About three months have passed since the incident of Erna’s kidnapping. Naturally the whole event caused a lot of waves, since she was an heir of an archduke, and made her father rage for many days, resulting in an increase of bodyguards for important students around the Academy.

What’s more, there was a mysterious organization uncovered about which no one had heard before, becoming another problem for the entire kingdom. A decree of the king came out announcing a high bounty for any information or the heads of the members that anyone brings.

Due to this the last three months were extremely chaotic, as almost everyone was tempted by the reward and were searching for clues, but apart from the minor operations of the devious church of black magic, nothing important was  truly found. Fortunately no similar events like an important noble’s kidnapping happened since then, and Ariel with his friends could continue their peaceful life for a while.

Although not much of their routine has changed, Ariel himself did almost everything the same as before. He studied, went reading to the library, talked with his friends about trivial things, or trained. Only thing different was that he would go do bandit hunts issued by the Academy more frequently. They were rewarded with merit points, which they had to get enough of before the school’s set time period. Of course missions weren’t only about hunting bandits, but monsters as well, everyone has something they prefer.

The reason the merit points were mentioned right now, was because today was the, spoken of, deadline and their homeroom teacher Mithra will be explaining why they were needed. Right now it was morning and the whole classroom was already filled, Ariel and his friends were like usual, in the back row seats, waiting for the teacher to finally speak.

Teacher Mithra stood in front of the class and after checking for any empty seats, seeing that everyone had come she nodded before finally speaking. “Everyone is here so I will start to talk about the reason for why you are here right now, and why you have been doing those missions for so long.”

Everyone quickly started paying attention to her, as many had been wondering about it. For some reason it was forbidden for the older students and teacher to speak about it to them, so no one truly knew the truth. “I will first say that those who hadn’t reached the desired goal would be punished and not allowed to attend the event that I will talk about from now on.”

This statement served only to confuse them more, as the students couldn’t think of any event which could link to this, but all the same all who got enough merit points secretly rejoiced. “Okay, now I will finally announce that we will be going on an expedition to a dungeon or more precisely only you.”

Loud exclamations started appearing in the classroom after her words. Dungeons were dangerous places, but at the same time something every adventurous person wanted to experience at least once. This was an amazing chance for the students and it quickly made them excited.

Teacher Mithra didn’t seem to pay attention to this and continued. “The reason for those merit points you were collecting was that all of you would get some combat experience while doing different subjugation request, of course we won’t be going to some kind of high end dungeon, the one which is always picked is the well known Heligath dungeon.”

Everyone was keenly listening to the teacher, but although there were still some voices when she told their destination, there weren’t that many since a lot of people had already guessed this dungeon, so they just continued listening.

“Now since we will soon be out of time I will tell you that we will be leaving in three days at the morning from the training grounds. During these three days there won’t be any lesson because we want you to go prepare for the expedition, since your adventure through the Heligath dungeon will last for about a week, so get moving.” As if on cue to the teacher’s voice, the bell rang and everyone started rushing out of the classroom.

Ariel and his friends also got up and started leaving while talking between each other. Sarah pondered for a bit, after which she spoke. “I wonder how are they going to separate us, since it would be too difficult for inexperienced people to go solo on this for the first time, more so, even though it is called an easy dungeon, it is the hardest of the easy.”

To her side Ariel nodded and responded. “We will probably be given a choice with who we can go. One of the most important things to the team is trust, so grouping random people together would end in a disaster. However this dungeon expedition will undoubtedly be interesting.”

The Helighat dungeon is an extremely famous of the bunch, even more so than dungeons which are much more difficult than it is. Reason being, is that the dungeon itself is quite unique, as most dungeons would have many, many floors.  Each floor usually would get harder the further down it is, the Heligath dungeon on the other hand, has only a single floor for its entirety.

However that single floor is enormous and could be compared to ten floors combined into a single one, naturally the monsters appearing inside all are quite easy to handle. This caused many speculations, a lot of people even now think there is some kind of secret hidden in this dungeon, but no one has yet found anything and the mystery continues to this abnormal dungeon.

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Replying back to Ariel’s words was Brendon.  “This dungeon we are going to must have some kind of hidden secrets. Unfortunately we will probably not find anything, considering for how many years people had researched it.”

Rolling her eyes, Erna spoke. “I know you probably are dreaming about some treasures, but stop wasting your time. If I would ever guess, who could find out the secret about the Heligath dungeon then you would be the last one on the list.”

Brendon instantly looked dejected, but Erna’s words weren’t unexpected for the other two. From the card games they had played, which mostly relied on luck, they had long since found out how unlucky Brendon was, but not wanting to dwell on this Ariel changed the topic. “Okay let’s stop wasting our time. Everyone should go get their things ready and meet up again, after that we will go to the city to get things we are lacking.”

Everyone nodded at his words and split up into two groups heading for their own rooms. They didn’t know what to expect and kept diligently buying and packing things that they might or might not need, and soon the day finally came.

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On the day of leaving, Ariel and his friends headed towards the training grounds, where they will be transported to their destination just like last time. When they arrived many people were already there including several teachers, although curiously enough there were not as many teachers as there should.

This caught Ariel’s attention as he asked Brendon, who was by his side. “Shouldn’t there be many more teachers? Why are there only a couple of them?” Brendon who was quite knowledgeable about such things quickly replied. “I heard that a lot of teachers will go there first and wait for the students. Supposedly there will also be some senior students who will be looking after us just like the teachers.”

Ariel was a bit surprised that there would be students taking up such a job. However thinking about it more, it wasn’t too hard after all. Just as he was wondering absentmindedly Sarah spoke with a lowered voice. “Everyone is already here and the teacher will start to speak soon.”

As if the person was waiting for the words, a loud voice started echoing through the grounds. “I am glad everyone made it. I will be the person who will be responsible for transferring you and as you have already noticed, a lot of teachers are not here, but don’t worry, most of them are already waiting on the other side where they will explain everything about your goals Now please everyone get closer to each other.”

Even though Ariel and his friends didn’t know this teacher, but they still obediently did what he said. A lot of excited shouts were heard around them as they started teleporting. Naturally many people want to feel the adventure of exploring a dungeon, and even Ariel had similar emotions as his vision turned black.

Just a moment passed an Ariel felt that he can open his eyes again. The first thing he saw, was a crowd of people, even larger then before, taking a better look at it he saw that there are a lot more teachers and older looking students. They were apparently waiting for the newcomers to calm down and look around, before they spoke.

Ariel decided to take the opportunity to examine the surroundings, and found that they were in some kind of deep forest with several ruined structures scattered around. At the same time his friends were doing the same, while feeling a bit amazed.

The one to speak first was Sarah from the back. “Is this where the dungeon is built? This place gives off an ancient vibe somehow.” Brendon nodded at the words as he responded. “Yes, from what I know this looks similar to what is described at, and there should be town of Kerath not too far from here, but I guess we won’t be visiting it on this trip.”

Sarah seemed to be bit sad about it, so Ariel tried calming her down. “This field trip is entirely based on exploring the dungeon and it is obvious that the teachers didn’t have any plans on letting us go to the town. However I think we can visit it at a latter date simply for fun.”

Ariel’s words appeared to cheer up the travelling loving girl, and even Erna who hadn’t commented yet seemed to be happy about this as she spoke. “Well we have some time, so we can spend some of it looking around…” Unexpectedly, as she spoke a surprised look appeared on her face.

Brendon and Sarah seeing this also looked towards the place Erna was watching and each had a different reaction. The brother narrowed his eyes while his sister furrowed her eyebrows and tightly clenched her fist.

Deciding to take a look as well, Ariel turned around and immediately saw a young man walking towards them. The first thing he saw was his soft, blond hair and calm blue eyes exuding caring and friendly aura. The man also had a very handsome face while at the same time a sort of natural charisma around him, making him a deadly weapon against women.

He wore shining, white full plate armor which had many modifications made to it and also adorned both the crest of his household and the crest of the biggest church of the kingdom. Since he had such a thing that would mean that he had become a member of the church, and from the way he looked he actually had become a paladin, it is truly a feat to do at such a young age.

However the looks on Ariel’s friends faces weren’t really ones of being charmed or friendly, and Ariel naturally knew why. The person walking towards them is not personally known by him, but definitely someone quite famous who he has heard about. His name is Luke Voyar the before mentioned heir of the Kingdom’s second archduke.

Now for the question why his friends were unhappy, simply it was because of the difficult relationships between them, more precisely between Luke and Sarah. Naturally since Sarah is the only princess of the Kingdom her father wants for he to marry someone with high status and it so happens that the only male in the Kingdom who can satisfy those requirements was Luke.

The talk about an engagement between the two has been going on for the past few years already and the only reason it hasn’t been decided was because the king was still quite a good father and didn’t want to force his daughter against her will. However Luke doesn’t appear to be against the marriage and with only Sarah on the other side, she has been experiencing a lot of pressure from people around her.

This of course is quite difficult for her since although it looks similar to other engagements between nobles, but unlike Erna who had come to terms with it when being young, Sarah who already has fallen couldn’t make herself marry another man. At the same time Ariel is only a second son of a duke and already has an engagement.

Sarah’s only hope now was to wait it out, since she new Ariel would reach amazing heights and by then there would be a chance even if she had to become the second wife of his. Unfortunately the time for her answer was quickly running out.

Ariel knows about this and is quite discontent with it, but right now he can’t really do anything about it yet. However he is quite furious at Luke, although he might not be a bad person and didn’t know what Sarah was experiencing right now, naivety doesn’t wash off a person’s sin.

On another note, the person’s whose reaction Ariel was most surprised with, was Erna’s. From what he knew she had been a huge fan of Luke and even his admirer, right now however, she doesn’t appear to be that infatuated with him.

Unfortunately the time for thinking had already ran out and the person in question was already standing right in front of them with a kind smile on his face, while the people on the receiving end were unnaturally tense, almost like they were about to have to fight against somebody soon, and only god knows what directions this will take.

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If you want to read further, visit https://verathragna.wordpress.com/ I will always have an extra chapter there