Cade’s preparations for the big tongue toad dungeon finished without much problem. He bought armor, many potions and also an emergency teleport badge.
Cade had almost forgotten about the emergency badge and almost spent all of his money on potions. Luckily, he passed through the badge while viewing other items.
After Cade had finished his preparations, to his surprise, he got the limit entry license. Usually, it took a few days but he got it in a few hours.
“They must have taken this seriously,” thought Cade. With the threat of the time limit dungeon, everyone was increasing their efficiency. Dineon needed to increase their strength and issuing the limit entry dungeon fast will help the explorers on the planet becoming stronger faster.
Cade will need to travel for about 7 hours with the train to get to the dungeon. He decided to take the midnight train and will arrive at the dungeon in the morning.
With everything done, Cade spent his time for the rest of the day playing games on his genius phone.
When it was time for him to take the train, he left his apartment and went to the train station. Just like he thought, it was empty… was what Cade thought.
“Why are there so many people?” To Cade's surprise, there were quite a lot of people at the train station.
Cade recognized that some of them were explorers based on their attire and posture. Maybe all of them were explorers.
“Are they traveling to a dungeon too?” thought Cade. He thought that maybe they all got a waking call with what had happened to Planet Snowball.
There were a lot of explorers but most of them decided to stop exploring at some point.
There were many reasons and one of them was fear of death. Explorer was a dangerous career. Life was always on the line and they can lose their life in a mere second after they stepped inside a dungeon.
Everyone was scared of death and that was normal to humans. The ones that got too scared will quit but the one that had more courage will usually go on as explorers.
Another reason was money. Explorers were usually thought to be rich but that was not true at all.
Those that got rich were thanks to their luck and they got lots of drop items. However, most explorers did not have that kind of luck and rarely got a drop item.
With every exploration, they needed to buy potions, equipment, foods, and many other things and most of them were super expensive especially equipment.
Without much gain from the dungeon, they needed to spend more on their equipment and that cost them a lot, that many explorers declared their bankruptcy after five or six explorations and quits the career altogether.
Looking at the scene of the train station, Cade knew that most of them were returner explorers after they quit at some point before as he can see the nervousness in their eyes.
They must have come back due to the looming threat of the time limit dungeon.
While looking at all the explorers around him, suddenly, someone tapped Cade’s shoulder. Cade looked beside him and a beautiful girl with golden hair was smiling dazzlingly at him.
The girl was Cynthia and Cade stared blankly at her without knowing how he should react to her sudden appearance.
“Are you going to a dungeon too?” asked Cynthia with her beautiful and dazzling smile. Cade did not know why but he felt like he might go blind if she kept smiling dazzlingly at him like that.
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“Yes, I am but… Urm~ Can you stop smiling like that. I don’t know why but you kind of emit some kind of light when you smile and my eyes hurt,” said Cade bluntly. He cannot help it and said it like that because his eyes cannot take it.
“Is he openly flirting with that pretty girl,” some explorers who overheard that whispered to his companion.
“Lol, that sentence sounds lame,” said another explorer nearby and there was also some chuckling as they thought it was funny.
Upon hearing Cade’s words, Cynthia looked around her and she was under a lamp and moved a bit from the lamp.
“How is it now? Do your eyes still hurt?” asked Cynthia and she continued, “I am sorry that I hurt your eyes. I have a special skill that enhances light and I did not have full control over it yet. So, my mood sometimes passively affects the light around me.”
The other explorers around them that were laughing at him suddenly fell silent.
“…”
“So, he was not flirting,” said one of the explorers around them.
“Ah, could it be that in class last time too?” asked Cade. No wonder that when Cynthia smiled at him before in class, her smile was weirdly dazzling. Now, it all makes sense.
“Ehehe~ I am sorry. That’s why you are kind of not responding to me at that time,” said Cynthia while she smiled innocently at Cade.
“So, which dungeon are you heading to?” asked Cynthia. She was kind of curious to see which dungeon Cade had chosen. There was no other reason other than her curiosity.
“…” Cade felt like not answering her but it will be rude since she asked nicely. “Big tongue toad dungeon,” said Cade.
“What a coincidence! I am heading there too~” said Cynthia happily and again she smiled while at the same time, the light nearby went brighter.
The explorers around them had their mouth opened as they finally knew what Cade was feeling earlier. This time the light was brighter and it affected them too.
“The girl must have felt much happier than earlier… the light is freaking bright!”
“My eyes~,” said an explorer and he covered his eyes with his hand.
“Where is my sunglasses,” said another explorer while rummaging through his storage.
“I am going to wait a bit further from her,” said another explorer while he walked further than Cade and Cynthia.
Cade, on the other hand, got affected the most by the light because Cynthia was in front of him. The bright light made it hard for him to see her.
“Err… Cynthia, your light is too bright,” said Cade while he also moved his hand to cover his eyes.
“Ahh!! I am sorry again,” said Cynthia and she tried to control her emotions. Her face blushed a bit as she felt like she was incompetent in controlling her skill.
“It is fine… I can understand that,” said Cade while he awkwardly smiled. He saw that Cynthia was embarrassed at what had happened and decided to continue their talk earlier.
“Are you going alone there?” asked Cade to divert the topic of her skill.
“Huh? Y-yeah. What a coincidence right?” said Cynthia and she smiled again but the light was not as bright as before. Cynthia did her best to control her emotions.
“Aren’t you in a guild? Where are the other members?” asked Cade again. He knew that all explorers in his class had joined a guild including Cynthia.
He also remembered that Cynthia joined quite a popular guild too and she was recruited by them. He found it weird that she was by herself.
“Oh, that… I quit the guild,” said Cynthia while pouting her lips a bit. It looked like something happened between her and that guild. Cade did not want to pry further but Cynthia continued with her talk.
“They recruited me because of my status as a princess and all that flowery talk they said to me before were all lies,” said Cynthia and she looked pissed thinking about that.
However, Cade heard something weird from what she said…
“Princess?” asked Cade while staring at Cynthia.
“Yes, I am the sixth princess of the Golden Dragon Star Sector’s Royal Family,” said Cynthia while smiling at Cade. She looked a bit proud of herself too but not arrogant.
Cade, however, was speechless and not only him but everyone else around him was the same as him. They were all looking at Cynthia like they saw a ghost… no, an angel.
“You are joking, right? That was a good joke you made there and I almost got fooled by you,” said Cade. He refused to believe that. There was no way a princess from that kind of family came to a weak planet like Dineon.
There were a lot of other better planets in the universe that were 100 times better than Dineon with 100 times better college too and she chose Dineon? She was just playing around.
When others around Cade heard him, they also came to their senses and realized that Cynthia might be joking around.
Cade believed she was joking for a reason. No one was able to find out anything about her and she might have been a princess but how can when no one was able to find out anything about her but that guild knew about it?
It did not make any sense at all.