Since we were on floor 11, the difficulty would naturally increase compared to the previous levels. The thing I noticed most was that the treasures were much, much more difficult to obtain. There were many traps, and they were often placed before obvious treasure. Some of these traps were very insidious. If I didn’t have the detect trap ability, I wouldn’t have noticed them at all. Many were extremely vicious, triggering moments before you could get the item.

A few were even impossible to bypass, making the item you wish to obtain a dream. The only thing that seemed more insidious than the traps were the quality of the items. Horrific traps were often where they put the best items. Rare ingredients. Magic Weapons. That kind of thing. Even knowing that the treasure couldn’t be obtained, I still had to gnash my teeth to turn away.

Had I not already obtained so much wealth from the siren, I might have genuinely already fallen to temptation. Well, the girls were helping too. They remained honest with me. When we could extract the treasure safely, they would let me know. When it was impossible, they were honest about that as well. This was definitely a dungeon of temptation and very true to that theme.

The monsters on this level were hidden, but they were two types of insects. If you attacked them, they’d run and try to lure you into traps. Otherwise, they were quite weak and harmless. When we had killed one instantly, we found that the insect had a special carapace that was used by blacksmiths. Supposedly, it was a good medium for blacksmiths to use when training to become magic blacksmiths. It used a bit of magic, but when compared to the likes of orichalcum or mithril, it was much more affordable.

I decided to collect as much of this as we could. “Should we clear this floor?”

By that, I meant using the monster attractant as we had done in the past. The girls gave a nod and we found a spot to prepare. Terra created some barriers. Lydia and Shao prepared their weapons. Miki readied herself. With that, Celeste sent the scent as far as she could. This dungeon wasn’t as large as the one in Dirage, so it wasn’t long before insects started coming out way.

“Ah… this is scary.” My face went white. “This was a bad decision; I see that now.”

I was looking at the map, and more and more life signs were filling the corridors around us. The crawling noises of innumerable insects were clicking away in the darkness and echoing through countless corridors. The girls all began to sweat as the sounds grew closer and closer. At this point, all I could see was a flood of red coming in our direction. Insects, even the ones the size of small dogs, were not like goblins. Their numbers were extreme.

“Prepare yourself!” I cried out.

Insects flooded around the corner. They were covering every wall, including the ceiling, and were in such a quantity that they looked more like a flood than a stampede.

I had made a mistake. This was the dungeon of temptation, after all. If you succumbed to temptation, it might very well take your life! I had gotten greedy and complacent, and now we were in trouble.