The Strange Adventure of a Broke Mercenary

Ch. 58: Rushing in and Exploring

“Alright, let’s head in.”

Ain suggested after a while had pa.s.sed since Parme and her party had descended the stairs.

It seemed that along with letting Parme go first and letting her clear the way, he also had the thought of not going in right after her.

Both weren’t the coolest, but this time Loren was a proctor, so he knew that he had no say in what Ain decided.

“It’s not the most respectable action.”

But next to Loren was a priestess that didn’t care about their position.

The students gave her hostile looks as she said what Loren, who was walking beside Lapis without a sign of being intimidated, didn’t even say out loud without hesitation, and her complaints flowed towards him.

“In the first place, the ulterior motive of letting women walk in front and ensuring your own safety isn’t good. If I were the examiner, I would deduct a lot of points.”

“Adventurers aren’t knights, after all. Maybe they’re taught to do whatever they can to survive.”

That was something relatable to mercenaries as well.

In general, the battlefield was accepted to be a place where the ones who survived were in the right. Actions based on the manners and courtesies of knights were applauded, but if you died doing so you would end up being laughingstock.

“Just saying Lapis…you would use whatever and whoever you could to get your hands on unknown knowledge, won’t you?”

When Loren pointed that out, Lapis stared at Loren and crossed her arms.

“Hm? Maybe they’re quite capable.”

“I’m getting worried if I should keep being in a party with you.”

As Loren looked at Lapis with a stretched smile, after a while Lapis laughed and told him that she was joking, but Loren decided that he would be happier off not wondering if she was really joking or if she was being serious.

“Also, it’ll probably fall short of their speculations.”

“Why is that?”

Lapis asked him, but at the same time they reached the bottom of the stairs and Ain, who was in front, opened the door to the dungeon.

The pa.s.sageway on the other side was dark, and Loren saw that the pa.s.sage split into two corridors a short way down.

“It’s too dark. Feim, light the torch.”

“Got it.”

Feim used a flint to light the lantern that she was holding.

Ain the others gave a sigh of relief as the light shone across the walls.

“Okay, let’s go.”

Ain and Cloud stood in front, and Al and Feim followed behind them.

The corridor was wide enough to fit two of them side by side, and the ceiling was high enough that the light from Feim’s lantern didn’t reach it.

Seeing how high it was, Loren judged that there was more than enough s.p.a.ce for him to swing the great sword on his back.

“The ceiling is pretty high.”

Loren nodded to Lapis, who was looking up.

“There’s enough room for me to swing my great sword.”

“Loren, how can you see all the way up there?”

Loren realized as she pointed it out.

The light from Feim’s lantern didn’t reach the ceiling.

That meant the ceiling was still covered in darkness, and there was no way Loren should be able to see it, but when he looked up again, he could see the stone ceiling very clearly.

“…I told you before that I have good night vision. This amount of light is enough for me to see it faintly.”

“I see.”

Lapis seemed to have lost interest at Loren’s response and didn’t poke any further, but inside, Loren was freaking out.

When he called out to Shayna, who was inside him, she answered immediately.

‘Eyes of the undead can see through the darkness.’

Loren thought that Shayna could sense what he was feeling, but apparently Shayna could restore her own senses into his organs as well.

To the undead, darkness was always near them, and were able to perceive things in the dark.

The eyes of Shayna, most likely because she was the highest ranking undead ent.i.ty, a no life king, seemed to see through darkness itself, and by synchronizing her sight with Loren’s eyes resulted in him being able to see where the lantern’s light didn’t reach.

He thought that maybe Shayna could’ve told him beforehand, but he thanked her, knowing that she did it for him.

While he was talking to Shayna, the group had continued down the corridor and reached the first crossroad.

If they were following the school’s teachings, they would go to the left, and without even discussing it, Ain and his party started down the left corridor.

“I think that Klaus and his group went right.”

Lapis c.o.c.ked her head as Loren whispered to her.

Based on the school’s curriculum that she peeked at, going to the left, as their group had done, was the standard, but Loren denied it.

“Parme and her group went first, but don’t you think they wouldn’t put up with clearing the way for Ain and his party?”

“That’s kind of understandable.”

“That’s why I think they probably went right. They would get the same results if they put their right hands on the wall anyway.”

This method of conquering the dungeon worked as long as you followed the outer wall, so it didn’t matter which side the wall was on.

If you integrated the rest of the method properly, all you needed to do was pick a wall and follow it.

Then if the other group guessed that their group would follow the manual, they would have chosen to go down the right path since they didn’t want to clear the way.

“Aren’t you going to tell them that?”

The actions of Ain and his party was based on the thought that Parme and her group would make sure it was safe, but if Loren was correct and they weren’t following them, the direction they were going in was still dangerous.

If Loren warned them that Parme and her party weren’t moving in front of them, Ain and the others would be more alert, but Loren didn’t feel like telling them.

“They haven’t asked me. My job is to be a proctor, so my position is being able to give them advice if they ask for it.”

Loren thought that there wouldn’t be anything that would be life threatening since they weren’t far from the entrance and they were still in a shallow floor.

The chances of something alarming happening was slim even if they didn’t realize Parme’s group wasn’t in front of them, and even if something did happen, Loren was told by the princ.i.p.al that the students were responsible for heading back, so Loren didn’t feel any responsibility.

“And if they ask for help in such a shallow floor, it would be impossible for them to reach the bottom floor.”

“You’ve got a point.”

Lapis agreed with Loren’s words and shifted her eyes to the two in front.

Although they had the tip of their weapons touching the walls and floor, they were moving quite fast under the a.s.sumption that they were taking the same path Parme’s group did.

The priest and magician followed behind them.

Loren thought it was a formation that was vulnerable to sudden attacks from behind, but when he thought about it, the ones at the back was him and Lapis, so if anything came up from behind, they were the ones who would have to deal with it.

“Aren’t we acting as pretty good shields?”

Even if the monsters were produced by the dungeon, Loren doubted that they would be smart enough to recognize students from proctors.

“Maybe making use of your proctors well is also part of the exam.”

“If that’s the case, I can’t willing be used if I didn’t get warned beforehand.”

“From the looks of that princ.i.p.al, I can’t deny the possibility that he just forgot to tell us.”

Loren recalled the giant he saw in the princ.i.p.al’s office.

He indeed looked like he didn’t care about details.

Judging from his name, he most likely had the blood of the ancient adventurer in his veins, but if you were to ask if the child of a hero is a hero, many times that wasn’t the case, and even if he possessed the power to become a hero, there was a possibility that he was a failure as an educator.

“It’s all part of the reward so we can’t really complain.”

“The reward seems pretty cheap then, no?”

“It’s closer to volunteer work, I guess.”

The two of them were having hushed conversations as such while they were walking, but there was a reason behind it.

They were very bored.

They were moving along quite fast, but Ain and Cloud were still on the lookout for traps and enemies, meanwhile Ain and Feim were ready to use magic or divine arts at a moment’s notice.

Although all of them were on alert, no enemies were appearing.

They didn’t encounter any monsters on the path that Ain was taking them, as if Loren’s guess was wrong and Parme’s party came this way already and took care of everything.

“I guess it’s because we’re on a shallow floor.”

“Nothing coming out is kind of creepy.”

“Is it?”

Monsters no popping up meant that they had a lot of free time, but it also meant that they weren’t in danger, and Loren thought that was a good thing.

But Lapis denied his thinking.

“As long as this is a dungeon, even if it is on a shallow floor, there should be points where monsters spring from.”

And if there were points where monsters appeared, no matter how large the dungeon is, the chances of not coming across them were slim.

But the group hadn’t even seen a glimpse of a monster yet.

“Doesn’t that mean that we’re lucky?”

The one who joined their conversation was Feim, who was still holding the lantern.

The other three were too busy being on guard to join their conversation, but since all Feim was doing was holding the lantern, so she had the time to be able to do so.

“I hope we’ll be able to put it off as luck.”

“You’re so pessimistic. You’ll start looking old like the guy next to you, you know?”

All Loren could do was scratch his head at the unexpected attack, while Lapis covered her mouth with her hand and turned her back to Loren, her shoulders shaking uncontrollably.

Only

Loren knew that she was laughing, but he was aware of the fact, so he couldn’t really complain.

“It’s okay mister, I like people who look older.”

“Pfff!?”

Lapis spurted for a different reason than before at Feim’s unexpected words and started coughing.

Loren continued to scratch his head, not sure how to respond to her words.

It did seem like she was complimenting him, but she still mentioned that he looked old so he couldn’t find anything to say, since he wasn’t sure if he should be mad or thankful.

‘Onii-san, is this person an enemy…?’

While soothing Shayna, whose voice rang out in his head with a freezing feel to it, Loren started worrying if he could finish the job safely, as it seemed that the dungeon wasn’t the only thing that posed a threat to him.