At another place after the trio left.

Multiple mercenary parties used a one-time short distance teleportation spell scroll to reach the entrance to the dungeon almost instantly.

"Wait... Do you feel that?"

"Yeah, have our mages do a quick spell scan."

"They are already ahead of you."

...

"So you telling me...there is a continuous diversion spell casted here. Strong enough to make people's judgment lax and give the illusion of a false sense of security."

"Otherwise? If not for this spell I don't see a reason why experience mercenaries would think so confidently in themselves to the point where they ignored most basic rules of survival. This spell is subtle enough to be unnoticed yet malicious in how devious it can be. We've already seen the consequences of death to several parties with the help of this spell."

"So besides what we know, there is another enemy out there hidden."

"Indeed."

"Was there anything else?"

"We did a quick scan over everyone after this and come to the conclusion that nobody was affected with anything else. However, that may not be the case once we go inside."

"...well we can't just sit here and be afraid of the unknown. There's only one way inside whether we like it or not."

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...

Entering the dungeons entrance, several parties one by one entered at high alert.

But nothing happened.

This did not dispell them, rather made them more cautious.

"What's the scan?"

"Dungeon is booby trapped by foreign forces, All our meters are saying level 1.9 and nothing else."

"Seems like if we want a real measurement and how to respond onwards... We are going to have to dive a few levels."

And they did just that. Each level making them more tense.

Not from battle...Rather the lack of battle.

"Something is not right, the meter still shows 1.9 and we are already on floor 50. Dungeons that have 50 floors usually start to make rebirth monsters... But there is nothing here."

"Keep going, The higher ups gave us an order to figure out the difficulty of this dungeon. If we return with this information... We will most likely be sent back to figure out what's happening. So do it now and get it over with."

Finally, our group reached the final floor. Floor 100...

And there is finally a monster.

The dungeon core.

Or what's left of it...

"Something is wrong, The scan results show this dungeon core has been dead for at least several days... and Dungeons without dungeon cores collapse in a matter of hours."

"And yet here we are. We have enough information, leave the rest to be figured out by the higher ups."

However, as soon as they turned around and entered the entrance to the 99th floor. The bright light shine on the mercenaries and extended outwards. Locking them tightly inside the 100th floor.

"Damn, it's a trap!"

"I figured someone behind the scenes would trap us. I just want to know if this trap is meant to kill us."

"Does it matter?"

"Definitely, if they are trying to kill us then we can send the information back about the details they reveal. But if they are just trying to hold us in place..."

"Then their goal was never us from the beginning... It's the headquarters!"

"We've all been magically marked, so long as we don't die headquarters will think we're still dungeon diving. So they will act still as if we can come back at any time."

"Perfect if you want to do something big."

"Indeed... Like if their goal is something we cover under our protection."

"...There is one more thing."

"I want to know. After a dungeon collapses the monsters inside that are still alive will escape into the surroundings..."

"But we've never seen evidence of something escaping the first floor."

"So...where did they go..."