the bodies of two men lying before Ray and Elena
　There is also another man's corpse a short distance away.
　Elena looks bitter in the face of the corpse.
　Ray angrily thrusts a death-size stonghold on the sand and glares at the sun in the intense direct sunlight.

"d*mn it, I can't believe I'm going to kill myself to keep the secret."
"Oh, and without hesitation. I wonder if he is so loyal to the organization he belonged to."

　Ray slanting his head at Elena's muttering while looking at the corpse.

"When I see him experimenting with the creation of an abnormal species, I think he must be a Levisor, but do you think he will devote his life-threatening loyalty to Schaffner?"

　a natural question in a sense
　The character Schaffner, seen by Ray and Elena, is arrogant, to say the least, and is not the kind of person who is liked by his subordinates or others.
　If you ask such a person if he's going to be loyal to you by taking poison for his own decision, you'll have to say no.
　However, the men who actually lay in front of Ray and Elena, without hesitation, drank poison from their back teeth and died the moment they learned that their escape was impossible.
　The contradiction is what causes confusion.

"Guru..."

　Against them, Seto chokes and rubs his head alternately.
　Ray comes back to life with the attitude of telling him to cheer up and looks at the body again.
　two dead bodies lying before one's eyes and another lying a short distance away. And finally, the body of a cactus.
　They see the bodies and gently reach out, breathing out.

"Are you going to take it?"
"Oh, for us it's just a corpse, but for us it's possible that we can get some clues. If these three were indeed members of the Levisor family, there might be some familiar ones."
"It's very unlikely, but..."
"But it would be better than doing nothing."

　All of the researchers and staff at the Levisor lab have been found murdered. But why were only these three safe?

(As a matter of course, these three men had killed the researcher and escaped... but they didn't have much arms. It's about rank D at best. It's strange that we've come all the way to this level... well, if you've come down the dungeon with a strong opponent, it's possible.)

　He thinks that it would be better to leave it to Bosque, who knows more about the existence of this labyrinth city than anyone else, and puts it in the mystery ring.

"... Huh?"

　Storing the bodies of a cactus and two men in a mistling, one dungeon card is found nearby.
　I pick it up, judging that it probably fell when I fell to the ground after drinking poison, but of course I don't remember the name written on it.

(It is quite conceivable that they are registering under a false name, since they are doing such a big thing.)

　He muttered to himself, and put the dungeon card in the mistling, thinking it would still be a clue to the men's information.
　Then, at a short distance, we store the body of the man who is lying on the ground, and we finish storing everything that might give us a clue.
　Lay that finishes those operations and extends greatly.
　Towards Ray, Elena swung her connected sword into the sheath and called out.

"Well, what do you do? If you're in any hurry, there's a way to go back down the old road to the small room."
"What does it feel like in terms of distance?"
"Well, what do you think?" Given that the area of the cactus was not on the map, it must have been a very recent site. In that case, we only know roughly where we are now. I think it's about half the way down to the 14th basement."

　Listening to Elena's words, they look in the direction they came, and then they gather their thoughts.

"All right, let's move on."
"Is that OK? Isn't it a problem that Ray wants to solve as soon as possible?"
"That's certainly important, but now that we've come this far, we want to capture the 13th basement floor as soon as possible. If we go back like this, the next time we challenge ourselves, we'll have to walk in this desert again, from the thirteenth basement. Now that I've come this far, I want to make sure I can go to the next floor within the day."

　Elena probably had no objection to Ray's words. nod one's approval
　After confirming this, Ray tries to speak to his partner, Seto . . . .

"Guru...Guru...Guru...Guru"

　He didn't seem to notice such a ray, and for some reason he wandered about very close to where the cactus was dead.
　Seth's footprints remain in the desert as evidence of how long Ray and Elena have been walking around there.

"Seto? What's wrong?"
"Gururu, gururu..."

　He replied to Ray's call, but walked back and forth on the sand, leaving footprints.
　Ray was watching the situation suspiciously, but he remembered that the men who were trying to create an abnormal species were trying to bring the cactus to Seto's side when it failed.

(We can't afford to leave behind the cactus that's in the process of becoming an abnormal species. However, they didn't seem to have item boxes or magic pouches, and most importantly they were trying to carry cactus. Then there is, of course, some reason to do so beyond that... I see.)

"Ray?"

　When Elena asks, "Do you know the cause of Seto's strange behavior?", she nods a little and pulls out some of the firewood she has stored in the camp from her mistling.
　I just toss one of them where Seto is walking, but nothing happens just by falling on the sand.
　Then take out another one and throw it further down the pitch.
　Nothing happens there, but they throw firewood in the same way.
　At first Elena looked at what Ray was doing with interest, but eventually he held a connecting sword drawn out of the sheath so that he could attack him at any time.
　And the moment he threw more than 10 pieces of firewood and the firewood from Ray's hand fell to the ground. Suddenly the sand blows up into the sky. 　
　The scene resembled the appearance of the sandworm. But the obvious difference is that after the sand had blown up, there was no monster, let alone sandworm.
　on the desert, though it is conditional that
　A place not on the desert...In other words, there are four sharp horn-like projections from the bottom of the desert, which is recessed like a mortar.
　The projections move around several times, and when they determine that no prey exists, they dive back into the desert.

"I see. Did you intend to dispose of it with this?"

　Elena muttering admiringly next to Ray with firewood in her hand.

"I'm sure,"

　Whispering, Ray had passed the image of an ant hell, or an insect called a stag beetle, in his mind.
　Its habit of drawing in ants and feeding on them is very similar to the monster we've just seen.
　They probably feed on monsters or adventurers passing through the desert by pulling them into their nests.

"In a way, I suppose we can say that we have been saved by those who have been here."
"I'm sure. In fact, it's quite possible that we would have been dragged into his nest without knowing there were monsters like this way. Perhaps because he was in the sand, he didn't seem to know where he was."
"Guru..."

　A set of apologetic voices.
　But its eyes never let go of the four corners protruding from the bottom of the mortar-shaped depression.
　Ray caresses his head encouragingly with his left hand, holding his death size in his right hand.

"It can't be helped," If you are in the sand, you can't detect it by smell or sight, and if you lie still in ambush of prey, you can't sense it by touch or hearing. and the rest of it would be a kind of taste and a sixth sense."mutter and tilt one's head inward, looking at the four corners.

(But... then why did you suddenly show up? If you had stayed hidden, you would have been attacked unexpectedly. Did you run out of sleep because Seto was wandering around? Did you get caught by the impact of the firewood? ...Wait. Still, he showed up!?)

"Get back!"

　The moment you arrive at the idea, you kick the ground and jump backward, screaming reflexively.
　Elena and Seto probably understood the dangers hidden in Ray's cry. He leaped backward without hesitation.
　At the same time, a high-pitched sound reverberates to the surroundings... the next moment something is released and passes through the place where Seto was.
　a sand explosion
　The sand blows up as if something had passed from the center of the four corners, forming a curtain made of sand as if to separate the monsters from the lays.

"Oh, another troublesome attack... Flying!"
"Roll-roll-roll-roll!"
"Wind Arrow!"

　From Ray's death size, two water poloes about 40 cm in diameter are fired from Set, and from Elena, an arrow with an invisible wind composed of wind is fired, and the arrow breaks through the sand curtain.
　But as if to intercept it, something is released again, and both disappear like two water poloes.
　A flying sword and Wind Arrow, who fly as if to pierce the gap, hit the ant hell. Ray made the decision, but suddenly he sensed a sign in the sky and turned his gaze to it.
　There was a monster that looked like a giant stag beetle. The four horns at the tip will reveal their true identity.
　It has a brown crust, perhaps a protective color against sand, and has two or four dragonfly-like, transparent wings growing from its back, fluttering violently.

(What's going on with the ant-hell habit of turning into stag beetles instead of stag beetles? Wings seem to be like that in the middle, but...it's a monster as expected.)

　Watching a monster that looked like a hybrid of stag beetles and stag beetles flying over them, Ray was dumbfounded by the absurdity of the monster.

(However, I don't remember hearing of such a monster from Pleiades.) Is it a genuine new species or something? ... anyway...)

　Shake your eyes to the monster flying above, just as if nothing had changed.

"Fly off!"

　The flying slashes with the words fly straight to the monster. The next moment, however, a monster angled itself away from the path of a flying sword, and at the same time shakes its wings sharply.

"Kikikikikikikikikikikikikikikikiki"

　a sound like one has heard several times before
　What does the sound of winged monsters shaking at high speeds mean? It became clear at the next moment.

"Hey, avoid it!"

　Ray leaps backwards after hearing the voice from Elena.
　At the same time, something invisible is knocked into Ray's place a second ago.
　an invisible blow Rey, half instinctively aware that the blow was fired using wing vibrations, clapped his tongue and resized as he looked at his opponent, who had begun to vibrate his wings again.

"Fly off!"

　a discharge of sword It collides in the air with a blow of vibrational waves emitted from a monster and disappears like a blow.
　As a result, Ray felt the monster in front of him smiled.
　such a smile as if one had decided that he would never be killed
　But the smile is not the rational smile of a high-ranking monster like Seto. an instinctive smile on one's face when one finds a target

"Nah... don't! Fly off!"

　He fired a flying sword again, but from there he was different from before. I just kicked the sand and frowned slightly at the softness of it, but that was for a moment. It's true that sandy soil absorbs half the force of leaping, but it didn't matter to Ray if he put himself in the air a little bit.
　Straight into the air with Slapnil's shoes.
　Even though it's only a few steps away, Slapnil's shoes allow him to jump up to the top of the monster in an instant, and set up a large death size that casts magical energy over the monster who lost sight of Ray...turn around in the air and activate Slapnil's shoes again. When the monster noticed Ray's presence, which can be described as death itself, kicking him right above him, falling like a meteor and approaching him, the death-size... the sight of the scythe of the dead being shaken down.