Chapter 146 - Weather (8)

Billy nodded to himself in satisfaction while watching his status. His main skills reached level twenty-three before he ran out of stamina. Still, that much progress was fine. Things were looking good like that, but something was bothering Billy.

"No signs yet of the other parties on this floor," Billy said. "Should we start looking for the loot that they left behind?"

"Billy… that is not funny," Kate said, looking reproachfully at him.

"It wasn't a joke," Billy said. "Anyway, while we entered the dungeon pretty early, we should have found some signs of them by now. Even yesterday, I didn't find any footsteps on the way back, aside from ours."

The others began to look suspiciously at Marie. That certainly was weird… was she hiding something that could cause them trouble? Still, Marie ignored their eyes.

"Let's see… as soon as we arrived in this state, we were invited to help the people here in the war," Billy recalled some past events. "For one reason or the other, Jean was losing territory and a dungeon, but we prevented that. Usually, a lot of adventurers would participate in this battle since they could earn many riches if their homeland obtained control over them. After that, a certain Count defected to the enemy state. Them we were invited to work here as battle instructors for a while and this dungeon haven't been cleared in a while, which means…"

"The Hiloh state lost many adventurers in the previous war… or they defected to the enemies' side," Kate said. "All of this is connected and we are the only party on the fourth and fifth floor."

"I suppose there is no point in hiding it anymore since you have guessed this much…" Marie said. "You are right, we lost many adventurers in the last war."

It was only obvious after Billy pointed out so many things that seemed connected. In any case, Edward thought that he had gained the backing of a powerful ally, but it was more like Jean was the one who gained much more from their alliance. Now that he thought about it, Jean probably treated him harshly after the incident with the Count because he didn't want to raise even more dissatisfaction on his people… While only soldiers might have noticed the decrease in their fighting power, some soldiers had loose mouths.

In any case, Billy could feel Alexander's eyes on him. After hearing that, he felt even eager to accept the offer. He could understand his point of view. If he wanted to live a stable life, they couldn't let their ally suffer even more. Even though they still had a few years until they recovered from their financial losses.

"Although I confirmed the truth, it would be better if you don't walk around talking about it," Marie said.

Billy nodded since that much was obvious. In any case, he barely cleared the dungeon, and something was already there to bother him. He was starting to think like Alexander… following his way of thought. Not doing anything would be dangerous. Thanks to those thoughts, Billy's fighting style lost its edge, and he began to take more time to finish the monsters. He also suffered some scratches here and there.

"You heal pretty fast…" Marie said when she noticed that Billy stopped bleeding even before he could do the first aid.

"It is the power of my spear," Billy said and then looked at the map of the current floor.

Things were going well once again. While they were some paths that they didn't explore yet were left behind, Billy knew that they were on the halfway point of the dungeon. The reason for that was the fact that now seven Aquatic beasts were appearing with each encounter. He couldn't imagine more than ten appearing in the same spawning point, so that assumption was probably accurate. Nevertheless, they made a lot more progress in just two days. However, they will need to learn how to manage their energy. Otherwise, they will never reach the fifth floor on time.

While Billy was thinking about that, a group of eight aquatic beasts appeared… Fighting them will be hard if they don't take some of them out instantly. Naturally, Billy decided to do exactly that… He dashed toward the enemies on the front and then used Light Spear. The enemy blocked the attack, but its arms were sent in the opposite direction and left the creature wide open. With a single, but quick and precise thrust, Billy made his spear pierce the enemy's brain.

As for the other three around, Billy destroyed their guard with Wind Sphere, and that gave Natalie and Alexander the perfect chance to finish them off.

When Billy turned around, he saw that Kate had put her spears in the head of two monsters. One enemy was already fallen with his body filled with arrows, and the other was trying to reach Lily. Still, the creature was closer to becoming a porcupine than reaching that goal.

You obtained 250 experience points.

The skill Spearmanship obtained 125 experience points.

The skill Wind Manipulation obtained 125 experience points.

…

"Let's retreat, it is about time," Billy declared.

The group nodded. They had gotten used to fighting while they were tired. Still, it wasn't easy, and the moment they relaxed, the exhaustion became really troublesome.

"It is pretty hard, don't you agree?" Marie asked. "We had a really hard time dealing with these guys without exhausting ourselves along the way."

Billy didn't ask how she managed to overcome that. Since she was a muscle head, Billy could imagine that she just used brute strength as usual.

"I already did pretty much everything possible to make things easier for us… I can't find other methods that will require less energy from all of us," Billy thought.

Their skills will keep improving, but that wouldn't be enough… After reaching this far, Billy wanted to reach the last room no matter what.. Still, things were looking grim.