Who Needs Magic in a Fantasy World Anyway?

Chapter 104: Dungeon Discovery

"So the bug nest really is turning into a dungeon..." Ander commented to himself after the group finally reached the area where Koko had fallen into the monster's trap.

"Koko, just how many of these things did you kill?" Ethrion asked, and while she hadn't noticed it before seeing as it had been in the heat of the moment, she only now realized that the floor was almost completely covered in copper coins from the bugs that she'd defeated.

"Oh, you know... A lot." Koko shrugged. "I wasn't really paying attention to their numbers at the time, especially seeing as I couldn't see most of them."

"Well, you're alive, and that's the important thing." Ander spoke with what sounded like a sigh of relief, and the others nodded in agreement to his words.

"Yeah, and I even got Senshi-chan here because of it." Koko hummed as she gently petted the small beetle that was still clinging to her shoulder.

"Chan?" Rose asked. "I thought that his name was just Senshi."

"It is." Koko agreed, making all of them give her looks of confusion before their elven member decided to hurry things along.

"So what do you want to do, Ander?" Ethrion asked. "Do we go further into the dungeon or do we take a side tunnel and keep searching the nest?"

"We'll keep searching the nest, but we'll need to send a message back to the surface with news of what we found first." Ander replied.

"That can be solved easily." Ethrion stated before holding his hand over the empty space at his side before the floor beneath him began to grow in a lime-green color. And as he used whichever skill or spell he was using, the light continued to build until, surprisingly, a small wolf jumped out of the light and shook itself beside him.

"Good idea. If we use a familiar, then we won't have to postpone our exploration of the nest." Ander approved before he took a peice of paper and pen from his satchel as he began writing. And once he was finished, he then rolled the paper into a scroll before tying a string around its middle while leaving enough of the string so that he could then loop it around the familiar's head afterwards.

"Go and bring this to the soldiers waiting above us. Follow my scent and you'll find the way out." Ethrion spoke softly to the wolf and, much to the elf's displeasure, the creature jumped up and licked him once before it almost seemed to fly up the tunnel that they had just come from, not seeming to be effected by gravity at all as it didn't even bother using the footholds that everyone else had needed to make use of.

"Koko, do you understand how splitting rewards works?" Rose asked after the elf sent his familiar away.

"Item drops belong to those who find them and all coin is divided evenly at the end of the quest, right?" Koko asked.

"Yes. That's correct." Rose agreed. "I was just making sure that you knew about it before I started collecting the coins."

"I know it might feel unfair about us taking a share of the profits when you were the one that did all the work and was the only one in danger, but I'm sure that I speak for everyone when I say that I promise to make it up to you during our next fight." Arden sounded apologetic as he spoke, even if it was the adventurer's guild's rules that they were following. And while she did find it a little strange of how the other party members would profit off of her fighting alone when she'd faced the danger without them, she couldn't help but have to accept this as well seeing as the system was in place so that people wouldn't be exploited. After all, if a strong party member did most of the work while the others still risked their lives while backing the person, it would be incredibly unfair if only the strong person was rewarded while the others were cast aside. And she figured that the scenario that she was thinking over closely resembled her current situation.

"So now we write on the wall with chalk in the direction that we're going, right?" Koko asked as she wanted to make sure that she had the instructions memorized.

"Yes, but not before we draw a large circle with a square inside of it in the center of this chamber." Ander replied.

"Why do we do that?" Koko asked.

"Because it lets anyone else who stumbled across this area know that we've already reported the dungeon." He replied, and not for the first time, Koko was thankful to have been grouped with these people seeing as they were friendly in explaining everything that she didn't know.

"And we'll mark the tunnel that we came from with an 'X' as well. That's to let the others know that the way has been cleared." Ethrion continued the explanation.

"So 'X's for cleared, 'O's for 'in progress' and circles with squares in them for reported findings. Got it." Koko nodded her confirmation.

"Good. Then now that the report has been sent, let's get drawing." Ander replied cheerfully while tossing Koko a stick of chalk, which she caught easily before she walked behind them so that she could draw an X on the wall at the tunnel that they'd just come from. And as she finished, Ander finished his own drawings soon after before they chose another tunnel at random and began to walk down it. Though while the others had visibly led to either inclines or declines almost immediately after they left the stone-brick chamber, this tunnel thankfully remained relatively even despite turning quite frequently. And while they'd expected to find something, after what felt like hours of walking, the ground finally entered another split in the tunnels. Though much to their displeasure, it was terribly familiar.

"I-isn't this the second split from when we first came down here?" Koko asked while dreading the answer as all three of her teammates let out groans of aggravation.

"Yes... yes it is..." Arden eventually answered.

"So what mark do we put down now?" Koko asked.

"A line with an X at the end of it." He answered. "If it just looped around then we would simply put an X on it and then draw a line on both walls to tell others that they're connected and cleared. However, seeing as they lead to that dungeon room, a line combined with an X will tell them that it's connected and leads to another junction."

"I might have to start writing this stuff down..." Koko replied, now regretting that she hadn't brought a notebook or something similar with her. Though in her defence, she'd thought that she was going to be guarding the entrance to a bug nest, not learning lessons and fighting monsters over a mile underground.

"So where to now?" Rose asked.

"Back the way that we came." Arden replied miserably. "We have to go back and search the other tunnels, which means that we've wasted our time."

"Yes, but at least we've mapped out a little more of the nest." Ethrion offered the silver lining. "Now come on. With how many different tunnels there were, there's a high possibility that at least one of the other groups would have found the dungeon by now."

"That's if their tunnels link to the dungeon." Ander countered. "But you're right. The sooner we get there, the sooner we may be able to link up with the others and this search might get easier."

"Yeah, that's probably not going to happen." Koko disagreed.

"And why do you think that?" Ander asked curiously.

"Because-" Koko shrugged as she spoke. "-nothing's ever that easy."