Chapter 302: King of the Feathered Ones 1
TL/Editor: raei
Schedule: 5/Week Mon-Fri
Illustrations: Posted in discord.
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No matter how exceptional an adventurer might be, they can't progress through everything alone.
That story goes even if they are a natural-born 5★ or a superhero who has reached the pinnacle, or even a knight or mage who has reached that level, they can't explore every part of the tower on their own.
Just like a super soldier in a movie can't take on every front of a battlefield alone.
Even if they set out to explore, it's common for adventurers to come up empty-handed.
And when they return, they often hear about new paths opening up elsewhere; such was our daily life.
"...So, you think you've found something?"
The adventurers were in disarray.
After discovering the Harpy Kingdom and establishing relations with them, and after dealing with the mid-boss on the 45th floor, we were not the only ones who started heading upwards.
It's obvious, but I'm not the only top-tier adventurer in this world.
While we're not close friends, there are other top-tier adventurers we get to know through various quests.
These include parties of high-level mages who hire vanguards, adventurers who trained as monks rather than ascetic priests, and exploration teams made up of rogues and archers.
There was an exploration team that made significant progress this time.
"Ellis told me the story. Which party was it? The one made up only of archers and rogues found something in an underground natural cave."
"Really? Looks like they found something important."
-Don’t even know the party name but what did they find?
-A rogue and archer party, what the hell is that lol
-A party that only uses rogues instead of vanguards for exploration?
-That combination is similar to a game speedrun. Of course, not for me :)
-But if they found something, it must be effective, lol
It seems Han Se-ah, who had been bustling around preparing for re-exploration, got this information from Ellis, who had not yet gone back down.
Even if they are just rogues and archers, they are superhumans who have reached a high level and can handle mana.
A combination of rogues, who can deal with monsters using daggers and chains, and rangers, who can fight with a one-handed sword instead of a bow if necessary.
If there are too many enemies to handle, they rely on their detection skills and scatter to conduct guerrilla tactics for individual takedowns.
Conversely, if they encounter an overwhelmingly strong enemy, they immediately scatter and flee. This unique party of adventurers has once again made a significant find by using such exploration tactics.
"It seems there's a cave connected to a safe zone, not just the underground passages that the stone dwarves dug through. They found something like an altar inside and are investigating."
"Where is it?"
"It's a cave on the 45th floor, and they are lighting a beacon at the entrance to mark the location."
"So, it's the 45th floor. Then, this has nothing to do with the vanished harpies but relates to the underground monsters?"
Last night, as if nothing had happened, Irene was smiling peacefully while we enjoyed the aroma of her soup sitting at the table, where a bowl of buttery soup was placed.
Since Han Se-ah had been talking about what she heard from Ellis since morning, was she preparing on her own today?
Well, the extent of Han Se-ah's work was setting up fires and filling water, so she wouldn't be of much help in a well-equipped inn.
Naturally treating Han Se-ah like a porter, the party members gathered closely around the table.
The warm soup satisfied our hunger, and it was the usual routine to go out for exploration... but today was a bit different.
"......?"
"Hm? Roland, does the soup taste strange?"
"No, it's delicious as always."
"Really..., you're such a flatterer."
What was really different was Irene's distance.
Sitting around the table, Grace and Katie always took up the spots next to me.
We were in a situation where we conversed and waited, and Irene would join us later after finishing cooking.
Although I felt a bit sorry, I couldn't stop Irene, who said she would help with this since she didn't participate in most of the battles.
But today, when I came to my senses, Irene was right next to me on my right.
I wasn't sure if she was included in the conversation the women had last night, but naturally, the seat next to me would normally be filled when she finished cooking and returned.
-What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What?
-Wow, the blonde couple is crazy, really crazy.
-The wife has pushed the kid out! The wife has pushed the kid out! The wife has pushed the kid out! The wife has pushed the kid out!
-As soon as the stream starts, it's sweet, lol.
-Hey Han, why don't you stop ruining the mood and go eat alone at the next table?
"Hey, they say even dogs aren't bothered while eating. I can't help but react sensitively if you scratch me like that while I'm enjoying the soup that our mom made herself?"
Irene wasn't sitting apart; she was so close that our forearms touched while holding the soup bowl.
It was a natural progression for viewers to be surprised, as there was no way all of them had vision problems.
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Raei Translations
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Ignoring the excited viewers and the countless requests for Han Se-ah to open a fan site, we headed from the 43rd floor to the 45th floor.
No matter how skilled the stone dwarves were as craftsmen, they couldn't establish a base on the 44th and 45th floors while restoring the ruins on the 42nd floor and expanding the Harpy Kingdom on the 43rd floor.
With a shortage of hands, how could they double the work while even Temple Knights and adventurers were employed like laborers at a construction site?
"A subterranean altar on the 45th floor... It would be great if we could create a gate on the 45th floor."
"Indeed, no matter how well the road is paved, it takes half a day to a full day to go outside and come back."
As we walked and talked, we saw dark smoke in the distance.
Like the Orc's altar, something was pouring out, and they had set up a large beacon at the cave entrance, reaching up to the clouds.
If smoke was pouring out like that, it wasn't just a fire; perhaps they used alchemy?
Behind the ridge, in a dead-end hidden cave, we could see the black smoke but not the beacon.
Following the smoke around the side of the mountain, we saw more mages than the harpies we encountered during our exploration.
...And it seems there are not just high-level mages but also those who came due to their research?
Truly stubborn ones.
"Hey, don't tamper with the interior recklessly!"
"Hey, when can we enter?"
"Huh, how did they think to enter such a narrow crack...?"
As expected, the crowd in front of the cave was made up of mages in robes.
Unless they had a quest named "Oracle" like our party, they wouldn't come to see this with their own eyes.
Still, as a hero chosen by the Goddess, even if they were shouting, the mages quietly made way for us to approach the front of the cave.
Whether the smoke was made of alchemy or magic, we passed the beacon, which completely obscured the view but didn't smell bad, and saw a safe zone cave... and a tiny animal burrow that made me doubt if a person could pass through.
"...They went in here?"
"Wow, really?"
Instantly, I remembered a news article from a previous life about a person who got stuck and died in a cave.
A case where someone crawled into a narrow cave and got stuck upside down, and they couldn't even extract the body.
Of course, Roland's physique, unlike that of an ordinary person, could crush the walls and climb out even from such a burrow...
But the pressure from the sight was unavoidable.
It seemed like I would have to dig with both hands to enter, and for Grace and Irene, it was a tiny hole that seemed impossible to enter due to their strong maternal instincts.
Katie, who was the slimmest among us, might be the only one who could try to enter.
"Are you saying we have to crawl in here?"
"No. The mages will create a passage. They say that when the magic of the safe zone and the magic of the passage combine, they don't know what will happen at the altar inside. They only keep it open when someone is coming."
As the adventurer said this and tapped the inner walls of the cave, the tiny burrow opened wide like the mouth of a snake.
It seemed that some mages were already inside, observing in an orderly fashion.
Five mages were walking around inside, and our party entered the spacious cavity, which was roomy enough to be comfortable even with all of us inside.
As we entered the large clearing, which was as wide as a building's party hall, unlike the narrow entrance, the entrance closed behind us with a rumble.
Is that the altar? Right in the center of the clearing?
"It definitely looks like a religious altar."
"The craftsmanship is too rough. It doesn't seem like the stone dwarves made this."
The shape was so blatant that Grace and Katie commented on it immediately.
They had drawn crooked pictures on a wide stone table with dye and stuck something resembling spears into it.
To put it nicely, it's an altar, but honestly, the quality looks like a 5-year-old made a birthday cake with clay and sorghum sticks, and a 9-year-old stuck a drawing on it like a sticker.
It's hard to imagine the artisan race of stone dwarves making something of such poor quality.
The drawing is... a bird?
Is it a large bird eating a snake?
"Hey, is this that thing from the 45th floor? The harpy and the tentacle boss, right?"
"Could it be?"
Ah, it's a poorly drawn tentacle monster.
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