As the "Evil Eye Ray" faded away, this battle was thoroughly declared over.
On the one hand Dark felt relieved, and on the other he felt left wanting more.
"And just like that, it's gone."
With a touch of regret he glanced at that small heap of black powder, then raised his hand and pressed it atop the Evil Eye that the Magic Beast: Ditto had transformed into.
The instant his fingertips made contact, a thread of scalding heat seeped into his skin.
Dark gave a sudden start, only to discover that the Magic Beast: Ditto's outer shell was melting.
Before long, the Magic Beast: Ditto automatically released its "Transform" state and flopped softly onto the ground.
Clearly, that single "Evil Eye Ray" earlier had pushed it into overclocked operation.
Although its mana had not yet bottomed out, it was already utterly exhausted.
Dark suddenly realized that he had actually overlooked the Magic Beast: Ditto's condition. He hurriedly bent down to scoop it up, stroking it gently with a pang of tenderness.
"Ditt... Ditto——"
The Magic Beast: Ditto cried out weakly, yet its two eyes stealthily cracked open a sliver.
Some time ago, in order to strengthen its "Transform," it had specially pored over "An Actor Prepares."
Though it didn't recognize a single word in the book, that was fine—recognizing the title was enough!
But right after that, it was taken back into the Magic Guide Card by Dark.
Gatomon, who was walking over this way, couldn't help but reveal a faint, meaningful smile.
...
Having taken the Magic Beast: Ditto back into the Magic Guide Card, Dark replenished its mana as he walked toward the spot where that small heap of black powder lay.
Once he reached the black powder, he crouched down, took a small bottle out of his backpack, and prepared to bottle up the powder.
After all, it was the strongest Magic Beast he'd hunted since entering the dungeon—even if these dregs were useless, they could at least serve as proof and raise his standing a bit in Professor Nini's eyes.
The results of the final exam would be converted into temporary credits, accumulated into each House's total score.
At that point, based on the scores, only the House with the highest total would earn the chance to make a wish upon the Holy Grail.
Dark was counting on relying on this Holy Grail to raise the level of his "[Nether God Art]" or "Soul-Sucker Spell."
Although an individual's credits were but a drop in the bucket, how does one reach a thousand miles without first accumulating small steps?
He pulled a glove out of the side pocket of his backpack, and only after putting it on did he reach out to touch the black powder.
After pinching up a little and crumbling it, he discovered that this black powder resembled a kind of black crystalline substance, with not the slightest hint that it was the remains of a Magic Beast.
Suddenly his brow furrowed, and he reached out again, brushing aside the upper layer of the black powder—and sure enough, from within it he found a black crystal the size of a ping-pong ball!
This black crystal carried a certain whiff of core material.
After carefully picking it up and examining it closely, he found that it had eighteen faces in total, each one unexpectedly smooth as a mirror, brimming with geometric beauty.
"But this thing—what can it be used for?"
Dark couldn't help but frown.
"Maybe... it could be made into dice?"
A voice that suddenly came from behind made Dark turn his head, and he caught sight of Emma, who had worked up her courage.
After witnessing Virt and Robert vanish, Emma Metis had for a moment screamed aloud out of sheer terror.
But after she finished screaming and calmed down, she realized that those two had probably just been teleported out of the dungeon.
The teleportation coordinates of the "Dungeon Escape Device" were set right next to the infirmary, so that Sister Carian could promptly treat the injured.
Those two were most likely there.
She wondered, too, whether they were the first batch to be teleported out.
Surely they couldn't be the only batch...
Emma then snapped back to herself and was immediately drawn in by Dark's actions.
Right after that, she saw that round boulder be blasted to death on the spot by the Magic Beast: Ditto, so she cautiously walked out from within the passage.
With Dark Demon around, there was always an inexplicable sense of security.
Walking up behind Dark, Emma saw that eighteen-faced black crystal and offhandedly made a remark.
But that one remark gave Dark a reminder.
"An eighteen-faced die? I feel like I've heard of that somewhere."
Dark thought it over carefully, but still came up empty, so he simply set it aside for now and said, "Are you all right?"
Emma's little face reddened, and she lowered her head, murmuring softly, "I'm fine."
"Good, then." Dark asked no further.
As for Emma's movements, he had a rough idea, so there was no need to ask now.
In any case, he took out his tools, swept that small heap of black powder on the ground into a bottle, then sealed the eighteen-faced black crystal up in a palm-sized little pouch, and only then stood up.
By this time, Diana and Rose had also walked over.
Seeing Emma standing there in a daze all by herself, the two girls chatted with her for a bit.
"So, you want to travel together with us for the time being?"
Dark looked at Emma with an odd gaze.
Emma ought to have a fiery, go-getter sort of temperament, but at this moment she was strangely averting her eyes, her cheeks flushed.
Still, she gave an almost imperceptible nod.
Dark looked at her for a long while, then suddenly said, "The suspension bridge effect—you know it, right?"
This single line was, in fact, somewhat abrupt.
And sure enough, after hearing it, Emma was stunned for a moment.
Right after that, she finally realized her own impropriety, hurriedly adjusted her expression, and her voice even rose by two notches: "The suspension bridge effect—of course I know it!"
Diana, the only one present who didn't understand, couldn't help but cut in: "What on earth is the suspension bridge effect?"
Rose, beside her, hurriedly took her by the arm and said in a low voice, "The suspension bridge effect refers to how, when a person crosses a suspension bridge in fear and trembling, their heart involuntarily beats faster, and so they end up making certain associations that make the heart race."
Diana nodded as though half-understanding: "Oh."
Then she looked at Emma with a touch of pity and said in an oldster's world-weary tone, "Poor child, you must have been frightened out of your wits."
Dark: "Pfft."
He couldn't hold back a burst of laughter.
Emma, all the more embarrassed and flustered, tightly clasped her fingers together.
...
"Traveling with us is fine. But a team can only have one head. You understand what I mean, right?" Dark said to Emma.
Emma immediately replied, "Of course."
She seemed very sincere.
Diana and Rose weren't averse to her joining either.
Dark nodded with satisfaction. "In that case, where do you want to go next?"
Emma: "Huh? Didn't you say there's only one head?"
Dark: "It's not a one-man dictatorship over here—naturally I have to consult my team members' opinions."
Emma: "..."
That said.
But in truth, Dark simply couldn't think for the moment of where they should go.
With still quite a long while to go before evening, there was no way they could head straight back.
And the "[Greed II]" that prompted the Trash Slime to evolve into a Greed Slime still needed some time before its cooldown finished.
During this stretch of time, Dark had no definite plan.
"Let's just rest and regroup for now."
He waved his hand and they rested right where they were.
Whether it was Emma or Rose, both of them in fact needed a certain amount of time to adjust their state of mind.
...
After the four of them had finished forming their team, they switched to a different spot to rest.
Though Emma had joined the team, she still seemed quite reserved.
So Dark took the initiative to strike up conversation, talking about their experiences since the free-activity period had begun.
From the moment they'd left the entrance to the dungeon's second floor up until now, roughly two hours had passed.
In those two hours, Dark's greatest gains were that rusty sword whose origins he still didn't know, and the eighteen-faced black crystal.
If one really had to count it, that bottle of black powder—the corpse-dregs of the Evil Eye—could perhaps be included as well.
Apart from that, most of their gains were materials obtained by hunting ordinary Magic Beasts.
Those materials could be used for Magic Guide transmutation, but whether they could ultimately be refined into a Magic Guide Card to one's liking required a few measures of luck.
As for the three-person group formed by Emma, Virt, and Robert, after they left the entrance of the second floor, their movements were largely similar to those of Dark's trio.
It was just that every time they encountered a Magic Beast, Virt would immediately summon his Troll to charge in.
Relying on the Troll's might and Virt's mana, they had things relatively smooth along the way.
Then Emma went on to tell of their unusual encounter.
Within maze-type dungeons, there are usually many hidden mechanisms and hidden rooms.
Of course...
"Hidden room" and "hidden space"—a single word's difference, yet a vast gulf between them.
A "hidden room" is also called a "secret chamber."
While groping her way forward, Emma had discovered a mural blocked by a Vine Monster.
She hurriedly called out to Virt and Robert, who had already walked far ahead, while she herself summoned a Magic Guide Spirit to uproot the Vine Monster, then solved the mural's puzzle and opened a secret chamber hidden within the wall!
"What was in that secret chamber?"
Emma had a strong gift with words; she narrated her story gently and engagingly, drawing her listeners in.
So all three of Dark's group grew curious.
But Emma said dejectedly, "Nothing at all."
She had been extremely excited when she'd just solved the puzzle—especially as the secret chamber's great door slowly opened before her, she'd thought she could find treasure hidden inside the chamber, just like the protagonist of a legendary tale.
But in fact there was none.
Inside the chamber there was only a single lamp and one mural.
A mural exactly the same as the one on the wall outside.
She took that ancient oil lamp from the pedestal in the very center of the chamber, then left the chamber, resigned.
Not long afterward, they ran into the hidden space where the abyss lay.
...
After listening to her account, Dark's gaze gradually turned odd.
In fact, the others including Emma—everyone except Diana—had also roughly thought of one possibility.
Dark couldn't help but ask, "Can you describe what those two murals looked like?"
"Of course." When Emma spoke of her own adventuring achievements, she brightened up considerably. "I recorded it down—hold on."
With that she turned around to grab her backpack and began rummaging for her notebook.
Dark, meanwhile, took the opportunity to draw out the "Drifloon" Magic Guide Card and tapped on its surface.
Under the touch of mana from his fingertip, the Drifloon squirmed bashfully like a little girl.
Before long, Emma had found the notebook.
She flipped the notebook to the middle section and said with a beaming face, "Found it."
All three of Dark's group leaned in to look.
Only to see, on that notebook, a sharply angular totem sketched out in fine lines.
Although this totem's image was slightly distorted due to the drawing style, if one observed carefully, one could still make out from it a faint shadow of a "jellyfish."
Beneath the mushroom-shaped upper half were densely packed straight lines, only curving into a hook once they reached the bottom.
Were it not for a preconceived notion, one would scarcely imagine that those straight, vertically hanging lines were "tentacles."
Dark stood the "Drifloon" Magic Guide Card upright so that it could see the totem in the notebook.
After seeing that totem, the Drifloon first cocked its head and pondered for quite a while, then nodded forcefully.
"Looks like that confirms it."
Dark mused, "This totem is in all likelihood the Magic Beast at the bottom of that abyss. Looking at it this way, it's very possible that you triggered something in the secret chamber, which is what activated this hidden space. It's just that we happened to be closer than you all at the time, so we entered earlier."
"Is that how it was..."
Emma knit her brows and thought it over carefully. "But we didn't do anything..."
Just as she was puzzling over it, Diana suddenly cut in: "But Emma, didn't you take an oil lamp out from inside?"
Emma said in astonishment, "The oil lamp—I only wanted it as a little souvenir... All right, it seems it was the oil lamp."
She closed the notebook, her brow gradually relaxing, then tucked the notebook back into her backpack and took out that oil lamp from within.
The oil lamp was sealed inside a transparent bag.
After taking the oil lamp out, she set it on her knees and said hesitantly, "This—it's just an ordinary oil lamp, right?"
Dark couldn't help but roll his eyes; how could it possibly be ordinary.
Emma asking this was perhaps just a way of fishing the answer she wanted out of someone else's mouth.
Fortunately, Diana was there to play the straight man: "It's definitely a treasure! How wonderful!"
This, more or less, is probably how human social interaction is formed.
Emma looked very pleased, rubbing the side of the oil lamp through the bag.
Of course, no matter how many times she rubbed it, there was no way she could summon Aladdin.
Although this oil lamp did have a bit of the look of Aladdin's magic lamp, its red-copper lacquered surface was covered with rust—clearly an old, antiquated thing.
But looking at this oil lamp, one couldn't help but associate it with another item.
Dark lifted up that rusty sword leaning by his foot, and under Emma's curious gaze, brought it close to the oil lamp.
A lamp, and a sword.
On the surface there seemed to be no connection.
But once placed together, one would find that their surface materials were entirely identical.
"They're actually a set?"
Dark couldn't help but fall into thought.
Emma had evidently noticed this as well. She immediately said, "This is the treasure you found in the treasure chest?"
Diana nodded like a chick pecking rice.
Emma's mind began to stir with more thoughts.
After a good while, she spoke up: "I've heard that you can always find some relics left over from history inside our House's dungeon. If we leaf through historical documents, we might be able to find the origins of this oil lamp and this short sword. Once we're out of the dungeon, let's go look together."
Diana: "We have to read books? When it comes to reading books, I'm not very good at that..."
"Smack!"
Rose hurriedly slapped the back of her hand and said with a smile, "Of course we can. This is the harvest from our very first adventure—we absolutely have to get to the bottom of it."
...
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