“Hm? You’re meeting with Roy and Flynn?”

I nodded in confirmation as Xara tilted her head to the side.

“Yeah. The two of them have never gone through a dungeon before and asked me to be their guide.”

As I was saying that, I slipped on my adventurer outfit. The cloak on my back fluttered slightly as I adjusted it around my neck before I slipped on my shoes and attached my chest plate.

“But I thought we were gonna spend the entire vacation together!”

“Well, that is the plan. But I already promised the guys I'd do this so I can’t exactly back out on it now.”

“If that’s the case, then I’m going with you!”

“Hm? Are you sure? The dungeon were heading to is a bit bigger then your average dungeon. We could find ourselves comig across things you might not be able to handle.”

To be precise, it was the same dungeon I had gone into before and nearly died. And while I part of me was nervous, I had my real friends around this time, so I was confident things would be fun. Still, I wasn't sure about bringing Xara.

“And miss out on the time we could be spending together!? Nope! I’m going with you!”

“Really? Well alright then.”

As I said, I didn't really want her to go, but considering this is a dungeon we're talking about, the more help the better. Even so, this dungeon was said to not exactly be beginner-friendly when it came to fighting and exploration. And while I was confident Xara could handle herself to some extent, I don’t know how she’d fair against monsters like those scorpions I fought a while ago. Which were said to be pretty prominent the deeper you went into this dungeon.

But hey, if things get too rough, I’ll just teleport us out of there no problem. So everything should be fine.

Keeping this thought in mind, I finished putting on my outfit and turned to Xara.

“Alright. Let’s meet back here in about an hour. Once you’re good to go, I’ll teleport the two of us to the entrance of the dungeon. Got it?”

Xara gave me a salute and a smile.

“Roger!”

After saying that, she dashed off to prepare herself.

Once she was gone, Nia appeared next to me.

“But aren’t you already good to go? Why would you need to wait an hour just for her to get ready.”

I simply stared into space as I answered.

“Simple. That’s how long it normally takes for her to get ready whenever we go on dates. It’s why I always schedule them an hour before they’re actually meant to happen.”

“I see.”

That’s just the reality of it. And since I didn’t prepare for her to come along, I was just stuck waiting. Thus, Nia and I just chatted for an hour until Xara was good to go.

“Roy! Flynn!” I shouted out their names while waving over to them.

Both Xara and I had just finished teleporting here and spotted our friends standing near the entrance to the dungeon.

“Hey, Axel! And…Xara? Welcome!”

Roy seemed ecstatic to see the two of us despite not expecting to see Xara there while Flynn simply glanced at the two of us before turning his head toward the dungeon entrance.

“Looks like everyone's here. Are you guys ready to head in?” I asked.

However, Roy shook his head.

“Nah. We’re still waiting for someone else.”

“Someone else?”

That was unexpected. Guess that means I wasn’t the only one who brought along someone extra.

“Ah! There she is! Over here!”

Shouting out loudly, Roy waved his hand to someone nearby who I kind of recognized.

It was a girl who looked to be the same age as us with blonde hair that wrapped into pigtails.

“Hey. Isn’t that Ella?” asked Xara. Seeming to recognize the girl.

Ella was one of our teammates during the school trip where I rescued Xara from her curse.

However, unlike Roy and Flynn, I failed to really become friends with her since the two of us just didn’t vibe with one another.

But leaving that be, for now, Ella walked over to us. Simply glancing at me and Xara with an unreadable look on her face before walking up to Roy.

“I’m here like you asked Roy. Is this everyone who will be traveling with us?”

Roy nodded.

“Yep! It’s the same group from the class trip! Isn’t that awesome!?”

“Er…Sure. And here I thought I'd get some alone time with Sir Roy.”

It was kinda hard to hear, but is sounded like Ella had said something under her breath. Well, whatever. I have no right to pry into whatever that was.

Once we made sure we had everything, we all stepped foot into the dungeon. Ready to see what kind of troubles awaited us within.

“There’s one on your left Flynn! Aim your sword toward its stomach!”

“Right!”

“Xara, use your pitchfork to dig that thing’s eyes out! They’re easy to take out when blinded!”

“On it!”

Since I was the one with the most adventuring experience among the people here, I was assigned the duty of guiding everyone else on how to fight the different monsters here.

Surprisingly enough, most of the monsters we encountered so far were ones I’d come across on my personal travels before coming to school. So guiding everyone was an incredibly easy job.

In fact, it was so easy that I was itching for the chance to fight something since up to this point, all I did was stand around and give orders. It was starting to get a bit boring.

But be that as it may, I still kept giving orders to everyone and it looked like everything was going smoothly. Well except for one person.

“You need to take out its legs. Otherwise, you’ll never be able to hit its weak point.”

“Shut up! I know what I’m doing!”

Using the staff in her hand, Ella was trying to fight a crab-like monster that had a sturdy stone shell, and rather than listen to my advice, she kept shooting fireball after fireball hoping it would work out. It was really sad to see. Especially since I was the only one here with chantless magic. Meaning she was wasting her breath on something completely pointless.

With a sigh, I quietly cut off its legs. Giving the fireballs a chance to do damage. And after a few more minutes of fighting, Ella was finally able to finish off the monster.

Then, puffing out her chest, she smirked at me.

“See! I totally got this!”

I couldn’t help but let out a groan while rubbing my eyes. She was clearly a complete novice when it came to fighting monsters.

She handled herself fine enough during the camping event, but it was clear her actual dungeon experience wasn't that strong.

But leaving that be for now, I watched as the others finished off the last of the monsters and started collecting the loot that dropped onto the ground.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

Surprisingly enough, this was the most videogame–like part of this world. And if it wasn’t for stuff like this, I’d probably completely forget it was a game world.

Though it is strange monsters are the only things that drop loot and disappear. The animals just die and stay dead. No disappearing, dropping loot, or anything. My best guess as to why that's the case is because the whole thing was just a convenient excuse as to how stuff like burgers, hotdogs, and other meat-based products exist in this world.

Once everyone was done gathering the loot, we started walking down deeper into the dungeon.

While we did so, Roy decided to start up a conversation.

“Say, how come you’re such a good adventurer Axel?”

“Hm? What do you mean?”

“Well, it’s just that I heard from you that you started being one at the age of twelve. And while that in of itself is impressive, that means you’ve only been one for about four years. How did you get to be so knowledgeable of monsters in such a short time?”

“Hmmm. I guess it’s just because adventuring was all I really did back then.”

“You mean you never tried to find another hobby?”

“Nope. I just dedicated all my time to adventuring. Never really having any time to go and try much else.”

“Wow. You must really like adventuring.”

“Ehehe. I guess so.”

Yeah. That explanation should work fine. To be honest, though, the main reason I had so much adventuring experience was because I was trying my absolute hardest to rise up the ranks in order to accomplish enough feats to get into this school. And since I only had four years to do that, I had to spend every waking moment going on adventures and raising my rank.

If I didn’t, I’d never achieve my dream of obtaining a harem. Though that’s all behind me now. And while my reasoning for it all is dumb, I don’t hate how it helped me with who I became today. So while I kind of hate that part of myself, I can still appreciate it to some degree. But that’s enough of that.

“Say Xara, that pitchfork is pretty cool. Can all succubi just summon them like you can?” Roy asked. To which Xara nodded her head.

“Yeah. We’re usually taught how to summon them in elementary school and they continue to grow along with us. Kind of like a puppy who’s been with you since birth.”

“Really? So can it be taught to anyone or just succubi?”

“I don’t know. It might be possible but there are no historical records of anyone attempting that before. Maybe there’s a reason behind it?”

“Hm. Interesting," said Roy while resting his arms on his hips.

Wanting to give his own thoughts, Flynn spoke up.

“If I may, I think it’d be best not to get your hopes up. If there’s no historical explanation, it means it more than likely doesn’t work that way. So I’d just quit while you’re ahead. Otherwise, you might end up finding yourself disappointed.”

“I..guess you make a good point. Even so, it can’t hurt to try!”

When Roy said that, I could see the look of excitement in his eyes. Making it clear this was something he wanted to look into.

“Alright. Then I’ll explain it best I can.”

After that, Xara went over the spell with Roy as we walked deeper into the dungeon.

“Gah! I just can’t do it!” shouted Roy. To which Flynn shook his head.

“That’s because you don’t have the traits of a succubus. How are you supposed to channel all your magic power into horns when you don’t have any?”

“But…What if I make fake horns to channel the magic?”

“You really think a cheap headpiece can channel the magic necessary to create a pitchfork?”

“Er…Well…”

“Don’t worry. Sometimes these types of things just aren’t meant to be,” Xara assured Roy. Patting him on the shoulder.

Roy looked like he was about to cry. All while Xara continued reassuring him.

I couldn’t deny, seeing her like that, I wasn’t sure whether I loved seeing her be so compassionate, or hated how much attention she was giving Roy instead of hanging with me.

In the end, I guess it was just a conflict of feelings.

“Stay away from him you succubus. If you lay one hand on him I’ll cut you like a fish,” muttered Ella who was also looking at the sight in front of her.

“Huh? What did you just say?” I asked. Giving off a rather intimidating aura.

“Eek! N-Nothing!”

Ella immediately turned around. Trying to hide the fact she was terrified.

Rubbing my eyes, I let out a sigh. It’s true I wasn’t a fan of Roy getting all of Xara’s attention, but threatening her like what Ella just did was beyond what I could ignore. Even so, I didn’t wanna create conflict right now so I just slumped my shoulders and kept walking.

Weirdly enough, we hadn’t run into any monsters for the last twenty minutes. What was up with that?

Glancing around, I noticed writing of some kind on the walls along with drawings. Now, anyone who’d see something like this would probably think it was writing from an ancient civilization. But upon closer inspection, I noticed that wasn’t actually the case. It was, funny enough, just really bad handwriting.

It was hard to understand since the words kind of blended into each other, but a few words I could make out were ‘Away, Trap, Tiles, and Walls.’ Which I didn’t really get, but it was probably safe to say things here might get dangerous. It’s just a shame the drawings couldn’t help. Because I don’t know who they asked to draw, but the whole thing just looked like a barrage of scribbles. They were completely unintelligible.

Even so, I didn’t need whatever was on the walls to warn me that something was off.

Despite that, we kept walking forward. Waiting to see what happened next.

Then, that’s when it happened.

Ella, who moved up front while clenching her staff tightly, rested her foot on one of the tiles on the ground.

A clicking sound activated overhead and moments later, two nearby walls opened up. Revealing a giant wooden hammer that started to come flying toward her.

“Ella! Look out!” Roy shouted. But it was too late. She couldn’t dodge it.

“Tsk.”

Annoyed at her activating a trap that was actually pretty obvious if you looked at it for more than two seconds, I clicked my tongue and dove forward. Pushing her out of the way toward the opposite wall which had opened up along with the hammer. The opening led toward a deep hole, but I had figured I could use my wind magic to keep both me and her from falling so that’s the plan I went with. So, without much thought, I pushed her toward the opening and tried activating one of my spells.

However...

“...Huh?”

My spell didn’t work. And since neither I nor Ella were close enough to grab the arm of one of the others, we started falling.

“AAAHHH!”

“Ella!”

“Axel!”

Ella screamed at the top of her lungs while our friends called out to us. Meanwhile, I was trying to figure out why my magic wasn’t working.

And as we fell, that’s when I noticed it, the walls were covered with a form of anti-magic barrier.

“Well that’s annoying,” I muttered as Ella continued to scream at the top of her lungs.

Thus, the two of us kept on falling. Unsure when we would hit the bottom.

“AAAHHHH!”

As Ella kept screaming, I tried using magic circle after magic circle. Hoping I’d be able to find the correct one before we died.

“HEY! WHY AREN’T YOU SCREAMING!?” Ella asked. Lost on why I appeared to be so calm.

“Just give me a minute,” I muttered.

“WHAT DID YOU SAY!?”

She probably couldn’t hear me due to the rushing wind in our ears.

We continued falling for several minutes while I tried spell circle after spell circle only for them all to be failures.

“How annoying,” I muttered.

“WHAT DID CALL ME!?”

“I wasn’t talking to you!”

We continued falling for another few minutes.

“Hey! Do you think this thing even has a bottom!?” Ella asked.

“Maybe? I mean, it’d be weird if it was bottomless, don’t you think?”

“What!? Why would that be weird!?”

“Because what’s the point of a bottomless pit? It would just be a pain to make something so needlessly complicated.”

“That doesn’t make any sense!”

“Neither does a bottomless pit.”

“Huh!?”

Ignoring Ella’s dumbfounded expression, I continued searching until it finally worked.

“Found it!”

Once I got the correct magic circle, I immediately activated a wind spell. Stopping us in our tracks.

“Ah…Thank goodness…”

Breathing a sigh of relief, Ella slumped her shoulders.

“No then. Time to see just how bottomless this pit really is,” I said. Slowly lowering us bit by bit.

“You mean we’re not going back up?”

“Do you have any idea how long that’d take? Plus, I highly doubt the others would still be waiting for us up there. They’ve probably already started heading deeper inside to find us.”

“You…make a good point.”

With that matter settled, the two of us continued our descent at a much more relaxed pace.

After a few more minutes, we finally landed on the floor.

“As I thought. It wasn’t bottomless after all.”

Instead of responding to what I said, Ella simply sat down. Trying to collect her thoughts.

Taking a look around, the walls around us seemed to be made of the same anti-magic barrier stuff we’d been seeing up to this point, and in front of us was a pitch-black tunnel that gave off a rather eerie vibe. Not exactly the atmosphere you want for a fun dungeon adventure.

Even so, we needed to press forward no matter what. Thus, I turned to Ella who was still sitting on the ground.

“You doing good?”

Ella didn’t respond to my question at first, but eventually, she nodded her head.

“Y-Yeah. That was just…terrifying.”

“I see. Well, we need to catch up to the others as soon as we can. So let’s get moving.”

“O-Okay.”

Hm. Was it just me, or was Ella being surprisingly meek right now? I wonder what was up with that. Maybe I should ask her about it later? I don’t know. Even so, I’m not against her listening to me. So I’ll just try my best to roll with it.

Thus, I created a fireball in my hand and the two of us entered the dark creepy tunnel. Unsure what exactly awaited us down here.