As Daimon and the girls expected, the door at the right led them to a room without traps, but that doesn't mean things were good, because the third room had three doors at its other side.
The doors at the sides were the first ones to open, revealing two of the three enemies that they had to face this time, both goblins and similar to before there was a long range and a close combat type.
But unlike before, the long range type was using a short bow instead of a slingshot, as for the close combat one, instead of a dagger it was short sword.
"Kriii!", there was another difference, the two goblins exchanged some sounds, making it look as if they were having a small conversation before the two split ways, to encircle Daimon's group.
Just like magic beasts, these goblin-like creatures weren't either mages or knights, but their strengths could be classified with the ranks stablished.
'A jump of two ranks, two fifth star huh', thought Daimon, he then slightly nodded at the girls whose images flashed the next second.
Both Sarah and Reyne are middle stage Lord ranks, and based on Daimon's calculations, they are quite physically strong, even without using battle aura, probably because they both have lineages.
To fight with these two low levels monsters they didn't need to use any martial art, a dangerous light flashed on Sarah's eyes as she beckoned with her hand, as if she was using some kind of magic trick, a needle appeared in her hand, which she threw at the gobbling with the short sword.
Needless to say, but the thing couldn't react before its head was pierced by Sarah's needle, killing it on the spot, but she didn't take the win yet, instead of that she jumped backwards just in time to dodge the short sword which fell from above.
"I'm not like those amateurs" said the crazy girl with an annoyed voice, she of course noticed the goblin throwing its weapon the second before it died, it was an instinctive move, as it couldn't react on time to dodge.
On Reyne's side, things were a bit different, the goblin with the short bow was actually shooting two arrows at the same time, unfortunately they were wood arrows covered in poison, and for a fire affinity knight like Reyne, they were basically moving fuel.
With snap of her fingers, the two arrows turned into ashes, surprisingly there was no flame liberation, which confused the goblin, it had an expression that seemed to say "What happened", but then it tried to attack again just to see the bow in its hands becoming ashes, followed by its head suffering the same fate.
As if previously planned, the two girls finished their fights at the same time and then turned to see the other, as if they wanted to see who was faster.
Daimon heard them click their tongues clearly unsatisfied with the result, but ignored that as he saw the door in the middle finally opening, what came from inside was an ice spike directly aimed at him.
Daimon clenched his fist and then punched the ice, making it explode into many shards, at the same time a line of white light was shot from his left index finger, hitting the "empty" space in front of the door.
With a low "thud" something fell to the ground, a second later the corpse of a goblin with a watermelon sized hole in its chest, became suddenly visible.
Unlike the other two who were only wearing ragged cloths to cover their lower bodies, this goblin was using a cloak made with the fur of some kind of animal.
"A magic using goblin, wearing a camouflaging treasure, now that is a jump in difficulty", mumbled Daimon.
While on the surface he acted relaxed earlier after those two eliminated the goblins quite easily, he never stopped paying attention to the last door, and while he showed "confusion" when it opened but nothing came, he of course could see through a mere star ranked camouflage.
But that's not the surprising thing about all this, nor the fact that a fifth star ranked goblin mage just casted a seventh star ranked ice spell at him, any mage can overexert itself to cast a spell of a higher rank than it should.
But that of course comes with a price, no, what surprised Daimon is the fact that the mage goblin waited until his group had "relaxed" to launch an all-out attack, also the element of the spell used was coincidentally countered the affinity he showed to have in the previous rooms.
To put it in simple words, these goblins somehow knew about how they dealt with the previous ones, but not everything fitted that assumption, for example the goblin with the short sword, throwing it to try and take Sarah by surprise, since what she demonstrated was her needle ability.
Daimon's eyes glowed as a theory appeared in his mind, but he didn't say anything yet, the next room should confirm whether he is right or not, with a quick gaze he chose the left path door.
Coincidentally at the same time, Elliot's group got rid of the goblins on the third room, the fight was quite short and they basically overpowered the enemies, the downside is that the guy who was in charge of first aids, took an arrow on his left foot.
"How the hell did that thing use a martial art to change the direction of the arrow midair!", complained Elliot as he handed his subordinate an antidote, strangely, despite the low rank of the goblins, their weapons could ignore their defensive gear to harm them.
"I-it changed all of a sudden, when we first tested it, it certainly could launch two arrows, but it wasn't able to change the direction of them like that, the spear wielding one also suddenly threw its weapon as a one last resort, just when Manuel killed it, which forced me to dodge, their coordination was really good despite their low intellect", said the guy who broke the arrow to then pull it out before applying the antidote on the wound.
Elliot clicked his tongue, he then took out his new weapon for the first time, since his father didn't want him to come, he didn't give him his Adjudicator weapon, which is an eight-generation sword.
Luckily, his aunt who fully supported him, not only scolded his father but also gave him a Beast Weapon that didn't lose with the one he previously used, at all, and it was his, without any strings attached.
"I wanted us to not use too much energy, but I think is better if we finish the fights fast, disregarding the use of mana, we have recovery potions anyway, but who knows if they have poisons for which out antidotes won't work", he said.
His teammates nodded, the mana potions were granted to work, but the antidotes might fail, so they should avoid getting hit even if that meant consuming more mana to end the battle as fast as possible.
Changing the scenery back to the initial part of the ruin, a portal appeared on the air, from which an Adam with an annoyed face, came out.
"That was the slowest stupid dimensional tunnel I have ever been to!", he said as he kicked the floor, he couldn't even take the chance to flirt with those three girls that were appointed as his teammates, because they were separated the moment they jumped into the array.
'Ariel, what the hell is this place, can you feel where is the legacy of the Blue Hero?', he inwardly asked just to hear the angel girl's uninterested voice saying.
'You know the rules, find it yourself'.
Adam who was pissed off right now, gritted his teeth, once again for some reason things weren't going his way, he heard a low creaking sound which made him turn to look at its origin, a single door at the other side of the room, from which a familiar looking creature came out.
At the same time an invisible to others screen with a message appeared in front of him.
[Welcome to the Despair Labyrinth, defeat the opponents and advance to obtain the prize, good luck!]
"Oh, finally a familiar scenario, I guess the Blue Hero prepared this place to be similar, to the training dungeon I received back then", he mumbled as a confident smile appeared on his face.
The monster in front of him was at the bottom of the food chain, he can't even remember how many of them he has killed, and on top of that it was a mere three star ranked one.
"You know, even in a world where magic didn't really exist, you goblins were just cannon fodder so…", just as Adam was about to unsheathe his sword to casually slay the ugly thing in front of him, three wood arrows were about to hit him.
"Humph, just die trash!", Adam's bode shone, his light battle aura blew away the arrows, as he dashed towards the goblin, easily beheading it.
But just as he was about to inspect the thing's corpse, he saw a stone in its hand which glowed before exploding.
"Booom!", the explosion wasn't that big, but the sound was quite loud, and it raised quite a bit of dust.
Adam coughed a couple of times as he dispersed the dust, he was perfectly fine, with the exception that there were some green stains on his armor, and a small piece of stinking meat stuck to his left cheek.
"Ahhh god damn it!", he yelled as he cleaned his face, the meat had a really bad smell, probably because it burned due to the explosion, it made him want to vomit, though he could clean his face, the stains on the armor didn't come out with his battle aura, so he ultimately gave up and left them there.
'I fucking hate this place!', he inwardly swore as he noticed he kept some of the bad smell on himself, due to the blood stuck to his armor.
…
Back at Daimon, at the fourth room, there were four doors that was to be expected, this time the four of them opened at the same time, revealing new types of goblins, the close combat one was actually wearing leather armor with some metal pieces here and there, and it used a regular light sword in one hand and a circular wooden shield on the other one.
There was a middle range goblin using a spear, the thing even had boots to have a better mobility, the third was a mage like the one he killed before, but this one didn't have a cloak, but a staff with a small human skull, as for the fourth goblin, it was even shorter than the others, but it was riding on top of a grey wolf as for its weapon, it had a blowgun.
"Is it me or they took a bigger qualitative jump this time", said the crazy girl, the increase in the goblin's strength was a constant, they were seventh star ranked beings, but the vibe they gave as well as the equipment and variety.
Still the crazy girl simply shrugged, she waved her hands and four needles made their ways to the heads of the goblins.
"Grrhghh!", while the spear wielder was killed on the spot, the "squire" goblin as Daimon decided to call it, used its shield to protect its head, of course Sarah's needle pierced the shield like a hot knife through butter.
But the impact made the trajectory of Sarah's needle to slightly change, making the needle pierce the temple of the goblin instead of the space between its eyebrows like it was supposed to, the result was still death, but there was some resistance unlike before.
As for the mage and the wolf riding goblin, their result was even more interesting, the mage shielded itself with an earth wall and gained enough time to prevent its head from being skewered by the needle, still the needle was now installed in its shoulder, making the thing let out pained growls, as it gave a hateful gaze at Sarah.
The wolf riding one actually came out unscathed, well that is if you don't consider the fact that the wolf, died instead of the goblin, who was now about to shoot poisoned darts at Sarah.
Just for its blowgun to turn into ashes, making the goblin cough as it suffocated to death, the mage waved its staff, but its head crumbled into ashes the next second.
"Hey, they were my prey", exclaimed the crazy girl at Reyne who finished the two goblins that managed to survive Sarah's casual attack.
"You had your chance", answered Reyne with her calm and gentle voice, though there was a small smile at the corner of her mouth, which made Sarah feel the urge to melt her with her battle aura.
"Ahem, did you notice it, they knew how you were going to attack them, it was as if they had already fought us and survived for a second match", said Daimon as he interrupted those two.
Seeing them putting on gloomy expressions, Daimon chuckled before saying.
"You didn't fail to kill the previous ones, in fact the corpses are still in the previous rooms", strangely, while the equipment used by the goblins disappeared after they died, unless it was destroyed during the fight, the corpses stayed behind like trash tossed at the sides of the road.
While the rooms ahead were a mystery, because they only appeared once they had beaten the goblins that came from their respective doors, the ones behind stayed there, so Daimon only had to use his infinity eyes to see through the previous doors, to confirm that the corpses where there, those goblins were as dead as they can be, so it wasn't that Sarah or Reyne failed to kill their opponents.
"At first I thought that they had a really good coordination, but there was no sign of them communicating with body signals, nor there were traces of them using a spell to communicate with each other", said Daimon before adding.
"They are a "hive", these things are learning not only from our previous fights, but also due to the fights with the other teams, that's why they are putting up some resistance despite their low ranks, otherwise there is now way some star ranked goblins could have avoided your needles", he said making Sarah giggle at the "compliment".
Resisting the urge to jump onto him, the crazy girl nodded with a contemplative expression as she voiced her opinion.
"In that case, this is like a race, the ones who fall behind will have to deal with more troublesome opponents than the ones ahead of them, maybe that's why we moved so slowly inside the dimensional tunnel, some of the others should be ahead of us as they arrived before us".
Daimon nodded, though he hadn't felt any external presences in the rooms that they have cleared, he is sure that something or someone is controlling this place, and since he had a key, things won't be as easy for him as for others.
"Try not to show any other techniques than what you have used so far, if those things learn from others, we just have to crush them with force".
"Yes!", they both exclaimed enthusiastically, they were knights after all.
Daimon softly laughed and then entered through the third door from the left, the room in which they appeared was different than the previous ones, it was bigger and more spacious, besides that, the number of doors was reset to one, but this door was thrice as large as the previous ones.
'Oh great, a mini-boss room this time, can you make it more obvious that you prepared this for someone that came from earth?', thought Daimon.
Following the pattern, the goblins in the fifth room would be the last ones in the star rank, being ninth star beings, since all the people that entered this place were Lord ranks, this was obviously not the last stage, but a midpoint.
And that isn't a thing in this world, unlike the games from earth, here when someone prepares a "middle-boss" guard to protect something, they don't leave anything that might make others predict where it is.
Only an idiot would announce "Hey, it's going to be harder this time, prepare yourself for a stronger enemy" after all, which is exactly what was happening right now.
The relatively larger door opened to reveal a different enemy than before, it wasn't another type of goblin, but a different though related, race.
This time the thing which came out of the door had the size of an adolescent, and a much more human-like appearance, while still keeping the dark green skin, its eyes had pupils and it even had hair, not to mention it was wearing proper clothes, like pants and a shirt as well as a sword which hanged by its waist.
One word came to Daimon's mind as he observed the newest enemy.
'Hobgoblin'.
This chapter is updat𝙚d by f(r)eewebn(o)vel.com