The Martial Unity

He actually felt less tense the moment they entered the dungeon, but he couldn’t show that on his face, he needed to maintain a severe expression. His spatial senses swept across the dungeons as he noted the location of a few monsters in the general vicinity. A katoblepas, a bloodfury rabbit that appeared to have survived from the second floor, and even an inland Shionel Taipan.

Rui had no problem with these monsters attacking their group, in fact, he welcomed it. It would be a good way to end this operation quickly if one of the members of this group were taken down early due to a surprise monster attack.

In that case, he would be able to finish the twelfth floor without any issues whatsoever, and he would be just fine.

Of course, he highly doubted that something like that would happen. The Martial Squires that had been gathered for the Voidhunter team were not amateurs, they were all Martial Artists who were nominally more powerful than himself. Most of them would not succumb to a surprise attack, even in circumstances like the Shionel Dungeon where their senses were hampered.

They followed the scouted paths that were confirmed to lead to a particular floor. These paths were marked and indicated by the Shionel Adventurer Guild. Doing this ensured that Martial Artists could enter lower floors without getting lost, ensuring that Martial Artists didn’t have to try and scour the extensive maze of tunnels inside the dungeon. Every time a new floor was discovered, the Shionel Dungeon went through an effort of finding large enough tunnels that connected existing floors to new ones that adventurers could use.

Despite having a secured route, there was still a deep tension as they traveled through them.

“Alright, we’ve reached the first floor, be sure to stay together while we go down to the second floor. Do not get lost, and do not break away from the group or from the scouted paths. Getting lost in this maze of a dungeon is suicide,” She warned them once more.

Rui suppressed a laugh. Being with a group of normal adventurers who raided and plundered the dungeon like normal adventurers did was so strange. He was starting to see the concerns and problems that normal Martial Artists had to face in a dungeon such as the Shionel Dungeon.

Still, he couldn’t help but frown mildly at their sheer vigilance so early on in their entry into the Shionel Dungeon.

Being so wary before even crossing the first floor? The uppermost layers of the Shionel Dungeon were basically no different from a relaxing hiding spot for Rui.

Soon enough, they reached the second floor, when Squire Fren turned around and did a headcount. “Good, we’re all here. Let’s continue downwards.”

This was also a strange thing to Rui, he hadn’t realized that ordinary Martial Squires had to go through the effort of making sure that all the Martial Squires were there, from time to time.

(‘Imagine entering this dungeon without having some counter to the sensory jamming property of the Shionel Dungeon despite knowing of it ahead of time,’) He shook his head inwardly. (‘Could not be me.’)

Finally, they reached the twelfth floor. For ordinary Martial Squires, just getting to the twelfth floor was an ordeal while Rui may as well skip down the tunnels humming given how casual he was.

“Alright, we’ve reached the twelfth floor,” Squire Fren stated. “It’s unclear what direction the last remaining section of the floor is, but we’ll just have to reach the center, split up in all directions and locate the last remaining section of the floor, and meet up back here in five minutes, one of us will have definitely have found it. It’s unfortunate, but without a map, we cannot even navigate this floor without using such means otherwise, we’ll get lost.”

This was why a map was so incredibly valuable, yet so incredibly difficult to obtain. Even Martial Squires found it difficult to navigate the Shionel Dungeon even with marked routes, how on Earth would normal humans and merchants commercialize such a place to other normal humans without at least a map?

Witnessing how serious and difficult this matter was even to a grade-ten Martial Squire convinced him of the value of his map even more. No wonder Guildmaster Bradt immediately passed a bill that affected the entire country on Rui’s demand once he verified that the maps Rui produced were actually very accurate and precise.

Rui had long located the remaining section of the Shionel Dungeon with his Riemannian Echo sense, but he had to play dumb and go along with this tedious plan, he couldn’t just point them in the right direction, that would make him instantly suspicious.

Soon enough, they split up in different directions after reaching what should have been close to the center of the floor. They wouldn’t be able to return quickly since the sixteen of them had to search across a large area, about as large as a city.

Thus Rui decided to simply go visit Kane, who had already reached the dungeon and was waiting in a tunnel just outside it where he had shifted around using Void Step to stay imperceivable. Rui had sensed him the moment he had entered the dungeon.

STEP

“Kane, you’re here,” He smiled once he reached the tunnel, talking to apparently nobody.

Kane appeared out of thin air, sighing. “It’s so stressful entering this dungeon without you. Is this how it’s always going to be from now on out?”

“Relax,” Rui shook his head. “It’s not going to be like this from here on out or anything like that. This will be the last time, I promise you.”

“That’s great to hear,” He nodded. “Alright, what now?”

“Come along with me, but make sure you’re using Void Step from the get-go, once we split up, we’ll immediately start harvesting this entire place, right under and around their noses. They’re going to be shocked to realize that despite their best, they couldn’t catch a glimpse of us,”