“Are you sure you want to do this?” Maya asked looking at the quest board.

“It is the perfect mission for us, besides we really need the money,” I answered, the two golden coins per person reward was very tempting. No other quest went above 30 silver, not even the most dangerous ones.

“Yeah, but it is really dangerous,” Maya was still concerned, “the money is not worth it if we die before we spend it.”

We were discussing the latest guest posted on the guild’s board. It was a dungeon exploration quest. An adventurer’s party stumbled upon a new dungeon a few days walk from here; they assumed it was the reason for the increase of monster activity near the town. Apparently, monsters were escaping out from the dungeon to the outside world. As customary, the guild issued an exploration quest, but new dungeons are very dangerous to explore, especially for first-timers.

“We could get cool treasures from this,” I tried tempting Maya with treasures, “imagine finding a mage staff in there. A lot of people are bound to sign up so it would not be as dangerous.”

“That is the problem,” Maya whispered pointing to surrounding adventurers who were giving us weird eyes ever since we came in.

“You are thinking too much. This is considered a dangerous quest because no one knows what to expect from the dungeon. They would not risk their lives over a fight with us if it means losing two magicians,” I explained to Maya in a hushed tone, “in fact, if we don’t do this quest now we will not get another chance. Later on, everyone will be more prepared for the dungeon and will have no problem with attacking us.”

Maya started thinking things through before she finally agreed. We went to the counter to signed up for the exploration mission.

“I see,” the counter lady noted down our information into a book, “can you tell me who is the leader of your party?”

I did not know how to respond, instead, I looked at Maya. I didn’t want to be the one to explain that we were the co-leaders of our party. Our party has two people and has two leaders, it was stupid no matter how  I looked at it. We would have been better off if we signed up as two individual adventurers.

Just as I was about to tell the lady to leave that part blank, Maya spoke up.

“He is.”

The lady turned back to write on her book while I questioned Maya.

“You’re the leader only on paper, I don’t want to deal with the other adventurers,” Maya explained herself, “don’t think you can order me around.”

“If you say so,” I answered. Being the leader on paper was half the battle. As for her accepting me as the leader, it would only be a matter of time. As for the quest, as I don’t freeze like the last time it should be fine.

We went around to buy equipment and food for the quest. It had been three days since we had last formed our party and thanks to Hazel asking us to collect herbs for her, we had some silver to spend. Hazel, herself, was locked up in her workshop working to create that invisibility potion. I was excited about buying that potion before Maya told me that her experiment would probably end in failure. Apparently, you don’t create such high-level potion on the first try, it would be while that tree yields any fruit.

The next day we set out to the guild with our bags filled with five days worth of food. We only had enough money to fix Maya’s old leather armor and get me a leather top. I also bought an iron dagger as a precaution, I did not have the money to buy or the skill to wield a sword. Once our preparation was done we went back to the guild to meet up with the other parties who signed up for the quest.

There were eight other people standing in front of the guild, one of them I identified. It was the same man we almost fought in the guild before. Just how bad is my luck? I guess this is not going to be as smooth as I thought it was going to be.

“Maya?” I whispered to Maya as we approached the group, “if any of them tries to do anything don’t you dare hold back on using your magic.”

Maya opened her mouth to say something, but stopped and slowly nodded her head.

“Ayy, what are you doing here?” sure enough the man got on his feet at the sight of us.

“Doing a dungeon quest, got a problem?” I asked nicely.

“Not with her you are not,” the man said pointing to Maya, “I am not going to have my party killed by teaming up with her.”

“Then leave, nobody is stopping you. This is an optional quest and honestly, it will go much smoother without a screaming idiot on my team.”

“You!” the man started pointing at me as if casting a deadly spell.

“Both of you stop!” A young man with a full beard stepped out from the crowd, “we don’t have time for all of this.”

“But Fredrick.”

“He is right, any adventurer who signed up is free to come. We need the manpower” Fredrick told the man before turning to me, “and you stop causing trouble with him.”

“And you are?” I asked.

“I am the team leader assigned to this quest by the guild,” Fredrick introduced himself, “though, there will be no need for formalities or an apology. You merely have to follow my orders when we are fighting and not cause trouble while we are on the move.”

“Trust me, I am not one to cause trouble,” giving the man a look before asking Fredrick, “Is this everyone?”

“Yes, your party was the last one to arrive,” Fredrick answered as he took out a sheet of paper, “Let’s have each party leader introduce his party before we head out.”

Everyone nodded in agreement.

“I will start,” Fredrick pointed to himself, “I am Fredrick, a Warrior class. The girl with the pigtail is Cassandra, a Fire Elementalist. The shady looking man with the long hair is Chris, our Rouge. Last but not the least the man in the rope is Grin a priest and our healer.”

A warrior, mage, rogue and a healer, this was one heck of a balanced team. Compared to our party of magicians we look like idiots.

“I am Grey” Grey the asshole introduced himself, “the man with the shield is Rocco, a Paladin. The one with the scar on his face is Axel, a brawler. And over there is Rage our Berserk, and before you ask he gave himself that name.”

Aren’t they all DPS class, they do not have a single healer within their team. Looks like it's our turn.

“Hello, I am Felix. This is Maya and we are both magicians, none of it’s specialized.”

Fredrick nodded after everyone finished, “now to the loot distribution. We are going to sell all the magic crystal to the guild and divide the money between the parties; if anyone wants to keep a specific crystal, they need to buy it off the guild afterward. For the dungeon loot, each party gets a chance to choose an item. Any questions?”

“Yeah, why are they getting 1/3 of the money if they are half a normal party?” Grey really want to duck it out with me.

“That is because we make up 2/3 of the magicians in this team,” I answered “The question you should be asking is why need a party of 4 warriors? If we are going to be in a closed area it does not make sense to have 5 warriors in there.”

“You...”

“Knock it off!” Fredrick barked angrily, “I am not going to trust my life in the hands of two idiots who can't stop arguing with each other. If any of you are not satisfied with the arrangement you can leave. The rest of you get in the damn wagons.”

Everyone quietly got on the two horse-drawn wagons nearby after that. Grey’s team went on one, while Maya and I shared one with Fredrick’s party. I had enough of Grey at the moment. We sat at the back of the wagon, with Fredrick’s party on the front side and us at the back. Maya had chosen to retreat to the solace of her mind and did not utter a single word since we came here. She sat at the corner near me trying to take the least amount of space as possible. With that our wagon started leaving heading out with Grey’s right behind us.

The scenery transformed from flat farmland to thick forest trees. There was a lingering silence in the wagon, everyone watched the passing scenery as the wagon bumped up the rough road. Fredrick’s party was the first to break the silence as they started chatting. I guess they would not stay silent for two whole days long ride. Looking at Maya who seemed to be trying to disappear into herself, I gave up on starting a conversation with her. Compared to the other parties, our party needs a lot of work. Even laughter could be heard coming from Grey’s wagon behind us. I could only sigh at this and start playing with my magic spells.

Hazel has been teaching the basics of creating complex spells over the last couple of days. So far she taught me how to use my mana to manipulate the spells I already have. Similar to how I increased the size of my fireball by giving it more mana, but more complicated than that. So far I have been practicing increasing my range, but I could not do this from the back of the wagon. Instead, I worked on controlling the intensity of the magic. I created a small fireball in my hand and practiced reducing its size to my fingertips.

Everyone turned towards me because of the sudden spell but turned back to what they were doing. Maya continued examining the floor and Fredrick’s party their conversation. Though, I saw their magician, Cassandra, gaze linger on Maya for some reason.

The wagons went down the road until nightfall. I had run out of mana a couple of times during my practice, but unlucky the other party also ran out of things to talk about so I did not have to sit in silence during their conversations. We found a clearing to set up camp and rest for the night. We did not bring tents for this quest, instead, we gathered firewood and made a  bonfire at the center of the camp before we ate dinner. With so many adventurer’s we could handle any monster that made its way to the camp. The guard duty was set with each party guarding for a third of the night. Grey’s party was first, we were second and Fredrick’s party was last. With Grey on guard duty, I planned to sleep for a third of the night, I could not risk him sneaking up on me even if it was unlikely.

We all naturally split into our party to sleep at different sides of the camp, the wagon drivers slept inside their wagons.

“You still don’t remember how to talk?” I asked Maya as we laid down our sleep bags.

“Sorry, got used to the silence,” Maya answered going inside her bag.

“I understand, it was the most boring ride ever. How could you have stayed quiet for a whole day?”

Maya smiled, “it is an old habit. How did your practice go?”

“Fine, but I still did not get the Spell Manipulation skill.”

“It’s to be expected, you only started training. Keep on practicing, it will only be a matter of time.”

“I know,” I answered getting into my sleeping bag. I asked a few more questions about mana manipulation before I fell asleep. Using my mana all day must have done a toll on my body.

Maya woke me up when it was our turn to switch guard with Grey’s party. She must have also not trusted Grey and kept watch over them. I got out of the bag and moved away to not disturb Maya. Rage handed the hourglass they were using to keep time and told me to wake the next party up after 4 turns. I took over his potion and started practicing my magic again to stay awake. The hours quickly went by and I woke up Fredrick’s party without any incident...

The next day we packed up and got back on the wagons. This time around the party was way quieter than yesterday. I decided to use this opportunity to ask Fredrick about the dungeon.

“The dungeon? To be honest, we still don’t know much about besides it being a dungeon and not a trial. Kind of why we are on this quest in the first place, to clear it and rank its difficulty.”

“What do you mean by not a trial?” another term I did not know about.

“You really must be a new adventurer, the guild told me as much but I did not expect it to be this bad” Fredrick started rubbing his beard, “I am not the best with words. Grin you explain.”

Grin smiled turning towards me, “Trials and Dungeons are both challenges created by the gods for us mortals. The difference is that dungeons are made to kill as many adventurers as possible. They are created by ill intending, mischievous or angry gods. Trials are made to challenge adventurers to improve and work towards a certain treasure, often the blessing of god that created that trial. A gift a god bestowed upon his closest followers.”

“And you believe this to be a dungeon?”

“Well, dungeons are more common than trials. Gods are often more angry than happy,” Grin explained, “the scout team also said the entrance was surrounded with monsters. Only a dark god will make his trial like that and if it comes to that you are better off without their blessing.”

Grin looked at Maya on the last part of his explanation.

“Hey Grin, what god do you serve,” I asked trying to change the subject, “Fredrick mentioned you are a priest.”

“Goddess, not god,” Grin turned back to me before smiling, “I am the priest of Maldav, one of the Divine, the patron goddess of our town. She is the goddess of the light attribute and has dominion over live attribute.”

“I see.”

“Do you wish to join the temple, Felix. I can assure you, being a follower of Maldav only comes with perks. With her blessing, you will be loved by the light element and will become an S rank healer immediately. What do you say?”

“I am sorry but I am not really interested in following any god or goddess at the moment.”

“Did I tell you that followers of Maldav have no limit on how many spouses they have.”

“What?!”

“Yes, Maldav is the goddess of life and requires all her followers to procreate as much as possible.”

“You should have started with that. No one cares about being a healer, but getting as many...” Sharp pain from my waist cut me off. Maya was merciless pinching me.

“I am sorry, but I am still not interested,” I hastily told Grin. Now you start listening to our conversation Maya. Well, at least now I know that harems are allowed in this world.

“That is too bad. I was looking forward to you joining. Even my fellow party members will not join.”

“There is one god worth following Grin and that is the god of gold,” Chris started speaking, “I prayed to him my whole life. I ain't going to cheat on him now with some sex goddess.”

“Stealing money is not praying.”

“It is not stealing, merely spreading the blessing of my god around his followers. To us, it those who lock away the blessings in a dark and not share it with others that are wrong.”

“Don’t listen to him, he is just a thief,” Grin explained while preaching to his party member, “a thief who could have all sins forgiven if he started following Maldav.”

“Hey, Fredrick why don’t you follow Maldav,” I asked.

“Nothing major. I just don’t see the point of following a god if I am going to die at any day,” Fredrick shrugged his shoulders, “none of them truly care about us, why should I care for them.”

“That is not true...” A grin started up again but was cut off by the wagons suddenly stopping.

“Save your preaching for another day, Grin. We are here,” Fredrick spoke as he jumped off the wagon. We followed after him with Grey’s party shortly joining us. Fredrick paid the wagon drivers and told them to come back in three days. Once we have all gathered around, Fredrick called Grey and me to aside.

“The dungeon is still a one-hour walk from here. We can either camp out here for tonight and go there in the morning. We can also camp next to the dungeon, but we have to defeat the monsters that are around it. What do you guys think?”

“We camp at the dungeon,” Grey spoke up, “it would be less taxing to clear the dungeon without having to fight the monsters outside as well and a good night sleep.’

“I agree,” Grey and I agreed on something for once, “the monsters could attack us at night if we camp here, better take care of them while it is early. We can also temporarily block the dungeon entrance for the night.”

Fredrick nodded in agreement and commanded everyone to follow him. We followed a simple formation of warriors and the rest of us at the back. Of course, Chris went ahead of us to scout out the path. 

We arrived at the entrance of the dungeon to find a group of goblins has settled at the entrance of the dungeon. The goblins were wearing loose leather armor and were carrying wooden clubs. They walked around the dungeon never going too far from it. They seemed to be guarding the entrance, which made me wonder if they spawned within the dungeon or moved in after it had spawned.

We quietly hid in nearby trees and waited for Chris to go around and scout out more monsters. There were no other monsters except for the seven goblins ahead. It was getting dark and we did not want to waste time-fighting the monsters so we quickly formed a plan to deal with them. We will wait for the goblins to get close together and Maya would hit them with a confusion spell. After that, each of the six warriors will take on a goblin while the mages took on the remaining one. If anyone managed to kill theirs they move on to help others.

We quickly moved into position and Maya started casting her spell. She simultaneously cast seven confusion spells on the goblins, but the goblins did not fall down as we expected.

Instead, they turned to our hiding spot, their eyes burning with blood lust.