Sir Maximilian looks over the report that the smiling Leader of Champions in front of him has brought.
He shuffles slightly upon the poorly-cushioned chairs that they brought him for this job, ruffling the sheets of paper extremely rapidly. Most people would think that he barely looks at them. However, the reality is that, despite being a front-line fighter, Sir Maximilian has picked an incredible number of secretarial Skills along the way to make his job easier. [Hyperspeed Reading] is one of those.
What he’s reading, however good, does not match his perception of reality. Well, it doesn’t match the perception that he had of the haphazard collaboration between Champions and Dark Champions to be more precise.
“This entire quadrant here,” Sir Maximilian points at the map that his own men have made and distributed, “you’re saying it’s been almost entirely culled?”
“Entirely,” Jacob corrects the Knight Commander. “There are no more Minor Nightmares of Apocalypse there, at all. We’ve made several sweeps and we’ve had some of ours use stealth to follow the roaming ones. In the dozens of cases in which we observed them, they don’t naturally wander there on their own.”
Sir Maximilian nods. He knows that.
He knows that very well.
They have already studied the behavior of the monsters and, unless someone drags them along, which he immediately forbade, they don’t move away from their quadrants. The quadrants are not exactly the square they have drawn on the map, resembling more of a circle, in fact, but they can be approximated.
But none of this information is reason for the surprise he’s feeling in his chest.
How did they kill so many? Have they all advanced to Diamond Rank?
Sir Maximilian knows how strong the Champions and Dark Champions are, despite being only at Platinum Rank in level, but this is utterly ridiculous. The amount of Minor Nightmares of Apocalypse in each quadrant is downright absurd. This Original Primordial Dungeon is not only so vast that they have yet to reach its boundaries, but it’s also pullulating with an amount of monsters he’s never seen before.
Yet, looking at the report, there’s nothing indicating that. In fact, Jacob Cloud has written out their Levels — theirs and the Dark Champions’. All of them are at Platinum Rank.
Why are they still waiting? This is a prime leveling opportunity.
“I see that you’re choosing not to level up,” Sir Maximilian points out.
“We’re all waiting to finish leveling up some Skills, sir. We are rethinking our Classes in the wake of this Dungeon. We can clearly see our shortcomings now.”
Shortcomings?
Before Sir Maximilian can elaborate with any more thought, he hears his Scribe, Janus, choke on his spit on the other side of the war room.
“You have cleared the entire area, then. I imagine you expect me to finally remove you from cleaning duty.”
Jacob frowns.
“Why would I, sir?” Jacob says, maintaining a neutral expression. “It’s just me reporting on the fact that we’re done. You assigned us that place and we’re done. You can just assign a new quadrant to us.”
But I can’t, Sir Maximilian thinks, tilting his head. I can’t assign you to another quadrant after you showed this much competence, Cloud. And I expect you to know as much. Or…
“What do you have in mind?” Sir Maximilian asks directly for Jacob’s input, surprising the Leader of Champions.
“What do I have in mind?” Jacob asks back.
“Yes.”
“Well, I think it would be good if we could maybe join one of the incursions that venture toward the more central part of the place, sir. What are your thoughts on that?”
“I commend you for the proposal,” Sir Maximilian says, “but I don’t think that’s the best use of your group’s abilities. I suspect you must have used a lot of Rainbow Skills in the process of clearing up those quadrants and… I fear they might not coordinate as well with the others.”
Sir Maximilian isn’t saying that just because. It’s true. A group where every member uses a different Rainbow Skill makes it very hard to coordinate and control.
If they joined just about any other group, they’d only create problems.
“So, for all it pains me to say, I suspect you’d be way better suited to clearing up two more quadrants. I know it’s a lot of work, but we are worrying about the civilian population. We want to make space in case we need to start bringing them in.”
With the Dungeon slowly poisoning every civilian, if they made enough safe spaces and established perimeters to make sure that monsters wouldn’t attack them, they would be able to have the civilians take refuge in the Dungeon itself. That has been the plan that Maximilian has been considering in order to limit the casualties. The problem is that, so far, they’d need to clear at the very least twenty-seven quadrants, not including the one Jacob took care of.
And so far, not one quadrant other than that has been cleared. In fact, Sir Maximilian even suspects that Jacob’s quadrant might have been less populated than the others.
Jacob looks down at the map and draws a circle around the twenty-seven quadrants that Sir Maximilian is just thinking about and says, “you need all this area cleared up, right?”
“In our most optimistic forecasts, yes. Why, you would like to offer?”
“I’ll do it,” Jacob says, looking up at Sir Maximilian. “We’ll do this, sir.”
“Cloud, I don’t take well to jokes. The lives of—“
“I’m not joking,” Jacob replies without missing a beat. “But, if we do this properly, you let us take part in the incursion.”
Sir Maximilian considers the offer and then thinks to himself, it will take months to work through all that space. We’re talking about so much space to cover… He’s strong and smart, but the more he’s occupied with other things, the better. This expedition is already turning trickier than I had thought.
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“Sure,” Sir Maximilian nods. “Go ahead.”
One Day Later
Sir Maximilian is in the war room, talking to Lady Ashenmere when Jacob Cloud enters the place, covered from head to toe in sand, still coughing.
“S—sir,” he wheezes out. “Oh, milady, I’m sorry for barging in. I have some reports to drop off.”
Jacob unceremoniously dumps a stack of paper on the desk and leaves without waiting for an answer.
“Isn’t that the Leader of Champions?” Lady Severa Ashenmere asks.
“Yes,” Sir Maximilian’s voice trails off as he picks up the papers and scans them quickly.
“Is he joking?” Sir Maximilian mutters.
Five quadrants? What?
“What’s happening?” Lady Severa Ashenmere asks.
“Nothing,” Sir Maximilian says, getting up and gesturing at his scribe to follow. “I just have to check something.”
Three Days Later
A large tavern has been built outside of the mine, ready to welcome back all the Adventurers and Knights after their long days, sometimes multiple at once, of killing monsters.
Sir Maximilian has stopped there to check on the food shipments and the stocks that have been kept in the tavern. In fact, he’s the one that immediately mandated its construction. Even at True Diamond, there’s very little better than good food and the right spirits to boost the people’s morale. And this also acts like an informal info exchange for those exploring the Dungeon.
It’s much easier for Adventurers and Knights to chat about their discoveries than to read the briefs that Sir Maximilian prepares each day with all the new discoveries.
But in the past three days, there’s only been talk about one group of people.
“Shit, I’ve met them,” an Intermediate True Diamond Ranked Knight says. “The fucking bastards flew so fast and they got my kills without even saying sorry. It’s like they’re racing to clear the weaker monsters in the Dungeon, I swear.”
“Man, I get you. I was minding my own business, trying to scout more of the Nightmares when this huge black-scaled Dragonkin appeared out of nowhere and headbutted a damn Minor Nightmare of Apocalypse right in its mouth! I thought he’d lose his eyes or a piece of his skull, but when the thing bit him it broke all its teeth!”
“I can’t stand it!”
A young Knight at Early True Diamond Rank suddenly stands up with his jaw tight and a hand on the hilt of his blade.
“I need to kill those things in order to gain levels!” He says. “The more Levels we can get, the easier it will be for all of us to protect this place! I hear that those useless bastards are just abusing their Rainbow Skills to do all of this! It’s unacceptable! Rainbow Skills don’t get trained—they’re just using a shortcut and only the stronger monster will remain soon enough!”
Sir Maximilian has to hide a smile over his face.
I bet you didn’t think of this, Jacob Cloud. Some of the people in Ashenmere might be happy that you’re being so efficient, but the reality is, even the weaker monsters have their value to the right people. And by speeding up the elimination of them through the Rainbow Skills—including the Rainbow Skills of the Dark Champions, the most hated subjects in this crowd—you’re making yourselfmany enemies.
“I agree! Those useless bastards just got lucky in life and now they’re taking all of our hard work away!”
“Yeah! And they allied with bloody murderers!”
“Something should be done about that!”
Almost as if on cue, the door to the tavern slams open, hitting the wall hard and breaking off its hinges.
“Shit, sorry,” a deep voice comes from the entrance, followed by a sigh of another one.
“Don’t worry, Korrath. We’ll just pay for it.”
“What?! We?! I need the money for a new Skill! Let these bastards pay for it!”
“We’re better than you, idiot! Who are you calling bastard?!”
The group of Champions and Dark Champions, captained by Jacob Cloud and Delefagus, enters the place.
Sir Maximilian, who knows that they always come here, every day without fail, has come to enjoy the show.
He doesn’t consider himself a petty person, but he doesn’t like uppity students who think they’re better than everybody else just because of a Rainbow Skill or two.
Sir Maximilian notices Jacob finally reacting to all the eyeballs inside the giant room pointing at him.
“Hey guys,” the Leader of Champions says, “sorry about the door. We’ll pay for it.”
They try to walk up to the counter nonchalantly, but then the same young man from before blocks their path.
“You need to pay for more than just a door!” He says, eyes bloodshot.
Jacob turns toward the door, surveys the room, himself, and then scratches his head in confusion. “For the beers?”
“For your sins!” The young man bellows, earning many hard grunts of approval from the crowd.
“He does like getting beaten up,” a blonde girl says from the crowd. “Is that his sin?”
“I don’t care about that!” The man shouts, unsheathing his blade and pointing it at Jacob. “You are taking all the easy monsters away from us! We need them to level up! You’re just using Rainbow Skills in order to boost your fame! You and those murderers!”
Now, it’s not just grunts — many people actually get out of their seats seeing that the blade has been unsheathed.
“Are you calling us murderers?” Delefagus asks, adjusting his spectacles.
“Who else would I be calling a murderer?! Murderers and cheats!”
“Yeah, you must stop abusing your Rainbow Skills! We are honest people trying to grow stronger so that we can help Ashenmere! It’s useless for you to just keep killing monsters like this!” Another person chimes in.
“Yeah,” yet another says, “you lot are a bunch of spoiled brats! I could clear the entire Dungeon alone if I had a Rainbow Skill myself!”
Instead of remarking on how absurd that statement is, most of the crowd cheers in agreement.
He’ll probably try to deny it, but it’s just too clear that this couldn’t have happened otherwise, Sir Maximilian thinks. And when he tries to deny it, they’ll petition for him to be thrown out of the Dungeon. At that point, I’ll tell him I have my hands tied with so many people threatening to stop their work over this.
Jacob turns to Delefagus and Sir Maximilian can clearly tell that he expects the Dark Champion to lie on his behalf. Maybe, the Dark Champion has some kind of charm or charisma Skill that he thinks might help, but not with the crowd like this. And if they were so foolish to actually manipulate the crowd, Sir Maximilian would personally intervene.
“Of course we’re using Rainbow Skills,” Delefagus says, nodding. “And even with those, it wasn’t easy at all.”
Every Knight and Adventurer in there looks even angrier now.
“Have you heard that! He’s confessed for all of them! These bastards are killing the easy monsters with Skills that cannot level!”
“I can’t believe that we’re letting a bunch of brats run amok in the Dungeon, causing trouble like that.”
“We must do something! Let’s beat them—“
Sir Maximilian observes the scene and then hears Jacob shout above the crowd.
“Why, are you guys here wishing death upon all the civilians?!”
That silences the entire room immediately.
“What did you just say?” A senior Knight at the very Peak of True Diamond Rank slowly gets up from his chair and narrows his eyes at Jacob, who just smiles back.
“I said, do you wish death upon the civilians?” Jacob asks again.
The man takes an axe out of his Interspatial Ring and lets his aura flow freely. The Champions and the Dark Champions tense up at the immensely compressed power they’re feeling. This man is not just someone at the very Peak of True Diamond Rank, but he also has half a foot into Imperium Rank.
“Do you think that a bunch of students and murderers are untouchable?” The Knight spits out through gritted teeth. “Do you think I won’t take a beating to you for insulting our honor?”
Sir Maximilian feels a pang of apprehension seeing that. If things continue to spiral this bad, he might very well have to intervene himself to avoid seeing Jacob Cloud dead.
He’ll know what to do, though, Sir Maximilian thinks. He’s a very smart and strategic guy.
“First, sir, if you cannot hold your own emotions back during such an important campaign, I beg you to step forward,” Jacob says summoning his own sword. “So that I’ll execute you on the spot for treason.”
That’s not very smart and strategic! Cloud, what the hell are you doing?!
“Treason?” The Knight smiles, tightening his grip on the axe. “Your lot should have been executed for treason the moment you allied with those Cultists! Let’s see you run your mouth like that after I chop your head off!”
Jacob just stares daggers at the man while the entire situation gets heated, with more and more people unsheathing their weapons.
Cloud, apologize! Say that you’re sorry! Damn it, saysomething!
“Some people truly want to die like dogs,” Jacob says, activating his Reverse Domain. “Thus, I shall grant your wish. Come here, let the world witness how a first-year student schools a prideful dog.”
Not that! Sir Maximilian shouts internally, about to tear his own hair out. Why the hell would you say THAT?!