Preparing ourselves to enter the cave, Roger turned to the two girls as he asked:

 

“Are you two really sure that you want to go in there? While labyrinths aren’t as dangerous as dungeons, they’re still no place for two girls without any experience in fighting to go in…”

 

Following him was Brent as he said:

 

“Yeah, if you’re that worried about making your own money we can just give you a bit.”

 

At Roger’s question which he posed with genuine concern, Alex put on a face of determination as she said:

 

“Yeah, I’m sure. Don’t worry about us, we’ll be able to handle ourselves. After all, the three of you will be watching over us and help keep us safe, right?

 

At this Brent and Roger both gave loud yells in affirmation as they proudly began to take out their equipment and prepared to head into the labyrinth. When Alex’s eyes met mine, I gave a silent nod in affirmation as well, as Alex gave me her ever present smile in return.

 

Before heading in, Brent and I gave Alex and Alice one of our spare knives each, as we had agreed to teach them a bit of swordplay and allow them to train on the weaker monsters that could be found near the entrances of such places.

 

Thus, with all of us having made our preparations, we began giving the two girls some impromptu lessons in swordplay and knife wielding before beginning the slow descent into the labyrinth…

 

 

---

 

 

After having just entered a few meters inside, we noticed that the visibility inside of the labyrinth was darker than we had expected, even though the entire area was covered in some sort of bioluminescent moss.

 

Solving our small crisis almost immediately however, was Alice as she put out her hand before a bright ball of light began to form on it. She then followed this up by lifting her hand as the ball of light flew to just half a meter above her head before stopping and staying there.

 

Seeing the surroundings light up as a result of Alice’s magic, Roger exclaimed in amazement:

 

“WOW! That’s so cool Alice! Man, you really saved us here with your magic.”

 

Responding to Roger’s enthusiastic praise, Alice simply nodded her head and gave a small smile as she said:

 

“Nn. Thank you.”

 

 

---

 

 

With Alice’s light guiding us, we continued to walk for five minutes until we came across something sludging through the ground. Looking at the small green slime, the three of us began to move around it. However, stopping and turning to look at us was Alex as she asked:

 

“Why don’t you guys kill it?”

 

“Not possible” 

 

Was the answer Brent gave in a very matter of fact way. 

 

Agreeing with him in this rare occasion was Roger as he added:

 

“Yeah, Brent is right, those slimes are basically unkillable unless you have powerful magic. Anything else you throw at them simply melts away, doesn’t matter if it’s wood, stone, metal, and especially, your own flesh and bones.”

 

Looking at us somewhat incredulously, Alex turned back to look at the slime as she put her hand in front of her and began to form a massive fireball. Then, throwing the fireball at the slime, she watched her fireball hit the slime as she stared dumbfounded at the result with the light in her eyes seeming to fade slightly.

 

The three of us were also dumbfounded for a different reason. While the magic she had used was definitely ‘tier 1’ magic, it’s output was far greater than we would have thought it to be from the normal looking girl before us.

 

Seemingly unaffected by all of this was Alice as she pulled on her sister and got her to snap out of her daze, though not before a barely audible “that’s bullshit” came out from Alex’s mouth.

 

Turning her head and seeing that I had caught her mumble, Alex gave a wry smile and turned her eyes away from mine as an embarrassed laugh came out from her small mouth.

 

Chuckling as a result her cute reaction, I walked towards my two companions and woke them up from the daze they had been in, as we all left the slightly darkened, but still relatively unharmed, slime behind.

 

 

---

 

 

As we kept on moving in, we found a few more slimes that we kept avoiding until we finally came across a small goblin that was wondering at the other side of the corridor we were in. At seeing the small green critter, Alex called out in an unusually loud manner saying:

 

“Is that a goblin?!”

 

“Yeah, why? You’ve never seen one? While I won’t say we don’t get a few monsters every once in a while, goblins do tend to make an appearance every once in awhile as they come out of whatever hellhole it is they usually reside in.”

 

Answering her question was Roger, who had a slightly surprised expression at the girl who had seemingly never seen a goblin.

 

Responding Roger’s statement, Alex simply said in a slightly embarrassed tone:

 

“I have heard of them, but I’m afraid this is my first time seeing one.”

 

In an unusually serious tone,Brent responded to her remark saying::

 

“You should count yourselves lucky, while they’re not usually much of a threat, they can still cause quite a bit of problems when they appear in larger groups. Only a few years ago we had a small girl in our village killed by a group of them who raided our village at night…”

 

“I’m sorry to hear about that…”

 

“Nah don’t worry about, nothing happened to us, it’s Brent’s fault for bringing up such a topic”

 

With the two returning to arguing with each other once more, I took the opportunity to approach Alex and the two of us began moving in the direction where the goblin had been previously standing at. Though the small monster had left following Alex’s shout, the two of us were still able to easily track it, as Alex pulled out her knife and began circling the goblin preparing to fight it.

 

Thus, with me protecting her back and watching over her, while Roger and Brent stood next to Alice giving the girl a few pointers as Brent glared at me, Alex began her battle against the goblin.