The Only Blossoming Flower

Chapter 16: Dungeon and Friends

   After Shuna informed me of Mjormilles’ frantic search around the dungeon to find me, I went ahead and temporarily set aside my weekdays of research to come and know whatever scandalous or miraculous report he had for me that made his weightily body exercise.

   Almost instantly, Mjormilles found me and ran to me with urgency in his deep breaths. He slammed a hand on his knee, panting rapidly as the other hand was lifted to me. “My Lord… a… a…” He choked between breaths.

   “Breathe Mollie, what's got you so pent up?” I said, taking the folder of documents from his hand. I patted his back, using creation magic to summon a water bottle from mid air and handed it to Mjormilles, as he glanced at it, he nodded with thanks and chugged it all in a second. “It's important, Lord Rimuru, please, read it.”

   I nodded, flipping through the pages…

  
   Rimuru’s face twitched as he browsed through the documents, each word adding to the surprise in his face, but then with a switch, fixed his composure. “Hm, interesting, a significant drop to sales?” He said with calm.
  
   “It's those Green Furies again…” Mjormilles sighed so very deeply, stressed from all tasks he's been handed left and right, all for that work to suddenly drop. “They're practically sprinting to floor 40 like flies!” He exclaimed.

   After a moment of contemplation, Rimuru lightly shut his eyes, his brows twitching as he shortly exercised his breathing pace. As he opened his eyes, his expression became relieved. “Have you called the Dungeon Team?”

   “Yes, Lord Rimuru, they're only waiting for you.” He replied earnestly, bowing lightly.
   “Then let's take our conversation there.”

—
   At Veldora’s Chambers-Floor 100

   “They're seriously skimming through the lines of our rules!” Ramiris exclaimed, huffing with a burning vexation. “For example: Misusing the recording crystals!”

   A recording crystal is exactly what its name suggests, it records a team's progress and generates a checkpoint after defeating each tenth boss after floor 30—enabling the team to be brought to the checkpoint upon defeat. However, it is only available for use once and not another, and acquiring another will require defeating the next tenth boss.

   “They used the Recording Crystals to save a checkpoint after defeating floor 30, then one is left behind to use the return whistle, gather their own team of ten, and multiply their recording crystals to larp the next ten floors!”

   “So about a hundred then?” Rimuru mumbled, the obscurity mesmerizing to him.

   “Yes, my Lord. They're more like a small army. Simply overrunning the Floor 30 boss with ease.”

   Rimuru was stunned by the unusual yet outstanding “out of the box” strategy the group of Green Furies concocted. Truly an unanticipating read of the rules, he couldn't help but be amazed despite the clear problem it was becoming.

   The Green Furies are a clear hazard, if this pace continues with many teams replacing each team in a repetitive cycle, this would result in a “Boss Inactivity” situation since it takes around an estimated two hours and a half for a tenth boss to respawn, including a scenario where all sub bosses were defeated for a tenth floor—leaving little to no rewards for the other adventurers participating, and if more than one group of adventurers would make their way through the floors at the average pace and reach a tenth floor to no reward awaiting them—well, that would be an even larger nuisance in affecting the Dungeon’s growing image.

   “This is the party with the Elementalist leader, yes?” Rimuru said.

   “Affirmative, my Lord. This team is Green Fury themselves.” Mjormilles said, rubbing his mustache to soothe himself. “I had Lady Soka look into them, and according to her investigation… Apparently they're part of a mercenary named ‘Sons of Vert.’”