Volume 4 Chapter 2: The old man gets baptised in a dungeon.

We began walking around in the Temple of the Primal Flame as Luna placed her small hand onto the large temple door, pushing it open to be met with a swarm of flame breaths and flaming arrows. We split up into two, dodging to the left and right at a timing impossible to react to. We had preemptively dodged to the side as we already knew about the attack beforehand.

[Uwah, Yuuya-niisan’s warning actually came true.] (Til)

[Uhn. It’s a good thing that we were prepared.] (Luna)

Truth is, the monsters here were set to attack the moment the door opens. Furthermore, the setting of the dungeon prevented any monster from being seen when the door was closed, making it impossible to notice the monsters hiding behind the door before their attack. The only way to dodge the attack was to use Presence Detection or if you knew about the attack beforehand.

The moment the rain of flames came to a halt, the five of us jumped out immediately as I counted 12 monsters behind the door. The monsters consisted of two monsters, the Crimson Grim Reaper which wore a shabby cloak and a Fire Spirit. Just as its name implies, it was a spirit made of flames although it doesn’t feel like a very fitting monster for a temple. Normally I would rejoice at the high number of enemies however this wasn’t a time to celebrate as they had a powerful formation with some of them hiding between chairs and the rest keeping a distance away. Phil and Til’s arrows began flying over our frontline as we tried to close the distance and shave down their numbers. It’ll be nice to preserve our magic and items by not using them respectively but this battle would be fatal if it’s prolonged due to our fear of expenditure.

[Everyone, don’t worry about wasting resources and use your items and mana if you need to! It’ll be nice but it’ll be difficult to beat level 40 monsters without some expenditure!] (Yuuya)

I shouted as I plunged right into a wave of flame arrows and flame breaths. If it were simple spells such as these, it can be easily brushed off if we concentrate, however, the problem comes when ranged attacks with advanced spells are used. The Crimson Grim Reapers were capable of using advanced flame magic suitable for their level as three of them began chanting.

[Phil! Til!] (Yuuya)

[Leave it to me, Yuuya-niisan.] (Til)
[Understood!] (Phil)

As per my instructions are given earlier, the two sisters turned their targets towards the Grim Reapers who began their chants as a direct hit from advanced fire magic is fatal to me and Luna.

One of the Grim Reapers received three attacks from their arrows however it hadn’t faltered. As expected of a level 40 monster.

Our situation was dire as there wasn’t just one but three Grim Reapers who were chanting as we couldn’t approach them due to the rest of the monsters blocking our way.

[Yuuya, do that thing when we beat the boss!] (Luna)
[Nice idea.] (Yuuya)

I turned my back towards the enemy as Luna ran towards me. I placed my hand onto my right knee as Luna stepped on my foot, flying through the air towards the monsters being protected in the back.

[Assassinate!] (Luna)

Luna twists in the air as Bazerato slides into the Grim Reaper filled with arrows, eliminating it. The Grim Reaper’s weakness was the magic core at where a person’s heart is, causing her critical amplifying to activate.

However…

[It isn’t dead!?] (Luna)

This is the strength of a level 40 dungeon. The battle was completely one-sided as we had one second left before the spell activates.

The Grim Reaper laughs at Luna as its face was broken by a blade, turning into blue particles.

[That was a close call.] (Yuuya)
[Yuuya amazing!] (Luna)

Even for me, it was impossible to get through this group of monsters, thus I threw my blade directly to the monster instead as I had practiced my sword throwing for emergencies. As a proper knight, you might get upset at how rough my blade was being treated, however, I viewed it as an actual means of attack. Of course, I wouldn’t do it until it was a last resort as the lack of a weapon was deadly.

However, I wasn’t barehanded as I took out my spare black magic sword and turned to face the rest of the enemies.

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.

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Five minutes later, we managed to defeat all the monsters.

The Grim Reaper’s advanced magic was troublesome however the Flame Spirits were also annoying without Phil as they completely invalidated any physical attacks, making it impossible to damage them without Magical Enchantment: Water.

[Yuuya, right off the bat we’re exhausted.] (Phil)
[I’m also quite tired right now. Normally we would be able to defeat the monsters within several shots however they didn’t falter at all.] (Til)
[It hasn’t even begun as these guys were much easier to deal with as compared to the other monsters. At this level monsters often have a balanced composition with monsters in the front line and monsters meant for the backline. This time we only faced off against monsters who were better suited for the back line.] (Yuuya)

I’m going to account for a Luna-boost in the future as it was a powerful move we could do since she was light. However, we can’t use it willy nilly as it would isolate Luna within the enemy’s formation.

[Being thrown by Yuuya was exciting.] (Luna)

[Ah. That’s what I thought too. Yuuya-niisan do that to me next time!] (Til)

[What would having our backline thrown to them do..] (Yuuya)

As Til typically prioritized her enjoyment, she suggesting something ridiculous as I picked up the items dropped on the floor and my sword while Phil and Til picked up their arrows. Arrows were an important resource right now as we had to preserve our resources as much as possible.

[Are the number of arrows sufficient for the two of you right now?] (Yuuya)

[So long as we are frugal about them we should be able to make it until the boss battle. It’ll be pretty exhausting to constantly use Arrow generation for this.] (Phil)

[Ah, we’ve been using the arrows onee-chan bought in the city, however, our offensive abilities have dropped quite a bit.] (Til)

Normally they would have used their skills to produce their custom arrows however we had used up all of their generated arrows in the battle against the Coronoa Dragon. They had tried to generate enough arrows before attempting the dungeon however it wouldn’t have been enough so I had Phil head out and purchase some arrows and potions for us.

[We’ll do something about it as long as we can.] (Phil)

If we had one more day to prepare we would have enough arrows however time wasn’t on our side.

I walked towards the center of the temple as a statue of a goddess appeared holding a rose. The transcript in front of the goddess read “Fill up the cup with flames and it’ll illuminate your path.”.

[Yuuya, what will we do? I don’t see any path for us to proceed.] (Luna)

[Well, just wait a moment.] (Yuuya)

I took out a flint and the oil we used for our campfires from my magic bag as I filled the cup with oil and ignited it with the flint.

[The writings say that the goddess would lead the way once the cup was filled with flames. With this, we should be able to proceed.] (Yuuya)

After a minute or so, there was the sound of earth shifting as the statue slid aside, revealing the stairs under its original position. This temple was a dungeon that went deeper underground and if the riddle wasn’t solved then you would only spend your time wandering around above ground.

[Yuuya-niisan, this dungeon leaves a bad taste in the mouth as you would be stuck here if you didn’t know about the riddle.] (Til)
[I’m of the other opinion as I think that this is plenty easy. Having the riddle come out at the beginning of the dungeon meant that you wouldn’t have to waste time to return after traveling deeper into the dungeon.] (Yuuya)
[Uh. That does sound worse.] (Til)

Til made a disgusted face as Selene was deep in thought.

[Selene, what are you thinking about?] (Yuuya)

[This feels a little suspicious. Why didn’t the guild advise us about the solution to the riddle?] (Selene)

Selene was sharp as she noticed this sort of details quickly.

[You’re right. This is strange since the guild actually wants us to clear the dungeon. If they wanted us to clear the dungeon then they would have actually advised us on how to solve the riddle.] (Yuuya)

It was strange. The guild shouldn’t want us to spend our time about the mysteries as they even went out of their way to give each of us a Return Stone, they should be advising us on this.

[Could it be that the guild knew that if it was Yuuya, that we would be okay?] (Phil)

Phil came up with her hypothesis as I came to that sudden realisation. I thought that our party was nominated for this quest as we defeated the Coronoa Dragon. However, it could be that someone with information recommended our party for this quest instead. If you knew that I and Phil were both once top-tier adventurers before our levels were reset, it wouldn’t be strange for us to be nominated and even neglect to advise us on the riddles.

[Even if that is so, it is meaningless for us to think about this for now. Let’s head down.] (Yuuya)

No matter how much we theorize, we won’t get our answer until we get out of here. This dungeon is a gold mine so let’s be sure to make as much money as we can before we get out of here tomorrow.