A Small Expedition

Walking through the dungeon, Shirou Emiya carried a state of mind completely different from that of other adventurers.

The journey ahead would be extremely difficult for him, but he still felt a profound sense of calm.

No tension, no fear.

All he had to do was move forward.

Watching Shirou Emiya draped in Fire-Spirit Woven Cloth, the surrounding adventurers cast envious glances his way, even though they didn't know him well.

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

The reason for this was the appearance of a particular monster: the Hellhound.

The Hellhound, also called the Flame-Spitting Demon, was a monster that used long-range magical attacks. The flames it spewed could easily reduce an unprotected adventurer to charcoal.

Fire-Spirit Woven Cloth, with its resistance to flames and high temperatures, was the best protective gear to shield adventurers from fire threats.

Thus, seeing an adventurer wearing Fire-Spirit Woven Cloth led to an easy conclusion.

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

Ignoring the envious looks from other adventurers, Shirou Emiya pressed 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 was absolutely no match for the Floor Master—the gap between them was simply too vast.

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

So he decided to emulate the path of the Brave Warrior Ottar's LV.7 journey: a solo expedition.

Of course, Ottar was a true Brave Warrior who soloed the 59th Floor, fought the LV.7 Floor Master there nearly to death, and returned alone.

As for him, he only needed to step into the 17th Floor, then fight his way back.

Such a distance, Shirou Emiya was too embarrassed to call an expedition, so he named this action of his: A Small Expedition.

Standing at the passage from the 12th Floor to the 13th Floor, Shirou Emiya tightened the backpack on his back.

This time, his backpack was packed full, filled with supplies, leaving no room for Magic Stones.

This operation was purely for combat.

Tightening the headband on his head, Shirou Emiya murmured to himself, "Now begins my adventure."

With that, he stepped into the dim passage ahead.

Gray rocks scattered everywhere, surrounded by walls, floor, and ceiling all made of rock formations, with a hint of dampness in the air.

At first 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 once fought.

But now, Shirou Emiya had no time to dwell on such things. He was constantly running and constantly fighting.

A swift sword stroke split the Unicorn Rabbit before him in two, then he turned and deflected a stone axe hurled from a distance to the side.

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

Though not particularly strong among LV.2 monsters, they couldn't be underestimated. Capable of throwing stone axes, a moment of carelessness could bring fatal injury.

Moreover, this labyrinth was their natural arsenal; the fallen rocks on the ground became sharp axes in their hands, coming in an endless stream.

What made them even harder to handle was their sheer numbers—far too many.

From the middle floors onward, the spawn rate and quantity of monsters far outstripped the upper floors.

Monsters would appear endlessly, constantly draining your stamina, then bide their time for a fatal blow.

This was the living dungeon.

Therefore, Shirou Emiya absolutely could not let them surround him. He had to keep running, keep pushing downward.

In this expedition, he would also use all his true methods.

Having thoroughly memorized the route through the middle floors beforehand, Shirou Emiya's feet never paused as he ran and fought without stop.

All the monsters blocking his path fell before him.

"Grrroooowl!"

Though he kept running, Shirou Emiya never slackened in his reconnaissance of the surroundings.

Long before this sound reached him, Shirou Emiya had already spotted them—three wolf-like monsters the size of calves.

Those were Hellhounds.

The Hellhounds lurking on one side didn't charge forward. Instead, they stood still, lowering their upper bodies and raising their lower bodies, gathering flames in their mouths.

Sparks about to erupt spilled from the gaps between their fangs.

"Too slow!"

By now, the Twin Swords in Shirou Emiya's hands had transformed into a black longbow, with three arrows nocked and ready to loose.

Twang!

The sound of a bowstring snapping, accompanied by the whistle of air, rang through the silent space. Before the three Hellhounds could even spew the flames from their mouths, Shirou Emiya struck them square in the head.

The flames, unable to be released, could only explode on the spot, blasting the Hellhounds themselves into oblivion.

But Shirou Emiya had no energy left to spare on them.

After firing the arrow, he swung his longbow, sending a charging Unicorn Rabbit flying.

The monsters on the middle floor were simply too numerous.

Slinging the longbow over his back, he re-projected his Twin Swords and pressed forward.

The only reason he hadn't dismissed the longbow was to conserve mana usage—after all, in the battles to come, the bow and arrow would inevitably become a frequently used weapon.

Under the influence of Divine Blessings, Shirou Emiya's Projection Magic had received an epic-level enhancement. In the past, projecting sword-type weapons cost normal mana, non-sword weapons cost double, and armor cost double again.

But now, projecting any weapon cost normal mana, sword-type costs were halved, and armor costs remained doubled.

This made his endurance far more robust.

"Don't get in my way!"

Staring at the endless stream of monsters charging toward him from the passage ahead, Shirou Emiya's mana began to churn rapidly.

"Projection start!"

At his command, over a dozen sword-type weapons were projected, then fired off wildly.

Empowered by his mana and the weapons' own sharpness, each sword pierced through several monsters' bodies, instantly clearing the passage before him.

The use of projected weapons seemed to herald the intensifying ferocity of the battle.

On the path ahead, Shirou Emiya ran without pause, swinging his Twin Swords without rest.

Facing wave after wave of monsters, he cut them down relentlessly.

Sometimes with his swords, sometimes with his bow, sometimes by shooting swords from it—in short, he unleashed every means at his disposal.

Yet even so, his body was marked with various wounds.

The monsters' attacks were too dense; there were always strikes Shirou Emiya couldn't block.

The Unicorn Rabbit's stone axe throws, the Hellhound's flame jets, the Armored Rat's spinning charges.

There were always attacks he couldn't parry.

But even this couldn't stop his advance.

Soon, following the landmarks in his memory, Shirou Emiya arrived at the passage from the Thirteenth Floor to the 14th Floor. But here, a massive horde of monsters had already gathered, waiting for him.

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

He took down the longbow from his back, and his right hand began to project.

"Projection start!"

A strange longsword appeared in Shirou Emiya's right hand. This blade was neither double-edged nor single-edged—it was a spiral-structured sword, seemingly born only for thrusting.

"Fake Sword!"

He nocked the projected weapon onto the bowstring. As mana flowed, the sword-type armament began to transform, turning into an arrow gleaming with silver light.

For the first time in a while, Shirou Emiya stopped in his tracks and drew the bowstring to its full limit.

"Illusionary Collapse!"

A flash of red light, and the fired arrow crossed a vast distance in an instant, arriving in the midst of the monster horde.

Boom!!!

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

The massive blast drove a storm that swept through the surroundings, flinging many monsters outside the explosion's range off their feet and down into the passage below.

When the explosion subsided, roaring flames continued to burn on the spot, and the chamber that had once been packed with monsters was now littered with Magic Stones.

Shirou Emiya walked through with a calm expression, not sparing even a single glance at the Magic Stones.

Thus, he entered the passage leading to the 14th Floor.

Thirteenth Floor, cleared!