Girl in the Box: Please tell me why I was reincarnated as a mimic monster!

"Eh...you are, a summoner?" Li saw a rather intriguing term.

"Oh! A summoner!?" Adventurer Sodom immediately realized, "Impressive! A summoner! Such people are very rare. As expected of Akihabara, it gathers all kinds of talents. My decision was definitely right."

"Save your breath. Don't we know what you outsiders think of Akihabara?" Lau said sarcastically.

"No, no, no." Sodom was not angry at all, but quickly waved his hands to explain, "Although I don't know what other people think, this is the first time I've learned about Akihabara. I have a few companions who often talk to me about Akihabara. They often go to Akihabara and often introduce me to some good shops."

“…Hmph.” Lau Liu didn’t believe his one-sided story and snorted coldly.

"Alright, alright, you two, stop arguing in front of the ambassador." Qing Kong smiled wryly and acted as a peacemaker. "Besides, Lao Liu, isn't it a good thing that someone recognizes our Akihabara?"

"Hmph, let's just say that's how it is."

Laurie snorted again, indicating that she didn't want to discuss the topic anymore. Rin was a little troubled by the situation. Akihabara's reputation had always been problematic; while people in Akihabara generally didn't care much about these things, they would be somewhat resistant when outsiders brought them up, after all, everyone has their pride.

Akihabara, once considered a problem area, only gained recognition after proving its strength through its own efforts. Anyone would feel a bit disgusted by such attempts to get close to it.

This is also a major issue that will need to be addressed when the nation is established in the future: the external public opinion.

"Speaking of which, what kind of profession is a summoner?" Hek asked frankly, not knowing much about these things.

“Summoners are people who form contracts with their summoned creatures and command them to fight.” Rie found out the knowledge Nao had taught her. “I remember that you can contract with many summoned creatures at the same time, right? Because the way you fight is determined by the summoned creatures you contract, and there are many kinds of summoned creatures, the way summoners fight is very diverse.”

"Wow, Ambassador, how do you know so much about this?"

"I was slightly surprised that the ambassador knows so much about this."

"And...there's nothing wrong with what I said..."

"Waaah, how do you all view me?! Even though I've studied hard!"

The five of them stared at Li in disbelief, as if they were looking at something incredibly strange. Li couldn't help but wonder what had happened to her public image. She felt as if she had been unknowingly labeled as a naive and innocent character, and she needed to correct this image as soon as possible.

"Ahem, I only have a general understanding of Summoners," Li explained. "My understanding of Summoners comes from one person, and I don't really know what kind of people Summoners are. Of course, it's normal to find it strange when you see one... I only just discovered that there are such people among the guards in Akihabara."

"oh oh……"

All five of them clapped in unison. Hey, hey, hey, I'm really going to get angry!

"And..." Ignoring their applause, she continued the previous topic, "Shiokawa, why can't I sense any magic from you?"

"Huh? No magic power?!"

Sodom also showed a very surprised expression. This person was probably not the Cloud Adventurer. Putting him aside for the moment, Li's current level was not high enough to sense magic power. The reason she said this was because she could not see any blue bar, or MP bar, on Shiokawa's body in her magic eyes, and she could not see anything similar to an MP bar, which was why she asked about it.

"Ah... well... actually, it's a bit complicated to explain..." Shiokawa tossed aside his unsightly hair, looking somewhat troubled. "Ah, how about this... I'll explain it to you while I'm typing..."

Warning: A monster is approaching.

As Shiokawa finished speaking, Ri's Mystic Eyes also displayed the same message. She quickly learned the monster's location; she could see the red marker representing the monster on the minimap rapidly approaching and entering her field of vision.

It was a huge rolling stone completely engulfed in flames.

Monster: Meteorite Spirit.

Level: lv.371! ?

This level surprised Li, as it was the first time she had ever seen a monster of such a high level. Shiokawa then unleashed his summoning spell.

"Summon! Knight King—!"

Chapter 12 Maze Exploration / Theory (2)

Whoa... what is this...?!

As soon as he finished speaking, a unique magical circle appeared in front of Shiokawa. He seemed to have seen this magical circle somewhere before, but he couldn't remember where it was.

"I have come at your summons—I will become your sword!"

A large mass of air began to gather on the magic circle in front of Shiokawa, gradually transforming into a majestic, crowned, blond youth. The Magic Eye immediately displayed the youth's information, and Riku was startled upon seeing it.

Summoning Target: King Arthur Pendragon

Level: lv.79

Attributes: Wind, Water; Weapon: Excalibur.

The following data left Li speechless: divinity, dragon attribute, and a whole bunch of other random skills and settings—the sense of déjà vu was so strong… Speaking of which, Shiokawa's name is…

Because we've been communicating in the language of this other world for so long, I hadn't noticed this at all. Since the pronunciation was slightly different, I completely forgot about it. What's going on with this world?! Isn't this basically a complete copy?!

Facing the charging fire spirit, Arthur, gripping his unseen sword, remained silent, intently watching the fire spirit transform into a shooting star. Shiokawa approached King Arthur from behind, joining him in confronting the monster.

"Arthur, please," Shiokawa pleaded.

"Understood, my swordsman."

Arthur dispersed the gale that was swirling around his sword, and the gale immediately transformed into a sharp sword aura that swept out. The compressed gale struck the meteorite spirit's hard body, scattering all the flames. Arthur lowered his body, then took a step forward, his holy sword flashing past, and with overwhelming power, he split the meteorite spirit's stone body in two.

Snapped!

With a crisp cracking sound, the Meteorite Spirit's body exploded, the immense magical power contained within its stone form instantly transforming into a powerful blast. What the others had assumed would be the end of it all, had turned out to be an unexpected turn of events; the Meteorite Spirit was now like a supercharged fragmentation grenade.

Furthermore, given its explosive force within the confined space of a maze, its destructive power would undoubtedly increase dramatically, potentially even collapsing the passage entirely. However…

"Wind King Barrier".

Arthur plunged his holy sword into the ground, creating a barrier of gale-force winds that completely compressed the explosive force until it dissipated. Thanks to him, there were no problems…

"Wow, that was amazing..." Sodom was stunned by the battle just now.

He was an A-rank adventurer who joined the exploration team, but his main task wasn't combat, as those tasks were handled by others. To be honest, when he saw the Meteorite Spirit, he hadn't even clearly seen its form before the battle began, and by the time he came to his senses, the battle was already over.

"So this is what a summoner is like..." Lau Liu looked bewildered. "Hmm...pretty amazing, right..."

"Oh, so this is summoning." Hek said expressionlessly.

Qing Kong said nothing, simply watching from the sidelines. None of the three showed any surprise, as if they were used to it. Only Sodom was extremely excited to have witnessed the power of a summoner firsthand, while Li, on the other hand, had a subtle feeling of being speechless.

Because everything before his eyes had a strong sense of déjà vu in every sense of the word, though this wasn't about the meteor spirits. But after the meteor spirits were destroyed, the Knight King instantly turned into golden light and disappeared. Oh no, this scene really did have a very strong sense of déjà vu. He tried hard to convince himself not to take it too seriously.

"Hey, where did he go?" Lau Liu searched everywhere for the Knight King.

"Uh... well, actually, it's like this." Shiokawa said somewhat embarrassedly, "The reason why we summoners don't have magic power is because if we make a contract with a summoned creature, we need to share our magic power with the other party to maintain its existence. Moreover, this contract can only be used three times a day, and it would be a waste to use it for some unimportant things... I just used it once to defeat the monster."

“I see…” Li nodded in sudden understanding. “Oh, I see. No wonder I didn’t sense any magic power… The Knight King is indeed very strong. He’s only level 70 and he can defeat a level 300 Meteorite Spirit… He truly deserves the title of Knight King…”

"Huh?" Shiokawa was stunned for a moment. "Ambassador, how did you know? I haven't told anyone about the Knight King's rank... and..."

"This meteorite spirit is actually level 300!?"

"Ugh, you're so noisy, you brat!"

Their attention was clearly focused on the level of the meteor spirit that Li mentioned. Level 300. Even the people of Akihabara, who had a very vague concept of levels, could roughly estimate the strength of that kind of monster. Moreover, they had indeed faced such a monster just now and survived unscathed. Was that monster really level 300?

“Yes, that’s right,” Li nodded. “To be precise, it’s above level 300, close to level 400.”

"Oh my god... thank goodness I summoned the Knight King..."

After confirming the level of the Meteorite Spirit, Shiokawa couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. It was a monster close to level 400. If she hadn't summoned the Knight King, she might not have been able to win, let alone deal with the subsequent explosions. Just thinking about it now sends chills down her spine.

"These things... you can tell just by looking at them, right?" Rin deliberately acted as if it were a matter of course to cover it up.

"Eh... what kind of skill does the ambassador have..." Sodom asked curiously, "To be able to see other people's levels, this is the first time I've ever heard of such a rare skill..."

"It's probably...not a skill..." Rin guiltily looked away, "It seems like...an innate ability..."

"I see. You truly are worthy of being an ambassador."

“Since he’s the ambassador, it makes sense…”

"That's an amazing skill..."

Li spoke in a way that was half true and half false, and no one doubted him. They accepted it all. Being believed in like this, Li felt inexplicably belittled.

"Instead of that, why don't you go see if there's anything usable?" Li reminded them. "The meteor spirit is definitely dead, let's go check."

"Oh right, this guy's a Meteorite Spirit!" Sodom clapped his hands in sudden realization. "Everyone, come help us out! This thing must have a lot of useful things in it! Meteorite Iron, Burning Stone! Wow, we've struck it rich!!"

"Oh! Really?! Meteorite iron!?" "Really? I heard it's a metal with good ductility." "By the way, do we even need metal right now?"

Reminded by Li, the four immediately ran towards the corpse of the Meteorite Sprite, or more accurately, the large pile of fragments it left behind after its death. The drops from the Meteorite Sprite were actually quite good; meteorite iron was a widely used metal in this world, but its production was scarce, with supply falling short of demand. What to do with it later depended on future plans.

As for the firestone, it's essentially a stone containing fire-attribute magic, capable of generating considerable heat. It's actually quite good as a fire source, but it can't be used for lighting. Also, the surface temperature of the stone rises rapidly when activated, and when it melts, it means the magic power is depleted. Speaking of which… it could actually be used to build a bathhouse…

Rie started to have some ideas. Building a bathhouse was actually a pretty good idea. Although Rie had never been to a bathhouse before, she really wanted to give it a try. The standard of living in this world wasn't high, and if they wanted to change things, they had to start with small things. Akihabara's usual sanitation and cleaning were done by the river, and bathing was only once every week or two. Very few people cared about such things, and Rie wanted to use this opportunity to reward everyone after their strenuous work.

Let's look into this later... If we use flammable stones as a heat source for the bathhouse, the heat will be guaranteed, and it's also environmentally friendly. But how long will one flammable stone last? How many flammable stones did this meteor spirit drop? Will we encounter monsters like this again in the future? These are all questions to consider... Of course, these can also be solved with magic, but using magic would feel like making a mountain out of a molehill, and not everyone can casually cast a complete magic circle like Ning.

Furthermore, if magic is used, the magic power consumption of the magic circle is also a significant problem. Using an electrical box to supply magic power is one solution, but that would not solve the problem of excessive magic power consumption, since the magic power permeating the air is not infinite.

"Ambassador, what are you thinking about?" Shiokawa asked while keeping a watchful eye on their surroundings.

"Hmm? Oh... I was thinking about something." Rin made a note of these things for the time being. "Speaking of which, you can only use summoning spells three times a day, right? Isn't that still quite dangerous?"

“Well, my situation is a little different,” Shiokawa said with a wry smile. “The magic power used to summon creatures is not all of it. Normal summoners usually only summon one or two creatures and then learn some defensive magic. But I’m different because I’ve summoned nine creatures, so all my magic power is stored in them.”

“Nine…” Li nodded. “That does make sense…”

In fact, Li's focus was not on strength, but on the number of contracts.

Nine? ...That doesn't seem quite right from what I remember...Shouldn't it be seven? Wait, wait, wait, I'm getting confused about strange things again.

After a while, the four of them returned with bags full of materials and props, their faces beaming with smiles.

"Ambassador, Ambassador! What a bountiful harvest!" Lau Liu exclaimed excitedly as soon as she arrived. "There's a whole bag full of Burning Stones! No wonder it's a Meteor Spirit that's almost level 400! It's amazing how many it dropped!"

Looking at the huge bag of burning stones on Lauru's back, I estimate it must weigh at least ten kilograms... Lauru was able to lift it with one hand so easily. Is it really worthy of this other world, or are the people in Akihabara just too abnormal?

“There’s quite a bit of meteorite iron too.” Qing Kong showed Li a large bag, “Although not as much as burning stone.”

"Wow, there are so many..." Shiokawa covered his mouth in surprise.

"Hey..." Li said with a wry smile, "Well, it's a good start, but you have to remember that we can't take everything when we come out to explore. Our strength is limited, so we can only bring back a little of each kind. We don't need to take everything."

When playing dungeon exploration games, you'll often encounter situations where your inventory space is insufficient because there are so many dropped items. Therefore, you usually only select the necessary and needed items to put in your inventory. The same applies to exploring this maze. You can't bring everything back home. Besides, the main thing they need to do when they go out is to search for any remaining resource points in the maze.

"Ah...that's true..."

The four who noticed this showed some regret, but let's have some fanservice here.

"Ha... I just can't do anything with you guys." Rin held out her hand. "Give it to me, I'll hold it for you."

"Then please."

The three Akihabara residents handed the bags to Ri without hesitation, while Sodom, the adventurer, was somewhat bewildered. He wondered how such a task could be left to a woman. But the next second, he changed his mind.

The three bags disappeared in a flash of silver light as soon as they landed in Li's hands. Li didn't seem to be carrying anything with any difficulty. What happened? What's going on?

"What's wrong?" Li glanced at him. "Aren't you going to give it to me?"

"Uh, no... well..."

Sodom, unaware of the situation, felt rather embarrassed. His pride wouldn't allow him to do this; assigning such a menial task as carrying things to women was utterly disgraceful! How could he, as an adventurer, face other adventurers like this? What kind of man was he...!

"Stop dawdling! Are you even a man?"

Laury snatched the bag containing the meteorite iron from his hand and handed it to Ri. Sodom thought to himself, "That's it, I'll probably be seen as one of those useless men too." Ri took the bag, glancing at Sodom out of the corner of his eye. Sodom was thinking about something, and Ri knew a little about it.

“You don’t need to worry about that. With spatial magic, I can easily store these things in other spaces,” Li explained with a smile, then urged, “Let’s go. Now that we’ve looted all the spoils, we should continue on our way. We’ve been here for a while, and if we don’t leave soon, we might miss our chance.”

Chapter 13 Maze Exploration / Ning (1)

Dead silence...

Apart from the sound of footsteps, there was nothing else. The soles of their shoes made a strange sound as they stepped on the gravel, but the sound disappeared as soon as their feet left, and then it was back to the rhythmic footsteps. Nothing else. This group of people advanced in deathly silence, not daring to utter a word, and could only obediently keep their heads down and move forward.

The reason it turned out this way is because of the girl walking at the very front—Ning.

When they first set off, it was the same. Some tried to say something to liven things up, but their opponent was Ning. Ning's silence created an indescribable pressure, suppressing them to the point of silence. Add to that the cramped environment of the maze, and the feeling of silently advancing without speaking, even with people around you, is truly maddening.

However, Ning, walking at the very front of the group, remained completely silent, continuing to move forward in silence since the start of the journey, intently reading a book with unreadable writing in its hands. They didn't suspect Ning was deliberately slacking off, but her actions made their positions rather awkward.

Even though Ning had been reading the book the whole time, she could still clearly discern the path. She hadn't even looked at it; it was as if she had already memorized it. The figure looked so unguarded, yet you could definitely sense that there was no chance to take advantage of her. Well... after all, she was a comrade-in-arms fighting alongside the ambassador on the front lines, so it wasn't surprising that she had this level of skill.

but……

It's so quiet, it's unbearable!

These were the thoughts of everyone in the exploration team except Ning. Yes, it was truly unbearable. Was this oppressive atmosphere going to continue until they reunited with the other team...? Oh God... This is hell...

Of these five people, none of them truly understood Ning. Their knowledge of Ning was limited to the impression that she was the other half of Akihabara Ambassador's wife; they knew nothing else. This wasn't without reason, because Ning's work was generally carried out in the shadows, while the more public tasks were left to Rin to handle. Many people knew that Rin was responsible for these tasks, but they were unaware of Ning's behind-the-scenes assistance.

However, in front of the savior, they dared not say anything. Judging from the way she looked, they could not beat her in a fight, and there was probably no point in reasoning with her. This person was like a god, and she could probably solve the exploration problem all by herself. That's why everyone felt that their current situation was very awkward.

They didn't even dare to whisper. They simply followed behind Ning, occasionally exchanging glances with their companions before returning to their exploration work. To be honest, they were getting impatient, but they didn't know how to break this maddening situation. Ning seemed unapproachable, and no one dared to approach her and speak to her.

After walking a while longer, Sodol couldn't help herself anymore. She subconsciously glanced at her four companions, whose faces also showed hesitant expressions, and then they looked at each other. In just this short time together, they had already developed a kind of eye contact that functioned almost like telepathy.