We walked around following the rocky wall for quite some time. Nothing particular looked much different except the change in the rock formations as we followed alongside it. After quite a few hours, we finally came to the end of the rock wall and hit the side of the dungeon itself. There were stone bricks like the dungeon walls of the floors above but still no sign of any monsters.
"So far, this is how the map looks." Sei pulled out the multiple sheets of paper now stuck together, showing the line of the map she had made. "We are currently here."
After adding some lines, Sei pointed out our current location. I was quite surprised at how well she was able to make maps. There was no gap in her drawing, it was all done intricately, not leaving out a single nook or cranny that she saw. "If we now follow this wall north, we will eventually reach the northern wall of the dungeon and should maybe finally see a staircase or some kind of path leading down. Unless, for some strange reason, this dungeon designer decided to make it impossible to find the entrance to the next floor."
"I have tried to use my detection magic, but I am not able to pick up anything. I get as about as far as we can see, then there seems to be some kind of blockage." I said while pursing my lips. If I could send my magic out further, I would be able to deal with this. "The only thing I can suggest is pushing my barrier out completely to all sides of the dungeon. What do you think?"
"If you could do that, you should have done it already!" Sei gave me an aggrieved look. Well….It's not that I was doing it on purpose, but I didn't think about it, to be honest….
"You got to practice your map-making skills!" I tried to make my mistake seem like I was helping, but the girls just gave me a weird look, so I shut my mouth and expanded the barrier.
The entire ocean floor suddenly became dry as I sent out balls of light in all directions to light things up. There were no monsters at all to be seen. Just some fish who got caught up in my barrier expansion. I did not want them to die, so I used wind magic to send them back into the water, but now, with the water gone, my detection magic was working again. And low and behold, I found the dungeon exit…. On the other side of the rocky outcropping!
I sighed and looked at the girls. "I found the exit," I said as I opened a small portal. "Atollie, you first, in case there is something that I did not detect, we will follow after."
Atollie nodded and walked through the portal. I then sent the girls through before stepping through myself. Sure enough, the stairs leading down to the next floor had a barrier on it to keep water out. I canceled the barrier I made once we passed through. A crashing sound as billions of gallons of ocean water slammed back down to the ocean floor. It shook the entire stairwell, I guess you could call it that we were in. luckily the barrier held up and did not break after so much water pressed up against it again.
We made our way down the stairs to find a door that we had to open. When we did, the light of day pierced through the darkness, revealing a large sandy beach and also a crab monster not too far off to our right. "An island?"
"Seems it. We will at least have an easier time now." Adel sighed in relief.
"The next entrance is on the mountain peak off towards the center of the island." I pointed at the hard to miss mountain that rose up into the clouds. We could not even see the peak itself due to the thick layer of clouds covering it, but I was able to detect the next entrance there.
"Do you think we can eat the crab?" Sally had a finger to her lip as drool began to flow from her mouth. I chuckled as I asked: "You must really like crab!"
"I had it once and will never forget it!" Sally answered. She never took her eyes off the crab.
"Let's kill it and see if it is editable." I had only just finished speaking when Sally suddenly pulled out her hammer and jumped high into the air. Seconds later, a loud smashing sound was heard as The crab in question was smashed into the ground creating a crater. The look in Sally's eyes was scary…. It seemed Sally was an extreme foodie for things she liked. I know she eats a lot but this was just….
"Come on, let's help her, or she might squish the thing into mush!" I quickly chased after Sally. Surprisingly the monster was called a king crab and was level 2002. It was very slow and had a short attack range, but this might just be because Sally kept smashing it into the ground, screaming: "Just die already!"
But because of her actions, it did make things easier, and we were able to kill it quickly. But to prepare such a huge crab, I used earth magic to make a huge mud pot filled with water magic and then used fire magic to heat it. It took almost four hours, but when the crab was cooked, I had to hold back Sally before testing it for poison or anything. And to be honest, when I sunk my teeth into the crab, my taste buds lit up. "This is really good!"
At my words, everyone dug in. Sally claimed one of the claws for herself that was bigger than her body by many times and basically crawled into it bite after bite until she sucked all the meat out of the claw breaking out through its tip.
I think since coming to this dungeon, this was actually quite a new experience since the ocean air was blowing by us, and with the smell of cooked crab, it was like a beach party. Something I had not done since I was little back on Earth.
