Chapter 33: Searchers

They entered the dungeon and thanks to their new equipment and training. They were able to get by the first floors in a breeze.

Thanks to the training, their team's strength improved greatly. Now both Ariel and Serena could use chantless wind and fire magic, so they were pretty much unbeatable. At least that's what John thought.

They quickly rushed from the first floor straight to the 5th, beat the Minotaur king and took a short break before advancing again.

They got to see the bosses, which they weren't able to see before as they ascended back to the entrance of the dungeon.

The 5th-floor boss was Minotaur-King. He carried a giant sharp sword and was fast, not to mention the monstrous strength. However, against magicians who he can't even hit, he stood no chance.

John parried his attacks at close range, while Serena and Ariel Shot Ignis and Ventus at him. His endurance was very high. After a few burns, cuts and being frozen, he finally tapped out.

They were able to see many adventurers on the 5th and 4th floor, but they remained unseen thanks to furtim. There was no need to engage in a conversation with them, and they didn't want to waste any time.

They continued to ascend without any problems until they reached the 6th floor. The monsters of this floor were partly also Minotaurs with ogres.

They worked individually, meaning they only encountered one at a time. They would have been much harder to deal with if they were working together.

As they approached the entrance, they felt a battle going on inside. John used deprehendre to check on the situation without opening the doors, and he could feel the presence of 4 adventurers.

3 were motionless, and the last one was fighting on his own.

"So, wanna help them?" John asked Serena and Ariel as he explained what he noticed to them

'I should teach them deprehendre soon.' John decided.

"Yes." They replied as they nodded.

"Alright, let's do some saving," John said as he opened the door to the boss' room.

After all the rushing, they were able to reach the 6th floor's boss room in around 3 hours. Not bad. John had brought food as he wasn't sure how long they'd be spending in here. They had enough to last 5 days.

They had also been collecting moderately big magic stones from the bosses they'd faced so far. To save space, they'd only collected the stones from the bosses. And they would keep doing that.

"Hey! Do you guys need help?" John shouted out as he waved at them.

As John looked at their party, he felt a bit of deja vu. They were a party which had a Tank, swordsman, priest and magician. The boss they were fighting was called an Ogre King. The boss had his aggro on the female magician who was holding him back.

The priest was focused on healing the injured swordsman and Tank.

"Hm... We should probably find a healer soon... Or maybe I can create a healing spell?" John muttered.

'I'm not sure if I should get another party member right now... I don't feel like looking, so I'll leave it to fate. If there's a 4th party member out there, I'm sure I'll know when I meet him or her.' John thought.

"Huh? A kid?! What's a kid doing here?! It's dangerous! Get back!" Shouted the hurt swordsman.

"You should be more worried about yourself. Well, not that I mind... Like I asked. Do you need help?" John said.

"Can you beat him?!" Asked the magician who was temporarily restricting its movements with a binding spell.

"Oh, a restricting spell. That sounds like it would be useful." John said.

"Ariel, he's getting weird ideas again." Said Serena.

"It's fine, That's John after all." Said Ariel with a smile on her face.

"What's that supposed to mean?" John asked with an annoyed expression.

The two diverted their eyes to avoid his gaze.

"Stop playing around! Get out of here!" Shouted the injured swordsman.

"Don't worry about us, how do you think we got this far? We know how to take care of ourselves." John assured him.

Well, to be fair, it did happen with the spider.

"Y-You're right... I'm sorry I'm just not right in my head right now... W-Will you be able to help us..." He asked.

"Yeah, leave it to us. Ariel, Serena." John said.

"We're on it." They said as they cast ignis and Ventus on the restricted Ogre.

The attack didn't do much as expected, the ogre's defence must have been very high since Ariel's Ventus barely cut it. Serena's Ignis was more effective as it let out a roar as it was getting burnt. It was definitely in pain.

"Alright, Let's do it like usual," John said as he lept towards the ogre and swung at it.

He managed to cut into his arm, but the power wasn't enough to cut completely through.

"Dawn it, I should have supplied more mana into my blade. Well, that's fine. Glacies." John uttered.

The instant he said that word, an ice spike was formed above him. Without being able to move, the ogre got hit point-blank by his Glacies and froze up within seconds.

However, it wasn't dead. Despite being unable to breathe, it still hadn't kicked the bucket. John felt bad for killing an enemy who wasn't even able to fight back, but unfairness is part of life.

"Sorry. Magnum Ventus." John muttered.

Unlike the regular Ventus, Magnum Ventus takes time to gather enough energy until it's ready, but he's immobile so the time taken doesn't matter.

After a few seconds of energy being drawn from my magic stones and gathered in the air. A giant version of Ventus was formed, and John propelled it towards the Frozen and restricted ogre.

In a swift motion, the ogre was cut in half. The Ventus cut through it like butter. The magician, the swordsman, the tank and even the priest looked speechless

"Alright then, let's go, guys," John said as he made his way towards the entrance to the 7th floor.

Before leaving, John was stopped by a voice.

"Wait!" Shouted the magician.

"What's wrong?" John asked.

"Thank you for saving us. I wasn't going to be able to hold out for much longer." He said.

"No problem," John replied as he turned to head to the 7th floor.

"W-What about the magic stone?! You can sell it for a lot of cash! Isn't that why you helped us!?" He asked.

"Oh, you guys can keep it, we don't need it. You and your group worked hard for it after all. Besides, you got here first that made him your prey, It's a bit rude to take someone's reward, isn't it?" John asked as he walked on.

"But we asked you for help... Hey, can you please tell us your name?" Asked the swordsman who had managed to get up despite his injuries.

When they had walked in, he was bleeding pretty badly. 

'Is it alright for him to be doing that?' John thought.

"Name... My name is John. This is Ariel and Serena. We will become the strongest party in history." John said as he left to head to the 7th floor.

"Strongest..? I see..." Muttered the magician with a content smile on his face.

***

Now that they had reached the 7th floor, the number of adventurers had decreased, but there were still quite a few hunting the monsters that spawned.

The monsters on the 7th floor were a little dangerous. Rose called them cloakers. Everything appears safe when you enter, but out of nowhere, you're attacked.

This is thanks to their stealth ability. They can camouflage in the darkness and attack in the darkness. But thankfully, Serena had cast an illumination spell ever since they first entered the dungeon. So it would have been harder for them to attack in the darkness.

The only problem is that they can detect them through furtim. Being detected by John's strongest spell is quite annoying. Nonetheless, they were weak monsters whose strength lied in surprise attacks.

While encountering a few of them, they managed to safely reach the boss' room. After entering the room, they instantly felt something different.

"Stay alert. This one's dangerous..." John said as he walked in with them.

He could feel the sweat slowly drip down his face as he got closer to the boss. Its appearance was a Giant Floating Eyeball and eyelid with small eyes connected to it.

It made John feel nervous, not because of how it looked, but because it felt as if they had walked right into its trap

"What's that?" John asked as he looked over at Serena.

"That's a Searcher... It can create an anti-magic field where magic won't work..." Said Serena with little to no fear in her eyes.

"I see... So it's our natural enemy, huh? This anti-magic field you created... It's quite troublesome," John said as he ran towards it with his daggers at hand.

John's strength had been greatly weakened. Not being able to use magic was the same as taking away a gun from a gunslinger. Or at least, John was sure that's what you thought.

"Wait, John! Don't!" Shouted Serena as she saw him rush at it.

John began to move faster as he ran and his daggers began to glow. In a swift motion, he cut the body of the Searcher in half.

Ariel and Serena looked at him silently, as if they wanted an explanation for what just happened.

"Well, you see... I had a feeling we were going to end up fighting an anti-magic monster. So, I found a way to counter it." John said as he picked up the magic stone.

This stone was a bright red Sphere at least 10cm in diameter. One-third of the Spider queen's Stone.

"Yeah, that makes sense..." Said Ariel as she let out a sigh.

'Hm... Even Serena's not saying anything. Usually, she'd be complaining about how I'm always creating spells as if they are nothing. But today she seems out of it.' John thought.

"Well then, let's take a little break before heading to the next floor. Countering Anti-Magic and using magic at the same time, is quite tiring..." John said as he sat down on the floor.

"Alright..." Said Ariel and Serena as they sat down next to him.

"So what would you two like to-"

Before John could finish, he noticed that the two looked sleepy. That made sense. They woke up early, went to the smithy and climbed 7 Floors in a day. They also constantly used a lot of their magic, since concept magic requires a lot. It should be midnight soon.

"You two can get some rest, I'll keep watch," John said.

"Alright...." They replied.

They silently rested their heads on each side of John's shoulders.

"I won't be able to relax in this position if you two do that," John said.

There was no reply.

"Hey, are you listening?" He asked them.

John looked over at their faces and noticed that they were already asleep. Serena's sleeping face looked very innocent, contradictory to her usual face. Ariel's sleeping face looked just as innocent as her usual face.

"Asleep already, huh..." John muttered.

Now that he thought about it. John had two cute girls using his shoulders as a pillow.

'Crap, now I can't stop thinking about it... Clear your mind... Clear your mind…'