skill?
What if my skill caps out?
Hits its limit?
There might be a level cap in this world, but who knows if there’s a cap on skills.
No matter what, I will cover my needs.
I tried meditating at the safe staircase, and in a blink, it was full.
What the──what’s going on?
Come to think of it, the same thing happened when I miraculously survived on the second floor.
My Meditation skill must have grown terrifyingly strong.
My meager MP… it fills up to max in an instant.
I knew from Ms. Hóa that meditation could evolve into a godly skill, but with such slow proficiency gains from long sessions, it was supposed to take years.
Normally, it’s out of reach for a short-lived human.
Could it be that the massive proficiency points from battle also flowed into my Meditation skill?
Maybe switching skills in rapid pulses caused a glitch or something.
Well, that means I don’t have to worry about MP anymore.
It’s almost like I’ve snagged an all-the-time MP recovery equipment ── honestly, that’s a godsend given the situation.
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Edited by Kanaa-senpai.
Thanks for reading.
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