"Many have heard me, yet nobody has seen me. I won’t speak back unless spoke-“

“An echo…” I sighed.

“Grrrr… Best…. of… 16 out of 30!”

“This is enough! We’re in a hurry and you’ve already wasted fifteen minutes. Those men on the other side of that door are not nice. They’re probably already trying to find some way to blast through the door.”

I had initially catered to her, but it was starting to become ridiculous. She seemed extremely stubborn, so putting my foot down sternly seemed like the best course of action here.

Terra gasped. “B-but, the rules!”

“People like them don’t care about the rules. Now, I’ve clearly shown that I was able to answer your riddles, please hold up your side of the bargain.”

“Why are you so good at riddles anyway!’ She demanded.

“Ah… I read a lot of riddle books when I was in primary during recess.” I admitted. “I wasn’t particularly popular.”

“Eh! Now you’re speaking in riddles!” She shook her fists. “Fine, go, but don’t think the level 20 boss will be so simple! He has protected me for hundreds of years, and he won’t allow some filthy person like you to take me!”

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As she said this, she waved her hands, and the stone door leading down to the eleventh floor opened up for us. As she had agreed upon, the door behind us remained closed, and it would continue to do so for another hour as long as they didn’t cast any spell to break it.

“Actually, it’s the guardian that we want?” I said.

“Eh?” She blinked. “The guardian, you say…”

“I have a spell in my journal,” Carmine admitted. “As long as you four can distract it long enough, I’ll be able to take control of it.”

From the mural, I had the distinct feeling that the guardian was controlled by some kind of control rod which we’d need to find. I was wondering how we were going to get through it. It seemed kind of like an issue to me. You had to defeat the protector to access the treasure room, but the treasure room contained the control rod needed to control the protector. I had hoped it was something like the other bosses. The boss was only defeated to an extent and then would reappear after healing.

However, none of that mattered anymore. It seemed like Carmine had already thought about this and came up with a solution not unlike my slave taking ability. I shook my head and urged everyone to go out the door. We couldn’t really afford to dally. Carmine had a few notes she referred to, but it wasn’t like she had a map of the place. Even if she did, it would have been distorted over time from the dungeon shriveling up and dying.

In that respect, the levels were small and the bandits had more numbers. He could spread them out to quickly scour the place. He also had no concern for registering at the kiosks or looking at the murals. This was how he was able to catch up to the five of us. Twenty-five men could search a level five times as fast as five people.

As we headed down, I noticed a short shape running with us and I lost my step for a second.

“Terra? What are you doing here?”

“Hmph! Even though it’s impossible for you to take m-my dungeon’s guardian, if that is what you plan to do, then I will head down there to see it!”