Chapter 432: The Dungeon That Connects The Borders

[Proto Earth 1]

A week after the incident, another weekend greeted the two, as both Lilia and Kaido were finally walking back at home to prepare some stuff for tomorrows activity. To be exact Alessandro had actually informed them of tomorrow's activity that will be done by them four, it is a type of dungeon conquering activity.

For some unknown methods, Alessandro was able to obtain permits for their group to raid an unranked dungeon. Un ranked dungeons are like the treasure cove for the player themselves, not only would they be able to obtain treasures only for them specifically inside the dungeon once it has been successfully raided, they would also gain recognition from the association for ending such dungeons. However the only cons in this type of dungeon is that the risk is high.

Since it is unranked even by the modern technology scanner of the association, the level of monsters inside is also uncertain which could lead to even higher danger.. Because the dungeon is unpredictable, they are then categorized as unranked dungeon, a high risk high return dungeon.

This type of dungeon surprisingly landed on the lap of Alessandro, because of that not only is Lilia surprised but even shelly herself was speechless. In the end everyone was excited for the tomorrow's activity and the chance to actually raid an unranked dungeon that is usually always handled by big corporations.

So upon arriving at home, Lilia begun organizing the weapons that she would use in any occasions inside the dungeon, while Kaido on the other hand simply lazed around while reading some book in a corner. With this, the night then goes on as both of them do  their own  preparation in their own way.

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The next day both Kaido and Lilia took a bus towards a stop near the border of the city, as they got off and begun walking to their destination on foot. The location of the unranked dungeon that Alessandro acquired is somewhere around at the edge of the city and near the dam reserve of its local citizens.

The reserve itself is located somewhere in the mountain high ground which is filled with dirt and trees, due to this the only way one could get here is by taking a bus towards the edge of the city and walk to the reserves from the bus stop below the mountain. With that it literally took an hour and half for both Kaido and Lilia to reach their destination coming from far away home.

The moment they arrived, Alessandro welcomed them with open arms, as Shelly pulled Lilia in to inspect the stuff that they were going to use in the dungeon. Since unranked dungeon is unpredictable, they may experience being inside the dungeon for a couple of days, Due to that they also filled their storages with stuff related to camping.

Once that was all done, Alessandro then took the lead as he urged everyone to enter the dungeon.

"Let's go"

The moment they entered the dungeon, a bright light flashed before their eyes, as they all got illuminated from the piercing light, causing all of them to grumble in annoyance. But the moment they opened their eyes, they then saw a whole new scenery laid out before them which was almost similar to a whole new world.

The dungeon entrance led them on the very top of the mountain cliff, in between a huge mass of forested land and a sea that never ends. In that moment aside from Kaido, the rest then received a notification from their system telling them what they must do in order to clear the dungeon.

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Unranked dungeon detected!

Goal: Collect the four keys scattered all over the land and unlock the gate in the middle of the dungeon. Upon unlocking, defeat the boss of the dungeon  in order to gain a successful clear reward.

Keys: 0/4

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"Keys eh? looks like we need to find this keys that was scattered all over the place" exclaimed by Alessandro

"Shall we head over to the gate first? I think that place might something importance" suggested by Shelly

"Sure! why not!" answered by Alessandro as he led everyone down the mountain cliff.

After an hour of travel, they then soon arrived before a huge gate in the middle of the dungeon, as it stood tall as if no natural disaster could knock down such structure. Upon arriving there, Alessandro together with Lilia and Shelly begun examining the place, until Lilia found four key holes on one of the platform beside the door.

"Guys! I think this is where we will insert the keys that we will find"

Hearing her voice, everyone then gathered at her location, as they begun expecting the platform.

"Looks like so" commented by Alessandro

"Well that tells us where we will put the keys, now all we need to do is to find where the keys are scattered" said by Shelly

As Shelly said this, all of them then looked around their area as they remember the structure of this dungeon upon entering the place on a high ground.

"This place is huge, it would take us more than a week just to search everything here, i suggest that we form pairs and scatter to widen our search scope" suggested by Lilia

" I agree! Well then Shelly will take Lilia with her to the right, while i go with Kaido to the left" offered by Alessandro

" that's sound great and we will meet back here after four hours of searching" added by Shelly

"Okay!" agreed upon by Lilia

With that the group was then split in pairs as the girls headed to the right and the boys headed to the left side of the dungeon.

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Another hour has passed Alessandro begun to feel the weight of the pressure from searching all over the place, as he sigh out a mouthful of breath and look over at Kaido who is looking over at the edge of the ridge. During this hour both of them had never said a word to each other, causing the whole atmosphere around them to become awkward and silent.

With such atmosphere, Alessandro couldn't help but feel irritated from this lack of socialization. After all Alessandro is a social extrovert person, he likes to talk a lot in order to not feel bored, and at this moment he felt like he got paired up with an introvert who doesn't even engage in a conversation with him. Humans are sociable people after all.

But before he could utter a single word for a conversation, the monsters in the dungeon suddenly popped up out of nowhere and begun attacking them without any warning at all. Due to that both Alessandro and Kaido shut tight their mouth as they got serious and begun attacking the monsters themselves.

The monsters in this area looks like a human treant, sizing about 8 feet tall. Treant are a type of monsters made from nature and closely similar to trees and plants. A sentient being that while the treant remains motionless, it is indistinguishable from a normal tree. They are mostly associated with other monsters related to nature such as dwarves, fairies and gnomes as such based on mythological stories.

Just as it name and appearance suggest, treant monsters are a type of sentinels for nature that acts like a guard or a soldier in times of crisis. They wield power of nature itself, as they mostly control trees for combat.

Seeing such monsters, Alessandro begun pulling out his shotgun from his storage, as Kaido begun taking on the front while the former did his rearguard job.

As Kaido begun mowing down the treant twice his size with his incomparable battle sense and psychic power, Alessandro on the other hand took out any treant that bypassed the former and begun targeting him for some unknown reason.

Spewing out bullet after bullets towards the treant that came close to him, Alessandro suddenly felt a dangerous presence sneaking behind him, as he quickly took a forward flip and shot at the enemy behind him in midair. Following that he then quickly ducked down upon landing, just in time to dodge the swing coming from the treant in front of him, as he then chucked the nozzle of his shot gun towards the chin of the treant and blasted its head off with the pull of the trigger.

Using the headless body of the treant, he then used his superhuman strength to lift up the headless body as he threw it over at the treants rushing up to him from his right, and begun drilling them with dozen of shots form his shot gun, while at the same time taking a light jump back to put a distance between him and his enemy.

As he pulled a distance between him and the enemy on his right, he then noticed a familiar feeling from behind him him, as he darted his sight on his back and saw the treant coming in a swing towards him without further notice.

Due to that he then quickly enhanced the durability of his shotgun on his hands, as he pulled it up as used it to defend himself from the attack of the treant. After that, as he got blown back by a few steps, he then begun shooting his gun towards the treant multiple times in  a point blank range, only to notice that the current treant fighting him was so agile that it was able to react at the trajectory of his bullet and seemingly dodge his shot despite the point blank range.

Because the treant was able to dodge his shots, the latter monster then immediately pulled up his shot gun to redirect its last shot towards the sky, as it clenched its fist and struck a straight punch towards Alessandro.

Unfortunately such huge movement was quite noticeable even from afar, due to that Alessandro then entered a close quarter gun combat, as he used his gun to knock down the treant and forced it to crash on its back after multiple combos of movement. In that moment, while the treant was only beginning to recover from its fall as it tried to stand back up, Alessandro quickly aimed the nozzle towards the head of the treant and fired away without any warning.

With that, the treant that had a high agility stat was killed just like that, as Alessandro blew it head off into smithereens.

While Alessandro was taking care off the enemy's on the rear, Kaido on the other hand limited the use of his psychic power as he mostly attacked with either earth, wind, and water attributed psychic power. The reason for this is because they are currently in the middle of a forest, so if he ever used an energy that could light up a small spark, his attacks could lead to a massive forest fire which would not only disrupt him from achieving his goal, but even spread the catastrophe to other areas.

It would have been fine if he were alone inside this dungeon, after all in that situation he could just let loose and burn the whole world. Unfortunately he wasn't alone in this dungeon at all, Lilia was also inside. As the sole human he would communicate with, alongside the fact that she is currently the only person who could house him at the current moment and somewhat could provide knowledge in this world through the translation from her system, she held quite a high importance within him, to the point that he cant afford to have her killed. Of course that only stands if she is still have use.

With that in mind, he limited his destructiveness and simply took down the treants with a held back strength.

After for what seems like 10 minutes, both Alessandro and Kaido managed to take down the treants all on their own, as they latter begun picking out its cores from its corpse and store them inside its bag.

"This cores fetch for a high price, are you sure you don't want them?" asked by Alessandro as he counted the gathered cores

"Those cores are complicated... you can have all of them" replied by Kaido

Hearing his words, Alessandro shrugged his shoulder, as he begun storing them and tidy himself up. Once that was done, they then begun to move further to the east, as they slowly notice that the trees surrounding them begun to grow thicker as they ventured further.

In that moment alongside the thick trees, a thick mist slowly crept up in the area, which alerted both Kaido and Alessandro, as the latter stopped the former from moving in any further and  motioned to him to slowly back away. Understanding such gesture, Kaido then followed along as he back away from the mist and returned to the place where they had left the corpse of the treants that they had killed.

Once the mist was gone, Alessandro then took a deep breath as he begun to explain to Kaido regarding the current situation.

"Looks like we wont be able to advance any further without being discovered by the enemy"

"You mean the mist?"

"You may not know this , but mist in dungeons aren't your regular mist that can found outside the dungeon itself. The only difference between them is that the mist in the dungeon can be used in various ways more than one... for example the enemy can use them to act as a radar for the enemies, or better yet a poisonous assault to anyone who is hiding"

"The mist in this place has such properties? Things just got even more complicated"

"Your right! but this also gave away their intended purpose... if the mist such as this is up in this place, then that can only mean that they are trying to protect something in this area... in other words..."

"The key..." finished by Kaido

Upon seeing that Kaido understood what he is trying to imply, Alessandro then nodded accordingly as he suggested for them to regroup at the center and relay to the other pair on what they found out in this place. Naturally as an amicable player pretend, Kaido simply followed along while looking back at the mist deep within the forest.

Not long after they soon returned at the huge stone gate at the center of the dungeon, as Kaido and Alessandro spent most of their time chatting while waiting for the other pair to arrive. Their talk naturally stems out towards Kaido himself. Questions such as how did he get here, how did he met Lilia, where is he currently living, and most likely what are his specialties.

Of course the moment Kaido answered those questions, Alessandro himself was left astounded as he received his answer and couldn't believe what he just heard. Not knowing how he got in this city, meeting Lilia deep in the knight in some alleyway of the residential homes, currently living in Lilia's home and acted as her roommate, and able to control everything that the eye can see. But the most shocking thing he ever heard was that Kaido is sleeping inside Lilia's room like a roommate of hers.

After all based on common sense, it is quite unethical for a guy to share a room with a girl especially when they are at an age of sexual conscience, such a thing was no different from a man and a woman living together in sleeping together. In this cases, accidents cant be avoided between a man and a women, at most something might hap[pen between them which would break the current status quo.

But just as he was about to nag at Kaido on how a man and a woman shouldn't sleep together in one room if they are not married, Lilia and Shelly then finally arrived on their side of the search as they happily trot towards them. Since Alessandro knows how to split personal life to work, he quickly dismissed his idea of nagging both Kaido and Lilia for such an act, and returned to his serious tone and discussed what they found in their scouting assignment

"The left side of the dungeon consist nothing trees after trees, it seems like the further we go left, the deeper we are in the mass of tress standing on it. The monsters on the left side are mostly treants, a sentient being of a monsters that are rumored to be created from the roots of a world tree... with it we can expect to fight monsters related to nature on the left, alongside it there is also a mist covering the deeper part of the forest... if my guess is right, then they are trying to protect something by using the mist and that is most likely the key" reported by Alessandro

"I see... well if your side leads you deeper into the forest, our side on the other hand ended with it" said by Lilia

"Basically the forest on the right ended halfway through towards it, after that the scenery itself would change into this rocky mountainous area filled with lizard and dragons and probably golems... but since we know that such monster who have a lizard attribute could sense enemy who are about 55 yards away, we have no choice but to stop midway and observe them from afar.... after all we all know that once a lizard type senses an enemy nearby, they would then call upon their kin and attack the enemy en masse" said by Shelly

"... Your right! going in any further could result to you being found out... but with this we can assume that the enemy ion the right are mostly consist of lizards and probably golems... but the biggest questions is, which side should we prioritize in raiding?"

In that moment Kaido stepped in the conversation as he gave out his own answer.

"I think we should prioritize the left side"

"The treants? Why? what's your basis?" asks by Shelly

"Well in comparison to treants, those lizards have more durability and firepower than the monster on the left side, meaning the lizards themselves are more destructive and dangerous than fighting against the treants on the left.. since it is harder for us to take down the lizards with little effort, then we should probably target the ones who are much more easier to handle"

"Well if you put it that way, you do make sense"| commented by Lilia

"But that reason is still not enough to convince me" said by Shelly as she crossed her arms

With that Alessandro pondered for a bit, as he then spoke out.

"No! we should do what he suggested... it is important that we need to get a hang of this dungeon first, instead of going in and challenge the opponent with higher risk of failure, we should get used in the ecosystem in this dungeon first... we should do what he suggested"

After Alessandro said those words, both Shelly and him begun a back and forth debate in order to one up the other in which side should they prioritize. In the end, due to how difficult it is to deal with a lizard type enemy, Shelly then finally conceded as they all agreed to tackle the monster on the left and retrieve their side of the key.