The Legacy Of Son Goku

"Another dead end huh."

In front of them was a dark corridor and they didn't see anything except a wall barring the path, signalling a wrong way.

"According to the map we must backwards to the previous crossroad and took the left path...." Haruto closed his eyes and an image of a map appeared inside his head.

Right now they were on the 3rd floor of Tartarus. After slaying the first encounter with the black wolves on the 2nd floor they continued their exploration.

The interior was exactly like a labyrinth with the majority of each paths leading to a dead end.

Just exploring the 2nd floor took them more than half an hour until they finally found the stair to the next floor.

Along they way various black monsters or Haruto already preferred to call them as shadow monsters now appeared on their way.

Most of them were around lower to intermediate Medium rank so they were not much of a problem.

The problem was that their stamina drained so fast not to mention being in this kind of place exposed to the ominous aura truly shaved off their morale. So even though they only spent less than an hour here without fighting tough opponent, they were already fatigued.

Kaori's face already pale but for her it's not the problem of stamina but rather her mentality. Who knows how many times she shrieked and yelped when shadow monsters suddenly appeared and made a sound near her ears.

Well, it's getting better overtime but that still didn't resolve the gloomy atmosphere here. Even the others like Haruto or Rikka felt uncomfortable staying for long.

Thinking this was their first time exploring, perhaps it couldn't be helped.

{Nii-sama there's more shadow monsters behind coming at your direction}

Elsie's voice sounded on Haruto's head. In this occasion he found a surprising role for Elsie who's staying inside his body.

She's actually very suitable to act as a navigator for Tartarus exploration. Since she was not involve with fighting and remained within a safe place she could freely shared Haruto's senses and helped him to scan the surroundings.

It was impossible for Haruto to keep focusing on his senses to the surroundings so having another person acting like his second brain helped him much. Becauce his sense were great hindered by the ominous aura of the labyrinth the detection was not very far but if someone could constantly observing the area it was a great boon.

There's also another important thing and it was the fact that Elsie could help him mapped the area they explored and displayed the map on his head anytime he wanted.

Thanks to this they did not need to waste so much time on a single floor. If Elsie's not here perhaps it would take more than double the amount of time to explore a single floor.

Though if they were lucky enough they would find the stairs not long after they arrived at the floor.

"Rikka, Fia, there's about ten shadow monsters incoming, let's intercept them." Haruto gestured to his companions.

""Yes!""

"As for Kaori you should focus on getting used to this place." He smiled wryly at the still pale priest girl carrying large swords.

"O-Okay, sorry for troubling you...." Kaori was very embarrassed for having her weakness exposed.

"It's fine, just take your time..... and let's go!"

They dashed to their back together and charged at the incoming monsters.

"Haaa!"

Fia leaped and extended her right arm up high before swinging it powerfully downwards. The white claw unleashed a shockwave to the ground and ripped apart a few shadow monsters into pieces.

"Seiyah!"

Rikka drew her sword and by brandishing the katana in her hand she made four slashes in an instant, killing three shadow monsters at once.

The remaining five shadow monsters consisted of wolves, giant ants and orcs were coming to Haruto's direction.

He drew a breath and bent down his waist low while keeping his right fist on the side.

"Eat this...!"

*BOOM*

He thrusted his fist forward and a strong kiai punch was unleashed and blown away all the shadow monsters while at the same time destroying their bodies.

Rather than focusing on facing his enemies directly he also learned to fight while keeping his distance. Fighting in close combat recklessly was not favorable and it was most always the best choice.

He already implemented his strategy to fight more versatile and flexible, not only relying on brute strength. Using the best of his arsenals was the way a true fighter fought.

More red mists were absorbed to Fia and Rikka's weapons including from the monsters Haruto defeated.

They said they could feel their particular weapon showing a progress on their growth. If they kept up absorbing the red mist they would eventually get stronger, even possibly gaining a new ability while also making the user's own body grew more powerful.

Since the red mist was a very malicious energy Haruto was worried having their weapons 'eating' that kind of thing but apparently there's no problem about that after he ask Kaori whom already received explanation from Eisha.

In fact, the weapons made by Eisha purified those energies and turned them into nutrition for the weapons.

....

Thebel 4F

They were separated to different places when they arrived at the floor after climbing the stairs. This was caused by the anomalies of Tartarus.

The end of the stairs did not instantly lead to the floor upwards but rather having to cross the same black hole-like portal just like the entrance.

Even when they arrived next floor the stairs leading downwards did not exist, so the only way to return back to the lobby was by finding a teleport device you may or may not find on the floor.

About ten minutes later they finally regrouped with each other by relying on Haruto's senses. Finding Kaori was not hard because of their connection, unlike the others.

They went to various dead ends searching for next stairs. The next floor should be the checkpoint floor with guaranteed teleport device so for today they would be aiming for that floor and went back home.

Though it wouldn't be that simple since a boss shadow monster would be guarding the floor and they needed to defeat it first before being able to use the teleport device.

"Oh, it's a treasure c.h.e.s.t!"

Fia pointed out the rectangular silver box at the end of the corridor. So far there's never been a trap inside the treasure c.h.e.s.t but you can never be so sure that's why they made sure to keep their guards up and opened the box.

"More money huh?" Haruto looked inside the box and saw a bag of quartz coins.

They already found a few of such c.h.e.s.ts containing money and just on this time exploration they managed to gathered around two thousands quartz, an amount more than enough for a person to live comfortably for three months. Adventurers were obviously glad about this, that's why they kept coming at Tartarus despite the risk.

Perhaps in the higher blocks they would find much more in a single instant...

"My bags are getting full...." Fia sighed seeing the inside of her bags on her waists.

"Right, maybe we should use the money we gathered here to buy storage rings." Haruto touched his chin.

They also brought a small bag with them but there's a limit to that and constantly carrying them did not feel comfortable.

Storage rings were quite pricey so Haruto couldn't afford to buy them before but with the current money he could buy a low rank storage ring, enough to store items around ten meters cube.

Selianna actually has some of them but they were currently being lent on her subordinates back on Latia for the spoils of the dungeon exploration from before.

Making a note on his mind they continued further the labyrinth while slaying the shadow monsters on their way.

Haruto could see that Rikka and Fia's movements already dwindled, especially the latter. Fia's weapon used more energy than Rikka and since she still not fully mastered the weapon, she couldn't control the power output properly.

Still, usually it would take five times the effort to make Rikka and Fia feeling exhausted, even Haruto was sweating a bit despite he didn't fight much, to let the other girls grew.

He asked for Kaori to switch place with the other girls and let them rest for awhile. She still quite jittery but just taking over the fighting on this level was not a problem.

And so they rampaged around the 4th floor before finally finding the stairs upwards located on the square hall at the bottom left corner of the floor.

Before going up Haruto asked the girls to take a breather for a few tens of seconds in order to prepare for the boss fight next. Haruto also planned to let Rikka and Fia took care for the enemy since the other enemies could not serve as enough trial for them.

Well if things were too much for them then he would interfere right away.

After the brief rest they nodded to each others and climbed the stairs to the 5th floor unhesitatingly.