Once he was done reminiscing about Aria’s magic, Marcus turned to look at his prisoners one time to make sure they were all fully secured and incapacitated before taking off.
Now that his goal of getting rid of the Dungeon Marauders, who in actuality turned out to be soldiers from the empire on the continent to the east of Borealia, Marcus needed to transport them back to the capital and hand them over to the relative authorities.
There was no doubt this was going to cause another mess for the kingdom, but at least whatever had been happening here had been nipped in the bud by Marcus’ fortunate arrival.
If he had not shown up in Lethallan when he did, it was likely that the activities of the empire’s soldiers would have gone on for much longer without being discovered, and the people here would have bene whittled down and shipped over to be used as slaves.
And unfortunately, Marcus had not been able to rescue very many people with only their four latest captives having been within his reach.
‘Now how am I going to transport this many people out of here without causing a commotion?’ Marcus thought while racking his brain.
If he just went to the entrance, there would be no way that the army would simply let him go by with over forty people wrapped up in Iron threads.
Certainly, he could try and blow by them, but he would prefer not to cause and uproar if at all possible.
‘Guess I should contact Kalt and the king again. Maybe they can do something to help out here.’
Pulling out his sending stone while flying through the dungeon, he connected with the deputy king once again.
Once they had gotten their initial greeting out of the way he told him that he had captured a number of the empire soldiers and destroyed their base.
“What!? You managed all that in just a few hours! And you even captured their general!” Kalt said with astonishment.
It had not been all that long since Marcus had last contacted them to inform them of the threat within the Cordillera Depth Dungeon, but he had already resolved it and with exceptional results.
“Yeah, I did. My powers are pretty good at stealth and subterfuge, so if an enemy does not know I am coming or has truly exceptional senses, I can get the drop on most people.”
After saying this Marcus detailed what he had done to take out a well-fortified base, and to incapacitate their general without incurring any injury to himself.
“I truly am glad you are on our side.” Kalt said absentmindedly once Marcus had finished relaying what had happened.
Though quickly he caught himself and asked that Marcus wait a few moments while he gathered the king and some other trustworthy personnel.
“Now we can all hear you. What is it that you need from us?” Kalt eventually said after around forty minutes.
“I want to know if there is some way I can get out of the dungeon and delver the prisoners I have captured to the royal capital without causing a huge incident? I am sure that if I fly towards the entrance and try to leave that way it will cause quite the uproar.”
For a few moments there was only silence before the king himself answered.
“Yes, that would not be ideal. We asked that you deal with this not only because we trust your skills, power, and character, but because we do not want this turning into another public incident. Luckily there is another exit that you can use.” The king said.
He then told Marcus that their deal with the intelligent beast within the dungeon still stood, and that they had their own secret entrance and exit that allowed them to transport and retrieve natural treasures.
“I will need a little time to get things in order but seeing as how you are one of their saviors along with my daughter, I imagine they will have no problem helping you out.”
Nealy another hour later Marcus received word that the intelligent beasts living in the dungeon had been contacted and one of them was coming to guide him.
‘Oh, so they did send him.’ Marcus thought with a smile.
Not too long after the king told him that the intelligent beasts were contacted, a little glowing orb began flying towards.
“It is good to see you again Findlyier. It looks like you have grown up a bit.” Marcus said with a smile on his face.
Before him was the little pixie dragon that had originally asked for his help when the dungeon’s core that the intelligent beasts lived in was under attack by a powerful demon.
“Yes, it is good to see you as well Marcus. And as you noticed, I have evolved from a pixie dragon to a sylph dragon.” Findlyier said while spinning his body around a bit.
Along with his evolution he had also reached a much higher level and was currently at forty-five. Eleven levels higher than he had been before and ranking him amongst the strongest intelligent beasts in the dungeon.
“Now I know it has been a while, but would you mind taking me to the exit you use to transport out natural treasures. As you can see, I have quite the amount of luggage that needs to be transported out of here.”
Looking a bit sad, it as clear that Findlyier wanted to talk more with Marcus and probably bring him back to their domain, but it was clear he was in a hurry.
“Yeah, you are right. Follow me and I will show you the way out of here.”
With that the little sylph dragon took off and began leading Marcus towards the secret entrance and exit to the dungeon.
Soon they passed through one of the illusory walls that the dungeon had created and began making their way through the branching tunnels that only the intelligent beasts knew how to navigate.
Of course, they were not heading back to the domain of the intelligent beasts, and within around another two hours they came to a light ahead of them
During this time though they did have a few problems with soldiers waking up, but Marcus just ran a shock through his iron threads or used his phantom pressure to put them out again.
“Thanks for leading me all the way here Findlyier. I will be back soon enough so we can have a more proper reunion.”
“Yeah, we will be looking forward to it. I will tell all the others you will be coming back.” Findlyier said excitedly.
After that Marcus took off from the dungeon with his captives in threads and began flying towards the capital of Borealia.
Along the way however, he got tired of how the people he was carrying were getting buffeted by the wind, and instead brought out his cataclysmic iron sword and set them down on it like a platform and rode it all the way to his destination.
‘That should be the fort that has a secret tunnel into the capital.’ Marcus thought when he found his destination.
The king and his trusted advisors had set things up so that no one outside their inner circle would know what was going on yet and had designated this as the place when Marcus would hand off the empire soldiers he had captured.
Landing in the middle of the fort he was surprised by the two people that came to greet him.
“I did not expect you to be here Gwyneira.”
“Yeah, I did not want to be, but little Aria here begged me to come and help out since this was such an important matter. She did not want to leave anything to chance.” Gwyneira said while shrugging her shoulders.
“Gwyneira, I believe I asked you not to call me little Aria when we are in an official capacity.” Aria said with a slight pout that did not quite fit on her older appearance.
Though really while Gwyneira looked to be the younger one, she was in fact Aria’s great grandmother.
“Um I know you are close family and all, but would you mind taking these guys off my hands? And where are all the soldiers that should be stationed here?” Marcus said, noticing the fort was a ghost town.
“Oh, we created a bit of a fake incident that made them believe they needed to abandon the fort. No big deal.” Aria said.
While she explained that to Marcus, Gwyneira had locked in on the general who was thoroughly unconscious and in pretty rough shape with no limbs or tongue.
“Wow I am surprised you caught this guy. He can use high level space magic and is pretty strong overall.” She said with an impressed tone after looking at the man’s stats.
“Yeah, he easily could have gotten away if I did not learn about his powers beforehand and prepared a well-timed sneak attack.” Marcus said before retelling it to Gwyneira.
“I see your abilities are quite scary in situation like that. But allow me to thank you for helping out this kingdom again. Now if you would release your bindings, I will take it from here.”
Doing as he was asked Marcus dispelled this iron threads and Gwyneira quickly replaced them shackles of ice.
Once she had them all secured, she said her goodbye and began heading towards the secret tunnel that would take her back into the royal capital.
“I know that you are busy with training that young boy Alaric right now, but when you have the time you can come back to the castle and we have prepared a reward fitting of your contributions in resolving this issue.” Aria said before following behind Gwyneira and leaving Marcus alone.