「Phew… that makes one.」
A locked door on the top floor of the spherical shrine held a crystal. The glyph Mira obtained earlier opened the door, and once she touched the crystal, that glyph morphed into another. That was the gimmick of the sixth floor; she had to obtain three glyph keys for shrines which would morph into the ones necessary to open the large cathedral. On top of that, the gate leading to the next floor only let one person through, meaning the glyphs were for the exclusive use of the person who gathered them.
Such were the defenses keeping people away from the seventh floor. ʀᴇᴀᴅ ʟᴀᴛᴇsᴛ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀᴛ NoveI[F]ire.net
It was also a time-intensive process to get there, the complex pathways making any advantage in speed ineffective. On top of that the irregularity of the structures made it easy to lose one’s sense of direction, so even if Mira knew the correct route, she constantly had to get her bearings.
She had gotten there in the morning, but only succeeded in obtaining one of the glyphs before 8pm. Her adventurous side had distracted her constantly, and halfway through she had started practicing kicks too, but even if she had hurried and focused solely on obtaining the glyph keys she would have taken at least six hours to get that far.
The average group of adventurers took around three days to obtain one, making Mira’s route with all its shortcuts quite fast by comparison. But doing that had required the constant use of Sage Arts, leaving her physically exhausted.
「Urgh… my feet hurt so much… I can’t walk anymore.」
Mira leaned against the white walls of the room with the crystal, massaging her tired feet while sighing. Pegasus’ absence was painfully obvious.
(Still, I got the first glyph today, so that’s plenty of progress for a day.)
The fact they traveled as a group and could not just abuse Sage Arts like Mira to skip paths was a big reason for that. On top of that, unlike Mira who let her Dark Knight defeat the many skeletons that spawned there, other adventurers had to fight them directly, making them get tired faster and leading to more frequent breaks. All of that extra delays added up to two weeks in the end.
(I remember taking a week the first time I got here. I’ve really gotten a fair bit stronger since then.)
Mira faintly remembered her first time on that floor.
Back then she did not have to worry about physical exhaustion, and she could log out of the game whenever she wanted to rest safely. Now this was reality and her feet were assaulted by a sharp pain from exhaustion, but that was fun in its own ironic way, which made Mira smile despite herself.
Monsters would not approach the spherical shrine, making it an ideal place to spend the night in.
「I have to move just a little.」
But Mira forced herself back up on her unsteady feet and made her way out of the shrine.
Looking around she saw there was quite a lot of empty space around the shrine. She made one lap around the shrine, and decided the area behind it was the best.
「This will do for tonight.」
She summoned the spirit mansion behind the shrine. Ideally she wanted to be in an area where many monsters spawned, but the sixth floor was so crowded there were few places large enough to fit the spirit mansion. They only existed far apart from each other, or in special locations like near a shrine.
Still, her main goal was to relax inside the spirit mansion, and let the spirit grow stronger. She did not mind losing the ability to farm Magic Stones in her sleep if she could at least summon the mansion.
「This really feels cozier.」
Leaving a Dark Knight as guard outside, Mira entered the mansion and let out a long sigh, feeling like she had just returned home. The spirit’s power was strange, the building looked different from the outside than from inside, but it still brought the same comforting feeling of Mira’s personal room.
She relished that feeling, quickly taking her clothes off and entering the shower room, where she sat on the floor and let warm water wash over her.
「Ahhh… this is life.」
Mira released all tension from her exhausted body, letting the warm water fall on her without resistance.
Her shower took a bit longer than usual, but eventually she returned to the living room, where she once again merely put on some underwear before lying down on the sleeping bag placed next to a wall.
「I wonder if there’s a massage chair spirit too.」
Muttering that to herself, she carefully massaged her exhausted feet and legs. Meilin, who also practiced martial arts in real life, had taught her to do that, since otherwise she would perform poorly the next day.
Once she finished thoroughly massaging herself, she started making a simplistic dinner. She was feeling starved, so she began searing a thick cut of meat, seasoned with salt and pepper, which she would eat accompanied with a salad and some bread.
「I can’t get enough of this.」
The meat sizzled with a satisfying sound while letting out a mouth-watering scent. Mira’s stomach started grumbling as she threw a salad together and impatiently waited for the meat to finish cooking.
The meat was ready by the time she finished eating her salad.
Mira’s teeth quickly dug into the cut of meat, which had just the right amount of chew, while a strong beefy taste filled her cheeks. She ate half of it, then put the rest on top of a piece of bread, bathed it in her special Mira Sauce made with the oil that was left over on the pan, and added some cheese to make a sandwich.