The rest of the group cleared their rooms with varying struggles and surprises—no major injuries, but their performances were far behind Ren, Mio, and Yuki.
After Mio cleared hers, Mei was next.
She didn't bother to fight face to face with the monster not wanting to get hurt at all. Instead, she only peeked her staff inside the room and summoned a water ball in the monster's face.
Drowning them until they fell to their knees and took their last breath in the world.
Clark was amused by her at some points, but mostly feared her.
Watching the monster scream and struggle to live, he remembered not to mess with water mages if he wanted to live to the age of 40.
As the opposite of water, Koharu went next, unlike Mei.
Koharu didn't just go with killing the monster, but the entire room itself.
With a fireball already charged in her hand, she flung the door open, launched it at the ceiling, and immediately shut the door again.
Flames filled the chamber, scorching everything inside. The monsters perished, but her approach took the second-longest time among them.
For Clark, who watched the girls take on the challenge he created, he made a vow: "Don't mess with them if you want to live longer."
Ritsu took the longest time to clear the rooms. Nagi surprisingly took the shortest time out of the four of them.
With everyone having cleared the challenge, Clark had made for them, they were finally free to move to the next floor and meet up with everyone else.
Which meant Clark had to clear the remaining rooms himself.
"The chambers they have cleared are the flat forest, the valley and hill, then the dried forest." He stretched out his hand and legs, which had fallen asleep.
"There are twenty rooms on the first floor." He mumbles, "That's seventeen rooms for me to clear to enter the next floor."
*****
While Clark continued clearing the remaining rooms, the others began to regroup on the next floor below.
Showcasing the new skills they have obtained from the other for those who didn't get one.
Mio showed the other two her new [ Wind Spear ] skill, which can pierce an entire boulder, gaining their awe and applause.
While Ren shows off his ability to jump inside a shadow and appear in another shadow within a ten-meter area.
.....
After an hour, Clark finally appeared on the second floor, covered in monster flesh and blood.
He was gasping for air and carrying a battle mana potion in one hand.
His sword was also covered in blood, with a centipede trapped within the blade, struggling to escape.
Noticing it moving, Clark crushed it to death with his hand.
He then turned to the heroes, who had dark circles under their eyes, and tapped his gloves to summon another gift from Ria in the temple.
Placing a sack that he had fetched from his gloves on the ground, he stretched out his hands in both directions, channeling his mana to raise the ground floor and create a wall, effectively forming a room for the heroes to use for cleaning up.
As they looked at the room he had made, everyone waited expectantly.
A moment later, Clark threw something at them—a water crystal, to be precise, which could summon water endlessly as long as it was supplied with mana.
While the heroes cleaned themselves, Clark prepared their sleeping area and food.
He laid down cushions for them to rest on and provided blankets for warmth.
As he surveyed the area he had created, he thought to himself, "Am I their mother?" He questioned why he was doing all of this when he could have made them do it themselves.
*****
After a night's rest, everyone started moving again.
Except for the area where they spent the night, the entire room seemed to be the same dungeon that the heroes knew.
Walls with torches on them allowed them to see the room a bit better, with a brick floor, ceiling, and walls that went on without a stop.
As the group went deeper inside the dungeon, they encountered a corner ahead. Facing the unknown before them, they turned to Clark, waiting for an answer and advice.
Clark only gave them a look that told them to figure it out themselves. Seeing this, Ritsu stepped in front to lead them.
He pulled out his dagger and held it out at the corner, using his magic item to zoom in on it.
As the magic item revealed the details of the corners on the right, completely empty, he stood up and scanned the other side.
This time, he spotted three giant centipedes, each around three meters long, with saliva that burned the floor.
As he watched the movement of the centipedes, he informed the group.
Hearing the monster's description, Ren stepped in and summoned three wooden swords, handing them to Ritsu to infuse mana into them.
"With mana coursing through the wooden blades, they became as sharp as steel." Mio and Ren stepped into the corridor together.
Ren raised his hand, guiding the swords through the air like a puppeteer, while Mio summoned tailwinds to boost their speed.
The enchanted blades whistled through the air—shnk! shnk! shnk!—striking true. The centipedes collapsed before they could react.
Moving along the dungeon halls, five larva monsters appeared. This time, Ren went in alone, using his skill [Shadow Step] to sneak up behind the monsters and slashing them in one hit.
"Swoosh! Swoosh!"
The sound of his swords cutting through the air echoed as the group turned to look in his direction. The larvae monsters' lifeless corpses lay nearby.
Everyone applauded him with claps and praise as they approached him. They then continued moving, not wanting to waste any time in today's exploration.
•••••
A couple of hours after the last fight, everyone had fought two or three times, experienced moving as an entire team once, and most of all, had completed solo hunts on the larvae monsters.
At this time, Nagi managed to tame his first monster—a rare breed that formed inside the dungeon, a "Butterfly" type monster. This monster acted as a support for the giant spiders, utilizing a skill that could make anyone inside its area fall asleep.
Additionally, it could siphon its opponents' mana and stamina and transfer them to the giant spiders. During their fight against the giant spiders and the butterfly, the heroes faced their first loss, prompting Clark to step in and kill the monsters for them.
He also gave the butterfly to Nagi, allowing him to tame it for his own. Now, the heroes had their own support that could put their opponents to sleep while replenishing their mana and stamina, thereby weakening their foes.
Chapter 14 end.