CFD – Chapter 5 – Rescue

The weekdays passed and Saturday arrived. I am currently standing at the entrance of the nearby dungeon which I usually explore. When I become a full-time explorer, I am going to take the weekends off.

With my bag hanging open on my back, I switched on the camera drone I use for the live stream and it started to float around me.

Then, I operated on my smartphone to start the live stream.

“Summon, Fairy, Rinnea” (Yotsuka)

I chanted this in my mind as I called out my usual partner.

“Yahoo~ Let’s work hard again today.” (Rinnea)

“Yeah. I’m counting on you.” (Yotsuka)

After greeting Rinnea, I looked back at the screen and there was already a comment. The number of viewers was one.

『I’m looking forward to today’s King’s March as well!』

It was the usual viewer, although I don’t know why it’s called the King’s March.

“Now then, let’s go, Your Majesty!” (Rinnea)

“Please stop calling me that already.” (Yotsuka)

Even though I know she won’t stop, I still felt like saying it.

“Well then, we’ll continue to explore the dungeon today as usual, so please enjoy the stream.” (Yotsuka)

After making that statement, I placed my smartphone back into my pocket.

I went down the stairs which lead me deeper into the dungeon. Although I am underground, the dungeon is filled with a mysterious light, which means lighting will never be an issue.

As I walked a little further, I could see something in the middle of the spacious corridor.

“…Goblins” (Yotsuka)

“Are they eating something?” (Rinnea)

“That looks like a corpse of an abandoned comrade¹.” (Yotsuka)

“Summon, Salamander” (Yotsuka)

While talking to Linnea, I summoned my Salamander spirit and burnt the Goblins who were devouring the fallen comrade. I then proceeded to walk past them and continued on.

The materials that can be obtained from Goblins are not needed. Since I can only bring a limited amount of materials back, I couldn’t afford to pick up cheap materials. The real material collection will start after reaching the lower floors.

While mowing down the relatively weak monsters on the upper floors using the power of my spirits, I go down one floor after another and eventually reached the middle floor.

“Summon, Ifrit” (Yotsuka)

I summoned Ifrit and burn the bull-like monster charging towards me. Ifrit is like a superior version of Salamander. It has a humanoid form and can control stronger flames than Salamander. While it wouldn’t be a problem to defeat the monster with Salamander, there was still a possibility that it could ignore the incoming attacks with its charging power before dying to reach me. So, I used Ifrit, even if it meant using more magic power.

I mainly used Salamander for the upper floors. From the middle floor onwards, I use Ifrit. This is how I usually explore the dungeons.

However, it’s not like I only fight using fire spirits.

I made it through the middle floor and safely arrived at the lower floors.

Now, this is where the real work starts.

I usually explore the lower floors using various spirits such as Ifrit, Eurros, Ianga, and Tyr. Even when my bag was full, I continued hunting for monsters to thin out the dangerous lower floors.

It has been a while since I have used Naiad or relied on any of my trump card spirits. Perhaps it is time to go even lower.

“Hmm? I can hear someone screaming…” (Rinnea)

“Well, let’s go check it out, just in case.” (Yotsuka)

“Got it! I’ll lead the way.” (Rinnea)

Rinnea sped up and flew ahead of me, as I ran behind her.

Perhaps someone had been caught off guard by a monster or triggered a trap.

If it was a trap, there was a possibility of rescue, but if it was the former, it was probably already too late. Still, just to be sure, I ran as fast as I could.

Then, we could see the back of the monster.

It can be assumed that a middle-floor explorer has encountered a monster that should not normally be on the middle floor and is in danger. The Minotaur is one of the strongest monsters even on the lower floors, so it is hopeless for a middle-floor explorer to encounter it.

It should be okay to intervene and help without permission.

Normally, it would be preferable to check with the other explorers before interfering in their battle, as interrupting their fight may cause trouble, but it’s troublesome to shout across the huge body of the monster.

Besides, in this situation, the Minotaur can be defeated by a sneak attack.

Then, as the Minotaur raised its thick arms to attack the explorer, I summoned my spirits.

“Summon, Ianga” (Yotsuka)

A humanoid spirit was summoned in front of me. Ianga is a spirit capable of manipulating attraction and repulsion forces, and it immediately used its power. The Minotaur, who was about to swing its arm loses its balance due to the attraction force and is dragged forcefully across the dungeon floor towards Ianga.

“Summon, Tyr” (Yotsuka)

With the Minotaur now lying on its back and heading towards them, I summoned another spirit to aid us. Tyr is also a humanoid-looking sprit, more specifically, a sword spirit. Many high-level spirits tend to take on humanoid forms.

Tyr rushed forward with incredible speed and cleanly severed the Minotaur’s head from its body, killing it instantly.

I stopped Ianga from using its power and sent back my two spirits. I headed towards the explorer while passing by the corpse of the defeated monster.

When I got closer, I see a familiar figure.

“Yotsuka-kun?” (Azami)

It was Azami, who collapsed on the floor as if her legs had given out from relief. In her hand was a Crystal Slime. The slime was transparent, and it seemed a bit listless and lacking in energy.

“Are you okay?” (Yotsuka)

Well, the answer was obvious. Looking around, I could see one of her companions and three of her tamed monsters lying defeated. Nevertheless, I decided to check on Azami’s condition since she was the only one conscious.

“I-I am. But Hikari-chan got hit on the head by that monster’s attack… It seems like Nai-chan and the others are somehow still alive.” (Azami)

Hikari is the woman Azami is exploring with. I believe she mentioned in her stream that they are cousins and that her job is a healer.

Looking in Hikari’s direction, I could see the Minotaur’s axe lying on the ground where it should have been. This time, the Minotaur was unarmed, likely because it had used its weapon for throwing.

Didn’t she get hit in the head?

Somehow her head still seems to be intact.

As I approached her, I could see that she was still breathing. In fact, her injuries didn’t seem that serious. Perhaps it was just a graze. Even so, the Minotaur’s axe throw must have been powerful.

“Summon, Naiad” (Yotsuka)

I summoned the water spirit Naiad, who possessed the power of healing, and have it treat Hikari. After making sure that Hikari was fully healed, I had Fenrir (Knight), Phoenix (Kuku), and the small white dragon (Lilim) receive healing as well. As a precaution, I also had Naiad heal the Crystal Slime.

Hikari still hadn’t woken up, but the remaining monsters quickly regained their strength and gathered around Azami.

All the monsters that Azami has, except for Lilim, evolved from lower-ranked monsters using the power of her job. Perhaps because of that, they are not as strong as original monsters of the same species. If they were to encounter a real Fenrir or Phoenix on the lower floors, they wouldn’t get better chances to survive compared to the Minotaur. Even Crystal Slime, who is skilled in barrier magic, wouldn’t have been able to perfectly defend against the attacks.

By the way, Lilim is a dragon, but a juvenile one. It’s a bipedal flying dragon with wings. Even though its still too young to be a combat force, it’s still quite impressive that it managed to survive the Minotaur’s attack.

“…Hikari seems to be unconscious, what should we do?”  (Yotsuka)

Azami still seemed dazed, and I thanked her before mentioning her companions. It was too early for her to thank me until we had taken care of them.

“Do you want to wait for her to wake up here, or should we try to carry her outside of the dungeon? It’s hard to say how long it will take for her to regain consciousness. If you want to take her out, I can help.” (Yotsuka)

“But carrying someone all the way from here to outside the dungeon is a lot of work, isn’t it?” (Azami)

“Sure, it’ll be fine. Actually, the one who will carry her is the spirit.” (Yotsuka)

I summoned Ianga again. Then, Hikari’s body floated gently in the air and was held in Ianga’s arms.

“Um, in that case, can I count on you?” (Azami)

Seeing this, Azami hesitated when replying. Judging from her reaction, maybe she wasn’t used to seeing spirits.

Come to think of it, unless there was a summoner nearby, there would be no chance to see a spirit, so it was natural for her to react that way.

Then, we started to move to the entrance of the dungeon. Along the way, Azami’s monsters took care of the enemies. It helped that they did that since I was using Ianga’s power constantly during the movement, which was quite a burden.

After we exited the dungeon, we headed to the exploration guild that Azami and her team belonged to. We carried Hikari to the infirmary and laid her down on a bed. After saying goodbye to Azami, I went to the guild that I belonged to. There are multiple exploration guilds for each dungeon, to avoid conflicts over the buying of materials from explorers.

At the guild, when I tried to exchange the contents of my bag for money, a staff member pointed out something to me.

I had forgotten to end the live stream.

I hurriedly took out my smartphone from my pocket and saw that for some reason, the number of viewers was seven. The comments were as usual.

『Ahh, you finally noticed that you forgot to end the stream.』

Such a comment appeared. 

“I’m sorry, I just noticed. I’m a bit late, but I’ll end the stream here today. Thank you very much.” (Yotsuka)

『As expected, you have an aura of a king today~』

And with that final exchange, I ended the live stream and stored my camera drone. I turned back to the guild counter once again.

“Well then, can I sell these items?” (Yotsuka)

“Of course. There are a lot of them as usual.” (Guild receptionist)

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TL notes:

Thanks for reading!

My man has 2 fire-based spirits. Actually forget that, Ianga seems pretty overpowered! Having control over repulsion force techincally means that basically nothing can touch you if you desired right?? I mean, it was strong enough to pull down the Minotaur with EASE. Kinda like a weaker version of Accelerator’s vector control power.

This chapter was longer than usual, so feel free to correct any mistakes I may have made, I’m sure I made some.
I decided to use these brackets『』from now on for viewer comments. I also removed the usual (Viewer) at the end of comments since it’s redundant.

It’ll be LSP chapter tomorrow.

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Footnote:

1. Not entirely sure if this is referring to a human comrade or a goblin comrade