Chapter 77: Beef!!!

While walking in the right path, Marco-san suddenly shouted.

“…! Be careful everyone! I’m getting some bad feeling.”

In response, we all stood ready.

Unlike normal premonitions, the ones that Marco-san receives from his Gift were reliable.

That said, while we knew something posed a danger, we didn’t know exactly what form that would be in.

This time, I initially assumed that a monster was coming, but there didn’t seem to be any near us.

“T-that…that ground, 5 meters ahead…”

“Kamuru-san?”

“…don’t step on it, I think…”

I looked at the ground Kamuru-san pointed to, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary to me.

“Hmm, we probably should play it safe.”

“Yeah, let’s avoid it completely and take the other path.”

Philia-san and Selen said so while preparing to turn back.

“We don’t have to though…”

I said so and then made the golem run straight ahead.

And when it reached the ground that Kamuru-san pointed at, the ground suddenly crumbled. That formed a hole, to which the golem fell down.

“So, it was a pitfall trap, huh.”

The hole was apparently so deep, even the 5-meter-tall golem could barely stick out its head.

“Wow, Kamuru-san. I couldn’t see anything, but you saw through the trap so clearly.”

“It, it was just a lucky guess, surely…”

Kamuru-san tried to play it down out of shyness, but there was no doubt that this was the power of the [Dungeon Exploration] Gift.

Thanks to Marco-san’s Gift, we could more or less tell that there was a trap, but now that we had Kamuru-san’s Gift as well, we could know more details about it.

And so, we proceeded to go deeper into the dungeon.

I could say with confidence that it would have been so much harder if Kamuru-san wasn’t with us. Traps were everywhere, after all.

Just like before, whenever Kamuru-san discovers a trap, I would send a golem to “disarm” it.

Thanks to that cooperation between us, our exploration was going well.

By the way, for the pitfall traps, there were either spikes at the bottom or a pool of poison. It was a golem that fell, so it was safe, but if an ordinary human fell, they would be done for.

We also encountered other traps: there were some that dropped sharp stalactites and some that released monsters. All were quite troublesome.

“Unlike the monster forest, it seems like the danger to this dungeon is its traps. If we somehow activated one while fighting monsters, it’s likely over for us. Activating the traps beforehand is really helpful.”

“Even so, this has been quite the dangerous path from the start. Wouldn’t it have been better to take the left one?”

“…!”

“Hey, it’s not your fault, Kamuru-san! I’m the one that chose to go this way, remember?”

I hurriedly followed up with that when I saw Kamuru-san flinch from Selen’s words.

Not long after that, another fork in the road appeared. This time, the way branched off to three paths.

“The one in the middle…I’m feeling something from it…”

“The middle path it is then.”

Trusting in the Kamuru-san who never seemed to have self-confidence, we took the middle path.

After a while of walking…

“Bumoooooooooooooooooooooo!!!”

“…that’s, that’s a…”

What lied ahead was something that was easily bigger than an orc.

It had the head and the horns of a bull, yet had a humanoid body and walked on two legs.

Yes, it was that fearsome monster that was said to appear only in dungeons, and brought the demise of many adventurers through its monstrous charge.

I had heard of this bullheaded monster’s name before and it was…

“Minotaur…”

“““Beef!!!”””

Eh!?

◇　◇　◇

<<Emergency, emergency, emergency—>>

“Mhm, mhm…”

In the depths of the dungeon, an alarm rung repeatedly.

Despite that, the creature in the bed continued to sleep.

This creature looked like a human girl, but not only did it have wings on its back, it was also so small that it could fit in the hands of an actual human girl.

<<Emergency, emergency, emergency—intruders have entered and are absorbing the dungeon. It’s recommended to respond right away.>>

“Uhehehe…so many…so many hunks…”

As though having some kind of pleasant dream, the winged creature showed no signs of waking up.

<<Emergency, emergency, emergency—>>

The alarm repeated and repeated in vain.