Chapter 210 - Dire Situation

Upon arriving at the raid site, she was shocked to feel the oppressive mana being exhibited by the raid door.

The feel reminded her of mutated dungeons as a dangerous thought appeared in her mind.

'Did the raid mutate as well?!'

Frowning slightly behind her mask, Shiro walked up to one of the pillars beside the raid door and placed her palm on it. Channelling her mana through the structure, she wanted to see if she could examine the mana signal so that she could understand it better.

*TZZ!!!

A spark lashed out at her palm as Shiro quickly retracted her hand.

"Tch, feisty fellow." She muttered in annoyance.

From the way it was reacting, it seemed like it didn't want anyone to examine it. Which should be strange since it should just be a door.

Shaking her hand in order to get rid of the numbness, Shiro tilted her head back and looked at the door.

"You two, sit down somewhere nearby or do whatever you want. I'm gonna check out this raid door for a bit." Shiro said as the duo nodded.

Lisandra started to wander away while Yin stayed in place and reached out with her hand.

"Mn?"

"Lollipop."

"Oh. Alright, here." Shiro nodded and handed her a few mana stone lollipops.

Walking over to Lisandra with a light skip to her steps, Yin grinned happily behind her mask.

With the two gone, Shiro started to walk around the raid door.

'Hmm… interesting. The mana flow shows that whoever made or is controlling this, doesn't know what he's doing. Which means that the possibility of the boss being able to open or close the raid door at will is also a possibility.' Shiro narrowed her eyes.

If that was the case, then whatever was inside needed to be killed or else the threat that it possesses will definitely increase.

'Then again, the possibility of it being an intelligent monster gone rogue is also there. Unlike me, intelligent monsters might not have the luck of getting a disguise skill to escape. For all I know, they might not even look human, making the task of leaving the dungeon much harder.'

When she thought up of this point, Shiro realised something important.

'If I was in its place, with no humanoid body nor a disguise skill, the best thing to do was to cause a commotion and leave during that chaotic period. If he controls the door to restrict the level, he'll be able to lure adventurers into the dungeon and kill them for extra EXP while waiting for the raid door to expire so that ALL the monsters could leave. Naturally, one would assume that high level enemies were bound to appear outside so he must raise his level and defences just to have a chance at survival, hence why he/she is luring more adventurers. From what I've gathered so far, I can narrow down his potential stat distribution depending on survival rates.

'The first and most obvious choice would be to upgrade the crap out of defence so that he could at least take one blow and MAYBE, use the force to give himself an extra boost to get out of the place. The main points of distribution for this would be DEF and AGI since he has no use for fighting back. Doing so would only decrease his chances of survival.

'The second option would be to increase his speed to an abnormal state. Since the raid is limited to level 60 and below, I can assume that most of the monster are C class. Especially since they were of the C class even before the change. Since the monster is C class and had most likely killed humans, I can assume that he's got the monster title and had increased his stats by two fold. With that in mind, if he puts all his points into speed, there's a big chance of outrunning the elders that would try to kill it.

'With these two options in mind, if he picks either of these, he'll be an annoying monster to fight against. Hmm… but this doesn't include any unknown variables such as a unique skill. What if he's able to camouflage, go into the rift like me, or even shapeshift. Depending on the skills he gets, it can change up the battle plan a lot so I should only use the two options as POTENTIAL outlines to follow.' Thinking of this point, Shiro scratched her hair in annoyance and glared at the pillar.

"Tch, annoying…" She muttered.

Walking away from the door, she sat down on one of the nearby benches and rested her elbows on her knees while her chin was in both her palms.

'But how did he take over the dungeon and even control the raid door to begin with?' She mused in curiosity.

She had speculated that monsters could innately control the dungeons one they became the 'dungeon master', but she had never been given this option so she was quite curious as to how another intelligent monster managed to achieve this feat.

'Who knows, maybe I can make an EXP farm out of a dungeon if I could control it.' She thought in humour.

But she knew that even if she did have that chance, she wouldn't go for it. It wasn't her way of life after all.

Suddenly, a group of five people started to walk towards her as their faces were deadly serious.

'Hou? Some hostility.' She smiled lightly when she felt their intent.

Both Yin and Lisandra flickered beside her as they stared at the five from behind the mask.

Each of them were above level 50 in strength while the man in the middle was level 60.

[Kier LVL 60 – Solari Arch Knight]

"Excuse me, we would love to have a small chat. Can you follow us?" He said while narrowing his eyes in suspicion.

"Follow you? Having 3 maidens follow you seems a bit sceptical wouldn't you say so?" Shiro replied while sitting up straight. Leaning back on the bench, she crossed her legs and clashed glare with Kier.

Furrowing his brows a little, Kier wondered who this woman was in front of him. Someone who could make him feel so much danger with a single glare wasn't normal.

"You're right. Then how about we talk right now then?" He said as he kept his face passive.

"Right here? Wouldn't that be inconvenient? Since I'm busy and so are you, why don't we talk another day." Shiro narrower her eyes in humour.

"It is not inconvenient." He shook his head before gesturing to one of his followers.

With a single snap of his finger, a set of table and chairs started to form in front of Shiro.

"Well this is one way to go about it." Shiro smiled.

"I'll be straight to the point. Why were you investigating the raid door. Were you tampering with it? Sabotaging it? What's your goal?" He asked as he exerted a little of his pressure.

"Oi. Listen here boy, you're the one asking the question so act like it. I'm not going to give you answers because you demanded it." Shiro's eyes turned cold as her aura lashed out at his and crushed it easily.

The four followers of Kier instantly made a move as they drew their swords and prepared their spells. However, Lisandra and Yin weren't idle either.

*BANG BANG CLANG CLANG!

Lisandra parried two swords while Yin had cancelled out two spells. The situation was at a sudden standstill while Shiro knew that this would be the outcome.

However, just to make sure, she was ready to launch spells and summon swords the moment the situation called for it.

As for Kier and his followers, they were surprised at the duo's power. At first, they acted instinctively when they felt her dangerous aura. Naturally, they planned to stop short but with the duo's response, they couldn't help but start to consider serious combat and the damages that could be caused.

"What kind of attitude is this? Attacking me despite the fact that I'm only protecting myself since I'm a frail maiden?" Shiro chuckled slightly.

'Frail Maiden? You? Bullcr*p.' Both the duo and the four follows couldn't help but retort in their minds.

They had only reacted instinctively because the sense of danger that radiated off of her was too strong. There was no way that someone 'frail' could feel this dangerous.

"Surely you jest. They meant no harm and only wanted to protect me from any possible danger. I should be the one apologising for releasing my aura first." Kier played along.

"Since they meant no harm, I suppose we don't need these either." Shiro smiled and flicked her wrist. Deactivating her illusion, they paled when several ominous spears made up of Shadow and Dark Star hung above their heads, each ready to drop at a moment's notice.

'When did she cast them?!' Kier thought as sweat dripped down his back. His complexion didn't look so good anymore as he knew that the girl in front of him was one of the existences that couldn't be judged by level.

Taking a deep breath, he reconsidered his tone and decided to stay passive for now.

"I apologise about me and my teams conduct. But for the safety of this city and the people within it, I hope that you can answer the aforementioned questions."