Chapter 120 Volume III - Chapter 41: Before The Dungeon
I walked through the control room and into the hallway, and when I entered the room split in two, I slowly opened the last door and looked inside.
"Celine?"
When I didn't get an answer, I raised my eyebrows involuntarily, looked toward the bed, and then I saw Celine sleeping with her back turned. A slight smile appeared on my face, I stared at her for a few seconds, and then I walked over to her. I moved quietly without waking her up, and when I was next to her, I looked at her hair for a while.
Her hair was long, which felt strange because I had seen her with short hair throughout the whole game. She was like a different character, a different person.
I poked her lightly. She didn't react at first, but when I poked her a second time, this time her face slowly turned toward me. Her purple, sleepy eyes fixed on mine and stayed there for a while.
"Sorry to wake you."
After I spoke, her eyes opened a little wider and she buried her head a little deeper into the duvet.
"It's okay..."
Her eyes shifted to the clock on the other side of the room, and then her eyebrows rose slightly.
"Yes, I'm a little earlier than usual."
Celine slowly got up from her bed, not even bothering to straighten her messy hair, and looked back at me. I could read many emotions in her eyes at the same time: anxiety, fear, and a little sadness. It was as if she understood what I was going to say, as if she felt it.
Is it because of her skill...?
I lowered my eyes and sighed deeply.
"I won't be able to come for the next five days or so, I have something very important to do."
"F- five days?"
"Yes."
Five days wasn't a long time, but even that made her expression clouded with fear.
"Do you have to...?"
"Yes, if I want to be stronger."
I smiled.
"Why are we talking like we're saying farewell? I'm not going somewhere extremely dangerous, I'll be back."
I widened my smile.
"Don't worry, like I said, I'm not going anywhere dangerous."
Celine tilted her head, not showing her face to me.
"You're lying."
The words were suddenly on my lips, I couldn't find anything to say.
She can even sense this... Am I underestimating the Sixth Sense too much?
"I'm sorry, I lied because I didn't want to worry you, but I'm not someone who dies easily. Besides, I'm not really going anywhere too dangerous for me, and... don't you trust me?"
There was silence between us. Celine was the one who broke it.
"Come faster."
A smile reappeared on my face.
"I haven't healed you yet, I won't let anything happen to me until I make up for my mistake."
Celine didn't say anything. She just buried herself deeper into herself and so I stood up again.
"Since it's still early in the day, I don't have anything to tell you, so I'll leave now, but in five days I'll tell you everything that happened to me."
"Okay..."
"See you, Celine."
"See you..."
She clutched the duvet tightly, buried her head in her pillow as if asleep. She looked at me again and I hesitated for a moment.
Still, I kept smiling and slowly walked out, waving my hand, while Celine continued to stare at me.
When I finally left the room and closed the door, the smile on my face disappeared instantly. A deep silence surrounded me. All I could hear was the clicking of the analog clock in the room.
I... I didn't think it would be this hard.
I'm the reason why Celine is the way she is, so I feel a responsibility toward her. I don't want to go against her, I want to avoid things that might upset her, but after what I said... she's definitely upset.
Even though she didn't give me any difficulty, her look, the feeling of her expression was so heavy that I found myself not wanting to leave the room, let alone go to the dungeon.
I took a deep breath, narrowed my eyes, and sighed to myself.
You will heal her.
I slowly made my way to the control room, but before I left, I took one last look at the closed door. I hadn't thought that leaving Celine alone would hurt me this much. The last two weeks of spending time with her had affected me more than I thought.
Still, I clenched my fist and headed for the exit.
To heal her, I needed to get stronger.
That's why I didn't hesitate as I left the room and went to get ready for the dungeon.
*******
When I arrived at the east gate, I rechecked what I had prepared. The bag with the dimensional buttons where I would store the potions and the items in the dungeon was here and it was full. I also had a change of clothes and a jacket. Water, food, etc. were also here.
Everything was ready except for what Alexander and I would buy later.
I sighed and looked at the clock, it was still half an hour before our appointed time.
I'm a bit early... I might as well wait.
I looked up, focused on my surroundings, and started to watch the students. The east gate was not very active, there were quite a few people because the academy was still on a break, but it was not completely empty.
I looked around at a few of these students and wondered if I'd run into anyone I'd seen in the game before. This was one of the main things I did when I was really bored. Every once in a while I would run into an extra character I had seen in the game inside the academy and try to remember who they were.
Sometimes it was really fun.
Like... Oh?
As I was observing the people around me, I saw someone approaching me, and when I looked to see who it was, my eyes went back to my watch. Because it was Alexander, and it was still twenty-seven minutes to the appointed time.
"We're both early, huh?"
After I said those words, a suggestive expression appeared on Alexander's face.
"I'm always early."
He wasn't. Alexander was punctual, it was not his habit to go anywhere early.
I put a smile on my face.
"Anyway, if we're both here, there's no need to wait. You're all set, right?"
"I wouldn't have come here if it wasn't ready."
"Okay, then let's step outside first."
I pointed to the gate guard and he nodded. At least he was being obedient.
So we approached the guard, identified our reason for leaving the academy as to meet our family, and after only a few minutes we were outside the academy.
"Where is the dungeon?"
There was a hint of curiosity in his expression.
"Let's finish our preparations first, we don't even have armor. Even if we're going to avoid fighting creatures, we can't enter a dungeon without armor or potions."
"I already know that, I'm not stupid. You haven't given me a single piece of information about the dungeon until now. I only know that there is something complicated at the end, that's all. What is its atmosphere, what is its type, what kind of creatures are inside... You expect me to follow you without any information."
Hmm... he's actually right.
"It's a cold place with a cold atmosphere, it's an E-D grade Recta, the creatures inside are a bit varied but I'd say they're the kind you'd see at the poles. Any other questions?"
"Recta..."
Alexander was both depressed and relieved to hear this.
The dungeons within Lunerra were divided into four categories. They were Recta, Aen, Alius, and Salvos, respectively.
Recta was a type of dungeon where you progressed by killing creatures, and eventually, you completed the dungeon by taking down a boss.
Aen was a dungeon with very few, if any, creatures, maybe none at all if you cleaned properly, and focused more on traps and puzzles than anything else.
Alius was the most complex of the dungeons. These dungeons could be very different from each other, but they all had one thing in common, they would take the person who entered them into a special world and put them on a quest chain. The person was free to leave at any time while fulfilling this chain of quests, and the vastness of the worlds within these dungeons could sometimes even affect the economy of the whole of Lunerra thanks to what they contained.
Salvos was the most frightening, the most dangerous of them all. The number of people who could enter a Salvos-type dungeon was limited and the entrance would close about three minutes after someone entered. The people inside could not get out until they had killed 'all' of the creatures inside the dungeon, and the creatures were usually drawn toward the people who entered. In other words, one had to stay alert inside, ready to engage in a bloody battle at any moment.
There were sometimes dungeons where these things were intertwined, but they were very rare.
Alexander was relieved because it was not a Salvos-type dungeon, and a little bit pessimistic because he was facing a Recta-type dungeon rather than an Aen. If we were going into an Aen, it wouldn't be too difficult. It would have been more suitable for a group like us.
"I am F grade, and you are E grade as far as I know. For an expedition to enter an E-D grade Recta for the first time, at least nine E grades are required... Why are you so confident?"
"I'm not so much confident as I'm comfortable that we won't fight the creatures too much, and if you had doubts, why did you accept my offer in the first place?"
Alexander frowned, ignoring my last question.
"We won't fight?"
I let out a deep sigh.
"I wouldn't say we're not going to fight at all, we're just going to avoid them and make our way to the end of the dungeon as stealthily as possible. I told you it's a cold, snowy place, why do you think I told you to wear white even though it's not really suitable for the cold? Even if the atmosphere is freezing, we'll take care of the heat problem. So don't worry."
Alexander paused for a moment, his face still showing a look of dissatisfaction.
"It would be one thing if the dungeon was discovered, but you said it was unexplored, so we don't have a map. How far are we going to sneak when we don't even know where to go?"
"What makes you think we don't have a map?"
Alexander looked at me puzzled. I smiled and pointed my finger at my head.
"The map is right here."
His expression became even uglier than before and I let out a laugh.
Alexander's face turned sourer and sourer, looking like he was starting to regret coming here.
"Don't worry, I'll answer if you have more questions, but let's get going."
*******
After the east gate, we took the magnetic train to one of the most well-known cities in the kingdom, Efenyl City.
Efenyl City was almost entirely centered on hunting. It was the main center of many guilds, but it was also overflowing with quality and well-known stores. If someone was looking for things like armor, weapons, and potions to enter a dungeon, Efenyl City was the best place to go.
When we arrived in the city with the help of the magnetic train and got off the train and stepped into the city, I was not very impressed, but I knew that this was not the place to be impressed. The place that really knocked my socks off was the streets of hunting stores that Alexander and I reached when we entered the city center.
It was really exciting to see stores selling potions in a modern world, skyscrapers belonging to guilds, and all sorts of fantastic things. Even though I knew the city almost by heart because it's an open world in the game, seeing it with my own eyes in a realistic way, not animated, and experiencing the atmosphere... was even more amazing.
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