Vance and the rest of his team tramped out of the dungeon; they had stayed down on the tier two floors leveling for several days before returning. He had gotten a whole ten levels from the dive which he was rather pleased with. Arthur managed to top him by one gaining eleven new levels, this brought a smile to his face. The fact remained though that Vance had a higher total level than his new friend. He wasn’t sure what Kira’s growth had been like, she hadn’t offered that information and it was a little rude to ask about such things.

Their growth was quite good for early tier two, helped along by the massive numbers of monsters in the dungeon below. Vance wished they could have stayed longer though, but they hadn’t brought a massive amount of supplies and they were all sick and tired of eating meat constantly.

Kira halted at the exit of the dungeon stretching in the warm sunshine. “Let's head over to the guild to give our report.”

Arthur slipped by Vance to follow her out into the sunlight. “Really? Why do we need to give a report? Nothing happened while we were down there. We fought some monsters, killed a boss, and got some levels then came back. Seems pretty standard to me.”

“First of all as members of the mage guild we should always give reports on our dungeon dives. Something inconsequential to use might be important for another team. Also, you’re forgetting the secret path that we found. That alone will make our report very beneficial.”

Arthur looked a little downcast at her pronouncement. “I see well that makes sense. Too bad about that secret path though, I thought it was going to be our personal shortcut in the dungeon.”

Kira chuckled as the group started making their way into town. “Don’t worry even with telling the mage guild I doubt that many people will be using it. At least not enough to give us any trouble that is.” Vance nodded his agreement from the back of the group. Sharing information was an important aspect of dungeon diving, a lot of deaths happened because of surprise more than anything else. What they knew could save lives even if they didn’t realize, also he was sure there were lots of hidden paths around the dungeon, it couldn’t be just the one right?

His two companions halted and Vance almost smacked into Arthur, he muttered a quick apology and looked to see what the hold-up was. A runner was bent almost double gasping for breath while holding a letter out to Kira. “Mage Kira the guild master left this for you, he said to give it to you immediately after you left the dungeon. He and Commander Smith departed yesterday after a report of a rampage reached us.” Mage Kira Vance noted, so tier three at least with that title.

Vance’s heart dropped as Kira’s expression went grave, Arthur just looked confused off to the side as Kira accepted her letter. Quickly tearing it open and scanning through the contents, she hissed in annoyance. “So the young noble is in charge is he?” The messenger nodded mutely. “Well, this isn’t going to end well, back to the dungeon everyone.”

“What?” Exclaimed Arthur thoroughly flabbergasted. “We just left there, why are we going back now?”

Kira gave him a stern look as she turned around. “Because the old blowhard is going to be absent for at least a few days if we are lucky, and in that time the one left in charge is going to be Gary. None of us want to be around for that least of all you Vance.” Vance gulped and hung his head, was he really that obvious? He had thought he had been doing a decent job of hiding.

“Really why would Vance be in trouble? You didn’t steal anything did you?” Arthur looked a little concerned for him and the young noble felt a little touched by the worry. Apparently, he had managed to fool at least one person. “Also why would Gary be in charge? I thought the mage guild more or less was in charge of him, not the other way around.”

Kira started walking off back into the dungeon forcing the rest of them to follow her as she continued talking. “That’s true in name at least, the problem is that only someone that has the rank of guild master has the actual authority to tell Gary to do anything. So in the absence of a guild master or anyone else officially in charge of the dungeon town, command defaults to him as the ranking noble. Only noble I suppose” She glanced over at Vance as she said that and he held in a sigh of annoyance. He couldn’t do anything about it, he and Gary were technically equal in rank. That meant if they had a disagreement it would end up in a duel of honor which would not end well for him. He was tier two and Gary was tier-three there was some simple math there that was quite inescapable. He didn't want to tangle with the other noble even if Gary was a little lax in actual training.

“Okay, then I suppose that makes sense more or less. I can also see why we're going back into the dungeon to avoid him, that guy is a prick, but what I really want to know is why did master Silas leave? What’s a monster rampage? It frankly sounds a little silly to me.”

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Kira looked at him with a deadpan expression, making the younger mana user squirm slightly. “When the old man first chose you as his apprentice I thought it was an odd pairing, but I’ve just noticed you seem to share some annoying similarities… In any case, a monster rampage or monster raid as it is called in some areas is a serious matter. It's when a monster figures out that humans are very weak walking bags of experience. It starts with the monster killing a few citizens and then wiping out towns as it builds strength. If they’re left to run rampant such a monster could even reach tier six and start devastating entire cities.”

Arthur paled and looked worried. “What are we going to do? We can’t stop something like that.”

Kira snorted in amusement. “No, we can’t be guild master Silas can, he, guild master Gabriel and Commander Smith are all tier five. If they can’t handle things then we are in deep trouble, and will just have to wait and pray until the Baron arrives.”

Arthur nodded looking significantly better and Vance himself felt significantly more optimistic, he hadn’t realized there were three-tier five people in such proximity to each other. “I thought master Silas was the only tier five-person around though? Where did these other people come from?” Arthur asked with a slight tilt of his head.

“Well, he was the only one in dungeon two for a little while. Then Commander Smith was sent over when Gary showed up, he’s usually the mage guild’s knight commander in Corinth most of the time. Gabriel is also the guild master for Corinth if you haven’t heard of him, and I believe last time I checked being tier five was a requirement for being a guild master, at least in our guild.”

Arthur fell silent as they walked back into the dungeon, the attendant at the desk hadn’t even bothered trying to stop them when Kira glared over at him. The three of them quickly made their way back onto the first floor. “Right we’ll go back to that secret passage we found and rest there for a while. Once we’re sufficiently recovered we can go for another run on the tier two floors.” Vance nodded in agreement, it was a good plan. Arthur looked around a little startled at the sudden noise, Vance held in a sigh at his new friend’s carelessness. It was a dungeon where you needed to pay attention to your surroundings.

“Alright, Kira, that sounds good. Say, Vance, I’ve been thinking, are you a part of the mage guild’s knights? You’re always training at their training grounds, and you got put on a team with Kira and me so I was curious.”

Vance laughed slightly. “No I’m not in the mage knights, but my family does have a close relationship as a whole with the mage guild so they let me use their stuff on occasion.” His entire family contributed a lot to the guild over the years, seeing it as a way to encourage some growth for commoners. It didn’t always work, but people like Arthur were the reason they did it.

Arthur nodded once and turned back to Kira. “Why do we need knights anyway, mages are the strongest out of the three energies right? So why would we need them?” Vance winced at that, then took a deep breath. Arthur didn’t mean anything by it, he was not calling Vance weak for being a knight. Franky Vance was of a similar opinion, but he wasn’t going to admit that aloud. Besides not every mage was stronger than every knight, it was just on average that mages tended to be stronger.

“That’s not true, I thought for sure Silas had mentioned this to you already.” Vance raised an eyebrow, this was different from a lot of what he had heard growing up. Then again his family might be a little biased in all honesty.

“Oh yeah, this does sound familiar. Let's see mages are weak to assassins who are weak to knights right?” Arthur tapped his chin thoughtfully, thinking hard.

“Correct, so to answer your question the mage guild keeps their own knights around so that they can counter their weakness to chakra users or assassins as they’re commonly called. Mages also do best when they have a bit of distance between them and the enemy, so having someone keep monsters at a distance is also helpful.”

Arthur nodded in contemplation. “That makes sense, it was a lot easier fighting with Vance than I imagine it would have been without him, but it still seems like mages are the strongest class to me. We deal the most damage and kill things faster. It just makes sense.”

Kira rubbed her forehead with an annoyed expression. “Stubborn aren’t you? How many chakra users have you met? If I had to guess I would say none. Chakra is not the most user-friendly energy, it tends to be incredibly painful for beginners to use. On top of that assassins are looked down on by most people as sneaky cowards, which makes even fewer people choose the class.”

“But assassins are cowards aren’t they? They don’t fight people straight up and attack unexpectedly. That seems pretty cowardly to me.” Arthur had a mulish look on his face refusing to back down. Vance for his part was enjoying the conversation; it was clarifying a few things his father had mentioned to him, and that the rest of his family vehemently disagreed with.

“If assassins are cowardly then so are mages Arthur, we sit at a distance and blast unsuspecting enemies to bits. Besides not all chakra classes are geared towards stealth, no one ever accused a berserker of being subtle. In any case, a lot of those rumors are spread around by the nobility and are focused around discouraging people from picking a chakra class. Most nobles follow the mage path so it makes sense that they would try and discourage the class they are weak to.”

Arthur opened his mouth to say something else but Kira cut him off. “We can talk about this later, for now, let's make camp and get some food. I don’t know about you guys but I am starving.” Vance smiled as his stomach rumbled as well. He had spotted a few rabbits a little ways back on their walk, let's see if they were still there, rabbit stew would be quite tasty.