Chapter 47 Evolved Rat

Thinking about his family, Nial couldn't help but sigh deeply as he approached the young female student and the two students who had just regained their consciousness.

They were staring at him, noticing his lifeless, white eyes that were highlighted by his blood-smeared face, but their common sense told them to not ask rude questions and stay quiet instead.

Pain spread through their bodies, and the two young men forgot about their curiosity as they grit their teeth in order to hold back tears.

At that moment, their female classmate stood up from the ground before she deeply bowed to Nial.

"Thank you very much for helping us, Sir! You are our savior!!"

When Nial heard this, he just nodded his head while inspecting his surroundings with his mana currents.

"Are there any other survivors, or did you lose the others?" He simply asked before the two young men noticed Nial's mana fluctuations brush past them.

"I…don't know if anyone else survived…we were together with a friend of ours, but she was separated from us a day ago, and we were just looking for her."

It was the female student who said this, and dread filled his heart as he asked the next question.

"Was her name Leonie Mil?"

Having seen her Originals ID card, he knew the name of the deceased student, whose corpse he had stored inside his spatial ring.

The moment he asked the question, the three students were immediately intrigued, and the female student answered with an excited squeal,

"Yes, that's her name! Did you meet her? Where is she?"

Nial could only sigh deeply before he conveyed the news of her death to her friends.

"I'm sorry to tell you this, but she is dead. She was attacked by petrification rats, just like you guys, but she wasn't as lucky to escape them!"

He stated it matter-of-factly without any emotion because they had to realize what was going on as soon as possible.

After having survived the near-death experience of the large petrification rats group, they should have gotten a hang of the situation.

Nevertheless, they were oddly nonchalant about their pain…or so he thought.

What Nial didn't know was that the two male students had taken a serum that tranquilized them, to the extent that they were still able to move, but didn't let them feel any pain.

This was something they took after waking up from their unconscious state, and not knowing this, he simply assumed that their wounds looked worse than they truly were.

It was great because he thought that he would be able to procure some information from some of the students who had been inside the cave for much longer than him, which should be helpful.

Yet, the moment the young female student began to cry out, while even the badly injured young men's eyes turned moist, Nial realized that he was the one who was too nonchalant.

'I thought death was quite common in the era of dungeons…is that not the case?' He asked himself, confused by their reaction.

However, before he was able to think about this thoroughly, his ears perked up, and he immediately ordered the small group of students to stand up.

"We don't have time to cry right now. Either follow me or die!"

In the end, Nial didn't want the students to die, but that didn't mean he would recklessly sacrifice his life either.

Because of that, he rushed deeper into the cave, and in the direction the three students had just come from.

Upon seeing where Nial was heading, the students were confused, thinking that Nial was insane for walking down the wrong direction.

But it was exactly at this moment that they heard a loud growling noise from the higher end of the tunnel causing them to stiffen as they quickly got up.

While the two young men were feeling that their body was healing, their movements were sluggish due to their partially tranquilised state. Hence, the female student helped them move faster and tried to force herself to stop crying.

However, the more she tried to force her tears to cease, the more they spilled out of her eyes and splattered on her dress.

Nial noticed this, but there was nothing he could do for her.

As such, he focused on the surroundings and the fact that it was likely for the noises the three students behind him made, to be heard and attract lurking beasts.

With that in mind, he grew even more alert than before, and it was because of this fact that he even decided to absorb the mana out of two origin crystals in order to replenish his mana core.

Afterward, he tried to cultivate a little bit, increasing the amount of mana he annexed that slowly filled his mana core.

He knew that it wouldn't help him a lot, but even a little bit was better than nothing.

Thus, the three students could only see Nial quickly absorbing mana out of the origin crystals before he stored the empty crystals away.

Some said that empty origin crystals could be naturally filled in order to act as storage medium or vessels.

However, in order to do that, one was required to do something to the empty crystals, and change their structure.

Thus, Nial decided to store the empty origin crystals for now instead of throwing them away.

Following that, some time passed as they slowly approached the deeper parts of the cave, and it was only when Nial was confident to have reached a relatively secure position that he asked,

"Do you know where the other students are? Other than Leonie, I didn't find anyone, and there are still more than 10 students missing. Even if it's a small possibility, you guys must have a better understanding of the cave than anyone else…"

Even after Nial asked this, the three students didn't say anything. They first acted as if they hadn't heard him, and only when Nial stopped in his tracks did they notice that he was speaking to them.

This caused him to frown, but instead of commenting on their feigned ignorance, he simply repeated his question.

After that, the young female remained silent for a moment, only for one of the young men to answer in her stead.

"We saw how they were attacked by a group of several petrification rats…and those…larger things that were able to order the rats around… First, we were caught too, but an explosion occurred near the place we were held and Leonie opened the cage…afterward all of us could run…but only we four were able to come this far…"

The young student's voice sounded like he was drunk, and Nial had to focus to understand everything.

But once he had heard everything, he couldn't help but feel baffled.

"What larger things? Explain what they were!"

Suddenly, Nial's demeanor changed from his calm and rather relaxed behavior to demanding an answer from the young man in an authoritative tone.

He did this almost subconsciously because he suddenly felt that something was off, and that the attack of the petrification rats group made more sense.

After digesting all the provided information, he had an inkling of what must have happened.

'They're gathering every living being for something, and kill those that flee? Was that why I felt like the groups of petrification rats from before didn't want to tear me apart, but that they would just injure me to the extent that I'm unable to defend myself?'

Nial tried to make sense of the situation, but the more he thought about it, the deeper his frown became because the entire situation of the anomalistic two-element dungeon alongwith the behavior of the rats was weird at the least.

In fact, he could roughly figure out that the petrification rat groups he fought had been sent after him to capture him if possible, and not to kill him.

Thus the stronger beasts knew of him, and only when the young student told him about their appearance did he understand more about the dungeon that harbored far more intelligent beasts than petrification rats.

"If I had to describe them in simple terms, the larger things are probably the evolutions of the petrification rats. They're walking on two feet and are definitely more intelligent than the petrification rats.

I don't think their hide is thick because some of the other students were able to injure them quite easily, but their reflexes and behavior is a lot different in comparison to the petrification rats!

Despite that, their control over the petrification rats was fearsome and their mana currents are strong. I would consider it to probably be comparable to Originals at the fourth Origin rank, but I have no idea.. "

It was the other young man who said this, and based on the information he had provided, the young man seemed to know more about evolutions of beasts and so on than the rest.

The students that had entered the two-element dungeons should all be more knowledgeable than Nial, and he was fully aware of this.

However, from his point of view, utilizing common sense was not something the majority of students had been taught, otherwise, they wouldn't even have considered entering the dungeon.

Keeping that in mind, Nial knew that he had to tweak his earlier approach of 'hack n slash' while obliterating the rats, even more so after he got to know the intel about the beings he simply called Ratmen.

He knew that it was unlikely for the dungeon to harbor only one type of beast as it had two elements but considering that the Ratmen seemed to be evolutions of the petrification rats, Nial couldn't help but feel that there was something else.

Yet, even if the Ratmen were to be the biggest issue, Nial felt that they were an annoying hassle that could be avoided if one paid more attention to the situation.

After giving it some more thought, he realized that the military should have already sent more units of junior soldiers to the dungeon.

Taking this into his calculation of the current dangers, the explosion mentioned by the young man should also be something caused by the military's cadets.

It might have been caused by some brave young students that hadn't been caught too, but Nial doubted that anyone of the ordinary students had a spatial ring let alone the necessary means to cause an explosion with them.

'Maybe Shana has a spatial ring, and with her equipment, she might even be able to cause an explosion.'

He thought, blindly hoping that Shana had caused the explosion and that she hadn't been caught by the Ratmen.

Yet, before he could even finish concluding his theory, desperately clinging to the hope that the chance of Shana being alive had increased substantially, a roar resounded behind him.

Using some of the replenished mana, Nial used the [Mana Perception(Poorest)], and targeted the direction from which he had heard the roar.

As such, he could clearly perceive the being the young man had described earlier.

"So that's one of the Ratmen?"