Welcome To The Team

The next morning, I came down from my room fully dressed before eight and the receptionist pointed me towards a group of people standing at the side. The group had three males and two females in it and they were all around the same age as me. The person that welcomed me was a teenager with fiery red hair and a missing tooth.

"Hey there," he exclaimed in a friendly tone while patting me on the shoulder. I looked at the offending hand for a moment before shrugging it off but he didn't even seem to notice, "You must be the new guy. Come on, I'll introduce you to the team. My name's Johnny, but you can call me Johnny."

"What…?"

I thought I misheard what he said but he was already introducing the others before I could ask about it. He pointed to the first girl that wore a blue gown and carried a staff, "This is Laura, a water mage and our healer." He then pointed to another girl, "That girl frowning over there while trying to burn me with her glare is Clara, Laura's twin sister, and an Earth mage. She's our main supporter."

I nodded to the two of them and then Johnny pointed out the other two guys in the group, "That's Mark on the left. He's a fire mage and his temper is just as bad as Clara's, so watch yourself around him. The last one's Hugo. He doesn't have a class yet, but he is getting there. He's going to be our guide for today."

After Johnny was done with his enthusiastic introductions, I greeted every one of them with a nod, "I'm Jason." I said and that was it. Everyone was obviously waiting for me to say more but I wasn't going to.

Clara rolled her eyes and started walking towards the exit, "You're a real ray of sunshine," she said sarcastically and her sister, Laura, bowed to me in greeting before following her out. Johnny chuckled low in discomfort and scratched the back of his head as he and the other two guys started to walk out as well. I didn't need to get close to any of them since I had no intentions of staying on this floor for too long.

Once I get what I need from the dungeons on this first floor, I will be leaving for higher floors and I'll probably never see any of them ever again. This world was unfair towards people born on lower floors. The chances of a child born on the first floor reaching the tenth floor was very slim and it is impossible for them to dream of going higher than that. Most of these kids won't even make it to the fifth floor in their lifetime.

We headed out from the town and we moved into the forest. The dungeon was two days away, so we would have to camp in the forest for at least one night before we get there. Hugo – the group guide, made sure that we moved through a path that had been marked out by previous adventurers that have been to the dungeon before so that we wouldn't stumble upon any of the more dangerous magic beasts. I knew a pathway that was shorter than this one and I debated whether I should say something or not.

That night, as we made camp and sat around a fire, I finally decided to just tell them about it.

"There's another path," I said and the group all looked at me in surprise. They haven't heard me talk at all on the last day so they didn't think that I would suddenly speak up. I ignored their surprise and continued, "If we go through the western section and cross the small river, then we can cut the trip down by at least twelve hours."

Most of the group had no idea what I was talking about, but Hugo shook his head, "That path is the territory of the [Marsh Python]. It's an E rank beast that's very territorial, so I think we should just keep going through this path."

"The [Marsh Python] usually goes downstream this time of year to hunt for food." I said again and I could sense the irritation coming from Clara as I spoke, "There will be nothing there right now and we can cross easily."

Hugo was silent and it was Clara that spoke this time, "Hey, why don't you just leave it like it is? We've been doing just fine by following the path that Hugo laid out and you want to take a risk just to cut a few hours? Are you that lazy?"

I immediately glared at her. This is what I get for trying to help out a bunch of children. They don't understand the difference between someone looking down on them and someone trying to help them. I knew that the river would be the best place to follow at this time of year. I've followed that river many times before, and so long as I don't go there during the summer, then there was never any problem with the [Marsh Python].

"C-Clara." Laura spoke softly from beside her sister, "Let's just leave it, okay? He was only trying o help."

"Did we tell him that we needed his help?" Clara spat back and Laura seemed to shrink under her sister's anger. Laura was a very soft-spoken person and I could tell that she is the sort of person that would always try her hardest to avoid conflict. She was the polar opposite of her sister and I had no idea how the two of them were even related. "Hugo has led us through this forest many times before," Clara continued, "I won't change the path just because some newcomer says that it's shorter."

"Okay, maybe we should all calm down," Johnny finally defused the situation and he tried to make Clara calm down. He then turned to Hugo and asked, "Is what Jason said true? Can we really cut the time if we follow that river?"

"Yeah, we can," Hugo answered, "But I wouldn't advise it. The [Marsh Python] is not something any of us, or all of us can take on. Let's just stick to the path marked out by the adventurers."

"Then that's that," Johnny said and I only shrugged and looked back at the fire. I wasn't really bothered that they didn't listen to me. The only reason I told them about the river was to help them. If they don't want my help, then there's nothing that I can do about it.

Out of the entire group, only Mark didn't join in on the conversation. He just sat there, glaring into the fire with a faraway look in his eyes. Johnny said that Mark had a temper and I wondered if I would have to watch out for him in the future. But there was no need to worry about a kid. Even if he might have more skills than me right now, there was a world of experience that separated us. I could kill him ten times over if I needed to.

The next morning, we set out again. We followed the path that was laid out already and it was dark by the time we got to the [Labyrinth of Shadows]. "I think we should rest out here and go in tomorrow," Johnny said as he looked at the ominously large arc leading into the [Labyrinth of Shadows]. The rest of the group also thought it was a good idea and we all set up camp outside the [Labyrinth of Shadows]. I didn't feel like waiting till morning to enter. There would be no difference if we waited till morning or if we went in now, it was always dark inside the [Labyrinth of Shadows] and we would have to fight in the dark anyway. But since everyone else was waiting, I also waited.

When morning finally came, we took off towards the Labyrinth again. There were two guards stationed at the entrance of the labyrinth and we showed them our badges and permits before they allowed us to go in. The guards were E rankers, so the group had to listen to them if they wanted to pass through.

Dungeons in the tower can only be accessed by one team at a time. Once a team is inside the dungeon, it closes itself off until that team comes out. That is why there is a minimum rank for you to be able to enter the dungeon. If you run into trouble inside a dungeon and you are too weak to handle it, then there is no way for anyone to come and help you.

After we were allowed through by the guards, we stepped into eh dungeon and it closed itself off so that no one else could come through.