Leaving the dungeon

Since we had looted all the monsters we fought and gathered quite a bunch of materials, travelling back to the entrance would take its time. Although the bag Lisa gave me could store far more than it looked like, to get something in there it had to fit through the opening. So putting something like a bed in there wasn't possible. Would have been a nice cheat to have a comfy room with you all the time… Or maybe even a professional cook.

Monsters spawned only in the rooms which connected to the corridor, and not the corridor itself. Because of this, travelling in and out could easily be done. If that weren't the case we wouldn't have gathered so much loot in the first place, defending ourselves with so much package on us would've made things unnecessarily difficult.

"You are all ready, right? Then we will take off back to the entrance which should roughly take us two to three days. For sleeping we can just clear a nearby room and considering all the meat Yoru packed into her backpack, we should be far from starving."

Iris interrupted my train of thought and announced our take off. Regarding my backpack, yes there was actually only meat in there and it also looked comically large on my back. After all we hybrids surpass ordinary humans far in strength so even I can carry a backpack twice my size.

Although after walking for a while, I realized that I might have overdone it a bit. Even though I was stronger than a human, carrying such a backpack all day long took a toll on me. Thankfully Iris decided to support me and so we swapped the carrying duty hourly.

Time passed by quite fast thanks to all of us chatting with each other. Our mood happened to be bright, although everyone had gotten a bit homesick by now. I especially looked forward to a nice dinner in our dorms, I really missed good food. Dungeon monsters were eatable, yes, but after a while they just tasted repetitive. Not that they tasted that great in the first place.

We spent the first night in a nearby room, enjoying our food as much as possible. As we had assumed, the rooms really got more difficult in the back and so beating the lone monster in this room had been nonchalantly done by Iris. She didn't even bother with tactics and straight up cut it down when she entered.

The second day passed by no different than the first one, but at the end of the day we were still quite a bit further away from the entrance than planned. Why that is? Well Iris got bored and chose to go hunt some monsters here and there. More crystals aligned with my own goals, sure, but even more than that I wanted to finally go home.

"Iris could you please control your battle lust and focus on travelling? I really don't want to stay here much longer than needed. We have so many E and D grade crystals by now, we don't need them as much."

I slightly let my frustration out there, but Iris respected my plea in the end. She didn't go off stray hunting for the rest of the travel and so, after around three days, we arrived back at the entrance.

We left our lizard there with enough food for a while, but there still was the chance that it wasn't there anymore. May it be a petty thief or a free roaming monster, both could easily have taken care of our lizard. If it really had disappeared we would lose some time but ultimately it wouldn't hinder us from travelling back home. These lizards and similar draft animals were sold in all the nearby villages which we came through on the journey here.

Luckily the lizard stood there and happily wagged its tail like a dog when it saw us leaving the dungeon. It behaved more like a pet than a monster. Seemingly it had taken quite a liking to Iris, after all it even let her sleep on it for a night. And this didn't seem like a one sided relationship as the aforementioned girl also ran over and gave it a big hug.

While I went ahead to inspect the carriage, the rest simply sat down on the ground. The tiredness got to all of us by now. I just wanted to make sure nobody had their hands on the carriage. But as far as I could see everything looked alright. In the end people coming around here was quite unlikely to begin with, so I felt kind of dumb for being so guarded.

At least the others started to cook in the meantime and it was almost time for dinner. The saliva running in my mouth nearly began to spill out. I could already taste the dorm food again.

"Let's celebrate a bit today. Even though we had some minor setbacks here and there, our first adventure went by pretty smoothly. No one got injured badly and we managed to loot the amount I aimed for. Although we should hold a real celebration once we arrive back at the dorms, there we can enjoy tasty food and a drink or two. I know where to get the good stuff after all."

Iris speech was short but it got us in the mood to celebrate. Julian readied even more meat and we spent the rest of the evening eating and chatting. It was quite late till we got into bed, but we decided to head off a bit later the next day.

"Yoo---"

"Yoorr---"

"YOOORUUU"

"Do you feel it?"

"Can youu feel it?"

Tonight the weird voice in my dreams reappeared and repeatedly asked me these weird questions. I didn't get what it meant by feeling it but I also didn't know how to answer. My mouth remained still in the dream even though I wanted to talk. At this point I had already thought the voice wouldn't bother me any longer. It had been a while since I last heard it; back when I lost against Iris to be exact.

I decided to ignore the dream for now and ask Lisa about it once we got back to the hybrid school. The sun had risen already but the others were still in deep slumber. I stood up and started to cook.

It didn't take long for the rest to wake up after smelling the roasted meat. Even though we all ate plenty yesterday, everybody still ate their usual fill. Young hybrids like us had to grow after all.

Once we finished breakfast, I headed towards the carriage and opened up the fabric to get inside from behind.

But as soon as I opened it.

I froze up.

Not a single muscle of my body could move any longer nor could I take my eyes off the inside of the carriage...

A person stood in there, smiling at me….

"Hello, kids….."