A few hours had passed since the skirmish with the golem.
Inside their makeshift hideout on the 95th floor, Shin emerged from the bath, finally free of the foul odor of monster brain matter.
The hot spring was a proud creation, trademarked and endorsed by a certain vampire princess who was currently sitting in the corner facing the wall.
She was wearing a wooden board sign around her neck that read:
[ I promise not to peek at Shin again. This time for sure!! ]
She certainly hadn't created the bath with a plan to sneak a peek and join him.
Such an act would be wonderful—ahem, shameful—for a former princess herself.
And it definitely wasn't because Shin had caught her red-handed and sentenced her to a timeout to have a conversation with Mr. Wall.
Definitely not!
"Well, well, if it isn't our peeking vampire princess,"
Shin teased.
"Ughh…."
Yue tensed and trembled after hearing her new title as Shin approached her while putting on his clean clothes.
"How's Mr. Wall doing?"
He added, sitting at his temporary workbench in an amused manner.
"Hmph~ Mr. Wall said Shin is a meanie and a sensitive idiot for refusing a noble lady's approach,"
Yue replied, pouting with deep dissatisfaction.
"Sigh... Seems like you still need to talk with Mr. Wall about ladies possessing something called decency,"
Shin muttered while carving a new wooden signboard for this esteemed "Lady" to wear.
"Hmph!!! I have decency, Shin!! It's called decency to approach a sensitive, idiot young man called Shin, who is all tsun-tsun but no dere!!!"
Yue protested to this "heartless meanie" Shin while still facing the wall.
"Sigh... You're really a hopeless, peeking-pervert vampire princess and a self-proclaimed lady."
Shin let out another sigh while rubbing his temples.
Giving up on curing Yue's antics for the night, he decided to just let her continue her conversation with Mr. Wall's rocky surface. He replaced the wooden signboard on Yue's neck with a new one that read:
[ I, the hopeless peeking-pervert vampire princess and self-proclaimed lady, Yue, should relearn what decency means!! ]
'This grudge I will remember, Shin!!! Be prepared to be drained of your blood every day!!!'
Those were the thoughts currently running in her head.
Pouting, she felt not a single shred of remorse for what she had done previously, and would likely do it again.
"Shin!! You're really a heartless-sensitive-idiot-meanie!!!"
Yue tried to protest her title getting new additions, but her complaints went in one ear and out the other as Shin turned his attention to cooking dinner.
For ingredients, he used a few strange plants collected from the previous floor, some reptilian meat for Yue, and the flesh he had retrieved from the golem's carcass for himself.
He decided on a stew and a roast for Yue.
For the golem meat, he barbecued it over the fire, seasoning it with salt and a pepper-like plant he had found on the upper floors.
With the ingredients ready, Shin proceeded to do what he always liked doing: cooking meals for himself and the people close to him.
A few minutes later, Yue was finally freed from her "educational" conversation with Mr. Wall.
She gleefully skipped over to Shin, joining him for dinner as if nothing had happened.
This girl really didn't learn her lesson, huh, Shin thought, sighing silently as he served Yue her dinner.
The two had their usual dinner, though this time Yue continuously pouted at Shin, who was more absorbed in trying the new golem meat that had increased his strength again.
After Shin finished his chores—making monster jerky, replenishing some tools using monster materials, and his daily [meditation]—the two finally went to bed, with Yue snuggling next to Shin as usual.
And so, the day finally ended.
**********************************************
Recalling their journey through the previous floors, Shin and Yue could confidently say that it had been somewhat "fun" and uneventful.
This smooth sailing was mainly due to Yue's enhanced physique and her massive magic reserves, which had nearly doubled.
Her growth was heavily boosted by her continuous partaking of Shin's "delectable blood"—as she called it—which provided her with a highly efficient method of magic recovery.
Shin's power, strength, speed, and overall physique had also improved.
From Floor 75 to the current Floor 95, his strength had nearly tripled from eating monster meat, especially from bosses or unique variants.
Thanks to the monster meat being prepared with his obsidian knife which grant some special recovery effect, his natural recovery speed had skyrocketed allowing him to train more without physically tiring.
Furthermore, by utilizing his mysterious tools, he could easily bypass the defenses of most monsters and floor bosses.
With Shin wearing down the monsters and Yue overwhelming them with her enhanced magic, the two easily brute-forced their way down to the current floor.
On certain floors, however, Shin purposely refrained from using his mysterious weapons.
He opted for his self-crafted gear instead, using the opportunity to hone his techniques and adapt to his rapidly increasing strength.
Yue did the same, developing her magic even further while being forced—ahem, reluctantly volunteering—to participate in some of Shin's spartan training.
She even created several convenient daily-life spells, such as magic to manifest a hot spring bath, water for Shin to clean and prepare food, and a hairdryer spell.
She also experimented with ice magic, creating ice weapons, structures and statues.
Shin was thoroughly impressed by this, though he lamented the lack of sugar or sweet fruits to make simple desserts.
'Heck, there aren't even any eggs here. How do bird and reptilian monsters propagate here? Do they just respawn from some magic circle because it's a fantasy world?'
Shin pondered. In truth, his theory wasn't far from reality.
Shin, meanwhile, developed a couple of strange combat styles he named the [Unnamed Sword] series and the [Kitchen Works] knife techniques.
The former was designed for massive brute-force attacks, while the latter was optimized for precise dissecting movements using a knife.
Additionally, the mysterious energy he felt resonating within Yue kept getting stronger day by day.
Unfortunately, he still couldn't directly interact with it yet, only sense it.
For now, its only practical use was to trace Yue, which allowed him to detect her "Lady Approaches" even when she concealed herself with advanced magic that his natural senses could otherwise barely perceive.
Of course he kept this thing a secret just to mess with Yue.
And his connection to this energy seems get better when he medidate, so he also incorporating that to this daily training.
And also meditating also help to ease his mind from Yue's periodical antics.
Yes indeed, many "fun" yet uneventful things had happened.
The only true anomaly they had faced was a creature that could counter and reflect magic: the rock-crystal golem.
But even that formidable monster was now just a carcass with a hollowed-out head and missing chunks of meat—certainly the doing of the white-haired human—left to sizzle in a pool of lava after having its brain completely scraped out.