Dungeon of Pride, Laplace

When Chuck saw that all of them had gathered, he instructed "Alright we shall descend a few more floors and end our exploration before retreating back".

"Ehhh?" all the adventurers made confused and discontent faces before throwing out complaints "

Why are we retreating so fast leader?"

"That's right it's only been a day since we delved inside the dungeon"

"We have plenty of rations and can easily hold on for as long as a week".

Everyone was disgruntled by the sudden decision of Chuck and felt it was quite a waste to retreat now.

Lisa looked at Chuck's serious expression before making up her mind "We will do as the leader said. Is there anyone who still has any complaints?". She stared at everyone with a smile that wasn't a smile.

Nobody dared to make any more complaints after her threatening gaze. Lisa knew that Chuck wouldn't have come to this decision if he didn't have something on his mind. Additionally, He was the leader of the party, she had complete faith in him.

When the crowd settled down, Chuck asked Lisa "Don't you want to know why I ordered to withdraw all of a sudden?".

Lisa turned towards Chuck, gave him a cheerful smile, and said "I trust you and I know that all the decisions you take are for the party's benefit and I believe nobody here would doubt it. Plus If there wasn't something bothering you, you wouldn't have ordered a retreat".

Chuck was stunned by how percipient Lisa was and couldn't help but shake his head in defeat as he said with a smile "You are right. I have had this bad feeling plaguing me ever since I stepped foot inside the dungeon. It might be only me but... have you noticed something unusual about this dungeon?".

Lina tilted her head by this sudden question and asked in confusion "Something unusual?". She pondered over it for a while before replying "do you mean the chimaeras?".

Chuck nodded he wasn't surprised by her reply since he knew that the girl was an airhead. "That too but don't you feel that the density of manas is quite thicker than what a newly emerged dungeon is supposed to have".

He couldn't blame her since all of his party members were the same and seemed to have not detected anything unusual about the dungeon yet. Chuck was the leader of their party and was responsible for their life and death hence he was more prudent and cautious than the rest of his team.

He took out a large chunk of Silver crystal from his space ring "These Silver crystals too, they are not supposed to grow in a newly emerged [E] rank dungeon. Not to mention the purity of each of these crystals are much higher than those crystals circulating in our city of Mountmend".

After listening to his explanation Lisa finally became aware of the peculiarities surrounding the dungeon a little. Now that she looked around, she could feel the density of the mana. Thinking back, she noticed that each floor was starting to get wider and wider the more floors they descended.

"Is leader trying to imply that…" she turned towards Chuck and asked.

"Yes, I believe that it's not a [E] rank dungeon but instead a [D] rank" Chuck said confirming her suspicion.

"But how can that be… wasn't it a newly emerged dungeon?" Lina asked shocked at what she heard. It wasn't only her but Chuck himself felt quite shocked at this revelation; after all, the dungeon must have formed not more than Six months ago.

It was common knowledge in this world that it takes a couple of years or even decades for a newly emerged dungeon's rank to go up. Not to mention the span of time increases the higher the tier of the dungeon.

Now he was inside one such dungeon that defied the common sense of this world. Lisa was finally aware of the true nature of the dungeon she had just entered with her guild. To her, it looked just like a maw of a sleeping beast.

She now understood why their leader looked so serious, he had this suspicion plaguing him and that was why he ordered the end of their exploration after a few more floors and decided to retreat.

"What should we do Chuck?" Lisa was quite shaken after she became aware of the peculiarities of the dungeon.

Chuck lightly smacked her in her head and said "You are supposed to call me leader and not Chuck. There is no need to worry, though it's no ordinary dungeon we are adventurers after all. As long as we don't break our formation, nothing will go wrong".

Lisa finally relaxed after Chuck assured her. "That's right we are the strongest guild in the city of Mountmend, even if it's an uncommon dungeon with all our team here we have nothing to worry" her voice became cheerful once again after she said those words to boost her morale.

Chuck looked at her who was back to her usual cheerful self and nodded his head "Alright, go and regroup with your team. We shall start descending the next floor".

With that said, Chuck's team descended a total of two floors and reached floor seven. It took them more than a day to reach the seventh floor. However, it wasn't because of the mist that eternally surrounded the seventh floor nor was it because of the Albino Spiders and White Horned Rabbit that assaulted them on some of the floors. It was because of the large quantity of ores that was growing on these floors

His team mined as many Silver crystals as they could until their space rings were filled to the point where they had to throw some useless items they had been storing in their rings.

Chuck looked at the content faces of his team before commanding "Alright, you all listen up. In these past few days, we had more than enough haul and were also able to complete our main mission to find the reason behind the outbreak of monsters from the Ghastly Winding Forest. Therefore, I am ending our exploration here. We will start ascending out of the dungeon and head back to the city".

Everybody nodded and no one voiced their complaints this time. They have mined a large number of Silver crystals and hunted monster parts till their space ring was full. The adventurers were starting to get tired after spending a few days inside the dungeon killing monsters and mining the ores.

They were starting to miss the sunlight and wanted to head back to the city and exchange their loot for money.

------

Three moons lit the dark forest with their beautiful moonlight. Hurried sounds could be heard coming from the forest as a group of ten people darted forth. Their destination is the Forest Spring Spirit Village hidden at the edge of the Ancient Treant territory.

Leading them was a brawny man who had a bald head, it was none other than Dale from the Seven Swords guild. He and his team were sent here to assist Laris with the task that was assigned to him by the guild. He was to distract and lure the adventurer team sent by the Sea God's Trident branch guild located at the city of Mountmend.

Dale was eager and delighted to report back to the guild that he had successfully lured the Adventurers from the Sea God's Trident inside the dungeon. The three chimaeras he had painfully gathered from the guild, worked marvellously and were successful in leading the adventurers towards the guild.

Though he felt pain when he saw two of the chimaeras being killed by the Sea God's guild, the last one Falcon Wing Bull-Ox was able to come out of this alive.

Each of these chimaeras was not cheap and cost a fortune to prepare one even for their guild. The guild had provided him with three chimaeras which goes to say that their guild was using all their reserves for the success of this mission.

Although two of the chimaeras ended up getting killed, the remaining was able to successfully come out alive. But what mattered most wasn't the safety of the chimaeras but the mission itself.

And that is why Dale was pleased as his mission had gone exactly as he planned. After he saw the adventurer team heading inside the dungeon, he was preparing to camp in a distant peek and observe how long the dungeon was able to stall the elite adventurers from the city of Mountmend.

However, a few hours ago he was contacted by Laris with a transmission shell to urgently come to the Forest Spring Spirit village.