Chapter 192 David’s Offer

"You know, if you guys are having trouble with this floor, then I suggest you guys don't go any deeper."

"Haha...Thanks for the advice but the truth is that we've been continuously fighting since morning so we're a bit tired. Then we got spotted by a bunch of rift mages when we tried to find a spot to rest, and you know what happened afterwards."

The young party leader whose name was David, scratched his messy brown hair as he replied to Evan, his gaze occasionally moving to his party's support who Eliza talking to.

"Wait...Since Morning?

What's the time?"

"Huh? It's a bit past noon."

""Noon!""

Evan and Eliza's voices echoed out simultaneously as the two never expected it to be noon already.

"So, we were sleeping till noon? And here I thought it was still like seven in the morning."

"I know right, our sleeping schedule is really messed up these days."

Eliza replied to Evan's words as she searched the small waist pouch she had on for her timepiece, checking it and seeing that the time was almost an hour past noon!

? Seeing their reactions, David chuckled a bit before posing a question.

"We were about to go rest for a bit, mind joining us for a while?"

"Huh? Why? We literally just met; you know?"

To Evan's question, David's face turned solemn as he replied.

"Seeing your earlier display of strength, we have an offer for you. One that I feel would benefit you guys."

Evan's gaze lingered on David for a moment, before moving over to his party members. He ignored the strange gazes the mage Rhonda and the brown-haired girl who looked to be the scout were giving him and turned to the other three.

Seeing their silent acknowledgement of David's words, Evan then turned to Pride who shrugged her shoulders while saying that she could not care less.

As for Eliza, the teenage battle priestess seemed to have already made quick friends with the party's support.

"Okay then, let's hear this offer."

◇ ◇ ◇

The two groups retreated inside the corridor where Evan and co were staying originally, with David's party showing huge surprise upon seeing Kuro emerge from the shadows and drop a pouch beside Evan's feet before promptly diving into the young hero's shadow.

Although they were very curious as to what Kuro was and had their guesses, they held themselves back and did not ask any questions.

The mage Rhonda, who finally saw a chance, asked Evan how he knew of her name beforehand, to which the young hero replied that he possessed the appraisal skill while pointing to his eyes.

As Evan's mystic eyes were in an active state, the golden glow of the crest within them was quite visible to David's party members, especially in the closed corridor that had quite a few dark spots.

"Oh..."

Perhaps having her curiosity sated, she turned her attention from Evan to the tank in their team who was injured in the earlier battle.

Their party was a simple default adventurer party of six, with a swordsman, mage, tank, support, spearman, and scout.

"I'm the party leader, David Dyer. And these are..."

He did a short introduction on his party members, with Evan acknowledging them with a nod before doing the same.

"The one over there is Pride, and our resident best support in the world here is Liz. Ah! I'm the only one allowed to call her that, her nam-OW!"

Eliza poked the side of Evan's mouth with her staff before he could finish his words, introducing herself properly before checking on the other party members for injuries.

"Anyway, I'm Evan....Bourne?...Eris?..."

His voice slowly trailed off as the young hero placed a hand on his chin and thought about what name to go with for a moment before deciding to go with both.

"Name's Evan Bourne Eris. Nice to meet you, David."

"Oh, Okay."

Upon hearing Evan's name, the girl who was the scout, Suzanne tilted her head to the side and echoed his words.

"Evan Eris?"

"Yeah. You know me or something?"

"...I think?"

As Evan said that as a joke, he didn't really expect her to affirm his words, causing him to be momentarily surprised upon hearing her reply.

In that short moment, Suzanne felt a gaze on her and turned around to meet Eliza's sapphire eyes staring at her. She alternated her gaze between Evan and Eliza before nodding to herself as if she had figured something out.

"I assure you, whatever you think you just figured out is a huge misunderstanding."

Accurately guessing her thoughts, Eliza spoke up to clear up any potential misunderstandings before they grew, while Evan had gone back to discussing with David.

"So, a certain noble hired us for a job, to recover something that was stolen from them by a thief. After accepting the commission, we tracked down the thief all the way from our country down to here, Kasteblum."

"Huh? What country?"

"The Great Western Empire."

"Oh, carry on."

David continued his narration, telling him about how they had tracked the culprit all the way down to the Mansion of the Damned where the thief had gone to hide and had cornered him when they were on the eighteenth floor.

However, this was where the problem arose. It seemed that the thief had two more accomplices, who swooped in at the last moment and saved their companion, before promptly escaping from the party.

Although they wanted to give chase, they were ambushed by monsters from behind and had no choice but to spend some time fighting them off, time that the thieves used to escape.

After this, they could have tracked them down again, however, one of the accomplices said something that unsettled David and his party.

" 'Let's get you to the others.'

Those were his exact words."

"So, you think that they are more than just three, huh?"

"Yes, and the other two were quite powerful, makes me wonder why they chose this line of work when they could make stable income as C-ranked adventurers."

"Yeah, I understand but who are we to judge others? They might have had their own circumstances that led to their path.

Circumstances we may or may not understand."

"True..."

David nodded in affirmation to Evan's words, before going on to explain exactly what he wanted from Evan's group.

"We were able to defeat him with numerical advantage but the main culprit himself was also quite powerful. With him potentially having more than four more companions, which may be of similar strength, I fear that we would not be able to take them out on our own.

Thus, we are asking for your help on this."

"I see.

Assuming we do help you, what's in it for us?"