Using the trail of broken trees and leveled bushes, Matthias and Manna quickly arrived at the source of the screams. But by the time they had arrived, the battle was already over. The ground was littered with the broken limbs and crushed bodies of several undead. One of the undead even had its body completely obliterated in the middle of a small crater, which indicated the location where Soleil landed.

They quickly saw their party member on the side, trying to placate a panicking woman.

“What happened here?” Matthias demanded while jogging to their position. Manna, instead, walked over to inspect the bodies.

The woman was teary-eyed and sobbing while looking at the undead remains. She wasn’t in her right mind to respond to Matthias’ questioning. Soleil, who had arrived there a bit earlier, had already realized this and was trying to calm her down by stroking her back.

“Matt. Come here.” Manna beckoned to him and pointed at a few of the carnage. “Two of them have armor, while some of them don’t. The ones that do were turned recently. They might be her…” Manna’s voice trailed off while she eyed the woman that was having a fit. There was a grim expression on her face. Considering what the undead could do, Matthias already had an idea of what she was going to say.

He shook his head. It was a damn shame if it was so.

Besides the crater Soleil had created and the gory remains of the undead, there was also a hole nearby. It looked like a natural pitfall. A distinct smell of rot came from inside.

Considering what had happened, Matthias’ earlier train of thought was likely correct. To his side, Manna seemed like she already realized what it was just from the smell. They nodded to each other and approached the hole.

“Wait! Don’t go there!”

The woman’s sudden outburst proved their guess.

“Well, this is pretty rare.”

“How rare, exactly?”

“There was a natural one several decades ago, but just that.”

The hole was the tomb-type dungeon’s second entrance.

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There was a time when the people who studied dungeons adamantly dismissed the idea that a dungeon could have two breaches. Logically speaking during those times, they had a point. The widely-accepted view of a dungeon’s development was that it was related to the monsters it created within. As they start from underground, they would endlessly create monsters and expand in the process to contain them. And once the dungeon’s expansion reaches the surface at one point, the congested monsters all break out in the form of an upheaval. And that was why people thought only one entrance to a dungeon could exist.

Of course, that was only if they were talking about natural entrances. There was always the chance that someone came across a different part of a dungeon while digging for whatever. Depending on the kind of dungeon they were dealing with, that new breach would be counted as another entrance unless it was sealed up. The one before them might just be one, as Manna deduced from the marks.

But that regular train of thought changed when, several decades ago, massive upheaval occurred in the elven country. At first, they thought that two dungeons of the same type appeared at the same time, which was already rare enough. However, as they explored the dungeon, they soon found out that both entrances connected to the same dungeon.

“What about this girl?” Soleil asked.

After the woman had calmed down somewhat, she was able to piece together what had happened. According to her, she was part of a new five-person party. They had all registered the day before. All of them were friends and were eager to start their new careers. At first, they took the same quest as Matthias did; the cheap herb-gathering commission by the pharmacy guild.

But when they were gathering the herbs, the ground underneath one of them suddenly gave out. Two of her nearby companions reached out, but they were unfortunately too late. At the same time, the undead came out from the hole and bit their arms.

Everything happened too quickly for them, a team of inexperienced friends, to react properly. Their leader ordered their fastest runner to report to the guild while they tried to fight off the undead. Perhaps because he was in a panic, he didn’t seem to remember that anybody who had been bitten without prior protection from a cleric needed to be purified with holy water. Thus, their runner had turned into an undead by the time he reached the place Manna was hunting in.

The ones that stayed didn’t fare any better. Likely because one of the vanguard had been bitten, the two-man frontline quickly fell apart when he turned. When Soleil arrived, only the woman, an apothecary by the look of her clothes, was left alive.

Matthias looked on at the quietly sobbing woman. Soleil was still trying to comfort her by offering her shoulder. It was their first day on the job. Not only that, all of her companions were friends she had known even before they became adventurers. In an instant, they all died and turned into monsters. She would take a long time to get over it, especially if one of those was her lover.

However, they couldn’t wait for her to settle down.

“Take her with us. We should go and report this to the guild.”

Regardless of what the guild decided to do with the entrance, whether to manage it the same as they do all other dungeon access points, or seal it for good, they had no say. But in order to protect other people, the guild must be notified. That was the best thing they could do to prevent another tragedy like that from happening again.

As he turned to move, Matthias felt something wrap around his leg. He looked down and saw the woman clinging onto him with a desperate expression.

“You must save my friend!” she pleaded. “She fell down the hole. She may still be alive!”

His heart sank. There was no way an unprotected and inexperienced person would survive being thrown into the middle of a tomb-type dungeon alone. There was a reason why no sane party would approach those kinds of dungeons without a cleric in their party. Not only were they strong supporters that can cast strengthening spells, they could also prevent the party from being infected by the undead.

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Holy spells were also extremely effective against the dead.

Unless her friend was some sort of prodigy, there was no way that she could still be alive. And besides, getting the woman to safety was a higher priority than saving someone who might be dead.

But before Matthias could tell her that, a silhouette moved between them briskly, colliding with the woman’s arms and forcing them apart.

“What are you doing, laying your hands on a noble? You do know the consequences for that, right?”

Her voice was cold and oppressive. The woman cowered underneath her glare as if pushed back by a physical force. Even Matthias felt a chill.

“Noble?” Soleil asked. Matthias decided to ignore her.

“Uhh,” he stammered. “I don’t mind.”

He had decided beforehand that he wouldn’t hide his identity as a noble. Though he may be inconvenienced more than by hiding it, he didn’t want to simply leave his family name behind. That was the least he could do for his loving parents. That was why he couldn’t just tell Manna that he was “just an adventurer now.”

Well, of course, he didn’t plan on doing anything embarrassing that would bring them shame.

Anyway, Manna didn’t use to be like that. But after he had asked her out, his mother invited her to talk, while his father beat him up for it. But he couldn’t help it; the nobility wedded early in that era, and his father had been trying to arrange him to some high-born lady he had only met once in his life. If he was to be wed, he would rather it be to someone he actually liked, regardless of their social status.

She ended up rejecting him. He thought that his mother had talked her into doing so, but afterwards he had never heard his father mention marriage ever again. Manna also started acting much more intimate with him.

And sometimes, that happens.

“Look, I’m sorry, but we need to get you to safety first.” When dealing with someone in that state, Matthias thought that it would be best to not bring up the idea that her friend might be dead. If they did, she might become even more desperate to find out. Instead, they should use logic to fight it. “Once we inform the guild, they could send out a search party to look for your friend. Okay?”

But instead of getting convinced, the woman shook her head in denial and argued.

“No! She should be fine! I’m sure she is!”

Manna narrowed her eyes. “How can you be so sure?” she asked incredulously.

The woman bit her lips. She hesitated for a while until Manna made a motion to leave. It was then that she gathered herself and spouted something quite incredible.

“She’s a High Priestess!”

Both of their jaws dropped. Only Soleil had an unimpressed reaction.

“Bullshit.”

At that point Manna was quite agitated. For her, it felt like the woman was spouting whatever she could in order to force Matthias, and in effect his party, to act.

Although if she was indeed a “High Priestess”, then she would likely be alive.

“So this girl, she might still be alive inside?”

Soleil suddenly asked. She looked eager to dive into trouble. Manna quickly tried to stop her, already aware of her penchant for running without warning.

“We’re not sure. What are the chances that a newly-registered party has a High Priestess?”

“But, there’s a chance?”

A determined look was cemented on Soleil’s face. The tone of her voice clearly showed that she would try to rescue the woman’s friend if there was even the slightest chance that she was still alive. Meanwhile, Manna kept trying to refuse, both for safety and emotional reasons.

Well, it didn’t matter anyway. Matthias had already decided what he was going to do.

“What does your friend look like?” he asked the woman. She looked up to him and gave a rough description.

“Red robe… with black hair. Her hair’s long, and she has black eyes.”

He nodded in understanding. After that, he checked his pack and confirmed that he had enough holy water inside. Knowing that Soleil was carrying the pouch that the guild master had forced on her the other day, he also knew that she was ready.

“Manna. Can I ask you to get her back to town and report to the guild?”

She turned her head with her jaws hanging. There was a mix of surprise, wonder and confusion in her eyes. Then, there was indignation.

“We’ll go inside and look for her friend. If we see her corpse, we’ll return immediately. If she’s still alive, we’ll get her back safely.”

Manna’s face contorted gradually as he continued his explanation.

“We have enough holy water between us to survive a dozen injuries. Plus, Soleil and I should be strong enough to tackle a D-ranked dungeon. If this woman is telling us the truth, then it’s highly likely that she’s still alive.”

“Or she might have died from the fall… worse yet, whoever dug this hole might be there somewhere.” Matthias kept those final words to himself. He dearly wanted to save the woman’s friend. If he was in her shoes and Manna had been the one trapped, he would definitely do the same and cling onto someone to rescue her as soon as possible in the event that he was unable to.

Plus, if he was being honest, diving into a dungeon to save someone despite guild regulations sounded like something a true hero would do.

Manna stared at him in disbelief. After a while, she sighed and smiled bitterly. It wasn’t hard to convince her if he was being stubborn enough. But then, her eyes regained some power behind it and she demanded, “Then take me with you. The girl can go back by herself, can’t she?”

He vaguely predicted that she would make that argument. Unfortunately, that couldn’t happen.

“Look at her. Do you think she could return safely with all the monsters around us?” Apothecaries typically filled non-combat roles in a party and were in charge of things such as cooking, tending to injuries and such. Because clerics had to conserve their mana, some parties also had apothecaries to care for them using consumables. Furthermore, they were knowledgeable about fauna of all kinds, including plant-type monsters.

“But what about Soleil? She could escort the girl.”

“Yes, but what about rendezvousing with us? I don’t think she knows how to track people like you.”

It just so happened that at that time, Soleil had bent down near the hole, looking like she was investigating it. However, her eyes betrayed her experience and the tilt on her head showed that she had no idea what she was doing.

“See?”

“Ugh… Fine! Bastard.”

She stomped her feet on the ground in frustration. Matthias had to say that she looked cute doing it.

As she walked away towards the girl, she turned back towards him.

“Make sure you’re still alive by the time I get to you, or I’ll kill you myself.”