"You are not going anywhere with that kind of equipment with you." Old Fammet said as he pointed at the weapons they were currently holding.
"What is wrong with them?" Yinn asked and Old Fammet replied that they do not have the stopping power nor penetrating power to kill the monsters in the Variant Dungeon.
"Then do you?" Yinn questioned and Old Fammet scoffed at that remark as he asked them to follow him but Jin stopped the Mecha Smith.
"Save those weapons for now. The Grey Bear Squad excluded Page since she needs to research on the legality of things to come with their standard gear." Jin said.
"That will be suicide for them though," Nie commented and noted that it was really not advisable to do just that.
"It's fine. I want to test some stuff and will be coming out of the Variant Dungeon if things go awry. We will not be travelling too far."
"I do not think he knows how the dungeon works," Diaz remarked.
"From the looks of it, he does not." Click nodded her head.
"Captain, most dungeons can be escaped immediately, back to where we come from but Variant Dungeons do not have such luxury for you."
"You mean..." Jin looked at the rest and Nie interrupted.
"That is what I meant when I said that Master Fammet told us to brave through the first floor and get the dead people's items. We ran to grab the stuff and avoided everything possible to reach the end of the first floor. Once we did that, we teleported safely to the workshop since there is a teleporting pod at the end of every dungeon floor." Nie explained.
"Regardless, with that information. I am going into the first floor with conventional weapons." Jin rebutted all of their concerns.
"Why?" was the only thing that floated in everyone's head except for Lynn. She knew that Jin wanted to see how Lynn could fare with her current settings. And whether her powers were more than enough to bring those Variant monsters down to their knees.
"It's an order. Just bring more ammunition with you." Jin said as he took his standard loadout of P90 submachine guns and asked Old Fammet to lead them to the dungeon area.
"And the stubborn smith had to follow the even more stubborn commander." Old Fammet grumbled which made Jin chuckle.
"If I am not persistent enough, do you think you will get to be in this situation?"
"There is something in this world called foolishness."
"You will understand if you are willing to come," Jin said and Old Fammet refused.
"The Variant Dungeon difficulty increases with the number of people going in. So, I will opt out and wait for your return." Old Fammet said as he smashed a button and the door in front of them slowly opened, revealing a blood stained staircase and a poorly lit descent. "But since you are going down there, I guess I could ask you to bring back the remnants of the sharpest metal you could find. Lynn still needs a trusty sword and shield if you decide that she will continue to be used as a Close Combat War Maiden."
"Erm..." Jin looked at Lynn for a while, as if waiting for her approval before turning his attention to Old Fammet again. "Could you instead prepare a basic set of kitchen tools instead? Like knives, choppers, pots, ladles and woks, etc?"
"That's a very odd request... But I will still make a blade regardless of your orders."
"Sure, sure. I will bring back more metal if possible." Jin nodded his head and suddenly heard Page running towards him, fully armed.
"Captain. I wish to join the expedition of the first floor."
"You found what you need to cause the private corpos to be pointless at the end of the day?"
"No, but I need to at least join up at least once to have a feeling of the teamwork that you and the rest of the Grey Bear Squad had performed. Otherwise, my optimisation may cause trouble for the upcoming defence against the counterattack."
"Captain, she just needed to let go some steam as well. Let her join." Diaz said and Page somehow blushed a little.
"Like I said, the more people who join, the more difficult the Variant Dungeon would be. Are you sure you want her to join? Her optimisation can be performed outside of the dungeon." Old Fammet warned.
"Let her be. If you did say it's dangerous then all the more, I will need a Combat Medic with me, right? If things do go south, we have some possible on the move recovery and run to the exit as fast as possible."
"You are not contradicting yourself." Old Fammet squinted his eyes at him even though he knew Jin was just making excuses right now. "Do whatever you like, I am not to be blamed. At the very most I will fight to defend from the private corpos MYSELF."
"Master, you are saying as if I will not be there with you..." Nie said as he had already sent his security buddies his resignation letter. They knew he might not come back but to see him alive and making this absolute decision was a small blow to them, as they would lose a colleague who had worked with them for years.
"Bah." Old Fammet fumed a little and walked off. Jin also took that as the signal to start walking down the stairs.
While Lynn was a Close Combat War Maiden, she was given a boomstick aka a Remington Shotgun as her primary weapon. Her clothes were a standard set uniform prepared by Yinn which she also gave Page when she was remade. Other than that, there was no additional equipment Lynn was carrying with the exception of a vest to hold her extra ammunition shots. In the meantime, the rest instantly turned on their Night Vision mode and follow Jin down the stairs to reach a corridor.
"Caution ahead. One Large Monster and a few other smaller ones." Tellie said as her perception was better compared to the rest of them.
"Then let's give these buggers a surprise they've been yearning for," Jin said as he commanded Lynn to charge with him to fight the large unidentified monster while the rest were to be taken care of by the Squad members.