"Tch. That ancient man knows a lot about monster weaknesses," Hayato grumbled as he jumped into the air and stared at the one troll that surrounded him. "Icy slash!" Hayato shouted as he slashed his sword at the troll's weak spot that Raff had pointed out.

An icy slash cut across the chest of the troll Hayato was staring at. However, the slash was a bit wide and didn't hit its target, so the other six trolls started to swing their weapons at Hayato, who was still floating.

"No need to yell when you attack! You'll be in trouble if you face a monster with good hearing! You missed your attack anyway!" shouted Raff.

"I know that too! Shut up, you ancient human!" Hayato snapped, dodging every attack directed at him.

"Tch. I was just giving him advice," Raff grumbled, looking bored as he continued to watch Hayato fight.

Hayato jumped onto the body of a troll and slashed his sword from above to cut the troll's body, his attack hitting the monster crystal inside the troll's body. The crystal seemed to shatter after the slash.

Hayato slashed his sword again, a flame condensing into the shape of a sword slash. The monster crystal inside the troll's body was shattered by Hayato's attack, and at that moment, the troll's body collapsed to the ground.

"Yosh!" Hayato shouted excitedly.

"Hurry up and finish them off and get out of here!" shouted Raff with an annoyed look on his face.

"Hahaha... you must be jealous of my progress," Hayato taunted with a laugh.

"Tch. Freak," Raff grumbled.

Excited, Hayato immediately charged at the remaining trolls, attacking them one by one until there was a continuous sound of explosions. One by one, the trolls collapsed to the ground, wounds on their bodies that would not heal.

"How are my skills?" asked Hayato, breathless.

"So weak that even facing seven trolls exhausted you. If you were alone in this dungeon, you'd be dead in no time," Raff replied as he walked past Hayato.

"Tch. What kind of freak explores a dungeon alone?" grumbled Hayato. "Uh, I mean exploring the dungeon to defeat powerful monsters," Hayato corrected his words after noticing Sonia's presence.

Raff and Hayato continued on their way while Sonia took some materials from the troll's body, including the monster crystal. She then caught up with Raff and Hayato from behind.

"You didn't take the goblin crystal?" asked Raff, looking back.

"Crystals from goblins, skeletons and other weak monsters are very cheap. The one bag I'm carrying alone, when full, will only yield twenty silver coins or less," Sonia explained.

"Eh, so cheap. It used to be quite expensive," muttered Raff.

"Isn't that normal? You said yourself that the price of necessities was very high back then. No wonder monster materials were expensive," Hayato whispered. "Besides, you should keep your words so they don't sound strange to Sonia, don't act like a person from the past," Hayato grumbled softly.

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"Tch. You say strange things yourself," Raff grumbled.

"There's no way she'll understand what I'm saying, so it doesn't matter if I use the terms I know," Hayato said defensively.

They took only a few steps forward before finally encountering several monsters again, this time Raff immediately attacked with a lightning bolt that spread like roots. Meanwhile, Hayato charged directly at the crowd of monsters.

The sound of monster screams was heard again as several monsters were pierced by Raff's lightning and hit by Hayato's sword attack. Meanwhile, Sonia continued to casually walk forward, and several monsters that tried to attack her from behind immediately collapsed to the ground after being hit by Sonia's passive.

Hayato agilely jumped in different directions while slashing his sword at the monsters, while Raff just shook his head at Hayato's fighting style. Raff just walked casually as he waved his hands in the air, and his lightning strikes instantly shot out and spread to all the monsters he faced.

The bodies of the monsters hit by Raff's lightning strikes immediately fell to the ground, and some were reduced to ashes, depending on the physical strength of the monsters. Sonia started to collect monster crystals that were strong enough.

"We're going to stop for a while, Raff," Hayato said, his breath catching in his throat.

"Didn't I tell you not to waste your energy for nothing," Raff grumbled, stopping his steps among the dead monsters.

"I'm just too happy because this is the first time I've shown my strength," Hayato replied as he laid his body on the ground.

"What can I do?" said Raff as he sat down next to Hayato. "Is there another shortcut to make it faster?"

"There is, I saw on the map that there is a shortcut from the seventh floor to the ninth floor of the dungeon," Hayato replied.

Raff just sighed deeply, then while he asked Sonia to join him for a break, Hayato took out drinking water and food to replenish his energy. After a while, they continued their journey to the seventh floor of the dungeon.

There they were surrounded by monsters again, but this time Hayato was not blind like before. He tried to attack the monsters more effectively so as not to drain his energy. Then they chose a shortcut on the map to get to the ninth floor.

The shortcut on the seventh floor was quite narrow, even Raff and Hayato couldn't walk side by side. In the end, Raff went in front, Hayato in the middle and Sonia in the back. Along the way, they found human bones lying in the hallway several times.

"It looks like they died from monster attacks here," Hayato said, looking at the human skull that Raff had just passed.

"It must be hard to avoid monster attacks in such a small place," Raff said.

"But isn't it too quiet? There should be monsters lurking behind you or in front of you," Sonia asked, feeling something unnatural about the shortcut they were taking.

"That's right," Hayato muttered.

As Raff continued to walk calmly, the ground he was standing on suddenly cracked. The ground beneath Raff's feet instantly shattered, and Raff was shocked as his body fell to the ground. Hayato, seeing this, panicked and immediately ran to Raff's side.

"Raff!" Hayato yelled.

"Tch. What's going on," Raff grumbled as he stretched his arms out to his sides. He held his body firmly against the wall with both hands, a dozen planted spears pointing upwards just below his feet.

Raff immediately spread his legs against the dirt wall and began climbing up the trap to get back to the top. Meanwhile, Hayato immediately directed his fireball to illuminate the hole at ground level.

"Is he okay?" Sonia asked worriedly.

"I can still feel his mana, he should be fine," Hayato replied.

The fireball in Hayato's hand instantly vanished when it was hit by Raff's passive. Raff slowly rose to his feet. Sonia seemed to breathe a sigh of relief when she saw that Raff was okay.

"I wasn't expecting a trap like this on the shortcut," Hayato said.

"It seems to be a trap set not long ago, the dungeon hasn't restored it either," Raff said as he put both hands on the ground.

"Could this be the work of other adventurers?" asked Sonia.

"That's for sure, monsters wouldn't set such a trap," Hayato replied.

Lightning began to strike from Raff's two palms, and at that moment, the ground around the hole began to collapse until the trap hole grew larger. But that made it safer because the pointed spears at the bottom were buried in the ground.

"Let's continue our journey," Raff said as he returned to the front.

Continued...