September 9th, Silverland City.
A group of 200 people stood outside the Adventurer Guild's entrance in the early morning and were finally ready to set out for the expenditure.
The group was separated into three divisions. One was the Light Church group, which had thirty Holy Knights, three priests, two High Priests, and Bishop Piers. The second group belonged to the Keris Royal Family, with many academic mages and adventurers. This was the largest among the three groups and had around 120 people!
And the third one belonged to the Red Python Organization, which had all the shady-looking people.
At that moment, Abium, Fennelis, and Umi stood among the Royal Family's group and quietly observed everyone.
Thanks to the low-tier disguise artifacts, Fennelis and Umi looked like normal humans and didn't attract anyone's attention.
'But I still need to be careful around that bishop.'
Abium first scanned the Royal family group members and soon shifted his gaze toward the Red Python group.
At that moment, he disguised himself as a black-haired young man who appeared low-key. He wore a grey robe instead of a black robe and looked more like an apprentice mage.
Although he could've worn a black robe, he felt someone might find out about his real identity and decided not to take any risk.
In truth, there were only around fifty first-tier mages in the academy, so it would be easy for other mages to get suspicious of his identity. But if he uses an apprentice robe, there would be no problem.
While thinking, Abium silently counted the black-robed mages accompanying the royal family group and soon frowned.
'Something feels off about those five black-robed mages. Hmm, they are also wearing a unique batch, which means all of them must be royal mages of the Keris kingdom. Then what about Academic mages?' Abium creased his brows and shifted his gaze toward the twenty gray-robed mages who stood beside him.
After a swift glance, he couldn't tell but get surprised a bit.
At that moment, he found more than four first-tier mages hidden in the grey-robed mages and seemed to be using some strange artifacts to hide their spirit power.
'Although they can conceal their spirit power from me, it's all useless in front of Azolla's scan.'
After that, Abium searched for Count Henricus and soon identified a fat guy with blonde hair in the gray-robed crowd. He had a chubby round face, emerald eyes, and thick eyebrows. He kept his eyes wandering like a thief and glancing at everyone cautiously.
'He looks pretty normal in every way. But how did he get that knowledge-related artifact and become a powerful mage in the past?'
Abium furrowed his eyebrows and turned his gaze toward the Red Python Group.
Without even scanning, he looked at a tall, hooded guy and smiled.
'The demon did come to this expedition.' Abium sensed a dense amount of abyss energy from that figure and knew it was the demon Susur. Moreover, he saw another ten powerful figures in that group and got startled inside.
'Damn, this group is as powerful as the Light Church!'
Due to that strange oppressive aura around them, the Red Python group attracted everyone's attention.
It comprised mostly of mysterious peoples who showed the strength of many official mages.
Abium even saw five figures had the strength of peak first-tier mages and became more serious.
Most wore black or blue hoods to hide their faces and always stood with extra vigilance. But what surprised Abium was that he also noticed two familiar faces in that group. They didn't even hide their face and were flirting with each other!
'What are those two doing in that group?' Abium locked his gaze on Kate and Cedric and soon realized that even he went on such expeditions voluntarily to try out his luck.
'They must have planned to participate in this expenditure after discovering that it is an expedition to a dungeon. If they walk out alive, they will grow powerful figures.' Abium praised their bravery. Following that, he also checked Rilos's presence in the Red python group and was not surprised.
Unknown to Abium, another five hooded figures mingled in that Red Python group and watched Abium's group's movement stealthily.
"Your Highness, I think he discovered we are spying on him." Rizz moved near to Edith and whispered in her ears.
But Edith shook her head and replied.
"No, he is looking for someone else in this group. It seems he also has his plans."
Rizz got surprised a moment and nodded. After that, both didn't speak and waited along with the others.
After a few minutes, the 200-member group started to move under three leaders' command. Everyone walked out of Silverland City through the Northern Gate and slowly moved towards the Taiga Sloth Woods, located at the Keris Kingdom's northern corner.
On September 11th, early morning, the group finally entered the Taiga sloth woods and even started encountering monsters. Only some low-level monsters would roam in the woods during normal times.
But this time, the group even got attacked by a pack of Orcs, which made everyone guard up even more.
The first casualty occurred at noon, by goblins' sneak attack. As the group progressed into the Taiga Sloth woods, casualties rose. Before they could even reach the dungeon entrance, more than fifty casualties had occurred, causing everyone's face to turn grim.
Although most of the casualties were low-level adventurers, it still caused a huge shock to everyone.
On September 13th evening, the group finally saw a tall black tower rise to the sky. It was almost 500 meters tall and gave off a chill atmosphere to the surroundings. Multiple caverns have appeared near the tall tower, and monsters like goblins, kobolds, and orcs walked out from time to time.
Abium was not surprised by this scenario as he had seen these things.
'These monsters' origin is always a mystery. Azolla, do you know anything about it? Tell me more about the Dungeons, please.' Abium asked Azolla, full of curiosity.
'Dungeons have both dangers and benefits, kid. Many goblins, Orcs, Kobolds, and Minotaurs' presence in our plane is due to a War that happened even before the Ancient War (the Last Planar War). At that time, our Easica world was invaded by Demons from the four layers of Abyss and caused massive destructions worldwide.'
'The demon army under four demon lords marched into our world through multiple portals and created destructions. That incident caused all races to unite together to resist the demons. Although our people managed to defeat those demons, the four demon lords used some forbidden divine spell to let multiple portals stay stable permanently in many parts of our world before their death. After that, different types of chaotic creatures entered our land from time to time and caused chaos everywhere.'
'Even many Ancient Gods, Dragons, High Elves, and even High human mages from the primordial times battled against the demons and perished in this land. Upon seeing the continuous destruction, our world's Will Easica couldn't stay still and started creating dungeons using fallen Ancient gods' divine kingdoms. She used the dungeons to seal the portals and stopped the first Abyss invasion. As for these monsters, I heard from arcane researchers that they continuously spawn inside the Dungeon's core rooms. Some say that she did this to strengthen the mortals of our plane, but no one knew the truth.' Azolla replied casually.
Meanwhile, Abium widened his eyes and soon nodded his head in understanding.
After that, he slowly shifted his eyes towards the tower shrouded by some transparent dark barrier like a cover and muttered.
'I thought the one who created these dungeons was a mythical existence, but I didn't expect it was our World's Will.' Abium drew a deep breath and turned his head to see others' reactions.
Except for a few members, everyone was puzzled and looked at the tall black tower in curiosity. They had never heard of any tower that appeared out of nowhere before and soon started to make guesses independently.
As everyone was racking their brains, Kate suddenly raised her voice and spoke.
"It's a dungeon, morons."