‘It is fucking Rowan… Wait, this came out wrong.’

Putting that aside, I didn’t expect to find the man who trained me for a year in such a place. We were pretty far away from the territory of the Dawnshield house, after all. Maybe he was fired because of his incompetence or something. I had imagined that he would help Rayner with the pirates, but…

‘Shit, this might be bad…’

I found some people with green eyes, but that guy still would recognize the eye color of the family since it was more intense. His own eye color was a light green, after all. While I was wondering about that, Jalal and Gao stepped forward to talk with them and schedule our boss fight.

“What is wrong? You look tense all of a sudden.”

Clarice stepped forward and then looked me in the eye. It felt like she could almost read what I was thinking when she did that, so I closed my eyes and rubbed them to calm down for a moment.

“It is nothing. I just got a bit of dust in my eyes. Besides, I am a bit surprised to see only a couple of parties ready to challenge the boss.”

“Hm… Is that so?”

“We will have to wait for three days if we are lucky and one party challenges the boss soon. We have food for ten days, but staying here for such a long time will be pretty tiresome. Our next run is scheduled to be in seven days.

In the worst-case scenario, we will have to wait four days, and then waste another day to head to the exit of the dungeon and then rest for two days. It was quite the harsh pace, but at least we would get strong pretty fast. Still, there must be some rule that prevents us from leaving this place or we might lose our turn. Soon, those returned and confirmed that.

“The next fight will take place at sunset, then we will have our chance in three days at the sunset as well. However, at least one of us has to be here all the time. We will take turns for the group to gain experience equally.”

I could already tell that something was going to happen when my turn came. My luck was that terrible. I felt like sighing, but I didn’t want to look more suspicious in front of Clarice. I had to find a way to change the color of my eyes. Those were the easiest things to recognize aside from my hair… wearing glasses in such a place would only make me look suspicious.

“Anyway, it is late, and we fought a lot today. So, let’s rest properly here and then go hunting tomorrow morning.”

The area in front of the boss chamber wasn’t usually avoided by the monsters, but with so many people here, they wouldn’t come since they knew that their death would be certain, so it was a golden chance for us to rest properly before facing the boss.

I made sure to keep my back, pointing to the entrance of the boss chamber where Rowan and the other guard were working. Hopefully, those guys would leave and others would take their place before I had to head in that direction.

“Hey, Clive. Since you can share your mana with Rebecca, wouldn't it be better if you stayed here instead and then we would focus on fighting? You would get a part of the experience anyway, right?”

Jalal declared that when we began to eat… how could the situation have turned like that? I found a way to cheat the system and now was the system trying to pay me back? I couldn’t find any other explanation for that.

“If you think that is a good idea.”

“Why do you have to answer it in such an ominous way? Truth be told, with you and Clarice here, we barely have to deal with any challenge. The boss won’t be that easy, so we need to sharpen our skills as much as possible.”

A fair point, but I was still getting the short end of the stick since I could get more experience by fighting with them… those two morons probably wanted to show off in front of Clarice and I would get in their way if I were to go with them. Still, I couldn’t say anything since Clarice was still looking at me, trying to understand my behavior from earlier.

I decided to shift my focus by doing some more scroll-making. Still, while I had bought a large supply of ink, it was bound to end in a couple of days, and then I would find myself with nothing to do. With the materials of the fire wolves, I couldn’t make anything else… I could do some testing in the next section with the parts of the fire crows. With their feathers and bones, I could make bolts and arrows.

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In the final section, I could use parts of the Atronachs to make bows and crossbows, and thanks to their elemental nature, they will come with some extra effects. Still, it was too soon to think about that.

After resting for the whole night, I woke up without any new ideas… I was fully rested, but no brilliant idea came to mind dealing with that situation. To make things worse, Rowan and the other guard took turns guarding the dungeon at night, and soon they resumed their guard together when morning arrived. He definitely wasn’t going to leave anytime soon…

“So, are you fine with this plan?”

Rebecca looked a bit troubled since I didn’t try to change the plan. It was the best one possible, actually. If one were to consider the future of the party. Jalal, Gao, and Rebecca had to consider things when Clarice and I left… and we definitely would. Rebecca didn’t have many chances to use her magic, but with my Mystic Link, she could level up Frostbolt ten times faster than usual. Even more, if I decided to upgrade my mana regeneration.

“It is fine. Just do what you have to do.”

Clarice and I probably could overwhelm the boss with our barrage of arrows, but if that weren’t possible, then we would need some ice magic. I wouldn’t trade places with the frontline since with only one, either of them could be overwhelmed. The last option was Clarice, but we couldn’t leave an elf there alone… we couldn’t tell what she was thinking most of the time either.

I thought that Jalal and Gao could have the motive to show off, but in the end, it was all logical. So, they left after breakfast and soon enough, they found a place to hunt since I began to gain experience and my mana began to be drained.

‘I guess I will try to focus my senses and hear what everyone is talking about here.’

I couldn’t do that before, since Clarice was a chatterbox. She was also pretty good at making the others get at her pace and then keep talking as well. It was probably some sort of charisma.

I could hear some whispers after I closed my eyes, but nothing was clear… I had the idea of making a magic implement that could help me with that. Still, I couldn’t imagine how the combination of the effects I knew could grant me such an ability.

Occasionally, I could feel the eyes of the guards on me, not because they were wary of me, but because there weren’t many people around. They were bored and a good part of the other parties had also left to hunt… only the party that had just arrived and would challenge the boss stayed behind in full.

Eventually, after a couple of hours, I got tired of pretending to be resting… doing nothing was a lot more unnerving than I recalled. So, I began working on the scrolls, using the mana that Rebecca didn’t use, which wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing.

In the end, that day passed quite slowly… even though I received close to eighty thousand experience points without doing much. Those guys spent the whole day hunting and didn’t take a break to even eat, so they looked quite beaten. A bit dehydrated too.

“I guess you are losing your edge, Rebecca.”

“Sorry, we were too focused on fighting and skinning the monsters. Without your help, we didn’t have that much time to rest between the battles, either. At least we almost filled Clarice’s magic bag.”

Everyone looked pleased, since it seemed that they would be making a lot of money again. In any case, it was clear that we wouldn’t have the chance to explore the second section of the dungeon… it wasn’t like we needed the materials, so it was fine.

“How were things here? We fought the monsters just fine without your direct help.”

Jalal looked proud… his long nose was growing again even though in the previous run, he had to retreat because of the circumstances. Perhaps the first boss will be a good lesson for him. Jalal looked around and frowned.

“Anyway, once again, we didn’t find any elves in this part of the section. What is going on, Clarice? I only recall finding them until the fifth floor.”

“Our best archers live pretty far away from the border. They are probably planning to come later, after getting the right gear to explore this dungeon.”

They weren’t in a hurry, so it didn’t look like they wanted the dungeon that much, which raised more questions, and Clarice noticed what we were thinking.

“I can’t say how, but we can tell how deep a dungeon goes… but I heard that this dungeon is on a Draconic level.”

After whispering those words, Clarice moved away and looked around. It looked like no one heard her, but her words still shocked us. Draconic dungeons could have up to fifty floors and the final guardians were usually legendary creatures. It wasn’t hard to imagine that a lesser dragon would be waiting for the adventurers at the end.

That probably would explain why the Elves were taking their time… they only took half of the time entering the dungeon to make sure that the place wouldn’t be completely crowded by humans. Regardless, with that information, I tried to connect the reason Rowan was here, but I couldn’t find a single point.

“The front line parties had yet to reach the thirty floor of the dungeon… I guess it might take months for the dungeon to be conquered. Perhaps we will be the ones to do that.”

“It would be awesome, right?”

Jalal and Gao couldn’t leave that kind of stuff for when they were really dreaming. I read that the founder of the Holy Order became really famous after killing an abyssal that was at the end of a Draconic labyrinth. He got a class called the Holy Guardian. I didn’t know what that class could do in its entirety, but it was said that the founder was never hurt by lesser and middle-ranked unholy and abyssal creatures after that…

The possibility of gaining a class like that sure was appealing, but I knew my limits. I also heard that the founder took six months to clear this type of dungeon. I couldn’t stay six months in a single place since it would increase my chances of being found out tremendously. Still, I couldn’t deny that I also wanted to do my best to conquer the labyrinth…