『What do you mean Mikoto was kidnapped?』
『When you all were forcibly teleported, remember? Actually, only Tuna was about to be sent somewhere else. Mikoto-chan realized what was happening and took her place instead』
Only Tuna had been targeted for a different destination?
So the teleportation incident really hadn’t been an accident after all.
「…They were after Tuna」
Tuna muttered after hearing the conversation through Telepathy.
That made the existence of the dark elves seem even more likely.
『But… if it was just one of Mikoto’s clones, couldn’t she just dismiss it and make another one? Then everything would be fine, right?』
I said that while holding back the approaching monsters.
It should be the same as Hime’s bunshins, shouldn’t it?
Knowing Mikoto, she’d probably gather as much information as she could from whoever kidnapped her before passing it back to the original.
『…Taira, you’ve got the wrong idea. That Mikoto-chan is a clone, and she can make another one, but each clone is still an independent individual. She can’t simply dismiss them. If one dies, that’s the end for that clone』
『…Seriously?』
So, things were even worse than I’d thought.
I understood that the dark elves were after Tuna.
What I didn’t know was what they intended to do with Mikoto, someone who wasn’t even their target.
『The Mikoto over there is still alive, right?』
『Yeah. We’d know if she died, so she’s definitely still alive. I can sense her presence somewhere inside that dungeon, but I can’t tell which floor she’s on』
『We’ll handle that from here』
The moment I said that, a massive peal of thunder echoed through the dungeon.
As far as I knew, only Ayame could cast magic like that.
It seemed she’d blasted her way through the monster horde to reach us.
Several of Hime’s bunshins, who had apparently been accompanying her, were there as well.
Having fulfilled their purpose, the bunshins disappeared.
「Ichino-san, sorry to keep you waiting」
「Thanks for coming, Ayame. Did you hear what happened?」
「Yes. We’re going to rescue Mikoto-chan, aren’t we?」
「Yeah. Will you come with me?」
「Of course. I still have plenty of magic power left!」
I was hoping she’d use her paper talismans to search, but she still had that much MP left?
She’d been throwing around ridiculously powerful spells just moments ago.
Even with the Archmage equipment reducing MP consumption and the Magic Power Tank skill effectively multiplying her maximum MP several times over, her magic power pool was just absurd.
I could use Fire Magic, Water Magic, and Dark Magic too, aside from Hellfire Magic.
The problem was that I was mediocre at all of them.
「About Mikoto. We came here from the first floor, while you climbed up from the twenty-sixth, right? Then wouldn’t Mikoto be somewhere below the twenty-sixth floor?」
「Actually, I think she’s on the first or second floor」
「Huh?」
「Think about it. The people who got teleported were the city officials, researchers like Shizuka-san, and the police officers, right? But they weren’t the only ones investigating this dungeon」
「…You’re right. I investigated it too, and plenty of explorers have surveyed it since then」
「But the people who were teleported weren’t all that strong. Well, stronger than ordinary people, sure. I don’t know exactly why they were targeted, but if someone set up whatever caused the teleportation, I’d bet they did it on one of the shallow floors」
I contacted Shizuka-san through Telepathy to confirm my theory.
Just as I expected, she’d only gone as far as the thirteenth floor once during the investigation.
Other than that, she’d spent almost all of her time collecting data on the first floor.
The city office’s Dungeon Division staff had been with her, while the police officers had rotated between guarding the dungeon entrance and the first floor.
Meanwhile, the explorers had barely spent any time on the first floor.
They’d mostly been investigating the deeper levels.
Which meant the people the dark elves had come into contact with had all been on the first floor.
「But Taira, everyone already searched the first floor. Is there really anywhere someone could hide?」
「We won’t know until we go look. Hime, do you have a bunshin on the first floor?」
「I have one outside the dungeon, but there’s no way anyone would authorize Tuna to enter a dungeon in the middle of a stampede, right?」
She had a point.
「Then have your original outside make another bunshin and send it in――」
「What are you talking about? I ‘am’ the original」
「Huh? Wait… You mean you came charging through that horde of monsters yourself instead of sending a bunshin?」
「Of course. A bunshin would disappear the moment it took a single hit」
How could she say that so casually? That was completely reckless.
Ayame looked at me with an expression that clearly said, 「I ‘did’ try to stop her」.
「So does that mean we have to walk all the way back to the first floor?」
「That would take too long. They’ll realize Tuna hasn’t returned yet and start demanding that we use the sleeping bag to evacuate her immediately. Right now, I’ve told them she’s helping hold back the monsters until Ayame arrives, but that excuse will only buy us about an hour」
Tuna was a state guest from another world.
The whole world was watching her.
If anything happened to her, it would become a diplomatic disaster.
One hour…
Even with Hime’s incredible speed, there was no way she could run from here back to the first floor that quickly.
「If only we could use teleportation magic, we could jump straight to the first floor…」
Because we hadn’t entered through the proper route, the teleportation magic wasn’t functioning correctly.
…Wait.
The proper route?
That’s it.
If leaving the dungeon and trying to re-enter through the official entrance would get us stopped, then we just had to enter by an unofficial route instead.
「Hime! Have the bunshin outside move somewhere out of sight. Tell them you’re going to the restroom or something. Then return to the surface without anyone noticing」
「You really have no sense of tact. Fine, but once we’re back on the surface, how exactly are we getting into the dungeon?」
「We’ll enter through the PD」
It was a method only we knew.
A method only we could use.
With this, there was no chance of anyone finding out.
Before our time ran out, we’d find the dark elves’ hideout and rescue Mikoto.
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