Who Needs Magic in a Fantasy World Anyway?

Chapter 112: Confrontation

"I guess this means that we finally made it." Austin stated the obvious, and it wasn't only Koko that let out a sigh but the rest of the group seeing as well seeing as travelling down their path had taken ten hours at least until they'd finished. And now that they entered a large room where the other adventurers were gathering in front of a gigantic pair of decorated double doors, it finally seemed to be at an end as they walked forward and Dedrick walked away from the others to meet them.

"It's good that you finally arrived! I was just about to order a search party for you." Dedrick declared loudly before they walked up to him so that they could speak normally.

"Finally? When did everyone else get here?" Austin asked.

"The last group arrived about five hours ago." Dedric laughed while seeming to be in a good mood for some reason. "And I've got to tell you, Austin. We've hit the jackpot with this dungeon!"

"What did you find?" Austin asked.

"What did we find? What didn't we find?!" He replied with a laugh. "Every path that we were on held at least one chest filled with both gold and enchanted items and there were hardly any monsters or traps to speak of!"

"Huh?" All four of the new arrivals asked together.

"What? Didn't you come across anything valuable?" Dedrick asked.

"Not a single gold coin." Austin replied. "And the path was covered in traps, monsters and even a boss monster in the middle. Heck, one of the traps was so well concealed we even I couldn't see it and it ended up collapsing half of the castle on top of us."

"So that's what all of that rumbling was..." Dedrik hummed to himself thoughtfully. "Well, that's bad luck on your end, I suppose. But at least you all made it back safely."

"All of that work and everyone else got treasure while we didn't." Koko stated miserably.

"Life isn't fair." Richard echoed.

"We're still going to get rewarded for this, so at least there's that." Christina tried to reason, though even her tone sounded just as dejected as they were feeling.

"Go ahead and ask the priests to heal any wounds you have and get some rest, because now that you're here, we'll be advancing on the throne room in two hours." Dedrick ordered.

"No time for sleep?" Koko asked through a yawn seeing as she felt as if they'd been down in both the tunnels and dungeon all day and most likely most of the night.

"We can sleep once the queens are dead and there isn't a chance that we'll be ambushed by an army of insect monsters while our guard is down." Dedrick replied.

"But we at least have enough time to take a break for a while, so let's do that." Austin ordered with a sigh before they followed him and they began to pass by the other adventurers who were already resting. However, they soon had to stop as a warrior dressed in steel armor got up from his group and blocked their path.

"So you guys finally made it, huh?" He asked while glaring at them for some reason. "And empty-handed too, from the sound of it."

"Our path didn't have any treasure chests, if that's what you're meaning." Austin replied while easily returning the man's glare.

"You were gone for so long that you could have easily hid anything you found so that you don't have to split it with the rest of us." The warrior continued.

"It took most of us only four hours to finish with our paths, yet it took you eleven and you came back with nothing." A woman mage in their group added. "Certainly you can't help but agree that it's a little suspicious."