Chapter 44 Labyrinth [1]

"My goal is to eliminate every single stinking Void Walker from the face of the universe."

"..."

"..."

"..."

Before anyone could make a comment on her future goals, the same smile she had earlier returned to her face, causing everyone but Lloyd to let out a breath of relief. A breath they didn't even realize they were holding until they let it go.

The tension in the air was so thick that it made everyone in the group feel like they were suffocating, except for Lloyd, since he had faced pressure that was a hundred times worse than what he was facing at that moment.

'Explains the slight resentment I got from her.' Lloyd shrugged.

"Hey, guys. No need to be so gloomy. We have a mission and will get first place no matter what. Am I right, or what?" She giggled before placing her hand in the center of Lloyd's group's circle.

Seeing this, the others felt like they had no choice but to place their hands in the center of the circle too.

'This girl... She might become a problem in the future.' Lloyd thought to himself as he followed through and did the same as the rest.

"3... 2... 1... Team Fatima!" She shouted while the other three chanted after her, their excitement seemingly appearing again despite disappearing earlier.

Without batting an eye at Lloyd looking at her intently, Fatima turned around with her bow in her hands and walked into the dungeon, forcing the rest of her team to follow her as well.

'It took her less than a minute to become the leader. Of course he score helped her with such a menial task, but to think that her aura is this powerful.' Lloyd narrowed his eyes before closing them and allowing himself to be submerged by the energy of the dungeon gate's spacial tear.

'Oh man, I love this feeling. Feels a bit like home.' Lloyd smiled as the warm energy of the spacial tear trickled along his skin and moved around his body as if he was being hugged by the universe itself.

However, all beautiful things come to an end, and so did the bliss that the spacial tear brought.

Instead, when he stepped foot into the dungeon, Lloyd was hit by a horrible stench that he felt he could never get rid of.

"Oh god. What is that smell?" Lloyd asked while pinching his nose, yet it took a single glance around for him to understand his situation.

"Ugh..." he couldn't help but grunt before looking away from the grotesque sight.

"You guys. Can you stop puking for a minute? We have a dungeon to go through." Fatima complained, but if one were to hear her voice, one would understand that she was not complaining with malice in her voice but with... Love?

The entire group seemed to feel a little better in an instant, allowing them to stand up and look around as if they hadn't just puked out their entire lunch.

'She's not only a threat, but now she has a power that I cannot fully understand.'

'Maybe I should just...

Kill her?'

'...'

'...'

'What?' Lloyd's eyes widened slightly as the thought of killing her entered his mind. It was abrupt and almost surprising. Never in a million years would he have thought of killing another human being, but now that the thought entered his mind...

'Isn't it the most logical approach?'

'...'

'Ugh, what am I thinking.' Lloyd shook his head before rubbing his temples as he felt a headache coming on.

"Alright, guys. Huddle up a little." Fatima shouted her voice cheerful yer commanding. It was a weird mix since you wouldn't expect to be bossed around by such a petite, upbeat person, yet it seemed to work like a charm as everyone walked over to her with a smile on their faces.

"As you guys can see, this is not your average dungeon. It is layered to look more like a fortress than anything." She explained, causing everyone else to widen their eyes before looking around.

The place was made out of grey, weathered bricks that barely held themselves together to make the structure they were in.

There were no windows, and the only things that were keeping the area lit were the torches that hung upon the walls and sides of the tunnels.

"We're underground. Possibly a tomb or an underground castle dungeon. I hope that we are in the latter, because the former means there are going to be traps." Lloyd explained while adjusting his sunglasses.

While his sunglasses had been shattered earlier, he had an extra pair in his dimensional storage. Sadly, the same could not be said about shirts.

Of course, he could have bought one earlier when he was with Zack, but the thought of getting a shirt completely left his mind due to being showered with questions that his best friend could not wait to ask.

"What makes you think that we are underground?" Fatima asked with a raised brow.

"Oxygen levels have reached 13% compared to the 32% we were breathing in earlier. On the other hand, carbon dioxide levels have risen by about 5%. Air pressure seems to have skyrocketed too, which further proves that we are deep underground." Lloyd explained.

"The dungeon could have simply been engineered that way, you know..." John, the knight, countered, but this only made Lloyd chuckle.

"You think these guys are that simple? Everything in here has a reason. Look around. No windows, but they still have torches here. Why do you think that is?" Lloyd asked while walking closer to John.

"I don't know. It will probably make sense later!" John sneered, yet when Lloyd reached him, he could not help but puff his chest out and push him back.

Yet...

'Unmovable wall...'

Those were the two words that rang out within John's head as he tried to move Lloyd, but before the situation could escalate, John heard Fatima's melodious voice snap him out of his small moment of anger.

"We're running out of oxygen, aren't we." She asked, her eyes slightly narrowed as she stroked her chin.

"Yes!" Lloyd pointed at Fatima with a hint of excitement in his voice.

"Then why aren't we moving!" Jenna asked with panic in her voice and pale face, yet when she looked into Fatima and Lloyd's faces, she got her answer.

"Where's the fun in that?" Fatima grinned while Lloyd covered his mouth as his smile had almost gotten out of hand.

"Well, actually, I think we should get going." Lloyd spoke after taking a few breaths in.

"Huh?" Fatima exclaimed with confusion.

"For all we know, this might be a dungeon that rates out performance on how long it takes us to finish it. Yes, there is a time limit, but I don't think wasting time is a good look upon our group." Lloyd explained while the rest nodded after a moment of thinking.

Fatima grabbed a torch off the walls without skipping a beat before turning around to face her group again.

"Let's get going then, shall we?"

And just like that, they all began to move through the tunnel.

There were no more torches on the way, so they were forced to use the 5 torches placed around the dungeon's entrance.

5 minutes felt like hours to the group as they moved through the tunnel. They could all tell that they were getting deeper and deeper as they went on, which was indicated by the steepness of the ground the group was walking on.

Another 5 minutes passed quickly, and there was still nothing. While Fatima wasn't too worried about the situation, Lloyd was as calm as an unperturbed lake.

And the reason for that was-

'I'm so glad I have night vision.' Lloyd smiled to himself as he walked behind the group. He could tell everyone was becoming tenser by the minute, but he didn't really know how to deal with it.

He had never really thought of himself as a leader before. Usually, he acted as a support or a solo, so when it came to a situation where he had to raise morale, he could do nothing but watch. Or at least, that was the only thing he thought he could do.

"Guys. I'm sure we're almost there." Fatima finally broke the 10-minute-long silence with a few encouraging words, yet despite her aura still flaring out and allowing the hears of everyone in the group to rest a little, the effect didn't last for long as the tension only came back worse than before.

'It feels wrong to walk around with my hand in my pocket when the guys in front of me are shaking in their boots.' Lloyd sighed, but his breath halted in its place before he shouted-

"Stop!"

Without skipping a beat, every single person in the group froze in place, some of them even balancing in uncomfortable positions that would have made the average person cramp.

"Now, Fatima. Slowly take 2 steps back, and don't move a muscle afterward. Understood?" Lloyd ordered while Fatima simply nodded while doing as he said.

Despite only doing what Lloyd told her, it took her less than a second for her to realize why he had shouted for everyone to stop.

'He saw that from all the way there? Just... Who are you?' She asked herself, but she quickly threw the question to the back of her head as it wasn't important for the time being.

"Alright, I'm going to go to the middle, everyone try to let me through without moving too much." Lloyd asked before moving forward and squeezing everyone.

While the tunnel at the start could have fit two 7ft muscular guys walking side by side, now it could only do 3/4 of that, which only meant that the tunnel was becoming narrower by the second, and Lloyd knew that.

After finally getting to the ground, Lloyd squinted slightly.

From what he could see, traps were going as far as he could see, but at the same time, he felt as if there was some kind of mana field that he could both not see through and see through at the same time.

Without a second thought, Lloyd threw his torch as far as he could until it finally seemed to go through some kind of layer.

As it went through, it sent a ripple throughout this layer, yet that was far from what caught everyone's eye.

*Kiching*

The instant the torch left Lloyd's hand, the sound of mechanical gears started to enter everyone's ears, and by the time the torch had gone through the layer, the group was forced to watch as several traps went off in a sequence.

They all seemed to vary from one another as one swung a large mace through the tunnel while another shot a dozen arrows at random intervals within a 2-second period.

"Everyone! Move move move!" Fatima roared while everyone ran as fast as they could without bumping into one another.

While they didn't know whether or not there was a trap behind that layer of mana they saw earlier, they also knew they couldn't die in these dungeons.

*Click*

Lloyd's eyes widened as the sound of a mechanical click entered his ears.

*Clich*

He could hear gears turning as the traps reassembled.

*Click*

The second click entered his ears, and he already knew what that meant.

'The traps are ready to be shot again.' He thought to himself, yet by then, he had already jumped through the layer of mana and into the other side before rolling and turning around.

He quickly counted as 2 more followed right behind him, and since Fatima entered before him, that made 4 people in total. However, there was a problem.

"Where's John?" Jenna asked with shaken pants.

"John..." Fatima muttered while clenching her fist.

They knew he was not dead, but he would most likely get teleported outside the dungeon if he hadn't come through.

Some would say that a fate such as that was even worse than death, yet Lloyd would simply tell you to stop overreacting as there are a million other things someone could do with their lives rather than join some prestigious academy.

They could also always retake the exam next year, so there was that.

"Welp, we should probably get going-" However, before Lloyd could utter another word, He watched as a bloodied and injured knight crawled through the mana layer.

"John!" Jenna practically screamed, causing Lloyd to rub one of his ears with a pained expression. However, after looking at John and the injury he had sustained, he could not help but look at the boy in pity.

Jenna quickly got to healing the wound on his thigh, yet due to not having taken out the arrow that had pierced through the thigh and broken through a bone, the tissues simply reformed around the arrow while the bones reconstructed with an arrowhead stuck in them.

Seeing this, Lloyd simply said nothing. Well, it was already too late for him to say anything. They would have to wait until they get out of this hell hole for John to get properly healed.

"What are you doing!" On the other hand, Fatima could not keep silent as she watched Jenna do something stupid.

pAn,D a-n0ve1,c-o-m Fatima began to complain and berate Jenna, but after looking at Jenna's expression of worry and defeat, she forced herself to breathe in and out before looking back at the group with her signature smile and confidence.

"Alright, guys. What's the plan for this one?" She asked, her aura radiating out of her as if she were a sun giving off solar flares.

"Well. You see, the plan is quite obvious when you look at it." Lloyd chuckled while the rest simply stared at him with confusion.

Yet, it only took them a few more seconds for them to understand what he was saying, as the answer to their question was staring them right in the face.

Quite literally, at that.

"We're gonna kill a dragon." Lloyd grinned.