164 Chapter 142: Offspring
"Big brother!!!!!!!"
Arnold heard a yell coming from the great hall of the castle. Arthur and the others were already ahead of him to greet the uninvited guests.
Arnold and Rafaela came to a stop in the hallway. There was another person with them.
Arnold looked at the black-haired girl. She was silently staring up at him as well. She didn't look like a war criminal since she didn't even have bindings on her. She looked like just a normal girl tagging along.
One of the princesses gave the witch some dresses and other clothes since she couldn't just walk around the castle wearing nothing but a blanket.
Arnold rummaged in his pocket and gave something to the witch.
"Take this."
"Eh? Why are you giving this back to me?" she looked at him in surprise. Not just that. There was a hint of suspicion on her face as if him giving it back to her was a bad thing.
It was the necklace.
"You're going to come with us, Witch."
"Wha!? Why should I go with you!? Why even give this back? Hey! Look at people when they ask you a question!"
Arnold chose to ignore her. He looked at Rafaela next. The witch groaned and pouted.
"The hero might go look for the sword. It's his destiny to wield it in battle. You saw his reaction, right?"
"Yeah. I have no idea what's going through Arthur's head right now. I'm hoping he leaves this dungeon after they meet up with the rescue party."
"What if the rescue party you mentioned is on a higher floor than their destination?"
The destination is located on the 50th floor. Backtracking will be troublesome since the teleportation machine isn't easy to find.
"If that's the case then I'll have to go to them myself and act like I'm a 7th year student of the academy. I'll make up something about my classmates being in danger on the 50th world floor. That will lead them straight to the device that can get them out."
Most of the people who came with the rescue party probably knew his face(there were professors and academy staff as well, obviously) so he'll have to disguise himself. His demon lord state will have to do. Using his earring won't be useful since there were many people in the rescue party who were higher levelled than him.
"I see." Rafaela then looked at the witch, "I don't understand why she should come with us."
"The witch's power might be useful for something." Arnold said vaguely as he began walking again. The other two followed him.
"Uh, I don't see why you need more power when you're already this strong…" the witch muttered in total confusion.
'If the martial arts book is really on the final world then I'll probably have to fight this mysterious knight whether I like it or not.'
Archangels are the worst opponents that demons can ever encounter. They have a skillset composed of mostly divine skills and spells. Although she didn't have her golden aura anymore, she was still a threat nonetheless.
'I hope Ceru will be able to protect me when the time comes,' Arnold looked at something on his finger, 'I still have this as well. Though I have no idea what it does. Let's hope it will help me win a difficult battle.'
It was the three-gemmed ring that Freya gave him.
◇◇◇
Arnold and the other two was met with silent but curious gazes.
There were more than forty people in the group, with three others being the professors. Arthur mentioned that his class' professor sacrificed herself so only A, C and D had professors left.
'I thought there was at least 20 students per class. What the hell happened to these guys?'
They looked miserable. Most of them were skinny and seemed on the verge of collapse while others seemed like walking corpses with depressed expressions on their faces. But they didn't look like people who gave up hope. In fact, some even smiled when greeting Arthur and the other two.
One person stepped out of the group when Arnold approached.
It was a girl with blonde pigtails. She was wearing a magician robe over her uniform.
Arnold knew her well.
Anais Tivurgian, Arthur's younger sister.
"….."
"….."
Arnold looked at Anais with a poker face. She was fidgeting with her fingers and avoiding eye-contact.
Her blue eyes kept swimming around the room as her mouth opened and closed.
Arnold sighed and stepped forward. Anais made a small "eek" when Arnold put his arms around her.
"…It's nice to see you again, Miss Anais."
She was technically older than him so he had to respect her.
"…It's just Anais, Al…" she said as she looked up at him from his chest.
"Hm?"
"Call me… Anais. Like before."
"….Okay, Anais."
She smiled and hugged him back.
"Hey, Arthur. A man is hugging your sister. Are you going to let that slide?" a snarky remark came from one of the girls.
It was a girl with the ears and tail of the silverwolf Demihumans, much like Fecius.
She was Shirley Renara Eidard, the princess of the Demihuman Kingdom and the daughter of the Lion King.
"Everyone…" Arthur stepped forward, "This is my nephew by name. Arnold von Berkley, the former heir to uncle Marcus. Most of you probably already know him."
None of them approached Arnold like Anais did. In fact, they seemed wary of Arnold.
But someone suddenly approached Arnold.
It was one of the professors. The woman held out her hand.
"I'm the person who teaches Class A. Castacia Refeld."
"Are you representing everyone, Castacia?" Arnold shook her hand.
"That's right."
"First of all, you should know that the monster wave was your fault, right?"
"…We will take full responsibility and make a public announcement addressing the issue when we get back."
"Alright. Let's go into that living room over there." Arnold pointed towards the door to his right, "You can tell the others once I'm done. It's better to talk one on one than have a crowd asking questions left and right."
Castacia nodded before turning around to address the students, "Go freshen up and have a meal. If you're exhausted from the journey then it's alright to take a nap as well. I'll brief everyone in on what Arnold will tell me."
"Yes, ma'am!" all of them exclaimed at once.
A maid approached the group, "Please follow me. As you are companions of Lord Arthur, the King told us servants to make sure you receive the same treatment here at the castle."
The students followed the maid up the stairs. Though not as big as the king's palace, the castle was big enough for the entire royal family so the students should be able to live here as well. Of course, they couldn't stay for too long.
'Whether Arthur will still fight this war, despite how pointless it might be, is up to him.'
"Well then, shall we, Arnold?"
◇◇◇
The woman sitting across Arnold took off her robe and unbuttoned two buttons of her blue shirt. She fanned her neck after taking off her glasses.
Though it was rude to think this, he could smell the stench of sweat drifting in the room. It had probably been days since she last washed herself properly.
Arnold noticed the bags under her eyes. It wasn't as bad as his own eyes but he could tell that she missed a bit of sleep.
"Did you guys ever rest on the way here?"
"No, it was important that we got here as quickly as we could. Many of the students didn't even sleep due to how anxious they were. We were worried that the void that Arthur jumped into might disappear and leave us stuck on the second floor."
"…"
"Thankfully it didn't. It's a blessing that all of us managed to make it here. I don't know what we would've done if we were stuck on that world."
Space Pockets don't need energy sources like teleportation spells or dimensional gate so they never disappear. They spawn naturally, unlike the above mentioned.
It was a useless worry. Well, they didn't know that in the first place. However, if they did more research on dungeons then they would've known that.
In fact, if they did extensive research then they wouldn't have taken the grimoire at all. There was a reason why there was a pedestal. The pedestal absorbed the power from the grimoire to make a portal. Without it, both the pedestal and the portal crumbles into nothingness.
The Academy has to change their ways to avoid things like this in the future. The next generation of seventh year students might fall into the same dilemma. Arnold didn't want to destroy another city to prove a point again.
"Before I start…" Arnold asked the question on his mind, "…how many times have you guys challenged that monster boss on the first floor?"
"A total of twelve times."
"Did you ever encounter other monsters on its level?"
"No. But the monsters that we encountered on the same floor stayed far away from the boss' location. That gave us an idea of how strong it was."
"Yet you still fought it despite so many of you dying."
"…The book we found told us that we can leave if ten people defeat a boss. We just did what it said and fought the boss with that hope."
"The person who wrote that in this book clearly lied."
Hackers usually did these kinds of things to put other players in danger for their own benefit. It was especially prevalent during the alpha test build of the game before state-of-the-art anti-cheating software was added.
Once a player dies then they drop their items and SP. It's an infinite stream of items if done properly.
Overwriting the game's codes isn't easy. Whoever messed with the grimoire's item code must've been a prominent hacker in the game.
'The only person I can think of is HDee. He's the most notorious hacker in the game, after all.'
The company never caught the guy. He used cheats on their game multiple times, even going as far as deleting updates to prevent features from being removed and anti-cheating software being added. He continued trolling people and stealing their stuff.
Liam never met the guy but he gave Misteltein trouble sometimes. Alecs wanted to recruit him that one time but the guildmembers didn't allow it.
The guy could hack the biggest game of the century, even after anti-cheat software was added. What could stop him from robbing them of their items or even character presets? Luckily he couldn't enter Guild Bases without permission so their guild was safe.
One of the top guilds members' were gullible enough to allow HDee to handle their assets, only to lose everything, including their battleships, domains and SP. That guild lost their ranking as part of the top five guilds. The guy who caused it was a real menace.
'Damn bastard. If you didn't do that then these people could've left the dungeon ages ago.'
Due to their ignorance, the entrance disappeared. If the entrance didn't disappear then Arnold would've landed on the first floor. There was a high possibility that he would've encountered them and convinced them to leave as soon as possible.
If he made it in time then maybe Arthur wouldn't have been blessed and wouldn't found out about that sword or even travelled this far into the dungeon.
They also wouldn't be in danger of encountering another one of the offspring.
It was impossible to change anything now. If he encounters one of the offspring then he can only run. Fighting that abomination of evolution was not a good idea. Luckily for them these things weren't everywhere.
"Do all of you know what Arthur is looking for?"
"Yes. It's apparently a holy sword. He told us that he'll pick two people to accompany him or pick three volunteers to go ahead. He chose to go with the former since he was the only one who can find this holy sword."
'I see. Going as a trio is better than moving as a large group. It minimizes the sacrifices. They are also too few to take on a boss. However, the three of them strong enough to survive on their own.'
"Arthur said he's looking for two things. What's the other thing?"
"It's an item that allows one to travel to every floor without restriction." replied Castacia.
"A [World Ring] isn't that easy to find."
"So that's what it's called… Anyway, has Arthur found the location of the sword yet?"
"No. I had assumed at first that the witch we captured cursed the holy sword to sap out its infinite source of power, but that wasn't the case. The witch was using an artifact to create a stigmata which gave the barbarians all that power. Arthur assumed that the holy sword was here because of some scent he picked up in this world. That scent was the only evidence he had of the sword ever being here."
"…No wonder he looked so sad. Arthur has always been a bright and cheerful kid. He's always smiling whenever you see him. I was worried that something like this might happen… But we can continue looking for it on the way, right?"
"…."
Arnold leaned back on the couch.
"What's wrong?" Noticing his silence, Castacia asked in worry.
"Forget about that sword. If he wants to play hero then he should come back for it in the future."
Of course, that's once he actually manages to control that power of his. Or risk dying by the hands of divine beings.
"Forget about it…? Why?"
"You can hear the full story from Arthur."
"…Okay…"
Arnold decided to begin telling her what he knows.
"There are many portals in this dungeon that leads to the outside. Of course, the term 'outside' is ambiguous since it could mean anywhere. It can mean another world or another dimension. But what if you could control a teleportation device without using mana?"
Arnold slid a piece of paper over the coffee table.
"What's this?" Castacia picked it up.
It was a sequence of numbers and letters.
"Coordinates to our original world. I found this through extensive research. The teleportation device on the 50th should be capable of transporting all of you every full moon since it uses the power of the light being reflected off the moon. The best time to use it is when it's fully charged during a full moon and capable of teleporting hundreds, if not thousands of people."
"How will we find this place?"
"Look for three upside-down pointy rocks surrounding a circular platform in a triangular formation. The machine should be on that circular area. There's a bridge to get to it so you don't need to worry about how to get there. The rocks aren't just any rocks. They are pieces of a meteorite that crashed into that world millions of years ago. The meteor's remains can absorb any supernatural energy and be used like a city core."
A city core was a gigantic magic crystal of extraordinary power which is used to power street lights and households using the mana it gathers from the atmosphere. These things are usually replaced every decade but the rocks Arnold mentioned could be used for millions of years if they have enough energy inside of them.
"Incredible. To think there's a device that can replicate traditional teleportation… I'm trying to complete my exams to become an elite mage at the tower. I did an assignment once that had to do with ancient civilizations. It was theorized in that project that our forefathers used ancient magic to build extraordinary machines capable of teleportation. All attempts of recreating this today has failed. If we can build such a machine then transportation will become much easier and faster. Getting to one nation from another in just a few seconds will revolutionize transportation."
Teleportation spells had the worst mana usage among the thousands of modern day arcane spells. Just travelling a few meters can deprave the average mage of their mana, which causes mana exhaustion.
People like Elora, with a Magic Manipulator class, or Lauran, the Archmage candidate, could cast and control teleportation spells like a simple Waterball spell. That was what separated the talented from the ordinary.
Since not everyone is born with a Unique or Legendary class, humans tried to create machines capable of teleportation to allow anyone to travel anywhere they want to.
"Is there some kind of gimmick to the machine that you know of besides the part about the full moon?"
"No. There's no tricks to it. The machine works exactly like the Dimensional Gate spell that can be found in our magic books. It converts mana or any other energy into a gateway portal. Runes are used to control it so you guys need to learn the runic numbers to the coordinates."
"None of us have done a course on the runic language. Where can we find a place that has rune translation books? We didn't bring one along."
"There are many academy towers in that world. The machine itself was built by scholars so there might be an abandoned academy there or something where you can look."
"Abandoned? So we won't encounter anyone on the way there?"
"Yeah. The world is barren. There isn't any signs of life there."
'And chances that they'll encounter one of the offspring on that world are slim.'
"I see… What about the rescue team? How will we find them?"
"I've already told Arthur and the other two that it's highly likely that they ended up on a higher floor. Considering the fact that the first world's entrance is gone, we should assume that the rescue party was teleported to another world just like how I was."
Arnold ending up on the second floor was due to this same probability. Luckily for him he didn't end up on a higher floor. That wasn't to say the rescue team would be as lucky as him.
"Hmm, that makes sense. Arthur told us that we can contact them in case we don't find them immediately. How reliable is that method of communication you showed them?"
"Like I told them as well, if the distance between the portals is too great then it could take a while for the rescue party to get your signal. The signal bounces from one crystal to the next until it reaches them. That's why you should check every day. Make sure you try contacting them immediately after entering a new floor."
"I see. That's all we can do, after all."
Castacia went silent. She stared at Arnold for a few moments. Arnold decided to wait for whatever question she had for him.
Her gaze narrowed before she opened her mouth.
"I will not ask you why you're here since it's clearly not any of my business. But might I ask why you sacrificed your entire school year to go on some adventure? The Academy doesn't take kindly to repeating students, especially the ones who intentionally hurt their grades."
Arnold knew that there was a high possibility that he'll fail the school year and remain a fourth year student. He didn't do his written exam but he finished his dungeon exam. The former weighed more than the latter. The reverse is true in the seventh year, though.
"Whether I fail the year or not isn't my concern right now."
"I see. So the thing you're looking for is that important to you."
Castacia spoke again, "Is that all you have to tell us?"
"No."
There was something else he wanted to tell them. Something very important.
It could mean life or death for their world if they don't heed his words.
"I want you to run if you ever encounter a fetus monster again."
Castacia didn't seem so surprised why Arnold said that. In fact, she seemed like she connected the dots to something.
"As I suspected…. That thing isn't any normal monster. Its defense is so powerful that it took a lot for us to able to injure it. We put every mage into one group to make a mage unit."
"What about your swordsmen and warriors? Did their attacks work?"
Castacia shook her head, "Physical attacks seem to be nullified whenever it touches the monster's skin. At least the magic we threw at it pushed it back. We managed to injure it with our combined forces but we couldn't kill it."
'Hmm, so it seems like the monster isn't as strong as I thought it would be since a bunch of students could injure it. The question is how did it get to the first floor?'
There was a possibility that it was trying to escape. But if that were the case then it would've left the dungeon before the students came down here.
'As I thought. It's not that interested in attacking humans.'
If it were then it might've left already.
"We should assume that the worlds without humans or any other humanoid lifeform are the only worlds where one can find these creatures. This floor and the second floor is peaceful because monsters like that don't exist here."
"I noticed that the first world floor has no humans or humanoid life to speak of."
It was odd. If the monsters discover human life on any world then they will destroy everything that has life in those worlds. Diacree will eventually be next once all the worlds in this dungeon is destroyed by them.
These creatures have no heart. No brain. No feelings. All they had was desire. Desire for destruction.
The Star Beast was known to be a being of mass destruction so it was no surprise that its children inherited its tendencies to destroy. However, the Star Beast was a rational being. It only destroys those who stand in its way.
Its children were the complete opposite. They were toddlers with too much power who have no idea how to use it.
Castacia kept staring at Arnold while he was thinking.
If they somehow lead even one of them outside then it was already over. It could reproduce—no, more like it could clone itself by cutting off its body parts to make an army.
It didn't matter if its kin won't be there to help it destroy the world. It could do so just fine on its own. That's unless it's killed, of course.
That was why none of these things had to be allowed outside. Even the docile ones. Just one of them could tip the balance of power.
"Assuming how they haven't left the dungeon up until now, it might be that they don't know how to leave. They shouldn't know what a portal is and what it does. You know what I mean by this, right?"
Castacia nodded, "If we encounter one then we should avoid using the portals to other worlds."
"Good. Keep that in mind. Toddlers learn quick. If they see all of you leave then they'll do the same." Arnold stood up. Castacia did as well, "I'll be leaving this world soon. Make sure everyone understands what I just told you, okay?"
Arnold walked past Castacia. Castacia suddenly spoke again:
"I hope you become my student one day, Arnold von Berkley. Your high intelligence and your knowledge can be put to good use if you just use it a little like you're doing here."
She said so with a smile.
A commotion suddenly came from outside the living room just when Arnold was about to open the door.
"—Where is that guy!? You guys told me he was here!"
'Huh? Isn't that…'
Arnold knew that voice. How could he not? Her brash and informal tone to everyone was very familiar.
The living room door was thrown open.
Someone's finger was shoved in front of Arnold's face.
"What the fuck are you doing here, Arnold!?"
A beauty with long green hair and honey-brown eyes was pointing her finger at him.
"....Flora?"
