19 Investigation (2/2)

The place was now deep inside the forest. Selianna and the others had reached their destination, the dungeon.

"So this is the entrance huh?" The male knight murmured.

What in front of them was a medium size cave entrance. The hole was covered by a hazy purple mist-like barrier so it's impossible to see what it look like inside.

"Oh? You never been inside a dungeon before?" Selianna raised her eyebrow.

"Yes it's embarrassing to say but I've never entered a dungeon before."

"Fufu then it must be your luck if your first dungeon to be a 'special' one ri~ght?" The female knight said sarcastically.

The male knight snorted. "Whether it's a special dungeon or not my duty remains the same not to mention this is a low level dungeon so what if it's special?"

Both Selianna and the female knight sighed hearing his remark. Both of them thought that he had not known how dangerous a 'special' dungeon was.

In fact this was not the first time an abnormality had occured on a dungeon. There had been numerous case of similar things and resulting in a huge disaster. Ever since then the world had put on their best effort to keep watch for such dungeons.

What Selianna knew was that if this one turned out to be a 'special' dungeon then this case should still in early stage and they still had the chance to prevent further development from happening.

If a special dungeon had entered the middle stage then even if it's possible to deal with it would still need extraordinary efforts and casualties. The worst from happening was if the dungeon had entered the late stage, it was no longer possible to resolve and the only thing they could do was preparing for the Dungeon Outbreak.

Dungeon Outbreak was a case in which a special dungeon had gone past the late stage. A dungeon would explode and it would release either extremely powerful monsters or an absurd number of monsters everywhere. There were differences of the numbers of each special dungeon for both cases but it's always been collosal for the latter case.

"If this is your first time then it's all the more reason you should not look down on it, this is an order from your superior."

"...Yes."

It seemed that he's not convinced yet, should she removed him from the exploring unit to prevent troubles from happening?

Selianna was mulling over such things but his ability was also necessary to face the source of the abnormality.

Maybe it'll be fine if me and Lena watched over him carefully....

Was what she thought and decided to keep him on the exploring unit. (Lena was the name of the female knight)

She didn't know that she would regret her decision much later.

###

After splitting the the units by two, 10 people for exploring and 6 people to stand by and kept watch on the entrance, they finally went inside the dungeon, passing by the purple barrier.

The inside of the dungeon was just like how the entrance was, a rocky dim cave. It was unknown where the light came from but it did not help much with the vision since it's still dark.

Selianna took on the front position while Lena and the male knight were put on the rear.

Immediately after entering Selianna already put on her awareness and focused her attention on her surroundings.

Carelessness was not allowed or she would die before she knew it.

The other knights were following her and raised their awareness too with the exception of the lone male knight beside Lena.

Lena glared at him but he just snorted and ignored her. She shook her head and sighed.

They advance carefully inside the dungeon, not missing anything suspicious in the mean time.

And just as the information they received, the monsters here were bottom-rank to low rank monsters suitable for newbies and they would slay them in the blink of an eye.

Monsters were classified by nine rankings,

- Bottom

- Low

- Medium

- High

- General

- Lord

- Legendary

- Divine

- Mythical

Each ranks, except for Mythical monsters are divided more by three levels each : lower, intermediate, and peak level.

The monster Haruto fought before like goblins, kobolds, red wolves belonged to the bottom rank monsters.

This dungeon so far only produced such bottom or low rank monsters like those and they did not encounter any abnormalities.

The male knight grew more impatient as time passed. He thought that this was ridiculous and waste of time.

He always frustrated of his current status as an ordinary knight. He always had talent in fighting and grew stronger quickly, already experienced 8 [Growth]s when he was 16 years old. He's not as fast as Fia but his talent was still remarkable among his peers with the exception of his childhood friend Lena that slightly below him in strength.

But for some reason the country did not let him get promoted to High Knight despite his ability. Lena too did not get promoted but she's not complaining and instead thought more positively by improving what she lacks of. But there's no way he could accept that like her.

Selianna was indeed stronger than him but she's also a special case since even among the High Knights her prowess and competence was extraordinary, many believed that it won't be long before she got promoted to Grand Knight, making her the youngest Grand Knight in history.

Perhaps if she could resolve the current case it would make a breakthrough on her achievements and finally promoted her to Grand Knight.

Of course the young male knight also intended to take a chance on this mission to elevate his evaluation so he would get promoted too.

And yet what's this? Bringing a number of 13 people besides his partner and superior, the small fries monsters that not worth considering. How could this farce will increase his feat? Even if it could, it would be split among the current members.

He grew more frustrated and no longer pay attention to the exploration, by the time he realized they were already on the fifth floor.

Although Selianna was aware of the lack of abnormality so far but unlike the male knight she never let down her guards. Until the expedition were completed successfully, in this case was conquering the dungeon (they already received permission from the guild and their higher ups) anything may happened at anytime.

Since she was on the front position and must focused to her surroundings while taking commands, she couldn't pay attention the male knight which worried her, she decided to leave it to Lena beside him.

Some of the knights were actually feel the same as the male knight but they did not dare to express it with Selianna in front of them, if she found out you're as good as dead. That's why they were amazed at the male knight to openly showing his frustrations. But it seemed since he's on the most back Selianna couldn't see him.

"Hey Jake will you give it a rest already? No good things will come by grumbling like that you know? If Selianna-sama finds out you're finished." Lena spoke lowly to Jake, the male knight beside her.

"...Tch."

He clicked his tongue and looked at the other way, ignoring her. Lena watched her childhood friend with concern in her eyes. At first she was just exasperated since she thought that he was just throwing tantrums but as time passed she grew worried instead.

The exploration continued and they almost done mapping the entire floor. By now they only need to check the last corridor that should led into the boss room. They ignored the treasures since they're not their objective this time and there wouldn't be valuable things anyway.

After almost completing the last floor Selianna started to notice a peculiarity.

'This floor... Somehow it's a lot quieter than the other floors?'

Before, on the first to the fourth floor they would encounter about 50-70 monsters each. And yet this time it's not even reached 20.

She had ominous feelings about this and raised her guard more. They proceed on the last corridor and the moment she saw what lies ahead, she entered maximum alertness.

"The boss room's gate is opened...?"