The Abandoned Dungeon (3)

"What do you say, again?" Elena blinked her eyes for a few times. It's not like she could not heard the old man from the first time, but she wanted to confirm what she heard before was right.

"I said I'm the guardian of this dungeon," replied the old man while smiling.

"So, are you an enemy or what?"

"Depends. Do you see me as an enemy?" The old man answered Elena's question with another question.

"No. We don't have any bad intention here." Ren joined the conversation.

The old man smiled when he heard the words coming from Ren's mouth. He walked to Ren with a slow, small step with the aid of his cane.

"The thing you said before, is it real?" asked Ren.

"What? That staff being almost 8 ton?" The old man now already stood in front of Ren and the golden staff. Ren nodded.

"Of course. This staff do have many names, but you human known this as.."

"Monkey King's Golden Staff." Ren interrupted.

"Hoho, it seems you know your stuff, young man. I'm impressed." The old man smiled at Ren while stroking his long, white beard downward.

"Wait, do you mean THE Monkey King?" Elena asked Ren. Ren could see Elena's confusion face there.

"Why? Is there any other Monkey King you know?" asked the old man.

"No, but is not Monkey King a myth from the folklore?"

The old man smiled. "Ah, I see. You don't believe that Monkey King is real. But, it is. In fact, he is my old friend."

"Old friend? And, what do you mean by 'you, human.' Are you not human?" asked Elena. The wrinkle on her forehead became more clearly as she looked more confused than before.

"Oh, I am anything, but human." The old man grabbed the staff and lifted it up. Then, he put it back to its previous place.

"Then, what are you? How you lift that staff?"

"Oo, sorry dear. I'm afraid I cannot tell you who or what I am. But I am one of the very few that can wield that staff." The old man answered. Still wearing a smile face.

"Alright then, Mr Guardian. Can we get any of these things here. After all, we found this room," asked Ren to the old man. Elena, who was already beside Ren, nodded before added something.

"Or do we need to pass a trial first?"

The old man laughed. "There's no need. Finding this room was the test." The old man then continued. "But you can only take one thing from here."

"What if we take more than one?" asked Elena, curious.

"Let's say that things would not end well for you."

Elena went silent. She knew that the old man was serious. She nodded to the old man, understood the meaning behind his words.

"Can we look around first before deciding which artifact we want to take?" asked Ren.

The old man smiled and nodded, agreeing to Ren's request. "As you please."

Ren and Elena continued looking at the other artifacts there. The old man only observed both Ren and Elena inspected the artifacts one by one. He was not moving at all since before.

However, as Elena was focused on checking the artifacts, the old man suddenly blitzed to Elena with shocking speed from behind. He raised his cane on the air, attempting to strike Elena with it.

Pow!

The old man was knocked back when Ren was already there, behind Elena and kicked the old man on the stomach before the cane could struck Elena. Elena turned around to see what happened and saw that old man was already on the opposite side of the room.

"What happened? Why he was lying there?"

Ren was not answering her and focused his stare on the old man. The old man got up and looked at Ren and Elena. Elena was shocked when she realised that the old man stood perfectly fine without his cane, unlike before.

"He could actually stand and walk without using the cane. In fact, he can even run perfectly. I caught him trying to hit you with that cane." Ren pointed his finger while explained it to Elena as if he knew what Elena was thinking about.

"Impressive. How did you know?" The old man clapped his hand enthusiastically.

"I'm not falling to the same trick twice."

"Twice?" The old man asked.

Yes. This was not the first time Ren entered this dungeon. He had entered this dungeon and this room specifically many years ago. On his previous life.

During that time, he was already met the same old man and he was stabbed by the old man with his cane before while he was looking at the artifacts there. A blade was concealed inside the cane.

That's why he asked the old man whether they could looked around the room to make the old man assumed they were letting their guard down. He observed the old man's movement while pretending to look at the artifacts in that room. When the old man tried to ambush Elena from behind, Ren was already know his attention and struck the old man before he could hit Elena.

"Never mind. It's none of your business," told Ren.

"Hahaha, okay. But let me give you one advice. You should train your lower body more. The power of your kick was so lame. It's not hurt at all." The old man mocked.

Ren smirked. "But it's not as lame as your trick, Loke. Or should I called, God of Mischief?"

The old man's expression changed. There was no longer smile on his face. "How did you know?"

"Oh, come on, Loke. You should do a better job concealing your identity. That's why your father was disappointed with you. Oops, sorry. I mean foster father."

The old man stared maliciously at Ren as the latter was mocking him.

"In the meantime, can you please change your appearance? I don't want to feel guilty beating an old man." Ren continued.

The old man laughed. As the time past, the laugh became more creepy and louder. As if the old man had gone mad.

"Okay, I can entertain you a bit." After the old man said his words, a gust was appeared out of nowhere and engulfed the old man into a small typhoon. After a few moments, the typhoon dissipated and also the old man inside it. But, there was a new face on the spot where the old man was standing before. It was a young man who was at least in his 30s.

The young man smiled at Ren and Elena. "Let me introduce myself again. I'm the guardian and also the owner of this dungeon, Loke. Also knowns as God of Mischief."

"Right now.." Loke continued. "I'm going to kill both of you here."

Hearing the words, Elena responded by creating two magic formulas in the air.

[Ice Spear]

However, there's nothing came from the magic formulas. Two spears made of ice supposed to be emerged from it and attacked Loke but it didn't happened. Elena, surprised with what had happened tried to cast another magic but the results still the same. Nothing happened.

Loke just laughed, seeing the effort of the young maiden to cast magic, but nothing worked.

"You can't cast magic here. I already use my magic so that anyone here cannot use any magic." Loke told Elena the reason why she could not used any magic.

"What? What did you do?" asked Elena while still trying to cast magic.

"Nothing big. I'm just using my Original Magic." Loke chuckled.

"Jester World." Ren spoke.

Loke shifted his attention to Ren. He smiled at Ren amusingly. "Hohoho, you surprised me twice today. What do you know about Jester World?"

"Jester World is one of the 22 Original Magic. It could only be used by you, God of Mischief. When you activated this magic, anyone in 150-metre radius could not cast any magic until you deactivated Jester World."

Loke clapped his hands, amused with Ren. Elena looked at Loke with confused look. "So, that's mean we could not use magic as long as this Jester World is active?"

"You are right, young lady. I'm also affected from that magic," answered Loke.

Loke's answer made Elena became more confused. "If you're also affected to that magic, why would you cast it in the first place?"

Loke laughed amusedly. "Don't worry, I can kill both of you without using any magic. But you can never do the same to me."

Then, he suddenly ran towards his fallen cane before striking Ren with the cane. Ren, in the other hand, already readied himself for the incoming attack and took out a dagger from the inner pocket of his uniform.

Ka-ching!!

The sound could be clearly heard coming from the clash between Ren's dagger and Loke's hidden blade on the cane. They exchanged the attacks while avoiding or deflecting their enemy's attacks.

After a few exchanges, they stopped their attacks and fell back. Both of them felt exhausted and tried to catch their breaths. "It's really rare nowadays to find a mage that could use Aura to this extent," spoke Loke with a heavy breath.

"There's more people that can use Aura better than me out there."

"I hope I can meet them someday," told Loke and then charged towards Ren. But, Ren was not doing the same. He stayed at his spot while watching Loke charged at him. As Loke was getting closer, Ren surprised Loke by slashing his dagger at the air in front.

There's glowing green light radiated from the dagger and then, a slash of wind emerged from the dagger and went towards Loke. But, Loke could avoided the slash from striking him, barely.

"Whoa!! How could you use magic?"

Loke could not believed his eyes. How can that man could cast magic when the Jester World still active?

"Surprised?" asked Ren. He brought his dagger forward and showed it to Loke before continued speaking. "This is magic dagger. It could store one magic spell inside. I could use the magic inside of this dagger as long as I can inject mana into it. Your magic only prevent mage to cast magic, but couldn't restricted magic coming from artifacts."

Loke surprised as he didn't expected that Ren could knew about that. There's no human knew about the capability of Jester World before.

"If the magic from the artifacts still can be used, that's mean this thing still can be used, right?" Elena asked while holding something on her hand.

Ren turned to Elena and tried to get a clear view what was the thing on Elena's hand. It was Teleport Crystal that he gave to Elena before.

"Yeah, it can work. Why?" asked Ren.

"Then, I would come with reinforcement to help you later." Elena raised her hand to the air and throw the crystal on her hand onto the ground.

"No! No! Wait!" shouted Ren when he realized what Elena tried to do.

But he couldn't stopped her as the crystal was already smashed into pieces when it hit the ground. Then, a green light was emitted from the crystal and engulfed Elena making her disappeared from there.

Loke was surprised when he saw that Elena was gone from there and noticed there's a disappointment on Ren's face.