When ‘He’ finished exploring the second floor, he decided to go down to the next floor. ‘He’ went down the stairs with the large lizard, and then met a party with quite a number of members, that’s how he got hunted.

Luckily he was able to possess an earwig that pa.s.sed close by, after the party had left. Afterwards, ‘He’ went down to the third underground floor.

[The atmosphere is pretty different from the first and second floors.]

The walls and floor didn’t seem to be touched by human hands at all, and seemed more cave like, with bare rocks at the surface, only the area around the stairs looked as if it was created by humans.

Furthermore, there’s a pervasive presence of something. It’s not as if the presence felt concentrated, it gives the impression of some kind of encompa.s.sing existence.

[Is this the thing called collective consciousness?]

After looking around and confirming there were no monsters or humans, ‘He’ started to explore this floor by crawling on the wall.

Fundamentally, dungeons are things that you explore with parties, since it’s said to be dangerous if you’re on your own. It can’t be said that all the dungeons have the same scale of danger and risk; the dungeon in the town of Bara.s.s is able to be explored safely on your own, until the second floor only. Since from the third floor onward, most monsters are controlled by the ´collective consciousness´.

“Phew, we’re finally back.”
“Yeah, as expected, the outside air is nice.”

An adventurer’s party of about a dozen adventurers had returned to town after they had gone to the third floor, which was said to be dangerous for people who go alone. They were an exploring team of adventurers who were hired by the adventurer’s society with the objective of raising activity in the dungeon, because of their plan: ‘Base Construction Project’.

A plan to build a base for adventurers underground. In order to find a place where they could put up a barrier, without being influenced by the dungeon, they were the ones who had to survey the vicinity.

After they had all safely returned and reported to the adventurer’s society, they went back to the town that was close by. The leader of the adventurer’s party, who was eating with his subordinates at the bar, heard the current rumor about ‘the monster that’ll save adventurers’.

“Now that I think about it, we heard it before we left didn’t we, so it was still going on.”
“It seems to have been cited a lot by beginner groups at the center, well, isn’t it just something that’ll go into an interesting direction?”
TL note: It’s a rhetorical question, he’s not expecting an answer. -Tensaiz

The rumor included stories about large rats, large earwigs, and also large bats.

“Hmph….. This isn’t a children’s playground, y’know.”
TL note: The leader is talking with an accent. -Tensaiz

The veteran leader adventurer was raging about how it was alright that the town was lively with adventurers, but because of a weird rumor, amateurs enter the dungeon for fun and copy what others do, but they have just become an annoyance to other adventurers.

Since the first floor of the dungeon had lights installed, people without even the knowledge and manners of adventurers go in for some pocket change, they also take the prey other adventurers took down, which was a clear violation of the rules.

When he had become drunk and kept complaining, someone spoke up to him.

“So you were back, Gashe.”
“Hm? Yo~ Rich.e.l.lo, Elmel is also with you. You guys are always together, aren’t you.”

Captain Gashe opened two seats next to the female swordsman and healer who seemed to have just returned from their job. The healer Rich.e.l.lo was in a close relationship with the former female swordsman, Elmel, in their days at the Adventurer’s School. Captain Gashe himself made a party of three with them from time to time, when there weren’t any interesting jobs.

“Does it seem like your job will go alright?”
“Well, it can be said it’s going alright, around the day after tomorrow we’ll bring in a specialist and some workers, in order to build the barrier underground.”

“Hmmm, seems like the captain role fits you well, doesn’t it?”
“Stop it, I know already, that it was by my own ability.”

The three began to chat with each other. ‘Now that I think about it—–’, when Gashe thought of a rumor he heard about, he brought up the subject about some trainees trying to attack their instructors and got arrested. When he did, the two who’re instructors at the school, looked at each other, and with a wry smile told him that it was about them.

“Seriously, leaving Rich.e.l.lo aside, they really didn’t care about their life if they tried to fight with Elmel.”
“How cruel, to leave me aside.”
“Fufu, it’s because Rich.e.l.lo is naive.”

While telling about the tough situation with her severe wound, Rich.e.l.lo told him about a large lizard that protected him from a student that was about to swing down his sword, and that it also gave him vials of magic water. A mysterious monster that saved them by jumping into a pack of demon hounds.
TL note: Changed ‘dog’ to ‘hound’, because it sounds better~ -Tensaiz

“Eh, are you serious about that? The rumor about a monster that allies itself with adventurers was real?”

“Yeah, it may be something that’s hard to believe, but I’ll testify, since I was there myself.”
“Anyway, it was a mysterious monster.”

After hearing about its features Gashe suddenly thinks back about the large lizard that he met on the stairway leading to the second floor.

“No way, it couldn’t have been that giant lizard right…..”

From the third floor onward, the monsters are controlled by the collective conscious and will attack humans on sight. If you were to meet up with one, the most important thing would be attacking first, which was the iron law. Having learned that, he also went in to kill the large lizard in one hit, but he wondered why it didn’t try to attack at all. Because they were on the stairs and it was shifted, he thought it was because it couldn’t move its large body that well in such a place however—–

“Could it be, you’ve also met it?”
“No, I don’t know. If that really was it, then I did something bad……”

He was skeptical about a monster that allied with humans, but thinking that the large lizard had saved his best friends, it bothered Gashe a little.

“By the way, are bodyguards or people who would like to help welcomed? Since it doesn’t seem like there’ll be a lot of work for a while.”
“Oh? If the two of you wanna help, then I’ll gladly welcome you.”

Returning to the topic of the base construction, it became a hot topic, about how they were choosing workers to carry things, and the people that’ll help set up the barrier for the project the day after tomorrow.

“That reminds me about that spiritualist, it’s an adventurer that’s able to not only talk with spirits, but also with the hearts of monsters.”
“Hmm? So that means it’s quite the skilled guy, I can feel the a.s.sociation’s eagerness for this project.”

That the monsters were controlled by something like the collective conscious, and even having found out about the collective conscious’ existence itself, was all thanks to the skilled spiritualists who went into the dungeon in order to investigate it. In the dungeon’s base construction mission this time, it could be said that he’s the cornerstone.

“We’ve already put up a temporary barrier, if it can get purified completely, it’ll be over.”

The three were discussing the size of the group they would pick, after that they just talked with each other for the first time in a long while.

While exploring the third underground floor, ‘He’ found an opened up s.p.a.ce with marks on the walls and floor. As if to keep him away, the magic power rose, from the earwig he had possessed, he felt that it didn’t want to get any closer.

Feeling that it was similar to the barrier at the entrance of the dungeon, he guessed it was probably something like that. Having his interest piqued, ‘He’ thought of entering through the line, but because the earwig couldn’t get through the barrier, he couldn’t proceed.

[Yeah, as expected, a barrier was put up.]

Because he couldn’t enter, ‘He’ had no choice but to leave this place.

After leaving the area where the barrier was, ‘He’ pa.s.sed through the corridor and encountered three demon hounds. The demon hounds were a size larger than the demon hounds on the second floor, and their fur was as dark as a shadow, as if they had decided what they were going to do, the demon hounds looked at the earwig which was an opponent they would normally ignore.

Monster that are controlled by the collective conscious don’t attack someone based on looks but they attack someone after looking at their soul, and how they act. ‘He’ who was possessing the earwig was an ‘attack target’, and the earwig was seen as a ‘non attack target’, by seeing those two together, the demon hounds were confused about what they should do.

“Grrrrrrr…………Gu~au!”

Having finished deciding, the demon hounds had come to the decision to eat the earwig, and lunged at him. The outer sh.e.l.l of an earwig was seen as decent armor but in front of the demon hounds’ fangs it was nothing and got easily crushed, ‘He’ then possessed the demon hound.

Because ‘He’ has a complex sense of self, and is a spiritual being, he was easily able to posses the demon hound that was being controlled by the monotone collective consciousness. Unlike the mutated monsters from before, the demon hound’s mind was being controlled by the collective consciousness, so its sense of self was very weak, it was mostly just instinct and nothing more. Maybe because of that, ‘He’ was successfully able to possess the demon hound and was able to move its body as if it were his own. But it was more like that if he didn’t control it, the demon hound would just obey its instincts and just stand still, eat, sleep, or rampage, according to its instinct.

Since ‘He’ possessed the demon hound, the other two deemed it as a target that had to be attacked. A battle between demon hounds. It is two versus one, but it wasn’t a problem at all. Why? Because if the possessed demon hound gets defeated, the one that defeated it would just get possessed.

The demon hound got killed without any resistance by the other two, and afterwards ‘He’ possessed one of them and got killed again. Then, after ‘He’ obtained the body of a demon hound, that let him move around as much as he wanted to, he decided to check out the place with the barrier he was at before.

[There isn’t anything……]

Inside the barrier that pressured the demon hound’s body, it looked like a normal opening of a cave and it wasn’t like there was nothing at all, but the only special thing was that the floor of the cave was flattened. He understood that they were planning to do something here.

[I’ll just come back later.]

Muttering something to himself, ‘He’ decided to continue exploring the third floor.

Along the way, ‘He’ met with a lot of demon hound packs and had to change his body a lot, so he decided to hide himself, run away at full speed, and sometimes launch surprise attacks in order to lessen the trouble. Because of that he learned how to walk around the dungeon, piling up experience.

He rarely saw any human adventurers, and when he did, they were on full alert and didn’t let anything get close, they refused to come close.

[Since this floor seems pretty dangerous, doesn’t it.]

The unchanging scenery of the dungeon with its never ending corridor. After hunting only demon hounds and a round subspecies large rat, ‘He’ decided to find some humans. After deciding that he would have a higher chance to communicate with humans if he went to the higher floors, he ended his exploration and headed towards the second floor.

[Speaking of which, I never did possess a demon dog of the second floor in the end—– Wait, huh……?]

When he tried to enter a higher floor, with the demon hound’s body, he felt as if the movements of his whole body slowed down. Unlike the pressure he felt in the barrier on the third floor, it felt as if his power was leaving him, it seems if a monster from a lower floor that was used to that floor’s magic power goes to a higher floor with lower magic power, the monster itself also gets weaker.

[Wow~, my strength is leaving me.]

In order to try some things out, he returned to the first floor and felt that his body got significantly heavier because of the loss of strength, since there weren’t any humans around, he tried to challenge the barrier at the entrance, but with a weakened demon hound’s strength, it was as expected, impossible to make a single step. The barrier at the entrance was at a whole new level to the one on the third floor, it was so strong that that one couldn’t even be compared to it.

After that, he went to the second floor in order to communicate with humans, but because the body of a demon hound was bigger than the demon dogs on the upper floors, and other adventurers would run away at the sight of him, having failed his communication, ‘He’ became depressed. He couldn’t possess a random monster and leave the dangerous demon hound to roam the higher floors, while it acted on only its instincts. ‘He’ hadn’t expected this unexpected pitfall. Reluctantly, ‘He’ headed back toward the third floor depressed, and decided to continue exploring this floor.

[I’ve gotten a lot weaker…… I should rest up this body.]

When he was in the corridor, he was attacked by wandering demon dogs, so he couldn’t even take it easy. ‘He’ crawled into the breeding place of the rats that were its food, and gave his tired body a rest.

The large rats on the third floor, that are controlled by the collective conscious, were a whole size larger and different from the large rats on the first and second floor, their bodies had surpa.s.sed roundness. The shocking thing, was that the large rats were the standard prey to the demon hounds. The collective consciousness probably gave it that role.

After letting the demon hound eat and rest, a mysterious presence had changed the atmosphere itself with a buzzing sound. He felt that a great number of humans had come to this floor. As if the dungeon itself was a living organism, it let its presence be known, it felt as if it was warning all the monsters.

The normally breeding large rats, so they could be eaten at any time like the food they were, obeyed that presence and jumped out.

[Is it the place with the barrier……?]

—-Something was going to happen. Feeling something like that, ‘He’ slipped out of the hole and went to the indicated location.