Chapter 44 - The First Time was Disappointing

10th floor, Anglaria Kingdom's Public Dungeon

Cecil and co. are currently facing off against a horde of skeletons. Cecil flashed into the horde head on. He raised his fist that was already empowered using Mana Burst. He struck the ground right in front of the horde.

"FISSURE!!"

The ground immediately ruptured and rubble was sent flying into the horde of skeletons burying a batch of them underneath the earth.

The skeleton necromancers at the back had already sent fireballs the size of buckets flying towards Cecil. Instead of backing away, Cecil rushed on head first into the volley of flames.

"LULU!"

"SCORCHING WAVE!"

After Lucia finished her rapid incantation, she fired her magic into the array of fireballs in front of Cecil. Lucia's spell immediately overwhelmed and swallowed all the fireballs that were flying towards Cecil. The spell then continued and baptized the skeletons in its path in a tidal wave of fire.

"RAWWRRR"

On the side, Silver sent a tornado spell into the flames. The wind fed the flames and only made it stronger.

The other half of the horde that wasn't in range of Lucia's spell was immediately caught up into its area of effect thanks to Silver's spell empowering it.

Cecil went around the battle field at high speeds using 'Shukuchi' picking off any skeletons that weren't caught in the fire storm.

The fight didn't take long for the party of 3.

Cecil looked around at the scorched remains of what was left of the horde. He turned back towards Lucia and Silver and sighed.

"There's not much we can collect from fighting skellies. Isn't this world way too realistic! Shouldn't they drop mana stones or something?!"

Lucia was already used to incessant nonsense that Cecil kept spewing since they dived down into the dungeon. She looked towards Cecil and said in exasperation,

"Seriously, what are you expecting anyways and what do you mean by 'too realistic' huh?! Dungeons are just like this! They're even described this way in the books at home, didn't you read all of them before we left, Cel?!"

The dungeons on Alterna weren't really anything special. All the fantasy novels on Earth described dungeons as something awesome.

On Alterna however, they were nothing more than mines, very dangerous mines. From the books Cecil's read, he had already come to this sad conclusion.

Nevertheless, he still hoped that the actual dungeon experience was more exciting than his sad conclusion. The result left him disappointed.

Other than the treasure chests that randomly popped up on the dungeon floors, the only other use of a dungeon would be to mine the ores, minerals, and mana crystals that were created in the lower floors of the dungeon.

Since the concentration of monsters inside a dungeon was at least 10 times that of what's in the wild, there were frequent dungeon requests issued at the adventurer guild.

The kingdom's army would occasionally clear out the monsters in the dungeons, but since the respawn rate of the monsters in the dungeon was too high, they let adventurers do the work most of the time.

Cecil, Lucia and Silver had arrived a month ago in Angla City. They had separated from Scarlet Blaze 3 months ago after the Hunting Event was over.

They unexpectedly finished 2nd during the event. The amount of monsters they hunted tied with the first place's amount.

They didn't finish first because the quality of monsters they hunted was slightly inferior to the first place's, but due to the tie breaker Cecil's group were also granted the 1st place's prize of promoting their guild ranks to Silver.

After a week since they're promotion to Silver rank, Cecil and Lucia parted ways with Scarlet Blaze and took an escort quest to the next town after Forest Hill Town.

From there they took frequent requests to subjugate monsters and escort quests from every town and city they passed by, with each successful quest their ranks naturally rose.

Gradually all the quests they took led them all the way to Angla City, the capital of Anglaria Kingdom.

It's been half a year since Cecil arrived at Alterna and it was almost time for them to register as students in the Arks Royal Academy.

They still had 2 weeks left until registrations opened, so they took a dungeon quest to pass the time. Lucia had already said that dungeons weren't anything special and they should take a different quest, but Cecil still insisted on diving into one before attending the academy.

Of course, during the top floors they felt that the dungeon was magical. The moment they stepped into the 2nd floor, it felt like they stepped into a different world.

There was actually a sun and sky on the second floor. It was interesting at first for the two of them, but that enthusiasm soon waned when they proceeded further into the dungeon.

Other than clashing with the frequent monster hordes, nothing else happened. There was the occasional pit fall, monster nest and such, but it was pretty uneventful.

Most of their time was spent walking through the dungeon.

Cecil was honestly hoping that they would come across some secret monster room that had a legendary sword stuck in a rock waiting for him to pull out.

They didn't find any legendary sword, but on their 3rd day in the dungeon when they were on the 9th floor they did manage to find a legendary ore however. This was enough bring up Cecil's spirits again.

"Hey~ Cel... let's head back now!" Lucia said while pushing Cecil in the direction that led to the 9th floor.

"Okay, okay... it's been 5? Or was it 6 days? Anyways, we should head back to the capital to try and craft the adamantium... I at least want a weapon that could hold my mana without breaking."

"Well, it's a good thing that Silvy found that piece of adamantium for us huh?" Lucia said with a grin.

"Heh," Cecil grinned at the thought and called over Silver who was patrolling the area as usual. "Come 'ere Silv."

Silver came up to them and leaned down. It seemed as if Silver had also heard Lucia's suggestion and was in agreement, it was finally time for them to head back. He immediately offered his back to the two to travel faster out of the dungeon.

"RAWR!"

"Hahaha~ even Silvy wants to head back! Yosh, yosh... good boy~" Lucia laughed when she saw Silver bending down.

"...Fine. Let's go then."

Lucia already climbed onto Silver's back. As Cecil was climbing up Silver's back, he muttered under his breath, "Traitor..."

Silver looked back and responded with a bark. He wore a smug expression on his face. Cecil saw that and rolled his eyes at his friend. He immediately found it somewhat funny though.

'How is Silver acting more and more human? All his gestures and expressions are becoming way too similar to us.'

"Alright let's head back! Full speed ahead Silv!"