Snow and Tommy both entered into the smaller gate. What welcomed them were partial darkness as a glimpse of light peeked from above, allowing them to see dark shapes. A pungent smell of death and decay lingered in the air with a mix of feces. Covering her nose with her arm, she looked around with disgust.

Tommy fumbled around in his small pouch, which he carried on his side: a storage item. He pulled out a flashlight, lighting up the room. It was a small room that could easily fit thirty people. In the middle of the room were piles of animal and human bones; right above, it was a large hole covered with leaves as if it was purposely hidden away.

Snow understood that this room was a container for monsters that they had just fought, feeding it through the hole from above. There were still pieces of flesh present on the bones, a pool of dried blood dyed the floor like speckled confetti.

"A cage?" Tommy was looking around with a sour expression. "These guys have been personally fed."

"How are you so sure?"

Tommy squatted down, taking a good look at the bones in front of him. "Human bones. It's too recent."

"You think it's the missing women cases?"

Picking it up, he examined it closer. "No, these are male bones. Some fool must have gotten unlucky in the past couple days and died here." He looked up, frowning.  

"You can tell?" Snow leaned over to take a look as well, but she couldn't tell the difference.

"The female pelvis is not as high and is proportionately wider than that of the males," He pointed out. "Most of these bones are animal bones than humans." He got up, taking a good look around.

Snow wanted to know why this particular monster was caged in this room, not roaming around, but the only thought she had was that the dungeon master must have thought of this creature as some kind of pet or guardian to tease the intruders and nothing more.

"Ms. Receptionist," Tommy called her over.

Curiously, she went to see what he had found. Snow noticed that Tommy was busily pushing away the bones from the large stack of others and found a human-sized magical seal burnt into the ground.

"A magical sacrificial seal?!" Snow snapped out from her stupor, realizing what it was. Her mind raced, reading the seal in front of her as her finger glided over it. She could still feel the lingering remnants of power present in the seal. She could almost taste the magic itself, tickling her.

Even still, she couldn't believe that something this dangerous was here. There was more at stake than she thought.

"Sacrificial magical seal?" Alarmed, Tommy stood next to her, taking a good look at the seal itself.

"Who in the right mind would want to do that?"

"That is a good question," Snow pondered, "but from my understanding, these are virgin sacrifices." Squatting down, Snow pushed away the burnt ashes and bones and took a better look at the seal.

"You gotta be kidding me, right? All those lovely ladies...dead." Tommy groaned, "This is an outrage. Whoever it is, if I get my hands on them." He grunted, balling up his fist.

"This must be where the missing ladies have gone too." Snow furrowed, thinking over what this meant. "We will find an answer here in the dungeon. There is no way the missing cases of ladies are not associated with this dungeon. The magical police must intervene."

"But you said they won't be able to go back out."

Snow nodded, "I believe they will figure out what to do. We do have the Players. We could use them as messengers would be ideal."

"That could work."

"It will. All we need is to enter and exit. Heather will know what to do." Snow nodded, getting up as she took a few pictures of the room and the seals. "We should go back, there isn't much we could do here."

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Tommy nodded, they went back to where Mr. Everrett and Tamaki were present, but upon entering, they saw a large group of people setting up camp. Most were Players as she recognized their flamboyant outfits compared to the natives who wore simple clothes. She could tell that the group before them was decent enough to survive on this floor.

"Ms. Snow!" Tamaki raised his voice, waving for her to come over.

Snow walked over, wondering who they were. She saw the patches of a red flower on their shoulder, realizing that they were from Jonet Jackson's company: Red Flower Nation, one of the best magicians company.

"Hello," A young woman with flaming, wild red hair stood in a lab coat spoke with a smile. Her round cute face and the spicy flavor of her attitude lighten up the dreary mood around them. "My name is Red. One of the magical head scientists for Red Flower Nation." She stuck out her hand towards Snow.

"Snow, a receptionist at Dragon Express." Snow shook her hand, she felt a warm tingling energy that flowed through both of them.

"Interesting," Red took a look at Snow, drawing in her hand close to her. "Your energy pool is vastly different than normal people. Has anyone told you that?"

"No." Snow shook her head, wondering what she meant. She felt a bit uncomfortable at Red's wild, curious stare.

"Almost as if it's alive."

"Ah…." Snow realized what she was talking about as she remembered the incident that happened not too long ago. "I got mana overdosed a while back. There is a magical lake on this floor, I suggest you be cautious."

"Really?!" Red spoke, her eyes glistening at the thought of finding a magical lake. "I can't believe something like that is here." She jumped up and down in glee at the mana lake.

"Yes."

"Great! Do you know where it is? Actually, can you take us there?" She said in a hurry.

"Well-" Snow wasn't so sure she wanted to go back.

Mr. Everrett stepped in to help Snow out. "She won't be able to get back there."

"Why?" Wondering who the old grandpa was. "You are?"

"Everrett Rod"

"Everrett Rod?!" Surprised, Red came over to shake his hand roughly. "I can't believe one of the legendary martial artists of the White Dragon Clan is here. I thought you had retired."

"I am."

"Then how did you get here? Wait." Red put up her hands, realizing her question. "All of you were forced into the dungeons."

"Yes."

Red squealed in excitement. "This is unbelievable. I didn't expect a dungeon to appear right in the middle of Atlantis." She was almost jumping up and down. At the rate, this dungeon is expanding; it will become half the size of the city in a few months."

The thought of the dungeon expanding frightened her. This meant chaos and death was going to be rampant if this dungeon was not destroyed.

"Red." A blond hair older woman came swaggering over, not pleased that Red was chatting away. "We got work to do. I'm sorry for her behavior. My name is Ivy, assistant director for Ms. Red here. You are Ms. Snow from Dragon Express, I presume?"

"Yes, it's a pleasure to meet you." Snow curtly replied professionally. "I was wondering what is the Red Flower Nation Company doing here?"

"We are here on a case study on this dungeon. We wanted to know what caused it."

"Have you not gotten the info?"

"What info?"

Snow sighed, realizing that this could spell trouble for them in the future. "No natives can leave this dungeon without destroying the dungeon master and the core."

Both Red and Ivy went silent, realizing what this means.

"We didn't hear about this. We were too busy trying to find a way in. It wasn't until five hours ago the dungeon was open to the public, so we quickly came over to investigate."

"Yes, because I just sent out a message the moment the gate opened." Snow replied, realizing that more unnecessary trouble was finding their way into the dungeon itself. She had hoped that the Dragon Express could have sent out a Code Red to warn how dangerous this dungeon was, but it seemed that wasn't the case at all. Dairen hadn't arrived in time.

"This is bad." Ivy walked back and forth, realizing that the trouble that they were in. "We don't have any camps sets available to live out here for weeks or months."

"Well, you won't have to worry much about living spaces, there are apartments on this dungeon floor. From our short stay here, there are plenty of lower-level and high-level monsters. The last monster we fought that open the gate was a B class monster: Dullahan. I can only assume how much more dangerous this dungeon can be, so this dungeon level has risen to a B or possible later on an A class dungeon. We must stay vigilant."

Both Red and Ivy were shocked to hear that the dungeon level was extraordinarily high. A C class dungeons were manageable. A B class was difficult but not impossible, but to think that it could raise to an A spelled trouble.

"I understand." Ivy quickly spoke, "If you will excuse me. I'll need to relay this to the higher-ups." She quickly walked over towards her group.

Red thought over what Snow had said. She nodded her head a few times, smiling. "It's going to be alright. We will be sending one of our best mages here and a handful of healers. This should help speed up the process in the dungeon slaying, though…" She took Snow's hand. "I suggest you be a bit careful. I remember that dungeons can drive people like you crazy the deeper they go into the dungeon itself from the mana overflow. It might be better if you stay on the first floor until the Hunters clear this place out."

Snow nodded, understanding what she was implying. She was a liability mainly because of what could happen with the mana as she got deeper and deeper into the dungeon itself. She was honestly glad to stay behind for a while until she was needed. Her job wasn't to be a Hunter but a receptionist, and she was okay with that. For now.

The gate flickered once more; this time, a very large group of Hunters and Players were mixed as it brought excited noise.