Dungeon of Pride, Laplace

As for others, it did not even need to be said as the chaos and explosions echoing around all across the floor were self-explanatory. The guild leaders had a frown of exasperation on their faces, as they themselves tried to understand the cause of this madness.

Although they understood some of the reasons why the other guilds were fighting each other, none of them had any conclusive proof as to who was the main culprit behind all this.

The mood of the grey haired man already looked very foul, so they dared not say anything that pissed him off even further. Unless called out none of them provided any explanation.

"Cassius you were responsible for communicating with all of the guilds, tell me what in the world happened here?".

The guild leader of the Assassin's guild exhaled a deep breath of air, one could see the look of tiredness on his face as he explained the reports that he got from his subordinates.

"I understand the gist of it. So someone interfered in between the activities of the other guilds and while they were busy dealing with the monsters those people stole their rewards causing them to suffer some casualties. Is that right?" The grey haired man asked.

"That is correct" Cassius confirmed.

"What is the possibility that it was the work of some monsters?"…

"None. From the reports I got, it seemed like those people interfering in the way of the other guilds are using cross-cutting".

The grey haired man narrowed his eyes the moment that term was mentioned. If it was cross cutting, it was hundred percent the work of the adventurers. However, what he didn't understand was what could drive these guilds to the point of fighting and killing one another.

"Are the rewards in those reassure chests really that lucrative?" the grey haired man asked. He did not participate or tag along with any guilds in hunting for the treasures. From his perspective, whatever that could be inside those treasure chests wouldn't be worth his time or be of any importance to him.

From the start of this exploration, he was only interested in locating the entrance to the next floor. When he finally found it, he was made aware that the situation had evolved into what it was now.

"I believe it is because of this item".

Arven Lantz and his crimson demolition guild who was one of the seven groups to have assembled here at his call, replied. He took something out from his space ring and presented it in front of everyone's eyes.

"Huh?"..

"HUH?!"…

"HUHH?!!"…

Everybody was surprised at the thing that Arven took out, though their surprise was for a whole other reason. Nevertheless, their surprise wouldn't even be able to hold a candle in front of the shock that Arven was feeling inside.

The reason for all of them being surprised was none other than the thing that he took out from his space ring. Sitting in his hand, was a shiny looking rock as big as a fist.

What was going on? He had clearly taken out the greatest reassure that was currently stored inside his space ring so why did a stone come out instead of it? Arven was in a state of loss for a moment.

"Is this some kind of joke? Is that shiny stone supposed to be the reason why those guilds are fighting amongst each other?" the grey haired pointed at the shiny looking rock.

It was true that the stone looked aesthetically beautiful and might make some country nobles collect them. However, other than it looks it had no other value.

The other six guild masters also wondered why he showed them a stone when he had that treasure with him.

"Eh? No, I was trying to show you the spirit orb that our guild found inside a treasure chest while exploring the floor". Arven explained while frantically searching for something inside his space ring.

"Spirit Orb!!" The grey haired man's voice increased up a notch the moment he hear Arven mention the spirit orbs.

"That's right… I received many reports saying that a couple of guilds have gotten their hands on these treasures. It is because of these spirit orbs that the other guilds are fighting amongst each other" Cassius explained.

Even though his guild and the others here except for the crimson demolition guild didn't encounter any such treasure chest with spirit orbs inside them. But based on the multiple reports that he received, he believed that it ought to be true.

"You found the spirit orbs?! That... How... Can you show it to me?" The grey haired man tried to maintain a calm face, but he still ended up fumbling with his words.

The dungeon harbouring the forest spring spirits was a secret that only a handful of people knew. In this expedition force, only he and the people from the Sea God's Trident guild were aware of it. But didn't that suggest that the expedition force as a whole was now aware that the dungeon was in possession of the spirit orbs since they were now being rewarded inside the treasure chests?

It was true that he lured the top twenty guilds by promising them a spirit orb each as a reward for their efforts. However, he hadn't had the slightest intention of ever handing them the spirit orbs when the moment came. It was all just a lie, a trick that he used to borrow the power of the guilds.

After killing the demon who was the master of this dungeon, he planned to harvest all the spirit orbs from the forest spring spirits living in this dungeon and teleport out of here, leaving the guilds to do whatever they wanted.

A supreme treasure such as the spirit orbs, only an idiot would think about sharing it with an unrelated party. The item would be put to better use if the adventurers from their side were to use it. That way, they would be able to suppress the spreading influence of that organisation on the mainland.

That was supposed to be the plan; however, everything was ruined with the appearance of the spirit orbs on this floor, everything that he had planned had gone down the drain.

'Why is the demon using the spirit orbs as the reward for the treasure chests? Is he not aware of their value?' the grey haired man questioned internally. Never in his wildest dream would he have imagined that the demon was not only aware of the value of the spirit orbs, but was also using them to manipulate the guilds just like he had done.

"What's wrong... why aren't you showing it to me?" Seeing that Arven was dilly-dallying, he couldn't help but wonder if the other party was hesitant to show the spirit orb to him.

"It is not that I don't want to, it's just that..." a drop of sweat slid down Arven's face as he repeatedly searched his space ring.

"What about you guys? Didn't any of you find the spirit orbs inside those treasure chests?" While Arven was still searching, the grey haired man turned to face the other six guild leaders who shook their heads with bitter smiles in answer.

There were only a few treasure chests spawned on the entire 45th floor, and the ones that had the spirit orbs within them were even fewer. These guild masters did stumble upon a treasure chest or two in their path. However, all it had were a couple of grade [3] mana crystals, a few artefacts, serenity stones and such.

Although all of these were no doubt extremely good treasures, they cannot be compared to the spirit orbs. That is why, they were extremely jealous of Arven and his guild who were lucky enough to stumble upon one.

When the great haired man heard that, he couldn't help but wonder what was the motive behind the demon only using a few spirit orbs as the reward.

'He couldn't be...' At that moment, a thought suddenly struck him and he finally realised something that sent the chills down his spine. Since his face was covered with a mask, there was no way of telling what kind of expression he was making.

"Something's wrong..." Arven who was similarly having the shock of his life, chose this moment to speak up.

"What's wrong guild leader?" Seeing that their guild master was acting differently, the members of the Crimson demolition guild became concerned and approached him.

Arven looked at them and said absentmindedly "I… can't find the spirit orb that we got from that treasure chest".

"Huh? What are you saying guild leader, you put the spirit orb in your space ring, it should be there" the guild members reminded thinking that their guild leader was playing some joke on them.

"That's what I'm saying. It's not there anymore… the spirit orb is not in my space ring" Arven clarified causing the smiles on the members of the crimson demolition guild to freeze at this moment.

"D-Did you check properly guild leader" they couldn't help but question. A treasure like the spirit orb going missing was not a small thing, it need not be even mentioned how other guilds have gone berserk when their spirit orb was stolen from them.

"If you don't believe me, you check my space ring yourselves" Arven was frustrated enough by this, so when his own guild members questioned him, he flipped and directly passed his spirit ring to them.

"Guild leader does not need to be angry at us. However, if the spirit orb is not in your space ring, then where did it go?"…

"I would like to know the answer myself. The spirit orb was definitely kept by me inside my space ring at that time. However, now when I tried to search for it, I couldn't find it anywhere" Arven spat.