Rob walked through the open streets of the royal capital, with Elaine following right behind him.
“So, what book have you been reading?” Elaine asked out of nowhere as they passed a nearby fountain.
“Magical Beasts and their Weaknesses Volume 8, and also Train Your Fucking Mana Control you Lazy Dimwit,” answered Rob blandly.
“Sheesh, I get it!” Elaine huffed. “I’d been putting in the hours, you know?”
“Oh, really? But I can’t help but remember all those hours you did watching TV,” said Rob.
“It was just-“ Elaine was about to explain herself when Rob grabbed her by the waist and pulled her back to him. She was a bit confused by this sudden gesture, but when she followed his finger and looked at the nearby sewer drains, she was met with a numerous pair of glowing yellow eyes in the darkness.
“Those are…?” she looked at Rob and hoped he would entertain her question.
“Giant Poisonous Rats, E Rank,” Rob explained. “They live a level below the sewers in the labyrinth beneath us.”
“Then… why are they here? Did they manage to poke a hole through the sewers?” asked Elaine.
“Probably,” murmured Rob.
He then pointed his hand at the sewer drain, and before the giant poisonous rats could run away from the dangerous threat that they had sensed, Rob released a burst of white light and the giant poisonous rats died in one blow.
“Let’s go,” Rob said and continued to walk, ignoring the sewer rats without bathing another eye.
“Huh…” Elaine took one last glance at the sewer drain and followed Rob a while later. Whatever those were, it wasn’t her problem.
…
Anna grabbed her head with a sigh. While the headache was mostly gone, she still felt a pang of pain from time to time, and the hazy dream kept replaying in her mind, plaguing her thoughts away from calmness and serendipity.
Can’t I have a day without stressing the fuck out?! She groaned. Maybe I should start meditating like those monks and fix my fucked up mental health.
As she opened the door to her classroom, she swept her glance around the classroom and her eyes landed on the dubiously handsome man dozing off right beside her seat. She felt her heart inexplicably flutter for a moment over that unmoving face, with long eyelashes, soft lips, clear skin, and golden brown eyes that pierced through her soul.
“Morning,” greeted Rob, yawning.
“Morning!” greeted Elaine cheerfully.
“M-Morning,” said Anna, stuttering. She quickly regained her calm, hid her lightly flushed face, and sat down on her seat. She placed her bag on the ground below her, took out a book, placed it on the table in front of her, and flipped it open to the bookmarked page.
“Damn,” Rob mumbled. “My Best Friend Is Now My Girl Friend?!, classic.”
“Huh?” Anna paused as she looked at Rob, befuddled and confused. “You… know this?”
“Duh,” snorted Rob. “Read it way before, and not gonna lie, they’re a cute couple. Kind of a slow burn, but I can enjoy a nice homosexual relationship disguised as a straight ship.”
“Huh?! You actually read this?!” Anna gasped. “I didn’t know… you enjoyed this type of story…”
“Oh, he enjoys that kind of story a lot!” Elaine butted in. “What a helpless romantic, am I right?”
“Shut up, I’m not a helpless romantic. Second, damn bitch! You literally judged a book by its cover! Tsk tsk tsk.” Rob clicked his tongue and shook his head.
“Hey, was it my fault for thinking that way?!” Anna grumbled.
“Yep,” nodded Rob.
“Maybe,” Elaine added.
“You guys-“
As she was about to retort, the door opened with an audible thud as their homeroom teacher, Corine Windsoar, walked in. Her light brown hair fluttered along with a gust of wind as her green eyes shone with excitement.
She wore a simple white shirt and combat-ready black pants. Complementing her black pants were black boots, and wrapped around her upper body was a comfy black robe, and a wooden wand was tucked around her waist for swift use.
“Good morning,” she greeted simply and walked up to the blackboard in front of the class.
“Good morning, ma’am!” everyone greeted back.
“You guys may have already seen it, or noticed the strange commotion around the School Boards this morning,” said Corine. “Well, it’s because something… important has popped up.”
“Recently, you may have heard news of slimes erupting out of bathroom sinks or toilets, or how a monster attacked some streets in the capital,” said Corine. “That’s because, due to some unknown reasons, monsters in the labyrinth have been aggressively invading the capital’s sewer system and are slowly managing to breach past our security.”
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“Now, how does this problem relate to you all?” Corine clapped her hands and wore a bright smile. “Well, starting from now till the monsters stop their aggressive invasion, the school will be allowing volunteer students to participate in exterminating the monsters in the sewers.”
“There’s a convoluted pointing system in place already, but simply said, you don’t want to miss out on this,” exclaimed Corine. “If you’re confident in your combat prowess, then by all means, join this conquest and help alleviate this city’s problem!”
“Woah, so that’s why there were so many rats back then,” Elaine whispered, enlightened to the cause of that incident.
“But ma’am,” Leo stood up and asked. “What about our studies? We may not have enough time to join in on this sewer hunting if we’re preoccupied with school.”
“Good question, Mister Regulus!” Corine smiled. “The academy had already decided to end classes at an earlier time and dedicate our combat classes to allow the students to join in on the event. And for those who are not participating, combat classes will still resume as normal, so don’t think you guys can just waltz off and relax like a bum.”
“Aw shucks,” some grumbled.
“Sigh, how sad.”
“I think we should join that thing, Rob,” Elaine whispered.
“I don’t mind,” Rob mumbled as he looked up to the ceiling in a daze. So the school is also participating, huh? I had already sent some of my goons down into the labyrinth to try and find people from Grim Hallow, but this did only began yesterday so I shouldn’t expect results any time soon.
“What about you, Anna? You want to join our team? I plan on asking if Melvin, Leo, and Holly want to join us too!” Elaine asked with an amicable grin.
“Holly?” Anna’s eyes widened slightly.
“Oh, she’s the girl who’s famous for her holy magic!” Elaine explained.
“Oh, ah, right.” Anna coughed. “About that proposal, well, can you wait for my answer later? I kind of have this thing going on with someone else and he might want to team up with me too.”
“You mean that Noel guy? The one you joined with on that dungeon competition thing?” Rob asked, curious.
“Yeah… him,” Anna said with a wry grin.
“Sure, we don’t mind,” responded Elaine.
“Thanks,” sighed Anna.
…
“The sewers?” hummed Noel as he munched on a simple sandwich with equal parts meat and vegetables. “Hmm, it is quite the mystery indeed.”
“Do you have any idea why it’s happening though?” inquired Anna. She also ate her lunch, a sandwich just like Noel’s, but filled to the bream with juicy meat.
“To talk about the cause, we need to tackle how the capital is full of ambient mana in the first place,” said Noel as he sipped on a glass of water.
“Mana in this world is generally equally divided, but sometimes, there are just hotspots for mana, and the general reason is because of the abundance of dungeons in that place, just like the Great Northern Woods, the academy, and the capital itself.”
“Now, we both know there are no dungeons on the surface or in the sky or in the sewers since they would have been dealt with already, so why is the ambient mana here so dense? It’s because of the labyrinth beneath the city, a complex cave system that goes on for tens and hundreds of levels filled with dungeons - monster spawners, basically.”
“As to why they want to go up to the surface? Many reasons, really. Maybe a dragon had appeared in the lower levels and monsters were forced to go to the upper levels. Maybe they now lacked food due to overpopulation or lack space in general and want to expand both up and down.”
“The labyrinth beneath this place is a mystery full of fatal danger. There’s an abundance of high-ranked monsters, and S Rank monsters aren’t so uncommon, perhaps there’s even a family of dragons or hydras just lurking somewhere deep below.”
Anna already knew most of this, in fact, an event similar to this happened in the game. And that’s the fucking scary part.
The main antagonist of the game Lucky Lover is the evil organization known as Grim Hallow, a group full of mysterious members that wished to bring destruction to this world and support the descent of the Demon Lord.
They’re a powerful bunch of bloody maniacs that would cause a lot of harm later on.
Randomly in the game, an event would occur without rhyme or reason where monsters would begin surging out of the labyrinths, increasing its danger by a large margin as one can earn huge amounts of gold and points for a pretty long period of time.
Later on in the game, the player would realize it was an organized attack launched by Grim Hallow to sew chaos and hide some of their other actions like the death of a few strong mages here and there to mask them as monster attacks, and other heinous shit.
The spectacular thing about the game is that events aren’t constant. Maybe in one game, Grim Hallow would use this event to disguise their assassination of a person, or they would set up a mercenary team and gain the trust of the people to, later on, betray them, or just straight up bid their time to weaken the forces of the royal capital and launch a devastating attack with all of their leaders and even kill Christopher Laum.
A lot of shit can happen from this event, and a majority of them wouldn’t happen for a while, not until a few months had passed, but the possibility is still there.
Or maybe I’m just being paranoid and this is due to another reason. That Mammon guy already exists, so who knows, maybe this is his doing. Anna silently sighed and finished her meal.
“About that dream, do you have any idea what it is about?” Anna asked.
“That dream…” Noel’s eyes gleamed with a cold light. “It’s just as strange as the events centering around Mammon. Even though I used mind magic to try and clear it up, it just refuses to budge, as if someone had tampered with it.”
“And I don’t feel like it’s even a dream, it’s more like it was a message,” added Noel. “If it is a message, then that’s how it had been tampered with. Though I do think that with time, it would clear up on its own, but maybe not at the same time.”
“Tsk, I haven’t felt this helpless in a long time, especially when it comes to magic and the arcane,” Noel huffed in a helpless tone.
It’s this again… Anna frowned. It feels like we’re just trapped here in one large maze and running into the darkness. There’s a light, but that light feels fake and illusory, with the darkness clouding our perception of the truth.
It’s as if we’re always ten steps behind someone else with no hope of figuring out what is truly happening. Anna grumbled. Mammon, his organization, his goals, Grim Hallow, and the monsters from the sewers… what do they all mean?
“You seem to be feeling helpless,” said Noel softly. “You don’t have to worry so much. In due time, we’ll also figure out the truth hidden away from us by these unknown forces at play.”
“A secret won’t remain a secret for all eternity you know?” Noel advised.
“Sigh, you’re right…” Anna mumbled.
“Besides that, I am interested in these bonus points and the money we could earn from exploring the sewers and labyrinth. I think we should join in on this expedition by the capital,” said Noel.
“I knew you would say that,” Anna smiled helplessly and was already prepared for the exhausting future that awaited her. At least I have this stupidly strong backer beside me to help figure things out. Let’s just hope that mysterious dream won’t come to bite me anytime soon.