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Chapter 86: The Great Loeri

Phantasia: The Princess Knight

Once the shell was broken the rest of the shell quickly crumbled to pieces. "Bwahahahahahaha!!! It is I, the Great Loeri! All shall bow down to me! Hmmm?" Loeri looked over at the wide eyed Alicia and smiled brightly. "Oh~! Alicia! Long time no see!"

"L-Loeri!?" Alicia was shocked. In front of her was no longer the cute little dragon that slept on top of her head. No this was a cute little girl no taller than herself, white hair, a small white dragon's tail, horns, and a pair of little white dragon wings on her back! "Loeri this appearance?"

"Oh, this? It's because we have a contract with each other. So my evolution was different than normal. Although I look like a human now I still have the strength of a dragon!" Loeri said proudly as she put her hands on her hips and raised her nose to the sky. "Come on praise me! I look cute right!?"

Alicia couldn't help but laugh. "Yes, Loeri is cute!"

"Not as cute as Frey!" Frey who had been sitting quietly all this time felt her standing of being the cutest was being threatened so she quickly had to defend herself as she stood up on Alicia's shoulder and shook her little fist at Loeri.

"Listen here brat!" Loeri yelled out.

"Alright alright no fighting you two. Loeri you're so much older than Frey how can you argue with her!?" Alicia pinched her brow. She really felt a headache coming on.

"Humph! I will spare you for today!" Loeri crossed her arms across her chest and turned her head not even wanting to look at Frey. But before she did she caught a glimpse of Frey's smug little face making Loeri grit her teeth and want to scream injustice!

"Loeri come down from there and let's get some clothes on you. You can't run around naked like this." Alicia said as she went over to the dresser to find something for Loeri to wear. Luckily she was about the same size as Alicia which made things a bit easier.

"Stupid human customs! Why must humans wear this stuff!" Loeri complained but still followed Alicia's directions as she learned to wear clothes.

Alicia caught Loeri up on the things that had been happening since she went into her slumber. Knowing that Alicia almost died caused Loeri to pale because if Alicia died so would she. This caused a round of scolding where Alicia only nodded her head and waited for Loeri to finish.

"Let's go meet with everyone else. The food should be ready by now." Alicia said as she stood up.

Loeri went to follow after Alicia but suddenly felt a little extra weight on her right shoulder. "Hey brat why are you sitting on my shoulder?"

"Frey, missed Aunty Loeri!" Frey said with a smile while swinging her legs back and forth.

"Humph! Suit yourself." Not saying anything more Loeri quickly followed after Alicia.

A large table was set outside the cottage with a large amount of food laid out on the top of it. Rose and Claire had put their all into this meal since there was no telling when they might get to eat next once they started to dive down into the cave. Starla was off to the side doing sword swings since she had already been yelled at to never enter a kitchen again after she made a mess trying to help out.

Alicia walked out of the house with Loeri right behind her. The addition of the extra person quickly caught everyone's attention. "Young Miss this is?"

" Loeri finished her evolution and because she is contracted with me her appearance has taken on a human form." Alicia briefly explained.

"This is Loeri!?" Claire yelled out. She remembered the tiny little dragon from before now looking at the cute little girl the size of her Young Miss, caused her a small shock!

"Yes it is, I, the Great Loeri! Praise me!" Once again Loeri got into her most dignified pose and pointed her nose to the sky.

Alicia only shook her head and gave Loeri a whack on the head saying: "Enough let's eat!"

Rubbing her head, Loeri felt wronged but when she saw the food in front of her, her stomach rumbled causing her to completely forget about complaining as she quickly sat down. Alicia took the time to teach Loeri how to use the utensils so that she did not have to eat with her hands. The small break that should have only taken an hour turned into five hours because everyone was catching up with Loeri.

Now outside the space four young girls, one dragon girl and a fairy all looked at the pitch blackness in front of them. Alicia let out a sigh after seeing how expansive this cave was through her detection magic. "Alright, the squire test is in three weeks' time. From what I can tell this cave runs really deep and expands far out underground so we will not be able to explore the whole thing in such a short amount of time. So we have two choices. First, this mission will need to be put on pause while we take the squire's test and undergo the training. Luckily there is no time limit on this mission so we do not have to worry about rushing to finish it. Or we can just take a look this one time and if we come up with nothing we can give up on the mission."

"I think if we do not find any traces of this fire and ice lizard then we should just give up the mission. But if we do we can then postpone it. Since discovering a new species, especially one that is as elusive as this fire and ice lizard will bring us a few merit points." Rose explained. Everyone else spoke out in agreement with what Rose said.

"Okay since everyone agrees then we will do it that way. When we descend, stay vigilant. After the Lost Forest incident you never know if there will be any demon spawns present. Everyone ready?" Alicia asked. She looked at everyone and only after seeing them all nod did she step forward and enter the blackness of the cave. Their first goal was to find the first shaft to the next floor underground.

Chapter 87: Cave Depths

Phantasia: The Princess Knight

Damp moss covered rocks covered the cave floor as water dripped down from its ceiling. The path in front of them was so dark that without detection magic there would be no way to move forward. The upper floor of the cave had no demonic beasts in it so they did not have to worry about being attacked. But even still Alicia still had an eye floating around her that acted as night vision to pick up any heat signatures. She was on the lookout for any demon spawn.

After around twenty minutes they finally reached a shaft that led down to the next level of the cave, "Bleh! Mother it stinks!"

Alicia frowned the smell coming up from the shaft smelled rancid. It was so bad that Rose and Starla were gagging. "Frey, you go play in the space with Claire." Alicia did not want Frey to have to deal with such a horrid stench it would be too much for her little nose.

"Young Miss, call me if you need help." Claire said before disappearing with Frey.

"Okay, I will go down first and clear a landing area for us. I will yell up when it's safe." Alicia said.

Alicia wished she could use fire to see her surroundings better. But she dared not to in case she somehow alerted the whole floor of monsters to her location. Alicia secured a rope to a rock before dropping the other end down the shaft. Nodding her head at the others she slowly descended down to the next level. When her feet touched the ground she could feel her boots sticking to the ground which made Alicia frown even more. Her current surroundings only had a few demonic beasts so she drew her sword and dashed out towards them. But what she saw when she got close to the first demonic beast surprised her and also sickened her at the same time.

"A large maggot!?" Alicia's face turned ugly she did not want to use her poor sword to kill such a thing. Instead, she waved her hand and shot out a few wind blades that sliced the maggot up into many pieces. But the stench that came after turned Alicia's stomach even more. She quickly retreated and climbed up the rope back to the main level to get a breath of fresh air.

"Alicia, what happened?" Rose asked, seeing Alicia's face slightly pale.

"The area under us is full of large maggots and when you kill them they release a horrid stench. We will need a way to stave off the smell otherwise we will be losing our lunch before we make any progress through the tunnel. Hopefully, this is the only level that is like this..." Alicia explained.

"We can just use fragrant magic to keep the small away." Loeri said as she waved her hand and a blast of a strong floral scent filled their noses. They were no longer able to smell any of the scents that were coming up from the shaft.

"Loeri if you had such good magic, why didn't you say something earlier! You have no idea how bad those things smell!" Alicia complained. She would not have had to smell that horrid stench if she had known such magic existed!

"You never asked!" Loeri said while sticking her tongue out at Alicia.

"Well since we got a way to stave off the smell let's all go down. The large maggots are easily killed with wind magic." Alicia walked back over to the shaft and climbed back down. With the fragrant magic, the smell was no longer an issue. The other three quickly followed behind her as they made their way down as well.

They did complain about how sticky the floor was but after making their way down the tunnel they came to a huge opening where the floor was no longer sticky. This room had three more openings to it one to the left and right and another straight forward. "Which way should we go?" Starla asked.

"Mmm… Not sure." Thinking for a minute Alicia called out: "Blake, I know you're there, so come help me decide a path!"

Blake walked out of a dark corner and over to Alicia. "Why do you need my help?"

"Because I see something strange in my detection magic and I am not sure if we should go check it out or not. Well, t's more like a heat signature." Alicia waved her hand and a large map displaying everything she could see showed up in mid air. Alicia walked over to the map and pointed to a small dot. "You see this?"

"That is strange… The other paths only have a few demonic beasts in them but the area with this anomaly is overly packed with them. I'd say check it's worth checking out. But just be careful. There is no telling what this dot might be. Not to mention the number of demonic beasts in this area." Blake said.

"Alright, then it's decided we will go check it out." Alicia said while giving Blake a smile. She had finally reeled in the feelings she had for Blake enough so that she did not blush just looking at him. Since he already had someone in his heart she would treat him like a friend or big brother. "Blake since I already know you are following me there is no need to hide anymore. Just stay with the group."

"If that is what you want." Blake said without any hesitation, his expressionless face showed a hint of warmth in how he looked at Alicia. He liked this idea better anyway. If something unexpected happened he could immediately take action.