Gather Divine Coins and Gacha!

Before I could recover from the impact of his magic, we quickly stepped into the upper floors.

I’d never been to the one in Zerkis, let alone in the royal capital, but it didn’t feel special.

My companions were too strong.

However, it is the upper floors.

The shallow floors are probably about 1km square, but this upper floors seem to be about the same size as the royal capital.

It’s about 4km square more or less.

Probably a grassland divided by dirt walls, creating areas twice the size of football fields.

The shallow floors were paved or dirt, but the visibility was good.

But here, there are undulations, rocks are rolling here and there, and grass is growing underfoot.

It’s about 30 meters high, but that doesn’t mean much if you can’t fly like me.

Let’s brace ourselves.

“Sera! Use [Prayer].”

Hmphs! While I was in high spirits, an order for [Prayer] came from Alex.

I also get fired up and activate it with an “Orya!” call.

“What is this? A blessing?”

“It’s Sera’s blessing. It increases physical ability and mana. And it also has a constant recovery effect.”

As explained by Alex, [Prayer] seems to increase even mana.

Anyway, I can’t use magic, so I don’t know how much of an effect it could have, but if Ruban’s thing from earlier is magic, it might be astonishing…

“…that sounds like a demon king… ouch!?”

Hearing its effect, Luban muttered unintentionally and was beaten.

Demon Lord.

More specifically, it’s demon lord species, but it’s not like an evil big boss plotting world domination or the destruction of mankind.

It’s a special individual that appears extremely rarely among monsters.

Of course, it is strong, but what makes it more troublesome is its characteristic, which strengthens monsters and beasts within its territory regardless of their race.

For example, one wolf.

Normally, a single hunter or three ordinary villagers would be enough to defeat it, but it’s different in the territory of a demon lord species.

Even one of them is enough to inflict devastating damage on a village.

For that reason, it is necessary to deal with it as soon as possible, but its territory can even be as wide as a mountain, so the scale is too different from my [Prayer].

That will continue until the demon lord species is defeated, and since you can’t tell its difference from ordinary monsters, even if a subjugation team is formed, it will be able to escape, build a new territory in a new place, and repeat… that phenomenon called the Demon Lord Disaster, which is why people fear it as a Demon Lord.

Although its scale will change, it will appear suddenly regardless of whether there are many monsters or not, so it is also the reason why the profession of adventurer will not disappear, not only in the Alliance, but also in the western countries.

Come to think of it, these guys have defeated a demon lord species by themselves…

Demon lord species doesn’t seem to appear from the dungeon, so it seems like we would be okay unless a super strong enemy appears.

“Sera?”

It seems that the explanation and preparations had already been completed when I was in a daze.

“What we’re doing is the same as before. Sera, I ask you to search for enemies in the same way. There shouldn’t be any monsters that can fly here, but please be careful.”

“Aight~.”

“Okay. Let’s go!”

◇ 

“The surroundings are cleared up.”

I looked around to make sure there was nothing there, then floated down and reported to Ruban.

“Okay. Let’s get some rest.”

About an hour has passed since we started exploring the upper floors.

Again, the frequency is higher than on shallow floors.

There are many monsters that we encounter at once, and above all, they are strong.

We’ve fought several large wolf-like packs, but they even use cooperation.

On top of that, another group would join in the middle.

I’ve seen similar things happen in shallow floors, but at best they would all rush in at once, but these guys are different.

Despite being in a different group, they try to use decoys and go around… I don’t know if it’s smart or it’s a characteristic of their race, but although we are able to defeat them without danger with our current party, it would be dangerous if you’re not used to it.

“We defeated quite a few, but… it’s really not dropping. Is it like this?”

We’ve defeated quite a few so far, but we haven’t encountered a Big Elk, which is our target this time.

I’ve heard that it’s hard to hunt them because they often stay in groups of 2 or 3 and try to escape immediately, but what about not encountering them in the first place?

“There are times when the encounter rate is biased…but this is a little extreme. The number of monsters itself is the same as usual, but… what do you think? Should we change places?”

Discussions began as to whether to change the location, continue as is, or delve deeper.

It’s been a long time since we’ve been running and fighting, so we’re going to take a break.

I’m just floating around so far, so I have plenty of stamina, so I’ll take over the lookout.