Now then, we've taken care of everything that needs to be done.
There's one more thing that needs to be done but...
Even without mention it's the 14th floor.
The walls of this teleport crystal room on the 13th floor are covered in stone almost like sandstone and the floor piled with fine sand.
I remember back to the time I spent with Miduchi...

In the center of the room the teleport crystal is enshrined and it's exactly the same as the other floors in how the surface has the incantation "Return us" to teleport to the upper floors is blinking in yellow light.
However, the teleport incantation for going to the next floor that usually flashes in purple light doesn't appear on it.
Come to think of it the teleport crystal on the 14th(?) floor didn't even have the incantation for teleporting to the upper floors on it.

..We tried holding, caressing, and hitting it but nothing happened.

I guess you can't get to the floor that {Death=Tyrant.Kin} is on from here?
Is the only way to get there from entering one of the wall pitfalls on the upper floors?
There's only one pitfall where you can definitely get there.
Though in regards to wall pitfalls we've found easily over 100 of them.

Whatever, I guess it's fine.
If we have that much treasure then it's plenty no matter how I think about it.
Something like the {Death=Tyrant.Kin} just like Miduchi previously said, depending on how you think about it might more dangerous than the dragon.
I don't want to walk over anymore dangerous bridges than this.

I guess we'll just hold all the ores we can and return once.

Even after returning there's a lot of things to do...

First off is Angela's funeral.
Next is borrowing a warehouse to store the ores we've brought back.
I haven't taken them being stolen into consideration.
Since I don't intend to bring the precious metals and magic ores back until the end.
Even if a thief breaks in if they see the status there's no way they would bother trying to carry out the heavy and cheap tungsten and such.
When I find the chance I'll make ingots from these ores.
They seem to already have a considerably high purity but just in case.

And...I guess it's fine to worry about it after we get back.

I called out to everyone and said "we'll return once", then we all went outside to carry the dragon's scales into this teleport crystal room.
Also, I need to make the size of the ice with Angela's remains in it smaller so three people can somehow hold it with one hand.
If they don't have one hand open they can't hold on to the teleport crystal after all.

After leaving the cave we noticed a whirling fog in a place quite a bit of distance away from the entrance.

..Ah, so after all the dragon will resp.a.w.n as well...
Let alone a full day close to 40 hours have pa.s.sed since then.
Since we were focused on the work up until now and the fog is the same size as the monster resp.a.w.n fog up until now in an area covered in trees we must have overlooked it.
It really doesn't seem like it would be able to cover a monster that will reach 30 meters long.
It's the same size as the {Scavenger Crawler}, {Ogres}, {Minotaur}, and such.

Putting that aside and the high level Minotaurs still haven't resp.a.w.ned so I don't think the dragon will resp.a.w.n right away either.
However, it's certain that it'll resp.a.w.n again someday.
I refuse fighting against that guy once more.

Of course~ the experience points he gave were several 100,000s and it's also appealing that we were able to obtain it's scales.
But, even if it were to come to ambus.h.i.+ng it since {Magic.Resistance} would resp.a.w.n with it then it would considerably difficult.
It probably even be difficult using the {Dragon.Slayer} I just obtained.

If right after resp.a.w.ning it holes up in it's nest then it might be possible to rapid-fire spells from the gap  between it's cave and the teleport crystal room but for as long as we don't know how far the guardians recognition stretches out, there's too many problems that could come up.
If it's recognition doesn't reach right near it's nest then it would probably be fine but if it goes up partway there then the moment it notices us we'd be screwed.

If it were to use that {Energy.Drain.Breath} down the cave hall..just thinking about it is terrifying.

..In that case, there's no choice but to carry all we can out now.
If it's like this then the guardians of the 12th floor, the dragonians have probably started resp.a.w.ning as well and considering their lower levels they might have even finished appearing.

I roughly do some calculations in my head.

First, the smaller and lighter ores of the ones we obtained from the dragon's nest were just about 10 kg.
The larger and heavier ones are easily over 100 kg.
There's a slight slope from the nest to the teleport crystal room with the teleport crystal room  being lower.
This is something Miduchi and Kamu said so it should be correct.
If I make rails of ice that go along this hall then we could roll or slide things down with the minimum effort.
If we do it with 30 people then at most it should take about 4~5 hours.

Next up is the amount of time it takes to get the dragon's scales, frozen head, and Angela's remains to the teleport crystal room but I think these will take about 6~7 hours including the round trip.

Even including breaks about half a day I guess.

And then the amount of time it'll take to teleport everything to the teleport crystal room on the 12th floor but...
The maximum weight a single person can carry in one hand when teleporting depends on the person but on average it should be around 50 kg.
The amount of time they need to be holding on to the luggage is plenty if they can do it for 10 seconds, so it shouldn't be a problem to estimate that much.
In regards to the things over 100 kgs we should be able to manage them in any way as long as 2~3 people hold it at the same time.

If everyone carries things then..it should be plenty to estimate it at roughly 10 round trips.
The thing that will take the most time to do a round trip for is..it doesn't seem like there's any monsters on the 13th floor so if we just ignore the dragonians on the 12th floor then it should be fine to estimate it taking 5 hours.
If it just comes to moving things to the teleport room on the 12th floor then 50 hours..five days..No, if we rush it then three days should be fine I guess.

It'll be a harsh schedule but I want everyone to work hard here.

I looked around the area and order Zulu to carry over the metal ores I had my eye on a short while ago.
With a weight of easily over 20 kg it's a gold nugget that seems to have quite a high purity.
The light from the spell {Light} is reflecting off it beautifully.
Seeing that I could hear someone gulp.

"Everyone. For another few days endure just eating the dragon meat for meals. It's necessary to carry out the items we obtained this time. It's different from the usual dungeon exploration so I'll pay a special bonus just for carrying the items this time. When we get back we'll split this thing up evenly between everyone."

Everyone cheered.
Well, 30, no it's just 29 people.
Excluding me 28 people, with just that many, even excluding my combat slaves it's being split up among 23 people.
That'll come out to about a 1 kg gold nugget per person so I guess it's only obvious.
The value of it will no doubt be close to 4,000,000 ~ 5,000,000 Z.

Alright, first off shall we move all of the ores.

....................................

After we teleported to the 12th floor, just in case we tried taking a look outside of the teleport crystal room.
And then just as expected the dragonians had resp.a.w.ned.

However, there's a different point about them from the floor guardians up until now.
These guys, they're moving all on their own without us doing anything.

Just from the range I can see I can only count 15 of them.
If I remember right there should have been over 20.
What should we do...

Of course, we're in the middle of going between the 12th floor and the 13th floor right now so there's also the option of ignoring them.
But when we're carrying things to the 11th floor we'll have to walk back to the center of the 12th floor from the edge again.

Going from our experience of defeating floor guardians up until now we can expect them to stop resp.a.w.ning after the stock(?) runs out.
Additionally the equipment of the dragonians is considerably worn out so they've probably been killed by the {Shadow.Dragon} quite a few times.
I guess it would be best to reduce the stock as much as we can.

..No~ it sure is easy when you can use magic before the guardians can find you.

..........................................

Year 7447, Month 12, Day 21

Just like this we spent 75 hours and succeeded in carrying all of our spoils to the teleport crystal room on the 12th floor.
During that time we defeated around 50 dragonians.
I had expected that the dragon wouldn't repsawn but even then I think we were fortunate that it didn't resp.a.w.n.

Now then, the problem is from here on out but...

If we want to start carrying things from the 12th floor to the 11th floor right away then I guess waiting for the timing right after we wipe out the next set of dragonians should be fine...

If we return to the surface then the next time we come down we'll have to fight against over 20 dragonians from the front.
As expected I can't say anything about that..it's not like we can't manage it.
Though thinking about the defense I think it'll be coming with the bare minimum of people including me.
But in that case, we'll have less people so there won't be very much meaning in carrying things right~
Though that's the case the dragonians have ones which specialize in magic so there's the worst case when fighting them with a large number of people...
I'd like to keep using the teleport crystal room as a cover to hit them with magic like now.

No, the resp.a.w.n period is longer than any up until now.
If I were to use an extreme case, just me or together with Miduchi we could wipe out the dragonians.
After wiping them out we could return to the 11th floor and report that it's safe then all come back to the 12th floor again I guess.

If it's just me it's extremely~ annoying but this should be fine.

After we carry things to the 11th floor then it's fine if we just take our time carrying it back after that.

In any case, for now we should return to the surface and get some rest.
Everyone's been working with the bare minimum of sleep so they're considerably tired.

We return to the teleport room on the 11th floor.
Of course we brought back Angela's remains, the {Magic.Items}, the dragon's head, scales, and as many ores as we could carry.

Since we were quite a bit later than planned it seems Giberuti was pretty worried.
It seems at first he made dinner preparations and was waiting but since we never came back no matter how long he waited they ended up being wasted.

And then he started trembling after seeing Angela's remains.
I see..Sorry about that.

"Umm..Master..What in the world happened to Maruso..."

Giberuti asked nervously.

"Yeah..I hadn't told you about it...That dragon was strong in a difficult way."

I pointed at the dragon's head while talking to Giberuti.
Giberuti is still looking at Angela's face as she sleeps in the ice.

"Because of that we ended up having to defeat it with just Angela and I...I..I won't forget Angela's final moments for the rest of my life..She was a splendid combat slave."

I show Angela's magic stone to Giberuti.
Giberuti stretched out his trembling hands and gently caressed the magic stone.

His jaw was trembling.

"Sorry. Angela will be in my care until we finish the funeral."

"No, not at all! There's no problem with that at all."

"It's fine. After the funeral is over..you bury her."

I gave Giberuti a tap on the shoulder and then gave out instructions to everyone that we'll return to the surface holding the ores this time.

In regards to the dragon's head I left it in a corner of the room still frozen in ice.
Even if we leave it be it shouldn't melt for at least a month.

The {Wyvern} still hasn't resp.a.w.ned so we just killed the pair of giant stag beetles for a tip when pa.s.sing the 10th floor on the way and also defeated the seven Minotaurs on the 9th floor as well.
Those two high level Minotaurs still haven't resp.a.w.ned as usual.

............................................

It was close to the evening when we returned to the surface.
Everyone's exhausted but I want to take care of Angela's funeral as soon as possible.

I had them go and borrow a two-wheeled wagon and we put Angela's remains on that until we got to the river side.
I paid an extra tip and express charge for the funeral stand.
I don't know how much it originally costs but I feel like I paid the bill at the asking price without feeling a thing.
Until the preparations were done we didn't have anything to do so we all stood on the river side s.p.a.cing out.

Shortly after the funeral stand and a large amount of fire wood was carried over.
I erased the ice and carefully placed Angela's remains on the stand.
I took off the remains of her rubber protectors and everyone poured sotomu oil on her.

I guess because it's been a long time since we had the custom of pressing our hands together to pray, not a single person did it.

"See you later, Angela.. You were a good combat slave."

I whispered that and lit the fire.
Thanks to the sotomu oil the flames spread to the entire funeral stand in no time at all.
After that it was fine for us to just add more fire wood in order.

We just, kept watching the trembling flames that were sending Angela to the heavens.
Partway through I suddenly realized that my vision was blurring.

I don't know if there was anyone else who was shedding tears.
I didn't intend to look at anyone other than Angela until this was over.

Finally we all took turns using a hammer to crush her remaining bones and then let them go in the river.
Just like that we helped Angela's body return to nature.

After sending off Angela for one last time I strongly held onto her magic stone and carved the sensation of it into my memory.

And then I handed Angela to Giberuti.

It was already pitch black outside.

"Now then, it's gotten late. Shall we go and eat? Is there anyone who wants to change before that?"

Several people raised their hands so we decided to return to our inns once and then eat after changing.

........................................

Year 7447, Month 12, Day 22

The night pa.s.sed.
I opened my eyes a bit earlier than usual.
After arranging my equipment while it was still dark and then going out in front of the inn quite a few people were already waiting.

""Good morning, master!""

I reply to the greetings from my 5 combat slaves and the 2 apprentices and then we start warm up exercises.
During that time the remaining members gathered together.

"Alright! Shall we go. Basutoral, let's sing for enthusiasm!"

"Yes! Nnn..hakkonenno yamma ha~~ tenka noken!.."

The reincarnated members who know the lyrics sing together with us while those who don't know them are singing along as they seem to have completely remembered them as well.
Come to think of it Angela would randomly sing along with us as well...

I made today and tomorrow days off.
I still need to borrow a warehouse so there's quite a few things to do after all.
The consecutive holidays will be reduced and all lumped together but I wanted to move at least the remaining ores to the 11th floor by the end of the year.

Just like this our Year 7447 ended.