Dungeon Shade 7

"It feels like there's nothing in here..." Lumine mumbled as she looked around the foggy area. "Are you sure that some of the students would be right here?" She asked, turning her attention towards Alicia.

"Yes," Alicia replied.

It had been an thirty minutes since they've entered the door to explore and find out if the others were here too. When they first entered the place, the artifact Alicia used earlier suddenly malfunctioned before exploding into pieces.

But, thankfully...

"Before the artifact got destroyed, I managed to take a glimpse at it and saw three green marked, which was supposed to indicate the location of a person." Saying this, when she was about to turn her head to the side to look around, she saw a faint silhouette that was somehow representing a human figure around the corner.

"Arthur, there they are," Alicia raised her hands and pointed out to a foggy area. Because of this, the four of them squinted their eyes to look at where she was pointing at.

When they finally saw the three figure that was stealthily hiding behind that looks to be a crystal, Arthur looked at his group and nodded.

They seemed to have understood what his actions meant as they raised their guards while slowly approaching the faint figures.

It didn't take long for them to reach it and when they do, one of the person who had been hiding behind the crystal noticed them as he ordered the two slightly injured beside him to raise their weapons and prepare their stances.

"W-Who are you?" Stuttering, their leader came out of his hiding place and pointed his sword towards Arthur and his group.

When Arthur saw the torn-out and shabby clothes the boy was wearing, some of his senses told him that something was wrong.

"We are one of the group students from Prof. Cossette," He said, lowering his sword and placing them back to it's scabbard.

The boy who had a wary expression on his face turned confused after hearing what Arthur said. "What do you mean by Cossette? Who is she?" He stabbed his spear to the ground and grabbed Arthur's shoulder with a serious expression.

"What do you mean by that?" Asked Arthur. "Aren't you also her student?"

He didn't know why but after seeing the boy's expression when he was grabbed on his shoulder, Arthur felt that something was wrong in this place.

"We are not 'her' students. We are one of the group from Prof. Carrion..." The boy answered. "Anyways, what's the date today? We've probably have stayed in this place for two weeks, and it was around August 6, XXXX when we entered."

Hearing this, Lumine tilted her head to the side. "August is still a month away from now on," She said. "And, I think you meant by XXXX year. Today is July 2, XXXX. What are you talking about?"

It was as if a bombshell was dropped that they fell on their knees and dropped their weapons to the ground after hearing her words.

"No way... No way... No way...!!" The two injured behind the boy from earlier raised their voices as if they're denying her words.

"C-Calm down," Arthur and Sophia raised their hands and walked towards the three slowly.

Sophia was about to grasp the shoulder of the boy when she suddenly decided to stop.

It was only for a few seconds, but...

*Slice!*

The three in front of them stopped moving. And after a few moment, they fell flat on their face to the ground...

Without even needing to examine their bodies, they were sure that the three were... Dead.

Arthur, who was shocked at the sudden event, quickly recovered his composure and turned his attention to Sophia who was beside him to make sure she was fine.

That's when he noticed it...

*Tap!*

The mask she was wearing was cut as it's lower half fell on the ground.

"Sophia-" He was about to say something else when Sophia raised her voice.

"Everyone, don't move," She said, making everyone around her confused. And it was also because of this, Lumine tilted her head and... took a step.

"What are you talking about?" Lumine asked as she once again... took a step.

"Fuck." For the first time in her life, Sophia said her first cursed word.

*VUUUUUUUAAAAAM!*

*Shuup!*

A ray of light was suddenly shot out from the fog at the distance.

When Arthur saw this, he rushed forward and pushed Lumine aside.

*Ziiing-!*

The light managed to hit him on the shoulder, putting a small hole on it.

"Kuuu...!" Arthur gnashed his teeth in pain while holding onto his injured arm to cover the hole and prevent them from bleeding out too much.

Lumine who saw this, tried to stood up and rushed towards him. But, before she could even try to get up from her knees, Leo held him from behind and covered her mouth, as Alicia disappeared from her place and reappeared in front of her out of thin air.

"Sleep for now so that you won't be able to do anything stupid, Princess." With her hands formed into a fist, Alicia punched Lumine's stomach that it made her unconscious while Leo held her up.

After picking her up onto his shoulder, Leo waited for Arthur's next order.

"Let's move," Arthur murmured to them in low voice after the gigantic silhouette in the fog disappeared.

For a second, he suddenly felt chills from his back while he stared at the fog within the distance.

𝘐𝘵'𝘴 𝘴𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘭𝘺 𝘨𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘳... With this realization in mind, he prepared his things to move.

Although the three, except for Lumine, behind Arthur was shocked from what happened, they managed to keep on their facade and remain calm during the unknown attack.

Since it wasn't the first time they encountered 'that' monster residing in the fog, well, that's because they've encountered it an hour ago after they entered the door.

The only reason they've managed to survive was because of Arthur's institution and Alicia's thinking when they've encountered the monster.

𝘍𝘰𝘳 𝘯𝘰𝘸, 𝘐'𝘮 𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘨𝘴 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘐 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥𝘯'𝘵 𝘣𝘦𝘢𝘵. Arthur thought, walking towards the direction where Leo was.

Letting out a sigh, without turning his head to face Alicia, Arthur spoke. "You could have at least held back a portion of your strength."

Frowning, Alicia rolled her eyes elsewhere and answered, "If I didn't do that, I'm sure that we will all die in a matter of seconds. Is that perhaps what you want?" She asked, staring at Arthur with a serious glint in her eyes.

When he saw this, Arthur couldn't help but scratch the back of his neck before pinching the middle of his brows in contempt.

"Why are you so cold-blooded to me when I'm talking instead of Athan?" He asked, glancing his eyes towards Alicia's.

Then, after hearing his words, Alicia sighed and lifted up her head to stare at the ceiling. "Huuu... If you can't even understand that much, how can I even explain why I'm doing this to you properly..." She murmured her voice in a low voice.

After a few moments, she stopped walking and faced her head towards Arthur.

"It's because you're an idiot-!?"

*Crack!*

The moment she said those sentence, the whole room shook.

"[#+$+"!#!$-_-!'??'?-£]"

A loud ringing sound echoed their ears...

Because of this, they turned their attention to the fog that had disappeared completely, revealing a horrifying monster.

With it's spider-like legs, when the monster moved, it was as if it had teleported when it disappeared from it's place and reappeared on the ceiling.

"[#-$+(")"/#//#]"

It once again released it's loud sound that made them cover their ear.

"Fuck!" Arthur cursed to himself.

Staring at the giant-sized spider-like monster not far from their direction, one of the thing he had noticed is that this monster didn't have a head, instead, in it's chest was a girl that seemed to be similar from their age, and was sleeping inside a crystal placed in it's middle.

𝘞𝘩𝘺 𝘥𝘪𝘥 𝘪𝘵 𝘴𝘶𝘥𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘥𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘨? Arthur tried to think of a few reasons that he could come up, but he quickly denied all of it... Or, this was more or less, a mere excuse to keep himself together.

From then, he could only think of one thing...

'𝘐𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘧𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘷𝘪𝘷𝘦.'