Ch.54 Adventure
Sha'la quickly realizes what she did, lowering her head in shame. Seeing this, A'um gently pushed her behind him while apologizing to the rest of the beastmen with his eyes. Luckily, the group didn't hold it against them seeing as even the elves lost their composure.
The only reason they were granted a spot in the pioneer's group was due to their report of the changes in the battlefield. This allowed the beastmen to rally their troops before the church could take control of the area surrounding the Dungeon.
As rank two soldiers, they were given this chance to interact with a rank four professional and his rank three guards. It was obvious that the higher-ups wanted to reward them by building a relationship with him, using it as an excuse to promote them.
Sha'la understood all this after A'um explained it to her, however, her little outburst almost threw the group's dignity out the window in front of the elves. Thankfully, the elf's chaotic auras gave away just how shocked they were themselves, saving her from embarrassing her group.
Aware of their shameful actions, one of the hooded elves surrounds herself in wind mana flying towards the sky. "My partner will survey the area for us, let us wait for her return." Agreeing with him, the beastmen decided to let the elves scout the area first.
As the elf flew towards the sky at full speed, a question was nagging at her. How can there be a sky in a Dungeon? Normally, field Dungeons would just have many light sources in the rough shape of the sun. This one not only has blue skies but large golden white clouds slowly moving by.
The distracted elf soon got her answer, in a less than elegant way. "SLAP! SMAAAAAAAASM!!!"
"Oooouuuuch..." looking like a fly that just got swatted, the elf's face made intimate contact with the sky as her body followed after. The hood covering her face was flung off, revealing her charming smashed face. The elf finally snaps out of her momentary concussion, big tears appearing in her green eyes.
The Dungeons supply of healing waters seemed like a godsend right now. Something she took advantage of as she drank the bottle she secretly filled when the church ran away. While her face slowly healed she took a better look at the 'sky'.
A thick glass ceiling separated her from what her aura could tell was a torrent of water. She saw many small creatures inside the waters, identifying them as rankless water slimes. As for the gold and white clouds, they were made out of clusters of golden crystals with unknown whitish-gold slimes in the middle.
These slimes brought her a feeling of danger, meaning they're rank one creatures at least. However, she has never seen a golden white slime. Although sightings of white slimes can be found in the libraries of Elfsteen, they were rare and can't survive outside the frozen forest.
Ignoring the ceiling after she gave it a death stare, she uses her vantage point to survey the field. On the farthest end of the field was a small circular island that looked like it was made from white stone. Surrounding it was a whirlpool of healing waters, the island acting as the eye of the storm.
Adding mana to her eyes allowed her to see a golden leaf sapling in the middle, as well as a door with a human-shaped carving on the edge. The door looked out of place, as it wasn't attached to anything but the floor. Behind the island was a waterfall that stretched from one side of the field to the other, the 'sun' right above the island.
The rest of the Dungeons was segmented into four landmasses. Although the land looked fine, their borders were distinctly carved into water passages looking flat and smooth. The Dungeon gave the feeling of a water city, many tall tunnels leading inside the landmass split the torrents of waters between the lands.
Turning around to descend, she sees that the place they came out of was actually built into a flat-top mountain. Looking like a temple to an unknown God, two large stairs on either side lead to the clearing on top. The space above the temple was roughly the size of an average town what looked like a stone slate in its center.
Looking around more, she saw two glasshouses that were as tall as the ceiling, they are to the left and right of the temple. Inside the left one was a tree with golden apples, while the other had many tall and skinny trees twisted together. The glasshouses also fence off the waterfalls running around the mountain, preventing them from overflowing into the clearing on top of the temple.
Returning to her party, she saw her partner's ugly expression as well as the beastmen's twitching mouths, bringing a hint of pink to her face. After explaining the situation around the Dungeon the group decided to explore. The landmass connected to the temple took a sharp left turn, a large river separating it from the one across it. Although they found matching pairs of stone pillars parallel to the ones on the other landmass, they didn't know how to make them function.
They gave up after a while, returning to the temple entrance. On their way back they felt something was missing, but they were distracted by the many beautiful golden crystals on their way. The elf girl tried to sneak some of the ones shaped like glass roses, sadly, the crystal would crumble into golden mist before disappearing.
Since they didn't get anywhere following the Dungeon's path, they opted to have the elf girl and Sha'la use their element mana and mana respectively on mass levitating spells. Thankfully, the landmass to the right of the temple had a much smaller river, allowing them to skip whatever the Dungeon wanted them to do.
It didn't take long before the elf girl noticed that one of the large golden crystals had what looked like windows, tables, chairs, and a crystal rose garden. However, what she saw next surprised her! A human whose entire body was made out of crystals! "There's a human up ahead! Wait, no!" She finally realizes why she felt like something was missing, there are no monsters in this Dungeon! "It shouldn't be a human, it should be something mimicking one!"
The rest of the group also snaps out of the strange haze they've been feeling ever since they entered the Temple. Although they felt disturbed, they didn't hate the feeling or found it harmful. It was as if you were an upset kid calming down the moment someone you like picked you up, remembering why you were upset when they left.
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A human body made out of translucent golden material turned in its visitor's direction, a four-sided crystal in the middle of its torso. "Oh? Saints? No... You're not Saints, who might you be little ones?" Said the creature in a strange metallic voice, while its emotions gave the feeling of an honest but bad actor. The murderous group stopped in their tracks not knowing how to act around this monster. It was giving off an aura of harmony, not too dissimilar to a friendly grandpa or grandma.
The group just stared at it in confusion, the creature not moving at all as if it was a statue. A'um decided to be the one talking to it, saving the leader from this awkward situation. "Greetings, I assume you are the Dungeons consciousness? We've come to assess the level of danger in this Dungeon." He pointed towards the leader, "this is commander Ba'pu, he's one of the leaders of the Chaos Guild. These two are Leaft and Sundrop, they are temporary leaders of the Chaos Guild as well!"
The humanoid creature tilted his head, radiating confusion in his few facial features. "Forgive me, I don't understand your words." Hearing this, A'um didn't know how to continue the conversation. He started to ask more questions, however, the creature would simply repeat the same words over and over.
Sha'la, seeing him having trouble tried to help. "Mister ah... human? Do you need help with something?" Before A'um could frown, the monster finally gave a response other than 'Forgive me, I don't understand your words'.
"Oh! Would you mind helping me little ones? Even though your not Saints, I can still feel a bit of Lord Holy's power in you." The monster suddenly sprouted wings flying inside its house, returning shortly after with something in his hands.
Flying next to Sha'la it said, "would you be a dear and collect ten (Hope Roses) for me? They can be found anywhere in the other landmasses. Since you're apparently outsiders you probably don't have a (Regalia), do this for me and I'll give you enough (E.M) to buy one out off Peridasa's market."
Sha'la was presented with gloves made from gold and white materials, many golden mana stones in the back of the hand. Questioning the monster for its use, it simply said, feed it your Element Mana. Any further questions not related to its request gave the same 'forgive me' reply as before.
The group left the crystal house behind, hesitation and worried reflecting on the eyes of the elves and Ba'pu. Although different in many ways, the moment that monster flew away, the image of the church's angels flashed in their minds. The creatures known as the messengers of the lord have killed many of their brothers and sisters, being the priest's main form of attack.
This Dungeon showed its bias towards the church, they needed to solidify their position in the guild and not allow the church to grow in power too much. The elves also knew the danger, resolving themselves to make their leaders send more powerful mages. Before they could think too deeply, they saw the church's people flying in their direction with golden wings.
"Well, you must've killed all the monsters already? I thank you in his Holiness stead, he will be pleased by the many crystals blessed with the lord's power!" Before they could roll their eyes at the pretentious priest one of them noticed the crystal house not far from them.
"Oh? An intelligent lifeform is living there? Mhmm... it must be a Boss or a strong monster, allow us to deal with it." Sha'la tried to stop them but they ignored her as they flew over the group. Ba'pu narrowed his eyes, "let us follow them, we need to know the monster's attitude towards the church." They all nodded as they ran back to the house.
"HOW DARE YOU IMPERSONATE ONE OF THE LORD'S MESSENGERS!!" The church, seeing a monster defile the form of the lord's messengers, infuriated them to attack it. The creature cried, its crystalline body showing cracks, however, what it did next shocked and confused the priests.
"Demons! You shall know the lord's wrath! Oh lord of Holy, please grant your devoted follower the strength she needs to battle these demons!!" Upon finalizing its prayer, a pillar of light fell from the sky covering it completely. The aura of harmony was ripped apart, allowing the group to pick up on its rank one strength.
Before the startled priest could scoff at its weakness, the creature's rank started to skyrocket! Sensing danger, they tried to attack the monster to no avail, the pillar of white and gold mana acting like a barrier. The monster's rank settled on the high end of rank three, nearly reaching rank four.
Wasting no time, the monster waved its wings from side to side, sending razor-sharp feathers towards the priest. The paladins quickly raised their shields protecting their charges. Sadly for them, they underestimated the sharpness as it pierced thru their [Angel's Veil] and shields, embedding into their armor.
The priest healed the paladins whilst buffing their attributes with their blessings. The monster ignored their actions as it continued firing its feathers, slowly losing to the church's forces. In the end, the monster lost his lower body and one of its arms. This damage didn't seem to affect it, the fight lasting no more than ten seconds.
The church should have finished this fight in an instant, but the shock of the words said by the monster had them rattled. Landing the last blow, the paladins had destroyed all the monsters extremities, including the head and wings. However, the creature didn't seem affected by the loss of its body, as it started to talk again.
"Oh lord of Holy, I sacrifice the body bestowed upon me to push back these DEMONS!!" Upon saying this, the monster's translucent body glowed and dispersed into golden dust, gathering around the bladed feathers. Sensing danger, the paladins tried to remove them in haste but it was already too late.
"CRACK...!!! BOOM... BOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMM...
Glowing in golden lights, the feathers cracked and exploded all around the battlefield. The destruction sent some of the unexploded feathers towards the spectating beastmen and elves. Even as a rank four warrior Ba'pu felt he would get some serious wounds from this. Before he could grab the hilt of his greatsword, to defend the little rank two kids, his instincts told him there wasn't any danger.
The moment of inner conflict rob him of the chance to stop the feather, as it slammed into his pecs. Instead of piercing him, it folded much like any other soft feather, falling to the ground gently before disappearing into dust. The explosions continued on, any stray feathers blown their way doing no harm.
Whilst this was going on, in Malpetios's Mindscape, three people were watching the fireworks on a floating screen.
"Hahaha! Serves them right! How dare they attack one of my NPC for no reason whatsoever. Shhhhissssh... for people that preach nonstop about the lord's power they sure don't appreciate all the work I put on making the angels"
"Oh come on kid do you really expect anything else? From all the stuff you've told me about the church, they are basically a non-profit charity group that's only a bit more corrupt. At least they're better than politicians who say they are doing good for the people but really only care about their backer's needs. They actually have to do good things to grow stronger and can't cause too many problems or the people will know somethings fishy."
Malpetios gave Brian a 'u sure about that look' before turning to the third person in their little group. "What do you think Q'ill?" The tall and extremely developed beauty turn her attention to Brian and said, "I think you're a bad influence on Malpetios. How can you make him break so many of the Jewel's rules for 'safety'. At this rate, the World's Will might get enraged and abandon him."
Brian rolled his eyes before looking at Malpetios knowingly. Getting the message, he shrinks to his five-year-old form and starts comforting Q'ill.
Brian peeks at the fairy that's clearly overcompensating for something, as her icy face melted, trying to squeeze the air out of the kid's lungs with her... equipment...
"Tsk... I guess I'm no different." Said Brian as he takes a look at his muscular V-type body. "Ugh.. why can't I get rid of all these scars though?"