"Alright, prep up, both of you.," A man announced to two others in a dispatch facility. "We're continuing yesterday's exploration operation in route twenty-eight."
The others nodded with steely expressions. Had one been in their presence, one would have realized that they were all Martial Artists, that too particularly strong ones.
"Sigh, another day of exploring that dark and scary dungeon?" One of them sighed. "Can I quit?"
"Tsk, as cowardly as always Suran," The man tutted. "Honestly, how on Earth did someone like you become a Martial Squire? It's embarrassing to me that I'm in the same Martial Realm as someone as shamefully fearful of danger as you."
"It's because I'm so shamefully fearful of danger that I managed to climb up to the Squire Realm, boss," Squire Suran replied shrugging his shoulder.
"How can you not want to explore the dungeon?!" Another chimed in. "It's so exciting and otherworldly! You don't see these kind of esoteric phenomena anywhere else in the Human Realm at least!"
"Tsk, get away from me you adventure junkie," Squire Suran tutted with a look of disdain on his face. "It's idiots like you that die first."
"I'd rather die in an adventure than live like a coward!"
"That's enough, Suran, Crill," The team leader sternly ordered, putting an end to their bickering. "I said get prepped, both of you."
Soon enough, the three of them had equipped themselves with all the gear and equipment that they needed for their exploration operation.
"Let's head out," The team leader instructed as they sky-walked to the Shionel Dungeon, before quickly entering it from a specific location.
"We've reached the starting point of route twenty-eight," The team leader spoke into a device. "Time of entering the dungeon is precisely eight hundred hours."
With that, the three of them entered the Shionel Dungeon through the tunnel. The team leader unfolded a portal device that extended downwards with a plate attached to the bottom end of it. He waved it over the ground a bit before it glowed up in response.
"Alright, the first marked checkpoint detected, let's get going," The team leader announced.
The mood among the three of them had grown a lot more serious and solemn. Even the excited Squire Crill who enjoyed exploring the dungeon maintained a highly alert state of mind. Although he loved adventures, he also loved his life, despite what he said. The Shionel Dungeon was simply too dangerous to go around walking without paying attention to where one was going, and to what was around one. Many Martial Squires had gotten lost in the dungeon without any idea or clue as to where they were. While plenty had succumbed to their deaths.
It was a rare environment where even Martial Squires were in immediate danger. This was why the Exploration Department had assigned three Martial Squires to the team instead of one.
The team leader would engage in the actual exploration while the remaining two were bodyguards of sorts. It was too dangerous for any Martial Squire, even S-rank adventurers, to be preoccupied with other matters when traveling the dungeon. The other two Martial Squires were there to cover the team leader while he engaged in the main exploration operation.
The three of them traveled deeper while the team leader made sure that they were on the same path as before through the marked checkpoints. The markers were small spheres that were embedded into the ground and were the only way for the team leader to verify that they were on the same path as the last time that they scouted this route.
Without them, the team leader would have absolutely no fathoming of any sort whatsoever whether they were anywhere near their old path. He only recognized the entrances and the starting ten meters. Beyond that, his senses were too hampered, his sense of direction of whirling around and the tunnels were all too similar for him to possibly distinguish between all of them.
He had tried memorizing them using a sequence of numbers that told him which tunnel pathways to choose and which to avoid. However, he gave trying to remember all of them after the first fifteen numbers. There were simply far too many junctions in their way for each of which he would need a number. He was not capable of memorizing a hundred numbers in order, nor did he think any Martial Squire could possibly be capable of that.
"SSSSKK!"
BAM!!
The team leader shook, startled when an Inland Shionel Taipan lashed out at the ground from one of the tunnels beside them. Although he had been unable to react, Squire Suran intercepted the attack with a swift and powerful kick to the head that cracked its skull, killing it on the spot.
"Huff… Good job Suran, I would have died if it weren't for you," The team leader sighed.
"It's just part of the job," Squire Suran shook his head. "Let's get going and finish this operation as quickly as possible. I want to leave the dungeon as soon as possible today."
"I agree," The team leader nodded. "We have already reached the end of the previously explored routes. Now we need to follow through and cover the prescribed amount of distance before we can head back."
The team leader pressed a device that was hanging at his waist, a recording device that was just barely able to capture some data of their immediate surroundings under the oppressive jamming state of the Shionel Dungeon.
The team leader truly did not expect to run into remarkable and special today, as always. He just wanted to finish his job and then get out of the dungeon as fast as he could. He, like Squire Suran, was not a fan of spending much time in the dungeon, especially when he needed to lower his guard when focusing on his operations and trust life in the hands of a coward and an adventure junkie.
That was why he was speechless when he came across what was undeniably a new unexplored floor.
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