Chapter 72 - Find the Buried Treasure
In the big meeting, the focus was cleaning up floors 83 to 88, which were still full of monsters, and then inspecting the destroyed floors. The gods also told them there was a passageway on the 99th floor to somewhere else. The question was what was beyond the 99th floor and whether that passageway was now buried deep under the rubble.
That evening, Ais and Bell sat outside to enjoy some outdoor lap pillowing under the stars. Everybody stayed away being afraid of severe punishment like that at the ocean. After Ais was carried back to their room, they were to absorbed thinking if there was an even more enemy even deeper in the dungeon closer to the center of the earth...
After the 3 day break from the rigors of the dungeon, it was time to finish their business. The secret headquarters was back in operation, and Haruhime's group boosted everyone. The ground and air team met up and headed down the dungeon. The air team of Ais, Bell, Wiene, Riveria, Lefiya, Bete and Ottar quickly reached the 33rd floor, and used a round of Wynn Fimbulvetr and Fusillade Fallarica for insect control in the central cavern. The air team then quickly reach the 50th floor, and wait for the ground team, which would require more than 1 day to catch up.
While on the 50th floor, Bell and Ais conducted additional reconnaissance using their Hades Hat. They confirmed that the number of dragons was still stable with a total of ~20 for all the labyrinth floors. They also confirmed that floors 83-88 were still full of monster, and some of those have diffused to floors 81 and 82.
The next morning, the ground team got there and then there was again a call with Freya, Hermes, Takemikazuchi, Ganesha, Loki and Hestia. After the call, Bell activated hati and the air team donned their Hade Hats and headed straight for the 80th floor. After making sure the coast was clear, Wiene ferried over the ground team.
From the 80th floor, the air team started on the 83rd floor and use Wynn Fimbulvetr and Fusillade Fallarica 4 times on each floor. By the end of the day, the air team was finished attacking floors 83-85 and the ground team was finished cleaning up floors 81-83. The next day, the air team was able to finish up the remaining floors (86-88), while the ground team finished floors 84 and 85. The third day, the two teams worked together in combined attacks and cleaned up floors 86-88. Thus they were done and again went back to the 50th floor to spend the night.
On the fourth day, the two teams went back to the 88th to explore and inspect the collapsed floors. From the vertical holes on the 88th floor, they could see enormous destruction of the floors below. There was an enormous pile of rock in the central cavern from the collapsed floors. The air team then flew down to check destruction while wearing their Hades Hats. They flew around and around. There were still small remaining portions of the deeper floors by the walls. However, it was total destruction. They searched for any remains of the glass container and metal containers, but could not find anything under the pile of rock. After searching for a couple hours, the air team returned and contacted headquarters.
After chatting with headquarters, the only conclusions that could be made was the incubation equipment was totally destroyed and that all the baby monsters died with it. Unfortunately there was really no way to know for sure. They also wanted to find the passageway to the deeper areas of the dungeon. However, everything seemed to be buried under at least 50 feet of rock, even at the far edges by the wall. Loki suggested sending Gareth down there to use earth raid to move some of the rocks. However, after work for 30 minutes, Gareth was unable to move an appreciable amount of debris. He would probably have to spend months down there to make a dent. Even if that was done, he could only shift the pile a bit and the pile could easily avalanche back. After another another hour of searching, the decision was made to stop and head back up to the 18th floor for the night. They use the central cavern again to ferry the entire team to the 34th floor, and had lunch. After lunch, Riveria and Lefiya launched one last set of Wynn Fimbulvetr and Fusillade Fallarica to clean up again the insects in the cavern. They then headed back to the 18th floor. The walk was uneventful with the large powerful party. They met Asterius and the residents at Rivira for dinner. After dinner, they decided to go back to the surface even if it was going to be really late. They were all home sick after the really intense period of dungeon clearing...