Chapter 11: Competent group
Word about the map managed to seep out of the dungeon and go further than Kael expected. Before an hour even went by, tons of adventurers had reached the dungeon. His plan was working. But Kael was barely paying attention to those new adventurers that had entered, rather, his mind was on the group of five.
They had made it to the third floor with the kind of ease that you have when walking through the park. The hammer users and the young boy in their group managed to do everything with so much ease. Kobold or goblin, they managed to take care of it easily.
’I’m having a feeling this group might find the boss room and actually win,’ Kael thought to himself. In as much as that would be cool, he found it problematic, because the bait had to remain for more people to come, so he didn’t want them to just take it.
Still, he didn’t have the energy to intervene and change anything that was happening, so he decided to watch and see how they would handle the third floor.
As soon as they made it into the third floor, the air felt different, it carried a weight that was unlike anything you would find on the first and second. The torches on the wall flickered and cast dancing shadows in all directions.
Not long after they arrived, from the distant darkness, a few goblins rushed ahead, armed with weapons and armor. They felt more secure and attacked with more vigor.
"Allen, take them," the woman with silver hair, who seemed to be the leader, spoke, her expression calm as she did. The kid with two blades at his side stepped forward. He pulled the blades and then spun them like a fan at the same time. He pressed his foot against the floor and shot forward.
Both hands pointed backwards, it reminded Kael of ninjas.
When he got to the first goblin, he pulled one hand forward in a clean slash that cleaved through the gap in the armor and slashed through the neck of the goblin cleanly. Blood gushed into the air, and before it could touch the ground, he planted his leg and spun around.
His blade came down as he stabbed into the next goblin and killed it with ease, his eyes already moving to the next target. A goblin rushed in his direction and swung its rusted blade at him, only to hit an afterimage as the boy was already in the air. He came down with a kick to the goblin’s head that sent it flying.
He landed on one leg and was already dashing forward as he did, blocking and countering the attacks of goblins before killing them in an instant and painting the floor with their blood.
There were at least twenty goblins that had attacked, and in what seemed to be three minutes, he managed to cut each and every one down, leaving a trail of bodies that slowly started dissolving into the dungeon they came from.
"Damn, that kid is really good, he moved so fast I could barely keep up," Kael commented. He was genuinely impressed with how they moved and the confidence with which they did it.
"He is getting better," the man with the hammer said. He looked at Allen’s work with a proud look on his face, the type a father had when he saw his son doing good.
"Stop it already, Ragna, you are giving me the creeps," the cloaked man said, his voice very light and raspy, like someone who found it hard and bothersome to speak. "The kid isn’t your son."
"Tch, and who are you to tell me that, Leo? I’m sure he sees me as a father figure," Ragna declared and hit his chest with his fist.
"No I don’t," Allen said as he cleaned his blade. "Leo is right, stop it, it’s creepy."
"Tch, brat, after all the training that I helped you with," Ragna said.
Allen rolled his eyes and placed his blades back. "Everyone here helped me train. I’d even say Lady Silva did more for me."
Lady Silva chuckled a bit when she heard that, her normal calm face vanished for a second.
Ragna opened his mouth to speak but then closed it and let out a hmph.
"Cleo, can you help us out? The third floor isn’t like the first and second, we have to be careful and have a detection set up," Lady Silva said.
Cleo, the last lady there, nodded and then dug her hands into her bag. She pulled out a blue crystal the size of a baby’s fist. She threw it into the air and then snapped her finger. Immediately, a magical formation circled the crystal with several intricate patterns on it.
"This detects up to a fifty meter radius and tells me which type and rank of monster is coming," Cleo said. With that, the group started heading deeper.
"Monsters have ranks? I didn’t know that," Kael muttered as he watched.
"I should have expected that, to be honest. After all, most monsters have ranks in the stories I’ve read." He turned his attention back to the group. They were generally better than any group he had seen so far, it was pretty impressive. He now even wanted to see how they would get to the boss room.
"I have to take a look at the others though, have to see what’s happening."
He could feel his monsters dying, and so he wanted to see what was going on and how they were progressing.
Heading back to the first floor, he was genuinely stunned when he saw the number that was there, they had almost doubled what had been there at the start of the day, it was evident that the information had reached everyone.
"Hehe, I’m pretty smart I’d say, now I can seat back and watch the numbers increase and easily pass the mission."
[Mission update]
