Volume 3 - CH 3.04

Next, pour the milk into the batter and boil over a low flame and keep mixing it all up until it reaches the consistency of the white roux.

On a side note, you should be able to make clam chowder and cream croquettes that way as well. If only we had a functioning oven here, then maybe I could also make gratin.

Put the resulting white roux and vegetables in a pan and boil all of the ingredients together. Finally, I tasted it and seasoned it with salt and pepper.

It’s a success, as far as I am concerned.

Roxanne also ate it with a huge smile of delight on her face.

「Mashter, thish ish sho yummy!」

Maybe I should tell her that she should not be saying things like that while she’s having her mouth full of white, sticky substances?

Now that we had to wait for the bathtub to be finished before any work in the house could be advanced further, we both decided that the best course of action will be to advance through the Labyrinths as much as possible.

The tactic we have adopted for our explorations was to go to to the Labyrinth at least two times a day: in the early morning before having breakfast and in the afternoon so that we could jump straight to having dinner when we get back, and to have a modest time of rest before each run. That was the minimum we agreed on doing, but whenever we could, we tried to go explore them at least several times a day. While going through our Labyrinth-foraging days like that, we quickly managed to reach the Boss Room in the Veil’s Labyrinth’s third floor. When we reached the waiting room outside of the boss’s chamber I took a moment to do a Character Reset and equip Durandal, and once that was done, we entered the Boss Room proper without hesitation. Since we have already fought the Kobold Kampfer in the Quratar’s Labyrinth where it was actually the Floor Boss of the first floor, we didn’t have to be our guard too much. We simply have to employ our usual strategy: we will surround it from both sides where Roxanne will occupy it in the front and I will go to its back where I will wait for the right moment to slash the bastard down with a swing of my sword. Now, I don’t want to say that I am getting used to fighting the floor Bosses or overly confident with fighting them, who are essentially just a bigger, more menacing variants of the regular enemies, but… but I guess I am getting used to fighting them after beating so many of them.

When the Kobold Kampfer appeared from a cloud of green smoke in the center of the room, Roxanne took her designated position in front of it and brandished her Scimitar, which she then used to slash at it and draw its attention to herself, while I assumed my combat-ready stance at its back, waiting for the right moment to attack to present itself. Since I have my OP abilities and an even more OP weapon, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that I am our Party’s main damage dealer, and as a damage dealer, I should be pouring all of my efforts into attacking and killing enemies with one blow rather than focusing on avoiding their attacks or defending against them. Dodging and defending is Roxanne’s role, because as worried about Roxanne’s safety as I may be, those concerns are always proven to be unnecessary. No matter if this is a normal enemy or a Boss, as long as Roxanne has her superior reflexes, there is no way for any attack to reach her.

The attacks of the Kobold Kampfer are all slow and clumsy, and he is staggering under Roxanne’s attacks. To be honest, I am starting to feel a little sorry for that monster.

When the Kobold Kampfer was defeated and disappeared in a cloud of green smoke after leaving behind its drop items, we moved onto the fourth floor, where I decided to keep Durandal with me for a while longer until we happen across the first encounter with the monsters native to this floor and see how tough they will be to beat.

The first monster that we encountered not long after arriving here was a Mino Lv4. So, this is the type of monster native to the fourth floor of Veil’s Labyrinth, huh? It looks like a brown buffalo, or perhaps a bull, but it has a torso that looks like its strangely too short in comparison to its massive front and hind legs, giving it a bit of a comical looks. Could it be that whoever was responsible for creating the monsters for this game made a fatal design error with it and didn’t bother to correct it? Normally cows and bulls I am familiar with look docile, or even kinda cute, but with the two sharp horns growing out of its head, I can safely say that there is nothing even remotely cute about this monster here.

It looks our way with eyes filled with ferocious killing intent, and then breaks into a run with its head brought down and the sharp horns pointing directly at us. If those things hit us, I bet it won’t end on just light wound. It’s going to hurt like hell….

… If it manages to hit us at all, that is. I mean seriously, if all it is doing is charging at its prey straight ahead, then even someone as evasion-impaired like me will be able to dodge such a simple-minded attack like that of a common boar. Then again, it’s just an oversized, muscular cow, so I don’t know what else I have expected.

Mino charges towards Roxanne and thrusts its horns towards her, but she simply twisted her body lightly and dodged it effortlessly, and I swung my weapon at it after dodge-rolling to the side. As a result, Mino collapsed to the ground before it got the chance to aim its horns at us again. So it looks like with Durandal, even the monsters on the Labyrinth’s fourth floor can still be defeated in one blow.

The enemy became a puff od green smoke and disappeared. The item it left behind is something called Mino’s Hide. If it turns out to be sturdy enough, perhaps it could be a good material for armor-making? Or turning it into some nice clothing? Anyway…

「So this is the kind of monster we will have to deal with here? Not only does it have quite the ferocious appearance, but it also seems to be pretty powerful.」

「It does look like a powerful opponent indeed… but all you have to do is to watch its movements closely so that you can safely dodge its attacks.」

She’s not wrong, but there are two catches to what she’s saying: you actually have to be nimble enough to dodge and then swiftly counterattack, and have a keen enough eyesight to actually see the best possible moment for carrying out a dodge. As much as it pains me to say it, out of the two of us, only Roxanne is able to carry such manuevers out in a consistent manner. I don’t want to always be burdening her with having to act like a decoy, so I will have to definitely do something about it in the near future.

Now that the battle with Mino was finished, I unequipped Durandal and switched back to my magic-using setup. Now that we are on the fourth floor, it seems highly unlikely that I will be able to defeat monsters other than Kobolds with one or two shots of my spells. It’ll be more realistic to assume that I will need three or perhaps even four of them to get the job done properly. The obvious downside to it is that if I can’t defeat them in three shots or less, it means that the probability of them reaching me before I could dispose of them will be greater, but it’s not like I can do anything about it besides gaining more levels and increasing my stats.

As we moved forward through the fourth floor, we haven’t encountered a group of two or more Minos. The groups of enemies we fought against always consisted of either one of them, or a mixture of just one Mino along with a Kobold, a Green Caterpillar or even a Needlewood. As a side note: Needlewoods; monsters native to Veil Labyrinth’s first floor, were growing more and more scarce now. Perhaps after venturing a few more floors further we will stop encountering them at all? well, no point thinking about it now. Scarce or not, they are still enemies that have to be cut down for us to proceed.

If we only have to deal with one Mino, dealing with it can be left to Roxanne.