Dungeon Shade 2

An hour later.

Every group had decided to split up, while also trying to get to know each other. Like some people say, 'Communications and trust is the vital in team-fights'. Almost similar to what we're currently doing.

"I elected Athan to be the leader." The first one to speak up in our group was Reymond.

That's right. Although we had already decided our group a couple of weeks ago, we still haven't yet decided who our leader will be.

"I also vote for Athan!" Xavier spoke, raising a flag with my face in it up.... Question, where did he got those from anyway?

"I'll pass. I think Aries should do it." I spoke up, ignoring their comments from earlier.

The trios just straight up looked at me as if they were speechless from my reply. Then, Aries just tilted her head to the side. "But... Is that really fine, Athan?" She asked innocently.

Because of this, the idiots who was beside me clutched their heats tightly while saying, "I've seen enough."

I just sighed when I saw them like this and nodded.

The voting on who's our leader will be has ended up with Aries being the winner.

Few minutes after the voting finished, we decided to continue the exploration in silent.

...

....

.....

*Clang!!

A loud metal hitting each other was heard through the place.

"I told you to be careful." I spoke, picking up the arrow that I shielded from earlier. Then, I gave Darnom a back glance from the side of my view.

It had been an hour since we kept on moving in our pace.

Although we have encountered a lot of traps, but since I've memorized this part of knowledge about the novel, we've managed to pass through smoothly.

*Sigh...*

Staring towards the trajectory of the arrow, I sighed then moved my head away to where it was heading.

-Tiiiing!

The arrow hit the hard-rock wall and managed to penetrate deeply.

𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘴𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘱𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘰𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨. I thought, catching the incoming arrows towards my head using only two of my fingers that was coated with dark magic.

I was about to continue on walking when I heard Aries mumbling something to her breathes. "Where are the monsters anyway? Isn't it about time for them to show up?'

When the trio heard this question, it also got them thinking, "You're right... I think it's a bit weird that we haven't seen one since we've came here. Isn't it, Athan?" They looked at me with a questioning look.

Placing my fingertips under my chin, I answered, "I think you guys are right. Since we haven't even used a fraction of our mana to scare any of them, the monsters should have thought of us probably a prey or targets--!?" Saying this, I suddenly realized something.

Turning my head upward, I began to examine our surroundings as I also reached out towards the wall to check if something was wrong... Yep, something was definitely wrong.

"Athan!" Their voices went in sync.

The moment my skin touched the wall, it released a small spark that quickly turned into lighting and was shot towards my body, making me flew away and hitting the ground.

"Oww...." I rubbed my belly painfully as I took a glanced at the wall that had released an hexagonal shape shield as if to protect them.

𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵? The others helped me get back up as I once again walked towards the wall. Unlike last time, I didn't touch it instead I used the rock I picked up earlier and threw it to the hexagonal shield.

Ziiing-!

It reacted the same, but unlike what it did to me, the lighting bolt was weaker since I managed to catch it when it flew towards me.

"Just what the heck is this kind of barrier made of?" I mumbled to myself, studying the barrier or shield before it could fully disappear.

"Did you manage to found out something?" Xavier asked as he kept on looking at the slowly disappearing barrier in front of me.

"Nothing much," I answered. "But what I did found out was that this barrier only react on physical things like our bodies and something that can be touched. The magic, by the way, didn't react much of it, instead, it was trying to absorb it..." I raised my hands that was covered in mana, not using any of my dark magic, to touch it.

"Somehow... This feels really uncomfortable." I tensed up my body and pulled my hands away. Then, I stood up.

"Anyways, we should continue," I said. "We can't keep on walking observing it forever. We need to continue and conquer this dungeon before it's too late." I cracked my back and turned around to look at them.

𝘚𝘦𝘦𝘮𝘴 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘐'𝘷𝘦 𝘴𝘢𝘪𝘥 𝘵𝘰𝘰 𝘮𝘶𝘤𝘩...

They kept on looking at me with a confused expression until one of them finally spoke up and asked.

"What do you mean before it's too late?" Darnom asked. Then, the person who continued his question was Reymond. "Yeah. You know that Miss Cossette didn't mentioned anything about the time limit to conquer this dungeon, right? Your kind of being weird today. Is there perhaps something you want to tell us?"

Hearing this questions, I went silent.

A few seconds later, I let out a tired sigh and turned around. "I just felt that something was wrong... Yeah. I only felt it so there's nothing to worry about." I spoke, trying to think of a proper answer to divert their questions.

But... Why do I feel like something was not really right about this place?

"Anyways, let just conti--"

Before I could even finish my sentence, Aries pointed her fingers to my head and asked, "What's wrong with your eyes?"

When I heard this, I stopped talking, then, immediately took out a mirror from my [Pocket Ring] to look at my reflection.

𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴... Without knowing it, I subconsciously gripped the mirror's handle tightly before calming down.

"Fuuuu..." I breathe in and out to calm myself down.

When that's done, I turned my head to the others, saying, "Forget what you saw. Don't ever mention it to anybody. Is that clear?"

The cold and indifference aura I've excluded made them look at me in silent. Although they all looked as if they wanted a brief explanation, they just kept their tongue tied and didn't say anything else.

"Yes..." They once again spoke in sync.

We continued exploring the whole place a couple of minutes until we stumbled upon an old circular door with a bunch of scribbles written as design.

Me, who became curious on what was written, decided to take out my sword from my [Pocket Ring] to cut through the vines that was covering the scribbles.

[Project : New World : Version 6.0]

𝘕𝘰 𝘸𝘢𝘺... Seeing this, I unconsciously dropped my sword off the ground. 𝘐𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦, 𝘥𝘰𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘯 '𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵' 𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭 𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘢𝘭𝘴𝘰 𝘦𝘹𝘪𝘴𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥?

For a second, I recalled a memory, or you could say one of my nightmares, from my previous life.

*

It was around noon when my team researchers finally completed our experiment. The goal of finding out about the unknown machine that had been found in the middle of antarctica.

"⬛, it's about time we confirm if your theory was correct," One of the Researcher beside me said. "What do you think will happen next? Will Subject 63 make it back?" He asked, preparing to turn on the camera.

I just stared at the swimming goldfish inside the glass container full of water for a few seconds before sighing. "Not sure. If it did, we'll probably be flooded with a bunch of reporters asking how we made this unknown machine work. Oh yeah, if that somehow happens, I want you three to deal with them yourself."

""....."" They all just stared at me in silence before saying, ""You're hopeless..."" in sync.

I just stuck out my tongue as a reply.

Then, after waiting for a few minutes, I clicked the red button in front of me and asked, "Is the preparations ready?"

It didn't take a few seconds before someone replied.

"Yes. All that's left now was your orders." The man from the call replied.

Hearing this, I returned my eyes to look at the monitor before saying.

"Do it."