A Small Expedition

Walking through the Dungeon, Shirou Emiya was in a completely different frame of mind from the other adventurers.

The journey ahead would be extremely difficult for him as well, but he still felt remarkably at peace.

There was no tension, no fear.

He simply needed to keep moving forward.

Although they were unfamiliar with Shirou Emiya, the adventurers around him could not help casting envious glances at him as he wore the Fire-Spirit Woven Cloth.

Fire-Spirit Woven Cloth was, in a sense, standard equipment for the middle floors.

This was all because of the appearance of a certain monster: the Hellhound.

Hellhounds, also known as Flame-Spitting Demons, were monsters capable of using long-range magic attacks. The flames they spat could easily turn an adventurer without any protection into charcoal.

And Fire-Spirit Woven Cloth, which possessed resistance to flames and high temperatures, was the best protective equipment for keeping adventurers safe from the threat of fire.

Therefore, anyone who saw an adventurer wearing Fire-Spirit Woven Cloth could easily draw one conclusion.

Wearing Fire-Spirit Woven Cloth = exploring the middle floors = an upper-level adventurer.

Ignoring the envious gazes of the other adventurers around him, Shirou Emiya continued deeper into the Dungeon.

The monsters born on the upper floors could no longer cause him any trouble, so his destination was the middle floors.

More precisely, the 17th Floor, where the Floor Master resided.

Of course, he absolutely could not defeat the Floor Master. The gap between them was simply too great.

The Floor Master of the 17th Floor was Goliath, a monster whose combat strength was rated at LV.4. With his own LV.1 combat strength, defeating Goliath was nothing short of a fool's dream.

Therefore, he decided to imitate Brave Warrior Ottar's LV.7 path and set out on a solo expedition.

Of course, Ottar had gone on a solo expedition to the 59th Floor, fought the LV.7 Floor Master there until it was half-dead, and returned alone—a true Brave Warrior.

As for him, he only needed to enter the 17th Floor and then fight his way back out.

Shirou Emiya would have been too embarrassed to call such a short distance an expedition, so he named this operation A Small Expedition.

Standing at the passage from the 12th Floor to the Thirteenth Floor, Shirou Emiya tightened the backpack on his back.

His backpack was packed to the brim this time, filled entirely with supplies. There was no room left for Magic Stones.

This operation was solely for battle.

After tightening the headscarf around his head, Shirou Emiya muttered, "My adventure begins now."

With that, he walked into the dim passage ahead.

Gray rocks lay scattered everywhere. The surrounding walls, floor, and ceiling were all made of bedrock, and the air held a faint dampness.

At a glance, the environment resembled a natural cave halfway up a mountain.

This battlefield made Shirou Emiya feel as if he had returned to Mount Kurama, the place where he had once fought.

But Shirou Emiya no longer had time to sigh over such things. At that moment, he was constantly running and constantly fighting.

With one swift slash, he cleaved the Unicorn Rabbit in front of him in two, then turned and slashed aside a stone ax thrown from a distance.

This was a monster unique to the middle floors, called the Unicorn Rabbit.

Although they were not particularly powerful among LV.2 monsters, they could not be underestimated. Their ability to throw stone axes meant that a moment of carelessness could result in a fatal wound.

Moreover, this maze was naturally their weapon arsenal. The loose stones on the ground became sharp stone axes in their hands, flying at him without end.

Even harder to deal with was their sheer number. There were simply too many of them.

Starting from the middle floors, the monsters' spawn rate and numbers were far beyond anything seen on the upper floors.

Monsters would appear endlessly, constantly draining one's stamina before waiting for an opportunity to land a fatal blow.

This was the living Dungeon.

Therefore, Shirou Emiya absolutely could not give them a chance to surround him. He had to keep running and continue advancing downward.

During this expedition, he would also bring out his true abilities.

Having already memorized the routes through the middle floors, Shirou Emiya did not pause for even an instant. He continued running and fighting.

Every monster that obstructed his path fell before him.

"Roarrrr!"

Although he was constantly running, Shirou Emiya had never relaxed his vigilance toward his surroundings.

Before the sound even reached him, Shirou Emiya had already noticed their figures: three wolf monsters the size of calves.

They were Hellhounds.

The Hellhounds lurking to one side did not charge. Instead, they remained where they were, raising their hindquarters and lowering their forequarters as they gathered flames in their mouths.

Sparks that were about to erupt spilled from between their sharp fangs.

"Too slow!"

By then, the Twin Swords in Shirou Emiya's hands had already transformed into a black Longsword, and three arrows were nocked against its string, ready to fire.

Twang!

The sound of the bowstring snapping, accompanied by the whistle of the wind, rang out in the silent space. Before the flames in the three Hellhounds' mouths could be spat out, Shirou Emiya's arrows struck them squarely in the head.

The flames that could not be spat out exploded where they were, blasting the Hellhounds themselves into nothing but scattered remains.

But Shirou Emiya had no energy to concern himself with that.

After firing the arrows, he swung the Longsword and knocked away a Unicorn Rabbit that had closed in.

There were simply too many monsters on the middle floors.

Strapping the Longsword to his back, he projected the Twin Swords again and continued forward.

The reason he did not dispel the Longsword was merely to conserve his magic power. After all, in the battles ahead, the bow and arrows would inevitably become weapons he used frequently.

Under the influence of Divine Blessings, Shirou Emiya's Projection Magic had received an epic enhancement. In the past, projecting bladed weapons consumed a normal amount, non-bladed weapons consumed twice as much, and armor consumed twice that amount again.

Now, projecting any weapon consumed a normal amount, bladed weapons consumed half as much, and armor consumed twice as much.

This made his endurance even more formidable.

"Stop getting in my way!"

Looking at the endless stream of monsters charging toward him through the passage ahead, the magic power within Shirou Emiya began circulating rapidly.

"Projection, begin!"

At his command, more than a dozen sword-shaped weapons were projected, then shot out in a frenzy.

With the support of his magic power and the weapons' own sharpness, each sword-shaped weapon pierced through the bodies of several monsters, instantly clearing the passage ahead.

The use of projected weapons seemed to herald increasingly fierce battles.

Along the road ahead, Shirou Emiya continued running and continuously swung the Twin Swords in his hands.

Facing the monsters that came one after another, he kept cutting them down.

Sometimes he slashed with his sword, sometimes he shot with his bow, and sometimes he shot his sword. In short, he used every means at his disposal in rapid succession.

Even so, various wounds were still left on his body.

The monsters' attacks were too dense. There were always attacks Shirou Emiya could not block.

The Unicorn Rabbits' thrown stone axes, the Hellhounds' flames, the Armored Rats' spinning charges.

There were always attacks he could not withstand.

But even that could not stop him from advancing.

Before long, Shirou Emiya followed the landmarks in his memory to the passage from the Thirteenth Floor to the 14th Floor, only to find that a large group of monsters had already gathered there, waiting for him.

"Is this the gift the Dungeon prepared for me? How generous!"

Taking the Longsword from his back, he began projecting with his right hand.

"Projection, begin!"

An unusual Longsword appeared in Shirou Emiya's right hand. It was neither double-edged nor sharpened along a single edge, but a sword with a spiral structure, seemingly born solely for thrusting.

"Fake Sword!"

He placed the projected sword-shaped weapon against the bowstring. As his magic power flowed, the weapon, originally shaped like a sword, began to change, transforming into an arrow that glimmered with silver light.

This time, Shirou Emiya stopped for the first time in a long while and drew the bowstring in his hand to its limit.

"Illusionary Collapse!"

A flash of red light appeared, and the fired arrow crossed the vast distance, instantly arriving in the midst of the monster horde.

BOOM!!!

A violent explosion erupted from within the monster horde, instantly engulfing all of it.

The enormous explosion drove a gale that swept constantly through the surroundings. Many monsters outside the explosion's range were blown away by the powerful wind and fell into the passage below.

When the explosion dissipated, blazing flames continued burning on the spot. The chamber that had once been packed with monsters was littered with Magic Stones.

Shirou Emiya passed through with an indifferent expression, not sparing even one of the Magic Stones a glance.

And so, he entered the passage leading to the 14th Floor.

Thirteenth Floor, breached!