The Shionel inland taipans and the bloodfury rabbits all led a rather simple life on their respective floors. They simply consumed organic ore deposits and other creatures that stumbled in like the adventurers. It had given him the impression that monsterified creatures were too sick in the head to possibly be more than aggressive mindless zombies.
Seeing what had happened to the humans of the large town of Veril that had survived ingesting the esoteric ore deposits had only reinforced this notion.
Yet the previous floor had had a perfectly viable ant society with functioning ants that worked for the sake of the colony and were led by the intelligent ant queen who was even capable of reproduction of monsterified ants.𝑣xt.𝒸𝓞𝑀
This was very different from the image of monsterified creatures that he had conceived of in his mind. He had to admit that his opinion on the matter had changed given that he was forced to acknowledge that monsters could engage in sophisticated cooperation and continued sustenance of their existences.
This was especially the case when he came across an ecosystem that had sustained itself for presumably a year and a half since the dungeon had risen. It meant that this wasn’t a transient phenomenon.
Rui narrowed his eyes as he focused on each distinct species.
The birds that he had spotted were numerous and flew across the large floor. Their wide wingspan and beaks were those that predator birds like eagles and hawks possessed, thus he assumed that they were probably among the apex predators of the dungeon floor.
This was especially the case when he could sense small creatures like mice, rodents, and even snakes slithering around in the ground.
What he found when he inspected the snakes was that they were not like the Shionel taipans that he had previously ran into. In fact, given the size of their heads, he greatly doubted that they were venomous at all. It was much more likely that they were the monsterified version of rat snakes. They were not apex predators, he had watched National Geographic enough as a kid to know that those snakes were the kind of snakes that would get snatched up by the kind of big birds that were plentiful in the entire dungeon.
The rats, mice, and rodents were next on the food chain when it came to such matters. They were most likely targeted by the snakes that he could sense across the entire floor, and they also had a greater population than the snakes, based on Rui’s preliminary sense of the entire dungeon.
Predators generally tended to be an order of magnitude less populated than their prey, for a sustainable ecosystem to exist, otherwise, predators would quickly overhunt prey into extinction and the ecosystem would be thrown for a toss. Thus Rui was quickly able to ascertain the food chains in the ecosystems this way.
The ubiquitous herbivorous insects like caterpillars, grasshoppers, and crickets were probably the biggest source of food for them. Rui couldn’t even begin to estimate how many there were.
“Really interesting stuff,” Rui murmured.
“Speak for yourself,” Kane snorted. “When are we going to ransack this place?”
“Now,” Rui got up. “I’ve mostly learned what I wanted to. I don’t see any problematic elements. Your technique should work on all of them, so we’re good and dandy.”
Rui had wanted to make sure that there weren’t elements on the floor that would disrupt their stealth.
“Though honestly, your technique is probably the least necessary in floors like this. Previously, all floors were basically united against us, and thus we needed stealth to make sure that we didn’t get constantly overrun. But frankly, given the fact that these creatures are far from united, and not liable to turn against us the moment they detect us, this may actually be one of the safer dungeon floors honestly,” Rui remarked.
This felt strange.
Shouldn’t it have been the case that deeper floors were more dangerous?
Then again, Rui realized that this wasn’t a video game, that, by design, got more and more difficult and challenging the further they passed. The dungeon had not been constructed with that in mind or anything like that, thus it shouldn’t be too surprising that such a pattern was not strictly followed.
“I hope that we run into many such floors in the future,” Kane nodded. Using Void Step continuously on not just himself but also Rui was stressful, especially on the previous dungeon floor where failing to use it would have gotten them killed pretty quickly. He especially hated the floor with the venomous taipan since he was also under a lot of psychological pressure due to how lethal the taipans were. If he slipped even a single time, then the taipans’ swift venomous bite would have killed them instantly.
“Floors like this are nice because I get to chill,” He remarked.
“Hope you enjoy manual labor instead,” Rui sneered.
“On second thoughts, leave the stealth to me,”
The two of them stopped bickering before immediately getting to work. It was only when they actually trodded across the floor did they realize how big it was. It was as though they had been hit by a shrinking gun, and then gone to take a walk in a rainforest. Insects were half as tall as them while the other creatures were significantly bigger.
This was surprising because the largest of creatures were huge. The monster bird’s wingspan may as well have been as large as a city block. The largest of the birds were definitely at the peak of the Squire Realm as far as combat prowess went. Rui and Kane definitely needed to avoid them since simply sky-walking would not be able to get them away from the birds. The birds were almost certainly faster than them due to the fact that their bodies were literally built for flight and motion through the air.
“Maybe we should be more careful…” Rui murmured as he took a good look at a giant bird flying past them.