Clink suddenly appears next to me. It doesn't look like teleportation and that feeling was more like…
"An illusion?"
"Something like that. The nightmare magic I use is a special field between illusion and mind magic so it can do a little bit of both."
"So you've been hiding next to me and taking away all the materials I dismantled?"
"Don't say I took them away, I just helped you carry them. Without storage equipment you would have run out of space ages ago."
"I suppose that's fine. I take it you have no issue with me picking and choosing the better parts?"
"On this floor? Not at all! I wouldn't even mind if you just skipped dismantling for the first few floors. But this is good too. Especially at the speed you are going."
Really? I didn't realize how wasteful I could be.
Is that so. Is such a company going to enter after us?
"Oi, the tunnel is opening up and the branti are scattering!"
"Same thing here, they are no longer trying to catch up."
Both Pascal and Maribelle report their situations.
"Did we reach the stairs to the third floor?"
"Based on the first floor's size that's unlikely. The pests' hive mind probably realized that you easily killed most of the forces it has on this floor. So it pulled back the remaining branti. It has probably judged your strength based on this encounter and will let you pass until you reach a floor where its minions can at least take a hit or two."
Pascal seems unconvinced.
"Would that mean that a strong enough party could just walk all the way up unbothered and destroy the core?"
"Of course not. If a party like that showed up, the dungeon would throw everything it has at them regardless of the futility."
"And you aren't such an existence?"
"I am but I can conceal myself and Roy from the dungeon. And before you ask, no, the adventurers can't do that. Only someone who works for a dungeon could possible have an apt enough understanding of how threat and intruder detection works to bypass it."
"So we'll just go through the empty floors until we are met with resistance?"
"Pretty much. I'd estimate that you'll be left alone until floor six or seven. At that point the overall level of the weakest branti should be 40 and they should be able to withstand a few casual punches from Pascal."
"Up we go then. Peter, you with us?"
Clink looks incredibly annoyed and stomps of into a certain direction.
"I swear. I asked that idiot if he wanted to visit Ptorimea to choose his next evolution but he said he would leave it up to chance! Why is he wimping out on me now? Guy, please come help me deal with this. Pascal, Maribelle, if you think you can manage not to kill one another with the rest of us gone, you can go ahead."
I hurry after Clink while casting a worried glance at the two ladies who are heading for the stairs.
Navi, are they going to be fine. And what happened to Peter?
I was not worried about physical damage regarding those two but I suppose there's little to be done. As for Peter, is he going through a battle evolution? How did he trigger that?
I want to ask why evolving is a problem when Clink's countermeasure should keep us all save but I'm interrupted by Peter's panicky voice.
"Don't think evolvy thoughts! Don't think evolvy thoughts! I can't evolve if I don't want to! Evolution does not have my consent to evolve me! Don't think evolvy thoughts!"
We find him in one of the other tunnels. Peter is curled up and his body is fading in and out of vision, occasionally showing signs of fantastic color taking over. Do those colors-
"It's not a sign of evolution, it's a sign of him panicking and losing control of his camouflage. Can you get him to calm down? He's just evolving but he's so paralyzed by the thought of getting a bad evolution that he gets like this. It's not like there are any bad evolutions, just ones that are inconvenient for your skill synergy."
Sigh. Guess I just have to end his panic attack long enough for him to evolve. It's kind of impressive that he can actually stop his own evolution just by panicking.
"Don't be scared of evolving, Peter. Think about what you want. Remember, you wanted to be able to do damage, hands that can hold weapons, breath attacks or tail attacks. Think of them, imagine them, evolve to get them!"
As I say those last four words I feel something inside me stir and then Peter's evolution suddenly goes into overdrive.
Did I do something outrageous again? Clink seems excited so at least the changes I caused seem positive in nature. And a quick look at my training stats shows no change so I shouldn't have-