"...Ground Spikes!"
Sharon's voice yelling out the magic skill sounded very loud.
She seemed to be letting out all the annoyance in her heart rather than chanting a magic spell.
But, the result of her magic spell shouting managed to prevent Raiz's attack. The light that appeared from the magic circle formed under Raiz's body immediately made the ground come alive.
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
The ground became a mass of sharp spikes that rose upwards. The ground that had become a living spear attacked Raiz.
However, unlike a sharp spear that would pierce its target's body, Sharon's magic only ended up confining Raiz's body.
The sharp spikes of the ground burst out and surrounded Raiz's body like an impromptu prison bar.
Like a snake wanting to wrap around its prey, the spikes from the ground continued to wriggle on Raiz's skin. Starting from the feet, the body, until it towered over him.
Sharon's magic didn't stop working until the spear-shaped spikes started digging into the dungeon ceiling.
Raiz was stuck inside Sharon's magic without being able to move his body.
I had thought that the spikes from the ground would pierce Raiz's body. But I didn't expect Sharon to confine Raiz rather than attack him.
Nevertheless, I didn't need to take action against Raiz anymore.
The effects of a common Ground Spikes magic spell should have penetrated the target's body, but Sharon seemed to have modified her magic circle so that the effects of the Ground Spikes magic spell would only surround the target's body. Quite impressive for a 2nd class magician.
As you may have noticed, the effect of the magic spell cast would depend on the magician who cast the spell. In other words, even if a magician's spell was the same, the details of each effect would be different.
I can presume that Sharon didn't intend to hurt Raiz because she made the spell she cast not pierce Raiz's body but only keep him contained.
Was she really on my side?
I deliberately let her finish her spell and waited to see if she would actually obey my orders or betray me.
If she had directed her magic at me, I would have been ready to accept it, although if things turned out that way, then I would have been in a bit of trouble, where I would have to face all three of them at once.
However, seeing that Sharon did not attack me, I could assume that she did not want me to become her enemy.
Things became a little ambiguous as Sharon locked up Raiz.
Claude, who saw that Sharon was firing magic at Raiz instead of me, looked very surprised.
Actually, the most likely reason why he let Sharon cast the spell in the first place was because he thought Sharon would attack me, instead of directing her magic at Raiz.
Otherwise, he would have interrupted Sharon from the start.
"Why did you shoot your magic at Raiz? Did you do that because you were threatened by him? If you feel that way, I'm sure the three of us will be more than capable of defeating him if we fight together."
"I-I can explain my reasoning. T-The point is, I didn't do it just because I was threatened."
Claude and Sharon chimed in.
Claude looked puzzled. His relaxed face that he had been showing had faded.
'Gosh, if she combines forces with that boy, then this will be a headache.' That was probably Claude's train of thought. It was evident from his eyes that kept alternating between me and Sharon which were filled with wariness.
"...Can't you guys stop fighting!"
However, instead of answering Claude's question, Sharon made a surprising statement.
She shouted while bringing the magic staff she was holding closer to the center of the two small mountains on her chest.
What made me feel strange and a little surprised was that Sharon said it to me as well. In other words, she also told me to stop fighting Claude and Raiz.
Hearing her words, it wasn't me who reacted first, but Claude.
Claude looked like he wanted to say something.
However, as if Sharon already understood what Claude wanted to say, she said something to Claude first.
"If you want to use the excuse that he killed Slavic, then, didn't you dislike Slavic from the start? After all, Slavic was a new member of our party."
Wow. Listening to Sharon and Claude's conversation, I was able to get a big picture of the internal state of their party.
More or less, Sharon guessed that Claude wanted to continue fighting me under the pretext of wanting to avenge Slavic. Slavic was the assassin that I had killed. However, it seems that Claude already had a slight dislike for Slavic from the start.
Most likely, that was the reason Claude had let Slavic attack me earlier. He let Slavic test my ability and sacrificed Slavic just like that if I had enough ability.
However, seeing as Claude still wanted to continue fighting me, I guess he wasn't good at judging someone's strength. Or it could be the other way around—I'm too good at hiding my strength.
Regardless, I think the relationship between Sharon and Claude was quite close. If that wasn't the case, Sharon shouldn't have had the guts to argue with Claude, who was the head of her party.
"Alright. I will comply with your wishes. I had no intention of going all out against him from the start."
Claude dispersed the sword aura on his sword and sheathed the sword into the scabbard at his waist.
Did he really not want to continue this fight?
I feel very strange.
Where was the tension that peaked a while ago?
Just when I thought that Claude gave up fighting me because of Sharon, he told me something so that I wouldn't misunderstand.
It turned out that Claude didn't want to continue the fight with me because he guessed that I had quite high abilities. He guessed that my ability was around the same level as him. Therefore, he assumed that if we continued to fight, then his side would have a disadvantage. Especially with Sharon not wanting to antagonize me.
"Where did you get such a conclusion from?"
"Looking at your body movements. Whether you move your feet or your sword. That's more than enough to judge someone's ability, including you. Especially seeing that you didn't look panicked when you dodged my ultimate skill and faced Raiz's surprise attack, that's the strongest indicator."
As expected of an Adventurer who could unleash powerful Aura attacks.
I felt like apologizing for thinking that she was not good at judging the opponent's ability.
When things became a little calmer, he let out a long breath and said that he was too drunk because he was on a mission for rank advancement.
Things calmed down because I didn't want to continue the fight either. There was no point in killing Claude and Raiz. Seeing that Slavic, the assassin, did not produce any Death Mana when I killed him, I could assume that I would also gain nothing from killing Claude and Raiz.
In essence, aside from the fact that I would gain no benefit from killing them, the other reason I left Claude alive was to ask a few questions. At least for now, I have no intention of killing him or Raiz.
However, before I started asking, I had to break his mind, where he thought that my power level and his were the same.
Before I started asking him, I had to show my strength.
I wasn't so naive to think that he would answer questions honestly to someone weaker than him.
So, I directly attacked right beside him using The First Paths skill, Slash.
***
"Did you receive the quest from Marquess Stronghold?"
"Yes. ...."
I started interrogating Claude.
He started answering my questions one by one.
I thought he would answer briefly, but instead, he answered at length.
Was this the result of what I did earlier, showcasing my skill?
Well, I'll try to summarize his story a bit.
Initially, his party received a normal exploration quest in the Adventurer's Association.
However, the ordinary exploration quest had many puzzles. There wasn't much information about the quest. Even the place of 'exploration' in the quest was kept secret.
The Adventurer's Association only explained to their party that if they accepted the quest, their adventurer's party rank would be raised.
For their party to level up soon, they were tempted to accept a quest that was quite unsettling.
And when they had accepted the quest, it turned out that the client of the quest was Marquess Stronghold. Not to forget, before they accepted the quest, they made a confidentiality agreement.
It's very natural that things Marquess Stronghold made the monster clearing quest in this Mine Dungeon a secretive quest because from the beginning, this place was a secret place.
Because the client was Marquess Stronghold, so they inevitably did the quest until the end. However, since they only accepted the quest to clear the monsters in the Mine Dungeon, he had no obligation to interfere with my problems with Marquess Stronghold or join the hostilities with me.
By the way, they only recruited Slavic when they were about to accept this quest, and... Well, that's not important.
What was important was that he replied that he entered this Mine Dungeon yesterday.
If he entered the Mine Dungeon yesterday then he should have some information about what the soldiers in the Nest of Slavery had done.
I recalled that yesterday the Marquess Stronghold received a message through the whisper of a guard soldier when I was about to be made a slave. If I remember correctly, the message read that they had just finished putting the fox into the Nest of Darkness.
At first, I thought that the person said to be the fox was Reine Rosewood, but it turned out that Reine Rosewood was still somewhere inside the Nest of Slavery, not the Nest of Darkness, according to Ragnar, the old beastman.
Therefore, I was curious. Who was the person that the Marquess of Stronghold and his underlings were referring to with the Fox, who had been banished to the Nest of Darkness?
To answer my question, I first needed to be able to find where the Nest of Darkness was.
"Now I'm going to ask you something important. Do you know where the Nest of Darkness is?"
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