Dungeons Online

Chapter 116: Occurence at the gate

"How are you holding on?" Tom asked when the two of them finally found a little bit of privacy. As they had already reached the very first floor on the other side of the dungeon, they could finally leave the work of dealing with the monsters to Krater and the few of his teammates that held their sanity. 

"Slightly stressed out? Anxious about what's to come?" Claudia replied with questions on her own before shaking her head. "You know, I can't really figure out what I should think about this all," she whispered, lowering her eyes. "I know that my life changed by a whole lot ever since we started adventuring in the dungeon," she said, raising her eyes and scanning the area to make sure no one was listening to their conversation before biting her own lip, "but still, another world? Who would've thought?" Claudia asked before lowering her eyes again. 

For a moment, the two of them just moved forward in silence. Outside of the few monster corpses that had yet to be absorbed by the floor of the dungeon, they had no company whatsoever. In the end, even people who struggled on the middle floors as a group of six were more than capable of dealing with the initial floors completely independently. 

"We don't know that yet," Tom muttered after a while. "We don't know what we are going to see, so it's better to keep our assumptions to a minimum," he said while constantly surveying the area to make sure they wouldn't accidentally stumble into Krater or one of his friends while speaking off the matter those people could not hear about no matter what. "Worst case scenario, maybe they are all avatars used by kids with a middle-schooler syndrome?" Tom suggested, despite not believing in such a scenario whatsoever.

'If that were to be the case, their wording would be different,' he thought, keeping those thoughts to himself. 'After all, I can't imagine any of the chunnis from my word using guild license instead of a guild card,' he thought, looking down at the dungeon's floor. 

For some reason, its mundane and grey texture had a calming effect on his mind. 

"Guys, we are nearing the gate!" Krater suddenly shouted from way ahead, where he was clearing the corridors. 

"I guess our time to be anxious is running out," Tom said with a small smile. 

"I guess," Claudia replied, clearly disinherited by that fact. 

'I guess exploring the potential new world is far more interesting on paper than it is in reality,' Tom thought, unable not to notice the anxiety on the girl's face. 'But now that I think about it, I'm not really all that hyped up for it either,' he realized before clasping his hands into fists. 

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"Don't worry about us!" Tom shouted back to one of his newly made friends. "By the way, how are your people holding?" he asked while raising his head up. In reality, though, Tom couldn't care less. His question was just a random attempt at keeping the conversation going so that he could get his mind off the anxious thoughts about the new world they were about to embark into. 

"Not great, not terrible," Krater shouted from the distance that separated the two of them. "To be honest, it's a miracle that I'm capable of keeping my mind straight. We just lost one of our sisters after all," he added with a weaker voice, one that barely managed to cross the distance that separated the otherworlders from the locals. 

"I see," Tom replied in an even weaker voice, one aimed to prove that he replied without actually allowing Krater to hear the words. In this way, the discussion had a high chance of being cut, given how the other party would likely be troubled to reply to what he didn't hear. "Well, we are nearing the exit, so they will be able to take as much time to rest and grieve as necessary," he added in a normal voice as soon as the anxiety related to entering a completely new world reached for his sanity once again. 

"Yeah," Krater replied, taking the burden of cutting the discussion on himself. 

For the next few moments, only the silence accompanied the party of the seven survivors of the dungeon. Yet, this situation lasted only for a short while.

'Huh?' Tom thought when he suddenly noticed the rest of their group standing in place. Yet, as he raised his eyes, he couldn't help but notice what made them stop in their tracks. 

"We are here," Krater said, noticing the appearance of their rear guard. "Before we go in, though, we need to get our stories straight," he said, looking at Tom's face with a peculiar look on his own. 

"What do you mean by that?" Tom frowned, silently fixing his hold over his spear. 'I knew that there is a chance they will notice something is amiss, but to think they would bring it up only now...' he thought while forcibly relaxing the muscles of his face. "Is there something we should know about the locals?" he asked, still trying to pretend that there was nothing wrong with their backstory. 

"Yeah," Krator nodded his head before lowering his eyes and turning silent for a moment. "I know it's not like it never happens, but to meet another party in the dungeon..." he said before cutting his words and refusing to elaborate any further.

"In theory, we are legally obliged to report such a thing. After all, by consistently reporting those occurrences and then analyzing every last bit of the story is the only way to figure out how and when it happens," Kaisha finished the words of her companion. She even took a step forward, only to take another one a moment later. Ultimately, she ended up just a few meters away from Tom and Claudia with a tense look on her face. "Ever since the emergence, the enforcement of this rule became way stricter than before," she added as she bit on her lip. 

'Something is wrong,' Tom thought, forcing his face to remain as still and clueless as it was a moment ago. Given the importance of information, especially in the situation they were in right now, betraying his thoughts by revealing his emotions was the worst thing Tom could do. 

'I can't even look at Claudia to see if she keeps her face straight,' Tom thought, gripping the handle of his spear a bit tighter. Fighting off his desire to glance over at his only companion from his original world, he kept his eyes on the girl in front of him. 

Yet, instead of pushing him aside only to dash towards the gate, Kaisha actually bowed deeply, all the way to the point where Tom started to worry about the health of her spine. 

"I know the rewards of reporting a meeting in the dungeon are immense, but please, could you pretend that it didn't happen?" she asked, biting on her lips to the point where her mouth covered in blood. 

For a moment, Tom just stood there in silence. To his side, he could hear Claudia gulping down a mouthful of saliva. 'If I can guess, she is likely waiting for me to react,' he thought, feeling the pressure on him increasing with each second. 

Tom squinted his eyes. 

"What's the reason behind this request?" he asked, making sure that his tone would remain calm while adding a hint of coldness to it. 

"I know how much we are asking for," Kaisha whispered as she straightened her back and looked Tom in his face. "But right now, I just want to spare Ubzen from recounting everything that happened. Adding how Celestia remains unconscious..." Kaisha said, only for a sudden noise from behind her back to stop her words in their tracks. 

Looking over the girl's shoulder, Tom quickly noticed the reason for the small commotion. 

The elven girl that caught his interest all the way when he and Claudia first met the other party finally regained consciousness. 

And for some reason, as soon as her eyes were drawn to Tom's figure, her face blanked out in terror. 

She opened her delicate mouth yet failed to produce any sound. Her hand moved up, only to turn still once she pointed it at Tom and Claudia.

"Monsters..." she whispered, barely capable of producing any voice. 

"Huh?" Kaisa muttered, turning around. Yet, instead of turning scared just like her elven companion did, she instantly turned her face back to Tom, only to once again lower herself in half. "I'm sorry for her. She clearly has yet to come to her senses!" she shouted, profusely apologizing for her friend. 

"Don't worry about it," Tom smiled, slightly relaxing his fist tightened around the handle of his spear.  "I'm not unreasonable enough to expect someone who just woke up to make any sense," he said, attempting to placate the situation. 

Meanwhile, Celestia continued her muttering. 

"They are not humans," she whispered with her body frozen in place. "They are death!"