Dungeon of Pride, Laplace

The moment she appeared, she got down on her knee and greeted— "Master…".

Seeing that she took the trouble of teleporting to where he was, Simon immediately realised that something was wrong. He wrapped up whatever he was doing and turned towards Bea.

"Master… Miss Irene and the [Helpers] are awaiting your presence in the main hall".

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Adventurer's guild, Tower Town.

Currently, there was a large group of adventurers gathered at the hall. At a glance, their numbers were more than fifty people gathered inside. Since the adventurer's association building was small to accommodate these many people at once, the hall felt quite congested.

Usually, there wouldn't be this big of a crowd gathering inside, but today was different than usual. Thirty percent of the adventurer that was currently inside the hall, were wrapped in bandages, some looked extremely worn down with big and small injuries on their body.

The staffs of the associations were busy running around and tending to the wounded. The mood in the hall was heated with different teams and guilds arguing with each other.

"Are you suggesting that we leave them to die? You bastard are you a coward?" An adventurer with an injury in his head said barking out loud. You could even see some bloodstain on his armour and pants evident that he just came back from a difficult battle.

"Huh? Then are you saying that we all die? Screw you… there is no way I'm risking my life or those guys" Another adventurer said. His name was Ruke and he was a [C] rank adventurer belonging to a small guild from the city of mountmend called the Ivory Bow.

However, at this moment other than him, there was no other adventurer from the Ivory Bow inside the hall.

The man with an injury on his head had it enough, in his anger he grabbed Ruke's collar and lifted him above the ground.

"Wait Bastian—put him down, even if we fight amongst ourselves it doesn't help the situation. We must all contact our main guild in the city and asked them for backup" A man with a whitebeard holding a staff made of some unknown material said.

He was the eldest person currently gathered and his words seemed to hold quite some weight even amongst the other adventurers as they immediately stopped their own bickering and turned towards him.

The man with the head injury who was referred to as Bastian, loosened his clutch against Ruke and put him down.

"What should we guild master Mason? The town is completely ransacked and destroyed, there are more than hundreds of civilian casualties and unidentifiable amounts of death with many captured. If we just leave it like that, how can we call ourselves adventurers?".

Mason was a well known person here who led one of the powerful guilds from the city of Mountmend called Moonlight Guild. Thus Bastian felt it appropriate to ask for his advice even though he belonged to a different guild.

Mason caressed his beard as he observed more like glared at Bastain and Ruke who were just about to fight right inside the adventurer's association. After he turned the two into submission with his fierce eyes, he turned towards the receptionist who seemed to be unable to control the situation.

"Miss would you fill me up as to what had happened here? As you know, we just came out of the dungeon today thus we don't know much of what had happened".

Mason's Moonlight Guild, mostly explored the lower-Middle Floors. Therefore it was not unusual for them to spend a few days to a week or till they were out of resources inside the dungeon.

The receptionist recounted the whole story to them. About how two days ago, an adventurer team spotted a group of Orcs roaming around the eastern region of the forest. Needless to say, the orcs were wiped out by the adventurers; however, it seemed that the group was just a scout as many more adventurers started to spot groups of orcs coming closer to the tower.

Things escalated fast and the news was brought to the ears of the adventurers association who issued a commission to wipe out the orcs lurking near the town. However, it seemed that the adventurers remaining above ground weren't a match for the orcs as many teams were wiped out.

The ones who were fortunate enough to survive reported the information to the tower town. That was when all hell broke loose, the civilians, merchants, workers and other professions that had nothing to do with adventuring, started panicking and leaving the city in hurry.

Nevertheless, it was already too late as the orcs had already discovered the town and were starting to be seen around it. Those that fled from the town, disappeared in the darkness their scream like an omen filled the wild.

The adventurer association realising the danger barred anyone from leaving the confines of the town and send messengers inside the dungeon to notify the other adventurers. But surrounding the town was only just the start for the orcs as they started marching and breaking inside the town.

The remaining adventurers and people resisted with all their might, they hanged on until the other adventurer came out of the dungeon. Nonetheless, the town was still devastated in the process with many lives lost and building broken.

This was what happened two days ago. Yesterday, after receiving the emergency notice from the messengers, more than fifty percent of the adventurer came out of the dungeon. They formed a temporary alliance with the other teams and guilds and led the charge against the orcs.

They were successful in driving the orcs away from the vicinity of the town. Perhaps this victory had gotten inside their head, they tried to investigate the reason behind the appearance of the orcs and dived deeper into the forest.

Their alliance comprised of a majority of the adventurers that were aboveground at that time. But since the time they dived deeper towards the forest, there was no more communication with them.

The tension in the town was at its peak, people started arguing with each other as fear gripped hold of their hearts. As the only authority in the town that can rally the group, the adventurers association steeled their nerves and sent a few people inside the forest to investigate what had happened to the alliance.

Fortunately, those people were able to find some adventurers who were still alive and bring them back to the town.

Amongst the ones who were brought in are the currently fighting Bastian and Ruke. When the adventurer's association asked what had happened to their alliance, they were horrified to realise that the entire group was ambushed and wiped out by the orcs.

Some of them were killed at the site, some were captured and others ran away in different directions, their situation unknown.

A heavy silence settled onto the room after the receptionist finished reciting the events. Every eye was currently focused on Mason and the Moonlight Guild that he led.

Mason mused for a while before asking in a frown "This does not add up, even if the opponent were orcs with the level of the adventurers of this town, it shouldn't be a problem to defeat them".

"About that… the opponents were not only orcs, but high orcs were also in the mix too. Even if the enemy had High Orcs, it would still have been fine. However, the ones that ambushed us were clearly very sentient and were highly coordinated. Our Alliance which was a makeshift group of different teams and guilds to begin with, was not their match" Bastian replied gritting his teeth at the end of his sentence.

The members of the Moonlight guild who were currently the strongest adventurers aboveground, narrowed their eyes hearing Bastian's words. One of them even got up from his seat and approached Bastian with a question.

"The ones that ambushed you, were they taller than even the high orcs? Were their skin crimson in colour? Tell me, were they all holding a unique kind of weapon?".

Bastian was taken aback by the sudden interrogation; nonetheless, he still answered their question with a nod of his head.

"It was as you described… by any chance do you recognise them?".

The man did not answer and turned towards Mason with a grave expression on his face. "Guild Master… it seems that the enemies are not just high orcs but Diluvian High Orcs".

Mason did not say anything but the expression on his face was enough to tell everyone that the name Diluvian High Orcs was enough to cower even a guild as powerful as theirs. The other adventurers may not have heard about the Diluvian High Orcs.

However, how could Mason and his guild memebers not know about one of the fearsome monsters from the western region of the forest? The Diluvian High Orcs were the next evolution of the High Orcs, they are blessed with a powerful physique that made even the high orcs look small, have excellent coordination and are extremely intelligent.

Coupled with the peculiar weapons made of bone that they hold, they were a force that any powerful guild from the city of Mountmend knows about.

"If it's the Diluvian High Orcs, then we have no other options than to wait for the other powerful guilds to come back up before diving inside the forest. Miss, I want you to also inform the association branch in the neighbouring cities of this predicament we are in and to hastily send reinforcements".

"You all, please do the same if you want to survive. The orcs might have retreated for the moment, but now that they have gotten the taste of human blood and seen the city, they will keep on sieging it until all of us are captured or dead".