Chapter 118 - Blast Your Way Through!

With a target on their backs, Cecil's party unknowingly continued with their assignment. They only had to get to the 5th floor of a dungeon and write their findings and observations.

The report wasn't anything complicated, only the dungeon diving part was the challenge, except in Cecil's case, it was only a boring event. Of course, to anyone else it would be a novel experience. Something none of them would ever forget.

It didn't take the group long to arrive at the 3rd floor's staircase. The party had a leisure time during their second floor run. It was because of the rest area that the floor always had a low quantity of monsters.

When they got down to the 3rd floor, the party was once again in awe at the scenery before them.

"How could the scenery change so quickly like this?" Lu Garulle excitedly said while taking in the view.

"Magic~" Cecil said while performing a weird hand gesture.

The gesture caused his party members to laugh in response. Cecil smiled seeing their reactions. This time around he led the party through the 3rd floor.

The third floor was a vast plain with rocky outcrops littered everywhere. The rocky outcrops were actually potential areas where people could mine minerals and ore from. The monsters on the floor were filled with stone golems, prairie beast wolves, and the occasional flock of wind eagles.

They didn't meet any mishaps on this floor. The party did bump into some other student parties similar to theirs and Cecil did offer a helping hand if a party was in some degree of danger. With Cecil leading the party, they bull dozed through the 3rd floor and quickly arrived at the 4th floor's staircase.

Just as they were about to head down, Cecil noticed that plenty of student parties had tagged along with them. They were farther behind and they were hitching a bus ride on Cecil's party. He didn't really care, but the same wasn't for the other members.

"Tsk... how shameless. They're having the time of their lives hiding behind us while we have to do all the work... doesn't it bug you, Leader?" Ghina asked with an annoyed look on her face.

"Let them be. It's only possible because it's the 3rd floor. The fourth floor goes back to being a labyrinth-type so it'd be hard for anyone to follow us then."

"...it sounds like you've been here before?"

"Of course... before I registered in the academy, I was an active adventurer. My... party has already gone down to the 10th floor of this place... or was it the 9th? Anyways, I forgot. Nonetheless, it was a very boring experience." Cecil said dully.

"...10th floor? What the heck... I heard that the monsters get increasingly stronger in rank the deeper you go down!"

"Well, yeah... but, they were all weak. Nothing worth more than a small geyser field, the monsters only came at us in droves so it was easy for us to take care of them all in one go. It was pretty monotonous and boring as this cycle just kept repeating itself."

"..."

The others listened on in silence as Cecil began explaining his first and most disappointing dungeon dive experience. The others felt a little awkward by this point. It sounded like Cecil was just boasting, but with the dull and clearly unsatisfied look on his face, the party thought otherwise.

"...was it really that boring?" Light asked with a forced smile.

"Well... for me and my party, it was unbelievably boring. The only thing we got from the trip was an abundant harvest of ore and monster materials."

"Yes... for you and her, it would probably be boring... but don't forget Cecil, not just anyone can destroy a horde of monsters with a snap of a finger as easily as you guys could." Fina added on the side.

"Yeah... I guess. Anyway, let's hurry it up now. Lu, you're back on point. I'll stay behind and watch the rear. Formation will be the same as on the 1st floor."

"Okay!"

Everyone quickly psyched up and got into formation and began their 4th floor's run. They proceeded slowly at first, and just like Cecil said. It was indeed back to being a dilapidated labyrinth.

The parties that were trailing after them quickly followed from behind. Cecil's party soon encountered a large horde of skeleton warriors and archers. The horde rushed at them and the 2 forces quickly clashed in the narrow labyrinth corridor.

Cecil moved up a bit and provided support with his mana bolts. He would occasionally fire them at the skeleton archers at the rear of the horde. Although the corridor was narrow, just the 5 of them couldn't possibly block the entire horde of skeletons.

Since Cecil's party was already surrounded from all sides with their backs behind the wall, the idle skeletons continued running past them and quickly clashed with the parties that were following their party.

"WAHHH!!!"

"Get them! Get them!"

"W-what the hell are those guys doing in the front?!"

"Idiot! Can't you see that they're also tied up?!"

"DAMN!"

"Mages! Archers! Target those skeletons at the ba– ack!"

Cecil already began to hear the sounds of panicking and the fl.u.s.tered shouts originating from the parties of students that were following behind theirs.

"Well, you're just gonna have to get through this on your own~"

Cecil then turned towards his party members that were somewhat struggling to cope with the endless horde of skeletons rushing at them.

"C-Cecil!" Fina shouted in panic. She already had 3 water wolf familiars surrounding her. There were also 2 others by the sides of Light and Ghina. The water wolves were casting frost bolts or small ice ramparts in an effort to impede the large horde.

"Fina, prepare a large ice rampart on our sides, I'll clear a path for us. After that, we run like hell! EVERYONE GET READY!"

"!"

"YEAH!"

Cecil began gathering mana into his hands. Quickly two large golden orbs of mana enveloped his hands.

"LU! GET BACK!"

At Cecil's command, Lu Garulle quickly used a combat skill.

"EARTH SMASH!"

He smashed his mace onto the ground causing a large shockwave to form from the impact. The shockwave pushed back all the skeleton warriors in front of him and the Ape-kin powerfully jumped back, landing close to his party members.

Cecil flickered to Lu's previous position and sent a powerful mana wave at the skeletons.

"FLASH CANNON!"

BOOOOOMMMM

The mana wave skill, Flash Cannon, blasted through the entire horde of skeletons in front of Cecil. Everyone in his party, except for Fina, was thoroughly surprised at Cecil's show of force.

"RUN!"

At Cecil's shout, the party members quickly snapped out of their awe and excitement and quickly dashed through the opening that Cecil had created for them.

Fina didn't forget to detonate the ice ramparts after the party was clear from their previous spot. The detonation caused the skeletons that were behind the ramparts to shatter into pieces. The explosion also caused various degrees of damage to the surrounding skeletons that were further away.

This somewhat helped the parties that Cecil and friends had left behind. The explosion was also Fina's small show of kindness for her fellow students.

Once Cecil and the rest quickly shook off the horde, they were able to arrive at a small room inside the large undead labyrinth and rest for a bit.

Everyone except for Cecil and Fina were visibly exhausted. The exhaustion came not only from the physical strain they had to endure when they were defending against the horde of skeletons, but also from the mental pressure of seeing the previous unending horde.

"So... how was it? It's pretty different right?" Cecil asked his exhausted party members.

"T-that... previous attack you did...what the hell was that?!" Ghina exclaimed.

"That? It was an original skill, nothing fancy."

"Nothing fancy?" Ghina said with an incredulous expression.

"Cecil... that attack just destroyed every skeleton in our path... how was that not... fancy?" Light said with a strained smile.

"Well, if you wanna see something really fancy... that's nothing then." Cecil plainly said.

"..."

"It's as expected of our leader! Strong indeed!" Lu Garulle exclaimed happily despite his exhaustion. The ape-kin was bound to be the most exhausted out of the group. He was tanking the entire horde for a while and he had piled up a bit of injuries.

The others also had some minor injuries, but not like the ones on Lu. He had multiple arrows stuck onto his torso, but even then he was still laughing and yelling boisterously. The person himself said that it was nothing since ape-kin had plenty of muscle on their bodies. The arrows wouldn't be able to do any significant damage and it only caused superficial ones since the skeleton archers were weak. Not to mention that there was no combat skills used to back the arrows.

The injuries were quickly taken care of by Fina, a quick cast of healing light and all the wounds that the party had suffered were quickly healed. Fina was especially happy to use her healing magic since it's been a long while. Normally when she was with the Little Kings she'd never have this chance anymore.

Of course, it wasn't anything sadistic like Fina wanting her friends to have injuries or anything. She wasn't that cruel of a person. In fact, in the party, Fina was the singular angelic figure in there.

If others were to describe it, Cecil's group of friends was all a little... eccentric. Not that anyone minded it though.

"Alright guys, rest up and we'll continue our exploration." Cecil said.

He quickly took his seat and grabbed a small snack out of his ring. Everyone else also began to relax and they too took something out to eat as a snack.

Cecil kept his Mana Sense spread out and continued monitoring the corridor just outside of their room.

He soon felt picked up movement from his Mana Sense and frowned.

'It's those jerks... I guess Fina was being a bit lenient with her attack earlier.'

The group that Cecil picked up on his Mana Sense was the previous group that harassed Light. He got ready for a confrontation, but then he turned a little puzzled seeing the group continue onwards, completely ignoring the room they were in.

"?"

Cecil was a little confused, were they just ignorant? Or did they have some ulterior motive?

He already experienced the problems caused by another party's malicious intents a week ago during his party's quest. Cecil only contemplated on it for a moment before shrugging.

"Whatever, they better not try anything funny. Although, we're from the same academy, I won't sit back if you do something unreasonable." Cecil mumbled to himself.

"What's that Cecil?" Fina asked on the side, she was actually talking to him earlier, but Cecil was focused on his Mana Sense that he hadn't paid attention.

"Nothing, what were you saying earlier?"

"...After this floor, it's the 5th floor. Are we heading towards the staircase and declaring our assignment finished, or are we exploring the floor first before heading back?"

"No, there's a rest area on the 5th floor. We'll head there, write the report and then head back."

"Ok, the assignment is pretty easy, right? Well, other than that previous skeleton attack."

"Yeah, I told you that a dungeon wasn't anything special. By the way, we should mine some ore on the 5th floor. There's a mithril vein that Lucia and I secretly found a long while ago. If it's still there we should mine a bit before heading back."

"Mithril?! Then we have to go! That's a rare magic ore!"

"Mhm."

Once everyone was a little more rejuvenated, the party continued their trek through the 4th floor.