Raid Begins

Josh's hands were a bit shaky as he placed them on his legs trying to calm down.

"FUCK!" The amount of humiliation Josh just faced was more than any shame he had ever seen before; it was simply past the level of unbearable.

'This psycho… and I can't tell Solomon about this, not yet at least.' Josh started thinking of other ways for him to get Ren while his goons got themselves back up shamefully, knowing they were about to get a mouthful from Josh and maybe some beating.

On the other side, Ren who had only left Josh's place had run into another group of upperclassmen claiming to have been sent by a particular someone whom they refused to say the name of. Ren had the feeling that it would only be something similar, of course, that was how it always went, so he paid them no attention and left while ignoring them. Unexpectedly, even though they looked hard to reason with and were headstrong, they didn't make a move to force Ren or drag him away.

'That's quite surprising, I thought they'd jump me and was ready to give them the shock of their lives.' Of course, he meant that in its literal sense.

. . .

"Hey Ray, what's up?" Damien greeted Ray as he walked into the training room, he also did the same to the others that were present.

This section of the training room designated for the first years always had some regular faces around, so naturally, they all became close acquaintances and friends, or so it seemed for the most part.

Ray, Damien, Ash, Linda, Ashley, Isaac and Lucy, though Linda and Ashley weren't there as frequently as the rest.

"Damien, have you thought about it? You have to make up your mind, tomorrow's D-Day." Ray said, looking serious.

Once Ray spoke, every other person stopped their individual sessions and walked closer to him, before he continued speaking. "Apart from Ash, we have all agreed to go, you're the last person we're waiting for."

'How did he even get Ashley to tag along…' Even though he was being asked to make a decision now, Damien had already expressed the fact that he was disinterested in the whole raid due to some personal reasons, and mostly because he didn't want to risk his life doing anything stupid, and to him, raiding a dungeon that only just appeared was very dangerous since there was no information about it whatsoever.

"I'm in."

Ash's head might have involuntarily turned towards Damien because he was shocked to hear his answer even though he made it clear that he didn't want to be a part of it before.

"Hey bro… you're going? I thought you said you didn't want to?" This time, Ash didn't overreact as was actually interested in knowing the reason behind Damien's sudden change of heart.

"No need to overreact. Really, what other reason do I need other than wanting to take the opportunity to become stronger?" Damien stated the obvious, probably everyone's reason. Even though it was simple and straight forward, it still came as an unexpected development since Damien was not the type to change his mind easily like this, unlike Ash.

"I didn't actually expect anything different when I asked just now, but you actually changed your mind, that's even better." Ray said, though his face held something other than happiness.

"Just spit it out instead of making such a face." Damien and everybody else could see Ray's expression after all, and they weren't difficult to read.

"Well, I don't want you to feel pressured or like I pressed the matter…" Ray didn't need to finish what he was saying, Damien got his point and reassured him and the others not to worry. Now that even Damien was going to be a part of the raid, Ash was quick to change his own decision to not join in, after all, he would end up feeling left out if he didn't join them.

Even though they didn't mention it, most of them had just one obstacle in mind that they needed to race towards and over, and it was Ren, plain and simple.

They planned to enter the dungeon the next day in the night. The dorms didn't really have a set time for the students to be in their dorms, and there were no solid inspections for such, or they had no reason to worry about such. Their only goal was to not be gone for a long time so as to not raise any suspicions.

The plan progressed as they wanted and on the night of the next day, all seven of them were present and on time. Since everyone had come prepared, they had no reason to waste time standing around, so they entered the dungeon together. Luckily, as speculated, they all fell within the range of level allowed for entry, so it was all good. The only problem though, was that they had not accounted for the possibility of the dungeon being one that would take a far longer time than they initially planned to clear.

As they passed through to the other side of the dungeon, the first thing they noticed was the water that reached up to their shins, and the smell of the place was nothing below awful.

"Such foul smell."

"Sure this water isn't straight from monster sewer? It stinks…"

At this point, they really couldn't cry over spilled milk since they were already leg deep in the stinky water.

"Well, that aside, we need to stick close to each other and try to map out this place first." Ray said. He kind of was the default leader of the team, and no one had any objections about it, well, all but one. Even though Isaac wasn't particularly against him being the leader, he didn't feel comfortable either taking orders from his equal.

"Instead of that, why don't we first find a place to stay where we weren't in the open, then Lucy and you can go out for reconnaissance?" Listening to Isaac's idea, everyone agreed it was a better plan. Staying in a safe place out of the open was priority of course in an unknown place, and Lucy who was an archer was good at reconnaissance and also had wind magic with skills to boot for mobility. As for Ray, he was an elemental mage and his strong point was water, also, he invested quite a bit into training his body, so he also had good mobility.

They all agreed to the plan and began moving, first to find some kind of shelter, then they would scout the place.

They were still yet to discover just what kind of dungeon they had entered at this point…

'They should have entered the dungeon now, I should also head towards raiding that hidden dungeon, can't believe one opened, quite unexpected.' Ren thought to himself.