Chapter 238: Hidden Passage

"..."Hearing the strange mechanical voice along with suddenly being knocked back onto the ground after colliding with some kind of invisible barrier, Scaly found herself looking up at where she had seemingly collided with empty air with a hint of confusion on her face. Not understanding what had happened even though the strange mechanical voice warned her about not continuing upstairs.

Curious, she decided to go against what the strange mechanical voice was saying and got back up before attempting to make her way back up the staircase again. Only difference was that this time around, she moved far slower than she had done before and upon reaching the point where she had collided with an invisible barrier, she slowly raised one of her claws before starting to tap the air in front of her...

Tap~ Tap~ Tap~

And as she tapped the air, she did indeed feel some kind of resistance appearing. Stopping her small claw from continuing any further. However, different from before, the strange mechanical voice didn’t jump forward to warn her or anything.

Maybe because I’m not using enough strength...

Thinking this to herself, Scaly didn’t hesitate and directly began applying more force to her claw-

Tap-! Tap-! Tap-!

Tapping the invisible barrier that blocked her path with far more strength than she had done before. Soon enough reaching the point where she felt her small claw seemingly breaking through the first layer of the invisible barrier before reaching a far firmer barrier hidden behind it.

[Warning! Unauthorized Lifeform attempting to breach restricted area! Stop immediately or appropriate punishment will be given!]

And unsurprisingly, the strange mechanical voice echoed out the second she reached this second invisible barrier, but... Having already gone this far, Scaly was fully intent on seeing what the so-called punishment mentioned by the strange mechanical voice was. After all, it was just a strange voice. How could it possibly do anything to her?

Bzzzzt~!

Ah!? It huuuurts!

At least that was what she thought before an electrical current suddenly surged through her entire body originating from the floor below her, causing pain to her even with her high pain resistance.

Thump~

Not just that, but the electrical current also forced her to stop what she was doing and directly made her collapse onto the floor, shaking wildly as the electric current continued rushing through her body without giving her any chance to resist. Even attempting to use her own lightning magic to negate what she assumed was also some kind of lightning magic was completely useless, as she could only roll around on the floor helplessly for a good minute before the electric current from the floor below faded.

[Punishment concluded. Any further attempt to enter restricted areas without supervision will be met with harsher punishment. Notice of the transgression has been sent to local staff.]

Hearing the strange mechanical voice echoing out once again, Scaly decided that it would be for the best to listen to what the voice said and not enter any of those so-called restricted areas. After all, it had made it clear to her that it had the power to punish her.

And... After personally feeling this punishment, she didn’t want to find out what the harsher punishments it mentioned was, as even if it might not kill her, she was certain it would be far more painful than what she had just gone through, something she wanted to avoid if possible. Even if it might be helpful in increasing the level of her pain resistance.

Out of all her skills, her pain resistance was the only one she wasn’t eager to level up, as doing so required her to feel pain, something that wasn’t exactly enjoyable.

But... If she couldn’t continue moving further up the tower to the next floor, she had no idea what else to do inside the tower and began preparing to leave.

Even if there might be something hidden inside the tower that would be able to help increase her strength, it wasn’t useful if she couldn’t reach it because of the invisible barrier and strange mechanical voice blocking her path forward.

As for forcibly breaking through the strange invisible barrier? She had attempted to do so earlier when she reached the second invisible barrier just now.

Although her magic would be far stronger than her physical strength, the poking just now allowed her to grasp that the strength of the invisible barrier far surpassed anything she could handle with her current strength. Not to mention, attacking the invisible barrier seriously might trigger a far more dangerous response from the strange mechanical voice that wouldn’t just involve a bit of pain but might involve the true power of this strange voice being unleashed.

Even if she had no idea how strong this mechanical voice was, from what little she had witnessed of it so far, she was at least certain that it was not something she could handle at the current moment.

With that in mind, she decided that it would be for the best to leave after a quick search through the first floor of the tower, just to ensure that she didn’t end up missing anything when she left the place...

Rustle~

Huh? This is...!

And as she began searching through the first floor of the tower that she had managed to gain access to, it didn’t take her long to find another staircase located in what should be the very center of the first floor.

The reason why she hadn’t noticed this staircase earlier when she had flown up to survey the state of the first floor was not just because the staircase led downwards instead of upwards, but also because the staircase itself was buried beneath a mountain of rubble. Making it difficult to spot unless one walked straight past it.

In a way, even walking past it would have made it impossible to spot without a fallen over bookshelf having toppled over at just the right angle to safeguard a small part of the original staircase from the rubble.

At the same time, it also served to stop the rubble from completely blocking up the staircase leading downwards.

But... This was far from the most shocking thing about this staircase. Instead, it was the fact that she recognized this staircase or more accurately, she had seen similar staircases in the past...

A staircase leading to the next floor of the dungeon!

Narrowing her eyes as this thought passed appeared, Scaly could not help feeling a profound sense of surprise.

Although she had no idea just how far down this dungeon went and how many floors it had, she felt like five should be the limit, but... Now it turned out that five wasn’t the limit, it went deeper. Meaning were even more powerful monsters inside the dungeon.

The powerful monsters on the fourth floor were already strong enough that she didn’t dare face them before she went through another evolution.

As for the truly powerful monsters on the fifth floor of the dungeon, she had a feeling that she hadn’t yet truly encountered any of them.

Even though the shadow condor was powerful, she had a feeling that it wasn’t among the strongest monsters of the fifth floor of the dungeon, there should be even stronger monsters lurking somewhere on the fifth floor, it was just that she hadn’t had the opportunity to find any of them.

With that in mind, she couldn’t imagine how powerful the strongest monsters on the sixth floor of the dungeon would be. Even if she managed to successfully go through her next evolution, she doubted that she would be strong enough to face them!

Because of this, even though she felt incredibly curious about the sixth floor of the dungeon, she didn’t dare venture down there with her current strength. At least for now, she felt that the fifth floor of the dungeon was good enough for her and increasing her strength to level 30 and going through her next evolution was a priority.

But... All things considered, she was more than happy with this discovery, as she now had a clear path down to the sixth floor of the dungeon. Giving her a clear path to go when the fifth floor of the dungeon became too weak to sustain her continued growth.

Although it was a bit disappointing to leave without getting her hands on anything that would be able to directly increase her strength, a passage to the sixth floor of the dungeon was also okay, as it would prove helpful in increasing her strength in the future, though the increase in strength would still have to come through her own effort.

Who knew, maybe at the end of the passage, she would find another human city ruin with something hidden inside it that would be able to increase her strength like the smoldering bodies of the branch eater worms had after she consumed them.

Unfortunately, exploring the sixth floor of the dungeon was a bit too dangerous for now...