Talking

"Hey, guys."

"You are finally out. What took your group so long?", Serge was the one who first reacted to his greeting. It seemed like they had already been out of the dungeon for quite a while and were only waiting for him. When Ivan thought of it, he felt happy. It was great to have good friends.

Although he didn't let his feeling show on his face, Greg still seemed to sense it. "Don't be too happy. We only waited for you, because we have something to talk about with you."

"Right. What is it?", Ivan didn't believe him but still played along.

"First tell us how it went. Then we can talk about it."

"Well, aside from the boss there weren't really any problems."

"You had problems with the boss? Isn't he just an oversized rat? So how could you have problems with it, if you managed the groups before? Everyone else who had problems didn't clean up all the rats in the hall.", Greg asked skeptically.

A look of surprise appeared on Ivan's face. For them, the boss wasn't just an oversized rat. It was much stronger and faster as well as the additional tail attack, which had caused the most problem.

Seeing his look, Irena inhaled forcefully. "Don't tell me you didn't do the run in Normal Mode?"

"How did you know?"

"I heard that depending on the mode one chooses, the difficulty of the boss increases. And not only the level but also the skills it can use as well as it's intelligence. So the only reason your boss was this much harder would be that you have chosen another mode. So which Mode did you choose?"

"Oh, we chose Nightmare Mode."

"You did what????", Irena exclaimed, leading to questioning stares from the others.

"We chose Nightmare Mode. Why is there a problem with it?", Ivan asked bewildered by her extreme reaction.

"Of course there is. Do you have any idea how risky it is? Right, why do I even ask? Of course, you don't.", she forcefully calmed herself down. "Unlike Hardcore, Nightmare not only increases the level of all monsters in the dungeon but also drastically improves the boss. Besides that, according to what I have heard, it removes the reincarnation option."

"Wait? Does it remove the reincarnation option? But didn't the teacher say, that there would generally be possible to reincarnate if one dies in the Training Dungeon?"

"She did and this is true for Normal and Hardcore mode but the Nightmare Mode is different."

"Then why didn't the teacher warn us about it?"

"How would she know that you were even able to do the dungeon on Nightmare Mode? Although the description says that it is available because of the difference in levels between team members, that isn't all that is required. According to some research, not only a difference of 200 levels is required but also some other conditions, such as having a bloodline of a high enough grade."

When she said these words, Greg and Serge looked at her in confusion, while Ivan didn't seem that surprised.

"Wait, wait. What do you mean with bloodline? You mean, as the one's monster have? Why have I never heard about humans having bloodlines too?", Greg asked.

"Indeed, human to have bloodlines. It is just rarely known outside of these families that know about their bloodline and the people who are strong enough to go to the upper realm."

"So your family know about their bloodline?", Serge asked.

"Yes. One of my ancestors has reached such heights, that he has awakened his bloodline."

"Then don't you come from an important family?", Greg asked in surprise.

"Not really. Besides that ancestor, there wasn't really any notable person in our family."

"You sure? Then how come your family name is the same as that of the royal family?", Serge asked with suspicion. Although the family name Berg wasn't uncommon, most of the families that had it, had at least a distant relationship with the royal family.

Irena looked embarrassed. "I shouldn't talk about it but since we are friends, I guess it's ok, as long as you promise not to tell anyone else."

Everyone hurriedly agreed not to tell it anyone else.

"Alright. It's like this. You know that ancestor I was talking about? After he gained a lot of power he kinda started a rebellion against his brother, who was the emperor at that time."

When she said that everyone looked at her in shock.

"Hey, don't look at me like that. That was a few thousand years ago, alright.", she shook her head, "Whatever. Anyway, after starting his rebellion it didn't take long until he got defeated and was then banished from the family. Because of the way the rebellion happened, there wasn't any other punishment, besides the loss of any noble status. That's why we still have the family name, Berg."

After she had finished her story, Ivan was really interested in how she and Lara would react when they met.

"Anyway, back to the topic. Next time, be more careful. Sadly you can't change the mode, for now, so you will have to make the best out of it."

"Is it really that bad?", Greg asked, feeling worried for his friend.

"If they are careful and manage not to die, then it's a giant opportunity. And for us, it is one too."

"Right. So does everyone agree to form a team to train in the dungeon, during Tuesday and Thursday?", Greg asked.

"So that's why you were waiting for me.", Ivan exclaimed, finally finding out the reason they had waited for him.

"Yeah, so what do you think?"

"Sounds good. But isn't our group a bit unbalanced?"

"Not really. Even though we are all mages we have different specialization. But we are still missing one person.", Irena answered.

"Ha, I have already got someone else in mind, to fill the last slot.", Greg said proudly. He was the one who had brought up the idea, so it didn't come as a surprise that he would have someone in mind for the last position.

"Shoot.", Irena said impatiently.

"Relax, she will be here soon."

"She?"

"Yes, she is my girlfriend.", as soon as these words left his mouth everyone chin nearly fell down to the floor. This was something they had never expected. Greg loved to talk about anything and everything, so how come they had never heard about him having a girlfriend?

Seeing their shocked expressions, Greg laughed proudly. "Ha, you would have never expected that I would give you such a surprise right?"

They speechlessly nodded. It was indeed a surprise. Ivan was even unable to decide which was the bigger surprise. That Greg had a girlfriend, who could stand his incessant talking or that he had managed to keep quiet about it.

Irena was the first, to regain her calm. "So what role does your girlfriend has? We are kinda missing a healer, so it would be great if she could do something in that direction."

"Don't worry, she is a paladin."

"That's great."

Both priests and paladins channeled the energy from their god, to fuel their skills. But while priests were mainly focused on healing spells paladins were much more versatile. They usually trained in healing skills as well as fighting skills, making them superior to priests. Of course, they too had their drawbacks. But unlike one may expect, it wasn't that they were weaker at both of these areas than these professions that focused on only one area, but that the requirements were much higher. It wasn't public knowledge what exactly these requirements were, but only one out of ten thousand candidates were eligible to become a paladin, making them exceedingly rare. And for one of them to be Greg's girlfriend really came as a surprise.

Under his breath, Serge murmured, "I wonder how she looks. To take Greg as her boyfriend, her taste surely has to be heavy."

All of them had great hearing and he wasn't that quite when he murmured, so besides Greg who got angry, the others laughed.

Three different laughers rang out at the same time. Unknowingly a petit girl had appeared behind Irena and Ivan, who too laughed when she heard what Serge had said.

"Hi, I'm the one with the heavy taste, you talked about.", she greeted Serge, whose face became as red as an apple in shame.

"Hehe, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend you."

"Don't worry. I know that it was just a joke.", the girl waved his apology away and sat down next to Greg.

"Hello everyone, I'm Pia. I'm sure Greg already told you everything about me.", she then introduced herself, but to her surprise, the others at the table shook their heads.

"Nope, he only just told us that he had a girlfriend."

"That's surprising.", it seemed she was well aware of her boyfriend's tendency to talk.

"Sweety, I wanted to give them a big surprise, so I kept quiet about it.", Greg explained when she threw him a questioning glance.