After the few of them agreed that they would head to the Library to look up the relevant materials once they got out of the dungeon, they continued resting for about another quarter of an hour.
"That's about enough."
Dark bound that short sword fast with rope, hung it on the side of his backpack, then handed the backpack back over to Gatomon to carry.
Diana sidled over, her cheeks bulging with snacks, and said, "I can carry it too, you know."
Gatomon shot her an exceedingly cold glance, then turned its head away with a faint snort, giving the backpack a shake.
"Don't forget to clean up your snack wrappers." Dark pointed at the litter beside Diana, saying it with a smile.
"Mm."
Diana answered obediently and made to tidy up the trash.
But Rose had already set about clearing it up.
In the dungeons of St. Marian, these foreign objects would not be incorporated into the dungeon's self-cleaning system.
Even scavenger species such as Light Moss and Vine Monsters would not devour inorganic trash.
If adventurers did not clear it away promptly, this litter would be transported to a certain floor of the dungeon, gradually piling up into terrifying mountains of garbage.
Every so often, the academy would issue the upperclassmen a task to clean up the garbage floors.
Although this task usually carried an enormous reward far exceeding the difficulty of the task itself, very few people were willing to take it on.
So for the dungeon here, cultivating the good habit of not littering was a good thing beneficial both to the dungeon and to the students.
On another note.
St. Marian had no "Moral Character" class, so the cultivation of certain small habits also required one's own attention.
Nobles would generally engage a renowned local lady to serve as a private tutor, to carry out this sort of education in conduct.
But neither Diana nor Rose had received this kind of education.
Even Rose, in certain areas, had her own shortcomings; she too needed guidance.
...
After the four of them left this place, they went straight to the secret chamber Emma had spoken of.
For Dark's trio, since such a secret chamber existed, they simply had to see it with their own eyes.
But when they groped their way back there, they did not find anything resembling a mural on the wall.
Emma looked at the Vine Monster corpse left on the ground and couldn't help but knit her brows: "It should have been right here..."
Dark thought it over and said, "Then it vanished along with the disappearance of the hidden space."
Then he added, "It can't be helped. In any case, the time's about right—let's set off toward the next treasure!"
Emma accepted his explanation, patted her cheeks, and made herself perk up.
The moment Diana heard there was treasure again, she grew visibly excited.
Her brows danced as she bounced up and down: "Are we starting? Will we run into a tentacle monster again this time? Uwah!"
As she spoke she hugged Rose and launched the punishment of tickling.
Rose laughed "teehee" and the two of them jostled and tussled together playfully.
Emma, sensing this atmosphere that was completely unlike when she'd teamed up with Virt and Robert, couldn't help but feel envious.
...
Amid the laughter and chatter, Dark took out the "[Greed II]" from his card-pack.
As he checked the cooldown of the "[Greed II]," he explained to Emma their "treasure-hunting method."
Emma listened with her eyes shining, and gradually grew interested as well.
In a dungeon, aimless adventuring and treasure-hunting with a definite direction are two entirely different concepts.
Although it was she who had triggered that hidden space a short while ago, the fact that Dark's trio could enter the hidden space relied on that utterly ordinary-looking Slime ooze.
Watching the matches before this, Emma had always assumed that this Slime's greatest use was to curl up inside that Shuckle bug's hard shell and serve as the offering for Sacrificial Summoning.
She had never imagined it actually had such a precious use as well!
"Just as I thought—Dark's Magic Guide Spirits each have their own use; his development of Magic Guide Spirits far surpasses ours."
Emma mused inwardly, sighing slightly.
Then she steeled herself within and said to herself: keep it up!
The one who stands beside a hero can only be a hero.
...
Once the cooldown of the "[Greed II]" finally ended, Dark cradled the Trash Slime in his palm and then began the summoning.
"In the name of Dark Demon, Magic Guide Summon!"
A faint blue light was released from within the card-face of the "[Greed II]."
The Trash Slime bathed in the blue light and wriggled slightly, looking thoroughly blissful.
Its body swelled rapidly, its originally green body taking on a bit of blue.
"Pwoyo——"
Having evolved into the "Greed Slime I," it suddenly bounced up off Dark's palm.
Dark hurriedly reached out to catch it and instructed, "Make it quick."
The Greed Slime's eyes instantly sharpened; it forcibly squeezed two little tentacles out of its jelly-like body and tapped them against its "head."
Just like... the way Little Ikkyu looked when he was thinking.
As its eyes closed and then opened again, the Greed Slime had clearly activated "Treasure Scent"!
After about two minutes of searching, it finally reacted, stretching out a tentacle toward one direction and nodding forcefully.
"Pwoyo!"
（Let's go!）
...
With the experience from the previous time, Dark's trio were considerably calmer.
They summoned their familiars and let them scout the surroundings, then advanced while adjusting their direction along the way.
Emma tried to blend in too, summoning her own otter familiar and ordering it to follow behind to guard the rear.
The monsters of the dungeon naturally could not appear only from the front.
Monsters that appeared from behind and resorted to ambush tactics were by no means few.
The four-person team had clear divisions of labor, and their command of operations was highly methodical.
Whenever they encountered a monster, Dark would directly designate one person to summon a particular Magic Guide Spirit.
Either to hunt it on the spot, or to lure the monster away.
In short, they shortened their lingering time as much as possible.
The Greed Slime's evolution lasted only about fifteen minutes, so they had to confirm the approximate location of the treasure within that span at the very least.
Threading their way along this route, ten minutes quickly passed.
The monsters hunted along the way were basically not harvested for materials either.
At last, just as the Greed Slime was about to regress, the vanguard flying out ahead—DemiDevimon—suddenly came back, gesturing and waving as it relayed information.
"There are people ahead?" Dark asked with a frown.
DemiDevimon nodded at once.
"Could someone have gotten there ahead of us?"
Dark stroked the Greed Slime in his arms and hesitated: "In any case, let's go take a look first."
The other three all voiced their agreement.
Then the four of them picked up their pace further.
After walking only a short stretch of road, a clamor of voices suddenly reached their ears from up ahead.
Dark raised a hand toward the girls, signaling them to stop, while he himself leaned half his face out from around the corner, observing carefully.
At this glance, he relaxed somewhat.
They really were people.
And half of them were acquaintances.
Sarah Swati of the Magic House, Heidi… Euphemia, and another Magic House girl he wasn't too familiar with.
Teddy Doron of the Noble House, Pistan, and another tall girl from the Noble House.
These two groups, all told, had somehow ended up gathered together.
But opposite them stood three more people who, at a glance, were obviously an upperclassman combination.
"Third-years?"
Dark took one look at the style of their school uniforms and immediately identified their year.
"Come to think of it, it's Friday afternoon now—it really is the dungeon's normal opening hours."
Dark muttered a few words under his breath, then stopped concealing himself and walked straight out from around the corner.
Emma, Diana, and Rose glanced at one another and walked out after him as well.
The appearance of the four of them immediately drew the attention of those who were quarreling over there.
Dark paid no mind to the gazes that turned his way; he merely lifted his head and looked toward the enormous iron gate behind them!
The iron gate, set into the brick and stone, was covered all over with scars; even its frame bore traces of having been warped, and its edges were crawling with rust marks.
But its full fifteen or sixteen meters of height and its weighty heft still delivered an extremely direct visual impact.
Beyond that, the gate panels also bore two beast heads fitted with pull-rings.
On the left panel was a bull's head threaded with a nose ring; on the right panel was likewise a lion's head threaded with a nose ring.
The traces of time stood out very clearly upon this enormous iron gate.
And it left no one in doubt that, behind it, there must surely be precious treasure hidden away!
...
Even without needing to open his mouth and ask.
Dark could more or less guess that the first-years and third-years had most likely come into conflict over this treasure vault.
From a personal standpoint, he was of course inclined toward his first-year classmates.
But from an impartial standpoint, one still had to observe the principle of first-come, first-served.
If the reasoning couldn't be sorted out clearly, then there would be trouble.
In a dungeon, where each side insists it's in the right, once a dispute arises, there's only one way to settle it.
And that is an on-the-spot duel!
But have first-year students duel against third-years?
That was obviously not reliable.
...
The moment Dark drew near, Doron, having recognized that it was him, instinctively let out a sigh of relief, then waved vigorously: "Dark, you're finally here!"
Although Doron was usually quite restrained, when he really shouted out, his volume could genuinely rival Robert's.
Perhaps this was what you'd call hidden depths.
Dark sighed slightly, then put on a beaming face: "Sorry, ran into something, got held up a bit."
Running into something was true.
Getting held up a bit was also true.
It was just this "sorry"...
that was a pure conversational gambit to ease his way in.
Dark played along with Doron's greeting and smoothly worked his way into the situation.
Doron's eyes flickered slightly as he grumbled, "Without you here, this Floor BOSS—even if we found it, we couldn't beat it."
Floor BOSS?
Dark instantly understood.
He turned slightly, his gaze sweeping across each person's face, and roughly got the gist of it in his mind.
Since behind this iron gate was where the Floor BOSS resided, then it was only natural for those three third-years to show up here.
Only, from the looks of it, the ones who had arrived here first should have been Doron and Sara, and only then those three third-years.
Otherwise, given the status of third-years, it would have been impossible for them to be standing here yammering with these two groups of first-years.
The fact that they hadn't directly made a move to drive Doron and the others away most likely meant they had a guilty conscience.
Dark naturally walked over to Doron's side, his face full of feigned puzzlement: "And who are these three seniors?"
Doron glanced at them, his confidence somewhat bolstered within, and said bluntly, "No idea. Maybe... they're just passing through!"
Seeing that his tone and attitude were now completely different from before, the three of them gave a cold snort at once.
One of them, a short boy wearing a green cotton cap, tugged his cap down and muttered, "Borrowing the tiger's might."
Though he called it muttering, his voice wasn't low.
Doron's expression did not change.
Because he was indeed borrowing the tiger's might.
Since he'd already done so, he shouldn't fear being cursed for it.
Doron wasn't that naive.
This place really had been discovered by them first; these three third-years were latecomers, and no matter what, his conscience was clear.
It was just that these three third-years kept saying something about how they'd already left their mark here last weekend, only they hadn't had time to deal with it, so they'd left it until this week to come back again.
They even declared on this basis that they were the ones who'd come first.
But didn't the dungeon refresh every week?
Could it be that the Floor BOSS didn't refresh?
Doron's understanding of the dungeon's rules wasn't yet thorough enough, so he couldn't help but hesitate.
But Sarah Swati understood it very clearly, and explained it to him right then and there.
As it turned out, the dungeon's weekly refresh mechanism didn't refresh everything.
Under normal circumstances, the monster refresh mechanism would only trigger after the number of monsters on a floor dropped to a certain range, or rose to a certain degree.
And the monsters here most likely would not include certain elite monsters that were still alive.
Another scenario was when a floor's terrain had been destroyed too severely, in which case a map reset would be carried out.
Or if a certain floor's terrain belonged to the maze type, it too would frequently reset.
In addition, foreign species would not be incorporated into the refresh mechanism.
——Unless they were digested and absorbed by the dungeon's ecosystem.
So what these three third-years said was not necessarily a lie.
...
In any case, these three clearly had some knowledge of Dark Demon.
Earlier, before Dark arrived, the argument among them had escalated to the point of loud shouting.
But the moment Dark appeared, both sides visibly reined themselves in.
"Dark Demon?"
The red-haired youth among the three upperclassmen looked toward Dark, revealing a genial smile.
This red-haired youth had a pair of very beautiful ruby-red eyes; when he smiled it was as though sunlight were spilling down, giving people a strong sense of approachability.
What he wore on his chest was the tarot-card crest belonging to the Fool's House.
And that short boy wearing the green cotton cap—the strands of hair peeking out from beneath his cap were distinctly green.
The remaining boy was somewhat plump, with an ordinary face and hair the color of withered grass, giving people a first impression of malnutrition.
The crests on their chests were likewise all printed with the "Fool" tarot card.
These three were actually quite famous among the third-years.
The red-haired one was named Fernandi.
The green-haired one was named Grien.
The yellow-haired one was named Yero.
Together they were known as the "Red-Green-Yellow Trio."
Because they always appeared together, and their hair colors were quite distinctive and left a deep impression, they had unwittingly gained a certain renown.
Although Dark had never heard of them, based on noble etiquette he still said politely, "Hello, may I ask the seniors' names?"
But the yellow-haired fatty of the Red-Green-Yellow Trio seemed to be someone of a rather poor temper; he cut in right then, "No need for greetings. Are you looking to stick your nose in?"
Diana pouted and abruptly raised her foot, but was pulled back by Rose.
...
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