When I opened my eyes, I was in a small cave. The rock walls were quite dark in color, but the air was warm and heavy. I could even feel the warmth emanating from the ground below.

There was a soft glow in the distance along the tunnel yet only darkness behind me. With the glow being the only source of light, my ability to see was dampened and as I didn’t hear anyone else, it was clear I was alone. Even with the dim light however, I was able to make out the messy yet glossy braided hair of Mezu. I smiled softly laughing to myself remembering Quartz clumsily following Kahzhaw’s instructions.

He really had done his best to attempt it and yet the results were disappointing. His face seems to hardly show much emotion at times but even then, you could see his frustration building as he got further and further from Kahzhaw’s example on the right side of the fluffy kid’s head. And when he would sit to have Kahzhaw do his hair he’d have the slightest bit of tenseness in his lips.

Kahzhaw always looked so relaxed when he was allowed to do simple things like that for Quartz. And I really liked how he tried to hide his laughter when he watched Quartz attempt to mimic his braiding. I was worried the addition of a half elf would reveal a harshness to Kahzhaw but instead he seemed the same as always. There was just someone new for him to fuss over and I’d get to watch that instead of being one of the receivers.

Mezu was looking around a bit frantically, so I picked him up.

"I’m sure we’ll find them” I signed.

Mezu seemed to pick up my signs quite early on, but never seemed to respond to me. The only signs he would do would be in reference to his own hunger or asking where Quartz was. As those signs were similar, it was a hard to differentiate at times.

He signed for Quartz.

“I’m sure he’s fine,”

I smiled softly before I placed him on my shoulders as that seemed to be his favorite position when traveling with Quartz, He played with my locs which gave me some assurance that he was no longer overly nervous.

The ant hill floor was the last time we had been alone together for a challenge. At that time, he had the distraction of something to fight, though it was obvious that something else behind his extreme interest in fighting. It was clear what the motivation was after I saw him when we met up on the previous floor. While I still didn’t know the initial reasoning, he had a clear dislike towards insects. Especially considering that they were the only floors that he had participated on. Well aside from the high orc floor, but that was only after Quartz had passed out. He had defended his sleeping body from anything that came his way.

Though it was mostly debris from the fight with the other knights and the fight with the king, it was still a lot more than he did on other floors.

He always seemed much more interested in watching Quartz fight than to be fighting himself. My only conclusion in all of this, was that I would never want to be considered an insect to him, and in turn be forced to fight this cute little thing. At that point I hope he would stop appearing cute in my eyes so I would at least be able to defend myself, but even then, there wasn’t much I would likely be able to do at that point.

There was a ding and a banner appeared. I looked up towards it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Welcome to floor 33: A Dragon’s Home

Description: The new hatchlings have begun play fighting and are getting too rambunctious for their parents. Wanting a break from them they have taken a few days to get away. In their time away the hatchlings have awoken the volcano. If they continue to fight the volcano will destroy their parents land and they will get a severe scolding. However, the hatchlings are too focused on their sibling rivalry to notice.

Completion Requirements:

???????????

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I don’t think I’ve ever seen the requirements section like that before. Though as we have been getting higher up, things becoming more difficult is simply to be expected. Since the section wasn’t simply omitted perhaps that indicated that the requirements would appear if I were to clear some hidden checkpoints.

Or it could mean that there were various ways for the floor itself to be cleared. Since we were separated from each other again, perhaps we were all sent to different places, given different information that led each of us on separate paths to clearing the floor.

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

I hope that Shezhyo is okay, well I hope she isn’t paired with Kahzhaw. He’d probably get quickly annoyed. I chuckled to myself and headed toward the glowing light.

The warmth of the air and the color of the light were explained by the description, it only made sense that I was in the volcano itself. Given how neatly formed this tunnel was, it could’ve been formed by magma from a previous eruption. And given that we were currently walking in it the eruption hasn’t gotten to the state where the magma has reached this height.

Though I doubt the tower would even place us in a tunnel that would be swallowed up before we even began its challenge.

Now the very vague challenge would be interesting. I don’t imagine that dragon hatchlings that have been around for a decent amount of time are a comparative size to me, let alone Quartz. And since the parents weren’t able to get them to stop fighting, it wasn’t likely that there was a way for me to talk my way out if it, if I could even converse with them. Fighting seemed to be my only option, but I didn’t want to kill the hatchlings, if I could. I don’t imagine the parents returning home to their dead children would stop the volcano’s eruption. If anything, it could lead to it occurring instantly, not that I even had an understanding of the power scale of dragons.

The description appeared to be written from the perspective of the dragons and only involved information directly regarding them and their circumstances. With dragons being greater creatures both in life span and size compared to other creatures, it would make sense that from their perspective any other creatures living on their land wouldn’t really be the focus of their concerns. Much like how the elves seemed to treat the concerns of humans when it came to inter species discussions.

With that being considered, it isn’t entirely improbable that there is a village or even a city of human like creatures living within the near vicinity of the volcano. Not that I have an attachment to people I’ve never met before but if our party were to be separated it would make sense for them to be placed there as an option for another way of clearing the floor. The goal would probably be to limit the number of deaths, with the two methods being to stop the eruption entirely or to succeed in the evacuation of any city or village nearby.

I could of course be wrong, considering we were put on one floor to simply eradicate an entire high orc village. The only thing for me to do was to attempt things from my side. I haven’t died from on a floor yet and I don’t think burning alive in magma would be the most pleasant experience.

The prospect of fighting dragons, even if they were just hatchlings, isn’t an extremely ideal situation. I’m sure that Shezhyo and Quartz would jump at the opportunity to. I don’t want to imagine that they are sitting on a lake of magma, but if they are I’m not entirely sure what I would even be able to do about fighting them.

While Awzhyo and Quartz have aura, I’ve only got the human imitation, physical augmentation magic. My mana could only enhance basic physical abilities. Sure, my skin could handle a lot more than the average person, but I couldn’t feasibly use it to stop myself from being burnt in the hypothetical lake of magma.

I felt the ground shudder beneath my feet and could now hear distant screeching. I guess the hatchings were currently fighting. I picked up the pace to a light jog.

If I was far away from them, then the size they must’ve been in order for me to hear them and feel them at that distance would mean that a fight would be impractical. Let's just hope I’m closer than further away.

If I had any other type of mana, I could feasibly think of a way to fight them without gravely injuring myself.

I shook my head. There was no point in entertaining hypotheticals.

There was a whine at the top of my head, reminding me of his presence on my shoulders. It was surprising how accustomed I had become to him sitting there. I rose my hand high enough for him to see and signed “Sorry, fight soon.” The amount of light had increased greatly at this point but wasn’t enough to be blinding. And soon enough, with the screeching and shudders being louder than before, we arrived at the opening of a cave.

What I saw in the center of the cavern was not too far from my expectations. There was a lake of magma, but it rested below a large rock island. There were various large outcroppings up the walls of the cavern some reaching even then opening at the top of the volcano. They were most likely similar to the on that I stood on, the entrance to yet another magma tunnel.

The island itself was decimated, covered with the remnants of boulders furniture, and other items destroyed past recognition. And among the rubble there were two dragons wrestling with each other.

Their scales were a mix of a dark blood like red and a shimmering gold. Luckily, they weren’t full grown, but they were still both twice my size and their claws and teeth were at least as long as my arm.

Mezu began fidgeting so I let him down and he looked up at me absolutely beaming. He pointed at the two of them and bounced on his toes.

I know I had told him there would be a fight soon, I was worried I wouldn’t be as entertaining as Quartz seemed to be for him. Quartz would most certainly jump right in and wrestle them as well.

I sighed heavily.

There was nothing to think about, only one thing for me to do.

I backed up a few feet and sprinted towards the edge of our outcropping. With mana ignited in my legs I leapt across the gap. Once I left the ground, I felt a strong blast of heat that emanated from the magma below. When I landed and rolled on the ground of the island that heat dissipated slightly but it was still quite present.

I stood up quickly and dusted off my legs I stood fully to only be faced with two sets of large dragon eyes. Their wide and unthreatening appearance reminded me of a curious animal.

No don’t find them cute, I would have to fight them.

We looked at each other for a few moments longer until I saw their large golden fiery eyes blink twice. They looked at each other and grinned.