“So, this floor is clean,” said Duman while nervously looking around. Ayaan, Mezei and Kamil were following from a short distance with Amanda and Roseline being at the rear of the group. The 10th floor of the labyrinth had been ventilated enough that it was finally safe to traverse. Roseline was the one who came up with an idea to use bits of copper tubes to direct airflow instead of using copper pipes from the 10th floor to the surface which would have taken an immeasurable amount. It could have been done but would have taken a lot of resources and too much time, hence she came up with an idea of installing the gadget at stairways only. It wasn’t a safe method but seemed to have dispersed the toxic fog enough.

“I think that must be the carcass of the giant slime?” Ayaan pointed at a dried up opaque substance. It loosely had the shape of the slime, indicating that the wound Kamil inflicted was fatal. Comically, after having its outer shell punctured, it dried up and simply died. Approaching it, he poked the carcass with a tip of his sword which acted like wet leather where some sort of goo gathered where it was poked.

“Ewwwww,” Mezei complained loudly. “It’s still wet all this time?”

“And it’s still melting my fucking sword,” Ayaan complained. The tip of his sword was gone, melted away.

“It’s a slime,” Roseline said. “I looked up. I read that it’s not that uncommon in caves and whatnot. I do think its size was over the top, though.”

Kamil glanced at the carcass and moved on. In the end, he chose to finish this dungeon because he felt this was the easiest task that could be struck off his list of to-do. If Duman was correct in his assessment, there were two bosses left, one on the 15th floor and the other at the 20th. By utilizing the holy power, defeating the two bosses should be trivial. Whatever would be left after clearing out the dungeon, he was going to release it. Of course, whether it was going to go to plan, it could never be guaranteed. After all, nothing in his life went exactly as he wanted.

I ended up saving fucking Karsten after all, my word…

He still had a hard time accepting the reality and was dumbfounded by his own actions. The best he could do was simply push on with his life and try not to think about it. It was easier said than done, but there was nothing he could do.

“So, we’ve reached the stairs,” Ayaan said, looking down into the deep abyss of whatever was waiting for them down below. The others caught up and gathered around.

“Do we know what we are expecting?” Kamil asked to which nobody answered except Duman, and he did it with a shrug.

“Who knows. If that slime was anything to go by, I assume we are going to run into monsters we are not familiar with.”

“Alright, let’s get this over with,” Ayaan said, looking fired up. Some of the Ceres guild members were becoming bored with being holed up in the temporary settlement because there wasn’t much going on. There was no market and certainly not enough people to socialize. Ayaan was one of them who was itching to get it over with and go back home. Duman was pretty much the only one who still had an energetic spirit. Even boiled shrimps, they had enough of them at this point.

From the 11th floor, it became clear that the theme changed. Gone were stone walls, replaced with simple rocky cave walls. The stone ground was still there, however. And -

“God…,” Amanda shook her head, complaining. “What are those even?”

They were confronted with giant worms that were the size of lions with its circular mouth wide open that had countless small pointy teeth on inner edge of its supposed mouth. They were hissing at them and were trying to surround them. None of them had seen such creatures before.

“These don’t look like they could survive on the surface,” Roseline said, looking around nervously for any surprises in the back. “Probably one of the underground creatures like the slime.”

“Yeah, sure, fine, but these are just gross,” Mezei replied with a frown.

“Enough, chitchat, women! Let’s go!” Duman spurred others on. Ayaan was already on it, slashing his sword at the giant worms which spat greenish blood all over.

“The fuck, it has green blood!”

“Even grosser!” Meizei cried.

Contrary to its hideous and fearsome appearance, they went down surprisingly easily.

“We can’t salvage anything from these corpses, let’s just push on!” Duman barked out order after order. “Roseline, keep your eyes on the rear! If you see anything remotely suspicious, you let us know! Duke, you doing okay?”

“I am fine.” He had been oddly a bit too reserved. It was primarily because he was shocked by his own action to save Karsten. He would have loved to take some time off but knew that time was a luxury at this point. Two dragons were let loose, burning things down at a slow pace, and the deadland was also expanding as if it gained a new source of energy. This dungeon needed to be taken care of also. With the divine power he also needed to release soon, he simply could not slack unfortunately.

“Fucking hell! There is no end to these!” Ayaan barked with a frustrated voice while Mezei was busy crushing endless waves of giant worms. They were not particularly strong but they were coming in waves after waves; They were fighting with numbers.

This does not make sense logically. Where are they even coming from?

Ayaan and Mezei had killed over a hundred of giant worms so far with no end in sight. A creature would need to eat to survive. What were those consuming all these years? It was illogical.

Should I use magic here to clear them out?

He was reluctant to cast any magic because Ludwig had informed him previously that, whenever he cast any magic, it would carry a tiny portion of holy power with it, making it ridiculously strong. He wasn’t overly worried about ending up depleting the holy power. He was more concerned about its impact, especially when they were venturing deep underground. If there was any cave in, they wouldn’t survive, probably. Thankfully, his party was not in danger, but they were unable to push forward.

Retreating is not an option. I need to get this place done and get it off my list.

“Folks! Fall back!”

“What?! Are we retreating?!” Duman talked back.

“No, I am going to cast a spell but I need you to stay behind me because I don’t know what will happen!”

“What? What does that even mean -”

Kamil interjected sternly, “Just do it!”

Ayaan, Mezei, and Duman exchanged glances and eventual nods at each other and ran back. As soon as he saw them falling back, he chanted aloud so that his followers would know that the magic was being cast.

“Elementals, wipe them out!” 

Wind blades were summoned a short distance in front of him and flew out in a 180 degree arc. However, the wind blades, which resembled that of the crescent moon, were not translucent green. Instead, they were pale yellowish and were about the size of an A4 paper. Tens of such wind blades were flying out, slicing and dicing the worms into literal disgusting meat pieces that were oozing out green blood. Ordinary wind blades wouldn’t be able to obliviate them like this. 

“Don’t hit the walls and the ceiling!” He wasn’t sure that’d work but ordered so anyway. Unfortunately, he would soon run into an issue.

“Um…., Duke, I get that the magic is powerful, but could you stop? They are all dead, I think?” Duman asked him carefully from behind. There were no more giant worms in sight, and it didn’t feel like there was any more coming.

“Uh….”

He couldn’t stop. Wind blades were shooting out like an assault rifle with unlimited ammunition and without recoil. It was dead silent as well, making the whole situation more awkward. He simply stood still, hoping for the spell to eventually end. After two awkward minutes, the spell did stop, leaving absolutely nothing but a graveyard for the giant worms in front of them. And, in spite of him asking walls and ceiling not to be hit, some wind blades did manage to strike walls but thankfully not the ceiling. The stoney cave walls looked like it had been sliced numerous times. The cuts were so clean that it was hard to believe.

“What was that about? Have you lost control of your magic?” Duman pressed for an answer. None in the group was aware of what had recently occurred. The mountain range blocked them from seeing the enlarging gray clouds also. Therefore, Duman and his team were oblivious to the fact that the Age of Darkness was upon them. Regardless, for him as the team leader, it was important to know whether Kamil was in sound mind and condition. 

“It’s a long story. I have not lost control of my magic. Rather it has been boosted temporarily.”

“Your magic was boosted. Is that even possible?” Roseline asked, joining the conversation. 

“It’s a long story but …” It was this point that he realized something. “Do you not know what’s been happening to the world?” He asked, to which they looked at each other with puzzled faces.

“I see. I will give you a short version.” And he went on to briefly explain the appearance of two dragons and destruction of Staidone. He had yet to hear news that Deltalago was destroyed.

The dragons were essentially creating more deadlands in the North and the South. Meanwhile, while the dragon of the North appeared to have free reign, the dragon of the South looked to be occupied and was unable to spread further destruction and chaos.

They must be fighting back… I must say that I am impressed by their response.

If they could somehow take care of the dragon, it would take a huge burden off his shoulders although he was well aware that it was very unlikely. If dragons were easy to defeat, the Age of Darkness wouldn’t exist in the first place after all.

“Dragons?” Duman and Mezei replied in unison while the others looked skeptical. “I didn’t even know that they existed. I thought it was a myth,” he replied while she downcast her eyes, looking concerned.

“It’s not a myth. They do exist.”

“Have you seen them with your eyes? I don’t even know what they look like,” Roseline asked, her eyes displaying curiosity. She was a scholarly type.

“Actually, I haven’t seen them with my own eyes, but others have and have reported their appearances.”

Roseline looked in the direction of the exit as if she wanted to get out right away and see the dragons with her own eyes. But she was adult enough to quickly snap back to reality.

“Time to finish this place then,” she said instead.

Likewise, Kamil’s mind wasn’t truly with him at the moment. He was still shaken up after having saved Karsten. He wanted to get drunk and cry or complain or whatever. What common folks could do easily, it was a luxury for him. He was in a position of power and, if he collapsed mentally, so would others below him. Perhaps, under normal circumstances, some slacking and veering off could have been tolerated. However, at a time like the present where two dragons were flying about and destroying everything in its wake? He had to drag himself through the mud. He just had to. Taking a long frustrated sigh, he pushed on along with the group. The 11th floor was very much clear at this point, thus making it down to the 12th floor was a breeze.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” Ayaan muttered loudly. He was the first one to step onto the new floor with a small ball of fire above his head.

“What is it?” Mezei, following closely behind him, asked.

“There ain’t a floor!”

“What?”

“It’s fucking flooded!”

Indeed, aside from a small area right around the stairs, there was only pitch black glossy surface that was water. 

“It can’t be deep, can’t it?” Duman mused aloud while dunking a crossbow bolt into the body of water slowly. It was going all the way in. “No, shit. It looks to be deeper than I thought.”

Because the bottom could not be seen at all, it posed extra danger for them. The water was at least knee deep, and it could very well get deeper. Uneasiness and uncertainty dominated their nerves as the danger posed by the body of water was more deadly than monsters.

“Is it even possible to descend deeper at this point?” Amanda asked. “Further floors would be flooded as well, no?”

She had a valid point. If the flooding wasn’t by design, then this dungeon was done for. Given the age of this place which was more than a few thousand years, it wasn’t unreasonable to expect that it would flood eventually.

“I ain’t venturing unless we can make sure that nothing is in the water,” Ayaan said, beckoning others to back off onto stairs further up and making himself a short distance away from the water.

“I will cast a fireball,” said Amanda while citing her spell incantation. When a ball of fire exploded midair deeper inside, it illuminated the area for a few seconds before it died off. Just as he feared, they did spot something very large swimming in the water. It looked like a giant eel of some sort although they couldn’t be certain.

Duman rubbed the bridge of his nose while grimacing. “How do you even fight something like that…”

None of them had any experience with aquatic monsters. Common sense told them that it would fight only in the water which naturally put them in disadvantage, and it certainly didn’t appear that they could bypass whatever they were about to face.

Yeah, how do you even fight that…

Kamil, too, wondered and racked his brain. Then he recalled boiled shrimps from Tantan. Normally, it would have been a ridiculous and pretty much impossible idea but -

With the holy power, it might just work.

“I have a wacky idea,” he said. He decided to boil the whole water with a holy fire ball. While he was uncertain whether it’d work or not, he was at least positive that it would do something. Casting a fireball which was again not fire but a ball of pale yellowish light, he told others to back off further just in case. All of them bar Kamil ended up reaching up to the 11th floor. It didn’t take long for them to see a flash of light and then hot steam surging up. For a brief moment, they were in a sauna.

“Did it work?!” Duman shouted to get a response.

“Don’t know! Come down!” he replied.

The water was gone, vaporized. It was only then they realized that the floor wasn’t flooded; It was by design. The floor was essentially sloped to have water within like a backyard pool. As they carefully made their way downward, they saw the strange creature they saw when Amanda’s fireball illuminated the area. It was indeed a giant eel except that it was thoroughly boiled and cooked, letting out rather delicious smoke. It was also all curled up, making itself smaller.

“I am hoping that it’s not just me, but it smells delicious,” Ayaan remarked, wetting his lips with his tongue.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” Amanda retorted with her arms folded. “You wanna take a bite, is what you are saying?”

“Maybe, are you denying that it smells good?”

The cooked eel was big. It was as tall as an adult male, but its length was undeterminable since it was all curled up like a snake.

“That is not the point!” she barked. “That is a monster!”

“What determines a monster and a fish?!”

Ayaan had a point in fact. It was an arbitrary rule which humans created. Creatures that were capable of harming humans were branded as monsters in general. Everything else was pretty much livestock or animals to hunt.

“Quit it, the both of you!” Duman exclaimed. “Ayaan, get back in the line. I ain’t gonna let you take a bite on an unknown substance. That’s an order.”

“I wasn’t going to eat it, dude! I am not insane! I am simply pointing out that it smells good. That’s all!”

“Enough! Let’s move on. Go out there and find a way down.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Waving his hand away dismissively, Ayaan proceeded further with Meizei watching his back. The others inspected the dead eel.

“It looks like a snake to me. I guess this is an aquatic version of it,” said Roseline while carefully inspecting the dark gray eel’s skin. When she touched it with her index finger, it was covered with some pale gray slime, at which point Mezei and Amanda both made “ewwwww” gestures.

“Well, it’s clear that we couldn’t have done this without you, Duke,” said Duman, giving a firm pat on Kamil’s back. It did look clear that this dungeon would have been out of their league past the 10th floor. The slime monster would have been their limit. 

“Personally, I don’t feel too safe venturing deeper,” he replied while looking at the dead eel. “It is my honest opinion that we are out of our league.”

Duman gave a solemn nod. “I don’t disagree. We are making this work with your help. Otherwise, I would have pulled back. We can pull back if you want. It’s your call.”

The problem Kamil had with venturing deeper was the lack of rescue options, should things go sour. If they got in deep trouble, that was it.

“No, we need to finish this. We need to-”

“Hey!” Ayaan shouted from afar, his voice echoing. “I’ve got something here! Come!”

When others arrived where Ayaan and Mezei were, they found a sizable pit that was filled with water to the brim. But that wasn’t the least of their problems because they could see a bluish light emitting from its bottom.

“What’s this?” Duman asked aloud, to which nobody answered immediately. They were on the 12th floor. The assumption was that there would be approximately 20 floors. Now, the pit itself was not an issue because they could bring in ropes. The issue was the water. Removing it wasn’t going to be easy, and the pit looked very deep with a faint blue light coming from down below. Everyone sighed, knowing that it wasn’t going to be easy.

“Draining a waterlogged pit like this isn’t too hard, but we are deep underground and don’t have the manpower to conduct such a labor-intensive task,” Duman explained. It didn’t mean it could not be done. It was just that it was going to take a long time to get the pit drained. And, if the pit was connected to an underground water source, it was not going to be feasible.

“Is there a water-breathing spell?” Kamil asked Roseline who was a water mage of affinity nine.

“Not that I know of,” she replied promptly.

“Can you try, though?”

She looked amused as if she heard something funny. “Um, what?”

“Try crafting a new spell, is what I am saying.”

“Duke, mages don’t create new spells. I mean we’ve tried, but they just don’t work. There is a reason why there are spell books.”

He insisted, “Could you at least try? Nothing to lose here.”

Awkwardly facing both of her palms toward Kamil, as if she knew that it would be pointless, she chanted, “Elementals of water, heed my call. Grant the one in front of me an ability to breathe underwater.”

Lo and behold: Nothing.

I am pretty sure it would have worked if it was me, though.

“Now what…,” he wondered aloud with his arms folded and looking down into the pit.

“We can try draining the water,” Duman suggested.

“I don’t think we have time for that,” he replied, looking troubled.

I can command wind and fire… Try boiling the water again?

Having no other choice, he decided to cast a holy fireball into the pit. This was stopped by Duman.

“Hold on a minute there, Duke. It may be a bit too powerful, and the pit may collapse,” he pointed out. The pit was about two meters in diameter, which was just about enough for a grown man to comfortably descend down. The hole was also going straight down without any deviation. It was most likely man-made.

Was the flooding intended to begin with then?

He’d never get the answer. The dungeon was throwing them different kinds of challenges than he expected. He expected two bosses that he could easily defeat and get it over with.

“Do you think you’d have to drain it?”

“That’d be the safe way, yes,” he replied. “Depending on how deep the pit is, it may take a month to months.”

“It may not be possible to drain even,” Roseline added.

“Time is of essence,” Kamil said. “The faster we get this done, the better.”

“Even if you say so, Duke…” Duman made a troubled face. “Unless you know of a way, this is going to take months.”

There has got to be another way…

He could not afford months although strictly speaking he was given six months to finish the place. The circumstances had changed since then. Regardless, they didn’t address the elephant in the room, the blue light at the bottom although there wasn’t a point in discussing it if they couldn’t get down the pit. Having already spent over twelve hours in the dungeon, they decided to go back to the surface.

“Welcome back,” said Lara who was standing guard right by the makeshift tavern door. “Are you done? Can we go back home?”

“What’s the rush? And, no, we aren’t done.”

“Buggers.”

“What’s the rush?”

“It’s boring here. Nothing to see and do.” She pointed around. “See anything worth looking at?”

Kamil followed her fingers and looked around the vast plain of … nothingness. Indeed, the only structure around here was the makeshift tavern which was slowly starting to show its age already due to its snobby construction and inexperience with foreign material: bamboo. Additionally, he felt like the number of independent mercenaries had fallen. He could see maybe three mercenaries roaming around. This place wasn’t thriving at all in contrast to what he had been told initially. Whatever potential it may have displayed, it had all but vanished. A part of the cause was Brian who was spending less attention on the settlement due to his own affairs as well as the fact that it was to be handed over. He had a plan to bring over a blacksmith as well as a small amount of commodity to kickstart a small market, but his plans were shelved once he heard the news that Atra would be taking over soon. There was no point in investing any further when it was to be taken away. With less support, life was getting harder for those who weren't directly working for the Ceres guild. As a result, some mercenaries had departed at this point, leaving only a few left. With so few left, they weren’t likely going to be able to maintain the tavern.

I feel like I’ve pulled a fast one on the crown prince.

Granted, he did promise to support the settlement half a year after handing it over. However, if there was no one left to support, he wouldn’t need to spend any manpower and resources. The crown prince wasn’t going to be pleased when he found out that the settlement he was going to kickstart was already abandoned. He would have nothing to show for and might even be ridiculed by others although it may not even matter with the Age of Darkness.

Should I ask the guildmaster to put some effort into this place?

He soon shook his head, dismissing the idea.

I have no leeway to look after others’ affairs. I must look after my own people first and foremost.

Before departing for here, Cezary suggested rapid expansion of underground farming which was still in the research phase by Kamil. He expected more refugees with the expanding deadland and feared the ever increasing black clouds originating from Siwen mountain. He also suggested relocating the entire surface population underground.

Is history repeating?

Kamil couldn’t shake off the feeling that Ceres of the present was following the footsteps of the past Ceres which he was exploring. The ancient city fell ultimately by a dragon or dragons.

I really do need to finish exploring this place. I need to get some sort of answer here. Why and how did this city fall? I cannot afford to make the same mistake they made…

“You okay, Duke?” Lara asked, which snapped him out of thoughts.

“It’s nothing. Keep up the good work, Lara.”

“Yeah, yeah… It’s a boring task, but I guess someone has to do it.”

Not paying much attention to her complaints, he entered the tavern.