Chapter 23: Delving deeper

Fen and Thorin returned shortly after John finished burying the goblin remains. Thorin appeared taciturn he obviously failed to find a decent shelter area. Fen on the other hand was fairly spirited, the place he found wasn't exactly great, but it'd be better than a snow shelter.

"There's a rock formation that can provide semi-decent wind protection about 600 metres that way." Fen pointed with his thumb almost directly behind him with a smile. He felt happy because he found something and Thorin didn't, he had a rather childish personality.

Thorin shook his head and lightly sighed, ignoring Fen's childish attempts at provocation.

"Good, I'll carry Jack, you lead the way. Thorin you guard our backs." John moved over towards the sitting Jack.

Jack nodded and braced himself for some pain, he could walk to the site, but it would pose some risk, it was safer to be carried while he healed, reducing his range of movement as much as possible.

John removed his backpack handing it over to Thorin before he slowly picked up Jack, being careful not irritate the wound.

"Ssss" Jack released a sharp inhale as he was lifted off the ground, no matter how gentle John was it still hurt. Fen had a distorted look as he witnessed his friend's painful expression.

Once Jack was safely secured on John's back, they slowly moved out, keeping their guards up for any monster attacks. If Frost sent his frost wolves to attack right now, he'd probably make an easy killing.

It took them 20 minutes to reach the campsite Fen found. It wasn't exactly much but it'd do. Before them was a large snow covered cliff alongside many large rocks that would help block out the wind as well as provide a decent defence against monsters. It would have been perfect if there were a large cave in the cliff, but beggars can't be choosers. The overhang of the cliff would be enough to block most of the snowfall, allowing them to start a fire.

As they were experienced with camping the group set off immediately into preparing the site. Fen cleared away an area of snow and started to unpack their gear. Thorin set up some pre-emptive alarms around the area to notify them of any encroaching monsters. John lowered Jack onto a blanket in the most sheltered area before taking out some tinder and dry branches out of one the backpacks.

"[Ignition]" John uttered and suddenly a small orange flame appeared on his index finger. He placed the small flame next to the tinder quickly setting it alight. John used the lifestyle magic [ignition], it didn't need a magic crest only a clear image. It turned mana into a tiny flame, perfect for lighting a fire or seeing in the dark however it held zero offensive power and was easily blown out. Though none of them could technically use magic, lifestyle or unranked magic didn't count. In fact, their lives would be very difficult if none of them could use the [ignition] spell, so much time would be wasted making a fire.

Very quickly a nice campsite was prepared, the area was now dry and fairly warm. The group of adventurers were sitting closely around the fire warming their bodies. Thorin had started preparing food, a pot filled with soup was hanging over the fire as he stirred it occasionally. The others were currently snacking on some meat jerky as they waited for the soup to be finished. They planned on resting for a few hours at least in order for Jack's wounds to heal.

"How much longer Thorin?" Fen asked as he fiddled around with his slice of jerky. It wasn't even midday yet, but they were starving, especially Jack, the medicine took a lot of strength out of him.

"Just another minute you brat!" Thorin almost struck the ladle against Fen's head in annoyance.

"You said that 5 minutes ago!" Fen ignoring Thorin's frustration angrily retorted.

"You!"

"That's enough Fen, it'll be ready when it's ready and Thorin if you don't know the exact time just say soon." John was getting a headache dealing with the two of them. Thorin always took a long time to prepare meals when it was his turn to cook, whereas Fen was fast, but the food always tasted terrible. The best cook was Jack, but they couldn't ask him to cook when he's supposed be resting.

"What's our plan after this?" Jack asked sternly as if the argument between his companions was non-existent

His question caused John to flinch

'Jack's already been injured, and we've barely covered any ground, would the guild give us much or any money. How would it look if we gave up after a small skirmish with frost goblins.'

John was stuck, he cared deeply about his friends safety and had a gut feeling that this place was far more dangerous than it let on.

"I hope you aren't going to say that we'll head back." Jack announced rather angrily. They had already decided to investigate this monster lair and just because he got injured shouldn't mean they should stop. Besides he'd be healed in a few hours anyway so what's the big deal.

His companions saw the conflicted look in their leader's eyes and to be honest they felt quite irritated. As their leader and the strongest member shouldn't he be more aggressive and ambitious. We are all young men in the prime of our lives shouldn't we be more confident and reckless. This was one of the main reasons why it took John so long to reach D-rank, he was rather wishy washy. Even though his strength met the criteria his leadership was rather lacklustre. They hoped that with his official promotion he'd be a bit more gung ho but here he was sitting on the fence again. They all sighed before slapping their leaders back.

"Let's carry on boss."

"Don't be such a worry wort."

"I'll be fine in a few hours, let's keep going."

They all said encouraging words before clambering for bowls of the now finished soup.

Their actions left John stunned, a blank look adorned his face. Eventually he broke into a wide smile and laughed before pouring himself a large bowl of soup.

The group of adventurers camped for close to 4 hours before deciding to continue.

Jack spent most of the time lying down and taking it easy allowing his injury to heal fully. The herb cloth and alcohol worked wonders; Jack didn't even have a scar left after removing the bandage.

John and Thorin took turns on watch duty whereas Fen was tasked with taking notes about the monster lair as well as drawing a simple map of the areas they travelled through. The more data they provided to the guild the greater the reward they'd get, plus if they provided a detailed guide it'll help them in being promoted to the next rank.

Currently Thorin was just a tad short of reaching the level required for D-rank, this monster lair investigation may be enough to immediately promote him. Then their adventurer party would have two D-ranks and could take on higher level quests, surpassing the average rabble.

"Looks like they're starting to move young master." Since watching the adventurers do nothing for hours was boring, Frost teleported to the training room to do some magic practise. After seeing John use the lifestyle magic [ignition], he had Maya explain a few others, and with his talent he picked them up fairly quickly. Maya was thus left in charge of occasionally checking in on them.

"Oh! perfect timing," Frost turned around to face Maya. He currently had a small flame on each of his fingers, silently waving side to side.

He clenched his fist erasing the flames

"Let's head back then." He opened up the menu to see the adventurers before teleporting back into the private space with Maya. He had changed the set up in the private space a little, moving the chairs and table closer to the floating dungeon core.

He could display a larger picture if he used the actual dungeon core and with the chairs it felt like they were watching a movie, Maya had even opened up another bottle of sake- of course a less expensive one.

"It's good that they're continuing." Frost grabbed a handful of cracker like snacks that Maya had prepared to go along with the sake, something called pretzels.

"Yeah, now we can try out a few more plans." Maya downed a shot of sake, reddening her cheeks. They didn't spend all their time with magic practise, they also discussed a few measures in which to extend the intruders stay. Frost also hoped that one of them would run into the prepared traps but given the size of the room and their careful movements it'd be unlikely.

The two parties couldn't be more opposite in their situations, Frost and Maya were pleasantly enjoying a good show whereas John and his companions were risking their lives.

Once the last of the gear was packed up John gave the order to move out. They moved even slower this time and didn't allow Jack to run and investigate ahead in case of another ambush.

The group quietly travelled through the first section without anything else happening immediately. Due to the blizzard masking their tracks and obscuring their view they ended up taking a very winding path.

Eventually after another couple hours journey, they reached the massive river that flowed through the centre of the room. With most of it being frozen it was safe to cross but areas where the ice was broken, or non-existent schools of fish could be seen swimming.

"Boss look." Fen excitedly pointed at a non-frozen part of the river, since he was an archer, his eyesight was the best and noticed the schools of fish first. He was so excited that he was prepared to rush over immediately but was quickly blocked by John's arm.

"Stop!" He wasn't going to have another one of his friends injured due to letting their guard down. Even though in the past two hours they hadn't been attacked they did come across several monsters. They witnessed a group of artic horned rabbits hopping along as well as a few frost slimes, but they chose to ignore them. Chasing after G-rank monsters wasn't worth their time and energy.

Once John stopped Fen from rushing over, he gave Thorin and Jack a nod before they slowly moved over in formation. Given their proximity to the Glacial mountains, fish was quite rare in Furano. Ice fishing was pretty much the only recourse other than importing and was quite a popular past time, especially among the cat beastmen like Fen.

"Artic cod, pink salmon I even see some polar herring." Fen quickly announced as his mouth started to salivate. Fen was an avid fisher and could name many different types from a single glance.

"Although they're fairly common fish it's an interesting find, at least we wouldn't go hungry anytime soon." Jack chimed in; he was drooling in anticipation as well. He frequently went fishing with Fen whenever they had some downtime.

Thorin however found this to be quite bizarre, they were currently within a monster lair, yet fish were swimming around without a care in the world. As far as he knew this was unusual, of course his knowledge wasn't that deep and monster lairs were inherently strange places, so he left it at that.

"Alright there's fish here, note it down Fen and let's move on." John sternly ordered, he wasn't that big a fan of fish plus he couldn't swim and wanted to cross this river as soon as possible.

"Eh!" Fen and Jack both looked at their leader crestfallen. They gave the schools of fish one last look of desire before turning away and moving on.

"Tsk" Frost tutted loudly; he had planned another sort of ambush around the fish. A few frost slimes were hiding in the river alongside the fish ready to pounce and the artic foxes were waiting at the riverside out of view ready to attack them from behind.

He could have easily still had them attack but since his aim wasn't to kill and only practise, he didn't bother giving the order. The foxes thus retreated so as to not get spotted, the slimes stayed where they were. They found the river to be quite a pleasant hideout, plus they enjoyed playing with the fish.

It was another 3 hours before the next event happened.

At this point the group of adventurers were nearing the second section, they were coming across more and more rock formations. On the way they were dive bombed by a couple of snow owls that nearly forced Thorin into a spiked pitfall trap causing him to sweat profusely. Luckily John had grabbed him by the beard and pulled him to safety. The owls quickly flew off after Fen started firing arrows their way, they turned around and somewhat smiled at Thorin as they flapped their wings tauntingly. But that was nothing compared to what faced them now.