Chapter 44: The third floor of the shop
She turns around and goes back upstairs, but she doesn't completely give up on her desire to be friends with Mr. Mushroom, even the snail she wants to be friends with it? She pondered, walking towards the blue mist. Maybe the boss of the boss room can also communicate? Do rhizome flowers have an IQ?
However, if she enters the boss room alone, Jubilee will definitely not forgive her. Even though she felt that she should be able to be born again and not die, she still wanted to try not to do that.
"Are chickens a forest monster?" She got out of the dungeon in a cranky way.
After returning to the store, Lin Meng looked around curiously for a while before walking up the stairs, passing the storage room, and looking at the closed doors that she had never opened. Lin Meng wanted to know what was behind the door, she hadn't thought about it because she was so busy during this time, and she didn't even care about these doors when she passed by the door every day to enter and exit her room. The girl leaned her back against the wall of the hallway window and looked at the dusty doorknob.
What is in the room that Jubilee doesn't want her to see?
Her gaze wandered over the old hallway of the house, then all the way down the new taupe carpet in the hallway. When she first saw this place, she felt that it was so eerie and surreal, as if it had been frozen in time and space. Dust and shadow covered everything. But now, after a lot of time and effort she has put in, it is slowly resurrected, along with its owner. In fact, everyone needs a friend, she thought as she looked back at the lonely door, the jubilee room.
Did you form a team before the Jubilee? What happened to them? Jubilee is really powerful, they must have gone many floors deep into the dungeon. Are these their rooms? Jubilee gave her a room, but when she entered, it was empty. She pursed her lips and looked back at the closed door.
She wanted to see it, but she never had the courage to forget it, so it was none of her business. Lin Meng shook her head and prepared to walk away.
"I promised I wouldn't go in during the Jubilee!" She thought of her previous promise and looked up at the ceiling above her with curiosity.
When she returned to the pantry, a sly smile bloomed on her face, and she thought of an idea, perhaps one that would make Jubilee angry. Lin Meng opened the door, quietly closed the door from behind him, and walked into the storage room illuminated by the many potions on the shelves. The girl walked to the barrel behind her, climbed up, and groped her fingers along the planks of the ceiling overhead to see if anything was loose.
Sure enough, she found a piece and mustered all the strength to push it aside.
She assured Jubilee that she would not enter the room in the hallway. But she never said not to go to the upstairs area. Maybe it was a quibble, a fallacy, but now her curiosity had outpaced her sense of morality, and she should have been in bed a few hours ago. Somehow, however, since she became a witch, she has found herself getting more and more energetic at night.
Lack of sleep still plagued her, but somehow...... But there was no discomfort in the body. Lin Meng was finally a little tired when the sun rose in the morning, she opened the window to ventilate the room, and when she felt the morning dew covering her body, it made her somewhat relaxed and reduced her fear and anxiety.
She pushed the second plank aside to reveal the clearing above. Lin Meng grabbed a lantern, stepped on the shelves and entered the dark room, and entered the third floor.
The midnight moonlight shone in through the dusty windows. The dim light barely squeezed into the room, mixing with the light of Lin Meng's lantern that was half brightly adjusted. She lifted it above her head and shone in the room, Joan snorting and trying not to sneeze. Her presence seemed to disturb the dust that had been sleeping for a long time, awakening it into the air. The whole room was covered with dust. Dust covered everything, like snow covering an ancient tomb.
"Grave ......" Lin Meng muttered to herself, raising the sleeves of her robe to cover her nose, repeating the word in her mind.
The air was cold and biting. None of the warmth created downstairs had apparently reached here. It didn't matter whether the warmth was physical or spiritual, for it was just herself now, only the dim light and the strange cold feeling in the depths of her heart. The familiar sadness, the feeling of loneliness as she looked around the 'grave'.
The room is a large, open space that seems to encompass the entire area of the lower level, which seems to be divided into two parts by a small waist-high balustrade and a balcony on the right. Walking past the many intact bookshelves that lined the walls, she turned to look down at the railing to the left of the hole, a small staircase only two steps long separating the part she was now in from the part below. A dark metal pipe runs along the left wall and rises from the ceiling. In the center of the lower half is a large table covered with documents and scrolls. A circle of empty chairs surrounds it, and inside there are only forgotten memories.
She cautiously walked over, lifted the lantern too high, and looked at the table. The small wooden steps creaked under her weight, and outside the window, the wind was blowing, and the cool air currents seeped through the cracks into the forgotten room, caressing her skin, her hair standing on end as she looked at the table.
The documents were illegible, the ink on them had long since faded, and some were buried under the dust she didn't dare to bother. Drawings and doodles covered the parts she could see. Open books and marked pages can be found everywhere. But they don't seem to have any coherent meaning. Some of them are about esoteric topics such as starlight and spirituality. She also saw a record of the monsters in the dungeon, and hand-painted the appearance of the eight-story boss. The other appears to be just a children's picture book about an adventurous slime pretending to be human.
She walked up and down around the large table, looking up and counting chairs. "Six!". She noticed that one of them was set a little higher than the others, leaning against the wall. She saw that the other bookless space was filled with all sorts of strange statues, and something that particularly caught her eye, a tower of small barrels placed horizontally, stacked on top of each other. She tapped one carefully with her hand and heard the sound of emptiness inside.
Her eyes caught the many gadgets that filled the space. Tokens, forged proofs, figurines of people and creatures, one of which she recognized as a female elf. A few of her unrecognizable faces and sketches seemed blurry and worn, as if time had erased even these last depictions, blurring them like old, forgotten memories.
Lin Meng trembled, feeling the hair on the back of her neck stand on end, she tried to pull herself together and walked back to the small staircase, the middle part of the room was just an open floor with a carpet in the middle. A small table leaned against the far wall, under the window that she felt overlooked the square. The scene outside the window looks as if it was once held in high regard. The small "bench" under the window was covered with old pillows and blankets, as well as an old book. She walked quietly towards it, looking down at what was probably the last book anyone had ever read.
"About demons and the night sky!" The girl looked curiously at the heavy, old book, which had apparently been read many times, but did not dare touch it.
She pursed her lips, straightened up again, and looked to her left. She knows. "The devil is real." She wriggled her toes in her boots to make sure they weren't stolen, and she looked at the last thing she noticed. 'Stairs'. It was also short, and counting, she saw that there were nine single staircases in the center of the room, without railings, that led to a small internal balcony overlooking the vast open space.
Lin Meng quietly climbed the stairs and walked through the darkness, her body reflected in the blue light of the lantern, staring at the rooftop space above herself.
A single bed and a small dresser sit here. But even more interesting are the large sloping windows in the ceiling. Below is a huge, expensive telescope-like thing pointing to the sky above.
She looked over the railing into the space behind her, and if she had to give a definition of the whole space, it would be the team headquarters. She sees it as a place where they all meet, know each other, and live together. Judging by the kegs, books, and many trinkets, this is also where they relax and spend their free time together. This is where they collect their belongings and interests, only now the whole place looks like it has a locked door and never comes back.
She glanced at the binoculars and was interested in trying it out. But she didn't want to disturb the resting place anymore. Her gaze drifted to a desk, perhaps a diary or something.
She's seen enough. It's none of her business. No matter how curious she was about her friends and their past, nothing buried here was hers.
She nodded to herself and crept back to the hole, coming down with the lantern and recovering it with the plank. She extinguished the lantern, put it back on the shelf, and snuck back into her room, where she would sleep for at least a few more hours tonight.
Although she soon fell asleep, she was haunted by disturbing dreams, and she stared in horror into the distant night sky as she saw thousands of forgotten faces staring at her. The Daredevil descended on earth and came to capture her while she and her friends were sleeping.
Lin Meng rubbed her tired eyes and yawned while lying on the bed. The girl's back ached so hard that she didn't stretch anymore, she fell back on the bed, and let out a long breath.
After a while, the girl who endured the pain stood up and took a second deep breath of the morning air, she sat up straight and listened to the sounds of the outside world, which seemed especially loud today. The gurgling of the fountain, the excited sound of the first people to go to the dungeon. Lin Meng put on her robe and took a moment to make sure it was free of dust or dirt from her "adventure" last night.
Today she is not standing on the cold floor, but on the large carpet she bought. She smiled happily and wriggled her toes in the carpet. It proved that she had another safe night.
Lin Meng got up and walked to the door of her room, opened the door, and stretched her face into the hallway.
The cool morning breeze brushed through her skin, carrying with it some hearty food flavors. Her eyes lit up, she smelled the scent in the air, and looked down the hallway. The windows of the hallway were wide open, the curtains were opened, and the morning breeze blew in, accompanied by the chirping of birds and the chirping of cicadas as they had just woken. There was also a voice she couldn't discern. Summer has fully arrived, and it's getting warmer day by day.
It was still cool, especially in the morning, and she walked barefoot down the hallway towards the stairs.
"Jubilee?" Lin Meng shouted curiously.
"Good morning!" Jubilee responded: "I'm in the store!" ”
Her friend shouted from below. However, there seemed to be some drifting in his voice, and Lin Meng couldn't fully know his location. The girl walked down the stairs and watched the counter fill the table with a wide variety of food and drinks. Hot air came out of the cup.
"Jubilee ......?" Lin Meng rubbed her eyes, she yawned again, feeling the cool morning air caressing against her skin.
"I prepared breakfast today!" Jubilee said.
Lin Meng tilted his head and looked at his friends who were sorting out the crystal chicken. Jubilee wore his usual clothes, but bright blue that she had never seen. He apparently did not wear this very often, as there were hardly any tears and stains on the clothes, which was very unusual for a Jubilee dress. A withered pink flower pinned to the side of the hood, just next to the left ear. The clothes are weird......!
“…… It's exquisite! Lin Meng put her fingers on her chin and thought.
"What?" Jubilee looked back at her and asked.
"Ah, nothing!" The girl rubbed her hair, wondering why Jubilee liked to do it, as she watched him flip the crystal chicken again. But she decided not to ask, secretly deciding that she would only be interested in what they had to do in the future.
"You're up so early!" The girl also looked at the open window below and said, "I like your clothes." ”
"Thank you!" As Jubilee's voice rang out, he continued to fiddle with the crystal chicken. Lin Meng finally realized what it was.
Lin Meng looked at her friend's back in surprise. Her gaze moved over the open window, to the food on the counter, and then to Jubilee, who was dressed in clean, well-groomed clothes and wearing a flower. The girl's brain processes what she sees, but doesn't quite figure out what the hell is going on. She suddenly rushed at her friend, grabbed Jubilee and screamed.
"Jubilee!" She leaned over and said, "Are you sick?" Need me to go to Basil?! She put her hand on Jubilee's mask to check his temperature: "You're so cold! ”
He didn't yell at her except for Jubilee Nian, he just tilted his head and shook her hand away from his head.
Lin Meng jumped up, pointed at him and said, "Stay here!" I'll be right back! The girl got up and ran out.
"Are you stupid?" Jubilee asked. "I'm fine."
"Jubilee~" Lin Meng whimpered while looking at his friend worriedly.
Jubilee sighed and loosened her robe as he walked to the counter: "Can we have breakfast first?" I'm starving to death and I've been here smelling it all the time. He looked back at her again: "Put on your socks, no one wants to see your stinky feet!" ”
Lin Meng looked down at her feet, twisted her toes a few times, and then turned to Jubilee: "My feet don't stink!" Yours is the stinky foot! Lin Meng crossed her arms in protest.
Jubilee sighed, prepared a plate for himself, and sat down behind the counter. Lin Meng tilted her head curiously and looked at her friend.
"Are you coming?" Jubilee asked.
She smiled, and it seemed that Jubilee had prepared a plate for herself as well, and then sat down on the other side of the counter. "Jubilee?"
"What?"
"I'm glad you're in a good mood today. Thank you for the breakfast! ”
Jubilee just grunted, and Lin Meng considered asking Jubilee about the upstairs area, even if it was just a few words. But she was afraid that Jubilee would be angry with her, even if he was particularly cheerful today for some reason. Maybe it's his birthday? Well...... She didn't think so. She quietly began to eat breakfast, and although she was not too hungry, seeing the busyness of the early morning of the Jubilee, she decided to give Jubilee the repetition respect.
"I have an idea!"
Lin Meng took a sip of hot tea and listened.
"Do you think you can make something normal?"
"Normal stuff?" Lin Meng asked curiously.
"Yes! You know, like tools? Hammer or scissors or saw. Or something else, like a cup, bowl, or bag? ”
Lin Meng thought for a while: "Uh...... I think so! But do adventurers need those things? ”
"Not everyone is an adventurer, stupid! All sorts of weird, creepy things you make. Only adventurers want that kind of thing. But if we have something normal, we can also appeal to ordinary people! He explained: "This is the market share that we are ignoring right now!" The sound of tearing bread came from behind the counter.
"Yes, I think I can do it!" Lin Meng responded while thinking about what kind of things are considered "normal".
Soon after, Basil came in, and the woman's eyes widened as she stared at the still large amount of food on the counter. She did her best to ignore these and got to work after greeting them both. Jubilee gets up from behind the counter and puts on his mask again, Basil stares at Jubilee with pink flowers on his head in amazement.
"You only have three seconds to get to work, or you'll be fired!" Jubilee said expressionlessly.
Basil yelled, walked around the counter, grabbed the ledger and prepared for the day. Lin Meng also got up, leaned against the counter, whispered to Basil, and pushed the plate towards the woman.
"Eat quickly, Basil. Jubilee is in a good mood today! ”
The girl winked at the priestess, and Basil looked at the temptation in front of her, her tense body relaxing slightly.
Lin Meng returned upstairs and began to refine his new idea. She also wants to renovate the pantry today to keep rats out. She doesn't think there's a refrigerator here. But if there's some kind of ice magic or something like that?
The girl shouted from the stairs. "Basil?"
"What's the matter?" The priestess asked, holding a sweet loaf of bread in her mouth.
"Are there ice monsters in the dungeon?"
The priestess swallowed the food in her mouth, then thought for a moment: "I think there are, but they should be deeper in the dungeon." I've heard about it near the thirty-second floor. ”
"Thirty-two? It's really deep. She sighed, estimating that anything that fell from them would be precious.
"Basil?"
"What?" Even in the face of the unkind eyes of the Jubilee year, the woman bravely picked up the second loaf of bread.
"How deep is the dungeon?" Lin Meng asked.
"It is said that there are a hundred floors. As far as I know, all dungeons are the same. ”
"Oh!" Lin Meng nodded and said, "Thank you, Basil!" ”
Basil smiled and nodded, taking the third from the plate. Lin Meng tilted her head and looked at the woman who gobbled up, did she like food and money very much? The girl scratched her cheeks. She wondered if these were bad qualities for the priestess?
Shrugging her shoulders helplessly, she walked into the pantry, trying not to look at the wooden planks in the corner of the ceiling, and she stared at the rest of the room for a few minutes, trying to come up with a foolproof idea.
"Hey!" Jubilee suddenly spoke from the side.
"Ahh Faced with the sudden appearance of his friend, Lin Meng screamed and waved his arms: "I didn't do anything!" ”
Jubilee tilted her head and looked at the girl standing in the pantry. "Of course? I can see it. Listen,, just came in with a guard. ”
"Guards?" The girl asked.
"Yes, guards? You know? The guards in the city? ”
Lin Meng wasn't sure he had seen such a person before. Guardsman? The gate of the front square is always open and unguarded.
"You see, I expected it a long time ago, they just ordered the lanterns."
"Great!" Lin Meng clenched her fists excitedly, "How much do they want?" ”
"Three hundred!"
The room was quiet.
"Huh?" The girl asked, not sure if she had heard correctly.
"Three hundred!" Jubilee shrugged and repeated.
"Jubilee~! That's a lot! ”
Jubilee nodded and said, "Indeed," but immediately he lowered his head again and said fiercely: "Due to the large number of orders, the price they pay is also 10% lower than the retail price." ”
"When will it be delivered?" The girl asked nervously, looking around the storeroom.
They didn't even have the materials to make so many lanterns. It takes her a long time to make so much, especially since she also has to craft other items. And where did they store so many lanterns at the same time? The pantry is too small.
"They want to get them before the end of summer."
"Huh?" Lin Meng was surprised to hear Jubilee talk about it.
"Harvest Moon? You idiot. You don't know? When does the moon turn orange in late summer? There's still a lot of time. If you do a few more each night, we should be able to put them aside, which is a great opportunity for us. ”
"Really?"
"Of course!" Jubilee said as if this were the most obvious thing in the world: "Ignore the fact that we make a lot of cash from sales." If the guards would order, then the church would be next. He crumpled the letter in his hand and threw it into a corner, "We're going to have a busy summer!" So get yourself some short-sleeved overalls, it's hot here. He looked down at her and was barefoot: "Put on your shoes." ”
Lin Meng narrowed her eyes and muttered, twisting her toes in protest at the Jubilee.