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Volume 2 Chapter 13 - Unplanned Exploration

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Allen came to Lilac Dungeon right the instant he was thinking of doing it, but while he was going through the procedure to enter the dungeon, he suddenly noticed something.

“Now that I think about it, isn't it impossible to deliver medicinal herbs when the gate is closed? What the hell am I doing?” (Allen)

Allen scratched his head, smiling bitterly at his own inadequacies.

Allen had indeed accepted a request to deliver medicinal herbs today. And among the locations listed, the 9th floor contained some of the medicinal herbs that could be collected, so Allen's idea to collect medicinal herbs while defeating treants and making building materials out of them was not wrong.

The problem was that the time from collection to delivery was strictly regulated. For the medicinal herbs on the 9th floor this time, it was 4 hours.

It would take a normal adventurer about two hours to walk to Lilac Dungeon from the city, and if you go straight to the 9th floor while ignoring the monsters, you can get there in about an hour and a half.

That's why it's not an impossible time for a request, but the gates are closed at night, so you can't enter the city, making it impossible to deliver them within four hours.

It's not like he couldn’t collect them early in the morning and then make the delivery as soon as the gate opened, but as expected, Allen wasn't thoughtless enough to make the delivery at just past 6 a.m. According to his past deliveries, Allen knew that the client would be happy to receive the goods in the early afternoon.

In other words, even if he left the city first thing tomorrow morning instead of today, he would still be able to make it in time to collect the medicinal herbs.

“Even if I go back now, I'm not sure if I can make it back in time before the gates close. No choice, I guess I’ll dive randomly to kill time.” (Allen)

Having made that decision, Allen entered Lilac Dungeon alone.

While feeling a little amused himself that he’s going to go into the dungeon to kill time even when he basically goes into dungeons to earn money.

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Allen moved forward ignoring the monsters, watching with a smile as adventurers who appeared to be beginners fought goblins and one-horned rabbits on the 1st and 2nd floors.

Basically, it was a tacit understanding that high-level adventurers avoid fighting in shallow floors.

Since it was a path that everyone had taken at least once, few adventurers would break it, which is why it worked so well.

As they were still young and new adventurers, from Allen's point of view, their fighting style was shoddy and unrefined.

However, Allen could see in their eyes that they were determined to rise to greater heights.

This dazzled Allen and made him a little envious.

This was because Allen remembered that when he was around the same age as those new adventurers, he didn't even have the leeway to think about such things.

“Aah, enough, enough. It's not something I can do about after all this time. Besides, if I want adventure, I can do it now. Age doesn't matter.” (Allen)

‘Fuu,’ Allen let out a breath and with it, the murky feeling in his heart, then slapped himself in the face to change his mood.

Once he thought about it, the new adventurers were just trying their best. Then he realized that all he had to do was try his best as well, that's all there is to it.

“Hmm, just moving forward is pointless, isn’t it? But it’s not like I’ve brought Nella's equipment, so I can't do anything flashy, and my time is limited anyway.” (Allen)

Perhaps thinking that he was letting his guard down because he was muttering to himself, a one-horned rabbit rushed through the grass and charged at him, which Allen easily dodged.

The one-horned rabbit which Allen avoided came to a halt as if mowing down the grass, and it began to rush at Allen again, trying to pierce him with its sharp horns.

Since it only charges in a straight line, you can dodge its attack even if you close your eyes as long as you know where it is, so Allen grabbed its horn and stopped it as he continued thinking.

It was simply because it was a pain to avoid it over and over again.

“Yosh, let's see how far I can go during the night using scout style. I’ll avoid battles as much as I can and make sure other adventurers don't find me. For now, the goal is the 20th floor.” (Allen)

Nodding his head and deciding on a course of action, Allen threw the desperately struggling one-horned rabbit into an area where he couldn’t see any adventurers and started running.

The one-horned rabbit deftly adjusted its posture in mid-air, landed firmly on both feet, and scanned its surroundings. However, there was no human figure anywhere in its field of vision.

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The environment of Lilac Dungeon changed every five floors. The 1st to 5th floors were grasslands, and the 6th to 10th floors were forests.

Starting from the 11th floor was the mineshaft field, which was much darker than the grasslands and forests that one had progressed through up until now.

The ground and walls were bare earth, with some passageways wide enough for five people to walk side by side with room to spare, while others so narrow that even two people could barely squeeze through.

Such a maze-like network of passageways of various sizes was the mineshaft field.

Allen was moving carefully but without slowing down through such a mineshaft field of the 15th floor.

Allen had progressed to this point with his scout-style training, but after entering the 11th floor, he had not been spotted by other adventurers and had only had one battle with a monster, when he was caught between front and back by monsters about 2 meters in height with body made of rock that appeared in the tunnel field, rock golems.

“Alright, seems good.” (Allen)

He started it on a whim, but Allen was satisfied that things were progressing as expected, and he smiled.

“That said, I’ve been here before, so that might be natural.” (Allen)

Allen realized that he was a little excited, and spoke these words as if to admonish himself.

In fact, before Allen became an employee of the Adventurers’ Guild, he often came to these mineshafts when exploring Lilac Dungeon with other adventurers as a party helper.

As the name suggests, these mineshafts have places suitable for mining here and there, and if you dig in these places with a pickaxe, you can extract various kinds of ores.

Rarely, some of them may contain rare ores such as mithril, and if you were lucky enough to find them, you could obtain a considerable amount of money. That’s why there were many adventurers who worked hard at mining while subjugating monsters.

Allen proceeded without incident and arrived at the stairs leading to the 16th floor, a place he had never been to but was familiar with, and took a deep breath to calm himself down.

In truth, based on his experience fighting in the Demon Dungeon and Dragon Dungeon, Allen was confident that there would be no problems at all even if he went to the floors beyond this.

Still, Allen's mind was stirred by the strong impression that Lilac’s 15th floor was said to be the limit for iron class adventurers, and that only a select few adventurers could advance to the 16th floor and beyond.

Actually, today was not the first time Allen had come to these stairs. He had seen it many times when he came here with other parties, and he had never been able to proceed.

It was a fateful place where he was faced with the reality that he could not advance further than an iron class adventurer.

For the sake of his younger siblings, Allen had to put safety first, and he had to suppress his desire to aim higher. This place could be said to be a symbol of that.

Allen, remembering his past self who couldn't go on adventures, took a deep breath and smiled radiantly.

“Then, shall we go? To an adventure.” (Allen)

Muttering such a thing to himself, Allen stepped towards the stairs.

With that light step, the place that had bound Allen's heart until now turned into an ordinary staircase leading to the lower floor, as if it had been a lie.

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