The spring sun was warm, approaching midday.
Inside the Hostess of Fertility pub, the young waitress girls were taking their lunch break.
"Eh?! Is Lunoire going to be dumped, meow? That boy didn't come looking for you today, meow!!"
"Well, she is someone with absolutely no feminine charm after all, meow."
"True, true, meow. It ended after just one day, what a total small fry, meow!"
"The heart of a beautiful boy isn't that easy to win, Lunoire. You need to learn how to be charming, meow."
"Both of you stupid cats, shut up!!"
Just eating lunch was making her blood pressure spike.
Lunoire was feeling dizzy. She and El clearly had nothing going on, but from Anya and Chloe's mouths, it sounded like she was someone who had been dumped!
She really wanted to give both of those cats a punch!
Damn it!!
However, Lunoire also found it a bit strange.
If El was going to the Dungeon today, why didn't he ask her to come along?
He wouldn't go alone, would he?
Lady Demeter had entrusted her to take care of him, so she absolutely couldn't let anything happen to him.
Although.
Thinking about their experience in the Dungeon yesterday, Lunoire felt it was incredibly absurd.
Compared to the hundreds of Goblins and Kobolds blown to pieces, El seemed more like the "monster."
But the Dungeon was a place where many accidents could happen, so she couldn't be careless.
She should go take a look after eating...
"Four portions of spaghetti and drinks, two portions of the signature fish stew, two portions of roast meat, and one portion of stew."
At the bar counter.
The green-haired elf girl, Ryuu, was writing down the dishes ordered by the adventurers on a piece of paper.
The pub wasn't open for business during the day, but it accepted reservations, so some adventurers would come at noon to order their dinner in advance.
"So, the total is..."
How much is it?
Tilting her pretty little face up in a slightly silly manner, Ryuu spread her ten fingers and blinked, attempting to calculate the total price of all the dishes in her head.
[Spaghetti 300 Valis, drinks 200 Valis, fish stew 850 Valis, roast meat 1200 Valis, stew 600 Valis, the total is...]
"1200 plus 800 plus 1700 plus 2400 plus 600, the total is 6700 Valis."
"Eh?!"
A boy's bright and gentle voice came from outside the pub door.
El smiled, informing the elf girl, who had been struggling for a while and still looked at a loss, of the simple math answer.
After greeting her.
He then looked at the catgirl maidens and Lunoire, who were eating on the side.
"Sorry, I'm a bit late."
El had indeed slept in.
Perhaps it had been too long since he had felt this relaxed. Once he thought about how today he had no combat missions, no new weapons that needed to be urgently developed to turn the tide of war.
And no mountains of war machines needing repairs, nor any combat meetings he had to attend.
El didn't really want to get out of bed.
As a result, he slept right through until noon. From last night, he had slept for at least twelve hours!
Too terrifying, this kind of leisurely life is truly too terrifying!!
And Demeter really didn't wake him up at all.
Preparing lunch and a bento, she really acted like a mother who spoiled her child to no end.
You're getting too into character, Goddess!!
Following El's arrival.
Soon.
Lunoire changed out of her uniform and left the pub together with the boy.
At noon, the Dungeon entrance was still a sea of people.
Especially the Path of Beginnings.
The spiral staircase connecting the entrance to the first floor of the Dungeon was, as always, so crowded they even had to line up to move forward slowly.
Looking down.
The first floor underground, which was large enough to accommodate thousands of people, was filled with all sorts of adventurers everywhere.
Quite a few were gathered together resting and eating, while some seemed to be searching around.
El recalled that it seemed to be like this yesterday as well.
Obviously, there were more adventurers on the first floor underground than on the second and third floors.
So.
Why is that?
"They're looking for Jack Birds."
Lunoire answered El.
"It's a rather rare monster that looks like a large rooster. It's not aggressive, but it's incredibly fast. It's guaranteed to drop a rare material worth one million Valis."
"It can sell for one million Kun Kuns?!"
That's quite a lot.
Especially for low-level adventurers who hung around the upper floors.
"Mhm, so encountering a Jack Bird is a symbol of great luck. If the guys from the Ganesha Familia weren't guarding the Dungeon side, probably many citizens would come to try their luck."
"Has Miss Lunoire ever caught a Jack Bird?"
"No."
The girl blushed slightly.
Mainly because she was a bounty hunter, not an adventurer, so she didn't come to the Dungeon side very often.
It was somewhat embarrassing to admit such a dark past.
"Let's go to the third floor again today."
She quickly changed the subject.
After a long time, the two finally arrived inside the crisscrossing cavern.
The walls emitted a pale blue glow, providing the minimum amount of illumination.
Lunoire looked at El.
The boy today looked slightly different from yesterday.
Besides his usual purple trench coat, he hadn't zipped it up, leaving his chest completely open. But underneath, he was no longer wearing that skin-tight dark black vest.
Brownish-gray leather armor.
At the wrists, knees, and other joints, he also had black carapace guards strapped on. Around his neck was a thick grayish-white scarf that covered the lower half of his face, instead giving off a stronger sense of mysterious handsomeness.
He looks more or less like an adventurer now!
Lunoire thought with a bit of hindsight.
She only then remembered to tell El that resolving monsters the way he did yesterday probably wouldn't earn him any [Ability Values].
But to be honest.
The speed of "farming magic stones" was indeed fast. Using yesterday's method, El alone was basically equal to the effort of a fully equipped adventurer party over two or three days.
The power of those tiny, exploding robots was simply too great, much more formidable than the Fire Stones used by ordinary adventurers.
She actually couldn't figure it out either.
What exactly was El doing in the Dungeon?
He seemed to be conducting experiments yesterday. Could it be that he wasn't here to level up?
Hmm.
Just as Lunoire was about to speak, she noticed El casually snap his fingers again.
With a flash of blue light, that little guy that always bobbed up, down, left, and right while flashing a red light on its head appeared again.
RX-60 Trap Runner!
Lunoire had even learned how to anticipate it. She wondered if El was going to gather monsters again like yesterday.
Doing that had no meaning for an adventurer's own growth.
Could he really be coming every day just to earn those tens of thousands of Valis from magic stones?
That couldn't be right.
From the darkness deep within the cavern, the noisy sounds of swarms of Goblins, Kobolds, and Dungeon Lizards rushing towards them in a chaotic mass echoed once more.
But soon, Lunoire noticed that El didn't do what he did yesterday.
He didn't have his mechanical assistant release those tiny, exploding steel boxes.
Inexplicably.
He was holding a thick, long, black...
What is that?!
"Dadadadadadadadadada"!!!
Without responding to Lunoire, El said nothing, he just blindly pulled the trigger.
Subsequently.
The Gatling gun spun up, reaping the lives of the Goblins and Kobolds wielding wooden clubs and stone axes.
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