Hajime was very glad that he had altered his load out; the damn swarms were a pain!
With all his powders adjusted to work in an airy water environment and given a little more power; the heat and small shockwave from his flash powder were now enough to deal with swaths of the various tiny creatures that attacked them, often in the midst of dealing with more visible enemies.
His group also quickly learned to give themselves as much space as possible when dodging the sea urchins' spines; no one wanted to find out if this particular spine was one of the special surprises.
The sheer variety they faced in this zone was exhausting and Hajime quickly gave up keeping track of how many variant species of aggressive fish there were. Sharks with turtle shells and zippy fish with hard, sharp-edged fins; if Hajime didn't know that there was an older core at work here, he'd be actively concerned for the core's sanity.
Most nexuses would have only a little bit of experience with the outside world by now and they generally didn't start showing this much creativity until later. A young spiritual nexus mixing things up this much was more likely to be having trouble with keeping track of reality than being creative. In theory at least; he'd only ever encountered one truly insane dungeon-nexus during his travels, so he did not have a lot of reference points. The rest of his knowledge was more academic.
Of course, this wasn't exactly proof that the cores were sane either. A sea angel choir, really? Though the choir part might have been independent innovation, the inhabitants here clearly had their own minds.
The overall tactics weren't anything new in the world; heavily armored squads to prevent advancement, ranged and skirmishing squads to weaken the delvers, support staff for healing and enhancement magic, stealthy squads to attack either when their guard was down or when they were distracted.
He was just glad that they were facing only small groups designed to present a challenge. This was a situation where an invading army's numbers would be an active hindrance as they would find it hard to deal with the smaller creatures swarming between the soldiers.
A normal delving party had room to maneuver and separate as needed. An army would face constant harassment and bombardment from a more maneuverable foe. That sounded like a nightmare.
Most dungeon or tower type nexuses were only starting to explore more open zones at this point, given the lure of the more direct power of growing more zones. Something as complex as an ocean zone with multiple story-based paths was pretty much unheard of.
Hajime's party had made their way across over half the zone when they came upon an unusual scene. There was a small, oddly designed boat lying on the ocean floor, cracked in half with its contents spilled out, and seven small figures were arguing with each other about whose fault this was.
A few thoughts conflicted for mental space at the same time.
One of them was a complaint about throwing in a non-combat challenge when they were supposed to be focusing on fighting.
Then there were his mixed feelings about the clear evidence that Li had been here at some point. The upside was that it spoke well of Mordecai's mental health (relative to normal at least), the downside was that it meant that Hajime had to cope with the results.
The little ratling had definitely been spending time here at some point given the faint aura of chaos around the ratlings dressed like pirates.
Pie Rats? Really? Hajime didn't blame Li for the pun, he had a good idea who was at fault for that part.
For the brief moments that these thoughts tumbled through Hajime's head, his teammates were watching the tableau with confusion, which meant no one had acted. Good. "Hey, be careful. I don't think this is supposed to be about fighting them. Which means that if you start a fight, it's going to be much harder than a normal fight would be, and probably give an absolute minimal amount of rewards."
When the others looked at him, Hajime shrugged and said, "If it looked like a rescue mission for us, I would be concerned about a trap, though it could also be an extra challenge to protect the 'helpless' person. This feels more like a greed trap; you get rewards for being well-behaved and punished for being greedy. There's only so much leeway in rewards, so there's probably some work involved, but we might get indirect benefits as well, and the cores can always pull from traded supplies instead of mana crafted rewards."
That earned him some speculative looks from the group, and one of them said, "You seem pretty familiar with the workings of a nexus." The group's curiosity about this now was fairly natural; he hadn't needed to provide such detailed information before.
Hajime laughed softly and said, "Yes, I am somewhat familiar with them, through several different types of experiences, but I am not going to tell my history right now. Maybe after the tournament as I don't really want to get into it before then."
They had all been working together for a while, so the group accepted his silence on the subject and turned to dealing with the situation in front of them.
After a brief discussion, the party decided to have their gnomish mage lead the part when they approached the seven squabbling ratling pirates, with the intent of letting her do most of the talking. She was cute and didn't appear threatening, which made for a good start.
Each of the ratlings had a different story and insisted on telling their version of events and the situation soon broke down to everyone paired with a different pirate to get their story and help calm the ratlings down. Hajime's party quickly figured out that knowing the stories was mostly irrelevant, beyond finding a way to get them to stop squabbling.
This was also when Hajime was inflicted with the knowledge of the seven ratling's names, each a different sort of pie beginning with the letter c. He added it to his list of 'grievances' to air later.
After that, it was time to help the ratlings figure out how to recover their treasure and boat. Well, the boat was a lost cause as a boat, but it could be broken down into some large components and remade into a rather haphazard sled, and the party's alchemist was able to combine some of her supplies with other materials in the treasure hoard to create a coating for the sled's bottom that made it much smoother and easier to pull.
That took a little over half a day to get ready and loaded. At the end, Big Cheese insisted upon a ceremony where he bestowed each of them with gifts in thanks for their services. It was naturally overblown and the speeches were far too long for the situation, but Hajime had to admit it was rather entertaining.
He was also pleased with his gift; it was a long and billowing cloak much like the one he already had, but woven out of what appeared to be a blend of enhanced spider silk and metallic fibers. It wasn't currently enchanted, but that was fine by him. Hajime didn't intend to recreate his current cloak anyway, which meant that he could get other enchantments laid on this incredible garment.
While he wasn't intending to stress test it, he was pretty certain that even without magic it was tougher than most enchanted cloaks. He couldn't ask for a better foundation.
Once they had received their gifts and the ratlings had left, it was time for another discussion.
"Alright," Hajime said, "it's now rather late. I think we could finish this today, but it is getting darker and we are all a little tired, so it is a bigger risk. However, we don't have a designated safe area either, so finding a way to camp out for the evening has its own risks. Unless anyone has other ideas, we need to pick one of those two soon." Having internal day/night cycles matched so perfectly to the outside world had been strange to Hajime until he realized that the crystal tree and its roots were the regulator for the light, amplifying sun, moon, and starlight. He rather approved of that touch, but he might be biased on that count.
After some discussion, they decided to press on for now but to reevaluate before taking on the boss.
Their next fight started off with a rather dramatic sinkhole collapse that left the party pulling themselves together at the same time that other creatures were 'recovering' from the staged event.
Some of their foes were to be expected, such as the eels and crabs that had presumably been hiding in the sands nearby. Others were less expected; there were several different slime creatures that were usually supposed to be encountered in the sewer path. But there was nothing saying they couldn't be encountered elsewhere, and this was still within their capabilities to handle so it wasn't unfair either.
It was a tough fight though, given how it started and how late into the day they were. Slicing off a constricting electric eel was tricky, and painful. There was no way to make the cut without being briefly exposed to the shock and that also created the issue of making sure a muscle spasm didn't thrust your sword into your ally.
The post-battle recovery and exploration gained them several reagents that made the alchemist happy along with some other valuable materials. It also revealed the entrance to a large cave. Hajime scouted the cave briefly only to find it empty of any threats.
It was, however, rather conveniently shaped and sized, curving to create a sheltered dead end that was wide enough to be a comfortable spot for a large group of people. When he reported his findings to the rest of the party, a little merfolk pixie swam down and greeted them with a wave.
"Hi there! The boss lady wants to let you know that yes, that is a safe space, but only if you claim it now. Once you guys leave the area, she's going to reset it and it takes having another fight like that one to be able to access it again. Oh! She also says that you are the first people she's had test this idea and she likes how it turned out, so she's probably going to use it again in the future. Thank you for being her testers!"
"Thank you," Hajime said to the pixie, who beamed at him happily. Then he spoke to the rest of his group and said, "I think we should take her up on this offer."
The conversation was very brief and they all agreed to settle in for the night at the temporary campsite. The little pixie mermaid stayed with them for the night, saying that her presence would make sure there were no mistakes by other inhabitants.
All of this was rather nice, but it also made Hajime rather suspicious, given the sort of 'special treatment' they'd been receiving because of Betty's favoritism. But those suspicions were for the events to come on the next day; he trusted that the nexus's promise of a safe space was good and enjoyed a solid night's sleep.
Hajime's suspicions proved well founded; the path out of the sinkhole led to a gentler slope down that wound its way into a wide canyon whose walls were pockmarked with caves. It looked far too large for a normal fight, and they had been given the opportunity to fully rest up, which had Hajime considering the worst-case scenario that would still be considered fair.
Two large, tentacled forms descended down into the canyon in a slow, graceful spiral, giving the delving group plenty of time to take in that they were facing both a kraken and a giant jellyfish with eight crystal eyes decorating the outer edge of her bell.
A double boss fight, on the final zone before the core.
There were downsides to having the nexus's favor. Well, Betty's favor and the nexus's cooperation. Personally, Hajime thought it was worth it, but he was also getting more out of the situation than the people who were casting evil looks in his direction.
"Well, this should make for a dramatic showdown. How much do you want to bet that notes will be taken for use in plays later?" Kazue did have a bit of a reputation regarding her love of creating stories in the dungeon. He was rather looking forward to meeting her.
After some appropriate grumbling and griping, they settled in for their hardest battle yet.